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"Reading maketh a full man, conference a
readye man, and writing an exacte man"
— Bacom

CHAELES KNIGHT'S
POPULAE
HISTOEY OF ENGLAND.

" The harvest gathered in the fields of the Past is to be brought home for the
use of the Present." — Dr. Arnold, Lectures on Modern History,

VOL. II.
FROM THE REIGN OF RICHARD II. TO THE REIGN OF EDWARD TI.

A

HISTORY OF ENGLAND

CHARLES KNIGHT.

" The harvest gathered in the fields of the Past is to be brought home for the use of
the Present." — Dk. Arnold, Lectures on Modern History.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS ON STEEL AND WOOD.
VOL. II.
A.D. 1377  1547.

LONDON :
BRADBURY, EVANS, & CO., 10, BOUVERIE STREET.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER L— A.D. 1377 to A.d. 1399.
Constitutional Principles developed in the Reign of Richard II. — Coronation of Richard
II. — Council of Regency — Wars with France and Scotland — Capitation Tax — Poll
TiLX— Insurrection of 1381 — The Insurgents in London — Suppression of the Insur
rection — Wycliffe's Opinions coincident with the Insurrection — Preachers of Heresies
— Translation of the Bible into English— Contest with the Pope — English Literature
and Language — Statutes of Wages — Laboui'ers in Husbandi-y — Games — Sanitary
Laws — State Interference in Social Affairs  1—18

CHAPTER IL— A.D. 1382 to a.d. 1399.
Family Dissensions — The King's Guardians — Conduct of "the War with France — Sus
picions of Lancaster — Scots and Frenchmen cross the Border — War with Scotland —
Projected Invasion of England by France— Disputes of the King and the Parliament
— Commission of Kegency — Secret Couucil of the King— Gloucester and other Nobles
take Arms — The King's advisers declared Traitors — Battle of Otterbourne — Richard
assumes the Government — Truce with France and Scotland — Richard in Ireland —
His Marriage with Isabella of France — Tho King becomes des])Otic — Coup d'Uat-~
Murder of Gloucester — Quarrel of Hereford and Norfolk — Their Banishment —
Wretched Condition of the Country — Death of John of Gaunt — Richard seizes his
Possessions — The King goes to Ireland — Richard in Ireland — Henry of Lancaster
lands at Raveuspnr— Betrayal of Richard by the Percies— Captivity of Richard —
A Piirliament called — Richards Deposition — Henry claims the Kingdom . X9 — 38

CHAPTER IIL— A.D. 1399 to A.d. 1413.
Hereditary pretensions of Heniy of Lancaster to the Crown — Edmund Mortimer— Con
spiracy against Henry defeated — Revolt of the Welsh — Owen Glendower — Alleged
Murder of Richard II. — Doubts as to his Death at Poutefract — Statute against tlie
Lollards — Burnings for Heresy — Hostility of Framoe and Scotland — Battle of
Homildon-hill— Revolt of the Percies —Battle of Shrewsbury — Revolt of Archbishop
Scrope, Nottingham, and others — Rival Factions in France — The King's Jealousy
of the Prince of Wales — Henry's Death  39—52

CHAPTER lY.— A.D. 1413 to a.d. 1415.
Henry V. proclaimed King — Sir John Oldcastle condemned as a Heretic — Henry's
Demands upon France for large Territories — Resolves to claim the Crown of J'rance
—Conspiracy of Cambridge, Scrope, and Grey — Henry and his Army sail to
Harfleur — Siege of Harfleur — Sickness of the English — March from Harfleur —
Piissage of the Somme — The French Army — Agincoiirt and its locality — The Battle
ofAgincourt . . .  53—64

IV CONTENTS.

CHAPTER v.— A.D. 1415 to a.d. 1428. PAGE
News of Agincourt arrives — Entry of Henry into London — State of Franre — Henry's
Second Exjiedition — Overthrow of the Armagnacs — Siege and Surrender of Rouen —
Conferences at Meulan between Henry, the Duke of IJurgundy, and the Queen —
Henry first sees Katherine— Negotiations ineffectual— Burgundy murdered at Mon-
tereau — Peace of Troyes — Marriage of Henry— Henry and his Queen come to England
—Parliament held— Clarence killed— Henry returns to France— Siege of Meaux—
Katherine and her Infant Son come to Paris — Illness of Henry — His Death—
Difaculty of forming a just Estimate of his Character — Duke of Gloucester Protector
—Death of Charles VL— Regency of the Duke of Bedford— Feuds of Gloucester
and Beaufort— Tutelage of Henry VI.  • 65  80
CHAPTER VL— A.D. 1428 to A.d. 1447.
Defeat of the English hefore Montargis-Position of Charles VIL — Commencement of
the Siege of Orleans— Salisbury killed — Battle of Herrings— Despair of the Besieged
— Proclamation — The Peasant Girl of Domremy— Joan of Arc travels to the Court
of Charles VIL — Receives Authority to relieve Orleans — English Belief in Witchcraft
— Terrors and Defeats of the English — The Siege of Orleans raised — Defeats of
Jargeau and Patay — Charles crowned at Rheims — Joan captured at Compiegue —
Tried as a Sorceress and burnt at Rouen — French War continued — Henry VI.
crowned in Paris— The English Disgraces and Losses — Henry married to Margaret
of Anjon — Affairs in England — The Duchess of Gloucester accused of Witchcraft —
Arrest of the Duke of Gloucester — Deaths of Gloucester and Beaufort . . g,  gg
CHAPTER VIL— A.D. 1450 to a.d. 1485.
Social Condition during the Wars of the Roses — Degrees of Rank — Incomes — Forty-
shilling Freeholders — Statutes of Apparel — Distinction of Birth — The Gentleman
and the Roturier — Administrative System — Royal Revenue — Public Functionaries
— Military System — Defence of the Coast and Towns — Forcible Entries upon
Estates — Liveries — Rent — Relations of Landlord and Tenant — Want of Money by
Landowners — Prevalence of Litigation — Occasional Bribery — Petty Law-suits —
Number of Attorneys limited — Offences against Person and Property — Hours of
Labour — Domestic Manufactures— Interference of the State with Industry . ^-^  jjg
CHAPTER VIIL— A.D. 1450 to a.d. 1485.
Combinations of Masons — Association an English Principle — Domestic Architecture —
Timber Houses — Consumption of Timber — Furniture and Utensils — Dearness and
Scarcity of Clothing — Domestic Sei-vants — Felnales— Married Life of Females —
Housewifery — The Clergy — Their Intercourse with the Laity— Curates and Chap'-
laiiis — Pilgrimages — Wills — Difficulties of Communication — Letters — State of
Popular Knowledge — Beginnings of Printing . . . . -i-tQ  jqg
CHAPTER IX.— A.D. 1450 to a.d. 1461.
Death-struggle of the Feudal Power— The House of York— Banishment and Murder of
Suffolk— Insurrection of Cade— He enters London— His Death— Spirit of Revolt in
England — York in Arms against Somerset— Incapacity of the King— York Pro
tector—The King recovers— York superseded— First Battle of St. Alban's— Triumph
of the Yorkists — York's second Protectorate ended — Reconciliation of the Two
Factions— Commencement of the Civil War— Battle of Blore Heath— Parliament of
Coventry— Battle of Northampton— The Duke of York claims the Crown— Battle
ot Wakefield- Death of York— His son, Edward, wins the Battle of Mortimer's
Cross — Second Battle of St. Alban's — Edward proclaimed King — Edward and
Warwick march from London— Baltic of Towlon 129—148

CO.XTENTS.

CHAPTER \. -.\.i). 14G1 to a.d. 1471. VAGI!
Popular Support of the House of York — Coronation of Ednard IV. — Executions —
Attaindei's — Lancastrian Exiles — Renewed .yttenipti of Queen Margaret — Insur
rections—Battle of Hexham — Edward iu Pence — Debasement of the Coin — The
King's Marriage— Warmck's Estrangi'incnt — Marriage nf Kdward's Sister to the
Duke of Burgundy — Marriage of Clarence to Warwick's Daughter — Power of
Warwick — Yorkshii'e Insurrection — Insurrection under Sir Robert Willes —
Warwick and Clarence defeated — Tlicy lly to France — Invasion of Warwick and
Clarence — Restoration of Henry VI. —Edward iu Exile — His Return — Landing at
Ravenspur — Reconciliation of Edward and Clarence — . The March to London —
Battle of Barnet — Henry again a Prisoner — Landing of Queen Margaret — Battle of
Tewkesbury — Richard of Gloucester — Falconbridge — Death of Henry VI. j^^g  j^gg

CHAPTER XL— A.D. 1471 to a.d. 1483.
Totfil Depression of the Enemies of the House of York — The Court of Edward IV., its
Splendour and Ceremony — Patronage of the new Art of Printing — .Disputes of
Clarence and Gloucester as to Gloucester's Marriage — Invasion of Fi-ance — Adroit
ness of Louis XI. — Death of the Duke of Burgundy — Trial and Condemnation of
Clarence — Scotland — Death of Edward IV. — Accession of Edward V. — Jealousy of
the Family of Wood\alle hy the great Nobles — Arrest of Rivers, Vaughan, and
Grey— The Queen flies to Sanctuary — Gloucester and Buckingham enter London
with the King — Gloucester appointed Protector — His Friends obtain important
Posts — Coronation of Edward V. fixed — Arrest and Execution of Hastings —Glou
cester proclaims that his Life is threatened — The Duke of York removed to the
Tower — Alleged Marriage of Edward IV. previous to his Union with Elizabeth
Woodville — Sermon at Paul's Cross — The Duke of Buckingham harangues the
Citizens at Guildhall — The Illegitimacy of Edward's Children declared — Gloucester
takes the Crown — Execution of Rivers and others — Coronation of Richard III. —
Examination of the Evidence that Richard IIL caused the Sons of Edward IV. to
be murdered ... . jgg  jg2

CHAPTER XII.— A.D. 1483 to a.d. 14b5.
Spirit of an Age reflected by Chroniclers — Mixed Character of Richard— Revolt of Buck
ingham — Suppression of the Revolt — Indifference of the People— Salutary Laws of
Richard's Parliament — Statutes now first printed, and in English — Encouragement
to Printers and Sellers of Books — Daughters of Edward IV. — Death of Richard's
Son— Death of Richard's Queen— Henry, Earl of Richmond — Inadequate Prepara
tions against Invasion — Battle of Bosworth Field— Death in Battle of Richard III.
193— 2U7
CHAPTER XIII.— A.D. 1485 to a.d. 1492.
Richmond crowned in the Battle-field— Henry Vll. crowned at Westminster— His Par
liamentary Title — Marriage with Elizabeth of York — Henry VIL suited to his
Times— Imposture of Lambert Simnel— Battle of Stoke — Alleged harsh Treatment
of the Widow of Edward IV.— The Earl of Warvfick exhibited to the People-
Foreign Relations of England — Unreal War and real Taxation — An English Army
in France — A hurried Peace concluded at Estaples— Its Motives . . 208—219

CHAPTER XIV.— A.D. 1492 to a.d. 1499.
A young Man received at Cork as the second Son of Edward IV.— Ex-parte Accounts of
Perldn Warbeok — Letter from "Richard Plantagenet " to Isabella, Queen of Spain
— Henry requires the SuiTender of Richard from the Duke of Austria— Arrests and
Executions in England— Sir William Stanley impeached by Clifford, whom Henry

vi CONTENTS.

hnd bribed- Arrests in Ireland— Statute regarding Allegiance to a King de facto—
Richard, so-called, in Scotland— Correspondence of Bothwell— Difficulties ot an
Imposture- Invasion by the Scots— The Cornish Insurrection — Captivity ot the
Adventurer— Alleged Treason of the Eari of Warwick— Warwick and his iellow-
Prisoner executed .  • 220 — 233
CHAPTER XV.— A.D. 1501 to a.d. 1509.
Edmund de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk— Marriage of Prince Arthur to Catherine of Aragon
—The Court of Henry VIL— Heniy's Passion for Wealth— Treaty with Scotland-
Death of Prince Arthur— Contract of Prince Henry with Arthur's Widow— Death
of Henry VIL— Extortions through Empson and Dudley— Tendency towards abso
lute Monarchy— Few Parliaments during this Reign— State of the Clergy— Monastic
Establishments— Population —Agriculture — Maritime Discovery — Commerce-
Regulations of Internal Trade— Wages— Vagrancy— Criminal Laws— Public Health
— Feasts — National Pride— Pageants— Sports  234—256
CHAPTER XVI.— A.D. 1509 to a.d. 1513.
Accession of Heniy VIIL— Conviction of Empson and Dudley— Marriage of Henry with
Catherine of Aragon— Their Coronation —The young King's Sports and Feats of
Arms—Impendiug War with France— The Balance of Power— Alleged Reasons for
the War— The Pope to be supported — Causes of Quarrel with Scotiand— English
Expedition to Spain— Wolsey the real Minister— Rise of Wolsey— Naval Warfare-
Ravages on the Coasts— Henry's Expedition to France —Siege of Teronenne— Maxi
milian joins the English Arriiy— Battle of tbe Spurs— Capitulation of 'lournay—
James IV. invades England- Battle of J'lodden Field— Death of James IV. 257—272

CHAPTER XVIL— A.D. 1513 to a.d. 1521.
Ravages in Scotland, and on the Coasts of the Channel— Peace with France and Scotland
— Francis I. and Charles of Spain — Conquest of Milan — Wolsey, Cardinal and
Legate— Position of the Church— Affair, of Richard Hiinne— Ostentation of Wolsey
—Continental Policy — Election for the Empire — Proposed Meeting between Henry
and Francis — Arrival of Charles at Dover — The Embarkation — Characteristics of
the two Kings— Field of the Cloth of Gold— Meeting with Charles V. — Conviction
and Execution of the Duke of Buckingham ...... 273  288
CHAPTER XVIIL— A.D. 1521 to a.d. 1525.
Luther — King Henry writes a Book against his Doctrines— His Title of Defender of the
Faith — League and War against France— Wolsey levies Contributions on Property
— Jealousy of Foreigners— Evil May-Day— A Parliament assembled — Great Debate
upon the Demand for a Subsidy — Affairs of Scotland — Siege of Jedburgh — Duke of
¦ Suffolk makes War in France — Battle of Pavia — Francis a Prisoner — 'Taxes levied
without Authority of Parliament — Insurrection in Suffolk — The illegal, Demand
abandoned ...........

289—303

CHAPTER XIX.— A.D. 1525 to a.d. 1529.

Release of the King of France — Spirit of the Italians — The Sack of Rome— Character of
the Armies at Rome — The Divorce of Queen Catherine agitate'd — Difficulties of
Wolsey— His Embassy to France — He returns to new Difficulties — Anne Boleyn at
the English Court — War declared against the Emperor — Commission from the Pope
on the Question of the Divorce — Cardinal Campcgius in England as Legate with
Wolsey — Interview of the Legates with Catherine — Temper of the People in
England — Opening of the Lugatine Commission — Wolsey surrenders the Great
^»-^ ¦ ¦  ... 304—320

Cl>NTENrS.

CHAPTER X.\'.— A.D. 1529 to a.d. 1531. I'.VGE
Wolsey quits York Place — His progress to Eslier — Thomas Cromwell — He defends
Wolsey in Parliament — Sir Thomas Moro, Ch:uicellor — Statutes against Ecclesias
tical Abuses — Resistance of the Clergy — Burning of the Scriptures — Heresy — The
King discharged of his Debts by Statute— Christmas at Greenwich — Embassy to the
Pope — Craumer — Opinions of the Universities ou the Divorce — Wolsey in his See
of York— His Popularity — Is arrested on a Charge of Treason — Sis Death, and the
King's Lament .... . . 321—335
CHAPTER XXL— A.D. 1531 to a.d. 1533.
A great Field of English History now to be entered upon — Tho Clergy visited with
heavy Penalties for submitting to Wolsey as Legate — The Pope's Sentence ou the
Divorce still protracted — The Pope threatened — Frith and Tyndale, the Reformers
— Act regulating Payment of Annates to Rome — Retirement of More — His official
character — Severe Laws — The Poisoner's Cauldron — Laws against Gipsies — Laws
against Vagabonds — Infamous Severity of the Statute against Vagabonds of 1536 —
Henry and Anne Boleyn in France — Marriage of Henry with Anne — Cranmer
elevated to the Primacy — He pronounces the Marriage of Henry with Catherine
unlawful — Coronation of Queen Anne — Catherine's lu-fusal to accept the Title of
Princess Dowager . ... . . gqg  310
CHAPTER XXII.— A.D. 1533 to a.d. 1535.
Birth of the Princess Elizabeth — Preparations for throwing off the Papal Power — Statute
of Appeals to Rome— Cranmer's Judgment declared Illegal by Brief of the Pope —
Statute for Punishment of Heresy — Burning of Frith — Act of Succession — Elizabeth
Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent — Her Execution with others — Fisher included in the
Attainder — Sir Thomas More implicated — Oath to be taken according to the Act of
Succession — Fisher and More, declining to swear to the Preamble, sent to the
Tower — Act of Supremacy — First Fruits and Tenths given to the King — New Defi
nitions of Treason — The Monks of the Charterhouse refuse to acknowledge Henry
the Head of the Church — Their Execution — Burning of Hollanders for Heresy —
Fisher .and More decline to make Answer to Questions as to the Supremacy — Their
Condemnation — Their Deaths ........ 349—364
CHAPTER XXIII.— A.D. 1535 to a.d. 1530.
Cromwell Vicegerent — Visitation of the Monasteries — Delinquencies of Monastic
Inmates, in some Cases— Offibial Con-iiption — Examples of Duty performed by male
and female Heads of Houses — Dissolution of the smaller Monasteries — Parliamen
tary Attempts to regulate Prices and the Quality of Manufactures — Such endeavours
Futile or Injurious — Death of Queen Catherine —Dangers of Anne Boleyn ^May-day
at Greeuwich — Previous Summoning of a special Commission — Arrests — Queen
Anne imprisoned iu the Tower — Her Deportment — Her Letter to the King —
Crjinmer's Letter to him — True Bills found against Anne, her Brother, and four
others — Trial of the fom- Commoners — Trial of Anne Boleyn and Lord Rochfort--
Executiou of the five Men pronounced guilty — Account of the Execution ot Anne
by an Eye-witness — Mari'iage of Henry to Jane Seymour — General Remarks on the
question of Anne Boleyn's Guilt or Innocence — Parliament and a new Law of
Succession — The Princess Mary .... . ggg  gg^
CHAPTER XXIV.— A.D. 1515 to a.d. 1538.
Ireland — Its Condition in the Early Part of the Reign of Henry VIII. — The English
Palfe— Regions beyond the Pale — Report on the State of Ireland — SuiTey, Lieutenant-
Governor — The Earl of Kildare arrested — Rebellion of 1534— Thomas Fitzgerald —
Murder of Archbishop Allen — Progi'ess of the Rebellion — Fitzgerald surrenders —
He and his Uncles attainted and executed— Violated Promises— Supremacy of Heniy
established— Selfish Policy of the Government — Disregard of the real Welfare of the
Country — Attempts to make Ireland yield Revenue — Irish Fashions of Dress —
Character of the Natives ... ... . 385— 3116

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXV.— a.d. 1536 to a.d. 1539. PAfiy
Three Years without an English Parliament- Proclamation for the Abolition of Holidays
—The Lincolnshire Insurrection— Demands of the Insurgents— The King's Answer
—The Yorkshire Insurrection— The Lancaster Herald at Pomfret — Negotiations
with the Yorkshire Rebels — They disperse — Disturbed State of the Northern
Counties— Second Rebellion — The Rebels defeated— Executions— Martial Law pro
claimed — Birth of Prince Edward — Death of Queen Jane — Immediate Proceedings
for a new Marriage of the King — Position of Cranmer and Cromwell— The Bible set
up in Parish Churches — Anomalies of the Reformation — Papists and Heretics — Trial
of Lambert before Henry— Burnings in Smithfield — Surrenders of the larger Reli
gious Houses — Visitations of the Commissioners — Relics and Images— " Abomina
tion of Living " in Monasteries — Concealment of Property — Abbot of Glastonbury —
Deprivations — Pensions to Monks — Plunder and Favouritism — Destruction of
Monastic Houses . . 397  414
CHAPTER XXVL— A.D. 1539 to a.d. 1540.
Parliament of 1539 — Conformable Knights and Burgesses~A tractable Parliament the
Instrument of Tyranny — Complaints against the Suppression of the Abbeys — Act
for the King to make Bishops — Application of the Revenues of Religious Houses —
Six new Bishoprics —Destruction of the Plospital of St. John — The Six Articles —
Penalties under the Statute in which they are declared — Latimer and Shaxton
resign their Bishoprics — Reformers executed or expatriated — Arrests of the Pole
Family, and Convictions — Margaret, Countess of Salisburj"" — Anne of Cleves — Her
Progress to England— The King and his Bride— The Marriage declared invalid — Fall
of Cromwell — His Attainder — Queen Catherine Howard ^j 5^430
CHAPTER XXVII.— A.D. 1540 to a.d. 1547.
Three Priests burned as Heretics — Three Priests hanged as Traitors — Other Executions
for denying the Supremacy — Queen Catherine Howard appears in Public — Her
Shame discovered — Cranmer's Letter to Henry — Mercy promised to be extended
towards her — Act of Attainder against her and Lady Rochford-^New Law of Treason
. — Catherine Parr —War with Scotland and with France — State of Scotland under
James V. — David Beaton — The first Scottish Reformer —Efforts to stop the Progress
of Lutheran Opinions— James rejects the Overtures of Henry — Invasion of Scotland
hy Forces of the Duke of Norfolk — James deserted by his Nobles — Flight of Solway
Moss — Death of James — Birth of the Princess Mary of Scotland — TTeaty for a
Marriage between Prince Edward and the Infant Princess — The Treaty broken off
— Invasion of Scotland by Earl of Hertford — Edinburgh taken — Kelso destroyed —
Jedburgh burnt — Ravages of the Southern districts — Proposition to assassinate
Cardinal Beaton — He is murdered in the following Year — France invaded hy Henry
in Person — Boulogne besieged and taken — Francis and the Emperor conclude a
Peace — Attempts of France to invade England— French make continued Efforts to
retake Boulogne— Peace with France, in which Scotland is included— Persecutions
for Heretical Opinions — Burning of Heretics at Windsor— Cranmer suspected of
Heresy — Anne Askew and others burnt as Heretics — Queen Catherine Parr in
Danger — Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Surrey arrested— Surrey convicted of
High Treason and beheaded- Norfolk attainted — Death of King Henry VIIL .01  iro
CHAPTER XXVIIL— A.D. 1547.
General Notice of the Condition of England about the Middle of the Sixteenth Century 
Sources of Information — Population — Parish Registers — Capital — Taxation —
England a lightly-taxed Nation in these Times — Evasions of Subsidies — Sources of
Rc\'enue— The Royal Household — Military Expenditure— Military Organisation 
Archeiy — The Navy— Defence of the Coasts— Civil Administration— Despotism of
the Government — Bribery — Small Salaries ot Officers — Parliaments — Their Subser
viency — The Nobility and Gentry — Justices of the Peace — Merchants become
Landeil Men — Commercial Spirit entering into Rural Affairs — Aspect of the Country

CONTENTS.

Districts — Inclosuros — Monastic Lauds let as Copyholds — New Distribution oC
Land — Efi'ects upon tho Labouring Population — Common and Several — Inclosurcs
defended — The Statute of Vagabonds indicates an exceptional State of Society —
Its Horrible Enactments — The Statute repealed — Offences against Property —
Impostors — Agi'icultural Industry— Distribution of the Produce of Land — Dearth —
Rise of Rents and Prices of Commodities — Attempts to keep down Prices and force
Sales — Debasement of the Coinage— Effects upon Prices at Home and upon Exchange
Abroad — Sufferings of the Labourers . .... ^5^  ^yg
CHAPTER XXIX.— A.D. 1547.
Gener.al Notice of England, continued— Ilecay of Towns — Growth of Villages— Ports —
Coal Trade — Building — Paving in London — Sewers — Highways — Conduits —
Washing-grounds — Lighting of London — Watermen of London — Burying in Towns
— Wholesale Traders — Foreign Trade — Fairs and Markets — Inns — Insecurity of
Travelling — Frauds — Increase of Luxury — Moral and Intellectual Progi-ess- Various
Forms of Church Service — Dissensions and Scoffings — Holidays — Popular Sports —
Prohibited Books— Popular Reading — Mysteries and Miracle Plays — The Drama —
Education of the Young — Schools — Universities— Physicians and Surgeons — Barber-
Surgeons — Empirical Remedies — Painting — Holbein . . . ^»g  ^gg

Table of Contempok..vi!y Sovereigns  500

Great Seal of Richard II.

POPULAR HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I.

Constitutional principles developed in the reign of Richard IL — Coronation of Richard — Council
of Regency — ^Wars with France and Scotland — Capitation Tax — PoU Tax — Insurrection
of 1381 — The insurgents in London — Suppression of the insurrection — Wycliffe's opinions
coincident with the insurrection — Preachers of heresies — Translation of the Bible into
English — Contest with thePope — English literature and language — Statutes of Wages —
Labourers in husbandry — Gaines — Sanitary Laws — State interference in social affairs.
Etmee, our laborious historiographer, describes the reign of Eichard II.
as " a reign which affords but little matter that may shine in history, and
cannot boast of any one great and distinguished captain, any one memorable
battle, nor one important siege ; no proceeding to St. Paul's, no Te Deum
for victory." * To us, who regard battles, and sieges, and processions, and
Te Deums, as less important matter for history than the progress of the
people, the reign of Eichard II. is one of the most interesting in our annals.
In this reign, the great constitutional principles of our government were most
strikingly exhibited in their practical efficiency. In this reign the power of
the Commons was more signally displayed than at any previous period, in
demanding administrative reform as the condition of voting supplies ; in the

* Dedication to Queon Anne of vol. vii. of the Fcedera.

VOL. n.

2 CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES DEVELOPED. [1377
impeachment of those who were considered as the evil advisers of the crown ;
and in strenuously insisting that the public liberties, secured by statutes and
charters, should not be infringed upon by a king who had manifest tendencies
• towards despotism. At one period, this despotism was nearly successful.
For two years Eichard was an uncontrolled tyrant. By w:hat was unques
tionably a national act, however accompanied by treachery and violence, the
despot was deposed. In this deposition, all the forms which might appear to
belong to a more advanced state of society were most carefully observed.
The king, who neglected the duties of his station, and aimed at arbitrary
power, was treated as a public delinquent ; and the general good was set forth
as the ultimate end of all government. But this reign is also remarkable for
the great insurrection of the humblest classes of society against the remnant
of feudal oppressions ; and although the revolt was suppressed, and happily
so, from that time the condition of the serf underwent a real mitigation ; and
as serfdom gradually became altogether extinct, the free labourer, although
subject to much injustice, gradually acquired some of the rights of an inde
pendent citizen. In the revolution of 1399, which placed Henry IV. upon
the throne, we no longer see the violent act of a factious nobility, united as a
caste, but the result of a general agreement of various orders of society,
having a common interest in the maintenance of freedom. In that revolution,
and in many other occurrences of tliis reign, we may trace the influence of a
public opinion, emanating from men of different degrees, accustomed to
manage their own affairs, and now more awakened than ever to think upon
the relations in which the governed stood to the governing. How far the
agitation of great religious questions impelled the political and social move
ments of the end of the fourteenth century, is also an interesting matter of
consideration. But we cannot look back from this period to that of the
Norman conquest, and still farther back to the Anglo-Saxon times, without
being impressed with the constant operatiod of the law of progress — that law i
by which great changes of society are steadily effected, as the minds of men
become more and more capable of receiving them. Long before the feudal
system had entirely passed away, the ancient constitution was again and again
modified by those principles which, without historical research, look like new
elements of society. It was this gradual introduction of the popular element
which saved England from the' despotism which, in other countries, grew
out of the institutions of the Middle Ages. One of the ablest reasoners
of our time has said of the period of which we are now treating, " a multitude
of analogies may be traced between the political institutions of Prance and
England, but then the destinies of the two nations separated, and constantly
became more unlike as time advanced."* To use the words of the same writer
it was given to the English " gradually to modify the spirit of their ancient ,
institutions without destroying them." The Erench lost the great principle
of freedom when, at the same time as that in which the Commons of England
would permit no tax to be levied without the consent of the people, the
nobility of France suffered the crown to impose taxes at its will, provided
they themselves were exempt. " At that y^ry time," says M. de Tocqueville,
* Alexis de Tocqueville, " On the state of society in France before the Revolution of 1789 "
translated by Henry Reeve, 1856, p. 181. " '

1377.]

CORONATION OF RICHARD IL— COUNCIL OF REGENCY.

" was sown the seed of almost all the vices, and almost all the abuses, which
afflicted the ancient society of France during the remainder of its existence,
and ended by causing its violent dissolution." *
Edward III. was within a few hours of his last mortal agony, when a
deputation of the citizens of London came to his grandson, Eichard, and
offering their support of his right to the crown, invited him to take up his
residence in the Tower. The prince was then in his eleventh year. The
same day, June 21, Edward died. On the 22ud, the boy king made his trium
phal entry into London, amidst pageants and devices in every street, and
conduits running with wine. The obsequies of his grandfather harlng beeu
performed, Eichard, on the 16th of July, was crowned at Westminster. Tbe
ceremonial was one of unusual magnificence ; and the beautiful son of tbe
idol of the people, receiving the homage of his uncles and the barons, and at
the subsequent banquet creating earls and knights, may, in that solemnity,
have been impregnated with those impressions of his own irresponsible
greatness which appear to have clung to him through life. Some of the
circumstances attending the accession of Eichard may be attributed to
the apprehensions that were entertained of the ambitious designs ot
his uncle, John of Gaunt, the
duke of Lancaster. The haste
of the citizens of London to
proffer their lives and fortunes,
and the exaggeration with which
the young king was gravely
spoken of by great officers in
church and state as a miracle of
wisdom, were evidently calcu
lated to reconcile the people to
this shadow of a sovereign. The duke of Lancaster probably expected to
be sole regent ; but a temporary council was appointed, in which he took no
part. A parliament met in October, when, at the request of the Commons,
the Lords, in the king's name, appointed nine persons to be a permanent
council of the king ; and it was resolved that, during the king's minority, the
appointment of all the chief officers of the crown should be with the parlia
ment. There was ill-concealed jealousy of Lancaster ; and a speech which he
made, demanding the punishment of those who spoke of him as a traitor, is
upon the Eolls of Parliament. It was a serious time, when men's minds were
excited by impending danger. The truce with France had recently expired :
and not an hour was lost by Charles V. to renew hostilities in the way most
offensive to the English. Commerce was interrupted ; the sea-ports were
burnt and ravaged ; the Isle of Wight was plundered. To meet the expenses
of a foreign armament, and of naval and land forces to protect the kingdom,
a subsidy was granted. But two citizens of London, William Walworth and
John Philpot, were sworn iri parliament to be treasurers of the same,
and strictly to apply the produce of the taxes to the support of the war.
In this and immediately succeeding parliaments, the state of the nation was
declared to be alarming. The wars of Edward III. had produced no perma-

Groat of Richard II.

De Tocqueville, p. 18i

4 WAR vVITH FRANCE AND SCOTLAND— TAXATION. [1378-80.
nent advantage ; but had engendered a spirit of revenge whieh threatened
the safety of England. There were enemies all around. France was active in
her hostilities, in concert with Spain. The Scots, in 1378, burnt Eoxburgh
and captured Berwick. The great border-fortress was soon retaken, and a smail
gain was obtained by the cession of Cherbourg and Brest. But the duke of
Lancaster was unsuccessful in an attack upon St. Malo, to whose relief the
vigilant Du Guesclin came with a large army, and compelled the duke to
retire to his ships. All the foreign enterprises of the English were futile and
disastrous ; and their cost produced general discontent. In addition to heavy
duties on wool and leather, a capitation tax was granted in 1379. In prin
ciple this was an income tax, touching every person, from the duke, who was
assessed at 61. 13s. 4id., to the labourer, who was called upon to pay 4id. for him
self and his wife. The poll-tax of the next year was mainly granted for the
support of a fruitless expedition to assist De Montfort, the duke of Brittany,
against France. The earl of Buckingham, who had the command of this
expedition, returned home with his army in great discontent ; for De Mont
fort had concluded a pacific treaty with the French king. The expedition
had no results. Its charges were very fatal. The poll-tax was essentially
different from the direct tax of 1379. It was a tax of " three groats of every
person of the kingdom, male or female, of the age of fifteen, of what state and
condition soever, except beggars ; the sufficient people in every town to con
tribute to the assistance of the less able, so as none paid above sixty groats,
including himself and his wife."* How far the " sufficient people " contributed
to the assistance of "the less able," may be inferred from the fact that very
speedily " the less able " were in a state of insurrection. Tho pressure of
the tax upon the humblest portion of the community, and the brutal manner
in which it was enforced by the king's collector at Dartford, were the main
causes, according to the chroniclers, of the revolt headed by Wat the Tyler.
The tax was indeed as the match to the mine. The explosive materials had
long been accumulating.
In the statutes of the first Parliament of Eichard IL, we have the earliest
direct indications that the system of villanage was tottering to its fall.
Complaint is made by lords and commons and men of Holy Church that in
many seignories and parts of the realm, the villans and land-tenants in
villanage, who owe services and customs to their lords, do day by day with
draw such services and customs ; and by colour of certain exemplifications
made out of the Book of Domesday of the manors and towns where they
have been dwelling, and their evil interpretations of the same, affirm them
selves to be utterly discharged of all manner of serfage, due as well of their
body as of their said tenures. The Act goes on to point out the riotous
assemblies and confederacies incited by counsellors and abettors, wherein it
was agreed that every one should aid the other to resist their lords vnth
strong hand. Such proceedings are to be put down by Special Commissions.
We learn by this statute that it was not only the villans who resisted their
lords in claiming "the franchise of their bodies," but the land-tenants, who
sought " to change the position of their tenure and customs of old time due."
There was an agitation of the social state which extended even further than
* Parliamentary History, vol. i. p. 162.

1S8L1 INSURRECTION OF THE PEASANTRY. 5
the serfs and tenants in villanage. In the same parliament a statute was
passed against " liveries ; " by which we learn that " divers people of small
revenue of land, rent, or other possessions, do make great retinue of people
as well of esquires as of other, in many parts of the realm, giving to them
hats and cither liveries, of one suit by year, taking of them the value of the
same livery, or perchance the double value, by such covenant and assurance
that every one of them shall maintain the other in all quarrels." The " divers
people of small revenue " were banding themselves together against the
oppressions of the great proprietors. Serfs, petty tenants in villanage, free
men of small revenue, were all discovering tliat — as the country grew in
wealth, as comforts were more diffused, as the citizens and burghers were
for the most part free from feudal exactions, as even the serf who had lived
a certain time in an incorporated town became free, — the cultivators, whether
yeomen, or tenants, or labourers, had rights to maintain, and those who in
rank and possessions were greatly above them had duties to discharge. We
must especially notice the circumstance that those who claimed manumission
relied upon their interpretation of the Domesday Eecord — which, to a great
extent, had reference to the times of Edward the Confessor. They would go
back to the Anglo-Saxon days to set aside the more extensive and more
burdensome feudalities of the days since the Conquest. It was a demon
stration of that national principle which has ever sought to build civil rights
upon ancient foundations.
The insurrection of 1381, like most other attempts to obtain political
justice by a tumultuous appeal to arms, was set on foot for the assertion of
moderate demands,, and became an occasion for havoc and bloodshed. The
insurrection, however prepared by the confederacies for manumission, broke
out in Kent through that manslaughter of the royal tax-collector by Wat the
Tyler, which was the consequence of an outrageous insult, by the collector, on
Idler's daughter. The whole rural population of that district, in which the
Saxon principle of personal independence had been cherished from generation
to generation, flew to arms. The statistics, upon which the amount of taxes
to be collected were founded, had always gone upon false estimates of the
population. It could not be otherwise at a period when there was no system
of registration. The collection of the poll-tax fell short of the required supply ;
and commissions were appointed to overlook the collectors, and rigidly enforce
the levy. Men of Essex refused to answer the inquiries of the commissioners,
and murdered officers of the commission. The same spirit of revolt existed in
Suffolk and Norfolk. At Gravesend, a burgher had been claimed by his lord
as a bondman, and was sent as a prisoner to Eochester Castle. The insur
gents took the castle and liberated the burgher. But the great resistance to
authority was under the leadership of Wat the Tyler, who associated with
himself an itinerant preacher, John Ball, who, fourteen years before, had been
excommunicated for preaching " errors, and schisms, and scandals against the
pope, the archbishops, bishops, and clergy." To him is attributed the famous
couplet — " When Adam delved and Eve span.
Who was then the gentleman ? "
. Another priest, who assumed the name of Jack Straw, was connected with

8 THE INSURGENTS IN LONDON. [13S1.
the insurgents of Essex. Gathering large numbers of adherents from various
parts, a vast body at length reached Blackheath. Some of the band haa
compelled the mayor and aldermen of Canterbury to swear fidelity to their
cause, and many of the citizens had joined them in their march towards
London. This was no sudden tumult of an isolated body of men, for the
revolt extended from the coast of Kent to the Humber, and was orsanised in
a remarkable manner by correspondence in letters which bore the signatures
of Jack Milner, Jack Carter, Jack Trueman, and John Ball. The course of
the insurgents was marked by the accustomed atrocities of ignorant men with
weapons in their hands. It was not very likely, in an age when regular war
fare was conducted without the slightest regard to the rights of humanity,
that these rustics would exhibit the virtue of mercy which the lords of chivalry
never cultivated. But in their destruction of property they would allow of
uo plunder for individual gain. As this rude army of a hundred thousand
men approached London, there was, necessarily, universal consternation.
The king, with members of his council, were in the Tower. The conduct of
the royal youth was bold and energetic. He had left Windsor to meet the
danger. On the 12th of June he descended the river in his barge. He was
met with shouts and cries by the insurgents on the Eotherhithe bank, and
his attendants would not permit him to land. That night, Southwark and
Lambeth witnessed the demolition of the houses of the Marshalsea and of the
King's Bench, and the sack of the palace of the archbishop of Canterbury.
Out of Southwark they passed over London Bridge into the city on the fol
lowing morning. They demolished Newgate, and burnt the duke of Lan
caster's palace of the Savoy, and also the Temple. With the usual prejudice
against foreigners, they butchered the Flemish artisans, wherever they were
found. During this fearful day the king remained in the Tower. On the
14th of June, when Tower-hill was filled with this multitude, a herald made
proclamation that the king would meet them at Mile-end. They moved off ;
and young Eichard rode out of the Tower gates with a few followers, who
were unarmed. He received the petition which the insurgents had drawn up.
They demanded the abolition of slavery ; the reduction of the rent of land to
fourpence an acre ; free liberty to buy and sell in all markets and fairs ; arid
a general pardon for offences. Looking at the moderation of these demands
it is difficult to believe that the objects of the insurrection were the destruction
of all distinctions of rank, and the division of all property. Slavery was an
unnatural condition, the more onerous where it existed at a time when it was
gradually passing away, and which could not be long upheld by force. To
limit the rent of land to fourpence an acre— a rate not much, if anything,
below the average rental— was not more absurd than laws to limit the rate of
wages and fix the price of provisions. To claim a liberty to buy and sell in
all markets and fairs, was to assert a freedom of commercial intercourse which
was greatly impeded by the charters of towns, and by the tolls which the lay
and ecclesiastical lords exacted in every city and borough. These demands
were agreed to by the king. The remaining hours of the day and the suc
ceeding night were employed by many clerks in drawing up charters to the
effect of the petition, for every parish and township. They were sealed the
next morning ; and the great body, chiefly the men of Essex and Hertford-
shire, retired, bearing the king's banner. But the Kentish Tyler remained

1381.] SUPPRESSION OF THE INSURRECTION. 7
in arms, with a body of the insurgents. He led his men into the Tower.
They murdered the archbishop and other dignified persons, and drove the
king's mother out of her lodgings. On the I7th, the king rode into Smith-
field. The leader of the Kentish men, who had become insolent and ferocious
in the hour of success, refused the charters which were offered to him. When
he saw the king coming he halted his followers, and rode up to meet the
youth, whose noble bearing would unquestionably have commanded the
respect of Englishmen, and turned the tide of favour against the rebel.
During their parley, Tyler put his hand upon his dagger, and touched the
king's bridle. Walworth, the Lord Mayor of London, immediately stabbed
him. The insurgents, when they saw their leader fall, bent their bows ; but
Eichard, with the heroism of his race, galloped up to the astonished band,
and exclaimed, " Tyler was a traitor — I will be your leader." They followed
him to the fields of Islington, where a considerable force of citizens and others
hastened to protect their king. There, the insurgents fell on their knees and
implored his mercy. Eichard commanded them to return to their homes ; but
would allow no attack to be made upon them by the forces which were gather
ing around him. In the eastern counties the insurrection was put down by
Henry Spenser, known as the fighting bishop of Norwich. In a fortnight the
charters were revoked by the king, and then followed, in every county, trials
and executions to an enormous extent.
That the insurrection of 1381 was, in many districts, put down by means
as violent and Ulegal as the outbreak, may be judged by the fact of a statute
of indemnity being passed in parliament, for those who " made divers punish
ments upon the said villans and other traitors without due process of the law,
and otherwise than the laws and usages of the realm required, although they
did it of no malice prepensed, but only to appease and cease the apparent
mischief." In the same statute all compulsory manumissions and releases
were declared void. The parliament had been informed by the king that he
had revoked all the charters of emancipation which he had been compelled to
grant; but he submitted whether it would not be expedient to abolish the
state of slavery altogether. That Eichard was in this honestly advised, by
counsellors who were far-seeing statesmen, we may well believe. With one
accord the interested lords of the soil replied that they never would consent
to be deprived of the services of their bondmen. But they complained of
grievances less inherent in the structure of society — of purveyance ; of the
rapacity of law officers ; of maintainors of suits, who violated right and law as
if they were kings in the country ; of excessive and useless taxation. These
were evils which touched themselves. Slavery was an evil which to them was
profitable, as they believed. We need not think too harshly of men to whom
injustice had been familiarised by long ancestral usage.
In all the insurrectionary proceedings which so clearly indicated a con
dition of Society in which those lowest in the social scale met with little
consideration and no immediate redress, we cannot perceive, what has been
maintained with a confidence very disproportioned to the evidence— that the
"theory of property" expounded by Wycliffe, was a main cause of this
anarchy — ^that " the new teaching received a practical comment in 1381, in
the invasion of London by Wat, the Tyler of Dartford, and a hundred thousand
men, who were to level all ranks, put down the church, and establish universa."

8 WYCLIFFE'S OPINIONS COINCIDENT WITH THE INSURRECTION, [138].
liberty." * This unqualified statement is founded upon the very doubtful nar
rative of the chronicler Walsingham, as interpreted by Dr. Lingard. That
historian says, " They (the villans) were encouraged by the diffusion of the
doctrines of Wycliffe, that the right of property was founded in grace, and
that no man, who was by sin a traitor to his God, could be entitled to the
services of others." t Mr. Froude holds that " the theory, as an abstraction,
applied equally to the laity as the clergy." Men like the rustics of Kent
and Essex are not prone to act upon abstractions. Wycliffe taught, as others
have taught after him, that " the clergy had no right to their tithes and tem
poral endowments except so far as they discharged faithfully their spiritual
duties." J The reformer considered the clergy as holding property as a direct
recompense for service, the property being forfeit if the service were unper
formed. A richly endowed church would necessarily take another view of the
question, and denounce such doctrine as heretical. The experience of modem
times has shown that it was not politic. Wycliffe's paramount grievance was
the arrogance and the unchristian character of many who called themselves
Vicars of Christ. To denationalise the clergy, by making them stipendiaries,
was at that period to throw them completely under the influence of the papacy.
Their landed possessions offered the best security for their patriotism and their
civil obedience. But that Wycliffe's theory, so distinctly limited to ecclesias
tical affairs, should have suggested the notion, — if the insurgents of 1881 ever
did entertain such a notion, — that all property should be in common, appears
to us irreconclleable with the ordinary course of human action. It is irrecon
clleable with their demand of a maximum for rent. The assumed connexion
of " the new doctrine " with the insurrection may be attributed to the hostility
with which the Lollard opinions were assailed by the misrepresentations of
the apprehensive ecclesiastics and their historians. The agitation of Wycliffe
and his followers was coincident with the insurrection of the villans, but it
was not of necessity a cause. Agitation of any kind begets other agitation.
But this was not the direct effect which some impute to the dissemination of
Wycliffe's tenets.
Within a few months after the accession of Eichard IL, the rector of
Lutterworth, m consequence of letters from the pope, was summoned before
the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London, to answer for his
opinions. He defended his doctrines, and was dismissed, with a direction to
be cautious for the future. After the insurrection of 1381 had been quelled,
a synod of divines was called, in which many of Wycliffe's opinions were
censured as heretical, erroneous, and of dangerous tendency. To follow up
their triumph, the prelates procured an Act to be passed by the Lords to the
following effect :— That divers evil persons, under the dissimulation of great
holiness, go about from county to county, and from town to town, " without
the license of our holy father, the pope, or of the ordinaries of the places, or
other sufficient authority, preaching daily, not only in churches and church
yards, but also in markets, fairs, and other open places." The sermons so
preached, it is alleged, have been proved before the archbishop of Canterbury
* " History of England, by James Anthony Froude, M.A.," vol. ii. p. 19.
+ Lingard, vol. iv. p. 236.
I See " An Apology for Lollard Doctrines, attributed to Wycliffe." Edited by J H,
Todd, D.D. Introduction, p. xxiv. '

1S81.]

PREACHERS OF HERESIES.

nnd the bishops and prelates, and a great part of the clergy, to contain heresies
and notorious errors. Further it is said, " which persons do also preach divers
matters of slander, to engender discord and dissension betwixt divers estates
of the said realm, as well spiritual as temporal, in exciting of the people, to
the great peril of all the realm." The Act then directs the sheriffs to hold
such preachers and their abettors " in arrest and strong prison, till they will
justify themselves according to the law and reason of holy church." This
victory over the " poor preachers " was very short-lived. Wycliffe petitioned
against the Act. The Commons represented that it had been passed without
their consent. It was immediately repealed ; and we hear nothing more in
the legislative records about preachers of heresies, till, eighteen years after
wards, a law was passed to burn them. To us it appears manifest that, in
repealing this Act, the parliament asserted its conviction that the heresies, the
notorious errors, the matters of slander, which were preached in open places,
had solely reference to the alleged corruptions of the Church, and that to
subject the kingdom to the jurisdiction of the prelates, as the Act proposed.

O o G.^

,5nw

Dl

OS?tfTr

^c;

K>i9

^^<^(

WlMm  " '  '

Specimen from a Copy of Wycliffe's Bible, iu the British Museum. Royal MS. I. C. viii.)
was to surrender the civil freedom which their ancestors had maintained. The
men who refused to assent to the proposal of the king that slavery should be
abolished, would have been ready enough to sanction the imprisonment of the
preachers of universal equality, if such had been their doctrine. Undoubtedly
WycHffe himself did not hesitate to maintain that the revenues of the Church,
applied, not to the service of the altar by its diligent ministers, but to the

10 TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. [1384.
upholding the excessive pride and luxury of prelates and abbots and other
" possessioners," were superfluous, and were truly the patrimony of the poor.
Wycliffe is also reported to have said, although he attempted to explain his
meaning away, that " charters of perpetual inheritance were impossible." In
contending that the preachers of the Gospel were bound to lead a life of self-
denial, like that of their Great Master, he naturally provoked a fiercer indigna
tion than was excited by his more abstract doctrines regarding the Eucharist
and the sacrament of matrimony. He was at last compelled to submit himself
to the judgment of his ordinary, and he withdrew to his rectory. But he had
accomplished a work which no ecclesiastical censure could set aside. He had
translated the Scriptures into the English language. Whenever he and his
disciples were assailed by the higher ecclesiastics, he had appealed to the
Bible. His translation of the Bible was now multiplied by the incessant
labour of transcribers. The texts of the Bible were in every mouth, as they
were re-echoed in the sermons of his preachers, in churches and open places.
The poor treasured up the words of comfort for all earthly affiictions. The
rich and great meditated upon the inspired sentences which so clearly pointed
out a more certain road to salvation than could be found through indulgences
and pilgrimages. During the remaining years of the fourteenth century, the
principles of the Lollards took the deepest root in the land. Wycliffe died in
1384, but his preaching never died. His Bible was proscribed ; his votaries
were imprisoned and burned. But the sacred flame was never extinguished.
The first English reformer appeared in an age when civil freedom asserted
itself with a strength which was never afterwards subdued or materially
weakened. He fought a brave fight for religious freedom, with very unequal
forces, against a most powerful hierarchy. But such contests are not termi
nated in a few years. The reforms which in the eternal laws are willed to be
permanent are essentially of slow growth. When the "poor preachers " had
slept for a century and a half their day of triumph was at hand.
The period during which Wycliffe promulgated his doctrines, and his
followers continued to teach them without encountering any extreme penalties
of the law, was eminently favourable to a successful attack upon the ecclesi
astical system, through the general spirit of disaffection to its head. In the
reign of Edward IIL, there had been a legislative resistance to the claim of
the pope to appoint to benefices in England. In the third year of Eichard IL,
1379-80, it was declared by parliament that the statutes in this regard were
not effectual ; and that " benefices have been given, against the will of the
founders, to divers people of another language, and of strange lands and
nations, and sometimes to the utter enemies of the king and of his realm.' '
Such persons, it was alleged, never made residence, nor were able to hear
confession, to preach, and to teach the people. It was therefore provided
that none should farm benefices for such aliens, nor remit them money, or
merchandise, or letters of exchange, without license of the king. But in a
few years the court of Eome came to an open rupture with England upon this
question. In 1389-90, a statute was passed, declaring that if any one brought
into the realm any summons, sentence, or excommunication arising out of the
statute of 1379-80, he should be punished with pain of Hfe, and forfeiture
of goods. Pope Boniface was obstinate. He appointed an Italian cardinal
to a prebendal stall at Wells, to which the king had previously presented. A

1389-90.] CONTEST WITH THE POPE. 11
suit was instituted in England, in which jiidgment was given for the king.
The bishops had supported the decision of the king's court, and had executed
judgment accordingly. The pope, in consequence, excommunicated the
bishops. Then the Commons of England said, in that voice which has made
foreign tyranny, ecclesiastical or civil, tremble from that hour to this, " The
said things so attempted be clearly against the king's crown and his regality,
used and approved of the time of all his progenitors ; wherefore they and all
the liege commons of the same realm will stand with our said lord the king,
and his said crown, and his regality, in the cases aforesaid, and in all other
cases attempted against him, his crown and his regality, in all points, to live
and to die." The Commons desired the king to seek the opinion of the
Lords. The Lords temporal declared that they would support the crown.
The Lords spiritual said, being separately examined, that they could not deny
or afSrm that the pope might not excommunicate bishops nor translate
prelates ; but that in the cases before them they would be with the king,
" loialment en sustenance de sa corone," — loyally upholding his crown, — and
in all other cases touching his crown and his regality, as they were bound by
their allegiance. An Act was passed that all persons suing at Eome, and
obtaining instruments against the king, and all who brought them within the
realm, should be put out of the king's protection, and all their lands and
goods forfeited. The defiant attitude of England triumphed oyer this attempt
at papal usurpation. But if we consider how the whole ecclesiastical system
was intertwined with the authority of Eome, we may judge how favourable
was the season for earnest men to assail every abuse in the Church. It has been
said that, of this generation, one-third of the English people became Lollards,
as the followers of Wycliffe were now ternied. The ecclesiastical hierarchy
held them as the tares (Joliurn) amongst the wheat. In the next generation the
futile process commenced of attempting to weed out the tares. The gradual
reforms by which the ancient State of England was preserved and invigorated
were resisted by those who had directed the fortunes of her ancient Church.
In the fulness of time it fell — a warning to those who dwell in the edifice
re-constructed out of its materials, precious even in their occasional
incongruity. The age in which. " the poor preachers " disseminated their opinions was
an age in which knowledge began to spread, and literature was to some extent
cultivated. The abstract doctrines of the Lollards had been enforced by the
satires of " Piers Ploughman," — fuU not only of sarcasm and invective, but
of real poetry. Chaucer had arisen with his various knowledge, his familiarity
with courtly and with common life, his acquaintance with the writings of
Dante and Petrarch and the Italian fablers. He gave to his native English
a copiousness and elegance which it had not previously possessed. He cast
aside the use of Latin, which limited literature to the few. He brought his
translations and adaptations within the reach of the many. From Boccaccio
he borrowed his Knight's Tale, " as olde stories telUn us." To this romance
he added vigorous descriptions and graceful fictions, which are wanting in
his model. He invented the English heroic couplet — the fruitful parent
of a noble poetical progeny. His " Eomaunt of the Eose " is of French origin.
His " Troilus and Cresseide," as he tells us, is from "myne auctor LoUius,"
an Italian of Urbino. His poems contain frequent allusions to the great

12

ENGLISH LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE.

[1394.

Latin writers. " The House of Fame " has not been traced to a distinct origin.
" The Canterbury Tales," with their Arabian fiction and philosophy— their
reflections of medieval splendour, and of mediffival injustice as exhibited m the
Clerk of Oxenford's Tale, which, written by Boccaccio, he learned of Petrarch
at Padua— their wonderful pictures of English life, so thoroughly founded
upon his own genius and powers of observation— would appear miraculous
performances if we were to fall into the common notion that the end of the
fourteenth century was an age of ignorance. Ignorance, very gross, no doubt,
there was ; but the national mind was awake, or such works could never have
been produced. They were meant to be popular— and they were popular.
Limited in their circulation
by the necessary expense
of their multiplication in
manuscript, they found
their way to the noble's
privy-chamber, the frank
lin's fireside, and the stu
dent's cell. Most men,
with any pretensions to
knowledge, had some ac-
I Jl J »«;¦ aitiiM^*;*^ iiWfjifflMmil quaintance with the novel-
( l' t ' fe'^^E»SJljm xll ^^^ °^ literature and the
[ '-41 J Sl'.^^^^^Mfflwl"' current European fables.
In the inventory under the
will of a clerk of Bury, in
1370, we find his service-
book, a law book, a book of
statutes, and a book of
romances.* The passion
for fiction existed before
printing multiplied the
possession of works of
amusement. The French
romances were the courtly
reading, before Chaucer
and Gower came with their more attractive English. Gower, " the
moral Gower," was far inferior in genius to Chaucer. In him that great
attribute of genius, humour, was wholly wanting. His " Confessio Amantis,"
full indeed of affectations, the pedantry of love, contains many interesting
narratives and wise disquisitions. The early writers of fiction, without the
creative power which has made Chaucer universal and enduring, used their
stories as the vehicle for imparting the most recondite knowledge — and Gower
was of this class. But in him we may trace the large range of inquiry that
belonged to his time, destitute of scientific exactness, but leading into wide
regions of speculation. The demand for poetry and fiction is strikingly
exemplified by an incident connected with Gower's " Confessio Amantis."
Eichard, the luxurious king, is in his barge on the Thames. He sees the

Gower's Monument in the cliuTch of St. Mary Overies.

* Wills from the Registers of Bury : Camden Society.

1385.] STATUTES OP WAGES- LABOURERS. 13
poet in a boat, and inviting him to come on board, desires him to " book
some new thing." When Froissart came to England, in 1394, he brought a
French romance to Eichard, which he laid ready on the king's bed. " When
the king opened it, it pleased him well, for it was fair enlumiued and written.
* * * Then the king demanded me whereof it treated, and I shewed him
how it treated matters of love ; whereof the king was glad, and looked in it, and
read it in many places, for he could speak and read French very well."
Froissart's commendation of the king's French shows that English was now
commonly read and spoken ; and that Chaucer and Gower had adapted them
selves to that change which has carried our tongue to the ends of the earth.
Upon Wycliffe's Bible our present translation is mainly founded. Sir John
Mandeville, in 1356, wrote in English his Travels, so full of apocryphal marvels.
Trevisa translated the " Polychronicon" of Higden in 1385. From him we learn
that at the time he wrote, gentlemen had " much left off' to have their children
taught French." The change had been gradually coming, for John Cornwall,
a schoolmaster, in 1356 made his boys translate Latin into English. By the
end of the fourteenth century we were a nation, in language as well as in
heart. But there was yet much to do before that expressive word "nation"
could be said to comprehend the whole people. It could not embrace all
ranks while any portion remained in bondage. That the serfs were making
efforts to procure that enfranchisement which their king desired for
them, and which their lords denied, may be collected from an act of
parliament of the ninth year of Eichard, 1385. The statute says that " divers
viUans and neifs, as well of great lords as of other people, spiritual and
temporal, do flee unto cities, towns, and places enfranchised, as the city
of London, and feign divers suits against their lords, to the intent to
make them free by answer of their lords." The viUans, we thus see, were
becoming free before the law. There was a time when their condition of
bondage would have closed the ears of justice against any complaint from
them against their lords. The law now listens to their complaints, and their
lords must answer. But a special statute is necessary to limit this exercise
of the right of freemen. " It is accorded and assented that the lords, nor
other, shall not be forebarred of their villans, because of their answer in the
law." The influence of religion, and the progress of equal justice, are steadily
working together for the manumission of the serfs. Their great stronghold
of freedom is to be found in the enfranchised cities and towns. The culti
vators, whether tenants or labourers, provide for their children an escape
from oppression by apprenticing them to handicrafts. The continuance
of bondage, loose as the bonds are becoming, deprives the soil of its
necessary labour. The land capitalists are forcing labour into other chan
nels. Then step in the statute-makers, and enact, in 1388, " that he or
she, which use to labour at the plough and cart, or other labour or service of
husbandry, till they be of the age of twelve years, from thenceforth shall
abide at the same labour, without being put to any mystery or handicraft,
and if any covenant or bond of apprentice be from henceforth made to the
contrary, the same shall be holden for none." Another enactment of the
same parliament is to the effect that artificers and men of craft, servants and
apprentices, shall be compelled to serve in harvest, to cut, gather, and bring

14

GAMES— SANITARY LAWS.

[1388.

in the com. The labourers in husbandry are not sufficient for the demand.
The expedient of the former reign of confining the rural population to one
place is again resorted to. Male and female servants and labourers are not
to depart at the end of their term, to go to another place, without letters
testimonial under the king's seal, entrusted for that purpose to some good man
of the hundred, rape, wapentake, city, or borough : wandering without such
letters, they are to be put in the stocks. In this same year, 1388, we have a
glimpse of a poor-law, in the description of " beggars impotent to serve."
These are to abide in the cities or towns where they dwell ; but if the people
of these cities or towns " may not suffice to find them," — are not able to
support . them, — they may go to other towns within the hundred, rape, or
wapentake, or to the place where they were born, and there constantly
abide. Such enactments are symptoms of a transition state of society.
The word "villan" is now generally giving place to the word "ser
vant." The law now provides for the martial array and sports of
every servant of husbandry, labourer, or servant of artificer. They
are to bear no buckler, sword, nor dagger, except in the time of war
for defence of the realm ; but they shaU. have bows and arrows, and use
the same on Sundays and holidays, leaving all idle games of tennis, football,
quoits, skittles, dice, and casting of the stone. It was unwise, and no doubt
it was useless, to attempt thus to cultivate the use of the great national
weapon by a limitation of the games that made every village-green resonant
with mirth and manly contention. The dice would be secretly used in the
winter evenings, and the draught-board attract customers to the victuaUer'a

Playing at Draughts. (Harleian MS. 4431.)
settle. The principle of interference in social affairs has, from the days of the
Plantagenets to the days of the Stuarts— and indeed much later- been the
crying evil of our legislation. The regulation of the rate of wages went on
from the time of tho pestilence in the reign of Edward III. ; but it was now

1385-99.] STATE INTERFERENCE IN SOCIAu AFFAIRS. 15
found out that " a man cannot put the price of corn and other victuals in
certain ; " and it was therefore enacted that the justices of peace in every
county shall make proclamation, by their discretion, according to the dearth
of victuals, how much every craftman and labourer should take as wages,
according to his degree. We now understand the impossible things which
were attempted by these ancient legislators, and how they carried on an
unequal strife against the laws of nature. The principle of their legislation,
— that of prescribing by authority what the social instincts would accomplish
far more effectually, — is not yet worn out. In some of their enactments,
however, they exhibited a wisdom whieh their successors might have done
well to imitate. Whoever knew the sanitary condition of London generally
and of other great towns at the beginning of this century, and partially within
the last twenty years, — whoever penetrates the obscure places of many
towns at the present hour, — will marvel that a law of 1388 should have fallen
into disuse at the end of four centuries and a half: " For that so much dung
and filth of the garbage and entrails as well of beasts killed, as of other
corruptions, be cast and put in ditches, rivers, and other waters, and also
within many other places, within, about, and nigh unto divers cities, boroughs,
and towns of the realm, and the suburbs of them, that the air there is greatly
corrupt and infect, and many maladies and other intolerable diseases do daily
happen " — it is enacted that proclamation be made through the realm that all
they which cast and lay such annoyances shall immediately remove them, iipon
pain to forfeit to the king twenty pounds. To the mayors and bailiffs was
entrusted the execution of this Act ; and in their default the Court of Chancery
was open to any complainant.
In looking at the old arrangements of society, most persons, naturally
enough, consider those only valuable which have some general agreement with
the principles of our modern life. Those which are in direct opposition to
the system of independent action in the common transactions between man
and man, are, in the same way, regarded as useless or injurious. That wages
should be regulated by statute or proclamation of justices, — that the prices of
articles of necessity should be also so regulated, — that sumptuary laws should
determine the diet and apparel of all classes, — that not a piece of cloth or a
hide of leather should be sold without the m.«irk of the searchers, — that no
money should be carried out of the country, whatever quantity of goods came
in, — all these official interventions appear to us in the highest degree absurd
and tyrannical, when we regard them from the economical point of view. But
we are really not in a position absolutely to judge of the imagined necessity
which called them forth. We cannot sufficiently place ourselves in the midst
of the decaying feudal institutions, and say that such laws, the scaffoldings of
a new social edifice, were wholly unnecessary. But we can say that all such
expedients are entirely unsuited to modern times ; and that, whatever be the
insufficient working of the natural law of labour and capital, — whatever the
power of traders to elevate prices, or deteriorate quality, — whatever the evils
of extravagance in diet or apparel, — no state laws can give the people higher
wages, or cheaper food, or more frugal manners, as these old regulations of
society attempted to do. Political philosophy, after the experience of five
centuries, has discovered that the great duty of the state is to permit the laws
of demand and supply to pursue their natural course ; and to leave individual

16 STATE INTERFERENCE IN SOCIAL AFFAIRS. [1385-99.
foUies, which are not positive wrongs, public or private, to their own certain
penalties. But there is an exceptional school, which, seeing a large amount
of suffering and crime in existing society, appears somewhat too much
enamoured of the ancient principle of perpetual interference, acting
under the system by which "the discipline of an army was transferred
to the details of social life." * It is held that, under this discipline,
"in the distribution of the produce of land men dealt fairly and justly
with each other ; and in the material condition of the bulk of the people
there is a fair evidence that the system worked efficiently and well." f
To determine the state of the producing classes, a comparison is entered
into of the rate of wages with the price of food ; and it is held that
in the old time, a labourer with a penny could buy more bread, beef, beer,
and wine, than the labourer of the nineteenth century can do for a shilling.
Be it so. But what shall we say of the system, when we regard the excessive
fluctuations of price ? — the result of the complacency with which " statesmen
did not care for the accumulation of capital." "They desired," says the
encomiast of the past, " to see the physical well-being of aU classes of the
commonwealth maintained at the highest degree which the producing power
of the country admitted ; and population and production remaining stationary,
they were enabled to do it." J The producing power of the country was so
variable that, in 1387, wheat at Leicester was sold at two shillings a quarter —
in 1390, at sixteen shillings and eightpence.§ Where, with this imperfect and
irregular production, was the stationary population ? Dying of famine, to
maintain the due proportion between population and production. The whole
theory of "population and production remaining stationary" is a paradox,
utterly opposed to any condition of society which could by possibility exist
after the abolition of slavery. The instant at which the lords of the soil
could no longer control the amount of the population upon their own
demesnes — the instant that the system of free labour superseded serfage — the
instant that the towns were ready to absorb the superabundant population of
the country, and to increase their own population with no restraint but the
ordinary laws by which the number of mouths to eat is proportioned to the
amount of profitable labour to be performed — that instant there was an end
of any possible power to keep population and production stationary. If, as
the historian we have quoted believes, the population in the middle of the
sixteenth century was five millions, the evidence is equally clear that it did not
exceed two millions and a half at the end of the fourteenth century. The
data for calculating the population at either period are exceedingly uncertain.
Less than a million and a half were assessed to the poll-tax of Eichard II. ,
but which number did not include the people of Durham, Chester, and Wales.
Undoubtedly there was a considerable increase in a century and a half. But
what increase would there have been could the system of interference,
founded upon the principle of keeping population and production stationary,
have been successful ? In our view, there was an end of the system when its
broad foundation of slavery was at an end; and all subsequent laws for
regulating wages, for fixing a maximum price on articles of necessity, and for
surrounding trade with every species of arbitrary regulation in the vain
* Froude, "History of England," vol. i. p. 13. + Ihid: p. 19. J Hid. p. 26,
J- " Chriinicon Pretiosmn."

1385 99.] STATE INTERFERENCE IN SOCIAL AFFAIRS. 17
endeavour to prevent fraud, were very useless attempts to prolong a con
trolling power when its vital principle had perished. It is of little
consequence that for several centuries after the foundations of the mediajval
feudality were utterly gone, endeavours of every kind were made to preserve
the same regulating powers of authority which grew out of the original
relations of lord, vassal, and serf. One by one they crumbled away in
England; and as they more and more lost all vitality, and became mere
incumbrances of legislation, the great body of the people more and more felt
the possibility of increased production keeping pace with increased popu
lation ; and their various comforts — positive luxuries when compared with
the average household conveniences and gratifications of the fourteenth
century — went on increasing, in the exact proportion of the national
advance in wealth and knowledge under the self- regulating action of modern
society. But we venture to believe that we should fall into a grievous error if we
were to accept the enactments which imply an organisation assigning to
every man his certain place, and regulating all his dealings with his fellow
men upon an absolute scale, as a complete evidence of the real condition of
the people. The enactments themselves prove that they were, in a great
degree, inoperative. We have mentioned the Statute of Diet and Apparel of
1368, and that it was repealed in the following year.* Is not this proof that
" grooms and servants " could not be limited to meat once a day, and cloth
of two marks the whole piece for their dress F The ordinance which regu
lates apparel regulates also the price at which the cloth is to be sold. Could
the varying cost of the material of cloth allow this enactment to attain the
slightest permanency ? AJter the next session of parliament, the people, as
to diet, apparel, and the price of cloth, became, in the words of the repealing
Act, " as free as they were before." After the pestilence, the Act of the
25th of Edward III. regulates wages. By the 12th of Eichard IL wages are
again regulated, because " servants and labourers wiU. not serve and labour
without outrageous and excessive hire." In the 7th year of Henry IV.
labourers and artificers are to be sworn to serve after the form of these two
statutes of Edward IIL and Eichard IL, and if they refuse to do so, to be
put in the stocks. Need we go farther to show that all such enactments
were but blind devices to struggle against the only laws that could be
operative in such matters ? In less than a century after the first Act regu
lating wages of Edward IIL, a very different scale is given by the 23rd of
Henry VI., but with this important condition — " that such as deserve less
shall take less." The Statute does not say, " that such as deserve more shall
take more." But the exception to the scale, in favour of the payers of
wages, proves that the whole scheme was a fallacy. Of the same flimsy
construction was all the boasted protection of the humbler classes, by state
supervision, against what is termed " the money-making spirit " of the
traders. They had far higher need of protection against those who went ori
seeking, however vainly, to beat down wages by scales and penalties. Out
of the exercise of the spirit of exchange, throwing off its state shackles one by
one, have grown all the material blessings of modern civilisation. When
VOT,. TT. * Vol. i. p. 479.

13

STATE INTERFERENCE IN SOCIAL AFFAIRS.

[1385-99.

England became commercial, which it did rapidly in and after the reign of
Edward III., the feudal organisation of society was thenceforth an impos
sibility. In every attempt to maintain that organisation, by what has been
called "a higher code" for the production and distribution of wealth than
the laws of supply and demand, we see only the dissolving shadow of a
power once supreme, retreating and diminishing before a great expanding
reality.

ConvGcation of Clergy.

-mm
The Quarrel of Hereford and Norfolk. Illumination iu Froissart,

CHAPTEE IL

Family diasensions — Conduct of the war -with France — Suspicions of Lancaster — Scots and
Frenehmen cross the Border — Projected invasion of England by Prance — Disputes of
the king and the parliament — Commission of Regency — Secret .Council of the king —
Gloucester and other nobles take anns — The King's advisers declared traitors — Battle
of Otterbourne — Richard assumes, the government — Truce with France and Scotland —
Richard in Ireland — His marriage with Isabella of France — The king becomes despotic- —
Cowp d'Stat — Murder of Gloucester — Quarrel of Hereford and Norfolk — Their banish
ment — Wretched condition of the country — Death of John of Gaunt — Richard seizes his
possessions — The king goes to Ireland — H6nry of Lancaster lands at Ravenspur —
Betrayal of Richard by the Percies — A Parliament called — Richard's deposition — Henry
claims the kingdom.
The political intrigues of the reign of Eichard II. are so complicated, and
have been so obscurely related, that, from the first days of his accession, when
•Tohn of Gaunt, in parliament, indignantly repelled some vague accusations
against himself of designs upon the throne, till, twenty-two years afterwards,
the king was deposed by the son of the same John of Gaunt, we are walking in
a labyrinth of famUy quarrels, accompanied with a more than usual amount of
hatred and dissimulation. At the age of twelve Eichard was placed on the
throne. For ten years he had little share in the government, though he was
put forward, as in the instance of the insurrection of 1381, to act in his
personal character of king. In 1382 he married Anne of Bohemia, a prudent
and amiable princess, who restrained many of the impulses of his levity and
0 2

20 THE KING'S GUARDIANS— WAR WITH FRANCE. [1383.
fitful passions. But he surrounded himself with favourite ministers, who
evidently fomented the jealousy which he constantly felt of his uncles. John,
the duke of Lancaster, appears to have possessed many of the high qualities
of a statesman — prudent, but not an enemy to improvement — generous
without prodigality— having great wealth and influence, but not employing
his power in any proved disloyalty to his royal nephew. Thomas, the duke
of Gloucester, was less scrupulous in the modes by which he controlled the
immature king ; and the early impatience of Eichard under his stern tutelage,
and the cherished hatreds of his adult age, were at last terminated by open
hostility and secret murder. During the twenty-two years in which Eichard
bore the name of king, for one-half of the period he was an unwiUing puppet
in the hands of austere guardians ; and when he broke loose from their
authority in the second half of his reign, he had been so long controlled by
others that he had never acquired the power of self-control ; and thus, with
many qualities which might have made him respected in any other position,
he became a tyrant without the force of character that makes tyranny
successful, and perished through the consequences of his own violence and
rashness. The war with France was feebly conducted, previous to a short truce in
1384. Henry Spenser, the bishop of Norwich, led an expedition into
Flanders in 1383, ostensibly for a crusade against the pretensions to the
papacy of Clement, a Frenchman. The expedition was, in reality, to support
the Flemings in that resistance to the government of their duke which, in
the previous year, had received such a check by the intervention of France.
The Italian pope. Urban VL, was supported by England, and by the
Flemings and German States. Part of the cost of this adventure was voted
by parliament; part was raised by voluntary contributions. Had this
expedition given assistance to the burghers of Bruges and Ghent and
Tpres, before the fall of their great leader Philip Artevelde at the battle of
Eosebecque, the democratic cause might have had a different issue. The
martial bishop took Gravelines and Dunkirk, and defeated the forces of the
count of Flanders ;' but the French again crossed the frontier, and the bishop
fled to England, to be censured in parliament and fined, for having failed in
this partisan warfare. In that year, Eichard proposed a measure for the con
clusion of the war with France, which gives to this great quarrel an air of the
ludicrous, ill-assorting with the miseries which it brought upon both countries.
The king of England was seventeen years of age. There is a letter in the
public records from Eichard to the duke of Lancaster, in which he gravely
proposes that the quarrel between England and France should bfe determined
by a single combat betweeri himself and the French king, Charles VL, who
was then in his fifteenth year. It does not appear that John of Gaunt gave
any encouragement to this precocious heroism. He concluded the truce with
France in 1384, in which Scotland was comprehended. But the Scots
refused to desist from warfare, and the duke led an army across the border,
burning towns and cutting down forests. On his return to England he was
again assailed by suspicions of disloyalty. A Carmelite friar put into the
hands of Eichard a paper, professing to disclose a conspiracy to deprive liim of
his crown, and give the kingdom to his uncle. Lancaster maintained his
innocence, ai.\d demanded that the slanderer should be committed to safe

1S85.] WAR WITH SCOTLAND. 21
custody. Sir Jotui Holland, the king's half-brother, undertook the charge;
and the next day the friar was found dead — strangled, it was said, by his
knightly keeper. Whether he was put out of the way to prevent disclosures
against Lancaster, or to conceal the treachery by which he had been suborned
to make a false accusation, is one of the mysteries of this obscure period.
The young king now began to exhibit that dissimulation which subsequently
he was too ready to exercise. He professed his complete satisfaction ; and
Lancaster went abroad to obtain a prolongation of the truce with France.
Preparations were made to arrest him on his return ; but he secured
himself in his castle of Poutefract. The storm blew over for a time.
France had sent men-at-arms into Scotland, and had advanced a large
sum of money to induce the Scots to invade England. In Froissart's
relation of these circumstances there are many curious detaUs of the
state of Scotland. The French expedition was commanded by Sir John
de Vienne. At Edinburgh the Frenchmen waited for the king of the
Scots, who was in "the wylde Scottysche " (the Highlands). They were
lodged about in the villages, for in the town there were not four thousand
houses. Their aid was not popular, for the people cried " We can do without
their help. What devO. has brought them here ? They will rifle and eat us
up." Nor were the Frenchmen more satisfied with Scotland. The barons
and knights, who looked for goodly castles and tapestried halls, said to their
admiral " What pleasure hath brought us hither ? We never knew what
poverty meant till now." Horses were scarce and extravagantly dear ; bridles
and saddles there were none. The pride of chivalry was at fault. At last
king Eobert came to Edinburgh ; but he produced in the Frenchmen no great
reverence, for he came " with a pair of red bleared eyen, — it seemed they were
lined with sendal." * The united armies then marched into England, and had
advanced towards Newcastle, when they learned that king Eichard was coming
with a great army. They then retreated ; and Douglas took the French
admiral to a mountain, and showed him the mighty force of the English, and
how unequal the Scots were to fight with them. But while Eichard advanced
into Scotland, took Edinburgh, and marched towards Aberdeen, the French and
Scots entered Cumberland and Westmoreland, burning and plundering on
every side. The duke of Lancaster knew the advantage which this inroad
had given to the English army, and how surely the retreat of the Scots and
French might be cut off. But the young king's favourite, De la Pole, filled his
mind with the suspicion that his uncle, in advising a return to the borders,
intended to expose him to the dangers of a winter campaign in a mountainous
region, from which he would never escape alive. Eichard refused to march
into Cumberland with the duke ; and returned with his army to England
through Northumberland. The campaign of 1385 terminated without any
trial of strength in battle. The Scots and French wasted England, and the
English wasted Scotland. When the ill-assorted allies returned to Edinburgh,
the Scots required to be paid the expenses of the campaign ; for they said
that the war was made for the profit of France and not for themselves ; and
they kept the admiral in pledge till their demands were satisfied. On his
return from this expedition, the parliament ratified the honours which Eichard
had conferred on his favourites. Michael de la Pole was created earl of
* Sendal was a thin silk, of a reddish colour.

22 PROJECTED INVASION OF ENGLAND. [^386.
Suffolk, and Eobert de Vere earl of Oxford. To neutralise the jealousy of
his own relations, his uncles were created dukes of York and Gloucester ;
Henry, the son of the duke of Lancaster, was made earl of Derby ; and Edward,
the son of the duke of York, earl of Eutland. At the same time Eoger, earl
of March, was declared presumptive heir to the throne. He was the grand
son of Lionel, the second son of Edward IIL, who died in 1368 ; and whose
daughter, Philippa, married Mortimer, earl of March.
In 1386 the dreaded duke of Lancaster left England to assert his claim to
the crown of Castile, in right of his second wife, Constantia, daughter of Peter
the Cruel. The duke was more successful in his negociations than permanently
fortunate in his wars. He married his eldest daughter, by his first wife, to
John, king of Portugal : and his daughter Catherine, who had succeeded to
her mother's claims, was espoused, in 1387, by Henry III. of Castile. The
quarrel of the rival families was terminated by this union ; and thus the issue
of John of Gaunt bore sovereignty in Spain for many generations. In the
absence of Lancaster, enormous preparations were made by France for the
invasion of England. The insurrections of Flanders had been put down ; and
the time seemed most opportune for revenging the injuries which France had
received in the invasions of Edward III. and the Black Prince. In September,
1386, a larger fleet was collected than had ever before been seen in Christen
dom. In the port of Sluys were twelve hundred and eighty-seven vessels.
Another fleet was assembled at Treguier, in Brittany. The great lords of
France and Burgundy rivalled each other in the magnificent decorations of
the ships which were to bear them to the devoted English shores. If painted
and gilded masts, emblazoned sails, and silken banners, could' have insured
success, no fleet was ever more grandly appointed. From all parts knights
were arriving, for several months, in the towns of Flanders and Artois. They
collected immense stores, as if they were about to found some distant colony.
The young king of France set out from Paris with great pomp, and joined the
duke of Burgundy at Arras. The lords and knights were full of gladness.
They were going against the hated English, to avenge the blood of their
fathers and their brethren. As they had traversed France the whole country
had been stripped by them. Little had been left to the cultivators to give,
for an enormous tax had been levied for this war. The lords and the knights
seized upon everything that remained. " We have no money," they said,
" but we will pay you when we return." The unhappy people muttered " Go,
and may you never come back." But they did not go. The king came to
Sluys. He thought he should make a good sailor. He was ready to sail.
But his uncle, the duke de Berri, still lingered at Paris. The vast army was
eating up everything. The season was becoming cold and stormy. The soldiers
and the people of the towns were quarrelling ; and a general revolt of the
bold Flemings was again apprehended. At length the duke de Berri arrived.
He found the season too far advanced for the attempt, and the great enter
prise was postponed till the next year. The furious lords and knights dis
persed homewards. The next year came, and the invasion was again post
poned. The leaders quarrelled ; and, instead of England being subject to
invasion, the French coast was assailed, and the French and Flemish fleets
destroyed, from Brest to Sluys.
Eichard in 1386 was twenty years of age. A contest is coming on

1886.] COMMISSION OF REGENCY. . 23
between the king and the parliament, which, partly the result of the family
jealousies, and partly the desire of a self-willed youth to free himself from
constitutional control, appears to threaten a political revolution. It is
really of small consequence to us, at the present time, to think, according to
one set of partisan historians, that Eichard was an innocent and oppressed
sovereign, and Thomas of Woodstock a most unprincipled usurper of the
royal functions ; or with another set, that the young king was engaged in a
constant struggle for despotic power, and that all the parliamentary enact
ments by which he was opposed were just and sagacious assertions of the
liberties of the country. We may seek our way through this maze of
suspicion and accusation — of stern control and passionate resistance — with
out adopting the prejudices with which all such historical questions were
regarded in the last century, from one point of view or from its opposite.
The Statutes and Eolls of parliament are but imperfect expounders of the real
causes of the shifting events of this reign ; and the contemporary historians
were necessarily possessed of very limited information. In one thing the
State records and the Chroniclers are agreed — that Eichard was unbounded in
his personal expense. In 1386 the Commons petitioned the king " that the
state of his household might be looked into and examined every year, by the
chancellor, treasurer, and clerk of the privy-seal, and what was amiss, to be
amended at their discretion." The answer was, " The king will order it when
he pleaseth." Harding, the chronicler,- says that Eichard's household con
sisted of ten thousand persons ; that he had three hundred in his kitchen ;
and that all his offices were furnished in like proportion. If we trust these
accounts, we may well believe that there was a perpetual conflict between the
royal demands for taxes, and the indignation of the Commons, who felt that
their supplies were spent in foUy and favouritism, and that little was done in
foreign warfare, upon which the honour of the country was held to depend.
The king's private counsellors were the encouragers of his extravagance, and
his inciters against those whom he supposed to be his enemies. Knyghton,
a contemporary, affirms that when the Commons resolved upon the impeach
ment of the earl of Suffolk, and communicated their resolution to the king,
he replied that he would not, at their instance, remove the meanest scullion
in his kitchen. The earl of Suffolk was impeached, and the king was com
pelled to part with one for whom he would probably have sacrificed the
whole ten thousand of his household. But the Commons went farther.
They petitioned the king to appoint a Commission of Eegency for one year,
with very large powers ; the most formidable of which was that those who
advised a revocation of their authority should incur the penalties of treason
Eichard unwillingly complied. "The king," says Hume, "was in reality
dethroned ; the aristocracy was rendered supreme." He adds, " the inten
tions of the party were to render it perpetual." Mr. HaUam replies to the
historian "with a Tory bias," — "that nothing less than an extraordinary
remedy could preserve the still unstable liberties of England." * In the
summer of 1387 Eichard made progresses in Cheshire and Yorkshire, and
received marks of popular favour. In August he held a council at Notting
ham, consisting of the archbishop of York ; De Vere, now created duke of
Ireland ; the earl of Suffolk ; the chief justice, TresUian ; and Sir Nicholas
* "Middle Ages," part iii. chap, viii.

24 LORDS APPELLANTS IN ARMS. [1387
Brember, lord mayor of London. They tried to tamper with the sheriffs of
the adjacent counties, to induce them to return uo knights and burgesses to
the next parliament but such as the king should nominate. This plan was
unsuccessful. The judges were then summoned ; and the king procured
from them a declaration in answer to questions drawn up by the chief
justice, that the Commission to which he had reluctantly assented was
illegal; and that those who interfered with his rights in procuring it
to be passed, or enforcing his consent to it, were traitors ; with other
assertions tending to the upholding of his unlimited prerogative. Of these
opinions, given under an obligation of secrecy, the duke of Gloucester
was soon apprised. Eichard, meanwhile, was concerting measures for the
arrest and indictment of those who had been designated as traitors by
judicial opinions, extorted, as was asserted by the majority of the judges,
under menace. On the 10th of November, nine days before the Commission
was to expire, Eichard entered London, and was received with acclamations.
Sir Nicholas Brember had influenced the voice of the citizens. On the
next day it was known that an army of forty thousand men was advancing
to the capital, under the command of the duke of Gloucester, and the
earls of Arundel and Nottingham, the constable, admiral, and mareschal
of England. The earls of Derby and Warwick joined them the next
day. These noblemen, lords appellants as they were called, on the 17th
of November, accused of treason before the king at Westminster those
five of his obnoxious counsellors who had assembled at Nottingham. The
earl of Suffolk fled to France ; the archbishop of York eventually found
refuge in Flanders ; De Vere raised an army by authority of royal letters ;
but was defeated at Eadcot Bridge, and escaped to Ireland. The other
two who were denounced by the appellants, — Tresilian, the chief justice,
and Sir Nicholas Brember, — were executed as traitors. There were other
e?ecutions, with banishments and conflscations, and these penalties were all
enforced under the authority of parliament. For about a year the government
appears to have been in the hands of the parliamentary council, without any
intervention on the part of the humiliated king.
In 1388, on the 10th of August, was fought the famous battle of
Otterbourne, upon which is founded the ballad of " Chevy Chase." That
ballad, and the earlier one called " The Battle of Otterbourne," treat this
remarkable conflict as a border-feud. Froissart has a most minute description
of this great fight between the Percy and the Douglas, which also shows that
it was essentially an affair of the feudal lords, and not of the. Scotch and
English governments. Lord Henry Percy was appointed by the Council to
keep the frontier of Northumberland against the Scots ; and the Scotch lords
and knights, seeing " the Englishmen were not aU of one accord," gathered
together at Aberdeen, and concerted a plan for meeting near the border.
With a large army they crossed the Tyne, and went on to Durham, but soon
retreated. At Newcastle they were encountered by the younger Percies,
with their host ; their father, the earl of Northumberland, keeping the pass
of Alnwick. The leaders appear to have met as if at a tournament. Earl '
Douglas and Lord Henry Percy fought hand to hand, and Douglas won
Percy's pennon, and told him that " he would set it on high on his castle of
Dalkeith;" and Percy said Douglas should not carry it out of England.

1388.]

BATTLE OF OTTERBOURNE.

26

After the skirmish, the Scots, the next day, marched to Otterbourne, about
thirty miles from Newcastle. The castle has perished which Douglas assailed;
but there we may trace the marshy valley and the little mountain where the
Scots fixed their camp, and where Harry Percy came on, with the moon
shining as bright as day, to win back his pennon. It was uo skirmish now.
Douglas was killed on one side, and Percy and his brother taken prisoners on
the other, the victory being to the Scots. Douglas was buried at Melrose.
Percy was soon ransomed. Froissart says of this battle, — "Englishmen on
the one part, and Scots on the other part, are good men of war ; for when
they meet there is hard fighting without sparring. There is no love between
them, as long as spears, swords, axes, or daggers will endure ; but they lay on
each upon the other, and when they be well beaten, and that the one part

yf^ifeHft,.

Alnwick Castle.
hath obtained the victory, then they glorify so in their deeds of arms, and are
BO joyful, that such as be taken they shall be ransomed ere they go out of the
'ield, so that shortly each of them is so content with the other that, at their
departing courteously, they will say — God thank you." The long but graphic
narrative by Froissart of this border-feud is suggestive of striking contrasts
of mediaeval and modern times. While the Scots had marched on beyond the
Tyne, "all the English knights and squires of the county of York and bishopric
of Durham were assembled at Newcastle." Froissart adds, " rhe town was sc

26

RICHARD ASSUMES THE GOVERNMENT.

[1389.

full of people, that they wist not where to lodge." Little is left in that town
to remind us how often it was crowded with the chivalry of England, going to
or returning from the Scottish wars. Nearly all its ancient buildings have
been destroyed. The railway-train sweeps over the Tyne, and over the steep
streets, at a prodigious elevation. Trim edifices, fresh and monotonous, have
obliterated the traces of the past. One relic, the Black Gate, and its
dungeon-looking houses, show how the Percies, and Mowbrays, and Greys
lodged, when they fiUed Newcastle with their men-at-arms.
In 1389 the government of England appears to be acquiring some con-
sistency, under the more immediate rule of the king. At a great council in

Black Gate, Newcastle.

May, he suddenly asked the duke of Gloucester—" How old am I ? " His
uncle replied, " Your highness is in your twenty-second year " Upon this
Eichard declared his opinion that he was old enough to manage his own
affairs. There was no resistance, and he dismissed the chancellor and the
treasurer. Gloucester retired into the country. Lancaster returned to
England. The struggle of parties seemed to be at an end. A truce wa^
concluded with France, which, several times renewed, lasted through this

1394.]

THE KING IN IRELAND.

27

reign, and Scotland was included in the pacification. William of Wykcham
was appointed chancellor, although he had been one of the council of 1388 ;
and the duke of York and the earl of Derby, although active in the proceedings
of that year, regained their influence under the king. In the parliament of
1390, the chancellor declared the king to be of full age, and that he intended
to govern his people in peace and quiet; to do justice to all men; and that
clergy and laity should enjoy all their liberties. In 1394 the queen died.
She was called " the good queen Anne " by the people. In that year Eichard
went to Ireland, with a large army. He took with him four thousand knights,
and thirty thousand archers, and he remained there nine months. There had
been revolt of the native chiefs and discontent of the colonists ; but the mere
demonstration of the English force prevented any battle. The king was
thoroughly in his element — giving sumptuous entertainments, and displaying
his regal magnificence to a wondering people. Four of the principal kings of
Ireland, as they were called, came to Dublin, and submitted themselves to
him without constraint. Of the quality of these kings Froissart had a
curious account from Sir Henry Cristall, an Englishman, who had been a
captive amongst the native Irish, and having been kindly treated, married
and long resided with them. He was appointed to attend on the four kings
who submitted themselves to Eichard. It was Eichard's wish that in
manners and apparel they should conform to the usages of England. It was
his purpose to create them knights. But they were wedded to their ancient
customs. They would sit
at the same table as their
minstrels and servants,
eating out of the same dish
and drinking out of the
same cup. They were ill
at ease with gowns of silk
furred with minever, and dis
dained the linen breeches
that the good Cristall pro
vided for them. They
perhaps showed their sense
in despising the absurd
costume of the court of
Eichard. At last they
were properly attired, and
were made knights by the
king, with all solemnities
of the church ; and sate
with him at the banquets,
and " were regarded of many folks, because their behaving was strange to
the manner of England."
In 1396 Eichard took a step which was unpopular. He resolved upon an
intimate alliance with France, by seeking in marriage Isabella, the daughter
of Charles VL, a child of eight years old. A magnificent embassy was sent to
Paris, and the French court was willing to secure a pacification through this
alliance. The earl marshal of England knelt to the little girl, and said,

Male coHtume, time of Rioharti II.

28

RICHARD'S MARRIAGE WITH ISABELLA.

[1398.

" Fair lady, by the grace of God ye shall be our lady and queen of England,"
and Isabella answered, without counsel of any person, " Sir, an it please God
and my lord my father that I shall be queen of England, I shall be glad
thereof, for it is showed me that I shall then be a great lady." The negocia
tions were at length concluded. Froissart relates a remarkable conversation
between Eichard and the count of St. Pol, who came to England to make
arrangements on the part of the French king, which in some degree throws a
little light upon the mysterious events of the next three years. The king
said that his two uncles, Lancaster and York, were inclined to the alliance,
but that his uncle Gloucester was opposed to it ; that he did all he could to
draw the Londoners to his opinion ; that if he stirred the people to rebellion
the crown were lost. St. PqI answered Eichard that he must dissimulate ;
win Gloucester with sweet words and great gifts, till the peace was made,
and his bride was come to England. "That done," said the wily politician,
"¦ ye may take other counsel. Ye shall then be of puissance to oppress aU
your rebels ; for the French king, if need be, shall aid you : of this ye may be
sure." The king answered, " Thus shall I do." It was a fatal resolve. The
two kings, accompanied by hundreds of nobles and knights, with all the pomp
of the gorgeous ceremonials of that age, met between Calais and Ardres, and
there embraced, and drank spiced wine out of jewelled cups. Again they met
on another day, at the
boundary of the two
camps; and then the child-
queen arrived with a caval
cade of golden chariots and
silken litters, with ladies
wearing garlands of pearls
and diamonds ; and she
was conducted by her uncles
to Eichard, who promised
to cherish her as his wife.
The duchesses of Lancaster
and Gloucester received
her ; and she set forward
to Calais, where the mar
riage was celebrated on the
fourth of November.
The dangerous advice of the count St. Pol seems to have s\iiik deeply into
Eichard's heart. He had conducted himself with moderation since 1389 ;
there were no plots to diminish his lawful power, and no attempt on his part
to go beyond the authority of a constitutional king. In January, 1397, a
parliament was called. On the 1st of February the Commons desired a con
ference with the king's officers ; when, amongst other matters, they asked for
il bill for avoiding the extravagant expenses of the king's household, complain
ing that many bishops, who had lordships, and many ladies, with their servants,
were supported at the king's expense. Eichard was indignant, and demanded
the name of the member who had introduced the bill, and thus dared, to
interfere with his prerogative. It was Sir Thomas Haxey, a clergyman. On
the 3rd of February, the Commons came most humbly before the kinp;. and

Pemaje costume, time of Richard 11.

1391.] THE KING BECOMES DESPOTIC. 29
declared that they only intended to request him to consider the matter him
self, and make what regulations he should think proper. Two days afterwards
a law was made, that whoever moved, or should move, the Commons of par
liament, or any others, to make remedy or reformation of any kind appertaining
to the king's person, rule, or royalty, should be held for a traitor. Under
this ex-post-facto law, Haxey was condemned to die ; but his life was spared,
and he was subsequently pardoned. The vessel of the state was now drifting
fast upon the quicksands of arbitrary government.
The Statute of the 21st year of Eichard IL, 1397-8, is a solemn record of
the establishment of a despotic power, under the sanction of parliamentary
forms. This remarkable document takes an historical view ot the events of
1387-8, when the Council of Eegency was triumphant, and exhibits to us the
first remarkable example of the aid which tyrannj' derives from a corrupt and
cowardly exercise of the sanctions of popular representation. Eichard a-na
his advisers appear to have discovered how effectually a subservient parliament
may render despotism more easy and secure than through its own unconcealea
workings. The Statute recites, with great minuteness, the commission granted
to the duke of Gloucester and others, ten years before; and then, at'the
desire of the Commons, repeals the same, as a thing done traitorously, and
against the king's crown and dignity. The Statute then describes, with equal
minuteness, the questions put to the judges regarding that Commission, with
their answers. These answers not only affirmed the procurers of the Com
mission to be traitors, but declared that all who attempted in parhament to
proceed in other business than that limited by the king were traitors ; and
that parliamentary impeachments of the king's officers were treasonable.
These answers were now declared "good and lawful," by the subservient
Lords and Commons. The king then gives a general pardon for all offences,
in consideration of a subsidy having been granted him for life ; and sweeps
away the small remaining power of the Lords and Commons, by nominating
certain nobles and commoners to legislate upon "all petitions, and matters
contained in the same, as they shall think best by their good advice
and discretion." Thereupon the king, by the assent of eight lords
and three commoners, makes certain ordinances and statutes upon
matters of general import to the safety of the realm and the good of
the people.* Nothing further could be desired to render Eichard the
king absolute. The junta thus created superseded parliamentary government
altogether. The mode in which this revolution was accomplished was by such a pro
ceeding as we know in modern times as a coup-d'etat. With consummate
duplicity, Eichard, on the 10th of July, 1397, had the earl of Warwick to
dine with him, and the same evening Warwick was arrested and sent to
Tintagel Castle, in Cornwall. The archbishop of Canterbury was solicited
to bring his brother, the earl of Arundel, to a conference with the king. The
earl was seized at this conference, and was hurried away to Carisbrook Castle,
Eichard having promised, upon oath, that he should not be injured in person
or property. The great blow was still to be struck. The Eolls of parliament
say that the duke of Gloucester was arrested at his castle of Plashy, when
he came forth in procession, humbly to meet the king. The account which
* " Statutes of the Realm, from Original Records," &c., vol. ii. p. 94.

30 MURDER OF GLOUCESTER. [1397
Froissart gives of the duke's arrest is somewhat differerit ; but is very con
sonant with the sudden boldness and habitual cunning which belonged to the
character of Eichard. The king set out from London, as if he were going to
hunt. He rode to Havering Bower in Essex ; and after dinner again went
forward, with a small company, till he came to Plashy, about five o'clock in the
afternoon. The duke of Gloucester had supped ; and when he heard of the
king's coming he went forth, with his duchess and his children, to meet him
m the court and welcome him. The king entered into the haU, and then into
a chamber, where a supper was laid for him. But he sate not long, but said,
" Fair uncle, cause five or six horses of yours to be saddled, for I will pray you
to ride with me to London, for to-morrow the Londoners will be before us,
and upon their requests I wiU be ordered by your counsel." On the way,
the king rode on a great pace, when he came to a place where he had placed
his earl marshal in ambush. The duke was arrested in the king's name on
that July night. " He cried after the king, yet the king made a deaf ear,
and rode on before." Eichard lodged that night in the Tower of London.
Gloucester was hurried to a barge in the Thames, and then into a ship, and
the next night was in safe keeping at Calais.
The proceedings of the king appear to have struck terror into the hearts
of those who were bound to Gloucester bythe ties of the nearest relationship,
and of those who had to dread the king's revenge upon themselves for the
proceedings of 1387. By constraint or artifice they put their seals to an
instrument appealing Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick of treason. On the
17th of September Eichard met his subservient parliament. The assembly,
according to an anonymous authority, was surrounded by the king's troops.*
The Commons impeached the archbishop of Canterbury of high treason, and
he was banished for life. The earl of Arundel was condemned, and beheaded.
The earl of Warwick was condemned, but his life was spared. A writ was
issued on the 21st of September to the earl marshal, governor of Calais, com
manding him to bring his prisoner, the duke of Gloucester, before the king in
parliament. On the 24th — a wonderfully short interval for an answer to be
returned in those days — a letter was read from the earl marshal, who wrote
tbat he could not produce the duke, for that he had died in the king's prison.
No inquiry was made; no surprise expressed. Lancaster and York, his
brothers — Derby, his nephew, — appear to have yielded without resistance to
the o'er-passing tyranny. The lords, who were so ready to condemn — the
traitors of ten years previous, themselves having participated in the publicly
pardoned treason^were rewarded by new honours. Derby was created duke
of Hereford ; and Nottingham duke of Norfolk. A confession of Gloucester
was read, which had reference to the proceedings which procured the com
mission of regency, and to those solely. And yet his own brothers joined in
pronouncing his attainder of treason. There is no solution of these incon
sistencies but the fact that Eichard " kept in his wages ten thousand archers."
Shakspere truly makes the widowed duchess of Gloucester attribute the
" patience " of Lancaster and York to " despair."
Eichard is now supreme. He wants no parliament to grant him subsidies.
* "Life of Richard IL," published by Heame. See Hallam, "Middle Ages," chap, viii
part iii.

1398.] QUARREL OP HEREFORD AND NORFOLK. 31
He is provided with taxes for the term of his life. He has no dread of
remonstrances against his profligate expenditure. It is treason of any person
to suggest the necessity of control. Some of those whom he most dreads
have been executed, or murdered, or banished. One more act of bold
tyranny was necessary for the quiet of his suspicions, — " imaginative prince
as he was." * " The king kept still in his wages ten thousand archers, night
and day that waited on him ; " and " there was none so great in England that
durst speak against anything that the king did or would do." But although
" the people durst not speak," there were " many great lords who would
speak and murmur when they were together." t Of such were Hereford
and Norfolk. They were the only two who remained of the lords appellant,
who had given such dire offence in the eleventh year of Eichard. They
were riding between Brentford and London, when they began to speak in
whispered inuendoes. What they said was divulged to Eichard. Of this
treachery Hereford has been suspected. Norfolk was sent for by the
king, and commanded to declare before the council what had passed. The
obsequious parliament had been adjourned to Shrewsbury, where tney met
in January, 1398. Hereford was now called upon to declare what was the
talk between Norfolk and himself. Norfolk did not attend. According
to Hereford's written account, as given in the Eolls of parliament, the
following was the discourse in that ride between Brentford and London :
Norfolk. " We are on the point of being undone."
Sereford. "Why so?"
Norf. " On account of the affair of Eadcotbridge."
Seref. " How can that be, since he has granted us pardon, and has
declared in parliament that we behaved as good and loyal subjects."
Iforf. " Nevertheless, our fate wiU be like that of others before us. He
will annul that record."
Seref. " It will be marvellous indeed, if the king, after having said so
before the people, should cause it to be annulled."
Nbrf. "It is a marvellous and false world that we live in."
Norfolk then related a plot of certain of the king' s council to undo six
other lords, amongst whom were Lancaster, Hereford, and himself.
Seref. " God forbid ! It will be a wonder, if the king should assent
to such designs. He appears to make me good cheer, and has promised to
be my good lord. Indeed, he has sworn by St. Edward to be a good lord to
me and the others."
Norf. " So has he often sworn to me by God's body : but I do not trust
him the more for that."
After this, Norfolk surrendered. The two dukes knelt before the king,
and Norfolk said, " My dear lord, with your leave, if I may answer your
cousin, I say Henry of Lancaster is a liar ; and iu what he has said, and
would say, of me, lies like a false traitor as he is." Both were ordered into
custody ; and it was resolved that the dispute should be referred to a Court
of Chivalry. The Court sat at Windsor. Hereford would not withdraw his
statement. Norfolk persisted in his peremptory denial. Wager of battle could
alone determine the quarrel ; and the judgment of God was to be appealed to,
in the lists of Coventry, on the 16th of September.
* Froissart. + Ihid.

32

CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY.

[1395.

To that ancient city, the favourite seat of the Black Prince, comes his
son, with aU the magnificent retinue which exhibited the feudal pomp without
its ancient prowess. The silken pavilions are bright with the gaudiest
colours. The king, surrounded by
nobles, and guarded by thousands of
men in harness, sits on an elevated stage.
Henry of Lancaster makes the sign of
the cross on his forehead ; and entering
the lists, alights from his horse, and
takes his velvet chair. Thomas Mowbray
hovers about the lists, and then enters
crying — God aid him that hath the
right. They have each previously sworn
that this quarrel is just and true. The
heralds make proclamation. The
champions are mounted. Tbe beavers
are closed, and the spears are in rest.
But the king casts down his warder,
and the heralds shout. Ho ! Ho ! Here
ford and Norfolk will not fight that
Ancient gate of Coventry. ^^y. The king affects to cousult his
council; and the dangerous combatants are each banished, Hereford for ten
years, Norfolk for life.*
Upon the departure of Hereford and Norfolk from the kingdom, Eichard
appears to have pursued the most reckless course. In the face of his declared
amnesty for all offences, he extorted fines from seventeen counties, to whose
population he imputed crimes connected with the levying arms in 1387.
Under forced confessions of treason done at that period, he compelled rich
individuals to give blank obligations, which his officers filled up with large
sums, having uo limitation but their despotic caprice. The ordinary course
of justice was interrupted. Eobbers in great companies kept the fields and
highways, despoiling merchants, and plundering the cultivators of their pro
duce. The people said—" In the days of good king Edward III. there was
no man so hardy in England to take a hen, or a chicken, or a sheep, without
he had paid truly for it ; and now-a-days all that we have is taken from us, and
yet we dare not speak." They complained that they had a king who attended
to nothing but his own pleasure ; and cared not how things went as long as
he had his will. Thus writes Froissart, who is generally more tender towards
Eichard than other contemporary chroniclers. But it was not only the
common people who complained ; — the nobles showed their displeasure by
ominous avoidance of the regal pageantries. At this juncture, John of
Gaunt, the duke of Lancaster, died. He did not survive the banishment of
his son more than three months. The king was perfectly aware of the deep
love which the Londoners and the nation generally bore tow_ards Hereford,
whose popular demeanour had won their hearts. Thousands waited on him
weeping when ho rode out of London. And yet Eichard chose this time to
seize upon the property of that powerful house ; and to decree that the
banishment of Hereford had rendered him incapable of succeeding by attorney
* See the pompous description of the Lists of Coventry, in Hall's Chronicle

1399.]

RICHARD SEIZES THE POSSESSIONS OF LANCASTER.

33

to the estates of his father, revoking the letters-patent which had been
granted to enable the son to claim livery of his inheritance, should his
father die during the period of his banishment. No crime had been imputed
to Hereford. He was banished by the arbitrary will of the king, who, first
decreeing his exile for a term of ten years, had subsequently revoked the
sentence to an exile of six years. In the spring of 1399 Eichard suddenly
determined to go to Ireland, to avenge the loss of the earl of March, who
had been surprised and slain by a party of the natives. He previously pro
claimed a great tournament at Windsor, of forty knights and forty esquires

Tournament.
against all comers. The king and his child-queen sat there in more than
wonted splendour ; but few came to the feast, whether " lords, or knights, or
other men, for they had the king in such hatred." Then Eichard appointed
his uncle, the dake of York, regent ; and he parted with Isabella at the door
of St. George's chapel, where tbey had heard mass ; lifting her up in his
arms, and kissing her, and saying, " Adieu, madam, adieu, tiU we meet again."
The Londoners were prophetic. They said, " Now goeth Eichard of Bordeaux
the way to Bristow, and so into Ireland, which will be to his destruction. He
shaU never return again with joy, no more than did king Edward the Second
his great grandfather, who was foolishly governed by too much believing of the
Spensers. In Uke wise, Eichard of Bordeaux hath believed so much evil
counsel, that it cannot be holden nor suffered any longer." *
* Froissart.

34 RICHARD IN IRELAND. [1399,
At the beginning of the year 1399, Henry of Lancaster is at the court of
France. Although he has been banished by Eichard, the son-in-law of the
French king, he is in favour with Charles Vl., and the princes and nobles.
With the duke of Orleans he has entered into a compact for mutual support
in aU their undertakings. He seeks in marriage the widowed daughter of the
duke de Berri ; Mary de Bohun, the mother of Henry of Monmouth, and of
five other children, being dead ; and his pretensions are favourably received.
The king of England grows jealous of his cousin's influence, and sends the
earl of Salisbury to hinder the marriage, denouncing Henry as a traitor. The
marriage is postponed. It is found that the son of John of Gaunt, although
now duke of Lancaster, has nothing but his bare title to offer to a princess of
Prance. At this juncture a pilgrim monk arrives in Paris, and obtains
an interview with Henry. It is the banished Arundel, archbishop of
Canterbury, who has travelled thus disguised from Cologne. He brings
intelligence of great import from England. Eichard is gone to Ireland. He
has quarreled with the Percies, and has decreed their banishment. Nobles
and Commons are alike discontented. The duke and the ex-prelate unite
their fortunes. They pass together into Brittany ; hire three small vessels ;
and with no fiirther aid than that of the son of the late earl of Arundel, and
a few men-at-arms and servants, sail from Vannes, and land at Eavenspur,
in Yorkshire, on the 4th of July.
At the midsummer of 1399, king Eichard is leading a large army into
the Irish bogs and thickets, to chastise the presumption of some of the chiefs.
As he advances, they retreat ; and draw him on till provisions fail, and the
murmurs of his men compel him to march back. The usual accompaniments
of the earlier feudal wars are not wanting. By command of the king every
thing is set on fire. The pageantries of chivalry are also displayed in the
Irish deserts. Henry of Monmouth, a boy of eleven years old, is with the
army ; and he, with others, is knighted by Eichard. But the Irish chief,
Mac-More, wOl submit to no terms ; and the king, " pale with anger," swears
by St. Edward that he would never depart from Ireland tiU he had Mac-
More in his power, alive or dead. He marches to Dublin, having accom
plished nothing by his expedition. Here the king and his retinue now live
in great plenty and magnificence for six weeks. No news has arrived from
England, for the winds have been contrary. At last, as an eye-witness teUs
us, " a barge arrived, which was the occasion of much sorrow." * Henry of
Lancaster is in England. The people are in insurrection. Towns and castles
have been yielded to the invader. Eichard again grows " pale with anger ; "
and exclaims, " Good Lord, this man designs to deprive me of my country."
A council is held, and the earl of Salisbury is dispatched to raise the Welsh.
He landed at Conway ; and soon collected a considerable force. Eichard,
irresolute, remained eighteen days longer at Dublin. When he put his foot
upon Wales the revolution was nearly accomplished.
When the duke of York had knowledge of the landing of Henry at
Eavenspur, he assembled the retainers of the crown, and raised a numerous
force. But he found a general disaffection, instead of a willingness to
* "Histoire dn Roy d'Angleterre Richard. Composfe par un gentlehom'e Francois de marque,
qui fut a la suite du diet Roy." This manuscript of the French knight, which bears the date of
1399, is published in the " Archsaologia," vol. xx., with a translation.

13911.] HEURY OF LANCASTER LANDS IN ENGLAND. 85
oppose the duke of Lancaster. The signs of approaching change were so
alarming, that three members of the committee of parliament, who had been
most obnoxious to the people — the earl of Wiltshire, Bussy, and
Green— fled to Bristol. York led his doubtful army westward. The
• road to London was open from the north. Lancaster, when he arrived
at the capital, had sixty thousand followers. " The people of London,"
says Froissart, "were so joyful of the earl's coming, that there was
no more working in London that day than an it had been Easter-day."
Lancaster tarried not for feasts and gratulations. He marched rapidly
into the west ; and at Berkeley met the duke of York. Either the
force of Henry was so overpowering, or his professions so plausible, that
resistance or argument were unavailing ; for the interview ended in the regent
espousing his cause. Together they marched to Bristol, the castle of which
was surrendered to the duke of York. The next morning the earl of Wilt
shire, Bussy, and Green, were executed without a trial. York remained at
Bristol. Henry marched on to Chester. Eichard, meanwhile, had landed
somewhere in Wales. But the troops which he brought with him quickly
abandoned him. The army which the earl of Salisbury had raised had dis
persed, there being " no tidings of the king." With a few followers Eichard
wandered from castle to castle ; and at length found a resting-place at
Conway. His brothers, Exeter and Surrey, were dispatched to Chester, to
ascertain Lancaster's resolves. He prevented their return, having obtained
a knowledge of the place where the king was to be found. The earl of
Northumberland undertook to secure him. He marched from Chester with
men-at-arms and archers ; took possession of the castles of Flint and Ehudd-
lan as he advanced; and, approaching Conway, concealed his forces behind a
rock, and rode forward with a few attendants. Admitted into the castle, he
proposed certain conditions to the king, which were willingly agreed to, as
they impaired not his royal authority ; and to the observance of these
Northumberland swore. It was promised that Lancaster should come to
Flint, and having asked pardon on his knees, should be restored to the
estates and honours of his family. The earl left Conway to prepare for this
interview at Flint, and the king followed him. Descending a steep hiU,
Eichard suddenly exclaimed, " I am betrayed. Do you not see banners and
pennons in that valley?" Northumberland then came up, and seized the king's
bridle. In the evening the prisoner and his escort reached Flint Castle.
The next morning Eichard went upon a tower to watch for the arrival of
Lancaster ; and when he saw him coming along the sea-shore, with his mighty
host, he shuddered and wept. Lancaster entered the castle. The French
knight, who was present, has recorded what then took place. "Then they made
the king, who had dined in the donjon, come down to meet duke Henry, who,
as soon as he perceived him at a distance, bowed very low to the ground ; and,
as they approached each other, he bowed a second time, with his cap in his
hand ; and then the king took off his bonnet, and spake first, in this manner :
' Fair cousin of Lancaster, you are right welcome.' Then duke Henry replied,
bowing very low to the ground — ' My lord, I am come sooner than you sent
for me ; the reason wherefore I will teU you. The common report of your
people is such, that you have, for the space of twenty or two-and-twenty years,
governed them very badly and very rigorously, and in so much that they are
D 2

30

CAPTIVITY OF RICHARD.

[1399.

not well contented therewith. But, if it please our Lord, I will help you to
govern them better than they have been governed in time past.' King
Eichard then answered him, ' Fair cousin, since it pleaseth you, it pleaseth us
well.' And be assured that these are the very words that they two spake
together, without taking away or adding anything: for I heard and under
stood them very well."
The French knight then relates the progress of the captive and his enemy
from Flint to Chester, and from Chester to London. At Chester Henry
dismissed many of his followers. At Lichfield Eichard attempted to escape
by night, letting himself down through a window of the tower where he
lodged. The knight then records, what Froissart also mentions as having
previously occurred, that Henry told a deputation of Londoners, who demanded

Tlie Tower, from the Thames.
the head of the king, that the king should be judged by the parliament.
Slowly the cavalcade advanced by the north road, till, on the 1st of September,
they came within six miles of London. Here they were met by the mayor
and principal citizens ; and as they went on the people shouted, " Long live
the duke of Lancaster." They entered the city at the hour of vespers ; and
Henry alighted at St. Paul's, and went all armed before the high altar to
make his orisons. He wept much at the tomb of his father. The king was
lodged in the Tower.
During a sojourn of three days at Chester, writs had been issued in the

1399.] DEPOSITION OP RICHARD. 37
king's name to summon a parliament on the 30th of September. A month of
captivity had to be passed by tbe unhappy Eichard. There is a manuscript
iu the Eoyal Library of France which details an interview beween the
king and Lancaster in the Tower, at which York and Aumerle were present,
when Eichard in a violent rage exclaimed, " I am king, and will stiU continue
king in spite of my enemies." But this passionate and irresolute nature was
quickly subdued. On the 29th of September, according to an entry on the
EoUs of parli.iment, Eichard, in the presence of nobles and prelates, knights
and justices, subscribed a deed of resignation of the crown ; absolving his
subjects from their allegiance ; and adding that if he had the will he would
choose his cousin of Lancaster as his successor. Froissart thus describes the
surrender. " On a day the duke of Lancaster, accompanied with lords,
dukes, prelates, earls, barons, and knights, and of the notablest men of London,
and of other good towns, rode to the Tower, and there alighted. Then
king Eichard was brought into the hall, appareled like a king in his
robes of estate, his sceptre in his hand, and his crown on his head.' Then
he stood up alone, not holden nor stayed by no man, and said aloud, ' I
have been king of England, duke of Aquitaine, and lord of Ireland, about
twenty-two years, which signiory, royalty, sceptre, crown, and heritage,
I clearly resign here to my cousin, Henry of Lancaster ; and I desire
him here, in this open presence, in entering of the same possession, to
take this sceptre : ' and so delivered it to the duke, who took it."
The parliamentary record most suspiciously adverts to the cheerfulness
with which Eichard made this surrender. Henry, a few years after
wards, was denounced by Northumberland as having compelled the king
thus to abdicate under threats of death. The parliament met on the
30th of September, in Westminster Hall, which was crowded by people
of all ranks. The throne was empty. The duke of Lancaster sat in his
place as a peer. The resignation of the king was read ; and each member
expressed aloud his acceptance of it, amidst the shouts of the multitude.
The Act of deposition was next read. The articles of impeachment were
thirty-three in number. All the circumstances connected with the events of
1387-8 were now objected to the king. The murder of the duke of Gloucester
was imputed to him, as well as the convictions of Arundel, Warwick, and
others, — the banishment of Henry, and the seizure of his estates. His
despotic tendencies were affirmed, for that when he was asked to do justice
according to the laws, he would say, that "his laws were in his mouth," —
that "the laws were in his breast," — that " he himself alone could make and
change the laws of his kingdom;" and that he maintained that the life of
every one of his subjects, and his lands and goods, were at his will and
pleasure, without any forfeiture. It was added that he was " so variable
and dissembling in his words and writings, that nO man living, who knew his
conditions, could or would confide in him;" and that his unfaithfulness and
inconstancy were scandalous to himself and to the kingdom, especially
amongst foreigners. After the reading of this voluminous document, the
Act of deposition was solemnly pronounced by eight commissioners. Henry
then approached the throne ; and, having crossed himself, in the language of
England thus said : " In the name of Fader, Son, and Holy Ghost, I, Henry
of Lancaster, chalenge this rewme of Ynglonde, and the crown with all the

38

HENRY CLAIMS THE KINGDOM.

[ISCB

members, and the appurtenances, als I that am descendit, be right line of the
blode, comying fro the gude lord king Henry therde, and thorghe that right
that God of his grace hath sent mee, with helpe of my kyn, and of my frendes
to recover it ; the which rewme was in poynt to be ondone for defaut of
governance, and undoyng of the gude laws."* Henry of Lancaster was
then led by the archbishops of Canterbury and York to the royal chair of
state, " all the people wonderfully shouting for joy."
In his prison of the Tower the deposed Eichard had to go through one
more humiliation. On the day after his deposition. Sir WiUiam Thirnyng,
one of the justices, with, other procurators, came before him, and said, that in
an assembly of all the States at Westminster, they declared and decreed and
judged him to be deprived of the estate of king, and of all the dignity and
worship, and of all the administration that belonged thereto. The broken-
down man mildly answered that, after all this, he hoped that his cousin would
be good lord to him. The murder of Thomas of Woodstock is now avenged.
But in that hour of retribution the grave closes over the evil fortunes of that
house. Humphrey, the only son of the duke of Gloucester, was with Eichard
in Ireland, in companionship with Henry of Monmouth. Upon the news of
Henry's landing they were both shut up in the castle of Trym. Henry was
released, to become Prince of Wales. Humphrey died before he reached
England. Eleanor Bohun, his desolate mother, sank under her accumulated
sorrows, four days after her husband's avenger ascended the throne.
* Parliamentary History, vol. i., p. 267.

Monumental Brass of Eleanor Bohun. Died 13li9.

Coronation of Heni-y IV. Harleian MS.

CHAPTER IIL
Hereditary pretensions of Henry of Lancaster to the crown — Edmund Mortimer — Conspiracy
against Henry defeated — Revolt of the Welsh — Owen Glendower — Alleged murder ol
Richard II. — Doubts as to his death at Poutefract — Statute against the Lollards — ¦
Burnings for heresy — Hostility of France and Scotland — Battle of Homildon-hill — Revolt
of the Percies — Battle of Shrewsbury — Revolt of Archbishop Scrope, Nottingham, and
others — Rival factions in France — The King's jealousy of the Prince of Wales —
Henry's death.

The claim to the crown which Henry of Lancaster made " in his mother
tongue," was a well considered form of words. The averment that "the
realm was on the point to be undone for default of government and undoing
of the good laws," was the true foundation of the deposition which the
parliament had pronounced upon Eichard. But the legal advisers of Henry
took care to introduce a statement of hereditary right : — " I, Henry of
Lancaster, challenge this realm of England, because I am descended, by
right line of the blood, coming from the good lord King Henry Third."
He took the same great seal as Eichard, with the single alteration of the
name on the legend. The badges of the House of Lancaster, — the crowned
and chained antelope, the swan, the red rose, and the columbine, — decorate
the Uluminated MSS. of the Lancastrian period. The claim of Henry was
equivocally put. Eichard being deposed, Henry was not the next in the line c^
inheritance, as the grandson of Edward III. The posterity of Lionel, duke

40 HEREDITARY PRETENSIONS OF HENRY OF LANCASTER. [1399.
of Clarence, the second son of Edward IIL, had a prior claim to that of the heir
of John of Gaunt, the third son. At the time of Eichard's deposition, the here
ditary claim of the Clarence branch was vested in Edmund Mortimer, earl of
March, who was the grandson of Philippa, the daughter of Lionel. But he was
only ten years of age. In the sermon which the archbishop of Canterbury
preached when the parliament deposed Eichard and chose Henry, he took for
his text, " A man shall reign over my people ; " and he descanted on the
theme, that when the King of Kings threatened his people, he said, " I wiU
make children to rule over them." Nothing could more distinctly point to the
young earl of March. John of Gaunt, when Eoger Mortimer, in 1385, was
declared presumptive heir to the throne, asserted that his own son was the
true heir, as descended from Edmund Crouchback, the eldest son of Henry IIL,
who was set aside on account of his deformity. This claim by blood from
"the good king Henry Third," would have stood Henry of Lancaster in little
avail, had he not been known as a man of vigour and ability ; at the head of a
powerful army ; supported by the chief nobles ; the favourite of the people.
Edmund Mortimer, set aside by the revolution of 1399, died without issue in
1424. He had a sister, Anne, who married the second son of Edmund
Langley, duke of York ; and in her son arose the pretension to the crown of
the house of York. The chronicler. Hall, quaintly, but most justly, said,
" What misery, what murder, and what execrable plagues this famous region
hath suffered by the division and dissension of the renowned houses of Lan
caster and York, my wit cannot comprehend, nor my tongue declare, neither
yet my pen fully set forth." This is the tragical story that arises out of the
deposition of Eichard II. It is a story well known to the English people,
for it has been told in the dramatic form by a great historical teacher. His
tory, strictly so called, — the history derived from EoUs and Statutes — must
" pale its ineffectual fire " in the sunlight of the poet.
When the deposed Eichard hoped that his cousin would be " good lord to
him," he hoped for an impossibility. To retain some portion of his state, to
be served by an expensive household, to appear in public, would have been
fatal to the quiet rule of the house of Lancaster. To permit him to reside
abroad would have bcbn dangerous to the safety of the kingdom. The. Lords
in parliament attempted to meet the difficulty, by a resolution, which was to
be kept secret, that it seemed advisable to them that the late king should be
put under a safe and secret guard, in a place where no concourse of people
might resort to him ; and with no attendant who had been familiar to him
about his person. When the question was put to the Lords, the earl of ~
Northumberland said, "the king would "lave his life saved." It is related
that, on this occasion, Thomas Merks, bishop of Carlisle, delivered a speech
protesting against the deposition of Eichard and the accession of Henry.*
Four days afterwards, the king came to parliament ; and it was determined
that Eichard, late king of England, should be adjudged to perpetual imprison
ment, in safe and secret ward. Froissart truly says, " every man might well
consider that he should never come out of prison alive." In the parliament
of October, 1399, all the old hatreds and jealousies were revived, in the dis
cussion of the conduct of the lords who had appealed Gloucester Arundel
* The speech is given by Sir John Hayward, who wrote during the reigns of Elizabeth and
James I. Its authenticity is very doubtful.

1400.] CONSPIRACY AGAINST HENRY. 41
and Warwick of treason. The most violent disputes took place. The terms,
so odious to honourable ears, of " liar " and "traitor," were freely exchanged;
and gauntlets were thrown on the floor of the house. The lords appellants
lost the honours and the lands which Eichard had bestowed on them for their
subserviency. But they escaped all other punishment. The duke of
Albemarle (Aumerle) sank down to Earl of Eutland ; aud the dukes of
Exeter and Surrey, Eichard's half-brothers, to earls of Huntingdon and
Kent. Violent as this parliament was, it wisely sought to restrain future
violence. It limited treason to the offences enumerated in the Act of
Edward IIL, in which that chief crime against civil government was taken
out of the hands of the king's justices, and "what are treasons" was
declared in parliament. It referred the accuser in a case of treason to the
courts of law, abolishing those appeals of treason which had been productive
of such evil effects. It forbade any delegation of the powers of parliament
to a committee. It tried to restrain the quarrels of great nobles, by forbid
ding any person, except the king, to give liveries to his' retainers. All this
was indicative that the reign of justice was come back. In less than three
months, in a confederacy of nobles, it was determined to attempt the restora
tion of Eichard, and to drive Henry from power. The plot became known
to the vigilant king, disclosed to him unwillingly by Eutland, who was one
of the confederates. Windsor castle was surprised ; but the forewarned
Henry was in London levying an army. The conspirators marched to the
west, proclaiming king Eichard. At Cirencester, they were attacked in their
quarters by the burghers ; and the earls of Kent and Salisbury were seized
and beheaded. The citizens of Bristol, in the same way, secured and executed
lord Lumley and lord Despenser. Huntingdon was put to death by the
tenants of the duke of Gloucester at Plashy. The popular attachment to
Henry was thus signally manifested. There were a few executions under
the legal judgment of the courts of law. The insurrection was at the begin
ning of January. Before the expiration of a month it was stated that the
late king had died at Poutefract. The body was conveyed to London, and
there shown, with the face exposed, so that those who knew Eichard might
identify him. The obsequies of the deposed king were performed in St.
Paul's, Henry being present ; and the corpse was subsequently interred at
Langley. Henry V., upon coming to the throne, caused it to be removed to
Westminster Abbey.
During the latter years of the reign of Eichard, however distasteful his
rule might have been in England, there was a strong attachment to him in
Wales. When he sailed from Ireland to meet his enemy, he landed in
Wales, confident that he should there find a powerful army. His procrasti
nation alone caused the dispersion of that army. The Statute-book shows
how obnoxious was the revolution of 1399 to the Welsh borderers. A par
liament was held at Westminster in the second year of Henry's reign,
1400-1, when the Commons complained of the ravages of the Welsh in the
countries joining upon the marches of Wales, by carrying off cattle and
arresting merchants. Various strong measures were then enacted, quite
sufficient in their severe injustice to produce a general revolt. It was not
enough to sanction reprisals upon Welsh property and persons ; but it was
ordained, that no Welshman should be permitted to purchase land in
VOL. II. D

i2

REVOLT OF THE WELSH UNDER GLENDOWER.

[1401.

England, and that no "whole Englishman" should be convicted at the suit
of any Welshman within Wales, except by the judgment of English justices.
To make the separation of the two nations complete, it was also ordained
that no Welshman should be thenceforth chosen to be citizen or burgess in
any English city or town. The next year, another parliament passed more
stringent measures ; amongst which it was enacted that no Welshman should
bear arms nor ' defensible armour. The country was in insurrection; the
Welsh had found a leader. " It is ordained and stablished that no English
man married to any Welshwoman of the amity and alliance of Owen of
Gleindour, traitor to our sovereign lord, or to any other Welshwoman after
the rebellion of the said Owen, shall be put in any office in Wales, or in the
marches of the same."
Owen of Gleindour, — or as we now write, Owen Glendower, — ^was one of
the most remarkable men of this period. Claiming descent from the ancient
British princes, being the great-grandson of the famous Llewellyn, he might
still have remained a peaceful landowner in Wales, but for the deposition of
the master whom he had served as an esquire of his household. Educated
at one of the Inns of Court in London, he possessed an amount of knowledge
which made him regarded as a necromancer by his simple countrymen. His
property was contiguous to that of Lord Grey de Euthyn ; and the Anglo-
Norman baron claimed and seized some portion of it. Glendower petitioned
the parliament of 1400 for redress. His petition was dismissed by the peers,
with the scornful answer, that " they cared not for barefooted rascals." * He
took arms ; made Lord Grey his prisoner ; and wasted his barony. But the
private feud became a national revolt. The mountains
again heard the bardic songs, which were applied to the
new hero who had arisen to restore the glory of the
ancient Britons. Henry thought to stop the popular
voice by decreeing that " no waster, rhymer, minstrel,
nor vagabond, be any wise sustained in the land of
Wales." The Welsh scholars of Oxford and Cambridge
departed to their own country, in 1401, to aid the re
bellion ; and the Welsh labourers employed in England
escaped to join their countrymen. Owen Glendower, by
the general voice of the people, was declared Prince of
Wales. Before the rebellion had attained any very
extensive organisation, Harry Percy (Hotspur) and
Seaiof Owen Glendower. Prince Hcury, worc engaged in different parts of the
country against the insurgents. Henry of Monmouth, in
1401, was in his fourteenth year. His command in Wales could have been only
nominal ; and we are glad therefore to believe t'lat a letter of this period,
addressed in his name to the council, was a mere official communication. The
boy is made to say, describing his triumphal progress, — " We caused the whole
place to be set oufire." — " We laid waste a fine and populous country." This
is learning the lessons of chivalry at a very early age. He continued, however,
in authority, but was much straitened in his slaughter and burnings for
want of money to pay his archers and men-at-arms. In 1402, Sir Edmund
Mortimer, uncle to the young earl of March, went against Glendower ; aud
* "Se de Bourris nudipedibus non curare." — Leland.

1401.] ALLEGED MURDER OF RICHARD IL 43
his army being utterly routed in Eadnorshire he was taken prisoner. The
king now determined to go in person, " to chock the insolencies and malice
of Owen Glendower and other rebels." His expedition was fruitless. The
royal army, in the month of August, was exposed to storms of rain, snow, and
hail ; and Glendower was alleged to have raised them by his wicked sorcery.
That autumn the sagacious Welshman defied all the power of England in his
mountain fastnesses. In the succeeding winter, his prisoner, Edmund Mortimer,
became his friend and ally. Henry, with that jealousy which formed a part
of his character, refused to ransom his "beloved cousin;" and Mortimer
consoled himself by marrying the great Welsh chieftain's daughter. On the
13th of December, 1402, he writes thus to his tenants : " Very dear and well-
beloved, I greet you much, and make known to you that Owen Glyndor has
raised a quarrel, of which the object is, if King Eichard be alive, to restore
him to his crown ; and if not, that my honoured nephew, who is the right heir
to the said crown, shall be king of England, and that the said Owen will
assert his right in Wales. And I, seeing and considering that the said quarrel
is good and reasonable, have consented to join in it, and to aid and maintain
it, and, by the grace of God, to a good end. Amen ! "
" If king Eichard be alive ! " It is nearly three years since king Eichard's
body was exposed in St. Paul's Church — a public act known to all the king
dom — and especially known to all such as Sir Edmund Mortimer. How can a
doubt now be raised, " if king Eichard be alive ? " In six months from the
date of this letter, a great host, headed by the Percies, will be looking for
Glendower to fight with them against king Henry ; and before they meet him
in Hateley-field near Shrewsbury, they will denounce the usurping king as a
murderer in the following words : " Thou hast caused our sovereign lord and
thine, traitorously within the castle of Pomfret, without the consent or judg
ment of the lords of the realm, by the space of fifteen days and so many
nights, with hunger, thirst, and cold, to perish." How are these contradictions
to be solved ? For years, Henry had to struggle against two popular beliefs.
The first, and the most natural, was, that he had put Eichard to death. That
Ibe died by violence is highly probable. His removal would add much to the
safety of his successor ; and every opportunity was afforded by his secret
imprisonment to effect this removal by the foulest means. Thus Henry was
publicly accused by the Percies of having procured Eichard's death by star
vation. The duke of Orleans, in 1403, in a letter to Henry, insinuated that
he was guilty of the murder, and the king replied : " With regard to that
passage in your letter where you speak of the death of our very dear cousin
and lord, whom God absolve, saying ' God knows how it happened, and ly
whom that death was done,' we know not with what intent such words are
used ; but if you mean and dare to say that his death was caused by our order,
or with our consent, we say that is false, and you will say what is false as often
as you shall say so ; as the true God knows, whom we call to vritness : offering
• our body against yours in single combat, if you will or dare to prove it." In
• an age when the appeals of kings to heaven were occasionally of no more value
' than " dicers' oaths," this will not go for much. An account from a contem-
i porary states that Sir Pierce Exton, with a band of assassins, entered his prison
i' at Poutefract, and that Eichard, seizing a battle-axe, fell bravely fighting with
> unequal numbers. Some years ago Eichard's tomb was opened in Westminster

44 DOUBTS AS TO THE DEATH OF RICHARD. [1401.
Abbey, and no marks of violence appeared on his skull, on which the contem
porary relates that he received his death-wound. Walsingham, the chronicler,
affirms as common rumour that Eichard died by voluntary starvation.
Froissart says, " how Eichard died, and by what means, I could not tell when
I wrote this chronicle." The question is no nearer its solution after four cen
turies and a half. The other popular belief, the most embarrassing to Henry,
was, that Eichard had escaped from Pontefract, and was living in Scotland.
For several years there were proclamations against those who spread this
rumour, and some were punished by death for this offence. The belief gra
dually passed away from the popular mind ; and the chroniclers explain that
a man named Serle, a servant to king Eichard, having heard that his old
master was alive in Scotland, came over from France, persuaded the court-
fool to personate the ex-king, and was eventually executed as a traitor for the
deception which had entrapped many persons into the confidence that Eichard
was coming to claim his crown! The fondness for " historic doubts " has
revived the belief in our own times. It is stated that Eichard's escape from
Pontefract is proved by documents in our Eecord Office ; that this escape was
effected in connection with the rising of 1400, in which he was prpclaimed by
the earls who afterwards suffered as traitors ; that there are entries in the
public accounts of Scotland of expenses for the custody of king Eichard of
England ; and that Eichard lived tiU 1419 in Stirling castle, in a state of
mental imbecility.* The vague and contradictory accounts of the manner of
Eichard's death by violence give some little sanction to the belief that he
was not murdered at all. But if we even accept the explanation, that
another body was substituted for Eichard's at St. Paul's on the 14th
of March, 1400, and that Henry and his court went through the
mummery of his false obsequies, we have still so many difficulties to recon
cile that we have little hesitation in believing that the Eichard of Stirling
castle was an impostor. The French believed in Eichard's death when the
son of the duke of Orleans married Isabella in 1406. In the same year the
Lords addressed Henry, praying that those might be put to prison who
preach and publish that Eichard, late king, who is dead, should be in fuU
life ; or that " the fool in Scotland " is that king Eichard who is dead.
However defective may be the evidence upon which impartial history
must condemn or acquit Henry IV. of the murder of Eichard IL, he must
bear the infamy of a political crime of broader and aeeper significance. He
was the first English king who put men to death by statute for their religious
belief. He came to the throne with almost the unanimous support of the
ecclesiastical hierarchy. Archbishop Arundel was his great upholder ; and
this primate made Henry his instrument for the destruction of those who
had assailed the corruptions of the Church. Henry's father had been a
supporter of Wycliffe. The son of John of Gaunt was to be the persecutor
of Wycliffe's followers. Henry was carried to the throne with the avowal
of popular principles. The lay barons and the Commons were opposed to
the pretensions of the Church to be above all inquiry — a dominant and
irresponsible power. But Henry knew the strength of a body that, according .
to an estimate of his time, possessed one-third of the revenues of the king..
* This belief which was first suggested by Mr. Tytler in his "History of Scotland," is fully
acquiesced in by the compiler of the very useful " Annals of England," vol. i. p. 400. 1855

liOl.] STATUTE AGAINST THE LOLLARDS. 4S
dom. In the first year of his reign was passed the Statute " De heretico
comburendo". — "the first statute and butcherly knife," says Prynne, "that
the impeaching prelates procured or had against the poor preachers of
Christ's gospel." The fiery persecution of archbishop Arundel was grounded
upon these charges : — " Whereas it is showed to our sovereign lord the king
on the behalf of the prelates and the clergy,* that divers false and perverse
people of a certain new sect, of the faith, of the sacraments of the church,
and the authority of the same damnably thinking, and against the law
of God and of the church usurping the office of preaching, do perversely and
maliciously in divers places within the said realm, under the colour of dis
sembled holiness, preach and teach these days openly and privily divers new
doctrines, and wicked heretical and erroneous opinions, contrary to the same
faith and blessed determinations of Holy Church ; and of such sect and
wicked doctrine and opinions they make unlawful conventicles and con
federacies, they hold and exercise schools, they make and write books, they
do wickedly instruct and inform people, and as much as they may excite and
stir them to sedition and insurrection, and make great strife and division
among the people, and other enormities horrible to be heard daily do perpe
trate and commit." The " convenient remedy " for such " novelties and
excesses " was that none should preach, write, or teach against the faith of
Holy Church ; that all having in their possession books or writings of such
wicked doctrines and opinions should deliver them up, or be arrested and
proceeded against by the diocesan ; and, finally, that if any persons be before
the diocesan charged with such wicked preachings and teachings, and should
refuse to abjure, or after abjuration fall into relapse, they should be left to
the secular court ; and the sheriff of a county, or mayor or bailiffs of a city or
borough, after sentence, shall receive the same persons, and every of them,
" and them, before the people, do [cause] to be burnt, that such punishment
may strike in fear to the minds of other." Vain and detestable law — the
parent of abominations that make the slaughters of the feudal ages, perpe
trated in the heat and self-defence of battle, appear guiltless by the side
of this deliberate wickedness in the name of the religion of mercy ! In this
hateful career Henry IV. was no impassive tool of the persecuting church
men. The first victim was William Salter, a London clergyman, who was
burnt on the 12th of February, 1401. The stake and the fagot were in fuU
activity, till the Commons shuddered at the atrocities which Englishmen had
now first to endure. In the reign of Eichard II. the Commons would not
permit that the Church should imprison heretics without the king's consent.
Now heretics were to be burnt, upon the sole sentence ot the ecclesiastical
courts. A petition of the Lords in 1406, which we have just referred to,
mixes up the charges of heresy against certain preachers and teachers with
the charge of publishing rumours that king Eichard was alive. This alleged
offence was a possible cause of the king's bitterness against them. But it
was also set forth in that petition that they stirred and moved the people to
take away their temporal possessions from the prelates ; and, it was added,
* "The petition and the statute are both in Latin, which is unusual in the laws of this time.
In a subsequent petition of the Commons this act is styled ' the statute made in the second year
of your majesty's reign, at the request of the prelates and clergy of your kingdom ; ' whieh
affords a presumption that it had no regular assent of parliament." — Hallam, "Middle Ages,"
chap. viii. part. iii.

46

HOSTILITY OF FRANCE AND SCOTLAND.

[1401

" in case that this evil purpose be not resisted by your royal majesty, it is
very likely that in process of time they wUl also excite the people of your
kingdom to take away from the lords temporal their possessions and
heritages." The Commons, who had also temporal possessions to lose, did
not share this apprehension. They prayed Henry in 1410, that the Statute
against the Lollards might be repealed, or even mitigated. He replied, that
he wished one more severe had been passed ; and to show how practical was
his intolerance, he immediately signed a warrant for the burning of John
Badby, a Lollard. The Commons deeply resented the temper of the king,
and refused to grant a subsidy to be levied yearly without their renewed
assent. But, in the reign of Henry V., a noble knight was burnt for
heresy ; and the " wicked doctrines " were thrown back for another century
and a half. In His own good time. He who " remaineth a king for ever"
asserts His own laws against the trumpery edicts of earthly kings. The
Lollards' dungeon at Lambeth is now a monument of the triumph of the
.Reformation.

'V

'I

1'

ir-_

-:at:

^*r" k

J* \hL. s^
.1!'

Lollards' Prison.
It was with no vague meaning that Shakspere put into the mouth of
Henry IV. the aphorism, " Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." His
reign was a period of continued assault and danger on every side. France
and Scotland refused to recognise Henry as the sovereign of England. Their
truces, they maintained, were with Eichard, and not with an usurper. With
France the king was anxiously desirous of peace. But the princes and
nobles of France, considering the deposition of Eichard as the act of the
people, were craving to punish a nation which they held as the most danger
ous on earth through its pride and insolence.* The king of France, subject
to partial attacks of insanity, had received a terrible shock by the announce-
ment of the events that had deprived his daughter of her queenly rank.
Isabella was conducted back to Calais with ceremonies almost as magnificent
* Froissart.
1402.] BATTLE OF HOMILDON-HILL. 47
as those which had attended her marriage five years before. But Henry,
straitened in his finances, did not send back with her the dower which Eichard
had received. The duke of Orleans was for commenqing hostilities against
Henry. The duke of Burgundy was more cautious. These rival uncles ot
the insane king, by their furious discords kept France in a state of disorder
and terror, which rendered the government incapable of any great enterprise.
Bordeaux, and other parts of Gascony, were still retained by the English
government, and these were attacked by the duke of Burgundy. But the
people clung to the English rule. In 1400, Henry invaded Scotland. He
marched to Edinburgh ; and left the usual mark of feudal royalty by burning
the city. In 1402, the Scots invaded England. Henry was chasing Glen
dower in the land of the ancient Britons, and attributing to necromancy the
ill success which courage and constancy had prepared for him. The Scottish
earl of March, who had abjured his allegiance to his own sovereign, had
defeated the invading Scots at Hepburn-moor. The earl Douglas came with a
great army to revenge the loss. They advanced beyond the Tyne, devastating
and plundering with more than usual fierceness and rapacitj^. But the earl
of Northumberland, his son Henry Percy, and the earl of March, had
collected a large force in their rear, and awaited their return near WooUer.
On Holyrood-day, the 14th of September, the Scots took up a strong position
on Homildon-hill. The English army was placed on an opposite eminence.
Percy commanded a descent into the valley ; and as the Scots lined the sides
of Homildon-hill, the English archers picked down their men with unerring
aim, while Douglas gave no order for advance. At last the Scots charged
down the steep, and the English retired a little. Again they halted, and
again the deadly shafts flew so sharp and strong that few could stand up
against the "iron sleet."- The English men-at-arms in this battle drew not a
sword. The victory was won by the terrible archers alone. Douglas and
many nobles and knights were made prisoners ; amongst whom was Murdoc
Stewart, the son and heir of the duke of Albany, the regent of Scotland.
The earl of Northumberland presented his illustrious prisoners to Henry, at
Westminster ; when the king exhorted Murdoc to be resigned to his captivity,
for he had been taken on the battle-field like a true knight. The notion that
Henry demanded tbe prisoners of Homildon-hill from the captors, that he
might deprive them of ransom, is an error which Shakspere derived from
HaU and Holinshed. It is distinctly proved that Henry reserved to the
captors all their rights. The revolt of the Percies was possibly accelerated
by the refusal of Henry to ransom Sir Edmund Mortimer, whose sister had
become the wife of Hotspur. But the probability is, that no sudden impulses
of passion excited their resistance to the authority of the man whom they
had seated on the throne. The king was so unconscious of having provoked
their resentment by any act of his own self-will, that the very army which
encountered them at Shrewsbury was led by him, " to give aid and support
to his very dear and loyal cousins, the earl of Northumberland and his son
Henry, in the expedition which they had honourably commenced for him and
his realm against his enemies the Scotch." * But the Percies had just cause
of complaint against the government of Henry, in a matter which involved
no jealousy of their power which had advanced him to the throne, as Hume
* Henry to the Privy Council. See preface by Sir H. Nicolas to " Privy Council of England."

48 ^ REVOLT OF THE PERCIES. [14U3.
describes the temper of the king. The Percies had incurred great expenses
in their resistance to the Scots; and the government of Henry had been
vnable to reimburse them. There are letters to the king and to the council
from the earl of Northumberland, in the summer of 1403, bitterly complain
ing of the non-payment of large sums due to him. There is a letter of the
same period from Henry's son, the prince of Wales, complaining that his
soldiers would not remain with him unless they were promptly paid their
wages ; and an order is made by the king in council, on the 10th of July,
1403, that a thousand pounds should be sent to the prince, to enable him to
keep his people together. It is clear that the king was surrounded by
financial embarrassments, which affected his own son as much as the Percies.
He satisfied the Percies as far as he could by small payments and large
promises. They probably saw in these embarrassments a symptom of the
weatness of Henry's government, and believed that the revolt of Glendower
would enable them, in conjunction with him, to establish a government
in which they should have a more supreme power than under the rule of
the politic Lancaster. They managed their plans with such caution, that
whilst the king was marching towards the north, expecting to join them in
Northumberland, Hotspur was marching through Lancashire and Cheshire,
proclaiming that Eichard was alive. At Burton-upon Trent, Henry heard
the news of the revolt. Within a week, he had fought the battle of
Shrewsbury. The prince of Wales was on the Welsh borders, and joined his forces to
those of his father before the army of Henry entered Shrewsbury, on the
20th of July. Hotspur had been joined by Douglas and his Scots ; and by
his uncle, the earl of Worcester, with a body of Cheshire archers. Glendower
was on his march from Carmarthenshire ; but the rapid movement of Henry
to the west brought the royal troops in the presence of the northern army
before the Welsh chieftain could unite his forces with those of his confe
derates. Under the walls of Shrewsbury lay the insurgents. They retired a
short distance to Hateley Field. The solemn defiance of the confederates was
sent to Henry during the night, denouncing him and his adherents as
" traitors, and subverters of the commonwealth and kingdom, and invaders,
oppressors, and usurpers, of the rights of the true and direct heir of England
and France."
Hateley Field is about three miles from Shrewsbury. It is a plain of no
large extent, with a gentle range of hills rising towards the Welsh border.
On that plain, where he had fought for his life and his crown, Henry after
wards caused a chapel to be built and endowed, wherein mass might be
chanted for the souls of those who died in that battle, and were there interred.
The mass is no longer there sung ; but there is the little chapel. As we
stand upon that quiet plain, — looking upon the eastern Haughmond hill,
" the husky hill " of Shakspere, and listen when " the southern wind doth
play the trumpet," — the words of the chronicler and the poet linger in our
memories ; and we think of that terrible hour, when " suddenly the trumpets
blew, and the king's part cried Sainct George ! and the adversaries cried
Esperance ! Percie ! and so, furiously, the armies joined." * The Northum
brian archers, who had done such terrible execution at Homildon-hiU, now
* Hall.

1408.]

BATTLE OF SHREWSBURY.

49

drew their bow-strings against their English brothers ; and the king's men
" fell as the leaves fall on the ground after a frosty night at the approach of
winter."* The troops of Henry recoiled before their slaughtering arrows,
and before the charge which Percy and Douglas led. Tbe prince of Wales
was wounded by an arrow in the face ; but the valiant youth continued to
fight where the battle was strongest. For three hours the field was con
tested with an obstinacy that marked the breed of the men who were fighting
against each other. " At the last, the king, crying Saint George ! Victory !
broke the array, and entered into the battle of his enemies, and fought
fiercely, and adventured so far into the battle, that the earl Douglas struck
him down, and slew sir Walter Blunt and three others appareled in the
king's suit and clothing." t The king was raised, and again " did that day
many a valiant feat of arms." Hotspur at length fell ; an arrow pierced his
brain. His death struck a panic terror into the hearts of his brave followers.
The straggling Welsh, who had joined the battle, fled to the woods and hills.
The gallant Douglas was taken prisoner, and few or none of his Scots escaped
alive. On that Hateley Field, where about fourteen thousand men were
engaged on each side, one half were killed or wounded. The earl of Wor
cester, the baron of Kenderton, and sir Eichard Vernon, were amongst the
prisoners delivered to the king. At the market-cross of Shrewsbury, where,
a hundred and twenty years before, prince David of Wales had been executed
as a traitor, Worcester, Kenderton, and Vernon paid the penalty of their
revolt, with the same horrible barbarities that were inflicted, for the first
time, upon the brother of Llewellyn. Tbe earl of Northumberland was
marching his retainers through Durham, when he received the news of the
death of his son and his brother ; and of the fatal issue of the sudden revolt
of his house. He hurried back to his castle of Warkworth, and disbanded

Bis men. The earl was commanded to appear before the king at York.
Henry was too politic to be unnecessarily severe ; and the elder Percy
escaped, even without a forfeiture.

* Walsingham.

+ HaU.

50 REVOLT OF ARCHBISHOP SCROPE AND OTHERS. [1405.
But, in the midst of this great success, the government of Henry had a
constant fight to maintain against numerous enemies. The people of Eng
land were subjected to various miseries by the opposition that was raised to
the Lancastrian rule. The French landed in Wales, and burnt Tenby.
Plymouth was burnt by ships from Brittany. Devonshire was harassed by
descents on the coast. Eeprisals, of course, took place ; and the dweller^
on the French shores of the Channel had to endure the same sort o.f
visitations. In 1404, Glendower had so successfully asserted his power,
that the French government concluded a treaty with him as " Owen, prince
of Wales." Henry of Monmouth was doing his duty as the represen
tative of his father in the Welsh borders. On the 11th of March, 1405,
he obtained a considerable victory at Grosmont. But this success had no deci
sive result. The king was again about to enter the Principality with a large
force, when a new revolt broke out in the north of England. The earl of
Northumberland, the earl of Nottingham, Lord Bardolf, and Scrope, arch
bishop of York, confederated to place the earl of March on the throne. He
and his brother had been delivered from their honourable imprisonment at
Windsor by the skilful device of the widow of Despenser, one of Eichard's
favourites. They were immediately retaken ; and the duke of York — known
by his plots and betrayal of others when Aumerle and Eutland — was accused
by the lady, his own sister, of being privy to the plot. The earl of West
moreland entrapped two of the chief of the northern confederates into his
hands — Scrope and Nottingham. The archbishop and the earl were be
headed. Northumberland and Bardolf escaped to Scotland. The execution
of the archbishop, which Gascoigne, the chief justice, refused to sanction, — as
the lay courts had no jurisdiction over a prelate, — was an offence against the
Church, and the pope issued a temporary sentence of excommunication
against all who had been concerned in his death. That sentence was after
wards withdrawn. There is a story which, if it rested upon good evidence,
would give us a notion that Henry, in addition to his other great talents,
possessed a considerable fund of humour. He charged a messenger to deliver
the armour of the archbishop to the pope, with these words of the brothers of
Joseph : " Lo ! this have we found ; know now whether it be thy son's coat,
or no." After the execution of Scrope and Nottingham, Henry successfully
besieged Prudhoe and Warkworth, the castles of the earl of Northumber
land ; and took Berwick, which had been delivered by Northumberland to
the Scots. The unhappy Percy and Lord Bardolf wandered about for two
years, endeavouring to organise resistance to Henry's consolidating power.
In 1407 there was some discontent in England, through the king's demand
for subsidies ; and the Percy and Bardolf then ventured into Northumberland,
raised their tenantry, and risked a battle with the sheriff of Yorkshire, Sir
Thomas Eokeby, at Bramham Moor, near Tadcaster. Northumberland closed
his unhappy career by falling in battle; and Bardolf, after being taken
prisoner, died of his wounds.
Thus came to an end the English insurrections against the sovereignty of
Henry of Lancaster. He has held the throne for nine years against assaults
that would quickly have destroyed one of mere ordinary talent and energy.
His most obstinate enemy has been Owen Glendower, a man of proportionate
ability and force of character. The great Welshman never yielded. In 141 1

1412,] RIVAL FACTIONS IN FRANCE. 01
he was exempted from Henry the Fourth's general pardon of the Welsh
rebels. In 1416, Henry the Fifth, even after his great triumph of Agincourt,
sought to make peace with the unconquered Owen, and to receive him into
his allegiance. The circumstances of his death are not recorded. He pro
bably sank into obscurity ; and his memory was only preserved in the
legends of his countrymen, which told of bis wanderings on his native moun
tains, and his hidings in sea-girt caverns. Owyn's Cave is still to be seen on
the coast of Merioneth. The contest in which he was engaged was held to
be a revival of the ancient feud of Briton and Saxon ; for in 1431 the
Commons prayed that the forfeiture of the Glendower lands might be
enforced, for that Owyn Glendower was a traitor, whose success would have
been " to the destruction of all English tongue for evermore."
The connexion of the government of Henry with the quarrels and
intrigues in I]rance of the rival dukes of Orleans and Burgundy involves
matters of state-policy which have now but little interest. During the reign of
the insane king, Charles VL, the kingdom was a prey to their rival factions.
Orleans, the brother of the king, was murdered by his cousin of Burgundy in
1407, who justified the deed, and became master of the state. The revolt of
his Flemish subjects required his presence, and then the Orleanists declared
him a public enemy. But Jean Sans-Peur was for a time too powerful to be
put down. Tbe young duke of Orleans, who had been married to Isabella,
the widow of Eichard IL, who died in 1409, took as a second wife the
daughter of the count of Armagnac. This count became the chief of the
Orleanists, who thenceforward were called the Armagnacs. The young duke
of Orleans demanded justice for the death of his father. The duke of Bur
gundy solicited aid from the king of England, who sent him eight hundred
men-at-arms and a thousand bowmen. This assistance turned the scale in
favour of Burgundy. But in 1412 the Armagnacs offered better terms to
Henry, by agreeing to acknowledge him as duke of Aquitaine. The two
factions at last began to consider that their quarrel had become complicated,
by the intervention of one who would sacrifice both to regain the ancient
power of the English in France. They agreed upon a peace. But Henry
sent an army into Normandy under his second son, the duke of Clarence, who
ravaged Maine and Anjou, and finally retired to Gascony, having received a
large payment as the cost of his expedition.
The kingly and parental relations of Henry IV. with the prince of Wales,
during the latter years of this reign, have been variously described upon very
imperfect information. It is ejctremely difficult to speak of the character of
'Henry of Monmouth without taking some colour from the most effective
painter of character that all literature has produced. Mr. Hallam says, " The
Tirtues of the prince of Wales are almost invidiously eulogised by those
parliaments who treat harshly his father ; and these records afford a strong
presumption that some early petulance or riot has been much exaggerated by
the vulgar minds of our chroniclers." Shakspere rescued the prince from the
imputation of low debauchery, by surrounding him with an atmosphere of wit,
and by exhibiting his compunction for mis-spent hours in the midst of his
revelries. Here we may leave the consideration of the prince's private cha
racter, without believing that it is much sullied even by the somewhat doubtful
story of his having struck the chief justice of England. But his public
E 2

5^

THE KING AND THE PRINCE OF WALES— HENRY'S DEATH. [1413.

conduct, after he attained his majority in 1409, requires a brief notice. In
1410 he was made Captain of Calais, and President 'of the Council.^ In the
capacity of president he is often found acting ; and perhaps in his official
position he witnessed the burning of John Badby for heresy, and offered
him a yearly stipend if he would recant. But it would appear from some
official records, that the prince had an authority which was scarcely com
patible vrith the jealous character of his father. Henry IV. was in failing
health, and the son was naturally at hand to assist in the public service.
But records which state that certain business was transacted " in the presence
of the king and of his son the prince," indicate a species of divided authority
which might end in disunion. Hardyng, the rhyming chronicler, says—
" The king discharged the prince from his counsail.
And set my lord Sir Thomas in his stead
Chief of council, for the king's more avail."
Stow says that the prince's great popularity induced the king to believe
that he intended to usurp the crown ; but that the prince, coming to his
father with a large body of lords and gentlemen, whom he would not suffer
to advance beyond the fire in the hall, declared that his life was not so
desirable to him that he should wish to live one day under his father's dis
pleasure. Then the king embraced him with tears, and said, " My right dear
and heartily beloved son, it .is of truth that I had you partly suspect, and as
I now perceive, undeserved on your part : I will have you no longer in dis
trust for any reports that shall be made unto me. And thereof I assure you,
upon my honour."
Henry IV. died on the 20th of March, 1413, in his forty-seventh year.

Tomb of Hemr IV. and his Queen, at Canterbur.v Cathedral.

A Parliament in the time of Henry V.

CHAPTER IV.

Henry V. proclaimed king — Sir John Oldcastle condemned as a heretic — Henry's demands upon
France for large territories— Resolves to claim the crown of France — Conspiracy of
Cambridge, Scrope, and Grey — Henry and his army .sail to Harfleur— Siege of Harfleur —
Sickness of the English — March from Harfleur — Passage of the Somme — The French
army — Agincourt and its locality — The Battle of Agincourt.

Henex V. was proclaimed king on the 21st of March, 1413. He was
crowned at Westminster on the 9th of April, being then in the twenty-fifth
year of his age. A parliament, having been summoned by writ, met at
Westminster on the 15th of May. There was nothing very noteworthy in
its proceedings. The king met his Lords and Commons with an aspect of
love and conciliation. He had taken not only the most generous, btrt the
most prudent resolution towards those who had been considered dangerous
to his house. He restored the son of Henry Percy to his family inheritance,
and he liberated the earl of March from prison.
There were dangers, however, at home which the magnanimity of the
king was not calculated to avert. The execrable laws against the preachers of
the " new doctrines " had not prevented the tenets of Wycliffe from spreading
through the nation, and beyond the narrow bounds of our island. It was a
period of alarm for popes and prelates ; and for all those who considered
that the Church was properly built upon a foundation of worldly riches and
dominion. John Huss, a Bohemian priest, had become acquainted with the

o'4 SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE CONDEMNED FOR HERESY. [1418
writings of Wycliffe ; and he boldly preached the same doctrines as early as
1405. The archbishop of Prague, in 1409, commanded all the writings of
Wycliffe to be delivered up to him by members of the university of Prague,
of which Huss was rector ; and many of these treasured volumes were
publicly burnt. Huss continued to preach, in spite of the pope's excom
munication, till he was silenced in 1413. In 1414, the Council of
Constance held its first sitting, and Huss was summoned before it to declare
his opinions. The brave man knew that he went at the risk of his life.
He died at the stake in 1415. The same council decreed that the body of
Wycliffe should be " taken from the ground, and thrown far away from the-
burial of any church." It was thirteen years before this miserable vengeance
was carried into effect, by disinterring and burning our first English
reformer's body, throwing his ashes into a brook. " The brook did convey
his ashes into Avon ; Avon into Severn ; Severn into the narrow seas ; they
into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his
doctrine, which is now dispersed all the world over." * But in the first year
of Henry V. the prelates sought to strike a more effectual terror into the
foUowers of Wycliffe than could be accomplished by any insult to his
memory. They resolved to take measures against one of the most powerful
supporters of the Lollards, Sir John Oldcastle, called lord Cobham. He had
been the private friend of the king when prince of Wales ; and Henry, in the
honest desire, as we may believe, to avert the consequences of ecclesiastical
vengeance, tried to induce Oldcastle to recant. He was inflexible ; and the
king then caused him to be arrested. On the 25th of September the
undaunted knight was brought before the synod, and there pleaded his cause
with a vigour and ability which have made him memorable amongst the
martyrs of the Eeformation. He was condemned as a heretic, and was
handed over to the secular power. The king granted his ancient friend a
respite of fifty days from the fiery penalty which awaited him; and during
that period Oldcastle escaped from his prison in the Tower. The danger to
which their leader had been exposed, and the severities which appeared pre
paring for those who held to their conscientious opinions, precipitated the
Lollards into a movement which made the State as anxious for their suppres
sion as was the Church. Eumours went forth of a fearful plot to destroy
all religion and law in England ; and, in the overthrow of king, lords, and
clergy, to make all property in common. There can be little doubt that
this rumoured plot was a gross exaggeration of some indiscreet assemblies for
the purpose of petition. It was stated that in the fields of St. Giles,
stretching to the Hampstead and Highgate hills — fields now covered with
more human dwellings than all the London of the fifteenth century —
twenty-five thousand insurgents were to meet under the command of Sir
John Oldcastle. At midnight of the 7th of January, 1414, the king went
forth from the city gates with a mighty array, to encounter this army of
desperate rebels. He found about eighty persons. - Others were surprised
near Hornsey. Many of these unfortunate people were immediately
executed ; and Sir Eoger Acton, a friend of Oldcastle, also suffered on the
1 0th of February. Henry proclaimed that the insurgents meant to destroy
• Fuller.

1414.] HENRY'S DEMANDS UPON FRANCE. .'iS
him aud his brothers, to divide the realm into -flistricts, and to elect Sir John
Oldcastle president. These allegations appear too extravagant not to lead us
to the belief that the conspiracy, if conspiracy there were, had for its sole
object the mitigation of the penal laws against the preachers and receivers of
Wyclifie's doctrines. Within a few months a pardon was proclaimed to all
the Lollards for the conspiracy, excepting Oldcastle and eleven others. Still
prosecutions went on ; and it is remarkable that the king pardoned many so
prosecuted, after they had been convicted. The general body of Lollards
were grievoiisly punished for the indiscretion of some of their number. A
new Statute was passed, giving all judges and magistrates power to arrest
all persons suspected of Lollardism ; binding them by oath to do their
utmost to root up the heresy ; and enacting that in addition to capital
punishment the lands and goods of such convicted heretics should be
forfeited to the king. It was three years before the vengeance of the
Church fell on Oldcastle. He was taken in 1418, while Henry was in
France ; and was burnt, under the declaration of the archbishop and his
provincial synod that he was an incorrigible heretic.
The factions of the Burgundians and Armagnacs were carrying on their
desolating contests in France, when Henry V. came to the throne.
Henry IV. had endeavoured to avail himself of their distractions by siding
with one or the other party as best suited his policy. His son adopted a
bolder course. When the treaty of Bretigny was violated by the French,
Edward III. re-assumed the title of king of France, and went to war again
to assert his pretended right. There had been several renewed truces
between the two kingdoms, but no paciflcation, and no decided settlement of
the contested claims. The unhappy condition of the French nation was an
encouragement to the ambition of the young king of England, who had been
trained from his earliest years in war and policy. An embassy was sent to
Paris to negotiate for a prolongation of the truce. Then was suggested a
pacification, by the marriage of Henry of England with Catherine, the
youngest daughter of the insane Charles VI. It was also proposed to the
duke of Burgundy that his daughter should be queen of England. But the
Orleanists were now supreme. Within a year from his accession Henry
suddenly put in a claim to the crown of France, in renewal of the old claim
of Edward III. Upon the rejection of this claim the king of England made
demands far more unreasonable than were agreed to by his great-grandfather,
when the peace of Bretigny was concluded. The French government consented
to give up all the ancient territories of the duchy of Aquitaine, and to marry
the daughter of Charles VL to Henry, with a dowry of six hundred thousand
crowns. An embassy was sent to France, when the amount of the proposed
dowry was increased to eight hundred thousand crowns ; and the demand of
Henry for the cession of Normandy, Maine, and Anjou was rejected. The
French then sent an embassy to England, when Henry demanded Normandy
and all the territories ceded by the peace of Bretigny, under the threat that
he woidd otherwise take arms to enforce his claim to the crown of France.
On the 16th of April, 1415, he announced at a great council his determination
to recover "his inheritance." He had previously obtained a supply from
parliament " for the defence of the kingdom of England and the safety of the
seas; " and the supply was thus limited, although the king had avowed his

5(5 HENRY CLAIMS THE FRENCH CROWN— CONSPIRACY. [1415
intention to that parliament of making a claim to the kingdom of France.
Historians are of opinion that the lords spiritual, with the new archbishop,
Chicheley, as their organ, had urged the king to this decision, to divert the
attention of the people from those questions of the doctrine and discipline of
the Church which had become so formidable. The probability is, that
Henry having become an instrument in their hands for putting down by
terror those new doctrines which had spread from England to the continent,
they were ready in return to gratify his personal ambition by advocating his
designs upon France. Whatever admiration we may feel for the bravery,
fortitude, and self-reliance of Henry, we must rank him amongst the guilty
possessors of kingly power ; and make a large abatement from the vaunted
generosity of one " who lay in wait for the best opportunity of aggrandising
himself at the expense of his distracted neighbours ; as if nations were only
more numerous gangs of banditti, instead of being communities formed only
for the observance and enforcement of justice." *
At a council on the 17th of April the king appointed his brother, the
duke of Bedford, to be lieutenant of the kingdom during his absence. The
next day he declared what should be
the payment for the lords and knights
who should be retained for his voyage
to France, with the daily payment of
each man-at-arms and each archer. The
rate of pay was, for a duke, 13s. id.
per day ; for an earl, 6s. 8d. ; for a
baron, 4s. ; for a knight, 2s. ; for every
Half-groat ot Henry V. ' ' -, 3 j-
other man-at-arms. Is. ; and lor an
archer, 6d. Great nobles and others contracted to furnish large bodies of
troops at this rate, well and sufficiently mounted, armed, and arrayed. But
the first quarter's wages -were required to be paid in advance, and pledges
were given for the payment of the second quarter. Contracts were made for
carpenters and other artisans, for wagons, aud bows and arrows. The king
pledged jewels for the performance of some of these contracts, and he raised
large sums as loans upon jewels and plate. Ships and sailors were impressed.
Surgeons were provided. Many officers of the royal household were to attend
upon the king, with no fewer than fifteen minstrels. On the 18th of June Henry
set out from Westminster, going in procession 'to St. Paul's, accompanied
by the mayor, and citizens in their guilds. At Winchester he waited the arrival
of an embassy from France. According to one French historian, Laboureur,
Henry haggled about terms in the spirit of an usurer. The archbishop of
Bourges, who was of the embassy, is accused by our chroniclers of having
replied to the king with improper boldness. Neither con
cession nor plain-speaking would avail. The ambassadors
returned to Paris on the 26th of July, and reported that
all Henry's peaceable professions covered malice and dis
simulation. On the 24th of July the king made his will,
igna ure o enry . gQjjg^^^jjjg ^j^^jj these words iu his owu autograph : " This
is my last will, subscribed with my own hand, E. H. Jesu mercy and
gremercy Ladie Marie help." Within a day or two a conspiracy against
• Mackintosh, " History of England," vol. i. p. 362.

1416.] HENRY AND HIS ARMY SAIL TO HARFLEUR. 87
him was discovered, which, according to some accounts, was instigated
by the French court. The conspirators were, the king's cousin, Eichard,
earl of Cambridge, brother to the duke of York (Eutland) ; lord Scrope,
who was Henry's familiar friend ; aud Sir Thomas Grey of Heton. A
jury was suinmoned for their trial by the sheriff of Southampton, who
found Cambridge and Grey guilty of treason, and Scrope of having
concealed the knowledge of their purposes. Cambridge and Scrope claimed
to be tried by their peers. By the lords then at Southampton, who formed
a court for their trial, they were convicted ; and they suffered death on the
5th of August. Grey had been previously executed.
The truce with France expired on the 2nd of August. On the beach of
Southamption are collected men at arms, mounted archers, foot-archers,
miners, gunners, armourers, and all the various attendants of a feudal army.
There, under the walls of the old castle, shallow vessels float up to the river's
banks, and with little preparation horses and men step on to the crowded decks.
Fifteen hundred of such vessels are gathered together, and drift with the tide
to the broader Solent. Fifteen hundred sails to bear an army, slowly and
insecurely to Normandy, that would have been carried with far greater
speed and safety by thirty of such vessels as now steam from that
Southampton river. The king is at Porchester Castle. On the 10th of
August, being Saturday, he goes on board his own ship. The Trinity, lying
between Southampton and Portsmouth. His sail is set ; the little craft,
varying from three hundred tons to twenty tons, collect around The
Trinity ; and on Sunday they put to sea. On Tuesday, about noon, the
royal ship enters the mouth of the Seine ; and the fleet casts anchor about
three miles from Harfleur.
The " EoU of the Men-at-arms that were at the Battle of Agincourt,"
and " The Eetinue of Henry V. in his first Voyage," exhibit very clearly
the nature of the force that was landed near Harfleur on the 14th of August.*
The duke of Clarence, the duke of Gloucester, and the duke of York, had,
together, 540 men-at-arms, bannerets, knights, and esquires: aud 1720 horse-
archers. The earl of Dorset, and the earl ef Arundel had each 100 men-at-
arms, and 300 horse-archers. The earl of March was there, with 60
men-at-arms, and 160 horse-archers. There is little doubt that the
conspiracy, which was discovered at Southampton, was for the purpose of
placing him, the legitimate heir of the crown, upon the throne ; but the king,
merciless as he was to the chief movers of the plot, granted a pardon to the
earl of March, and gave him the honour of fighting by his side in this
perilous warfare. ^ The unhappy earl of Cambridge was to have been in that
expedition, with 60 men-at-arms and 160 horse-archers. Of his men,
3 lances and 6 archers fought at Agincourt. Other great earls were there, —
Suffolk, Oxford, Huntingdon,' and the Earl- Marshal, with men-at-arms and •
archers, horse and foot, in due proportion. Bannerets were there, — names
memorable amongst England's chivalry, each leading 20 or 30 men-at-arms,
* These lists are published in "The History of the Battle of Agincourt," by Sir N. H.
Nicolas, 1827. In this volume are collected all the documents which have relation to this
event, as well as the contemporary narratives ; the most valuable of which is that of a piriest who
accompanied the expedition, being a Latin MS. in the Cottonian MSS. of the British Museum,
first translated and published by Sir N. H. Nicolas,

58 SIEtiE OF HARFLEUR— SICKNESS OF THE ENGLISH. [1415.
and a larger number of archers. Then came an honoured roll of the knights
and esquires of the land, — the worthy companions of Cornwall, and
Erpingham, and Hungerford, ahd Umfreville, — some three hundred in number,
each with his httle band of lancers and archers ; the yeomen of their manors ;
picked men, who went forth with stout limbs and resolved spirit, caring little
for the abstract justice of the cause for which they were to fight, but knowing
that they would have a due proportion of the "gaignes de guerres." * Thi?
army, then, landed in small boats, and took up a position on the hill nearest
Harfleur. No resistance was offered to the landing. The constable of
France, d'Albret, was at Eouen, with a large number of troops. But he
stirred not. The h-ardy people of the coast suffered the English to leap on
their shores, as if they came in peace and friendship. The landing-place was
rough with large stones ; and there was a dyke and wall between the shore
and the marsh towards the town. The entrance into the marsh was very
difficult ; and " the resistance of the smallest number of people would have
sufficed to drive back many thousands." f The army rested in its position
till Saturday, the 17th, and then moved to the siege of Harfleur, in three
battalions. The town was surrounded with embattled walls, and with ditches,
filled to a great depth and breadth by the waters of the Seine. There were
three gates, strongly defended by bulwarks. After the landing of Henry, the
garrison was reinforced on the side which the English had not then invested.
But the town was very quickly encompassed on all sides ; the duke of
Clarence having made a circuitous march, and taken a position on the hill
opposite to that which the king occupied. The port wa.s strictly blockaded
towards the sea. After a demand for the surrender of the place, which was
stoutly refused, the siege commenced. We now hear of guns as well as
engines in an English siege. There is a belief that cannon had been employed
at Cressy ; and some sort of ordnance had certainly been occasionally in use •
in the middle of the fourteenth century. At Harfleur the king battered the
bulwarks, and the walls aud towers on every side, by the stones which his
guns and engines cast. Two attempts were made to undermine the town ;
but there were counter-mines ; and the miners met and fought underground.
The siege went on with various fortune ; but the besieged showed no'
symptom of surrender. Disease now began to make frightful ravages in the
English camp. On the 15th of September died Eichard Courtenay, bishop
of Norwich ; and on the 18th the earl of Suffolk. Henry's men were
perishing around him by dysentery ; and he resolved to storm the town.
The garrison, however, agreed to surrender on the 22nd of September, if
they were not previously relieved. No relief came. The civil distractions of
France had at first deprived the government of all energy. There was
no preparation for resistance. There was no money in the royal treasury.
Suddenly a tax was imposed; and the impost was collected from the clergy
and the people by armed men. " What can the English do more to us ? "
exclaimed the unhappy victims of misrule. Harfleur was yielded up on that
22nd of September, with great ceremony. Henry sat upon a throne under a
pavilion of silk, erected on the hUl opposite the town. From the pavilion to
Harfleur a line of English soldiers was formed; and through their ranks
came the governor with a deputation, and he laid the keys of the town at the
• The produce of pillage or ransom. f From " the Priest's" narrative.

1415.] MARCH FROM HARFLEUR. 59
feet of the king. The siege had lastedthirty-six days. On the 23rd, Henry
entered the town, and went barefoot to the church of St. Martin, to offer a
solemn thanksgi^ang for his success. The bulk of the inhabitants, — women,
children, and poor — were compelled to depart, but without any indignity :
and the principal burghers, with many knights and gentlemen, were allowed
to leave the place, making oath to surrender themselves at Calais in the
following November. Henry now sent a challenge to the Dauphin of
France to meet him in single combat — the old, unmeaning defiance of
chivalry. On the 5th of October, the king held a council. The success
at Harfleur had been bought at a terrible cost. Besides a large
number killed in the siege, a much greater number of the army had
died of dysentery in that district of overflowing marshes. Five thousand
more were so sick that they were unable to proceed. Many had deserted.
Comparing the various accounts of contemporary chroniclers, it is " morally
impossible to form any other conclusion than that the English army which
quitted Harfleur did not exceed nine thousand fighting men." * At the
Council of the 5th of October, Henry was strongly urged to return, with the
remnant of his force, to England by sea. He was told that " the multitude
of the French were continually increasing, and very likely might hem them
in on every side, as sheep in pens." So writes the priest ; and he adds that
the king determined to march to Calais, " relying upon the divine grace and
the righteousness of his cause, piously considering that victory consists not
in multitudes." It is easy to blame Henry for this determination; to call it
" rashness, and total recklessness of consequences ;" f but it must not be
forgotten that if the king had returned to England with the loss of two-thirds
of his army, and with no success but the capture of a town that could not
long be held, he risked the loss of that popular support which the general
belief of his intrepidity had won for him from his early years. He had set
his life upon a cast ; and he must play out the game. On the 8th of October
he commenced his extraordinary march. With eight days' provisions the
little army went forth from Harfieur, in three battalions, on the road to
Calais. Henry's policy was an honourable exception to the devastation
which accompanied the marches of the great Edward and the Black Prince.
He published a proclamation, " that no one, under pain of death, should bum,
lay waste, or take anything, excepting victuals and necessai'ies." The line of
march was, at no great distance from the coast, towards the Somme. Passing
by Fecamp, the army reached Arques, near Dieppe, on the 11th. A few
shots were fired from the castle, but the passage through the town was not
contested. The English began to believe that they should reach Calais
without molestq.tion. " For some firmly asserted," says the observant priest,
" that considering the civil discord and deadly hatred subsisting between the
French princes and the duke of Burgundy, the French would not draw
themselves out from the interior parts of the country and their strongholds,
lest, while thus drawing themselves out, the forces of the duke of Burgundy
should either follow them, or against their will usurp the possession of their
estates." At Eu, the English army was attacked, but the assailants were
repulsed without difficulty. On Sunday, the 13th, they reached Abbeville.
Now the imminent danger that was before this daring band was too manifest
'* Narrative of Sii N. H. Nicolas, p. ccxcix., ed. 1827. + Nicolas.

30 PASSAGE OP THE SOMME— THE FRENCH ARMY. [liJo.
to be concealed. The chroniclers of his great-grandfather's exploits had
made Henry familiar with the circumstances of his passage of the Somme.
To the ford of Blanchetaque an English army was again led. The causeway
leading to the ford was broken down ; and a great body of French was said
to be collected on the opposite bank ot the river. Without any certain
information, Henry directed his march by the Somme above Abbeville, seeking
for another passage. The bridges and causeways were all destroyed ; and
broad marshes added to the difficulty of finding a ford. The slender stock of
provisions was now becoming exhausted. After a march of seven days they
passed Amiens, and slept that night at the village of Boves. It was the time
of vintage, and there was abundance of wine in open Qasks, and a little
bread. The supply of wine was as dangerous to the safety of the army as its
privations, and Henry forbad his men to fill their bottles. It was the
17th of October before they reached a plain near Corby. Here the king
executed a soldier who had stolen the pix out of a church — an incident which
Shakspere has not overlooked. Here, too, he gave the famous order that
each archer should provide himself with a stake, sharpened at each end, to
plant in the ground when about to be attacked by cavalry. On the 18th,
they were quartered near Nesle, a walled town about twenty-four miles
above Amiens, and four miles from the nearest part of the Somme. Here
the welcome news was brought that a ford had been discovered. Before the
river could be reached, a marsh had to be crossed. The position was one of
danger, and there was no choice but to make for the river, at all hazards.
There were two fords, approached by narrow causeways, partly destroyed.
The damaged portions were filled up with broken doors and windows from the
neighbouring houses. The king was indefatigable in his personal exertions,
superintending the repair of the causeways, and the orderly passage of men
and horses. It was dark before the whole army had crossed. " We passed
a joyful night," says the priest, " in the next farm-houses, which had been left
by the French on our first arrival over the water."
The English army had been for a month investing Harfleur before the
French government was roused from its inactivity. On the 10th of September,
the king of France took the Oriflamme at St. Denis, and departed for
Normandy. He had arrived at Eouen with his son, when the news of the
fall of Harfleur reached the court. He was soon surrounded by princes and
great lords with their men-at-arms. It was known that the constable of
France was watching the passages of the Somme ; and that the English, in
ascending the left bank, were sustaining great privations. The weather was
wet and tempestuous. The princes and nobles believed they had now
nothing to dread from the presumption of king Henry. The citizens
of Paris offered to send six thousand men well armed. The old duke de
Berri, who had fought at Poitiers sixty years before, urged the acceptance of
the offer. The duke of Aleu9on aud the young chivalry would have nothing
to do with these common people — " What do we want of these shopkeepers ?
We have already three times the number of the English." The princes sent
to Henry three officers of arms, to tell him that, being resolved to fight him
they desired him to name a day and a place for the battle. The king of
England replied that, having set out from his town of Harfleur, he was on his
way to England ; and that, resting in no town or fortress, they might find

1416.]

AGINCOURT AND ITS LOCALITY.

61

him any day and hour in the open fleld.* Onward marched Henry by
Peronne, the roads being found trodden " as if the French had gone before
him in many thousands." On the 24th, — the fourth day after they had crossed
the Somme, — the English army arrived at Blangy, in perfect discipline. A
branch of the Canche, the Ternoise, was here crossed without difficulty.
The French array was on the rising ground about a league distant. From
Blangy there is a gentle ascent towards the village of Maisoncelles. " When
we reached the top of the hill," says the priest, " we saw three columns of
the French emerge from the upper part of the valley, about a mile from us ;
who at length being formed into battalions, companies, and troops, in
multitudes compared with us, halted a little more than half a mile opposite
to us, filling a very wide field, as if with an innumerable host of locusts, — a
moderate sized valley being betwixt us and them." Nothing can be more
accurate than this description of the locality. We have stood upon this
ascent, having left the little river and the bridge of Blangy about a mile
distant. Looking back, there is a range of gentle hills to the east, in the
direction of St. Pol, from which the French army marched. Emerging
" from the upper part of the valley," the French army would fill " a very
wide field " — the plain of Agincourt. When Henry had crossed the river
and ascended the hill, he expected instant battle. He formed his troops, and
went about exhorting them to
do their duty. Walter Hun
gerford, according to our good
priest's account, regretted that
they had not with them ten
thousand English archers.
The solemn answer of the
king, relying upon God for
victory, has been given by the
priest. Other burning words,
— the version of the poet —
have superseded the dialogue
of the chroniclers. The sun
was setting ; and there was
no attack. At Maisoncelles,
now a long straggling
village amidst trees, about
a mile and a half from
Blangy, the king took up his
quarters for the night. In
the gloomy twilight " a white
way " had been found to this village. The noise of the French was heard as
they took up their quarters, each vociferating for his servant or his comrade.
Henry commanded the strictest silence. It was a night of dread to those
who knew how many thousand enemies were close at hand. There was little
sleep. The armourers were at work ; the priests were confessing their
penitents. In the French camp the confident knights played at dice, the
stakes being the ransoms of their expected prisoners.
* See Barante, tom. iii.

Henry V. being armed by bis Esquii-cs.

62

THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT.

[141S

The route to Calais lay through the plain of Agincou-t. The village of
Agincourt now consists of a number of straggling mud-built cottages, and a
farm or two, with a church of the beginning of the last century. It is
covered by a wood towards the plain. Opposite Agincourt is another village,
Tramecourt, also covered by a- wood. The plain of Agincourt is a con
siderable table-land, now fully cultivated, and expanding into an open country
after we have passed between the two woods. The village of Maisoncelles is
about a mile from this fleld. Henry rose with the dawn on that 25th of
October, the feast of St. Crispin ; and he heard three masses. He was fully
armed ; and he wore a crown on his head of extraordinary magnificence. He
mounted a small gray horse, and drew up his men upon the open ground
near Maisoncelles, then covered with young corn. His little band was
formed in one line, the men-at-arms in the centre, with wings on the left and
right, the archers being posted between the wings, with their stakes fixed
before them. A party that went into the village of Agincourt found no
armed men there. Another party of archers were concealed in the village of
Tramecourt. The French army was in three lines, completely covering
the route to Calais. The advanced guard of about eight thousand knights
and esquires, and five thousand five hundred archers and cross-bow men,
was composed of the greater part of the French nobility. Tbe main
body was crowded in prodigious numbers, the lines, according to the
lowest estimate, being twenty men
in depth. The men-at-arms wore
coats of steel reaching to their knees,
and heavy leg-armour, with other
encumbering panoply. The con
temporary chroniclers, both French
and English, differ greatly as to the
number of the French army. The
lowest estimate is fifty thousand
fighting men ; the highest, one hun
dred and fifty thousand. The pro
bability is that they were ten
times as many as the English.
Their position was between the two
woods of Agincourt and Trame
court, in a space much too confined
for the movements of such a vast
body. The woods as they at
present exist show that the position
was a disadvantageous one ; and it
was probably more disadvantageous
if the woods were then more exten
sive. The two armies passed several
hours without a movement on either
side. According to Monstrelet, Sir Thomas Erpingham, a knight grown
gray with age and honour, at last flung his truncheon in the air,
and called " Nestroeque ! " ("now strike!") and then dismounted, as the
king and others had done. The English then knelt down, invoking tho

Boberfe Chamberlain, Esquire to Henry V.

141.5.1 TH15 BATTLE OF AGINCOURT. 83
protection of God ; and each man put a small piece of earth into his mouth,
m remembrance that they were formed of dust, and to dust should return.
Shouting the national " hurrah ! " they kept advancing. The archers, without
armour, in jackets and loose hose, some even barefoot, went boldly on to meet
the mailed chivalry. Their bow-strings were drawn. The French stooped
as the deadly shafts flew amongst them. Many were slain. Onward rushed
the thousands of horsemen to break the line of the hardy yeomen. The
sharpened stakes were planted in the earth ; and the archers shrank not from
the charge. The arrows again flew ; and the horses becoming unmanageable
from their wounds, the knights were driven back upon the van, which they
threw into confusion. The king now advanced with his main body. A
deadly conflict ensued. The archers threw away their bows, and fought
with sword and bill. The second French line was soon reached ; and here
again the contest became more a slaughter than a battle. The enormous
numbers of the French were the chief cause of their destruction. Their
heavy armour was an incumbrance instead of a defence. The rear division,
after the overthrow of the first and second division, took to flight. In three
hours this terrible flght was over. The priest, who was " sitting on horseback
among the baggage, in tbe rear of the battle," thus describes the slaughter of
the French on this day of iVgincourt : " When some of them in the engage
ment had been killed, and fell in the front, so great was the undisciplined
violence and pressure of the multitude behind, that the living fell over the
dead, and others also, falling on the living, were slain ; so that, in three
places, where the force and host of our standards were, so great grew the
heap of the slain, and of those who were overthrown among them, that our
people ascended the very heaps, which had increased higher than a man, and
butchered the adversaries below with swords, axes, and other weapons. And
when at length, in two or three hours, that front battle was perforated and
broken up, and the rest were driven to flight, our men began to pull down
the heaps, and to separate the living from the dead, proposing to keep the
living as slaves, to be ransomed." Few were left alive for ransom. A
clamour arose that the French, collecting in various parts of the field, were
coming upon the wearied victors. The baggage, according to Monstrelet, was
being plundered. In the momentary alarm, Henry commanded a massacre
of all the prisoners. The French chroniclers mention this horrible circum
stance in terms of sorrow rather than of blame. The hasty instinct of self-
preservation dictated the order. The day before the battle the king had
discharged, upon their parole, all the prisoners he had brought with him.
His nature was not cruel. He stopped the carnage when he found that the
danger was imaginary.
On the part of the English, the duke of York and the earl of Oxford
were slain, with some hundreds of inferior degree. The estimates of this
loss are very conflicting. Our own chronicles make it absurdly small.
Monstrelet says the loss of the English was sixteen hundred ; and so
St. Eemy, another French historian. Of the chivalry of France, the flower
perished. Seven of the princes of the blood had fallen. With the duke of
Alenfon Henry had fought in person, and was beaten down, having a portioi)
of his crown struck off. The king could not save his gallant enemy, who fell
before Henry's guards. Eight thousand gentlemen of France perished iu

64

THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT.

[1415.

that field of carnage, of whom a hundred and twenty were nobles bearing
banners. Between Agincourt and Tramecourt is a small enclosed piece of
ground, which we saw planted with potatoes in the summer of 1856, where
great numbers of the illustrious dead were buried. It is kept sacred to their
memories ; and here it is now proposed, four hundred and fifty years after
the eventful day, to erect a monumental chapel. The whole plain is covered
with the teeming crops of fruitful France. There is nothing to tell of that'
time of bloodshed and terror. Now and then, indeed, the upturned soil
gives forth evidence of the presence of the dead. In 1816, an English officer
of the Army of Occupation found relics of the slain, with many coins of
Charles V. and Charles VI. A peasant, now living in one of the farm-
cottages of Agincourt, shows a large thin gold coin of Charles VL, which he
found in his field-labours. The herald of France was taken in the battle.
" Montjoie," said Henry, " to whom is the victory — to me or to the king of
France?" "To you, and not to him," said Montjoie. "And how is this
castle called ? " " The castle of Agincourt." " Well," said the king, " they
will long speak of the battle of Agincourt." They will speak of it, as long
as England's history endures, as one of the most wonderful examples of
bravery, and fortitude, and heroic daring, of which a people may be justly
proud. But they will also speak of it as a fearful sacrifice of human life to a
false ambition, which had no object beyond the assertion of an indomitable
will, and no permanent results beyond the perpetuation of hatred and jealousy
between nation and nation.
Henry slept that night of the 25th of October at Maisoncelles. On the
next day, he, with the duke of Orleans and many other noble prisoners, went
his unmolested way to Calais.

Banners used in the Battle of Agincourt.

,^^^^rw^^

Front of Henry V.'s Chautry, Westminster.

CHAPTER V.

News of Agincourt arrives — Entry of Henry into London — State of France — Henry's Second
Expedition— •Overthrow of the Armagnacs — Siege and surrender of Kouen — Conferences at
Meulan between Henry, the Duke of Burgundy, and the Queen — Henry first sees Katherine
— Negotiations ineffectual — Burgundy murdered at Montereau — Peace of Troyes — Marriage
of Henry — Henry and his Queen come to England — Parliament held — Clarence killed — ¦
Henry returns to France — Siege of Meaux — Katherine and her infant son come to Paris-
Illness of Henry — His death — Difficulty of forming a just estimate of his character — Duk
of Gloucester Protector — Death of Charles VL — Regency of the Duke of Bedford — Feuds o
Gloucester and Beaufort — Tutelage of Henry VI.
The great victory of Agincourt was publicly known in London on ths
29th of October, the same day on which king Henry reached Calais. " Early
in the morning," says a contemporary chronicle, " came tidings to London
while that men were in their beds,- that the king had fought and had the
battle and the field aforesaid. And anon as they had tidings thereof, they
went to all the churches of the city of London, and rang all the beUs of
every church." Henry remained at Calais till the 17th of November.
There was time for this news to go forth through the country before the
arrival of the king ; and the people warmed up into a fervour of joy which
drovmed the lament for the thousands that had perished during those past
three months of sickness, want, and slaughter. When tbe king's ship, after
VOL. IL I"

«6

ENTRY OF HENRY INTO LONDON.

[141.5.

Male Costume in tlie time of Henry V.

a boisterous passage, sailed into the port of Dover, the people rushed into
the sea, and bore their hero to the shore. At the royal manor of .Eltham he
rested on his way to London ; which he entered in solemn procession on the
23rd of November. From Blackheath to Westminster he was escorted by
twenty thousand of the citizens, "with devices according to their crafts."
The great highway of
Cheap, after the cavalcade
had passed London-bridge,
was so crowded by ^t^he
people, that the horsemen
could scarcely pass through
them. The city was gor
geous with arches, and
towers, and pavilions, out of
which innumerable virgins
and youths showered laurel
boughs and leaves of gold
upon the conqueror's head,
and sang English anthems
with melodious voices, and
with organs. The busy
priest, as observant of the
splendid pageant as of the
terrible battle, says, " The
lattices and windows on both sides were filled with the most noble ladies and
women of the realm, and with honourable and honoured men, who flocked
together to the pleasing sight, and were so very gracefully and elegantly
dressed, in garments of
gold, flue linen, and crim
son, and various other
apparel, that a greater
assembly, or a nobler spec
tacle, was not recollected
to have been ever before
in London." He goes on
to say, " The king himself,
amidst these public ex
pressions of praise, and the
bravery of the citizens,
passed along, clad in a
purple robe, not with lofty
looks, pompous horses, or
great multitude, but with
a solid aspect, a reverend
Female Costume in the time of Henry V. demeanour, and a fcW of
his faithful domestics at
tendant on him ; the dukes, earls, and marshals, his captives, following him
with a guard of soldiers." *
* The Priest's Chronicle, Nicolas, p, cccxci.

1417.] HENRY'S SECOND EXPEDITION TO FRANCE. 67
In 1416 Henry was continuing to cherish his ambitious projects, and was
preparing for their accomplishment. The attempted mediation of the
emperor Sigismund, who visited England, had been unsuccessful. Tbe war
was carried on in Normandy ; and the French made descents on the English
shores of the channel. Harfleur was besieged in June ; and the English
garrison was reduced to the greatest distress, when it was relieved from
blockade by the capture of the large carracks and other vessels that kept the
mouth of the Seine. Meanwhile, Henry had secured the alliance of the
duke of Burgundy, who had laid aside his resentment for the death of his
brother, the duke of Brabant, at Agincourt. For the death of the other
brother, the count of Nevers, on the same field, he cared little. It is unneces
sary for us to attempt any minute description of the distractions of France,
which presented the chief encouragement to the king of England to persevere
in his design to claim the crown. The feuds of the Burgundians and the
Armagnacs were as violent as ever ; and were accompanied by the most
intolerable oppression of the people by the reigning faction under the
constable, Armagnac. Foreign troops, without pay, were let loose to plunder.
Brigands committed the most outrageous atrocities ; and the orders of the
government to pursue and destroy them, without trial or inquiry, were made
a pretence for the murder of large numbers of the Burgundian party. The
insane king passed his life in fatuous indifference to all around him ; and the
court of the queen exhibited a licentious profusion, the more disgusting from
its contrast with the universal wretchedness. It is recorded that Henry, after
the day of Agincourt, addressing his prisoner, the duke of Orleans, disclaimed
any merit in his great victory, and expressed his belief that he was the
instrument of God in punishing the crimes of the French nation — the
public disorders and the private wickedness. This was one of the ordinary
delusions of ambition. There was no improvement in the condition of France
when, on the 23rd of July, 1417, the king of England again embarked with
a mighty army at Southampton. It was more numerous and more powerfully
equipped than the force which, two years before, had landed in Normandy ;
consisting of forty thousand men, with miners aud ordnance. At this crisis,
the duke of Burgundy was marching upon Paris, resolved upon the exter
mination of the faction which held the government. Henry landed at Tonque,
near Harfleur; and shortly after went on to besiege Caen, which city was
taken by assault on the 4th of September. " The duke of Clarence beat
down the walls with guns on his side, and first entered into the town, and
cried, A Clarence ! A Clarence ! — A Saint George ! and so was the town
got." * Many other fortresses in Normandy speedily submitted ; and Henry
went into winter quarters. The French government, distracted with the
movements of the duke of Burgundy, made no effectual resistance to the
English. Henry continued to secure one fortress after another ; and, holding
his court at Caen, conflscated the estates of Norman lords, and bestowed
them upon his English followers.
The summer of 1418 was a terrible season for France. The duke of
Burgundy had retreated from before Paris in the previous year ; for his
partisans in the city had been expelled, and the count of Armagnac had the
young dauphin, Charles, in his hands, as well as the unhappy king. The
* "An English Chronicle,'' written before 1471. Camden Society, 1856. F 2

OVERTHROW OF THE ARMAGNACS.

[1418.

queen had been deprived, of her power, as regent, and had been sent as a
prisoner to Tours. Suddenly the duke of Burgundy appeared before Tours ;
delivered the queen from captivity ; and received from her the appointment
of governor-general of the kingdom. The rule of the count of Armagnac had
been one of severity and terror ; and the Parisians had fallen off from his
falction, and now anxiously desired his overthrow. At the end of May there
was a fearful massacre of the Armagnacs by an infuriated Paris mob ; and
many of them were held as prisoners. On the 12th of June, there was a
cry that the terrible duke was at the gates; but the people shouted for

storming a Fort. (Harleian MS.)
Burgundy ; and, breaking open the prisons and private houses where the
Armagnacs were confined, massacred fifteen hundred victims in one morning.
Amongst them was the count of Armagnac. On the 14th of July the queen
and the duke of Burgundy entered Paris in triumph. The appetite for
blood was not yet sated ; and for some days the new government made a
profession of stopping the murders, but contrived to remove those persons
who were most obnoxious to them. The duke of Orleans, whilst these
horrible butcheries were perpetrated by a fickle multitude upon the party of
which he was the real head, was shut up in the castle of Pontefract. He
solaced his long captivity in England by the composition of verses which
entitle him to rank amongst the best French poets of his age ; and he also
wrote " Chansons " in English, with eleganc" and facility. Henry was not

1418.]

SIEGE OF ROUEN.

disposed to trust to the pacific occupations of his prisoner, as a guarantee
that he would not be a troublesome enemy. Tbere is a letter of this period
iu which the king enjoins his strict keeping, without going to any disport,
" for it is better he lack his disport, than we be deceived." *
While these fearful scenes had been acted in Paris, king Henry sat down
with the main body of his army before Eouen. In the previous winter, terms
of peace had been proposed to him by the French government at Paris,
and also on the part of the dauphin, afterwards Charles VII. But these
negotiations were unavailing. The siege of Eouen was as prolific in horrors
as any other event of that sanguinary period. The rule of Henry in Lower
Normandy, which he had nearly conquered, was mild and conciliating. He
abolished the odious tax on salt, and set a limit to illegal exactions. But the
people of Eouen, into which city large numbers of armed men had been
thrown under the command of chiefs who had retired before Henry, resolved
to resist the progress of the invader. The king had crossed the Seine at
Pont de TArche ; but when he invested the city on the 30th of July, he
found a garrison ready to make sorties upon his troops, and compel them to
fight for every position which they took up. He set about the reduction of
the place upon a system far more efficacious than any sudden assault. On
the land side he dug deep ditches ; and he fortified his lines with towers and
artillery. The land approach was completely blockaded. The islands of the
Seine above Eouen were filled by him with troops. The stream was

Ancient View of Rouen.

barricaded with iron chains ; and immediately above the town he formed a
bridge of boats manned with archers. He soon compelled the surrender of
the castle on the hill of St. Catherine, now crowned with a church, with the
beautiful river and the commercial city at its foot. Below Eouen ha
• "Original Letters on English History." Ellis, Series i. vol. i.

70 CONFERENCES AT MEULAN. [1419.
commanded the navigation of the Seine by his armed vessels ; and the mouth
of the river was guarded by a powerful fieet. For twenty weeks the devoted
people beheld the gradual approach of famine. The population consisted of a
hundred and fifty thousand souls; some chroniclers say three hundred thousand.
In that city .of ancient narrow streets, where still remain many gloomy houses
of the period, whose quaint gables and rude carvings are dear to the artist and
the antiquary, was this wretched population, with all the resources of their
accustomed industry cut off, shut up to starve. " And ever they of the town
hoped to have been rescued, but it would not be : and many hundreds died for
hunger, for they had eaten all their cats, horses, hounds, rats, mice, and all
that might be eaten ; and oft times the men-at-arms driving out the poor
people at the gates of the city, for spending of victual, anon our men drove
them in again ; and young children lay dead in the streets, hanging on the
dead mothers' paps, that pity was to see." * At last the garrison surrendered
on the 1 9th of January, 1419, and the soldiers marched forth without arms,
engaging not to serve against the king for one year. One of the noblest
cities of France thus came under the English rule ; and here Henry built a
palace, and held his court as duke of Normandy. The people of Eouen had
been promised effectual relief both by the duke of Burgundy and by the
dauphin ; but no succour came. The French princes were more intent upon
circumventing each other than of organising a national resistance ; and Henry
haughtily proclaimed that he was called to reign over France as a true king,
and that it was the blessing of God which had inspired him to come into a
distracted kingdom, that its sovereignty might be transferred to capable handii.
There were two authorities in France, who refused to unite in repulsing their
common enemy. The dauphin held a court and parliament at Poitiers ; the
duke of Burgundy ruled at Paris. In the mean time Henry continued to
advance towards the capital. A truce was at length concluded by him with
the duke of Burgundy ; and it was agreed that the king of France and the
king of England should have a meeting. In July, 1419, the queen, the
princess Katherine, and the duke of Burgundy, came, without the king, to
Meulan, on the Seine ; and here Henry met them, with great state on either
side. The queen expected that the beauty of her daughter would have
disarmed the sternness of the English king ; but although he professed himself
anxious for an alliance with a lady so fair and gracious, he demanded the
complete execution of the treaty of Bretigny, the cession of Normandy, and the
absolute sovereignty of all the countries surrendered. The negotiations were
again broken off. The dauphin and the duke of Burgundy now made some show
of reconciliation ; and within a week after the conference at Meulan, they
agreed to terms of union. With the same boldness as he displayed when met by
divided councils, the king marched on towards Paris, now that he was assured
that the two rival powers of France were united to resist the " damnable inter
ference of the ancient enemies of the kingdom." f The dauphin and the
duke had parted with demonstrations of mutual respect ; the dauphin to
Touraine, the duke to join king Charles at Pontoise. On the 23d, the king,
the queen, and the duke, went to Paris, which'was completely undefended.
On the 29th, news came that the English had taken Pontoise. The court
* "English Chronicle," p. 47.
t These words are given in the preamble to the treaty between the dauphin and Burgundy.

1419—1420.] MURDER OF BURGUNDY— PEACE OF TROYES. 71
removed from Paris, to which the troops of Henry were rapidly approaching.
The dauphin solicited another interview \\'ith the duke of Burgundy, on
matters of importance to the welfure of the kingdom. The courtiers of the
duke urged him not to go, for the dauphin was surrounded by the servants
of the duke of Orleans, who had been assassinated in 1407; and by men
whose friends and relations had perished in the massacre of the Armagnacs.
But the duke resolved to meet his cousin at the place appointed, the bridge
of Montereau. At each end of the bridge there were barriers ; but there was
no barrier in the centre, as was usual in these interviews of princes, who most
hated and suspected each other when professions of friendship were most
abundant. The dauphin was in a sort of lodge in the centre of the bridge
when the duke advanced. They had each taken oaths pledging the safety of
the other. The duke of Burgundy had left his attendants a little behind
him ; and as he bent his knee to the dauphin, he was struck down and quickly
murdered ; the servants of the duke being immediately surrounded by a large
body of armed men. The dauphin gave out that the duke offered insult
and violence to him ; but there can be no doubt that the treacherous murder
was premeditated, and the mode of accomplishment resolved upon. The heir
of the crown of France was at this time seventeen years of age.
Philip, the son of the murdered duke of Burgundy, was at Ghent when he
received the news of the tragedy at Montereau on the 12th of August. He
was married to a daughter of the king of France. " Michelle," he said to his
wife, " your brother has murdered my father." No time was wasted in idle
complainings. Philip, known in history as "The Good," immediately, with
the advice of his Flemish subjects, sought an alliance with Henry of England.
The people of Paris, adverse as they were to the impending rule of the Eng
lish, were still more hostile to the Armagnacs, who were desolating the
country, with the dauphin at their head. The young duke of Burgundy
arranged the terms of a treaty with Henry ; which was finally concluded at
Troyes, on the 21st of May, 1420. The king of England was to receive the
hand of the princess Katherine ; to be immediate regent of the kingdom ; and
to be recognised as successor to the crown on the death of Charles VI.
When the terms of the treaty were announced to the parliament and other
authorities of Paris, the highest eulogium was pronounced upon the king of
England as a lover of peace and justice, a protector of the poor, a defender of
the Church. The people were encouraged by these statements to hope for
some happy termination of their miseries. The marriage of Henry with the
princess of France was celebrated at Troyes, on the 2nd of June. The next
day was one of banqueting. A tournament was proposed as a prolongation
of the festivities ; but Henry said, " the enemies of the king are in the city
of Sens. Let us be ready to-morrow morning to march to its siege, where
every knight may show his prowess in doing justice upon the wicked, that the
poor people may live." He gave the nobles the most solemn assurances that
he would love and honour the king of France ; and that the ocean should
cease to flow and the sun no more give light, before he should forget the duty
which a prince owed to his subjects. The bridal month of Henry and his fair
queen was passed in besieging Sens, and Montereau, and Villeneuve. When
these were taken, Melun was besieged for four months. After its surrender
on the 18th of November, the kings of France and England, made a triumphant

7-2 HENRY AND HIS QUEEN COME TO ENGLAND. [1421
entry into Paris ; and the three estates of the kingdom gave a solemn approval
of the treaty of Troyes.
At the beginning of 1421 king Henry held a parliament at Eouen. The
coinage which was then issued bore the inscription, " Heres Franciee." To
Eouen came many English nobles and knights, and did homage to their king
for lands granted to them in France. Immediately after, Henry and his
queen went to England ; and on the 23rd of February, Katherine was crowned
at Westminster. The feasts and pageants that welcomed Henry and his
queen were of unusual magniflcence ; and the chronicler Hall, in his pompous
language, expresses the general sentiment of that period : " No doubt England
had great cause to rejoice at the coming of such a noble prince and so mighty
a conqueror, which in so small space and so brief time had brought under his
obeisance the great and puissant realm and dominion of France." But there
are other records which show that England herself was beginning to suffer
from the operations of "so mighty a conqueror." The first statute of the
parliament which the king convened in 1421 (chap, v.), referring to the
statute of Edward III. that sheriffs and escheators should remain only one
year in office, says, " Whereas, at the time of the making of the said statute,
divers worthy and sufficient persons were in every county of England, to
occupy and govern the same offices well towards the king and all his Jiege
people ; forasmuch that as well by divers pestilences within the realm of
England, as by the wars without the realm, there is not now such sufficiency,
it is ordained that the king, by authority of parliament, may make the sheriffs
and escheators through the realm, at his will, until the end of foyr years."
Barrington recites this statute to show that the laurels which Henry acqiiired
were obtained at the dearest price, the depopulation of the country.* There
were other causes than the waste of war to account for the deficiency of
" worthy and sufficient persons in every county of England." In 1418 Henry
was confiscating estates in Normandy, and bestowing them on his Engljsh
foUowers. In 1421 he was receiving homage from English lords fop the
lands of France. The same temptations which led the Norman barons under
the first WiUiam to desert the pleasant vaUeys of the Seine for the ruder
abodes of the Severn and the Trent, now sent back their descendants to
Normandy to make new acquisitions of the country from which the English
had been dispossessed for two centuries. The evil from which England had
been saved by the weakness of John was about to be renewed in the strength
of Henry. Fortunate was it that the conquej-or did not long remain to per
petuate his conquests ; and that in the feebleness of his successor, and the
distractions of a civil war, France was again Iqst.
The peace of Troyes was approved by the English parliament, and the
Commons granted a subsidy of a fifteenth, " to continue the war, that the
dauphin and his party, who maintained some cities and provinces against
the king, being subdued, France might be entirely annexed to the English
crown." t But even in this season of popular excitement there was a
petition complaining of the intolerable burden of the war. In the previous
year a petition had been presented to the duke of Gloucester, in a parliament
which he had summoned as guardian of England, that he would move the
* " Observations on the Statotes," &c., p. 312.
t "Parliamentary History," vol. i. p. 339.

1421.1 CLARENCE KILLED— HENRY RETURNS TO FRANCE. 73
king and queen to return, as speedily as might please them, in relief and
comfort of the commons ; and they also requested that their petitions might
not be sent to the king beyond sea, but determined in England. They
dreaded " that England might become a province of the French crown, which
led them to obtain a renewal of the statute of Edward IIL, declaring the
independence of this kingdom." * The king and his queen did not remain
long, " in relief and comfort of the commons." They were making a
progress through the kingdom, and had arrived at York, when news came
which speedily caUed back Henry to France. He had left his brother, the
duke of Clarence, as his lieutenant in Normandy. Anjou, which recognised
the authority of the dauphin, was invaded by the duke ; and at Beauje, on
the 22nd of March, he was surprised in his work of wasting the country by a
great force of Anjevins, aided by several thousand Scottish auxiliaries under
the earl of Buchan, the second son of the regent of Scotland. The duke was
slain ; and the greater number of his vanguard were kiUed or taken prisoners.
The English archers, however, came up, and drove the French and Scots
from the field. Soon, however, Scot was to be opposed to Scot in the great
contest for dominion. Murdoch, the regent of Scotland, had lent assistance
to the dauphin at a time of peace with England ; and many of the Scottish
nobles disapproved of the measure. The king of Scotland had been sixteen
years a captive in Windsor Castle ; and here, like that other illustrious
prisoner the duke of Orleans, he found in the cultivation of literature a solace
for the absence of liberty. In the garden of the keep of Windsor he first
saw Jane Beaufort, walking amongst the hawthorn hedges and the juniper
branches — and henceforth the cousin of king Henry was, in his mind, " the
fairest and the freshest younge flower." So the captive has recorded of his
love in his charming poem of " The King's Quair." Jane Beaufort's widowed
mother had married the duke of Clarence ; and this circumstance might have
been some inducement to the captive king to accept the offer of Henry to
accompany him to France, to redeem the great disaster of Beauj^. Archibald,
earl of Douglas, and other Scottish knights, joined Henry and their
young king ; and set sail from Dover, with four thousand men-at-arms and
twentyrfour thousand archers. Queen Katherine was left at Windsor.
Henry and his army landed at Calais on the 12th of June.
After several minor successes, king Henry, at the earnest entreaty of the
people of Paris, undertook the siege of the city of Meaux, about thirty miles
from the capital. The commander of the place, known as the Bastard of
Vaurus, was a devoted adherent of the count of Armagnac, who had been
butchered by the Parisians ; and in revenge of his death, he massacred every
Burgundian that he could encounter in the predatory excursions which he
made to the vepy waUs of Paris. He was a public enemy, carrying on a
partisan warfare with a ferocity of which even those times of bloodshed
furnished few examples. Henry undertook to subdue this brigand. But
Meaux was a place of remarkable strength ; and it was seven months before
it was wholly taken. In this siege Henry lost several of his best captains,
amongst whom were the earl of Worcester and lord Clifford and his men
were swept away ty ^n epidemic sickness. At last the garrison was starved
* Hallaui, "Middle Ages," chap. viii. part m.

74

ILLNESS OF HENRY.

[1422.

out ; and the commander was decapitated. By the surrender of Meaux the
English became masters of the greater part of France to the north of the
Loire. The queen of Henry had borne him a son, and she came back to
France, with her infant, to join her husband in Paris. There was a short
season of festivity at the Whitsunside of 1422 ; and then the king set out to
raise the siege of Caen. He had for some time beeu labouring under a

disease, which he bore up against with the same iron will that made him
front every danger and difficulty of warfare. At Corbeil he became too iU to
proceed ; and his brother, the duke of Bedford, took the command of the
army, in concert with the duke of Burgundy. Henry was carried back on a
litter to the Bois de Vincennes. It soon became evident that his malady,
whatever it might be, was beyond the medical skill of those days to arrest or
cure. The English who surrounded the bed of the dying man saw the same
composure which he had always shown in the battle-field. He commended
his child to the care of his brother, the duke of Bedford, desiring the earl oi
Warwick to be his tutor. His brother of Gloucester he wished to be
guardian of England. He advised that the regency of France should be
offered to the duke of Burgundy ; but in the event of his refusal to the duke
of Bedford. Above all, he urged that no peace should be concluded with the
dauphin, unless Normandy were ceded in absolute sovereignty to the English
crown. Having delivered his last wishes, he asked the physicians how long
he might expect to live. They said the Almighty had power to restore him
to health. He repeated the question, requiring a direct answer. The answer
was, "Not more than two hours." The ministers of religion then came to

11^2.] DEATH OF lldlNllY— HIS CHARACTEt;. 73
his bed, and recited the penitential Psalms. At the words, "Thou shalt
build up the waUs of Jerusalem," he said, " If I had finished the war in
France, and established peace, I would have gone to Palestine, to redeem
the holy city from the Saracens." The last dream of glory was sanctified by
the aspirations of religion.
Henry V. died on the 31st of August, 1422, in the tenth year of his
reign, the thirty-fourth of his age. The devoted attachment to him of the
English in France was expressed in funeral solemnities more than usually
significant of real sorrow. Upon a car was shown a waxen figure of the
king ; and in a slow journey of many days a procession of heralds and priests,
and knights and esquires in black armour, with aU the dead king's household,
traversed the country which had witnessed his painful marches — from Paris
to Eouen, from Eouen to Abbeville, from AbbeviUe to Calais. Out of every
town came the clergy and joined the cavalcade, and at night the body was
placed in the principal church. The French people looked on with wonder,
and even with pity, for the untimely fate of the great king ; for they had
seen the perfect discipline which he had preserved in his army, and how
sternly he had repressed and punished the violence and exactions of their
own lords. A fleet waited to convey the body and the EngUsh mourners to
Dover. Slowly London was reached ; and the funeral obsequies having been
performed at St. Paul's in the presence of the Lords and Commons of the
parliament, all that remained of the warrior and statesman was finally
deposited in Westminster Abbey.
It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to form a just estimate of the
character of Henry V., in regarding it from the modern point of view.
To place before our eyes the social good that might have been accomplished
by a prince of such eminent talents, of such strong wUl, of such firm self-
reliance, of such fortitude under the most appaUing difficulties, of such
equanimity at the height of success, of such zealous though erring sense of
religious obligation — ^to view him in a possible career of honest energy
vfithout the lust of conquest, and to blame him for not preferring a real
usefulness to a blind ambition — this is to set aside the circumstances which
gave a direction to the actions by which we must judge of his character.
We can imagine a prince so endowed, despising the superstition of his times,
determine to make a corrupted church tolerant, and to bestow liberty of
conscience upon aU his subjects. Such a conquest of bigotry would have
been a wilder and a more dangerous undertaking than the conquest of
France. We can imagine him looking beyond all the prejudices of his age,
and discovering that a free commercial intercourse between nations is the true
foundation of prosperous industry. Such a theory has not been possible to
be realised in England tiU the very times in which we live ; and is even now
rejected as impossible by nations far more advanced in understanding what
belongs to real civilisation than the England of the fifteenth century. We
can imagine him destroying the jealous factions which disturbed his father's
doubtful authority, by calling forth the love of the great body of the people,
and urging forward the rights of the burgess and the labourer to control the
oppressions that still clung to the decaying system of feudaUty. It was long
before the monarchical could extinguish the aristocratic tyranny ; and then
the rule of the one was, in many respects, a despotism more injurious than

76

DUKE OF GLOUCESTER PROTECTOR.

[142?.

the grasping and turbulent power of the many. England had to pass
through various stages of misrule before the universal good could be received
as the great end of all government. Before Henry V. there was opened
the magnificent prospect of recovering the hereditary dominions of the
Norman kings, which had slipped away from the feeble successors of the
greatest of that valiant race ; which had been partially won back by the third
Edward ; and which had again been surrendered to the growing power of
France. His negotiations show that his real policy was to recover what had
been lost after the treaty of Bretigny ; and that his demand of the French
crown would have been soon abandoned had not the distractions of France
offered an irresistible temptation to his enthusiastic ambition. For he was
an enthusiast. He had an undoubting confidence in the justice of his claim ;
he had no apprehensions of its impolicy. His bravery, fortitude, and per
severance won the admiration of the English people, as such qualities will
always command the applause of a military nation. In England every man
was trained to arms, and the briUiant achievements of the great soldier were
far more valued than the substantial merits of the just lawgiver. But the
career of Henry V. was not without its national benefit. From his time
there was no false estimate in Europe of the prowess of the English ; from
his time there was no dream that the proud island might be subjugated.
Even in the civil wars of the half century which succeeded Henry, England
was unmolested from without. No king of France ever thought to avenge
Agincourt by wearing the crown of England in right of conquest.

Helmet, Shield, and Saddle of Henry V. suspended over Ins Tomb.
When the death of Henry V. was known in London, some of the leading
peers assembled, and issued writs for a new parliament. The duke of
Gloucester had been named by the dying Henry as regent of England; but
upon the roU of parliament it was entered that the king, considering his
tender age, appoints the duke of Bedford, or, in his absence beyond sea, the
duke of Gloucester, to be protector and defender of the kingdom. From
8ub.=equent proceedings recorded in the roUs of parliame^t it appears that

1422.] DEATH OP CHARLES VL— REGENCY OF BEDFORD. 77
Gloucester had claimed to be regent according to the desire of his brother;
but that the lords had resisted that claim, saying that the king could not
grant governance of the land to any person except while he lived ; and that
although it was agreed that Gloucester should be chief of the Council, in
absence of the duke of Bedford, he was to hold his position, not under the
name of tutor, lieutenant, governor, or regent^ or of any name that should
import governance of the land, but only bear the name of protector and
defender. We thus see that the jealousies which, in a few years, broke out
into open violence and hatred wei« existing at the very onset of the reign of
him " in infant bands crowned king." But we also see how strictly a great
constitutional principle vvas adhered to, that a king could not appoint a regent
during the minority of his successor ; and that no person could exercise the
royal prerogative during a king's infancy, except by the choice of parliament,
and under the lim.Itations prescribed by parliament for the conduct of the
executive government.*
In less than two months after the death of Henry V., Charles VL, king
of France, also died. At the funeral solemnities at St. Denis, the herald
cried aloud, " Long life to Henry, king of France and England, our sovereign
lord." France had been for forty-two years under the nominal rule of an
incapable king, subject to accesses of insanity which delivered him, powerless,
to one or other of the factions that distracted his kingdom. There were now
two kings in France — an infant in Paris, with a regent who governed north
of the Loire ; and the dauphin, alike the object of party hatred and party
adulation, who was crowned at Poitiers as Charles VII. ; and who ruled or
influenced most of the provinces south of the Loire. Brittany at first
remained neutral in this great quarrel. Burgundy was with the English.
When, therefore, some are accustomed to say that Henry V. conquered
France, they speak with a very loose estimate of the noble territory that
remained unconquered. In thirty years from the death of Henry V. aU that
had been surrendered to his arms or his policy was utterly lost.
To follow through the various fortunes of this war in France would, with
some striking exceptions, be only to repeat the monotonous details of sieges and
battle-fields— wearisome even when told with a due comprehension of their
peculiar aspects. The more important of the early contests between the
regent Bedford, and Charles VIL, were the battle of Crevant, in 1423, where
the earl of Salisbury signally defeated the earl of Buchan, commanding an
aUied army of French and Scots ; and the battle of VerneuU, where
Bedford utterly routed the French army in an engagement which was
recoriied in the rolls of parliament as " the greatest deed done by Englishmen
in our days, save the battle of Agincourt." The duke of Bedford had
military talents ; and his policy sought to strengthen his faction by powerful
alliances. He married the sister of the duke of Burgundy ; and he negotiated
a marriage between another sister of that duke, and the duke of Brittany.
But these friendships were soon endangered by the rash passions of the duke
of Gloucester, the protector and defender of England. T£e aUiance with
Burgundy had given stability to the power of Henry V. The persona.
ambition of his brother Gloucester weakened this support of the English
* See Hallam, "Middle Ages," chap. viii. part iii.

78 FEUDS OF GLOUCESTER AND BEAUFORT. [1426.
rule. Jacqueline of Hainault was the sovereign lady of Holland, Zealand,
Fricsland, and Hainault. She was first married to the eldest son of Charles VI.
of France, who died whilst dauphin ; and she was then wedded to the duke
of Brabant, kinsman to the duke of Burgundy. Eloping from her husband
she went to England; and obtaining a divorce from the anti-pope married the
duke of Gloucester, who claimed her large territorial possessions, and landed
five thousand men at Calais to support his claim. Hainault became the
seat of a new war. The dukes of Burgundy and Bedford endeavoured to
reconcile the disputants ; but Gloucester was obstinate, and bitterly quarrelled
with Burgundy. It was agreed that a single combat should decide this new
hostility ; but Bedford at Paris, and the parliament in England, saw to what
national evils this rupture might lead. Gloucester, in spite of their joint
remonstrances, led an army into Holland ; and the English in France began
to take the side of their rash countryman. The question was finally settled
by the pope declaring the marriage of Gloucester void ; and he eventually
consoled himself by marrying Eleanor Cobham, a lady of humble rank and
spotted reputation. From that time, the duke of Burgundy cooled towards the
English alliance. Ghiucester, when he returned to England, engaged in a fierce
quarrel with his uncle, Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, and chancellor,
who was one of the Illegitimate brothers of Henry IV. The people of London,
in 1422, had seen their king, then two years old, "borne towards his mother's
chare,* and he shrieked, and cried, and sprang, and would not be carried." t
In 1424, they had seen him placed before the high altar of St. Paul's, and
then seated upon a horse, and paraded through the city. In 1425, with a
view probably to diminish the influence of the protector, by exhibiting the
child Henry as a shadow of royalty, he was brought into the house of
Lords, and seated on the throne on his mother's knee. " It was a strange
sight," says Speed, the chronicler, "and the first time it was ever seen in
England, an infant sitting in his mother's lap, and before it could teU what
English meant, to exercise the place of sovereign direction in open parlia
ment." The people knew that the power was necessarily in other hands than
those of this poor child and his mother ; and they saw the natural guardians of
the baby-king quarreling for supremacy. On an October night of 1426,
Gloucester sent for the mayor of London, and directed him to have the city
strictly watched. The next morning Beaufort came from his palace in
Southwark, with archers and men-at-arms, and assaulted by shot and missiles
the gate of London-bridge, which was closed against him. The citizens were
supporters of Gloucester ; and " all the city of London was moved against
the bishop, and would have destroyed him in his inn at Southwark, but the
gates of London-bridge were so surely kept that no man might pass out, and
the Thames was also kept that no man might pass over." J In the dread of
civil war, the duke of Bedford came over to England ; and a parliament was
held at Leicester, where the members were ordered to appear without arms.
Gloucester exhibited articles of accusation against the bishop, the principal of
which were, that he wanted to seize the young king's person, and that he sought
to kill the protector and to excite a rebellion. A reconciliation was enforced
by appointed arbitrators, who decided that Gloucester should be " good lord
* A horse litter on wheels. t Chronicle of London.
t " An English Chronicle." Camden Society, p. 53.

1428.] TUTELAGE OP HENRY VI. 7!)
to the bishop, and have him in affection and love ;" and that the bishop should
bear to the protector " true and sad love and affection, and be ready to do
him such service as perlalneth of honesty to my lord of Winchester, and to
his estate, to do." The bishop was humiliated. He resigned the chancellor
ship, aud went abroad. But the pope bestowed upon him the red hat ; and
Cardinal Beaufort henceforth figures in English history, — believed by some
to have been a conscientious upholder of the Church, and an encourager of
learning, and by others held as an unscrupulous and grasping politician, who
" dies and makes no sign " of repentance for his avarice and cruelty.
In accordance with the will of his dying father, the boy Henry, when six
years old, was placed under the tutelage of the earl of Warwick. This com
panion in arms of Henry V. was fitted to train his son in all knightly qualities,
and thus to form a character the very opposite to that of Henry VI.
Warwick had fought under Henry IV. at Shrewsbury. He had been on
pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He had traveUed in Prussia, Poland, and
Eussia. He had challenged any three knights of France to joust with him at
Guisnes, and on three successive days he was the victor in each encounter.*
His appointment as tutor to the king was made under the authority of the
Council ; and he was to instruct his pupil in aU things worthy to be known,
nurturing him in the love and fear of his Creator, and in hatred of all vice.
Warwick held this office tiU the king was sixteen. The system of education
pursued by this chivalrous warrior might not have been the best fitted for a
sensitive boy ; for the tutor applied to the Council for powers, which were
granted, to hold the pupil under the strictest discipline, even after he had been
crowned king in 1429. He was not to be spoken to, unless in the presence of
Warwick and of the four knights appointed to be about his person, " as the
king, by the speech of others private, has been stirred by some from his
learning, and spoken to of divers matters not behoveful." The Council
promised that they would firmly assist the earl in chastising the king for his
defaults ; and, " that for awe thereof he forbear the more to do amiss, and
intend the more busily to virtue and to learning," they should come to the
king and declare their assent to his chastisement. According to this curious
entry in the EoUs of Parliament,t Warwick applied for these articles as his
protection against the young Henry's displeasure and indignation, "as the
king is grown in years, in stature of his person, and In conceit. and knowledge
of his high authority." Severe corporal punishment was the accustomed
instrument of good education in the fifteenth century. The scourge was
recommended even by gentle mothers to be administered to their sons. One
writes to beg that her son's tutor may be implored " that he will truly belash
him tiU he wiU amend ;" adding, " I had rather he were fairly buried than lost
for default." J No doubt it was in this spirit of love that Warwick chastised
the young king. At this age Henry appears not to have wanted the just
sense of his own position which failed him in after life. It is difficult now
distinctly to understand what were the deficiencies of his intellect. He
* In the Cottonian Library there is a MS. written by Rous, a priest who lived at Guy's
Cliff, being a life of this Earl of Warwick, illustrated with curious drawings, of which the one
at p. 80 is a copy.
t Quoted in Mr. Sharon Turner's "History of England during the Middle Ages," 2nd edit.
vol. ii. p. 492. + " Paston Letters," letter cvii. Ramsay's edit.

HO

TUTELAGE OP HENRY VL

[1428.

probably inherited some portion of the malady of his maternal grandfather ;
but infirmity of purpose and fear of responsibility seem to have marked his
character rather than that unsoundness of mind which exhibits itself in
habitual delusions and fitful aberrations. His life was one long state of
Dupilage. All the wonderful energy of his race appears in him to have been
extinguished in a calm indifference to good or evil fortune, and in patient
submission to stronger wills than his own — to his uncles, to his preceptor, to
his wife, to his wife's favourites. How much of the fire of the Plantagenets
might have been trodden out of Henry VI. by the severities of his early
discipline cannot now be estimated. He was born to a most unhappy
position ; and it is satisfactory to believe that his hard lot was solaced by
that reUgious trust which lightens the burthens of the wretched, whether on
a throne or in a dungeon. The earl of Warwick, who, like many other
leaders of chivalry, was an enthusiastic believer in the efficacy of vows and
pilgrimages, may have inspired his pupil with that strong feeling of
ceremonial devotion which caused him long to be regarded as a saint. To a
right direction of that piety we owe the noble foundations of Eton and
King's CoUege, Cambridge — worthy monuments which stiU call upon us to
respect the memory of the most meek and most unfortunate of kings.

Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, as a Pil^im, worshipping at the
Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem.

Medal of Joan of Arc ; from a Freiich work of 1634.

CHAPTER VI.

Defeat of the English before Montargis— Position of Charles VIL — Commencement of the siege
of Orleans — Salisbury killed — Battle of Herrings — Despair of the besieged — Proclamation
. — The peasant girl of Domremy — -Joan of Arc travels to the court of Charles VII. —
Receives authority to relieve Orleans — Enters the besieged city — English belief iu witch
craft — Terrors and defeats of the English — The siege raised — Defeats of Jargeau and
Patay — Charles crowned at Rheims — Joan captured at Compiegne — Tried as a sorceress
and burnt at Rouen — French war continued — Henry VI. crowned in Paris — The English
disgraces and losses— Henry married to Margaret of Anjou — Affairs in England— The
duchess of Gloucester accused of witchcraft — Arrest of the duke of Gloucester — Deaths of
Gloucester aud Beaufort.
The war in France had been conducted without any decided success on
either side, after the victory at Verneuil in 1424, till 1427, when the forces
of the duke of Bedford sustained a severe defeat, and were compelled to raise
the siege of Montargis. But the cause of Charles VII. was little advanced
by this partial good fortune. His adherents were quarreling amongst them
selves. Many of the nobles who had supported him now deserted a prince
whose treasurer declared he 'had only four crowns in his coffer. Nearly all
the fortresses on the right bank of the Loire had been surrendered without
defence. The people were enduring famine and disease. Charles, whose
character was a little improved by adversity, did not lose hope amidst the
evils which surrounded him. He was of an easy nature, and in proportion as
his great lords were faithless he addressed himself to the affection of the
common people. Gradually a personal as well as a national feeling revived
the patriotism which had been almost extinguished. Charles placed his chief
reliance upon the possession of Orleans. If that city feU, the provinces
beyond the Loire would be open to the English, and he would have to find a
shelter in the mountains of Auvergne or the more remote Dauphine. The
English, it was knovm, were approaching to besiege Orleans. The inhabitants
prepared for its defence with unwonted zeal. 'They received aids of money
from other cities ; and a tax was voted for the same aid by the three estates
assembled at Chinon. The citizens adopted the' most effectual means to
resist the besiegers. They destroyed their suburbs, with their vines and
gardens and houses, that their enemy might have no lodgment; and they

82

COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS.

[1428.

erected strong forts, particularly that of the Tournelles, which, defending the
bridge, secured the communication of the city with the left bank of the
Loire. On the 12th of September, 1428, the earl of Salisbury pitched his
camp to the south of Orleans, and within a week commenced an attack upon
the bulwark of the Tournelles. The assault was resisted with more than
usual popular enthusiasm. The experienced warriors discharged their arrows
and missiles ; and the citizens, male and female, showered down stones upon the
assailants. But the fort of the Tournelles was finally taker.. The inhabitants

Tuvvur. Archers. Cannon.
then raised another bulwark on an isle of the river, and cannonaded the
English camp. Dunois and La Hire, the bravest of the French chivalry,
arrived with reinforcements. The English lost their best commander,
SaUsbury. He had mounted the ruined tower of the Tournelles to survey
the city, when a stone baU struck him, and carried away his eye and a part
of his face. He survived eight days. The duke of Suffolk now succeeded to
the command ; and the siege was pursued with a perseverance as remarkable
as the defence. The great extent of Orleans prevented its complete blockade ;
and supplies were, from time to time, thrown in for the relief of the besieged.
Eeinforcements, too, continued to arrive. To meet the necessities of the
besieging army, the duke of Bedford had despatched an immense convoy with
provisions from Paris. It was determined to cut off this supply. The

U29.] DESPAIR OF THE BESIEGED. 85
convoy, under the command of Sir John Fastolf, was attacked by a detach
ment from the garrison of Orleans, and by a body of French and Scots
commanded by the count of Clermont. The attack was iU-devised ; and was
commenced without a proper concert amongst the French leaders. Their
force of eight thousand men was defeated by fifteen hundred English. This
was called the Battle of Herrings, vast quantities of this lenten food forming
part of the supplies. It was fought on the 12th of February, 1429. The line
of English forts round the city was graduaUy extending. Towers and bul
warks were erected on each bank of the Loire by the besiegers. The lines,
vigilantly kept, now more effectually prevented the arrival of food or men.
Famine was beginning to threaten more misery than the sword. The reso-
..ution which stiU remained to the unhappy people was that of despair. The
fame of their gallant resistance had gone through France ; and it was felt,
even in districts far removed from the scene of warfare, tliat the time was
approaching when it should be decided whether France should be governed
by the English Plantagenets or by its own race of Valois.
The feudal lord of Orleans was in captivity in England ; and it was
proposed by the people, seeing resistance was unavailing, that their city should
be placed in the keeping of the duke of Burgundy, till the great contest for
the crown of France was decided. Philip of Burgundy was pleased at the
proposal, which was communicated to him by ambassadors from Orleans.
The duke of Bedford gave no encouragement to the plan, when it was
debated between these allied chiefs at Paris. An adviser of Bedford says, —
" We are not here to champ the morsels for Burgundy to swallow."
Bedford rejoins, " No, no, we wIU not beat the bushes for another to take
the birds." Bedford and Burgundy quarreled about the expected prey; and
Burgundy withdrew his troops, and left the English to continue the siege
alone. The faU of the city was rapidly approaching ; when some wonder, not
unmixed with contempt, was felt by the leaders of the besieging army, upon
receiving a letter dictated in far different terms than those which usually
proclaimed the challenges of chivaby : " King of England, and you, duke of
Bedford, who call yourself regent of the kingdom of France ; you, William
de la Pole, count of Suffolk ; you, John lord Talbot, and you, Thomas lord
Scales, who call yourselves lieutenants of the said duke of Bedford, do ye
right to the King of Heaven ; render to the Pucelle, who is sent hither by
God, the King of Heaven, the keys of the good cities you have taken and
plundered in France. And you archers, companions in war, gentlemen and
others, who are before the city of Orleans, go your ways into your ovm
country, in the name of God. I am sent by the King of Heaven to drive
you out of aU France." The English captains would have heard the common
rumour that from the borders of Champagne a young woman had travelled to the
court of Charles, at Chinon, asserting a divine mission ; and that her pretensions
had been examined before a solemn council of jurists and theologians at
Poitiers. The dauphin must indeed be faUen low to depend upon such aid.
In the hamlet of Domremy, near Vaucouleurs, a pastoral country watered
by the Meuse, dwelt a little cultivator named Jacques d'Arc, with his wife
Isabel. They had a daughter, Joan, who was remarkable for her early piety.
Her talents were considerable ; but she had received no education, and made
the mark of a cross at the beginning of the letters which were written at her
02

84 THE PEASANT GIRL, JOAN OP ARC. [1429
dictation. She said of herself, " I feared no woman of Eouen in sewing and
spinning." When thirteen years of age, she refused to join in the sports of
the young people of her hamlet ; and secluded herself in the woods and fields,
or was found kneeling before the cross in her parish church. This was after
the period when the death of Charles VI. had divided France into two great
factions ; and the vicinity of Domremy to Burgundy had made the feuds of
the Burgundians and the Armagnacs familiar to the peasantry. Joan saw
the men of her own village violently disputing as to the merits of these
parties ; but mostly agreed in hatred of the English. She had herself looked
upon the extreme misery of the people ; and she attributed it, not without
justice, to the invasion which had given the crown to an English king at
Paris, whilst the true heir was in danger and difficulty. Her enthusia.stic
nature was stimulated by these united impulses of religion and patriotism ;
and in her solitary meditations she began to see visions and to hear voices.
The first voice which she heard only exhorted her to be pious and discreet ;
but then came a figure with wings, and commanded her to go to the succour .
of the king, for that she should recover his kingdom. From time to time
she told what she had seen and heard. " My voices have instructed me " —
" My voices have commanded me," were her expressions. She seems to have
distinctly separated her own supposed revelations from the local superstitions ;
for there was near her viUage a wonderful tree, called the Ladies' tree, growing
beside a spring with healing properties ; and old people said that fairies fre
quented the place ; but she declared that she never saw fairies, and she never
went to the tree to make garlands, as others did, from the time she knew she
ought to go to the king. Amongst the ridiculous accusations which were
afterwards heaped up against her, she was charged with having attended the
witches' sabbath on every Thursday night, at the Fairies' oak of Bourlemont.
There was an ancient prophecy, known to the country people, that France
should be lost by a woman and saved by a woman. The queen Isabella, who
had brought in the English, was the one. The people now added to the prophecy
that a virgin from the marches of Lorraine should be the other. Before
1429 Joan was entirely persuaded that she had a power given her to restore
the kingdom to Charles VII.
The voices which Joan heard disclosed to her the practical mode of carry
ing out her strong idea. They told her, what would have been her natural
conviction, that she must put herself in communication with some great
person. She sought the feudal lord of Baudricourt at Vaucouleurs. He
Bent her away, as one distraught. She told her story to two gentlemen who
dwelt near her. " There is no help for France but in me," she said. " I
would rather spin by the side of my poor mother, but I must go. My Lord
calls me." Her pretensions were spread abroad. The duke of Lorraine sent
for her, to cure him of a malady. She said that she had no heavenly light to
remove his disease, and she counselled him to lead a better life than he had
been wont to lead. The duke gave her four francs, and bade her depart.
At last, the lord of Baudricourt listened to her when she again came before
him in her shabby red gown. The people of Vaucouleurs provided her the
equipment of a horse and a man's dress ; and she went forth on a perilous
journey, having received the oaths of John de Novelompont and Bertrand de
PoulengI, who had first seriously listened to her pretensions, that they would

1429.] JOAN OF ARC ENTERS ORLEANS. 86
conduct her safely to the king. They traveUed through a wild country in the
winter season, taking the most unfrequented routes, and using every care to
avoid the Burgundians and the English. She forwarded a letter, which she
dictated, to Charles, and at length received permission to proceed to Chinon,
Here she arrived after eleven days' travel. Her fame had gone before her.
At last she overcame the difficulties of approaching the king. From that
moment when she publicly announced her mission at the court of Charles,
many things which she most probably did through her own shrewd sense were
accounted miraculous. Thus she is recorded to have selected the prince out
of a crowd of attendants ; and to have indicated to him an acquaintance with
facts only known to himself. It is difficult not to beUeve that at this stage
she had become an instrument in the hands of some persons about the king.
Every ostensible precaution, however, appears to have been taken to prevent
his cause being committed to an impostor. Her -honest life was fully proved ;
and in the conviction of her sanctity, learned doctors, prudent counsellors,
and bold warriors, agreed that the Maid should be confided in. A suit of
armour was prepared for her ; and she indicated where a sword could be
found, behind the altar of a church, at Fierbois. At the head of a large
force, she set out for Orleans, having authority for its command over the
best knights of France. At Blois she put on her armour. Marching on the
right bank of the Loire, she desired to enter Orleans through the English
lines on that side. She was overruled by Dunois, of which she bitterly
complained. It was at length decided that boats loaded with supplies should
proceed up the river. The day was stormy, and the vessels could make no
way. " The wind will change," said the confident girl. It did change, and
the supplies and the troops were landed safely about six miles below the
city. Meanwhile, the garrison of Orleans made a sortie on the north, which
diverted the attention of the besiegers. An hour after sunset, Jeanne
d'Arc rode into Orleans at the eastern gate, mounted on a white horse, her
standard, on which was a figure of the Eedeemer, being borne before her.
The people by torchlight crowded around her ; and she exhorted them to
honour God, and to hope in her for their deliverance.
It was the 29th of April when this extraordinary aid, which was firmly
believed to be supernatural, arrived to the beleaguered city. In the camp of
the EngUsh the men would whisper their fears of impending misfortune ; for
it could not be concealed that a woman, said to be gifted with the spirit of
prophecy, was coming to Orleans at the head of a great reinforcement. The
shouts that came forth from the populous city on that April night would teU
that she was come. The next day a herald from the PuceUe presented
himself at the English camp. The respect paid to the messenger of princes
was denied to the messenger of a reputed sorceress, and he was threatened
to be burnt as a heretic. Another herald came to defy Talbot ; and to
declare, from the commander of the French, that if the messenger of the
Pucelle received any harm, it should be visited upon the English prisoners.
These proceedings began to spread alarm amongst the brave yeomen of
England, who had fronted so many dangers in the field, but who had a terror
of witches and magicians, which was a characteristic of this period. The
Church had associated witchcraft and heresy in their proceedings against the
early reformers ; and, amongst the charges against the Waldenses, they were

86 TERRORS AND DEFEATS OF THE ENGLISH. [1429.
accused of holding converse with the enemy of mankind in the form of a cat,
and of riding through the air on magical sticks. When Henry IV. thought it
politic to repress the LoUards, he became also very solicitous for the discovery
and punishment of witches and sorcerers. The superstition had become
familiar to the EngUsh, through the denunciations of the ecclesiastical
authorities against " heresy, conjurations, necromancy, enchantments, witch
crafts, and other false belief against the faith of holy Church." * The
soldiers of Suffolk and Talbot looked on in terror and amazement, when, on a
tower facing the Tournelles, a form appeared in shining armour, and bade
them depart if they would avoid , misery and shame. William Glasdale, the
commander of the Tournelles, revUed the maiden, and told her to go back to
her cows. "Tour men wiU be driven to retreat," she exclaimed, "but you
will not Uve to fly with them." The French waited for succours from other
garrisons, before they attempted any great operations against the besiegers.
Joan was invariably for instant attack, without heeding disparity of numbers
or disadvantages of position. Some of the knights were indignant at her-
assumed authority ; but by her resistless force of wiU she conquered aU
opposition. The succours at length were at hand. There was no attempt to '
bring them into the city under cover of darkness, or while the English were
engaged in another quarter. At the head of the French knights and soldiers,
followed by the people of the town, Joan rode forth with her banner, between
the towers of the besiegers. They looked on with wonder ; but there was no
resistance. When she returned at night, she threw herself exhausted on a
bed. Awakened by a noise, she cried out, "My arms! my horse!" She
rushed into the street, mounted with her banner, and rode alone to the spot
where she heard the clamour. A rash sortie had been made; and the
assailants were driven back. When they saw the white horse and the banner
of the Maid, they shouted for joy, and foUowed her out of the gate into the
besiegers' lines. After an engagement of three hours, the English fort was
taken and set on fire. It was Joan's first battle. She had fought with the
courage and address of the most accomplished knight.
The terror of the English after this sortie from the Burgundy gate
became more universal. The next day the Pucelle and the chiefs crossed the
Loire in a boat, and led an attack upon a fortification on the left bank. She
was slightly wounded, and passed the night in the field. The great force of
the besiegers was on the right bank of the river ; and the lord of Gaucourt,
the governor of Orleans, was opposed to this leading forth of the garrison, to
leave the city defenceless, whUe the English were attacked on the left bank.
But the daring and confident girl had completely won the real leadership of
the soldiers aud the citizens. She had returned to Orleans, and had told the
chiefs that she had much to do on the morrow. Without any concert with
the French leaders she rose early in the morning, . and went forth with a
tumultuous crowd to the Burgundy gate. It was shut against her egress,
The governor was compeUed to open it, and she rode out, followed by soldiers
and a great multitude. Their counsel being thus rejected, the French knights,
with their men-at-arms, reluctantly followed. But their prudence was soon
laid aside in the din of battle. The river had been crossed by Joan, and she
had commenced an assault on the Tournelles, the great fort held to be
* See Introduction to "Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler.'' Camden Society.

i429.] THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS RAISED. 8'(
impregnable. The artillery from its walls thinned the ranks of the assailants ;
but the wonderful Maid was always ready with her rallying cry. She was the
first to mount the rampart by a ladder. An arrow struck her, and she fell
into tho ditch. She was carried off ; and after a few natural tears drew the
shaft out of her shoulder, and knelt in prayer. The attack had lasted four
hours, and nothing had been gained. The retreat was sounded. Joan implored
Dunois not to move. " Let our people rest, and eat and drink." Her
standard-bearer had remained near the spot whence the Maid was borne
away. The lord of Daubon, who was against a retreat, took the standard,
and with another descended into the ditch ; and waving the weU-known sign
of victory the French raUied -ound him. Seeing what was taking place,
Joan went forward to claim her standard. The English, who had seen her
borne off wounded, felt a now alarm. The French advanced again to the
attack of the fort, under their marveUous leader. From the other bank the
people of Orleans were storming the Tournelles, having crossed the broken
arches of the bridge by beams placed on the buttresses. The English were
now between two assaults. The soldiers were fiUed with a superstitious awe.
The maiden was on the battlement of the second tower of the works, the first
having been taken. The soldiers, with Glasdale their commander, thus sur
rounded, were retreating into the main defence upon a wooden bridge, when a
cannon-ball struck it, and the commander and his men feU into the stream,
and were drowned. The prophetic words of the Maid, when Glasdale reviled
her, were accomplished. There was now no chance of resistance to the impas
sioned assaults of the French. The EngUsh threw down their arms, and
were slaughtered, drowned, or taken prisoners, to the number of seven
thousand. No aid came from the panic-stricken camp ; and the Maiden
passed over the repaired bridge into the city, amidst the shouts of tbe
multitude, whUst every steeple sent forth its peals of gratulating bells, and
at every church Te Deum was sung on that night of victory. The next
morning, at break of day, the English marched out from their forts, and
formed in order of battle to the north and west of the city. They stood in
an attitude of defiance before the walls. Joan had hastily risen, and was
soon at the northern gate. " Attack them not," she said. " If they attack
you, defend yourselves." It was Sunday the 8th of May. An altar was
iirought to the gate ; and the priests chanted a solemn service. The English
standards were displayed ; the trumpets sounded ; but they turned their
faces from Orleans. The siege was at an end.
It is not necessary to assign any miraculous powers to Jeanne d'Arc in
accounting for her wonderful success. She honestly believed herself inspired
by Heaven, and she infused into others that belief. An enthusiast herself,
she fiUed a dispirited soldiery and a despairing people with enthusiasm. The
great secret of her success was the boldness of her attacks, when military
science reposed upon its cautious strategy. In the eyes of the experienced
tacticians she risked the safety of the city when she led her excited
multitudes to the assault of the Tournelles. In her own self-reliance she
would hear of no other counsels but the most daring ; and to that contempt
of danger she owed her triumphs. In every desperate struggle between
individuals and nations boldness is generally the most certain winner.
Boldness was the principle which the peasant girl of Domremy maintained to

88, DEFEATS OF JARGEAU AND PATAY. [1429.
the end of her wonderful career. In eleven days she had stricken terror into
an army which had been the terror of France for eleven years. The govern
ment of Charles VII. would have rested inactive under the triumph of
Orleans. She unceasingly urged the dauphin's progress to Eheims, for she
held him not as a king till he was crowned in that city, where all the kings
of France for three centuries had been consecrated. The way thither was
filled with their enemies. They held the keys of the cities between the Loire
and the Seine. But the bold counsels at last prevailed, and Joan's standard was
again floating at the head of a Frepoh army. On the 11th of June, the duke
of Alen^on, and the chiefs who had defended Orleans, arrived before Jargeau,
which Suffolk occupied. The EngUsh earl had come out with his garrison to
offer battle. The French had arrived in haste, and they were driven back.
But at the command of the Pucelle tbey returned to the attack, and Suffolk
retired within his walls. The bombardment of the town continued for three
days ; when a breach having beeu made, Joan led the assault. Jargeau fell,
and Suffolk was a prisoner. On the 18th June was fought the battle of
Patay. The English fled from the terrible banner that had been flrst seen at
Orleans ; and the lords Talbot and Scales were made prisoners. The hasty
retreat of Fastolf brought upon him the undeserved imputation of cowardice ;
and when he came to the duke of Bedford, at Corbeil, he was deprived of the
riband of the garter. The triumph of the victory of the Herrings did not
save the good knight from the disgrace of the flight of Patay. But Bedford
himself, though a man of great ability, believed, or affected to believe, in a
miraculous cause for these reverses of the English. A letter was sent by
him, at this period, to the Council at London, in which, according to rule, he
addresses the young king : " All things here prospered for you tUl the time
of the siege of Orleans, undertaken of whose advice God only knows. Since
the death of my cousin of Salisbury, whom God absolve, who feU by the
hand of God, as it seemeth, your people, who were assembled in great
number at this siege, have received a terrible check. This has been caused
in part, as we trow, by the confidence our enemies have in a disciple and limb
of the Devil, called Pucelle, that used false enchantments and sorcery. The
which stroke and discomfiture has not only lessened the number of your people
here, but also sunk the courage of the remainder in a wonderful manner, and
encouraged your enemies to assemble themselves forthwith in great numbers."
It was a false policy of the English chiefs to decry Jeanne d'Arc as a
sorceress. It was the ready mode to spread the greatest terror of her exploits
amongst their own adherents. The French, with equal confidence, proclaimed
her as the favoured of Heaven, who exhibited as much courage as piety. At
this juncture, the duke of Bedford secured the doubtful co-operation of the
duke of Burgundy ; and the cardinal Beaufort, who had raised an army in
England for a crusade against the heretics of Bohemia, turned over his troops
to the regent of France, to war against the Armagnacs, and to make new
efforts against the enchantments which had given them power to resist the
long triumphant bravery of the English. They took the field with new
hopes. Onward went the Maid,. upon her resolved design that Charles VII.
should be crowned at Eheims. On the 28th of June, twelve thousand
Frenchmen marched out of Gien, to traverse a country whose towns and
fortresses were held by English and Burgundians. They reached Troyes, and

1480.] CHAR1.es crowned AT RHEIMS— JOAN CAPTURED. 89
encamped before the town. Six days of inactivity were passed, and the
French army wanted food ; they were without artillery ; and it was proposed
to retreat to the Loire. Joan was sent for by the king and his councU
" Shall I be believed?" she asked. "Whatever you say," replied the king,
"we will attend to." " Then, noble dauphin, assault the town, and you shall
enter there to-morrow." On the morrow, the famous standard was dis
played ; and the terrified garrison of Troyes surrendered the place. They
went on, and took Chalons without resistance. As they approached Eheims,
the peasants of her native district came out to look upon the wonderful girl,
whom they knew as the shepherdess by wise men accounted mad. After
some debate within the town, and great apprehensions of failure in the French
camp, Joan urged the king on, and the gates of Eheims were opened. On
the 17th July, Charles was crowned iu its ancient church. There were few
nobles present. The Maiden stood 'with her standard before the altar. The
expense of the coronation amounted only to twenty-four Parisian livres.
Never was king so inaugurated. All the accustomed pomp was absent ; but
when the enthusiastic girl kissed the feet of her monarch, her tears were a
holier consecration than the mystic oil with which, as the legends told, Clovis
had been there baptised. Charles then went on towards Paris, receiving the
submission of many towns on his march. Joan thought her mission accom
plished; and earnestly desired to return to her father and mother, to
keep their herds and flocks. Her counsels now became vacillating. Some
times Charles retreated and sometimes marched forward. Bedford had sent
him a chaUenge to meet in the open fleld, couched in the most oppro
brious terms ; and he was moving rapidly to bring the French to an
engagement. The two armies suddenly met at Senlis ; and for three days a
battle was vainly expected. Each army then took its Own way, — Bedford for
Normandy, which had been entered by a hostile force under the constable
Eichemont. Charles marched on to Paris. On the 12th of September an
assault was made at the Faubourg St. Honore. The intrepid Joan, though she
had lost confidence in her miraculous voices, displayed her wonted courage.
She scaled the waUs ; but was wounded, and fell into the fosse. CrawUng out
from the heaps of dead and dying, she again waved her standard. The old
confidence in her powers had deserted the French ; and when the attack was
repulsed, they reproached her that she had said they should sleep that night
in Paris. " Ton would have slept there," she replied, "if you had fought as
I fought." Charles retreated to the Loire. The succeeding winter was
passed by the king at Bourges. In the spring the army moved to the relief
of Compiegne, which was besieged by the duke of Burgundy. Joan got into
the town, and the same day headed a sortie. She was taken prisoner, and
was carried to the Burgundian quarters. Her wars were over.
For four months Joan was confined in the castle of Beaurevoir, near
Cambray. She was a prisoner of war to the Burgundians. She was
afterwards conveyed to Arras and to Crotoy ; and was finally delivered to the
English in their city of Eouen. The university of Paris urged her trial
before an ecclesiastical tribunal ; and there are letters from that body, fuU of
reproach to the English for not delivering up their prisoner to the justice of
the Church. At length letters patent were issued in the name of Henry VL,
iL which it was stated that, in accordance with the pubUc opinion, and at the

90

JOAN TRIED FOR SORCERY.

[Ui

especial request of the bishop of Beauvais and the university of Paris, si
was to be given up to the bishop, to be examined and proceeded against und(
his authority. She was subjected for several months to the most searchii
interrogatories. At fifteen examinations she was never disconcerted, bi
answered every question with perfect frankness. AU the circumstances i
her early Ufe were related by her ; and her beUef in her voices and visioi
emphatically declared. Her determination to wear the male dress of hi
triumphs was persisted in. Upon her alleged revelations were founded articl

Monument to Jeanne d'Arc at Eouen.

accusing her of sorcery ; and upon her declining to submit to the ordinanc
of the Church, when her voices commanded the contrary, the charge
being a schismatic was also introduced. Heresy and schism, meriting tl
punishment of fire, were declared to be found against her. The universi
of Paris ratified the articles of accusation. On a public scaffold at Eou(
the sentence of condemnation was read to her by the bishop of Beauva:
Her courage deserted her ; and she expressed her contrition and submissio
Her sentence of burning at the stake was then to be commuted to perpetu

1*8L] JOAN BURNT— FRENCH WAR CONTINUED. 91
imprisonment. She was taken back to prison, but after two days her
confidence returned ; and she re-affirmed her belief that her voices came from
God ; and that, not understanding what the adjuration was that she had been
called upon to sign, she had signed in the fear of being burnt. She was
now a relapsed heretic, in the terms of the cruel zeal of the persecuting
ecclesiastics, and her fate was no longer a matter of doubt. In the old
market-place of Eouen a pUe of wood was built up ; and round it a scaffold
was erected, where prelates and nobles might sit to behold the death of the
heroic girl. There sat cardinal Beaufort and the bishop of Beauvais ; and
as Joan stood before them, a sermon was preached, setting forth her atrocities;
and the preacher concluded with, " Joan, go in peace ; the Church can no
longer protect thee, and delivers thee into secular hands." She was
immediately dragged to the pUe ; the fatal cap of the Inquisition, with the
words " her^tique, relapse, apostate, idolatre," was placed on her head ; the
fire was kindled. Her last word was " Jesus." On the spot where this deed
of infamy was perpetrated, stands one of the monuments by which the
French of later times have sought to redeem their share of the disgrace of
this murder of the 30th of May, 1431. French historians attempt to fix the
greater blame upon the English. It is clear that, although the vengeance of
those who had been driven from Orleans and vanquished at Patay was th^
main cause of this tragedy, it would not have been accomplished except
through that terrible power which, under the name of religion, had no quality
of mercy when a heretic was to be hunted to the death. The bishop of
Beauvais and the cardinal of Winchester knew no distinction of nation when
they sat on the scaffold at Eouen to do the work of the Holy Inquisition.
The coronation of Charles VII. at Eheims was to be rivalled by the more
gorgeous ceremony of crowning Henry VI. at Paris. On St. George's day of
1430, the boy who had been crowned at Westminster came, with Beaufort, to
Calais. They remained there a month. No army could be raised in England,
throngh the " terrif3rings " of the Pucelle. At length she was captured ; but,
even sis months after, the soldiers of England deserted, rather than go to a
land where their bows and bills were powerless against enchantments. But
on the 17th of December, Henry made his public entry into Paris, and was
crowned at Notre Dame. He returned to England in February, 1431 ; and
rode into London, amidst as profuse and laboured pageantry as had welcomed
his father from Agincourt. He came under very different auspices. Dressed
up with the mantle of royalty and the crown on his head, the boy of ten years
old was to perform the character of king, that the exhibition might strengthen
one of the parties in the state that was aiming at supremacy. Whilst these
follies were enacted in England, Harfleur was re-captured by the French.
The first trophy of Henry V. was for a while lost. The alliance of the duke
of Burgundy was fast slipping away. Every year added to the strength of
the national party in France. At every conference for peace the demands of
Charles VII. became enlarged. At the congress of Arras in 1435, the French
would only agree to cede Normandy and Guienne, to be held as fiefs, all other
possessions and all claim to the crown being surrendered. The conditions
were refused, and the duke of Burgundy abandoned the English alliance. He
made a separate treaty with Charles VII. ; swearing that he would forget his
father's death, and be at perpetual peace with France. Monstrelet says that

92

THE ENGLISH DISGRACES AND LOSSES.

'1435— IMj.

the young king Henry wept at the news of this peace of 1435. The people
of England manifested their indignation by seeking out the subjects of the
duke of Burgundy, Flemings and others, to maltreat and murder them.
The duke of Bedford, who had steadily upheld the wUI of his heroic
brother, died at this critical period. There was no union in the EngUsh
councils. The duke of Glou
cester would have called up the
old heart of England to redeem
the losses and disgraces of the
six years that were past. The
cardinal of Winchester, perhaps
more wisely, advocated peace. Iu
the quarrels between these rival
leaders iu the CouncU aU oppor
tunity for a successful struggle
passed away. Paris was retaken
iiy Charles in 1436 ; and the
EngUsh were expelled. " When
they should pass upon their
journey," says Fabyan, " they
were derided and scorned of the
French nation out of aU mea
sure." Successes in Normandy,
under the duke of York and
Talbot, only prolonged the final
issue ; and when the duke of
Burgundy's possessions were de
vastated by Talbot in 1437;
when Picardy was ravaged ia
1440, and Harfleur was 'once
again captured by the English ;
when Tork was superseded aa
regent by Warwick, and War
wick again replaced by Tork,
each making new attempts to
recover the lost ascendancy; —
it was stiU manifest to the French that the time was approaching when the
spirit of nationality would successfully maintain itself against the pretensions
of alien rulers. After twenty-flve years' captivity, the duke of Orleans was
released from his prison in the Tower of London. There is a private con
temporary record, which shows the interest that the English took in the
passing events connected 'with France : " Tidings ; the duke of Orleans hath
made his oath, upon the sacrament, and used it, never for to bear arms against
England, in the presence of the king and all the lords except my lord of
Gloucester ; and in proof that my said lord of Gloucester agreed never to his
deliverance, when the mass began he took his barge. God give grace the
said lord of Orlea,ns be true, for this same week shaU he towards France." *

Jitreet in Hartieur.

"Paston Letters.'' Robert Repps to John Paston, Nov. 1st, 1440.

1415.] HENRY MARRIED TO MARGARET OF ANJOU. 93
The war is continued a few years longer ; and then a truce. England is
anxious about the terms of paciflcation. Agnes Paston writes to her son on
the 14th of February, 1445 : " I pray you to send me tidings from beyond
sea; for here they are afraid to tell such as be reported." The people were
reluctant to believe, and thought it dangerous to say, that their weak young
king was to marry a daughter of the duke of Anjou, with the approbation of
the French king, whose consent would be bought by the surrender of all that
remained of the lands which English treasure and blood had won in that war
of twenty years. Their fears were accompUshed. Henry was married to
Margaret of Anjou in 1445 ; and one of the conditions of the marriage and
the consequent truce was the surrender of Anjou and Maine. Normandy
was soon conquered, when Maine, the key to its possession, was gone.
Gascony yielded to the French in 1451 ; and after the last of the great
English captains, the dreaded Talbot, fell at Castillon in 1458, Bordeaux was
taken. The dream of conquest, which had lasted for more than a century,
was, by God's blessing, at an end.
In the statute of the twentieth year of Henry VI. c. 9, is recited that
clause of Magna Charta, which provides that no freeman shall be condemned
" but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land ; " and the
preamble then goes on to say that in that statute no mention is made how
women, ladies of great estate, married or sole, that is to say, duchesses,
countesses, or baronesses, shaU be put to answer upon indictments of treasons
or felonies. It is therefore provided that such ladies, so indicted, shall be
tried as peers of the realm are tried. The triumph of the party of cardinal
Beaufort over that of the duke of Gloucester had been manifested in the
release of the duke of Orleans ; and now a stronger measure of humiliation
was preparing for the last of the king's uncles — the favourite of the people,
learned, and an encourager of learning. His wife, Eleanor, was accused of
sorcery. The statute which we have mentioned was, in aU probabUity, devised
to bring her to the block, and thus to destroy Gloucester through his
affections. In the common purpose of the encomiasts of the Church in its most
corrupted state, it is sought to free Beaufort from the imputation of being
the moving cause of these hateful proceedings. " Some writers," says
Dr. Lingard, " have attributed the prosecution of dame Eleanor to Beaufort's
enmity to her husband. But their assertion stands on the slightest foundation ;
a mere conjecture of Fox that it might be so, because the witch [of Eye]
lived, according to Fabyan, in the neighbourhood of Winchester, of which
Beaufort was bishop." The most circumstantial account of this passage of
history is given in a very interesting chronicle written before 1471 ; * and
there we shall find much firmer foundation for this belief than the " mere
conjecture of Fox." This narrative is so curious as a picture of manners,
that, in abridging it, we shall retain as much as possible of the original
phraseology. In 1440, on the Tuesday before Midsummer, a priest caUed sir Eichard
Wyche, a vicar of Essex, was burnt on Tower-hill for heresy. The numbers
of those who perished at the stake in England, whilst Beaufort was supreme,
must have gone far to mitigate the papal indignation for his stopping short in
* Camden Society, 1856.

94 AFFAIRS IN ENGLAND— DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER. [144^
his crusade against the reformers of Bohemia, putting the money raised in hia
capacious coffer. In his cognizance of the proceedings against Joan of Arc,
he had learned how charges of sorcery and heresy could be blended ; and how
the popular sympathy for the poor beUever might be turned into indignation
against the wicked enchanter. When the Essex vicar was burnt there was
murmur and trouble amongst the people, for some said he was a good man and
a holy, and put to death by malice ; and they went in great numbers to the
place where he was burnt, and kissed the ground. In the same year, 1440,
in July, two clergymen, Eoger Bolingbroke, and Thomas SouthweU, a canon
of St. Stephen's chapel, "were taken as conspirators of the king's death ; for
it was said that the said Master Eoger should labour to consume the king's
person by way of necromancy ; and that the said Master Thomas should say
masses upon certain instruments with the which the said Master Eoger
should use his said craft of necromancy." Bolingbrpke was a man of science,
distinguished in his pursuit of astronomical studies, — described by William
Worcester as one of the most famous clerks of all the world. On Sunday,
the 25th of July, this accomplished scholar was brought to hear the sermon
at Paul's Cross ; and " stood in a high stage above aU men's heads in Paul's
churchyard, before the Cross, whiles the sermon endured, holding a sword in
his right hand and a sceptre in his left hand, arrayed in a marveUous array,
wherein he was wont to sit when he wrought his necromancy." The duchess
of Gloucester had fled to sanctuary. Bolingbroke was examined before the
king's council, according to this chronicle, and confessed that he wrought
his necromancy " at the stirring of the aforesaid dame Eleanor to know what
should faU of her, and to what estate she should come." This "necromancy"
was evidently, from this description, the usual process of that age, and of
much later times, of casting the nativity of the duchess. The observations
of the astronomer were then held to be most usefully applied in the
calculations of astrology ; and Eoger Bolingbroke is not to be held undeserv
ing of his reputation as a most famous clerk, for believing in what the most
accompUshed philosophers of his time believed. But Bolingbroke was to bo
sacrificed that one greater than he might be, crushed. When he had
confessed to what was called his necromancy, dame Eleanor " was cited to
appear before certain bishops of the king's ; that is to say, before Master
Harry Chicheley, archbishop of Canterbury ; Master Harry Beaufort, bishop
of Winchester and cardinal ; Master John Kemp, archbishop of Tork and
cardinal ; Master WiUiam Ayscough, bishop of Salisbury ; and other, on the
Monday, the 22nd day of July next following, in St. Stephen's chapel of
Westminster, for to answer to certain articles of necromancy, of witchcraft or
sorcery, of heresy, and of treason." Bolingbroke, the chronicle adds, was
brought forth to witness against her ; and he said " she was cause and first
stirred him to labour in his necromancy." Then Bolingbroke and SouthweU
were indicted as principals of treason, and the duchess as accessory. To
make the tragic farce complete, a woman called the Witch of Eye was burnt
in Smithfield, for having in former days given medicines to Eleanor Cobham
to make the duke of Gloucester love her and wed her. The duchess was
brought before an ecclesiastical commission in October, when she submitted
herself to the correction of the bishops ; and on the 9th of November she
was condemned to perform all the humiliations of penance in the streets of

1447.1

ARREST OF THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER.

95

London, on three several days ; " the which penance she fulfilled, and did
right meekly, so that the more part of the people had in her great com
passion." She was confined at Calais and the Isle of Man for the remainder
of her life. The enemies of the duke of Gloucester went probably as far as
they dared ; and the affrighted woman made that submission to the Church
which saved her from the penalties of heresy. Bolingbroke was tried at
Guildhall for high treason, and executed with the accustomed cruelties.
Southwell died in the Tower before the time appointed for his trial. The
accusation of treason was founded upon the charge that at the request of the
duchess, the clergymen had made an image of wax like the king, which they
placed before the fire, and as it gradually consumed the king would pine and
die. That the whole affair was an infamous conspiracy for political purposes
there can be little doubt. It could have only been carried through in an
Ignorant age ; and not then, unless juries had been afraid to come themselves
under the terrible charge of Tieresy, in acquitting those destined for sacrifice
by a persecuting church, made more terrible in its poUtical ascendanoy.
The great ecclesiastics were at this period the moving power of the
government. - Beaufort had in vain been accused by Gloucester of having
estranged the king from him, his sole uncle ; for having amassed inordinate
riches, not through his church preferment or as having inheritance : " neither
office, livelihood, nor captain may be had without too great a good given
him • • * for who that would give most his was the price." These*
attacks left deep scars. In 1445, Margaret of Anjou was crowned queen of
England. The duke of Suffolk, who had negotiated the marriage, now came
to strengthen the party of Beaufort in the government. The duke of
Gloucester was the only man who stood in the way of the absolute power
of the queen and of the favourite, who had taken her from the petty court of

Half-Groat of Henry VI.

Signature of Hem-y VT.

Anjou to raise her to the highest place of European royalty. The king was
a mere puppet of sovereignty ; having his head upon the coin, and making a
legible signature. Whatever could contribute to the ruin of Gloucester
would be acceptable to the churchmen of the council, who had been
denounced by him " as preventing men to say what they think of truth." A
parUament was called to be held at Cambridge, at the beginning of 1447 ;
but the place of meeting was afterwards changed to Bury St. Edmund's.
There was a secret order issued for armed men to be attendant there on the
king. The duke of Gloucester was in his place as peer on the 10th of
February, when the usual formalities were gone through. On the 11th he
was arrested by the high constable of England, and his attendants were
seized and sent to different prisons. They were only thirty-two in number,

98

DEATHS OF GLOUCESTER AND BEAUFORT.

1447.

for he came without the large retinues which the great had generaUy in
their train when danger was apprehended. At the end of seventeen days,
Humphrey of Gloucester was found dead in his bed. His great adversary,
Henry Beaufort, died six weeks after him, at the age of eighty years. His
death-bed scene has been depicted by Shakspere with a terrible power which
the soberer statement of the chronicler wiU not obliterate : " Why should I
die, having so much riches ? If the whole realm would save my life, I am
able by policy to get it, or by riches to buy it. — Fye, wUI not death be hired,
nor will money do nothing ?" * These were not unlikely words in the mouth
of a dying man who was undoubtedly of " covetise insatiable."
The death of the duke of Gloucester was accomplished, there can be little
doubt, by secret murder. Hall has a reflection upon the event which exhibits
more of the character of philosophical history than belongs to the old
annalists : " There is an old said saw, that a man intending to avoid the
smoke, falleth into the fire : so here the queen, minding to preserve her
husband in honour, and herself in authority, procured and consented to the
death of this noble man, whose only death brought to pass that thing which
she would mo^ fain have eschewed, and took from her that jewel which she
most desired ; for if this duke had lived, the duke of Tork durst not have
made title to the crown : if this duke had lived, the nobles had not conspired
against the king, nor yet the commons had not rebeUed : if this duke had
lived, the house of Lancaster had not been defaced and destroyed; which
things happened aU contrary by the destruction of this good man."
* Hall, upon the authority of Beaufort's chaplain.

llSiT —

ifck

Henry VI. From an illumination, Harl. MS

Court of Henry VI.

CHAPTEE VIL
Social condition during the wars of the Roses — Degrees of Rank— Incomes — Forty-shilling
freeholders — Statutes of Apparel — Distinction of Birth — The Gentleman aud the Roturiei
— Administrative system — Royal revenue — Public functionaries — Military system — Defence
of the Coast and Towns — Forcible entries upon estates — Liveries — Rent — Relations of
Landlord and Tenant — Want of money by landowners — Prevalence of litigation — Occasional
bribei-y — Petty law-suits — Number of attorneys limited — Offences against person and
property — Hours of labour — Domestic manufactures — Interference of the State with
industry.
Ts the progress of our narratiye we have arrived air one of the most
remarkable epochs of our eventful history. We have arrived at that period
when we may turn aside from that great contest between England and
France — " two so invincible nations, which never would yield or bow the one
to the other, neither yet once hear of abstinence of fighting or refusing from
war, so much were their hearts hardened, and so princely were their stomachs"*
In this war, and in previous French wars, Comines tells us that the EngUsh
" carried over a considerable booty into England, not only in plunder which
they had taken in the several towns, but in the richness and quality of their
* Hall's Chronicle, 13th year of Henry VI.

58 SOCIAL CONDITION DURING THE WARS OF THE ROSES. [1450-1485.
prisoners, who paid them great ransoms for their liberty." * A different war
was at hand — a war in which the English lords would fight at intervals for
thirty-five years upon their native soil, and only end this work of mutual
destruction when one half of the old nobiUty of England was swept away.
During these wars of Tork and Lancaster, of which the seeds were sown in the
distracted councils of the minority of Henry VL, we have many scattered
but authentic materials for viewing the social condition of the country. The
first division of this extraordinary period opens with the insurrections of
1450 ; and then proceeds in showing the duke of Tork taking up arms
in 1452, and his son Edward seated on the throne in 1461. The second
embraces the perilous fortunes of Henry and his intrepid wife, and the
overthrow of the Lancastrian party after that gleam of triumph, which was
destroyed by the fatal battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury in 1471. Edward
sits on the throne for thirteen years longer, in comparative tranquillity;
then two more years of mysterious murder and fierce war ; and then a
dynasty with which the feudal system has practically come to an end. This
is one great epic, which requires to be told without any material interruption
to the relation of events, of which the links are welded in one continuous
chain. But it may be desirable, before we enter upon this narrative, to
endeavour to form a just estimate of the habits and condition of the people,
while these battles and revolutions were carried forward at their own doors.
During this troubled time, when we might naturally expect that the whole
framework of society would be thrown into disorder, we find the internal
administration of England proceeding with the same regularity as if the
struggle for supremacy were raging on the banks of the Seine instead of the
banks of the Thames. The uniform course of justice is uninterrupted.
Men are Utigating for disputed rights, as if there were no general peril of
property. They are electing knights of the shire and burgesses, under
arlstocratical or popular influences, as if the real arbitrement of these
contentions was to be in the parliament-house and not in the battle-fi«ld.
They are buying and selling, growing and exporting, as if the producers
looked on with indifference whilst the Warwicks and Somersets were slaying
or being slain. They wear richer apparel, and strive more for outward
distinctions, and build better houses, than when their fathers were fighting in
France ; and they are really prospering in an increase of material wealth,
though they greatly lack the instrument of exchange, for the want of money is.
grievously felt from the peer to the huckster. They pursue their accustomed
diversions ; they hunt and they hawk ; they gamble in public gardens ; they
gape at the players of interludes ; they go on pilgrimage to Canterbury and
Walsingham, and St. Jago — they take Ufe easily, as if no danger were around
them, when truly they might be in trouble for shouting for the White Eose on
one day, and for the Eed on the next. Their marriages go forward, with the
keenest avidity amongst the gentry and the burgesses to make the best bargains
for their sons and daughters ; and whilst we know how many great houses were
rendered desolate by these troubles, we have no satisfactory evidence that
during their existence population had decreased. These appearances on the
surface of things involve many important points of national character and
*_ Memoirs of Philip de Comines, book vi. chap. ii.

1450-1485.] DEGREES OP RANK. 99
social progress ; and we therefore proceed to coUect some leading traits of the
people, as they show themselves in and near the stormy era which commenced
with the commencement of the second half of the fifteenth century, and lasted
tlU ihe quarrels of Tork and Lancaster came to an end upon Bosworth-field.
During this period the condition of society appears to have undergone very
slight change ; for in whatever regarded the civil administration of the country,
there was no revolutionary action connected with the sudden changes in tho
supreme power. It was of this period that Comines, one of the most accom
plished statesmen of his age, thus wrote : " In my opinion, of all the countries
in Europe where I was ever acquainted, the government is nowhere so well
managed, the people nowhere less obnoxious to violence and oppression, nor
their houses less liable to the desolations of war, than in England, for there
the calamities fall only upon their authors." * In another part of the same
chapter, he says, " England has this peculiar grace, that neither the country,
nor the people, nor the houses, are wasted, destroyed, or demolished ; but the
calamities and misfortunes of the war fall only upon the soldiers, and especially
the nobility." But we might still hesitate to believe that the government
was well administered, and the people Uttle disturbed by violence, if we were
to regard the wars of the Eoses as one continued series of exterminating
slaughters. Comines, stUl speaking of these wars, says, " In England, when
any disputes arise and proceed to a war, the controversy is generally decided
in eight or ten days, and one party or other gains the vi-ctory." t After the
first battle, that of St. Albans, in 1455, there was outward peace for four
years. Tork was in arms in 1459 ; gained the battle of Northampton in
1460 ; and was killed on the last day of that year. Within three months his
son Edward was on the throne, and had gained the decisive victory of Towton.
With the exception of the Lancastrian rising of 1464, the kingdom was at
peace till 1470. The attempt then to restore Henry VI. was defeated in the
fighting of two months. Warwick landed on the 13th September ; Edward
fled on the 3rd of October ; on the 14th March, 1471, he was again in
England ; and after the great battle of Barnet, that of Tewkesbury decided
the contest on the 4th of May. The remaining thirteen years of Edward saw
no civil warfare. The landing of Eichmond, and the fall of Eichard IIL, was
the affair of a fortnight. The actual warfare in England, from 1455 to 1485,
included an aggregate space of time of something less than two years.
The statutes and other state documents which have regard to distinctions
of rank, furnish some evidence of the increase of population, and of the
divisions of society into more complex arrangements than those of the gentle,
the free, and the servile. The Statute of Additions of 1413 declares that in
every original writ of actions, appeals, and indictments, to the names of the
defendants in such writs " Additions shall be made of their estate or degree
or mystery, and of the towns or hamlets, or places or counties, of the which
they were or be." It is affirmed by FuUer in his " Worthies," that such
distinctions were not used, except in law process, until the latter end of the
reign of Henry VI. In 1429 was passed the Statute of Elections for
Knights of the Shire ; which recited that the elections for many counties
"have now of late been made by very great and excessive number of
• Book V. chap, xviii. t Book vi. chap. ii. H 2

100

INCOMES— FORTY-SHILLING FREEHOLDERS,

ri450-1485.

people dwelling "witliln the same counties, of which the most part was people
of small substance and of no value, whereof every of them pretended a voice
equivalent, as to such elections to be made, with the most worthy knights
and esquires dwelling within the said counties." It was therefore enacted
that the knights of the shires should be chosen in every county by " people
dwelling and resident in the same, whereof every one of them shall have
free land or tenement to the value of forty shillings by the year, at the least,
above all charges." There can be no more distinct evidence than this
statute — which was unchanged for four centuries, however the value of money
had changed — that the great bulk of the people, those of smaU substance,
having passed out of the servile condition into the free, had become so
numerous that they were the real constituencies of the country. Extensive
suffrage was therefore held as dangerous as in recent times. A forty-shilling
freeholder was then a person of some importance. In 1433, when commis
sioners were empowered to tender an oath to " persons of quality " to keep
the peace, two inhabitants of Lyme were placed on the list, " as considerable

Law Habits of the fifteenth century. From MBS, engraved in Strutt's " Angel-Cynnan."
men who were able to dispense 121. per annum."* Any one who lived in a
forty-shiUIng tenement, or derived profit from land of the clear rent of
forty shiUings, when a shiUing an acre was a high rent,t was a person of
substance. The qualification of a justice of the peace was twenty pounds in
lands and tenements, and it was less in towns. J In 1450 there was a subsidy
granted, in the nature of an income-tax upon a graduated scale, persons
holding in frank tenement from 20s. to 20Z. paying 6d. in the pound ; from
20Z. to 200Z., I2d. ; and aU upwards 2s. These graduations of tax exhibit a
very unequal distribution of property. The immense landed possessions
in the hands of the nobles and prelates, and the enormous payments to
* Roberts "Social History efthe Southera Counties," p. 194. 1856.
t The rent of land had not increased in the middle of the 15th century above the 6d, or 9d«
per acre of 80 years before. CuUum's " Hawsted."
t Stat. 1445.

1450-1485.]

STATUTES OF APPAREL.

101

some of the great officers of the crown by salaries, and through extortions and
briberies, sufficiently account for this inequality. The wealth, too, acquired
in commerce, was in some instances very large. William de la Pole, a
merchant of Hull, lent Edward III. the sum of 18,500Z. at one payment.
His son became earl of Suffolk in the reign of Eichard IL, and the duke of
Suffolk, whose fate we shall have to record in 1450, descended from the
great HuU trader. WiUiam Cannyng, of Bristol, and Eichard Whittington,
of London, were opulent merchants of this period, whose memories still live
in popular estimation. The salaries of the judges, in 1440, were — The chief
justice of the Common Pleas, 120Z. per ann. ; of the King's Bench, 931. 6s. 8d. ;
of the Justices, 731. 6s. 8d. In addition, the judges had allowances for their
official costume. For their winter robes they were each allowed 51. 6s. lUd. ;
for their summer robes, 31. 6s. 6d. The king's Serjeants and the attorney were
each aUowed for robes, IZ. 6s. lid.* About the middle of the reign ol
Henry VI. the revenue of the crown was 65.,000Z., and the expenditure
exceeding the receipts by 35,000Z., the royal debts amounted to 372,000Z.
The king's household expenses were then limited to 12,000Z.
There were two- Statutes of Apparel passed in the reign of Edward IV.,
from which we may coUect what were the existing degrees of society, as we
inferred from the statute of the preceding century. f The statute of 1463,
exactly a hundred years
after that of Edward IIL,
is granted at the prayer of
the commons ; and has re
ference only to the aver
ment that " the commons-
of the realm, as weU men
as women, have worn and
do daUy wear excessive and
inordinate array." Amongst
the commons, there are
included, with their wives
and chUdren, the knigbt
under the estate of a lord,
other than lord's chUdren y
the knight bachelor ;. the
esquire and gentleman. But
the amount o£ possession is
taken into account ; and
the esquire and gentleman
having 40Z. a year may indulge in damask or satin forbidden to their less
wealthy neighbours. Mayors, sheriffs^ and aldermen, have special exemptions. .
Below the class of esquire and gentleman are those who have obtained a
position by their wealth ; and those who have 40Z'. of yearly value may
rejoice in furs, and their wives in gilt girdles. The men possessed of less
than 40s. yearly are debarred from furs, and fustian, and scarlet cloth. The
yeoman, and the persons under his degree, are to have no stuffing in their

Group 01 Artisans.

' Clironicon Pretiosum."

t See Vol. I. p. 479.

102

DISTINCTIONS OF BIRTH.

[1450-1485.

doublets. Lastly, the servants in husbandry and artificers are to wear no
clothing of which the cloth shall cost more than two shillings the broad yard.
The second statute of 1483 prescribes what peculiar apparel of cloth of gold
or silk shaU be forbidden to all below the royal rank ; what to those below a
duke ; what to those below a lord, of whom the knight only shaU wear velvet in
his doublet. By a Comprehensive clause no man under the estate of a lord
should wear cloth of foreign manufacture ; and the old price, of cloth is again
fixed for labourers and artificers. All other ordinances are repealed ; but
this statute contains one repeaUng clause which shows how vainly Lords and
Commons attempted to legislate against the omnipotence of female taste :
" Provided always, that this Act extend not, nor be prejudicial to or for any
woman, excepted the wives of servants and labourers." The most gallant
man of his time, by this clause, left his reign disburthened of the tyranny of
having legislated against velvet and satin, girdle or coverchief, so as to interfere
with the wUl of the ladies of England to wear the costliest array, without
regard to the rank or the means of their less privileged husbands.
These Statutes of Apparel, if we read them rightly, were not intended to
restrain the impoverishment of England " and the final destruction of the
husbandry of the realm,"
as they profess, but to main
tain by outward appearance
those distinctions of rank
which were fast passing
away. It was not that the
fine clothes themselves con
ferred distinction; for ser
vants of great households,
heralds, minstrels, and
players of interludes, were
aUowed to wear them. But
it was to put some dis
tinguishing mark upon the
noble and the gentleman, as
compared with the roturier
— a word which had formerly
a significant place in our
language. The once great
distinction of blood was
passing away, when the descendant of the merchant of Hull had become the
most powerful peer of England. Tet this very Suffolk was so bound to the
usages of chivalry, that when taken prisoner at Jargeau he asked his captor
if he were a knight, and being answered " No," — said, " Then I wiU make
thee a knight ; " and in the field was the lucky officer knighted, and received
twenty thousand pounds for the peer's ransom. When lord Elvers was
brought before Warwick at Calais, in 1460, the kuig-maker rated him, and
said "that hia father was but a squire;" and lord Salisbury caUed him
' knave's son." * It was upon the complaint of the Commons that the

Female Costume in the time of Edward IV.

• Paston Letters, letter cxxxv. Ramsay's edit.

I4S0- 1485.] ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM— REVENUE. 103
statute of 1463 was passed. The esquire was beginning to tread upon the
heels of the knight. The qualification for knighthood was forty pounds
a-year ; and so many had reached that point of opulence, that some would
rather fine to the king than receive a dignity grown common. The old grand
Norman distinction of gentilJiomme was that upon which the well-born then
chose to stimd. They worthily clung to it for a century or two later ; till the
distinction of blood, as constituting a caste, was destroyed by the intermar
riage of the higher with the middle classes, and by each class following the
same modes of advancement, legal, mercantile, or poUtical. M. de Tocqueville
says that the history of the word gentleman is that of democracy itself. " We
shall find its application extending in England in the same proportion in
which classes draw near one another and amalgamate." * In the' fifteenth
century this contact and amalgamation were slowly beginning.
We shaU be enabled to obtain a clearer view of the social organisation of
England in the latter half of the fifteenth century, if we glance at the
administrative systern of the kingdom. At the head of that system was the
King. All acts were done in his name, even if he was an infant of nine
months old, as in the case of Henry VL, or a boy of thirteen, as in the case
of Edward V. The constitution made no provision for a minority, or for
incapacity ; and in the earlier times, when legitimate succession was set
aside by the legislative powers with little ceremony, such a provision was less
necessary. Some great functionary, as Chief of the Council, or Protector,
discharged the kingly office, vicarially, in cases where the king was incapable.
The hereditary revenues of the crown were very large, so that taxes or
subsidies were usually voted only on extraordinary occasions. But if tho
hereditary revenues were large, and the accessions by taxation were growing
more systematic, the crown had abundant need of aU these regular and
occasional resources. Let us rapidly look at the royal expenditure. During
the eleven weeks that the duke of Gloucester carried on the government in
the name of Edward V., the ordinary routine of administration was in
active exercise ; and in the original " Docket-Book" we may see, in a brief
space, how various were the functions of the Crown, and how necessarily great
the regal disbursements.t The treasurer and chamberlains of the Exchequer
are commanded to pay for certain services and expenses, under various heads,
whose bare enumeration exhibits an outline of the regal life, and of the range
of the executive power. They are first to pay " The costs and expenses the
which it shaU behove us to have and sustain about our household, our chamber
and great wardrobe, and our works." The functionaries that were under the
holders of the patent offices of treasurer of the household, keeper of the
jewels, clerk of the great wardrobe, and clerk of the works, far exceeded in
number the retainers of the most expensive modern court. In apparel, as
we may judge from the sumptuary laws, this period was most luxurious.
It has' been truly said, that extravagance in dress "was a peculiar
characteristic of the middle ages throughout Europe." % The handsome
Edward IV., and the misshapen Eichard IIL, were equally careful of the
* "State ofSociety in France before 1789," p. 152. ,„„ „ a a -i nor*
+ " Grants, etc., from the Crown during the reign of Edward V. Camden Society, 1864.
J Sii- N. H. Nicolas, "Wardrobe Accounts of Edward IV."

104

PUBLIC FUNCTIONARIES.

[1450-1485.

splendour of their array. Lewis XI. of France is familiar to us in his shabby
doublet, and his old hat with its leaden image. But Comines says that in
his last days " his gowns were aU of crimson satin, lined with rich martins'
furs." The disbursements of the clerk of the works were necessarily large,
in the repairs of the palaces, and the additions of furniture that were
constantly required. But out of the royal revenues were also to be paid the
fees of aU the high officers — the ehanceUor, the treasurer and privy seal,
the judges, the barons and chancellor of the exchequer, and aU other
ministers of the courts. AU fiscal officers were also to be paid from
the same fund, — custom-house officers, comptroUers, receivers, surveyors,
searchers. "Pay ye also of our treasure to our Ueutenant of Ireland,
wardens of our marches east and west, captain of our town of Berwick,
wages assigned by us and our council, after the indentures of their vrith-
holding." There was no standing army to pay in England, as in France
under Charles VII. Ireland, and the borders of Wales and Scotland, were
defended by contract. These "grants" exhibit the nature of the bargains
made with the wardens of the marches. Henry, earl of Northumberland, is
retained for five lunar months to be lord captain of the castle and town of
Berwick, and therein to keep six hundred soldiers, defensibly arrayed, of
whom three hundred shall be archers, with two knights or squires to be

Archers.

lieutenants ; for whose wages the king grants the sum of 438Z. 10s. lid.
monthly, the soldiers being paid at the rate of Gd. a day. These wages are
to be paid beforehand for the first two months; and the king is also to
provide artillery and other habiUments of war. The navy was paid by
separate disbursement for each ship : " Pay ye also, from time to time, unto
the clerks of our ships aU things necessary for the safeguard and surety
keeping of our said ships, and for wages and victuals of mariners attending
upon the same." For the general defence of the kingdom against rebelUon

1450-1485.]

MILITARY SYSTEM.

105

Privy Seal of Henry VI.

or invasion there was a sfi'eeping grant to pay " the cost and expenses of
aU those that be or shaU be assigned by our commission or commissions for
to resist or subdue our rebels or enemies within this our kingdom." Upon
emergencies, forces were raised by the king's letters under the privy seal, com
manding the attendance of persons
named, with armed men, in number
according to their degree. , The EoU
of Agincourt shows how the lords and
knights and esquires of England came
to the summons of their king upon
receiving these missives. The English
army was always thus a new army at
the beginning of a war ; and Comines
gave it a just character, which, —
the circumstances of hasty levies re
maining the same, — it has maintained
from the siege of Harfleur to the
siege of Sebastopol : " Though no
nation is more raw and undisciplined
than the EngUsh at their first coming over, yet a Uttle time makes them
brave soldiers, exceUent officers, and wise counseUors." * But the fighting
EngUshman of the fifteenth century was not fresh from the plough and
the loom, without any sort of mUitary training. The iron helmet was hung
upon the wall of the cottage as weU as of the castle ; and
the long bows of yew stood in the haUs of the esquire
and the burgess, for their servants to shoot at the butts
on every Sunday and other festival, t The municipal
officers of towns had looked upon their youths gradually
sending the " Ught-fUght arrow " to the legal distance
of two hundred and twenty yards ; and then, grown into
stalwart men, performing the same feat with the heavy war-arrow. There
was many a Locksley in every village, to whom this long range would
present no difilculty. When the king's letter came, — either direct or
through some great lord to his tenants and partisans — men were always
at hand to send to the field. It was not always so easy to pay them.
There is a letter of 1470 from the duke of Suffolk to the baiUffs of Eye,
commanding that two men should be paid the money due to them accord
ing to the covenants made with them by the authorities of that borough,
which men " were waged for your town to await upon us in the king's service
at Lincoln Field." J Suffolk was a Lancastrian ; and these " proper men of
their hands " who went to Lincoln Field, were there to fight against the
reigning king in the insurrection of Sir Eobert WeUs. They were glad, no
doubt, to get back to Eye when this enterprise failed. But Warwick came
vnth a greater preparation, and then Edward was driven from his seat. During
the short triumph of the Lancastrians the men who had fought for them
were to be paid their wages. For an expedition against France, or a struggle
against the reigning house at home, an army could be got together when the

5?b
Autograph of Henry YI.

* Book iv. chap. v.

+ Statute 11 Hen. IV.

± Paston. Letters, cocv.

106 DEFENCE OF THE COAST AND TOWNS. [1450-1485.
means of paying the adventurous spirits of the land were forthcoming.
Whether the wages were to be paid in hand, or the payment deferred to a
more convenient season, the king sent forth his summons in these words
when there was danger : " Trusty and weU beloved, we strictly charge and
command you, upon the faith and Uegeance that ye bear unto us, that ye
arredie [make ready] you with all the feUowship ye can make." * But there
was no efficient provision for the defence of the coasts against a foreign
enemy. A few of the commercial towns, such as Tarmouth, Poole, and
Bristol, were fortified at this period. But in small places, where no great
lord was at hand to issue forth from his stronghold with his retainers, the
enemies, Frenchmen or Fleming, not tmfrequeutly landed, and carried off
property and persons. While the government was wholly occupied in 1458
by the great assembly of rival lords in London, to mediate between Tork and
the Lancastrians, we have the foUowing description of the state of the
Norfolk coast : " On Saturday last past, Dravell, half-brother to Warren
Harman, was taken with enemies, walking by the sea-side ; and they have
him forth with them, and they took two pilgrims, a man and a woman.
* * * * God give grace that the sea may be better kept than it is now,
or else it shaU be a perilous dwelling by the sea-coast." f
The people of England, long after the turbulence of the lords of the early
feudal times had been restrained by law, were sometimes accustomed to
behold displays of physical force, in which the array was neither for foreign
warfare nor domestic insurrection. There are two statutes of this period
which are singularly indicative of an altered state of society. The first is,
for the controul of " them that make entries with strong hand into lands or
tenements, or other possessions whatsoever, and them hold with force." J
The second is " for the punishment of such persons as give or receive
liveries." § Both these statutes were confirmations and amendments of pre
vious enactments ; but the practice of the period, as distinct from its theory
of justice and order, shows how ineffectual are laws " to nourish love, peace,
and quietness," — such being the objects which one of these statutes sets forth
— when the possessors of great power and riches have no dread of the only
real champion of right against might, the force of public opinion. Let us
glance at. two such exhibitions of lawless power and dangerous pomp, of
which the violated laws took no cognisance.
In September, 1469, there is a great fellowship assembled at Framling-
ham. The little town is crowded with yeomen, who have gathered together
from the many manors of the great duke of Norfolk ; and there are hired
soldiers with guns and cross-bows ; and two or three pieces of cannon are
mounted upon rude carriages ; and armed horsemen wait at the castle gate
for orders to march. Within the massive walls of that fortress there is an
unusual bustle in the large court-yard. The duke is sitting with his council,
composed of officers of his household, and of gentlemen who wear his livery ;
for he has summoned his dependants and friends around' him, writing, in
regal phrase, " that we may commune with you, and have your sad [serious]
advice in such matters as concerneth greatly to our weal." || The decision is
at last taken. The council breaks up. The yeomen and hired soldiery
* Paston Letters, ccoL t Ihid. ox. J Stat. 8 Hen. VI. o. 9.
§ Stat. 8 Ed. IV. c. 2. || Paston Letter^ cclxiii.

1450-1485]

FORCIBLE ENTRIES— LIVERIES.

107

receive rations from the spacious butteries of the castle. They are formed
in order of march ; and take their way towards the eastern coast, gathering
in their progress a fresh multitude with pikes and staves, and halting, after
several days, near the good town of Tarmouth.

W
il

-•=1 — 4f-

Framlingham Castle.

Caister Castle.

In the castle of Caister there are some thirty " proved men, and cunning
m the war and in feats of arms ; and that wiU shoot both guns and cross
bows, and amend and string them, and devise bulwarks, and will keep watch
and ward." * These thirty men are ready to hold Caister against the
thousand that have marched out of FramUngham to take that " rich jewel in
time of war." Are they rebels and traitors who occupy that strong place, —
a few years before the splendid palace of the Fastolf who fought in France, —
but a dismantled and gloomy fortress when the duke of Norfolk demanded
its surrender ? They were simply the servants of the legatee under the will
of the old warrior ; and the duke, who claimed to have purchased the
property of two of the executors, whUst the third had possession, took this
mode of asserting his title. Caister was regularly besieged, and men were
killed on either side, before it was surrendered. The great duke then makes
proclamation that the vanquished might depart, having their lives and goods
and harness ; and his grace grants this favour at the instance of divers lords,
and "of our most dear and singular-beloved wife." Norfolk was winning
Caister with the strong hand, in open defiance of the law. He was carrying
through the process of disseisin, or forcible dispossession, although he was
bound by statute to make his entry peaceably upon the disputed freehold.
This breach of the law was an ordinary occurrence. " Disseisin, or forcible
dispossession of freeholds, makes one of the most considerable articles in our
law-books." t
Let us foUow the duke of Norfolk in a more peaceful display of his
power. There was a time when the Bigods and Mowbrays would have
ridden into Norwich with five hundred men-at-arms, and have done swift
justice upon the burgess that disputed their right to dictate how the city
should be governed, or in what sums its people should be mulcted. Those
days are past. The Mowbrays are stUl mighty, but after another fashion.

* Paston Letters, ccki.

t Hallam, "Middle Ages," Chap. viii. Part iii.

108 RENT— LANDLORD AND TENANT. [1450-1485,
They come not to Norwich with the proud feudal array of fierce retainers in
mascled armour, but with two hundred of their household in blue and tawny
gowns, moving after the duke, with the blue on the left side of the gown and
the tawny on the right. The man who was fighting at Caister against the
duke has taken his livery on this occasion, when Edward IV. is coming to
Norwich ; and he hopes to muster twenty men in the duke's blue and tawny,
"to be sure of his good lordship in time to come." The power of the great
peer, in showing the gentlemen of his county arranged as his menials, is to
be thought of by the king, whose statutes declare that Uveries are illegal.
But the display was meant for plebeian as weU as royal meditations. The
peer who exhibited the greatest number of liveries would be thought to have
the greatest influence in the elections of knights of the shire and burgesses.
The arts by which the " free and independent " elector was managed in the
fifteenth century were Uttle different from those of the nineteenth.
There are two simple words, familiarly used in the fifteenth century, which
distinctly teU what the great relations of class to class had then become-. Those
words are, Eent, Wages. The land-lord had now tenants who held leases,
instead of being bound to the soil by feudal service as villans. The man
who farmed the land had now salaried servants, — partly paid in money and
partly in food and lodging, or wholly paid in money, — instead of thraUs with
the coUar on their necks. The substitution of rent for service had destroyed,
in a considerable degree, the more intimate relations of the land-owner and
the cultivator, both for good and for evU. The power which once implied
protection as well as severity was superseded by the power which, regarding
land simply as a property to be made the most of, had resigned the rude
fideUty of vassalage for the hard bargaining of tenancy. No doubt much of
' ' The constant service of the antique world "
remained, even when, as was common in leases, the landlord might re-enter
and possess if the rent was a month in arrear.* But, in general, there was
as much of the commercial spirit in the deaUngs between landlord and tenant
as in the exchange of any other commodity between vendor and purchaser.
Distraints for rent were the commonest of occurrences ; and the tenant's
cart seems to have been the most convenient chattel to seize and carry off.
The difficulty of coUecting rents must have been extreme, at a time when
agriculture was so imperfect that a bad season produced general misery. In
1463 we have the first corn-law, based upon the averment which kept all
classes comparatively unprosperous in England for four hundred years:
" Whereas the labourers and occupiers of husbandry within this realm be
daily grievously endamaged by bringing of com out of other lands and
parts into this realm, when com of the growing of this realm is at low
price." t When wheat was six shUlings and eightpence the quarter,
importation was forbidden. The inevitable fluctuations of price in com,
when corn was the only rent-paying produce except wool, prevented that
more careful agriculture which, in aU times, is founded upon average
profits and not upon fortuitous abundance. When the cultivator wanted
to obtain the best price for his wool, that legislation which was always
* Cullum's "Hawsted," p. 228. t Stat. 3rd Edward IV. o. 2.

1450-14S5.] SCARCITY OF MONEY. 109
protecting one class against another class, to tho injury of both classes,
ordained that the exportation of wool should be hampered with restrictions;
" because that sufficient plenty of the said wools may continually abide and
remain within the said realm, as may competently and reasonably serve for
the occupation of cloth-makers." * Of necessity much of the " sufficient
plenty " became superabundant stock ; and the price of wool was beaten
down by the limitation of the market. Thus it was that the landowners were
constantly complaining of the want of money. Their revenues were derived
from rents, and the rents were iU paid, because, amongst other causes, such
as the want of knowledge and the want of capital, the delusion of protection
was set up, to keep all industry at the same low level from age to age. Under
this state of things we are not surprised to find that the bailiff of Sir WiUiam
Plumpton, a great lord of Torkshire in the time of Henry VI. and
Edward IV., writes to his. master — who, as many others did, kept land in his
own hands, as well as letting his estates — "I am not in store at
this time of money for to get your harvest with, without I might get it
of your tenants ; or else for to take of [for] your sheep silver, and that I
were right loth for to do. t * * * Letting you wit, also, that I have
been in the Peak, and there I cannot get no money • • * Letting
you wit that I was on St. Lawrence day at Melton, with four-score
of your sheep to seU, and could seU none of them, but if I would have
sold twenty of the best of them for thirteen-pence a-piece." J The
duke of Suffolk has a dispute about property with Sir John Paston,
and Sir John's brother advises a settlement for a hundred marks, " some of
the duke of Suffolk's folks having let me in secret wise have knowledge that
he must make a shift for money, and that in all haste." The earl of
Warwick, the king-maker, writes in 1455 to his friend, sir Thomas Todenham,
that he has to make a payment on the completion of a purchase, " wherefore
we pray you with aU our heart that ye will lend us ten or twenty pounds." §
The seal of the bear and ragged staff is affixed to this
letter — a device that we more commonly associate with the
idea of power far exalted above the want of a sum equi
valent to two or three hundred pounds of our present
money. There is another letter of the same earl to his
bailiff of Sutton, desiring him to pay Philip Lowez forty-
six shiUings and eight pence, " that he lent us in our right
great necessity." 1| We can scarcely wonder that the geai of Warwick.
riches of Cardinal Beaufort made him hateful to the neces
sitous nobles who had less of the world's wisdom. The cardinal writes a
characteristic epistle to some confidential friend, " that ye will go, and W.
Toly, my clerk, bearer of this, with you, to the coffer that my money is in,
and take out two thousand three hundred marks, and take it the foresaid
Toly, and let seal the coffer again with a signet of mine, graven with the
salutation of our lady, the which my said clerk hath." %
* Stat. 3rd Edward IV. c. 1.
+ The silver coin was depreciated as compared with gold. Cardinal Beaufort required that
his loans to the crown should be paid "in gold of the coin of England of just weight."
t Plumpton Correspondence, p. 21. § Paston Letters, letter Ixxvi.
II Ellis's Letters, Series i., vol. i. p. 14. t Ibid. p. 8.

no PREVALENCE OF LITIGATION. [1450-1485.
One of the most remarkable features of society in this period is the
incessant litigation. Every gentleman had some knowledge of law, and his
knowledge never rusted for want of practice. Agnes Paston writes to one of
her sons, " I greet you well, and advise you to think once of the day of
your father's counsel to learn the law, for he said many times that whosoever
should dwell at Paston should have need to con to defend himself." *
Mr. Hallam has truly observed that " a people wherein an artificial juris
prudence is cultivated, requiring both a regard to written authority, and the
constant exercise of a discriminating judgment upon words, must be deemed to
be emerging from ignorance." t But he also implies that what the mind
thus gains in precision and acuteness is at the expense of some important
qualities. The clients, no less than the counsel and attorneys, were familiar
with every legal quibble. In one case, judgment could not be obtained
because the " John Damme " of a testament was " Job Damme " in the bill
before the court. In another, a defendant alleged that he lived at " Eaytheby "
and not at " Eatheby," as set forth — a curious plea in an age of such unsettled
orthography. J The history of this dispute with the quibble about a letter,
of which we have all the stages of the process, and the final award, extends
over a period of thirty-six years — from the 21st of Eichard II. to the 12th
of Henry VI. Sir William Clopton held the manor of Hawsted, which had
been bought by his ancestor in the 33rd of Edward IIL (1360). In 1397,
Philip Fitz-Eustace breaks into a close of the manor, cuts down trees, and
carries off goods and chattels. After a suit, lasting ten years, judgment
is given in 1407 against Fitz-Eustace, who had pleaded that the close belonged
to him. But the dispute was not settled ; for another tribunal, whose
powers were dying out in the changes of men and manners, took cog
nisance of the quarrel in 1427, twenty years after the original suit was
ended. William Clopton, esquire, then in possession of the property, by a
writ of John, duke of Bedford, constable of England, addressed to John,
duke of Norfolk, marshal of England, is summoned " to answer in the Court
of Chivalry to Eobert Eland, of the county of Lincoln, esquire, who charged
the said William Clopton with putting his seal of arms to a false and forged
deed." The arbitrement of the Court of Chivalry had probably gone into
disuse when the lawyers had become more important than the knights ; and
we hear of no battle for the defence of William Clopton's injured honour.
But he brings his action against Eobert Eland and others, for having
published and read two deeds, claiming the manor of Hawsted, upon the
allegation that the deeds so read were false. The matter was referred to
arbitration, and the arbitrators decided, that having examined the principal
instrument at their leisure, and " seen it in the sun," it was an old deed
"new rased and new written again." § In the Paston Letters we have
evidence that forgeries of acquittance and of grants were not uncommon.
The offence was punishable, at common law, with fine and imprisonment.
Another frequent cause of litigation was the stopping of footpaths. The
people of that day understood their rights as well as the patriot of Hampton
Wick a century ago, who compeUed the crown to open the ancient road
* Paston Letters, letter x. J Cullum's "Hawsted," p. 120.
t " Literature of Europe," vol. i. p. 80. § Ibid. pp. 115—122.

LL50-M8ii,] Bliir.ERY- PETTY SUITS AT L,\W. Ill
through Bushy Park. Agnes Paston writes indignantly to her husband that
Clement Spicer came to her closet and asked her why she had stopped
the king's way; and that Waryn Herman, "proudly going forth with
me in the church, he said the stopping of the way should cost me
twenty nobles, and yet it should down again." * In these Utigations, the
constant appeal to the law is some proof that it was righteously administered.
Juries were sometimes, indeed, specially exhorted " to do as conscience will,
and to eschew perjury ; " and there is evidence of payments to the jury "for
their expenses and labour, and for a breakfast after they had delivered their
verdict." f The most distinct proof of corruption is furnished by statutes of
1426 and 1439 ; the first of which accuses sheriffs of taking great sums of
money for aUowing bail to persons apprehended ; and the second attributes
great perjuries which daily abound to sheriffs making favourable panels of
juries for great gifts and rewards. There was a laxity upon such points
which endured far beyond the fifteenth century ; and we need scarcely be
surprised that in an age when only a bird in the air might carry the matter,
official bribery was not held as a personal degradation. The higher nobles
were to be purchased even by a foreign enemy. Comines shows how
Lewis XI. cajoled Edward IV. into peace, by payments to himself and by
large presents to his officers. The same caution which lord Hastings,
the high chamberlain of England, exhibited when he refused to give a
receipt for two thousand crowns of gold that the king of France sent
him, was probably the shield of less mighty functionaries: "What you
desire," said Hastings to the agent of Lewis, "is not unreasonable;
but this present proceeds from your master's generosity, not any request
of mine : if you have a mind I should receive it you may put it into
my sleeve." J To repress bribery by threats of fine was as little likely
to secure justice, as the limitation of attorneys by statute was likeiy
to prevent Utigation. This enactment of 1455 is very curious. In Norfolk
and Suffolk, says the preamble, in time not long past, there were only six or
eight attorneys coming to the king's courts, in which time great tranquillity
reigned, and little trouble or vexation was made by untrue and foreign suits ;
and now there be fourscore attorneys, the more part having no other thing to
live upon but gain by attorneyship ; and they go to every fair and market
and other places where is any assembly of people, exhorting, procuring,
moving, and inciting the people to attempt untrue suits for small trespasses,
little offences, and small sums of debt, which actions be triable in Courts
Baron. The remedy was to limit the number of common attorneys to six in
Norfolk, six in Suffolk, and two in the city of Norwich. The real object of
the statute was to prevent these small actions being carried to the higher
courts instead of the Courts Baron. The people, we may readily believe,
had found injustice in the petty local courts ; and they sought for justice
where the law would be understood and equaUy administered. The evidence
of such abundant litigation is no proof of a disordered state of society.
When men cannot obtain justice speedily and cheaply there are few lawsuits.
When their disputes go before an honest and energetic tribunal, the more
* Paston Letters, letter xvii.
t Roberts' "Southern Counties," p. 2. J Memoirs, book vi., chap. 2.

112

OFFENCES AGAINST PERSON AND PROPERTY.

[1450-1485,

suits the greater evidence that law is not the instrument of oppression which
it becomes in bad times.
The public and private records of this period afford us little information'
as to the amount and character of offences against person and property. By
a statute of 2nd Henry V., made upon complaint that the perpetrators of
divers murders, manslaughters, robberies, batteries, &c., fled to woods and
secret places to avoid the execution of the common law, it was enacted that
if, after proclamation, such persons should come to the Court of King's
Bench for trial, and did not appear, they should be held as convict. . This
was a temporary statute ; but it was made perpetual by the 8th of Henry VI.
Fine, imprisonment, death, were the penalties for such offences. But we

Cnminala conducted to Death, (Harleian MS.
can make no attempt to exhibit any statistics of crime. From the absence of
such denunciations of " sturdy vagabonds and valiant beggars, in great routs
and companies," as we find in the savage laws of Henry VIIL, we may infer
that in these times, which have been too hastily considered as a period of
anarchy, there was no remarkable insecurity of life and goods. The private
letters of the period detail no outrages which might not have occurred in the
most settled condition of society. In 1421, a statute was passed to restrain
the excesses of clerks and scholars of Oxford, who hunted with dogs in parks
and forests, and threatened keepers with their lives ; and who took clerks
convict of felony out of the ward of the ordinaries, and set them free. This
temporary Act was not renewed. The Scotch and Irish students of Cam
bridge were also declared, in the EoUs of Parliament, to be the authors ol
threatening letters demanding money. But we have no trace of these
excesses at a later period. In the middle of the fifteenth century we have
the relation of a sudden street-scuffle in Coventry, between Sir Humphrey
Stafford and Sir Eobert Harcourt, in which two of their retainers were
killed ; " and all this mischief fell because of an old debate that was between
them for taking of a distress." * Another account shows that the earl of
Devonshire and Lord BonvUle were at great variance ; and how Thomas
Courtney, the son and heir of the earl, came to a house in Devonshire occu
pied by Nicholas Eadford, an eminent lawyer who was counsel to Lord
Bonville, and there murdered him in the most cowardly and cruel manner.f

Paston Letters, letter ii.

i Ibid. p.

1450-1485.] OFFENCES— HOURS OF LABOUR. IIJ
But these are exceptional cases, which only prove that the age of private
feud was not wholly passed away. In Scotland, such assaults were as frequent
as a bout of quarter-staff in England. One species of violence, for which a
special statute was provided, is characteristic of a period in which the
chivalrous spirit of reverence for women was yielding to grosser infiuences,
with many other graces of chivalry that were the plating of its atrocities.
The statute of the 31st Henry VI. shows how " unsatiable covetousness " had
moved " divers people of great power against aU right, gentleness, truth, and
good conscience." Their offence was the " great abusing of ladies, gentle
women, and other women sole, having any substance of lands, tenements,
or moveable goods." To such they came, " promising faithful friendship ; "
and " perceiving their great innocency and simplicity," carried them off by
force, or inveigled them to places where they were of power, and compelled
them to sign obUgations for money for their liberty. " Also," says this
statutory reproach of those who bore the name of gentlemen, " they wiU
many times compel them to be married by them, contrary to their own
likings." The remedy was to sue out a writ in chancery, when the fraudu
lent bonds would be set aside. For the enforced marriage there appears to
have been no redress. Such are some gUmpses of the acts orviolence of the
higher and richer classes. The outrages of the labouring people sometimes
broke out in riots at fairs, in resistance to the payment of toll.* Vagabonds
no doubt there were in every hamlet, "untrue people of their hands," — such
as are described in the petition of a body of tenants to their lo rd : " Not
having any cow or calves, or any other goods whereby they might live, nor
any other occupise ; and weU they fare, and at all sports and games they are
in our country for the most part, and silver to spend and to gaming, which
they have more ready than any other." No dues would these men pay to
lord or king ; " and as for geese, hens, and capons, your tenants may none
keep."t The complaint against these men, who "as vagabonds live,"' came
from people of their own degree. The idleness and the pilfering were not
vices of the class.
The industrious habits of artificers and labourers may be inferred from a
statute of 1495, regulating wages. The waste of time which it condemns was
the result of customs derived from an earlier period. It is the story which
wiU never end, of coming late to work and long sitting at meals. Modern
customs have rendered " long time of sleeping at afternoon " obsolete. But
those who hold that the labour of modern times is overtaskSd, as compared
with mediaeval labour, should learn what is required by this statute. From
the middle of March to the middle of September, every labourer and artificer
was to be at his work before five o'clock in the morning, and he was to depart
not tUl between seven and eight o'clock in the evening. In this season, he
was to have half an hour for breakfast, an hour for dinner, and half an hour
for his " nonemete ; " and from the middle of May to the middle of August
he was to have half an hour for sleep in the day. From September to March,
he was to be at his work " in the springing of the day, and depart not till night
of the same day." But this difference of the hours of labour in summer and
winter was taken into account in wages. The summer wages of the free
• "Plumpton Corre.'ipondeuce,'' p. Ixii. + Ibid., p. 38.
VOL. II. 1

114

DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES.

[1450-1485.

mason and master carpenter, of 5id. without food, were reduced to 4id. in the
winter. The lower artificers and labourers, who received 3id. in the summer
without meat and drink, were to serve for 3d. in the winter.* We shaU not
attempt here to enter into any comparison of the ancient and modern rate of
wages ; or now endeavour to disprove the bold assertion that " the working
man of modern times has bought the extension of his liberty at the price of
his material comfort." f That disproof, as we believe, wUl be supplied by a
just view of the condition of the labourers at every stage of our history,
not measured by estimates of wages and prices, which are very doubtful
approximations to the truth, but by regarding them in their relations to the
whole progress of society.
The Statutes of Wages which refer to artificers include under that denomi
nation the occupations only of the mason, carpenter, tiler, and " other
artificers concerning building." AU the various handicrafts took their
regulations from their guilds. The clothiers stood apart as pursuing the
most important branch of England's industry ; and the dealings of the
cloth-maker and his workmen
were regulated by statute.J
In that fifteenth century there
were no factories. Every
manufacture was carried on
at the homes of the workmen
in the several branches ; and
thus the operations of the
clothiers, whether carders,
spinsters, weavers, fullers,
shearmen, or dyers, were com
bined, though separate, by the
tradesman whose capital was
engaged in cloth-making. The
statute before us is justly
framed for the protection of
the workers. Truck was for
bidden. The work-people were to be paid la'srful money, and not to be " driven
to take part of their wages in pins, girdles, and other unprofitable wares."
The wool given out to be wrought was not to be of excessive weight. On
the other hand, every cloth-worker was to perform his duty in his occu
pation. The system of domestic manufacture is also indicated in other
enactments, protecting native labour from foreign competition. The silk-
women and spinners were especially protected ; and it is remarkable that-
connected with the statute of 34th Henry VL, against the importation
of wrought silk in ribands, laces, and chains of sUk — the EoUs of Parliament
state that such importation has caused " great idleness amongst young gentle
women and other apprentices of the same crafts, and the laying down
of many good and notable households of them that have occupied the same
crafts, which be convenient, worshipful, and according for gentlewomen

Gentlewomen Spinning with the DistaiT. Harl. MSS.

* Stat. 4 Edward IV., cap. 1.

+ Froude, "History of Englai d," vol. i. p. 80.

J Stat. 23 Henry VL, cap. 12.

1450-1485.] INTERFERENCES OP THE STATE WITH INDUSTRY. 115
and other women of worship." But the constant pressure of labour for
employment is no where more clearly indicated than in those proceedings of
the legislature, to which the people were always looking for some vain relief
in prohibiting the competition of foreign industry. Margaret Paston writes
to her husband, " ye have many good prayers of the poor people that God
should speed you at this parliament ; for they live in hope that ye should help
to set a way that they might live in better peace in this country than they
have done before ; and that wools should be purveyed for that they should
not go out of this land, as it has been suffered to do before ; and then shall
the poor people live better than they have done by their occupation therein."
The preambles to most protecting acts invariably complain how men and
women of manual occupations are greatly impoverished, and cannot live by
their mysteries, and that their servants in great number are unoccupied,
and do hardly live in great misery and ruin.* And yet one who justly claims
to have more diligently studied these statutes than other historians, maintains
that at this period, not only was there given " a fair day's wages for a fair day's
work," but that "aU industrious men could maintain themselves in comfort
and prosperity." f The perpetual interferences of the state with trade must
have prevented many a workman from continuing his occupation, and
have made him a beggar. When the parliament of Henry V. enacted that
no patten-maker should make pattens or clogs of the best and lightest timber
of which they could be made, then known as asp, that the fletchers might
sell their arrows cheap, were the makers of pattens indebted to the govern
ment which proposed to itself, as we are informed, " that all able-bodied men
should be found in work?" J The parliament of Edward IV. found out that
the law of Henry V. was " great damage to the patten-makers and none
advantage to the fletchers." In the anti-commercial spirit of the age, the
duke of Burgundy ordained that aU woollen cloths wrought in England should
be banished out of the lands of the said duke ; and Edward IV., finding that
this measure of the duke of Burgundy against English exports caused the
weavers, fidlers, dyers, carders, spinners, and winders of yarn to be destitute
of occupation, prohibited the importation of all merchandises of all the lands
of the duke, upon pain of forfeiture. Were aU the various labourers
engaged in the import trade with Burgundy assured that the government,
which thus compeUed them to starve under this stagnation of their ordinary
employment, was intently occupied upon a benevolent provision for their
prosperity ? In these commercial enactments — in all that relates to prices,
wages, quality of sommodities, protection of native labour — we perceive
little more than Lhe grossest ignorance, fettering trade by unwise laws
alike injurious to producer and consumer, and then whining over its own
blunders, when the hasty remedies for surface evils had destroyed the
industry which they were intended to foster.
* See especially 3 Edward IV. cap. iv.
t Froude, "History of England," vol. i. p. 67. t Ibid., vol. i. p. 43.

I 2

Herstniuuccaux C:istle, Sussex.

CHAPTER VIII.
Cembmations of Masons — Association an English principle — Domestic Architecture — Timber
houses — Consumption of Timber — Furniture and Utensils — Dearness and scarcity of
Clothing — Domestic Servants — Females — Married life of Females — Housewifery—
The Clergy — Their intercourse with the laity— Curates and Chaplains — Pilgrimages —
Wills — Difficulties of Communication — Letters — State of Popular Knowledge — Beginnings
of Printing.

Ir we •wanted any proof that the laws for the regulation of labour were for
the oppression and not the protection of workmen, we should find it in one
brief enactment of 1423 : * " Whereas by the yearly Congregations and
Confederacies made by the Masons in their general chapiters assembled, the
good course and effect of the Statutes of Labourers be openly violated and
broken, in subversion of the law, and to the great damage of all the commons :
our said lord the king, willing in this case to provide remedy, hath ordained
and established, that such Chapiters and Congregations shall not be hereafter
holden ; and if any such be made, they that cause such Chapiters and
Congregations to be assembled and holden, if they thereof be convict, shall
be judged for felons ; and that all the other Masons that come to such
Chapiters and Congregations, be punished by imprisonment of their bodies,
and make fine and ransom at the king's will." This is hard measure for the
• Stat. 3 Henry VL cap. 1.

1450-1485.] COMBINATIONS AGAINST STATUTES OP LABOURERS.

117

class of men who, during three centuries, had covered England with its
noblest monuments ; and now, in the assemblies where they discoursed of
their art, also complained of the oppression that leveUed that art to the
ordinary condition of unskilled labour. They resisted, as they had a right to
resist. They held together, as Englishmen from that day to this have held,
when tyranny has tried to break their ranks. Destructive as these class-
contests may have been — In most cases unwise and useless for their immediate
ends, — they were better than servile endurance of real or fancied wrong.
The union of masons, which this law called confederacy, was the principle
which has made our nation unassailable from without and strong against
oppression from within — the union of family, of occupation, of locality, of
country — the steadfast individual will strengthening itself by association ;
and learning, in the discordant opinions of deliberative bodies, to moderate
the rash and uncertain counsels of the solitary judgment. No real social

Doorway, King's College Chapel, Cambridge.

tyranny could ever endure long in England against this principle. If the
combination were inexpedient, the true wisdom of moderation would soon
. manifest itself. If it were just, no arbitrary legislative interference could
eventually put it down. That the masons held their " chapiters " in
despite of the law of Henry VI. we have no doubt ; and that they controlled
the bad " course and effect of the Statutes of Labourers " by some com
promise, we may be equally assured. It was a building age in Englanc' ; and

118 DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. [1450-1485.
the land would not have been covered with improved domestic structures, if
the rewards of the artificer had not been proportioned to the demand for his
skill, in despite of the attempt to regiment all labour.
The period for grand ecclesiastical architecture was coming to an end.
The cathedrals of England were finished. The age of monastic endowment
was passed. Henry VI. began the noble chapel of King's CoUege ; but it
remained incomplete tiU Henry VII. placed his armorial bearings over the
door- way, as if that gorgeous structure had been his sole work. Castles, such
as had arisen under the Norman kings, — strong fortresses, but wretched
abodes, — were no longer needed, except on the Welsh and Scotch borders.
The great proprietors now wanted dwellings that should unite convenience
with some power of defence. The baronial lords, whose fathers had gone
forth from the dreary keeps in which their armed followers lived in dirt and
darkness, now added spacious courts, rich with " fair-compassed windows,"
within the space protected by the broad moat and the loop-holed tower. The
new castles were constructed so as to unite the characters of casteUated and
domestic architecture. Such was Herstmonceaux, in Sussex, erected in 1448 ;
a spacious parallelogram, with seventeen octagon towers, and a machicolated
gateway. The building with brick had been disused for centuries ; and this
ruined pile is r noble specimen of its revival. In some of these buildings
there was the appearance rather than the reaUty of strength. They would
have stood no attacks of cannon ; and their battlements were rather for the
purpose of defying sudden assaults from marauders and undisciplined bands,
than for resisting a practised soldiery, provided with the improved munitions
of war. Nottingham Castle, in the time of Edward IV., had become " a
gaUant building for lodging," as Leland describes it ; and though licences
to crenelate manor-houses — that is, to embattle and fortify them — were
common enough at this period, the decorated gable and the handsome oriel
window had superseded, in most instances, the protecting parapet arid the
frowning embrasure. The great hall was still the distinguishing feature of
the domestic arrangement ; and if the number of lodging-rooms was greatly
increased, as compared with the rude provisions of an earlier period, there
was small regard to those niceties of domestic comfort which grow with the
growing refinements of each successive generation. One of the smaller
manor-houses, OckweUs, in Berkshire, is a remarkable specimen of a building
of elaborate decoration, in which the haU, with its spacious painted windows,
strangely contrasts in its size and beauty with the meanness of the apartments
which we reach after having mounted the broad staircase.
The ordinary country dweUings of the proprietary classes were constructed
upon the same fashion of an open court, with a hall. They were generaUy so
constructed as to be capable of some defence against attack. There was
more apprehension of the forcible entries of disputants for possession, than-
of pubUc enemies or robbers. A house defended against such assaults "is
thus described : " Partrick and his fellowship are sore afraid that ye would
enter again upon them ; and they have made great ordinance within the
house ; and it is told me they have made bars to bar the doors crosswise ;
and they have made wickets in every quarter of the house to shoot out at,
both with bows and with hand- guns : and the holes that be made for hand
guns they be scarce knee high from the plancher (fioor) ; and of such holes

1450-1485.]

TIMBER HOUSES-CONSUMPTION OF TIMBER.

119

be made five ; there can no man shoot out at them with no hand-bows." *
Most of these houses were of timber; and it appears that in some cases they
were framed upon the spot where the wood was felled.f In populous districts
the demand for building timber was great ; and this circumstance, which
indicates how certainly the value of landed property is enhanced by the
increase of an urban population, added largely to the revenues of the tenants-
in-fee. The necessities, however, of the landed proprietors often compeUed
them to seU at a great reduction of price. " If I should sell my woods now,"
says Margaret Paston, " there wUl no man give so much for them by near an
hundred marks as they be worth, because there be so many wood sales in

Ockwells Manor-house.
Norfolk at this time." J The demand for fire-wood and charcoal for the
towns was also graduaUy thinning the remotest coverts, and making way for
the population that was to convert the dense forests into pastures and corn
fields. One of the richest prospects of southern England is from Leith hUl,
its highest eminence, where the eye ranges from the Downs of the coast to
the chalk hiUs of Eeigate, and luxuriates in the variety beneath — corn-lands,
meadows, parks, mansions, viUages, plantations — but all indicating a tract
which man has subdued into fertility. That was once the Weald of Surrey
and Sussex — the Coit Andred of the Britons, the Andredes-weald of the
Saxons ; the immense forest formerly inhabited only by the wild hog and the
stag, tiU the charcoal-burner there Ughted his fires; and the iron-smelter buUt
his forge. Before pit-coal came into use — and its value was little known in
the fifteenth century — the great central fire of the baronial haU smoked and
blazed with biUet and brushwood. In the living apartments the broad
chimney-piece, beneath whieh the fuel rested upon andirons, was now made
ornamental. Warmth was needed to exclude the blast that came through the
ill-fitted doors and shrunken shutters. Hangings concealed the rough
plastering of the walls and the " chinks which time had made." The sleeping
rooms were small. The good matron, Agnes Paston, is puzzled how she can

Paston Letters, letter kxvii.

t Ibid., letter xlv.

J Ibid., letter cocxril

120 FURNITURE AND UTENSILS. [1450-1485.
put her husband's writing-board and his coffer beside the bed, so that he
could have space to sit.* This was in their town-house of Norwich, which
was probably built of stone ; and, if wanting in comfort within, exhibited an
architectural taste without, which shames the hideous uniformity of modem
towns — the long lines of high brick waUs, with holes called -windows at
regular intervals The furniture of the houses of the esquire and the yeoman

House built of stone at Grantham, Lincolnshire.
was exceedingly scanty. Beds were rarely used except by the most wealthy ;
and " a little featherbed" forms a considerable item in a will. A rich house
holder, John Baret, of Bury, in 1463, bequeaths to his niece " the round
table for the term of her life, and after remain to the owner of my place." t
Common utensUs were transmitted from generation to generation; this
worthy burgess thus leaving " a great earthen pot that was my mother's.''
Wives had a Ufe interest in " stuff of household," which was bequeathed to
descend, after the decease of the wife, article by article to relatives and
friends. The riches so handed do-wn are such as a pottle pot and a quart pot,
a pair of tongs, and a pair of beUows. Eoger Eokewoode, of Euston,
" squier," bequeaths to his son Eobert, twenty-four pounds of lawful money,
six kine, four horses, a brass pot, two brass pans, six pewter dishes, four
saucers and three platters of pewter, a feather bed, a pair of sheets, and a
pair of blankets. J The kine, the horses, and the saucers and platters,
appear of equal importance. The deficiency of household comfort is suf
ficiently shown by such minute dispositions of old and mean chattels, of little
value now, but then estimated in proportion to their scarcity.
Eunning over -wiUs of this period we find an equal scantiness of apparel.
The " Wardrobe Accounts " of princes present a dazzUng catalogue of new
long gowns, doublets, demy gowns, jackets, tippets, slops — made of velvet,
damask, cloth of gold, ermine. But when we come to peer into the ward-
robes of the gentry and the burgesses, we see how carefuUy they treasured

* Paston Letters, letter cxxiii.
t "Wills from the Registers of Bury," p. 23.

t Ibid., p. 53.

1450-1485.] CLOTHING— ITS DEARNESS AND SCARCITY. 121
their articles of clothing. One testator leaves to a friend, " one of my short
gowns, a good one which is convenient for him, and my russet hood." *
Another desires that a neighbour's wife shall have " my best lined gown and
my cloak." t Another bestows " a doublet and a pair of hosen." J A worthy
lady bequeaths to her son, "a tawny jacket Uned with yellow." § How the
bravery of their apparel was a great point with the higher classes, and how
they were pinched to obtain their costly finery, we have abundant evidence.
One of the Pastons honestly tells his brother that a real friend thus
reproved his extravagance in dress and servants : " It is the guise of your
countrymen to spend all the goods they have on men and livery gowns, and
horse and harness, and so bear it out for a while, and at the last they are but
beggars." || They were as solicitous about their own dress as about the
splendour of their attendants ; and their solicitude for display sometimes
made them ridiculous. " The gallant with the great chain," who is going to
be married, is clearly a butt for the Norwich ladies. Hats were a French
invention of 1449 ; and a belted knight writes, " Send me a hat and a bonnet
by the same man ; and let him bring the hat upon his head, for fear of mis-
fashioning of it." T[ The importance attached to articles of clothing was, no
doubt, the result of their comparative dearness. Coarse cloth for labourers,
as we learn from the statute, was not to exceed 2s. per yard ; flue cloth, fit
for the gowTi of a doctor at an university, cost 3s. 7d. Multiplying these
values by 15 — the supposed relation of present to ancient money-value — we
see that a flne gown, which would demand several yards of broad cloth,
would be a costly article ; and that the working man's dress would require a
considerable outlay. A hat cost a shUling — the felt hat which, looking at
the different value of money, is now bought at a fourth of that amount.
Although the government was always regulating the price of materials of
apparel, it prevented the only practical regulation, by utterly prohibiting the
importation of wooUen cloth, caps, hats, gloves, girdles, wrought leather,
shoes.** If in the home manufacture any cheapening process was discovered,
it was put down, upon the principle which the common sense of mankind has
not whoUy discarded, that what abridges labour, and therefore lessens the
cost of production, is a pubUc evU : " It is showed in the said parliament,
how that hats, bonnets, and caps, as well single as double, were wont to be
faithfuUy made, wrought, fulled, and thicked by men's strength, that is to
say, with hands and feet, and thereby the makers of the same have honestly
before this time gained their living, and kept many apprentices, servants, and
good houses, tUl now of late that by subtle imagination, to the destruction
of the labours and sustenance of many men, such hats, bonnets, and caps
have been fuUed and thicked in fulling-mills, and in the said mills the said
hats and caps be broken and deceitfully wrought, and in no wise by the mean
of any mill may be faithfully made." tt The " subtle imagination " which is
here denounced has filled England with wealth, of which the humblest in the
land is a partaker, in the universal diffusion of those conveniences and com
forts of life which "men's strength, that is to say, with hands and feet," could
never have produced except for the rich few.
1- "Bury Wills," p. 4L f Md., p. 75. J Ibid., p. 84.
§ Ibid., p. 115. II Paston Letters, letter Iv.
t Ibid., letter ccbciv. ** Stat. 3 Edward IV. cap. 4.
tt Stat. 22 Edward IV. cap. 5.

122 DOMESTIC SERVANTS— FEMALES. - [1450-1485'
Of the inner household life we have some gUmpses. The domestic servants
of the wealthy were numerous ; and those of the middle classes, as well as of
the upper, appear to have been treated with a kindness and consideration
that belonged to a period when no dignity was supposed to be compromised
by considering dependants as humble friends. We have repeated examples
of bequests to servants. In the correspondence of those servants in trust,
such as baUiffs of manors, we have a frank statement of their opinions, not
only as to the arrangement of property, but of higher matters concerning
their master's interest. That there was eye-service and faithlessness in this
state of society, as in more refined times, we may readUy believe. We have
seen, in the course of the pubUc history, how mighty princes were deserted
upon their death-beds, and their valuables carried off. A law of this period
declares that " divers household servants, as weU of lords as of other persons
of great degree, shortly after the death of their said lords and masters,
violently and riotously have taken and spoUed the goods which were of their
said lords and masters at the time of their death, and the same distpbuted
amongst them, to the impediment of the executors of the will of their said
lords and masters."* The constant disputes about succession, and the
delays in the administration of estates, may have prompted to these evU
courses. The position of females in the arrangements of family is a tolerably
certain indication of the general state of society. We have no materials for
speaking of the female Ufe of the times of Henry VI. and Edward IV., besides
those we derive from that invaluable source of information, the " Paston
Letters." We do not refer so constantly to this remarkable correspondence,
which extends over forty-five years, through any peculiar beUef of its
importance. Mr. Hallam has called attention to these letters as " a precious
link in the chain of the moral history of England, which they alone in this
period supply." f We here see the daughters of the house subjected to
that strict discipline which then, and long after, marked the relations of
child and parent. Other females, besides the daughters, were educated
in the houses of the gentry ; the claims of blood demanding protection for
those without fortune. That the young women were, for the most part,
well instructed, we may judge from the number of excellent letters,
from married and single, which are found in this Paston collection
In the matters of love and matrimony, the daughters were greatly dependent
upon the will of their parents, but in some cases they appear to have
had a pretty determined wUl of their own. Every effort was made in
this Paston family to break off a contract which one daughter had made
with a person of inferior degree ; but the young lady eventually triumphed. J
The interposition even of royalty to recommend a marriage was not always
successful. " The ' queen [Margaret of Anjou] came into this town on
Tuesday last past, after noon, and abode here tiU it was Thursday afternoon ;
and she sent after my cousin EUzabeth Clere, to come to her ; and she
durst not disobey her commandment, and came to her. And when she
came in the queen's presence, the queen made right much of her, and
* Stat. 33 Henry VI. cap. 1. t "Literature of Europe," vol. i. p. 228.
J "Once upon a Time," by Charles Knight.

1450-1485.] MARRIED LIFE OF FEMALES. HOUSEWIFERY. 12S
desired her to have an husband, the which ye shall know of hereafter.
But as for that, he is never nearer than he was before." ¦* The old days
were passed, when the knight knelt at the feet of his lady-love, and went
forth to the tournament to challenge all men to produce her equal In
beauty and virtue. The knight now ascertained what portion the lady's
father would give, and he bargained for the uttermost crown. The mother
made no hesitation in speaking boldly to a powerful person for a daughter,
"to get for her one good marriage if he knew any." They were a plain-
speaking race, and went straight to the real object of their hearts, without any
unnecessary diplomacy. The " goodly young woman," not overburthened
with accomplishments, but not ignorant ; who could " use herself to work
readily, as other gentlewomen do, and somewhat to help herself," was pretty
sure to find an eligible partner. In the married life she had need of much
practical knowledge besides sewing, and spinning, and housewifery. The
lord of the household was no constant dweller in his own castle or
manor-house. He was away, fighting, or hawking, or looking after his
.law-suits in London ; and the lady had the rule of his retainers and
the welcome of his friends — ^the management of his farms, the sharp
bargainings with his tenants. When she gave her hand she obeyed as
well as loved with a fidelity and serious devotion to her duties that could
dispense with romance ; and the father of her chUdren was always to her
" worshipful." The statute of the 3rd year of Edward IV. is more minute in its enume
ration of wrought goods forbidden to be imported than any which had
preceded it ; and it enables us to form some notion of the extent of those
home manufactures which supplied the increasing domestic requirements of
the people. We have mentioned the more important articles of apparel thus
protected from foreign competition. The articles for which the lady was to
rely upon native sklU were laces, corses, ribbands, fringes, twined silk,
embroidered silk, laces of gold, points, bodkins, scissors, pins, purses,
pattens. But the prohibition was pretty equal with both sexes ; for the
gentleman, to whom the equipments of his horse was a matter of the first
concern, had no choice but of English saddles, spurs, and bridles. His knife,
his dagger, and his razor, were to be English ; and the renown of the
Sheffield " whittle " would imply that he need not seek exceUence in foreign
blades. In aU iron ware, England relied upon her native forges for andirons,
gridirons, locks, hammers, pincers, fire-tongs, dripping-pans, chafing-dishes,
ladles, scummers. Hanging-candle-sticks and curtain-rings were forbidden to
be imported, in common with metal basons and ewers. Playing cards and
dice were amongst the prohibited articles. We thus see that our house
keepers of the fifteenth century had' artificers labouring for them in various
fashions. Time has spared few of the articles then produced almost solely
"by man's strength," or we should discover how rudely many of the expensive
wares were then fabricated, which science has now made beautiful and cheap.
Many an old thrifty housewife has been in the condition of Lydgate, the
chief poet of this period, who walks through London, invited by the trades
men of Cheap and Canwick-street to buy " velvet, sUk, and lawn," and she
* Paston Letters, letter li.

124 THE CLERGY— INTERCOURSE WITH THE LAITY. [1450-14S5.
has said -with him, when she saw the variety of fabrics unknown to the home
of her childhood — "I never was used to such things indeed,
And, wanting money, I might not speed." *
We must turn from this bewildering enumeration of what the artisans of
England had been gradually learning to produce, since the primitive _ time
when king Alfred made his horn lantern, to look rapidly at some of the
broader aspects of domestic life which remain to be indicated.
We have few materials at this period to estimate the general manners
of the Clergy, and especially those of the higher churchmen, as in the pre
ceding century, when satire and solemn invective dared to raise their voices
against the pride, covetousness, and luxury of bishops and mitred abbots ;
denouncing jovial monks and idle seculars as abandoned ministers to public
immorality. The severities against those who spoke out against the cor
ruptions of the Church had shut the mouths even of t\e boldest. To be
pointed at as a heretic was even more fatal than to be suspected as a traitor.
LoUardie was crushed. The abbeys might more and more appropriate the
revenues that ought to have been the reward of the parish-priest. The bishop
might neglect his sacred functions, to add to his revenues the fees of the great
offices of state ; and, like cardinal Beaufort, procure laws to be made against
commercial freedom, and then receive large sums for licences to violate them.
Great spiritual lords might band themselves with great temporal lords, to
withdraw the funds of hospitals from thefr proper uses, and leave the old, the
lazar, the lunatic, and the pregnant woman, for whose benefit those hospitals
were endowed, to perish at their utmost need.f They need not now fear that
the Commons would again complain, as in 1410 and in 1414, that the clergy
were masters of one-third of the revenue of the kingdom ; and that if the
superfiuities of their revenues were properly applied, the realm would be in
a better position of defence, the poor better maintained, and the clergy would
attend more to their own functions. Such a compromise as that which the
Church had made with Henry V., by allowing him, upon these allegations, to
appropriate the revenues of a hundred and ten priories of aliens, would not
again be necessary in .this day of ecclesiastical power. With all this security,
the gorgeous edifice was mouldering at its base. We must wait half a century
before the great crash comes. Let us here trace a few Ulustrations of the
domestic intercourse of the clergy with the laity.
In almost every house of the nobility and higher gentry there was a
chaplain. In a very large number of parishes there was a curate. The
incumbent, in too. many instances, was a pluralist ; and thus many of the
attacks of Wycliffe and his followers were leveUed against those who took
the wages of the shepherd and neglected the sheep. This class of chaplains
and working curates was very indifferently paid. By the statute of the 36th
of Edward III., no parish priest nor yearly priest should take more than five
marks, or at most six, " for their wages by year." The statute of the. 2nd of
Henry 'V. avers that "they will not serve but for ten pounds, or twelve, or
* " London Lyckpehny."
t Statute for reformation of abuses of the funds of hospitals. 2 Henry V. cap. 1.

1460-1485.] CURATES AND CHAPLAINS. 125
ten marks by year, at least." The unquestionable rise in the price of com
modities made the poor priests as discontented with their legal wages as we
have seen that the masons were. They were to be met by new laws, made by
the influence of the wealthier clergy, and of the lay great men who were to
pay for their services ; and thus the statute ordains that " no yearly chaplain
shall take for his whole wages by year, for his board, apparel, and other
necessaries, but seven marks ; and the parish priests which serve cures shall
take but eight marks, unless by licence of the ordinary." The highest
payment for a parish priest was nine marks — six pounds. The artificer at
fourpence a day earned about as much as the parish priest, to suffice for " his
board, apparel, and other necessaries." That this class of men would cherish
a rooted dislike of the full-fed monk, and of the mendicant friar who con
trived to have a sufficient share of the goods of the world, was inevitable ;
and the discontent gathered strength, till the image -with the head of gold
and the feet of iron and clay was broken to pieces. But meanwhUe they
laboured diligently, as many of the brethren of the monastic orders also
laboured ; or they could not have kept alive, amidst many observances which
we properly regard as superstitious, a real spirit of piety and charity amongst
the people. Some of the WiUs which we have mentioned, in connection
with less important matters, afford sufficient proof that this spirit was not
dead in the century which preceded the Eeformation.
The presiding influence of religion is to be traced wherever the individual
mind displays itself. It is not the influence of the particular chaplain or
confessor — the reliance upon his holiness or the admiration of his learning —
but the irresistible conviction that the Church is all-powerful to condemn or
to save. The interference of the ecclesiastic with men's temporal affairs was
never-ceasing ; and the officiousness was often hastily resented by members
of the family where the priest was supreme. John Paston complains that his
mother's chaplain has turned her affection from her sons : " Sir James * and
I be twain : we fell out before my mother, with ' thou proud priest,' and
' thou proud squire,' my mother taking his part, so I have almost beshut the
bolt as for my mother's house." But the Church held its empire over the
will of the population, high and low, through the universal belief in the efficacy
of its ceremonial observances for procuring health and weal and the safety of
souls. A husband is sick in London ; and his anxious wife writes, " My mother
behested [vowed] another image of wax of the weight of you, to our Lady of
Walsingham ; and she sent four nobles to the four orders of friars at Norwich
to pray for you ; and I have behested to go on pilgrimage to Walsingham and
St. Leonards." t These were not the mere fancies of the women of that time.
William Telverton, a judge of the King's Bench, writes to thank his cousin
for his zeal " for Our Lady's House of Walsingham ; " adding, " for truly if I
be drawn to any worship or welfare, and discharge of mine enemies' danger,
I ascribe it unto Our Lady." In the most doubtful time of the wars of the
Eoses, in 1471, the duke of Norfolk and his duchess are on pUgrimage, on
foot, to Our Lady of Walsingham. By a buU of the pope, the shrine of
St. Jago, in Gallicia, was averred to be of equal virtue for pilgrimage as the
Holy Sepulchre. There was a Uttle danger to give excitement to the short
* The title "Sir" shows that the priest held a living. t Paston Letters, letter T.

126

PILGRIMAGES— WILLS.

[1450-1485.

land journey in Spain, for the Moslems were still in the peninsula, and the
military knights of St. Jago were organised to protect the pilgrims. From
1413 to 1456, many thousands of English sailed from Plymouth, Falmouth,
Tarmouth, Bristol, Southampton, Hull, London, and many other ports, in
small vessels licensed for this special service.* Pilgrimages to Canterbury
and Walsingham were ridiculed by the early reformers as mere pleasure-
trips, with more merriment than sanctity; and, if we may judge from
Chaucer, they were especially adapted for a people to whom the " dolce far
niente " — the do-nothing of the South — was intolerable weariness. The
national characteristic then, as now, was its avidity for action. The knight,
wanting home occupation, most earnestly desires that a hawk may be
procured ; for he says, " By my troth, I die for default of labour.'' f The
energy of the race carried the knight into the battle-fleld as much for excite
ment as for principle ; made him in peace the most daring falconer and
huntsman ; and sent the yeoman and peasant to their archery contests, their

Mummers. Bodleian MS..
leaping, their vaulting, their morris-dances, and their mummings. The
Church laid hold of this universal hatred of sitting down at rest, and sent
them on pilgrimage. *
But as the most active came naturally to look at the approaching night
" when no man worketh," the Church then was at hand, with its real truths
and its vain delusions, to give confidence in the last human trial. The WiUs
of the period afford unquestionable evidence of the constant presence of the
spiritual adviser in the once busy man's " chair-days." Moneys bequeathed
to the high altar of the abbey or parish-church ; requiems to be said, in rich
vestments appropriated for the special purpose, with a yearly reward to the
priest ; a newly-painted image of Our Lady to be set up, with a taper ever
burning ; the chimes in the steeple to be repaired ; a priest to have a house
to dweU in, and at every meal to repeat the name of the testator, that they
that hear it may say, " God have mercy on his soul," which greatly may relieve
him. It was this undoubting confidence in the prayers of the priesthood which
* See Turner's "History of England," vol. iii. ; and Roberts's "Southern Counties,'" foi
lists of these expeditions.
+ Paston Letters, letter cccxxy.

1450-1485.] DIFFICULTIES OF COMMUNICATION— LETTERS. 127
made the Church so rich and powerful. Eome, and its spiritual power, were
still ever present to the popular mind. One testator wishes that a Latin
sentence should be written " on the fore part of the iron about my grave,"
with " the day and the year of our Lord of my departing from this world,
and the Pardon which I purchased to be written therewith." * Another, a
lady, bequeaths " to a priest for to go to Eome, ten pounds ; and I will that
the said priest go to the stations and say masses as is according to a
pilgrim." t But, amidst all this, the Christian sympathy for the poor and
miserablti displays itself in little traits of pious tenderness ; in association,
also, with the English hospitality. Executors are to visit the poor and bed
ridden, and give them each a farthing or a penny. A good dinner is to be
made to neighbours and lovers ; and on the day of the dinner the prisoners
in the gaol are to be refreshed with meat and drink. A large endowment is
made for a priest to say mass on Sundays, in the chapel of the gaol before the
prisoners ; and that they have seven fagots of wood every week in the
winter. It would appear from this care for prisoners, that their condition
was most -wretched, as indeed it remained till the days of John Howard.
Whatever may have been the errors of the Church of the fifteenth century,
we may justly conclude that at the bottom of their teaching was a solid
foundation of zeal and charity ; and that in many of the concerns of life
they were the kind instructors and faithful friends of the great body of the
people, out of whose ranks the real working ministers for the most part
proceeded. The dominant control of the local clergy over the popular mind was a
necessary result of the isolation of the viUage and the town. The friar and
the parson were the only superior persons that mixed intimately with the
burgess and the yeoman ; and they only, through the same intercourse with
the higher ranks, could tell of public affairs beyond the range of their own
districts. The merchant, as he was caUed, who travelled from fair to fair,
and the pilgrim, were the only bearers of news. The common carriers were
more occupied with the price of oats than the affairs of state ; and had more
dread of thieves on the road than of changes of dynasties. Thus, there was
smaU communication between one part of the kingdom and another ; and
men abode, from childhood to age, in the narrow circle of their own local
influences. The Slowness with which news traveUed is shown by the circum
stance that the result, so important to the Londoners, of the great battle
of Towton was not known to them tUl six days after Edward's victory.
" Tidings " were only to be found in letters, such as those of the Pastons.
But it was dangerous to write freely ; and when an opinion was given upon
passing events or the characters of men, some such sentence as this was
added : " After this is read and understood, I pray you burn or break it, for
I am loth to write anything of any lord." J Letters were then most carefully
folded and fastened at the end by a paper band, upon which the seal was affixed.
Letters were, however, not always sacred. They were entrusted sometimes
to the common carriers, who might be tampered with ; and neighbours were
not always faithful to their trust in an age of political suspicion. " Look
that ye take heed that the letter were not broken ere that it came to your
hands," says Sir John Paston, when he was hesitating about his safest poUcy
* "Bury Wills," p. 19. t Ibid., p. 74. t Paston Letters, letter Ixxxiv.

128 STATE OF KNOWLEDGE- -BEGINNING OF PRINTING. [1450-1485.
When it was necessary to be particularly careful, a floss of silk was put
under the seal; and at the parts where the paper on which the seal was
impressed was folded over the letter, marks were
drawn by a pen connecting the enveloping paper
with the letter itself. Political secrets were, how
ever, rarely committed to writing. Spoken words
were less dangerous.
We may conclude this imperfect view of the do
mestic life of the flfteenth century by a brief refe
rence to the state of knowledge amongst the laity.
There were In the ranks of the nobility many encou-
Medeofseaiing a Letter. ^^^^^^ ^^ learning and Uterature. Humphrey of
Gloucester had collected a magnificent library of six hundred volumes — a rare
acquisition when we regard the value of manuscript books. The transcriber
was employed in copying legal papers as well as in multiplying volumes. We
have the account of one who writes twenty-eight leaves of evidence at 2d. a
leaf; and sixty leaves of a Treatise on War at the same price. We find
five marks offered for a Bible. The costly bindings of manuscripts greatly
enhanced their marketable value. With this scarcity of books, we may
readily conceive that reading was not a common acquirement amongst
ibe laity. In the recommendations to a nobleman of a person "meet to be
clerk of your kitchen," a " goodly young man on horse and foot, weU spoken
:/n English, meetly well in French, and very perfect In Flemish," is one who
also " can write and read." * The time was at hand, when,' out of the Weald
of Kent, a lad should have gone to London as a draper's apprentice, who
having in due course risen in estimation by his skill and industry, became the
consul for the English merchants at Bruges. The sister of Edward IV. was
married to the duke of Burgundy ; and the merchant, who had a turn for
letters, translated for her a French work in general esteem. Leaving his
mercantile functions for a season, he was absent for two years in Germany.
An invention, so simple that it appears wonderful that what affected mankind
so nearly should have remained so long undiscovered — the art of printing
from moveable types — was the wonder of Germany. Books were then to be
produced at a tenth of the price of manuscripts. The English merchant saw
the importance of the new art ; he penetrated the mystery ; and bestowed
Printing upon England. WiUiam Caxton came, to render the ignorance of
any large portion of society thenceforward impossible. He came, to be the
forerunner of that great Eeformation which was impracticable for Wycliffe,
even with his Manuscript Bible in his hand. He came, to render Bibles and
other books the common property of the great and the mean. He came, to
make tyranny an impossible thing in England, when his art should have grown,
like every other great institution which we have nourished, century after
century, to be the chief safeguard against every form of oppression and
corruption — the best upholder of just law and government. Slowly did
the dissemination of knowledge by printed books change the condition of
society ; but henceforth we can never speak of that condition without regarding
the influences of the printing press.
* Paston Letters, letter ccclxvi.

Great Seal of Henry VI.

CHAPTER IX.
De;ith-struggle of the feudal power^The House of York — Banishment and murder of Suffolk —
Insurrection of Cade — He enters London — His death — Spirit of revolt in England — York
in arms against Somerset — Incapacity of the king — York Protector — The king recovers —
York superseded — First battle of St. Alban's — Triumph of the Yorkists — York's second
Protectorate ended — Reconciliation of the two factions — Commencement of the Civil War —
Battle of Blore Heath — Parliament of Coventry — Battle of Northampton — The Duke of
York claims the crown — Battle of Wakefield — Death of York — His son, Edward, wins the
battle of Mortimer's Cross — Second battle of St. Alban's — Edward proclaimed king — ¦
Edward and Warwick march from London — Battle of Towton.
" The convulsive and bleeding agony of the feudal power " * is the great
story which we have to trace during the second half of the fifteenth century.
We have seen the building up of the Constitution during seven centuries,
when the men of England, from whatever stock derived, were working, like
the builders of the second Temple, with their swords ever in their hands. We
have seen the representative principle graduaUy asserting itself against despotic
power, whether of the crown, the aristocracy, or the church, tUl it finally
raised up the stronghold which assault or sap could never destroy. But " the
troubled birth of constitutional monarchy," t succeeding to that feudal
death-struggle, might have given us a dwarfed and puny Charter of Eights,
but for the peculiarities of race and nurture of the great body of the people.
We have seen this people, prepared by hundreds of years of discipline for the
development of freedom under its changed aspects, when the reign of feudality
was coming to its close. Whatever were the defects of the various states oi

* Barante; article in "Revue Fran9aise," March 1829.
VOL. 11.

t ITM.

130 THE HOUSE OF YORK. 11450
society which we have endeavoured to exhibit, we have seen, in the aggregate
national character, the elements of future greatness and prosperity. Whatever
the disturbances of foreign or internal war, as we approach nearer the line
which separates ancient and modem manners we have seen a people active,
enterprising, trained to individual exertion, patriotic, class mingling with class,
and no class ever losing sight of the grand national foundation of individual
freedom. We have seen a self-taxing people, always resisting every
attempt of the monarch to make himself independent of their represen
tatives, and whose nobles would, for the most part, rather pull ddwn
their castles than they " should be in the governance of any sovereign that
would oppress the country." * We have seen a people in their habits not
servile ; or, on the other hand, anarchical, though designated in other countries
" the fiercest nation in Europe ; " a people never wholly relying upon
administrative direction, but long trained to independent exertion in smaU
communities ; adapting themselves to changing circumstances, but always
cleaving to their great principle of continuity ; incessantly repairing, never
destroying and building up anew : a people holding a great place in the
world's estimation, because essentiaUy brave and persevering; proud, but not
tyrannous or habitually cruel ; full of self-love and obstinacy, but never pursuing
tlie impracticable for any long period,, and swayed more than any other
nation by the power of collective opinion, when fairly educed and fearlessly
expressed. The whole character of this people had a soUd foundation in the
family ties. In the Home was the nursing-place of Liberty. In the Home
was fostered and strengthened, in companionship with a more equal freedom,
a purer Eeligion than that of mere ceremonial observance — the religion of
the Book of Life, opened at last to every man who would "read, mark,
'earn, and inwardly digest" the words of Truth.
Eichard, duke of York, was the son of Eichard, earl of Cambridge ; and
when his father was beheaded, in 1415, he was about five years old. Upon
the death of Edmund Mortimer, in 1424, he was the representative of the
posterity of two sons of Edward III. — of Lionel, the third son, and of
Edmund, the fifth son. The revolution of 1399, which placed the issue of
John of Gaunt, the fourth son, upon the throne, had remained undisturbed
for half-a-century.t Eichard had advanced no pretensions to a higher dignity
than he obtained when, in 1425, he succeeded to the titles and possessions of
his uncles, Edward, duke of Tork, and Edmund, earl of March, having been
relieved from the corruption of blood consequent upon the alleged treason of
his father. He was employed iu high offices in France, until 1444, when he
was recaUed, and the peace was concluded which destroyed the power of the
English. Tork became necessarily opposed to the government whose poUcy
had been so disastrous and unpopular; and an opportunity was taken to
remove him to a distant scene of action. He was sent, as lieutenant of
Ireland, to quell a rebellion in 1449. His excellent qualities — his firmness,
justice, and moderation — " so assuaged the fury of the wild and savage
people there, that he won such favour among them as could never be separated
* The words of WiUiam Worcester, of his master, Sir John Fastolf.
t See p. 40. In that place we called Lionel the second son, because William, whose birth
f jUowed that of the Black Prince, died in childhood.

/450.] BANISHMENT AND MURDER OF SUFFOLK. 131
from him and his lineage." * During his absence from England, in 1449, tiU
the autumn of 1450, great events had occurred, which were the natural
sequel of the intrigues which had destroyed Humphrey of Gloucester In 1447.
The loss of France was a main cause of the distractions of England. Comines,
with his wonted sagacity, has observed that, upon their return to their own
country from the foreign land which had afforded them such means of enrich
ment, " not one of the English lords thought of lessening his state, or
retrenching his expenses ; and the whole revenue of the kingdom being
insufficient to satisfy the insatiable ambition of them all, dissensions and wars
immediately arose amongst them for command and authority." t
The duke of Suffolk, who had effected the marriage of Henry VI. with
Margaret of Anjou, had become the real ruler of England as the head of the
queen's party. He is described by contemporary historians as crafty,
avaricious, and despotic ; surrounding the king with his own creatures, and
irritating the people by inordinate exactions. The duke, in a parliament held
in January, 1450, proclaimed his own unpopularity, by requesting the Lords
" to admit his supplication and desire that he might make his declaration of
the great infamy and defamation which was said upon him, by many of the
people of this land." Within a few days, the Commons requested his com
mittal to the Tower, and subsequently exhibited abiU of impeachment against
him. It was a time of serious alarm from the temper of the people. Moleyne,
the bishop of Chichester, who had been associated in the government with
Suffolk — and whom that minister had accused of advising the surrender
of the French provinces — was murdered by some shipmen at Portsmouth at
the beginning of this January. Insurrections at the same time took place in
various parts of the country, of which the alleged object was the punishment
of the obnoxious favourite of the queen. The Commons appear to have
proceeded against this powerful minister in the same spirit of determined
animosity. They accused him of traitorous intercourse with France, through
which Normandy had been lost ; of making corrupt grants to enrich his own
famUy ; of misemploying subsidies for his private advantage ; of appointing
high officers for lucre. On the 17th of March he was brought before the
king at Westminster, many lords being present ; and there, denying the
truth of the charges against him, he knelt down and submitted himself
to the king's rule and governance, to do with him according to his pleasure.
The result of this concerted scheme was the banishment of Suffolk for five
years ; in this way avoiding the impeachment of the Commons. The
duke hastened from London ; and thus escaped the popular fury in the
capital. He remained in Suffolk till the end of AprU ; and then sailed from
Ipswich, with two ships, and " a little spinner " which he sent forward to
Calais. On the 2nd of May, a large vessel, called Nicholas of the Tower,
came in sight ; and upon the summons of its commander the duke went on
board her. We have a circumstantial relation of the fate of this unfortunate
nobleman, in a letter written from London on the 5th of May.J When he
came on board the Nicholas, the master saluted him with " Welcome traitor."
He was then '' arraigned in the ship on their manner, upon the impeachments,
and found guilty. And in the sight of aU his men he was drawn out of the
great ship into the boat, and there was an axe and a stock, and one of the
* Stow t Bjok i. chap. vii. J Paston Letters, letter xxvii. K 2

132 INSURRECTION OF CADE. 11450.
lewdest (meanest) of the ship bade him lay do-wn his head, and he should be
fairly ferd (dealt) with, and die on a sword ; and took a rusty sword and
smote off his head within half-a-dozen strokes, and took away his gown of
russet, and his doublet of velvet mailed, and laid his body on the sands of
Dover ; and some say his head was set on a pole by it." There is a letter
from the duke of Suffolk to his son, dated April 1450, "the day of my
departing from this land,'' — which exhibits him in the character of a wise,
pious, and affectionate father. One sentence, coming from a man whose
aUeged crimes were the promptings of pride, avarice, and craftiness, is very
curious : — " Furthermore, as far as father may and can, I charge you in any
wise to flee the company and counsel of proud men, of covetous men, and ot
flattering men, the more especially end mightily to withstand them, and not
to draw nor to meddle with them, with all your might and power ; and to
draw to you and to your company good and virtuous men, and such as be ot
good conversation, and of truth, and by them shall ye never be deceived nor
repent you of." * The temper in which the news of the fall and death of
Suffolk was popularly received is curiously exhibited in a song composed
within a few weeks of the date of this tragedy. The duke is " Jack Napes"
with his "clog and his chain" (the badge of his house), who is going over the
sea " to seek more treasure ; " and portions of the church-service for the dead
are here put into the mouths of ecclesiastics and others who were most
obnoxious, to sing " Placeho and Dmye " for " Jack Napes' soul," and to
pray "let never such another come after this." This bitter song of triumph
furnishes a curious piece of evidence that there was some powerful organi
sation of the discontented people in the spring and summer of 1450. One
of the verses of this ballad says,
" Rise up Say ; read Parce mihi, Domine,
Nihii enim sunt dies mei, thou shalt sing."
Say, who was thus to sing, " Spare me, O Lord, for my days are as nothing,"
was murdered in Cade's insurrection on the subsequent 4th of July. " As
these verses appear to have been written before his death, they are singularly
prophetic of his fate." t The prophecy was no doubt delivered by those who
were resolved upon instigating its fulfllment.
In the hoUday week of Whitsuntide, 1450, there was a more serious game
played on Blackheath than the accustomed morris-dances and bear-baitings.
There was an encampment there of many thousand Kentish men, who had
gathered together to demand redress of grievances. Their leader is officially
described as " the false traitor John Cade, naming himself John Mortimer,
late called captain of Kent." J He is also chronicled as "an Irishman,
caUed John Cade, the which at beginning took on him the name of a
gentleman, and called himself Mortimer, for to have the more favour of the
people; and he called himself also John Amend-aU." § Upon Blackheath
this assemblage kept the field for several weeks ; and the city of London, at
that time, was friendly towards them. Cade declared to the messengers who
* Paston Letters, letter xxvi.
t Sir F. Madden, in "Archseologia," vol. xxix. p. 318, where this poem, and others of the
reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IT., are correctly printed, and ably illustrated
t Stat. 29 Henry VL cap. i.
§ English Chronicle, published by the Camden Society, p. 64.

1450.)

CADE ENTERS LONDON.

13S

came from the king, that they were assembled to redress and reform the
¦wrongs that were in the realm, and the defaults of those that were the king's
chief counsellors.* These pretensions were set forth in fifteen articles,
addressed to the king and parliament. A conaiderable force was raised to
disperse the insurgents, but they retreated to Sevenoaks ; and there, on the
27th June, defeated a detachment that had been sent against them, killing
the commander. Sir Humphrey Stafford. Their success appears to have
alarmed the king's council ; and Lord Say, the most obnoxious of the
ministers, was sent to the Tower. Henry himself removed to Kenil worth.
Two days after. Cade resumed his camp at Blackheath, the king's forces
having dispersed. One chronicle says that the men of certain lords " would
not fight against them that
laboured for to amend and r--.-':".i(f'ifin,„':',.^'^it' ^".^'i''' ""'¦
reform the common profit."f
On the 1st of July the
insurgents entered South
wark, and on the 2nd the
gates of the city were
opened to them. A statute
of the 31st of Henry VI.
describes "the most abomi
nable tyrant, horrible,
odious, and errant false
traitor John Cade," as
" taking upon him royal
power." The contemporary
English Chronicle says,
" The said captain rode
about the city bearing a
naked sword in his hand,
armed in a pair of brigan-
dines,J wearing a pair of
gilt spurs, and a gilt saUet,§
and a gown of blue velvet,
as he had been a lord or a
knight — and yet was he
but a knave — and had his
sword borne before him." Fabyan, then a resident in London, says, " He rode
through divers streets of the city; and as he came to London-stone, he struck
it with his sword, and said, 'Now is Mortimer lord of this city.' " On the
3rd, he again entered the city from Southwark. The mayor and justices
were sitting at the GuUdhall. Cade commanded that lord Say should be
brought from the Tower, and arraigned before this court ; but the nobleman
demanded to be judged by his peers. Then the insurgents took the readier
way to vengeance, by seizing lord Say, and at the Standard, in Cheap, striking
off his head. This, and other horrible deeds, as well as the plunder of some
houses, disabused the citizens of their belief that grievances were to be

London Stone,

¦* English Chronicle, p. 65.
t A species of armour worn by foot-soldiers,

t Ibid., p. 65.
§ Helmet.

134 SPIRIT OF REVOLT IN ENGLAND. [USO.
redressed by lawless tumults. Cade was ia his old quarters at Southwark,
when it was resolved to defend London-bridge against his further entrance
into the city. During the whole night of Sunday, the 5th of July, the
citizens, assisted by soldiers from the Tower, fought against the insurgents
upon the bridge. A truce was at last agreed upon ; and the men of Kent
and their captain withdrew, upon a promise from the archbishop of Can
terbury of a general pardon. A proclamation was, however, issued, offering
the reward of a thousand marks for the apprehension of Cade, aUve or dead ;
and " anon he fled into the wood country beside Lewes ; and the sheriff of
Kent him pursued ; and there he was wounded imto the death, and taken
and carried in a cart toward London, and by the way he died." * There is a
petition of the sheriffs of London to the king, praying remuneration of their
expenses in drawing "the body of a great traitor, naming himself Mortimer,
upon an hurdle by the streets of your city of London, and his head to be set
upon London-bridge." Also for delivering, under the king's writ, the
one quarter of the said traitor to the constables of the hundred of Black
heath ; another quarter to the mayor of Norwich ; another to the mayor of
SaUsbury ; and another to the baUiffs of Gloucester. The sheriffs allege that
their expenses were very great, especiaUy by their carriages of the quarters
aforesaid, with the head of one Thomas Cheyney, " for and by cause that
unneth (scarcely) any persons durst nor would take upon them the carriage
of the said head and quarters for doubt of their lives." t Thomas Cheyney,
called Bluebeard, had headed an insurrection near Canterbury in the pre
ceding February.
The spirit of revolt was widely spread in England in this year, when the
weakness and corruption of the government had roused the indignation of a
people who were rarely incited to any acts of rebeUion. The insurrections
extended to Essex, Sussex, and WUtshire, as weU as Kent. Whatever
grievances the commons had to complain of at home, the disasters of the
English in France appear to have caused much of their hatred of the pa'rty
in power. A servant of sir John Fastolf fell into the hands of the insurgents
at Blackheath ; and when it was known to whom he belonged, as the servant
records, " the captain let cry Treason upon me throughout aU the fleld ; "
causing a herald to proclaim, " that I was sent thither to espy their puissance
and their habiliments of war, from the greatest traitor that was in England
or in France," from one sir John Fastolf, knight, who had diminished all the
garrisons, " which was the cause_ of the losing of aU the king's title and right
of an heritance that he had beyond sea." J As the nobles felt their
means of enrichment diminished by the loss of the French provinces, so
needy adventurers, who had gone to France for pay and plunder, were now
thrown upon their own country, and contributed to the discontents of the
kingdom. AU these circumstances enhanced the popularity of the duke of
York, -with whose house the rebels associated the name of their leader,
Mortimer. Whether these revolts were prompted by the Nevilles and others
who were hostUe to the government, and seriously looked to a change of
dynasty as the remedy for public evils, is a matter only of conjecture. The
governor of Normandy, the duke of Somerset, to whom the more recent losses
* English Chronicle, p. 68.
t Ellis; "Original Letters," 2nd Series, vol. i. p. 112. J Paston Letters, letter xxx.

1452.] tOUK IN ARMS AGAINST SOMERSET. 136
in France were attributed, now arrived in England, and took the management
of affairs. For four years there was a contest for Ufe and death between two
great parties in the State, — a contest characterised by that bitter hostility
which was the natural prelude to civil war. Upon the return of Somerset
the Commons petitioned the king to send him to the Tower ; but he was soon
released. There has been preserved a speech in the House of Lords of the
duke of Norfolk against this powerful nobleman, in which he accuses Somerset
as one of those who have been guilty of bringing about " the over great
dishonours and losses that be come to this full noble realm of England."
But Somerset, nearly connected in blood with the house of Lancaster, and
supported by the queen, defied his assailants ; and in February 1452, the
duke of York took up arms, declaring in a proclamation to the citizens ol
Shrewsbury, that the duke of Somerset having laboured his destruction by
envy, malice, and untruth, " I, Eichard of York, seeing that the said duke ever
prevaUeth and ruleth about the king's person, that by this means the land is
likely to be destroyed, am fuUy concluded to proceed in all haste against him,
with the help of my kinsmen and friends, in such wise that it shall prove to
promote ease, peace, tranquiUity, and safeguard of all this land." * The " all
haste " with which York proceeded was not successful. He professed, in his
¦ attempt to overthrow Somerset, to keep within the bounds of his Uegeance,
and with no intent to displease his sovereign lord. But he advanced towards
London with his forces ; and, after much negotiation, Somerset was ordered
into custody. York then disbanded his army, and went to Henry's tent
unarmed. As he left the king he was arrested ; and would probably have
been executed had the wishes of Somerset and the queen whoUy prevaUed.
York finally swore fealty to the reigning sovereign, and retired to Wigmore,
one of his castles.
In October 1453, king Henry became totally incapacitated for taking any
share in that government of which he had long been only the nominal head. In
the same month, his only son was bom at Westminster, " whose noble mother
sustained not a little slander and obloquy of the common people saying that
he was not the natural son of king Henry, but changed in the cradle." t The
unhappy king remained at Windsor for many months, in a condition of total
unconsciousness. In a most interesting letter of the 19th January, 1454,
written to John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, by some persons of his house
hold, we have the foUowing passage : " As touching tidings, please it you tc
wit, that at the prince's coming to Windsor, the duke of Buckingham took
him in his arms, and presented him to the king in goodly wise, beseeching
the king to bless him ; and the king gave no manner answer. Nathless the
duke abode still with the prince by the king ; and when he could no manner
answer have, the queen came in, and took the prince in her arms, and pre
sented him in like form as the duke had done, desiring that he should bless
it ; but aU their labour was in vain, for they departed thence without any
answer or countenance, saving only that once he looked on the prince, and
cast dovm his eyen again, -without any more." J
* Ellis ; "Original Letters," 1st Series, vol. i. p. 13. t Fabyan, p. 628, ed. 1811.
t " Archaeologia," vol. xxix. p. 305: "Letter of Intelligence, January 1454 :" fi-om the
KgertOD MSS. in the British Museum.

136 INCAPACITY OP THE KING— YORK PROTECTOR. [1453
In the letter from which this touching account of the helpless state of
king Henry is quoted, we have a vivid picture of the disquiet, suspicion, and
preparation for warfare which marked this crisis, when the government of the
kingdom was to be contended for by two ambitious factions. The duke of
Somerset was under arrest ; but his influence was stiU powerful, and the
efforts of his party unremitting. The writers of the "tidings" say that he
hath spies in every lord's house of this land, — some as friars, some as shipmen.
taken on the sea. They are of opinion that he is making himself ready to be
as strong as he can make him ; and therefore it is necessary that the duke of
Norfolk should look weU to himself, " lest bushments should be laid for him."
The cardinal, Kempe, chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury, the great
supporter -with Somerset of the queen's party, hath armed aU his servants
with bow and arrows, sword and buckler. The duke of Exeter and the earl
of Egremont have been in the north country, confederating -with other Lan
castrian lords, to make all the puissance they can, to come to London. The
duke of Buckingham, Humphrey Stafford, — whose rent-roU amounted to six
thousand three liundred pounds, derived from estates in twenty-seven coun
ties,* — is at this period waiting upon events to decide his course ; but he has
ordered two thousand scarfs with the Stafford knot as badges for his retainers.
According to this letter the queen had made a biU of articles, desiring to have
the whole rule of the land ; to appoint all the officers of the government ; and
fill up all the benefices of the church. It was a contest for power between
Margaret of Anjou and Eichard of York. How York and his partisans were
preparing for the struggle is indicated in this remarkable letter. The duke,
and the earl of March, are coming to London with a feUowshIp of good men,
and their helmets and other harness are coming in carts. Salisbury, Warwick,
Eichmond, and Pembroke are coming with the duke of York, each of them
with a goodly feUowship. The earl of Warwick will have a thousand men
awaiting on him. The duke of Norfolk is advised, therefore, to come with
such a fellowship as he ought to have about him ; and to summon his tenants
and servants to meet him in London. It is in such indirect revelations as
these that we learn how earnest was the struggle for supremacy between
these feudal lords ; and upon what sUppery ground those stood who held the
reins of government. Death in the battle-field, and "the axe upon the block,
very ready," were the natural results of such note of preparation.
In the parliament which met on the 14th of February, to which the great
nobles had come with such overwhelming array, the proceedings were
conducted in a peaceful and constitutional spirit, A deputation of peers
was appointed to wait upon the king at Windsor, and inform him of the
death of Cardinal Kempe, his chanceUor, and of other important matters.
They reported that they " could get no answer or sign" in reply to their
prayer, at three several interviews. The peers, being thus satisfied of the
king's incapacity, elected the duke of York to be "protector and defender of
the realm of England during the king's pleasure." The duke held this
office tiU the beginning of 1455, during which period Somerset remained in
confinement. But in February of that year it was announced that the king
was recovered. The only circumstances we learn of the character of hia
• See " Arohasological Journal," No. 31.

1455.) TH33 KING RECOVERS -YORK SUPERSEDED. 137
recovery are detailed in a private letter from an officer of the court, dated
the 10th of January. He began to amend on the Christmas-day ; and tbe
queen took the infant prince to him, and he asked what his tiame was, and
the queen told him Edward ; and tben he held up his hands and thanked God
thereof. Further he said he never knew him tUl that time, nor wist what
was said to him, nor where he had been whilst he was sick. " And be saith
he is in charity with all the world, and so he would all the lords were." *
Very few of the lords, if we may judge by their actions, were, like poor
king Henry, at charity with all the world. They were all thinking of
themselves ; all hating and fearing rivals ; aU coveting some place of profit
and honour ; all looking to the supremacy of their own faction for the
gratification of their personal avarice or ambition. This is a hard thing to
say of the great ones of a great nation ; but in the private and public records
of these evil times we can discover only a very feeble regard for the public
good, with a very passionate striving after private advantage. It is in the
intensity of the selfishness, and the wilfulness of the pride of these lords —
who brought the hundreds and thousands of their retainers into the field to
destroy their feUow-men for a cause in which the principles at issue were to
them of far less importance than the heraldic badges of the two houses — that
we must look for an explanation of the alternations of timidity and rashness,
of faith and treachery, of lenity and cruelty, with which this contest was
carried on at intervals for so many years ; whUst those who were children in
its beginning grew up into violent and cruel men, amidst the corrupting
influences of family feuds, through which the second generation seemed only
born to carry forward the evU deeds of the first.
The recovery, as it was caUed, of king Henry produced another signal
change in affairs. Somerset was released. The protectorate of York was
necessarUy superseded ; and he was also removed from his important office
of captain of Calais. The hostility between the two great dukes was
attempted to be compromised by arbitration ; but their animosities were
too deadly to be settled by the formal award of bishops and earls. York had
retired to his estates in the north ; but in the spring he marched towards
London. The king was now again capable of taking an ostensible direction
in the conduct of the government ; and he left Westminster, on the 20th of
May, vrith Somerset and other nobles, to meet York in arms before he
reached the capital. The professions of loyalty to the king which York had
always employed were stUl observed. In letters which he was subsequently
stated to have written from Eoyston to the chancellor, and from Ware to
Henry, he protested that he marched in military array only to defend himself
from the violence of his enemies. These letters were concealed from the
king ; who had reached St. Alban's, with a force of about two thousand men,
on the 22nd of May. On the same day York encamped in the fields near the
to-wn, with three thousand men. The Yorkists sent to demand that Edmund,
duke of Somerset, " enemy to all the realm," should be given up to them.
The king replied that by advice of his council he would not deUver him.
The king's forces were within the town, which was defended by strong
barriers. The defences were again and again assaulted by the Yorkists ; but
* Paston Letters, letter Ixxii.

138

FIRST BATTLE OF ST. ALBAN'S.

[1455.

they were driven back. At length Warwick brought up a strong force on
the east side ; and broke down the barriers and the sliaht houses, and enterea
St. Peter's Street. The royai banner was erected in that street, and there
stood the passive king, whilst the deadly fight was raging in the narrow
ways, and his counseUors and friends were fighting around him hand-to-hand
with their rivals. The Lancastrian leaders, Somerset, Northumberland, and
Clifford, at length were slain. Henry, as he stood beside his banner, was
wounded in the neck with an arrow. Buckingham and Sudeley were also

Nave of St. Alban's Abbey.
wounded by the shafts of the archers of the north. Sir PhUip Wentworth
cast dovm the royal standard, and sought safety in flight ; for which
unchivalrous deed, Norfolk, who was of the opposite party, threatened that
he should be hanged. All those, who feU were buried beneath the roof of
the noble abbey, which was in a few years more to be again associated vidth
the memory of this fatal time. Whethamstede, the abbot of St. .Alban's,
describes the fury of the street battle of the 22nd of May. He heard sword
clashing with sword, and shield striking shield. He saw the wounded with
the arrows in their throats, and the dead with their cloven skuUs. But the
number slain was very small. A letter -within three days afterwards says,
" As for any great multitude of people that there was, as far as we can teU,

1455.] TRIUMPH OF THE YORKISTS. 139
there was at most slain six score." ¦* • Hall exaggerates the number killed,
of the king's party alone, to eight thousand. This affair of St. Alban's
¦was, however, important in the quality of the leaders who fell on the
side of the Lancastrians. The king sought shelter in the house of a tanner ;
and there York waited upon him, exhibiting profound respect, and conducted
him next day to London, with the same outward marks of reverence. The
faU of Somerset did not, however, restore confidence. The parliament met
in July ; and a general pardon was declared by statute for all those who had
taken arms ; and all the blame of the "journey " of St. Alban's was thrown
upon Somerset and his adherents. But, as we learn from that invaluable
correspondence which Mr. HaUam calls " my faithful guide," in that middle of
July, 1455, " aU my lord of Warwick's men, my lord of York's men, and
also my lord of Salisbury's men, go with harness and in harness, with strange
weapons ; and have stuffed their lords' barges fuU of weapons daily unto
Westminster." t In the summons to this parliament there was no attempt on
the part of the Yorkists to exclude their rival peers. None were omitted, of
either party. There were the same names as in the previous parUament, 'with
the exception of those who had fallen on the 22nd of May. The composition
of the House of Commons appears, however, to have been a matter of
anxiety to the great nobles. The duchess of Norfolk -writes to John Paston,
to exert his uifluence in procuring the return of two of their household to
be knights of the shfre ; " forasmuch as it is thought right necessary for
divers causes that my lord have at this time in the parliament such persons
as belong to him, and be of his menial servants." J The influence of the
Yorkist Peers, of whom Norfolk was one, was probably the moving cause of
that determined action of the Commons at .this time, which is a remarkable
circumstance in our constitutional history. The duke of York had been
appointed the king's commissioner to proceed in the parliament ; but after a
prorogation to November, the Commons proposed that " if the king hereafter
could not attend to the protection of the country, an able person should be
appointed protector, to whom they might have recourse for redress of
injuries." They urged this upon the Peers a second and a third time ; and
then " the king, our said sovereign lord, by the advice and assent of his lords
spiritual and temporal being in this present parliament, had named and
desired the duke of York to be protector and defender of this land."
Mr. HaUam has pointed out, " that whatever passed as to this second pro
tectorate of the duke of York was altogether of a revolutionary complesion."§
The majority of the Lords were Lancastrian. The house of York had its
chief supporters amongst the Commons ; who may be held to have represented
the popular feeling. If we may form a judgment of the opinions of the
people as derived from very sUght indications, we should say that they were
not anxious for a revolutionary crisis in the government out of any affection
for the superior pretensions to legitimacy of the house of York. There had
been sixty years of possession by the reigning famUy. Henry IV. had taken
the cro-wn after a solemn deposition of an unwise ruler, and by that ancient
form of national consent which had so often disregarded the direct claims to
succession. The " mere defect in their genealogy " || of the house of
* Paston Letters, letter bcxxi. t Ibid.., letter Ixxxiv. J Ihid,, letter Ixxix.
§ "Middle Ages," chap. viii. o. IU. II ^6id

YORK'S SECOND PROTECTORATE ENDED.

[1456,

140 Lancaster would not have led to their overthrow, had not the prudence of
Henry IV., and the glory of Henry V., been succeeded by the distractions
of the long minority of Henry VL, and by the inevitable misgovernment
which ensued from his imbecility, when he became a puppet in the hands of
the grasping favourites of an unscrupulous queen. The people ^complamed
that the possessions of the crown were squandered upon the queen's creatures,
"who ruled the realm as they liked, gathering riches innumerable,' —that

Baynard'a Castle.

they were grievously taxed, but that all that came from them was spent in
vain, for the king " held no household and maintained no wars." ¦* There is
a striking illustration of the mischief of injudicious commercial taxation, in
a statute of 1453, which remits a part of " a subsidy called poundage " upon
exports and imports, because such poundage shaU be to the merchants denizens
'a very great importable (unbearable) charge, and impoverishment of a great
art of the poor people of this realm." The burgesses of towns, who were
thus taxed with Uttle discretion, would naturally look with hope upon a
possible change of rulers. By such considerations was the realm moved,
rather than by an abstract estimate of the value of hereditary right as
opposed to undisturbed possession. It was long after the beginning of these
contentions that the people became famUiar with the notion that the actual
occupancy of the throne was to be disturbed by the claims of the house of
York. When Eichard was appointed vicegerent of the kingdom, in 1455,
the rights of the son of Henry were especially protected. Eichard was
* English Chronicle, p. 79.

1458.] RECONCILIATION OF THE TWO FACTIONS. Kl
probably driven eventually to demand the throne by the violence oi those
to whose misgovernment he had been so long opposed. His second pro
tectorate was very short. There was a partial recovery of the king's health
at the beginning of 1456 ; and on the 25th of February the duke's commis
sion was superseded, and he retired with his adherents to the privacy of his
own estates. During two years the great quarrel was suspended. The
intrigues of each faction were, no doubt, pursued with slight regard to the
tranquillity of the country. The queen was charged with a conspiracy to
destroy York and Warwick ; and these nobles absented themselves from the
king's councils, and maintained an armed neutrality. At this period the
defence of the kingdom appears to have been utterly neglected. The coasts
of the Channel were ravaged by French and Breton cruisers in 1457 ; and
the eastern coast was equally insecure.-*
In 1458 king Henry summoned the great nobles to a meeting in London.
Fabyan, the alderman, has given a minute account of this assembly, which
was " called to appease the rancour and malice between the queen and the
lords." Thither came the duke of York, and was lodged in his own fortifled
mansion of Baynard's Castle, on the bank of the Thames, below St. Paul's.
Warwick came from Calais, " with a great band of men, all arrayed in red
jackets with white ragged staves upon them, and was lodged at the Grey
Friars." The king and queen, with a numerous retinue, were lodged in the
bishop of London's palace. Many of the nobles were quartered -within
Temple Bar, and many without, with formidable bands of followers, each
having several hundreds in his train. The mayor of London " had daily in
harness five thousand citizens, and rode daily about the city and suburbs of
the same, to see that the king's peace were kept. And nightly he provided
for three thousand men in harness, to give attendance upon three aldermen,
and they to keep the watch till seven of the clock upon the morrow, till the
day watch were assembled." t The London of this period was rich and
populous, full of splendid ecclesiastical buildings, and of stately mansions.
From the Tower to the Palace of Westminster, tbe Thames formed the great
" silent highway." A little before this time, " upon the accustomed day
when the new mayor used yearly to ride with great pomp unto Westminster
to take his charge," John Norman deviated from the ancient custom, and
was " rowed thither by water, for the which the watermen made of him a
roundel or song to his great praise." J In this feudal gathering of 1458 there
must have been incessant communication between Westminster and London ;
and the ancient thoroughfare from Charing would have presented some
of the most picturesque aspects of a city eminently beautiful from its posi
tion on the noblest of rivers — the cathedral of St. Paul's, with its lofty spire,
towering up as impressively as the dome which took its place after two
centuries. What the city chronicler calls "a dissimuled unity and con
cord," was accomplished in 1458. The king, and the rival nobles walking
before him, hand-in-hand — the queen, led by the duke of York — went in
procession to St. Paul's. And yet, in the following November, " fell a great
debate between Eichard, earl of Warwick, and them of the king's house;
* See p. 106.
t Fabyan, p. 632, ed. 1811. t Fabyan, anno 1454.

112

COMMENCEMENT OP THE CIVIL WAR.

[1459.

insomuch that they would have slain the earl." * He escaped to his barge,
and departed for Calais. His appointment as captain of Calais was super
seded by a writ of privy seal, in favour of " the young duke of Somerset."
Warwick refused to resign, saying that he was appointed by authority of
parUament.t The false unity and concord had come to an end. AU Henry's '
efforts to prefeerve peace by acting as umpire between those who sought for
revenge for the day of St. Alban's, and those who had compeUed the royal
pardon for the events of that day, were neutralised by the passions of those
around him.

Ancient Thoroughfare from Westminster to London, restored.
The affair pf St. Alban's must be regarded rather as a contest between
two ambitious factions for supremacy under the established dynasty, than as
an overt act of rebelUon against the crown. In 1459 the CivU War may be
held to have commenced ; and it assumed a character which left no doubt
that the great issue to be tried was whether Henry or Eichard should be
king of England. The Yorkist forces were now marshaUed against the royal
forces. The battle of Blore Heath, in Staffordshire, in which the eawl of
Salisbury, the father of Warwick, defeated lord Audley, was fought on the
23rd of September. SaUsbury was on his march to join the duke of lork,
which junction after this victory he effected near Ludlow. There Warwick
also joined them ; and they issued a proclamation, in which they stiU main-

English Chronicle, p. 78

t Ibid,

I4tiy.j B.VTTLE OF NORTHAMPTON. 113
tained that they were in arms to reform the government, but not to over
throw it. The king's army advanced by rapid marches ; and on the 13th of
October met the Yorkists, with a greatly superior force. Sir Andrew
Trollope, upon the king's proclamation offering pardon, carried a large body
of the Calais soldiers, whom he commanded, over to the Lancastrian camp.
The army of the Yorkists immediately disbanded ; and York fled to Ireland,
where he received a welcome from those towards whom he had been a just
governor. At a parliament held at Coventry on the 20th of November, the
forkist lords who had not surrendered were declared traitors, and their
possessions were confiscated. Salisbury and the young Edward escaped -with
Warwick to his stronghold of Calais, which he kept against all attacks during
the spring of 1460. The proceedings of the Coventry parUament stripped off
aU the thin coverings of the ambition of the house of York. For Eichard there
was no choice between remaining an attainted outcast, or venturing for a
crown. At Midsummer a large force under Warwick passed over from Calais,
and landed in Kent. As this army advanced towards London its numbers
were so largely increased, that Warwick entered the capital with forty
thousand men. "The king's true liegemen of Kent," as they caUed them
selves, who thus joined the banner of the White Eose, still demanded only
redress of grievances, and the removal of those who told the king " that good
is evU and e-vU is good." With these partisans, who appear thoroughly to
have identified themselves with the quarrel of the great nobles, Warwick
marched into the midland counties. On the 10th of July the two armies
met near Northampton. The royal forces occupied an intrenched position ;
but the Yorkists under Warwick, Faulconbridge, and Edward earl of March,
broke into the Lancastrian camp, and the king's army was utterly routed.
Alone in his tent sat the unhappy Henry, while his queen and his son had
fled, and the- most strenuous of his adherents, Buckingham, Egremont,
Beaumont, had perished. Warwick and Edward bowed before him, and pro
fessed to hold him in all reverence. The victorious Yorkists marched to
London ; when the Tower was surrendered to them, and its governor, lord
Scales, was inhumanly slaughtered in his escape. There was a change of
ministry ; and the duke of York was sent for from Ireland. At this crisis,
before the triumph of her husband's party was assured, we find the duchess
of York taking refuge in the lodgings of a friend of her family, John Paston.
A servant of the Pastons -writes, on the 12th of October, to his master at
Norwich, informing him that on the Monday after the nativity of tbe Virgin
(15th of September), " there come hither to my master's place my Master
Bowser, Sir Harry Eatford, John Clay, and the harbinger of my lord of
March, desiring that my lady of York might be here untU the coming
of my lord of York, and her two sons, my lord George and my lord
Eichard, and my lady Margaret, her daughter, which I granted them, in
your name, to Ue here tUl Michaelmas. And she had not lain here two
nights, but she had tidings of the landing of my lord at Chester. The
Tuesday after my lord sent for her, that she should come to him to Hereford ;
and thither she is gone, and she hath left here both the sons and the
daughter, and the lord of March cometh every day to see them." Here, in
these humble chambers of the Temple, we may look upon this family, whose
fate is still in suspense, wkle their head is an attainted fugitive. Tue lady

144 THE DUKE OP YORK CLAIMS THE CROWN. [1450,
CecUy, duchess of York, the daughter of Ealph NeviUe, earl of Westmore
land, has been despoiled of her possessions in the attainder of her husband.
Her second son, Edmund earl of Eutland, now seventeen years of age, has
fled with his father to Ireland, having been included in the attainder of
Coventry. The duchess remains in this bereaved and uncertain condition
till she is sent for to join her lord at Hereford. Her two younger boys, and
her daughter Margaret, are left alone in those Temple chambers. The boys
will fill a large space in the annals of England ; but now they are helpless
children, who have been nurtured amidst the bitterness of their faction, -with
a precocious sense of hatreds and revenges. George, who in a short time
will be duke of Clarence, is now scarcely eleven years of age ; Eichard, who
will be duke of Gloucester, has just completed his eighth year. Margaret is
the elder, being fifteen ; and she, as duchess of Burgundy, will not be with
out her influence in her nation's fortunes. Edward, " the lord of March,"
•who " cometh every day to see them," has not yet reached his twentieth year.
With the precocity of the Plantagenets he is already a warrior, and is caUed,
in one of the popular songs, " Thou virgin knight." * It is necessary to bear
in mind the ages of this family to form a just comprehension of some of the
circumstances of their eventful history.
The parliament assembled on the 7th of October. On the 9th the duke
of York was in London. On the 16th he entered Westminster in royal
array. Hall says, " The duke of York with a bold countenance entered into
the Chamber of Peers, and sat down in the throne royal, under the cloth of
estate, which is the king's peculiar seat." f Other relations state that he
stood for a while with his hand on the throne. There can be no doubt, from
the Eolls of Parliament, that he made a solemn claim to be king. There
was a deliberate investigation of his genealogical title, which, upon the
principle of direct succession, could not be disputed. But the Lords, with
whom the decision appears to have rested, could not conceal from themselves
that the claimant of the throne had again -and again sworn fealty to the
reigning sovereign, and that the violent disturbance of a dynasty whicli had
endured for sixty years was a perilous expedient for the restoration of peace.
They resolved upon a compromise — that Henry should retain the crown for
his life, and that the duke of York and his heirs should succeed to it after
Henry's death. The queen was in the north, surrounded by some of the
most powerful of the lords who were devoted to the interests of the
Lancastrian branch. It was not likely that she would readily submit to an
arrangement which set aside the claims of her son. Her proud spirit would
yield to no compromise. In the confidence of success York left London ;
and spent his Christmas in his castle of Sandal, in Yorkshire. He had p
small army in the neighbourhood, when Somerset advanced with eighteen
thousand men to invest the castle. Edward was at Shrewsbury. Had York
waited the arrival of succours he might have been secure. But in the spirit
of chivalry he resolved to go forth from his castle to oppose a force treble the
imount of his ovm. A solemn day of combat had been appointed by both
parties. But the feudal honour was fast passing away, leaving only the
feudal ferocity. York was suddenly attacked and totally defeated. The
• " Arcbffiologia," vol. xxix. p. 130. t Chronicle, XSX. year of Henry VI.

1460.]

BATTLE OF WAKEFIELD— DEATH OF YORK.

115

romantic circumstances of the duke being placed upon an ant-hill, while a
paper crown was put upon his head, and the mocking warriors cried, " Hail,
king without a kingdom," are probably the inventions of the later chroniclers.
The same spirit of exaggeration may have represented Eutland as basely
murdered, when found with his tutor away from the scene of confiict.
Instead of being a boy of twelve, as grave historians have accepted the
statement, he was born in 1443, and was seventeen years and a half
old at this battle of Wakefield. The father and the son both fell on
the 31st of December, 1460. Whether they were butchered in cold
blood, or died on the battle-field, is of little historical import. The
victory of Wakefield was foUowed up by the successful party with mercUess
executions. Salisbury and other Yorkists were beheaded at Pomfret on
the first day of 1461. In another month the tide of success was turned ;
and Edward, now duke of York, defeated the earl of Pembroke at Mortimer's
Cross, and foUowed up his victory by the same course of executions as those
of Wakefield. After that triumph, queen Margaret had advanced towards
London from the north with a great and lawless force. The terror of their
march had roused the spirit of the southern counties. The people were
dragged more and more into this terrible conflict. A letter from London
dated the 23rd of January, says, " In this country every man is well wUling
to go with my lords here ; and I hope God shall help them, for the people
in the north rob and steal, and be appointed to pill (pillage) all this country

and give away men's goods and livelihoods in all the south country." * The
ravaging bands under Northumberland, Westmorland, Exeter, Somerset,
¦" Paston Letters, letter cL

14G SECOND BATTLE OP ST. ALBAN'S— EDWARD PROCLAIMED KING. [1461.
Devonshire, Clifford, Eoos, Dacre, — were drawing nigher and nigher to the
capital. On Shrove Tuesday, the 17th of February, they had reached the
neighbourhood of St. Alban's. Out of the city Warwick had marched,
carrying with him the poor king Henry, in whose name aU the acts most
inimical to his famUy were now done. At Barnard's Heath, near St. Alban's,
the second battle bearing that name was fought, and Warwick was utterly
routed. Henry was left on the field, and now feU into the hands of the
queen. The town of St. Alban's was plundered, with the same fury that had
marked aU the course of the northern army. The great contest would
probably have been now decided but for one of those impulses of boldness
which so often change the fortunes of individuals and nations. Edward,
duke of York, then not twenty years old, entered London, as if the
battle of St. Alban's had been a -victory for his party, instead of a signal
defeat. The army of the north was more intent upon plundering the country
than upon seizing upon the moment of success to complete their triumph.
Edward's forces had formed a junction with those of Warwick ; and on the
28th of February, they marched into London. " In field and town every
one called Edward king of England and France," says a contemporary MS.*
A more daring spirit than that of Eichard of York now represen-ted the
White Eose. Edward went straightforward to the great object of his
ambition ; and in an assembly of the peers, prelates, and citizens, on the 3rd
of March, he demanded the crown. It was resolved at this council, that
Henry, by joining the forces of the queen, had set aside the award of the
preceding October, and forfeited the throne of which he had been granted
the life-occupancy. The accession of Edward IV. to the crown of England
dates from the 4th of March, on which day, say the EoUs of Parliament,
" he took upon him to use his right and title to the realm of England and
lordship ; and entered into the exercise of the royal estate, dignity,
pre-eminence, and power of the same crown, and to the reign and
governance of the said realm of England and lordship ; and the same
fourth day of March amoved Henry, late caUed king Henry the sisth,
Bon to Henry, son to Henry, late earl of Derby, son to John of
Gaunt, from the occupation, usurpation, intrusion, reign, and govern
ance of the said realm." In every statute which had reference to the
laws of the three regal predecessors of Edward, the same principle of
legitimacy was ostentatiously asserted ; and Henry IV., Henry V., and
Henry VL were denominated " late kings of England successively, in deed
and not of right." f Mr. Hallam has justly said, " With us, who are to
weigh these ancient factions in the balance of wisdom and justice, there
should be no hesitation in deciding that the house of Lancaster were lawful
sovereigns of England." The wisest statesman of that age, in the same
rational spirit, declared that in his judgment, and the judgment of the world,
Henry VI. was the lawful king.J
A procession to St. Patd's, a speech from the throne, a solemn recognition
before the great altar of the Abbey at Westminster, were the brief ceremonies
with which Edward put on the crown. It was no time for feasting and
-' " Archsaologia," vol. xxix. p. 130.
t Stat. 1 Edward IV. cap. i., and subsequent statutes.
t Comines' Memoirs, book -vi. chap. 13.

if461.] EDWARD AND AVARWICK MARCH FROM LONDON. 147
rejoicing. Norfolk is gone to his country to raise his men. Warwick has
marched out of London northward ou the 6th of TMarch. A great force of foot,
of which the most part were Welshmen and Kentishmen, followed him on the
10th. On the 12th Edward himself issued out of the city in goodly order at
Bishopsgate, foUowing the same northward course.* On the 13th, Henry, the
Lancastrian king, is despatching letters under his signet from York, in whicli
he announces that " our great traitor, the late earl of March, hath made great
assemblies of riotous and mischievously-disposed people, and to stir and pro
voke them to draw unto him, he hath cried in his proclamation havoc upon
all our true Uege people and subjects, their wives, children, and goods." f
The terrible havoc which the men of the north had inflicted upon the south
was now to be retaliated. At Ferrybridge, the advanced columns of the
Yorkists were defeated in a skirmish. On the 29th of March the main bodies
of the two armies are in view of each other, at Towton, about eight miles from
York. Never before or since in England was such a mighty host of the
ohildren of the soil gathered together for mutual destruction. The army of
the Lancastrians has been computed at sixty thousand. They were the hardy
north-men, with borderers, half EngUsh, who had dispersed to their moors
and mountains after ravaging the country, for thirty miles in breadth, from
York to St. Alban's. Again they were gathered under the banner of the
Eed Eose. They were led by the earls of Northumberland, Westmorland,
Devonshire, WUtshire, the duke of Somerset, Sir Andrew TroUope, and others,
who were ready to fight to the death. Of the composition of Edward's army
•of nearly fifty thousand, we have a remarkable description, in " Verses on the
Battle of Towton," J which, in relating how
" There was many a fair pennon waiting on tlie Rose,"
recites the badges and banners that fluttered in the Yorkist ranks on that
terrible eve of Palm Sunday. The house of York was represented by its badges
of the Falcon and Fetterlock, the Ostrich Feather, the Black Bull, and the
Boar's-head. Warwick was there, with his dreaded banner of the Eagged-Staff ;
Norfolk came with the timely aid of his White Lion ; Fauconberg fought under
his Fish-hook; Scrope displayed his Cornish Chough, Grey of Euthyn his Black
ragged-staff, Bouchier his Bridled-horse, Stanley his Greyhound and Harts'-
head. But the support of the people, under their own leaders, was manifest
in the banners of the to-wns that had gathered round Edward in his march of
sixteen days. He had led from London his Welshmen, with their banner of
the Dolphin, and his Kentishmen, with the Harrow of Canterbury. But in
the field of Towton were the White Ship of Bristow, and the proud Libert
(Leopard) of Salisbury, whose men had marched to unite with the midland
people. Coventry was there -with its Black Eam ; Worcester with its Wolf ;
•Gloucester with its Dragon; Leicester with its Griffin; Nottingham with
its George ; Northampton with its Wild Eat. It was the eve of one of the
most solemn festivals of the church, in which the entry of the Prince of
Peace into Jerusalem was commemorated with the strewing of the first
green branches and the earUest spring flowers, and solemn hymns were sung
* Fragment of a Chronicle, published by Heame. t "Plumpton Correspondence," p. 1.
X " Archseologia, " vol. xxix. p. 343.

148

BATTLE OP TOWTON.

[1461.

for the victory of good over evU. On the eve of Palm Sunday began the
cruel battle of Towton at four o'clock, when the armies joined. Through all
that night, amidst a faU of snow, these fierce men madly fought tiU the
afternoon of the next day. Then, thirty-three thousand men lay dead on the
field of battle. " The snow shall be their winding-sheet."
The triumph of the Yorkists was complete ; but it was not signalised by the
greater triumph of mercy. It is affirmed that there was no quarter given
in the battle ; although Comines says, " King Edward told me, that in aU the
battles which he had gained, his way was, when the victory was on his side,
to mount on horseback, and cry out to save the common soldiers, and put
the gentry to the sword, by which means none, or very few, of them
escaped." * Those whom the sword spared too often fell beneath the axe.
On the day after the battle of Towton, the earls of Devonshire and Wiltshire,
with many others, were beheaded. The queen and the hunted king fled
into Scotland. * Memoirs, book iii. chap. 5.

Signature of EdwarJ IV , R.E.

Great Seal of Edward IV. Reverse.'

CHAPTER X.
Popular support of the house of York — Coronation of Edward IV, — Executions — Attainders —
Renewed attempts of queen Margaret — Insurrections — Battle of Hexham — Edward in
pe-ace — Debasement of the coin — The king's marriage — Warwick's estrangement — Marriage
of Edward's sister to the duke of Burgundy — Marriage of Clarence to Warwick's daughter
— Power of War-wick — Yorkshire insurrection — Insurrection under sir Robert Welles —
Warwick and Clarence defeated — They fly to France — Invasion of Warwick and Clarence
— Restoration of Henry VI. — Edward iu exile — His return — Landing at Ravenspur —
Reconciliation of Edward and Clarence — The inarch to London — Battle of Barnet — .
Henry again a prisoner — Landing of queen Margaret — Battle of Tewkesbury — Richard of
Gloucester — Falconbridge — Death of Henry VI.
Edwabd of York has been borne to the throne upon the shoulders of the
people. Public opinion was not then formed through journals, reported
speeches, pamphlets — even events of great importance were slowly and
imperfectly kno-wn — but stUl there was public opinion. An historian, who
speaks of public opinion as an important element of the social life of modern
Europe at this period, says, " It derives its origin and its nutriment from
hidden sources ; and, requiring little support from reason or from evidence,
takes possession of the minds of men by involuntary con-viction." t It was
this public opinion, especially of London and the great towns, which swept
away a well-disposed, but incapable king, — afflicted by mental and bodUy
* On the ground of this side of the seal the sun and the rose are represented separately. The
sun was adopted as a badge after the battle of Mortimer's Cross, on the morning previous to
which three suns were seen, which, as the day advanced, became one.
t Eanke, " History of the Popes," vol. i. p, 133.

150 CORONATION OF EDWARD IV. [146L
infirmities ; the instrument of a violent woman and her crafty favourites, —
to substitute a youth of extraordinary vigour, of eminent beauty, of popular
manners, but whose cruel and licentious nature was with difficulty controlled
by the commanding will of the great noble who had identified himself with
the cause of the house of York. That Warwick would have risked every
thing merely for the assertion of the superior right to inheritance of the
descendants of one son of Edward III. in preference to those of another son,
is utterly inconsistent with the principle upon which the crown of England
had been held for centuries, when there was no constitutional doubt that it
was in the power of the great Council, afterwards called ParUament, to depose
a king, and appoint a successor, who should have personal as weU as hereditary
claims. Sixty-one years had passed since the deposition of Eichard II. and
the election of Henry IV. During that time, there had been thirteen years
of sagacious government ; ten years of national glory ; and thirty-eight years
of a legal minority and weakness, during which a military people were
constantly incensed by the disasters and disgraces of their arms, and
an industrious people by the miserable intrigues and scandalous contests
for power of grasping nobles. The English nation would endure a certain
amount of vigorous despotism ; taxation they would bear, for warlike attack
or defence ; but incapacity in the king, whom they regarded as the leader in
aU heroic enterprise, the wisest in council, the bravest in danger, they
would not endure. They deposed the gentle Henry, and set up the fierce
Edward. Edward IV. was crowned at Westminster, on the 29th of June, 1461, by
Thomas Bourchier, archbishop of Canterbury. His brother George was then
created duke of Clarence, and his brother
Eichard duke of Gloucester. The king
afterwards went a progress through the
south and west, amidst some of the towns
which had been so faithful to his in
terests. " He progressed," says Stow,
" about the land to understand the estate
Half-Groat of Edward IV, thereof." His courso was marked by
executions as frequent as banquets. At
Bristol, he was present when sir Baldwin Fulford was beheaded, who was taken,
" saUing into Britanny to rouse people against king Edward." One whose mind
was deeply penetrated with the romance of antiquity — " the marveUous boy" of
Bristol — has painted this tragedy -with aU the force of local colouring : the
brave knight upon a sledge ; the mayor, and aldermen, and councilmen in
scarlet robes ; the friars of St. Augustine and the friars of Saint James in
the procession ; the king looking out of the great minster window ; Baldwin
drawn past the cross in the high street up the steep hiU.* The poet may
have truly represented Edward gazing on this scene of death, for it was said
of him, that he witnessed an execution with as much pleasure as others did a
pageant. We have contemporary evidence that he was then in a merry
mood, as was his occasional temper through life, whilst this work of revenge
was going on. In a letter vrritten on the day of Baldwin's death — "This
* Chatterton, "Bristow Tragedy.''

1461. J EXECUTIONS— ATTAINDERS— LANCASTRIAN EXILES. 151
same day sir Bauldwyn Fulford and another, called Haysaunt, were put in
execution " — the -writer, B. Essex, has communicated a secret message to
Edward, and " the king laughed and made a great game thereat." * Yet,
with his levity and his cruelty, this king had glimpses of his duty, in the
season of his wondrous prosperity. He is solicited to grant a favour to
one who has served him, and he answers, that " he would be your good
lord therein, as he would to the poorest man in England ; he would hold
¦with you in your right, and as for favour he wiU not be understood that
he shall show favour more to one man than to another, not -to one ia
England." t
The parUament met on the 4th of November. It was a parliament wholly
in the interests of the new dynasty. The Lancastrian peers and knights fell
before its Bill of Attainder " thick as autumnal leaves." Henry VL, his queen,
and their son, were attainted for the death of Eichard, duke of York, and for
deUvering up Berwick to the Scots on the 25th of April, after the flight from
Towton. Dukes, earls, knights, esquires, were attainted for being at the
death of the duke of York ; for being against king Edward at Towton-field ;
for procuring foreign princes to invade the realm ; and for more recent
movements in arms in Durham and Wales. The statute 1st Edward IV.,
which declares aU the Lancastrian princes as " kings in deed and not of right,"
confirms thefr various grants, " except to such persons, and every of them,
whom our sovereign lord the king reputeth and holdeth for his rebels or
enemies." This despotic exception enabled the king not only to bestow the
property of the attainted Lancastrians upon his friends, but to seize on the
possessions of those whom he only suspected to be hostUe to his claims.
Some abandoned Henry, and made submission to Edward ; to be treated with
the contempt that belonged to their inconstancy. Such was Somerset, who
submitted in 1463, and again went over to the Lancastrians, in 1464, then to
perish on the scaffold. Those who were faithful, as Exeter was, had to endure
exUe and misery. "Some of them," says Comines, " were reduced to such
extremity of want before the duke of Burgundy received them, that no
common beggar could have been in greater. I saw one of them, who was
duke of Exeter, but who concealed his name, foUowing the duke of Burgundy's
train bare-foot and bare-legged, begging his bread from door to door. This
man was next of the house of Lancaster ; had married king Edward's sister ;
and being afterwards kno-wn had a smaU pension aUowed him for his sub
sistence." J How sUght regard has chronicle or tradition bestowed upon the
hundreds of other poor outcasts of this fearful time ! The fate of one
famUy is an exception, for it has been consecrated by the poet. The CUfford
who slew Eutland at Wakefield was himself slain at To-wton in his twenty*
fifth year. His widow and her infant boy fled " to the caves and to the
brooks," and the chUd Uved a soUtary life in " Blencathara's rugged coves,"
tUl grown a youth he was again forced to fly, " to lead a flock from hiU to
hUI." " The good lord CUfford," who was restored to his title and estates in
the first year of Henry VIL, and entered the House of Peers without being
able to read or write, learnt in his shepherd life purer and -wiser lessons than
* Ellis, " Original Letters," First Series, vol. i. p. 15.
t Paston Letter.s, letter clxxxii. t Memoirs, book iii. chap. 4.

152 RENEWED ATTEMPTS OF QUEEN MARGARET. [14C2.
his four immediate progenitors had learnt — the lessons of hatred aud revenge,
through which they aU had perished in the field of battle ; —
" Love had he found in huts Tihene poor men lie." *
It was three years before the accession of Edward to the throne had
settled down into a state of tranquiUity. The adherents of the house of
Lancaster placed their dependence upon queen Margaret, Her unconquerable
activity kept alive the spirit of the party. For her they planned ; for her
they staked their lives, almost against hope. But they relied upon foreign
aid, and upon the power of the nobles, who would still have been formidable
if the people had been with them, but who were powerless whUst Edward
was regarded as a deliverer from evil government. In 1462 Margaret raised
an army of adventurers in France, and landed on the northern coast in
October. The energetic king was soon at the head of a great force. The
queen fled to her ships, which were scattered by a tempest, and part of her
foreign troops being cast upon Holy Island were pursued and destroyed. She
escaped to Berwick, which had been surrendered to the Scots in the previous
year. A portion of her partisans had however taken the strong fortresses of
Bamborough, Alnwick, and Dunstanburgh. Warwick arrived to besiege
these castles ; and Bamborough and Dunstanburgh were surrendered by the
duke of Somerset and sir Eichard Percy, on condition that they should
recover their rank and their estates upon swearing fealty to Edward. Alnwick
capitulated. The attainders of Somerset and Percy were repealed by the
parliament, and their lands restored. Deserted thus by two of her chief
supporters, Margaret sought safety in her father's territory of Lorraine.
Monstrelet, the French historian, without giving a date, tells that romantic
story of her escape from her pursuers, which relieves the monotony of these
dreary annals of bloodshed and treachery by a narrative which touches our
common sympathies. In a wild forest near the coast she fell into the hands
of banditti, who plundered her of her gold and jewels. They quarrelled about
the division of the booty ; and, seizing her opportunity the queen fled -with
her boy, then about eleven years old. In the depths of the wood they were
again encountered by a single robber. Margaret, with the decision of her
character, threw herself upon the protection of the outlaw. " This is the
son of your king — to your care I commit him — I am your queen." The
robber became her friend, and guarded her to a place of security,t Sir
John Fortescue, the great Lancastrian lawyer, has a strange passage showing
that the thieves of England are of such high courage that three or four will
set upon seven or eight free men. Of the Scots, he says, " their hearts serve
them not to take a man's goods while he is present, and will defend it ; but
the Englishman be of another courage ; for if he be poor, and see another
man having riches, which may be taken from him by might, he wot not spare
to do so," This desperate hardihood in evil doing, in which life was pitted
against life, was not incompatible with generosity. The story of Margaret
and the robber is consistent with the national character — that mixture of
ferocity and gentleness of which the ballad-heroes of Sherwood were the type,
¦*¦ Wordsworth's " Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle,"
t Hume places this event after the battle of Hexham, Turner and Lingard think it belongs
to this earlier period.

1461,] INSURRECTIONS- B.-VTTLE OF HEXHAM. 153
In the fourth year of king Edward the constant exertions of the Lancas
trians kept the government in serious alarm. In February, 1464, tho parliament
was prorogued in consequence of the commotions in various counties. On the
1st of March, John Paston writes to his father, " The commons in Lancashire
and Cheshire were up to the number of ten thousand or more ; but now they
be down again ; and one or two of them was headed in Chester as on Saturday
last past,"* In 1464 Margaret was again in Scotland ; and now an attempt of
extraordinary boldness to regain the lost throne was made by the Lan
castrians, Percy and Somerset had gone over to their old friends, and
were at the head of a large force of Scots and exiled English ; and they
again obtained the command of the three castles which had been yielded to
Edward in 1462. Lord Montacute, the brother of Warwick, the warder of
the east marches, went promptly against the force which Percy and Somerset
had coUected. On the 25th of April a battle was fought at Hedgeley Moor,
near WooUer, where Percy, in the words of the Year Book, " comme homme
fuit occise " — was killed like a man. On the 15th of May Montacute
encountered the army of the queen near Hexham. In that decisive victory
of Edward's commander the fortunes of the house of Lancaster sank to the
lowest point of hopelessness, as if "never to rise again." The inconstant or
treacherous Somerset was taken prisoner, and instantly beheaded. There
was some justice in the recital of his crimes in the act for his attainder, which
says, " of very gentleness and the noble honour that ought to be grounded
in every gentleman, he should have been established in firm faith and truth,"
for "he had been bounteously and largely treated," But in these unhappy
contentions "the noble honour" was too often sacrificed to the base
expediency. Executions, attainders, imprisonments, followed this victory.
Some of the fugitives from the battle-field threw themselves into Bamborough
Castle, with sfr Ealph Gray, which fortress speedily surrendered to Warwick,
Gray was beheaded at Doncaster, having been spared the degradation of
having his spurs stricken off by the master cook, through the especial mercy
of Edward. The estates of Percy were granted to Montacute, who became
earl of Northumberland. The English government concluded at this time of
success a truce for fifteen years with Scotland, in .which it was stipulated that
the Lancastrians should receive neither shelter nor aid from the Scots.t
The repose which Edward had now attained was not favourable to the
improvement of his character. In the rush of war he was eminently brave
a,nd daring. In peace, the same energy became wUd licentiousness. His
expenses were unbounded. He gave away the forfeited possessions of his
enemies with a rash Uberality, and he resorted to very dangerous devices for
the supply of his own extravagance. In 1464 " king Edward changed the
ooin of England, by which he had great getting ; " and the contemporary
writer, giving the value of this new coin, adds, " to the great harm of the
common people," J Another contemporary says that the gold and sUver
* Paston Letters, letter ccxxx.
t The affairs of Scotland, in connection with those of England, have not been of material
Importance since the release of James I., in 1424, The two kingdoms were in a state of
occasional border warfare, with long truces. Towards the close of the reign of Edward IV,, the
relations of the two countries assume a greater degree of interest,
J Warkwortli's Chronicle, p, 4,

154 PEACE— DEBASEMENT OF THE COIN. [Ui)4.
money was changed and coined anew, that the name of Henry might be
obliterated.* It appears from Warkworth's brief and obscure account that
the old noble, which passed for six shiUings and eightpence, was now caUed a
rial and commanded to pass for ten shiUings. This was not literaUy true, but
was true in principle. Edward issued two new gold coins called angels and
angelets, which were to be substituted for the noble and half noble. The
noble of Henry IV. contained 108 grains of gold ; the angel of Edward IV.
contained only 80 grains. But
Henry IV. had himself depre
ciated his noble from 120 grains
to 108 ; so that the angel of Ed
ward IV. was current for two-
thirds more than its intrinsic
value at the beginning of the
century. Unquestionably these
 robberies of the pubUc for the
Angel of Edward IV. benefit of the royal treasury Were
" to the great harm of the com
mon people." They were " to the extreme damage of the great ones of the
kingdom," says another chronicler. But few in that age understood how fatal
are such devices to the welfare of the whole community ; and how short-lived
was the advantage of the fraud to the crown itself. Edward foUowed the evil
example of his predecessors ; for to them and to him it was enough that the
depreciation of the coin would supply some of the necessities of the passing
hour. This " shaUow and impudent artifice of lowering the standard "t perhaps
produced more serious injuries to the industry of the country than the revo
lutions and counter-revolutions of this age, with aU thefr waste of national
resources, and all their disturbances of private property. But Edward had
personal qualities which obviated the unpopularity of some of his public acts.
" To gain universally the favour of aU sorts, he used towards every man of
high and low degree more than meet familiarity, which trade of life he never
changed." J The "more than meet famUiarity " might bf, offensive to the
pride of decaying feudal power, but it stood Edward in the place of many
nobler qualities. The mode in which his frank and genial humour was
regarded may be traced in our baUad-poetry, which has been always ready to
celebrate the adventures of kings with thefr humble subjects, whether
tanners, millers, or tinkers. " A merrie, pleasant, and delectable historle
between K. Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth," was the delight
of many an ingle-nook of the sisteenth century, § It was this impulsive
temperament which led Edward to the rashest, but in many respects the most
creditable action of his life, — his marriage, Elizabeth, the daughter of sir
Eichard Woodville and of Jaquetta, the duchess of Bedford, had been married
to sir John Grey, a Lancastrian, who was kUled at the second battle of St.
Alban's. Edward saw the lady at her mother's house ; when she soUcited
him to restore her late husband's confiscated possessions. Her beauty was
irresistible to the young man of twenty-three ; and they were secretly married.
-* Continuation of History of Croyland. t John Stuart Mill.
t Polydore Vergil, early translation, p, 116, § Ballad in Percy's "Reliques," vol. ii.

i464.j MARRIAGE OF EDWARD. la
The ceremony is thus described : " Which spousals were solemnised early in
the morning at a town named Grafton, near unto Stony-Stratford ; at which
marriage was uo person present but the spouse, the spousesse, the duchess of
Bedford her mother, the priest, two gentlewomen, and a young man to help
the priest sing." -* There is a letter, undated, written by Eichard, duke of
York, to dame EUzabeth Woodville, whom his son made queen of England,
recommending her marriage to his well-beloved knight, sir Hugh John ; and
there is another from the earl of Warwick, in which he urges the same suit
for the same gallant knight, " which now late was with you unto his full great

Queen Elizabeth Woodville,
joy ; " and whose love was founded upon " the great sadness and wisdom that
he found and proved in you at that'time, as for your great and proved vfrtue
and womanly demeaning." t Had sir Hugh John carried off the prize, the
course of England's policy might have been somewhat changed in an alliance
with France, or Spain, or Scotland, such as the wise ones of that day
speculated upon. The probabUity is that no foreign prince chose to
connect the fortunes of his family with such an insecure throne as that
of Edward, and that no state management opposed the freedom of his own
inclinations. The marriage of Edward was avowed at the Michaelmas of 1464. On the
26th of May of the foUowing year, EUzabeth was solemnly crowned at West-
* Fabyan, p. 654. t " ArchiBologia," vol. xxix., p. 132.

156 WARWICK'S ESTRANGEMENT FROM EDWARD. [1464.
minster. She had two sons by her marriage with sir John Grey. She had
numerous relations — a father, brothers, sisters. The honours and riches
which were indiscreetly showered upon this family provoked a bitter ani
mosity, at a period when no pubUc man looked upon the rise of another
without jealousy. The marriage with the widow of a Lancastrian who had
died fighting against Edward was not an impolitic step towards the extinction
of the quarrel between the adherents of the two houses. It was iu
accordance with that just principle which had previously dictated the pro
clamation of a general amnesty to all who would submit to the new govern
ment. We must not implicitly receive the statement that "the nobility
truly chafed, and cast out open speeches that the king had not done according
to his dignity," * and that " they found much fault with him in that marriage."
But we may well beUeve that they looked with the same fear and dislike upon
the influence of a queen, for the advancement of her friends, as they had done
in a former reign when Margaret was surrounded with obnoxious favourites,
and they puUed down Suffolk and Somerset. Polydore says " the woman was
of mean calling." Her bfrth could not be called mean, whose mother was a
duchess, and whose maternal uncle was a prince of Luxemburgh, who attended
her coronation -with a retinue of a hundred knights and gentlemen. The
historical relations of this reign, and of that of Eichard IIL, are to be received
with the greatest caution; for they abound with exaggerations, — with assertions
without evidence, — and with positive mis-statements that have been repeated
by one historian after another till they have become familiar to lis as unques
tioned truths. The story that Warwick was deceived and insulted by Edward
in being employed to negotiate a marriage with the sister-in-law of Louis XI.
whUst the king's rash passion led him to marry Elizabeth WoodviUe during
the great earl' s absence, is considered a fiction of the later chroniclers unsup
ported by the relations of the more ancient hlstorians.f But unquestionably
Warwick became estranged from Edward soon after this period. The marriage
of the three brothers of Elizabeth, and of her five sisters, into noble houses,
with immense possessions, rendered the WoodvIUes objects of envy and hatred.
The Nevilles had placed Edward on the throne, and had since ruled the king
dom. They saw their power departing from them, in the sudden rise of the
queen's relations. Edward desired to marry his sister to Charles, the heir of
Burgundy. Warwick was the avowed enemy of Charles, and he intrigued
with Lewis of France to prevent the match. There was then a greater cold
ness between the king and the proud noble, which threatened a new field of
St. Alban's. They were, however, reconcUed ; and in 1468 the negotiations for
the marriage with Charles, now the reigning duke, were completed ; and the
princess Margaret was conducted through the streets of London by Warwick,
on her way to embark for Flanders. She was married on the 3rd of July near
Bruges, and entered that city, rich with aU the wealth of an industrious people,
on the same day. The pageants and jousts of peace were unequaUed in
splendour. John Paston, who was present, was wild with the glories of that
festival time : " As for the duke's court, as of lords, ladies, and gentlewomen,
knights, esquires, and gentlemen, I heard of never like unto it, save king
Arthur's court." Especially he rejoices in the feasting : " There were never
¦" Polydore Vergil, p. 117. + See note in Lingard, vol. v. p. 257, ed. 1825.

1468.J MARRIAGES OP EDWARD'S SISTER, AND OP CLARENCE, 157
Englishmen had so good cheer out of England that ever I heard of," * The
queen's brother, lord Scales, afterwards earl Elvers, was the admired of all
observers. At a great tournament in Smithfield in 1467, he had jousted with
Arthur the Bastard of Burgundy, and was victor In the field. At Bruges,
lord Scales worsted another champion ; for he and the Bastard had made
promise at London that they would never meet again in arms.f
Whilst the house of York is thus at the height of splendour and fame,
the house of Lancaster has almost passed out of the world's regard. Henry
is a prisoner In the Tower of London. After the battle of Hexham, he
remained concealed for more than a year in Lancashire ; but his place of
retreat was at last betrayed. According to Warkworth, he was " carried to
London on horseback, and his legs bound to the stirrups, and so brought
through London to the Tower, where he was kept long time by two squires
and two yeomen of the crown and their men ; and every man was suffered to
come and speak with him by license of the keepers." J Queen Margaret
was in the asylum of her father's court. But at this lowest point of their
fortunes, another revolution was preparing iu England, more strange and
complicated, more sudden and decisive, than the wildest dream of the most
sanguine Lancastrian could have shaped out. Clarence, the brother of king
Edward, was to become his enemy ; and Warwick was to join with Clarence
iu restoring those whom he had cast down from their high estate. On the
11th of July, 1469, George, duke of Clarence, then in his 21st year, was
married at Calais to Isabel, the daughter of the earl of Warwick, Edward
had been decidedly opposed to this marriage. From the time when it was
completed, England was the scene of insurrections, deadly enmities, hoUow
reconcUiations, which ended in a second fatal period of civil war.
The attempt to unravel the tangled thread of the relations of the year
which foUowed the marriage of Clarence is almost a hopeless task for modern
historians. To understand the general character of the events, and their influ
ence upon the people, we must form an accurate notion of the position of the
earl of Warwick. We must not regard him merely as a rich nobleman, who
could carry into the field a large band of personal retainers. In some
respects he was more powerful than the king upon the throne. Eichard
Ne-vUle was the son of the earl of Salisbury ; and he became earl of Warwick
in 1449, through his marriage into the great Warwick family. Eichard, duke
of York, the father of Edward IV., had married the daughter of the earl of
Westmorland, who was Warwick's grandfather; and thus Warwick stood in
near relation to the house of York. His support of that house was therefore
a natural result of his position; and his personal character, his immense
wealth, and the high connections of the other branches of the Nevilles, would
have placed him amongst the most powerful of the English nobles. But
after the accession of Edward, he and his family held offices which rendered
him stiU more powerful. He was captain of Calais, and of Dover, warden of
the Scottish Marches, Lord Chamberlain, and Lord Steward. Comines says
that, besides his inheritance, the annual profits of his offices amounted to
-* Paston Letters, letter cdviii.
t Paston Letters. The most elaborate relation of these festivities is given by Barante.
t Chronicles, p, 5,

168 POWER OF WARWICK— INSURRECTIONS. [1470.
•eighty thousand crowns. His state was more than regal. " When he came
to London," -writes Stow, " he held such a house that six oxen were eaten
at a breakfast." This man, in whose mansions, scattered through the
country, thirty thousand people are affirmed to have been daily fed, could
raise an army at his lightest summons. With such a subject, Edward, how
ever impatient under his domination, could scarcely dare to quarrel,
Warwick held the king, whom he had raised up, in little personal esteem.
" He looked upon him as a very weak prince." * Eegarding him as a care
less sensualist, he perhaps did some injustice to the character of Edward,
who, when roused to action, displayed an energy which is scarcely compatible
with weak intellect or deficient will. The earl, therefore, in the pursuit of
his deep-laid schemes ran great risks. In the final issue of his plans, " the
weak prince" signally defeated the wary politician. Within a fortnight
after the marriage of Clarence there was a rising in Yorkshire, under a
leader caUed Eobin of Eiddesdale. Sixty thousand men were in arms, whose
rising was originally a mere resistance of the peasantry to a local impost,
but which became thus formidable when it was connected with a demand
that the WoodvUles should be removed from power. The name of Warwick
was freely used in this insurrection; and two of his relations became its
leaders, in the place of Eobin of Eiddesdale, who had been taken and
beheaded. As their movements advanced southwards they defeated the
king's army under the earl of Pembroke at Edgecote near Banbury; and the
earl of Elvers, the queen's father, and sir John Woodville, her brother, who
were taken prisoners, -were beheaded at Coventry in the following September.
William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, also perished on the scaffold. This
renewal of the proscriptions and executions that followed the triumphs of the
Lancastrians is attributed to the secret orders of Warwick. The dreaded earl
now arrived in England, with Clarence, and with Neville, archbishop of York,
There appears Uttle doubt, however the fact is disputed by some -writers,
that they obtained possession of the person of Edward at Honiley,t near
Warwick, and that he was imprisoned in Middleham Castle. One of the
articles of the attainder of Clarence, at a later period, charges him with
"jeoparding the king's royal estate, person, and life in strait ward, putting
him thereby from all his liberty, after procuring great commotions." J But
there was a premature rising on the Scottish borders for the restoration of
king Henry. Warwick now hastened to put dovm that insurrection. He
had destined the throne for his son-in-law Clarence, and this demonstration
was inconsistent with his plans, Edward regained his liberty ; and again there
was reconciliation. It is evident that there was no real amity ; but that these
hollow compromises were only the forerunners of more violent hostiUty, In the
spring of 1470, the people of Lincolnshire were in arms against the government.
They were headed by sir Eobert Willes. There is a remarkable account of
these events, which is manifestly official,§ The dissimulation of Warwick
and Clarence in accepting the king's commission to put down the rebels;
their writing of "pleasant letters " to Edward, whilst they were on the way
to his enemies ; are herein set forth with strong indignation. The king, by
* Comines + Not Olney, See Camden Miscellany, vol, i. p, 3.
J Quoted in Lingard, vol. i, p, 204.
§ "Chronicle of the Rebellion in Lincolnshire,"- published in tlic Camden Miscellany, vol, ^

1470.] WARWICK AND CLARENCE FLY TO FRANCE, 159
liis rapidity of movement, threw himself upon the insurgents before his false
brother and cousin had joined. He defeated them at Stamford, their cry being
a Clarence ! a Clarence ! a W.irwick ! Willes and others were beheaded ;
and the " Chronicle of the EebeUion" states that they confessed that the duke
and the earl were the partners and the chief promoters of their treason ; and
that " their purpose was to destroy the king, and to have made the said duke
king." The victory was followed up by Edward, who pursued the forces of
Warwick into Yorkshfre. They turned to the west and south ; and the king
moving rapidly after them, the earl and the duke got on shipboard at
Dartmouth with many followers, and sailed for Calais. On the 31st of March
they were proclaimed by Edward as traitors. The officer to whom Warwick
had entrusted Calais refused to admit his captain ; and the fugitives were
compelled to sail for Normandy, and finally landed at Harfleur.
Warwick was now -within the reach of the dangerous friendship of Lewis XI.
of France, who of aU crowned heads possessed the wisdom of the serpent
-without the harmlessness of the dove. Clarence and the earl proceeded to the
court of Lewis at Amboise. Through the influence of the wily king, Margaret
of Anjou and her great enemy Eichard Neville were reconcUed. Prince Edward,
the son of Henry VL, was to marry the daughter of Warwick, Henry VI, was
to be restored. But the immediate chance of the cro-wn was lost to the " false,
fleeting " Clarence, In this negotiation Margaret acted with the same high
spirit which she had displayed in the day of her greatest power. For some
time she steadily refused " to pardon the earl of Warwick, or to take party
with him," Then Warwick humbly promised "to be true and faithful
subject in time to come." Le-wis strenuously urg6d the union, " and so the
queen, thus required by the king, as it is said, counselled also by the servants
of the king of Sicile, her father, after many treaties and meetings, pardoned
the earl of Warwick, and so did her son also." * In these intrigues, no one
shows a face of honesty and nobleness but queen Margaret. Edward was not
whoUy blind to the machinations of his enemies. Through a lady who had
been in the household of the duchess of Clarence, he contrived to make his
brother comprehend that the part which he had taken was fatal to the
interests of the house of York, Tben came another course of dissimulation
of Clarence towards Warwick, during which he contrived to let his brother
Edward know that he would be faithful to his interest, and would desert his
present friends upon the first occasion. But Edward, with an excess ot
confidence which was madness rather than courage, despised the warnings
which he received from his brother-in-law, the duke of Burgundy. " He never
was concerned at any thing, but stUl followed his hunting," says Comines. He
put entire faith in the earl of Warwick's brothers. At last, on the 13th of Sep
tember, 1470, Warwick and Clarence landed at Dartmouth, Henry VI, was
proclaimed ; and as the small army of the earl advanced into the coimtry, it
was swelled by prodigious numbers of people who gathered under the standard
of the aU-powerful king-maker. Edward had led his army northward to
suppress a pretended rebellion in Northumberland, which was got up as a
snare. His quarters were at Doncaster ; where six thousand men, at the
prompting of Montacute, the brother of Warwick, threw away the badge of
' Ellis, "Original Letters," Second Series, vol. i. p. 132,

160 INVASION OP WARWICK- KING HENRY RESTORED. [1470
the White Eose, and shouted, " God bless king Henry," Edward was in a
fortified house ; but he saw resistance to the approaching army of Warwick
would now be fruitless. He threw himself upon a horse, and on the third of
October was on ship-board at Lynn. His queen was at that time residing in
the Tower of London, where Henry VI. was detained as a state prisoner.*
EUzabeth, when she heard of the landing of Warwick, left the city-fortress
for the greater safety of the Sanctuary at Westminster. Here, on the 4th of
November, in this season of perU, was born the first son of Edward IV.
The deliverance of Henry from his captivity was accomplished on the 6th of
October, immediately after the entry of the Lancastrian army into London.
A nearly contemporary record of this event is very curious.' "The bishop
of Winchester, by the assent of the duke of Clarence and the earl of
Warwick, went to the Tower of London, where king Henry was in prison by
king Edward's commandments, and there took him from his keepers ; which
was nought worshipfuUy arrayed as a prince, and nought so cleanly kept as
should seem such a prince. They had him out, and new arrayed him, and
did to him great reverence, and brought him to the palace of Westminster,
and so he was restored to his cro'i\'n again." t The people of London again
heard the once-familiar name of Henry shouted forth by the heralds, and
they said " God bless him " in a trembling whisper.

A Herald reading a Pnoclamation,
The most important guide to a comprehension of public affairs, the
EoUs of ParUament, are wanting for the six months of the restoration of
Henry VI. They were probably destroyed at the time of the counter
revolution ; for, as we learn from other sources, in the parliament held at the
beginning of 1471 the attainders of the Lancastrians were all removed ; the
Yorkists were attainted ; and the crown was settled on Henry and his son
* See plan on the opposite page. i- Warkworth, p. 2.

THK PLAN OP THE TOWER OF LONDON.

Itfl

w^^~ -^rijijiiiii 1 1 J x.s^rBf^f

PLAN OF THE TOWEK OF LONDON.

We have seen tJiat the captive Henry YI. and the qiieen of Edward IV. were in the Tower
»t the same period. It is necessary to hear in mind the great extent of this place, and its
various uses, to understand this and other historical passages. A tolerably clear notion of what
this palace, prison, and fortress was may be gathered from the above plan, which was engraved
from a survey made in 1597.

a. Lion's Tower.
h. Bell Tower.
c. Beauchamp Tower.
d. The ChapeL
e. The Keep, called also Csesar's
Tower, or White Tower.

/. Jewel House.
g. Queen's Lodgings.
h. Queen's Gallery and
Garden.
i. Lieutenant's Lodgings.

k. Bloody Tower.
I. 'St. Thomas' Tower, and
Traitor's gate.
m. Place of Execution on
Tower-hUl.

VOL. II.

102 EDWARD IN EXILE. fUTl.
Edward, and in failure of issue upon the duke of Clarence. "Warwick and
Clarence were appointed Protectors of the realm during the minority of
prince Edward. This restoration appears to have been carried through with
less ferocity than disgraced the earlier proceedings of the civil war. The
earl of "Worcester, Constable of England, was beheaded immediately upon
the establishment of the Lancastrian authority — a nobleman who has been
stigmatised as " the butcher of England," but whom the father of English
printing eulogises as " the right virtuous earl which late piteonsly lost his
life." * But no other death on the scaffold is recorded. The country appears
to have quickly settled down into tranquUlity ; and the knights and esquires
to have changed their party with wonderful celerity. Edward had fled to
Holland so ill-provided that he " was forced to give the master of the ship for
his passage a gown Uned with martius, and promised to do more for him
whenever he had an opportunity." t He had, however, in the train of himself
and his brother Eichard, foUowers to the number of seven or eight hundred ;
but, says Comines, " sure so poor a company were never seen before." His
brigs were chased by the Easterllngs, shipmen of the Hanse Towns, who.
were a piratical race ; and he ran his vessels ashore on the coast of HoUand.
He was well-treated by the governor ; and obtained a place of refuge at the
Hague. Edward's brother-in-law, the duke of Burgundy, would have been
much better pleased tohave heard of his death, as Comines avers. The earl of
"Warwick was one of the few men of whom Charles the Kash stood in fear ;
and he apprehended the great earl's vengeance if he protected the outcast,
and showed hostUity to the house of Lancaster. His clever minister, Comines,
declared that the duke's aUiance was with the king and kingdom of England,
and whoever the English took for king should be so to the state of Burgundy.
In this low condition of his affairs at home, and the neutrality of his great
relative abroad, the chances of Edward's return were but sniall indeed. It
became a merit of the crafty amongst his old friends to speak slightingly of
him. The earl of Oxford, one of the most stedfast of the Lancastrians, had
gone to Norwich in November 1470, to ascertain the state of parties. Sir
John Paston, the stout Torkist, who had such good cheer at the marriage of
Edward's sister, now writes to his brother, "If ye could find the means,
Master Eoos and ye, to cause the mayor in my lord's ear to tell him, though
he should bind my lord to conceal it, that the love of the country and city
resteth on our side, and that other folks be not beloved, nor never were, this
would do no harm." J The " other folks " would soon render it more difficult
than ever for Sir John Paston, and many Uke him, to say which was " our
side." Oa the 2nd of March, 1471, there is a Uttle fleet in the harbour of
Flushiug, and Edward the exUe goes on board one of the ships. He has
received some secret succour from the duke of Burgundy, and has con
trived to gather two thousand Englishmen under the "White Eose banner.
The wind is unfavourable ; but he prefers remainiug on shipboard to
turning back from his enterprise. On the 11th the wind changes ; and the
little fleet saUs to the coast of Norfolk. On the 12th, in the evening, the
* Caxton's Postscript to "Cicero de AmioitiA," translated by the earl of Worcester.
t Comines. J Paston Letters ; letter cccvi.

M71,]

EDWARD LANDS AT RAVENSrUR,

163

adventurer is before Cromer ; but he learns that " it might not be for his weai
to land in tliat country," for that the earl of Oxford was there in force : and
the duke of Norfolk and other friends were "put in ward about London," *
They again stood out to sea, and were exposed to a furious storm for two days
and nights, which scattered the vessels, so that the leaders were each compeUed
to act upon their individual responsibility, and land where they best could.
Edward, with his usual intrepidity, went ashore, with a very few followers, at
Eavenspur. Eichard accompUshed a landing four miles from Eavenspur;
and Elvers at a distance of fourteen miles. There was no force at hand to
resist them ; and the se
parated leaders at last
joined; and marched on,
setting forth that Ed
ward came, not to claim
the kingdom, but to ask
only for the inheritance
of his father, the duke
dom of Tork. He
arrived before the city
of Tork on the 17th,
when the recorder came
out and declared that
he should not be suffered
to enter ; but then came
two burgesses, who con
ceded that in the quarrel
of his father he should
be received. "And so,
sometime comforted and
sometime discomforted,
he came to the gates
before the city." He
boldly entered, with only
sixteen or seventeen
persons, and harangued
" the worshipful folks
which were assembled a
little within the gates." The wearied and hungered men were refreshed ;
and the next morning marched forward without the slightest molestation.
Even Montacute, the brother of "Warwick, allowed them to pass Pomfret
Castle in safety. The servant of king Edward, who writes this " Historic "
of his arrival, says that " though aU the king's fellowship at that season
were not many in number, yet they were so habiled f and so well-picked
men, and in their work they had on hand so willed, that it had been right
hard to have put them to any distress." Onward they went, past "Wake-
* We here quote— and shall do so in subsequent passages mthout special reference — from the
curious "Historic of the Arrival of King Edward IV,," published by the Camden Society— ii
n.irrative which is the best authority for the details of one of the boldest enterprises on record,
t Disciplined — made skilful, M 2

Moult Bar, York,

164 RECONCILIATION OP EDWARD AND CLARENCE, [1471
field and Doncaster, to Nottingham, and thence to Leicester and Coventry,
Here, on the 29th of March, Edward rested before Coventry, having
received some accession of force on his march, "Warwick was in the
walled city, with six or seven thousand men. The deadly enemies were
negotiating for three days, without avail ; and then Edward marched to the
town of Warwick, " where he was received as king, and so made his pro
clamation from that time forward," The secret compact with Clarence was
now to be completed. The duke drew towards Edward with four thousand
men ; and in a fair field out of "Warwick, towards' Banbury, the two brothers
met between their two hosts, "where was right kind and loving language betwixt
them two, with perfect accord knit together for ever hereafter." Clarence
then endeavoured to mediate between "Warwick and his brother, but " all
such treaty brake and took none effect." On the 6th of April the Torkist
army moved to Northampton, and keeping its straight course for the capital,
on the 9th was at St. Alban's. NevlUe, the archbishop of Tork, assembled a
force of six or seven thousand men iu London, and " caused Henry, caUed
king, to take a horse and ride from Paul's through Cheap, and so made a
circuit about to "Wallbrook." Eabyan, who knew the temper of the people,
says, "the which rather withdrew men's hearts than otherwise." They saw
the poor feeble king, a passive instrument of others, without any real power
to carry out the kind impulses of his nature. They knew there was due at
hand who had a strong wUl, wondrous energy, and, best of all, invariable good
fortune. Comines, with that touch of the sarcastic which belonged to his
peculiar experience of the crooked ways of the world, says that the sums
which Edward owed to the tradesmen of London made them rejoice at the
prospect of his restoration ; and that the ladies of quality and citizens' wives,
who were proud of his gaUantries, compelled their husbands to declare for
him. There was no resistance. The archbishop obtained a conditional
promise of pardon ; and on the 11th, when Edward entered the city, and rode
straight to Paul's, the prelate there delivered king Henry to his great enemy.
The next day was Good Eriday. On the Saturday Edward led his army out
of London ; for "Warwick had rapidly followed him in his march, and had halted
at Barnet. His hope was to have surprised Edward in London whilst he was
occupied in the solemnities of the great festival of the Church, The energy of
the king was ready for every emergency. On that Easter eve, the 13th of April,
the advanced guard of the Torkists have encountered the outposts of the Lan
castrians, and have driven them out of the town of Barnet. "Warwick's main
force is encamped upon the high ground about half a mUe beyond. In the
dimness of nightfall, Edward's army is marching up the steep hill upon which
the town is built ; and in closed ranks and profound silence they pass through
the narrow street, and past the ancient church, and so on to the open plain.
"It was right dark," says the eye-witness, so that the king could not see
where his enemies were embattled ; and, therefore, took up a position much
nearer to them than he had supposed. " But he took not his ground so eveu
in front afore them as he would have done, if he might better have seen them ;
but somewhat a-syden-hand ' ' [on one side] . The ground to the east suddenly
declines from the elevated plain ; and if Edward took his position " a-syden-
hand " in this direction, he would have obtained an accidental advantage of
some importance, Warwiclt had ordnance to defend his front ; and as the

14?].] BATTLE OF BARNET— HENRY DETHRONED. 1«5
tramp of men broke thesUence "he shot guns almost all the niglit ; " but " it
so fortuned that they alway overshot the king's host," Tliey were nearer
than "Warwick's gunners thought, and they were upon lower ground. There
is something solemn in this array of two enemies, in darkness and deep
sUence, each ignorant of the exact position of the other — the darkness and
the silence interrupted at long intervals by the flash and the boom of a single
gun. The morning came, but the obscurity did not vanish. There was little
light on Barnet Heath ou that Easter morning, though peaceful tliousands in
other pfj-ts of England might have risen to see the sun dance, in the beau
tiful superstition that the firmament gave a token of gladness at this holy
dawning. " The kfng, understanding that the day approached near, betwixt
four and five of the clock, notwithstanding there was a great mist, and letted
[hindered] the sight of either other," commenced the attack. In that mist
EngUsh against English fought for three hours — madly, blindly — the left wing
of the Torkists, under Hastings, beaten and flying, whilst the king was rushing
on in the centre, unconscious of the discomfiture — the right wing under
Grloucester successfully attacking "Warwick, whose men, as Oxford returned
from his pursuit of Hastings' flying Torkists, mistook him for an
enemy, and received him with a terrible discharge of arrows. All became
confusion. "Warwick fell flghting on foot ; and so his brother Montacute.
The king-maker had the advantage of numbers and of position. The
mist, which even in these days of cultivation and drainage rises from
the clay lands below Barnet, probably saved Edward from defeat. His
random attack, on that dark April morning, was successful In its impe
tuosity, through the obscurity which prevented any combined movement
of assault on his part, or of resistance on the part of his enemy. Edward
fought hopefully, in the ignorance that a third of his army had
sustained a defeat. "Warwick fought desperately without the animating
conviction that in another part of the field he had been victorious. Seldom
has such a great result been produced out of blind chance and confusion.
Edward was completely master of the field where seven thousand Lancastrians
fell.* On the afternoon of that Easter Day, the king marched back to
London, and rode straight to Paul's ; and there was thanksgiving and gra-
tulatlon, and the steeples gave forth their merry peals, and the peoj)le shouted
for the young victorious king ; and the poor dethroned Henry, who had been
led out to Barnet, was led back to the Tower. Many an unhappy wretch
who had fought against Edward now crept into some hiding-place in London,
One Lancastrian who was wounded thus writes to his mother to beg her
alms, " for by my troth my leechcraft and physic and rewards to them that
have kept me and conducted me to London, have cost me since Easter-day
more than five pounds, and now I have neither meat, drink, clothes, leech-
craft, nor money," f
The great struggle was not yet over. Queen Margaret had gathered a
large army of foreigners and exiles ; and she landed at "Weymouth, on the
very day that "Warwick had fallen at Barnet. This force had embarked at
* A column was erected iu 1740, with this inscription : " Here was fought the famous battle
between Edward the 4th and the Earl of Warwick, April the 14th, anno 1471, in which the
Earl was defeated and slain."
+ Paston Ivetters, vol, v,, 4to, p, 3,

166 BATTLE OF TEWKESBURY. [UVl.
Honfleur on the 24th of March, and had again and again been driven back
by stress of weather. There soon gathered around the queen Somerset, and
Devonshire, and other staunch friends. On Easter Monday the news was
brought of the battle of Barnet. " She was right heavy and sorry," says
Edward's official account, " She like a woman all dismayed for fear fell to
the ground," writes Hall, They marched to Exeter, gathering the men of
Devonshire and Cornwall as they proceeded ; and then took the direct way
to Bath, Edward supplied the place of the killed and wounded of his men,
and assembled his forces around him at "Windsor, where he kept the feast of
St, G-eorge on the 23rd of April, On the 24th he marched forth, seeking his
enemies in the west. By weary marches, " in a foul country, all in lanes and
stony ways, betwixt woods, without any good refreshing," the Lancastrians
reached Tewkesbury, and there determined to make a stand. They took up
a strong position " in a close even at the town's end ; the town and the abbey
at their backs ; afore them, and upon every hand of them, foul lanes and deep
dikes, and many hedges, and hiUs and valleys, a right-evU place to approach."
Edward had followed them, by forced marches, finding Uttle provision on his
way, and on the 3rd of May " lodged himself and all his host within three miles
of them." They met on Saturday the 4th of May. Strong in their positions,
the Lancastrians repulsed the attackmg army ; but Somerset boldly led his
men into the open field by bye-paths, and fiercely attacked Edward's flank.
He was unsupported by Lord Wenlock, who was to'have foUowed Somerset;
was soon overpowered and driven back to his intrenchments, with great
slaughter ; and in the frenzy of despair he kiUed his companion in arms, whose
treachery or fear had ' betrayed him in the hour of need. The king and his
brother Eichard pursued their advantage with their wonted impetuosity ; and
the unfortunate remnant of the adherents of the Eed Eose " took them to
flight," — some "into lanes and dykes, where they best hoped to escape the
danger," — many were drowned at a mUl-stream, "in the meadow fast by the
town " — many ran towards the town, many to the church, to the abbey, and
elsewhere, as they best might. The kingdom was won.
It is now for the first time that we find Eichard of Gloucester a con
spicuous personage in our historical relations. He has been the companion
of his brother in his short exile, and has returned with him to fight by his
side in his great victories. He is now under twenty years of age. If we
may beUeve the description furnished by one who, in after years, was his
bitter enemy, he was " Uttle of stature, ill-featured of Umbs, crook-backed,
his left shoulder much higher than his right, hard favoured of visage." *
Erom a less suspicious source — that of John Stow the antiquary, who was
bom about 1525 — we learn that Stow " had spoken with some ancient men,
who from their own sight and knowledge affirmed, that he was of bodily shape
comely enough, only of low stature." f In his conduct at the decisive day of
Tewkesbury, the gaUantry of the knight is held to have been tarnished by the
cruelty of the assassin. The usual account is derived from Polydore YergU,
whose History was written in Latin in the reign of Henry "VII, He says,
" Edward, the prince, and excellent youth, being brought a little after [the
* "History of King Richard the Third," attributed to Sir Thomas More, but if written by
him, compiled from the statements of Cardinal Morton,
t Stryjie, Life of Stow, prefixed to "SuiTey of London," 1720,

1471.] RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER— FALCONBRIDGE. 1G7
battle] to the speech of king Edward, and demanded how he durst be so bold
as to enter and make war in his realm, made answer, with bold mind, that he
came to recover his ancient inheritance : hereunto king Edward gave no answer,
only thrusting the young man from him with his hand ; whom, forthwith,
those that were present, George, duke of Clarence, Eichard, duke of Glou
cester, and WUliam, lord Hastings, cruelly murdered." * On the other hand
there is the contemporary account of the servant of Edward IV., who says,
" In the winning of the field, such as abode hand-strokes were slain incon
tinent : Edward, called prince, was taken fleeing to the townwards, and slain
in the field." t Another early record, that of Warkworth, a Lancastrian,
gives the same account of young Edward's death in the field, with a circum
stantial variation : " And there was slain in the field prince Edward, which
cried for succour to his brother-in-law, the duke of Clarence." J The victory
of Tewkesbury was foUowed by the executions of the duke of Somerset and
other Lancastrian leaders who, " divers times," were brought before the king's
brother, the duke of Gloucester and constable of England, and the duke of
Norfolk, marshal of England, their judges, and so were judged to death." §
The judicial slaughters were rendered more atrocious than the ordinary
ferocities of both parties after victory, by the circumstance that their faUen
enemies were dragged from the sanctuary of the abbey of Tewkesbury, in
spite of the promise of Edward that those who had there taken refuge should
be pardoned. On the 7th of May, king Edward marched from Tewkesbury to Worcester.
On the 11th, he was at Coventry, where queen Margaret, who had been dis
covered in a smaU house of reUgion, where she had taken refuge, was brought
to him, and went on to London in the train of the victor. The movements of
the king were quickened by the news of an attack upon London by WiUiam
Ealconbridge, who had kept the Channel as admiral by Warwick's appointment.
He is described as " a 'man of much audacity, and factious withal, whom evU
life especiaUy stirred up to disturb the commonwealth." || He gathered a
great power of the Kentish people about him, who advanced to London,
proclaiming that they were come to deliver king Henry. But when the
news of Edward's victory arrived, the citizens gave no encouragement to this
enterprise, and, shut their gates against the adventurer, who had an evil
reputation as a pirate who had been spoUing on the coast whUst the country
was in commotion. He made a desperate assault on the city with a land force
and with ships ; set fire to the houses in three places ; but being bravely
repulsed by the armed citizens, retired to Blackheath, and afterwards to
Sandwich, which he fortified. This daring resistance to the victorious
government was not to be disregarded. Edward arrived in London, with
thirty thousand men, on the 21st of May. On the 22nd, he was on his
march towards Canterbury, accompanied by his brother Eichard, who,
within a few days, received the submission of Ealconbridge. There is the
foUowing circumstantial record of an event which took place on the 21st of
May, in which the duke of Gloucester is held to have again manifested " the
dispiteous and cruel " nature which is ascribed to him : " The same night that
* Early Translation, p. 152 — Camden Society. f History of the Arrival, &o, p. 30,
J Chronicle, p, 18. § History of the Arrival, &c., p. 31.
II Polydore Vergil, p, 153,

168 DEATH OP HENRY VL [nTl.
king Edward came to London, king Henry, being inward in prison in the Tower
of London, was put to death, the 21st day of May, on a Tuesday night, between
eleven and twelve of the clock, being then at the Tower the duke of Gloucester,
brother to king Edward, and many other. And on the morrow he was
chested and brought to Paul's, and his face was open that every one might
see him ; and in his lying he bled on the pavement there." * Opposed to
this statement of the murder is the Torkist account, that when Henry came
to have knowledge of the fatal reverses of his friends and the death of his
son, "he took it to so great despite, ire, and indignation, that, of pure
displeasure and melancholy, he died, the 23rd day of the month of May." t
The circumstance that Eichard was in the Tower, "with other," on that one
night when he rested in London, is a slight foundation upon which to build
the charge of the murder of Henry. Polydore Vergil, writing at a time
when it was convenient to lay the chief sins of the house of Tork upon him
who had lost a crown, says, " the continual report is that Eichard, duke of
Gloucester, killed him with a sword." Eabyan writes, " of the death of this
prince [Henry VL] divers tales were told : but the most common fame went
that he was sticked with a dagger by the hands of the duke of Gloucester." J
In the same hearsay style we find in More's " History," — " He slew with his
own hands king Henry the Sixth, being prisoner in the Tower, as men con
stantly say, and that without commandment or knowledge of the king, which
would undoubtedly, if he had intended that thing, have appointed that
butcherly office to some other than his own born brother." What immediate
good the "bom brother" would have derived in setting himself "that
butcherly office " is not shown. Let us not load this youth with more
burthens of evU than he will have to bear in his riper years of guUty ambi
tion. If Henry was put to death, which is more than probable, it was politic
in cardinal Morton to give such a colour to the event in his relations to
More, as would transfer the guUt from the father of th'e wife of Henry VIL,
whose devoted minister the cardinal was, and fix it upon the uncle of that
wife, whose memory could be safely assaUed when there was no one left to
care for him or defend him,
» Warkworth's (Chronicle, p, 21, f History of the Arrival, &c,, p. 38.
} Chronicle, p, 662,

Court of KJward IV.

CHAPTER XI

Total depression of the enemies of the house of York — The Court of Edward IV,, its
splendour and ceremony — Patronage of the new art of Printing — Disputes of Clarence
and Gloucester as to Gloucester's marriage — Invasion of France — Adroitness of Lewis XI,
— Death of the duke of Burgundy — Trial and condemnation of Clarence — Scotland — Death
of Edward IV, — Accession of Edward V. — Jealousy of the family of Woodville by the '
great nobles — Arrest of Rivers, Vaughan, and Grey — Gloucester and Buckingham enter
London with the kiug — The queen flies to Sanctuary — Gloucester appointed Protector —
His friends obtain important posts — Coronation of Edward V, fixed — Arrest and execution
of Hastings — Gloucester proclaims that his life is threatened — The duke of York removed
to the Tower — Alleged marriage of Edward IV, previous to his union with Elizabeth
Woodville — Sermon at Paul's Cross — The duke of Buckingham harangues the citizens
at Guildhall — The illegitimacy of Edward's children declared — Gloucester takes the crown
• — Execution of Rivers and others — Coronation of Richard III, — Examination of the
evidence that Richard III, caused the sons of Edward IV, to be murdered.
All the enemies of the house of Tork are swept away by the sword or
the axe, or are in prison or in exile. Margaret of Anjou is a captive in the
Tower, with a smaU aUowance. The duke of Exeter, who had escaped from
Barnet to the sanctuary of Westminster, perishes at sea the next year.
Vere, the earl of Oxford, after having kept the coast of the Channel in alarm
with a little fleet, and taken Mount St. Michael, in CornwaU, surrenders
upon condition that his life should be spared, and is confined for eleven years
in the castle of Ham, a prison that in future history will have far more
importance than in connection with the wars of the Eoses. The earl of
Pembroke, with his nephew, the young earl of Eichmond, have been cast by
a storm on the coast of Britanny, and remain there during the reign of

170

THE COURT OP EDWARD IV.

[1471

Edward. Some who have been hostile to the Torkists, such as Dr. Morton,
who wiU rise to great power, and Sir John Eortescue, have submitted to the
favourite of fortune. Many persons, who, as Fuller somewhere says, in
playing their cards could scarcely know which was the trump, easily obtained
their pardons ; the course being that some friend of the successful party
should procure the seal of the king, and that the chancellor should confirm
" the bUl." * For a whUe the Court of Edward is one of the most gay and
magnificent in Europe, as indeed it was before the sudden revolution of 1470.
There is a very curious account of the reception, by Edward and his queen,
in 1466, of a Bohemian nobleman, in which a native of Nuremberg, one of his
suite, furnishes some details of the wearisome ceremonies of Uhe royal life.
The Bohemian lord^ — ^having been feasted himself, whilst the king was making
presents to trumpeters, pipers, players, and heralds, in the most lavish
manner — " was conducted into a costly ornamented room where the queen
was to dine ; and there he was seated in a corner that he might see all the
expensive provisions. The queen sat dovm on a golden stool alone at her
table ; and her mother and the king's sister stood far below her. And when
the queen spoke to her mother or to the king's sister, they kneeled down
every time before her, and remained kneeling until the queen drank water.
And aU her ladies and maids, and those who waited upon her, even great
lords, had to kneel while she was eating, which continued three hours. After
dinner there was dancing,
but the queen remained
sitting upon her stool, and
her mother kneeled before
her." t It is scarcely to
be wondered that king
Edward too frequently stole
away from this frightful
etiquette, to be merry after
his own vicious fashion ;
or that he "would a hunting
ride, some, pastime for to
see." J The court fpol,
with his jests and his
antics, must have been a
welcome relief to the
three hours of dining and
kneeUng. But in the court of
England, after the re-estab
lishment of the house of
Tork, there were more
rational ' occupations than
the processions and banquets of the great days of ceremony, as that day was on
which the Bohemian lord was received. There were literary tastes in those times
* See Paston Letters, vol, v, p, 7,
t Extract translated in the "Athenaeum," November 16, 1844, from the "Travels of Leo
von Rozmital through the West of Europe," { Percy, "Reliques," vol. ii.

Court Fool and Bufioon. (Harl. MS. 4379,)

1474,1

PATRONAGE OF THE NEW ART OF PRINTING,

171

which had so recently witnessed the waste and ferocity of civil war. Edward
was himself a reader. In his "Wardrobe Accounts" there are entries for
binding his Titus LIvius, his Froissart, his Josephus, and his Bible ; as
well as for the cost of fastening chests to remove his books from London to
Eltham, The brother of the queen was the patron of Caxton, who brought his
art to England in 1474, For Caxton's press the accomplished Elvers trans
lated " The Dictes and Sayings of Philosophers," which was printed at West
minster in 1477 ; and he afterwards translated two other works for Caxton,
Our first printer was intimatelv connected with the family of Edward IV.

Earl Bivers presenting his book, printed by Caxton, to Edwjird IV.
He had " a yearly fee," as he says, from Margaret the duchess of Burgundy,
king Edward's sister, while he resided at Bruges ; and by her command he
proceeded with his " Historyes of Troye," a translation from the French,
which the critical duchess looked over, and found " defaute " of his English.*
* In my Biography of Caxton, of which a new edition appeared in 1854, I adopted the
opinion that Caxton had an employment at Bruges, in the court of "the lady Margaret." In a
very curious volume, "Notice sur Colard Mansion, Libraire et Imprimeur de la Ville de Bruges,"
Paris, 1829, the author, M, de Prat, shows that Caxton and Mansion, who commenced printing at
Bruges in 1475, were each carrying out the same views of popularising knowledge, Mansion having
produced Boethins and Ovid's Metamorphoses in French, as well as "L'ArtdebieuMourir," which
works Caxton also rmdertook in English. But M, de Prat, by the discovery of an entry in the
register of civil judgments in Bruges, shows that in 1469 a case was determined of which there
had been a previous arbitration by "William Caxton, merchant of England, master and governor
of the merchants of the English nation ; " and that, in May, 1469, "the said William Caxton
was necessarily absent from the said city of Bruges," Was he not absent to Igam the new art ?
and were not his labours as an author carried on with reference to his ultimate purpose oi
becoming a printer, although this very book of the "Historyes of Troye " might have been printed
with the types of another at Cologne? He says that the translation and work-was begun at
Bruges in 1468, and ended in the holy city of Cologne in 1471, The translation would not have
occupied three years, unless the translator had beeu engaged, to some extent or other, in its

172 DISPUTES OF CL.4RENCE AND GLOUCESTER. [1472-4.
He dedicates the first book which he printed to the duke of Clarence. He
receives a payment, by order of Edward IV., in 1479, of the large sum ol
twenty pounds " for certain causes and matters performed by him for the said
lord the king." It is manifest that at a period when the number of original
writers was very few, the king and his court lent a wiUIng aid to the great
discovery which was to make knowledge a common property, in causing, as
Caxton says earl Elvers did, " books to be imprinted and so multiplied to go
abroad among the people."
The public triumphs of the house of Tork seem to have done little to
secure the brotherly union of its members. The great earl of Warwick had
two daughters ; one married to the duke of Clarence, the other contracted to
the son of Henry VL, who feU at Tewkesbury, in his seventeenth year.
They were the heiresses of the enormous possessions of Warwick ; and
Clarence appears to have had no inclination to divide the great wealth of the
NevUles and the Beauchamps with any other. He concealed Anne, the
younger sister, from the pursuit of Gloucester, who was her suitor. In
February, 1472, sir John Paston writes that the family are " not aU in
charity," adding, " the king entreateth my lord of Clarence for my lord of
Gloucester ; and, as it is said, he answereth that he may well have my lady
his sister-in-law, but they shaU part no livelihood, as he saith." Gloucester
was not a man to be put off in this fashion by his brother ; so he did contrive
" to have my lady his sister-in-law," discovering her, as the gossip of the day
relates, in the disguise of a cook-maid. The quarrel went on ; and in AprU,
1473, sir John Paston again writes, " The world seemeth queasy here ; for
the most part that be about the king have sent hither for their harness, and
it is said for certain that the duke of Clarence maketh him big in that he
can, showing as he would but deal with the duke of Gloucester ; but the king
intendeth, eschewing all inconvenience, to be as big as they both, and a
stifler atween them." The question how the " livelihood " should be parted,
was settled in 1474, by the parliament dividing the great fortune of Warwick
between the two royal brothers, leaving the widow of Warwick, most unjustly,
a very wretched provision. Eichard had been appointed Chief Seneschal of
the duchy of Lancaster, and resided officiaUy at Pomfret Castle.* The son
and only child of Eichard and Anne was bom at Middleham Castle, in 1473,
which had been the property of the earl of Warwick. The local historians
represent Eichard to have been " popular in the north, where he was best
known." t Another says, " Eichard, represented as a monster of mankind by
most, was not so esteemed in these northern parts." J
There have been three years of repose in England. The quiet suits UI
with the restless nature of king Edward. His voluptuous habits have
produced their usual consequence, satiety. A war with France was ever
popular in England ; and the king employs the years of 1473 and 1474 in
preparation for a new conquest of the provinces which had been lost during
the minority of Henry VI. The duke of Burgundy and the duke of Bretagne
typographical execution. "I have practised and learned, at my great charge and dispense, to
ordain the said book in print," are his words at the end of this volume. In 1474 he was a
printer at Westminster. I am indebted for a knowledge of M, de Prat's "Notice," to my
accomplished friend, M, Octave Delepierre, — C. K.
* Plumpton Correspondence, p. 26,
t Surtees, " History of Durham," J Drake's York,

1-175.] INVASION OF FRANCE, 173
urged on the revival of tlie ancient claims to the French crown. The
parliament voted supplies with a profuse liberality, which the tax-payers did
not entirely approve, " The king goeth so near us in this country, both to
poor and rich, that I wot not how we shall live, unless the world amend," *
On the 20th of June, 1475, Edward sailed from Sandwich with fifteen hundred
men-at-arms, fifteen thousand archers, and a great number of foot-soldiers
and artillery, Comines says that the embarking and the landing these
forces at Calais occupied three weeks. Before the king sailed, he sent a
herald with a letter, in which he demanded the crown from Louis XL, as his
right and inheritance — written, adds Comines, in such an elegant style " that
I can scarcely believe any Englishman wrote it," The purity of the language,
and the arrogance of the demand, were alike indifferent to the French king ;
who took the herald into a private room ; gave him a magnificent present of
three hundred crowns; and "was much revived by what he got out of"
Edward's messenger. The whole account of this invasion of France, as told
by the most interesting of the early memoir-writers, is a comedy full of
amusement, instead of the monotonous tragedy that is the more natural and
usual chronicle of the quarrels of princes. As an exhibition of character,
the narrative of Comines is perfect.
The duke of Burgundy had deceived Edward as to the amount of assistance
he would render in the attempt upon France. He gave the English a cold
welcome at Peronne. The constable of St. Pol, instead of being friendly to
Edward, and delivering up the fortress of St. Quentin, fired upon an English
detachment who went to take possession of the place. Lewis of France, who
was in real terror at the presence of the English king, had a scheme for getting
rid of him which he wisely preferred to fighting. He had a trick of whisper
ing in people's ears ; and he whispered to Comines to send for a certain lord's
servant, and propose to him to go disguised as a herald to the camp of the
English king. The man was frightened ; but Lewis well tutored him, and he
was dressed up with a coat of arms made out of the banner of a trumpet.
Lewis himself had no heralds, as other princes had. " He was not so stately
or vain." The mock herald was weU received at the English camp ; and he
played his part so well, that a negotiation was opened through commissioners.
The original demand of Edward for the French crown first dwindled to a
claim for Normandy and Gascony, and ended in a proposal for a large pen
sion, as the French called it, as the condition of leaving France. The wily
Lewis feasted the English at Amiens ; sent Edward three hundred cart-loads
of the best wines of France ; and bribed his nobles without stint. The two
kings met at Picquiny, and there a peace was sworn between them, upon the
conditions of present and future money payments ; of a marriage between the
son of Lewis and a daughter of Edward ; and the release of Margaret of Anjou.
Then Lewis invited Edward to Paris, " in a jocular way," saying, " he would
assign him the cardinal Bourbon for his confessor, who would willingly absolve
him if he committed any sin," Edward was delighted with the raillery, and
promised to come, somewhat to the discomposure of Lewis ; for he whispered
to Comines, " His predecessors have been too often in Paris and Normandy
already, and I do not care for his company so near," One only of the greater
nobles of the train of Edward evinced displeasure at these negotiations, in
* Margaret Paston, writing on May 23, 1475,

174 ADROITNESS OP LEWIS XL— CHARLES OF BURGUNDY, [1475
which the king of France had cajoled and degraded the English — that one was
Eichard of Gloucester, At the interview between the kings Gloucester was
not present, " as being averse to the treaty," That man is truly unfortunate
whose best actions are held to proceed from the worst motives. Of Eichard,
one who lived in a court where there was little display of high principle, says
— " Out of the deep root of ambition it sprang, that, as well at the treaty of
peace that passed between Edward IV. and Lewis XI. of France, concluded
by interviews of both kings at Picquiny, as upon all other occasions, Eichard,
the duke of Gloucester, stood ever upon the side of honour, raising his own
reputation to the disadvantage of the king his brother, and drawing the eyes of
aU, especially those of the nobles and soldiers, upon himself." * Comines
asked a Gascon in the English service how many battles Edward had won, and
the answer was, nine : how many he had lost — and the reply was, never but one,
and that was this in which the French had outwitted him. The duke of
Gloucester might have been as sagacious as the Gascon, without being
sensible of his country's shame only through the " deep root of ambition."
With the treaty of Picquiny, its bribes and its cajoleries, its heartless
compacts and hollow friendships, the chivalrous grandeur of England had
come to an end. The pageant was played out. The world was henceforward
to be governed by that state-craft of which Lewis the Eleventh was the
greatest example. There was one prince who continued to rely upon force,
with an occasional mixture of fraud, in which game he was a chUd when
opposed to his practised adversary. His high-blown pride was humbled at
Granson and Morat by the Swi^s whose poverty he despised ; and Charles
of Burgundy perished in his mad career in 1477. Edward returned to England
more disgraced than his brother-in-law, when the mountaineers broke into
his camp, and carried off his gold and his jewels, his rich armour and his sUk
pavilions. Edward came home to an indignant people with a disappointed
army. His soldiers compensated themselves for the loss of plunder in France
by pillaging their own countrymen. The king went in person with the
judges to try the offenders, and hung every one without mercy who was
apprehended for the least theft.f
The marriages of the great, at this period, when the increase of possessions
appears to have been the dominant passion, were a fruitful source of dis
simulation and enmity, Clarence has lost his wife by poison ; and the
duchess of Burgundy is a widow. There is a letter of Edward to his
ambassador in Scotland, in which, in 1477, he writes that the king of Scots
desires two marriages connected with the royal line ; one that the duke of
Clarence should marry a sister of the king of Scots, and that a brother of
that king, the duke of Albany, should marry the duchess of Burgundy: "Te
shall say, that for so much as this desire proceedeth of his entire love and
affection anent us, we thank him as heartUy as we can ; and for so much also
as after the old usages of this our realm, no estate or person honourable
communeth of marriage within the year of their doole [widowhood], we
therefore as yet cannot conveniently speak in this matter. Nathless, when
we shaU find time convenable [suitable] we shaU fgel their- dispositions, and
* Bacon, " History of Henry VIL," p, 3,
+ The Croyland phronicle says, " si in furto vel latrocinio dcprehensm."

478,] TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION OF CLARENCE, 176
ihereupon shew unto him the same in all goodly haste," * The king did feel
;he disposition of his brother Clarence ; and found that the ambitious dulte
leslred to wed the only daughter and heir of Charles of Burgundy, in which
lesire he was seconded by the widowed duchess, her step-mother, Edward
resolutely opposed this scheme ; and the brothers became enemies, Clarence
estranged himself from his brother's court. At this time two of his
iependants, Thomas Burdett and John Stacy, were accused of having
' worked and calculated by art magic, necromancy, and astronomy, the death
md final destruction of the king and prince," and they were tried and
3xecuted. Clarence asserted their innocence before the council ; and was
immediately arrested by the king, and committed to the Tower, on the 16th
jf January, 1478. Edward forced on his brother's condemnation, by appear
ing in person to mamtain a charge of treason against him. The obsequious
peers found the imprudent prince guilty, and sentence of death was pro
nounced upon him by the duke of Buckingham, who acted as high steward.
On the 7th of February the Commons, by their speaker, demanded the execu
tion of the sentence ; and within ten days it was announced that the duke
had died in the Tower. The drowning in a butt of malmsey wine was a
rumour of the period. The suspicion that the duke of Gloucester was impli
cated in the condemnation of Clarence rests upon no evidence whatever.
The insinuation against him is thus stated by More : " Some wise men also
ween, that his drift, covertly conveyed, lacked not in helping forth his bro
ther of Clarence to his death ; which he resisted openly, howbelt somewhat,
as men deemed, more faintly than he that were heartily minded to his
wealth." t
The few remaining years of the Ufe of king Edward were not years of
ease and prosperity. The chroniclers say that his remorse for the death of
Clarence was constant and bitter ; and that " he was wont to cry out in a
rage, — 0 unfortunate brother, for whose life no man in this world would once
make request." % England, in 1479, was visited with a frightful pestilence.
WhUst his subjects in London and elsewhere were perishing around him,
Edward was enduring bitter mortification in his private affairs. He had a
passion for contracting alliances for his chUdren, even while they were in their
cradles. His eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was contracted, as we have seen, to
the Dauphin of France by the treaty of Picquiny ; but Lewis began to give
indications that the treaty would only endure as long as suited his con
venience. His daughter Cecily was engaged to the son and heir of the king
of Scotland ; and the dowry of the lady had commenced to be paid by
instalments. From the time of the death of James L, who was murdered in
a conspiracy of his nobles in 1437, the kingdom had been the scene of
intestine conflicts. James II. came to the crown when six years old, and his
reign was a constant struggle with the great families of Douglas and
Livingston and other feudal lords. He was kUled at the siege of Eoxburgh
in 1460. James III. was also a minor when he came to the throne. He was
of a contemplative and indolent nature, and feU into the hands of favourites.
The Boyds, who had long governed, were at last dispossessed of their power :
* Ellis, "Original Letters," Scries I,, vol. i, p. 16,
+ History of King Richard the Third, Singer's edition, p, 10,
t Polydore Vergil, p, 168,

176 SCOTLAND— DEATH OF EDWARD IV. [1483.
and the duke of Albany and the earl of Mar, the brothers of James, took the
lead in the management of affairs, but soon excited the suspicion of the king
that they aspired to the royal authority. Mar was put to death. Albanj
escaped to France. At this juncture James III, and Edward IV. quarrelled.
The marriage treaty was broken off; and in 1480 there was war between
England and Scotland. The duke of Gloucester, who was Warden of the
Marches, commanded the English forces, Berwick was invested, but without
success ; and the two armies were content with occasional forays upon the
borders. In 1482, the duke of Albany was encouraged by Edward in a
rebeUion against his reigning brother ; and he engaged to hold Scotland as a
fief of England, and to surrender Berwick. That important fort was now
besieged by Gloucester and Albany. James raised an army and marched
towards the borders ; but his turbulent nobles seized the king, and hanged
his associates, two of whom were artists. Albany and Gloucester marched
on to Edinburgh ; and the rebellion and the war with England were ended,
by Albany swearing to be a true and faithful subject, and Gloucester obtaining
the strong post of Berwick, which ever after remained an English possession.
In 1483 Lewis of France broke off the contract which he had made with the
king of England for the marriage of the Dauphin and the Lady Cecily. He
saw a more advantageous union for his son in the daughter of Mary of
Burgundy. Edward was furious, and immediately determined for war. But
he who was "inclining to be fat " when Comines saw him at Picquiny, was
now enfeebled in mind and body by long indulgence in every excess. His
anger was expressed in paroxysms of rage without any determinate plans. A
serious Ulness succeeded a slight ailment, and he died on the 9th of April,
1483, in the forty-second year of his age. He was buried in the new chapel
of St. George at Windsor, to which the remains of Henry VI. were after
wards removed. "And blended lie th' oppressor and th' opprest,'
At the death of his father, Edward, prince of Wales, was twelve years
and a half old. He was residing in considerable state at Ludlow Castle, with
a council, amongst whom were his maternal uncle, earl Elvers ; his half-
brother, sir Eichard Grey ; sir Thomas Vaughan, sir William Stanley, sir
Eichard Croft, and sir Eichard Hawte, Ordinances for the regulation of the
prince's daUy conduct were drawn up by his father a short time before his
death, which prescribe his morning attendance at mass, his occupation " at
his school," his meals, and his sports. No man is to sit at his board but such
as earl Elvers shall allow ; and at this hour of meat it is ordered " that there
be read before him noble stories, as behoveth a prince to understand ; and
that the communication at all times, in his presence, be of virtue, honour,
cunning, [knowledge] wisdom, and deeds of worship, and of nothing that
shall move him to vice," * The bishop of Worcester, John Alcock, the
president of his council, was the prince's preceptor. The queen's relations
and friends were those who exclusively surrounded the heir to the throne.
During the Ufe of Edward IV. the jealousy which the ancient nobUity
* Quoted in Turner's "History," from MS. in British Museum, vol. iii. p. 363. See also
"Grants of Edward V.," Introduction by Mr, John Qough Nicholls, p. 8.

1483,1 ACCESSION OF KING EDWARD V. 177
entertained of the WoodviUe family was in some degree repressed ; although
the catastrophe of the duke of Clarence was probably connected with those
court dissensions. But when the youthful' prince suddenly became king
Edward the Fifth, a struggle for power during his minority would be the
almost inevitable issue of the position of parties. We must look back upon
the events of forty years to understand how the whole system of English
government had been a contest for dominion between factions and individuals,
without any leading principle of public good giving even a colour to this
course of intrigue, insurrection, and civil war. In this system two genera
tions of great ones had been trained, with occasional intervals of tranquiUity ;
but at no period with the conviction that the peace and order of the realm
was established upon a solid basis. If we regard the revolutionary events
whieh followed the death of Edward IV. as the result of the daring ambition
of one man, Eichard of Gloucester, we shall imperfectly comprehend the
bold and unscrupulous measures which placed him on the throne. When
Edward IV. was on his death-bed he is reported to have called the marquis oi
Dorset, the queen's son by her first husband, and Lord Hastings, his
chamberlain, to his side, and implored them to be in amity, saying, " If yoi.
among yourselves in a chUd's reign faU at debate, many a good man shaU
perish, -and haply he too, and ye too, ere this land find peace again," * The
prophetic king could scarcely have expected that the troubles of " a child's
reign" should have so instantly foUowed the expiration of his own strong
rule. Gloucester was in the north at the time of his brother's death. It has
been related that he was employed in the Scotch marches at this period of
Edward's decease, and that, entering Tork with a train of six hundred
knights and esquires, he celebrated the obsequies of the departed king in the
minster, and there himself swore fealty to Edward V., his example being
followed by all present. The " Eecords " of Tork have been published, and
they contain many curious facts of this period. No such ceremony is
mentioned in these registers of the city, t Eichard, however, went on to
London with a large number of his foUowers, with the alleged purpose of
assisting at the coronation, which had been fixed for the 4th of May. Mean
while, the marquis of Dorset had removed the royal treasure out of the
Tower, of which he was the governor ; and had equipped a fleet, commanded
by the queen's brother, sir Edward Woodville. There had been dissensions
in the Council, Hastings having protested against Elvers conducting the young
king to London with an overwhelming military force. On the 24th of April
Edward V. left Ludlow, with Elvers, Vaughan, Grey, and a retinue not
exceeding the number which had been prescribed by the Council ; and they
travelled on untU they reached Northampton. There Gloucester and Buck
ingham arrived the same day ; but the king had gone forward to Stony-
Stratford, Elvers remaining at Northampton. It is argued, on one hand,
that this was a scheme to prevent Gloucester seeing his nephew ; J whUe, on
the other hand, it is affirmed that Elvers returned to Northampton from
Stony-Stratford, to show his respect for Gloucester, § There can be little
? More, " History of Richard III," Singer's edit, p, 17.
i See "Grants," &c,, p. xxiii J Turner, vol, iii. p, 408, § Lingard, vol. v. p. S24,
VOL. U. M

178

ARREST OF THE QUEEN'S RELATIONS.

[1483.

doubt that each party was preparing to out-manoeuvre the other, and that
each was advancing to the perpetration of some decided act of treachery and
bloodshed, such as we designate in modern times by the gentle name of a
coup d'etat. It appears tolerably clear that the two most important men in
the country, Gloucester and Buckingham, both of the royal blood, were
intended to be omitted in the state arrangements ; for in commissions issued
as early as the 1st of May their names were not inserted, whUe those of
Dorset, Elvers, and Hastings were prominent.*
At this juncture, the first decided blow was struck by the two ambitious
dukes. They passed the evening of the 29th of April in social companionship
with Elvers; and then "the dukes secretly, with a fewof their most privyfrieuds,
set them down in counsel, wherein they spent a great part of the night." t The
next morning they surrounded Elvers in his inn, and arrested him. They then

The Sanctuary at Westminster, from a sketch in 1775.

rode on to Stony-Stratford, " where they found the king with his company
ready to leap on horseback, and depart forward, to leave that lodging for
them, because it was too strait for both companies." J There was more fearful
work to be done before the frightened boy could " leap on horseback." The
dukes arrested Lord Grey and Sir Thomas Vaughan, and brought the king
back to Northampton. " He wept and was nothing content, but it booted
not." The news of these sudden demonstrations went on to London ; where
the misgivings of the queen drove her to leave the palace of Westminster,
and take refuge in the adjoining Sanctuary with her second son. There the
archbishop of Tork and chancellor, Eotherham, went to her with a consolatory

" Grants," &c., Introduction, p. xiv.

t More, p, 24.

Ihkl., p. 26.

1483.] GLOUCESTER APPOINTED PROTECTOR, 179
message from Hastings ; but she would take no comfort and " sat alone
alow in the rushes, all desolate and dismayed." * The chancelloi with
singular imprudence, left the Great Seal with the queen, but secretly got it
back again. The state of London at this juncture is graphicaUy described by
More ; — the Thames full of boats of the duke of Gloucester's servants ; the
citizens gathered in groups, to discourse of these strange events; lords,
knights, and gentlemen, putting on their harness, and assembling in com
panies. At a meeting of the Council, Hastings maintained that Gloucester
and Buckingham had commanded the arrests, not for the king's jeopardy but
for their own safety. On the 4th of May, Edward the Fifth publicly entered
the city, being met at Hornsey by the mayor and aldermen ; the duke of
Gloucester bearing him " in open sight most reverently to the prince, with
aU semblance of lowliness." f The peers took the oath of fealty to Edward.
At a great councU of prelates, nobles, and citizens, Gloucester was appointed
protector. On the 14th of May, new commissions of the peace were issued
'nto several counties, where his name appears as " Protector of England." J
From that time, as we learn from the form of official documents, the sunreme
power is wielded in the name of " Edward, by the grace of God king of
England and France and lord of Ireland," acting " by the advice of our most
entirely beloved uncle the duke of Gloucester, protector and defender of this
our realm of England during our young age."
The grants from the crown during the brief reign of Edward V., show
how suddenly and how completely the king's signet had become the instru

/3rmx(TT?§^-^

Signature of Edward V.
ment for the ruin of his mother's kindred and friends, and the elevation of
those who were in the interest of the protector. On the 14th of May, there is a
letter to certain men to go to the sea with ships to take sir Edward Woodville.
Those of the prince of Wales's court who had been previously arrested —
Elvers, Vaughan, Grey and Hawte — were kept prisoners at various castles.
Buckingham, the great adviser and advocate of Eichard, received immediate
rewards for his services. Appointments were heaped upon him in a few
weeks, as constable of royal castles, and keeper of royal forests ; but his
chief promotion was to the government of the principality of Wales.
Elvers had administered the Welsh affairs as governor of the prince,
and would have necessarily become the viceroy, if the queen's party had
triumphed. Northumberland was found in the post of warden of the Scotch
marches and captain of Berwick, and contracts were iiumediately made with
him for the defence of the border. Lovell secured a grant of the castle and
honour of WaUingford. Catesby was made chancellor of the earldom of
March. John, lord Howard, afterwards created duke of Norfolk, received
• More, p. 30. t Ibid., p, 34. J " Grants," &c. p. xii.
N 2

180 CORONATION OF EDWARD V, FIXED, [1*83,
the appointment of steward of the duchy of Lancaster, south of the Trent ;
but he had a stronger motive of interest to bind him to Eichard — the
expectation of the inheritance of the Mowbrays, which had been withheld
from him.* ' When we look at the authentic records from which these
particulars are derived, we see the unwearied labour with which the protector
built up his own power in the name of his nephew. The filling up of the
smallest offices does not appear to have been beneath his notice. The
keeper of a gaol, and the bailiff of a park, are as summarily displaced
and successors appointed, as the constable of a castle and the viceroy of
a province. The opening of parliament was fixed for the 25th of June. The Lord
ChanceUor, John Eussell, Bishop of Lincoln, had prepared a speech for the
opening of Edward the Fifth's parliament, the draft of which remains amongst
the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum ; and from a passage which says that
one of the causes for assembling the parliament was to establish the authority
of the lord protector, it may be inferred that the chancellor, the chief officer
of the government, was unacquainted with the plot, if it were formed at an
early stage of the protectorate, for raising Eichard to the throne.t On the
5th of June letters were addressed to fifty persons, commanding them to
attend at the Tower of London four days before the 22nd of that month,
when they were to receive knighthood at the coronation. The public aspect
of affairs at this crisis is described iu a letter written by Simon Stallworthe,
one of the officers of the chancellor, to Sir William Stonor. The importance
of private correspondence to support the narratives of the chroniclers of this
eventful period is pointed out in the interesting volume in which this letter,
and another from the same person, appear, J Stallworthe says, writing " in
haste from London," on the 9th of June, " Master Stonor, after due recom
mendations, I recommend me to you. As for tidings, since I wrote to you
we hear nought new. The queen keeps still at Westminster [with] my lord
of Tork, my lord of Salisbury, with others more, which wiU not depart as
yet."§ He then proceeds to say that the goods of my lord marquis [Dorset]
were taken wherever found ; and that the prior of Westminster was, and is,
in great trouble for certain of these goods delivered to him. " My lord protec
tor, my lord of Buckingham, with all other lords, as weU temporal as spiritual,
were at Westminster in the council-chamber, from ten to two [o'clock], but
there was none that spake with the queen. There is great business
against the coronation, which shaU be this day fortnight, as we say ; where
I trust ye wiU be at London, and there shall ye know all the world. The
king is at the Tower. My lady of Gloucester came to London on
Thursday last." Within four days of the date of this letter, when "all
the world " was gathering towards London to be present at the coronation
of king Edward the Fifth, an event took place which gave warning of some
impending change.
Lord Hastings, the attached friend of Edward the Fourth, if real friendship
is compatible with a companionship in licentious pursuits, had gone along with
• See Mr. Nicholls' Introduction to "Grants," pages xxiv, to xxvi.
t The speech is given in the valuable volume of "Grants,^' &c,, p, xxxix,
t "Excerpta Historica," 1831.
§ " My lord of Salisbury '' was the queen's brother, the bishop of Salisbury.

1483,] ARREST OF HASTINGS. IHI
Gloucester and Buckingham in the arrest of the queen's kindred and friends.
It is recorded, in the narrative .ascribed to More, that on the 13th day of June
it was devised by the assent of Hastings that Elvers and the others should be
beheaded at Pomfret ; and subsequent historians assert that they were so
beheaded on that day. The date of the will of earl Elvers, the 23rd of June,
shows the inaccuracy of this statement, and, in some degree, relieves Hastings
from this charge against him. On the 13th of June, then, took place that
wonderful scene, which, first painted by More, has been reproduced in im
perishable colours — enamelled, as it were — by Shakspere, ¦ It is Friday, the
13th of June, Many lords are assembled in the Tower, arranging the solemnity
of the coronation. At nine o'clock the protector enters, excusing himself
that he was so late in attendance, saying he had been sleeping. " And after
a little talking with them, he said unto the bishop of Ely : ' My lord, you have

Chapel of Ely House-, Holborn.

very good strawberries at your garden in Holborn ; I require you let us have
a mess of them.' ' Gladly, my lord,' quoth he, * would God I had some better
thing as ready to your pleasure as that.' And therewith in aU the haste he
sent his servant for a mess of strawberries. The protector set the lords fast
in communing, and thereupon praying them to spare him for a little while,
departed thence. And soon after one hour, between ten and eleven, he re
turned into the chamber among them, all changed with a wonderful sour

182 EXECUTION OF HASTINGS. [1483.
angry countenance, knitting the brows, frowning and fretting, and gnawing
on his Ups, and so sat him down in his place."* The protector, after a whUe,
asked what they were worthy to have that compassed his destruction ; and
Hastings replied that they deserved to be punished as heinous traitors. The
denunciations of Gloucester pointed at the queen, and others with her.
" Then," said the protector, " ye shall aU see in what wise that sorceress and
that other witch of her counsel. Shore's wife, with their affinity, have by their
sorcery and witchcraft wasted my body. And therewith he plucked up his
doublet sleeve to his elbow upon his left arm, where he showed a werish,withered
arm, and smaU as it was never other. And thereupon every man's mind sore
misgave them, weU perceiving that this matter was but a quarrel."t The
relation then goes on to state that every man knew that Gloucester's arm
was such from his birth ; and that Shore's wife, whom the queen hated as the
mistress of her husband, was the least likely to be of her counsel. Then
Hastings, who is affirmed to have doted on Shore's wife, " answered, and said
' Certainly, my lord, if they have so heinously done, they be worthy heinous
punishment.' ' What,' quoth the protector, ' thou servest me, I ween, with
' ifs ' and with ' ands ' ; I teU thee they have so done, and that I wUl make
good on thy body, traitor.' And therewith, as in a great rage, he clapped his
fist upon the board a great rap. At which token given, one cried ' treason,'
without the chamber. Therewith a door clapped, and in come there rushing
men in harness, as many as the chamber might hold. And anon the protector
said to the lord Hastings, ' I arrest thee, traitor.' ' What, me, my lord ?' quoth
he. ' Tea, thee, traitor,' quoth the protector. And another let fly at the lord
Stanley, which shrunk at the stroke and feU under the table, or else his head had
been cleft to the teeth ; for as shortly as he shrank, yet ran the blood about his
ears. Then were they aU quickly bestowed in divers chambers, except the lord
chamberlain [Hastings], whom the protector bade speed and shrive him apace,
'for, by St. Paul,' quoth he, 'I wUl not to dinner tiU I see thy head off.' It booted
him not to ask why, but heavily he took a priest at adventure, and made a short
shrift, for a longer would not be suffered, the protector made so much haste to
dinner : which he might not go to tUl this were done for saving of his oath.
So was he brought forth into the green beside the chapel within the tower
and his head laid down upon a long log of timber, and there stricken off."
The bishop of Ely who had " very good strawberries in his garden " was
Morton, from whom More derived the animated detaUs of this and other
portions of his history. He also was arrested by the protector, in spite of
his courtly politeness, and was committed to the custody of the duke of
Buckingham. The agitation of the Londoners upon this summer morning,
when the peaceful cry of " strawberries ripe " was heard in their streets
amidst ominous looks and timid whisperings, is described by More : " Now
flew the fame of this lord's death swiftly through the city, and so forth
farther about Uke a wind in every man's ear. But the protector immediately
after dmner, intending to set some colour upon the matter, sent in aU the
haste for many substantial men out of the city into the Tower. And at their
comiag, himseK with the duke of Buckingham stood harnessed in old iU-faring
briginders, such as no man should ween that they would vouchsafe to have
* More, p. 70. f Hid., p, 72.

1483.] GLOUCESTER PROCLAIMS HIS LIFE IN DANGER. 183
put upon their backs, except that some sudden necessity had constrained
them. And then the profector showed them, that the lord chamberlain, and
other of his conspiracy, had contrived to have suddenly destroyed him and
the duke, there the same day In the council. And what they intended
further was as yet not well known. Of which their treason we never had
knowledge before ten of the clock the same forenoon. Which sudden fear
drave them to put on for their defence such harness as came next to hand.
And so had God holpen them, that the mischief turned upon them that would
have done it. And this he required them to report." *
That Eichard believed in a conspiracy against himself, might be inferred
from a remarkable letter, addressed by him on the 10th of June to the mayor of
Tork, in which he prays him "to come up unto us In London, in aU the dUigence
ye can possible, after the sight hereof, with as many as ye can make defensibly
arrayed ; there to aid and assist us against the queen, her bloody adherents
and affinity, which have entended, and daUy do entend, to murder and utterly
destroy us and our cousin the duke of Buckingham, and the old royal blood
of the realm." t Bnt this letter, preserved among the Tork Eecords, might
have been a subtle device to assemble an armed force In London, from Tork
and other towns, previous to the announced coronation. In another letter of
Simon Stallworthe, dated the 21st of June, we have a hurried notice of the
events which had occurred since his letter of the 9th, and of the apprehensions
with which men's minds were fiUed. He says, " Worshipful sir, I commend
me to you ; and for tidings I hold you happy that ye are out of the press ;
for with us is much trouble, and every man doubts other. As on Friday last
was the lord chamberlain headed soon upon noon. On Monday last was at
Westminster great plenty of harnessed men. There was the deliverance of
the duke of Tork to my lord cardinal, my lord chancellor, and other many
lords temporal. And with him met my lord of Buckingham in the midst of
the HaU of Westminster, my lord protector receiving him at the Star-Chamber
door, with many loving words ; and so departed with my lord cardinal to the
Tower, where he is — ^blessed be Jesu's mercy. The lord Lisle Is come to my
lord protector, and waits upon him. J It is thought there shall be twenty
thousand of my lord protector's and my lord of Buckingham's men in London
this week — to what intent I know not but [except] to keep the peace. My
lord [the chancellor] hath much business, and more than he Is content withal,
if any other ways would be taken." The writer then goes on to state that
the archbishop of Tork — (the ex-chancellor, who left the great seal with the
queen) — the bishop of Ely, and master Oliver King, are in the Tower ; that
their town houses were in sure keeping : and that it was expected that men
of the lord protector would be sent to their places in the country. He then
adds, " Mistress Chore [Shore] is in prison ; what shall happen her I know
not." Mistress Shore is one of those who Uves in the world's remembrance,
chiefly through More's description of her gentle influence over the mind of
Edward IV. " Her he loved, whose favour, to say the truth (for sin it were
to bely the deiol) she never abused to any man's hurt, but to many a man's
comfort and reUef." Eichard did not attempt to maintain his charge of
* More, p. 78. t Drake's "York," quoted in Turner, p, 436.
i Lord Lisle was of the queen's party, being uncle to the marquis of Dorset.

184 DUKE OP YORK REMOVED. TO THE TOWER [1483.
sorcery and conspiracy against her, but seized her goods ; and the bishop of
London put her to penance for her alleged vicious life, " going before the
cross in procession upon a Sunday, with a taper in her hand." She lived till
the time of Henry VIII. It appears from a letter written by Eichard to his
chancellor after he became king, that after the death of Hastings other
important personages were enslaved to her charms. Eichard represents that
his solicitor, Thomas Lynom, " marvellously blinded and abused with the
late wife of William Shore, now being in Ludgate, hath made contract of
matrimony with her;" and that he "intendeth to our full great marvel to
proceed to the effect of the same." He adds, " We, for many causes, would
be sorry that he so should be disposed. Pray you, therefore, to send for him,
and, in that ye goodly may, exhort and stir him to the contrary." He then
thus directs the bishop : " If ye find him utterly set for to marry her, and
none otherwise wiU be advertised ; then, if it may stand with the law of the
church, we be content the time of marriage deferred to our coming next to
London ; that, upon sufficient surety found of her good bearing, ye do send
for her, and discharge him of our said commandment, committing her to
the rule and guiding of her father, or any other by your discretion, in the
mean season." *
The duke of Gloucester kept his household in Crosby-place ; and here, •
according to More, "by little and little all folk withdrew from the Tower."
The general council of the realm was held at the Tower. The protector had
a special councU at Crosby-place. More also writes that lord Stanley had
said to Hastings, that he " much misliked these two several councils." Out of
the private deliberations of Crosby-place in aU likelihood resulted the removal
of the duke of Tork from his mother's protection in the Sanctuary at
Westminster, which took place on the 16th of June. But the general
council assented to the removal ; declared that it was " good and reasonable;"
and the archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Bourchier, pledged himself for the
boy's safety. We have seen by StaUworthe's letter that the removal of the
young duke from the Sanctuary was a public act, done at Westminster HaU
in the presence of many principal persons. Whether they were induced by fear
or by state policy, it is now tolerably clear that Eichard was working with
the concurrence of the great majority of prelates and nobles ; and that the
whole course of affairs was now tending to give him the crown without
opposition. There is a passage in the well-informed French contemporary
which has scarcely been borne in mind in the usual narratives of the sudden
events of this June of 1483. Comines says, speaking of Eichard drawing
the duke of Tork out of the Sanctuary, " the conclusion was this :• By the
assistance of the bishop of Bath (who had been formerly one of king Edward's
council, but, faUing afterwards into disgrace, had been removed from court,
made prisoner, and paid a round sum for his ransom) he executed his
design." He proceeds to say, that " the bishop discovered to the duke
of Gloucester" that he had married king Edward IV. to a beautiful young
lady, which secret marriage had taken place before the king's marriage
with Lady EUzabeth Woodvill^. Comines again says, " The bishop having
discovered this mystery to the duke of Gloucester, he gave his assistance to
* Quoted by Turner, "History," vol. iii. p. 450, from Harl. MS. 433.

1483.]

ALLEGED PREVIOUS MARRIAGE^ OP EDWARD IV.

135

the execution of the barbarous designs of the duke." * If Eobert StllUngton,
the bishop of Bath and Wells, who had been chancellor in the time of
Edward IV., revealed this mystery to Gloucester after he had assumed the
protectorate, it is easy to conceive how this revelation would have given a
new impulse to his ambition. On the 22nd of June, Ealph Shaw, the brother
of the lord mayor of London, delivered a sermon at Paul's Cross, taking as
his text, " The multiplying brood of the ungodly shaU not thrive, nor take
deep rooting from bastard slips, nor lay any fast foundation." f Of this
sermon, Fabyan, who was a resident in the city at that time, is probably the
most accurate reporter. He says, that the protector, with the duke of

The Great Hall, Crosby Place.

Buckingham, and other lords being present, " by the mouth of Dr. Ealph
Shaw, in the time of his sermon, was there showed openly that the children
of king Edward the Fourth were not legitimate, nor rightful inheritors of the
crown, with many dis- slanderous words, in preferring of the title of the said
lord protector, and of disannulling of the other." J The ecclesiastics of that
age, if they gave their confident belief to the story that Edward had been
married, or even contracted, to another lady previous to his marriage with
the queen, without a papal dispensation, would have agreed in pronouncing
the princes Ulegitimate. On the 24th of June, two days after the Paul's
Cross Sermon, the duke of Buckingham harangued the citizens at the
GuUdhaU, rehearsing the right and title which the protector had to be pre-
* Memoirs, book v. chap, xviii. f Wisdom, chap, iv, v, 3, J Chronicle, p, 669.

ILLEGITIMACY OP EDWARD'S CHILDREN DECLARED.

[1433.

ferred to the crown of England. Fabyan commends the sugared words of the
duke, with a curious appreciation of his fluent oratory, wliich he says was
"without any impediment of spitting." It is recorded by More that Buck
ingham, attended by the mayor of London and many others, went on the
24th of June to Eichard, at Baynard's Castle, and there solicited him lo
become their king. On the 25th the parliament had been summoned ; but a
supersedeas had been received on the 21st of June, by the sheriffs of Tork,*
which renders it clear that the choice of Eichard to be king was not an open

Tbe HaU. OuildhaU.

act of the legislature. There was some assembly on that 25th of June, for in
the next parUament a statute was passed, reciting that in a Bill presented by
many lords, spiritual and temporal, and others of the commons, in great
multitude, the crown was claimed for Eichard, as his father's heir, in con
sequence of a pre-contract of matrimony having been made by Edward IV.
with dame Eleanor Butler, daughter of the earl of Shrewsbury, by which his
* York Eecords.

1488.] GLOUCESTER TAKES THE CROWN. 187
children became illegitimate, and that the line of the duke of Clarence had
been attainted. On the 26th of June Eichard duke of Gloucester sat down
in the marble chair of Westminster Hall as king of England. There is a
remarkable document, being instructions from Eichard to lord Mountjoy, and
others, to expiain to the garrison of Calais, who had taken the oath of fealty to
Edward V., what they were to do with reference to that oath, under the
altered circumstances of the accession of the lord protector to the throne.
He directs these commissioners to say, " that howbeit such oath of allegiance
was made soon upon the death of the said king Edward IV. to his son, not
only at Calais but also in divers places in England, by many great estates
and personages being then ignorant of the very sure and true title which our
sovereign lord that now is, king Eichard IIL, hath and had the same time to
the crown of England. That oath notwithstanding, now, every good true
Englishman is bound, upon knowledge had of the said very true title, to
depart from the first oatb so ignorantly given to him to whom it appertained
not, and therefore to make his oath of new, and owe his service and fidelity
to him that good law, reason, and the concord assent of the Lords and
Commons of the Eoyaume have ordained to reign upon the people, which is
our said sovereign lord king Eichard III., brother to the said king Edward IV,
late deceased, whom God pardon ; whose sure and true title is evidently
showed and declared in a BUI of Petition which the lords spiritual and
temporal and the Commons of this land solemnly porrected [presented] unto
the king's highness at London, the 26th day of June. Whereupon the king's
said highness, notably assisted by well near aU the lords spiritual and
temporal of the Eoyaume, went the same day unto his palace of West
minster, and there in such royal honourable apparel within the great hall
there took possession, and declared his mind that the same day he would
begin to reign upon his people, and from thence rode solemnly to the
cathedral church of London, and was received there with procession, and
acclamation of all the people in every place, and by the way that the king
was in, that day."*
On the day on which Eichard " took possession," or soon after, the
accomplished Elvers, with Grey, Vaughan, and Hawte, went through some
form of trial before the earl of Northumberland, and were beheaded at
Pomfret. There is a singular passage in the wUl of Elvers, made at the castle
of Sheriff Hutton on the 23rd of June, which is, at least, a tribute to the power
of the protector, if not to his justice. After appointing his executors, he
Bays, " Over this, I beseech humbly my lord of Gloucester, in the worship of
Christ's passion, and for the merit and weal of his soul, to comfort, help, and
assist, as supervisor, for very trust, of this testament, that my executors
may with his pleasure fulfil this my last wiU, which I have made the day
aforesaid." f There is a composition of earl Eivers, written during his
imprisonment, which is as touching as this last appeal to his great enemy.
It is a " Balet," transcribed by the contemporary historian, Eous, from the
unfortunate lord's manuscript. The old chivabous spirit led the victims of
state-poUcy to look with as much calmness at death upon the block as at
• Harl. MS. 433, given in Ellis, " Original Letters," Series II., vol. i. p. 148.
+ The -wiU is printed in " Excerpta Historica," p. 240.

188 CORONATION OP KING RICHARD III. [1483.
death in the battle-field. It was the decree of " fortune," which they received
without shrinking : — " Somewhat musing, and more mourning.
In remembering the unsteadfastness,
This world being of such wheeling.
Me contrarying, what can I guess ?
" I fear, doubtless, remediless,
Is now to seize my woful chance ;
For nnkindness, withouten less, [lessening]
And no redress, doth me avance
* * With displeasance, to my grievance.
And no surance of remedy ;
Lo, in this trance, now in substance,
Such is my dance, willing to die.
" Methinks, truly, bounden am I,
And that greatly, to be content ;
Seeing plainly Fortune doth wry
All contrary from mine intent.
" My life was lent me to one intent ;
It is nigh spent. Welcome Fortune !
But I ne went [thought] thus to be shent,
But she it meant, such is her won [wontj."
On the 6th July, 1483, Eichard III,, with his queen, Anne, were crowned
at Westminster. There is a minute account of this ceremony, which not
only shows that it was conducted with the usual magnificence ; but that the
great number of dukes, earls, lords, and knights, present on that occasion
indicated, if such general observances can indicate any real affection, the
unanimity with which the claim of Eichard was regarded. The king and queen
walked from Westminster Hall to St, Edward's shrine, "upon red cloth, bare
foot," Abbots were there, and bishops, with mitres and crosiers; Northum
berland and the pointless sword ; Stanley, bearing the mass ; Kent and Lovell
and Surrey, bearing the other swords ; Suffolk, with the sceptre ; Lincoln
with the cross and baU ; Norfolk with the crown ; Buckingham beai:ing the
king's train. Amongst the bishops, he of Bath and WeUs, StiUington,
walked on one side of the king. Earls and barons preceded the queen ; my
lady of Eichmond bare her train ; * and the lady of Suffolk, the duchess of
Norfolk, and twenty other ladies followed. The banquet succeeded the
crowning. At the second course, " came riding into the hall Sir Eobert
Dymoke, the king's champion, and his horse trapped with white silk and red,
and himself in white harness, and the heralds of arms standing on a stage
amongst all the company. Then came riding up before the king his champion,
and there he declared before aU the people, — if there be any man will say
against king Eichard the Third why he should not pretend the crown. And
anon all the people were in peace awhile. And when he had all said, anon all
the haU cried. King Eichard, all with one voice." f
The question whether the two sons of Edward IV. were murdered ia the
Tower by command of Eichard, interesting as it is as a great historic doubt,
would have had no bearing upon future events, but for the pretensions of a
* Mother of Henry VII. t From a Roll, printed in "Historica Excerpta," p. 380.

Ii83.]

EVIDENCE OF THE MURDER OP THE PRINCES,

189

young man in the next reign to be the Identical duke of Tork who had
escaped from his "unnatural uncle,"* These pretensions, which so long
disturbed the tranquiUity of Henry VII,, would have been dissipated beyond
all possibility of success, had that crafty king brought forward distinct and
absolute proof of the circumstances which preceded the disappearance of
Edward V, and his brother. Without unduly anticipating the general course
of the narrative, we must state what Henry VII, really did, in 1493, eight
years after he took the crown in Bosworth field, to prove the aUeged
imposture of the pretended duke in establishing the fact of the murder of the
two princes. Bacon, who in his " History of the reign of Henry VIL,"
relates the career of the youth called Perkin Warbeck with an absolute
conviction of the imposture, thus describes the course which Henry adopted
" to make it manifest to the world that the duke of Tork was indeed

Anne, Queen of Richard III,

murdered," He says, that of four persons supposed to be implicated, only
two were aUve, sir James Tyrrel and John Dighton ; that these two the king
committed to the Tower, and examined touching the manner of the death
of the two princes ; and that they agreed in a tale to this effect : That
Eichard having directed a warrant to Brackenbury, the lieutenant of the
Tower, to put them to death, was by him refused; that Eichard then
directed a warrant to sir James Tyrrel to receive the keys of the Tovv er
* So termed in a procliimation of Perkin Warbeck.

190 EVIDENCE OF THE MURDER OF THE PRINCES. [1483.
for one night, for the king's special service ; that Tyrrel, with his two servants,
MUes Forest and John Dighton, repaired to the Tower, and he stood at the
stair-foot, whUst these viUains executed the murder, by smothering them in
their beds ; that Tyrrel saw their dead bodies, which were buried under the
stairs ; and that Eichard, taking exception to the dishonourable place of their
burial, the bodies were removed by the priest of the Tower to some other
place, which could not be known. " Thus much," adds Bacon, " was then
delivered abroad to be the effect of those examinations. But the king
nevertheless made no use of them in any of his declarations ; whereby, as it
seems, those examinations left the business somewhat perplexed. And as for
sir James Tyrrel he was soon after beheaded in the Tower-yard for other
matters of treason. But John Dighton, who it seemeth spake best for the
king, was forthwith set at liberty, and was the principal means of divulging
this tradition. Therefore this kind of proof being left so naked, the king
used the more dUigence for the tracing of Perkin." * If the evidence
against Eichard rested upon this sole averment, we should at once see
how open it is to suspicion — how naked is this kind of proof. Two men
were apprehended charged with the committal of a great crime, the absolute
manifestation of which to the world would have saved the reigning monarch
such an amount of insurrection and estrangement of popular regard as " did
thoroughly try his sitting, being of force enough to have cast an ordinary rider
out of saddle." t Tbe more important of these men, sir James Tyrrel, was
released from his imprisonment, was employed by Henry VIL, and was not
beheaded " for other matters of treason " till ten years after " those
examinations, which left the business somewhat perplexed." The servant of
Tyrrel, John Dighton, " who, it seemeth, spake best for the king, was forthwith
set at liberty." He, who told the tale which the king was desirous of having
believed, " was the principal means of divulging this tradition." When, let
us inquire, did the "tradition" assume the distinct shape which is given to
it in Bacon's " Life of Henry VII. ? " It was first printed in " Grafton's
Continuation of the Metrical Chronicle of John Hardyng," in 1543, half a
century after the time when the " tradition " was delivered ; and from that
relation, which was subsequently published as " The History of King Eichard
the Third (unfinished), written by Master Thomas More, then one of the
under-sheriffs of London, about the year of our Lord, 1513," did Bacon
derive his circumstantial story. We have already alluded to the doubt
whether More was the author of this " History of King Eichard;" but there
can be no doubt that the private information there contained was derived
from cardinal Morton, the bishop of Ely, whom Eichard arrested in 1483 ;
who escaped and joined Eichmond in 1484 ; who was subsequently archbishop
of Canterbury and cardinal ; and was lord chanceUor from the time of
Henry's accession till his own death in 1500. More, who was born in
1480, became a page in the house of the lord chaucellor in 1495 ;
and in Morton's conversation with a boy of wonderful talent, this
" tradition " amongst many other relations which are strongly tinctured
with bitter animosity to Eichard IIL, may have assumed the circumstantial
shape in which every chronicler from that time transmitted it. In one
* History of Henry VIL, ed, 1622, p, 120,
t Speed, quoted in a valuable paper by Sir Frederic Madden, in " Archjeologia,'' vol, xxvii.

H83.] EVIDENCE OP THE MURDER OF THE PRINCES. 191
important circumstance, however, More's relation differs from that of Bacon.
He says that the confession of Tyrrel was made when he was in the Tower
upon the charge of treason against Henry VIL, and that both he and
Dighton were then examined. As the general tone of Bacon's work Is
laudatory of Henry VIL, it is strange that he should, on the contrary, have
stated that the examination of Tyrrel and Dighton, and the king's -attempt
to trace the history of Perkin, when his pretensions became formidable, were
made at the same period, viz, in 1493 — and that the effect of these examina
tions was delivered abroad, but that the king made no use of them in his
declarations. Before the publication of More's history, in 1543, the narratives
of the death of these princes were of a character far more vague, Polydore
Vergil, who wrote his history by the command of Henry VII,, relates very
briefly that Brackenbury refused to murder the princes, but that James Tyrrel,
" being forced to do the king's commandment, rode sorrowfully to London ;
and, to the worst example that hath been almost ever heard of, murdered
those babes of the issue royal ; " adding, " but with what kind of death these
sely [innocent] chUdren were executed is not certainly known," * Polydore's
history was commenced in 1505 and completed in 1517, There is another
narrative published in 1529, compiled and printed by John Eastall, the
brother-in-law of More, which says there were " divers opinions " of the
manner of the death of the young princes ; and, after relating tliat one was
smothered, and the other had his throat cut, states that the bodies were put
in a chest, which being placed on board a ship going to Flanders was thrown
over the hatches into the black deep ; and he adds, " which saying, divers
men conjectured to be true, because that the bones of the said children could
never be found buried, neither in the Tower, nor in no other place," f Fabyan
says " the common fame went that king Eichard had within the Tower put
unto secret death the two sons of his brother." Comines speaks of Eichard
as one " who had caused the two sons of king Edward, his brother, to be put
to death," and adds that " our king [Louis XL] looked upon him as an
inhuman and cruel person." The historian of Croyland, another contemporary
writer, says that it was set abroad that the two sons of Edward IV. were
deceased, but by what manner of violence was unknown. We have thus briefly
referred to the materials upon which the modern historian must rest his
view of this mysterious transaction. Some of these statements are too
vague, and others too suspiciously precise, to induce with us any confident
opinion. The " Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London "—the register-book
of that fraternity — has this simple and impressive entry, under the date of
the first year of Eichard III, " And the two sons of king Edward were put
to silence," J
Here we might leave the question in its original obscurity, if It were not
necessary to mention a circumstance which has been held to be a decisive
corroboration of the narrative published as sir Thomas More's, In 1674,
eome alterations were going on in the White Tower, to prepare it for the
reception of papers from the Six Clerks' Office. In making a new staircase
into the chapel of that tower, some bones were found under the old staircase
* Early Translation, published by the Camden Society, p, 152,
+ Quoted in Supplement to Walpole's " Historic Doubts,"
t Published by the Camden Society, 1852, p. 23.

192

EVIDENCE oe; THE MURDER OF THE PRINCES.

[1483.

whose proportions " were answerable to -the ages of the roy.-il youths."
Charles II, caused them to be removed to Henry the Seventh's Chapel,
where a latin inscription, upon marble, records the discovery, after a lapse of
a hundred and ninety-one years, of these remains of Edwai'd V. and the
duke of Tork, who were confined in the Tower, put to death, and secretly
and ignominiously buried, by command of Eichard. The decided nature of
this inscription shows how absolute was the belief in the seventeenth century
in the ordinary relations of these tragical events of the fifteenth. There was
little scepticism then amongst historians ; and one chronicler repeated and
amplified what another chronicler had handed down. The value of this
discovery of bones in the Tower wIU be differently estimated by different
minds. The murder of the princes, regarded without reference to the
historical narratives and conjectures, is so consistent a sequel to the
other circumstances of violence which accompanied the accession of Eichard
to the throne, that it would require some absolute proof in the support of
a contrary belief, to disturb what rests upon the popular opinion of gene
ration after generation. Even the local traditions which connect the gateway
called " The Bloody Tower " with this tragedy, wIU not readily be shaken by
the evidence of the dIUgent antiquary, that in the reign of Henry VIII. it
was called " The Garden Tower," *
* Bayley's "History of the Tower," p, 257,

The Bloody Tower,

Groat Seal of Richard III.

CHAPTER XII.
Spirit of an age reflected by Chroniclers — ^Mixed character of Richard — Revolt of Buckingham —
Suppression of the revolt — Indifference of the people — Salutary Laws of Richard's
parliament — Statutes now first printed, and in English — Encouragement to printers and
sellers of books — Daughters of Edward IV, — Deaths of Richard's son and his queen —
Henry, earl of Richmond — Inadequate preparations against invasion — Battle of Bosworth-
field — Death in battle of Richard III,
In the true spirit of historical observation, Dr. Arnold, noticing the
memoirs of Comines as belonging " to the last stage of an old state of things,"
remarks how striking they are from their perfect unconsciousness that the
notions which the middle ages had tended to foster were " on the point of
passing away." As a result of this unconsciousness, Comines, who records
the crimes of his master Lewis XL, speaks of him as an admirable prince ;
and Froissart never permits the atrocities which he describes as knightly deeds
to interfere with his eulogies of his chivalrous heroes.* These chroniclers,
as weU as others less celebrated, necessarily reflect the spirit of their age ;
and their insensibility to the real character of actions which now excite our
unmeasured indignation was the result of the general standard of moral
judgment in the great body of their contemporaries. Thus, as far as we can
discover, the accession of the duke of Gloucester to the crovm was not an
unsanctioned usurpation, resting oiUy upon the resolute vriU of pne man,
surrounded by a few unscrupulous partisans, and having the command of a

" Lectures on Modem History," Lecture ii.

TOL. n.

1S4 MIXED CHARACTER OP RICHARD. [1483.
strong military force. Hastings, Eivers, Vaughan, Grey, Hawte, have been
swept away by sudden tyranny. The heir of the last king, to whom the
nobles of the land have twice sworn fealty, is, with his brother, in mysterious
confinement ; which, according to the natural destiny of deposed princes, wiU
probably end in secret murder. And yet, in less than a fortnight after
Eichard had seated himself on the marble bench of Westminster Hall, thirty-
five of the peers of England, and seventy of her knights — names amongst the
highest in the land — do homage at his coronation. There is nothing to
indicate that the usurper has an insecure seat — that the violence which these
great men have witnessed or thoroughly known was far out of the ordinary
course of events. Theirs had been a long training in the outrage and dis
simulation of a disputed succession ; and if their moral sense was not so
completely blunted as that of the chief perpetrator of the revolution of 1483,
their prostration before the despot of the hour was so absolute as to throw a
colour of legality over all his proceedings. Ifor is it to be affirmed that no
principle of public poUcy was mingled with their ready submission to his will.
They had a natural dread of the insecurity of minorities and protectors, and
of struggles for power amongst unprincipled favourites. They were familiar
with depositions and "sad stories of the death of kings." These were the
invariable accompaniments of the inordinate power of a turbulent aristocracy ;
and when Buckingham, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Northumberland — the highest
of the nobles — were ranged on the side of Eichard, the herd of lesser
lords of the soil did not trouble their consciences with thoughts of the pro
bable fate of the chUdren of their late master. One had leapt into the
throne whom they knew for a man of courage and sagacity, as ready to
defend his own interests, as to uphold those who served him and depress
those who were open enemies or cold friends. During the next half century
of our history, we shall see how much more completely, even than in the case
of Eichard, the directing minds of the country were subjected to the absolute
wiU of the monarch ; and, therefore, how imperfect is the evidence furnished
by proclamations of council, and statutes of parliament, and verdicts of peers,
of a regard for the pubUc welfare overriding the baser influences of selfishness
and cowardice, to sanctify, as some would believe, the caprice, injustice, and
cruelty of regal pride and passion.
The character of Eichard was an extraordinary mixture of hateful and
amiable qualities, of either of which we must not attempt altogether to judge
by the opinions of our own times. Those who had served him he loaded with
benefits. Foremost amongst these was the duke of Buckingham, to whom
by letters patent, dated a week after the coronation, he assigned the estates
which Buckingham derived in right of his descent from Humphrey de Bohun,
earl of Hereford, which had been- withheld from him by Edward IV. Nor
had Eichard any petty feelings of revenge towards the representatives of those
whom his poUcy had cast down. About the same time, he released the estates
of Hastings from forfeiture, in favour of his widow and her chUdren. He
secured her jointure to the widow of Eivers, and bestowed a pension on lady
Oxford, whose husband was in prison. He moved about amongst the people
as though he had no sense of having committed wrongs which would make him
obnoxious; going a progress to Eeadiag, Oxford, Gloucester, Tewkesbury,
Worcester, Warvnek, Coventry, Leicester,, Nottingham, Tork. At the great

ASS.] REVOLT OF BUCKINGHAM. 195
city of the north, Eichard and his queen were again crowned in the minster.
During the progress, he administered justice against offenders, and " heard the
complaints of poor folks." All seemed to promise a reign of peace and
security, however troubled were its "beginnings. But insurrections suddenly
sprung up in various parts of the country. On the 10th of October the
duke of Norfolk writes to sir John Paston, from London, that, " the Kentish
men be up in the Weald, and say that they will come and rob the city ; " and
prays him to come to him, " and bring with you six tall fellows in harness." *
On the 12th of October Eichard himself writes a remarkable letter to his
chancellor, John Eussell, who at that time was sick in London ; in which he
says, " Whereas we, by God's grace, intend briefly to advance us towards our
rebel and traitor, the duke of
Buckingham, to resist and with- f\
stand his malicious purpose, as /^V •^

f)f-(/c&^y\\^

lately by our other letters we cer
tified you our mind more at >C
large ; for which cause it be- f
hoveth us to have our great seal signature of Eichard iir,
here," In a subsequent portion
of this letter, in Eichard's own hand-writing, he urges the chanceUor
to send the seal, if he is unable to come himself; and adds, "here, loved
be God, is all well and truly determined, and for to resist the malice of
him that had best cause to be true, the duke of Buckingham, the most
untrue creature living," f Amongst the mysterious events of this
reign, none are more incapable of a wholly satisfactory explanation than
this sudden revolt of the man who had been the chief instrument
of placing Eichard on the throne; who had been his counsellor, agent,
and abettor in every act, whether of violence or craft, up to the time of
his taking the crown. We have only, for interpreting these secret pas
sages, the very doubtful relation contained in Grafton's " Chronicle," which
purports to be a continuation of More's "History." This narrative takes
up the story where More breaks off, ia a dialogue between the duke of
Buckingham and Morton, bishop of Ely, who was committed to the
duke's charge after his release from the Tower. Out of the long-winded
orations of these two personages, we coUect that Morton incited the duke's
ambition, by suggesting that he, " the very undoubted similitude and image
of true honour," was meet to be a ruler of the realm, in preference to " a
blood-supper and chUd-kiUer." Then, that Buckingham, having slept upon
the suggestion, entered upon a defence of his conduct in taking part with the
duke of Gloucester to be Protector, and further to consent " that he might
take upon him the crown, tiU the prince [Edward V.] came to the age of four
and twenty years, and were able to govern the realm." Next, that when he
was " credibly informed of the death of the two young innocents, his own
natural nephews," he abhorred the sight and company of Eichard, so that he
could not abide in his court ; and thought that he would take arms and aspire
to be king himself, as heir of the house of Lancaster, till he by accident
recollected that Margaret, countess of Eichmond (now wife to Lord Stanley),
* "Paston Letters," letter occcxxxviii.
t Ellis, "Original Letters," Series IL, voL i. p. 169.
0 2

revolt of BUCKINGHAM. [1-483.
had a prior claim. And lastly, that Buckingham and Moiton agreed that
Henry, earl of Eichmond, the son of Margaret, should wed Elizabeth, the
eldest daughter of Edward IV., and thus uniting the houses of Lancaster ana
Tork should bring to confusion " the bragging boar, that with his tusks raseth
every man's skin." This apocryphal account is so clearly a manufacture after
the accession of Henry VIL, that it is worthless, except for the fact that
Buckingham concerted with Morton a general insurrection against the rule of
Eichard, and that they'put themselves in communication with Eichmond.
"High-reaching Buckingham," and miscalled " shallow Eichmond," were each
descended from John of Gaunt, by Catherine Swynford, the issue of this
irregular union having been legitimated. Margaret, countess of Eichmond,
was the great grand-daughter of the duke of Lancaster, and so was Margaret,
countess of Stafford, the mother of Buckingham. But the father of Eich-
mond's mother was the elder branch. Her husband was Henry, earl of
Eichmond, who was the son of Owen Tudor, a gentleman of Wales, whom
Catherine, the widow of Henry V., had married. But Buckingham was also
descended from Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward IIL, and
thus his pride of descent might have been doubly operating upon his wayward
mind. The narrative attributed to More, — ^very different in its pithy style
from the Continuation, — says of Buckingham, " the duke was a high-minded
man, and evU could bear the glory of another ; so that I have heard of some
that said they saw it, that the duke at such time as the crown was first set
upon the protector's head, his eye could not abide the sight thereof, but wryed
his head another way." * It is easy to comprehend, in the absence of positive
facts, that the subtle Morton might naturally work upon this weak scion of
the house of Lancaster, to persuade him that, one game of ambition having
been played out, and he no more than constable of England and justiciary of
Wales, whUst Eichard of Tork was king, there was another game to be played by
the two representatives of the Eed Eose, in which the caprices of fortune might
leave the more experienced pretender a clear road to the throne. The assumed
hostility of Buckingham to Gloucester on account of the murder of the two
princes, is utterly inconsistent with the statement of a contemporary, that
when Eichard was being enthroned at Tork in September, the time when
Buckingham and Morton were plotting at Brecknock, — there was no suspicion
that the princes had ceased to live. " WhUst these things were passing in the
north, king Edward's two sons remained under certain deputed custody, for
whose release from captivity the people of the southern and western parts
began very much to murmur." f For the release of the princes the same
historian says that a rising was about to take place, when it was reported that
they were dead ; and that then the conspirators turned to Eichmond as the
object of their enterprise. Early chronicles and modern histories detaU with
much minuteness the negotiations which preceded the outbreak ; involving
communications between the countess of Eichmond and the duke of Bucking
ham throngh sir Eeginald Bray, for the distinct object of placing her son on
the throne ; plots between the countess and the widow of king Edward, carried
on through one Lewis, a physician ; messengers passing to and fro between
the countess and her son ia Brittany ; the heads of the plot going about in
* "History," Singer's edit., p. 137. + Croyland Chronicle.

1483.] SUPPRESSION OF THE REVOLT. 197
England inciting the commonalty to revolt ; and, finaUy, the earl of Eichmond
saiUng with five thousand Breton soldiers, and attempting a landing in Dor
setshire, simultaneously with the proclamation of himself as the coming king
in Devonshire, Wiltshire, Kent, Berkshire, and Wales.'* This extensive
organisation of the scattered materials for another revolution in a wonderfully
short time, according to the received accounts, is perfectly incompatible with
the belief of any sudden impulses on the part of Buckingham and other Lan
castrians in concert with the WoodviUe family, to set up Eichmond because
Edward V. was removed by assassination. We have seen from Eichard's
letter to his chancellor that, previous to the 10th of October, he was aware of
Buckingham's revolt. More relates that Buckingham, " both with great gifts
and high behests, in most loving and trusty manner," departed from Eichard
at Gloucester ; and going to his castle at Brecknock, the bishop of Ely being
there in custody, " waxed with him famiUar." This friendly parting at Glou
cester took place in the beginning of August. That the plot of Morton,
Buckingham, and Eichmond could have been matured after the knowledge of
the deaths of the princes in the Tower, which More says was determined by
Eichard during his sojourn at Warwick, is almost an impossibility. The
king was receiving the Spanish ambassador at Warwick in the second week of
August. In two months he was intending to advance " against our rebel and
traitor the duke of Buckingham." There can be little doubt that the scat
tered party of the Lancastrians turned their regards upon the earl of Eich
mond, the nearest lineal representative of that house, from the time when the
direct succession of the house of Tork, in the person of Edward V., had been
set aside. Had this king remained upon the throne in his "young age," the
energy of the protector would, in all likelihood, have been incessantly
demanded to prevent a renewal of the civil war through the pretensions of
Buckingham or Eichmond. When the crown was usurped, and the issue of
Edward IV. declared Ulegitimate, the hopes of the adherents of the Eed Eose
would naturally become stronger ; and the actual removal of the princes in the
Tower by death, or the popular belief that they were dead, would as materially
forward the policy of Eichmond as the policy of Eichard. The report of their
death, which preceded the outbreak of the conspiracy of 1483 only about a
month, does not furnish the slightest proof that their murder had been accom
plished by Eichard, or that they did not remain in some secret custody at the
period when Buckingham was in insurrection, and Eichmond about to land
with a Breton force in Dorsetshire.
The revolt of 1483 was soon queUed by the energetic king. On the 23rd
of October he issued a characteristic proclamation from Leicester, in which
he offers high rewards for the apprehension of Buckingham and other con
spirators. He marched with a considerable army to Salisbury, the junction
of Buckingham's forces with the foreign troops of Eichmond being expected
to be attempted in the south-western counties. Buckingham moved boldly
out from Brecon " with a great power of wild Welshmen, whom he, being a
man of great courage and sharp speech, had thereto rather enforced and
compeUed by lordly and strait commandment than by liberal wages and
* Whether by accident or design, Polydore Vergil has carried forward the date of these events
a whole year, making the sailing of Richmond from Britanny occur iu October, 1484, "the
second year of king Richard."

198 INDIFFERENCE OF THE PEOPLE. [1483
gentle retainer." * Not only with Buckingham's levies, but with othej
bands of the feudal lords, was the ancient zeal for the cause under whoso
banner the men served fast passing away. Buckingham experienced a series
of disasters, which ended in his discomfiture. For ten days the Severn was
overflowing the whole country through continual rains, which flood, says
Grafton, " they call to this day the great water, or the duke of Buckingham's
great water." The Welshmen, without victual or wages, deserted him. The
duke was compeUed to fly. The terrible Eichard had appointed a vice-
constable of England, to supersede the power of Buckingham as constable ;
and he used the great seal to arm his new officer, sir Thomas Ashton, with
authority to judge aU traitors, " without the noise and formality of trial, and
without regard to any appeal whatsoever to proceed to execution." When
Eichard put on the despot, he did the work of tyranny most thoroughly as
far as he chose to go. Under this commission, Buckingham, who had been
betrayed by one of his servants, was executed at Salisbury on the 2nd of
November ; the other confederates dispersed. The chiefs fled to the
continent ; some of inferior note were taken and put to death. Eichmond,
whose fleet had been scattered by a storm, thought it prudent to return
without any attempt to land. In Britanny he and the marquis of Dorset,
son of Elizabeth Woodville, met to devise new plans ; and there, in the
cathedral of Vannes on the following Christmas-day, they pledged themselves
to another attempt, and Eichmond swore to marry Elizabeth, the eldest
daughter of Edward IV., if he should obtain the crown.
In this abortive revolt against the power of Eichard, we see nothing like
a popular movement on one side or the other. The faithful adherents of the
king, such as the duke of Norfolk, gathered their "tall fellows iu harness,"
and. stood bythe man whom they had placed on the throne. Buckingham
impressed his Welshmen, and a few lords and knights prepared their tenants
for the field. But there was no signal demonstration in London or the great
cities. The peaceful and industrious people of town and country were
utterly weary of these feudal struggles, and had sunk into the worst state of
public feeling, — that of indifference. Eichard and his advisers appear to
have partially comprehended the spirit of their time, and to have endea
voured to discharge their duty to the people by wise legislation and impartial
justice. Bacon says of this king that he was "jealous of the honour of tha
English nation, and likewise a good law-maker, for the ease and solace 0/
the common people." At the same time Bacon objects that "the politie
and wholesome laws which were enacted in his time," were only "to woo and
win the hearts of the people, as being conscious to himself that the true
obligations of sovereignty in him failed and were wanting." f Bacon lived
at a period when " the ease and solace of the common people," to be pro
moted by wholesome laws, were scarcely thought to be amongst " the true
obligations of sovereignty." The maligned Eichard, in. the statutes of his
one parliament, showed that he was in advance of his age.
The triumph of the king, in the failure of the plans of Buckingham and
Eichmond, would naturally tend to place his government upon a more secure
basis. He found a parliament ready enough to confirm his title, by passing
' Grafton. t History of Henry VIL, p. 2, ed. 1622.

1484.] SALUTARY LAWS OF RICHARD'S PARLIAMENT, 199
an Act for the settlement of the crown upon him and his issue ; in which the
iUegitimacy of the children of Edward IV. was affirmed, and his widow is
styled " sometime wife to sir John Gray, knight, late naming herself and
many years heretofore queen of England." But this parliament, which was
held at Westminster on the 23rd of January, 1484, did something beyond
this confirmation of Eichard's claims, and the attainder of those who had been
concerned in the recent revolt. In the address which the protector delivered
to the meeting which invited him to assume the crown, he used these remark
able words : " For certainly we be determined rather to aventure and
commit us to the peril of our life and jeopardy of death, than to Uve in such
thraldom and bondage as we have lived long time heretofore, oppressed and
injured by extortions and new impositions against the laws of God and man,
and the liberty, old policy, and laws of this realm, wherein every Englishman
is inherited." * This was not a mere boast of the hour. Edward IV. had
been accustomed to plunder his subjects under the name of " Benevolences ;"
which practice the dulce of Buckingham defined to be, " that every man
should pay, not what he of his own good will list, but what the king of his
own good will Ust to take." f The statute of Eichard " to free the subject
from Benevolences " denounces these " new and unlawful inventions" as the
cause of "great penury and wretchedness," and ordains that no such exac
tions shaU in future be made, but that they be " annuUed for ever." The
"Act for Bailing of Persons suspected of Felony " provides that on arrests
for mere suspicion of felony, every justice of the peace shall have power to
bail ; and that the goods of persons apprehended for felony shall not be
seized before conviction. "An Act for returning of sufficient Jurors " aims
at the proper administration of justice, by requiring that no juryman be sum
moned but such as are of good name and fame, and have twenty shillings a
year in freehold land, or twenty-six shiUings and eightpence in copyhold.
" An Act against privy and unknown feofments " secures the transfer of
property to the buyer against the claims of the heirs of the seUer. "An
Act for Proclamation upon Fines levied "J is repeated in almost the exact
words by a statute of Henry VII,§ "It is surely strange," says Mr,
Hallam, " that those who have extolled this sagacious monarch [Henry VII,]
for breaking the fetters of landed property (though many of them were
lawyers) should never have observed that whatever credit might be due for
the innovation should redound to the honour of the unfortunate usurper." ||
It is unnecessary here to enter upon a technical explanation of the provisions
of this Act. By a decision of the courts of law in the time of Edward IV.,
the practice of barring estates tail — that is, of permitting their alienation in
despite of entaU — by what is called a common recovery, was established.
The statute of Eichard, by enacting that a fine levied in the courts, with due
proclamation, should, after five years, be a bar to all claims, gave security to
possession, and thus facUitated the transfer of lands, and in so doing broke
down one of the chief foundations of the feudal system.
A great legal authority, looking at these acts of Eichard III. — fifteen alto-
• Rolls of Parliament. See Hallam's "Middle Ages," chap, -viii,, part iii.
+ More, "History of Eichard IIL"
t Cap. vii., 1 Eichard III,, in the Statutes published by authority, vol. i. p. 482.
§ 4 Henry VIL, c. 24. || " Constitutional History," vol. L chap, i

200

STATUTES riRST PRINTED, AND IN ENGLISH.

[1484.

gether— says of this, his only parliament, " We have no difficulty in pronouncing
it the most meritorious national council for protecting the liberty of the subject,
and putting down abuses in the administration of justice, which had sat since
the time of Edward I." * But in opening the volumes of our laws, as priutea
by authority "from original records and authentic manuscripts," we are
struck with a change upon the face of these statutes of Eichard IIL, which
indicates as true a regard for the liberty of the subject as the laws themselves.
For the first time the laws to be obeyed by the English people are enacted in
the EngUsh tongue. But, beyond this, they are the first laws of the land
whieh were ever priated. In the legislation of this short and troubled reign,
and in the mode of promulgating a knowledge of the laws, there is the
evidence of some master mind breaking down the trammels of routine and

Bas-relief on Gutenberg's Monument : Examining a Matrix.
prescription. The commercial acts are not marked by any advance beyond
the principle of protection, except in one striking instance, in which an
exception is made to the old system of fettering the deaUngs, and restricting
the liberty, of alien traders. There was one commodity which was to come
mto the land as freely as the Ught from heaven ; there was one class of
foreign merchants whose caUing was to be encouraged, for in their hands
were the great instruments of all national progress. Let us give this
memorable enactment in its original English : " Provided alwey that this
a etc, or any part therof, or any other acte made or to be made in this
present parliament, in no wise extende or be prejudiciall any lette hurte or
* Lord Campbell, "Lives of the Chancellors," vol, L p, 404.

1484.]

ENCOUKaGHMENT to printers and SELLERS OF BOOKS.

201

impediment to any artificer or merchaunt straungler of what nacion or contrey
he be or shalbe of, for bryngyng into this realme, or sellyng by retaill or
otherwise, of any manor bokes wrytten or imprynted, or for the inhabitynge
within the said realme for the same intent, or to any writer, lympner,
bynder, or imprynter, of suche bokes, as he hath or shall have to sell by wey
of merchaundise, or for their abode in the same realme for the exercisyng ol
the said occupacions ; this acte or any parte therof notwithstandyng," There
could be no greater homage to the memory of Gutenberg, the inventor ot
printing, than this law, enacted fifteen years after his death, which said to his
fellow craftsmen of every nation that no English restrictions upon aliens
should touch them. The power, now for the first time exercised, of securing
a better obedience to the laws by a wider publicity, demanded such a tribute

Cold Harbour.

to the merchants and artificers of knowledge. Eichard and his counseUors
stood upon the threshold of a new state of society ; and this encouragement
of transcribers, printers, and seUers of books, showed that they understood
what was one of the characteristics of their time. But the spirit of the feudal
ages was stUl a Uving presence. As the commercial classes were pressing
forward to the honours which wealth commanded, and the gates of knowledge
were opened wider, the claims of blood came to be regarded even more than
when the only social distinction was that of lord and vassal. The knight-riders,
poursuivants, heralds of kings, were more than ever required to be the

202

DAUGHTiilflS OF EDWARD IV.— DEATH OF EICHARD'S SON.

[1484.

arbiters of rank, and the tracers of genealogies. Eichard III. raised the
heralds into an incorporation, and bestowed upon them the royal house oi
Cold Harbour. They became the worthy depositaries of the nation's famUy
antiquities. One of the measures of Eichard's parliament was to annul all letters-
patent granting estates to " Elizabeth, late wife of sir John Gray." Tho
reUct of Edward IV. stiU remained with her daughters in sanctuary. But on
the 1st of March, 1484, the king, in the presence of lords spiritual and
temporal, and the mayor and aldermen of London, made oath verlo regio,
upon the holy EvangeUsts, that if Elizabeth, CecUe, Anne, Katherine, and
Bridget, the daughters of dame Elizabeth Gray, would come out of the
sanctuary, and be guided, ruled, and demeaned after him, he would see that
they should be in surety of their Uves and suffer no hurt or imprisonment,
but that they should have everything necessary as his kinswomen ; and that
he would endow such as were marriageable with lands to the yearly value of
two hundred marks, and provide them gentlemen bom as husbands ; and
that their mother should receive of him seven hundred marks annuaUy
for her support.* This family, accordingly, came out of their place of
refuge, and submitted themselves to the guidance of Eichard, In the
next month, he, who was suspected of having destroyed his brother's
sons, sustaiaed himself the heaviest of human afflictions. His own son,
Edward, the only child of his marriage with the daughter of Warwick, died at
Middleham Castle. The unhappy
parents were almost driven mad
by the iatelligence.f But the
king had too many enemies to
watch, to sit down in hopeless
grief. He declared his nephew,
John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln,
his heir ; and applied himself
to counteract the schemes of
Eichmond, by negotiating with
the duke of Britanny to deUver
him up. But Eichmond was
in many respects his inteUectual
equal ; and he had secret friends
in the EngUsh court as useful
as the spies whom Eichard em
ployed to watch the motions of
his rival. He suddenly fled from
Vannes with a few servants, and
succeeded in entering France,
where he claimed the protection
of Charles VIII. The earl of
Oxford, one of the most constant of the Lancastrians, escaped from his
prison at Ham, and joined Eichmond, to whom other adherents graduaUy

Female Costume in the time of Richard HI,

* The document is given at length in Ellis, " Original Letters," 2nd Series, voL i. p. 149.
T "Peneinsanire." Croyland Chron.

1485.]

DEATH OP RICHARD'S QUEEN.

20»

flocked. The king spent the year m active preparation for the possible
invasion. He kept his Christmas at Westminster with great splendour ;
and it was remarked that his niece Elizabeth was dressed in robes
of the same fashion and colour as those of his queen. Scandal upon this
hint took up its courtly vocation ; and the rumour went that as the queen
was in iU health he contemplated marriage with his niece. On the 16th of
March, 1485, the queen died. Here was a new occasion for fastening one
more horrible suspicion upon the evil reputation of Eichard ; and there
fore Polydore VergU makes a doubt " whether she were despatched
by sorrowfulness or poison." An eulogist of Eichard, sir George Buck,.
afSrms that he had seen a letter written to the duke of Norfolk by Elizabeth
of Tork, in which she called the king " her joy and maker in this world ; and
said that she was his in heart and thought ; withal insinuating that the better-
part of February was past, and that she feared the queen would never die."
Although such a marriage was not beyond the bounds of papal dispensation,
Eichard felt that the rumour was injurious to him. Within a month after
the death of the queen, on the 11th of April, before the mayor and citizens
of London, he solemnly disavowed the intention which had been imputed to
him. It has been justly observed that his title to the crown would not have
been strengthened by marrying a woman whom the law had declared iUegiti-
mlite ; and as justly inferred that " the whole tale was invented with the
view of blackening Eichard's character, to gratify the monarch in whose reign
all the contemporary writers who relate it flourished," * But they told the-
story, as against Eichard, without the slightest hint that the lady who became
the wife of Henry VII, was enamoured of the man who was held to be the
destroyer of her brothers ; but on the contrary they said that she abhorred
his proposals. After the death of Eichard's queen, Elizabeth was removed to ¦
Sheriff Hutton Castle, where her cousin, the earl of Warwick, the son of the
duke of Clarence, was kept in a sort of honourable captivity. Historians,
who can scarcely avoid dwelling too much upon the intrigues of coui'ts, are
indignant with the widow of Edward IV. that at this time she was in friendly
relations with Eichard, and induced her son, the marquis of Dorset, to attempt
to return to England. He was detained by the king of France, who gave
assistance to the project of
Eichmond ; and the prepara
tions for invasion went for
ward. Eichard appears to
have somewhat too much
despised his adversary. He
was in London from the be
ginning of the year till the
middle of May. There had
been no parliament to grant
him a subsidy ; and he, by a solemn legislative act, had declared against
"Benevolences." He was too straitened for money to make large warlike-
preparations. Fabyan, who personally knew whatever actions of the king

Groat of Richard III.

* Sir N.
Expenses."

H. Nicolas, "Memoir of Elizabeth of York,'' p. Iii., prefixed tq her "Privy Purse^

204 HENRY, EARL OP RICHMOND. [1485.
bore upon the pockets of the citizens, says, of this period, that " king
Eichard spared not to spend the great treasure, which, before, king Edward IV
had gathered, in giving of great and large gifts ; " and that " he borrowed
many notable sums of money of rich men of this realm, and specially of
the citizens of London, whereof the least sum was forty pounds. For
surety whereof he delivered to them good and sufficient pledges." * This
is explicit enough ; and yet we constantly find it stated that Eichard lost his
small share of the affections of the citizens by adopting the system of
Benevolences, though not in name.f He who gives "good and sufficient
pledges" for a loan, can scarcely be said to pursue the same system oi
extortion as he who compels a gift without an intention of repayment.
The earl of Eichmond had been acquainted with misfortune from his first
years. Comines says, " he told- me not long before his departure from this
kingdom, that from the time he was five years old he had always been a
fugitive or a prisoner." J According to outward appearances and ordinary
calculations, his enterprise for the English crown was not likely to improve
his lot. The same observer regarded Eichmond as without money, without
power, without reputation, and without right ; and he describes the three
thousand Normans that were furnished to the earl by the king of France, as
" the loosest and most profligate persons in aU that country." § But
Eichmond had better support than his outward power of three thousand
vagabond Normans. There was a systematic organisation of the Lancastrian
party in England, which Eichard, with ' aU his penetration and caution, and
with his reputation for striking hard when he did strike, very insufficiently
guarded against. He had no great mUitary force at his command. Fourteen
years had passed since the battle of Tewkesbury, when the people of the
south had raUied round the banner of the White Eose. The Welsh had
followed Buckingham, and were now ready to follow Eichmond, who came
with a genealogy from Cadwallader and king Arthur up to the Trojan Brute.
Stanley, who could command many foUowers in Cheshire and Lancashire,
and Northumberland, the great lord of the border country, were nominally
for the king, and employed their authority as his accredited officers. The
day of battle showed how dexterously they had been won over to betray
him. The confidence of Eichard in the fidelity of these nobles seems a
judicial bUndness, very different from the supposed temper of the man who
" while he was thinking of any matter, did continually bite his nether lip, aa
though that cruel nature of his did so rage against itself in that little
carcase." || He indeed took some security in detaining the son of lord
Stanley at his court, while the father went amongst his tenantry ; but, beyond
this, he seems to have had no suspicion of the treachery which Norfolk had
to learn on the day when he fell, with his master "bought and sold."
Henry of Eichmond set sail from Harfleur on the 1st of August, and landed
at Milford Haven on the 7th. Beyond the precaution of having beacons on
the hills of the coast — "lamps fastened upon frames of timber" % — ^the king
had no sure means of being informed of the movements of his enemy. He
took up a position at Nottingham, as the centre of the kingdom. But the
* Chronicle, 4to., p, 671. t See Lingard, vol. v., 8to., p. 361.
t Book v. chap, xviii, § Book vi, chap, x.
II Polydore Vergil, p. 227. Camden edit. t Ibid., p, 213.

1485.] INADEQUATE PREPARATIONS AGAINST INVASION, 205
landing of Eichmond in Wales was a surprise. Norfolk, a day or two before
the 15th of August, writes to sir John Paston, then sheriff, " letting you to
understand that the king's enemies be a-land," and praying him to meet the
duke at Bury, " that ye bring with yon such company of t.iU mon as ye may
goodly make at my cost and charge, besides that which ye have promised the
king ; and I pray you ordain them jackets of my livery, and I shall content
you at your meeting with me." * The records of Tork show that it
was not tUl the 16th that the king's firm friends in that city despatched
their officer to him to know whether they should send him aid ; and four
hundred men were accordingly ordered to march on the 19th. Eichard
is said to have despised his adversary as " a man of smaU courage and of
less experience in martial art," and this, combined with his fear of taxing the
people, made him inadequately employ the resources of the crown. The
very materials of the old English arm of war were deficient, if we may judge
from an act of 1484, of which a petition from the bowyers forms the pre
amble ; they saying that from the want of " good and able stuff of bow-
stave^" the craft of bowyers is sorely diminished, and " thereby the land
greatly enfeebled, to the great jeopardy of the same, and great comfort to the
enemies and adversaries thereof." The want of preparation was, in some
degree, the natural result of a period in which the industry of the nation
had made remarkable progress, but in which the military arts had propor-
tionably declined. The battle of the 22nd of August was fought with so few
men on either side, that it would appear marvellous that it should have
decided the fate of a kingdom, if we did not bear in mind that it was not
fought by one section of an aroused population against another section
similarly excited ; but that the king himself, with a few faithful friends, was
fighting with scarcely more power than that of a feudal partisan, and that
when he, the first crovraed sovereign since Harold that died in battle upon
English ground, was struck down, the contest was at an end. In iastructions
to his chanceUor to prepare a proclamation against Henry Tudor and other
rebels, the king desires him to make known, " that our said sovereign lord
¦willeth and commandeth all his said subjects to be ready in their most
defensible array, to do his highness service of war, when they by open pro
clamation or otherwise shaU be commanded so to do." f But this command
was not of equal force as in the earlier days of the monarchy, or even in the
recent time when Edward led forth the men of London to the hiU of Barnet.
The feudal chain which bound the lord to the kiag, and the vassal to the lord,
had been impaired in many of its links. The sentiment of loyalty to the sove
reign, founded upon the spirit of patriotism and not upon the obUgations of
feudal service, was scarcely yet created. That had to be born when the dominant
power of the aristocracy was broken down, not so much by' the force of arms
or of law, as by the decay of the principle which was incompatible with the
eivUisation that more readUy assimUated with the rule of one than the
rule of many. With Eichard, the last of the Plantagenets, expired the
political system under which England had been governed by that house for
more than three centuries.
• "Paston Letters," letter coccxliii.
+ Ellis : ''Original Letters," Series ii., voL i. p. 162,

^06 BATTLE OF BOSWORTH FIELD. [1185-
Market-Bosworth, the nearest town of importance, gave the name to the
decisive battle of the 22nd of August, 1485. "Not," says Burton, the old
bistorian of Leicestershire, " that this battle was fought at this place (it
leing fought in a large, flat, plain, and spacious ground, three miles distant
from this town, between the towns of Shenton, Sutton, Dadlington, and
Stoke) ; but for this town was the most worthy town of note near adjacent,
and was therefore caUed Bosworth-field." * Burton, at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, was familiar with the traditions that belonged to the
scene of so important an event. In 1787, WiUiam Hutton, who had a true
love for his nation's antiquities, without the pedantry of mere antiquarianism,
described this battle-field. Its real name, he says, is Eedmoor plain, from
the colour of the soil ; rather of an oval form, about two miles long and one
broad ; part waste land, part in grass, part in tillage. Near a wood at the
south end is a spring called king Eichard's well. No human being resides
on this desolate field or near it. Twenty years after his first visit, Hutton
again went to the field, and found the plain enclosed; fences grown up;
Eichard's well vanished ; and the swamp where he is recorded to have fallen
become firm land. It is thus tliat the material improvement of a country
obliterates the physical traces of its history. Dr. Parr, in 1812, found the
spring by digging ; and by way of preserving the popular memory of a great
English event, wrote a pompous Latin inscription to be inscribed on a local
monument. The form of the ground, with an amphitheatre of hills bounding
the plain to the south-east and south-west, and a rivulet called "the Tweed,"
wiU now furnish little assistance to him who goes to seek some Ulustration
of the descriptions of the chroniclers. The facts of this battle may be soon
told. On Sunday, the 20th of August, Eichard marched from Nottingham to
Leicester, at the head of his troops, riding on a white horse, in full armour,
and a crown on his helmet. On the 21st he moved to the abbey of MirivaU,
near Bosworth, and encamped on a rising ground called Anbeame or Amyon
Hill. Eichmond had crossed the Severn at Shrewsbury ; had a conference at
Stafford with Sir WiUiam Stanley, when it was agreed that the Stanleys
should move towards Eichard's camp, as if for his support ; and on the 21st
he reached Atherstone, by Tamworth. On the morning of the 22nd both
armies advanced to Eedmoor. Hutton, on his first visit, found traces of four
camps. The largest, which he assigns to Eichard, covers about eighteen
acres ; Eichmond's, he says, covers six or seven acres ; Lord Stanley's com
prises about four acres, and Sir WiUiam Stanley's three acres. When the
battle begun, Eichard found the Stanleys opposed to him, and Northumber
land stirring not a foot to his aid. No strategy could now be of avaU. It
was of little consequence that Eichmond " had never set a squadron in the
field." The men whom Eichard had loaded with benefits deserted him in the
hour of his need, with a treachery that proclaimed that the kneU of chivaby
was rung. The courage of his race sustained him to the end. He made a
desperate onset upon that part of the battle-field where Henry was, after
having maintained an unequal conflict for two hours, with the aid of those
who remained faithful to him. Polydore Vergil, the eulogist of Henry, does
iustice to the vaUancy of Eichard in this last struggle : " King Eichard, at
* Hutton's "Bosworth Field," with additions, by J. G. Nicholls, p. 181.

14S5,]

DEATH IN BATTLE OP RICHARD III.

207

the first brunt, kiUed certain; overthrew Henry's standard, together with
WiUiam Brandon, the standard-bearer ; and matched also with John Cheney,
a man of much fortitude, far exceeding the common sort, who encountered
with him as he came ; but the king with great force drove him to the ground,
mating way with weapon on every side. But yet Henry abode the brunt
longer than ever his own soldiers would have weened, who were now almost
out of hope of victory, whenas sir William Stanley with three thousand
men came to the rescue. Then truly, in a very moment, the residue aU fled,
and king Eichard alone was killed, fighting manfully in the thickest press
of his enemies."

CHAPTER XIII.

Eiclmiond crowned in the battle-field — Henry VII. crowned at Westminster — His parliamentary
title — Marriage with Elizabeth of York — Henry VII. suited to his times — Imposture of
Lambert Simnel — Battle of Stoke — Alleged harsh treatment of the widow of Edward IV.
— The earl of Warwick exhibited to the people — Unreal war aud real taxation — An English
army in France — A hurried peace concluded at Estaples — Its motives.

EicHAED III. Ues covered with wounds in the marsh of Eedland. It
was a part of the poUcy of the victors to heap insult and degradation upon
the poor remains of the man who chose rather to perish than to save himself
by flight ; and thus his body, " naked and despoUed, was trussed behind a
poursuivant of arms, Uke a hog or a calf, the head and the arms hangiag
on the one side of the horse, and the legs on the other side, and aU besprinkled
with mire and blood was brought to the Gray-friars church at Leicester."
Thus vnites Grafton, one of the meanest of the eulogists of Henry VII.
The earl of Eichmond, he says, ascended to the top of a little mountain, and
there rendered thanks to his soldiers and friends. " Then the people
rejoiced and clapped their hands, crying up to heaven. King Henry, king
Henry. When the lord Stanley saw the good wiU and gladness of the
people, he took the crown of king Eichard which was found amongst the
spoU in the field, and set it on the earl's head, as though he had been elected
king by the voice of the people, as in ancient times past in divers realms
it hath been accustomed." In the evening the camp of Eichmond, now king
Henry VIL, was removed to Leicester ; and, two days after, the conqueror

14S5,] HENRY VIL CROWNED— HIS PARLIAMENTARY TITLE. 239
went forward to London. He chose to consider himself to have won the
crown of England by conquest ; and he held to the delusion in his latter
years, providing by his last avUI, " that our executors cause to be made an
image of a king, representing our own person, the same to be of timber,
covered and wrought with plates of fine gold, in manner of an armed man ;
and upon the same armour a coat-armour of our arms of England and France,
enameUed, with a sword and spurs accordingly ; and the said image to kneel
upon a table of sUver and gilt, and holding betwixt his hands the crown which
it pleased God to give us, with the victory of our enemy at our first field," *
Henry, earl of Eichmond, who came to put down an usurper, was himself an
usurper in every sense. Bacon has clearly stated the dilemma in which the
new king was placed. He had been engaged to marry the lady Elizabeth,
under the compact by which he was to be supported in his pretensions. This
claim, through the daughter of Edward IV., was most likely to content the
people, who had become attached to the house of Tork, and were satisfied
of the clearness of their title to the throne. But relying upon the title to
be obtained by this marriage, he would only have been a king by courtesy.
" Neither," adds his historian, " wanted there even at that time secret
rumours and whisperings, — ^which afterwards gathered strength and turned
to great troubles — that the two young sons of king Edward IV., or one of
them, which sons were said to be destroyed in the Tower, were not indeed
murthered, but were conveyed secretly away, and were yet living : which, if it
had been true, had prevented the title of the lady Elizabeth." f As to his
own title, as the representative of the house of Lancaster, " he knew it was
a title condemned by parliament, and generally prejudged in the common
opinion of the realm." J As to the third title, that of conqueror, he felt that
it would provoke terror, and that even William I. forbore to use that claim
in the beginning. He put on the name and state of a king, therefore, without
proclaiming any title, in the first instance ; and thus, the needy adventurer of
August, 1485, was crowned king of England and France, on the 30th of
October. But a parliament being held on the 7th of November, when the
speaker was presented to the king, — who had received his crown on the battle
field, from his Norman vagabonds, as Comines describes his soldiers, and from
the deserters of Eichard, " as though he had been elected by the voice of the
people," — he spoke of his accession, " as well by just hereditary title as by
the sure judgment of God, which was manifested by giving him the victory
in the field over his enemy." § But the parliament would not accept the
vain pretension of an hereditary title, nor the insolent one of a title by con
quest. The desire for tranquillity and a peaceful succession was paramount ;
and a title was made for Henry VII. as king de facto. By the Act of Settle
ment it is ordained, " in avoiding aU ambiguities and questions, that the
inheritance of the crowns of the realms of England and of France," &c.,
shall "be, rest, remain, and abide, in the most royal person of our now
sovereign lord king Henry VII,, and in the heirs of his body, lawfully coming,
perpetually, ¦with the grace of God so to endure, and in none other." ||
* Sir N. H. Nicolas, "Memoirs of Elizabeth of York," p. Ixiii.
t " History of Henry VIL," p. 4.
+ Ihid. § EoUs of Parliament.
ll Statutes, by Authority, voL ii. p. 499.
vol. u. f

21C

MARRIAGE WITH ELIZABETH OP YORK.

[1486.

The parliament, however, would not bestow the crown upon this branch of
the house of Lancaster without a regard to the condition which was likely to
prevent future disputes. Before its prorogation in December, the speaker of
the Commons prayed the king, " that in consideration of the right to the
realms of England and France being vested in his person and the heirs of his
body, by the authority of the said parliament, he would be pleased to espouse
the lady Elizabeth, daughter of king Edward IV., which marriage they
hoped God would bless with a progeny of the race of kings." The Lords
rose, and bowing to the throne, intimated that they assented to this desire.

Elizabelli, Queen of Henry VII. From the Tomb in his Chapel at Westminster,
Henry expressed his wUlingness to comply with the request ; and the marriage
took place on the following 18th of January. In consequence of their rela
tionship, a dispensation was necessary ; but it appears that no efforts had
been made to obtain it, until after this parliamentary declaration.
The mode in which the question of Henry's title was determined by the
parUament is some evidence that the ancient spirit of the great councU of the
realm was not extinct. The Lords and Commons would not allow themselves
to be considered the representatives of a conquered people ; nor would they
admit a claim of lineal descent which would be resisted by a powerful party,
if not by a majority of the nation. The accident, for it was scarcely more,
of the victory of Bosworth Field, had left the way clear for the adherents of

I486,] HENRY VIL SUITED TO HIS TIMES, 211
the house of Lancaster to regain their lost position ; and a qualified submis
sion to the favoured of fortune was the most prudent and honest course.
There could have been no enthusiasm for the personal qualities of Henry ;
which were not of a nature to command the admiration of an age in which
the military virtues were still held as the proudest adornment of a ruler of
men. Tho new king was essentially different in character from any one of
the Plantagenet race. He was not intellectually weak, as Henry VI. ; nor
incapable of self-government, as Edward II. and Eichard II. Bat he had none
of the heroic qualities — the thirst for glory, the pride, the high courage, the
resolute will, which were the attributes of the first, the third, and the fourth
Edward — of Henry IV. and Henry V. — of Eichard IIL The spirit of the
feudal ages had no longer a representative. But Henry VIL brought to the
throne a character which was eminently fitted to the requirements of a new
state of society. The work which he had to carry forward had been partiaUy
accomplished in the wars of Tork and Lancaster, by the outpouring of the
blood, the waste of the resources, the attainders and forfeitures of the
dominant nobUity. The new king was to build up the monarchy upon the
complete subjection of the aristocracy as a caste separate from the people ;
and he was to do this, not by force but by sagacity — not by terror but by
subtlety — not by lavish expenditure but by ever-grasping acquisition. If
this first sovereign of the house of Tudor had carried forward his policy, which
was essentially arbitrary, amongst a people without that reverence for ancestral
freedom which was almost an instinct, he and his successors might have
established a despotism as severe as that which in some other European
countries followed a similar triumph of the regal prerogative. But Henry VIL,
— although indifferent enough to the rights of the people, and always ready to
increase his hoarded riches by cunning extortion rather than by parliamentary
taxation, — preserved the country in order and tranquillity ; and thus the
practical Uberties of the people were constantly advancing with their indus
trial prosperity. We shall have occasion to relate a succession of attempts
to disturb the rule of this king ; but the indifference with which the bulk of
the EngUsh community regarded them is the best proof that the policy of
this man was fitted for his time. The period of Henry VII. was that of the
invention of printing, and the discovery of America. The spread of know
ledge and the extension of commerce were soon to work mighty changes in
aU nations ; and England was in a great degree fortunate to have passed
under the rule of a king who would not retard the progress of improvement
by clinging to the worn-out systems of the middle ages.
The desire for the union of the houses of Tork and Lancaster was a
popular sentiment to which Henry gave Uttle encouragement when he had
the reins of power in his hands. " His aversion to the house of Tork was
so predominant in him," says Bacon, " as it found place, not only in his wars
and councUs, but in his chamber and bed," * He had sworn at Vannes to
marry Elizabeth of Tork ; but he showed no alacrity in performing his oath.
Although the marriage was solemnised in January 1486, the public honour
of the queen's coronation was deferred tUl late in the year 1487. The chief
adherents of Eichard III. had been attainted, in the usual course of such
• " History of Henry VII.," p. 16.
p2

212 IMPOSTURE OF LAMBERT SIMNEL. [1487.
revolutions. But Henry also held the property of a great body of Torkists
within his grasp, by revoking, on his own authority, aU grants of the crown
made since 1454-5, when the influence of Eichard, duke of Tork, began to
preponderate. There was one representative of that house, whom he held in
dread, even in the moment of his victory at Bosworth. Edward, earl of
Warwick, the son of the duke of Clarence, had been placed by Edward IV.
at the castle of Sheriff Hutton, from the time of his father's death in 1478.
The young prince remained there during the reign of Eichard III. The
first exercise of authority by Henry was to remove the earl of Warwick to
the Tower, out of whose dreary walls he never passed. The temper of the
king towards the Torkists produced an injudicious rising in 1486, under lord
Level and Thomas and Humphrey Stafford. This was soon queUed. In
Ireland, the partisans of the house of Tork had filled the chief offices, under
the earls of Kildare, since the accession of Edward IV. The love for that>
house was stUl the prevailing feeling ; and, in reliance upon this fidelity, two
remarkable attempts to shake the power of Henry VII. had their first
manifestations in Ireland.
Henry, after the insurgents under Level and the Staffords had dispersed,
continued his progress through the midland and northern counties. The
queen remained at Winchester. Here, in September, she gave birth to a
son, who received the name of Arthur. The partisans of the house of Tork
chose this period for the development of a plot, apparently most wild and
purposeless, founded upon a reliance upon popular credulity almost beyond
belief. In the spring of 1487 a youth appeared in Ireland, calling himself
Edward Plantagenet, earl of Warwick. The son of Clarence when committed
to the Tower was about fifteen years of age. The youth who presented
himself to the earl of Elildare, the lord deputy, at Dublin, was accompanied
by a priest of the name of Simons, and he represented himself as the earl of
Warwick, who had escaped from his confinement in the Tower. Either
his pretensions were impUcitly believed by Kildare, or he was a party to the
scheme, which had evidently been promoted by persons of influence. In a
letter written by king Henry, four years after, he says, " not forgetting the
great malice that the lady Margaret of Burgoigne beareth continually against
us ; as she shewed lately in sending hither of a feigned boy, surmising him to
have been the son of the duke of Clarence, and caused him to be accompanied
with the earl of Lincoln, the lord Level, and with a great multitude of
Irishmen and of Almains."* The hostility of Margaret of Burgundy to
Eichmond, the husband of her niece, was possibly the result of his neglect
of that niece, and of his general oppression of the Torkists. But her coun
tenance of an imposture, which could be so readily exposed by producing the
real son of Clarence, who was well known, and the subsequent adherence of
persons of high position to the conspiracy, can scarcely be explained upon
any rational principles of human conduct, except we believe that the pre
tended earl of Warwick was set up as a feeler of public opinion. Bacon„
speaking of Margaret of Burgundy, says, " it was not her meaning, nor no
more was it the meaning of any of the better and sager sort that favoured
tills enterprise and knew the secret, that this disguised idol should possess
* ElHa, " Original Letters," Series L, vol. i. p. 19.

liSi.t

BATTLE OF STOKE.

213

the crown ; but at his peril to make way to the overthrow of the king ; and
that done they had their several hopes and ways."* The earl of Lincoln.
and lord Level were of these " better and sager sort ; " and they, with two
thousand troops, under an experienced captain, Martin Swartz, set sail from
Flanders in March, and landing at Dublin, the pupU of Simons the priest
was proclaimed king as Edward VI. Lincoln, the son of the eldest sister of
Edward IV., had been nominated as his heir by Eichard III. ; but in taking
up the cause of the simulated king, in whose name writs had been issued,
and a parliament convoked, at Dublin, he
made no assertion of his own pretensions.
With " a great multitude of Irishmen and
Almains," Lincoln and Level landed on the
Lancashire coast, encamped near Ulverstone,
and marched through Torkshire towards
Newark. Very few joined the band who
proclaimed Edward VI. the head of the house
of Tork. The number of the insurgents, and
their foreign auxUiaries, amounted to eight
thousand men. At Stoke-upon-Trent,- on
the 4th of June, the vanguard of Henry's
army, under the earl of Oxford, was attacked
by this iU-appointed force, of which few
understood regular warfare except the
Germans. The cavalry of the earl of Oxford
soon obtained a victory, in which one-half of
the insurgents were slaughtered. The earl
of Lincoln, lords Thomas and Maurice Fitz
gerald, Sir Thomas Broughton, and the brave
Martin Swartz, feU in the field. Lord Level
escaped ; but was no more heard of. The
seat of this famUy was Minster-Lovel in
Oxfordshire, and that house being pulled
down early in the eighteenth century, " in
a vault was found the person of a man, in
very rich clothing, seated in a chair, with
a table and a mass-book before him, the body
of whom was yet entire when the workmen
entered, but upon admission of the air soon
fell to dust ; from whence we may reasonably
conclude that it was the fate of this unhappy nobleman to have retired to
his own house after the battle before mentioned, and there to have trusted
himself to some servant, by whom he was there immured, and afterwards
neglected, either through treachery or fear, or some accident which befel that
person." t
The pretended earl of Warwick, and Simons the priest, were captured at
the battle of Stoke. The youth, who was named Lambert Simnel, was

A Knight armed, (Reign of
Henry VII.)

* "History of Henry VII,," p, 21.
t " Genealogical History of the House of Yvery," quoted in preface to " Liber de Antiquis
Legibus," p. ccxxxiii.

214 ALLEGED HARSH TREATMENT OP THE WIDOW OF EDWARD IV. [1487.
treated by the king " as an image of wax that others had tempered and
moulded," and was taken into a mean office in Henry's kitchen. " He turned
a broach that had worn a crown." The priest was committed to prison, and
was never more heard of ; "the king loving to seal up his own dangers."
Thus Bacon describes the issue of this mysterious imposture. But he also
says that when Henry knew that the earl of Lincoln was slain, he declared to
some of his council that " he was sorry for the earl's death, because, by him,
he said, he might have known the bottom of his danger." The historian of
Henry VII, relates, as every chronicler had related before him, that, in con
sequence of this attempt to set lip a representative, although a false one, of
the house of Tork, " it was one of the king's first acts to cloister the queen-
dowager in the nunnery of Bermondsey, and to take away all her lands and
estate ; and this by a close counsel, without any legal proceeding, upon far
fetched pretences that she had delivered her two daughters out of sanctuary
to king Eichard, contrary to promise," Eecent investigations have been
held to render this aUeged persecution of the widow of Edward IV. more
than doubtful. Before Lincoln's rebellion she was chosen to be the god
mother of Henry's first-born son. After the battle of Stoke, it was proposed
by the king that she should marry the king of Scotland. She might have
been confined, it is admitted, when Lincoln's attempt became serious ; aa the
earl of Dorset, her son, was also confined. He was released at the coronation
of Henry's queen, in November, 1487. The actions of this king were so
inscrutable, and he was so accustomed to walk in crooked paths, that it is
very difficult in his case, as we believe, to set up a few isolated facts against
a general testimony. Thus, when we find the queen-dowager attending her
daughter, in 1489, when ambassadors from France were received at Court,
we are furnished with no absolute disproof, as alleged, of her enforced seclu
sion at Bermondsey. Nor is the mere proposal that she should marry the
king of Scotland any evidence that Henry did not regard her with suspicion,
and treat her with harshness.* She might be paraded for state purposes
before the ambassadors ; and her name might be used in a negotiation with
Scotland for some covert purpose, never intended to be realised. The
hypothesis of some modem historians as to the cause of her aUeged confine
ment at Bermondsey — having "no worldly goods," as appears by her will,
wherewith to reward any of her children according to her heart and mind —
is, that she was kept in poverty and durance, to prevent her revealing the
existence, and taking measures for establishing the rights, of one of the sons
of king Edward IV., who was still living. Bacon says that the proceedings
against the dowager-queen, being even at that time [1487] taxed as rigorous
and undue, " make it very probable there was some greater matter against
her, which the king, upon reason of policy, and to avoid envy, would not
publish." In judging of this question of the forced seclusion of the mother
of Henry's wife, we must bear in mind that there are two recorded facts
which appear to contradict the less precise statements of historical writers.
But these are scarcely enough to justify the antiquarian contempt with which^
in this instance, the ordinary relations are regarded: " Such, however," says
* Sir N. H. Nicolas and Dr, Lingard consider these facts as conclusive against the statements
of Bacon and the previous chroniclers, Polydore, HaU, and Grafton.

1487.]

THE EARL OF WARWICK EXHIBITED TO THE PEOPLE.

215

Sir H. N. Nicolas, " is history as it is represented by chroniclers, and such
are the effects of historians repeating the statements of their predecessors." *
Let us have aU due respect for records ; but let not such solitary notices of
uncorroborated circumstances be held sufficient to turn aside the whole
current of ordinary testimony. When such testimony is evidently coloured
for a particular object — as the unmeasured vituperation of Eichard III.

Bermondsey, — Remains of the Conventual Buildings,
evidently was by those who wrote in the interests of him whose succession
had a shadow of justice arising out of Eichard's alleged crimes — it may
reasonably be suspected. But it can scarcely be imputed to " the ignorance
or the prejudices of writers to whom implicit credence has been generaUy
given " — chroniclers who wrote with a similar bias towards Henry VII. —
that they aU agree in relating some actions highly discreditable to him, such
as his severity towards the mother of his queen, his prejudice against the
queen herself, and his unrelenting hostUity to the great body of the
supporters of the house of Tork.
There was one straitforward proceeding connected with the insurrection
of 1487, which was a remarkable deviation from Henry's ambiguous policy.
He publicly exhibited the real earl of Warwick to the people, in a procession
from the Tower to St. Paul's ; and he aUowed him, for a short time, to be seen
at his palace of Shene. The serious nature of the insurrection, however
ridiculous its pretence, convinced him also that it was necessary to pursue a
course of more outward respect for the feelings of those who thought that the
union of the two houses was a better foundation for security and peace, than
his own pretensions of hereditary right. After the long-delayed coronation
* "Memoirs of Elizabeth of York," p. Ixxxi.

216 FOREIGN RELATIONS OF ENGLAND. [1487.
of his queen, a due provision was made for her maintenance, and she appeared
with proper state upon public occasions.
The period had arrived when the foreign policy of England was to assume
a very different character from that of the feudal times. It was no longer a
question whether provinces of France should belong to the English crown
and costly wars be undertaken that English nobles should be lords in Nor
mandy and Poitou. But England could not separate herself from the affairs
of the continent ; and her internal administration had stUl an almost inevitable
relation to foreign aUiances and foreign quarrels. The principal European
monarchies having become, to a great extent, consolidated, the policy of
each government was conducted upon a broader scale than that of disturbing
a nation by stimulating a revolt of petty princes against their suzerain. The
contests for dominion were now to be between kingdom and kingdom. The
schemes of rival princes for accessions of territory, or preponderance of
influence through inter-marriages, were to raise up political combinations
amongst other states, whose sovereigns, armed with the powers of war and
peace, would carry on their diplomacy, chiefly according to their own personal
views of what was necessary for aggrandisement or security. In England,
where the ambition of the monarch was limited by the power of parliament to
give or withhold supplies, the disposition to rush into distant quarrels was in
some degree regulated and restrained. King Henry pursued a cautious
and almost timid policy in his foreign relations. It was fortunate for the
material progress of the country that, in the complicated questions of Euro
pean supremacy which were arising, he followed the direction of his own
subtlety, rather than the promptings of the national spirit. He taxed his
people for the ostentation of war, and then put their subsidies into his own
purse. He was a benefactor to this land, however, in his anxiety to preserve
peace between England and Scotland, at a period when the internal troubles
of Scotland, and the death of James III. in battle with his rebellious nobles,
might have tempted a more warlike ruler into new projects of conquest and
concentration of power.
Henry VIL had the strongest obligations of gratitude to the duke of
Britanny, who had sheltered him in his period of exile and poverty. The
duke Francis was advanced in years. Charles VIII. of France was in the
flush of youth, with a sort of rash chivalrous spirit, which was mixed up with
the same love of secret policies as belonged to his intriguing father. During
the period of his tutelage under a regency, a quarrel had arisen between the
governments of Britanny and France, and war was declared against Britanny.
That country was distracted by rival parties, the chief object of contention
being who should marry Anne, the rich heiress of Francis, and thus be ruler
of the duchy after his death. There were several candidates for this prize.
The French government thought it a favourable time to enter upon a war,
for the real purpose of preventing the marriage of the Breton heiress to either
of her suitors, and for the annexation of Britanny to France. Henry VII.
was appealed to for assistance by both parties in the contest. The sympathies
of England went with the weaker state in this struggle. Henry woiUd declare
for neither, but offered himself as a mediator. Charles VIII. was now of an
age to act for himself ; and he carried war into Britanny, and besieged the
duke in his capital of Eennes. Henry, meanwhile, had been employed in his

1488-91.] UNREAL WAR AND REAL TAXATION. 217
natural vocation of state-craft ; promising assistance to the friend of his
adversity, but never rendering it ; asking his parliament for means to resist
the dangerous aggrandisement of France ; and, having obtained a grant of
two-fifteenths, concluding an armistice with Charles. By the end of 1488,
when Francis of Britanny had died, his country was overrun by the French.
Henry was now compelled to do something. He promised an EngUsh army
to the orphan princess Anne ; and at the same time he contrived to let Charles
understand that if the English people compelled him into war, his troops
should act only on the defensive. At the beginning of 1489 he again went to
parliament, and demanded an aid of a hundred thousand pounds. Seventy-
five thousand were granted to him. He raised a force of six thousand archers
and sent them to Britanny, according to his engagement with Anne that this
force should serve in her cause for six months. Tho French king knew pre
cisely what this meant ; avoided any engagement with the English, who as
carefuUy kept out of his way ; and at the end of six months the little army
returned home. Meanwhile the crafty king learnt that it was somewhat
unsafe to play these tricks of cunning with the English people ; for a violent
insurrection had broken out in the northern counties, to resist the payment
of the tax raised for this mockery of war. " This, no doubt," says Bacon,
" proceeded not simply of any present necessity, but much by reason of the
old humour of these countries, where the memory of king Eichard was so
strong, that it lay like lees in the bottom of men's hearts, and if the vessel
was but stirred it would come up." Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland,
who had betrayed Eichard on Bosworth Field, enforced the payment of the
subsidy. " A harsh business was faUen into the hands of a harsh man ; " and
the revolted people murdered him. As a general movement, the insurrection
was soon suppressed by the earl of Surrey. The tax had not yielded what
was expected ; and in 1490, the king again went to parliament for further aid
to carry on the pretended war. He was again at his favourite work of diplo
macy ; entering into alliances with Ferdinand of Spain, and Maximilian, king
of the Eomans, for the aUeged purpose of restraining the growing power of
France, but each having a private and special object. MaxiinUIan wanted the
princess Anne and the duchy of Britanny ; Ferdinand aimed at the restitution
of EousiUon ; all that Henry sought was to get money wherever he could,
either as a bribe from France, or as a repayment of expenses from Anne.
Maximilian was the most open of these royal schemers. He gave manful assist
ance to the oppressed Bretons, and the princess entered into a contract of
marriage with him. Charles of France now put forward his pretensions to
the hand of the lady. The contract was void, he said, because Britanny was
a fief of France, and the lord could control the marriage of an heiress who
was his vassal. This argument was supported by the emphatic presence of a
French army ; and the princess, who resisted tUl resistance was no longer
possible, was forced into a marriage which she hated, and into the conclusion
of a treaty which placed the province, so long independent, under the French
dominion. Whilst these events were ripening, Henry had been employing
the pretence of war as a reason for extorting money under the system of
" Benevolences," which had been annulled by the parliament of Eichard. In
October, 1491, he proclaimed his intentiou of punishing the French king.
He again obtained a large grant from his faithful Lords and Commons, and

218

AN ENGLISH ARMY IN FRANCE.

[1492>
procured several laws to be passed which gave encouragement to the prose
cution of a war, which had become a national object. But, having got the
money, and encouraged many knights and nobles in raising men, he stiU delayed
any active measures' of apparent hostility through the spring, summer, and
autumn of 1492. At length, in October, he landed at Calais with a weU-
appointed army, and invested Boulogne with twenty-five thousand infantry
and sixteen hundred cavalry. The old military spirit of England was again
predominant. But, for three months previous to this costly parade, the wUy

Foot-Soldier of the time of Henry VII.
king had been negotiating a peace with Charles of France ; and it appears in
the highest degree probable that the treaty was actually signed when the
EngUsh forces landed. Henry called a council within a week after his land
ing, and laid before them a rough draft of a treaty offered by France, which
his subservient ministers advised him to sign. This was a public instrument,
by which peace was concluded between the two crowns. There was another
document, a private one, by which Charles was to pay a hundred and forty-
nine thousand pounds to the money-making king of England. The advisers
of Henry were handsomely bribed, as weU as their master. The half-ruined
chiefs of the expedition had no course but that of venting useless execration*

1492,] A HURRIED PEACE; AND ITS MOTIVES, 219
on their dissembling and rapacious sovereign, " who did but traffic in that
war to make his return in money." * Henry, however, had a motive for
pacification, which was even more imperative than his avarice. Charles of
France had a guest at his court, who, if the king of England were really to
become an enemy in earnest, might be let loose to work more damage to the
house of Tudor than any failure in open warfare. One who called himself
Eichard, duke of Tork, was in France acknowledged as the rightful heir to
the English throne, and surrounded with a guard of honour and other demon
strations of confidence and respect. When Henry had concluded the pacifi
cation, the French king commanded this Eichard to leave his dominions. The
peace was welcome to both kings, says Bacon : " to Henry, for that it filled
his coffers, and that he foresaw, at that time, a storm of inward troubles
coming upon him, which presently after broke forth." These "inward
troubles " form the subject of one of the most curious and controverted
passages of English history, — the story commonly known as that of Perkin
Warbeck. The story would not be worth relating in detail if we were to
accept the dogmatic assertion that " the legitimacy of Perkin Warbeck is a
mere freak of paradoxical ingenuity." f We shaU endeavour to put together
a brief narrative of this remarkable claim to the crown, as far as possible from
authentic materials ; not resting wholly on the common supposition that th&
two sons of Edward IV. were murdered, or confidently arguing that the
younger escaped, and re-appeared to demand his inheritance ; but rather
accepting the more safe conclusion of Mr, HaUam, that ".a very strong
conviction either way is not readily attainable," J
* Bacon, t "Edinburgh Review," June, 1826, p. 2.
J "Middle Ages," chap, viii. part iii.

Sovereign of Henry VII.

CHAPTER XIV.
A young man received at Cork as the second son of Edward IV, — Ex-parte accounts of Perkin
'Warbeck — Letter from "Richard Plantagenet" to Isabella, queen of Spain — Henry
requires the surrender of Richard from the dnke of Austria — Ajrests and executions in
England — Sir William Stanley impeached by Clifford, whom Henry had bribed — Arrests
in Ireland — Statute regarding allegiance to a king de facto — Richard, so-called, in
Scotland — Correspondence of Bothwell — Difficulties of an imposture — Invasion by the
Scots — The Cornish insurrection— Captivity of the adventurer — Alleged treason of the
earl of Warwick — Warwick and his fellow-prisoner executed.
It was about the beginning of 1492, when king Henry was busied in
laaking a great show of preparation for war 'with France, that a small
merchant-vessel from Lisbon entered the Cove of Cork, and landed a young
man who was amongst the passengers. Bacon has described him as of fine
countenance and shape ; " but more than that, he had such a crafty and
bewitching fashion, both to move pity and to induce belief, as was like a
kind of fascination or enchantment to those that saw him or heard him."
The rumour went through Cork that he was the second son of Edward IV. ;
and the citizens, encouraged by John AVater, who had been their mayor,
became enthusiastic in his behalf. The earl of Desmond, who had been devotedly
attached to the house of Tork, declared in favour of this supposed represen
tative of that house ; and the earl of Kildare offered him some assistance.
Bacon says that " he wrote his letters unto the earls of Desmond and KUdare
to come in to his aid, and be of his party, the originals of which letters are
yet extant." But the young man remained only a short time in Ireland ; and
then passed over to France, as we have before indicated.* After the peace
of Estaples, he left the court of Charles VIIL, and proceeded to Flanders,
where he claimed the protection of Margaret, duchess of Burgundy, the sister
of Edward IV. To this princess, whom the friends of Henry called Juno,
because they believed she was to him the cause of every mischief, as Juno was
* See ante, p. 219.

1492,] EX-PARTE ACCOUNTS OP PERKIN WARBECK. 221
to jEneas, is assigned by all the chroniclers the scheme of raising up an
impostor, and preparing him for his part before his appearance in Ireland,
Hall says, " she kept him a certain space with her privily, and him with such
dUigence instructed, both of the secrets and common affairs of the realm of
England, and of the lineage, descent, and order of the house of Tork, that he,
like a good scholar not forgetting his lesson, could tell aU that was taught
him promptly." * Bacon is more minute, stating that the duchess described to
him, whom " she kept by her a great while, but with extreme secrecy," what
ever related to the person of Eichard, duke of Tork ; and made him have
an accurate impression of the features and manners of Edward, and his
queen, their family, and aU those who would have beeu about the princes in
their childhood. To these statements it has been objected that the duchess
of Burgundy was married out of England seven years before Eichard of Tork
was born, and having never returned was little capable of entering into
miaute circumstances connected with the English court.f But the " Ward
robe Accounts of Edward IV." show that this sister of Edward was in
England for six weeks, in 1480, and thus could have acquired the intimate
knowledge with which she formed her apt scholar.^ The circumstances
which the chroniclers relate of the life of this young man, before his aUeged
instruction at the court of the duchess of Burgundy, are in many respects
inconsistent with what is certain in his subsequent career, especially when
they attempt any great exactness. Hall's notice of his early years, in its
vague generalisation, is less suspicious. He says that this youth, " traveUing
many countries, could speak EngUsh and many other languages, and from the
baseness of his birth was known to none almost ; and, only for the gain of his
living, from his chUdhood, was of necessity compelled to seek and frequent
divers realms and regions." When the young man's adherents had been
sacrificed to the vengeance of Henry, and he was reduced to the condition of
a degraded captive, he is related to have " read openly his own confession
written with his own hand." § Bacon calls this document, which he says was
printed and dispersed abroad, "an extract" of such parts of the confession
"as were fit to be di-vnlged ; " and he truly describes it as " a laboured tale
of particulars of Perkin's father, and mother, and grandsire, and grandmother,
and uncles, and cousins, and from what places he traveUed up and down."
In this " confession " there is not a word of the duchess of Burgundy ; and
the whole period of the young man's life, from his birth " in the town of
Toumay in Flanders " to his coming from Portugal to Cork, is attempted to
be accounted for, by relating his various services under Flemish, Portuguese,
and Breton masters, especially his service for a whole year with a knight that
dwelt in Lisbon, "which said knight had but one eye." This narrative
might readUy excite Bacon's contempt, however strong his conviction of the
so-caUed Perkin being an impostor, were it only for the absurd statement
that when the young man landed in Cork, the people of the town, because he
was arrayed in some of his master's fine sUken clothes, laid hold of him ; and
maiatained, first, that he was the son of the duke of Clarence ; next, that he
* Chronicle, 7th year of Henry VII.
+ "Historic Doubts." t Sir N. H, Nicolas,
§ This confession is given by HaU, as "the very copy." Fabyan and Polydore Vergil offer
no account of such a document.

222 LETTER TO ISABELLA, QUEEN OP SPAIN. [1493.
was the iUegitimate son of Eichard III. ; and lastly, called him duke of
Tork, ." and so against my wUl made me to learn English, and taught me what
I should do and say." This confession sets out with declaring that his
father's name was John Osbeck, who was comptroller of the town of Tournay.
King Henry, in instructions which he gave, in 1494, to a herald employed as
his confidential envoy, says, " It is notorious that the said gar§on is of no
consanguinity or kin to the late king Edward, but is a native of the town of
Tournay, and son of a boatman who is named Warbec ; as the king is
certainly assured, as well by those who are acquainted with his life and
habits, as by some others his companions, who are at present with the
king ; and others still are beyond the sea, who have been brought up with
him in their youth."* Bernard Andre, the poet-laureat of Henry VIL,
states in his MS. life of his patron, that Perkin, when a boy, was " servant iu
England to a Jew named Edward, who was baptised, and adopted as godson
by Edward IV., and was on terms of intimacy with the king and his famUy."t
Speed, mistranslating Andre's words, makes Perkin the son of the Jew,
instead of the servant ; and Bacon amplifies the error, and transforms John
Osbeck into the convert Jew, who, having a handsome wife, it might be
surmised why the licentious king " should become gossip in so mean a
house," Hume adds, " people thence accounted for that resemblance which
was afterwards remarked between young Perkin and that monarch." The
surmise of Bacon, grounded upon the error of Speed, is clenched into the
positive assertion of Hume as to a popular belief for which there is not the
slightest ground.
We may now turn from the ex-parte statements which represent the
young adventurer as of low birth and mean education, to an undoubted
document in which he sets forth his own history. It is a Latin letter written
to Isabella, queen of Spain, wife of king Ferdinand, and is dated from
Dendermonde, August 25, 1493. f This letter is so interesting, that we take
the freedom of re-publishing that portion of it which relates the early history
of him who subscribes himself, " Eichard Plantagenet, second son of Edward
formerly king, duke of Tork, &c."
" Most serene and most exceUent Princess, my most honoured Lady and
Cousin, I commend me entirely to your Majesty. Whereas the prince of
Wales, eldest son of Edward formerly king of England, of pious memory, my
dearest lord and father, was miserably put to death, and I myself, then nearly
nine years of age, was also delivered to a certain lord to be kUled, it pleased
the Divine Clemency that that lord, having compassion on my innocence,
preserved me alive and in safety ; first, however, causing me to swear on the
holy sacrament, that to no one should I disclose my name, origin, or family,
nntil a certain number of years had passed. He sent me therefore abroad,
with two persons, who should watch over and take charge of me ; and thus I,
an orphan, bereaved of my royal father and brother, an exUe from my kingdom,
and deprived of country, inheritance and fortune, a fugitive in the midst of
extreme perUs, led my miserable Ufe in fear, and weeping, and grief, and for
* From the very valuable collection of "Documents relating to Perkin Warbeck," published
by Sir Frederic Madden in " Archseologia," vol. xxvii. p. 165, + Ihid., p, 163,
+ This most curious letter, first published by Sir Frederic Madden, is in the British Museum .
The paper in the " Archseologia " gives a copy of the original, as well as a translation.

1493.] HENRY REQUIRES THE SURRENDER OF RICHARD. 223
the space of nearly eight years lay hid in divers provinces. At length, one
of those who had charge of me being dead, and the other returned to his
country, and never afterwards seen, scarcely had I emerged from childhood,
alone and without means, I remained for a time in the kingdom of Portugal,
and thence sailed to Ireland, where being recognised by the illustrious lords,
the earls of Desmond and Kildare, my cousins, as also by other noblemen of
the island, I was received with great joy and honor. Thence being invited
by the king of France, with many ships and attendants, and having been
promised aid and assistance against Henry of Eichmond, the wicked usurper
of the kingdom of England, I came to the aforesaid king of France, who
received me honorably, as a kinsman and friend. But on his failing to afford
me the promised assistance, I betook myself to the iUustrious princess, the
lady duchess of Burgundy, sister of my father, my dearest aunt, who, with
her known humanity and virtue, welcomed me with all piety and honor ; out
of regard also to her, the most serene king of the Eomans, and his son, the
archduke of Austria, and the duke of Saxony, my dearest cousins, as likewise
the kings of Denmark and Scotland, who sent to me their envoys, for the
purpose of friendship and alliance. The great nobles of the kingdom of
England did the same, who execrate the proud and wicked tyranny of this
Henry of Eichmond." * The letter then, concludes with a touching appeal
to Isabella, on account of their consanguinity, that she should influence the
king of Spain to pity the numerous calamities of the house of Tork, and
further him with assistance.
At the time when the so-styled " Eichard Plantagenet " wrote this letter
from Dendermonde, a town belonging to the archduke of Austria, Henry
had despatched an embassy to the archduke as sovereign of Burgundy, to
protest against his affording any assistance to an adventurer of low birth,
maintaining that the sons of Edward were murdered in the Tower by their
uncle, "which to believe or affirm otherwise would be the height of madness."t
The ambassadors were also directed to declare Margaret of Burgundy as the
instigator of this plot against the king of England,^ The envoys of the
king, Sir Edward Poynlngs and Dr. Warham, demanded the surrender of him
who called himself Eichard of Tork, or his expulsion from the territory of
the archduke. The council of the sovereign of Burgundy was divided in
opinion as to the pretensions of the adventurer ; and it was returned for
answer, that the archduke would render him no aid, but that he could not
control the duchess Margaret, who, on the lands which she held as her
dower, was wholly independent, Henry was indignant at this practical
rejection of his demand ; and, by way of revenge, strictly prohibited all
'* Sir Frederic Madden conceives that a proof of the imposition of Perkin is furnished in this
letter, by the assertion that the duke of York was ' ' nearly nine years of age " at the time of
his escape, when he was really in his eleventh year. Sir F, Madden, upon the testimony of a
herald, believes that the second son of king Edward was born in 1472, His birth has been
commonly referred to 1473, Sir H, Nicolas says, "The date of the birth of this prince has not
been exactly ascertained, but it may be assigned to the year 1472," The princes were in the
Tower in June, 1483.
•|- The king's examination of the supposed murderers was made at this period, according to
Bacon. See ante, p, 191.
X The substance of the instructions to the ambassadors is given by Polydore Vergil. Sea
"Documents relating to Perkin Warbeck," p, 160.

221 ARRESTS AND EXECUTIONS IN ENGLAND. [1494,
intercourse between England and Flanders, and removed the mart of EngUsh
cloth from Antwerp, He had made a hasty peace with France, that the
pretensions of one whom he professed to regard as a contemptible impostor
should not be put forward and advocated ; and he now inflicted the most
serious injury upon the commerce of England, because the son of the boatman
of Tournay was not surrendered to him. It seems incredible that the facts
of this young man's origin and education, which Henry professed to have
received from his companions, and those brought up with him in their youth,
should not have been known to the ministers of the archduke PhUip. If the
same inquiries at Tournay, as Henry alleged to have been made, had
established the imposture, it is scarcely to be believed that respect for the
dowager-duchess of Burgundy's fraudulent schemes would have led the
archduke to encounter the hostUity of Henry, who had ample means of injury
at his command.
The pretensions of the adventurer in Flanders gradually found powerful
but secret supporters in England. In August, 1494, Henry had instructed
his envoy to declare to the court of France, that " there is no nobleman,
gentleman, or person of any condition in the realm of England, that does not
well know that it is a manifest and evident imposture." * The same agent
was sent a second time to the French king, with instructions dated the 30th
of December in the same year, to express the indifference which Henry
affected to feel for this attempt to shake his title. Tet at this time the
subtle king was engaged in corrupting Sir Eobert Clifford to betray the
associates who had sent him to Flanders ; and to whom Clifford had reported
that the young man was the indubitable " White Eose." On the 20th of
January, 1495, there is this signiflcant entry in the pri-vy purse expenses of
Henry VII. : — " Delivered to Sir Eobert Clifford, by the hand of Master
Bray, 5001." Towards the end of 1494, lord Fitzwalter, Sir Simon Mountford,
Sir Thomas Thwaites, Eobert Eatcliffe, and others, were arrested on a charge
of high treason, and were proved to have corresponded 'with the friends of
Eichard abroad. All received sentence of death ; and Mountford, Thwaites,
and Eatcliffe were at once executed. On the 7th of January, CUfford, who was
considered by some to have been a spy from the beginning, arrived from
Flanders ; and, throwing himself on his knees before the king, humbly
suppUcated for pardon, when he was certain that he should receive a reward.
He was commanded to tell all he knew ; and forthwith impeached Sir William
Stanley. The rich and powerful knight, who had saved the life of the earl of
Eichmond on Bosworth Field, when the onslaught of Eichard would have
been fatal without such interposition — the faithful chamberlain of king
Henry VII. — was accused of favouring the pretensions of the "gar9on"
in Flanders, and had said, that were he sure that he was the son of Edward,
he would never flght against him. He had one quality which obUterated
from the king's mind aU claims of ancient friendship. He was enormously
rich ; and when Henry knew that Stanley's head had fallen on the sawdust
of the scaffold on Tower-hill, he had the further satisfaction of putting forty
thousand pounds of money and plate into his own treasury, and of securing
Lands to the cro-wn worth three thousand annual pounds. There are two
* Instructions to Eichmond, King-at-arms, " Archaeologia," vol. xxvii. p. 165.

1494,] Ili,EI,.\ND— KING DE FACTO, 22B
entries in his " Privy Purse Expenses " which show that this dear friend of
Stanley was not wholly wanting in generosity on the last occasion in which
friendship could be exhibited. The king gave " To sir William Stanley, at
his execution, lOZ," — supposed to be a reward to the headsman ; and he paid
151. 19s. for his " buruil at Syon," *
Whilst these severe measures were proceeding In England, against those
who had taken an interest in the fortunes of the young man who was
supported by Margaret of Burgundy, Sir Edward Poynlngs, appointed the
deputy of Ireland, was employed with an army " to search and purge all
such towns and places where Perkin was received, relieved, or favoured." t
The earl of Kildare was arrested, and sent to England, A parliament was
called by the deputy, in which some salutary laws were enacted ; recent
English statutes were declared to have the force of law ; and it was provided
that all measures brought before the Irish legislature should have the previous
approval of the king and council in England, Henry chose to deal ¦with
clemency towards those who had supported the adventurer who landed at
Cork in 1492, He reversed the attainder of the earl of Kildare ; pardoned
the earl of Desmond ; and only excepted from his mercy lord Barry and
John Water, In the middle of July, 1495, a bold effort was made by
" Eichard " to land at Deal, with a portion of his foreign troops. The
inhabitants repulsed the invaders, and made prisoners of a hundred and sixty-
nine, all of whom Henry caused to be hanged. Their young leader returned
to his protectress, after au ineffectual attempt to besiege Waterford, But,
early in 1496, Henry concluded a commercial treaty with Philip, the arch
duke, to which an article was annexed that the rebels of either prince should be
expelled from their territories, if required. In a few months, the young man,
driven out from the Burgundian provinces, was dwelling in honour at the court
of James IV,, in Scotland, having arrived there with a considerable military
force. At this period a statute was passed, which indicates that the Lords and
Commons thought it necessary to take some measure of security, that in a
possible change of dynasty the supporters of the reigning king should not be
exposed to the renewal of such persecutions as had occurred in the times of
Henry VI, and Edward IV. The act declares, that " subjects are bounden to
serve their prince and sovereign lord for the time being, in his wars for the
defence of him and the land, against ' every rebellion, power, and might
reared against him." It then enacts that no person for the same " true
service of aUegiance" shall be " convict or attaint of high treason rior of other
offences for that cause." J Tliis constitutional principle, thus solemnly set
forth at a time when there was a doubtful claimant of the crown in arms, and
a true Plantagenet in prison, is e-vidence that the probability of a real war for
the succession was strongly impressed upon those who had everything to
risk in such a conflict.
The employment of spies was an established principle of the government
of Henry. There are repeated entries In his book of " Privy Purse Expenses "
of payments to these dangerous tools. In one place the entry is " To a
fellow with a beard — a spy, in reward, 11." In another, " To two monks, spies,
'^ " Privy Purse Expenses," published in "Excerpta Historica," p, 101, t HaU.
J Statutes, by Authority, 11 Henry VII. c. 1, p. 668.

226 RICHARD, SO CALLED, IN SCOTLAND. [1496.
in reward, 21." He had his men, too, ready for bold acts of violence as weU
as treachery. One of his most devoted instruments was Eamsay, lord
BothweU, who was ambassador from James III. of Scotland to Henry, and
who was proscribed in the parliament which James IV. called at Edinburgh,
in 1488. In 1491 BothweU was in England, and was in the intimate con
fidence of Henry ; for he concluded an agreement with sir Thomas Todde that
he, and the earl of Buchan, should seize the persons of king James and his
brother, and deliver them to the king of England. In a statute of that year,
all Scots are commanded to depart the realm, because the king of Scotland
and his subjects will not observe treaties of amity ; " for the which it is better
to be with them at open war than under such a feigned peace." According
to the indenture which Bothwell signed, Henry had advanced on loan
266Z, 13s, 4>d., to excite an act of treachery against his neighbour-king, at
the time of this " feigned peace," There was no open war, nor had there
been for some years, when the adventurer from Flanders appeared at the
Scottish court. But James IV. had no cause to love Henry, and he gave a
ready welcome to him who was prepared to dispute the throne of England
with its possessor. He treated him in every respect as the real duke of
Tork ; and he gave the most absolute proof of his conviction of the truth of
his pretensions by bestewing upon him in marriage his own kinswoman, lady
Catherine Gordon. At the court of James IV., the young man so favoured
was attended by fourteen hundred men, of aU nations. It appears from a very
curious paper, dated at Eouen, in March, 1496, purporting to disclose a plot
against the life of Henry VIL, that the men and money with which the self-
styled duke of Tork was supplied came from MaximUian, king of the Eomans,
and not from the duchess of Burgundy, The prior of St, John of Jerusalem
i (, accused in this paper of being privy to the conspiracy ; and it is alleged
that " when Perkin Warbeck was in Flanders, a servant of his often wrote
letters to the said prior of St, John," in one of which it was stated in words
of secret signification, " how the Merchant of the Euby was not able to sell
his merchandise in Flanders at the price he demanded, on which account he
had gone to the court of the king of the Eomans." The " Merchant of the
Euby" is further explained to be "Perkin Warbeck."* With other help,
then, than that of Margaret of Burgundy, he has come to show his merchandise
to James of Scotland. But Henry of England is not sleeping. Wherever
there Is danger, there he has his spies. Eamsay, lord BothweU, has obtained
a licence for his return to the Scottish court. His relations with Henry
are amongst the deepest secrets. He enters into the palace of James ; he
sees his guests ; he is informed of his councils. His business is to obtain
the best intelligence for the king of England, and to perpetrate any atrocity
that is within his power, either by corruption or violence. Through two
extant letters of this most accomplished spy, we have a distinct view of the
position of the so-called Eichard, in the autumn of 1496. f We learn, from
the first letter, that the war which James was contemplating in favour of the
adventurer was against the will of the nobles and the people ; and that Bothwell
* This singular narrative first appears in Sir F. Maddens paper in the "Archaeologia,"'
vol. xxvii,
t Ellis, "Original Letters," Series I., vol, i, pp. 22 to 32, The letters of Bothwell are in
the Scotch dialect.

1496,J CORRESPONDENCE OF BOTHWULL. 227
liad won over tbe brother of Jamos to promise that he would not join the
host against Henry, But he also informs the king that he has been busy
about the matter that Master Wyat propounded to him ; and that " my lord
of Buchan takes upon him the fulfiUIng of it," My lord of Buchan is the
worthy who bargained with Henry to seize his young king, James IV. ; and
now he is ready to enterprise another matter, — which is, "in the long night,"
to make a prisoner " within his tent " of that guest of the king of Scotland
whom Henry dreads ; " for he has no watch but the king's appointed to be
about him ; and they have ordained the Englishmen and the strangers to be
at another quarter," There came a man, Bothwell says, on the 25th of August,
out of Carlisle to " Perkin," and " Perkin " brought him to the king ; and
that the man came from the brother of lord Dacre, as he learnt from secret
information. The Northumberland men came to meetings between them and
Scotsmen, He then urges Henry to be prepared for attack. In a second
letter, Bothwell protests that " all this long time I have remained under
respite and assurance within the realm of Scotland, and most in the court
about the king, gi-ving attendance and making labours to do your grace the
best ser-vice I can, and have fuU ofttimes solicited the king's highness, and all the
well-advised lords of this realm, to leave the favour and support they give to
this feigned boy," The king, he goes on to say, with all the whole people
of his realm he can make, and Perkin and his company with him, in number
fourteen hundred of aU nations, will enter England on the 17th of September,
" in the quarrel of this same feigned boy," In another passage we see that
"the feigned boy " treated upon affairs of national Import as a sovereign
prince, not eagerly catching at any prospect of assistance, but deliberating
upon terms as if he were already lord of the realm which he claimed : " Sir,
the second day of September the king sent for his lords that were nearest
about him, and caused them to pass into the chamber of council, and thereafter
called Perkin to them, and they laid many desires to him, both anent the
restorance of the seven sheriffdoms, the delivery of the castle and town of
Ber-wick ; and also for the listing of the king's army, and for charges made
upon him and his company, to bind him to pay one hundred thousand marks
within five years after his entry. To this asked he delay until the morn ; and
on the morn entered he in the council, and took with him sir George Neville,
Lound the priest, and Heron ; and after long communing has bound him to
deUver Berwick, and to pay for the costs made on him fifty thousand marks
in two years, and thus is this taken up In writing," The lord Concressault
¦ — he who was captain of the guard of honour when the adventurer was first
welcomed by the king of France — comes to the Scottish court, professing that
he was sent to offer a mediation between England and Scotland, The crafty
Bothwell goes on to say, pressing Henry to be " privy," that he had wormed
out of the lord Concressault, that he had offered the king of Scotland a
hundred thousand crowns to send Perkin into France, He adds, " I think
his coming hither has done but little good, for he and the boy are every day
in counsel," The traitor to his country constantly urges Henry to come
quickly and make war In Scotland, setting forth the poverty of James,
"who had not a hundred pounds tiU he had coined his chains and his
plate.'' The following is one of the most curious passages of the corre
spondence : " Sir, here is come out of Flanders Eoderick de la Lane, with
Q 2

228 DIFFICULTIES OF AN IMPOSTURE, [1496.
two little ships and three hundred of Almains, I stood by when the king
received him in presence of Perkin ; and thus he said in French : ' Sir, I am
come here according to my promise to do your highness service, and for none
other man's sake am I come here ; for an 'I had not had your letters ot
warrant, I had been arrested in Flanders' and put to great trouble for
Perkin's sake,' And he came not near Perkin, And then came Perkin to
him, and he saluted him, and asked how his aunt did ; and he said,
' Well,' And he inquired if he had any letters from her to him, and
he said he durst bring none, but [what] he had for the king. And
surely he has brought the king sundry pleasant things for the war, both for
man and horse."
We may judge from such authentic materials for history how difficult must
have been the part which the young man had to play at the court of
Scotland ; married to a beautiful woman of the royal blood, whose love would
have turned to hate against a low-born impostor — surrounded by jealous
nobles — moving in presence of Henry's spy — and subject to the prying
inquiries of the French ambassador, who told Bothwell " how great inquisi
tion was made to understand of Perkin's birth, both by the admiral and him."
And yet he seems to have borne all this ordeal without blemish ; for
Bothwell states that he showed the French ambassador a paper about the
origin of " the feigned boy," drawn up by Meautis, Henry's French
secretary, and the ambassador "plainly said he never understood it, but
rather trowed the contrary," At this season, a letter is written by the you-ng
man, dated from Edinburgh, October 18th, to Sir Bernard de la Forse, who
had been employed by Edward IV,, and had been the envoy of Eichard III.
to Spain ; in which he desires the knight to be to him " as loving, faithful,
and kind counsellor and friend, as ye were unto our said father ; " praying
him to do him the service of ascertaining " the good heart and mind that our
most dear cousin, the king of Spain, beareth toward us ; " and promising
that he would be ready to perform any good in his power to him, and to
•' our right trusty and well-beloved servant, your son, Antony de la Forse,
which hath full lovingly given his long attendance upon us in sundry
countries." The autograph signature to this letter, " Tour friend Eichard
of England," is, as the fac-simile shows, " very remarkable from its bold and
thoroughly English character, and would cause one to believe that the educa
tion of Perkin, in this respect, must have been attended to with considerable
care." * In many other respects his education could not have been neglected.
His abilities and acquirements must have been tested at the court of James,
a poet himself and an encourager of letters, who brought the art of printing
into Scotland. An ignorant impostor, qualified only by cunning for the
difficult game he had to play, would have found himself ill at ease in the
company of Gawin Douglas and WuLi'ain Dunbar, Whatever be the con
tradictory evidence which prevonts ub yielding an unqualified belief that this
was the son of Edward IV., it is manifest that for years he sustained his
part, without betraying by a single accident of self-consciousness that he was
a deceiver, whose temporary elevation would only make his ultimate fall
more humiliating. The theory that he was set up to act this part, as the
* Sir F, Madden, " Archwolsgia," vol, xxvii. p, 184.

1496.J INVASION BY THE SCOTS, 219
cliild Lambert Simnel had done before him, to prepare the way for the
succession of the earl of Warwick, appears Irreconclleable with the fact of tho
open nature, and continuance, of the support which he received from the
duchess of Burgundy, the king of the Eomans, and the king of Scotland.
The employment of the men and money at his command, however supplied,
was wholly within his own power.
The winter was approaching, when James IV. and his adopted ally advanced
with an army into Scotland. A proclamation signed E. E. was issued in the
name of " the king of England ; " which set forth the escape of the sou of
Edward IV. from the Tower, and his residence abroad, with little variation
from the statement made to Isabella of Spain. It denounced Henry Tydder
as a false usurper of the crown of England ; called upon the people to arm
in the cause of the true king ; aud promised rewards to such as should take
or distress his mortal enemy. The king of Scotland had come to aid his
righteous quarrel, and after the usurper was subdued would return peaceably
into his own kingdom. This appeal to the people of England was wholly
unsuccessful. If there had been no doubt whatever of the identity of the duke
of Tork, it is very questionable if the nation generally would have stirred in a
new war of succession. With the exception of the battle of Stoke, there had been
internal peace for eleven years. Before the battle of Bosworth there had
been no sword of Englishman drawn against Englishman for fourteen years.
A quarter of a century of almost unbroken peace had enabled a generation to
settle down in the quiet pursuits of industry, under a king essentially
pacific. If Henry would abstain from grinding them by subsidies, and
maintain order and security of property, they were as contented to be
governed by the house of Tudor as by the house of Tork, The people would
fight for their own liberties, but not for a barren title. But when an army
of Scots, headed by the king of Scotland, entered England, the sturdy North
men looked upon that invasion as the act of the ancient national enemy, and
the fierce hatreds of centuries were again in full force. No alliance could
have been more unpropitious than this ; and it was felt to be so in the care
with which the proclamation affirmed that the Scots came only in " true and
faithful love and amity." James and his friend marched back to Scotland,
their army having done much mischief, but having produced no political
results. The invasion of England, and the natural excesses which accompanied it,
offered a fit occasion for Henry to demand a large grant from parliament.
The tax was paid without resistance in most parts of the kingdom. But in
Cornwall, the people were instigated by one Flammock, an attorney, and by
a farrier, to take up arms ; for they said the northern counties ought to pay
for the means of defence, with which the western had no concern. Sixteen
thousand insurgents commenced a progress to London, to demand the
punishment of the king's ministers, archbishop Morton and sir Eeginald
Gray, as the promoters of the tax. Lord Audely placed himself at their head,
when they had reached Wells. At Blackheath they encamped. A battle
took place on the 22nd of June. At the bridge at Deptford they obstinately
defended the passage against the king's troops. But the bridge was forced ;
and they fled in consternation. There was a great slaughter, and many
hundred prisoners were taken. Audely was beheaded, and the attorney and

230 THE CORNISH INSURRECTION. .14EY.
the farrier were hanged. Henry treated the prisoners with a politic mercy,
and they returned home. During this insurrection James again crossed the
border, and besieged Norham castle. But he retreated before the earl of
Surrey. The ambassador of Ferdinand of Spain now undertook to mediate
between James and Henry ; and a truce was finally concluded. Henry
required that Perkin should be given up, but without success. The dis
appointed pretender to the crown of England now quitted the court of James,
having received a safe conduct from his chivalric supporter. He departed
from Scotland 'with four ships, and a small body of foUowers. Once more he
addressed himself to his old friends at Cork, but received no encouragement.
He then sailed to the coast of Cornwall ; and in September landed at Whitsand
Bay, The Cornishmen, stUl disposed for revolt, flocked to the standard of
Eichard the Fourth. He seized St. Michael's Mount ; and there he left his
wife, Catherine, the faithful sharer of his fortunes. The enterprise now
began to wear a more serious aspect than at any former period. Before the
adventurer had reached Exeter he had six thou
sand men under his command. King Henry
himself has related the issue, in a letter to the
bishop of Bath and Wells, dated from Wood
stock, the 20th of September.* Perkin, he says,
is landed ; " our commons of CornwaU take his
part, but no gentleman. On the 17th of Sep
tember he came before Exeter, and attacked the
east gate and the north gate, but they were so
defended that he lost three or four hundred of
his company." The king then encloses a letter
from the earl of Devonshire, which describes
another attack on the 18th. A local record
states that the north gate was burnt, and that
Autograph of Henry VII. the Insurgcuts forccd an entrance into the tovra
by the east gate, but were repulsed by the
citlzens.t The insurgents and their leader then quitted Exeter, without
molestation; and proceeded to CoUumpton, where, says the earl, "many
of his company departed from him, and I trust more wiU." On the
25th of September, the king himself writes to one of his. nobles: " Cousin,
trust for certain that upon Thursday about midnight, Perkin fled
from his company at Taunton, and took no leave nor licence of them." J
It appears that very heavy fines were levied upon many persons who
had favoured these western insurrections, amounting, in Somerset, Dorset,
WUts, Hampshire, and Devon, to nearly ten thousand pounds ; so
that some support was given to these rash enterprises beyond that of the
class whom HaU calls " dung-hU] ruffians," Amongst those so fined were
four abbots. The forsaken adventurer rode through that autumn night from
Taunton to the monastery of EeauUeu, in the New Forest, whose ruins stiU
show its ancient importance. Here he demanded sanctuary on the 21st of
September. The privUeged retreat was quickly surrounded by the king's
forces ; and in a few days he surrendered, upon a promise that his Ufe should

* Ellis, "Original Letters," Series L, vol, i. f Ibid., p. 39, in note.

Ibid.

1497.J CAPTIVITY OP THE ADVENTURER. 231
be spared. Henry was most anxious to secure the wife of the captive ; and
having effected his object without difficulty, he placed her under the pro
tection of his queen. Her beauty obtained for Catherine the name of " The
White Eose," when the utterance of that name with sympathy was no longer
dangerous. Fabyan, the Londoner, briefly relates, that, on the 28th of November,
" Perkin was brought through the city unto the Tower, and there left as
prisoner." Others state that he was taken leisurely on horseback through
the city to the Tower, and then back again to Westminster. The story of
his confessing his imposture in the presence of his wife rests upon no credible
authority, and is not mentioned by Fabyan, HaU, or Bacon, The confession
which he is stated to have made, of which Bacon speaks so contemptuously,
was then dispersed abroad.* A letter from the king to the mayor of
Waterford states, that "The said Perkin came unto us to the town of
Taunton, from whence he fled ; and immediately after his first coming,
humbly submitting himself to us, hath of his free will openly showed, in tho
presence of all the lords here with us and all nobles, his name to be Pierce
Osbeck, whence he has been named Perkin Warbeck." t It is precisely the
same tale which Henry desired his herald to promulgate about "the gar9on,"
in 1494. There is no copy set forth of the evidence so taken before " all
the lords ; " no attesting witnesses to the statement. It was altogether what
B^con describes as " the king's manner of showing things by pieces and dark
lights." During seven months' imprisonment of Henry's captive, he was not
treated with indignity. He was allowed to take exercise on horseback ; for
there is an entry in Henry's " Privy-Purse Expenses," of a payment, at the
rate of 5d. a-day, during three months of 1498, "for Perkyn's horse-meat;"
and another payment of lis, " for Perkyn's riding-gown," J There is no
distinct statement of his abiding place at this period. He was not concealed ;
but there was Uttle chance that he could have been identified as the real duke
of Tork, who purported to have escaped from the Tower fifteen years before,
or ascertained to be an impostor, through casual glances at his person.
Elizabeth, the widow of Edward IV., died in the very year when this 'adven
turer first landed at Cork. The queen of Henry VII., and her sisters,
probably never saw him. He was as effectually deprived of aU opportunities
of private communication with others, as if he had been shut up within stone
waUs. According to Hall, his apparent freedom was an insupportable
durance ; for " the king appointed certain keepers to attend upon him,
which should not, the breadth of a nail, go from his person." In June,
1498, he escaped, and fied towards the coast. But he was in the toils,
" Every by-way and lane was set abroad with the king's guard." In his
despair, he turned back from the road to the sea, and threw himself into the
priory of Sheen. The prior obtained from the king a promise that the
fugitive's life should be spared ; and the Tower then became his close prison.
HaU relates, that upon being conveyed to London, " Perkin was brought to
the court again to Westminster, with many a curse and reproach, and wan
one day set fettered in a pair of stocks before the door of Westminster haU ."
* See ante, p, 221, t Note of Sir F, Madden in " Archffiologia," vol. xxvii. p. 188.
$ "Excerpta Historica," p. 117.

232 ALLEGED TRE.iSON OF THE EARL OF WARWICK. [IIO'J.
The chronicler adds, that the next day he was exhibited in the same way
before the Standard in Cheap, and there " read openly his confession, written
with his own hand." There was another prisoner in the Tower, who had
there pined for fourteen years, Edward, earl of Warwick. From June, 1498,
to November, 1499, these young men were fellow-prisoners. They probably had
some means of intercourse, open or secret, during these sixteen months. In
March, 1499, another pretended earl of Warwick appeared in Kent, and was
announced from the pulpit by a friar of the order of St, Augustine. The poor
tool, Wulford, was hanged, and the friar was imprisoned. Hall writes, that
the friar set on foot this scheme, " to the intent to bring this earl into disdain
and hatred," Men were not slow to believe that " this was but the king's
device," * The earl of Warwick stood in the way of Henry's family projects,
A negotiation was proceeding to marry Arthur, prince of Wales, to Catherine,
the daughter of Ferdinand of Spain. " Ferdinand," says Bacon, " had
written to the king in plain terms, that he saw no assurance of his succession
as long as the earl of Warwick Uved ; and that he was loth to send his daughter
to troubles and dangers," The suggestion was not thrown away upon such
an unprincipled schemer as Henry VII. " Lady Catherine herself, a sad
and a religious woman, long after, when king Henry the Eighth's resolution
of a divorce from her was first made known to her, used some words, — that
she had not offended, but it was a judgment of God, for that her former
marriage was made in blood, — meaning that of the earl of Warwick." f On
the 2l8t of November, 1499, an indictment was preferred before the Lord
High Steward and the Peers against the earl of Warwick for high treason.
It set forth that two men, Thomas Astwood, one of Warwick's keepers, and
Eobert Cleymound, had, in August, conspired with him to make him king.
They were to seize the Tower, and there defend themselves ; or to obtain the
royal treasure there, blow up the powder-magazine, and in the confusion
escape. But it was also averred in the same wonderful document, that it
was intended to make " Peter Warbeck, of Tournay," king. Cleymound, it
was affirmed, with the assent of Warwick, knocked on the floor, Warbeck
being confined beneath, and caUed out, " Perkin, be of good cheer and
comfort ; and afterwards the earl made a hole in the floor, to the intent
that he might converse with him concerning the said treason." The
chronicler states that Perkin, " by false persuasions and liberal promises, cor
rupted Strangeways, Blewet, Astwood, and long Eoger, his keepers, being
servants to sir John Digby, lieutenant ; insomuch that they, as it was at
their arraignment openly proved, intended to have slain the said master, and
to have set Perkin and the earl of Warwick at large." J Two of these
keepers were hanged ; but Cleymound, who appears to have been so active and
so confided in, vanishes, when the purpose is served for which he was in the
Tower, in some capacity or other, that would enable him to act the betrayer.
Upon this tissue of contradictory charges, set forth in Warwick's indict
ment, the two young men were convicted. The earl of Warwick, wholly
ignorant of the ways of the world, was induced to plead guilty. His com
panion in misfortune went through some form of trial, of which there is no
record. He was arraigned as a foreigner. The doubtful Plantagenet was
* Bacon, p, 194. t Ihid., p. 196. J Hall, p. 491.

14U9.]

WARWICK AND HIS FELLOW-PRISONER EXECUTKl).

233

executed at Tyburn, — his old friend John Water, of Cork, suflering with
him, — on the 23rd of November. The earl was beheaded within the Tower
on the 28th of the same month. " One fierce and strong wave," says the
old chronicler, with a touch of pity, " devoured and swallowed both their
lives." * • Hall, p. 4H8.

Perkin Warbeck's Groat ; a silver com, iu the British Museum.

statue of Lord Bacon, tlie historian of Henry VII., at St. Albans.

CHAPTER XV.

Edmund de la Pole, duke of Suffolk — Marriage of Prince Arthur to Catherine of Arragon — The
Court of Henry VII, — Henry's passion for wealth — Treaty with Scotland — Death of
Prince Arthur — Contract of Prince Henry with Arthur's widow — Death of Henry VII.
— Extortions through Empson and Dudley — Tendency towards ahsolute monarchy
¦ — Few parliaments during this reign — State of the Clergy — Monastic estahhshments —
Population — Agriculture — Maritime Discovery — Commerce — Regulations of internal
trade — Wages— rVagranoy — Criminal Laws — Public Health — Feasts — National Pride—
-Sports,

ArTEB fifteen years of a reign in which " the times were rough, and fuU of
mutations and strange accidents," * Henry VII. sits steadUy on his throne
There is only one Plantagenet connexion left to give him more trouble,
Edmund de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, the brother of the earl of Lincoln, whom
Eichard III. declared his heir. He had manifestly wronged this nobleman,
by withholding from him his property, and his true title of duke, pretending
that the attainder of the elder brother canceUed his right. After the
oppressed irian, who appears to have been rash and Ul-conducted, had fied
abroau, and several persons had been executed upon a charge of conspiracy with
him, the king contrived to get hold of him upon a promise to spare his Ufe,
and he shut him up in the Tower, leaving to his successor his pious command to
put the prisoner to death. From the commencement of the sixteenth century

* Bacon, " Dedication of History of Henry VII, to Prince Charles.'

1501,] MARRIAGE OF PRINCE ARTHUR, 235
to the end of Henry VII,'s reign, we have neither revolts nor wars. But the
policy of the king has brought about two events, which wiU have a powerful
influence on the future destinies of this country — the marriage of his son,
Arthur, prince of Wales, to Catherine of Arragon, daughter of Ferdinand
and IsabeUa ; and the marriage of his daughter, Margaret, to James IV. of
Scotland. In 1485 queen IsabeUa gave birth to CataUna, her youngest child. Arthur,
the eldest son of Henry VII. and of Elizabeth of Tork, was born in 1486.
Their second son, Henry, was born in 1491. CataUna, or Catherine, was
educated with reUgious strictness ; and she, as well as her sisters, acquired,
under the most competent masters, a complete knowledge of Latin. " She is
remarkably learned," wrote Erasmus ; and he adds, " not merely with reference
to her sex." The young princes of England were educated with the same
attention to the s1;udies of ancient learning, never held in higher esteem than
in that age of its re'vival. It is recorded by Andre, the preceptor of prince
Arthur, that he had read Homer and Thucydides ; Virgil, Lucan, and Ovid ;
Cicero and QuintUian ; Csesar, Tacitus, and other Eoman historians. The
younger brother was equaUy remarkable for his acquirements. There is a
Latin letter from Henry to Erasmus, written in 1507, which the great scholar
commends for its elegance. When prince Arthur was not four years old, and
the Spanish princess not five, the two politic kings arranged a treaty for the
union of these children. This agreement of 1489 was confirmed by one more
precise in 1490 ; by which Catherine's portion was to be two hundred
thousand gold crowns ; and one-third of the revenues of the principality of
Wales, the duchy of CornwaU, and the earldom of Chester, were to be settled
upon her. In subsequent years the projected union was kept in view by
new conventions ; and in 1499, when Arthur had reached his twelfth year,
the marriage ceremony was performed ; the Spanish princess being repre
sented by proxy. In 1501 Catherine arrived ; and the ceremonials were
again gone through at St. Paul's on the 6th of November. There were then
banquets and tournaments and pageants ; and " all the nobiUty were set on
pleasure and solace, and the king himself was principally given to joy and
rejoicing." * Before this period the annual expenses of the royal household
were set at 13,059Z,t With the avaricious habits of the king, the court was not
an extravagant one ; though there were occasional splendours and entertain
ments of a costly nature. Francesco CapeUo, the Venetian ambassador, was at
this court in 1502 ; and in a very curious " Eelation of the Island of England," J
probably written by his secretary, it is said of the king, " Though frugal to
excess in his o'wn person, he does not change any of the ancient usages of
England at his court, keeping a sumptuous table ; as I had the opportunity of
witnessing twice that your Magnificence dined there, when I judged that
there might be from six hundred to seven himdred persons at dinner." §
In the " Privy Purse Expenses " of this king, we have an insight into the
nature of his personal expenses, which the Italian notices as " frugal to
excess." In one characteristic expenditure he was most extravagant. On

* Hall, p. 495. + Stat. 11 Hen. VII. c. 62.
t Translated by Charlotte Augusta Sneyd, Camden Society,
§ ' ' Italian Relation," p, 46,

236 THE COURT OF HENRY VIL [1501,
the 25th of March, in the year of Arthur's marriage, we find the following
entry : — " Delivered and paid by the king's commandment for divers and
many jewels brought out of France, against the marriage of my lord prince,
14,000Z," * The editor of this record says, " his desire for the acquirement of
jewels scarcely knew any bounds ; and on them alone he spent 110,000Z,"
It appears to us that this investment of money in jewels was a part of the
habitual prudence of the king. Some of his wealth thus lay in a small compass ;
was of a generaUy received value ; and was available in any evil turn of fortune.
In architecture he disbursed large sums. His palace at Eichmond, and his
chapel at Westminster, were of the most costly of these works. Beyond these
matters, he was frugal even when he meant to be generous. He saw the
policy of encouraging navigation and discovery, if such encouragement should
be without cost to himself; and in March, 1496, he granted letters-patent to
John Cabot and his two sons, to saU at their own cost and charges, with five
ships, for the discovery of new countries, upon condition that the king should
have a fifth of the profits. In 1497 we have this entry of money drawn from
the privy purse : " To him that found the new Isle, lOZ," The discoverer of
Newfoundland had no mighty reward. In 1502, Henry gives " To men of
Bristol that found the isle, 5Z." He was more liberal to one from whose
science he expected immediate results, than to the hardy navigators who were
carrying the EngUsh flag to shores before unknown. He gives " to a mul-
pller in the Tower of London, 33Z. 6s. 8d." The " multiplier " was an
alchemist. The Christmas festivities of the court do not appear to have been
very expensive. The king occasionally draws a few pounds to play at cards.
He gives IZ, " to four players of Essex, in reward," and another IZ, " to the
French players," On his own players he bestows 2Z, 13s. 4<d. in reward.
The " players of the king's interludes " formed a regular part of the royal
establishment, consisting of four performers, who each received five marks
annually,t Noblemen had their players, who performed at court. The
regular drama was not yet created. It is probable that these "interludes "
were something different from the "miracle plays " which were enacted in
Coventry and other towns by the inmates of religious houses. There is a
curious account by Warton of " a moral interlude and a pithy, written by
Maister Skelton, laureate," entitled " The Negramansir ; " in which the
characters are a necromancer, the devil, a notary. Simony and Avarice.J This
was " played before the king and other estates at Woodstock, on Palm
Sunday." Out of such materials were the court entertainments composed,
as weU as those which were played in the palaces of noblemen and bishops ;
in which " Belzebub with a beard," as in Skelton's play, and the old contest
between the " Vice " and the devil formed the chief subjects of amusement.
In some of the Uves of sir Thomas More this anecdote is related : " The
cardinal [Morton] often would make trial of his pregnant -wit, especially at
Christmas merriments, when, having plays for recreation, this youth would
suddenly step up amongst the players, and never studying before upon the
matter, make often a part of his own invention ; which was so witty and so
fuU of jests, that he alone made more sport and laughter than all the players
¦* " Excerpta Historica," p, 126,
+ See Mr. Collier's "Annals of the Stage," vol. i. p, 37,
J " Histi.iry of Ancient Poetry," vol. iii. p,'186.

1,'>01.1

HRNP.Y'S PASSION FOR WRALTH.

237

besides," ¦* We must not linger amidst these outward shows of a courtly
life, which, if we could look beneath the surface, was, in all likelihood, as dull
and formal as the temper of the sovereign could render It, We find payments
to minstrels, morlce-dancera mummers fools, tumblers, bear- wards ; and

Lvidi, or Court Masqueradiugs, (Harleian MS, 4379,)
higher artists were not disregarded, for " an Italian, a poet," " the Blind-
poet," and "a Eymer of Scotland," come in for their rewards. But in that
palace of Eichmond, which Henry raised up out of the ashes of the older
palace of Shene, abided that evil spirit. Avarice, whieh Skelton presumed to
satirise, and to hand over to his principal personage to be tormented. The
ridicule was somewhat bold, at a time when the king had discovered how his
vast income could be hirgely increased without asking parUament for subsidies.
The annual revenue from the royal estates, and the properties which had
lapsed to the crown, were estimated at about one hundred and seventy
thousand pounds, of which forty thousand were derived from customs f
Henry is, according to Bacon, reported to have died worth one million eight
hundred thousand pounds. We shall presently have to show the course
which was pursued by this most extortionate of capitalists. The ingrained
covetousness and cunning of the man, — for " of nature, assuredly, he coveted
to accumulate treasure," J and " neither did he care how cunning they were
that he did employ, for he thought himself to have the master-reach " § —

¦» Quoted from Hoddesdon's Life, in Dibdin's edit, of "Utopia," vol, i. p. 48,
+ See "Italian Relation," in which there is a minute account, apparently derived from some
oiEcial source. t Bacon, p. 238, § Ibid., p, 242,

238

TREATV WITH SCOTLAND— DEATH OP PRINCE ARTHUR.

[1502.

these qualities made him, to use plain words, a royal swindler. He went
far beyond his age as an exaggerated representative of the newly-born
spirit of money-making, as opposed to the ancient spirit of violence. He

Muramers.

carried it forward into that unscrupulous passion for wealth, which has rendered
the grasping accumulator so detestable at aU times, and In no times more to
be despised than in our own, when he is too often regarded as the highest
model of commercial wisdom.
In January, 1502, a treaty was concluded between England and Scotland,
in which a perpetual peace was to be cemented b^ the marriage of James with
the eldest daughter of Henry. There had been a long negotiation upon the
subject of this union ; and some doubts were expressed in the council of
Henry that if the king's two sons were to die without issue, "the kingdom
of England would faU to the king of Scotland, which might prejudice the
monarchy of England. Whereunto the king replied, ' that if that should be,
Scotland would be but an accession to England, and not England to Scotland,
for that the greater would draw the less.' " Bacon related this when the
oracular opinion of Henry had been realised in the union of the two crowns.
The marriage of Margaret took place by proxy ; but, on account of her youth,
her departure to Scotland was deferred tUl July, 1603. Meanwhile, an
event of great import had taken place. Arthur, prince of Wales, who kepi
his court at Ludlow, died in AprU, 1502, only four months after his marriage.
The two kings, who were wonderfully matched in their abUity at bargain-
making, now negotiated for the marriage of young prince Henry with his
brother's widow. A year passed in determining whether the princess Catherine
should be returned to her father, with the hundred thousand crowns which
had been paid as a moiety of her dowry,- — than which nothing could be more
disagreeable to Henry ; or whether Ferdinand should advance another hundred
thousand crowns, and the second marriage be legaUsed by a dispensation from
the pope. The dispensation was obtained ; and the marriage-contract was
completed In 1503, with a solemn ceremonial. On this occasion a form was
gone through, In wliich a person was appointed to object that the marriage

1503,]

CONTRACT OF PRINCE HENRY WITH ARTHUR'S WIDOW.

239

was unlawful, and another to defend it as " good and efi'ectual In the law of
Christ's church," * Mr, Hallam suggests that " there seems to be something
in this of the tortuous policy of Henry VII," From the same cause it might
arise that, before Henry was fifteen, he protested. In legal form, against the
contract which had been made during his nonage. This marriage, which was
not solemnised during the life of Henry VII,, probably excited some scruples
beyond the circle of the court. It was a contract which had memorable
results, " the secret providence of God ordaining that marriage to be the
occasion of great events and changes," f
Elizabeth, the queen of Henry VII,, died in February, 1503, In that
year the king was busied in the stipulations of Prince Henry's marriage-
contract, and the parade of his daughter Margaret's progress to Scotland, But
the widower was afterwards seeking for an advantageous aUiance for himself ;
and he tried his fortune in three quarters, in each of which there was a pro
spect of a large marriage-portion. The deceased king of Naples had bequeathed
an immense sum to his queen. There was heavy disappointment ; for the
agents of Henry described her as perfect in aU endowments, except that of

Richmond Palace. (From an old Drawing engraved in " Vetusta Monumenta," vol. ii.;
the expected fortune, which the reigning king refused to pay. Isabella, queen
of Castile, in her own right, was now dead, and her daughter Juana, the wife
of the archduke PhUip, received the sceptre of Castile from her father, Ferdi
nand, now king of Arragon. PhiUp had a sister, Margaret ; and the CastUIan
sovereigns having, been thrown on the shores of England in a tempest, Henry
seized his opportunity, and detained them, on various pretences, for three
months, tUl PhUip had agreed that his sister should marry the king of Eng
land, with a portion of three hundred thousand crowns. But whUe this
negotiation was proceeding to completion, Philip died ; and then king Henry
thought that the widow, Juana, would give him a far nobler portion in the
crown of Castile, than the Margaret who was promised to him. But Ferdinand

Hallam, "Constitutional History," vol. i, chap, ii,. Note,

t Bacon, p, 207.

240

DEATH OF HENRY VII.

[1509.

of Arragon steadily refused to nllow his daughter Juana, who was of deranged
intellect, to come within the toils of the wily negotiator with whom he had
fought so many battles ot
statecraft. Meanwhile the
Spanish monarch withheld
that part of the portion of
Catherine which was pro
mised to be paid upon her
marriage with prince Henry;
and the English king, to
annoy her father, treated
the widow of one son and
the betrothed of another,
with a harshness which
indisposed her for the com
pletion of her second mar
riage. At length two in
stalments of that marriage-
portion were extracted from
Ferdinand, according to an
agreement that they should
be paid half - yearly.
Henry the Seventh died
before the third and fourth
became due.* That event
took place at Eichmond
Palace on the 21st of April,
1509. He had been in
weak health for several
years ; and the prospect of lils danger Induced him to do some acts
of mercy, such as satisfying the creditors of sAall debtors, and forgiving
offences against the crown, with the exception of murder and felony. But
the latter years of his life were disgraced by the extortions of his officers, who
wrested the law to do the same work of plunder as had been accomplished
by the sword and the fetter in the days of baronial tyranny. " He was
touched," says Bacon, " with remorse for the same;" but the extortions
" went on with as great rage as ever." In his will he declared " that his mind
was, that restitution should be made of those sums which had been unjustly
taken by his officers," His historian thinks that he happily died in his
prosperity, "to withdraw him from any future blow of fortune; which, cer*-ainly,
in regard of the great hatred of the people, had not been impossible to have
come upon him," He was buried at Westminster, in the magnificent chapel
which he built beside the abbey.
The chief extortions which this king practised, through two lawyers, Eichard
Empson and Edmund Dudley, were carried on by prosecutions against persons

Henry VII.'s Chapel.

* Dr. Lingard has .given this account of the circumstances which delayed the marriage
of Henry and Catherine, as derived by him from Spanish documents. The receipt for the second
instalment, in 1508, was signed by the two Henries,

IBOB.] EXTORTIONS THROUGH EMPPON AND DUDLFY. 241
of substance, especially the rich merchants of London, under obsolete laws,
in which false witnesses, called promoters, were systematically employed.
There can be no stronger testimony against these enormities than an eloquent
and fearless passage in the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More; in which he
describes what might happen if " some king and his counsel were together,
whetting their wits and devising what subtle craft they might invent to
enrich the king with great treasures of money." These worthies suggest —
the alteration of the standard of money ; a pretence of war to raise taxes, and
then make peace with great solemnity and holy ceremonies ; a revival of old
and moth-eaten laws, to exact fines for their transgression; prohibitions of
many things under penalties, to be remitted by dispensations for money, and
by selling privileges and licences ; and, lastly, to corrupt and overawe the
judges "that they may, in every matter, dispute and reason for the king's
right," No one can doubt that More, — who at the time when this book was
published, 1516, was a privy-counsellor of Henry VIII,, — distinctly pointed
at the political system of Henry VII,, unexampled for its combination of
tyranny and meanness. He sums up with this bitter satire against that
system : " To conclude, aU the counseUors agree and consent together, with
the rich Crassus, that no abundance of gold can be sufficient for a prince, which
must keep and maintain an army : furthermore that a king, though he would,
can do nothing unjustly. For aU that men have, yea, also the men them
selves, be aU his. And that every man hath so much of his own as the king's
gentleness hath not taken from him. And that it shall be most for the king's
advantage, that his subjects have very little or nothing in their possession, as
whose safeguard doth herein consist that his people do not wax wanton and
wealthy through riches and liberty ; because where these things be, there
men be not wont patiently to obey hard, unjust, and unlawful commandments.
Whereas, on the other part, need and poverty doth hold down and keep under
stout courages, and maketh them patient perforce, taking from them bold and
rebeUing stomachs." *
It is the opinion of the historian of our " Constitutional History," that
" there had e-vidently been a retrograde tendency towards absolute monarchy
between the reigns of Henry VI. and Henry VIII." t An ItaUan historian,
Biondi, who wrote in the time of James I., describes our mixed constitution
as " a weU-consti'tuted aristocratic-democratic monarchy " — (aristodemocra-
tica monarchia). It was the policy of the first Tudor to impair, if not to
destroy, the aristocratic branch, before the democratic had acquired any great
political force. The Venetian secretary says, " of these lords, who are caUed
milites, there are very few left, and these diminish daUy ; " and he adds that
the king, Henry VIL, had " appointed certain mUitary services to be per
formed by his own attendants and famUiars, who he knows can be trusted upon
any urgent occasion." J These were the yeomen of the guard, a body first
instituted by this king, but solely for domestic security and parade. They
were, according to a record, " proved archers, strong, bold, and valiant men,'
But with their damask jackets, embroidered with vine branches and the red
rose, they were more fitted to " stand in passages upon a row, when the king's
'* "Utopia," Introductory Discourse.
f HaUam, "Constitutional Hist,," chap. i. J " Italian Relation," p. 39,
VOL, u. s

242 TENDENCY TOWARDS ABSOLUTE MONARCHY, [1509,
highness moved from chamber to chamber," than to bring their bright halberts
into the battle-field. The Tudor king did not establish his partial despotism
by the miUtary arm. His great instrument for reducing the pride and power
of the nobles was by fine and forfeiture. The earl of Northumberland might
keep his solemn state at Warkworth and Prudhow ; have his councU, his
chamberlain, his treasurer, his constables, his chaplains, with a hundred and
sixty-six persons in his regular household.'* The third duke of Buckingham
might entertain four hundred and fifty-nine guests at Thornbury Castle, in
1507.t But if either of these great lords, or any other, gathered round them
a body of habitual retainers, the Statutes of Liveries, which were disregarded
in the preceding reigns, were now to be strictly enforced. All retainers were
held imlawful, but those who received wages as household servants ; and for
each retainer a fine of 5Z. per month was enforced.J Bacon has an amusing
anecdote which is highly characteristic of Henry VII, and his times : " There
remaineth to this day a report, that the king was on a time entertained by
the earl of Oxford, — that was his principal servant, both for war and peace, —
nobly and sumptuously, at his castle at Henningham. And at the king's
going away, the earl's servants stood, in a seemly manner, in their livery
coats, with cognisances, ranged on both sides, and. made the king a lane.
The king called the earl to him, and said : ' My lord, I have heard much of
your hospitality, but I see it is greater than the speech. These handsome
gentlemen and yeomen, which I see on both sides of me, are sure your menial
servants.' The earl smUed, and said, ' It may please your grace, that were
not for mine ease. They are most of them my retainers, that are come to do
me service at such a time as this, and chiefly to see your grace.' The king
started a Uttle, and said : ' By my faith, my lord, I thank you for your good
cheer, but I may not endure to have my laws broken in my sight. My
attorney must speak with you.' And it is part of the report, that the earl
compounded for no less than fifteen thousand marks." How the nobles were
ground in what Bacon caUs " Empson's and Dudley's mUls," may be seen in
the foUo'wing entry in one of the accounts of sums received by Dudley, which
still exists : § " Delivered three exemplifications, under the seal of King's
Bench, of the condemnation of the lord Bergavenny, for such retainers as he
was indicted of in Kent, amounting unto, for his part only, after the rate of
the months, 69,000Z." ||
One of the early statutes of this reign, — " An Act giving the Court of
Star-Chamber authority to punnyshe divers mysdemeanours," — ^has been
occasionally represented as the origin of that oppressive court, which, growing
more and more arbitrary under the Tudors and Stuarts, was at last finaUy
abolished by statute in the 16th year of Charles I. In that statute it
was said that " the judges of the Star-Chamber had not kept themselves
within the points limited by the statute 3rd Henry VII." These points
(vere offences by maintenance, liveries, and retaifiers ; untrue returns of
sheriffs ; taking money by juries ; and great riots and unlawful assemblies.
This court was probably useful and necessary in many respects ; although it
* See the Northumberland Household Book.
+ "ArchseoIogicalJournal," No. xxxi. p. 278.
i Statute, 19 Hen, VII, c, 14, § Harleian MS, in the British Museum.
II This account is given at length in Mr, Turner's " History of England," vol, iv, p. 156,

1509.] PEW PARLIAMENTS DURING THIS REIGN, 243
was open to the charge of being such an instrument of arbitrary power as
was exercised by the council of the earlier kings, who met in what was
called the Star-Chamber. The members of the Court of Star-Chamber of
Henry VIL were limited, as well as its objects ; consisting of the chanceUor,
treasurer, and keeper of the privy seal, with a bishop and temporal lord of
the council, and the chief justices of the King's Bench and Common Pleas,
or two other justices in their absence. But even with these limitations, both
of the objects and ministers of the court, it is easy to see that its formal
establishment by statute, thus sanctioning encroachments such as those of the
council which many previous statutes had endeavoured to suppress, was a
step towards depriving the subject of the right of being tried by his peers.
That Henry 'wielded this instrument for oppressive purposes we may readUy
beUeve. During this reign, there was little opportunity afforded to par
Uament to demand remedy of grievances. There were only seven parliaments
caUed under this king, who was twenty-four years on the throne. From the
first to the twelfth year there were six parliaments. There was then an
interval of seven years, during which no parliament was held. That of the
19th year was the last. In dispensing with subsidies, Henry got rid of the
privilege which was the sole check upon prerogative. The Lords and Com
mons appear to have surrendered the Constitution into his keeping, when It
was enacted that, as the king was not minded, for the good and ease of
his subjects, to call another parliament for a long time, he should have
power to reverse and annul aU attainders, and pardon all forfeitures, and
that his letters-patent should be as valid as acts of parliament.
At the commencement of the reign of Henry VII., the long immunity of
the clergy from any interference of the legislature with their course of life,
however criminal, was in a slight degree interrupted by a statute, which
recognises the existence in the commonwealth of " priests, clerks, and
reUgious men openly noised of incontinent living." The "Act for bishops
to punish priests and other religious men for dishonest life," provides that
they may be committed to ward and prison, upon examination and other
lawful proof, and that no action of ¦wrongful imprisonment shall arise out of
such commitment.* But by a statute of three years later we learn how
frightful were the exemptions from the course of justice which persons in
holy orders obtained. The " benefit of clergy," which remained partiaUy in
force tiU abolished in the reform of the criminal law in 1828, was originaUy
devised to exempt aU those who could plead their clerkship {privilegium
clericale') from temporal jurisdiction ; and in an age of very general ignorance
aU those were held to be clerks who could read. The statute of Henry VII.
recites that " persons lettered " have been the more bold to commit murder,
robbery, and other mischievous deeds, because they have been contlnuaUy
admitted to the benefit of the clergy upon trust of the privilege of the
church." The Act, therefore, provides that if a person not in orders shall have
once been admitted to such benefit he shall not be again so admitted ; but ba
marked with M. upon the brawn of the left thumb, if convicted of murder,
and with T. if for any other felony ; and be then delivered to the ordinary.
Persons in orders, if asking their clergy a second time, are required to
* Statute, 1 Heniy VII. c. 4. B 2

244 STATE OF THE CLERGY, [1509.
produce letters of orders, or a certificate from the ordinary.* The offender,
so handed over to the ordinary, almost invariably escaped with total
impunity, or with some slight punishment. Another enormous abuse was
that of Sanctuary, which was not aboUshed by law tUl the reign of James l.f
This privilege of sanctuary was often connected with what is styled in the
law-books " Abjuration of the realm." In the " Eelation of the Island of
England," there is a curious and amusing description of the custom of
sanctuary and of abjuration, which is essentiaUy confirmed by other authorities :
" The clergy are they who have the supreme sway over J;he country, both in
peace and war. Amongst other things, they have provided that a nurdber of
sacred places in the kingdom should serve for the refuge and escape of all
delinquents ; and no one, were he a traitor to the crown, or had he practised
against the king's own person, can be taken out of these by force. And a
villain of this kind, who, for some great excess that he has committed, has
been obliged to take refuge in one of these sacred places, often goes out of it
to brawl in 'the public streets, and then, returning to it, escapes with impunity
for every fresh offence he may have been guUty of. This is no detriment to
the purses of the priests, nor to the other perpetual sanctuaries ; but every
church is a sanctuary for forty days ; and, if a thief or murderer, who has
taken refuge in one, cannot leave it in safety during those forty days, he gives
notice that he wishes to leave England. In which case, being stripped to the
shirt by the chief magistrate of the place, and a crucifix placed in his hand,
he is conducted along the road to the sea, where, if he finds a passage, he may
go with a ' God speed you.' But if he should not find one, he walks into the
sea up to the throat, and three times asks for a passage ; and this is repeated
tlU a ship appears, which comes for him, and so he departs in safety. It is not
unamusing to hear how the women and chUdren lament over the misfortune
of these exiles, asking ' how they can live so destitute out of England ; '
adding, moreover, that ' they had better have died than go out of the world,' as
if England were the whole world." J Henry VII,, however, procured a bull
from pope Innocent VII, to enable the civil power to remove from sanctuary
those who went out to commit crimes and return again ; with other limitations
of the privilege, especially as to matters of treason.
¦ At the end of the reign of Henry VII. the monastic establishments were
at the culminating point of their wealth and luxury. Some of the gross
profligacy which gave the appearance, if not the reality, of justice to their
violent suppression was the subject of papal admonitions in 1490. But in
their hospitality and their magnificence they commanded much popular
support ; and nothing seemed so unlikely as that in thirty years they shoidd be
swept away. There was scarcely a cloud, " no bigger than a man's hand," to
give sign of the coming storm. It is only when we have evidence of the real
contempt which the higher order of minds, even amongst churchmen, felt for
the impostures which contributed so mainly to the riches of the monastic
shrines, that we discover how doubtful was that tenure of popularity which
rested more upon vain delusions than upon the real benefit which the
people derived from the teachings of religion. Henry VII. went in pilgri-
* 4 Henry VII. c, 13,
+ The Sanctuary at Westminster, of which we have made repeated mention, was p-jUed down
in the reign of George 1. + Page 34.

1509.

MONASTIC ESTABLISHMENTS.

245

mage to Walsingham in 1487, and " visited our Lady's Church, famous for
miracles," We have seen how other great persons went this pilgrimage
in the times of Edward IV., and how zealous they were for " Our Lady's
House of Walsingham." * But amongst the visitors of this shrine at the
beginning of the sixteenth century was one who has recorded what he saw

¦*i ¦ \f!f-:

Walsiugnam Abbey,
with a sly gravity, which shows how the wonders had come to be regarded by
the thoughtful and the learned. Hundreds of pilgrims might stUl travel
many a weary mile, beUeving that God had set the galaxy in the heavens to
be their guide by night, that they might find
" Unto the town of Walsingham,
Which is the right and ready way." t
But there were others who went there to smile at the extent of human
* See ante, p. 125. + "Percy's Reliques," vol. ii, p, 79.

246 MONASTIC ESTABLISHMENTS, [1509.
credulity. When Erasmus had journeyed to Walsingham he saw strange sights
which he has described in his " CoUoquies." A guide attends him, Uke the
modern cathedral-verger. " The joint of a man's finger is exhibited to us,
the largest of three. I kiss it ; and I then ask. Whose relics were these ?
He says, St. Peter's. The Apostle ? He said, Tes. Then, observing the
size of the joint, which might have been that of a giant, I remarked, Peter
must have been a man of very large size. At this, one of my companions burst
into a laugh ; which I certainly took iU, for if he had been quiet the attendant
would have shown us aU the relics." To exhibit some of the more important
objects to be worshipped a canon of the church came forward ; and when the
learned sceptic inquired, as civiUy as he could, by what proofs he was assured
that " what looked like ground chalk, mixed 'with white of egg," was the mUk
of the Virgin, " the canon as if possessed by a fury, looking aghast upon us,
and apparently horrified at the blasphemous inquiry, replied ' What need to
ask such questions, when you have the authenticated inscription?'" The
question was asked through an interpreter, a friend of thegreat scholar of
Eotterdam. This was Aldrich, afterwards provost of Eton, and bishop of
Carlisle. To Canterbury Erasmus also went, with his admirable friend, dean
Colet,* the founder of St. Paul's School ; whom he, with his quaint humour,
caUs " a somewhat unmanageable companion — a learned and pious man, but
not so weU affected to this part of religion [the reverence for relics] as he
could wish." They saw the amazing riches of the shrine of St. Thomas;
and in the sacristy a box of black leather was produced, and when it was
opened "immediately aU knelt and worshipped." It contained " some torn
fragments of linen, most of them retaining marks of dirt," which were
affirmed to have belonged to the holy martyr. Colet, an EngUshman " of no
small consequence," was requested to accept one of these rags ; but he "not
sufficiently grateful, drew it together 'with his fingers, not without some
intimation of disgust, and disdainfully replaced it." There is a little hospital
stiU existing at Harbaldown, near Canterbury, which Erasmus and his friend
passed in returning to London. It was " a hospital for a few old men, one of
whom runs out as soon as they perceive any horsemen approaching. He
sprinkles his holy water, and frequently offers the upper part of a shoe, bound
with a brazen rim, in which is a piece of glass resembling a jewel. Those
that kiss it give some small coin." When the shoe was stretched out, the
friend of Erasmus " asked what the man wanted. He said, that it was the
shoe of St. Thomas. On that my friend was irritable, and turning to me he
said, — What ! do these brutes imagine that we must kiss every good man's
shoe ? " t These relations are important, as showing how gross were the
superstitions of England a few years only before the Eeformation ; and how
during more than a century, when it had been dangerous to evince any
disrespect for the corruptions of the church, the spirit of the early Eeformers
had not died out. In answer to a question by his interlocutor in the
Colloquy, whether Colet was a Wickliffite, Erasmus answers, " ' I do not

* Colet is called " Gratian," in the Colloquy; but there is no doubt of the identity of Gratian
with the Dean of St, Paul's,
+ Those parts of the Colloquies which relate to Walsingham aud Canterbury are translated
by Mr, J. G. Nicholls, with excellent notes— 1849,

1509.]

POPULATION— AGRICULTURE,

247

think so, although he had read Wickliffe's books ; where he got them I
cannot say.' "
Although the material wealth of England had been decldedlv increasini?
during the reign of Henry VIL,
we have abundant evidence that its
natural resources were very imper
fectly brought into operation. The
population appeared to the Venetian
traveUer not to bear any propor
tion to the fertility of the land and
the riches of the cities. In passing
from Dover to London, and from
London to Oxford, the country
appeared to him to be very thinly
inhabited. He inquired, also, of
those who rode to the north of the
kingdom, and of those who went to
Bristol and into Cornwall, and
found there was no difference in
their report upon this point. The
population at the beginning of the
sixteenth century has been esti
mated at four mUUons ; but the
data for this conclusion are scarcely
to be relied on.
In an Act of 1488-9, " concern- Erasmus,
ing the Isle of Wight," it is recited
that the isle is "late decayed of people;" * and in an Act of the same session,
" against puUing down of towns," it is declared, that " where, in some towns,
two hundred persons were occupied and lived by their lawful labours, now be
there occupied two or three herdmen," t The grievance to which this decay
of population is ascribed, is the conversion of tUled land into pasture ; and
the consoUdation of farms and farmholds " into one man's hold and hands,
that of old time were wont to be in many several persons' holds and hands,
and many several households kept in them, and thereby much people mul
tiplied," This is the process of which More so bitterly complains, but of which
he judged with the half-knowledge of his time on all economical questions,
" Forsooth, my lord, quoth I," — he is addressing Morton, — " your sheep,
that were wont to be so meek and tame, and so smaU eaters, now, as I hear
say, be become so great devourers and so wild, that they eat up and swaUow
down the very men themselves. They consume, destroy, and devour whole
fields, houses, and cities : for look, in what parts of the realm doth grow
the finest and therefore dearest wool, — there, noblemen and gentlemen,
yea, and certain abbots, holy men, no doubt, not contenting themselves with
the yearly revenues and profits that were wont to grow to their forefathers
and predecessors of their lands, nor being content that they live in rest and
pleasure, nothing profiting, yea, much noying the weal public, leave no

* 4 Hen, VIL, cap, 16.

t 4 Hen. VIL, cap. 19.

248

POPULATION— AGRICULTURE.

[1509,

ground for tillage. They inclose all into pastures ; they throw down houses ;
they pluck down towns, and leave nothing standing, but only the church to
be made a sheep-house. And, as though you lost no small quantity of
ground by forests, chases, lands, and parks, those good holy men turn all
dwelling-places and all glebe land into desolation and wUderness." The
houses thrown down, and the towns plucked down, were the wretched
hovels, — " the houses made of sticks and dirt," — of which the Spaniard took
note in the time of queen Mary.* But it was not the wretchedness of the
buUdings that caused them to be removed, but the absence of those means of
life which were more abundantly found half a century later, when the same
Spaniard said, " These English have their houses made of sticks and dirt, but
they fare commonly so well as the king." In the time in which Henry VII.
legislated, and More declaimed against the decay of population through
pasturage, the tiUage of the land was so unprofitable that it afforded no
return for the employment of capital. It yielded only a miserable subsistence
to those who worked it, with imperfect instruments ; with no knowledge of
the rotation of crops ; with no turnip husbandry to fatten sheep less
wastefuUy than in the pastures ; with no sufficient knowledge of the value of
manures. The very process by which, upon a true application of commercial

intercourse to agriculture, the land might be improved, was reprobated by
the author of the " TJtopIa," in the enforcement of his mistaken benevolence.
The rich men, he says, buy great cattle " abroad very cheap, and afterwards
when they be fatted in their pastures, they seU them again exceeding dear."
The difference between cheapness and dearness was a clear addition to the
national wealth. The employment of capital in the feeding of sheep, being
the more profitable mode of its use, speedily produced a greater demand for
the labour of the whole country, than the ancient mode of cultivating smaU
patches of land by the cottier-tenantry, who had succeeded the serfs of the
earUer times. The pastures were furnishing employment to the manufacturers,
the retaUers, the merchants, of the great towns ; and the profit of the pastures
would, in course of time, bring about that larger system of tUlage which
would more perfectly unite the operations of the shepherd and the ploughman
under the same tenancy. It is not to be imagined that, at the period of
which we are speaking, pasturage had superseded tillage. The Venetian
* Harrison, " Description of England," p. 187, in Holinshed's Chronicles,

1509,] MARITIME DISCOVERY, 249
traveller, speaking of the general aspect of the country, says, " England is all
diversified by pleasant undulating hills and beautiful valleys, nothing being
to be seen but agreeable woods, or extensive meadows, or lands in cultiva
tion." * But he also says, " Agriculture is not practised in this island
beyond what is required for the consumption of the people ; because, werf
they to plough and sow aU the land that was capable of cultivation, they
might sell a quantity of grain to the surrounding countries ." t It was more
profitable to export wool and broad-cloth than to export grain ; and no legis
lation and no philosophy could compel the application of capital to the growth
of corn where it could be more advantageously applied to the growth of
sheep. The indirect stimulus which a judicious investment of accumulated
wealth in one branch of industry must produce upon all industries, was not
then understood ; nor was it understood during succeeding periods of grow
ing prosperity. It is scarcely understood even in our own day. The belief
that land and trade could not prosper together, was a fallacy which the more
sagacious of the economists of the seventeenth century did not succeed in
exploding ; and which has scarcely yet ceased to haunt the imaginations of a
few whom experience wiU not make wise.
The discovery of Newfoundland by Cabot, which was not foUowed up by
any settlement upon the island at that time, arose out of the spirit of enter
prise which was excited amongst the maritime nations of Europe by the great
success of Bartholomew Dias, of Columbus, and of Vasco de Gama. The
passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, partiaUy effected by Dias in
1487, and completed by Vasco de Gama in 1498 ; and the discovery of the
New World by the great Genoese whom Ferdinand and Isabella so tardily
supported — ^these influenced but slowly the growth of English commerce.
When the brother of Columbus, after being captured by pirates, obtained an
audience of Henry VIL, the king desired him to send for the man who had
been labouring, for seven tedious years, to make his magnificent project com
prehended by the courtiers and monks of the Spanish monarchy. At this
juncture Queen Isabella had taken up the cause of the ardent navigator ; and
he had set out upon that expedition whose triumph was to give a new direc
tion to the intercourse of the whole human race. That Henry would have
offered his jewels for the cost of the great adventure, as Isabella did, is very
doubtful. But gradually his subjects profited by these momentous disco
veries ; although the parsimony which forbad the king directly to support
any adventurers gave little example to the English merchants to embark in
the direct trade to the East or the West. The products of India and of the
West Indian islands became branches of English commerce ; and the people
obtained a more extended enjoyment of foreign luxuries by their comparative
cheapness in the marts of Portugal and Spain. The commercial enterprises
of the country were necessarily restricted by its legislatiop, adapted to some
imaginary necessity for accompUshing a good or preventing an evil. Such
was the statute "against bargains grounded in usury;" by which it was
enacted " that aU manner of persons lending money to and for a time, taking
for the same loan anything more besides or above the money lent, by way of
sontract or covenant at the time of the same loan," should forfeit half the
* "Italian Relation,"?, 20, + Ibid., p, 10,

250 COMMERCE. [1509.
money so lent,'* It is evident that accumulated wealth, so locked up by xaw,
could not be used to profit in furnishing aid to the most promising enter
prise ; and that very much of the capital of the country must be hoarded and
unemployed. The visible wealth of the people in plate was the admiration oi
foreigners. " There is no small innkeeper, however poor and humble he
may be, who does not serve his table with sUver dishes and drinking cups ; and
no one who has not in his house silver plate to the amount of at least 100 Z.
sterling, is considered by the English to be a person of any consequence."
This observer adds, " The most remarkable thing in London is the wonderful
quantity of wrought sUver." t The accumulation of capital in the form of
plate was the result of the law which forbade any investment which would
produce interest upon loan. And yet legislation here, as in all other cases
which interfere with the natural laws of exchange, was not altogether
effectual ; for the same traveUer remarks, of the EngUsh traders, " they are
so diligent in mercantUe pursuits, that they do not fear to make contracts on
usury." J They had the boldness to carry on commerce upon borrowed
capital — a proof that the industry of the country had become, to some
extent, energetic and self-reliant. Another law, of the same contracted
nature, was the more stringent re-enactment of a statute of Edward IV.
which had expired, forbidding coin of England or any other country, or plate,
bidlion, or jewels, to be carried out of the kingdom, " to the great impoverish
ing of the realm." § This faUacy, that a country is rich in proportion as it
receives money in foreign commercial transactions and pays none, was kept
up for several hundred years in the delusion called Balance of Trade. How
this law interfered with the extension of commerce, and the consequent
ability of the consumers to be supplied at the cheapest rate, may be easily
conceived. Its oppression of the voyager from the shores of England may be
understood from the instance of Erasmus, who, returning to his own country
from Dover, was stripped by the king's officers of aU his money, except six
angels, the amount permitted to be carried out of the realm. The poor
scholar's little treasure was what he had earned by imparting his stores of
learning to the youth of the country that thus despoiled him. We can
scarcely blame the enactment which forbids the wines of Gascony to come in
except in English ships, navigated by English mariners, for the principle has
endured tiU our own time. The ship-ewners and mariners were encouraged
by the navigation law ; but the English consumers were deprived of the com
petition which would bring their wine at the cheapest rate, and with the
most constant supply. That such laws are necessary in the infancy of com
merce may be maintained by reference to the practice of all imperfectly
civilised communities. Unquestionably they are mischievous when the
natural laws of exchange have strength to rise above the artificial aids that
impede their freedom of action, forbidding nations that would hold out the
hand of feUowship to each other from supplying their mutual necessities.
The principle of regulating the prices of commodities still went on, as we
have related of previous periods, 'without reference to any of the circumstances
that must render an invariable price unjust, even if it were possible to be
• 11 Hen, VIL, cap, 8, + "Italian Relation," pp, 29 and 42.
X Ibid., p, 23, § 4 Hen, VIL, cap, 23.

1609.]

REGULATIONS OF INTERNAL TRADE.

251

generally enforced. The complaint of the Commons, that hat-makers and
cap-makers " seU their hats and caps at an outrageous price," — averring that
what they buy for sixteen pence they sell for three shUlings — is simply
evidence of the absence of competition. We may be quite sure that when it
was enacted that no hatter should sell the best hat above the price of twenty-
pence, the purchaser really obtained no cheaper commodity ; that he lost
in quaUty what he gained in price,* But it was long before governments

Henry VII. 'a trial of Weights and Measures. (From Harl, Coll.)

found out the absurdity of such interference with private dealings, in matters
where an universal principle could not be applied. In the regulation of
weights and measures, the state does most properly interpose its authority to
establish uniformity ; and it was the constant endeavour of the English kings
to accompUsh this, even before the time of Magna Charta. These regulations
were, however, disregarded ; as they inevitably must be in localities having
imperfect communication with other districts. The parUament of Henry VII.
adopted the system of sending measures and weights of brass to the chief
officers of every city and borougb.f But in four more years complaiat was

Statute, 4 Hen. ViL, cap, 9,

f 7 Hen, VII,, c. 3.

252 WAGES— VAGRANCY, [1509
made that the ordinances for establishing a common standard had not been
kept ; and a new machinery was caUed into action for the safe conveyance of
the brass weights and measures to cities and towns. The knigtts, citizens,
and burgesses of parliament were to convey them, or cause them to be con
veyed, to the places where they were to be kept in safe custody. The care
which Henry VII. gersonaUy devoted to the examination of weights and
measures is indicated by an old iUumination, which shows him busied in
superintending the proof of the standards in his Exchequer Chamber.
There had been no attempts to regulate Wages for half a century. In
1495 a new scale is set up, which, after the short experience of one year, it
was found impossible to maintain ; and it was therefore repealed in 1496, for
" divers and many reasonable considerations and causes." * The price of corn
was fiuctuating, from four shillings a quarter in 1495, to twenty shUlings a
quarter in 1497 ; and we can therefore weU believe that it was not " for the
common wealth of poor artificers," that the carpenter, with his sixpence a day,
should be content to earn the fortieth part of a quarter of wheat in 1497, when
he had obtained an eighth part in 1495. His wages would not rise proportion
ately with the price of necessaries ; but in the power of making a free contract he
would find some mitigation of the hardships of a famine season. It is evident
from the tone of the legislation of Henry VIL, that the labouring and indigent
classes were regarded with a Uttle more consideration than in the times which
had immediately succeeded those of the system of slavery. Vagrancy, by the
law of Eichard IL, was synonymous with crime, and to be repressed by the
stocks and the prison.f By an act of 1504, the penalties were somewhat
mitigated, and a discretion was given as to the amount of punishment in cases
of sickness and old age. The preamble of this statute, which is the same as a
previous act of 1495, is some proof that the " quaUty of mercy " was sweeten
ing, drop by drop, the bitter draught which poverty had to swaUow : — " For
asmuch as the king's grace most entirely desireth amongst aU earthly things
the prosperity and restfulness of this his land and his subjects of the same, to
live quietly and surely to the pleasure of God and according to his laws,
wiUIng always of his pity and intending to reduce them thereunto by softer
means than by extreme rigour," <fec. The cruelty of the laws against vagrancy,
however modified, was seen by More : — "They be cast into prison as vagabonds,
because they go about and work not, whom no man wiU set at work, though they
never so willingly proffer themselves thereto." J But, — if the wanderer was in
this reign treated with a Uttle lenity, however pursued -with savage, cruelty
in the next reign, — the thief, in most cases, was hanged without mercy. " To
praise that strait and rigorous justice which at that time was executed upon
felons, who were, for the most part, twenty hanged together upon one
gallows," § was the easy solution of a difficult problem for three centuries.
The " certain layman, cunning in the laws," who made an eulogium upon the
" strait and rigorous justice," in the presence of More, said, as his successors
continued to say, " seeing so few escaped punishment, he could not choose but
wonder and marvel how and by what evU luck it should so come to pass, that
thieves nevertheless were, in every place, so rife and so rank." The Venetian
¦* See cunte, p. 113. + See amte, p. 14.
X "Utopia," vol. i., p. 61, § "Utopia," vol. i, p. 49.

1509.]

CRIMINAL LAWS,

253

traveller records that, " people are taken up every day by dozens, like birds
in a covey, and especially in London ; yet, for all this, they never cease to
rob and murder in the streets." * Erasmus, in one of his letters, says that
the harvest of highway-robbery is abundant amongst the English. Crimes of
violence appear to have been far more common than the fraudulent offences
for which tbe age of Elizabeth was so remarkable. The transition from the
times of feudal service to those of independent labour was a necessary cause
that the discharged serving-man of a decayed house — " who was wont with a
sword and a buckler by his side to jet through the street with a bragging
look" — should take a purse instead of wielding a spade. It was an age of
stews and ale-houses, of dice and cards ; and these temptations produced
their usual effects, when there was gross ignorance and low morals ; unsettled

Gener<il Costume iu the reign ol Henry VII.
employment ; sanctuaries to flee to ; and judgment to be arrested by the
abiUty to read a verse of the Bible.
The sanitary condition of London and the great to-wns was not whoUy
disregarded. In the session of parliament of 1856 was passed "An Act to
repeal certain statutes which are not in use." Amongst them was "An Act
that no butcher slay any manner of beasts within the walls of London." f
Did the statute faU into disuse when London had no longer waUs ? For
when we still see the streets which this old statute describes as round
St. Paul's, " envenomed by corrupt airs engendered in the said parishes by
reason and occasion of the slaughter of beasts," we may ask what effective

' Italian Relation," p. 36,

t i Hen, VII,, c. 3.

254 PUBLIC HEALTH— FEASTS. [1509,
substitute is provided for its repeal ? . In many things we have persevered in
clinging to the foUies of our ancestors, and not unfrequently we have rejected
their " -wisdom." In matters concerning the health of populous places, the
sage warnings of past experience have been treated as delusions. The Sweat
ing-sickness was the terror of England at the beginning of the sixteenth
century, as the Plague was in the seventeenth, and the Cholera in the niae-
' teenth. Filth, and imperfect ventilation, were among&t the main causes of
epidemic disease at each of these periods. Erasmus saw that the English so
constructed their rooms as to admit no thorough draught ; and says, " Before
I was thirty years old, if I slept in a room which had been shut up for some
months -without ventilation, I was immediately attacked with fever." The
close air of the English houses, in his sensible opinion, ripened into pestilence.
The dirt even of the better households of the sixteenth century was most
striking to the Eotterdam scholar, who came from a land of cleanUness:
" The floors are mostly of clay, and strewed with rushes. Fresh rushes are
periodically laid over them, but the old ones remain as a foundation for
perhaps twenty years together." The abominations which Erasmus mentions
as collected in these successive layers need not be here particularised.
" It would contribute to health," says the same observer of our manners,
" if people ate and drank less, and Uved on fresh rather than salt meat." The
feasts of the metropolitan city were as magnificent in the days of Henry VII.
as in our times — and, it would appear, quite as stupid. The Venetian traveUer
saw the mayor's banquet at the GuUdhall, where a thousand people were
seated at table ; and " this dinner lasted four hours or more." At the sheriff's
dinner he also observed "the infinite profusion of victuals." He adds, "I
noticed how punctiliously they sat in their order, and the extraordinary silence
of every one." The habit of feasting and being feasted — the dinners of parade
wliich the satirist of our own days so justly ridicules amongst the manifold
follies of vulgar ostentation — was a part of the old English character : " They
think that no greater honour can be conferred or received than to invite
others to eat with them ; and they would sooner give five or six ducats to
provide an entertainment for a person than a groat to assist him in any
distress," * Courtesy to strangers, and to each other, which was also a
pecuUarity of the English, has scarcely so maintained its ancient ascendancy.
" They have the incredible courtesy of remaining with their heads uncovered,
with an admirable grace, whilst they talk to each other." t This was the
formality of self-respect and of respect for others, in a high-minded people.
The old pride of the English was national. "Above aU things," says
Erasmus, " take care not to censure or despise any individual things in the
country ; the natives are very patriotic, and truly not without reason." J
The Venetian says, "They think that there are no other men than themselves,
and no other world but England ; and whenever they see a handsome
foreigner, they say that he looks like an Englishman," The "lords of human
kind" have now, for the most part, absorbed the pride of country into a
narrower circle. It is the pride of possession, the dignity of his own estate,
his stock, his house, his carriage, his liveries, his dinners, and his wine,
that now marks the high-blown patriotic native. His country is chiefly
* "Italian Eelation," p, 22. t Ihid., p, 22, X Letter of 1527,

NATIONAL PRIDE.

¦2r.;>

valued aa comprehending whatever ministers to his individ-aal glory and
gratiflcation. The perilous joustings of the lists of the king's manor of Shene ; '* the
solemn banquets of GuUdhall; the Lords of Misrule at the festivals of tho
court and the city ; the Masks and Disguislngs of royal and noble palaces, —
these were but reflections of the spirit of activity and enjoyment that abided

Maypole before St, Andrew Undershaffc,

in the people, amidst many physical privations and a general absence of what
we caU comfort. The " antique pageantry" of Christmas, the old merriments
of Easter and May-Day, were transmitted from a higher antiquity. It was
the poetry of the inixed British, Eoman, and Saxon race, blending with the
festivals of the early Christian church, and popularly kept up in the mixed
excitement of reverence and frolic. These ceremonials, in their original
simplicity so associated "with the love of nature — with the holly and ivy of
December, the linden of the early spring, the blossoms of the life-stirring
May — were especially attractive to the inhabitants of the crowded towns.
The citizens of Cornhill had danced under the May-pole beneath St. Andrew's
church from time immemorial. The parishes had joined from the earUest
¦* Sir James Parker was slain in a combat in the lists of Shene, in 1 492.

256 PAGEANTS-SPORTS, [1609.
days of their guUds, to go forth to the woods to fetch In the May. They had
lighted the bonfires in the streets, as their fathers had lighted them ; and the
players at bucklers were there, as they were of old. The parish clerks per
formed their interludes in Smithfield as in the time of the second Eichard.
The wrestlers contended before the mayor and aldermen, and the archers
went out into Finsbury Fields, as their fathers before them. The Marching
Watch lighted up the gabled roofs of the city of Lud, as it had done, time
out of mind, when every man's door was " shadowed with green birch,
long fennel, St. John's wort, orpine, and white Ulies ;" * Seven hundred
burning cressets sent up their "triumphant fires;" and the two thousand
men of the marching watch came on with the cresset-bearers, each armed
-with harquebuss and bow and pike, their bright corslets glittering in the pitchy
flame, whilst the waits of the city played their merriest tunes, and the
morrice-dancers kept time to their inspiriting notes. It was an institution
that dated from the time of Henry III. There was a reality in this mar
veUous pageant, of which Stow writes with the enthusiastic pride of a London
citizen. The men of the watch were the organised guardians of the city, — its
voluntary police, under the orders of its magistrates. The poetry of the old
London Ufe is refiected in many other elaborate descriptions by London's most
hofloured antiquary. And he feels, too, that these seasons of civic display and
of common rejoicing called forth a spirit of love out of the depths of the heart,
which might be too often slumbering in the struggle for personal gain and
honour in the great mart of commerce. Such is the sentiment which he infuses
into his account of the simple hospitalities of the London streets, in the twilight
hours of June and July : " On the vigils of festival days, and on the same
festival days after the sun setting, there were usually made bonfires in the
streets, every man bestowing wood and labour towards them ; the wealthier
sort, also, before their doors near to the said bonfires, would set out tables on
the vigils, furnished with sweet bread and good drink, and on the festival days
with meats and drinks plentifuUy, whereunto they would invite their neigh
bours and passengers also to sit and be merry with them in great famUiarity
praising God for the benefits bestowed on them."
* Stow. See p. 39 of Mr. Thom's cheap and valuable edition.

CHAPTER XVI.

Accession of Henry VIII. — Conviction of Empson and Dudley — Marriage of Henry with Catherine
of Aragon — Their coronation — The young king's sports and feats of arms — Impending war
with France — The Balance of Power — The pope to be supported — Causes of quarrel with
Scotland — English expedition to Spain — Wolsey the real minister — Rise of Wolsey — Naval
warfare — Ravages on the coasts — Henry's expedition to France — Siege of Teronenne—.
Maximilian joins the English army — Battle of the Spurs — Capitulation of Tournay —
James IV. invades England — Battle of Flodden Field — Death of James.

The reign of Henry VIIL, according to the computations in official
records, commenced on the 22nd of April, 1509, his father having died on tbe
21st. It is held to be an erroneous idea, that the kings of England always
ascended the throne the moment the preceding sovereign died,* The new
sovereign was " entering into the flower of pleasant youth," and England
was " caUed then the golden world, such grace of plenty reigned then within
this realm," t The kingdom was at peace vrith all foreign powers. James IV.
of Scotland was Henry's brother-in-law. Catherine of Aragon, the daughter
of Ferdinand, remained in England, under the peculiar circumstance of
being contracted in marriage to the young king, against which contract he
had himself protested. Louis XII. was king of France. MaximUian was
emperor. The first act of Henry VIII. and his council was the arrest of Sir Eichard
Empson and Edmund Dudley, the ministers of the extortions of Henry VIL
? SirN. H. Nicolas, "Chronology of History," p. 314.
+ Cavendish, "Life of Wolsey," Singer's edit., p. 79.

268

CONVICTION OP EMPSON AND DUDLEY.

[1509.

Many of the false witnesses, or promoters, who were employed by these
criminal agents of a greater criminal, were also apprehended ; and, in the
language of the time, ''wore papers," — that is, they stood in the pUlory
each with a paper describing his offences. The prosecution of Empson and
Dudley was a signal instance of the abuse of justice, however poUtic it might
have been to appease the clamours of those whom they had injured. They
defended themselves before the council with eloquence, and with a show of
truth. They acted, as they declared, according to the commissions with
which they were entrusted, and they conformed to precedent and the letter of
the law. The charges against them failed ; for the real offender was their
lord the king, who had benefited by their practices. But it was expedient-
to punish them ; and a ridiculous charge of treason against the reigning
monarch was got up against them, it being pretended that they conspired to

Quocn Catherine. From a Mini.ature by Ilolboiu.
seize the person of Henry on the death of his father, and to assume the
functions of government. Empson was convicted on this charge by a jury at
l*rorthampton, and Dudley by a jury in London. The parliament passed a
biU of attainder against them at the beginning of 1510 ; and they were
executed in the following August. But out of the treasury, which
Henry VIII, found amply supplied in part through their evU labours, there
came no reUef to their victims. Some laws were made to prevent such
abuses in future — an easier duty than that of restitution.

S509.]

M.-vRRIAGE OF THE KING— CORONATION.

LTi9

The doubtful position of the princess Catherine was soon relieved by the
determination of Henry to complete the contract of marriage which had beeu
legalised by a papal dispensation in 1503. They were publicly united by the
archbishop of Canterbury on the 7th of June, 1509. Catherine was dressed m
white, and wore her hair loose, — the fashion in which maidens were custo
marily married. Their coronation took place at Westminster on the 24th of
June. There is a curious document still existing which manifests the
attention which the young king paid to his o-wn affairs. It also shows the
tendency of his mind, even at this early period, to assert the dignity of the
crown in matters of church government. This document is the coronation
oath of the kings of England, altered and interlined by the hand of Henry.'*

Henry VIII. in his suit of tilting armour.
The original form says, " The king shall swear at his coronation that he shaU
keep and maintain the right and the liberties of the Holy Church of old time
granted by the righteous Christian kmgs of England." The copy, as inter
lined, reads, "The king shall swear that he shaU keep and maintain the
lawful right and the Uberties of old time granted by the righteous Christian
kings of England to the Holy Church of England, not prejudicial to his
* Cotton MS See Ellis, "Original Letters," S.?cond Series, vol i. p, 176,

260 ROYAL SPORTS AND FEATS OF ARMS, [1509-11.
jurisdiction and dignity royal." The early education of Henry had led him
to the consideration of ecclesiastical questions. Whether, in this modifica
tion of the accustomed oath, the king " looked to something Uke supremacy
in the Church of England, at the very outset of his reign ; " * — or whether it
was a general assertion of that dominant spirit which could brook no control
and admit no superiority, — the interlineations are equally consistent with the
character of the man whose individual will was to produce the most signal
consequences to the country over which he asserted his " dignity royal " for
thirty-eight years.
The parUament of the first year of Henry's reign had granted a subsid_^
of tonnage and poundage, as the customs duties upon certain exports ano
imports were called. These taxes were granted for the defence of the realm
and the keeping of the sea. There were no circumstances to call for an
especial provision beyond this ordinary revenue. The ministers of the crown
moved in their accustomed course, without any trouble from apprehended
dangers at home or abroad. The commonalty were gratified by the vengeance
inflicted upon the legal harpies of the preceding reign ; and there were no
higher violations of the laws, to be met by more stringent legislation, than
" the great and costly array and apparel used within this realm, contrary to
good statutes ;" which excess " hath been the occasion of great impoverishing
of divers of the king's subjects, and provoked many of them to rob and to do
extortion and other unlawful deeds to maintain thereby their costly array." f
Archbishop Warham, the chancellor; bishop Fox, lord privy seal; and
Howard, earl of Surrey, lord treasurer, were the king's chief ministers. For
two years the narratives of the chroniclers are chiefly limited to descriptions
of the king's feats of chivalry and his exercise in all manly sports.J In his
second year, at the feast of Pentecost at Greenwich, " his grace, with two
other with him, challenged all comers to fight with them at the barriers with
target and casting the spear ; and, that done, with two-handed swords." In
the use of the old English long-bow " his grace shot as strong and as great a
length as any of his guard." On May-Day, "his grace being young, and
wUling not to be idle, rose in the morning very early to fetch May or green
boughs, himself fresh and richly apparelled, and clothed all his knights,
squires, and gentlemen in white satin, and all his guard and yeomen of the
crown in white sarsnet." In these Mayings queen Catherine sometimes
accompanied her active consort ; and very harmless bands of archers shot
their fiights at the command of Eobin Hood, their chief ; and the courteous
outlaw feasted the gallant company in green arbours decked with flowers.
When the king entered the lists to joust, and won the prize which the queen
bestowed, " all young persons highly praised, but the ancient fathers much
doubted, considering the tender youth of the king, and divers chances of
horses and armour." They " fain would have him a looker-on, rather than a
doer." It was not in the disposition of this king to be " a looker-on." He
soon made for himself more exciting occupations than his daily exercise " in
shooting, singing, dancing, wrestling, casting of the bar, playing at the
recorders, flute, virginals, and in setting of songs and making of baUads."
He was to show himself " the most Christian king," by higher feats than
• Ellis, " Original Letters," Second Series, vol, i. p, 176, t 1 Hen, VIII, c, 14.
X See especially Hall, from whom we quote a few passages.

1512.]

IMPENDING WAR WITH FRANCE,

261

that skUl in music by which " he did set two goodly masses, every of them
five parts, which were sung oftentimes in his chapel, and afterwards in divers
other places." In the third year of his reign king Henry was preparing for
war with France and Scotland.
The Statute of 1511-12, which grants a subsidy to the king of " two whole
fifteenths and tenths," in the preamble says, " We your humble subjects in
this present parliament assembled, well knowing and perceiving that the

Henry VIII. Maying at Shooter's Hill.
French king, ancient enemy to this your realm of England, daily obtaineth
with great strength and power many great cities, towns, and countries, in the
parts of Italy and other parts beyond the sea ; and also of his high and
insatiable appetite and mind, not contented with region and dominions of
France, giveth his assistance to the duke of Gueldres against the archduke
and prince of CastUe, your near ally, and against his subjects of Flanders ;
and if he may therein prosper and obtain, it is greatly to be presumed that the
same country shaU be utterly destroyed and subdued, to the inestimable loss
and damage of this realm." * From this recital we see that the impending
' 3 Hen, VIII, c, 22.

262 ALLEGED REASONS FOR THE WAR. [151 1-1 2.
war with France was essentially different in one material principle from an \-
j)revious war in which England had engaged with a continental power. It
was a war — if the preamble to the statute correctly interprets the royal
counsels — for the maintenance of the Balance of Power in Europe. In tht-
possible success of Louis of France against Ferdinand of Spain, was to b"-
dreaded "the inestimable loss and damage of this realm." The principle
thus asserted, in carrying out its necessary consequence of taxation of the
people, has been continued to be asserted in the same way for three centuries
and a half. Success in this never-ending labour appears as remote as at the
first hour when the professors of state-craft threw kingdoms and provinces,
now into one scale and now into another, to make the obstinately unresting
beam for a moment level. But a war for maintaining the Balance of Power
could scarcely appeal to the enthusiasm of the nation for support, and espe
cially to the clergy, the most influential portion of the nation. In 1512, the
object of a war with France is more precisely defined. It is to be a war for
the "reformation of the schismatic demeanour" of the French king against
"our holy father the Pope," who has placed France under an interdict, which
the said French king " despising, will not thereby reform himself," The
Holy Father, " for the succour, maintenance, and defence of his person and
of our mother Holy Church, and for the ceasing of the said schism and errors,,
hath written and sent for aid and assistance unto our said- Sovereign Lord,,
and to many other Christian princes." -* How Henry would rejoice in such
an appeal cannot be doubted. He was trained from his earliest years in the
study of the school divinity ; and was as vain of his intellectual accomplish
ments as of his personal prowess. A contest in which he could at once
display his zeal for the Church and his passion for " the pride, pomp, and
circumstance of glorious war," if not for its hardships, was a tempting
opportunity for this king of England, who had just reached the period when
youth is passing into manhood. The real circumstances of this European
contest, in which England might well have remained neutral withont any loss-
of power and dignity, may be briefly told.
At the commencement of the reign of Henry VIIL, the papal throne had
been fllled during six years by JuUus II,, — a pontiff who united the cha
racters of the priest and the warrior, and was equaUy prepared to uphold the
claims of his church, and increase the extent of his dominions, with sword or
with interdict. His real policy was to render Italy independent, — a project
not to be suddenly accomplished by arms, when opposed to Louis of France,.
or Maximilian the emperor, or Ferdinand of Spain ; but to be gradually
furthered by sowing dissensions amongst the temporal princes. He had
joined with these sovereigns in curbing the power of the Venetians by the
League of Cambray, in 1508. He now professed to dread the ambition of
France, and openly defied Louis by the invasion of the territories of his
friend the duke of Ferrara. The French king sent an army from Milan to
the support of his ally. Julius retired to Bologna, where in 1510 he was
besieged by a French army, but without success. In 1511 that papal city
was taken ; and Louis took the bold step of calling a general CouncU " for
the reformation of the Church, both in its head and its members." He had
* 4 Hen. VIII, o, 19.

IJlL'.j CAUSES OP QUARREL WITH SCOTLAiND, 'Jea
the support of his own clergy and of five cardinals. But the pope called
another Council, and set in action the spiritual weapons of deposition and
excommunication. The princes of Christendom were invited to join the
" Holy League " for the defence of the Eoman Church and the extinction of
schism. The impetuous king of England eagerly rushed to enrol himself
amongst the supporters of the pope, who gratefully flattered him with the
promise that the king of France should no longer be " the most Christian
king," and that the orthodox Henry should bear that honoured title. But
there was something iu the prospect of a war more tempting to the pride and
presumption of Henry than the flatteries of " our holy father." The old
dream of the conquest of France — the circumstances being wholly changed
which could give the sUghtest encouragement to a hope of such an issue —
came once again before the eyes of an English king, with aU its delusive
images. In the fifth year of Henry's reign this gay vision was embodied in
the preamble to a statute, which shows " the king, our sovereign lord, greatly
desiring to recover the realm of France, his very true patrimony and inherit
ance, and to reduce the same to his obedience." * When Henry went with
this avowal to parliament, his warlike career had been marked by some
successes which might have intoxicated even a less wilful and arrogant
ruler. There was another ancient .quarrel of the kings of England, which the
government of Henry appears to have kept up -with some of the passion and
prejudice which a sound policy would have rejected. There were reasonable
causes of complaint on both sides between England and Scotland ; but when
the king asked for a subsidy in the third year of his reign, the quarrel with
Ftance being then ripening, the king of Scots is termed by the parliament,
"¦very homager and obediencer of right to your highness." f A famous
Scotch privateer, Andrew Barton, -with his two brothers, had conducted a
naval war against the Portuguese, under letters of marque from James IV.
The statute of the 3rd of Henry aUeges as an offence of Scotland that the
king " hath lately taken your subjects -with their ships and merchandises on
the sea." These captures were made by the Bartons ; and the earl of Surrey
fitted out two ships to repress these assaults on English vessels, which were
not the less obnoxious because they were under colour of search for
Portuguese goods. Sir Thomas Howard, the sou of Surrey, met Andrew
Barton in his ship the Lion, cruising in the Downs ; and in a desperate
engagement the daring privateer fell mortaUy wounded on his deck, A
smaUer vessel belonging to this family was taken by another Howard. It is
recorded of Surrey, that when the exploits of the Bartons were made known
in Henry's councU, he said, " The king of England should not be imprisoned
in his kingdom, while either he had an estate to set up a ship or a son to
command it." J When James IV. demanded satisfaction for the death ot
his brave mariner, Henry replied that kings should disdain to quarrel about
the fate of a pirate. But there were other causes of difference less national
in their character. Henry VII. had bequeathed some valuable jewels to his
daughter Margaret, the queen of Scotland. Her brother, with a meanness
which might be supposed aUen to his ordinary proud and impulsive bearing,
* 5 Hen, VIII, c, 1, +3 Hen. VIIL o. 22.
X Lloyd, " State Worthies," ed. 1670, p, 143,

264 ENGLISH EXPEDITION TO SPAIN. [1512.
withheld this legacy. During the progress of the quarrel with France,
Henry sent Dr. Nicolas West, afterwards bishop of Ely, to the Scottish
court, to endeavour to detach James from the French interest; and the
skUful agent in a letter to his master thus relates a conversation -with queen
Margaret : " And therewith she asked if your grace had sent her legacy ;
and I s.aid yea, which I was ready to deliver her, so that the king would
promise to keep the treaty of peace. And she asked, ' and not else ? ' and I
said, no : for if he would make war, your grace would not only withhold that,
but also take from them the best towns they had." * Well might Margaret
write, with bitter irony, to her " best beloved brother," with reference to this
conversation, " we cannot believe that of your mind, or by your command, we
are so friendly dealt -with in our father's legacy." The famUy aUiance, which
should have ripened into a national alliance between England and Scotland,
was broken ; and in May, 1512, James IV. concluded a league -with France.
In June, 1512, an English force was sent to Spain, under the marquis of
Dorset. These ten thousand Englishmen, who were intended for the con.
quest of Guienne, remained inactive near Fonterabia, whUst Henry's aUy,
Ferdinand, was carrying out his o-wn projects in the conquest of Navarre.
There is a curious picture of a raw and undisciplined English force, given in
a letter of Dr. William Knight, addressed to " The right honorable M.
Thomas Wolsey, Almoner to the King's grace of England." " The army,"
he says, " doeth earthly nothing, but feed and sleep ; " they mutinied for
advance of pay to eightpence a day ; they were not practised " how we should
behave us in wars, as all other men do, and as all that ever I read of have done,
specially when the army is unlearned, and hath not seen tl^e feats of war." t
This communication to the king's almoner indicates the position which
Q'homas Wolsey now filled. We learn from his biographer, that in the
expedition to France, in 1513, Wolsey was essentially the war-minister :
" He being nothing scrupulous in anything that the king would command
him to do, although it seemed to other very difficile, took upon him the
whole charge aud burden of all this business ; and proceeded so therein that
he brought aU things to a good pass and purpose in a right decent order, as
of aU manner of victuals, provisions, and other necessaries, convenient for
so noble a voyage and puissant army." J Strange as it may seem that a
priest of the king's household should have the organisation of a great warlike
expedition, it wiU appear less strange when we bear in mind that some of
the highest offices of the state were filled by churchmen. At the commence.
ment of his career of power, Wolsey, in his position of almoner, appears to
have stood to the king in the relation of secretary. But his abilities were so
commanding, his services so important, and his adaptation of his counsels to
the royal vriU so politic, that we shall soon recognise him as the most
influential of Henry's ministers. He "ruled all them that before ruled
him," § even before he occupied the highest position of a subject, second only
to the king, and scarcely inferior to him in the command of all the soUd
power and vain pomp of greatness. Let us look back upon the rise of this
extraordinary favorite of fortune.
* Ellis, "Original Letters," First Series, vol. i. p. 64.
t Ibid.., Second Series, vol. i. p. 191. J Cavendish, p. 86,
X Cavendish, p. 81,

1600-12.] KISE OF WOLSEY, 265
Thomas Wolsey, according to Cavendish, " was an honest poor man's son,
born m Ipswich." There is a tradition that his father was a butcher ; and,
very probably, before the modern division of occupations the butcher of
Ipswich was a grazier and landowner. The son was educated at Oxford,
where he took his degree of bachelor of arts at the age of fifteen. That he
was preparing to enter the church appears from his father's wiU, dated in
1496, wherein he says, " I will that if Thomas my son be a priest within a
year next after my decease, then I will that he sing for me and my friends by
the space of a year, and he to have for his salary ten marks." Thomas
Wolsey became a priest and a fellow of Magdalen College ; and having been
tutor to the sons of the marquis of Dorset, received from him the benefice of
Lymington in 1500. He subsequently was appointed one of the chaplains of
Henry VII. His promotion in that court arose out of his capacity to seize
upon a fit occasion for the display of remarkable energy. It is an attribute
of genius thus to make its opportunities, whilst the ordinary man passes them
by. Henry VIL, in his matrimonial speculations after the death of his
queen, desired to send a confidential messenger to the emperor MaximUian,
then in Flanders ; and Wolsey was recommended for the office. Having
received his instructions from the king, he left Eichmond at noon ; took the
ferry-boat for Gravesend ; went on with horses to Dover ; had a quick
passage to Calais ; discharged his commission to the emperor on the second
night ; travelled back to Calais the next daj' ; and was again at Eichmond on
the fourth evening. This was an extraordinary journey for those times.
Presenting himself to the king on the following morning, he was angrUy
asked why he had not set forth on his travel. That he had accomplished
his mission was no doubt a matter of admiring wonder ; but that haste might
have been fatal if the ambassador's judgment had not been as remarkable as
his energy. The king had despatched a poursuivant with additional instruc
tions, which reached Wolsey as he returned. He had accomplished what
was desired, through the exercise of his own discretion. Henry VII. knew
the value of such a servant, and presented the quick-witted chaplain with the
deanery of Lincoln. Henry VIIL found this able man ready for his service
when he came to the throne, and he made him one of his councU. To the
pleasure-loving son, Wolsey was of more value than to the careful father. The
young Henry was "nothing minded to travaU in the busy affairs of his
realm." The almoner would " disburthen the king of so weighty a
charge and troublesome business, putting the king in comfort that he
shall not need to spare any time of his pleasure, for any business that
should necessarUy happen in the council, as long as he, being there and
ha-ving the king's authority and commandment, doubted not to see aU
things sufficiently furnished and perfected." * That Wolsey had thus
found " a plain path to walk in towards promotion " is clearly shown by his
biographer. The army of Guienne had returned to England, without accompUshing
any object beyond faciUtating the conquest of Navarre by Ferdinand. The
English fleet under sir Edward Howard made descents on the coast of Bri
tanny, and committed the usual ravages. There was a naval engagement off
-* Cavendish, p. 81.

266

NAVAL WARFARE— RAVAGES ON THE COASTS.

[1513.

Brest, which was caUed a victory, though the largest ship in the English navy,
theEegent, was burnt. So important was the loss of this ship deemed, that
Wolsey, writing to bishop Fox, said, " keep this tidings secret to yourself,
for there is no living man knoweth the same here but only the king and I."
The king immediately commanded a magnificent vessel to be built, which
figures in history as the " Henry Grace Dieu." In the foUowing spring of
1513, Brest was blockaded. Sir Edward Howard, having made a vow that he
would never more see the king tiU he had revenged the death of sir Thomas
EInyvet, who perished in the flames of the Eegent, attempted to cut out
a squadron moored in a bay strongly fortified, and fell a victim to the prin
ciple which has given England so many naval victories, that temerity at sea

Henri Grace Dieu. From a picture in Greenwich Hospital,
becomes a virtue. The evil that was inflicted upon the French coasts was
naturally encountered by a simUar infliction upon the English coasts. There
is a statute of 1512 for the especial erection of bulwarks from Plymouth to
the Land's-end, and in all other landing places, which furnishes sufficient
evidence that the practical despotism of the government touched every man,
however humble. To assist in the defence of their country against invasion

1513.] HENRY'S EXPEDITION TO FRANCE, 287
necessarily demands some personal privation, from the high and the lowly.
But the government which enacted that all inhabitants of the maritime dis
tricts should be compelled to work at such bulwarks, with their own instru
ments, and to receive no compensation for their toil, was a government that
hesitated not to rob the poor of their only capital, their power of labour, to
spare the rich, whose property was chiefly imperilled by the probable assaults
of a hostile force. Those who came not to work and to starve, at the summons
of the mayors and constables, were to be committed to prison.'* The builders
of the pyramids, with their scanty fare of onions and garlic, were in a happier
condition than the free English under Henry VIII.
Ferdinand of Castile, with his usual adroitness, had concluded a truce with
Louis XII. He had possessed himself of Navarre, and the object with which
he drew England into a war was accomplished. But Henry, with MaximlUau,
the emperor, and the pope (now Leo X.), formed a new league against France,
England was dragged into a continuance of the war, contrary to the opinion
of the soundest heads amongst her politicians, that the boastful king who
challenged all comers at the barriers might exhibit his pageantry on a real
battle-field. Of Henry's animal courage there can be little doubt ; but, like
many other men possessing natural bravery, he was whoUy unfitted for the
duties of a commander. He had one great object ever present to his mind,
in peace or in war ; to display Henry the king, in his presumed superiority of
mind and body, made doubly impressive by his regal magnificence. A more vain
glorious and self-wUled coxcomb never wore a cro-wn. In his first experience
of war, in 1513, his qualities were exhibited in a way which sufficiently
betokens the total absence of real greatness of character. Two divisions of
an army of twenty-five thousand men had sailed for France in May ; and the
king was to accompany the last division in June. He committed the
governance of the realm to his queen, leaving his commands for the execution
of the earl of Suffolk, who had remained shut up in the Tower since 1506.1'
Eichard de la Pole, his brother, had accepted a command in the French army ;
and the hereditary jealousy of the " White Eose " stirred up the feeling with
which the first and second Tudor regarded every possible claimant to the
Plantagenet blood. The two divisions of the EngUsh army, under the earl of
Shrewsbury and Lord Herbert, were besieging Teronenne, a strong town of
France, near the Flemish frontier, when Henry, on the 15th of June, set
forth toward Dover, from his royal manor of Greenwich, accompanied by
his queen and a great retinue, to head the third division. It was the 30th of
June before the king and his courtiers went on ship-board ; and " took leave
of the queen and of the ladies, which made such sorrow for the departing of
their husbands that it was great dolour to behold." J The spirit of the Eoman
matrons, which once abided in English women, seems to have somewhat
passed away from thjs luxurious court. Ostentatiously saUing near Boulogne,
firing guns and sounding trumpets, the king's fleet reached Calais. Wherever
Henry appears, we derive from the old chronicler the most intricate details
of his magnificent wardrobe ; and for three weeks he lingered at Calais,
exhibiting his " garment of white cloth of gold, with a red cross," and
* 4 Hen, VIIL, c, 1. + See ante, p, 234,
X Hall's Chronicle, p, 539, The narrative of this chronicler, who wrote in the time of
Edward VI,, is full of such minute details.

268 SIEGE OP TEROUENNE— MAXIMILIAN WITH THE ARMY, [1513,
surrounded by the six hundred archers of his guard, " all in white gaber
dines." At length he marched on towards Teronenne, and reached the camp
on the 4th of August. On the 12th, Maximilian was to join him. Henry
was now in his great element, and " prepared all things necessary to meet
with the emperor in triumph." How the noblemen of the king's camp were
gorgeously appareUed ; how their coursers wore trappings of gold and silver,
with little bells of gold ; how the king was in a garment of great riches in
jewels,and armed in a light armour, — these trifles are most elaborately depicted.
All this unwarlike display is made doubly absurd by the contrast that the
emperor and his men came all in plain black cloth. Maximilian was a real
warrior, and also a judge of human character. He was poor ; and he and his
soldiers took the wages of England. He was wise ; and called himself the
king's soldier, and wore the cross of St. George and the Eed Eose. The good
simple queen Catherine, upon hearing of this incense to her lord, -writes to
Wolsey, " I was very glad to hear the meeting of them both, which hath
been to my seeming the greatest honour to the king that ever came to
prince." * But Maximilian trusted more to the experience beneath the plain
black cloth than to the presumption arrayed in cloth of gold. A large body
of French cavalry had advanced on the 16th of August for the relief of
Tournay. The emperor led his German cavalry and the English mounted
archers against this formidable force, far exceeding his own in number.
Henry foUowed -with the infantry. At the first shock the French gendarmes,
to the number of ten thousand, were seized -with some inexplicable panic,
and in spite of their practice in war fled before the charge of MaximiUan,
leaving their best officers in the field. Amongst these was one of the most
distinguished of the soldiers of France, — he, who in his gallant and
honourable career, won the name of "the knight without fear and without
reproach." Maximilian and Henry received the iUustrious Bayard, and
his companions in misfortune, with the courtesy of the chivalric times.
Teronenne, after this remarkable -victory, was feebly defended ; and being
surrendered on the 27th of August, its fortifications were destroyed. The
French themselves, laughing at the panic-stricken flight of their army, called
this " The Battle of the Spurs."
If we may judge from a passage of another letter of queen Catherine, this
skirmish was reckoned by the king a marveUous triumph : " The victory hath
been so great that I think none such hath been ever seen before." f But no
advance was made into France. There was a grand display to be made when
Teronenne was taken possession of; and Henry was invited by the arch
duchess Margaret to visit her in her court of Lisle, where there were
tempting banquets, plays, masques, and other pastimes, to solace him for his
privations under his sUken pavUions. Here he met his wife's nephew, prince
Charles of Spain, — the future dictator of Europe. One more feat was accom
plished before the king returned home. Tournay was besieged, and capi
tulated on the 29th of September. One Englishman was benefited by this
capture ; for Wolsey received the rich bishopric of Tournay. After three
weeks of the accustomed parade, — of tilts in the market-place, and of
jousts in which "the king and the lord Lisle answered all comers," the
* Ellis, First Series, vol. i, p. 85- + Ibid., voL i. p. 84.

1518.]

BATTLE OP THE SPURS.

269

ilKi

1/ ' «i

ao

IV ,./.--.¦--; \ vl,

iitf'-i;^^'

270 JAMES IV. INVADES ENGLAND. [1513.
campaign was ended; and Henry was again in England on the 24th of
November. During this continental expedition, whose useless triumphs and vain
pageantries had swallowed np a great subsidy, there had been a far more
serious warfare upon English ground. Whilst Henry encamped before
Teronenne, Lyon, king-of-arms of Scotland, arrived with a letter from
James IV., to which the king of England desired to send a verbal answer
of reproach and defiance. But the herald refused to deliver the insulting
message of Henry, that James was his vassal, and that he would expel him
from his realm. A letter in more sober style was therefore written ; but aU
the mortal strifes of the king of Scotland were at an end before the missive was
received. The circum
stances that indicated
an approaching war be
tween England and
Scotland were in fuU
operation before Henry
Signature of Henry VIII. Cotton MS, Vespasian, F. 15, croSSed the Channel.
The continual border-
feuds of the two nations kept alive the general spirit of hostUity be
tween them ; and '' prudence, policy, the prodigies of superstition, and
the advice of his most experienced counsellors, were alike unable to
subdue in James the blazing zeal of romantic chivalry." * The
invasion of England can scarcely be attributed wholly to this blazing zeal
of the Scottish king ; for the army which he led from Edinburgh com
prised every race and class of the population, and was commanded by the
most powerful of the Scottish nobility. Of those who opposed the invasion
the earl of Angus was the most prominent. The stout old man's prudence
was treated as pusillanimity, and he retired in just indignation before the
shock of war showed the soundness of his judgment. The " messenger from
heaven," who is reported to have warned James against this expedition, as he
saC "very sad and dolorous, making his devotion to God," and then "vanished
away as he had been a blink of the sun or a whip of the whirlwind," t — even
this could not shake the resolve of the king, disposed as he was to alterna
tions of levity and superstition. The miraculous cry that was heard at
midnight from the market-cross of Edinburgh, summoning earls and barons
by name to appear within forty days before their master, Plutock (Pluto),
could not shake the courage of those who were going forth with spear and
battle-axe .to meet the English bowmen. In Holyrood the gallant James has
banqueted and danced for the last time ; and on the 22nd of August he has
crossed the Tweed, and has sat down with many thousand men, the feudal
array of the kingdom, before the castle of Norham. After being invested
for sis days the governor surrendered the place, although it was considered
impregnable. Three other border fortresses, Wark, Etall, and Ford, suc
cessively feU. The earl of Surrey, to whom was entrusted the defence of the
English border, was at Pontefract. He set up the standard of St. George at
'' Scott, "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,'' vol. i. p, 107.
t Pitscottie, c[uotedin Notes to "Marmicu."

Ijl3,] BATTLE OF FLODDEN FIELD, ."Tl
Newcastle; and with a numerous force marched on to Alnwick, which lio
reached on the 8rd of September, According to the practice of chivalry
Surrey offered battle to James, on the following Friday, in a message which
he sent by a poursuivant-at-arms. The king of Scotland courteously accepted
the challenge. To an insolent defiance from lord Thomas Howard, that he
had come to justify the death of Andrew Barton, and would neither give nor
I'eceive quarter, the king returned no answer. " The king lay upon the side
of a high mountain called Flodden, on the edge of Cheviot, where was but
one narrow field for any man to ascend up the said hill to him, and at the
foot of the hill lay all his ordnance. On the one side of his army was a great
marish, and compassed with the hills of Cheviot, so that he lay too strong to
be approached of any side, except the EngUsh would have temerariously run
on his ordnance."* James was rash; but he kept his strong position, in
spite of a taunting message from Surrey to take up a ground where the battle
might be fairly tried. The English commander was an experienced soldier ;
and he showed his knowledge of strategy by an unexpected and masterly
movement. The Till, a branch of the Tweed, lay between the two armies.
Surrey had crossed this river on the 8th of September, at a distant point from
Flodden ; by which manoBuvre he deceived James as to his real intentions ;
but on the morning of the 9th he suddenly re-crossed it, with his van and
cannon, at Twigsel-bridge, near the junction of the Till with the Tweed, and
the remainder of his army passed a ford, Surrey was now in a position in
which he could cut off the communication of James with his supplies from
Scotland. The English were marching rapidly to secure the eminence of
Branksome, when the Scots descended the heights of Flodden to seize this
position, setting fire to their tents. The king, who had made no attempt to
prevent the English crossing the TUl, had now " his enemies before him on a
plain field," as his wish is declared to have been. The battle began at four
o'clock in the afternoon of the 9th of September.
' ' The English line stretched east aud west.
And southward were their faces set ;
The Scottish northward proudly prest,
And manfully their foes they met," +
Each of the sons of Surrey commanded a division of the right wing; Surrey
himself was in the centre ; Sir Edward Stanley headed the left wing, Tho
Scottish earls Huntley and Home, who commanded their left wing, attacked
the Howards with a vigour that might have decided the battle, had not lord
Dacre come to their aid with the reserve of horse. The Scottish right wing,
which chiefly consisted of Highlanders, was unable to stand up against the
archers of Lancashire. James and Surrey met in close conflict in the
centres of their armies. Never was king in the extremity of danger sur
rounded by more gaUant supporters. But though he and his knights were
struggling in no unequal strife with Surrey, whose standard was nearly won,
the rapid triumph of Stanley over the right -wing enabled him to attack the
;Scottish centre in the rear. James fell within a lance's length of Surrey.
* HaU, p. 560.
+ Old Poem of "Flodden Field," quoted in Notes to "Marmion,"

'iri

DEATH OF JAMES IV.

[1513.

None of his division were made prisoners. They aU perished with their king.
As night came on Surrey drew back his men. Before the dawn the Scots
had left the fleld. The loss of the Scottish army has been computed at ten
thousand men ; that of the English at about seven thousand. " Scarce a
family of eminence but has an ancestor kUled at Flodden," says Scott. In
the words of the baUad, —
" The flowers of the forest are a' wede away."

Sword and dagger of J.imes IV., and two Knights' Banners, used at the Battle of Flodden Fic-.d,

Henry VIII. and his Council. (From Hall's Chronicle, 1648.)

CHAPTER XVII.
Ravages in Scotland, and on the coasts of the Channel — Peace with France and Scotland —
Francis I, and Charles of Spain — Conquest of Milan — Wolsey, cardinal and legate —
Position of the Church— Affair of Richard Hunne — Election for the Empire — Proposed
meeting between Henry and Francis — Arrival of Charles at Dover — The emharkation —
Characteristics of the two kings— Field of the Cloth of Gold — Meeting with Charles V, —
Con-viction and execution of the duke of Buckingham,

The intelUgence of the slaughter of Flodden was received ia England with
the unmixed exultation that necessarUy arose out of what was deemed a
national triumph. The time was yet distant when EngUshmen and Scots should
regard each other as children of the same soil, having in a great degree the
same origin, speaking the same language with slight variation, and having
more natural sympathies than conventional antipathies. The amiable qneen

274 RAVAGES ON THE COASTS.— PEACE WITH FRANCE. [1514.
Catherine, who in August described herself as " horrible busy in making
standards, banners, and badges " for this war,* writes to the king, after the'
victory, " this battle hath been to your grace and aU the realm the greatest
honour that could be, and more than [if] ye should -win aU the crown of
France." f When the king returned, Surrey was created duke of Norfolk, and'
his son Thomas the earl of Surrey. Honours were also bestowed upon other-
leaders. But the desolation of Scotland had not extinguished the high spirit of
the country ; and, after a short time, there were inroads made from the Scottish
border, as well as from the EngUsh, of which the ferocity on either side was
equally balanced. In 1514, lord Dacre, describing the "robbing, spoiUng,.
and vengeance in Scotland," adds, " which I pray our Lord God to continue."
Thus men appealed to the Author of all good in support of their perpetration
of aU evU. It was long before war came to be regarded as a great calamity,
and before it was held that its inevitable miseries should be inflicted as
lightly as possible upon non-combatants. Such warfare as that of the forays
of England and Scotland was only to be duly estimated when the mUitary
class ceased to be the preponderating power iu either state.
England made great preparations for war against France in the beginning'
of 1514; but the actual hostilities were conflned to ravages on the coast
of the Channel. An attack of the French upon the Sussex shore presents
a curious contrast to such a possible enterprise in our own day. " About
this time [May] prior John, great captain of the French navy, with his
galleys and foists,J charged with great basilisks and other great artUlery,
came on the border of Sussex, and came a-land on the night at a poor
vUlage in Sussex called Brighthelmstone ; and ere the watch could him
descry he set fire on the town, and took such poor goods as he found. Then
the watch fired the beacons, and people began to gather ; which seeing, prior
John sounded his trumpet to caU his men aboard, and by that time it was
day. Then six archers which kept the watch foUowed prior John to the sea,
and shot so fast that they beat the galleymen from the shore, and prior Johni
himself waded to the foist." § The bold prior was shot -with an arrow in the
face ; and he offered an image of himself, with the identical arrow sticking ini
the waxen cheek, in gratitude to our Lady at Boulogne for saving his life by
miracle. On the coast of Normandy an English commander burnt twenty-
one villages and to-wns. But Louis of France was too wise to continue a
contest in which his o-wn safety was so imperilled. Henry of England had a
sister, Mary, now in her seventeenth year. Charles Brandon, duke of
Suffolk, had won her affections ; but, in treating for peace, when the king of
France asked her hand, she was consigned to age and decrepitude, instead of
to the most gallant of EngUsh knights. Mary was cro-wned queen of France
on the 5th of November, 1514. On the 1st of January, king Louis was dead..
On the 9th of January, the widowed queen wrote to Wolsey, signing herself,
" your loving friend," to declare, that " as it shall please the king my brother
and his, council, I wUl be ordered." || Charles Brandon was sent to bring
the queen from France. She came to England as his -wife. Henry was
indignant, but his anger passed away; and "cloth of frize" was " match'di
• Letter to Wolsey, EUis, First Series, vol. i, p, 83, t Ihid., p. 88.
X Foists are light and quick-sailing boats.
§ Hall, p. 668, II Ellis, First Series, vol. i. p. 121.

Ifl5-19,] FRANCIS I. AND CHARLES OP SPAIN. 275
with cloth of gold," * without the risk that might have attended the " great
and high displeasure " of the king at another period of his life. At the time
of the treaty w^th France peace was also concluded with Scotland.
The pollticill events of the first ten years of the reign of Henry VIII,
appear but as the prologue to the great drama which is about to be enacted,
Louis XII. of France, in January 1515, is succeeded by his son-in-law Francis
I., then in his twenty-first year. In 1516 Ferdinand of Spain dies, and is
succeeded by his grandson, Charles, the son of Juana, the imbecile daughter
of Ferdinand. His father, the archduke PhUip, died in 1506, so that the
young prince had already inherited the Netherlands, when he came to the
crowns of Aragon and CastUe, of Naples and SicUy. The frontiers of France,
on the side of Flanders and on the side of the Pyrenees, were thus in the
hands of this monarch, a youth of sixteen. That war would be the result of
this dangerous propinquity would have been more than probable under the
most moderate of princes. But Francis and Charles were each extravagantly
ambitious, though essentially different in personal character. The first act
of the enterprising king of France was to make good his claim to the duchy of
MUan. The pope, Leo X., opposed this claim, in conjunction with Ferdinand
of Spain, and with the Swiss. Francis rapidly passed the Alps ; and having
won the great victory of Marignano, entered Milan as conqueror in October,
1515. He had recovered that ascendancy in Italy which France had lost.
England had therefore more reason to fear that the balance of power would
be deranged, than when she went to war to resist the alleged ambition of
Louis XII. But Francis, after some ineffectual attempts on the part of
England's aUy, Maximilian, adroitly propitiated the favour of Wolsey; and
the possession of Tournay was relinquished by Henry upon a payment to him
of six hundred thousand crowns. Wolsey had been declared a cardinal in 1516.
He received the great seal as chancellor in the same year; and he was
nominated papal legate in 1517, with the high powers that belonged to the
office of legatus a. latere. From 1515 to 1523 no parliament was summoned.
Henry and his great minister governed the kingdom at their sole wiU. In
1519, the emperor MaximUian died ; and from that time the political affairs
of Europe received an expansion which indicated the influence of higher
agencies than the mere passions and caprices of individual sovereigns.
To understand the relative positions of Henry, the king, and of
Wolsey, his chanceUor, we must constantly bear in mind that the English
minister was also the representative of the papal supremacy. The cardinal
and legate -wielded his great power and displayed his extraordinary
magnificence, not in opposition to the prerogative of the king or in
rivalry with his dignity, but in strict conformity with the desire of Henry
to be the faithful son and devoted champion of the Eoman Church. He
had raised his almoner from comparative obscurity to be archbishop of
fork; and with that preferment Wolsey absorbed other ecclesiastical
• There was a picture at Strawberry Hill, of Brandon and Mary, with this inscription on a
label ajBfixed to Brandon's lance : —
" Cloth of gold do not despise.
Though thou be match'd -with cloth of frize ;
Cloth of frize, be not too bold.
Though thou be match'd -with cloth of gold,"

276 WOLSEY, CARDINAL AND LEGATE. 11517.
revenues which furnished him with almost unbounded wealth. The magni
ficence of the cardinal's household, the number of noblemen and gentlemen
daily attending upon him — the sumptuousness of his menial servants, his
master-cook even wearing satin and velvet — his processions, with his sUver
crosses and silver pillars, his cardinal's hat and his great seal — his banquets
to the king, with masks and mummeries, dancings and triumphant devices — all
these exhibitions would have been scarcely endured by the most jealous of
monarchs had they merely emanated from the ostentation of the courtier
and statesman. In the magniflcence of the great churchman Henry might
believe that his people would recognise and humbly bow before the paramount
authority of the Church. The vast abilities and the lofty ambition of the king's
powerful minister, might practically invest the temporal goyernment with the
real ecclesiastisal supremacy. The great cardinal was pope in England ; but
he was also the devoted servant of the crown. The period in which Wolsey
was in full possession of . these extraordinary powers was one in which the
European mind was strongly agitated by signs of approaching change. The
wealth, luxury, and immunities of the Church were offensive to a large portion
of the laity. The spirit of the Lollards was not wholly trodden out in
England. In Germany a new antagonist to the corruptions of the papacy
had arisen, whose voice filled a wider area than that of Wycliffe. The spirit
with which Martin Luther first denounced the abomination of the sale of
Indulgences might naturaUy suggest the fear that other iniquities would be
laid bare. The time for effectuaUy suppressing opinions was past ; for the
printing-press would do its work in spite of papal buUs and excommunications,
Leo X., even without yieiding to that foreign influence which is supposed to
have given Wolsey the cardinal's hat, would naturally look to one so able of
himself, and so favoured by circumstances, to keep England safe from the
contaminating opinions of the monk of Wittenberg. The appointment of
Henry's great minister as the papal legate was concurrent -with the time
when Luther flrst chaUenged the power of the pope to absolve the sinner
from the penalties of Divine justice. Leo affected to make light of the dispute
between the professor of Wittenberg and the Dominican monk, who was
selling his indulgences as openly as any other merchandise was sold. The
danger might not appear to him imminent ; but the pope was too acute a
politician not to secure for himself the services of a man of such commanding
influence as Wolsey. The choice was a wise one ; for as long as Wolsey was
in power, though he was a church-reformer in a limited degree, he maintained
the papal supremacy inviolate in England. When his reign was over, the
delegated authority of Eome was snatched for ever from the hands that had
previously kept the world in awe. The political despotism of the king was
the instrument, under God's providence, by which the inestimable blessing of
freedom from the yoke of the Eomish church was secured, without which all
civil freedom would have quickly passed away. That Wolsey had a perfect
understanding with his royal master as to the parts which each was to sustain
in matters of ecclesiastical controversy, may be inferred from the position
which each took in 1515. By an Act of Henry VIL, the " benefit of clergy "
was regulated, so as to inflict some penalty upon murderers and robbers. In
the fourth year of Henry VIIL, 1512, a Statute was passed, which recites,
that " robberies, murders, and felonies daily increase more and more, and

1515-17,] POSITION OF THE CHURCH. 277
be committed and done in more heinous, open, and detestable wise, than hath
been oft seen in times past, and the persons so offending little regard tho
punishment thereof by the course of the common law, nor by reason of any
statute heretofore made, but bear them bold of their clergy." The Act then
exempts from the benefit of clergy aU murderers, highway-robbers, and
burglars, " such as be within holy orders only except." The Act could not
be passed through the House of Lords without granting the exception to
" such as be within holy orders ; " and a provision was added that it should
only endure for a year. Eeasonable and just as this Statute was, as far as it
went, the ecclesiastical authorities regarded it as an encroachment upon the
privUeges of the Church, and they prevented its renewal on the expiration of
the first year. Murderers and robbers might again " bear them bold of their
clergy." A certain abbot of Winchelcomb, in 1515, denounced from the
pulpit at Paul's Cross aU those who had assented to the Act of 1512. The
temporal lords then addressed the king, beseeching him to repress the
increasing extravagance of the pretensions of the churchmen ; and after a long
debate before Henry in councU, the bishops were moved to order the zealous
abbot to recant his opinions. This they refused to do, justifying all his
proceedings. A -violent controversy now sprung up between the parliament
and the convocation, which became more serious from a remarkable incident
of the same period, which agitated the people of London far more than
the dispute about the franchises of the church. There was a paltry
quarrel between the incumbent of a parish in Middlesex and Eichard Hunne,
a merchant taUor of London, about the right of the clergyman to a piece of
Unen, which he claimed as what was called " a mortuary." The tailor was
sued in the spiritual court, then sitting under the authority of the pope's
legate ; and he, by the advice of his counsel, took out a writ against his
pursuer. The bold citizen held that the clerk of Middlesex was guilty
of a prsBmunire, or offence against the king's majesty, in bringing
his subjects under a foreign jurisdiction. A counter-charge of heresy
was got up against Hunne. He was imprisoned in the Lollards' Tower
at St. Paul's ; and, being brought before the bishop of London, vras
terrified into an admission of some of the crimes of which he was accused,
one of which was that he had in his possession the epistles and gospels iu
English, and " Wycliffe's damnable works." He was sent back to his prison,
and two days after was found hanging in his cell. A coroner's inquest
charged the bishop's chanceUor and other officers with murder ; but it was
maintained by them that the heretic had committed suicide. The bishop and
the clergy had the incredible foUy to begin a new process of heresy against
the dead body, which was adjudged guUty ; and according to the sentence
burnt in Smithfield. " After that day the city of London was never well
affected to the popish clergy." * Dr. Horsey, the bishop of London's chan
ceUor, was hiding from the warrant out against him, on the finding of the
coroner's inquest ; and the temper of the Londoners is described in a letter
of the bishop to Wolsey, in which he says, " if my chancellor be tried by any
twelve men in London, they be so maliciously set in favour of heretical
wickedness (in favorem hereticcB pravitatis) that they wUl cast and condemn
* Burnet, "History of tho Reformation," book L

278 OSTENTATION OF WOLSEY. [1517.
any clerk though he were as innocent as Abel." This affair was eventually
compromised. But the previous dispute was kept up by the Convocation
summoning before them Dr. Standish, who had conducted the discussion
against the abbot of Winchelcomb, to defend the opinions which he had
declared before the king in council. The matter was again referred to
Henry ; who called the Lords, some of the Commons, and the judges, before
him at Baynard's Castle. Wolsey, as cardinal, knelt before the king, and, in
the name of the clergy, protested that none of them intended to do anything
that might derogate from his prerogative ; and implored that the king, " to avoid
the censures of the Church, would refer the matter to the decision of the pope
and his councU at the court of Eome." Henry, with that determination to
uphold his prerogative which was an abiding principle of his government, said,
" By the permission and ordinance of God we are king of England, and the
kings of England in times past had never any superior but God alone. There
fore know you well that we will maintain the right of our crown, and of our
temporal jurisdiction as well in this, and in all other points, in as ample
manner as any of our progenitors have done before our time." Eebuking
then the spirituality for interpreting their decrees at their own pleasure, he
left the matter as it stood. The king and the cardinal had each shown them
selves wise in their generation. There was no papal interference to assert
the demands of the clergy. There was no trial of the bishop's chancellor to
uphold the claims of civU justice, 'f This was the only thing in the first
eighteen years of the king's reign that seemed to lessen the greatness of the
clergy, but in all other things he was a most faithful son of the see of Eome." *
The ostentation of Wolsey, as far as we may infer from the character of
his display, was the result rather of policy than of temperament. He filled
the two highest offices in the country, secular and ecclesiastical. He had
been raised from the ranks- of the people to be chanceUor and cardinal. He
was surrounded by a proud nobUity, with- whom he was " the butcher's cur."
He exhibited the pomp of his high stations to demand the respect which
would have been withheld from his talents and learning, under the cloud of
the meanness of his birth. It was an age of display, when the king set the
example to his court of the most extravagant splendour, which many of the
nobles ruined themselves to imitate. The simplicity of private life, of which
More, as chanceUor, afterwards furnished so admirable a pattern, was scarcely
compatible -with Wolsey 's great position as an ecclesiastic. He was the repre
sentative of the pomp and luxury of Leo X. ; and he had the same exalted
ideas as the pope evinced of bestowing a magnificent patronage upon learning
and the arts. " Thus passed the cardinal," says Cavendish, " his life and time,
from day to day, and year to year, in such great wealth, joy, and triumph, and
glory, having always on his side the king's especial favour." But it was not
that favour alone which upheld Wolsey. His position as the greatest of
EngUsh ecclesiastics commanded the reverence that might have been denied
to his civil abilities ; his just administration in his court of equity ; and the
extraordinary influence over a despotic king, by which, for so long a period, he
preserved him, with one or two exceptions, from any sanguinary course of
jealousy or revenge, or any blood-guilty violation of the rights of the people
* Burnet, book i.

1519.1 CONTINENTAL POLICY. 279
Wolsey's real worth was duly estimated by More, a very competent judge,
who said of his administration of the powers of the great seal, " he behaves
most beautifuUy." Still, the sumptuous churchman commanded a respect
which the wise chanceUor might have scarcely propitiated. In his hour of
misfortune the duke of Norfolk said to him, " I regarded your honour, for
that ye were archbishop of Tork, and a cardinal, whose estate of honour
surmounteth any duke now living within this realm." * It was this reverence
to his spiritual dignity which made him capricious and overbearing in
his civil relations. Skelton has reproached him with his haughtiness to the
nobiUty — " He saith they have no brain
Their estate to maintain." i*
The same bitter satirist declares of Wolsey that no man dare come to his
speech ; of the truth of which charge, we have evidence in a letter to the earl
of Shrewsbury from his chaplain, who danced attendance upon the proud
minister at Guildford and Hampton-Court for many days, to have an answer
to his lord's letter : — " Upon Monday last, as he walked in the park at
Hampton-Court, I besought his grace I might know if he would command me
any service. He was not content with me that I spoke to him. So that
who shaU be a suitor to him may have no other business but give attendance
upon his pleasure." J To a servant of the deputy of Calais, who pressed for
an answer to a letter, Wolsey said, " If ye be not content to tarry my leisure
¦depart when ye wiU." His biographer says, " I assure you, in. his time, he
was the haughtiest man in aU his proceedings alive." Some aUowance must
be made for this minister's position. No man in the highest office ever had
more labour to perform ; no servant of a king ever had a more difficult
master to- manage. Upon his death-bed he said of Henry to sir William
Kingston, " He is sure a prince of royal courage, and hath a princely heart ;
a.nd rather than he wUl either miss or want any part of his wiU or appetite,
he -wUl put the loss of one-half of his realm in danger. For I assure you I
have often kneeled before him in his privy chamber on my knees, the space
-of an hour or two, to persuade nim from his will and appetite, but I could
never bring to pass to dissuade him therefrom. Therefore, Master Kingston,
if it chance hereafter you to be one of his privy council, as for your -wisdom and
other qualities ye are meet to be, I warn you to be weU advised and assured
what matter ye put in his head, for ye shaU never put it out again." §
With a king and a minister whose individual characters would naturally
give such a colour to her foreign poUcy, England found herself, in 1519,
-essentiaUy involved in the complicated meshes of continental negotiations.
The league-with Francis L, in 1518, provided for the strictest amity between
England and France ; and by a special treaty the marriage of the dauphin
-with Mary, the daughter of Henry, was arranged. The death of the emperor
MaximUian in January, 1519, introduced new complications in European
politics. Some time before his death Maximilian had made an extraordinary
* Cavendish, p. 280.
f "Why come ye not to Court ?" vol. ii. p. 36, in Mi-. Dyce's excellent edition,
X EUis, First Series, voL ii, p, 4, This letter also appears, with some variations, iu Lodge a
'". Illustrations," vol, i, p, 28, § Cavendish, p, 389.

280

ELECTION FOR THE EMPIRE.

J519.

offei of resigning the empire to Henry; but Dr. Cuthbert TunstaU, the
king's ambassador, had clearly sho-wn him that this was little more than an
interested scheme of the needy emperor ; and pointed out to Henry how
impossible it was that he should be chosen, under the laws of the empire,
adding, "I am afraid lest the said offer being so specious at the first
hearing was only made to get thereby some money of your grace." * When
Maximilian died, the ambition of Henry re-vived. Eichard Pace, an accom
pUshed scholar and able diplomatist, was sent on a secret mission to Germany
to sound the electors. But there were two other candidates for the imperial
dignity, whose claims were far more natural and reasonable than those of an

Cliai-les V, of Spain,
insular king. Francis, king of France, then in his twenty-fifth year, wielded
-without control the power and resources of the most compact monarchy of
continental Europe. Of a bold and impassioned nature, of a chivalrous
bearing, energetic and enterprising, he was beloved by his own people, and
had commanded the respect of other nations by his briUiant success in his
career of arms, Charles of Spain, then in his nineteenth year, united in
himself the sovereignty of the largest European dominions. Of a rare
sagacity, of infiexible determination, of perfect self-command, he was formed
* Kills, First Series, vol. i,, p, 137.

1519,] ELECTION FOR THE E.MPIKE, 231
by nature and by education to pursue a career of ambition, in which the
subtle negotiator would command as great success as the skilful warrior.
At this early period his force of character could be little understood ; and
the danger to be apprehended, from his grasping ambition calling into action
his great resources, would appear dim and remote. The election for tho
empire was the first occasion in which Europe felt the real power of a prince
who could cominand the riches of Flanders and of Spain ; and who would
employ them with aU the subtlety that he might derive from the lessons of
his favourite book, " The Prince " of Machiavel. The desire of the king of
England, next to that of his own election, was that neither Francis nor
Charles should obtain that accession of power. But his envoy intrigued in
vain to accompUsh either of these wishes. At the commencement of the
contest Henry had promised his support to Francis. Towards its end he
gave his interest to Charles. Each of these monarchs had bribed the needy
electoral princes to an enormous extent. The skilful management of Charles
secured his unanimous election. The rivalry thus excited lasted through
their lives ; and for twenty-eight years the emperor and the king of France,
-with short intervals of peace, warred against each other with unrelenting
animosity ; and in the support of one or the other rival England shifted
sides, with little regard to the dignity of the crown or the interests of the
people. But it must not be forgotten that the right course for the govern
ment of Henry to pursue was essentially of difficult and doubtful choice, if her
insular position were not to free England from the obligation of interference
with foreign poUtics. But even if she could have safely kept aloof from the
temptation of aspiring to be the arbiter amongst contending kings, there were
two circumstances which prevented her looking with a self-reliant calmness
upon the preponderance of France or the concentrated power of the house
of Austria. On one hand Henry was constantly urged by his own weak
ambition to recover the English rule in France, and therefore to seek the
depression of the French king. On the other, the varying interests, spiritual
and poUtical, of the see of Eome, had an important influence on the policy
of Henry's minister, whose own ambition constantly looked to acquiring for
himself -the dignity of the sovereign pontiff. It was a time when a double
poUcy was held to be the safest by those whose interests were Involved in the
struggle between the two great rivals. It is related of Pope Leo X., that he
avowed " that when he had concluded a treaty with the one party, he did not,
on that account, cease to negotiate with the other."-* Not the least of the
difficulties of the papacy was the necessity of looking to some support in the
struggle that seemed approaching between the infallible Church and the bold
opposers of its corruptions. The historian of the popes has truly said of
Luther, " The appearance of such an actor on the world's stage was too
significant a fact not to invest him with high political importance." f In the
councils of England that importance was soon sensibly felt.
On the 12th of March, 1520, a solemn instrument was prepared by Wolsey,
for the regulation of a meeting between Henry and Francis, before the end of
the following May. It was drawn up with a strict regard to an equal
weighing of the honour and dignity of the two kings. The equality of their
* Eanke, "History of the Popes,-'' vol. i, p. 85, t Ibid., p. 86.

282 PROPOSED MEETIIfG BETWEET?- HENRY AND FRANCIS. [1519.
personal merits is also flatteringly asserted in this document: "As the said
serene princes of England and France be like in force corporal, beauty, and
gift of nature, right expert and having knowledge in the art militant, right
chivalrous in arms, and in the flower and vigour of youth," they are to "take
counsel and dispose themselves to do some fair feat of arms." '* The place
of meeting was to be between the English castle of Guisnes and the Frenck
castle of Ardres. The curious " Chronicle of Calais " records, that on the
19th of March, the commissioners of king Henry landed, " to oversee the
making of a palace before the castle gate of Guisnes ; wherefore there was
sent the king's master-mason, master-carpenter, and three hundred masons,
flve hundred carpenters, one hundred joiners, many painters, glaziers, taUors,
smiths, and other artiflcers, both out of England and Flanders, to the
number in all two thousand and more." The temporary palace was of
stone walls and framed timber, with glazed windows, and canvas roofs.
These particulars are curious, as showing how labour could be organised in
England for the rapid completion of a great work, at a period when we are
accustomed to think that the national industry was conducted upon a very
small scale. Henry was highly flattered by the proposal of Francis, " to meet
with us -within our dominion, pale, and marches of Calais, whereas heretofore
semblable honour of pre-eminence hath not been given by any of the French
kings to our progenitors or ancestors." f Wolsey took care to modify the
offer, so that his sovereign's "honour of pre-eminence" should not be offen
sively asserted. The vast preparations at Guisnes went forward day and
night, to construct a palace whose principal rooms were to be larger than in
any house in England — whose canvas roofs were to be "curiously garnished "
— whose waUs were to be flourished with " histories," which Master Barclay,
the poet, was to devise ; and, in despite of the fears of the directors of the
work, the building approached its completion after two months' labour. On
the 21st of May, Henry and the queen set forth from Greenwich toward the
sea-side. On the 25th they arrived at Canterbury, at which city the feast of
Pentecost was to be kept. Slowly had the court traveUed, for there was
something to be accompUshed before the great interview at Calais should take
place. Another personage was to appear upon the scene, by the merest
accident, at the exact moment when he was wanted. Tidings were brought
to Canterbury, that Charles, the emperor elect, was on the sea, in sight of
the coast of England. He was on his passage from Spain to visit his
dominions in the Netherlands. He could not pass the English shores
without landing to behold the king whom he so reverenced, and the aunt he
so dearly loved. Wolsey hastened to Dover to welcome Charles, who landed
at Hythe. The "Dens ex mocAina " was produced, to the wonderment of
all spectators, and no one saw the wheels and springs of the mechanism.
The poUtic young statesman won the hearts of the English, who rejoiced " to
see the benign manner and meekness of so great a prince." J Henry came
to Dover. They kept the Whitsuntide together at Canterbury, " with much
joy and gladness ; " and on the last day of May Charles sailed to Flanders
from Sand-wich, and Henry from Dover to Calais.
* Hall, p, 602.
t Letter of Henry to Sir Adrian Fortescue, in Appendix to "Chronicle of Calais," p. 78.
t HaU, p, 604.

1519.]

EMBARKATION OF HENRY VIIL AT DOVER,

233

284 FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD, [151?.
The character of this royal embarkation has been handed down to us in an
ancient painting. The thousands of visitors who now range freely through
the state-apartments of Hampton Court, and who are famiUar with the solid
grandeur of a 'modern English fleet, look with natural curiosity upon the
unwieldy hulls, the decks covered with blazonry, the painted saUs, of the
sixteenth century, and think how a single steam-frigate would consign all
this bravery to sudden destruction. With a fair wind such a navy might
safely cross the channel. The low towers of Dover have vomited forth their
fire and smoke ; and in a few hours the guns of Calais salute the English
king. The great palace was ready, with its ceilings draped with silk, and its
walls hung " with rich and marvellous cloths of arras wrought of gold and
sUk." But while Henry was contemplating his splendours, Wolsey was
busy arranging a treaty with Francis. The friendship of England was to be
secured by a renewal of the treaty of marriage between the dauphin and
the princess Mary. There can be little doubt that at this very time the
cardinal was bound to the interests of the emperor, with the full concurrence
of his royal master. Tet the play was to be played out. Henry was to
meet the French king with such a display of the magnificence of his court as
might chaUenge any rivalry. But Francis, possessing much of the same
temper, was not to be outdone in pageantry.
" To-day the French
All clinquant, all in gold, lite heathen gods.
Shone down the English ; and, to-morrow, they
Made Britain, India ; every man that stood,
Show'd like a mine," *

The dramatic poet has described this famous meeting in a short dialogue,
HaU, the chronicler, who was present, elaborates these " fierce vanities " in
many quarto pages. On the 7th of June, the two kings met in the vaUey of
Andren. Titian has made us acquainted with the animated features of
Francis. Hall has painted him with coarser colours ; as " a goodly prince,
stately of countenance, merry of cheer, brown coloured, great eyes, high-nosed,
big-lipped, fair breasted and shoulders, small legs, and long feeti" Holbein
has rendered Henry familiar to us in his later years ; but at this period he
was described by a Venetian resident in England as " handsomer by far than
the king of France. He is exceeding fair, and as well proportioned . iu
every part as is possible. When he learned that the king of France wore u
beard, he allowed his also to grow, which being somewhat red, has at present
the appearance of being of gold." t It is scarcely necessary to transcribe
the complimentary speeches, and the professions of affection which are related
to have passed at this meeting. The two kings did not come to the appointed
valley, surrounded each with an amazing train of gorgeously appareled gen
tlemen and nobles, and with a great body of armed men, without some fears
and suspicions on either side. The English, if we may believe the chronicler,
were most wanting in honourable confidence. The English lords and their
• Shakspere, "Heniy VIII," Act i. Scene 1,
+ From a letter of Sebastiano Giustiniani in 1519, quoted in EUis, First Series, vol. i. p. 177.

1520.]

THE FIELD OP THE CLOTH OF GOLD.

-:3.5

286 MEETING WITH CHARLES V. [1520.
attendants moved not from their appointed ranks, " The Frenchmen sud
denly brake, and many of them came into the English party, speaking
fair ; but for all that, the court of England and the lords kept stiU their
array." *
The solemnities of " The Field of the Cloth of Gold," as the place of
this meeting came to be called, occupied nearly three weeks of that June of
1520. Ten days were spent in the feats of arms for which Wolsey had
pro-vided. There was tUtIng with lances, and tourneys on horseback with
the broad sword, and fighting on foot at the barriers. The kings were
always victorious aga-Jnst all comers. But from tbe court of the emperor
there came no knight to answer the chaUengers. The lists were set up close
to the Flemish frontier, but not a gentleman of Spain, or Flanders, or
Brabant, or Burgundy, stirred to do honour to these pageantries. "By
that," says HaU, "it seemed there was smaU love between the emperor and
the French king." On Midsummer-day the gaudy shows were over. The
kings separated after an exchange of valuable presents, — Francis to Paris,
Henry to Calais. Here the English court remained tUl the 10th of July.
It was in vain that the French king had come unattended and unarmed into
the EngUsh quarter, to show his confidence in the friendship of his companion
in feats of chivaby. In vain had the French nobles put all their estates
upon their backs to rival the jewelled satins and velvets of England. On
the 11th of July Henry met the emperor near Gravelines ; and the emperor
returned with him to Calais. After a visit of three days, Charles accom
plished far more by his profound sagacity than Francis by his generous
frankness. Wolsey was propitiated by presents and promises ; Henry by
a studied deference to his superior wisdom. HaU has recorded that during
the pomps of the valley of Andren, on the 18th of June, " there blew such
storms of wind and weather that marvel was to hear ; for which hideous
tempest some said it was a very prognostication of trouble and hatred to
come between princes." The French, in this second meeting between Henry
and Charles saw the accompUshment of the foreboding beginning to take a
definite form.
In the roll of Ulustrious names of nobles and knights at the Field of the
Cloth of Gold, the name of the duke of Buckingham stands at the head. He
was there one of the four judges of the jousts, deputed on the king's part.
High as he was in wealth and honours, he might have deemed that the e-vU
destinies of his line were at an end ; and that, whUst his father had died 'on
the scaffold under Eichard IIL, and the three preceding heads of his house
had fallen in civU warfare, he might have securely passed through life to the
death of the peaceful. But any lineal descendant of Edward III. was stUl
unsafe, especiaUy if his pride of ancestry were not held in check by unrelaxing
prudence. The father of this Edward Stafford perished through his vain convic
tion that he was " meet to be a ruler of the realm ;"t and the son, although a
man of abiUty, was tempted by the ever-present thought of his high descent, to
commit himself by some unguarded though trifiing acts, of which his enemies
took advantage. His chief enemy is said to have been Wolsey ; and the
cause of the cardinal's enmity is held to have arisen out of Buckingham's
* Hall, p. 610, + See ante, p, 195.

1621,] CONVICTION OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, 287
dissatisfaction -with the expense of the great pageantry at Guisnes, But
the jealousy of Henry had been exhibited in 1519 ; when sir William Bnlmer,
who had quitted the king's service to enter that of the duke, had to acknow
ledge his fault in the star-chamber, and to implore the mercy of the king.
Henry forgave the offence ; but said, " that he would none of his [servants
should hang on another man's sleeve; and that he was as well able to
maintain him as the duke of Buckingham, and that what might be thought
by his [Bulmer's] departing, and what might be supposed by the duke's
retaining, he would not then declare."* The king had now entered upon
that course of action which rendered his subsequent career so fearful
and so odious. He could cover up his hatreds tiU the moment arrived for
striking his victim securely. After eighteen months had passed since he had
rebuked sir WUliam Buhner, and darkly hinted at some evil motive of the
duke in retaining him in his service, the mine, which had been warUy con
structed, exploded under Edward Stafford's feet. He was suddenly sent for
from his castle of Thornbury, to appear in the king's presence. He was
watched by the king's officers to Windsor; and there perceived that he
could not escape. He rode to Westminster, where he took his barge, and
landed " at the cardinal's bridge ;" but Wolsey refusing to see him, the duke
said, "WeU, yet wUl I drink of my lord's wine, ere I pass;" and he was
brought, with much reverence, into the cellar. On his way to London, his
barge was boarded, and he arrested. His fate was soon determined. On the
13th of May he was indicted before his peers, the duke of Norfolk presiding.
Charles Knyvet, a discarded officer of the duke, was the chief witness against
him ; and deposed to certain words of Buckingham said to himself and lord
Abergavenny, which, even if true, could not be fairly wrested into an overt
act of treason. A monk of the Charterhouse, who pretended to a knowledge
of future events, " had divers times said to the duke that he should be king
of England ; but the duke said that in himself he never consented to it." t
The judicial inference was, that he had committed the crime of imagining the
death of the king; and that his words were satisfactory evidence of such
imagining. Buckingham was convicted ; and Norfolk pronounced the sen
tence. The heroic attitude of the man in this his hour of agony, needs no
exaltation by the power of the poet. He said to his judges, " May the
eternal God forgive you my death as I do. I shaU never sue to the king for
life, howbeit he is a gracious prince, and more grace may come from him
than I deserve." The duke was beheaded on the 17th of May.
In the early part of the reign of Henry VIIL, there were many reversals
of attainders -that had been passed in the pre-vious reign. There was then
evidently a merciful desire for the oblivion of poUtical offences ; and for
restoring to their estates and honours the heirs of those unfortunate persons
who had suffered the penalties of treason.J There was no hesitation in the
avowal that it was possible that an attainted person might have been unjustly
condemned. In the case of Henry Courtney, earl of Devonshire, the preamble
to the Act of reversal says that his father was convicted of high treason " by
the sinister means and untrue informations of certain maUcious and evil
• Hall, p, 599. t HaU, p, 623.
t See various Statutes from the first year to the sixth of Henry VIII.

1'88

EXECUTION OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

[1520,

disposed persons made unto your noble father, of famous memory." * This
open acknowledgment of the possibUity of an unjust con-viction, under the
forms of law, might have led the king who would show no mercy to Bucking
ham, judged as he was upon the most frivolous accusations, to think that the
declaration of his high wiU might have some effect in calling forth such
'¦ untrue representations." The time was not yet arrived when he should
find his ready instruments of despotism in the highest of the land; and
when he should be able to perpetrate, through his slaves in a parUament,
the murders which the oriental despot could effect by a single sign to the
eunuchs of the seraglio. He tasted of blood when he put Buckingham to
death ; and after a few more years, during which his wUl, being unquestioned,
was less tyrannical, he showed that his relish for it was not to be satisfied to
his dying hour. ' 4 Hen. VIII, u, 9, first printed in the Statutes by Authority,

Bas-relief. Jleeting; of Henry and Francis.

I, nh
,' / ir-,'' .. V.-h. '.'I.I .—r-rl-^A

W\ C'y' -U / P.'^^^^'f& rt-M'^- ^^^fM> ' -^ " ¦> '" ""' ^^'

Wolsey and his Suite,

CHAPTER XVIII,
luther — King Henry -writes a book against his doctrines— His title of Defender of the Faith —
League and war against France — Wolsey levies contributions ou property — Jealousy of
foreigners ; Eril May-Day — A ParUament assembled — Great debate upon the demand for
a subsidy — Affairs of Scotland — Siege of Jedburgh — Duke of Suffolk makes war in France
— ^Battle of Pavia — Francis a prisoner — Taxes levied -without authority of Parliament —
— Insnrreotion in Suffolk — The illegal demand abandoned.
In the year 1521 Henry had been king for twelve years. Possessed of
considerable abiUty and some learning, his mind was not so wholly occupied
by pleasures and pageantries as in the flush of youth. He sought for a
higher excitement in theological controversy. There was a daring innovator,
who had proceeded from attacking the open sale of indulgences for sin to
question the foundations of the authority of the Church. Martin Luther
had been first despised ia his supposed obscurity ; but his preaching and
-writing had produced an effect in Europe, which had stirred up the luxurious
Leo X. to apprehend that a pooi' monk, with no power but his zeal and
courage, might become troublesome to the repose even of the most splendid
of pontiffs. At length, in 1520, the pope issued a bull, declaring certain
passages of Luther's -writings heretical ; denouncing the penalties of excom
munication against him unless he should recant ; and threatening the same
penalties against aU princes who should neglect to secure the heretic. In
January, 1520, Luther, for having denied the pontifical supremacy, was
expeUed from the communion of the Church. The emperor Charles V. was
called upon to punish the Eeformer ; but the elector of Saxony induced the
emperor to let the question be tried before a diet of the empire. In April,

230 HENRY'S BOOK AGAINST LUTHER. [1621.
the diet met at Worms. Luther entered the town, singing the noble hymn
called by his name. The multitude who surrounded the monk repeated the
inspiring words, " Our God is a strong citadel ; " and the hymn of Luther
became the rallying song of the Eeformation. Before the emperor, the
electors of the empire, princes, bishops, Luther avowed that the writings
denounced by the pope were his ; and refused to retract any proposition he
had set forth, unless from the authority of the Holy Scriptures it could be
proved to be erroneous. The Eeformer wag proof against the threatenlngs
or the persuasions of this assembly. He was allowed to depart, with a safe-
conduct for twenty-one days. Maurice of Saxony knew the danger which
Luther incurred if he went at large. He caused him to be seized and carried
to the castle of Wartburg. In this solitary fortress the proscribed man was
secure; though the emperor had placed him under his ban. Here, in his
mountain solitude, he wrote some of his most powerful treatises against what
he deemed the abuses of religion — against auricular confession, clerical
celibacy, monastic vows, prayers for the dead. Here, in his enthusiastic
moods, he struggled against the spiritual dangers by which he fancied himself
surrounded ; and in his meditations upon the doctrines of revealed religion
built up a system of theology that should take the place of the principles
that he held to be corrupting. So passed the year 1521 with the great
reformer. If the princes of Germany who were opposed to Luther had been
unable to inflict any serious injury upon his person or his opinions, there was
a prince in England who felt himself called upon to extinguish him by a
mortal blow. There is a letter from Eichard Pace to Wolsey, dated the 16th
of April, in this year, which describes the king, upon the arrival of Pace
with the pope's bull against Luther, " looking upon a new work of the said
Luther." When the king gave dispraise to the book. Pace delivered the
pope's bull and his brief ; " with the which the king was well contented ;
here, at length, showing unto me that it was very joyous to hear these tidings
from the pope's holiness at such a time as he had taken upon him the defence
of Christ's church with his pen." The king declares his purpose to send
his book not only to Eome, but also " into France and other nations as shall
appear convenient;" and Pace, in rapture, writes, "So that all the Church
is more bound to this good, and virtuous prince for the vehement zeal he
beareth unto the same, than I can express." * Henry, in his book, denominated
Luther " the arch-heretic." Luther replied to the king's work in a tone of
scurrility which deformed most of the learned controversies of these times.
But Henry obtained what he regarded as a great distinction. He had been
promised the title of " the Most Christian king " by Julius II. ; but the king
of France retained that honour when he had appeased the pope. Henry now
demanded from pope Leo the title of "Defender of the Faith;" and the
pope bestowed that distinction upon him by bull, dated the 11th of October.
The successor of Leo confirmed the title.f The book of Henry on " the
Seven Sacraments," against Luther, written in Latin, was published in
London in 1521, and in Antwerp in 1522. It produced as Uttle effect upon
• EUis, Second Series, voL i. p. 286.
f Dr. Lingard has sho-ffn that the title was given to Henry, personally, -without any grant
of inheritance.

1522,]

LEAGUE AND WAR AGAINST FRANCE.

'291

Luther, Medal of.

the progress of the Eeformation in Germany, as his letter to Lewis of
Bavaria ; in which he says, " Delay not a moment to seize and exterminate
this Luther, who is a rebel against Christ ; and, unless he repents, deliver
himself aud his audacious treatises to the flames," This was written in May,
1521. On the 12th of that
month the condemned works
of Luther had been burnt
before Paul's Cross.
Although the rivalry be
tween the emperor and the
king of France, at length
reaching its natural issue of
deadly war, involved England
at every stage of the quarrel,
it scarcely belongs to this
history to trace its events with
any minuteness. After an in
effectual attempt to recover
Navarre from Spain, Francis
saw a league against him
formed between the emperor
and the pope. The mediation
of England, in the person of
Wolsey, was accepted by the
princely disputants. The cardinal appears to have really laboured at the
attempt to reconcile the differences of these two proud and ambitious poten
tates ; and he drew up the
scheme of a treaty of peace,
which was solemnly carried to
Charles and to Francis. But a
new cause of quarrel broke
out ; and then Wolsey decided
that the king of France having
been the aggr.essor, the king of
England was bound to give his
aid to the emperor. A treaty
was then concluded against
France with Charles and with
the pope. Butthe papal andim-
perial forces had already driven
the French out of MUan. The
exultation of Leo was un
bounded. In the hour of his
triumph he was seized with a
mortal illness. Upon the death
of the pontiff, Wolsey aspired
to the papal chair. The election feU upon cardinal Adrian, a Belgian, who
had been the preceptor of the emperor, and was now his viceroy in Spain.
In Maj', 1522, Charles, again visited England, and remained with Henry five

Reverse of Medttl of Luther,

292 t,EVY ON PROPERTY. [1522,
weeks. War was declared against France ; but the means of carrying on war
were wanting. The chronicler, whose tedious descriptions of the processions
and banquets when the emperor was in London we -willingly pass over, has
left us a picture of Wolsey sitting as a commissioner of property-tax, which
is a curious illustration of manners as well as of political history. ¦ On the
20th of August, the cardinal sends for the mayor, aldermen, and most sub
stantial commoners of the city ; and tells them that the king had appointed
commissioners throughout the realm, " to swear every man of what value he
is in moveables." He then desires to have an account which may enable
him to swear all such as are worth a hundred pounds and upwards ; the king
only deriving a tenth part. " Sir," said a merchant, " if it may please you,
how shall this tenth part to the king be delivered ? " "In money, plate, or
jewels," said the car
dinal. "O, my lord,"
answered one, speaking
for the aldermen, "it
is not yet two months
since the king had of
the city twenty thou
sand pounds in ready
money in loan, whereby
the city is very bare of
money. For God's sake
shiiung of Henry VIII. remember this, that rich
merchants in war be
bare of money." The cardinal dismissed them with, "Well ; this must be done,
and therefore go about it." But the aldermen came again before the cardinal,
and humbly besought him that they might not be sworn for the true value of
their substance ; for the true valuation to them was unkno-wn ; and many an
honest man's credit was better than his substance ; and therefore they feared
to incur the peril of perjury. " WeU," said the cardinal, " since you dread
the crime of perjury it is a sign of grace ; and therefore I will for you
borrow of the king a little. Make you your bills of your own value likely
l;o report your fame, and then more business needeth not ; for you see what
¦two costly armies the king hath ready against both France and Scotland.
Therefore now show yourselves like loving subjects, for you be able enough.
I dare swear the substance of London is no less worth than two millions."
The citizens answered, " the city is sore injured by the great occupying of
strangers." " It shall be redressed, if I live," said the cardinal ; " but on
Saturday next I shall appoint one to receive your biUs ; and he that is of
credit more than substance, let him resort to me, and I wiU be secret and
; good to him," *
The loud complaint against "the great occupying of strangers," was of a
grief to London, which four years before had produced fatal consequences.
" EvU May-day " was too recent to have passed out of the mind of Wolsey,
when he promised a redress which he well knew it was out of his power to
accomplish. The king might imprison Frenchmen and Scots, and seize their
goods, as he did on the occasion of this war ; but the industry of aliens,
• Hall, p. 645

1622.]

JEALOUSY OF FOREIGNERS.

293

and of the Flemings especially, was of too vital importance to be interfered
with, by that jealousy of unreasoning traders and artisans which had already
produced fatal results. On the 1st of May, 1517, "the great shaft of
Cornhill," famous from the time of Chaucer, had been taken down from the
Iron hooks upon which it hung over the doors of Shaft-alley, and was set up
with much rejoicing before the south door of the church of St. Andrew the
Apostle, called St. Andrew Undershaft. It towered above the steeple,
decked with its green boughs and its May-garlands.* But there was gloom

Playing^ at Bucklers. Maids dancing for Garlands.
amongst tlie rulers of the city ; for a rumour had gone forth, that in conse
quence of the preachings of a doctor of divinity, named Bell, who was excited
by one Lincoln, a broker, the citizens would rise in a body and expel and
slay the aliens, who were supposed to interfere with the English traders.
The Flemings, especially, kept together iu their fraternities ; and their
number was so great, that on a Sunday in the previous Lent six hundred had
assembled together to shoot at the popinjay. This was the favourite game
of the Netherlanders ; and Henry himself had been elected king of the
popinjay by the good lieges of Tournay. It would appear from a statute
* See Stow's "Survev." edit, by Mr. Thorns, p. 54.

294

EVIL MAY-DAY.

[1517.

passed about this period, that the artificers of London had to bear greater
charges for scot and lot, and paid a higher price for house-rent and provisions,
than in any other place within the realm. They had also to fiU the offices
of constable ; and upon these humbler citizens fell the unpleasant duty of
" skavenship," or street-cleaning,-* Aliens, who were exempt from the
burdens of citizenship, were therefore objects of jealousy ; but they were
stUl more so from the fact, that whatever prohibitory laws existed against
foreign manufactures were necessarUy inefficient so long as the native produc
tions were dearer than those of the strangers. When, therefore. Doctor Bell
preached that if it were not for the Dutchmen, who brought over wrought
goods, " Englishmen might have some work and living," he naturally " excited
young people and artificers to bear malice " to these aliens. On this May
day, therefore, Wolsey, as chancellor, sent for the mayor and aldermen, and
warned them of a danger that he heard was impending. A council of the
city was called in the evening ; and the recorder and sir Thomas More came

General Costume in the reign of Henry VIII. (Selected from Holbein.)
from the cardinal with a command, that every man, with his servants,
should be within his house at nine o'clock. Proclamation was made ; but
proclamations were not readily diffused amongst the busy and pleasure-loving
youths of the city. In Cheap, the young men were playing at their manly
game of " bucklers " at this hour of nine. An officious alderman commanded
them to disperse ; and being asked " Why ? " by one of the youths, had him
taken into custody. Then went forth the well-linown cry of " Prentices and
clubs ; " and " out of every door came clubs and weapons." There was
no rest in London on that night. The oratory of Doctor Bell might have
been harmless, if the people had been left in quiet. But once roused, there
was no limit to their violence. The houses of foreigners in Whitechapel
were rifled ; for thereia dwelt alien shoemakers, a class of artisans who have
* 7 Hen. VIII. c. 5,

1523.] A PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED. 295
always provoked English jealousy. The affair became an insurrection. Tho
Ueutenant of the Tower fired his ordnance upon the city. The earls of
Surrey and Shrewsbury came with their armed bands. Three hundred of
the rioters were committed to prison ; and, after a trial, thirteen were hanged
as traitors, " because the king had amity with all Christian princes, and
they had broken the truce and league." The remainder of the prisoners,
being taken with halters round their necks to Westminster-hall, came before
Henry in person. Wolsey gave them "a good exhortation ;" and when a
general pardon was pronounced, " all the prisoners shouted at once, and
altogether cast up their halters into the hall roof, so that the king might
perceive that they were none of the discreetest sort." '*
In April, 1523, a parliament met at the Blackfrlars. It was the first
parUament that had been assembled since 1516. The representative prin
ciple of the constitution might have merged in a monarchical despotism, if
the warlike plans of the government could have been carried out by forced
loans and benevolences, such as Wolsey exacted from the citizens of London.
The inquisitions into their substance and credit irritated the traders of the
capital, in spite of the promises of the great cardinal to be " secret and good
to them." Men then felt indignant, as they -wUl always feel, at having their
private affairs laid bare for fiscal purposes. In the provinces the com
missioners of the crown had less chance than Wolsey of making the
industrious contribute to the demands of the state in a manner which they
knew to be Ulegal, To the parliament, therefore, of 1523, the king applied
for a subsidy.
The chanceUor left to an inferior dignitary, the bishop of London; the
duty of opening the session, which usually devolved upon the holder of the
great seal. Bishop TonstaU told the assembly that the king had called the
high court of parUament together for the remedy of mischiefs, and for making
new statutes which may be to the high advancement of the commonwealth.
Sir Thomas More, who had become- one of the king's council, was nominated
Speaker ; and he, " according to the old usage, disabled himself in wit, learn
ing, and discretion." f But Wolsey vouched for the king's knowledge of
More's qualities, "by long experience in his service." The next business
of the parUament was to be something of more pressing import than " the
remedy of mischiefs," and the enactm.ent of new laws. On the 29th of AprU
Wolsey came to the House of Commons, and having set forth the broken
promises of the king of France, and declared the intention of the king of
England and the emperor to " make such war on France as hath not been
seen," demanded a fifth of every man's goods and lands, which would amount
to 800,000Z. There are contradictory accounts of the manner in which sir
Thomas More treated this sweeping claim. HaU says that the Speaker
declared that " of duty men ought not to deny four shillings in the pound."
The debate on this occasion, as given by an historian of the time of Charles I., J
is thought to have been an icvention of the writer. But a passage in the
earlier chronicler may give us some notion of the resources of the country at,
or near, this period. The demand of the subsidy, -with the previous loan,
amounting to 1,200,000?., " could not be had in coin in the whole kingdom." It
•• Hall, pp. 586 to 591. t Ibid,, p. 652. + Lord Herbert, "History of Henry VIIL"

296 DEBATE UPON THE DEMAND FOE A SUBSIDY, [1523.
had been said there were forty thousand parish churches in England ; " but it
may be proved there are not fifteen thousand parishes." " How many parishes
were there in England, except those in cities and towns, which could spare
one hundred marks," which sum would be required, to make up 1,000,000(.
from fifteen thousand parishes ?* A commission was appointed to reason
with the chancellor, and to induce him to beseech the king to be content
¦with a smaller sum ; " to the which he currishly replied, that he would rather
have his tongue plucked out of his head with a pair of pincers, than to move
the king to take any less sum." t Again Wolsey came to the House with ali
the pomp with which he was surrounded on state occasions. He " desired
to be reasoned withal ; to whom - it was answered, that the fashion of the
nether house was, to hear and not to reason, except amongst themselves."
Wolsey indignantly retired ; and the sturdy Commons, — with a temper which
showed that no courtly influence or intimidation could break down the
ancient spirit which the long line of kings, with all their feudal power, had
respected, — debated amongst themselves for fifteen or sixteen days. A sketch
of this debate has been preserved to us in a letter from a member to the earl
of Surrey : J " Please it your good lordship to understand, that sithence the
beginning of the parliament there hath been the greatest and sorest hold in
the lower house, for payment of two shillings of the pound, that ever was
seen, I think, in any parliament. This matter hath been debated and beaten
fifteen or sixteen days together. The highest necessity alleged on the king's
behalf to us that ever was heard of ; and, of the contrary, the highest poverty
confessed, as weU by knights, squires, and gentlemen of every quarter, as
by the commoners, citizens, and burgesses. There hath been such hold that
the house was like to have been dissevered ; § that is to say, the knights
being of the king's council, the king's servants and gentlemen of the one
party ; which in so long time were spoken with, and made to say yea ; it
may fortune, contrary to their heart, will, and conscience. Thus hanging
this matter, yesterday the more part being the king's servants, gentlemen,
were there assembled ; and so they, being the more part, willed and gave to
the king two shillings of the pound of goods or lands, the best to be taken
for the king. All lands to pay two shillings of the pound from the lowest to
the highest. The goods to pay two shiUings of the pound, from twenty
pounds upwards ; and from forty shiUings of goods to twenty pounds to paj
sixteenpence of the pound ; and under forty shillings, every person to paj
eightpence. This to be paid in two years. I have heard no man in my
Ufe that can remember that ever there was given to any one of the king's
ancestors half so much at one grant. Nor, I think, there was never such a
precedent seen before this time. I beseeke Almighty God it may be well
and peaceably levied, and surely paid unto the king's grace, without grudge,
and especiaUy without losing the good will and true hearts of his subjects,
which I reckon a far greater treasure for a king than gold or silver.
And the gentlemen which must take pain to levy this money among the
king's subjects, I think, shaU have no little business about the same."
• HaU, p, 656. _ t Ibid.
X Ellis, First Series, vol, i, p, 290. Also in Strype, "Ecclesiastical Memorials," yol. i.
§ A division was likely to have taken place — a rare occuiTence.

1628.] AFFAIR.S OF SCOTLAND. 297
The act for this subsidy contains a number of the most stringent clauses
for enforcing its assessment by commissioners and its collection ; and we
may well believe that those appointed to levy the money had " no little
business about the same." For the enactment touched the great industrious
class of the community, down to every person taking daily, weekly, or yearly
wages, to the yearly value of twenty shillings. * Masters were to hold in
their hands the amount of the subsidy charged upon their servants. The
apprehended difficulty of obtaining payment in the coin of the realm is shown
by a provision that plate might be received by the collectors. The humbler
classes of the people thus directly taxed would naturally groan under their
burthens ; but they would also feel that the taxation which included them
gave them the strongest claim to participate in all the privileges of freemen.
We shall presently see that they made their voices heard in the highest places
when the demands of the crown became more onerous ; and were attempted
to be enforced without the sanction of parliament. In this struggle the
clergy resisted the demands of the crown as strenuously as the Commons ;
and during four months the amount of the grant was debated in Convocation.
After the royal treasury had been thus replenished, the war with France
and Scotland was carried on with a vigour which the command of money
would naturally produce ; and with a ferocity which utterly disregarded the
miseries of the humble and Industrious, whose labours enable the productive
ness of the earth to go forward and repair the desolations of ambition. In
Scotland, especially, there was an infliction of misery upon the peaceful
inhabitants, which, at a period when learning and the arts had some general
cultivation, far exceeded the atrocities of what are called " the dark ages."
The realities of chivalry had vanished ; but its cruelties remained, with the
empty pageantries that stood in the place of the stern virtues of " the
invincible knights of old." Political morality was utterly despised in the
cabinets of princes. Henry had always his political agents and spies in
the Scottish court, as his father had before him. In 1516, the lord warden of
the marches writes to Wolsey, England and Scotland being then at peace,
" I labour and study all that I can to make division and debate * * * I have
secret messages from the earl of Angus, and other * * * And also I have
four hundred outlaws, and give them rewards, that burn and destroy daily in
Scotland." t To follow out the history of Scotland during the peace that
succeeded the battle of Flodden, is to trace the personal history of Margaret,
the sister of Henry, who appears to have inherited her full share of the
passions and caprices of her brother. In 1514 she married the earl of
Angus. But the duke of Albany, brother to James IIL, being invited by
the Scottish parliament to assume the regency, Margaret and her husband fled
to England, after a fruitless contest with the government. Her two sons were
separated from her. Henry addressed the Scottish parliament in the insolent
tone which occasionaUy manifested his nature, desiring that Albany might be
banished from the kingdom. He was told, with a spirit that belonged to the
descendants of Bruce, that the parliament would resist any attempt to over
throw the government of their choice. Lord Dacre, the warden of the marches,
-* Stat. 14 & 15 Hen. VIIL c, 16, printed only in the Sfcitutes by Authority.
+ EUis, First Series, vol. i. p. 132,

298

AFFAIRS OF SCOTLAND.

[1523.

had thus a fair field in which to sow "division and debate." In 1517
Albany went to France ; and Margaret, having been permitted to reside in
Scotland, the contests of factions again broke out. She desired Angus to be
regent, — a demand which the council resisted. Angus was a faithless husband ;
and the queen-mother resolved upon a divorce. But Henry effected a hoUow
reconciUation; and, after the fiercest contests between the factious nobles,
Angus became supreme in the conduct of the government. Margaret was
again dissatisfied with her husband ; and having sought a divorce in the court
of Eome, induced Albany to return to Scotland. Her son, James V., was
then nine years old. Henry did not scruple to instruct Wolsey to oppose the
divorce, on the ground that his own sister intended to murder her son.
Wolsey writes to the king, in 1521, that he had caused the pope's orator to

English Foot-Soldier,
interfere for the prevention of the projected separation, " by means -whereof
the said divorce shall not proceed when the pope shall be informed that the
same is procured only for marriage between the duke of Albany and the
queen, whereby the destruction of the young king shaU ensue." ¦* It was the
* State Papers of Henry VIIL, vol, i.

1528.] SIEGE OP JEDBURGH. 299
object of the EngUsh government to raise up impediments in the way of
Albany, who was a man of vigour and ability ; and every effort of corruption
was made by the English agents to produce disorder in the country. In 1522,
Henry repeated his demand that Albany should be removed from power ;
and the parliament again disclaimed his right of interference. The borders
of the Tweed were then ravaged by the earl of Shrewsbury. Albany raiSed
an army of eighty thousand men. But he effected nothing ; for lord Dacre,
with singular address, operated upon his fears that a great force was advancing
from England, to consent to a month's suspension of hostilities. Wolsey
described Albany's conduct as that of " a coward and a fool." Albany now
returned to France ; and the earl of Surrey, who in 1522 had ravaged France
from Calais to Amiens, took the command of the army to invade Scotland,
His first exploit was to destroy Jedburgh — " which town," he writes, " is so
surely burnt that no garrisons nor none other shall be lodged there, unto the
time when it shall be new builded." In the same letters Surrey relates a
remarkable occurrence, which curiously exhibits the superstition of an
English army : " After that, my said lord [Dacre] returning to the camp,
would in nowise be lodged in the same, but where he lay the first night ; and
he being with me at supper about 8 o'clock, the horses of his company brake
loose and suddenly run out of his field in such numbers that it caused a
marveUous alarm in our field ; and our standing watch being set, the horses
came running along the camp, at whom were shot above one hundred sheafs
of arrows and divers guns, thinking they had been Scots that would have
assaulted the camp. Finally the horses were so mad that they ran like wild
deer into the field, above fifteen hundred at the least in divers companies, and
in one place above fifty fell down a great rock and slew themselves ; and above
two hundred and fifty ran into the town, being on fire, and by the women
taken and carried away, right evil brent ; and many were taken again, but
finally by that I can esteem by the number of them that I saw go on foot
next day, I think there is lost above eight hundred horses, and aU with folly
for lack of not lying within the camp, I dare not write the wonders that
my lord Dacre and all his company do say they saw that night, six times, of
spirits and fearful sights. And universally all their company say plainly the
devil was that night among them six times. Which misfortune hath blemished
the best journey that was made in Scotland many years. I assure your
grace I found the Scots at this time the boldest men and the hottest that ever
I saw any nation ; and all the journey, upon all parts of the army, kept us
with so continual skirmish that I never saw the like. If they might assemble
forty thousand as good men as I now saw fifteen hundred or two thousand,
it would be a hard encounter to meet them." * The other exploits of Surrey
in Scotland are thus recorded in a letter of Wolsey : — " The earl of Surrey so
devastated and destroyed all Tweedale and March, that there is left neither
house, fortress, village, tree, cattle, corn or other succour for man ; insomuch
that some of the people that fled from the same, afterwards returning and finding
no sustenance, were compeUed to come unto England begging bread, which
oftentimes when they do eat, they die incontinently for the hunger passed. And
with uo imprisonment, cutting off their ears, burning them in their faces, or
* Ellis, First Series, vol. i. p, 217.

800 DUKE OP SUFFOLK MAKES WAR IN FRANCE. [1523.
otherwise, can be kept away." Albany had now returned to Scotland ; and,
after crossing the English border, suddenly retreated before Surrey ; and his
two failures having deprived him of his popularity in Scotland, he quitted his
native country for France, and returned no more. Margaret, the queen-
mother, disgraced herself by renewed immoralities ; and her husband, having
become regent, the Scottish court and people were freed from her habitual
arrogance and her capricious schemes. '
In 1523, Henry attempted to realise a part of his declaration to parliament,
which is embodied in the preamble to the act of subsidy: — "His highness
hath employed, and intendeth to employ, not only his mind and study, with
labour and travail of body and jeopardy of his own royal person, to the adven
ture of this war, but also the utmost of his own substance and treasure."
He did not jeopardise his own royal person ; but he sent Charles Brandon,
the duke of Suffolk, to invade France. The period was favourable to the
enterprise ; for the duke of Bourbon, one of the highest nobles of France, and
constable of the kingdom, having cause for private dissatisfaction with Francis,
the king, had fled from France, to join the confederacy against his sovereign.
Francis was intent upon recovering his power in Italy ; and was advancing
with an array to the Alps. By a plan of operations combined with the
emperor, the English were to invade France, the Spaniards attack Guienne,
and the Germans make an inroad into Burgundy. The English expedition
was a failure ; unless a march towards Paris and a devastation of the country
could be called a success. The operations of the allies were deferred till
October. Winter set in with furious rains and intense frost. The troops of
England were perishing ; and Suffolk, having retreated, disbanded his army.
But he had previously sent " the lord Sandes in post to the king," who
travelled to Windsor, and there " declared his message ; which was that his
people that were in the French ground abode much misery ; for the weather
was wet, the ways deep, long nights and short days, great journies and little
victual, which caused the soldiers daily to die." * The king promised to
send succour ; and declared his will that the army " should not break." But
"the soldiers would not abide." The enterprise was at an end. The duke of
Suffolk returned to Calais ; and there he lingered for a season, tiU he was
assured that his head was safe if he ventured to England.
The chair of St. Peter was a second time vacant during the period in
which Wolsey had been a cardinal. Upon the death of Adrian, he was again
a candidate for the pontificate. His pretensions were supported by the
English king, but he again had to endure the disappointment of his ambition.
Giulio de Medici was elected ; and took the title of Clement VII. As a
cardinal he had always supported the cause of the emperor Charles against
his rival Francis, The temporal interests of the popedom had now so com
pletely neutralised the spiritual power of the head of the church, that the
movements of Eome must be regarded in its secular aspects if we would com
prehend, even to a slight extent, the movements of European policy. The
Italians ardently desired independence ; and they fancied that the blessing
was to be attained through the preponderance of the pope as a temporal
prince. Clement was now in alliance with the emperor, as Adrian had been
* Hall, p. 671.

1525,] BATTLE OF PAVIA— FRANCIS A PRISONER, 301
but the Italian people looked with natural dread upon the alliance. The
domination of Spain or of France was equally hateful to them. They hoped for
no good to themselves, whatever should be the issue of the war between the
emperor and the king of France, Before the summer of 1524, the French were
driven out of Italy, They had lost the noble Bayard : their own countryman,
the duke of Bourbon, was carrying on the contest with the fierceness which
generaUy marks the conduct of the apostate from his faith or his country.
Francis was resolved to make another effort to regain Milan. He turned from
the pursuit of the imperial army, which he had followed to the gates of that
city, that he might undertake the siege of Pavia. This was in October. For
three months the siege was conducted with various success ; and Francis,
with characteristic rashness, detached a part of his army to invade Naples.
The governor of Pavia, in February, 1525, saw famine approaching, and wrote
to the general of the imperial army : — " Come to us, or we must cut our way
to you." They did come. On the 24th of February, the French king moved
his troops out of their intrenchments. A general battle took place ; and Francis,
after fighting with the gallantry of the elder chivalry, was taken prisoner.
Bourbon, now the commander of the imperial army, came before his captive
sovereign, and asked to be permitted to kiss his hand. The French king
refused. Bourbon, with tears, said that if his counsel had been followed, he
¦would not have sustained this reverse. Francis made no direct reply, but
ejaculated, " Patience ! since fortune hath faUed me."
The faU of Francis called forth no sympathy from Henry of England,
A solemn thanksgiving for the victory of Pavia was offered at St. Paul's.
The cardinal officiated, and the king was present.' The ambition of Henry
to be lord of France now revived. He proposed that the emperor and
himself should invade France ; that the French dominions should be his, as
his lawful inheritance ; and that Charles should take the Burgundian
provinces. But to accomplish these mighty undertakings was difficult with
au empty treasury. The last parliament had been troublesome. They
refused to give all that the king required. They had asserted the old freedom
of the Commons of England to deliberate amongst themselves, without
instruction from the minister of the crown. A subsidy was therefore
demanded without the intervention of parliament ; and commissioners were
appointed to levy the Ulegal claim of the sixth part of every man's
substance. From the clergy more was demanded. The resistance was
universal. The temper of the nation may be collected from a letter of the
archbishop of Canterbury to Wolsey : " It hath been showed me In a secret
manner of my friends, the people sore grudgeth and murmureth, and speaketh
cursedly among themselves, as far as they dare, saying that they shall never
have rest of payments as long as some liveth, and that they had better die
than to be thus continuaUy handled, reckoning themselves, their children,
and wives, as despoiled, and not greatly caring what they do, or what
becomes of them. * * * * They fear not to speak that they be con
tinuaUy beguiled, and no promise is kept unto them ; and thereupon some of
them suppose that if this gift and grant be once levied, albeit the king's
grace go not beyond the sea, yet nothing shall be restored again, albeit they
be showed the contrary. * * * * I have heard say, moreover, that when
the people be commanded to make fires and tokens of joy for the taking of

302 TAXES LEVIED WITHOUT AUTHORITY OF PARLIAMENT. [1528,
the French king, divers of them have spoken that they have more cause to
weep than to rejoice thereat. And divers, as it hath been showed me
secretly, have wished openly that the French king were at his liberty again,
so as there were a good peace, and the king should not attempt to win
France, the winning whereof should be more chargeful to England than
profitable, and the keeping thereof much more chargeful than the winning.
Also it hath been told me secretly that divers have recounted and repeated
what infinite sums of money the king's grace hath spent already in invading
of France, once in his royal person, and two other sundry times by his several
noble captains, and little or nothing in comparison of his costs hath prevailed ;
insomuch that the king's grace at this hour hath not one foot of land more in
France than his most noble father had, which lacked no riches or wisdom to
win the kingdom of France, if he had thought it expedient." But such
warning was of little use. The people said, " if men should give their goods
by a commission, then it would be worse than the taxes of France, and
England ¦ should be bond and not free." The clothiers of Suffolk had been
frightened into submission by the king's commissioners ; but the men who
worked for the clothiers now showed the agents of despotism where the
burthen of oppressive taxation must chiefly fall. The narrative of Hall is
deeply interesting, and shows of what solid stuff — the sturdy compound of
acute feeling and plain sense — the Anglo-Saxon was composed. The people of
Suffolk had begun " to rage and assemble themselves in companies." The
duke of Suffolk was for subduing them by the strong hand, and directed that
their harness should be taken from them. The people now openly rebeUed ;
and the duke called upon the gentlemen to assist him. But they would not
fight against their neighbours. More moderate councils prevailed. " The
duke of Norfolk, high treasurer and admiral of England, hearing ol this,
gathered a great power in Norfolk, and came towards the commons, and of
his nobleness he sent to the commons, to know their intent, which answered,
that they would live and die in the king's causes, and to the king to be
obedient : when the duke wist that, he came to them, and then all spake at
once, so that he wist not what they meant. Then he asked who was their
captain, and bade that he should speak ; then a well-aged man of fifty years
and above, asked license of the duke to speak, which granted with good will.
My lord, said this man, whose name was John Greene, sith you ask who is
our captain, forsooth his name is Poverty, for he and his cousin Necessity
hath brought us to this doing. For all these persons and many more, which I
would were not here, live not of ourselves, but aU we live by the substantial
occupiers of this country, and yet they give us so little wages for our work
manship, that scarcely we be able to live, and thus in penury we pass the
time, we, our wives and children ; and if they by whom we live be brought in
that case that they of their little cannot help us to earn our living, then
must we perish and die miserably. I speak this, my lord : the cloth-makers
have put aU these people, and a far greater number from work ; the husband
men have put away their servants, and given up household ; they say the king
asketh so much that they be not able to do as they have done before this
time, and then of necessity must we die wretchedly : wherefore my lord,
now, according to your wisdom, consider our necessity. The duke was sorry
to hear their complaint, and well he knew that it was true : then he said,

1525,] INSURRECTION IN SUFFOLK, SOS
Neighbours, sever yourselves asunder, let every man depart to his home, and
choose further four that shall answer for the remnant, and on my honour
I wiU send to the king and make humble intercession for your pardon, which
I trust to obtain, so that you will depart. Then all they answered they
would, and so they departed home."'*
Of this attempt to tax the people without the consent of parliament, Mr.
HaUam has said, " In the most remote and irregular times it would be difficult
to find a precedent for so universal and enormous an exaction ; since tallages,
however arbitr.iry, were never paid by the barons or freeholders, nor by
their tenants, and the aids to which they were liable were restricted to parti
cular cases."t The despot now learnt that his absolute rule was to have
some limit. But for the artisans of Suffolk, England, at this period, would
probably have passed into the condition of France, where the abuse of the royal
power had long before deprived the people of their rights. " The courage and
love of freedom natural to the English commons, speaking in the hoarse voice
of tumult, though very iU supported by theu* superiors, preserved us in so great
a perU." Henry, with a meanness equal to his rapacity, affected not to know
" that the commissioners were so straight as to demand a sixth of every man's
substance." Wolsey took the blame upon himself. Pardons were issued
for all the rioters ; the commissions were revoked ; and the old trick of a
voluntary "benevolence" was again resorted to. The rich did not dare to
show the spirit of the poor ; and they yielded to irregular exactions in the
form of gifts and loans, under the terror of such speeches as one which Wolsey
made to the mayor and aldermen of London : — " It were better that some
should suffer indigence than the king at this time should lack ; and therefore
beware, and resist not, nor ruffle not in this case, for it may fortune to cost
some their heads." J
-* HaU, p. 700. t "Constitutional History," vol. i. e. 1, J Hall, p, 696.

Remains of tbe Gate House of Wolsey's College, Ipsv/ioh.

CHAPTEE XIX.
Release of the king of France — Spirit of the Italians — The Sack of Rome — Character of the ai-miea
at Rome — The divorce of qneen Catherine agitated — Difficulties of Wolsey — His embassy
to France — He returns to new difficulties — Anne Boleyn at the English court — War
declared against the emperor — Commission from the pope on the question of the divorce —
Cardinal Campegins in England as legate with Wolsey — Interview of the legates with
Catherine — Temper of the people in England — Opening of the legatine commission — ^Wolsey
surrenders the great seal,
AriEB the capture of Francis I,, the emperor made no attempt to follow
up his success by any bold measures against France, He was without the
means of paying an army to invade his rival's territories ; and was too prudent,
even if he had possessed the necessary finances, to risk an assault upon a
brave and proud nation, who would maintain the integrity of their o-wn
kingdom though their king was a captive. Charles V. told the English
envoys that it was best to be quiet. " The deer was in the net, and thought
need only to be taken for the division of his skin,"* He concluded an
armistice with France for six months. He had complaints to make against

-* Legrand, "Histoire du Divorce," vol, i, p, 41, This curious book furnishes valuable
materials for the history of this period ; especially in the letters of Jean du Bellay, bishop of
Bayonne, who formed one of an embassy from France to England,

1526,] RELEASE OF THE KING OF FRANCE. 308
the English government. His ambassador h.ad been insulted. A secret
envoy of France had been in communication with Wolsey in London. He
had discovered that the princess Mary, who had long been contracted to him,
had been the object of a matrimonial negotiation both with France and
with Scotland. Charles now demanded that the contract should be fulfilled.
Henry declined to complete the arrangement, on account of the youth of his
daughter ; and insisted that the marriage should depend upon the ability of
the emperor to give him the crown of France, or his willingness to surrender
Francis to his, the king of England's, keeping. Charles, it is said, assumed
an arrogant tone in these negotiations ; but there was a greater impediment
to friendship than his haughty bearing. He had no money to give Henry or his
profuse minister. A treaty was entered into with the government of France,
under the regency of the queen-mother, in which this essential condition of an
aUiance was amply provided for. But whilst the French cabinet made the
most lavish engagements with Henry and Wolsey, having the fuU consent of
the parliament of Paris, a protest was solemnly recorded against these
conditions, that Francis might at some future time repudiate the contracts
made in his absence. The conduct of each of the governments exhibits the
low cunning of the most unscrupulous chafferers, instead of the high faith
that should belong to all the transactions of great nations. The policy of
England now more and more inclined to a league with France, which was com
pleted in August, 1525. Meanwhile, Francis remained in captivity — first in
Italy and afterwards in Spain. Negotiations for his release were at length
entered into at Madrid, he having, after repeated refusals, consented to
restore Burgundy to the emperor. After being a prisoner for more than a
year, the king of France was released ; and when his foot touched the French
territory, he exclaimed, " Now I am again a king!" French histprians say
that after his capture he wrote, " All is lost, except honour." When he became
free, all was gained at the price of honour. He refused to ratify his engage
ment for the surrender of Burgundy, to which he had solemnly sworn.
The pope dispensed with his oath ; and Henry instructed his ambassadors
to urge him to violate it. In these dishonourable transactions the apprehen
sion of the power of Charles V. might have influenced the secret conduct
of the English government ; as the same fear impelled the court of Eome, and
other Italian states, to open hostility vrith the emperor.
The war upon which the pope entered against the emperor, in 1526, has a
claim upon our sympathy ; for it was a war for the independence of Italy,
Clement VII. engaged in this war as a temporal prince ; but his position as
bishop of Eome had a material influence upon its results. The able historian
of the popes shows that a strong feeling of common interest had arisen
throughout Italy at this crisis. He says — " I am persuaded that their vast
literary and artistical pre-eminence above all other countries was the main
cause of this. The arrogance and rapacity of the Spaniards, as weU leaders
as common soldiers, was intolerable ; and it was with a mixture of scorn and
rage that the Italians beheld these half-barbarian strangers, masters in their
land." * The passionate aspirations for a national unity — such feelings as
have vainly blazed up again and again during three centuries — were expressed
* Eanke, " History of the Popes,'' vol. i. p. 102,

306 SPIRIT OF THE ITALIANS [1526.
by Giberto, the confidential minister of Clement VIL : " This time it is not
a question of a petty vengeance, a point of honour, or a single city. This war
will decide the deUverance or the eternal slavery of Italy."'* Had that dis
tracted country possessed a leader in a temporal prince, endowed with
qualities such as might have competed with the decision of character that
distinguished Charles V., she might have then emancipated herself from foreign
sway. She has borne the yoke to this hour ; and she probably wUl continue
to bear it as long as the head of the Eoman Church is also a secular ruler.
The interests of the papacy, and the welfare of Italy, have been, in too many
cases, wholly conflicting.
The doctrines of Luther had made considerable progress in Germany.
Many pious and moderate men had adopted them from an earnest principle.
The worldly-minded had taken their sides in the contest of opinions, from
the hope of political or personal advantage. The turbulent and discontented
of the cities, and the fierce adventurers of the mercenary armies, saw in the
general hatred of the papal power a coming opportunity for spoliation.
Clement VII. had stirred up this spirit into a bitter hostUity to himself
amongst the Germans, by his rupture of an aUiance with the emperor.
George Frundsberg, a German noble of great influence, had raised an army
of sixteen thousand men, with small pay and large promises. In November,
1526, his fierce lance-knights crossed the Alps, made more ferocious even
than their ordinary temper by hunger and all destitution. " If I get to
Eome," said their leader, " I will hang the pope,"t Bourbon, now the
general of the emperor's armies in Italy — he who had endured the reproach
of the dying Bayard, at the battle of Eebec, for being in arms against his
prince and his country — had no resources for the supply of a mutinous army
of various nations but the plunder of some hostile state. In January, 1527,
he marched from MUan at the head of twenty-five thousand men. The
winter was one of uncommon severity. The troops were wholly unprovided
with necessaries. AU the munitions of war were wanting. Spaniards,
ItaUans, Germans, Flemings, starving and blaspheming, marched on for two
months with no success but the plunder of the villages on their route. They
dared not attack Placentia ; for the confederate army hovered about them.
They had no artUlery to besiege Bologna. Clement, meanwhile, had con
cluded a separate treaty with Lannoy, one of the imperial generals, for a
suspension of arms. Bourbon refused to be a party to the arrangement. He
was the commander of men who, if he disappointed their hopes of booty,
would turn and rend him. His plans were yet undecided. Florence
or Eome were alike capable of furnishing plunder to his soldiers. At
last, he moved out of Tuscany towards Eome. The pope made no attempt
to defend the passes of the Eoman territory. He repaired the breaches
in the old city-walls-; he erected a few new works ; he armed the artificers.
But in this hour of danger he appears to have relied too securely upon his
spiritual weapons. He excommunicated Bourbon and his troops, denouncing
the Germans as Lutherans and the Spaniards as Moors. On the 5th of May,
Bourbon and his men were encamped before the magnificent capital ; and as
they gazed upon its domes and towers, they were told that the treasures which
* Ranke, vol. i. p. 104. t Ibid., p, 107.

1527.] THE SACK OF ROME. 807
had there been accumulating for centuries would be theirs at the morrow's
dawn. On that morrow the eternal city was assaulted in three separate
attacks. The morning was misty; and thoir approach to the suburbs was
unpercelved. There was a brave resistance of the few who defended the
outworks. Bourbon leapt from his horse ; and planting a scaling-ladder
against the wall, shouted to his men to follow him. A ball from the ramparts
terminated his career. His death produced no relaxation in the ardour of his
followers. Their prey was before them ; aud in a few hours the devoted city
was in their hands. The pope and his cardinals shut themselves up in
the castle of St. Angelo. The scene that followed has been described by
^uicciardini, and by the historian of Charles V. The elaborate description of
Eobcrtson is familiar to the majority of readers. There is an incidental
narrative of Gibbon which has some remarkable peculiarities. His spirited
outline in which the atrocities at the taking of Eome by the troops of
Charles V. are compared with those of the Goths in the beginning of the
fifth century, offers a brief summary of the lamentable results of the assault
of Bourbon. " The ravages of the barbarians whom Alarlc had led from the
banks of the Danube were less destructive than the hostilities exercised by
the troops of Charles V., a catholic prince, who styled himself Emperor of
the Eomans. The Goths evacuated the city at the end of six days, but
Eome remained above nine months in the possession of the Imperialists : and
every hour was stained by some atrocious act of cruelty, lust, and rapine.
The authority of Alarlc preserved some order and moderation among the
ferocious multitude which acknowledged him for their leader and king ; but
the constable of Bourbon had gloriously faUen in the attack of the walls ;
and the death of the general removed every restraint of discipline from an
army which consisted of three independent nations." Eobertson has dis
tinguished between the character of these different forces : " Whatever
excesses the ferocity of the Germans, the avarice of the Spaniards, or the
Ucentiousness of the Italians could commit, these the wretched inhabitants
were obliged to suffer." Gibbon ascribes the same qualities to the Italians
and Spaniards ; but of the Germans he says, they " were less corrupt than
the Italians, less cruel than the Spaniards ; and the rustic, or even savage,
aspect of these Tramontane warriors often disguised a simple and merciful
disposition." What Gibbon adds of the Germans is more important than
their national characteristics : " They had imbibed, in the first fervour of the
Eeformation, the spirit, as well as the principles, of Luther. It was their
favourite amusement to insult, or destroy, the consecrated objects of cathoUc
superstition ; they indulged, -without pity or remorse, a devout hatred against
the clergy of every denomination or degree, who form so considerable a part
of the inhabitants of modern Eome ; and their fanatic zeal might aspire to
subvert the throne of Antichrist, — to purify, with blood and fire, the
abominations of the spiritual Babylon." * Gibbon is impartial in his hatred
of religious fanaticism : " Many of the Castilians who pillaged Eome were
famUiars of the Holy Inquisition." A recent writer, of great ability, has
endeavoured to associate the persecuting and ribald spirit of some of the
sarly reformers with the terrible lessons that were learnt at the Sack of
* " DecUne and FaU," vol. iv, p, 109, Dr, Smith's elit. X 2

308 CHARACTER OF THE ARMIES AT ROME. [1527.
Eome : " There is said to have been among the foUow^ers of the duke of
Bourbon (whether he was among the mock cardinals who rode in procession
on asses, I do not know) an Englishman, of low birth, vicious habits, and
infidel principles, who afterwards became of terrific importance to the Church
of England." * The " ruffian," so conjectured to have been at Eome in 1527,
was Thomas Cromwell. The connexion which Gibbon desires to show between
the spirit of Luther — "the furious spirit," as he expresses it in a note — is
not more a proof of the ferocity of the reforming temper of Germany, than of
the provocation which the impostures and mummeries, the greediness and
luxury, of the Eoman Church, had offered to rough and ignorant men, with
strong understandings and not wholly without "merciful dispositions." The
enormities against which Luther fought were of a character to make the
people hate and despise them, when they could do so without the dread of the
gibbet and the stake. That they should have been handled delicately by the
multitude is somewhat too much to expect from human nature. If Thomas
Cromwell learnt his statesmanship in the plunder of Eome, as is inferred, the
lessons derived from the exhibition of Luther's spirit must -have been some
what neutralised, if, as we are told, at the time when this event happened,
" he had no preference and no respect for either popery or protestantism, and
acted under no principle but that which taught him to do the best he could
for himself." f Instead of ascribing the outrages of 1527 to the fanatic zeal
of the young Eeformation, it might therefore be safer to assign such effects
of unbridled wickedness chiefiy to individual selfishness, and to beUeve that
the fanaticism in such case is only the cloak under which the rapacious
man does the best he can for his own dirty proflt. At any rate we may
believe that fanaticism was the weed that grew up amongst the corn in a
prolific soil ; not confounding the abuse of a great principle with the principle
itself. The intelligence of the triumph of his arms, and of the excesses which
disgraced it, produced in the emperor a singular attempt of policy to dis
criminate between the spiritual and the temporal power of the pope. By
his command the people were called upon to mourn in his dominions, and to
offer up prayers for the deliverance of the pontiff. This has been called
" hypocrisy." J It was an attempt to refine upon an occurrence which in the
eyes of the multitude was a victory over the papal power, desecrated by
wielding the carnal weapon. The people of England took this broad view of
the question. Our English chronicler, who is a tolerably faithful expositor
of the popular feeling, says, — " The king was sorry, and so were many
prelates ; but the commonalty little mourned for it. * * ¦* * The pope was a
ruffian. * • • • He began the mischief and was well served." § Wolsey,
according to the same authority, called upon the king to show himself a
defender of the Church ; and Hall puts this answer into Henry's mouth : " I
more lament this evil chance than my tongue can tell ; but when you say that
I am Defender of the Faith, I assure you that this war between the emperor
and the pope is not for the faith, but for temporal possessions and dominions."
We may take such formal speeches in the old historians for what they are
* Dr. Maitland, "Essays on the Eeformation," p. 228. + Ibid.
X Macintosh, "History," vol.ii, p. 130. § Hall, p. 728.

1527.] THE DIVORCE OP QUEEN CATHERINE AGITATED. 309
worth — the setting forth of current opinion. The policy of the English
government resolved itself into sending Wolsey as ambassador to France.
There is a passage in the chronicler which is as " the straw thrown up to
show which way the wind blows." Hall, with reference to the projected
embassy, says, — " This season began a fame in London that the king's con
fessor, being bishop of Lincoln, called Doctor Longland, and divers other
great clerks, had told the king that the marriage between him and the Lady
Catherine, late wife to his brother. Prince Arthur, was not good, but damnable ;
and the king hereupon should marry the duchess of Alen9on, sister to
the French king, at the town of Calais this summer ; and that the viscount
Eochfort had brought with him the picture of the said lady ; and that at his
return out of France the cardinal should pass the sea to go into France to
fetch her. This rumour sprang so much that the king sent for sir Thomas
Seymour, mayor of London, and strictly charged him to see that the people
should cease of this communication, upon pain of the king's high displeasure."*
There can be no doubt that the question of the divorce had been agitated at
this period ; and it having been made matter of close discussion, " a fame in
London" might have spread out of those secret counsels. Wolsey left the
court on his embassy on the 3rd of July, 1527. On the 1st of July, he had
sent a despatch to the king, in which he declares his trouble that, in conse
quence of a message which he had sent to his highness, it has been supposed
that he, Wolsey, doubted "of your secret matter." He adds, "For I take
God to record, that there is nothing earthly I covet so much as the advancing
thereof." f On the 5th of July, the cardinal writes a most elaborate despatch
to Henry, in which he describes an interview which he had with the archbishop
of Canterbury, Warham, at sir John WUtshire's house, near Dartford, where
he lodged on the first night of his journey. The subject of their conversation
was " of your secret matter, and such other things as have been done therein."
Wolsey showed the archbishop " how the knowledge thereof is come to the
queen's grace, and how displeasantly she taketh it." It was the business of
Wolsey to make the primate an instrument for advancing the king's great
object : " I have sufficiently instructed him how he shall order himself, in case
the queen do demand his counsel in the said matter." Henry's zealous
minister had also an interview with bishop Fisher, which he relates with great
minuteness. The bishop was reserved ; but Wolsey thus attacked him, to
obtain from him a knowledge of the point upon which the queen had desired
his advice, but of which the bishop affirmed that he knew nothing : " I re
plied and said, ' My lord, ye and I have been of an old acquaintance, and the
one hath loved and trusted the other, wherefore postponing all doubt and
fear ye may be frank and plain with me, like as I, for my party, will be with
you.' " The bishop stiU maintaining that he only conjectured what the
matter was, Wolsey communicated to him the king's desire for a divorce,
" taking an oath of him to keep it close and secret." Having explained to
the prelate that the king's doubts of the legality of his marriage had been first
raised by the bishop of Tarbes, when he came to negotiate a matrimonial
alliance between Francis and the princess Mary, Wolsey induced Fisher to
impute " great blame unto the queen, as well for giving so Ught credence in
* Hall, p. 728. + State Papers, pubUshed by the Record Commissioners, vol i.

310 DIFFICULTIES OF WOLSEY. [1627,
so weighty a matter ; as also, when she heard it, to handle the same in such
fashion as rumour and bruit should spread thereof." The unhappy queen
was to remain impassive whilst "the great and secret affair" was maturing
for her destruction. The pliant bishop doubted not but that if he might
speak with her, and disclose unto her all the circumstances of the matter,
" he should cause her greatly to repent, humble, and submit herself to your
highness." The spirit of this injured woman was not understood by those who
were thus labouring to render her a meek instrument of her own degradation.
The difficulties with which Wolsey was surrounded in this affair of the
divorce appear to have been constantly in his mind during this journey to
France. He was suspected by Catherine ; for the queen, as he told Fisher,
had said that it was by his " procurement and setting-forth a divorce was
purposed." He dreaded the knowledge of the scheme being disclosed to the
emperor ; and therefore informs the king that according to his desire that
Francis PhUip's going into Spain " should be letted," he would endeavour so
to order it that the traveller might be " stopped in some convenient place,
without suspecting that the same proceedeth either of your highness or of
me."* On the 29th of July he thus expresses his deep solicitude for the
accomplishment of the king's purpose: — "Daily and hourly musing and
thinking on your grace's great and secret affair, and how the same may come
to good effect and desired end, as well for the deliverance of your grace out of
the enthralled, pensive, and dolorous life that the same is in, as for the con
tinuance of your health, and the surety of your realm and succession, I
consider how the pope's holiness' consent must concur," &c.f Of that consent
Wolsey had no doubt, if the pope could be delivered from his imprisonment
at Eome. "In case the said peace cannot be by these means brought to
effect, whereupon might ensue the pope's deliverance, by whose authority
and consent your grace's affair should take most sure, honourable, effectual,
and substantial end." He adds, as to the disposition of the pope, "who, I
doubt not, considering your grace's gratitude, would facily [easily] be induced
to do aU things therein that might be to your grace's satisfaction and purpose."
Here was one of the sunken shoals upon which Wolsey's policy was wrecked.
Another shifting sand, equally dangerous, was the secret passion of the king
for a lady of his court, which the cardinal appears to have considered as one
of those capricious intrigues in which Henry, during even the happiest hours
of his married life, indulged. The queen was now upwards of forty years of
age ; the king was in his thirty-sixth year. " The surety of your realm and
succession," as expressed in Wolsey's letter to the king, of the 29th July, was
the panacea which the statesmen of Henry's time applied to their consciences,
when they were caUed upon to sanction any outrageous act of the royal wUl.
In the case of the divorce of queen Catherine there was greater peril to the
succession in the agitation of the question, than in the peaceful continuance,
to the end, of that marriage which had given a female heir to the throne ; and
which the virtues of the queen, during eighteen years, had reconciled to the
scrupulous doubters of the dispensing power which had first sanctioned the
union. The princess Mary was born in 1516. Her education was carefuUy
attended to, her accomplishmeuts were various. In 1525 she was regarded
* State Papers, vol. i, 19th July. t Ibid., 29th July.

1527.] WOLSEY'S EMBASSY TO FRANCE, 311
as the future queen of England, if we may judge from the circumstance that
a vice-regal court was assigned her " to reside and remain in the marches of
Wales," In the spring of 1527, when the bishop of Tarbes came upon an
embassy to England, to demand her hand in marriage for Francis or one of
his sons, the princess was at Greenwich. It was at this time that the doubt
of the validity of the royal marriage with Catherine of Aragon was first raised.
Within three months the divorce was the subject of the anxious thoughts of
Henry's minister. On the 18th June, though Henry had thrown many
obstacles in the way of princess Mary's marriage when the ambassadors were
in England, Wolsey received a commission to settle the alliance with the king
of France. It was one of the objects of his embassy. The succour of the
pope iu his misfortunes, in concert with Francis, was another object. Why
Henry and his minister so ardently desired that the pope should be free, had
a more imperative motive than the defence of the Church. During the im
prisonment of Clement in the castle of St. Angelo, Henry was the only person
who displayed any sympathy, by sending him supplies for his urgent necessi
ties. Wolsey saw the means by which the pope might "facily be induced"
to give Henry " satisfaction," Wolsey was mistaken in the final issue of his
complicated schemes ; but his sagacity was not at fault in his first move
ments. The pope made rio absolute promises to Henry, but he allowed him
to think a divorce possible, " as soon as ever the Germans and the Spaniards
were driven out of Italy." * To conclude a league -with France against the
emperor was the mode in which this possibility was to be realised.
The pageantry of Wolsey's embassy, in 1527, has been described witn
great minuteness by Cavendish, one of his gentlemen-ushers. His mode of
traveUing, riding "like a cardinal, very sumptuously, on a mule trapped with
crimson velvet," was not favourable to rapid progress. He rested at Canter
bury ; and at the feast of St, Thomas, when the monks sang in the litany,
" Holy Mary, pray for our father Clement," he wept very tenderly. He
landed at Calais, and before setting forward addressed all his suite, on the
deportment they should observe, and on "the nature of the Frenchmen."
He told them that it was their habit to commune with Englishmen in the
French tongue, as though they understood every word : " therefore, in like
manner, be ye as familiar with them again as they be with you. If they
speak to you in the French tongue, speak you to them in the English tongue,
for if you understand not them, they shaU no more understand you." The
cardinal, with that ionhommie which evidently made him beloved amidst all
his haughtiness, turning to one of his gentlemen, a Welshman, said, " Eice,
speak thou Welsh to him ; and I am well assured that thy Welsh shall be
more diffuse [obscure] to him than his French shall be to thee." Francis,
with the queen-mother and a gorgeous court, came to meet the cardinal near
Amiens. They remained at Amiens for more than two weeks, " consulting
and feasting each other divers times." At Compiegne, to which the king
and the cardinal travelled together, the chancellor of France and Wolsey
had a violent dispute about the terms of the treaty ; and the English
minister hastily left the king of France's council, " wondrously offended."
He was entreated to be reconciled, even by the queen-mother herself. He
» See Eanke, vol. i. p. 12fi.

312

WOLSEY RETURNS TO NEW DIFFICULTIES,

[1527.

at length yielded ; and accomplished more than he could attain before the
quarrel. " He had the heads of all the council so under his girdle that he
might rule them all there as weU as he might the council of England."
Wolsey, having fulfilled his mission, returned to England in the autumn of
1527. His magnificent reception by Francis — his banquetings and his boar
hunts, — were not without some drawbacks of personal discomfort. A libellous
book was published in France, about his embassy ; of which the cardinal
complained, saying, " that if the like
had been attempted within the realm of
England, he doubted not but to see it
punished according to the traitorous de
meanour and deserts." * There was no
redress after the complaint. Wolsey, with
all his sagacity, had not learnt that the
new power efthe press was least dangerous
when least controlled by despotic autho
rity. The French did not look kindly
upon tlie politic cardinal. " Some lewd
person," says Cavendish, " whosoever it
was, had engraVed in the great chamber
window where my lord lay, upon the
leaning-stone there, a cardinal's hat -with
a pair of gallows over it, in derision of
my lord." But he had greater inquietudes
when he arrived home. He had risen at
Compiegne at four o'clock in the morning,
to write letters to the king, and had con
tinued writing with only his nightcap and
keverchief on his head till four o'clock in
the afternoon. The cardinal had not only
made a favourable treaty with France, and
had added new strength to his own legatine
authority in England, but was so confident
in the matter of the divorce, that he had
promised the mother of Francis that a
princess of her house should wear the
English crown within a year. Henry, at
that time, was looking nearer home for a
mistress or a wife.
In an old manor-house at Hever,
near the river Eden, in Kent, — which
under a license of Edward III. had
assumed the character of a castle — dw'elt
Sir Thomas Boleyn, the grandson of a
rich citizen of London, who was descended
family. Here was born to him a daughter
place was her childhood passed — happy

Brass of Sir Thomas Bullen, in Hever
Church,

from an honourable Norfolk
Anne. In that sequestered

Cavendish, p. 133,

1527.] ANNE BOLEYN AT THE ENGLISH COURT. 313
had she never gone beyond the moated walls of her father's house, to see
more of the living world than she knew when she knelt In her village church,
amidst the tenants of the manor. When Mary, the sister of Henry VIIL,
married Louis XII,, in 1514, Anne Boleyn, then only seven years of age, was
taken with her. Upon the widow of the French king returning to England
as wife of Charles Brandon, the little Kentish girl remained in the household
of the daughter of Louis, who afterwards became the wife of Francis I,
This queen died iu 1524 ; and Anne remained in France with the duchess of
Alen^on, the sister of Francis, till after the battle of Pavia, when she returned
to England. Cavendish speaks of her influence at the court of Henry, before
the embassy of Wolsey in 1527, She was one of the maids of honour to
queen Catherine. It is clear that before the death of the earl of Northum
berland, in 1526, the king had interfered to prevent her marriage with his
son, " and even as my lord Percy was commanded to avoid her company, even
so she was commanded to avoid the court, and sent home again to her father's
for a season." * Wolsey interfered in this matter between the two lovers ;
saying that the king intended to have preferred the lady unto another person,
with whom he had opened the matter. Percy married a daughter of the earl
of Shrewsbury ; " wherewith Mistress Anne Boleyn was greatly offended,
saying, that, if it ever lay in her power, she would work the cardinal as much
displeasure." t The lines of Sir Thomas AVyatt were considered by his
grandson, who wrote a memoir of the unfortunate lady, to express the
character of her charms : —
" A face that should content me wondrous weU,
Should not be fair, but lovely to behold ;
Of lively look, all grief for to repel
With right good grace ; so would I that it should
Speak, without words, such words as none can teU,"t
Her beauty was that of expression. The court of Francis I, was not the
purest for an attractive girl to be brought up in ; but the scandal of a
scandalous age was unable to fix any charge upon her but that of her " lively
look," before the period when she had the misfortune to captivate a royal
voluptuary. The passion of Henry has influenced the destinies of England
to this hour.
In October, 1527, a splendid embassy from France arrived in London,
comprising the Marshal de Montmorenci, the bishop of Bayonne, and two
other eminent persons. They came to invest Henry with the order of
St. Michael. The cardinal vied with the king in giving them the most
splendid entertainments. Wolsey feasted them at Hampton Court, which he
stUl occupied, although he had presented it to Henry in 1525 to propitiate
his good wiU, or to avert his passing wrath. Some of Wolsey's buUdings
stUl remain, whose spacious courts and broad oriel windows show something
of its palatial magnificence ; and whose ornamental brick chimneys, and
gateways decorated with carvings and terra-cottas, exhibit the foreign taste
that was beginning to prevail in English architecture. Wolsey was in high
spirits at this season. He was late in his arrival at a sumptuous banquet to
the strangers. The trumpets had warned them to supper. But the host had
• Cavendish, p, 129. t Ibid., p. 129. X " Songs aud Sonnets."

314 "VVAR DECLARED AGAINST THE EMPEROR. [1528
not come. " Before the second course, my lord cardinal came in among them,
booted and spurred, all suddenly." Withont shifting his riding apparel, he
" sat himself down in the midst of the table, laughing and being as merry as
ever I saw him in all my life." The days of trouble were at hand. " The
long-hid and secret love between the king and Mistress Anne Boleyn began
to break out into every man's ears. The matter was then by the king
disclosed to my lord cardinal ; whose persuasion to the contrary, made to the
king upon his knees, could not effect. The king was so amorously affectionate,
that will bare place, and high discretion banished for the time," *
At the beginning of 1528, war was formally declared against the emperor
by France and England, " Guyon, herald for the French king, and Clarencieux
for the king of England, the 14th day of January, in the city of Burgos, in
Castile, came before the emperor, being nobly accompanied with dukes,
marquises, earls, and barons, in his great hall, and there made their defiance,"
*'**"* The nobles and gentlemen present " drew out their swords, and
swore that the defiances then made should be revenged." t This war against
Charles was most unpopular in England. The clothiers could not sell their
broad-cloths ; the bulk of the people, who were suffering from a great dearth
of corn, could not obtain their Vi^onted supplies out of Flanders. The
conduct of the emperor towards England was marked by extreme moderation.
He had thrown the blame of the quarrel upon Wolsey ; alleging that he had
provoked the war because the emperor would not satisfy his rapacity, or
place him by force in the chair of St, Peter, Of the members of the French
commission for the investment of Henry with the order of St, Michael,
Jean du Bellay, bishop of Bayonne, remained as ambassador. His cor
respondence with the French government during the e\'entful years of 1528-9
presents us with incidental views of the state of England — the politics of the
court, and the feelings of the people — more precise and life-like than we can
derive from any other source. This clear-sighted bystander saw more of the
game than the players. On the 16th of February, 1528, Bellay writes, " I
think that he (the cardinal) is the only one in England who desires the war
in Flanders." He describes how the London merchants had refused to go
upon 'Change, so that the manufacturers being unable to sell their cloth, there
might be revolt in the provinces. On the 23rd he says, that those who would
gladly see Wolsey come to ruin, rejoice when everything goes wrong, and say,
" These are the works of the legate." The government did not wholly set
itself against the popular voice. An armistice was concluded between England
and the Netherlands, whilst hostilities went on as between England and
Spain, Meanwhile, the pope having been released from his confinement in
December, 1527, it was the great object of Wolsey to obtain that favourable
judgment of the king's " secret affair," which he had so confidently held out.
In February, 1528, upon the urgent representations of Dr. Stephen Gardiner
and Dr. Edward Fox, who had been sent to Eome, Clement granted a com
mission authorising Wolsey, as legate, with the aid of one of the English
prelates, to inquire into the sufficiency of the dispensation for Henry's
-* Cavendish, p. 204.
+ Hall, p, 741-2, It is singular that Mr, Froude (Note in vol, i, p, 130) should ha-ye
overlooked this most explicit statement. He says, referring to Hall, p, 744 : "Hall says it
war] was declared. I do not find, however, that there was a positive declaration."

1628,]

COMMISSION FROM THE POPE,

315

marriage with his brother's -widow, and to pronounce accordingly upon the
validity or invalidity of that marriage, Wolsey shrank from this fearful
responsibility ; the more so that the king expressed himself satisfied. He
had to encounter technical objections which iu the ardour of his political
views he had overlooked. When Henry knew of his honest doubts he chafed
with indignation. Wolsey obtained a new commission from the pope, dated
in June, 1528, in which cardinal Campegius was associated with him to try
this great question of the legality of the marriage. The bishop of Bayonne,
before the arrival of Campegius in England, sajs that Wolsey had to endure
much anxiety in this matter, upon which Henry had set his heart. To the
cardinal " the king uses the most terrible terms, because he fancies he is
cooling." The great minister is talking of retiring from the affairs of the

Christchurch in the sixteenth century.

world. He walks with the French ambassador, and tells him " of the progress
of his life to this hour, and by what means he had risen to such honour."
Wolsey added, that " if God should give him grace to behold the hatred of
the two peoples [the French aud English] removed ; a firm and perpetual
peace accomplished between the sovereigns, as he hoped speedily to estabUsh ;
and the laws and customs of the country reformed, as he would do if peace
should come ; — ^moreover, the succession of the kingdom assured, principaUy
where this marriage is concerned and a heir male be born — then immediately
be would retire and serve God for the remainder of his life." * What the
reforms were that Wolsey pointed at in this remarkable exposition of his
* legrand, voh iii. Letter of 20th August, pp. 157 — 168. Mr. Froude renders this
declaration thus : "If he could only see the divorce arranged, the king re-married, the succession
settled, and the laws and the church reformed, he would retire," &o. The words of the original
are, -with reference to the purposed reform, " i!es Loix et CoAtwmes dupaya ref armies."

816 CAMPEGIUS IN ENGLAND AS LEGATE. [1528,
political aspirations is not clear. It has been objected to him that he desired
to supersede the Common law of England by the Civil law. That he even
hinted at a reform of the Church may be greatly doubted. Of his express
mention of such a purpose there is not a word in the ambassador's letter.
He had suppressed some of the most Insignificant of the monasteries by a
special authority as legate ; and he had devoted their revenues to his noble
foundation of Christ-church, at Oxford, and his college at Ipswich. But
that he contemplated any change approaching in the least degree to carrying
out the principles of the Eeformation, is a theory which his devotion to the
see of Eome will scarcely warrant us in believing.
The alliance with France did not proceed satisfactorily in its influence
upon secular poUtlos, any more than it did in forwarding the great object of
Henry's desire in the submission of the pope to his will in the matter of the
divorce. If the emperor had been controUed by the armies of France in
Italy, and by the dread of more active hostility from England, Clement would
probably have been subservient to the English king, and Wolsey's policy
would have triumphed. But at the moment when the forces of Francis,
under Lautrec, the French general, had been successful at every point over
the Imperialists, and were besieging Naples with every prospect of success,
the malaria fever and the plague swept off his men with a rapidity far more
fatal than the most sanguinary battle ; and the miserable remnant of his
army capitulated to the forces of Charles in September, 1528. The emperor
was now predominant. The Germans and the Spaniards were not driven out
of Italy, as Clement had thought probable. The aunt of Charles was the
queen against whom the ungracious measure of the divorce was directed.
He was naturally aud honestly opposed to the project. The pope was
obliged to resort to equivocation and half-measures. Wolsey was left to do
his best with an imperious master and a discontented people.
Cardinal Campegius arrived iu England on the 9th of October. He was
to be received triumphantly; but he declined all solemnities, "being sore
vexed with the gout." The chronicler says that, " on the coming of this
legate, the common people, being ignorant of the truth, and in especial
women aud other that favoured the queen, talked largely, and said that
the king would for his own pleasure have another wife, and had sent for the
legate to be divorced from his queen." * On the 8th of November, Henry
summoned an assembly to his palace of Bridewell, and set before them the
danger of the realm should he die without a true heir to the throne ; the
doubts that had been raised about the legitimacy of his daughter ; and the
care with which he had sought counsel of the greatest clerks in Christendom,
having sent for the legate, as a man indifferent, to know the truth and to
settle his conscience, t The king had set forth his own opinion in a treatise
upon the question of his divorce, which, as he expressed himself in one of his
letters to Anne Boleyn, " maketh substantially for my matter, in writing
whereof I have spent above eleven hours this day, which causeth me now to
write the shorter letter to you now at this time, because of some pain in my
head." J After the kiug had expounded his " matter" to the assembly in his
* Hall, p, 754. + Ihid.
_ X Henry's letters to Anne are printed in Grove's "Life of Wolsey," Also in the "Harleian
Miscellany;" where the eleven hours of the above quotation appear as four. Vol. i. p. 198,
ed. 1808. 8vo.

1628,] INTERVIEW OF THE LEGATES WITH CATHERINE, 817
palace, the two legates waited upon the queen, who was also there lodged ;
and "declared to her how they were deputed judges Indifferent between the
king aud her." Hall, in his magniloquent style, puts a long and violent oration
into the mouth of the queen. Cavendish also relates an Interview between the
queen and the legates, in his own graphic manner, so full of natural touches
that we may wUlingly put aside any doubts of its authenticity : —
" With that she came out of her privy chamber with a skein of white
thread about her neck, into the chamber of presence, where the cardinals were
giving of attendance upon her coming. At whose coming, quoth she, 'Alack,
my lords, I .am very sorry to cause you to attend upon me ; what is your
pleasure with me?' 'If it please you,' quoth my lord cardinal, 'to go
into your privy chamber, we will show you the cause of our coming,' ' My
lord,' quoth she, ' if you have anything to say, speak it openly, before all
these folks ; for I fear nothing that ye can say or allege against me, but that
I would all the world should both hear and see it ; therefore I pray you
speak your minds openly.' Then began my lord to speak to her in Latin.
' Nay, good my lord,' quoth she, ' speak to me in English, I beseech you ; '
although I understand Latin.' ' Forsooth, then,' quoth my lord, ' madam,
if it please your grace, we come both to know your mind, how ye be disposed
to do in this matter between the king and you ; and also to declare secretly
our opinions and our counsel unto you, which we have intended of very zeal
and obedience that we bear to your grace.' ' My lords, I thank you then,'
quoth she, ' of your good wills, but to make answer to your request I cannot
so suddenly, for I was set among my maidens at work, thinking full little of
any such matter, wherein there needeth a longer deliberation, and a better
head than mine, to make answer to so noble wise men as ye be ; I had need
of good counsel in this case, which toucheth me so near ; and for any counsel
or friendship that I can flnd in England, (they) are nothing to my purpose
or profit. Think you, I pray you, my lords, will any Englishman counsel or
be friendly unto me against the king's pleasure, they being his subjects P
Nay, forsooth, my lords 1 and for my counsel, in whom I do intend to put my
trust be not here ; they be in Spain, in my native country. Alas, my lords !
I am a poor woman lacking both wit and understanding sufficiently to answer
such approved wise men as ye be both, in so weighty a matter. I pray you to
extend your good and indifferent minds in your authority unto me, for I am
a simple woman, destitute and barren of friendship and counsel here in a
foreign region ; and as for your counsel I will not refuse but be glad to hear."
It would appear that Cavendish, waitUig upon the cardinal, heard what
passed in '" the chamber of presence," He adds, " And with that she took
my lord by the hand and led him into her privy chamber, with the other
cardinal ; where they were in long communication. We, in the other
chamber, might sometime hear the queen speak very loud ; but what it was
we could not understand." *
The winter of 1528-29 was, in London, a season of great excitement. The
court and the people were at issue. The sycophantic and unscrupulous of
the higher classes were crowding to win the smiles of the triumphant lady
whom the king did not hesitate to proclaim as the object of his affections,
* Cavendish, p, 227.

318 TEMPER OF THE PEOPLE IN ENGLAND. [1628-29.
On the 9th of December, the bishop of Bayonne gave a minute account of
the state of affairs in London : " Mistress Boleyn [MademoiseUe de Boulan]
has at last come here ; and the king has placed her in a beautiful lodging,
which he has finely decorated, close to his own ; and every day there is a
greater court about her than, for a long time, has been about the queen." -*
Of the popular feeling he thus speaks : " I think that, little by little, they
would accustom this people to endure her, that when the time comes to give
the last blow it should not produce much surprise. * * * * An order has
been issued that only ten shopkeepers of each nation shall reside in Loudon.''
This banishment of strangers of three nations from the capital appUed, we
may suppose, to Flemings, Spaniards, and Germans. Its effect must have
produced the most extensive derangement of commercial affairs, if, as is here
said, " more than fifteen thousand Flemings would in consequence be removed."
The people were suspected of a disposition to revolt. " There has been a
search for fire-arms and cross-bows ; and wherever they are found in the city
they are taken away, so that they are left with no worse weapon than the
tongue." With the great there was less indignation: "As to the nobles,
the king has made them so understand his fantasy, that they speak
more soberly than they were wont to do." Amidst all this open and sup
pressed dislike of the proceedings of the court, the national spirit was surging
up at the notion of foreign dictation. The emperor, knowing his popularity
in England, had threatened that 'he would expel Henry from his kingdom by
his own subjects. Wolsey repeated this before an assembly of a hundred
gentlemen. They were silent ; but one at last said — " By those words the
emperor has lost a hundred thousand hearts in England." Wolsey laboured
hard to make Charles hated and Francis beloved in England; "but," says
the French ambassador, " it is a hard thing to strive against nature."t
Seven months elapsed between the arrival of cardinal Campegius in London
and the opening of the legatine court, which he and Wolsey were authorised
to hold. That these delays were the consequence of the pope's indecision —
his dread of offending the emperor, and his fear of England and France —
there can be small doubt. It was a time of anxiety for Wolsey that might
make him well desire to escape from this position of danger to his own
diocese- — to do his duty as a churchman, instead of piloting the vessel of the
state in these stormy waters. At length on the 18th of June, 1529, the
court of the legates was solemnly opened, by reading the commission of the
pope to the judges of the cause. " That done, the crier called the king, by
-the name of ' king Henry of England, come into the court, &c.' With that the
king answered, ' Here, my lords.' Then he called also the queen, by the
name of ' Catherine, queen of England, come into the court, &c.' who made
no answer to the same." This is the account which Cavendish gives. Burnet
denies that the king appeared, except by proxy ; and says that the queen with
drew after reading a protest against the competency of the j udges. The historian
of the Eeformation is clearly in error. There are many collateral proofs that
the king was present. Cavendish makes the queen, kneeling, thus address
the king, " in broken English :" — " Sir, I beseech you for all the loves that
hath been between us, and for the love of God, let me have justice and right,
¦* Legrand, tom. iii. p. 231. t Legrand, tom. iii. p. 233,

1629,] OPENING OP THE LEGATINE COMMISSION, 319
take of me some pity and compassion, for I am a poor woman and a stranger
born out of your dominions. I have here no assured friend, and much less
inditterent counsel ; I flee to you as to the head of justice within this realm.
Alas ! sir, wherein have I oflended you, or what occasion of displeasure
have I designed against your wiU and pleasure ; intending (as I perceive) to
put me from you ? I take God and all the world to witness, that I have
been to you a true, humble, and obedient wife, ever conformable to your will
and pleasure, that never said or did anything to the contrary thereof, being
always well pleased and contented with all things wherein you had any delight
or dalliance, whether it were in little or much, I never grudged in word or
countenance, or showed a visage or spark of discontentation. I loved all
those whom ye loved only for your sake, whether I had cause or no ; and
whether they were my friends or my enemies. This twenty years I have
been your true wife or more, and by me ye have had divers children, although
it hath pleased God to call them all out of this world, which hath been no
default in me." The remainder of Catherine's speech dwells upon the
circumstances of her second marriage — the wisdom of Henry VII. and of
Ferdinand, who would not have promoted it had it not been good and lawful.
The queen then rose, and " took her way strait out of the house." Henry
commanded the crier to call her again, of which she was informed by her
receiver. Master Griffith, who supported her with his arm. " On, on," quoth
she, " it maketh no matter ; for it is no indifferent court for me, therefore
I wiU not tarry. Go on your ways." * Henry, according to the same
authority, made a speech, touching his griefs and necessities, and Catherine's
goodness. The queen not again appearing, she was declared contumacious. The
legates continued to sit till the 30th of July ; having examined witnesses, and
received documentary evidence, touching the marriage of prince Arthur. They
then adjourned without coming to any decision. During the sittings of the
court, Wolsey had to endure the anger of him whose passion was as uncon
trollable as it was dangerous. At the breaking up of the court, one day, he
was sent for by the king. " And to accomplish his commandment he went
unto him, and being there with him in communication in his grace's privy
chamber from eleven until twelve of the clock and past at noon, my lord came
out and departed from the king and took his barge at the Black Friars, and
so went to his house at Westminster. The bishop of Carlisle being with him
in his barge, said unto him, (wiping the sweat from his face,) ' Sir,' quoth he,
' it is a very hot day.' ' Tea,' quoth my lord Cardinal, ' if ye had been as
well chafed as I have been within this hour, ye would say it were hot,' "f
The expected fall of the great cardinal was the political revolution which
might now be accomplished at any moment. The queen was removed from
the court ; and Anne accompanied the king in his pleasure-progress during
the hunting season. Campegius having made suit to return to Eome, he aud
Wolsey set out to meet the king at Grafton ; " before whose coming there
rose in the court divers opinions that the king would not speak with my lord
cardinal," But when Wolsey came into the presence of Henry, and knelt
before him, " he took my lord up by both arms, and caused him to stand up ;
* Cavendish, p, 213—17. t Ibid., p, 225.

320 WOLSEY SURRENDERS THE GREAT SEAL. [1529
whom the king, with as amiable a cheer as ever he did, called him aside, and
led him by the hand to a great window, where he talked with him and caused
him to be covered." -* Henry " dined that day with Mistress Anne Boleyn,
in her chamber, who kept there an estate more like a queen than a simple
maid." The picture which Cavendish then presents is a curious illustration
of the manners of the period, as well as of its politics : —
" As I heard it reported by them that waited upon the king at dinner, that
Mistress Anne Boleyn was much offended with the king, as far as she durst,
that he so gently entertained my lord, saying, as she sat with the king at
dinner, in communication of him, ' Sir,' quoth she, ' is it not a marvellous
thing to consider what debt and danger the cardinal hath brought you in with
all your subjects ?' ' How so, sweetheart ? ' quoth the king. ' Forsooth,'
quoth she, ' there is not a man within all your realm worth flve pounds, but he
hath indebted you unto him,' (meaning by a loan that the king had but late
of his subjects). ' Well, well,' quoth the king, ' as for that there is in him no
blame ; for I know that matter better than you or any other.' ' Nay, sir,'
quoth she, ' besides all that, what things hath he wrought within this realm,
to your great slander and dishonour. There is never a nobleman within this
realm, that if he had done but half so much as he hath done, but he were well
worthy to lose his head. If my lord of Norfolk, my lord of Suffolk, my lord
my father, or any other noble person within your realm, had done much less
than he, but they should have lost their heads or this,' ' Why, then, I per
ceive,' quoth the king, 'ye are not the cardinal's friend.?' 'Forsooth, sir,'
then quoth she, ' I have no cause, nor any other that loveth your grace, no
more have your grace, if ye consider well his doings.' At this time the
waiters had taken up the table, and so they ended their communication."
Wolsey never again saw king Henry. When Michaelmas term commenced
on the 9th of October, he went with his usual state to the Court of Chancery :
it was the last time that he there sat as chancellor. On the 17th of October
he surrendered the great seal, not without some contest with the dukes of
Suffolk and Norfolk ; and retired from his noble palace of Tork Place, to
that humbler dwelling of Esher, whose tower still recalls the memory of the
most influential man of his time. * Cavendish, p. 239.

Wolsey's Tower at Esher.

CHAPTER XX.

Wolsey quits York Place— His progress to Esher — Thomas CromweU — He defends Wolsey ia
ParUament — Sir Thomas More, Chancellor — Statutes against ecclesiastical abuses —
Resistance of the Clergy — Heresy — The king discharged of his debts by statute — Christmas
at Green-wich — Embassy to the pope— Cranmer — Opinions of the Universities on the
divorce — ^Wolsey in his see of York — His popularity — Is arrested on a charge of treason
— His death, and the king's lament.

WoLSET has left, and for ever, his palace of Tork Place. In its gallery
hung -with cloth of gold, — in its gilt chamber and jts council chamber, — his
cupboards are thrown open, and give to view his astonishing hoards of gold
and silver plate, " whereof some was set with pearl and rich stones." His
velvet, satin, and damask stuffs ; his richest suits of copes ; his thousand
pieces of fine hoUand cloth.; — these -visible riches are placed upon divers tables,
with an inventory upon every table. All these effects — every thing that he
possessed — were taken from him, under the ssntence of the Court of King's
Bench, that his lands, goods, and chattels were forfeited, and that his person
was at the mercy of the king. The charge against him was, that, as legate,
he had violated the statutes of prsemnnire, by exercising his powers under a
foreign authority. To this charge Wolsey answered : " I have the king's
Hcense in mr coffers under his hand and broad seal, for exercising and using

322 WOLSEY'S DEPARTURE TO ESHEK, L1529.
the authority thereof [of the legatine prerogative] in the largest wise, the
which now remaineth in the hands of my enemies." -* In departing from the
scene of his magnificence, the minister, thus abandoned by his treacherous
master, says, " It hath pleased the king to take my house ready furnished for
his pleasure at this time." f His barge waits at those stairs where poor
Buckingham landed and sought him in vain. " At the taking of his barge,"
says Cavendish, " there was no less than a thousand boats fuU of men and
women of the city of London, wafting np and dovm in Thames, expecting my
lord's departing, supposing that he should have gone directly from thence to
the Tower, whereat they rejoiced." He adds : " I dare be bold to say that
the most part never received damage at his hands." Who can wonder at the
curiosity of this multitude to witness the ejectment of the great statesman
who had governed them for twenty years ! AU the harshness of a harsh time
would be attributed to him. His ecclesiastical magnificence had been paraded
too long before them, to amaze and subdue as of old. Wolsey was the
representative of a Church that was becoming more proud and insolent as its
true greatness was fast perishing. " The authority of this cardinal," writes
the contemporary chronicler, " set the clergy in Such a pride that they dis
dained all men." J In his temporal office of chanceUor the faUen judge had
been a protector of the poor. But every man in high office was to some
extent an oppressor : " the people be ever pUled and poUed by hungry dogs." §
And so Wolsey went on amidst the thousand boats to Putney, pitied by the
few, scorned by the many who " watch the sign to hate." There was one in
his train to whom in that hour aU the changes of his o-wn adventurous Ufe
must have been rendered doubly vivid by local associations. Thomas Crom
weU, the son of a fuller of Putney ; the agent of a factory at Antwerp ; the
trooper in the duke of Bourbon's army at the sack of Eome ; the rough tool
of Wolsey in the suppression of some of the smaUer monasteries, — he,
through the faU of his great master, is once more likely to be cast upon a
frowning world, and have to fight some new battle for preferment, perhaps
even for safety. The cavalcade passes through Putney town. The cardinal
has knelt in the dirt when a messenger from the king has brought him a ring
in token of the royal favour. He has parted with his poor fool upon Putney-
neath — the faithful fool, " who took on and fired so in such a rage when he
saw that he must needs depart," even though he was sent to make sport for
a jovial king, instead of abiding with a humUiated priest. Wolsey has
reached his desolate house of Esher, whoUy unprovided with common neces
saries, — with "beds, sheets, tablecloths, cups, or dishes." It is ten years
since he was wont to say to the Venetian ambassador, " I shall do so and
BO." II He now -writes to Dr. Stephen Gardiner, praying him to extend his
benevolence towards him ; and begging for pecuniary help from the sovereign.
who has stripped him of everything. These are his abject words : " Eemem-
ber, good Mr. Secretary, my poor degree, and what service I have done, and
how now, approaching to death, I must begin the world again." Tf Well
might the French ambassador write, of one who had gone through such a
terrible trial to a proud spirit, that Wolsey could say nothing so expressive
* Cavendish, p. 276, t /J«d., pp. 3i8-50, J Hall, p, 774,
§ Cavendish, p. 252. || Despatches of Giustiniani, translated by R, Brown,
IF Ellis, First Series, vol, ii, p, 9.

1629,"

THOMAS CROMWELL— DEFENDS WOLSEY.

323

of his pitiable condition, as what was spoken in his face, " reduced to half its
usual size." *
It is AU-hallown-tide, the 1st of November, when a strange scene occurs in
the Great Chamber at Esher. Cavendish, the gentleman-usher, sees Thomas
Cromwell leaning on the window, with a primer in his hand, repeating his
matins. But " he prayed not more earnestly than the tears distUled from
his eyes." Cavendish asks, " Why, Master CromweU, what meaneth aU this
your sorrow f" CromweU answers, " It is my unhappy adventure, which am
like to lose aU that I have travaUed for all the days of my Ufe, for doing of
my master true and dUigent service." He is in disdain, he says, -with most
men for his master's sake ; and then he imparts something to Cavendish, in
confidence : " Thus much vriU I say to you, that I intend, God wUUng, this
afternoon, when my lord hath
dined, to ride to London, and so
to the court, where I -will either
make or mar, or I come again."
The bold man accompUshed the
purpose upon which he had mused
amidst his prayers and tears. He
returned from London, and told
Cavendish, " that he had once
adventured to put in his foot,
where he trusted shortly to be '^°''''''" '^'¦°^'-
better regarded, or [ere] aU were
done." He had whispered some words of magical import into the ears
of the king, which saved Wolsey for a season, and made himself, in due time,
the most powerful of Henry's servants. The parliament met on the 3rd of
November. Thomas CromweU, through some sudden influence, became a
member. Sir Thomas More, as chanceUor, in his opening speech, had thus
harshly spoken of his predecessor. The people he said were the sheep, and
the king the shepherd : " And as you see that amongst a great flock of sheep
some be rotten and faulty, which the good shepherd sendeth from the good
sheep, so the great wether which has of late fallen, as you all know, so craftUy,
so scabbedly, yea, and so untruly juggled with the king, that aU men must
needs guess and think that he thought in himself, that he had no wit to
perceive his crafty doing." t But Cromwell was in the Commons'-house,
there to save the great wether from the knife. " There could nothing be
spoken against my lord in the parUament-house," says Cavendish, "but he
would answer it incontinent, or else take until the next day ; against which
time he would resort to my lord to know what answer he should make in
his behalf." The articles exhibited by the Lords against Wolsey — such as
his -writing to Eome, "Ego et Eex mens " — his putting the cardinal's hat on
his Tork groat — his sending large sums to Eome — and similar charges of
ecclesiastical assumption, were evidently held insufficient to sustain any
accusation of offence "to the prince's person or to the state," as Wolsey
himself alleged. It was not Henry's purpose then to crush Wolsey. We
may be sure that Cromwell would not have dared to defend him if the king

* Legi-and, tom. iii. p, 370.

t Hall, p. 764.

V 2

324- ..3IE THOMAS MORE, CHANCELLOH. [1529,
had wiUed his condemnation. The future was too doubtful to aUow the king
utterly to destroy a cardinal of the Eoman see, whUst there was anything to
hope in the matter of the divorce from the decision of the pope. Amongst
the charges against Wolsey was one which was probably introduced to make
the spiritual lords his severe judges : " He hath slandered the church of
England in the court of Eome, for his suggestion to be legate was to reform
the church of England." It was an offence to suppose that the church
needed reformation. The reforms of Wolsey had touched only " smaU monas
teries," as he wrote to the king, " wherein neither God is served ne religion
kept." The endowments of Ipswich and Oxford were his aUeged purpose in
the appropriation of these monastic revenues. The abbot of Tork, offering
the cardinal three hundred marks to save the priory of Eomburgh, in Suffolk,
from being united to St. Peter's of Ipswich, desires that his grace would
" accept my poor mind towards your most noble acts." * It is related of
CromweU that, in speaking of what might come after -the fall of his master,
he said, " New statesmen, like fresh flies, bite deeper than those which were
chased away before them." f When Cromwell uttered this aphorism, the
time was not come when the churchmen would have interpreted the saying
as prophetic of his own career.
There had not been a parUament caUed since 1523. During the legatine
rule of Wolsey, the pecuniary exactions of the church had become oppressive
to all ranks of the people. The spiritualty had grovm essentiaUy worldly-
minded; and any attempt to resist their encroachments was stigmatised
with the terrible name of heresy. In the six weeks of their session the
Commons asserted their determination to set some bounds to a power which
was more obnoxious, because more systematic in its pecuniary inflictions,
than the iUegal subsidies and compulsory loans of the crown. That acute
observer, the bishop of Bayonne, saw the storm brewing when the protecting
shield of Wolsey was removed from the clergy. On the 22nd of October he
writes, "It is not yet kno-wn who wilL have the great seal; but I firmly
believe that the priests wiU not touch it again, and that they wUl have terrible
alarms at this parUament." J Sir Thomas More, as we have seen, received
the seal. There was a certain point of reform to which More would go ; but
not a step beyond. The reformers of doctrine were as obnoxious to him as
to Wolsey ; who in his dying hours sent a request to the king, " in God's
name, that he have a -vigUant eye to depress this new pernicious sect of
Lutherans." § More had the reputation of leaning " much to the spiritual
men's part in all causes." || But, though a rigid Catholic in doctrine and
discipUne, he was too wise and honest not to see that the rapacity of the
officials of the church, and the general laxity as to pluralities and non-
r esidence, were shaking the foundations of ecclesiastical authority, even more
than the covert hostility of the dreaded Lutherans. We cannot doubt that
it was with his sanction that three important statutes were passed in this
parUament of the 21st year of Henry. The statutes themselves furnish a
sufficient evidence of their necessity. " An act concerning fines and sums of
* "Letters relating -to the Suppression of the Monasteries,'' p. 8.
+ Lloyd's "State Worthies," ed. 1670, p. 59. J Legrand, tom. iii. p. 377.
§ Cavendish, p. 389. II HaU, p. 771.

1629,] STATUTES AGAINST ECCLESIASTICAL ABUSES, 325
money to be taken by the ministers of bishops and other ordinaries of fhe
holy church for the probate of testament," recites a statute of Edward III,,
made " upon the complaint of his people for the outrageous and grievous
fines" so taken; and a further statute of Henry V, It then proceeds to
declare "that the said unlawful exactions o^ the said ordinaries and their
ministers be nothing reformed nor amended, but greatly augmented and
increased, against right and justice, aud to the great impoverishment of the
king's subjects." '* This was a grievance which touched every owner of
property. Sir Henry Guildford declared in parliament, that as executor to
Sir WilUam Compton he had paid for the probate of his will, to the cardinal
and the archbishop of Canterbury, a thousand marks. But there was another
species of exaction which fastened upon the dead with the rapacity of the
vulture, — and reached even the humblest in the land. This was the taking
of mortuaries, or corpse presents ; which the statute describes as " over
excessive to the poor people, and other persons of this realm." t The
chronicler, reciting this grievance, says, " for the children of the defunct
should all die for hunger, and go a-begging, rather than they would of
charity give to them the sely cow which the dead man ought [ownea], if he
had only one." J By these two statutes the fees upon probates, and the
demand for mortuaries, were brought within reasonable limits. There were
other causes of complaint against the ecclesiastics. It was objected, that
spiritual persons occupied farms ; bought and sold at profit various kinds of
produce ; kept tan-houses and breweries, — all which practices were declared
unlawful, and were prohibited under heavy penalties. The dissatisfaction
they provoked is indicated in the recital of the benefits to be expected from
their aboUtion, — " the increase of devotion, and good opinion of the lay fee
toward the spiritual persons." § The same statute regulates the holding of
pluralities, and enforces residence ; but the exceptions are so numerous that
we may readily beUeve that there was a wide door open for the evasion of its
penalties. In spite of the reforming act there would be stUl too many
churchmen "Uving in the court in lords' houses, who took all of the
parishioners, and nothing spent on them at all ; " and too many " weU-learned
scholars in the universities, which were able to preach and teach, having
neither benefice nor exhibition." ||
That the ecclesiastics would stoutly resist such attacks upon long-
continued abuses, which in their minds had assumed the shape of rights, was
a necessary result of their extensive power. No vital blow had as yet
touched the strong fabric of their prosperity ; but this assault upon its out
works portended danger close at hand. Their resistance was as unwise as it
was useless. Fisher, the aged bishop of Eochester, in defending the church
men in parliament, denounced the petitions of the Commons upon the subject
of probates, mortuaries, non-residence, and other causes of complaint, as
intending " to bring the clergy in contempt with the laity that they might
seize their patrimony ; " and he said, " see what a realm the kingdom of
Bohemia was, and -when the church, went down, then feU the glory of the
kingdom : now with the Commons is nothing but ' down with the church,' and
» 21 Hen. 'VIIL c, 6. f Ibid,,-c,6. '
t Hall, p. 765. § 21 Hen. VIII. c. 13. U HaU, p. 765.

826 RESISTANCE OF THE CLERGY. [1629.
aU this, me seemeth, is for lack of faith only." * At this speech the Com
mens were indignant, and complained to the king through their Speaker, that
in the bishop's saying about ' lack of faith,' they were held as infidels and
not as Christians. The bishop made what the chronicler calls "a blind
excuse ; " he declared that he applied the words to the Bohemians. During
the progress of the discussions in parliament on these bUls there was much
raUing on both sides. The spiritual persons regarded the promoters of these
measures as heretics and schismatics, and defended their o-wn practices by
prescription and usage. The laity retorted in the words of a barrister of
Gray's Inn, — " The usage hath ever been of thieves to rob on Shooter's hUl —
ergo, it is lawful." In this first great quarrel of the Church and the
Commons there were wounds inflicted which never healed.
At a time when ancient habits of impUcit obedience to authority were in
some degree passing away, and men began to think and talk of the principles
of government, whether in Church or State, we can easily imagine that the
exactions of the clergy, thus repressed, had produced a far deeper hostUity
from their meanness and injustice than from their pecuniary amount. On
every side there were the evidences of the vast endowments of the EngUsh
church ; — splendid cathedrals, rich abbeys, shrines of inestimable value, bishops
and abbots surrounded with baronial splendour, ample provision for the
working clergy. And yet all the wealth of this church, acknowledged to be
greater than that of any other church in Christendom, could not protect the
people from the irritating demands which were generally made at the season
of family affliction, and pressed too often upon the widow and the fatherless.
These oppressions were more keenly felt because, however the Commons
might disavow the accusation, there was a doubt, very -widely spread, of the
infaUibility of the Church, which doubt bishop Fisher denominated " lack of
faith." It was not only the dislike of proctors, and summoners, and apparitors
— a dislike as old as the days of Chaucer — ^which influenced many sober and
religious persons ; but the craving for some higher teaching than that which
led to the burning of the English Testament in St. Paul's Churchyard. Many
copies of Tyndale's translation had been brought into the country, " which
books the common people used and daUy read privily; which the clergy
would not admit, for they punished such persons as had read, studied, or
taught the same, with great extremity." f Wolsey made strenuous efforts to
restrain the printing of the Scripture in the people's tongue ; as we learn
from a most interesting letter of Anne Boleyn to CromweU, after she
became queen : " Whereas we be credibly informed that the bearer hereof,
Eichard Herman, merchant and citizen of Antwerp, in Brabant, was in the
time of the late lord cardinal put and expelled from his freedom and fellow
ship of and in the EngUsh house there, for nothing else, as he affirmeth, but
only for this— that he did both with his goods and poUcy, to his great hurt
and hindrance in this world, help to the setting forth of the New Testament
in EngUsh." The queen, therefore, prays the powerful secretary, to restore
" this good and honest merchant " to his liberty and feUowship. J It is
painful to think that whUst this toleration sprang out of the kind heart and
• Hall, p. 766. + Ibid., p. 771.
X EUis, First Series, voL ii. p. 46.

1529.]

BURNING OF THE SCRIPTURES— HERESY.

827

clear understanding of "Mistress Anne," the equaUy kind nature of Sir
Thomas More was so crusted over by his rigid habits of submission to the
discipline of the church, that for the use and study of Tyndale's and Joy's
Testaments, " he imprisoned and punished a great number, so that for
this cause a great rumour and controversy rose daily amongst the people." *
These persecutions against the possessors of the Testament were a part of
that system of accusations for heresy, which had rendered England a terrible
country for earnest men and women to live in, who sought a higher guide to
duty than the absolute direction of the priest. Contrary to the statute of
Henry IV., which, however to be condemned as sanctioning the persecution
of the Lollards, required that they should be openly proceeded against,
accused persons were now subjected to
secret examination ; were detained in
custody for unlimited periods ; were
discharged -without amends; or con
signed to the stake if condemned of
heresy, or to make purgation and bear
a faggot to their shame and undoing.
These examinations were conducted
in the mode invariably pursued by
spiritual authorities committing the
most frightful -wickedness in the assured
belief that they were thus saving souls :
" Upon the examination of the said
accusation, if heresy be ordinarily laid
unto the charge of the parties so
accused, then the said ordinaries or
their ministers are to put to them such
subtle interrogatories concerning the
high mysteries of our faith, as are able
quickly to trap a simple unlearned, or
yet a weU--witted layman 'without learn
ing, and bring them by such sinister
introductions soon to their own con
fusion." t Under " such subtle inter
rogatories " we may believe that many a person was set upon the scaffold at
Paul's Cross, to bear the faggot and to be preached at, like James Baynham,
in 1531. Lucky were those who thus escaped upon their submission. Those
of the heroic mould, who could look death in the face for conscience sake —
as this lawyer did, who refused to accuse his friends in the Temple, or to show
where his books were, recanting his former abjuration, — such had to abide
the fires of Smithfield, and find an honourable place in the Protestant
martyrology. Wolsey was a bold financier, and his projects, as we have seen, were not
always successful when he attempted to raise money without the instm-
inentaUty of parUament. But when Wolsey was gone, there appeared less

James Baynhaoi doing penance.

* HaU, p. 771.
t Petition of the Commons, 1529, given at length in Mr. Froude's "History,'
by him from the MS. in the Rolls' House.

as transcribed

32f3 THE KING- RELEASED FROM HIS DEBTS. [1529.
scrupulous managets of the royal revehues than the unhesitating cardinal
The king had obtained very large sums, by way of loan, from public bodies
and from individuals, in 1525, iwhen the insurrections of Suffolk compeUed
him to withdraw the demand for a sixth of every maa's substance. Those
who had lent the money, — and Wolsey had used his rhetoric most unsparingly
to swell the number, — " reckoned surely of the payment of the same, and
therefore some made their wills of the same, and some other did set it over
to other for debt." * The Lords and Commons had the audacity to renounce
all claims to these loans, not only for themselves, but for every man to whom
the king was indebted, in consideration of his highness's constant labours to
defend his kingdom, to uphold the church, and to establish peace amongst his
subjects. For, say they, his highness " hath been fain to employ, not only-
such sums of money as hath risen and gro^wn by any man's contribution made
unto his grace by his said loving subjects, but also, over and above the same,
sundry other and excellent sums of his own treasure and yearly revenues,
which else his grace might have kept and reserved for his own use." t After
this avowal, we may understand better how hard a struggle it has been to
attain the principle and practice of a constitutional monarchy, the leading
idea of which is, that the high place and prerogative of the cro'wn is a trust
for the benefit of the people ; and that its hereditary revenues, after setting
aside a fitting portion for the royal dignity, are for maintaining the safety and
peace of the realm. It required all the insolent despotism of a Tudor to
humUiate the parUament to an assertion that the enormous revenues which
the Plantagenets had never hesitated to spend for public objects, were to be
deemed as private funds, " which his grace might have kept and reserved to
his o-wn use."
The parliament, which had accomplished such salutary reforms, and also
perpetrated such gross injustice, was prorogued on the 17th December.
" After the parliament was thus ended, the king removed to Greenwich, and
there kept his Christmas with the queen, in great triumph ; with great plenty
of viands, and divers disguislngs and interludes, to the great rejoicing of his
people." J In quoting this passage from the chronicler, Mr. Froude attri
butes this great rejoicing to a feeling of exultation at the church reforms
effected by the parliament : " Lay England celebrated its exploits as a national
victory." § We fear that " lay England " was moved to its rejoicing by more
vulgar considerations than the historian ascribes to this festive season. The
statement of the chronicler must be compared with his previous notices of
occasions of popular enthusiasm. We wUl take one of the third year of
Henry : " The king this year kept the feast of Christmas at Greenwich, where
was such abundance of viands served, to all comers of any honest behaviour,
as hath been few times seen." The " all comers "would shout over "the
great plenty of viands," though "when the release of the loan was known to
the commons of the realm, lord ! so they grudged, and spoke ill of the whole
parliament." || Some simple people probably rejoiced that the king " kept
his Christmas with the queen." Those who saw the inside of the palace
would not have hastily judged that the affair of the divorce was at an end
, • Hall, p. 767. t 21 Hen. VHI. c. 24.
i Hall, p. 708. § "History," vol, i. p. 233. || Hall, p. 767,

1529.] CHRISTMAS. AT GREENWICH. 329
because the great cardinal had fallen, and no mention was niade of this
unhappy matter in the parliament. On the 31st of December, there is this
record in the king's 'Privy Purse Expenses :' " Item, the last day delivered by
the king's commandment to my lady Anne, Cx li." At the end of November
there is paid the enormous sum of 2171. 9s. 8d. " to Walter Walsh, for certain
stuff by him prepared for Mistress Anne, of divers persons, as appeareth by
a biU." During this holiday-time we find, in the same book of expenses,
evidence that one of Henry's early foUies had not been extinguished by
politics and polemics. In the second year of his reign Hall has this remark :
" The king this time was much enticed to play at tennis and at dice, which
appetite certain crafty persons about him perceiving, brought in Frenchmen
and Lombards to make wagers with him.'* In his twenty-first year, the privy-
purse keeper " delivered to the king's own hands for to game therewith, now
at this time of Christmas," lOOZ, ; and on Twelfth night, 1121. 10s. Od.
In January there are four entries of payments for moneys lost by the king " at
game : " — To Domingo, 400Z. ; to sir Thomas Palmer, 3382. 10s, 9d. : to Master
Seymour, 376Z. 17s. 6d. ; to my lord of Suffolk, 102Z. 10s. Od.f The royal
custom has survived amongst us in many a notorious example. The loans
advanced by honest creditors are repudiated ; the gambling debts to " crafty
persons " are scrupulously discharged. He who said that " kings are fond of
low company," must have had Henry, amongst others, in his mind. Domingo,
and Palmer, were two hangers-on of the court, who made the king thus pay
for their powers of amusement, — far more ignoble servants than his fools,
Somers, Sexton, and WUliams. Skelton, seven years before the king lost
400Z. to Domingo, had celebrated the court doings of this worthy, who was a
Lombard : — " Domingo Lomelyn,
That -was wont to -win
Much money of the king
At the cards and hazarding." J
But after these Christmas revelries, Henry's intimate sharpers walking
off with their plunder, he has serious business on his hand. The disguislngs
and interludes of Greenwich, with Mistress Anne ever the gayest of the
throng, whUst the queen sits in her solitary chamber, make the king more
and more impatient on the subject of the divorce. The emperor is to be
crowned by the pope at Bologna, in February, 1530. On the 23rd of January
we find that the sum of 1743Z. 8s. Od. is paid " by the king's commandment
for the depechement of my lord WUtshire and others, in their journey
towards the emperor." " My lord of Wiltshire " was Anne Boleyn's father.
The " others " were Doctor Stokesley, elected bishop of London, and Doctor
Henry Lee, the king's almoner. With them were also " divers doctors both
of law and di-vinity." Amongst these was Thomas Cranmer, who was an
inmate of the house of the earl of WUtshire. This divine, who occupies so
prominent a part in the history of the Eeformation, had now reached the
discreet age of forty. He had obtained at the university of Cambridge a repu
tation for talent and learning ; and Wolsey had offered him a feUowship in
• HaU, p. 520.
+ Sir N. H. Nicolas, " Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII,," pp, 4—17,
t Skelton's Works, Mr. Dyce's edit., vol. i. p. 63.

'30 EMBASSY TO THE POPE— CRANMER. [1530.
his new coUege at Oxford. This Cranmer declined. An accidental circum
stance led to his passing from his quiet studies to the dangerous intrigues of
the court. WhUst the sweating sickness prevaUed at Cambridge, in 1528,
Cranmer resided with a friend at Waltham Abbey, Gardiner and Fox,
afterwards bishops, met him at the table of his friend ; and the conversation
turning upon the agitated matter of the divorce, he expressed his opinion
that the question, whether a man might marry his brother's widow, might be
settled upon scriptural authority, expounded by learned divines, which
opinions could be obtained as well in England as from Eome. The notion
was communicated to the king ; and Cranmer had to work out his lucky idea
m a book which he was desired to write. He maintained that the marriage
of Henry was condemned by the authority of the Scriptures, and that of
councUs and fathers of the church ; and that the pope had no power to give a
dispensation opposed to those sources of belief. In the embassy to the
emperor, which was truly an embassy to Clement VIL, Cranmer was associated
to defend his own propositions.
The pope was at Bologna, an unwUling agent in the humiUation of Italy.
The war with the imperialists had desolated the fairest spots of Lombardy.
Famine and pestilence had completed the misery which war had begun.
There is a letter from sir Nic. Carew to Henry, dated from Bologna, the 12th
of December, which presents as striking a picture as was ever drawn of the
-wide-spreading misery produced by the contests of ambition. In traveUing
fifty miles they saw no -creature stirring in rural industry, except three
women gathering grapes rotting upon the -vines. In Pavia the chUdren were
crying about the streets for bread. There was neither horse-meat nor man's
meat to be found. " There is no hope many years that Italia shaU be restored,
for want of people." -* Clement, the weak and vaeUlating bishop of Eome,
but the patriotic ItaUan prince, had, amidst this misery, to place the cro-wn
on the head of Charles, as king of Lombardy and emperor of the Eomans.
The ceremony took place at Bologna on the 24th of February. One who was
present at the coronation, and stood between the throne of the emperor and
the pope, says that Clement " endeavoured to put on the most cheerful
countenance in giving the emperor the sword, and placing the first crown on
his head;" but he adds, "I believe that he never in his life performed a
ceremony which so nearly touched his heart. For several times, when he
thought that no one was observing him, he breathed such heavy sighs that
his robe [chape] heavy as it was, was heaved up, as might weU be seen." 1
Before the emperor departed from Bologna the earl of Wiltshire had arrived.
He had a difficult office to perform — that of moving the pope to a decided
course, in the presence of Charles, who had very sufficient reasons for
strenuously resisting the demands of Henry. He had to concUiate the
emperor, by offering the restitution of queen Catherine's original do-wry.
He had to work upon the pope's fears, by intimating that " the Defender of
the Faith " would pursue his own career, if the holy see was inimical, without
bending to its authority. To the father of Anne Boleyn the emperor objected
that he was an interested party in the case ; and although the earl replied
• State Papers, vol, vU. p. 226.
•I- Letter of the bishop of Tarbes. dated Febru.ary 24, Legrand, tom, iii, p, 386.

i581.] OPINIONS OP UNIVERSITIES ON THE DIVORCE. , 331
with spirit, that he was there only as the subject and servant of his master,
and to express the scruples of his conscience and his firm intention no longer
to live in sin, Charles maintained a resolute attitude of hostility to the whole
proceeding, * The unhappy pope was in a fearful perplexity. He said to
the bishop of Tarbes, several times, that he cared not how the marriage of
Henry should be accomplished, by dispensation of the legate in England, or
otherwise. All that he desired was to shift his personal responsibility, f The
embassy returned home, having effected nothing. Cranmer remained, with
the desire to contend the matter in a public disputation ; but he was not
permitted thus to support the opinions of his treatise, or to set forth the
favourable decisions of some foreign universities which had been already
obtained. The declarations which were gathered from the universities of Oxford and
Cambridge, and from universities and ecclesiastical bodies in France and Italy,
were favourable to the desires of the king of England, as they pronounced
against the lawfulness of his marriage with his brother's widow. It has been
a subject of historical contention whether these opinions were given with
perfect fairness ; or whether intimidation and bribery were not resorted to.
Into this discussion it is scarcely necessary for us to enter. There are some
characteristic letters of Henry, which clearly enough show that the younger
members of the university of Oxford were frightened into a submission which
the seniors readily yielded. When such a sovereign sent to the convocation
his command that they shoidd not lean " to wilful and sinister opinions of
your own several minds ; " and desired the heads of houses to conduce and
frame the young persons into order and conformity ; for " if the youth of the
university -will play masteries as they begin to do, we doubt not but they
shall weU perceive that non est bonum irritare crabrones " [it is not good to
disturb a hornet's nest] — then, we may be sure, it was quite unnecessary
surreptitiously to affix to the decision the university seal gotten out " by
strange subtU means," as queen Catherine intimated. Cambridge also
admitted the unlawfulness of the marriage, according to the divine law ; but
gave no answer upon the question whether the pope had power to grant a
dispensation. In March, 1531, these opinions were laid before the House of
Commons ; and More, as chanceUor, said, " Now you of this Commons House
may report in your countries what you have seen and heard ; and then aU
men shaU openly perceive that the king has not attempted this matter of wUl
or pleasure, as some strangers report, but only for the discharge of his oou'
science, and surety of the succession of the realm." J More, in his inmost
heart, disliked the whole measure, and these official words must have come
very hesitatingly from his lips. The religious plea, " for the discharge of his
conscience ; " and the poUtical plea of the " surety of the succession of the
realm," were the self-deceptions with which Henry covered the impulses of
his own passions, prompting him to the grossest cruelty and injustice. The
able historian who sets up the state necessity as an excuse for many of the
enormities of this reign, considers that this question was one " vitaUy affecting
the interests of a great nation ; " and avers that " the laity, -with the alternative
* In a second letter of the bishop of Tarbes. Legrand, iii. p. 400.
+ Legrand, iii. p. 400. J HaU, p. 780.

332 . , • WOLSEY IN HIS SEE OF YORK. [1531
beforcthefii "of civil war, and the returning miseriesiof the preceding century,
could brook no judgment which did not answer to their wishes." ¦* Is it to
be believed that the remote possibility of a disputed succession had thu:s
interested the laity, — by which term we understand the body of the people, — to
become enthusiastic supporters of the king's personal desire to put away the
companion of more than half his life, — the mother of a daughter to whom
their allegiance would have been readily transferred on the event of the king's
death, without the slightest chance of civil war ? The EngUsh people were
not then, nor have they been at any time, so ready to encounter a great
present difficulty for a .contingent danger. The general opinion is pretty
clearly set forth by the contemporary chronicler : " When these determina
tions were published, aU wise men in the realm much abhorred this marriage :
but women, and such as were more ¦wilful than wise or learned, spake against
the determination, and said that the universities were corrupt, and enticed so
to do, — which is not to be thought." The voice of nature spoke by the
mouths of ." women and such as were more wUful than wise or learned."
They understood not the subtleties by which the so called "wise men"
justi&ed oppression. Those who desired the reform of the church did not see
that this harsh measure was a step towards purity of doctrine. The foreign
Protestants were decidedly hostile to what was held, by friend and by foe, not
as a religious question, or a national question, but was denominated " the
king's cause."
WTiUst the earl of Wiltshire is vainly exercising his diplomatic skUl upon
the pope and the emperor, and Cranmer is as vainly endeavouring to convince
the Italian priests and the German Lutherans that a papal dispensation was
of no avaU, Wolsey has passed out of political life ; and is doing his duty with
a heartiness deserving of aU respect. In the first prostration of his powerful
mind, when he saw nothing before him but poverty and disgrace, he wrote f o
CromweU from Esher, " Mine only comfort. At the reverence of God leave
me not now, for if ye do, I shall not longer Uve in this ¦wretched world." t
But Cromwell writes comfortable letters to his fallen master ; who, next to
the means of his future subsistence, has the deepest anxiety about the main
tenance of his coUeges, of which he dreaded the dissolution. He urges with
a warmth that does him honour, that " great pity it is that for my commission
in the prsemunire, these poor scholars should suffer, either by dissolution of
their body corporate, or by taking away any notable portion of their lands."
Early in February, Wolsey received a general pardon; and having been
assured of the, temporalities of the see of Tork, he took up his residence in
the archiepiscopal city. The coimcil had agreed to advance him a sum for
the expenses of his journey, to which the king had added a thousand pounds,
A circular letter was also sent with the royal signet, caUing upon the nobles
and gentlemen of the country to show themselves as regarded him, " of toward
and benevolent mind, using, entreating, and accepting him as to his dignity
doth appertain." J The archbishop had now confidence in the kindness ol
Henry. He told Cavendish that in the matter of the pramunire he thought
it better ,to take all blame upon himself "than to stand in trial with the
* Fronde, "Histpry," vol. i. p. 850. . + Slate Papers, voL i. p. 369.
;, . X EUis, First Series, vol. ii. p. 17. ,,

1581.] HIS POPULARITY. 383,
king ; " and he added, — " There was a continual : serpentine enemy about the
king that would, I am weU assured, if I had been found stiff-necked, have
caUed continuaUy upon the king in his ear (I mean the night-crow) with such
a vehemency that I should, with the help of her assistance, have obtained
sooner the king's indignation than his lawful favour : and his favour once
lost (which I trust at tins present I have) would never have been by me
recovered." * Wolsey was deceived in his reliance upon his sovereign's
" lawful favour." Upon the gratitude or generosity of that man no friend
could rely. "The king," says HaU, "aU this year dissembled the matter, to
see what he [Wolsey] would do at length," What he did was in the highest
degree commendable. He lived with rational hospitality instead of ostenta
tious grandeur. " He kept a noble house, and plenty of both meat and drink
for all comers, both for rich and poor, and much alms given at his gates
. . . He used much charity and pity among his poor tenants and other
. . . He was much more famUiar among all persons than he -Was accustomed,
and most gladdest when he had an occasion to do them good.'' t This is the
tribute of an affectionate foUower. After he was dead, a book was published,
bearing an official character, in which it was said, that " he gave bishops a
right good example how they might win men's hearts." There is a most
interesting letter from CromweU to Wolsey, dated from London the 18th of
August, in which the tone is that of sincerity and affection, mixed with some
famUiar advice, which sufficiently shows the altered positions of the proud
cardinal and his once humble retainer. The magnificence which the great
minister had practised for twenty years, had become too much a part of his
nature to be whoUy changed for true simplicity of life in his altered fortunes :
" Sir, I assure your grace, that ye be much bound to Our Lord God, that in
such ¦wise hath suffered you so to behave and order yourself, in those parts,
to attain the good minds and hearts of the people there ; the report whereof
in the court and elsewhere in these parts, is and hath been to the acquiring
and augmenting the good opinions of many persons towards your grace ;
beseeching your grace, therefore, to continue in the same, after such a sort
and fashion as ye may daily increase, not only in the favour of the people
there, but also here and elsewhere, to the pleasure of God, and the prince.
And notwithstanding your good, virtuous, and charitable demeaning and
using yourself, in those parts, is not by your enemies interpreted after the
best fashion, yet always follow and persevere ye attemperately in such things
as, your worldly affections set apart, shall seem to stand best ¦with the
pleasure of God, and the king. Sir, some there be, that doth allege that
your grace doth keep too great a house and family, and that ye are con
tinually building ; for the love of God, therefore, I eftsoons, as I often times
have done, most heartUy beseech your grace to have respect to everything,
and, considering the time, to refrain yourself, for a season, from aU manner
buildings, more than mere necessity requireth ; which I assure your grace
shall cease, and put to sUence, some persons that much speaketh of the same." J
Within Uttle more than two months after this warning of CromweU, the
enemies of Wolsey prevaUed for the accomplishment of his complete ruin,
* Cavendish, p. 316. + Ibid., p. 318.
X State Papers, voL i. p. 366,

334 WOLSEY ARRESTED ON A CHARGE OF TREASON. [1531,
Whether the influence of " the night-crow " operated upon the royal mind,
so as to render the complaints of an impulsive and frank-speaking woman the
chief incentive to a dire maUgnity, can only be conjectured. Wolsey had
offended Anne Boleyn in 1528, by appointing a prioress to be an abbess of
Wilton, when Henry had promised her that such appointment should not be
made.'* He perhaps had more seriously offended her by his hesitating conduct
in the matter of the divorce. But no new cause of offence, to the king or
to herself, is revealed by any authentic historical documents. On the 4th of
November, the time approaching for his instaUation at Tork as archbishop,
Wolsey was sitting at dinner at Cawood Castle, when he was told that the
earl of Northumberland was come into his hall, with a great company.
Wolsey went to receive him, and proffered him the hospitality of his house.
He led the earl into his bed-chamber, " where," as the courteous host he said,
" is a good fire," and there " ye may shift your apparel until your chamber be
made ready." Cavendish kept the door as gentleman usher. " These two
lords standing at a window by the chimney, in my lord's bed-chamber, the
earl trembling said, with a very faint and soft voice unto my lord (laying his
hand upon his arm), ' My lord, I arrest you of high treason.' " Wolsey was
committed to the custody of the earl's people. Cavendish having been chosen
to attend upon him as the chief person, and taking an oath that was prescribed
to him. In a few days they departed, amidst the tears and prayers of the
archbishop's household. As he passed out of the gates of Cawood Castle,
three thousand people surrounded him, exclaiming, " Ci-od save your grace,
God save your grace ! The foul e-vrU take all them that hath thus taken you
from us." The unhappy man must have had som.e cheering thoughts in that
ominous hour. He was not whoUy deserted. He had earned the blessings
of the poor. He remained at Sheffield-park for a fortnight, under the charge
of the earl of Shrewsbury. Here he became iU. Thither came Master
Kingston, the constable of the Tower. Wolsey knew well what the presence
of that officer implied. Kingston said some soothing words to him, such as
gaolers were sometimes wont to speak to state prisoners. He replied,
" Master Kingston, all these comfortable words which ye have spoken be but
for a purpose to bring me into a fool's paradise : I know what is provided for
me." After three days' riding, the sick man and his guards reached Lei
cester Abbey ; and he was received by torch-light, with great reverence, on a
Saturday night. " Father abbot, I am come hither to leave my bones among
you," were his memorable words. On the foUowing Tuesday he was at the
point of death ; when he uttered these more memorable words to Master
Kingston : " If I had served God as diligently as I have done the king, he
would not have given me over in my gray hairs." He died on the 29th of
November, aged 59. Cavendish, after the funeral, repaired to London ; and
was sent for by the king to come to Hampton Court. Henry was shooting at
the rounds in the park. The gentleman-usher leant against a tree ; when
Henry came suddenly behind him, and slapt him on the shoulder, teUing
him to wait tUl he had made an end of his game. Cavendish then discoursed
with him for more than an hour. One rankling grief was upon the sove
reign's mind, with reference to the friend and adviser of twenty years. A
* State Papers, vol. L p, 314.

16S1.]

WOLSEY'S DEATH, AND THE KING'S LAMENT.

335

sum of fifteen hundred pounds had been entered in Wolsey's accounts,
which entry the earl of Northumberland had seen. Kingston had pressed
the dying man to account for the money, who said that he had borrowed it to
distribute amongst his servants, and for his own burial ; and had placed it in
the hands of an honest man. The chief business of this magnanimous king
¦with Cavendish was to obtain the knowledge where this treasure was
hidden ; and Cavendish told him. " Well, then," quoth the king, " let me
alone, and keep this gear secret between yourself and me, and let no man be
privy thereof ; for if I hear any more of it, then I know by whom it is come
to knowledge." * He had broken the great heart of his too faithful servant ;
but he thought only of the contents of the money-bags, to be appropriated to
Jewels for my lady Anne, and to wagers with Domingo.
* Cavendish, p. 398.

Ruins of Leicester Abbey.

Queen Anne Boleyn. (From a Painting by Holbein.

CHAPTER XXI.

A great field of EngUsh history no-w to be entered upon — The clergy visited -with heavy penalties
for submitting to Wolsey as legate — The pope's sentence on the divorce stUl protracted —
The pope threatened — Frith and Tyndale, the reformers — Act regulating payment of
Annates to Rome — Retirement of More — His official character — Severe laws — The poisoner's
cauldron — La-ws against gipsies — Laws against vagabonds — Infamous severity of the statute
against vagabonds of 1536 — Henry and Anne Boleyn in France — Marriage of Henry ¦with
Anne — Cranmer elevated to the primacy — He pronounces the marriage of Henry irith
Catherine unla-vrful — Coronation of queen Anne — Catherine's refusal to accept the title of
Princess Dowager,
We are entering upon a great field of our history, in which, amidst the
most crooked and imcertain paths, we have to feel our way at every step.
Those who have set forward on this difficult journey with the most determined
resolution to see nothing but good in the -wide prospect before them, have
obUterated many of the traces of the dangerous and thorny roads by which a
desirable end was to be reached. Those who have shut their eyes to this
good have been ever looking back upon the level plains out of which they
have emerged into this rugged and in many respects desolate region. More
than three hundred years have passed since the greatest revolution in our
country, — the reform of religion; — was commenced in England. More than

1631.] CLERGY VISITED -WITH HEAVY PENALTIES, 337
a hundred and fifty years have passed since it was thoroughly accomplished.
The passions and prejudices which belonged to such a mighty change still
survive amongst us, in a modified shape. They still give a colour to our
political feelings and to our religious life. Let us endeavour to tell this
wondrous story with a strict regard to the evidences upon which a true
narration must be founded ; and, above all things, let us, in every statement,
never attempt to compromise our natural hatred of oppression and cruelty, by
regarding them other than as the means by which the " Divinity that shapes
our ends " saw fit to accomplish a paramount good by the strong hand of
evU instruments.
In January, 1531, the parliament met after a long prorogation. The
manifest abuses of the church had been restrained by the statutes of 1529 ;
and the failure of its feeble resistance had shown how weak it was to stand up
against any new attack, however unjust. Wolsey was ruined for having
violated, with the king's consent, the statutes of prsemunire. The clergy
were now subjected to prosecution in the King's Bench for having obeyed
the power of Wolsey as legate, which obedience was held to bring them
within the charge of being his " fautors and abettors." The church felt its
danger ; and in convocation it was resolved to avoid the forfeiture of the
moveable property of the offending bishops and others, by offering the king a
large sum of money. To effect this compromise an act was passed by which
the king grants, " out of his high goodness and great benignity," a pardon
to his spiritual subjects, they having " given and granted to him a subsidy of
one hundred thousand .pounds." * This act extended to the province of
Canterbury. That of Tork had to pay a smaUer sum in the following year.
But there was a great preliminary difficulty in effecting this compromise. It
was required in the grant that the king should be styled " the protector and
only supreme head of the church and clergy of England." The acknow
ledgment, after much contention, was made, with the addition of the words,
" as far as the law of Christ will allow." Dr. Lingard holds that the
introduction of these words served to invalidate the recognition. The
acknowledgment, whether conditional or otherwise, was probably intended
to intimate to the pope that little regard would be paid to his
authority if the procrastination of the divorce were longer continued. This
measure had now been more than three years in agitation, and it appeared
as far as ever from a conclusion under the papal authority. Henry was
in dread of being cited to B.ome ; and in April, 1531, desires his ambassador.
Dr. Benet, to use every means "to put over the process, as long as ye may;"
and yet, " as of yourself privily to say to the pope, that ye be advertised
from your friends out of England, such as be learned in the laws and of our
council, that it were the plainest entry the pope might make to the destruction
of his whole authority, to strike upon this point to call us to Ilome."t The
king desired that the cause should be decided in an indifferent place, by
indifferent judges. The emperor was wholly opposed to the process being
removed from Eome ; and urged the pope to make no more delays in the
matter.J The emperor had with the pope " a voice potential." We cannot
trace the course of these tedious negotiations, which aU tended to one end,
* 22 Hen. VIIL o. 15 t Stite Papers, vol, vii, p. 297. X Ibid., p. 317.
VOL. n. ^

338 THE POPE THREATENED— FRITH AND TYNDALE. [1531.
— the destruction of the papal power in England. Henry saw this clearly
enough ; and told his ambassador to say to the once honoured pontiff, — " here
Ueth a great number in wait to hear of open dissention between the pope and
TJs ; and as soon as that trumpet bloweth, they wUl think a most propice
[propitious] occasion to strike at his power, which is in aU points abhorred,
as he and other his predecess ors hath used it."* Tet at this period was the
king so far from connecting his impatience of the papal power with any favour
to the doctrines ot' the reformers, that he has instructed Vaughan, his
ambassador in the Netherlands, " to advise a young man named Frith, to
leave his wilful opinions and errors, and to return into his native country;"
and, through CromweU, has also desired that good and wholesome exhorta
tions for his conversion and amendment should be given to Tyndale. Frith
did return ; and, as Cranmer very unfeelingly wrote in 1533, was " to go unto
the fire." Tyndale remained in the Netherlands, to be first imprisoned, and
then strangled, by the persecutors of the reformers there, in 1536, after
having published his admirable translations of the Scriptures, which the
"Defender of the Faith" proscribed. We cannot forbear extracting a
passage from the letter of Yaughan to Henry VIIL, describing the noble
answer of this eminent man to the ambassador's offer of Henry's " pity and
compassion:" — " I assure you," said he, " if it would stand with the king's
most gracious pleasure to grant only a bare text of the Scripture to be put
forth among his people, like as is put forth among the subjects of the emperor
in these parts, and of other Christian princes, be it of the translation of what
person soever shaU please his majesty, I shaU immediately make faithful
promise never to -write more, nor abide two days in these parts after the same,
but immediately to repair into his realm, and there most humbly submit
myself at the feet of his royal majesty ; offering my body to suffer what pain
or torture, yea, what death, his grace wiU, so this be obtained ; and tUl that
time I wUl abide the asperity of all chances, whatsoever shall come, and
endure my life in as many pains as it is able to bear and suffer. And as con
cerning any reconcUiation, his grace may be assured, that, whatsoever I have
said or written in aU my life against the honour of God's word, and so proved,
the same shall I, before his majesty and aU the world, utterly renounce and
forsake, and with most humble and meek mind embrace the truth, abhorring
all error, sooner at the most gracious and benign request of his royal majesty,
of whose wisdom, prudence and learning, I hear so great praise and com
mendation, than of any other creature living. But if those things which I
have -written be true, and stand with God's word, why should his majesty,
having so excellent a gift of knowledge in the Scriptures, move me to do
anything against my conscience ?"t
That a great crisis was approaching in the papal relations of the English
church, must have been sufficiently apparent to the ecclesiastics and states
men of 1532, in the passing of " An Act concerning the payment of Annates
to the court of Eome." The statute recites that the Annates, or first-fruits
of archbishoprics and bishoprics, " were first suffered to be taken within the
realm for the only defence of Christian people against the infidels, and now
they be claimed and demanded as mere duty, only for lucre, against all right
* State P.ipers, vol. vii. p. 298. + Ibid,, p. 303.

1531,] PAYMENT OP ANNATES TO ROME. 339
and conscience." * This statute limits the payment upon the papal buUs for
consecration to five pounds for each hundred of yearly value ; and in the case
of the denial of such buUs provides for consecration in England without
the papal authority. But, the king's quarrel with Eome not yet having come
to a final rupture, Henry was empowered to give or withhold his assent to
the Act, by letters patent. The statute, to use the familiar language of
modern times, gave the king power to put on the screw. How this qualifying
power was to be used may be seen in a letter from the duke of Norfolk to
Benet, of the 22nd of February, 1532 : " Notwithstanding the infinite
clamours of the temporalty here, in parliament, against the misusing of the
spiritual jurisdiction ; yet in his highness doth remain to stop all such effects ;
and -wUl do so, unless ill and unkind handUng enforce him to consent to the
same." f The king did not confirm the Act of January, 1532, tiU July, 1533,
when he had finally broken with Eome. It was not in the interest of his
people, who were injured by the papal exactions, that he put an end to them.
Henry had entered upon a bold course, not without very serious danger. If
his strength of wiU had been supported by any higher principle than that of the
most intense seK-love, we might go a great way with his admirers in giving due
praise to his constancy and courage in " this great argument." Those who were
in his confidence made no resistance to the papal domination except with refer
ence to the king's personal griefs. " Tou may surely affirm to his holiness,"
writes Norfolk to Benet, "that notwithstanding the church hath in this
realm many wringers at their high authorities, yet nothing hurtful shall be
done, unless the fault be in him in proceeding wrongfuUy and ungrately
against the king." J In this, we see none of the unshackled action of a
representative government — none of the just influences of a people long
nurtured in habits of freedom. AVe see that if the one despot were pro
pitiated, the church might abuse "its high authorities," how many soever
were complaining under them.
As we proceed in the history of this reign we shall have to relate the
enactment of tyrannical laws, and the unlicensed perpetration of cruel and
sanguinary deeds, which sufficiently indicate the unbridled will of the head
of the government. During the administration of Wolsey, with the exception
of the execution of Buckingham, we have no record of legal slaughters, and
little encroachment upon popular liberty. The change is supposed to have
been produced when the ascendancy of Wolsey, through his able administra
tion of public affairs, and his adroitness in making his sovereign believe
that he was the real pUot of the state vessel, was removed. Sir Thomas
More, who succeeded Wolsey as chanceUor, was a thoroughly conscientious
minister ; but he was in a false position. He held the great seal only about
two years and a half, and then resigned his office. Eetiring, with small
provision of fortune, but richly endowed with a contented and happy nature,
he -wrote to Erasmus, that " he had obtained what, from a chUd, he had con
tinually wished — that, being freed from business and public affairs, he might
live for a time only to God and himself." During his tenure of high place,
the persecution of heretics was not violent. Erasmus has said, that it was a
sufficient proof of his clemency that while he was chancellor no man was put
* 23 Hen. VIIL o. 20. + State Papers, voL vii. p. 349. t Ibid., p. 349,
z 2

840 RETIREMENT OF MORE— HIS OFFICIAL CHARACTER. [1532,
to death " for these pestilent dogmas." But he took part in the examination
of heretics before the council ; sanctioned their imprisonment ; and caused a
boy and a bedlamite to be whipped for " ungracious heresy," according to his
own statement. That More, at this period, should have manifested a devoted
attachment to the doctrines of the church without entertaining some of its
persecuting spirit, was scarcely to be expected, even from his beautiful
nature. But there is nothing, even in the statements of the zealous and
credulous historian of the Protestant martyrs, to warrant a modern writer in
saying of More, " no sooner had the seals changed hands than the Smithfield
fires recommenced." * We have already mentioned the case of WilUam
Baynham, sometimes called Baynard. He suffered death by burning at
Smithfield, according to Fox, on the 30th of April, 1532. There is a
" Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London," in which such events are
minutely recorded ; and the only entry of this nature, from the removal of
Wolsey from the chancellorship to the appointment of More's successor, is
this, of the 23rd year of Henry, 1532: "And also this year was WiUiam
Barnard, a man of law, and two more with him, burned in Smithfield for
heresy, in Mag." More surrendered the great seal on the 16th of May.
We ought to pause upon this contradiction to the date given by Fox, before
we decide that Erasmus stated what was untrue.
WhUst More was chancellor, and iu that capacity the framer of new laws, it
may be worth inquiring whether, in matters unconnected with ecclesiastical
affairs, we can trace an equally savage spirit as that which is subsequently
forced upon our notice. We are asked by the historian of this period to
regard a statute of 1531 -with especial attention, " because the temper which
this Act exhibits is the key to all which has seemed most dark and cruel in
the rough years which followed ; a temper which would keep no terms with
evil, or with anything which, rightly or -wrongly, was believed to be evil, but
dreadfully and inexorably hurrieS out the penalties of it.f " The statute thus
prominently put forward as indicating the temper of the nation and of the
parUament — " the English were a stern people," — was one which arose out of
the attempt of one Eichard Eouse to poison the family of the bishop of
Eochester ; and it was enacted that poisoning should be deemed high treason,
without having any advantage of clergy, and that Eichard Eouse, and all
future poisoners, should be " boUedto death." We are told by the historian,
that " the poisoner's cauldron was the fresh expression of the thought of the
parliament of the Eeformation." J And yet the crime of poisoning was so
punished, ten years before Henry VIIL, " considering that man's life, above
all things, is chiefly to be favoured," caused the statute to be passed. We
have the following undoubted record under the 13th year of Henry : " This
year was a man sodden in a cauldron in Smithfield ; and let up and down divers
times till he was dead, for because he would have poisoned divers persons." S
In the same Chronicle we have a record of the fate of Eichard Eouse, in which
the same horrible barbarities, probably relics of an earlier period, were prac
tised as in 1522. " This year [1532] was a cook boiled in a cauldron in
Smithfield, for he would have poisoned the bishop of Eochester, Fisher, with
-* Froude, History, vol. ii. p. 83. + Ibid., vol, i, p, 289.
X Ibid. ¦ § "Grey Friars' Chronicle," Camden Society, p. SO.

1632.] POISONERS-GIPSIES— VAGABONDS. 341
divers of his servants ; and he was locked in a chain, and puUed up and down
witli a gibbet at divers times till he was dead." * Certainly this punishment
was not " the fresh expression of the thought of the parliament," Was it any
peculiar result of the energetic and reforming spirit in the parliament, as the
historian holds, that a statute was passed " concerning Egyptians ? " The
act says, without any covert meaning, that " many outlandish people, calling
themselves Egyptians, using no craft nor faict [practice] of merchandise, have
come into this realm, and gone from shire to shire and place to place in
great company ; and used great subtle and crafty means to deceive the people;
bearing them in hand that they by palmistry could tell men's and women's
fortunes, and so, many times, by craft and subtilty have deceived the people
of their money, and also have committed many and heinous felonies and rob
beries," t This description of the gipsies might apply to the times of
George III,, and even later, as well as to the times of Henry VIII. The
historian regards these fortune-telling impostors as " ready-made missionaries
of sedition," who, " in telling fortunes, might readily dictate policy." J They
were to depart out of the country, upon pain of imprisonment and forfeiture
of goods, under the statute of 1531. There is a letter of Cromwell, six years
later than this statute, in which he desires the president of the marches of
Wales to cause the " Gipcyans " to depart beyond the sea, or to execute them,
in default of obedience, without hesitation. § The statute dealt with them
mildly. When Cromwell wrote this letter, England was under the reign of
terror. But that they were regarded as political agents cannot be inferred
from the charge against them, expressed in that letter, of " falsehoods, felonies,
and treasons." Treason, in 1538, was a word of very wide signification. There
is another statute of 1531, which is regarded by the same ¦writer as pointing, as
weU as the statute for the Egyptians, " to the growth of a disturbed and restless
disposition, the interruption of industry, and other symptoms of approaching
social confusion ; and at the same time they show us the government conscious
of the momentous nature of the struggle into which it was launched." This
other statute is " An Act concerning punishment of beggars and vagabonds."
We might believe from this talk about "interruption of industry," — " social
confusion," — " momentous struggle," — taken alone, that the parUament of the
22nd year of Henry VIII. was the first that had attempted to deal with that
great question of vagabondage, which had arisen out of the transition from
feudal service to free labour. On the contrary, the same writer, in another
part of his work, has very fully traced the course of legislation as to beggars
and vagabonds. II Nearly a century and a half had passed since, by the 7th
of Eichard II, , it was enacted that vagabonds should be put in the stocks, or
sent to gaol, there to remain " till the coming of the justices for deliverance
of gaols," who would do with them what " best shall seem by the law." The
statute of the 11th of Henry VII. " against vagabonds and beggars," retained
the stocks, but dispensed with the prison, as too expensive.^ The statute
of the 22nd of Henry VIIL authorises justices to give a license to impotent
persons to beg, within certain limits ; but those who solicited alms without
? " Grey Friars' Chronicle," p. 35. t 22 Hen, VIII, c, 10,
X Froude, vol, i. p. 293. § EUis, First Series, vol. ii. p. 100.
II Froude, vol. i. p. 66 to 78. II See ante, pp. 14 and 252.

842 WANDERERS PUNISHED WITH DEATH SUBSEQUENTLY. [1632.
such letter under seal, were to be whipped and set in the stocks. But if
any person, " being whole in body, and able to labour, was found begging,
every such idle person was to be whipped at the end of a cart, and enjoined
to return to the place where he was bom, or where he last dwelt for three
years, and there put himself to labour like as a true man oweth to do." He
was to beg his way home ; but if he wandered from the prescribed way, or
exceeded the prescribed time, in his perUous journey, he was " in every place
to be taken and whipped." One who has spent a long, thoughtful, and active
life in labouring for the cure of pauperism with the truest regard for the poor,
has justly said of this statute, " No provision is made for sustaining the weak,
or for helping the strong to find employment ; and therefore, notwithstanding
the severity of the punishments awarded, the statute was sure to fail of ac
complishing the object for whicli it was designed." * The legislators were
wholly unprovided with any resource for those able-bodied persons
who desired to work, but could find no employer. It was not the
fault of the legislators. There was no surplus capital to stimulate em
ployment. The labour-market was full. But in flve years more there was
a fiercer temper to be displayed towards the unhappy ¦wanderer ; and we
know weU to whom to ascribe its origin. There is a letter from
Thomas Dorset, curate of St. Margaret's, Lothbury, to the mayor of
Plymouth, in which he informs the mayor that "the king's grace came in
among the burgesses of the parliament, and delivered them a bill, and bade
them look upon it and weigh it in conscience ; for he would not, he said,
have them pass on it, nor on any other thing, because his grace giveth in the
bill." The writer then goes on to state the contents of this bUl: "There
shall be a provision made for poor people. The gaols shall be rid ; the faulty
shall die ; and the other shall be acquit by proclamation or by jury, and shall
be set at liberty, and pay no fees ; and sturdy beggars and such prisoners as
cannot be set a work, shall be set a work at the king's charges, some at
Dover, and some at the place where the water hath broken in on the land,
and other more places. Then if they fall to idleness, the idler shall be had
before a justice of peace and his fault written. Then if he be taken idle again
in another place, he shall be known where his dweUing is, and so at the second
mention he shaU be burned in the hand ; and if he fail the third time he
shall die for it." t The date of this letter is uncertain. It must have been
written before the passing of the statute of 1536, which materially varies
from this account of Henry's bUl, as derived from " a burgess of the parlia
ment." The particular clauses of the act of 1536, which contain some
salutary regulations as to " a provision made for poor people," will be noticed
in a future chapter. But one clause sufficiently shows that " he sliall die for
it" was looked upon as the great cure for the evil of "rufflers, sturdv
vagabonds, and vaUant beggars." Whipping for the first offence. If after
having been once taken and whipped, and a second time apprehended, to jbe
whipped again, and " the upper part of the gristle of the right ear clean cut
off." If taken a third time, so mutUated, he shaU be committed to gaol, and
¦* "History of the EngUsh Poor Law," by Sir George Nicholls, vol. i, p. 120,
+ This letter was first pubUshed in "Excerpta Historica," p. 289. It is also printed in
" Suppression of the Monasteries," p. 36.

1582.] HENRY AND ANNE BOLEYN IN FRANCE, 343
at the next quarter sessions, if indicted of ^vandering, loitering, and idleness,
and found guilty, " he shall have judgment to suffer pains and execution of
death as a felon, and as an enemy of the commonwealth." *
" The blind mole oasts
Copp'd hills toward heaven, to tell, the earth is throng'd
By man's oppression ; and the poor worm doth die for it." f
The evil was beyond the cure of legislation, for it was an economical evil.
The wickedness was in proposing so awful and yet so futile a corrective of an
almost unavoidable condition of society.
The letters of the bishop of Bayonne present us a vivid picture of the
court of Henry in the summer of 1532. In July he writes from Ampthill to
" the Great Master " in France — de Montmorency — to show him how con
fidential and familiar is his intercourse with the king and Mistress Anne. It
is intended that there shall be a meeting in the autumn between Henry and
Francis ; and the ambassador writes that he well knows that the greatest
pleasure which the king of France could offer to his brother of England, was,
that he should invite him to bring the Lady Anne in his company to Calais ;
and that in the same way Francis should bring the queen of Navarre -with
him to Boulogne. " I cannot teU you," says the subtle minister, " whence this
advice comes, for I have made oath not to do so." Let not the queen come,
he adds — the queen was the sister of the emperor — for Henry so hates the
Spaniards that he would as soon see the devU ; and above aU " keep away aU
imperialists ; and all those who are reported to be mockers and jeerers, for
such are hated of this nation more than anything in the world." The bishop
is in high good humour. The king rides with him every day to the chase ;
and Mistress Anne, and the bishop in a hunting jacket and cap which she has
given him, stand together to shoot the deer as they pass in the green alleys of
AmpthUl park.J At this season the king was in progress ; and we find that
the heunds were carried in a cart from hunting-ground to hunting-ground ;
and that the smith of the household went about with locks and bolts from
place to place, to make the king's chambers secure : " Paid to the smith that
carryeth the locks about with the king, in reward, 7s. Gd." § On the 11th of
October, Henry, with the Lady Anne, who had been created marchioness of
Pembroke, landed at Calais ; where they remained, with a most numerous
attendance, tUl the 13th of November. The two kings met in a vaUey
between Calais and Boulogne, on the 20th of October ; and Francis brought
his two sons, who had been redeemed from their captivity as hostages after
the battle of Pavia. But he did not bring the queen of Navarre. He danced
with the Lady Anne, who after supper, at a feast at Calais, came in " with
seven ladies in masking apparel ; " and " the lady marchioness took the
French king, and the countess of Derby took the king of Navarre ; and every
lady took a lord ; " and " the French king talked with the marchioness of
* 27 Hen, VIII, c. 25. Mr. Froude has fallen into an error in stating that "the sturdy
vagabond" was, by the earUer statute, condemned, on his second offence, to lose the whole or
part of his right ear (p. 77). That punishiuent was distinctly limited to persons "using crafty
and unlawful games and plays, and some of them feigning themselves to have knowledge in physic,
physiognomy, palmistry, and other crafty science." t Pericles, act i. scene 1.
X Legrand, torn. iii. p. 565-557. § "Privy Purse Expenses," p, 238.

844 MARRIAGE OF HENRY WITH ANNE. [1633.
Pembroke a space." The chronicler, who devotes many pages to the account
of these festivities, disposes of the great event which follows, in a few words :
" The king, after his return, married privily the lady Anne Boleyn, on Saint
Erkenwald's day, which marriage was kept so secret that very few knew it." *
We have better evidence than Hall's, as to the time of this marriage. Saint
Erkenwald's day was the 14th of November, the day on which the king
returned to Dover. Cranmer, in a letter of the 17th of June, 1533, writes to
Hawkins, the English ambassador at the emperor's court, after describing
queen Anne's coronation on the 1st of June, " But now, sir, you may not
imagine that this coronation was before her marriage, for she was married
much about St. Paul's day last, as the condition thereof doth well appear by
reason she is now somewhat big with child. Notwithstanding it has been
reported throughout a great part of the realm that I married her ; which
was plainly false, for I myself knew not thereof a fortnight after it was
done." t St. Paul's day — the day on which the old monkish rhymes tell us
if it "be fair and clear, it doth forbode a fruitful year" — is the 25th of
January. At this season, then, was the union of Henry and Anne completed by
the forms of the church, without waiting for the divorce of queen Catherine
by the papal court, or otherwise. The rumour of this extraordinary event
travelled abroad, how few soever might know of it. It was kno-wn at Brussels
on the 22nd of April ; when the queen asked Hackett, the ambassador, if he
had any news out of England ? " I told her grace, as it is true, that I had none.
She gave me a look, as though she should marvel thereof, and said to me,
'J'ai des nouvelles qui ne me semblent point trop bonnes,' and told me
touching the king's marriage." J Cranmer, having been long absent on his
mission, returned to England in November, 1532, with a reputation for
"prudent and gentle demeanour." § The aged archbishop of Canterbury,
Warham, who preceded Wolsey as chancellor — the friend of Erasmus — the
prelate who presented a remarkable contrast to Wolsey in his simple habits
and his contempt of riches — died in August, 1532. Cranmer was offered the
primacy. He for some time steadily refused, aUeging his own unworthiness
for so great a charge. There was an obstacle which must have weighed upon
his conscience, though he eventually broke through it — he was married. At
last, however, he consented. He was too necessary for the policy of the king
to aUow his own scruples to have any force against the royal will. He was
appointed by papal bull, in February, 1533, — the last bishop of the English
church who received the pall from Eome. He was consecrated on the 30th
of March ; and in taking the oath, still in force, of obedience to the pope, he
publicly protested that by this oath he did not intend to restrain himself from
any thing he was bound to, either by his duty to God, or the king, or the
country. II
The great object of Cranmer's promotion to the highest ecclesiastical
office in the realm was soon apparent. Cranmer himself writes that in the
matter of the divorce, " the convocation had determined and agreed according
* HaU, p. 793. + ElUs, First Series, vol. ii. p. 89.
X state Papers, vol. vii. p, 451. § Ibid., p. 391.
II The ancient guard-room of Lambeth Palace is now hung -with poi-traits of archbishops,
amongst which the earUest is that of Warham, by Holbein.

1533,]

CRANMER PRONOaNCES SENTENCE ON THE DIVORCE.

346

to the former consent of the universities." The course of proceeding for the
archbishop was resolved on "by the king and his learned council." * On the
nth of April Cranmer writes a letter to Henry, in which he states that " the
rude and ignorant common people" are not a little oflended about the
" uncertainty of succession ; " and are angry that the clergy do not provide
a remedy for " such inconveniences, perils, and dangers as the said rude and
ignorant people do speak and talk to be imminent." He therefore implores

The Guard-Koom — Lambeth Palace,
his highness, " for the exoneration of my conscience towards Almighty God,
to licence me, according to mine office and duty, to proceed to the exami
nation, final determination, and judgment on the said great cause," t The
king graciously grants such licence. Cranmer repaired to Dunstable.
Queen Catherine was summoned to an ecclesiastical court held there on the
8th of May ; she refused to come ; and being declared contumacious, the
final sentence, that the marriage of Henry was nuU and void, was pronounced
on the 23rd of May, <
In the proceedings at Dunstable queen Catherine resolutely refused to
take any part. Cranmer went through the forms of his office with a show of
impartiality. Bedyll, the clerk of the council, writes to Cromwell, " my
lord of Canterbury handleth himself very weU, and very uprightly, without
any evident cause of suspicion to be noted in him by the counsel of the said
lady Catherine, if she had any present here." J But there was a necessity
for the final despatch of the divorce which would brook no delay, Henry,
with an impatience that circumstances had rendered natural, had issued his
orders for the coronation of queen Anne on the 1st of June. On the 23rd of
May, Cranmer writes to the king, " I have given sentence in your grace's
great and weighty cause ; " and he adds that he had sent a procuration

* Ellis, First Series, vol. ii. p. 35.
+ State Papers, vol. i. p. 390.

X Ibid., p. 395,

346

CORONATION OF QUEEN ANNE.

[1533

" concerning the second matrimony ; " on which subject he desires to know
the king's further pleasure, " for the time of the coronation is so instant, and
so near at hand, that the matter requireth good expedition to be had in
the same." *
Cranmer has himself fully described the grand ceremonial of queen Anne's
coronation: "The Thursday next before the feast of Pentecost, the king and the
queen being at Greenwich, all the crafts of London thereunto well appointed,
in several barges decked after the most gorgeous and sumptuous manner,
with divers pageants thereunto belonging, repaired and waited altogether
upon the mayor of London, and so, well furnished, came all unto Greenwich,
where they tarried and waited for the queen's coming to her barge. Whieh
so done, they brought her unto the Tower, trumpets, shaums, and other
divers instruments aU the ways playing and making great melody, which, as
is reported, was as comely done as never was Uke in any time nigh to our
remembrance. And so her Grace came to the Tower on Thursday at night.

Old Folaco at Greenwich,

about five of the clock, where also was such a peal of guns as hath not been
heard Uke a great while before. And the same night and Friday all day, the
king and queen tarried there ; and on Friday at night the king's grace made
seventeen knights of the Bath, whose creation was not only so strange to hear
of, as also their garments stranger to behold or look on ; which said knights
the next day, which was Saturday, rode before the queen's grace throughout
the city of London towards Westminster Palace, over and besides the most
part of the nobles of the realm, which like accompanied her grace thi-ough-
out the said city ; she sitting in her hair upon a horse Utter, richly apparelled,
and four knights of the five ports bearing a canopy over her head. And after
her came four rich charettes, one of them, empty, and three other furnished
with divers ancient old ladies ; and after them qame a great train of other
ladies and gentlewomen: which said progress, from the beginning to the

State Papers, vol. i. p. 366.

1533.] CORONATION OF QUEEN ANNE. 347
ending, extended half a mile in length by estimation or thereabout. To
whom also, as she came alongside the city, was shewed many costly pageants,
with divers other encomiums spolcen of children to her ; wine also running at
certain conduits plenteously. And so proceeding throughout tlie streets,
passed forth unto Westminster HaU, where was a certain banquet prepared
for her, which done she was conveyed out of the back side of the palace into
a barge and so unto Tork Place, where the king's grace was before her
coming, for this you must ever presuppose that his grace came always before
her secretly in a barge, as well from Greenwich to the Tower as from the
Tower to Tork Place.
" Now then on Sunday was the coronation, which also was of such a
manner. " In the morning there assembled with me at Westminster Church the
bishop of Tork, the bishop of London, the bishop of Winchester, the bishop
of Lincoln, the bishop of Bath, and the bishop of Saint Asaph, the abbot of
Westminster -with ten or twelve more abbots, which all revested ourselves in
our pontificalibus, and, so furnished, with our crosses and crosiers, proceeded
out of the abbey in a procession unto Westminster HaU, where we received
the queen appareUed in a robe of purple velvet, and aU the ladies and gentle
women in robes and gowns of scarlet, according to the manner used before
time in such business. And so her grace; sustained of each side with two
bishops, the bishop of London and the bishop of Winchester, came forth in
procession unto the church of Westminster, she in her hair, my lord of Suffolk
bearing before her the crown, and two other lords bearing also before her a
sceptre and a white rod, and so entered up into the high altar, where, divers
ceremonies used about her, I did set the crown on her head, and then was
sung Te Dewn, &c. And after that was sung a solemn mass, aU which while
her grace sat cro-wned upon a scaffold which was made between the high
altar and the quire in Westminster Church; which mass and ceremonies
done and finished, aU the assembly of noble men brought her into Westminster
Hall again, where was kept a great solemn feast all that day ; the good order
thereof were too long to write at this time to you." *
Having this authentic description of a pageant so gorgeous at the
moment, so typical of worldly vanities to look back upon, we may spare to
translate the marvellous relations of Hall, essentially the court chronicler,
into modern imagery. We pass over his banners and streamers, his tapestry
and escutcheons, noting only one or two passages that the archbishop, not
so famUiar with what touched the people, has forborne to notice. When
the queen landed at the Tower, the king " received her with loving coun
tenance at the postern by the water-side and kissed her ; and then she turned
back again, and thanked the mayor and citizens with many goodly words."
The expression of Cranmer, "she sitting in her hair," is explained by the
chronicler : " her hair hanged do-wn, but on her head she had a coif with a
circlet about it, full of rich stones." At the banquet, the queen was served
with great variety of dishes ; and by way of contrast to modern manners, we
may mention that two countesses stood, one on each side, during aU the
• Letter to Hawkins, ambassador to the emperor ; EUis, First Series, vol. L p. 36.

348 CATHERINE REFUSES TO RENOUNCE THE TITLE OF QUEEN. [1533.
dinner, " which divers times in the dinner-time did hold a fine cloth before
the queen's face when she Ust to spit." While Westminster saw these festive
solemnities, there was another queen at AmpthiU, solitary, sick at heart, yet
sustained by her unconquerable will to defy the oppression with which she
was pursued. There is no more touching picture than the report of lord
Mountjoy, her chamberlain, of the demeanour of this resolved princess, when,
on the 3rd of July, persons from the council waited on her to deliver certain
articles on the king's behalf. She called her chamberlain and all her servants
into her privy chamber, for, she said, she thought it a long season since she
saw them. She was lying upon a pallet, having " pricked her foot with a
pin, so that she might not weU stand nor go, and also sore annoyed with a
cough." The commissioners began to read their charge. " But as soon as
we began to declare and read, that these articles were for our instructions to
move unto the Princess Dowager, at the first she made exception to that
name, saying that she was not Princess Dowager, but the Queen, and the
King's true wife." ¦* No entreaties, no threats, could ever move her from
this declaration. The divorce was founded upon the impUcation that her
maiden white was not truly worn at her marriage.t She persisted to the
end in contradicting that material averment in the process against her. In
the very tenderest point in which she could be touched, that of her love for
her daughter, she was immoveable. When it was urged that her resolve to
bear the name of Queen should be " an occasion that the King should ¦with
draw his fatherly love from her honourable and most dearest daughter, the
Lady Princess," she answered, as to the princess, "that she was the king's
true begotten child, and as God had given her unto them, so for her part, she
would render her again unto the king, as his daughter, to do with her as shall
stand with his pleasure ; trusting to God that she would prove an honest
woman. And that neither for her daughter, family, possessions, or any worldly
adversity or displeasure that might ensue, she would yield in this cause, to put
her soul in danger." J
* State Papers, vol. i. p. 397. t See cmte, p. 259.
X State Papers, vol, i. p. 400.

London 33ridge, Southwark side.

CHAPTEE, XXIL
Birth of the Princess Elizabeth — Preparations for throwing off the papal power — Statute of
Appeals — Cranmer's judgment declared iUegal by brief of the pope — Statute for punishment
of heresy — Burning of Frith — Act of Succession — Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of
Kent — Her execution with others — Fisher and More implicated in her proceedings — Oath
to be taken according to the Act of Succession — Fisher aud More, declining to swear to
the preamble, sent to the Tower — Act of Supremacy— First Fruits and Tenths given to the
king — New definitions of treason — The monks of the Charterhouse refuse to acknowledge
Henry the Head of the Church — Their execution — Burning of Hollanders for Heresy —
Fisher and More decline to make answer to questions as to the Supremacy — Their con
demnation — Their deaths.
At the beginning of September, 1533, queen Anne Boleyn is at Greenwich,
awaiting the event which would determine the succession to the throne. In
anticipation of this event, learned clerks had to prepare formal letters pur
porting to come from the queen herself ; and a letter to lord Cobham, which
has been preserved, was ready for the signet of the queen to be affixed. On
the 7th of September, certain blanks are to be fiUed up : " Whereas it has
pleased the goodness of Almighty God, of his infinite mercy and grace, to
send unto us, at this time, good speed in the deliverance and bringing forth
of a Princes," In two passages of this letter the final s has been added
to the first written word "Prince."* The birth of a daughter was a disap
pointment to the king. It would probably have been more so, could he
nave looked into futurity, and have seen that under the reign of this
princess, the religion of the country would be firmly placed upon a much

• State Papers, vol, 1, p, 407,

360 STATUTE OP APPEALS TO ROME. [1533.
broader basis than his own narrow views of ecclesiastical reform ; and the
honour of the country far more nobly sustained against foreign enemies than
in his petty wars of personal ambition. The christening of Elizabeth was
performed at Greenwich, with extraordinary magnificence. Cranmer was a
prosaic godfather. Poetry has made him an eloquent prophet.*
It is unnecessary for us here to trace the poUtical intrigues on the part of
the pope, the emperor, and the king of France, through which the final
separation of England from the control or interference of the Holy See was
so long protracted. There had been various movements early in 1533,
towards this end. The parUament had passed the Statute of Appeals, — the
title of which sufficiently shows its general object : " An Act that the Appeals
in such cases as have been used to be pursued to the See of Eome, shaU not
be from henceforth had nor used but within this realm." t The opening of
this statute, setting forth the independence of the sovereignty of England,
presents a fine example of the strength of the English language — its grand
organ-swell — as it was written in Tyndale's bible, and some other works of
this period: "Where, by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles
it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an
empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme
head and king, having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of
the same ; unto whom a body politic, compact of all sorts and degrees of
people, divided in terms and by names of Spiritualty and Temporalty, be
bounded and owing to bear, next to God, a natural and humble obedience ;
he being also institute and furnished by the goodness and sufferance of
Almighty God, with plenary, whole, and entire power, pre-eminence,
authority, prerogative, and jurisdiction, to render and yield justice and fiinal
determination to aU manner of folk, residents or subjects within this his
realm, in all causes, matters, debates, and contentions happening to occur,
insurge, or begin within the limits thereof, without restraint or provocation
to any foreign prince or potentate of the world." This statute was a
declaration of war, and the pope received it as such. But he still hesitated.
Strong influences were brought to bear upon him ; but he still forbore to
declare England out of the bosom of the church. In July, by a brief,
Cranmer's judgment was declared illegal ; and the king was held to have
incurred the penalties of excommunication. But the final thunderbolt was
yet in the uplifted hand. Meanwhile the government proceeded boldly in
preparing the people for the great impending change. There is a very curious
Minute of Council of the 2nd of December, 1583, in which it is ordered,
that such as shaU preach at Paul's Cross, shall, from Sunday to Sunday,
teach and declare to the people, that he that now calleth himself pope, is only
bishop of Eome, " and hath no more authority and jurisdiction, by God's law,
within this realm, than any other foreign bishop hath, which is nothing at aU ;
and that such authority as he hath claimed heretofore, hath been only by
usurpation." J The mode in which opinion was to be influenced, in a time
before newspapers and reviews, is curiously shown in a duplicate, with
variations, of this Minute, by which a strict commandment was to be given to

,iere, "Henry VIII." act v. scene 4. + 24 Hen. VIIL a. 12,
+ State Papers, vol, i, p, 411.

15d3.J

STATUTE OF HERESY— BURNING OF FRITH.

351

the mayor, aldermen, and common-council of London, " that every of them in
their houses shall liberally speak at their boards, and also teach their servants
to declare, that he that caUeth himself the pope is but the bishop of Eome."
The same principle was ordered to be declared to their families by the nobUity
of the realm ; " and to command their said families to bruit the same in all
places where they shall come." * It was little matter now whether the king
were excommunicated and England placed under an interdict. There could
be no effectual reconcUiation now -with Eome. PracticaUy, the final separa
tion was accomplished. The people were appealed to; and the appeal
touched them in one of the most sensitive parts of their nationality. They
/orgot the origin of the contest, and looked only to its results as their
•deliverance from a thraldom.
The time was come for renouncing the authority of the bishop of Eome ;
but true religious freedom appeared as distant as in the reign of Henry IV.,
when the Lollards were regarded as public enemies. The statute of the 25th
of Henry VIIL, "for punishment of heresy," declares that speaking

Smithfield, in the sixteenth century.

against the pope or his decrees is not heresy ; but that heretics, upon lawful
conviction and refusal to abjure, or after abjuration shaU relapse, " shaU be
committed to lay power to be burned in open places, for example of other, as
hath been accustomed," In the same letter in which Cranmer describes the
coronation of queen Anne, he relates, with an indifference which makes us
shudder, the fate of two victims of persecution :—
" Other news have we none notable, but that one Fryth, which was in the
Tower in prison, was appointed by the king's grace to be examined before me,
my lord of London, my lord of Winchester, my lord of Suffolk, my lord-chan
cellor, and my lord of WUtshire, whose opinion was so notably erroneous, that
¦* State Papers, vol. i, p, 411.

352 THE HOLY MAID OF KENT. [1533.
we could not dispatch him, but was fain to leave him to the determination of
his ordinary, which is the bishop of London. His said opinion is of such
nature that he thought it not necessary to be believed as an article of our
faith, that there is the very corporal presence of Christ within the host and
sacrament of the altar ; and holdeth of this point most after the opinion of
CEcolampadius. And surely I myself sent for him three or four times to persuade
him to leave that his imagination, but for all that we could do therein he would
not apply to any ccansel ; notwithstanding now he is at a final end with all
examinations, for my lord of London hath given sentence and delivered him
to the secular power, where he looketh every day to go unto the fire. And
there is also condemned with him one Andrew, a tailor of London, for the
said self-same opinion." *
If those who were thus groping their way in the dark morning of the
Eeformation did not hesitate to punish for opinions which they secretly
cherished, we can comprehend how they would show little mercy to those
who were inciters of opposition to the political and religious attitude of the
government. The " Act for the establishment of the king's succession "t
brought within the penalties of treason all the covert hostility of many of the
people to the divorce and the second marriage. This statute declared ihe
first marriage unlawful and void ; — the second marriage " undoubtful, true,
sincere, and perfect." The king's issue by the lady Anne were pronounced
to be the inheritors of the imperial crown, and every manifest deed by
writing or printing, to the prejudice of this marriage, or this succession,
was to be taken as high treason ; and if by spoken words, as misprision of
treason. The attainder and execution of Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent,
and of some who believed in her ; and the charges against bishop Fisher and
sir Thomas More, in connection with this delusion, furnish a remarkable
illustration of the spirit that prevailed in this dangerous crisis.
In the parish of Aldington there dwelt a servant-girl, afterwards a nun of
the priory of St. Sepulchre's in Canterbury, named Elizabeth Barton. In
the words of the statute for her attainder, she " happened to be visited with
sickness, and by occasion thereof brought in such debility and weakness
of her brain, because she could not eat nor drink by a long space, that in
the violence of her infirmity she seemed to be in trances, and spake and
uttered many fooUsh and idle words." J In this parish where Elizabeth
Barton dwelt, there was a chapel dedicated to the Virgin, called Court-a-
Street ; and it was pretended that there she was miraculously restored to
health. At a season of less public excitement, her " foolish and idle words "
would have taken some ordinary course. But the feeble mind of this woman
was impressed by the talk of those around her ; and her fantastic dreams
took the perilous shape of revelations about the divorce then impending.
The pretensions of this "holy maid of Kent," as she was called, were not
suddenly developed under the popular irritation about the king's marriage.
In a letter written in 1533, to Cromwell, by the prior of Christ's Church
m Canterbury, it is shown that "trances and revelations" of Elizabeth
Barton commenced seven or eight years before that time — that is, four years
* ElUs, First Series, vol. U. p. 40. t 25 Hen. VIII. e. 22.
X 25 Hen. VIII. c. 12.

153S.]

THE HOLY MAID TRIED FOR TREASON.

353

before the fall of Wolsey ; and that archbishop W.irham took an interest in
these matters, and appointed Doctor Bockyng, the cellarer of Christ's Church,
to be her " holy father." The prior, who writes this letter, had known her only
about two years ; and she showed him, at such times, that she had revelations
and special knowledge, " concerning my lord of Ciinterbury that was (my lord
cardinal), and also the king's highness, concerning his marriage; so that she

Court-a-Street Chapel, in the Pariah of Aldington, Kent.
said if he did marry another woman his grace should not reign king past one
month afterward ; and also she said that she had been with the king's grace,
and showed him thereof two times at the least ; and also she said then she
had showed the same unto my lord of Canterbury, that was my lord
Warham."-* Out efthe ravings of this poor servant-girl, who afterwards, at
the instance of Warham, became a professed nun, was got up a mighty
charge of conspiracy, in which bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More were
implicated. The ravings of this woman were of the most extravagant
nature. She saw the king, Anne Boleyn, and the earl of Wiltshire, walking
in a garden ; and a little devU whispering in the lady's ear to send her father
with a great bribe to the emperor. She saw evil spirits struggling for
Wolsey's soul after his decease. She saw persons whom the angel of God
had appointed to be at her death, when she should receive the crown ot
martyrdom, t The Act of Attainder of Elizabeth Barton, and others, enters
into a most minute history of what are deemed their treasonable practices :
and Eichard Maister, the parson of Aldington, and Edward Bockyng, are
stated to hare written books to persuade the people that she was a holy

' "Suopressionof the Monasteries," p, 20,
vol, II,

t Letter to CromweU, ibid., p, 14,
A A

S54 FISHER INCLUDED IN THE ATTAINDER. [1534.
person, and then to have suggested to her that she should have a revelation
that if the king were divorced and married again he should no longer be king,
"and that he should die a villain's death." Of this alleged conspiracy, as
principal traitors, the nun, the parson of Aldington, the ceUarer of Christ's
Church, and five other persons, were tried in the Star Chamber, and suffered
the penalties of treason, on the 21 st of April, 1534. One of these, Henry
Gould, is declared, in the Act of Attainder, to have related the pretended
revelations " to the lady Catherine, the princess dowager, to animate her to
make commotions in this realm against our said sovereign lord." He is
accused of saying that she should prosper and do weU, and that the lady
Mary, the king's daughter, should prosper and reign. Of misprision of
treason, others were arraigned ; for that, believing in the revelation of the
king's death, they had concealed it from him. Amongst these, the most
eminent person was Fisher, bishop of Eochester. He was the only prelate
who had the courage to refuse to sign a declaration, in 1527, that the king's
marriage was unlawful. He stood alone in the Convocation in resisting the
denial of the pope's supremacy. That he should have provoked the bitter
hostiUty of Henry and his ministers was an inevitable result of this firmness.
If we doubt his judgment we must admire his conscientiousness. In a very
elaborate letter of Cromwell to the bishop, he is reproached for having
" conceived a great opinion of the holiness of this woman ; " but that he
attempted no means for the discovery of her falsehood. CromweU adds,
¦with great severity, but with an intimate knowledge of human nature,
"Here I appeal your conscience, and instantly desire you to answer,
whether if she had shewed you as many revelations for the confirmation of the
king's grace's marriage, which he now enjoyeth, as she did to the contrary,
ye would have given as much credence to her as ye have done ; and would
have let the trial of her and of her revelations to overpass these many years,
where ye dwelt not from her but twenty mUes, in the same shire, where her
trances, and disfiguranees, and prophecies in her trances were surmised and
counterfeited." * CromweU entreats the bishop to make submission to the
king for having kept these revelations from his grace's knowledge. Fisher's
excuse was that the nun had declared that she had told them to the king
himself. She said the same to the priest of Christ's Church. It is clear that
no excuse would avaU ; and least of aU, one which the bishop incautiously set
up, as we learn from Cromwell's reply : " Te lay unto the charge of our
sovereign, that he hath unkindly entreated you with grievous words and
terrible letters, for showing his grace truth in this great matter [the divorce],
whereby ye were disaffected to show unto him the nun's revelations." The
opportunity was come to punish the bishop with something beyond " grievous
words and terrible letters." By the statute concerning Elizabeth Barton, he
was attainted, with five others, " of misprision and concealment of treason." t
Sir Thomas More narrowly escaped. He had conversed vidth the nun of Kent
in the convent of Sion. He was examined before the Council. It is said
that his name was originally introduced into the bUl of attainder. But if as
brave as Fisher the ex-chanceUor was more wary. He was released. When
his daughter had obtained information that his name was put out of the bill,
* letter to Cromwell, " Suppression," &c., p. 30. f 25 Hen. VIII, c. 12.

1634.] SIR THOMAS MORE IMPLICATED. 358
he replied to her joyful congratulations — " In faith, Meg, quod differtur non
aufertur — what is postponed is not abandoned." The whole story of the
holy maid of Kent affords as much evidence of the delusions that, in all ages,
have infiuenced the enthusiastic votaries of the Eoman church, as of the
systematic impostures which have been as frequently attributed to them.
The act of attainder states that "the false, feigned, and dissimulated
hypocrisy, cloaked sanctity, revelations, and feigned miracles of the said
EUzabeth, are plainly confessed before the king's most honourable councU
by the said offenders "—the nun. Master, Bockyng, and others. Of the
mode of this trial we have no record. A contemporary foreigner, bitterly
adverse to the old reUgion, states that the king '' racked them with intolerable
tortures, and brought to light the mummery contrived by them." * This
traveller relates that one of the modes in which the priests managed to spread
abroad the report of EUzabeth Barton's miraculous knowledge, was to obtain
the secrets of those who made theic confessions to them, and then to reveal
them to the nun, who astonished them by her knowledge of their most hidden
acts and thoughts. That Warham and Fisher — perhaps even More — ^were
amongst the deluded, may be attributed to that superstition from which the
learned and the enUghtened were not whoUy free, in an age when the true
and the false of reUgious beUef were not clearly to be seen through the cloud
of ceremonial observances ; when the pretensions to miraculous powers, which
stUl Ungered round the shrines of a thousand saints and martyrs, imposed to
some extent upon the clearest understandings. The concluding clause of the
statute itself justifies us in attributing the widely-spread credence in this
pretended revelation to a spirit of fanaticism rather than to a settled purpose
of overthrowing the government. It states that a great multitude of the
king's subjects, " inclined to newfangleness," have heard these false reve
lations, and have concealed the same, and not like true liegemen informed
the king or his councU ; through which they deserve to suffer the penalties
of treason. But aU persons not attainted by this act are acquitted and
pardoned, of the king's most gracious benignity, " at the humble suit and
contemplation of his most dear, entire, and well-beloved wife, queen Anne."
The " Act for the estabUshment of the king's succession " contained a final
clause that aU the nobles of the realm, spiritual and temporal, and aU other
subjects of fuU age, should take an oath to maintain and defend this act ; and,
upon their refusal so to do, should be held guUty of misprision of treason.
The oath, which was tasen by some lords and commoners in parUament before
its prorogation on the last day of March, 1534, was to be taken by aU who
were called upon to appear before the commissioners appointed by the king.
On the 13th of AprU, Sir Thomas More was summoned to attend before the
archbishop of Canterbury and the other commissioners at Lambeth. As he
left his house at Chelsea, — that house which Erasmus described as something
more noble than the academy of Plato, "a school and exercise of the Christian
reUgion," — he had a presentiment that he should never return to it. He
could not trust himself to kiss and bid fareweU to those he loved, as he was
wont to do when he entered his boat. He passed out of his garden to the
river-side, suffering none of his household to foUow, " but puUed the wicket
* " Travels of Nicander Nuoius," Camden Society, p. 62. A A 2

356 FISHER ANT) MORE SENT TO THE TOWER, [1534.
after him, and shut them all from him." The strength of his love might
have triumphed over his resolve to dare the worst rather than to affirm what
he did not honestly believe. His soul triumphed in that hour of struggle ; and
he whispered to his son-in-law, " I thank our Lord, the field is won ! " The
result of his examinations at Lambeth was his committal to the Tower, after
being kept in ward four days. The difficulty in which More and his friend,
the aged bishop of Eochester, were placed, may be best understood through an
extract of a letter from Cromwell to Cranmer. The archbishop, with that
disposition to compromise which he was as ready to employ for the benefit of
others as of himself, had expressed his opinion " that it were good the bishop
of Eochester and master More should be sworn to the Act of the king's suc
cession and not to the preamble of the same." In that preamble was contained
a declaration of the unlawfulness of the king's first marriage, and of the legality
of his second ; and a disclaimer of foreign authority in the realm, by which
was meant the spiritual authority of the see of Eome. Henry was indignant at
Cranmer's merciful suggestion ; and desired CromweU to say, that " the king's
highness in no wise wUleth but that they shaU be sworn as well to the pre
amble as to the act. Wherefore his grace specially trusteth that ye ¦wUl in
no wise attempt or move him to the contrary ; for, as his grace supposeth,
that manner of swearing, if it shaU be suffered, may be an utter destruction
of his whole cause, and also to the effect of the law made for the same."* More
and Fisher would not swear to the preamble, although they would swear to
defend the succession. They were committed to the Tower, under a despotic
authority which was subsequently introduced into a statute, that the certificate
of the commissioners setting forth a refusal to take the oath " should be taken
as strong and as available in the law as an indictment of twelve men lawfuUy
found of the same refusal," t In prison they remained tiU the summer of
1535, tUl the time was ripe for that final deliverance which has no terrors for
the just. Meanwhile they were attainted by the parUament that assembled
on the 3rd of November, 1534, of misprision of treason ; and were convicted
" to aU intents and purposes " as if they had been " lawfully attainted by the
order of the common law." J
The parliament thus assembled in November, 1534, had some root-and-
branch work to perform, at the bidding of their imperious master. The first
law which they passed was " an act concerning the king's highness to be
Supreme Head of the Church of England, and to have authority to reform
and redress aU errors, heresies, and abuses in the same." § This is a short
statute ; but of high significance. There was no power now to stand between
the people of England and the exercise of unbridled despotism. The most
arbitrary man that had ever wielded the large prerogatives of sovereignty had
now united in his own person the temporal and spiritual supremacy. The
ecclesiastical authority which had regulated the English church for eight
hundred years was gone. ^ The feudal organisation which had held the
sovereign in some submission to ancient laws and usages of freedom was
gone. The Crown had become aU in aU. The whole system of human
intercourse in England was to be subordinated to one supreme head — King
¦* Letter in the RoUs House, quoted by Mr, Froude, vol, ii p 227
+ 26 Hen. YHI. ^, 2. J 26 Hen, VHI, cc, 22 & 23, § 26 Hen. VHI c.

1534,] ACT OF SUPREMACY— ACT OF SUCCESSION. 357
and Pope in one. The most enslaving terror was to uphoid this system
throughout the land. The sheriff in every county was to be a spy upon the
clergy, and to report if they truly spoke of the king as supreme head of the
church, without any cloak or colour. No Amurath of the Turks could write
more insolently to his provincial slaves than Henry of England wrote to his
sheriffs, that if they failed in this service, " Be ye assured that we, like a prince
of justice, wUl so extremely punish you for the same, that aU the world beside
shaU take by you example, and beware, contrary to their allegiance to disobey
the lawful commandment of their sovereign lord and prince." * The higher
clergy were terrified into the most abject prostration before this spiritual
lord. The bishop of Bath and Wells writes to CromweU, on the 21st of
February, 1535, informing him of a circumstance of which he thought it fit
to advertise him, " by my fidelity to God and to the king." Doctor Carsley,
a canon of WeUs, in "bidding of the beads," called upon the congregation to
pray for the king, " for the lady Catherine the queen, and also, by express
name, for the lady EUzabeth their daughter." The poor old man of eighty
was terrified when his mistake was shown him, and protested that he knew no
queen but the lady Anne. " The word scaped him unawares," says the bishop.
And yet such is the fear of the o'er-passing tyranny, that the bishop writes a
long despatch to teU "the whole and plain truth," about so insignificant a
matter as the " lapsus lingua," as he calls it, of one who had mumbled a
form of bidding prayer for a quarter of a century, and forgot that he was now,
by statute, to banish such trivial fond records from the table of his memory.f
The new dignity of the king was to conduce as much to his profit as his
honour. The Lords and Commons crawl at his feet in this parliament
of 1534-35, and humbly request that he ¦will be pleased, as their "most
gracious sovereign lord, upon whom and in whom dependeth aU their
joy and wealth," to receive the first fruits of all spiritual dignities and pro
motions ; and also an annual pension of one tenth part of aU the possessions
of the church. J A subsidy granted in the same parUament followed the
accustomed precedent. But the dangers of every man's position were mul
tiplied in new definitions of treason. It was now enacted, not only that those
who desired or practised any bodUy harm to the king or queen should be
deemed traitors, — but that whoever, by writing or words, published that the
king was a heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper of the crown, should
be subject to the penalties of high-treason. There was one further little
sentence in this statute which was far more dangerous than that which made
it treason to caU the king iU-names. Whoever sought to deprive the king,
the queen, or their. heirs apparent "of the dignity, title, or name of their
royal estates," was now declared to be a traitor. To deny the king the title
of Supreme Head of the Church was, therefore, treason, § To refuse to swear
to the succession was only misprision of treason. The Act for the supremacy
had no such terrible penalty. This one line of the statute of new treasons,
thus brought in so gently and covertly, would have brought half England to the
block, if conscience had prevaUed over panic-stricken lip-service. . , Strong as
our convictions may be, at this day, that such rough and cruel handling of
¦• Circular, printed in Fox. f State Papers, vol. i. p, 427.
X 26 Hen. VIII. c. 3. § 26 Hen, VHI. c. 13.

358

NEW DEFINITIONS OP TREASON.

[1535.

long-cherished opinions was to be ultimately productive of inestimable bless.
ings, we cannot shut our eyes to the certainty that these enactments must
have produced a temporary misery and political degradation, never equalled
by any action of the government, from the days of tne conquest. Had such
measures been tried upon a less sturdy race, instead of a rifce that never, in
the worst times, lost the instinct of freedom, and in this passing evU saw a
great future good, the civU and ecclesiastical tyranny of this stage of the
Eeformation might have driven us into that inteUectual servitude, upon which
the true Uberty of the Book of Life might have beamed ia vain, when that
Book was at length permitted to be opened.
We learn from a letter of Audley, the lord-chanceUor, to CromweU, at
what time the statute which so fearfully extended the definition of treason
came into operation. In answer to a question touching a monk of Worcester,
Audley gave his opinion that words spoken by the monk "' had been treason,
without doubt, if they had been
spoken since the first day of
February ; " but that words
spoken of the king or the queen
before that time were only mis
prision of treason.* The Act, no
doubt, sealed up the Ups of the
people, and bitter thoughts were
left to smoulder in their bosoms.
But the clause which made it
treason to deprive the king of
any name or dignity was so ad
ministered as to render sUenee
itself treasonable. If under ex
amination a satisfactory answer
was not given as to the king's
title of Supreme Head of the
Church, the gibbet or the block
were ready for the offender. On
the 3rd of May the first grand
experiment was made of the work
ing of this statute. Let us take
the most literal record we can
find of an event which must have
struck terror throughout the land. "Also the same year, the 3rd day
of May was Holyrood day, and then was drawn from the Tower unto Tyburn
the three priors of the Charter-houses, and there hanged, headed, and
quartered ; and one of the prior's arms was set up at the gate into Aldersgate-
Btreet." f Within those quiet walls, where now exists one of the few retreats
which our country provides for the reduced and deserving of the middle
classes ; where a sound and liberal education of the young now goes forward
in peace and security, — there, some three centuries ago, a body of religious
men set apart from the world, of exemplary conduct, of zealous piety, were

A Carthusian,

* State Papers, vol i. p. 442.

+ "Grey Friars' Chronicle." p. 37,

1635,] MONKS OF THE CHARTERHOUSE. 359
suddenly startled, as if a falcon had come to flutter their dove-cot, Bedyll,
the clerk of the council, wrote to CromWeU, in August 1534, that some of
these brethren " be minded to offer themselves in sacrifice to the great idol of
Eome." He described them "as careless men, and wilUng to die." He
thinks, " if it were not for the opinion which men had, and some yet have,
in their apparent hoUness, which is and was, for the most part, covert
hypocrisy, it made no great matter what became of them, so their souls were
saved." * This is the language of a worldly-minded man, who was incapable
of understanding why men should prefer to die in an earnest beUef than to
Uve to make a profession which they abominated in their hearts. He cared
nothing what became of them ; yet he dreaded the odium that might faU
upon those who hunted them to the death. He wishes " they were dead
indeed, by God's hand, that no man should run wrongfuUy into obloquy for
their just punishment." The prior of the London Charter-house, John
Haughton, after a short imprisonment in 1534, had sworn to the Act of
Succession, and so had his brethren. But they were with difficulty brought
" to good conformity." It was not the poUcy of the government to let them
alone. They were respected by the people of London. They were hospitable
and charitable. The new statute of treasons was to be tested upon them.
If they yielded and acknowledged the supremacy, their example would
reconcUe others of lower reputation. If they refused, their punishment
would terrify the boldest into submission. They had committed no
outward offence. They were to be slaughtered for an opinion. There were
two houses connected with the London priory; aud their priors came to
Cromwell, and with Haughton entreated to be excused answering the
questions which they expected to be addressed to them. They were sent
to the Tower. They refused to accept the Act of Supremacy when brought
before CromweU and others. They were tried by a jury upon this refusal ;
of course found guUty; and condemned on the 29th of AprU. From
the Tower to Tyburn was a wearisome and foul road for these poor men to
travel on hurdles, in their ecclesiastical robes, on a May morning. It was
the first time that clergymen had suffered in England without the previous
ceremony of degradation. In that dreary procession through busy streets,
and through highways by whose sides pitying and wondering multitudes
stood to behold this strange and portentous sight, these earnest men quailed
not. In the presence of the executioner they quaUed not. To the last they
refused to submit to a law of the king and the parUament which they held
to be contrary to the superior law of their church. They were not the last
of these Carthusians who fell in this confiict. Other monks were hanged
and headed. But there were ways of killing, slower but as sure, not unknown
to the agents of tyranny. Thirteen months after these executions, the loyal
Thomas Bedyll writes to CromweU, " that the monks of the Charterhouse
here at London, which were committed to Newgate for their traitorous
behaviour long time continued against the king's grace, be almost dispatched
by the hand of God, as it may appear to you by this biU inclosed, whereof,
considering their behaviour and the whole matter, I am not sorry." f After
the execution of Haughton and his brethren, the monks who had submitted
• State Papers, vol i. p, 422. ¦)* "Suppression efthe Monasteries," p, 102.

360

TERROR OF THEIR EXECUTION.

[1536.

remained in their desolated house. But there were supernatural terrors
around them, in which we may see the prevaUing thoughts of their lonely
watchings. John Darley relates that father Eaby, a very old man, had died
in 1534 ; and that he had said to the dying monk, " good father Eaby, if the
dead man come to the quick I beseech you to come to me," and he answered
"yea." The story thus continues : " And since that I never did think upon
him tUl Saint John day. Baptist, last past. Item, the same day at five of
the clock at afternoon, I being in contemplation in our entry in our ceU,
suddenly he appeared to me in a monk's habit, and said to me, ' why do ye
not follow our father ?' [the late prior] And I said, ' wherefore ?' He said,
' for he is a martyr in heaven, next unto angels.' And I said, ' where be aU

I I i1j f,

Cloisters, Charter-House.
our other fathers which died as weU as he ? ' He answered and said, ' they
be weU,but not so well as he,' "* Such were the imaginations that lingered
round the cells and cloisters of the stricken house, more consolatory, in their
tender glimpses of the world of spirits, than the thoughts of those scoffers
and time-servers, who were as yet unprepared to give any safer anchorage for
earnest minds than in the old havens which they were destroying — dUapidated
and unsafe harbours of refuge, but better than the stormy seas upon which
men were driven out, without compass or beacon.
This was not a time when the execution of men for denying the king's
right to be head of the church impUed that there would be any relaxation
*¦ "Suppression of the Monasteries," p. 34,

1535.]

HOLLANDERS BURNT FOR HERESY.

861

of the old system of persecution for doctrinal opinions. One of the spies
wh'o denounced the poor brethren of the Charterhouse, a certain Jasper
FyloU, writes to Cromwell, " It is no great marvel though many of these
monks have heretofore offended God and the king by their foul errors, for I
have found in the prior's and proctor's ceUs three or four sundry printed
books from beyond the sea, of as foul heresies and errors as may be ; and
not one or two books be now printed alone, but hundreds of them." The
Act " for the punishment of heresy," passed in 1534, is immediately followed
in the statute-book by "An Act for Printers .ind Binders of Books." * By
this act the statute of Eichard IIL, which allowed the free importation of

Dutch Printing-ofiice,
printed and written books, is repealed. There is nothing said about the
suppression of dangerous opinions ; but it is merely stated that, as there are
enough of printers and binders in England, no foreign books are to be sold
by retaU. The Dutch printing-offices, then in full activity, were unpleasant
neighbours to a government which undertook to regulate every man's opinion.
It was a time of fear ; for the Lutheran doctrines had been carried to an
excess by reUgious and poUtical fanatics ; and the political tenets which bore
any resemblance to those of the Anabaptists, might be spread to the danger

* 25 Hen. VIIL c, 15.

862 FISHER AND MORE ACCUSED OF TREASON. [1535,
of aU civU society. Within three weeks of the execution of the Carthusians,
nineteen men and six women, born in HoUand, were examined in St. Paul's
church as to their opinions. Stow, who records this in his Chronicle, speaks
only of their (jonfessions as to the more abstruse points of doctrine, especiaUy
of infant and adult baptism ; nothing of those principles as to society and
government which led to the excesses of 1532, when the baker of Haarlem
and the taUor of Leyden made themselves masters of the city of Munster,
and there preached and practised the wildest extravagances. Of the nineteen
men and six women who were apprehended in London, fourteen were con
demned and were burnt. Latimer, who had known what persecution for
heresy was, when he was examined in 1532 before six bishops, and " heard
a pen walking behind the arras" — the pen of one appointed to ¦write his
answers — even he dismisses the Hollanders with these words : " The Ana
baptists that were burnt here in divers towns in England (as I heard of
credible men, I saw them not myself) went to their death, even intrepide, as
ye wUl say, without any fear in the world, cheerfuUy. Well, let them go."
He argues, -and justly, that it was not to be inferred that he who so dies
" dieth in a just cause." * He omitted to say that such fortitude is a proof
that the men believed their cause to be just ; and that the stake was no test
of its error.
The parliament is prorogued. The king is moving from palace to palace
in that midsummer of 1535. There are two prisoners in the Tower under
a,ttainder for misprision of treason. John Fisher, bishop of Eochester,
would have soon ceased from troubling the government; for he had seen
eighty summers. It was mercy, however, to remove him from his hard fare
and scant clothing — " only some old rags were left to cover him." f Under
the roof of the same prison was Sir Thomas More. He was of a more
¦vigorous age ; but long confinement had bent his body and weakened his
emaciated Umbs. There came into the Tower, on the 14th of June, certain
commissioners, deputed to interrogate these two prisoners ; and to the
question whether he had received or ¦written any letters during his imprison
ment. More gave one answer which sufficiently indicates the sympathy between
these doomed men : " since he came to the Tower he ¦wrote divers scroUs or
letters to Mr. Doctor Fisher, and received from him some other again; whereof
the most part contained nothing else but comforting words from either to
other ; and declaration of the state that they were in, in their bodies ; and
giving of thanks for such meat or drink that the one had sent to the other." J
But More had been subjected to previous interrogatories, to which he aUuded
in another answer on the 14th of June : "Also saith that since the last
examination of him, this examinant did send Mr. Fisher word, by a letter
that Mr. SoUcitor had shewed him, that it was aU one not to answer, and to
say against the statute what a man would, as all the learned men of England
would justify, as he [Mr. SoUcitor] said then. And therefore he said he could
reckon upon nothing else but the uttermost." § He had ¦written, he said, to his
daughter, Mr. Eoper's vrife, that what the end should be, he could not teU ;
" but whatsoever it were, better or worse, he desired her to take it patiently,
* Sermons, Fourth Sermon before King Edward VI. + Burnet's "Reformation. "
t State Papers, vol, i, p, 433. § Ihid,, p. 434.

1635.] THEIR CONDEMNATION. 863
.ind take no thought therefor, but only pray for him." Margaret, the best
beloved of his children, did not take it patiently, but " used great vehemence
and obsecration, to persuade him to incline to the king's desire." And thus,
More, upon hearing the interrogatories of the commissioners touching the
king's supremacy, incurred the peril which Mr. Solicitor had pointed out —
"he sayeth that he can make no answer."
At this crisis of their fate an incident occurred which hurried Fisher to the
scaffold, and, as a natural consequence. More foUowed. Clement VII. died
on the 25th of September, 1534. He was no more to be troubled ¦with the
threats of Charles or Francis ; no more to hesitate about excommunicating
Henry, and placing England under interdict. His successor, Paul IIL,
probably thought that the government of the stubborn islanders might be
won back by courtesy ; and in this desire, as he protested, he sent a cardinal's
hat to bishop Fisher. " He shaU have no head to wear it," exclaimed the
indignant king. Fisher declared that he would not accept the honour which
he had never sought. On the 17th of June he was taken before a special
commission at Westminster HaU, The official record of this trial is a brief
one : " Pleads not guilty. Venire awarded. Verdict, guilty. Judgment as
usual in cases of treason." He died, by simple beheading, on the 22nd of
June. On the 1st of July, the special commission again sat. More tottered
into the hall, leaning upon his staff — into that haU which he had often
entered, in the pomp of chancellor, with mace and seal borne before him.
The axe now marshalled him on his certain road. His robes of office were
now exchanged for a coarse wooUen gown. He stood at the bar before his
successor, Audley, as his judge. He was charged not only with refusing to
acknowledge the king's supremacy, but that he had positively denied it. We
have seen that " Mr. Solicitor " had been with him in the Tower. By " Mr.
Solicitor" was the charge to be proved, in the betrayal of a confidential
communication, and the distortion of the prisoner's words into a meaning
beyond his intention. That man, Eobert Eich, had played the same infamous
part in the trial of Fisher. One who fills the office of Chief Justice of England,
with the honesty that is an attribute of the judges of our time, speaks of Eich
as " one who has brought a greater stain upon the bar of England than any
member of the profession to which I am proud to belong." * No inquisitor
of the Holy Office ever abused the frankness of a prisoner more than this
base fellow, Eich, who was afterwards lord chancellor. He went to the Tower
¦with another person to remove More's books. The great scholar, seeing his
daily solace thus taken from him, preserves his equanimity while the cherished
volumes are being packed up. Eich, with the apparent friendUness that has
always marked the intercourse of lawyers, however different their opinions,
begins to talk about the great cause of dispute for which More was a
prisoner. '" Suppose there were an act of parliament that all men s"hould
take me for king," said Eich, " would not you take me for king ? " More,
who knew something of the history of the EngUsh monarchy, replied, " Tes,
sir, that I would. A parliament may make a king and depose him."t Eich
* Lord Campbell's "Lives of the Chancellors," vol, i, p, 570,
+ Mr, Fronde says, "If this was the constitutional theory, divine right wasa Stuart fiction,''
It was. In another place he holds, from this, that More had " repubUcau opinions." That does
not foUow,

864 DEATH OP FISHER AND MORE. [1535.
then said, " suppose there were an act of parUament that aU the realm should
take me for pope, would not you then take me for pope ?" More answered,
"your first question applied to temporal government — but suppose the
parUament should make a law that God should not be God, would you then,
Mr. Eich, say so ?" It was this conversation that " Mr. SoUcitor" betrayed
and exaggerated. More was moved to anger against this treachery, and told
Eich, in the course of his defence, that he " always lay under the odium of a
lying tongue ;" and that he had trusted no secret of his conscience respect
ing the king's supremacy to one of whom he had so mean an opinion. The
verdict of guilty was pronounced. He returned in a boat to the Tower ; and
there, when he landed, his daughter Margaret fell upon his neck, and
lovingly kissed him, again and again. On the 6th of July he was beheaded.
His composure and his harmless pleasantries, even when his head was on
the block, have been held by some as indicating a levity incompatible ¦with
true piety. One who himself knew how a Christian should die, has thus
spoken of More's demeanour : " That innocent mirth which had been so con
spicuous in his life, did not forsake him to the last. He maintained the same
cheerfulness of heart upon the scaffold which he used to show at his table.
His death was of a piece with his life. There was nothing in it new, forced,
or affected. He did not look upon the severing of his head from his body as
a circumstance that ought to produce any change in the disposition of his
mind ; and as he died under a fixed and settled hope of immortality, he
thought any unusual degree of sorrow or concern improper on such an
occasion as had nothing in it which could deject or terrify him."* That
Henry would show any mercy to Fisher, the friend of his infancy, or to
More, his able minister in many high offices, was not to be expected from his
nature. He felt towards his ex-chanceUor as he felt towards the old soldier
whom the earl of Sussex desired to spare, after his condemnation for having
been engaged in the Lancashire insurrection. Thus Henry decided in 1537 :
" Concerning the old man, whom you wrote to have respited, upon the
lamentation he made at the bar, and the aUegation of his service, thrice
heretofore against the Scots, and otherwise, done unto Us : Albeit we cannot
but take your stay [respite] of him in good part, yet, considering he hath so
often received our wages, and would nevertheless at the last be corrupted
against Us, we think him for an example more worthy to suffer than the rest,
that before had none experience of our princely puissance, nor had received
any benefit of Us ; and so remit him unto you to be executed, according to
his judgment given for his offences committed against Us."t We desire no
truer illustration of the character of this king. We must seek for its parallel
in Dante's " stream of blood,"
" Where tyrants their appointed doom receive." J

* Addison, " Spectator," No, 349,
+ State Papers, vol, j, p, 541, J "Inferno," canto xii. Wright's translation.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CromweU vicegerent — ^Visitation of the Monasteries — ^DeUnquencies of monastio inmates, in some
cases — Official corruption — Examples of duty performed by male and female heads of
houses — Dissolution of the smaUer monasteries — ParUamentary attempts to regulate
prices and the quaUty of manufactures — Such endeavours futile or injurious — Death of
Queen Catherine — May-day at Greenwich — Previous summoning of a special Commission
— Arrests — Queen Anne imprisoned in the Tower — Her deportment — Her letter to the
King — Cranmer's letter to him — True bUls found against Anne, her brother, and four
others — Trial of the four commoners — Trial of Anne Boleyn and Lord Roohfort — Execution
of the five men pronounced guUty — Account of the execution of Anne by an eye-witness
— ^Marriage of Henry to Jane Seymour — General remarks on the question of Anne Boleyn's
gmit or innocence — ParUament and a new law of succession — The Princess Mary.
Thomas Ceomweil has not suffered the grass to grow under his feet
since he went to the king, in 1529, to " make or mar it." During seven years
of momentous change, from the position of t^he servant of a fallen master —
very likely himself to be hanged, as some men said — he has been raised
through a succession of offices— master of the jewels, chancellor of the ex
chequer, secretary of state — to wield the most potent ecclesiastical authority
as the king's vicegerent. The archbishops and bishops may direct the
consciences of the clergy. CromweU will look after their revenues. It has
been truly observed that " Cromwell, after the faU of his master, Wolsey,
gained on the affections of Henry VIII. tiU he acquired as great an
ascendancy, and nearly as much power, as the cardinal had possessed during
the preceding part of the reign ; and, whatever office he happened to hold,
he was looked up to as the mover of the entire machine of the state," This

365 VISITATION OF THE MONASTERIES. [1536.
observation is founded upon the whole tone of official correspondence from
1531 to 1540, when this powerful minister feU from his slippery elevation.*
In that department of the British Museum caUed " the Cottonian Library,"
~-a most valuable collection of MSS. made by Sir Eobert Cotton early in
the seventeenth century — there is a volume of letters and documents which
furnish the most minute information as to the Visitation of the Monasteries,
— the measure which preceded their dissolution. In the Chapter-house at
Westminster were formerly many bundles of documents knovm as the
Cromwell Papers ; f from which the volume in the British Museum was
probably a selection. At various times some of these most curious papers
aave been pubUshed. They exhibit, not only the means of forming a correct
estimate of many of the real bearings of the great ecclesiastical revolution,
but furnish many incidental views of a condition of society which was soon
to be swept away, and leave no traces but ruined walls and sculptured
columns, where the ivy creeps and the bat hides. The first Statute for the
dissolution of the smaller monasteries, which immediately follows the
¦visitation of 1535-6, says, of " the smaU abbeys, priories, and other reUgious
houses of monks, canons, and nuns," that " many continual visitations have
been heretofore had, by the space of two hundred years and more." J Wolsey,
as we have seen, suppressed some of these houses ; and his servant Cromwell
had experience of the mode of conducting such operations. But Wolsey
appUed their revenues to noble uses. How CromweU applied them we feel
to this hour — every time that a church is to be buUt, or a school founded, by
voluntary aid.
In the height of summer in 1635, three learned doctors set forth upon
excursions into various parts of England, each having in his pocket a com
mission from the " vicegerent of the king in aU his ecclesiastical jurisdiction
within the realm." Dr. Layton is a most amusing correspondent of the
vicegerent ; and many a hearty laugh must there have been between the
minister and " sundry divers fresh and quick wits, pertaining to his famUy ;
by whose industry and ingenious labours divers exceUent ballads and books
were contrived and set abroad concerning the suppression of the pope and aU
popish idolatry." § Dr. Layton has capital stories to teU of the prior of
Maiden Bradley, in Wilts, about his relics ; and of his less ancient reaUties,
namely, sis children, of whom his sons " be tall men waiting upon him." ||
The worthy commissioner sent some of the curiosities to CromweU, such as
" Mary Magdalene's girdle." Articles of more intrinsic value were in his
keeping : " I have crosses of silver and gold, some which I send you not now,
because I have more that shall be deUvered me this night by the prior of
Maiden Bradley himself." The ¦visitors anticipated that clause of the Act for
the Suppression, which gave the king " aU the ornaments, jewels, goods, and
chattels" of the heads of the monastic houses, from the 1st of March, 1535.
This was a large power to be entrusted to the visitors, and they never
neglected to exercise it. They had rougher work to perform, which Dr. Layton,
* Introduction to State Papers, vol. i. part ii,
+ These are now in the Record Office, and the State Paper Office,
X 27 Hen, VIII, c, 28.
§ Fox, "Martyrs," quoted in Dr. Maitland's "Essays on the Reformation," p, 237.
II " Suppression of the Monasteries," p, 68.

1536.]

DELINQUENCIES OF MONKS.

867

at any rate, appears to have set about with hearty goodwill, however odious
that work may seem to our more fastidious notions of the office of a gentle
man. At Langdon, in Kent, was a smaU abbey, founded in 1192. It had
several doors besides the front gate — " starting-holes " as the commissioner
calls them. Dr. Layton comes suddenly upon Langdon, with his retinue ; and
descending from his horse orders his servants " surely to keep all back-doors
and starting-holes." The abbot's lodging joined upon the fields and wood ;
and there the commissioner knocked and knocked, but heard nothing, " saving
the abbot's little dog that, within his door fast locked, bayed and barked."
The valiant doctor of law seized a pole-axe, and dashed the abbot's door ia
pieces ; " and about house I go with the pole-axe in my hand, for the abbot
is a dangerous desperate knave, and a hardy." Out of one of the starting-
holes " rushed a tender demoiselle," who was conveyed to prison at Dover ;
" and I brought holy father abbot to Canterbury, and here in Christchurch
I wiU leave him in prison."'* There are too many such stories in these
letters. But we have one painful feeUng in reading them — even more
painful than the exposure of hypocrisy and licentiousness — the tone in which
these matters are spoken of. We heartily agree in the opinion of one who,
in common ¦with aU earnest men, hates scoffers : — " One would think that the
sight of such an abomination of desolation as they professed to see, must
have filled all who had anything Uke the love of God in their hearts, or even
the fear of God before their eyes, with grief and consternation." f
Dr. Layton and Dr. Legh have gone together to Fountains Abbey. They
¦write that the abbot is defamed by the whole people for his profiigate life, and

Fountiins Abbey,

for his dilapidation of the house and wasting of the woods. Before the com
missioners came he possessed himself of a jewel, and a cross of gold ; and sold
them, ¦with plate of the house, to a goldsmith of Cheap. The commissioners
properly compeUed the abbot to resign. He joined the Torkshire insurrec-

" Suppression of the Monasteries," p. 76.

t Maitland, p. 225.

368 OFFICIAL CORRUPTION. [1536.
tion in 1536, and was hanged. A writer who derives this relation from the
same source as ourselves, says that " tourists, who in their day-dreams among
these fair ruins are inclined to complain of the sacrilege which wasted the
houses of prayer," may study with advantage the account of the " moral
ruin," of which " the outward beautiful ruin was but a symbol and a conse
quence."* May we not add that the historian, who presents this account of
the low morality of the ancient clergy, might have also given us the fol
lowing glimpse of the noble aims of the new statesmen ? To CromweU, the
learned commissioners ¦wrote, in the same letter which describes the frauds of
the abbot, these significant words :— " There is a monk of the house, caUed
Marmaduke, to whom Mr. Timms left a prebend in Eipon church, now abiding
upon the same prebend, the wisest monk within England of that coat, and well
learned — twenty years officer and ruler of all that house, — a wealthy feUow,
which will give you six hundred marks to make him abbot there, and pay you
immediately after the election."t That this mode of propitiating favour was
perfectly understood before the final destruction of the monastic houses was
resolved upon, may be inferred from a letter of Latimer, of all men ; who
does not hesitate to write to CromweU to avert the suppression of the priory
of Great Malvern, by saying, " If five hundred marks to the king's highness,
with two hundred marks to yourself for your good wiU, might occasion the
promotion of his intent, at least way for the time of his life, he doubteth not
to make his friends for the same."J
But, however Latimer, in common with other honest men, might have
compromised with the poUtical corruption of the time, he appears at this
stage of the Eeformation, and indeed at a later period, not to have thought
that an unmixed good was to be attained by the total annihUation of the
religious houses. Pleading for this prior of Great Malvern, he says, " He
would be an humble suitor to your lordship, and by the same to the king's
good grace, for the upstanding of his foresaid house, and continuance of the
same to many good purposes ; not in monkery, he meaneth not so, God for
bid; but any other ways as should be thought and seem good to the king's
majesty, as to maintain teaching, preaching, study with praying, and, to the
which he is much given, good housekeeping, for to the virtue of hospitality he
hath been greatly inclined from his beginning." § In a sermon before
Edward VI. Latimer says, " Abbeys were ordained for the comfort of the
poor." II That the monastic establishments might have been retained, or their
revenues appUed, for purposes of Christian education, was the opinion of the
more conscientious reformers. That retreats for females, set apart from the
world to do offices of piety and charity, would be institutions compatible ¦with
the most enlarged freedom of religious opinion, is not disproved by any allega
tions of the laxity of some nunneries, when thousands of helpless beings
were turned forth, under vows of chastity, into a world for the struggles of
which they were so unfitted. The abbot of Faversham, who had been in his
office from the time of Henry VIL, was threatened with removal on account
of his advanced age. The old man had some ideas of what his duties were,
when he wrote, " If the chief office and profession of an abbot be, as I have
* Froude, vol, ii. p. 423. t "Suppression efthe Monasteries,'' p. 101,
X Ibid,, p, 149, § Ibid., p, 149, 1| Fii-st Sermon before Edward VI.

1536.] DISSOLUTION OP THE SMALLER MONASTERIES. 369
ever taken it, to live chaste and solitarUy, to be separate from the intro-
meddling of worldly things, to serve God quietly, to distribute his faculties in
refreshing of poor indigent persons, to have a vigilant eye to the good order
and rule of his house and the flock to him committed in God, I trust, your
favour and benevolence obtained (whereof I right humbly require you), I
myself may and am as weU able yet now to supply and continue these parts
as ever I was in all my Ufe."'* Let us not, in charity, believe that aU these
men were of lying tongues and evil lives. Let us not imagine that all nuns
were sensual and ignorant. The very commissioners themselves speak of
many nunneries as above all suspicion. The prioress of Catesby is represented
as a wise, discreet, and very religious woman ; her nuns devout and of good
obedience, " The said house standeth in such a quarter, much to the relief
of the king's people, and his grace's poor subjects there likewise more
relieved,"t If we may form an opinion from the preamble of the statute of 1536, by
which religious houses not above the yearly value of two hundred pounds
were given to the king, the framers of the act, and the parliament which
assented to it, intended the suppression of the monasteries there to stop.
The statute proposes that the members of the smaller houses shall be removed
to " divers great and solemn monasteries of this realm, wherein, thanks be to
God, reUgion is right weU kept and observed." This was deliberately
asserted, after the visitation had been proceeding for more than six months.
The statute of 1539, simply entitled, "An Act for dissolution of Abbeys,"
swept the whole monastic system away, without assigning any reason beyond
the flagrant untruth, that the abbots, abbesses, and other governors of the
houses, ''of their own free and voluntary minds, goodwills, and assents,
without constraint, coaction, or compulsion," had since the 4th of February,
1536, assigned their possessions to the king, and renounced aU title to the
same. We merely notice this final act of confiscation here ; and pass on to
the general course of our narrative.
The act for the dissolution of the smaller religious houses was passed in
March. The parliament was dissolved on the 4th of April. It had existed
for seven years, durmg which it had assisted in some of the greatest changes
of internal poUcy which England had ever witnessed. It had laboured, too,
as previous parliaments had laboured, in devising remedies for social evils,
after the prescriptive fashion of believing that laws could regulate prices, and
that industry was to be benefited by enacting how manufacturers should tan
leather or dye cloth, and what trades should be carried on in particulac
towns. It is held to be evidence of the calmness vrith which the statesmei
of this parUament proceeded in their great work of ecclesiastical reform, that
they passed " acts to protect the public against the frauds of money-making
tradesmen ; to provide that shoes and boots should be made of honest leather ;
that food should be sold at fair prices ; that merchants should part with their
goods at fair profits." Such battles against "those besettuig basenesses of
human nature, now held to be so invincible that the infiuences of them are
assumed as the fundamental axioms of economic science," are declared
to be more glorious " than even the English constitution or the EngUsh
* "Suppression," &c. p, 104. + EUis, First Series, vol. ii. p. 72.
VOL. II. B B

S70 ECONOMIC STATUTES— DEATH OP CATHERINE. [1536.
liturgy." * Without looking further than the records of this parliament, we
may venture to suggest that these ¦victories had no permanent influence in
making any product cheaper or better, but were the greatest obstacles to
improvement, and therefore prevented a wider diffusion of things convenient
for man. Was the manufacture of cloth likely to be improved, when the
various dyeing woods that were brought to Europe after the discovery of
America — "Brazil, and such other like subtleties" — were forbidden to be
used ? t Could the yeoman and the labourer obtain a better or a cheaper
coat, when graziers and husbandmen were prohibited from weaving, fuUing,
or shearing cloth in their houses ? J The statutes for regulating the prices of
land confess the utter fruitlessness of such enactments : " Forasmuch as
dearth, scarcity, good cheap and plenty of cheese, butter, capons, hens,
chickens, and other victuals necessary of man's sustenance, happeneth, riseth,
and chanceth of so many and divers occasions, that it is very hard and difficult
to put any certain prices to any such things," — yet, upon any complaint of
the enhancing of prices "without reasonable cause," proclamation shall be
made at what rate they shall be sold.§ One more glimpse at these notable
expedients "to compel all classes of persons to be true men " in spite of "the
fundamental axioms of economic science." The regulating parliament
decrees that flesh is to be sold by weight ; that beef and pork are to be sold
at a halfpenny a pound ; and mutton and veal at three farthings, || But there
are some others to be consulted in this matter besides the butchers. What
if the graziers wUl not sell fat cattle to the butchers at a proportionate rate ?
The next session an act is passed to compel them.^ But one inevitable con
sequence ensues — it is not remunerative to the graziers to breed and fatten
cattle; so in two years more a scarcity ensues, the direct result of the
legislation. And then, " the king's highness, well considering the great dearth
of all manner of victuals which be now, and since the making of the said
statutes," suspends their operations for four years, and leaves graziers and
butchers to settle the prices of meat "without pain, imprisonment, forfeiture,
or penalty." **
In the last days of December, 1535, "the Lady Dowager" Ues on her
death-bed at Kimbolton. Her physician " moved her to take more counsel
of physic : whereunto she answered she would in no wise have any other
physician, but only commit herself to the pleasure of God." ft In her last
hours she wrote a brief letter to Henry ; chiefly to commend her daughter
and her maids to his respect. Its opening sentence was one of solemn
warning : " The hour of my death now approaching, I cannot choose but,
out of the love I bear you, advise you of your soul's health, which
you ought to prefer before aU considerations of the world or flesh
whatsoever ; for which yet you have cast me into many calamities, and
yourself into many troubles. But I forgive you aU, and pray God to do
so likewise." The world and the flesh were to bring that man into other
troubles, and produce even more terrible calamities. Catherine died on the
7th of January, 1536.
* Froude, "Hiptory," vol. i. p. 405. f 24 Hen. VIII. o. 2.
X 25 Hen. VIIL c. 18. § 25 Hen. VIII. e. 2. || 24 Hen. VIII. c. 3,
H 25 Hen. VIIL c. 1. * * 27 Hen, VIII. c. 9.
tt Bedyngfield to Cromwell, December 31. State Papers, vol. i. p. 451.

1536.] DANGERS OP ANNE BOLEYN. 371
In the February following, Anne Boleyn had a premature delivery of a
dead son. There was again disappointment to the king. His desire for an
heir had become a passion, — more dangerous in mingling with his incon
stancy and caprice, and his sensual estimate of the female character.
There is a beautiful passage in the " Memoir of Anne Boleyn," by George
Wyatt, written at the close of the 16th century, but unpublished till our
ovm times, in which, speaking of this February of 1536, he says of the queen :
" Being thus a woman full of sorrow, it was reported that the king came to
her, and bewailing and complaining unto her of the loss of his boy, some
words were heard break out of the inward feeling of her heart's dolours,
lajdng the fault upon unkindness." He adds, "Wise men in those days
judged that her virtues were here her defaults ; and that if her too much love
could as weU as the other queen have borne vrith his defect of love, she
might have faUen into less danger," Catherine bore her fate patiently, as
long as she was queen. Anne could not bear to hold the dignity as a
neglected ¦wife. However justly we may blame the weakness of Anne in
permitting the royal lover to be for years at her feet, while the question of
the divorce was depending, we see, after the marriage, a frank and affectionate
helpmate, — cheerful, gay — ("the lark is gay, the innocent are gay,") — kind
to her dependents ; earnest in looking at the Scriptures as the rule of life ;
of unbounded charity. " She had distributed, in the last nine months of her
life, between fourteen and fifteen thousand pounds to the poor." * But she
had bitter enemies. She was regarded as a heretic ; and no suspicion could
more ensure her the king's hatred than this ; — nor the hatred of her uncle,
the duke of Norfolk. The moment it was perceived that the king was cooling
upon his "most entirely beloved wife," as he had so often proclaimed her
to be, there were agents ready to procure her ruin. A poet — and poets
sometimes see as clearly as historians into the secret passages of the past —
has connected the faU of Anne Boleyn with the machinations which were
prompted by " that awful spirit of fanaticism — the more awful, because strictly
conscientious — which was arrayed against our early Eeformers." f The
Society of which Loyola was the founder was not regularly organised till
1540 ; but his most energetic proselytes were earlier in full activity. With
such secret agents about Henry, to hint that the want of an heir was an
intimation of heaven's displeasure at his second marriage, as of the first ;
with Gardiner abroad, to suggest that the emperor would never acknowledge
the lawfulness of the issue of queen Anne ; with one in the court, young and
fair, with whom the king had evidently a perfect understanding ; and with
Anne herself, having habitually an unconstrained demeanour to those about
her, which might be construed into levity and even guUt, — there could be no
great difficulty in setting "the sordid slave" Audley, and "the base and
profligate " Eich — (we use Lord Campbell's designations of these men) — ^to
manufacture evidence, and to ground indictments for treason upon a statute
that admitted of no such construction. There were secret investigations going
on in April, Henry, according to his rule and habit, was smiling upon his
victim whUe the axe was sharpening. He had long practised the art of
* Bumet, book iii.
+ MUman, Introduction to " Anne Boleyn ; a Dramatic Poem." EB 2

372 MAT-DAY AT GREENWICH— ARRESTS. [1536.
hiding his thoughts under the mask of familiarity and kindness. " Three
may keep counsel," he said to Cavendish, "if two be away ; and if I thought
that my cap knew my counsel, I would cast it into the fire and bum
it." * And so, after a special commission was ordered to assemble, notice
having been issued on the 24th of AprU, the usual festivities took place
at Greenwich on the 1st of May ; and Henry sate by the side of Anne
as they gazed upon the tournament. In the lists was her brother, lord
Eochfort — one of that band of courtly poets who engrafted the smooth
ness of Italian verse upon our rougher English — the contemporary of
Surrey and Wyatt — the accomplished scholar — the courtier of " admirable
discourse." He was soon to say, as in a poem attributed to him, " My lute
be stUl, for I have done."t A.t that tournament lord Eochfort was the
chaUenger of sir Henry Norris. To the real incidents of that day, which we
may sufficiently trace from authentic relations, report added that Anne
dropped a handkerchief which Norris picked up, and that Henry's jealousy
was thus stung into madness. Hall, who in his Chronicle is excessively
brief in his relations of these events, says, " On May-day were a solemn justs
kept at Greenwich ; and suddenly from the justs the king departed, having
not above six persons ¦with him, and came in the evening from Greenwich in
his place at Westminster. Of this sudden departing many men mused, but
most chiefly the queen." One who was a servant of sir Henry Norris has given
ns a gUmpse of what passed in this hasty ride to London of the king and his
six attendants. " Upon May-day, Mr. Norris justed ; and, after justing, the
king rode suddenly to Westminster ; and aU the way, as I heard say, had
Mr. Norris in examination, and promised him his pardon in case he would
utter the truth. But what soever could be said or done, Mr. Norris would
confess nothing to the king ; whereupon he was committed to the Tower in
the morning," J Of Anne's position and behaviour, on that night of doubt
and fear when the king left her at Greenwich, we hear nothing. From
Tuesday, the 2nd of May, to the day of her death on Friday the 19th, the
record is very clear of the mode in which she bore her inflictions. The letters
of the constable of the Tower, sir William Kingston, tell the unhappy story
very fuUy,§
It appears that the queen was examined by some of the councU at Green
wich. " I was cruelly handled at Green^wich," she says to Kingston, " with
the king's council, with my lord of Norfolk : he said, ' tut, tut, tut,' and
shaking his head three or four times." They accompanied her to the Tower,
on the 2nd, and on their departing, says Kingston, " I went before the queen
into her lodging ; and then she said unto me, ' Mr. Kingston, shall I go into
a dungeon ?' ' No, madam ; you shall go into your lodging that you lay in at
your coronation.' ' It is too good for me,' she said, ' Jesu, have mercy on
me ;' and kneeled down weeping a great pace, and in the same sorrow feU to
a great laughing, and she hath done so many times since." She desired to
• "Life of Wolsey," p, 399,
+ See -Warton's "English Poetry," Park's edit,, vol, iii, p, 316.
X From a memorial to Cromwell, by George Constantine, giving an account of a conversation
wliich he held in Pembrokeshire. ' ' Archaologia, " vol, xxiii,
§ These letters were much injured by fire in the Cotton Library in 1 731 . Strype had printed
many passages entire, copied before the fire. We give the extracts as they stand in Mr. Singer's
edition of Cavendiah.

1536.] ANNE BOLEYN IN THE TO^WER, 373
have the sacrament in her chamber, that she might pray for mercy ; " for I am
as clear from the company of men, as for sin, as I am clear from you, and am
the king's true wedded wife." She pressed Kingston to know where lord
Rochfort was — " O, where is my sweet brother ?" She exclaimed, " O
Norris, hast thou accused me ; thou art in the Tower with me, and thou and
1 shaU die together: and, Mark, art thou here too?" The cruel handling
of the council was upon her mind, Mark was the musician — his name
Smeaton. The memorial of Constantine thus speaks of him : " I cannot teU
how he was examined ; but upon May-day in the morning he was in the
Tower. The truth is, he confessed it ; but yet the saying was that he was
first grievously racked." According to Kingston, the queen kept harping
upon Norris, and speaking of him as if he had made advances to her, for
which she had reproved him, and said she could undo him if she would. She
had been persuaded that Norris had spoken lightly of her, but Norris had
said to her almoner that he would swear she was a good woman. This talk
does not appear to have chiefly taken place before the constable of the Tower,
but was reported to him by one Mistress Cosyn, who was appointed to Ue
with the queen on her pallet, — lady Boleyn, her uncle's wife aud her domestic
enemy, being also there. Out of such talk it would be easy to prepare solemn
depositions ; and Kingston, with the true wisdom of the gaoler-spy, says, " I
liave everything told me by Mistress Cosyn that she thinks meet fpr me to
know." The queen spake, too, of Weston (sir Francis Weston), who had
said that he loved her ; and in telling this, " she defied him." From time to-
time her mind is dweUing upon the threats and insinuations of Norfolk and
the king's council, as these treacherous women question her ; and she wanders
in her distracted talk from one to the other of those who had been mentioned
as being implicated in her dishonour. There is nothing which indicates any
thing more than the affection which these men naturally bore to a kind and
perhaps too condescending mistress, in any one of her rambling and indiscreet
sentences. It would be difficult to extract a proof of guilt, or even of levity,
from this her account of the poor musician, Mark. At Winchester he came
to her lodging to play upon the virginals : " I never spake with him since,
but upon Saturday before May-day, and then I found him standing in the
round window in my chamber of presence ; and I asked why he was so sad,
and he answered and said it was no matter ; and then she said, ' Tou may not
look to have me speak to you as I should to a nobleman, because you be an
inferior person.' ' No, no, madam, a look sufficed me.' "
When the queen first came into the Tower, she said, " Mr. Kingston,
shall I die ¦without justice?" and he answered "the poorest subject the
king hath has justice ; " and therewith she laughed. It was the laugh of
despair. Tet she made an effort to touch the heart of the king ; and she
said to Kingston, " I shaU desire you to bear a letter from me to Master
Secretary." A copy of a letter to the king, with the words written upon it,
" From the Lady in the Tower," is to be seen amongst the Cotton MSS. in the
British Museum. The handwriting is supposed to be of the latter time of
Henry VIII. It has been much injured by fire ; but the entire letter, with
which this burnt MS, corresponds in the parts untouched, is printed in Lord
Herbert's history, and by Burnet, who refers to the MS, in a marginal note.
We make no apology for printing this beautiful composition at length ; whose

374 HER LETTER TO THE KING. [1536.
authenticity sir James Mackintosh and sir Henry EUis concur in believing,
as weU as Mr. Froude, who has no beUef in Anne Boleyn's innocence :—
" Sir, — Tour grace's displeasure, and my imprisonment, are things so
strange unto me, as what to write, or what to excuse, I am altogether ignorant.
Whereas you send unto me (wiUing me to confess a truth, and so obtain
your favour) by such an one whom you know to be mine ancient professed
enemy, I no sooner received this message by him, than I rightly conceived
your meaning; and if, as ypu say, confessing a truth indeed may procure
my safety, I sliall with all wilUngness and duty perform your command.
" But let not your grace ever imagine that your poor wife will ever be
brought to acknowledge a fault, where not so much as a thought thereof
preceded. And, to speak a truth, never prince had wife more loyal in all
duty, and in aU true affection, than you have ever found in Anne Boleyn, with
which name and place I could wUlingly have contented myself, if God and
ypur grace's pleasure had been sp pleased. Neither did I at any time so
far fprget myself in my exaltatien, or received queenship, but that I always
looked for such an alteration as now I find ; for, the ground of my prefer
ment being on no surer foundation than your grace's fancy, the least
alteration was fit and sufficient, I knew, to draw that fancy to some other
subject. Tou have chosen me, from a low estate, to be your queen and
companion, far beyond my desert or desire. If then you found me worthy
of such honour, good your grace let not any light fancy, or bad counsel of
mine enemies, ¦withdraw your princely favour from me ; neither let that stain,
that unworthy stain of a disloyal heart towards your good grace, ever cast so
foul a blot on your most dutiful wife, and the infant princess your daughter.
Try me, good king ; but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn
enemies sit as my accusers and judges : yea, let me receive an open trial, for
my truth shaU fear no ppen shame. Then shall yen see, either mine innecency
cleared, yeur suspicipn and ccnscience satisfied, the ignominy and slander of
the world stopped, or my guilt openlv declared. So tbat, whatsoever God or
you may determine of, your grace may be freed from an open censure ; and
mine offence being so lawfully proved, your grace is at liberty, both before
God and man, not only to execute worthy punishment on me as an
unfaithful wife, but to fpUpw your affection already settled on that party,
for whose sake I am now as I am, whose name I could some good while
since have pointed unto : your grace being not ignorant of my suspicion
therein. " But, if you have already determined of me, and that not only my death,
but an infamous slander must bring you the enjoying of your desired
happiness ; then I desire of God, that he will pardon your great sin thereia,
and likewise my enemies, the instruments thereof ; and that he will not call
you to a strait account for your nnprincely and cruel usage of me, at his
great judgment seat, where both you and myself must shortly appear, and in
whose just judgment, I doubt not, whatsoever the world may think of me,
mine innocence shall be openly known, and sufficiently cleared.
" My last and only request shall be, that myself may only bear the
burthen of your grace's displeasure, and that it may not touch the innocent
souls of those poor gentlemen who, as I understand, are likewise in strait

1536,] CRANMER'S LETTER TO THE KING, 375
imprisonment for my sake. If I ever have found favour in your sight ; if
ever the name of Anne Boleyn hath been pleasing in your ears, then let me
obtain this request ; and so I wUl leave to trouble your grace any further,
with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity to have your grace in his good
keeping, and to direct you in aU your actions. From my doleful prison in
the Tower, this sixth of May. " Tour most loyal and ever faithful wife,
"Anne Boletn." *
The day after Anne had been imprisoned in the Tower, Cranmer wrote a
remarkable letter to the king.f He commences by saying that he had been
commanded by Mr, Secretary, in the king's name, to repair to Lambeth, and
there to wait his pleasure. Out of kindness or poUcy his aid in the inquiries
of the councU was thus forbidden. He then adverts to the common rumour,
and to the consequent " deep sorrows of your grace's heart," and thus pro
ceeds : — " I cannot deny but your grace hath great causes many ways of
lamentable heaviness ; and also that in the wrongful estimation of the world
your grace's honour of every part is so highly touched (whether the things
that cpmmonly be spoken of be true or not), that I remember not that ever
Almighty God sent your grace any like occasion to try your grace's constancy
throughout, whether your highness can be content to take of God's hand as
well things displeasant as pleasant," He then proceeds to exhort the king to
imitate the example of Job, in his " ¦wUUng acceptation of God's scourge and
rod," After this intreduction he summons courage to come to the point upon
which it required all his discretion to speak : — " And if it be true that is
openly reported of the queen's grace, if men had a right estimation of things
they should not esteem any part of your grace's honour to be touched thereby,
but her honour only to be clearly disparaged. And I am in such a perplexity
that my mind is clean amazed. For I never had better opinion in woman
than I had in her, which maketh me to think, that she should not be culpable.
And again, I think your highness would not have gone so far, except she had
surely been culpable. Now I think that youf grace best knoweth, that next
unto your grace I was most bound unto her of all creatures living. Wherefore
I most humbly beseech your grace to suffer me in that, which both God's law,
nature, and alsp her kindness bindeth me untp, that is, that I may with ypur
grace's favpur wish and pray for her, that she may declare herself inculpable
and innocent. And if she be found culpable, considering your grace's good
ness towards her, and from what condition your grace of your only mere
goodness took her, and set the cro^wn upon her head, I repute him not your
grace's faithful servant and subject, nor true unto the realm, that would not
desire the offence without mercy to be punished, to the example of aU other.
And as I loved her not a little, for the love which I judged her to bear towards
God and his gospel ; so if she be proved cxUpable, there is not one that loveth
God and his gospel that ever wUl favour her, but must hate her above all
* The force and elegance of the diction have led some to believe that this letter was beyond
the ability of Anne. Its modern form has, perhaps, been injurious to a conviction of its authen
ticity ; and therefore we append it as a note, as the MS, now exhibits it, with the mutilated part
in italics. (See end of this chapter,)
t This letter is uriuted by Bumet (book iu,), who says he copied it &om the originaL

376 TRUE BILLS FOUND AGAINST ANNE AND OTHERS. [1SS6.
other ; and the more they favour the gospel, the more they wiU hate her. For
then there was never creature in our time that so much slandereth the gospel.
And God hath sent her this punishment, for that she feignedly hath professed
his gospel in her mouth, and not in heart and deed." What foUows very
clearly indicates the inclination of Anne to a true reform of religion, founded
upon the knowledge of the Scriptures; and the influence which she had
exercised upon Henry's opinions. But it also shows how wavering Cranmer
thought the mind of that man who bore a two-edged sword, to punish those
v/ho clung to the papal power and those who sought any expansion of spiritual
beUef. " I trust that your grace wiU bear no less entire favour unto the
truth of tho gospel than you did before: forasmuch as your grace's favour to
the gospel was not led by affection unto her, but by zeal unto the truth."
lien comes this significant postscript : —
" After I had written this letter unto your grace, my lord chanceUor, my
lord of Oxford, my lord of Sussex, and my lord chamberlain of your grace's
house, sent for me to come unto the Star Chamber ; and there declared unto
lae such things as your grace's pleasure was they should make me privy unto.
I'or the which I am most bounden unto your grace. And what com
munication we had together, I doubt not but they ¦wiU make the true report
tbereof unto your grace. I am exceedingly sorry, that such faults can be
proved by the queen, as I heard of their relation. But I am, and ever shall
be, your faithful subject." When Cranmer knew nothing of the charges
against the queen, he used very strong language, — " offence without mercy
tD be punished" — " God hath sent her this punishment." When the lord
chancellor, and others, have made him privy to such things as the king
desired him to know, he is only " exceedingly sorry that such faults can be
proved by [of] the queen as I heard of their relation." If he had heard
enough to justify a charge " without mercy to be punished," would he not
have used even stronger language than in the first portion of his letter ?
The charges against the queen were so awful, as set forth upon her so-caUed
trial, that he must have suppressed that letter which said, " I never had
better opinion in woman than I had in her, which maketh me to think that
she should not be culpable."
On the 10th and 11th of November true bUls were found by grand-
juries of Middlesex and of Kent, against the queen, her brother, Henry
Norris, WiUiam Brereton, Francis Weston, and Mark Smeaton, setting
forth that the queen had incited them, including lord Eochfort, to commit
the most odious crime ; that they had at various times compassed and
imagined the king's death; and that the king, "having within a short time
before become acquainted with the before-mentioned crimes, vices, and
treasons, had been so grieved that certain harms and dangers had happened
to his royal body." The grand-juries that found that the disease which was
incident to the king's gross habit, and pf which he died — tUceratipn of the
legs — was produced by grief — a grief so short-lived as to permit him to
marry again within nine days of this finding — were not likely to be very
scrupulous upon returning true bills to any indictment presented to them.
On the 12th of May, the four commoners were tried by a jury at West
minster. They were convicted, and were executed on the 17th. These four
men did not confess upon the scaffold to the crimes with which they were

1536,] TRIALS AND EXECUTIONS. 377
accused. As men about to die they confessed their sins generally. According
to the letter of a bystander, " who heard them, and wrote every word they
spake," * Norris said that he deserved to die, " but the cause wherefore I
die judge not, but if ye judge, judge the best." Of the other three he says
that they " in a manner " confessed all. But when he comes te particulars
the " all " evaporates in general admissions of a sinful life. A Portuguese,
who has given a most minute account of these executions, says, of the four
commoners, " they besought the bystanders to pray for them, and that they
yielded themselves to death with joy and exceeding gladness." f
The last scene of this dismal tragedy quickly opens. On the 15th of
May a select number of peers assembled in the Tower — twenty-seven in
aU. The duke of Norfolk presided. The queen was arraigned; and
pleaded not guilty. There is no record pf the trial ; np tittle of the
evidence is preserved. The verdict was " Guilty;" the judgment," to be
beheaded or burned at the king's pleasure."' The same form was gone
through with lord Eochfort; ¦with the usual sentence of death for treason.
La-wyers are perplexed now to know under what statute any one of
those accused could have been found guilty of treason. The evidence was
not open to the world, for the proceeding "was enclosed in strong waUs." J
A Flemish gentleman, in London at the time, complains of the absence of
witnesses upon these trials. Then, and long after, in trials for high treason the
witnesses were not confronted with the prisoners ; and it was held suffi
cient to read out their depositions. We can thus, easUy understand how, on
such a state-trial, to be accused was necessarily to be condemned. On the
morning of her execution, Anne Boleyn requested Kingston to be present
whUe she received the sacrament, and then declared her "innocency." She
had been brought before Cranmer, before her trial, to be examined upon
some mysterious point which enabled him to pronounce a sentence of divorce.
Burnet says it was in cpnsequence ef a pre-contract with the earl of North
umberland. This the earl denied upon oath. When she died for aUeged
adultery, she was by law proclaimed not to have been the king's wife at all.
Lord Eochfort was executed with the four commoners on the 17th of
May. On the 19th, Anne was brought out to die on the Tower-green.
Kingston thus wrote of his last interview with her within the prison- walls :
"She sent for me, and at my coming she said, ' Mr. Kingston, I hear say I
shall not die afore noon, and I am very sorry therefpre ; fpr I thpught then
to be dead and past my pain.' I told her it should be no pain, it was
so subtle. And then she said, ' I heard say the executioner was very good,
and I have a little neck,' and put her hand about it, laughing heartily. I
have seen many men and also wpmen executed, and they have been in great
sprrpw ; and tp my knpwledge this lady hath much jey and pleasure ia
death." The Pprtuguese sojourner in London has left the most detaUed account
of this deed, which startled Europe as much as the cruel end of Fisher and
More. Anne was beheaded with a sword, " which thing had not before been
-* Constantino's Letter to Cromwell, in "Archsaologia,"
t Letter written from London on the 10th of June, from a Portuguese gentleman to a friend
in Lisbon, translated by Lord Strangford, " Excerpta Historica," p, 26Q,
X Wyatt.

378 EXECUTION OF ANNE. [1536
seen in this land of England." She was habited in a robe of black damask.
The speech which the foreigner assigns to her differs in no essentials from
that given by Stow, but is somewhat fuller ; and is not open to the suspicion
of being curtailed by the English chroniclers of the time : " ' Good friends, I
am net cpme here tp excuse or to justify myself, forasmuch as I know fuU weU
that aught that I could say in my defence doth not appertain unto you, and
that I could draw no hope of Ufe from the same. But I come here only to die,
and thus to yield myself humbly to the wUl of the king my lord. And if in
my Ufe I did ever offend the king's grace, surely with my death I do now
atone for the same. And I blame not my judges, nor any other manner of
person, nor anything save the cruel law of -the land by which I die. But be
this, and be my faults as they may, I beseech you aU, good friends, to pray for
the life of the king my sovereign lord and yours, who is one of the best
princes on the face of the earth, and who hath always treated me so well, that
better could not be : wherefore I submit to death with a good--wiU, humbly
asking pardon of aU the world.' Then with her own hands, she took her
coifs from her head, and delivered them to pne pf her ladies, and then putting
en a little cap pf linen to cover her hair withal, she said, ' Alas, poor head !
in a very brief space thou -wUt roll in the dust on this scaffold ; and as in life
thou didst not merit to wear the crown of a queen, so in death, thou deservest
not a better depm than this. And ye, my damsels, who, whUst I Uved, ever
shewed yourselves so diligent in my service, and who are now to be present
at my last hour and mortal agony, as in good fortune ye were faithful to me,
so even at this my miserable death ye do not forsake me. And as I cannot
reward you for your true service to me, I pray you take comfort for my loss ;
howbeit, forget me not ; and be always faithful to the king's grace, and to her
whom with happier fortune ye may have as your queen and mistress. And
esteem your honour far beyond ypur life ; and in ypur prayers tp the Lerd
Jesu, forget not to pray for my soul.'
" And being minded to say no more, she knelt down upon both knees, and
one of her ladies covered her eyes with a bandage, and then they -withdrew
themselves seme little space, and knelt dewn pver against the scaffold,
bewailing bitterly and shedding many tears. And thus, and -without mpre to
say or do, was her head stricken off ; she making no confession of her fault,
and only saying, ' 0 Lord God, have pity on my spul ; ' and pne pf her
ladies then tpok up the head, and the others the body, and covering them
-with a sheet, did put them into a chest which there stood ready, and carried
them to the church which is within the Tower."
There is nothing which the Drama could add to move terror and pity,
when the curtain should drop upon the closing scene of this tragedy. But
History has one fact to add, still more awful. It is the one fact which shows
us how more terrible is the condition of a man utterly heartless and shameless,
who, having moved aU the instruments of so-called justice to accomplish the
death of the wife of his most ardent devotion — and having in this accompUsh
ment also procured her child to be held Ulegitimate, as he had willed as to tho
chUd of a former wife — at length is joyous and triumphant. Queen Anne
was beheaded on the 19th of May. On the 20th Henry was married to Jane
Seympur. The council exhorted him, we are told, to marry immediately,
for a state necessity. Nature cries out against the outrage upon aU tho

1536,]

HENRY'S MARRIAGE TO JANE SEYMOUR,

379

decencies of life ; but the poUtical philosopher says, " he looked upon
matrimony as an indifferent official act which his duty required at the
moment," * We can find np reasonable cause to doubt that from the first
step to the last, the charge was got up, the indictments prepared, the juries
selected, the peers upon the trial nominated, the marriage with Jane Seymour
settled, — and last, but not least significant fact, a new parliament called for
the sole purpose of making a new law of succession, before the cannon of the
Tower had announced that Anne had perished. That parliament met on the
8th of June. We know not the date of the writs of summons ; but it was
absolutely impossible that the electiens cculd have taken place, and Peers and
Cemmpns have been in their places within eighteen days ef the executicn pf
Anne, had net those writs been issued at the same time as the order for a
special commission was issued, namely, on the 24th of April. Even this date

Queen Jane Seymour. From a dra-wing by Holbein

The writs for a new parliament were
The death of the queen was manifestly

would only aUpw fprty-three days.
usuaUy returnable in three mpnths.
" a foregone conclusion."
The recent historian of this period, as we venture to think, has carried
his admiration of the self-asserting force of character in Henry VIII.
to an extent which blinds him to the hideousness of the acts in which that
force is too often exhibited. Mr. Froude has given us this alternative — ^to
* Froude, "History,'' vol, ii, p, 502.

380 GUILTY OR INNOCENT? [1536.
receive his history, in its endeavours to prove a " human being sinful whom
the world has ruled to be innocent," as " a re-assertion of the truth, or the
shame of noble names which have not deserved it at our hands." * Which
are the " noble names ? " Cranmer ? the amiable and timid, who furnishes
the most direct evidence that he believed in Anne's innocence, but did not
dare to assert it. CromweU ? to whom his master's word was as the breath
of his nostrUs. Audley ? who in begging, again, and again, fpr a due share
ef the plunder pf the mpnasteries, makes this forcible appeal to the king's
favour, " I have in this world sustained great damage and infamy in serving
the king's highness, which this grant shall recompense." Eich ? the betrayer
of Fisher and More — the branded perjurer — the slavish flatterer, who, when
Speaker of the House of Commons in 1537, compared Henry to Solomon for
prudence, to Samson for strength, and to Absalom for beauty, — the very sun
which warmed and enlightened the universe. Norfolk ? the declared enemy
of his niece, Anne, — he, who upon an offence given to Henry by some of his
family, in 1541, deprecates the anger of the king by avowing that he had
betrayed the words of his mother-in-law ; and, using not the language of an
EngUshman but of a slave dreading the bowstring, lays himself at Henry's
feet as a "poor ¦wretch," and claims as a merit, "the smaU love my two false
traitorous nieces, [Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard] and my mother-iu-
law, have borne unto me." t FitzwiUiam ? who is distinctly accused, in
Constantino's letter to CromweU, of having deceived the unhappy Norris into
making spme false cenfessiens, which he recanted in the most positive manner
upon his arraignment and at his execution — FitzwiUiam ? the king's treasurer,
to whom Baynton deplores that only onewUl confess — (the racked musician),
" wherefore it should much touch the king's honour if no further appear."
The lives of six persons were as nothing compared with " the king's honour."
Such are some of the leading men in this prpceeding — the " noble names " that
are to make us accept the accusations against Anne Boleyn, as confirmed by her
judges, " as proofs of Holy Writ." We are told that, ' ' if the Catholics could
have fastened the stain of murder on the king and the statesmen of England,
they would have struck the faith of the Establishment a harder blow than by a
poor tale of scandal against a weak, erring, suffering woman : " and that " the
Protestants, in mistaken generosity, have courted au infamy for the names of
those to whpm they pwe their being, which, staining the fcuntain, must stain
fpr ever the stream which fiews frpm it." Are we fer ever tp read history under
the fear that if we trust to the everlasting principles of justice — ^to our hatred
of pppressien— tp pur ccntempt for sycophancy and worldly-mindedness — we
may be " staining the fountain " which we regard as a weU of life ? Is there
no firmer resting-place for true thought than is to be found in the debateable
ground between Catholics and Protestants ? Is there no common platform
of historical evidence upon which both can meet to examine such questions
honestly and temperately ? What, in truth, have the personal motives which
led to the rejection of papal supremacy — what the seizure of first fruits and
tenths by the crown — what the avarice that prompted the destruction of
the monasteries — what the burnings for heresy — what the '' six articles " of
1539, by which aU men were to be " regimented " into belief — what have
¦* Froude, vol. ii, p. 540, t State Papers, vol. i. p. 721.

1536.]

GUILTY OR INNOCENT?

381

these to do with with the Protestant "fountain," or the " stream which flows
from it ? " Still less ought the verdict of him who thoughtfully weighs the
almost total absence of satisfactory evidence agamst Anne Boleyn in the one
scale, — and the undeniable wilfulness, cruelty, revenge, and lust of Henry in
the other, — to be considered as an imputation against the strength of the
principles on which the worship of Protestant England rests. Let us be
thankful that, under the dispensations of God, there were very few righteous
men called to do the evil work that accompanied the overthrow of the papal
power — for we must acknowledge that the righteous men could not have done
it so quickly and so effectuaUy. But let us not compromise our moral sense
by having what is caUed " a state necessity " proposed to us as the rule of
wisdom and virtue. History may be so written as to make some believe that
despotism is the only safeguard for a nation's prosperity and happiness. It
has been so written in by-gone times, and the sophistry is struggUng for
revival. But let this pass. Anne Boleyn sleeps in the chapel in the Tower,
where so many other victims of tyranny sleep ; and in spite of every laborious
detraction, her fate will not be remembered without honest tears.

St. Peter's Chapel in the Tower of London,

The bishops and abbots, quaking for fear— the lay lords and commoners,
with a scent of spoU — thus got together within three weeks of the appaUing
events that were probably still imperfectly rumoured in distant parts of the
kingdom, were told by Audley, the chancellor, of the great cause of their
being unexpectedly summoned. The king desired them to determine as to

382 LAW OF SUCCESSION. [1536.
the succession of the crown ; for he knew, confessed the chanceUor, that ho
was "himself pbnoxious to infirmities, and even death itself." Amazing
acknowledgment ! The candid Audley adds, " a thing very rare for kings to
think of." Had the king bad dreams, when aU should have gone "merry as
a marriage beU ? " Did he see where " death keeps his court," —
" Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp —
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchise, be feared, and kiU -with looks ? " *
Somebody, perhaps, had told him, in as gentle language as was used to the
dauphin of France, that kings sometimes did die. But, with that morbid
craving for power after the grave is closed upon him, that marks the selfish
and tyrannous man, whether there is a crown to be disposed of pr a hpuse
and lands, king Henry cputrived that his parliament should pass the most
unconstitutional statute that had ever attempted to convert the ancient
monarchy into a personalty, making the crown a chattel, for any royal
flatterer to take by bequest, and "put it in his pocket." England was deU
vered over, bpund hand and fppt, tp Henry by the prostration of this
parliament. It was enacted — the issue of the marriage with Catherine being
rendered illegitimate by a previous statute, and by reason of a divorce pro
nounced before the execution of the late lady Anne for treason, her daughter
Elizabeth was therefore iUegitimate, that marriage being " never good nor
consonant to the laws," — that the oath taken to uphold that succession was
to be superseded by another oath to maintain the issue of the late marriage
-with the king's " entirely beloved wife " queen Jane ; and that aU who
should assert the lawfulness of the issue of the former marriages should be
guUty of high treason. Here were two daughters of the king precluded from
inheriting the throne. Naturally enough, the people would consider whom
they were to obey, if there should be no issue of this third marriage. Never
was the danger of a disputed succession more imminent. Was the danger
Ukely to be removed by an enactment that, on failure of issue, the king
might limit the descent of the crown, by letters patent, or by his wUl, to any
person in possession or remainder, who shaU be obeyed accordingly, whether
male or female ? The object was that Henry might bequeath the cro-wn to his
illegitimate son, the duke of Eichmond. But the object was defeated by
One greater than King, Lords, or Commons. The duke died whUst the bill
was passing through parUament.
Mary, the king's first daughter, is now a little more than twenty years of
age ; Elizabeth is scarcely three years. Mary has incurred the greatest perUs
by her undaunted refusal to receive the marriage of her mother as nnla^wful.
" For a great while she could not be persuaded to submit to the king ; who,
being impatient of contradiction from any, but especially from his own chUd,
was resolved to strike a terror in aU his people by putting her openly to
death." t Burnet adds, that Cranmer induced the king to relax from this
atrocious resolve. But the princess was kept from court, and Uved ia great
* Richard IL, act iu, scene 2,
+ Bumet, "History of the Reformation," part ii, book ii.

1636.] THE PRINCESS MARY. 383
seclusion. There is a story, for which no authority is given, that Anne
Boleyn, on the last evening of her life, fell on her knees before the wife of the
lieutenant of the Tower, requesting her to go to the lady Mary, and in tho
same way kneeling before her, beg her to pardon an unfortunate woman tho
wrongs she had done her.* Be this true or not, it is clear that the rempval
pf Anne was cpnsidered an opportunity for the lady Mary again to apprpach
her stern father. CrpmweU appears tp have been splicitous to effect a
recpncUiatipn ; and partly by his threats, and partly by his entreaties, the
unhappy weman was led to make a complete renunciation of all her former
opinions-^to accept the king as the Supreme Head of the Church ; to " utterly
refuse the bishop of Eome's pretended authority, power, and jurisdiction
¦within this realm;" and to recognise the marriage of her mother ¦with
the king as unlawful, by God's law and man's law. The abject style in
which the daughter creeps in the dust before the parent — the fulsome
flattery in which she endeavours to propitiate his favour — are propfs pf
the terrer which that man inspired, and pf the arts which all whp
came ¦within the reach of his power exercised to disarm his ferocity.
Thus Mary ¦writes : "As I have, and shaU, kno^wing your exceUent learning,
virtue, wisdom, and knowledge, put my soul into your direction ; and by the
same hath and ¦wUl, in aU things from henceforth, direct my conscience, so
my body I do whoUy commit to your mercy and fatherly pity ; desiring no
state, no condition, nor no manner degree of living, but such as Tour Grace
shaU appoint unto me ; knowledging and confessing, that my state can not
be so ¦vUe, as either the extremity of justice would appoint unto me, or as
mine offences have required and deserved." f She was well instructed. She
had at length learnt the parrot note with which the despot, so vain-gloripus
of his " learning, ¦virtue, wisdom, and knowledge " was to be approached.
She had no opinion, when asked to declare herself upon doctrinal points, but
"¦ such as she should receive from the king, who had her whole heart in his .
keeping." Upon pUgrimage, purgatory, and reUcs she had no guide but the
king's " inestimable virtue, high wisdom, and excellent learning." She saved
her head by this duplicity, for which it would be scarcely fair to blame her ;
but she took her revenge for a long suppression of her real opinions, by
exacting conformity to them when the gibbet and the stake were at her own
command. * Lingard, vol. vi. p. 323. t State Papers, vol. i. p. 457.

384 ANNE BOLEYN'S LETTER. [1»35.
Note to page 375.
LETTER OF ANNE BOLEYN TO HENRY VIIL,
In the Cotton Library, The parts burnt are in Italics.

SlE,
Your Grace's displeasure and my imprisonment are things soe stramge unto me, as what to
¦wrighte, or what to excuse, I am altoge(Aer ignorant, Wheras you send unto me, (willing me to
confesse a truth, and soe to obteyne your favour) by such an whome you know to be mine antient
professed enemy, I noe sooner received this ^aessage by him, then I rightly conceaved your
meaning ; and if as yo« say, confessing a truth indeed may procure my saftie I shall wse all
willingnesse and dutie perform your command. But let not your Grace ever imagine that your
poore -wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault, where not soe much as a thought ever
proceeded. And to speake a truth, never a prince had wife more loyall in all duty, and in aU
true affection, then you have ever found in Anrie Bolen, with which name and place I could
wiUingly have coniented myself, if God and your Grrace's pleasure had so bene -pleased. Neither
did I at any time soe fan-e forgett my selfe im my exaftation, or reoeaved queenshipp, but that I
alwayes looked for such an alteration as now I finde ; for the ground of my prefermmt being on
noe surer foundation than your Grace's fancye, the least alteration was fitt and sufficient (I
knowe) to dra/w that fanc-je to some other subjecte. You have chosen me from a low estate to
be your queene and companion farre beyond my desert or desire ; if then you found me worthy
of sucA honour, good yowr Grace let not any Ught fancye, or bade counsell of my enemies
withdraw your princely favour from me ; neither lett that stayne, that rniworihj stayne of a
disloyall hart towards your good Grace, ever cast so /oule a blott one your most dutifoU -wife,
amd the vnfant primcesse your daughter. Trye me, good king, hut let me have a lawfull trjaJi ;
and let not my sworne enemyes sit as my accusers and judges ; yee let me receave an opem
tryaU, for my truth sAall feare noe open shames. Then shall -jou see either mine innocencje
cleered, your suspition and conscience satisfied, the ignominye and slander of the world stopped,
or my guilt openly declaied, Soe that whatsoever God or jou may determine of yowr Grace
may be freed from an open censure, and mine offence, being soe la-wfuUy proved, your Grace is
at liberty both hefoix God. and man, not only to execute worthy punishment on me as an
unfaythfuU -wife, but to follow yow affection already setled one that partie, for whose sake I am
now as I am, whose name I could some good whUe since have pointed unto, yow Grace being
not ignorant of my suspition therein.
But if you have already determined of m-e, and that not only my death, but am infamous
slander must bring you the joying of your desired happines, then I desire of God that he wiU
pardon your great sinne herein, and likewise my enemyes the instruments thereof, and that he
-will not caU you to a straight accompt for your unprincely and cruell usage of me, at his generali
judgement seat, where both you and my selfe must shortly appeare, and in whose just judgement
I doubt not, what soever the world may thinke of mee, mine inocencye shall be openly knowene,
and sufficiently cleared. My last and only request shall be, that my selfe may only beare the
bwrthen of your Grace's displeasure ; and that it may not touch the innocent souls of those poor
gentlemen, whome as I understand are Ukewise in straight imprisoment for my sake. If I
ever have found favoure in your sight, if ever the name of Ann Bulen have ben' pleasing in
your eares, then let me obteyne this request ; And soe I -wUl leave to treble your Grace any
farther. With mine earnest grayer to the Trinitie to have your Grace in his good keeping, and
to direct you in all yo' actions, from my dolefull prison in the Tower the 6th of Maye,
Your most hoyall and
ever faythfuIZ Wife,
Ahn BvLBIf.
The Ladye ....
to the Kinge he . , .
of the Towe ....
At the foot of the MSS. the following memorandum appears in the same handwriting. The
part destroyed by fire is suppUed in itaUcs : —
On the King sending a messenger to Queen Anm Bulen in the Tower willing her to confesse
tbe truth, she said that she could confesse noe more, then shoe had already done. But as he
sayd she must conceale nothing she would add this, that she did acknowledge her selfe indebted
to the king for many favours, for raysing her first to he * * * next to be a Marques, next
to be his Queene, and ihat now he could bestowe noe further honor upon her tha/n if he wei-e soe
pleased to make her by martirdome a saint.

mr%tik,y

Irish Chieftains. Illumination in Harleian MS.

CHAPTER XXIV.
Ireland — Its condition in the early part of the reign of Henry VIII, — The EngUsh Pale — Regions
beyond the Pale — Surrey, lieutenant-governor — The earl of Kildare arrested — RebelUon of
1534 — Thomas Fitzgerald — Murder of archbishop Allen — Progress of the rebeUion —
Fitzgerald surrenders — He and his uncles attainted and executed — Violated promises —
Supremacy of Henry ^tabUshed — Disregard of the real welfare of the country — Attempts
to make Ireland yield revenue — Irish fashions of dress — Character of the natives.

"When Froissart, travelling in England towards the end of the fourteenth
century, falls in acquaintance with Sir Henry Cristall, " an honest man and a
wise," he received from this squire a romantic account of his captivity during
seven years in Ireland. CristaU was in the service of the earl of Ormond,
who was warring against the native Irish ; and on one occasion, foUowing his
master in the pursuit of a band that was retreating before the English
archers, his horse took his bridle in his teeth, and ran away with him into the
thick of the Irishmen. " One of them," he said, " by lightness of running,
leapt np behind me, and embraced me in his arms, and did me none other
hurt ; but so led me put pf the way, and se rode stUl behind me, the space of
two hours, and at last brought me into a secret place, thick of bushes, and
there he found his company, who were ceme thither, and scaped all dangers,
vol, n. 0 0

3S6 REPORT ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. [1515,
fpr the Englishmen pursued not so far. Then, as he showed, he had great
joy pf me, and led me inte a tpwn * and a strpng house, among the woods,
waters, and meres." The name of this chief was Brian Costeret. He gave
Cristall his daughter in marriage, who bore him two chUdren during his
seven years' experience of this free life in solitary places. But the kind-
hearted Irishman was taken prisoner, as he was riding the horse whieh
Cristall rode when he was captured. That horse was recognised in the
EngUsh camp ; and the adventure ended by Brian being released upon con-
ditlpu that he sheuld give up the leng-lost Cristall, with his famUy. " "Witli
great pain," says the narrator, "he made that bargain, for he loved me well,
and my wife his daughter, and our chUdren. "t Of the mode of existence in
the Irishman's "strong house among the woods " we have no further glimpses.
We only see the affectionate and hospitable nature of the man who saved and
succoured his enemy — a nature which he shared with the majority of his
countrymen. From the time of Strongbow there had been such constant
interfusion of the races ; and if neglect and oppression had not counteracted
the natural influences of this disposition towards a cordial agreement between
the natives and the settlers, we should not have to describe, as we now
propose to do, the unhappy condition of Ireland at this period pf the reign ef
Henry VIII. The materials for such description are now most abundant.
Instead of taking the account which Spenser gives, in the reign of EUzabeth,
as the starting-point in the history of evUs which have endured to our o^wn
generatien, and which have sp materiaUy influenced the cpurse of public
events in England, we have only to open the mass of State Papers which
belong to half a century earlier, to exhibit a condition of society of which
there was no paraUel in the Europe that had emerged from barbarism.
The English Pale, to which all early notices of Ireland refer, anciently cem-
prised aU the eastern cpast frpm Dundalk bay tP "Waterfprd harbpur, extending
seme fifty or sixty miles inland. The term " pale" is thus explained :
"When Ireland was subdued by the English, divers of the conquerors
planted themselves near to Dublin, and the confines thereto adjoining ; and
so, as it were, inclosing and impaling themselves within certain lists aud
territories, they feared away the Irish, insomuch as that country became
mere English, and thereof it was termed the English pale." J In 1515 the
pale was so reduced in its extent, that a line drawn from Dundalk to
Kells, from Kells to Maynooth, from Maynooth to KilcuUen, and then
towards Dublin, under the Wicklow mountains, would comprise all the
EngUsh pale from the sea.§ This was a smaU district to have the rule of a
large country ; and we shall see that, practically, a very narrow portion of the
island could be considered as under the English governance. There were, at
the beginning of the reign of Henry VIIL sixty regions, inhabited by those
whom this reporter pf the "state ef Ireland" in 1515, caUs the "Idng's
Irish enemies." These regions, " some as big as a shire," were governed by
chief captains, caUing themselves kings, princes, dukes, or arch-dukes ;
* ITown, in England as well as Ireland, was the term for any ooUeotion of dweUings however
•mall — settlements around the ' ' strong house " of the chief.
+ Froissart, "Lord Berners' Translation," vol. ii, p, 620, ed. 1812.
X Stanihurst, in Holinshed, p, lO ; cd, 1586,
§ The precise boundary is given in the "State of Ireland," 1515; "StatePapers,'' vol, ii, p, 22,

1515.] REPORT ON THE STATE OP IRELAND, 387
obeying no law but that of force ; their very successions depending upon the
strongest arm and the hardest sword. In each of these regions of Ulster,
Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, we find the names of the chief cjiptains,
from " the great Oneylle, chief captaine of the nation, within the countrey of
and region of Tyreown, tp OmuUmoy de Pherkeall, chief captaine of his
nation," in Meath. Names that are still familiar to us call up remembrances
of bitter animpsities, rebelliens, prpscriptions — ranting demagogues and wily
priests sowing the dragons' teeth, whUst the rich soil bore no corn, and the
labourer starved where there was no security for the funds out of which
labour is supported. But in old times, as in recent, the smaller beasts of prey
were as voracious as the larger : " In every of the said regions there be divers
petty captains, and every of them maketh war and peace for himself." A
greater evil than that of the Irish great captains " living only by the sword,"
was that of " thirty great captains of English noble folk, that foUpweth the
same Irish erder, and keepeth the same rule, and every pf them maketh
war and peace fer himself" — the Desmends, Fitzgeralds, and Fitzmaurices,
the Butlers, DUlons, and Delameres, In the few districts subject to the
king's writs — those within the pale — the peeple were sp pppressed by the
cpurts pf law, that they were glad, to abandon their freeholds for ever. In
the marches, not subject to the king's law, they were as much oppressed by
individual extortion. The reporter of 1515, looking at the inevitable con
sequences of such misrule, exclaims, " "What common folk in all this world is
BO poor, so feeble, so e^vU-besCen in town and field, so bestial, so greatly
oppressed and trod under foot, and fared so evil, with so great misery and
¦with so -wretched life, as the common folk of Ireland."* The oppression of
the poor was universal. The noble felk, whether English pr Irish, were
oppressprs. They seized uppn hprse meat and man's meat " pf the king's
pppr subjects by compulsion, for nought, without any penny paying therefor,"
— which robbery was called " cojrn and livery." The Deputy and his
Council were extortioners. The church was wholly abandpned to lucre ;
none preaching or teaching but the mendicant friars. In every department
of lay pr spiritual rule, the private weal, and net the common weal, was alone
regarded. This plain-speaking denouncer of evils that had been growing for
two hundred years, writes, that the people despaired of a remedy for these
compUcated miseries, and said, " no medicine can be had new fpr the said
infirmity, but such as have been had afere this time ; and fplks were as wise
that time as they be new ; and since they cpuld never find remedy, how
should remedy be found by us?"t
There are many official letters and memorials, of subsequent dates, which
all agree in setting forth the turbulence of the people and the tyranny pf
the rulers. "Whether English pr Irish, there was scarcely one in authority
who was not a plunderer or extortioner. Under AVolsey the government of
Ireland had beeu principally committed to the earl of Kildare, whp was ready
eneugh tp burn and destrey in the lands ef rebelliens chieftains, but was
himself suspected ef " seditious practices and subtle drifts." The earl of
Surrey, who won his earldom at Flodden, was sent to Ireland as lord-lieu
tenant in 1520 ; whilst Kildare was in England. Surrey took a soldier's view
• '" State Papers, vol. ii. p. 10. + Ibid., p, 17. OC 2

338 ARREST OF THE EARL OF KILDARE. (1534,
of the position of the country, but one which indicated slight statesmanship ;
"After my poor opinion, this land shall never be brought to good order and
due subjection, but only by conquest." * But the warlike earl is not sanguine
about his scheme ; for "Wales, he says, was not conquered by Edward I. in
less than ten years ; and as Ireland is five times as large as "Wales, he doubted
if it could be so soon won. But there was a greater difiiculty in Surrey's
mind. Even if conquered, the land must be re-peopled. "For if these
country people ef the Irish sheuld inhabit, undpubtedly they wpuld return to
their old ill-rooted customs, whensoever they might see any time to take
their advantage, accordingly as they have ever yet done, and daily dc."
Having delivered this advice — pointing out that money was wanting for men,
victuals, artillery, and fortresses — the lord-lieutenant begs to serve his grace
in any other place than in this troublesome land. Surrey goes home. Kildare
comes back. The feuds between the two great rival chiefs, Kildare and
Ormond, become more bitter than ever : and Kildare is again suspected of
encouraging revolt. But "Wolsey dares not remove him from his office of
deputy, for he dreads that the earl's "kinsfolks, the O'Connors, and other
such wild Irish lords, would, for revenge, over-run the whole English pale."
Kildare was the head of what was then deemed " the Irish party " — a party
not so desirpus of separation from England, as of using the English connection,
not as the means for promoting the real improvement of the country, but for
their individual aggrandisement. Kildare, at last, carried his schemes too far.
In 1534 he appears to have been preparing to defy the English government ;
for he furnished his castles with arms and ammunition put of the royal stores ;
and it was said that " all the parchments and wax in England " would not
bring him thither again. The earl, however, obeyed the royal summons, though
slowly and unwillingly. He was committed to the Tower, upon his arrival in
London. But his son, lord Thomas Fitzgerald, was permitted to return to
Ireland as the vice-deputy appointed by his father. The consequences ct
this somewhat rash confidence were unexpected ; but they were the natural
results of a Ipug period of misgovernment, through which "neither the
English order, tongue, nor habit was used, nor the king's laws obeyed, above
twenty miles in compass." f
The earl of KUdare arrived at his last resting-place, the Tower of London,
in February, 1534. He was subsequently attainted by act of parliament, for
traitorously levying war in Ireland, for slaying the king's faithful subjects,
and for carrying away munitions of war from the king's fortresses to his own
castles. X "When the young Fitzgerald — who was known by the name of
"the silken lord," from the splendid trappings of his horses — knew that his
father was in imminent danger, and apprehending that the power of the race of
Geraldines was coming to an end, he suddenly rose in open revolt. In June,
1534, Cromwell is apprised by Eobert Cowley efthe "rebelling of the earl of
Kildare's son, and brethren, with their adherents." He states that they
have committed " infinite murders, burnings, and robbings in the English pale,
about the city of Dublin." One sentence in the letter of Cowley may have
led to a belief that this rebeUion was as much a reUgious as a political
movement: "And, as I am very credibly informed, the said earl's son,
* State Papers, vol. u. p. 73. + Ibid., p. 162. + 26 Hen. VIIL c. 26.

1634.] THOMAS FITZGERALD IN REBELLION. 38?
brethren, kinsmen, and adherents do make their avaunt and boast, that they
be of the pope's sect and band, and him will they serve against the king and
all his part-takers ; saying further that the king is accursed, and as many aa
take his part, and shall be openly accursed."* The opinion that the
emperor, Charles V., was in communication with the earl of Desmond, and
through him with the Geraldines, appears to have been a rumour in "Water
ford. In the disorganised condition of Ireland, the deputy, Skeffington, an
Englishman — who was to succeed Kildare — not yet having arrived with any
military force, the time was favourable for a bold attempt to supersede the
English authority altogether. That Henry at that time was threatened with
excommunication, was a stirring matter that might have been agitated
amongst men prepared to threw pff their allegiance ; but that the rejectipn
pf the papal supremacy in England was the occasion of this revolt in Ireland,
seems an overstrained inference from the facts as they appear in official
records and other relations. Stanihurst, the chronicler of Irish affairs, makes
no mention of the employment of such a motive for insurrection. The
reUgious element might have been slightly mixed up with the social
turbulence — as it ever has been since, whenever the wretchedness of the
people is to be roused into fierce hatred ; but in our view, this rebellion in
Ireland is not " significant, chiefly because it was the first in which an out
break against England assumed the features of a war of religion." f Looking
at this passage of Irish history, with a knowledge of the distracted condition
of the country, the hatreds of the rival chiefs, the almost total absence of
legitimate authority, the universal dominion of brute force, we regard the
quarrel of Henry with the pope as a coincidence with this rebellion, but
the very least of its causes.
The opening scene of this Irish revolt, as described by the chronicler, has
a deep human interest. On St. Barnabas' day, the 11th of June, lord Thomas
Fitzgerald, at the head of seven score horsemen, in their shirts of maU, rode
through the streets of Dublin, and passing through Dame's Gate, crossed the
river to St. Mary's Abbey, where the Council were sitting. The lord Thomas
took his seat as vice-deputy. Then the council-chamber was suddenly filled
with his armed foUowers; and he rose, and thus spake: "Howsoever
injuriously we be handled, and forced to defend eurselves in arms, when
neither pur service ner pur gppd meaning tpwards our prince his crown
availeth, yet say not hereafter, but in this open hostility which here we
profess and proclaim, we have showed ourselves no viUains nor churls, but
warriors and gentlemen. This sword of estate is yours, and not mine ; I
received it with an oath, and have used it to your benefit. I should stain
mine honour if I turned the same to your annoyance. Now have I need of
mine own sword, which I dare trust. As for the common sword, it flattereth
me with a painted scabbard, but hath indeed a pestilent edge, already bathed
in the Geraldines' blood, and now is newly whetted in hope of a further
destruction. Therefore save yourselves from us, as from open enemies. I
am none of Henry's deputy — I am his foe. I have more mind to conquer
than to govern ; to meet him in the field than to serve him in office. If aU
the hearts of England and Ireland, that have cause thereto, would join in
• State Papers, vol. ii. p. 198. f Froude, vol. u. p. 30C.

390 MURDER OF ARCHBISHOP ALLEN. [1534.
this quarrel (as I hope they 'will), then should he soon aby (as I trust he
shall) for his cruelty and tyranny, for which the age to come may lawfully score
him up among the ancient tyrants of most abominable and hateful memory."
This speech — so resolved and daring, and yet so characteristic of the high
feelings of a gentleman — ^carries with it a dramatic propriety, very different
from the ordinary speeches which the chroniclers invent for their heroes.* It
IS to be lamented that, in their subsequent proceedings, the Geraldine and
his supporters did not maint.ain their declaration that they were " no villains
nor churls, but warriors and gentlemen." "When they rushed forth from the
council chamber, orders were given for their arrest ; but the authorities of
Dublin did not dare tp execute the command, and some of the Council retired
for safety to the castle. There was a contest between the citizens and the
insurgents, in which the rebels were successful; and they were thus enabled
to lay siege to the fortress. Amongst those who had taken refuge there was
John Allen, the archbishop of Dublin; who, having been one of "Wolsey's
chaplains, was appointed by the cardinal to this dignity — an able statesman,
systematically opposed to the Geraldines and their party. "When the castle
was besieged, Allen, knowing the hatred in which he was borne by the insur
gents, escaped by night in a vessel in which he hoped to cress tp England.
By accident pr treachery the beat was stranded near Clentarf ; and after he
had been a few hours on land, he was seized at a village called Artane, and there
barbarously murdered, while lord Thomas stood by. The prior of KUmain-
ham, writmg to the king, says, " The archbishop of Dublin, being in ship
to depart towards England, Thomas, son to the earl of Kildare, caused him to
be taken and brought before him, and there in his sight, by his commandment,
was cruelly and shamefully murdered, and other divers of his chaplains and
servants that were in his company." f Eobert Eelye, who was present, stated
upon his examination that he could not say whether it was by the command
of lord Thomas, or not, that the murder of the archbishop was committed.
He acknowledged that he was sent to Maynooth, one of Kildare's castles,
with a casket which his master, lord Thomas, had taken from the prelate :
and that his master " afterwards sent one Charles, his chaplain, to the bishop
of Eome, to the intent, as he heard, of obtaining absolution for killing the
bishop," X Lpon this most doubtful evidence it is assumed that the massacre
of " a heretic archbishop " was a venial and acceptable act for which Eome
would willingly grant forgiveness ; and of this detestable murder we are told,
" Such was the pious offering to God and holy Church on which the sun
looked down as it rose that fair summer morning over Dublin bay." § Again
we repeat our conviction, founded upon a careful examination of the entire
circumstances, that John Allen did not perish because he was " a heretic
archbishop," but because he had been bne of the most efficient instruments in
opposing the schemes of the Geraldines ; that " holy Church," and its contest
for supremacy with Henry of England, had furnished no incentive and no
¦• Mr. Froude quotes this from Campion's "History of Ireland," and from Leland. The
speech, as given by us from Stanihurst, is nearly as Mr. Froude gives it, with only one
material variation, Stanihurst says of Henry, "then shall he soon aby, as I trust he shall,
for his cruelty and tyranny," In Mr. Froude's version we have, "then should he be a
by-word, for his heresy, lechery, and tyranny,"
+ State Papers, vol. ii, p, 201, J State Papers, vol. ii. p. 201, note.
§ Fronde's History, vol, L p, 283,

1534,] PROGRESS OP THE REBELLION, 391
motive for this rebelUon, beyond the ancient belief that the country was held
by the English lilug as a fief of the papal see ; and that it is the result alone
of that uncharitable spirit caUing itself Protestant, which the historian
ouo-ht to reject, if the party-politician cannot lay It aside, that we are to be
informed at this day, when religious diflerences as they regard Ireland and
the Irish ought to be repressed rather than stimulated, that such as these
murderers "were the men whose cause the Mores and the Fishers, the
saintly monks of the Charterhouse, and the holy martyrs of the Catholic faith,
beUeved to be the cause of the Almighty Father of the world," * The " holy
Church " of CathoUc Ireland pronounced its curse " against Thomas Fitz
gerald and others for kiUing of the archbishop of Dublin," according to the
horrible formula of those times ; saying "let no man be to them merciful ;"
invoking the God of mercy, to " send to them, and every of them, hunger and
thirst, and strike them, and every of them with pestilence," and with "mad
ness, blindness, and woodness of mind ;" and calling upon " all the multitude
of angels, that they be accursed before them, and in their sight as spirits
condemned," t K this cruel and blasphemous presumption of erring man has
passed away, and is held utterly alien to the Christian temper, it is chiefly
because, when we think of the wise and good of past times, we forget whether
they were Eoman Catholic or Protestant ; and do not believe, in a spirit of
intolerance, that " the Mores and the Fishers," in opposing the supremacy of
Henry VIII,, would have given a direct or an indirect sanction to the
murderers of a " heretic archbishop,"
Fitzgerald, after the atrocious slaughter of John Allen, with a small force
did enormous mischief within the English pale, burning and destroying
houses and farms, and wasting the growing com. In the gallant resistance
which he made to the rebeUion, Butler, now earl of Ormond and Ossory, '
pursued the same medijeval system, which ever disregarded the sufferings of
the many. The siege of Dublin castle was slowly conducted by an incon
siderable rebel band ; whom the citizens at length resisted, and arrested as
traitors. The delusive hopes which the Geraldines had entertained, that
their cause would be adopted by the settlers of the pale, as the means of
overthrowing the English rule, were wholly dissipated by the spirit of the
Dublin citizens. The belief that the old rivalry of the Kildares and Ormonds
might be closed by dividing the kingdom between them, waiJ destroyed by the
faithful conduct of Ossory : " The traitor, Thomas, then sent to the earl of
Ossory, how that, if he would withdraw his duty from the king, he would
depart and divide all Ireland with him, and accept him as his father, offering
to make partition of his own inheritance with him ; whereunto he answered,
that if his country had been wasted, his castles won or prostrate, and himself
exiled, yet would he never shrink to persevere in his duty to the king, to the
death." J The notion that the Emperor and the Pope would furnish prompt
assistance in the wUd enterprise of lord Thomas was, no doubt, entertained by
him. He sent a priest on a voyage to Spain, and afterwards to proceed to
Eome, with documents " which should prove that the king held this land of
the see of Eome ; aUeging the king and his realm to be heretics, digressed
* Froude, History, vol, ii, p, 283. J State Papers, voL iL p, 250.
+ State Papers, vol. ii. p. 217.

392 FITZGERALD SURRENDERS. [1534.
from the obedience pf the same, and the faith Cathplic;" at the same time
premising, in return for aid, " that he wiU hold the same land for them and
pay tribute yearly." * There is an official paper by Allen, the master of the
rolls, which says, " the Irish men, of long continuance, have supposed the
regal estate of this land to cpusist in the bishep pf Eome, for the time
being, and the lordship of the kings of England here to be but a governance
under the obedience of the same, which causeth them to have more respect
pf due subjection unto the said bishop than to our sovereign lord," f To
this ancient delusion lord Thomas appealed, as might have been done in the
times of Eichard II, But in spite of such an incitement to revolt, there were
very few of the great Irish chiefs who gave Fitzgerald their support. The
contest went on for some months after the arrival of sir "William Skeffington,
the English deputy, without any signal success ; but at last the castle of
Maynooth was taken by Skeffiiigton,'after ten days' siege. Twenty-six of the
prisoners were executed. " A priest," says the official despatch to the king,
"which was privy with the traitor, deposeth that the emperor promised to
send hither, against your grace, ten thousand men by the first day of May ;
and the king of Scots promised to give aid to your rebel likewise." J The
first of May, 1535, came ; but no aid from Spain or Scotland. Lord Thomas
was carrying on a war of depopulation. In August, thejchief justice and
the master of the rolls, who had been absent in England, write to CromweU
— " "We marveUed to consider the state of this country at our landing, so far
altered from the condition that we left it at our departure ; for in the county
of Kildare there be eight hundreds, or baronies, and sis of them were, in
effect, all burnt ; few or no people inhabiting there, but leaving their corn in
the ground to the traitors." § The end of this desperate outbreak — the
result, not of any marked oppression of the English government, but of its
more cruel neglect — was shortly at hand. A vigorous commander, lord
Leonard Grey, came, as it was supposed, tp take the civil and mUitary
authprity frpm the precrastinating Skeffingtpn. But the deputy, not yet
superseded, was roused into vigour. He compelled the submission of
0' Connor, the chief who most faithfully adhered to Fitzgerald ; and the
"great traitor," lord Thomas, had no chance but tp yield himself up, pr to
escape to a foreign country. He writes a letter to lord Leonard Grey, who
was a relative of the Kildares, in which he says, " I heartUy desire your
lordship to be intercessor betwixt his grace and me, that I may have my
pardon for me, and mine life and lands ; the which shall not be undeserved
to the uttermost of ,my power ; and if I cannot obtain my foresaid
pardon, I have none other to do, but shift for myself, the best that I
can, trusting in God." || Skefiington writes, on the 24th of August, that
Fitzgerald had yielded himself " without condition." The Council of Ireland,
on the contrary, write to the king, on the 27th of August, that lord Leonard
Grey will proceed to London with his prisoner; " beseeching your highness,
most humbly, that according the comfort of our words spoken to the same
Thomas to allure him to yield him, ye would be merciful to the said Thomas,
especiaUy concerning his life." ^ Norfolk saw that if Fitzgerald were
• State Papers, vol, ii, p, 222. + Ibid,, p, 480. X Ibid,, p. 237.
§ Ibid., p. 263. II Tbid,, p. 273. 1 Ibid,, p, 275.

1534.] EXECUTIONS— VIOLATED PROMISES. 393
executed, having received such inducements tp yield, " surely the Irish men
shaU never after put themselves inte npue Englishman's hands ;" and he
therefore counsels that his punishment should be deferred.* Lord Thomaf
was committed to the Tower, in which prison his father had died. At the
beginning of 1536, the five uncles of the young rebel were apprehended
through treachery ; which the CouncU call " the politic and surest conveying
of the matter." They being sent to London, the six members of this unhappy
famUy were hanged at Tyburn, on the 3rd of February. There was no trial.
An Act of Attainder was passed, by which Thomas Fitzgerald, James, John,
Eichard, Oliver, and Walter, then in the Tower of London, should suffer
execution of death for their treasens.f That Iprd Thpmas especially deserved
his fate there can be little doubt. That he surrendered upon terms held out
to him is admitted by Henry himself, in a letter to Skeffington ; and the king
owned that he was embarrassed by this circumstance : " If he had been
apprehended after such sort as was convenable to his deservings, the same
had been much more thankful and better to our contentation." J But it was
not in Henry's nature, nor indeed in that of the duke of Norfolk who had
counseUed delay, to stand upon the trifling point of broken promises. In the
English rebeUion of 1536, which we shall have presently tP describe, the
king bitterly reproaches Norfolk for keeping faith ; for " you feU to a point
with the rebels," when previously " you said you would esteem no promise
that you should make to the rebels, ne think your houpur tpuehed in the
breach and vielatipn pf the same." § Shakspere has exhibited prince Jphn pf
Lancaster and the earl cf "Westmerland tempting the rebel lords in the time
of Henry IV. to disband their forces and then arresting them ; || and Dr.
Johnson complains that the poet passes pver, without a note of censure,
"this horrid vielatipn pf faith." Shakspere was satisfied to exhibit the con
duct of the treachery to make men hate the agents who accomplished it. "We
offer no comment upon the execution of Fitzgerald, beyond entering our
protest against a doctrine which might be suited to the sixteenth century,
"but whieh is somewhat startling in the nineteenth. " How far," says Mr,
Froude, with reference to lord Thomas, " a government is bound at any time
to respect the unauthorised engagements of its subordinates is one of those
intricate questions which cannot be absolutely answered." ^ Intricate ! The
English minister who would now dare to put a man to death, after assur
ances of safety from those in authority (as Fitzgerald was assured by the
authorised representatives of king Henry), would be consigned to the ever
lasting infamy that cleaves to the betrayer ; and if an eloquent casuist, some
three hundred years after, should doubt whether the promise of a king's agent
is binding upon his principal, he would — so strongly do we believe in the
progress pf the wprld in ppUtical mcrality — have te receive his own portion
of the same natural hatred of dishpnpur, — ^he wpuld excite the same instinctive
disgust with which we read the famous axiom of Machiavelli — " a prince that
is -wise and prudent cannot, and ought not, to keep his parole, when the
keeping of it is to his prejudice, and the causes fpr which he premised,
removed." * State Papers, vol, ii, p, 277. + 28 Henry VIIL c. 18.
X state Papers, vol, ii, p. 280. § State Papers, vol. i. p. 519.
II "King Henry" IV., Part IL, act iv. scene 2. U Froude, History, voL ii. p. 305,

394 HENRY'S SUPREMACY ESTABLISHED. [1538.
The suppression of the Geraldine rebellion, if it had not been sulUed by
broken faith, and had been foUowed up by a large and benevolent poUcy,
would have presented a fortunate crisis in the government of Ireland. There
appears to have been no want of diUgent counsellors for the improvement of
the country, according to their Umited views. The supremacy of Henry as
"kiug of Ireland" — for the title was now changed from "lord" — was
proclaimed without opposition. Monasteries were suppressed without dis
turbance. The rebellion had been clearly one of personal ambition, stimulated
by the general disorganisation of civil society. But stUl no decided policy
was resorted to for converting a land filled with wild tribes, living in the
rudest manner tinder hostile chiefs, into a land to be made prosperous by
industry, v/hich alone was wanting to utilise its natural advantages. But for
this end something was required besides soldiers and labourers. In 1538 the
Council wrote to Henry describing their attack upon the district of the
Cavanaghs. The land is won ; but what is to be done with it ? They would
not banish all the inhabitants, but they would banish " the gentlemen and
men of war ; and having garrisons of men of war in certain principal places,
to retain stUl the most of the poor earth-tillers there, which be good inhabit
ants." * The poor earth-tillers in the country pf the Cavanaghs and else
where went on occupying the land, with little profit, till, with division and
subdivision, it would no longer yield them sustenance. The soldiers were
amongst the oppressors of the poor earth-tillers — the soldiers of a government
parsimonious for public objects because extravagant in private expenditure,
"The wages of your army is so small," say the Council, " as the soldiers, not
being able to live therewith, much oppress your subjects, to their great
grief," t There were occasionally some individual efforts made to win the
people from their semi-barbarous life to learn the arts of ci-vilisation. Sir
Pierce Butler, earl of Ormond and Ossory, who died in 1539, with the aid of
his energetic wife, the sister of Kildare, " planted great civility in the
counties of Tipperary and KUkenny; and to give good example to the
people of that country, they brought out of Flanders and other cenntries
divers artificers, who were daily kept at work by them, in their castle of
Kilkenny ; where they wrought and made diaper, tapestry, turkey carpets,
curtains, and other like works," J Ormond was thus doing something as
material for the welfare of the country as in quelling his nephew's rebellion.
But the example did not spread. Private eftbrts can do little good in the
attempt to force industry. "When capital flows to a country through the
regular course of exchange, then industry goes forward. Security was
wanting for its employment, as it ever has been wanting in Ireland till our
own day. It was in vain to lament that the gaUowglass and kerne, who con
sumed the victuals of the land in idleness, did not apply to labour — ^tiUing
wastes, digging in mines, fishing in the bounteous seas. The moving and
regulating power, with which labour profitably works, was wanting. The
government, when it seized upon the monastic possessions, might have
accomplished some pf such gpod by a just application of the country's
revenues. But there was a king who fancied that he was the state ; and
* State Papers, vol. iii. p. 100. t Ibid,, p, 101.
X MS, in British Museum, quoted in State Papers, vol. iu. p. 145.

153S.] SELFISH POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT. 395
thus ho wrote, as to tho religious houses of the countries brought under
obedience : " The same shall be suppressed, and "We to appoint such farmers
to them as "We shall think gopd, sp as the whele revenues pf them may cpme
tp pur use and prefit." — " Our use and profit " was the burthen of his song :
" Tou have devised by an Act to invest in Us the name and title of King of
Ireland. "We would you should amongst you consider, whether it be either
honpur or wisdom for Us to take upon Us that title of a King, and not to
have revenues there, sufficient to maintain the state of the same." The
country was impoverished by a long course of oppression and neglect. There
is a chance of its being brought under the rule of law, and of the reign of
brute force being at an end. The " King of Ireland " writes to his Council,
trusting that " "We shall have cause to cpmmend yeur doings in the discreet
training of the Irishmen to their due obedience, whereby they shall learn to
know Almighty God, and grow into wealth and civility." To accomplish
such a blessed end is he prepared to contribute out of his ample means ?
"Will he assist the husbandman to cultivate the rich wastes ; the miner to
raise the precious ore to the surface ; the fisherman to gather food from tho
seas and rivers ? "Will he make roads through the marshes and woods ?
He looks back grudgingly upon " the great sums of money bestowed already
to bring the land to the conformity it is new at" — he sets forth many
schemes by which the " submission " of the Irishmen should be made profi.t-
able to himself ; he recommends the Council to " excogitate what you think
may be added thereunto, as customs, tolls, gabelles, or any other things,
which you shall think may be won further to our profit;" and, "among
other things, we wpuld you should devise, how to cause our revenues there to
be shortlier and sooner paid, after the terms they be due, than they be at
present." * Finally, he asks the Irish House of Commons for a Benevolence,
which they had refused in the previous year. In vain the lord deputy and the
CouncU plead for the -wretched people : " The inhabitants of these your four
shires of Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Uriel [Louth], have been so spoiled,
oppressed, and robbed, as they be not of ability to give to your Grace any
notable thing, otherwise than they be charged already." They adroitly
recommend that the burden should be shifted upon the countries out of
the English pale ;— countries where the Ormonds and O'Neills commanded
the service of their naked kernes ; where the English tongue was never
heard ; where the harper sang of the old glpries pf Ireland, when there was a
king in every shire, each plundering fer himself, and no foreign lord forbade
any' robbery but his own. Taxation, as the beginning of civilisation beyond
the pale, was to roU on like a snow-ball. In Kilkenny and Tipperary, and
"Wexford and "Waterford, say the CouncU, parties so charged there " will the
more willingly further the le-vying of your revenues elsewliere." f
The notion of extracting a large revenue out of an impoverished or an
unsubdued country, was doubtless as idle as the attempt to change the
ancient customs of the people by royal mandate. In 1536 Henry writes to
his "well beloved "of the town of Gal way, straitly charging and command
ing that they should perpetually observe certain articles set forth for their
weal and profit : " Item, That every inhabitant, as well within the said to-wn
* State Papers, voL ui. p. 330. + Ibid., vol. ii p. 381.

396 RilSH FASHIONS— CHARACTER OP NATIVES. [1538.
as the suburbs of the same, do shave their over [upper] Ups, caUed crom-
peaulis ; and suffer the hair of their heads to grow till it cover their ears ;
and that every of them wear "EngUsh caps. Item, That no man, nor man-
chUd, do wear no mantles in the streets, but cloaks or gowns, coats, doublets,
and hose, shapen after the EngUsh fashion, of the country cloth, or any other
cloth shaU please them to buy." * To these regulations for dress was added
a command, " that every inhabitant within the said town endeaveur them
selves tp speak English, and te use themselves after the English fashion ; and
speciaUy that you, and every of you, do put forth your child to school, to
learn to speak English." t Desirable as it might be that the two countries
should be assimilated in dress and language, we know, from the experience of
three centuries both in Ireland and "Wales, that such changes are not effected
by royal threats or penal statutes. In the reign of Elizabeth, as we learn
from Spenser's description, "the ancient dress " was still worn. The mantle
was still " a fit house for an outlaw, a meet bed for a rebel, and an apt cloak
for a thief." The long matted locks, called glibbes, were still used for a
disguise. The men were stUl close hooded, or skull-capped, despising " civil
caps." The moustaches, or crompeauUs, still covered the upper lip. The
gaUowglass still went to battle with his hatchet and his darts, — the kerne
with his darts and short bows. "What the Irish were, as to dress, in the time
of Henry VIIL, they continued to be after the lapse of half a century. The
chUdren of the great chiefs might learn English, as Sir John Harrington
found the sons of Tyrone learning it, to whom he gave his translation of
Ariosto. But the rebellious earl had still his " boys " about him, " without
shirts, who, in the frost, wade as familiarly through rivers as water-spaniels."
Harrington says, " "With what charm such a master makes them love him, I
know not ; but if he bid ceme, they cpme ; if gp, they dp go ; if he say do
this, they do it." They lived, as Tyrone said, as "wolves, that fill their bellies
sometime, and fast as long for it.'" J But fuU or starving they were faithful.
The charm was in the interchange of service and protection ; in the reverence
for claims that went back, through song and tradition, to the days of cairns
and cromlechs. Nothing could weaken these claims, and convert a land of
septs into a nation, but a real paternal government ; and such a government
was not likely to proceed out of the selfish despotism of the eighth Henry.
Although he had some able advisers in the Irish CouncU, a detestable poUcy
was at the root of their measures. There was ever suspicion where con
fidence might have begot allegiance ; and a low treachery which met its
reward in lip-service and conspiracy. A government must have been essen
tially base when its chief legal officer thus advises : " Because the nature of
Irish men is such, that for money one shall have the son to war against the
father, and the father against the child, it shall be necessary that the king's
grace have always treasure here, as a present remedy against sudden
rebellions." §
* By the Irish statute 28 Hen. VIII. c. 15, these orders were more stringently enforced,
particularly as regarded the use of long locks, called gUbbes, and wearing the Irish cloak.
+ State Papers, vol. ii. p. 309. X "Nugae Antiquce," voL i. p. 248.
§ J. Allen to Sentleger, State Papers, vol, ii, p. 485,

Heading Abbey, as tbe Ruins appeared in 1721.

CHAPTER XXV.
Three years -without an EngUsh parUament — Proclamation for the aboUtion of holidays — The
Lincolnshire insurrection — Demands of the insnrgents^The king's answer — The York
shire insurrection — The Lancaster Herald at Pomfret — Negotiations with the Yorkshire
rebels — They disperse — Disturbed state of the Northern counties — Second rebellion — The
rebels defeated — Executions — Martial law proclaimed — Birth of prince Edward — Death of
queen Jane — Immediate proceedings for a new marriage of the king — Position of Cranmer
and Cromwell — The Bible set up in parish churches — Papists and heretics — Trial of
Lambert before Henry — Burnings in Smithfield — Surrenders of the larger reUgious houses
— ^Visitations of the Commissioners — Relics and images — "Abomination of Uving" in
monasteries — Concealment of property — Abbot of Glastonbury — Deprivations — Pensions —
Plunder — Destruction of monastic houses.

The English parliament soon did the werk which it was caUed tpgether to
do in 1536 ; and the executive, seeing vast pecuniary resources within its
reach, did not care for three more years to be troubled with a representative
body. Henry, with his new queen, was passing the autumn amidst " the
large green courts" and "the wild forest" of "Windsor; happy, if it were
possible, in forgetfulness of the past. Tet startling memories must sometimes
have obtruded upon him — sUght associations that must have for a moment
disturbed his selfish complacency. Thus, when he looked upon the dedication
to him of Coverdale's first Bible, and saw the mode in which the name of his
queen was intreduced, — by printing J. A. over the original A. N,, so that
"Anne" might be changed to "Jane," — the clumsiness of the substitution
might have suggested the moral deformity of his own work. But he soon
had stirring occupation. A large body of his English subjects were in
rebeUion.

PROCLAMATION AGAINST HOLIDAYS.

[1536.

On the 2nd of October, 1536, the' Ecclesiastical Commissioners were tc
hold their Visitation at Louth. The smaUer monastic houses had been sup
pressed. The progress of the official inquiry into the condition of all houses
of religion appeared only a prelude to their final extinction. The parochial
clergy were called upon, in the king's name, no longer to teach that there
was any virtue in relics or images ; or that pilgrimages were beneficial
exercises of faith. They were alsp to make known the royal proclamation for
the abolition of many holidays, especially those of the harvest-season. There
appears some principle of utUity in declaring that the harvest-time holidays
were " much to the hindrance of the gathering in of corn, hay, fruit, and other
such-like necessary and profitable commodities." But eveu a material good
cannot suddenly be effected, nor ought it to be, when it is revolting to the
ancient habits of a people. The ecclesiastical reformers saw, in some of
these holidays, the superstitions of the earlier times of the Church engrafted
upon the customs of Eoman heathenism. They did not see how they had a
still deeper foundation in the natural feelings of the human heart. The

iM^XM

The Hocii-Ciirt,

harvest-time was, to the great body of the people, a time of uncontroUable
gladness ; for their food became cheap after the long period of privation
which they had tp endure, when their small stores of barley and rye were
exhausted. Potatoes were then unknown. The esculents of the garden were
little cultivated. Under these circumstances the labourer was not very Ukely

1536.] THE LINCOLNSHIRE INSURRECTION , 899
to neglect his reaping to make holiday before tho harvest Avas wholly
gathered. But in the final ceremony of the hock-cart, when the last load of
corn was crowned with flowers ; when the rude image, derived from the
classic Ceres, rode on the wain ; when the shouting crowd would " bless the
cart," and " cross the fill-horse," and "some with great
Devotion stroke the home-borne wheat ;" *
it may readily be imagined that the early reformers, who were not yet
prepared to deal with essential differences in a spirit of reUgious liberty,
would strive to suppress such popular traces of "the old learning." On the
2nd of October, then, in Louth, the ecclesiastical commissioners, instead of
proceeding quietly to their occupation, found a great body of peasantry in
arms, clamouring for their holidays ; and proclaiming that they were gathered
together for the maintenance of the faith, which was about to be destroyed.
The course of this Lincolnshire insurrection, and of one more formidable
which followed in Torkshire, may be minutely traced iu the official letters
and proclamations of the period.
The " Answer to the Petitions of the Eebels and Traitors of Lincolnshire,"
by Henry, fuUy shows what was the character of their demands. They
objected -to the counciUors that were about the king, and the prelates that he
had appointed. He replies that he had never read nor heard, that " princes'
counciUcrs and prelates shpuld be apppintod by rude and ignerant cpmmon
people ;" and he adds, " how presumptuous then are ye, the rude commons of
one shire, and that one of the most brute and beastly of the whole realm, and
of least experience, to find fault with your prince, for the electing of his
councillors and prelates." f This was not a polite expression from a king to
his lieges ; but probably the inhabitants of the fenny country, of old the seat
of a pecuUar population, were more than commonly opposed to innovations,
and might therefore be rated as " brute and beastly " in manifesting the
ancient Saxon stubbornness. According to this rough answer of the king,
they objected " to the suppression of religious houses and monasteries." The
parliament, said the king, had granted them to him. There were none
suppressed but where there was abomination of living. He derided the
alleged hospitality of those who spent the substance of their goods in
nourishing vice. Their possessions were much better in the hands of their
¦sovereign lord, who spent his own possessions in the defence of his people.
It was the same with the First Fruits, to whieh they also objected. When
they demanded a release from the subsidy which had been granted, he
answered, " Think ye that we be so faint-hearted that, perforce, ye of one
shire, — ^were ye a great many more — would cempel us with yeur insurrectiens
and such rebeUIons to remit the same?" So Henry reasoned with these
angry men, and told them no more to intermeddle with the weighty affairs of
the realm. His arguments were supported by the approach of some military
force, under the duke of Suffolk, and the earls of Shrewsbury, Eutland and
Huntingdon. The prior of Oxney, and a leader named Melton, who assumed
the name of Captain Cobler, could no longer keep together the terrified
* Herrick. + State Papers, vol. i. p, 463.

400 THE YORKSHIRE INSURRECTION. [1536.
oands, when the king's troops were nigh at hand, and the royal proclamation
had somewhat appeased them. It may appear strange, that a monarch so
despotic as Henry should have entered into discussion, through his pro
clamations, with rebels in arms. But the danger was not foreseen. The
earth was heaving, sttid toppling dovm old institutions ; but the Crown was
fancied to be safe. The king was terribly alarmed. "Wriothesley -wrote to
CremweU, " his grace's pleasure is, yen shaU gp tp the Jewel-Hpuse in the
Tpwer, and there take as much plate as you shall think his grace shaU not
necessarily occupy, and put it strait to coining. His grace appeareth to fear
much this matter, speciaUy if he should want money."* On the 13th of
October the Lincolnshire rebels dispersed ; and the Lancaster herald, who had
read and posted up his proclamation at Louth, went on to Pontefract, where
he had a more obstinate assembly to deal with. His report is one of the
most curious pictures remaining ol the state of English society.
Thomas My Her, Lancaster Herald, was approaching the to-wn of Pomfret,
wearing the king's coat of arms, when he overtook a large number of the
rebels, " being common people of the husbandry." They saluted him gently,
and gave honour to his badge of office. The herald asked, why they were in
harness ; and they said it was for the commonwealth, and that if they did not
so, the commonalty and the church would be destroyed. Some of them
the herald persuaded to disperse, telling them that the notion that the king
was about to tax them when they wedded, or christened, or buried, was a
false rumour. Eiding into the town the herald was abeut tp fix his prpclama-
tipn on the market-cross, when he was prevented, and commanded to go to the
castle. He passed through three wards, full of harnessed men, " very cruel
feUows ;" and was brought into the hall, fuU of people. He got upon the
high table, and showed the cause of his coming ; when he was cenveyed into
another chamber. There sat Eebert Aske, the captain pf the rebelUpus hpst ;
with the archbishpp pf Tprk, Iprd Darcy, and pther honourable persons.
But Aske sat there, " keeping his port and cpuntenance, as thpugh he had been
a great prince, with great rigour, and like a tyrant." He gave no reverence
to the herald's tale, but demanded a sight of his proclamation ; and then told
him that it should not be read at the market-cross, nor in any other place
amongst his people ; and he set forth the articles of reformation which he
sought, and for which he would die. " And I fell down of my knee before
nim," says the herald, " showing him how I was a messenger, and charged by
the Idng's councU to read the proclamation, which I brought, for my dis
charge." But Aske declared that he should not read it ; led him by the arm
out of the castle ; and there proclaimed that he that wore the king's coat
should go safe, under pain of death. That bending of the knee to Eobert
Aske cost Thomas Myller his life. He was indicted for high treason in
kneeling dewn before traitors, with the king's most honourable coat of arms
on his back, and so encouraging and comforting them ; and he suffered death
at Tork, iu the following year.t
Straitened for want of mpney ; having ne standing army at his command ;
relying upon the prompt aid of nobles, some of whom were not favourable to
extreme changes in religion, — the king appears to have conducted himself in
* State Papers, vol. i. p. 482. + Ibid,, p. 485.

1536.] NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE REBELS. 401
the beginning ef these insurrectiens with seme prudence and mcderatlon. It
was a great crisis, and he met it, under all its difficulties, with the decision of
character which belonged to him for good or for evil. His pecuniary means
were so scanty that "Wriothesley, the Secretary of State, wrote to Cromwell,
on the 21st of October, " I think your lordship should not only do the king
high service to send him, for his help, four or five hundred pounds with
speed, but -win his heart therewith for ever." * Henry, frem his castle el
"Windspr, gives minute directiens for the movements of the few troops which
the duke of Norfolk and the other nobles had with them. He commends
"the poUtic device" of Norfolk. He exhorts him "never to give stroke"
unless he thought he had some great advantage over the rebels. He trusted
very much to his own elaborate answers to the demands pf the insurgents.
But, hpwever, indicating his vigilance and energy, these decuments are
curipusly indicative pf the capricipus and jealpus temper pf the king, rather
than ef the sober consistency of responsible advisers. He promises mercy,
and threatens vengeance, in a style which exhibits more of weakness than of
strength. His " most noble and princely heart," he says to the rebels, " is
touched -with more mercy, pity, and compassion of you, and of your poor
¦wives and innocent children, than your deserts have merited ;" but if you
" continue one whole day longer, after the receipt hereof, we shall execute all
extremity against you, your wives, and children, without mercy, to the most
terrible and fearful example of aU others whilst the world shaU endure
hereafter."t In his correspondence he shows his despotic character to those
who were striving to serve him. He is exceedingly indignant that Norfolk
recommended a free general pardon, and a parUament to be summpned. The
crafty nature pf the man is abundantly shewn in these instructiens. His
agent, sir Jphn Eussell, breught the parden in his ppcket, te be used pnly in
the last necessity. But meanwhUe Nerfolk was to hold out to the rebels
hopes that he might obtain such pardon from the king ; and, if they made
any special cenditipns, to keep them in suspense for twenty days, until new
forces were brought up. "What he meant is indicated by his subsequent
reproach to Norfolk that he " fell to a point to the rebels," when he had
declared that he would not hold his honour -violated if he kept no promise
made to them. J There were forty thousand of the insurgents in arms
on one side of the river Don, with the king's forces on the other side. The
chroniclers record that no battle took place, because the shallow stream
" suddeiUy rose of such a height, depthness, and breadth, that the like no
men that there did inhabit could tell that ever they saw it there before." § No
blppd was shed in fight. Shrewsbury writes en the 29th of October that the
rebels had dispersed, and the king's army was dissolved. It was this which
provoked Henry's indignation. Tet he was compelled tp yield to circum
stances ; and he emulated the prudence of Norfolk, by -writing a courteous
letter to Aske, the leader of the insurgents, inviting him to come to him, as
" we have conceived a great desire to speak with you, and to hear, of your
mouth, the whole circumstance and beginning of that matter." || Tho
pardoned rebel went to the king ; and he returned, to receive Henry's letter
• State Papers, vol. L, p. 489. + Ibid., p. 470. X Ibid,, p. 514 and p. 619,
§ HaU, p. 823. 1| State Papers, vol. i., p. 523.
VOL. H. p D

402; DISTURBED STATE OF NORTHERN COUNTIES. [1537.
thanking him for " his gppd endeavours fpr the stay pf such our subjects, as
have been moved pr inclined tp a new commotion." * The disturbed state of
the northern counties at this time, January 1587, is graphically described in
twp letters frem Ealph Sadler to CromweU. He was proceeding on an
embassy tp Scptland. Between Doncaster and Tork, there were bUls posted
up on the church doors, with these words, in effect : " Commons, be ye true
amongst yourselves, and stick one to another, for the gentlemen have deceived
you ; but yet, if need be, ye shall lack no captains." t Passing from Tork
to Newcastle, he found the people much excited by a report that the duke of
Norfolk was coming " with a great army and power, to do execution, and to
hang and draw, from Doncaster to Berwick, in all places northward, not-with
standing the king's pardon." t He reached Darlington about six o'clpck ia
the evening; and having entered his inn, abeut thirty pr fprty perspns
assembled in the street, with clubs and bats, and a large crpwd soon gathered
together. The host of the inn said that when any one came out of the south,
they always thus gathered, to hear news. Sadler observed that such assem-
bUes were unlawful, and that the heads of the to-wn ought to lay some of
them by the heels. " God defend," said the prudent host ; " for so might we
bring a thousand men in our tops within an hour." The innkeeper pacified
them, in some sort. But they demanded to know when the dnke of Norfolk
would come, and with what company ; and Sadler sent them word that he
would be at Doncaster on Candlemas-day, and bring none with him but his
household servants. At Newcastle, the mayor and aldermen had reasoned
and threatened the commons into obedience ; and had placed cannon upon the
waUs and gates, which ordnance the merchants had brought out of their ships ;
and they had made new gates of iron upon the bridge, and had victuaUed
the town for a whole year. Such preparations sufficiently show that the
character of this northern revolt was very formidable ; — ^that the mass of the
people, so rarely stirred into insurrection, were agitated by a deep feeling,
stronger than their habitual obedience to their political rulers ; and that the
name which had been given to their dangerous enterprise. The PUgrimage of
Grace, expressed a sentiment weU calculated to make them feel as heroes and
martyrs. They broke out again into open rebelUon in February. A par
liament, to be held at Tork, had been promised by Norfolk on the first
outbreak. The promise was not kept ; and the leaders, lord Darcy, Aske,
and others, were again in arms. Tet the men of influence, for the most part,
adhered to the government. Norfolk writes from Pomfret, on the 3rd of
February, " I think never man was more welcome, of my degree, to the
gentlemen pf the cpuntry, than I am ; which, withput doubt, is most
principally for their own safeguards, being in the greatest fear of the people
that ever I saw men." § But Norfolk had come -with other company than
those of his o-wn househbld. The insurgents made an attack upon Carlisle,
and also upon Hull. They were unsuccessful ; and their leaders were taken
prisoners. Martial law was proclaimed ; and, says the chronicler, threescore
and fourteen of them were hanged pn Carlisle walls. There was a terrible
interval fer the leaders ef the insurrection. In the brief entries in the
chronicle of a religious fraternity of London, we have a more fearful picture
* State Papers, vol. i,,p. 529. + Ibid,, 526. + Ibid., 530. § Ibid., 534.

1537.] SECOND REBELLION— MARTIAL LAW. 403
of the severities which followed the northern tumults than in the most
elaborate descriptions. On the 29th of March, which was on Maundy
Thursday, the Lincolnshire men were hanged, and headed, and quartered.
They had been brought out of Newgate to the Guildhall in ropes, and there
had their judgment. On the 14th of May, lord Darcy and lord Hussey were
condemned at "Westminster. On the 25th of May, Sir John Bulmer, and
five others, of whom three were ecclesiastics, were executed at Tyburn ;
and the lady Bulmer was burnt at Smithfield. On the 2nd of June, sir
Thomas Percy, sir Francis Bigod, and three others, of whom two were
ecclesiastics, were hanged and headed at Tyburn. On the 20th of June, lord
Darcy was beheaded at Tower-hUL* "We may add that lord Hussey was
executed at Lincoln ; sir Eobert Constable at Hull ; and Eobert Aske and
the unfortunate Lancaster herald at Tork. But if the commands of the king
were not disobeyed, — a very unUkely circumstance — there was a far more
terrible vengeance than these executions of the leaders. Thus writes Henry
to Norfolk, on the 22nd of February, commending him for having displayed
the king's banner ; " by reason whereof, till the same shall be closed again,
the course of our laws must give place te the prdinances and estatutes martial.
Our pleasure is, that, befcre yeu shaU clpse up pur said banner again, yen
shaU, in any wise, cause such dreadful execution to be done upon a good
number of the inhabitants of every town, village, and hamlet, that have
offended in this rebelUon, as weU by the hanging them up in trees, as by the
quartering of them, and the setting of their heads and quarters in every town,
great and smaU, and in all such other places, as they may be a fearful
spectacle to aU others hereafter that would practise any like matter ; which we
require yon to do, without pity or respect, according to our former letters."
The king adds to this command cne equaUy stringent. Nerfplk is tp repair
tp certain specified abbeys, and aU other places where there has been
resistance to the suppression, er conspiracy, where " you shaU, without pity
or circunastance, now that our banner is displayed, cause all the monks and
canons that be in any wise faulty, to be tied up, without further delay or
ceremony, to the terrible example of others." Seven months after, his
highness grows merciful, and begs Norfolk, " concerning punishment," to
" remember they be our subjects, though evU men and offenders." f
It would seem, from a curious passage in HaU's Chronicle, that in this.
season of trouble there was sympathy for the northern rebels even in the-
neighbourhood of Henry's palace of Windsor : " In this time of insurrection,.
and in the rage of hurley-hurley, even when the king's army and the rebels
were ready to join, the king's banner being displayed, and the king's majesty
then lying at "Windsor, there was a butcher dweUing within five mUes of
"Windsor which caused a priest to preach that aU such as took part with the-
Torkshiremen, whom he named God's people, did fight and defend God's.
quarrel ; and further, the said butcher, in selling of his meat, one did bid him,
a less price of a sheep than he made of it, he answered, ' Nay by God's soul,
' Chronicle of the Grey Friars, p, 40.
+ Thus we read in State Papers, vol, i,, p, 537 and p, 565. It is from some higher authority,
no doubt, that we are told, ' ' The rebelUon was put down ; and in the punishment of the offenders
there was unusual leniency ; not more than thirty persons were executed, although forty thousaiid
had been in arms,'' — Mr. Froude, in " Eraser's Magazine," January, 1857,
ss 2

404 BIRTH OF A PRINCE— DEATH OP QUEEN JANE. [1537.
I had rather the good fellows of the north had it among them, and a score
more of the best I have.' This priest and butcher were accused to the king's
majesty's council of the treason above-said on the Monday in the morning,
and the same day were both sent for, which confessed their treason, and so
according to the law martial they were adjudged to die ; and so the said
Monday they were both examined, condemned, and hanged. The butcher
was hanged on a new pair of gaUows set at the bridge-end, before the castle
gate ; and the priest was hanged on a tree at the foot of Windsor bridge."
The tree at Windsor bridge and the gallows at the castle-gate must have
given Henry a satisfactory assurance of the efficacy of " ordinances and
estatutes martial " in the distant rebellious districts. What his subjects
thought of such exhibitions did not affect him.
On the 12th of October the same form of circular letter went forth as when
the princess Elizabeth was born, to announce that queen Jane had given birth
to a son. The event seems to have caused great gladness. Latimer, amongst
others, is in extacies ; and writes to CromweU, " Here is no less jpying and
rejoicing for the birth of our prince, whom we hungered for so long, than
there was, I trow, (inter vicinos,) at the birth of St. John Baptist." * But
the queen was not destined to partake of the nation's joy. She died on the
24th of October.f On that day CromweU wrote to lord WiUiam Howard,
who was in France, that the infant " is in good health, and sucketh like a
child of his puissance ; " but that " our mistress, through the fault of them
that were about her, which suffered her to take great cold and to eat things
that her fantasy in sickness caUed for, is departed unto God." f Another
passage in the same letter may scarcely appear credible. But there it stands
in its undoubted authenticity : " Though his majesty is not anything disposed
tp marry again, — albeit his highness, God be thanked, taketh this chance as
a man that, by reason, with force overcometh his affection, may take such an
extreme adventure" — at the earnest entreaty of his Council "that his grace
-will again couple himself," the king desires that lord WiUiam Howard
wiU report of " the conditions and qualities " of the French king's
daughter, and of those of the widow of the duke de LongueviUe. SimUar
instructions, to inquire into the conditions and qualities of particular ladies,
are immediately sent to ambassadors at other courts. On the 9th of
December John Hutton writes from Brussels to CromweU, speaking highly
of the duchess of MUan ; and in a letter of the same day to Wriothesley, he
adds, " She is not so pure white as was the late queen, whose soul God
pardon ; but she hath a singular good countenance ; and when she chanceth
to smUe there appeareth two pits in her cheeks, and one in her chin, the which
becometh her right exceUently weU." § Fortunately, perhaps, for herself, the
dimpled duchess was not chosen, for she was in the degree of forbidden
relationship to Henry's first queen, Catherine. Hutton gave other information
as to eligible ladies. There was a maiden of fourteen who would have " a good
dote." There was a widow, " of goodly personage." The duke of Cleves ,
has a daughter ; but, says the ambassador, " I hear no great praise neither of
* State Papers, vol, i,, p. 571.
t The Chroniclers wrote that the queen died on the 14th. But the date is now clearly shown
bj extant letters.
X State Papers, vol, viii,, p. 1. § Ibid,, p, 7.

1538.] BIBLE SET UP IN PARISH CHURCHES. 405
her personage nor beauty." Hutton is aware that in such ticklish affairs his
frank opinions might get him into trouble ; and he adds, " I have not much
experience amongst ladies, and therefore this commission is to me very hard ;
so that, if in anything I offend, I beseech your lordship to be my mean for
pardon." The time would come when Cromwell himself would regret that
he had not imitated the prudence of the ambassador to the Netherlands ;
" leaving the further judgment to other that are better skilled in such
matter," * than directing his capricious master's choice, at the peril of his
own head.
If we rightly interpret the policy of the counseUors of king Henry, it was
their endeavour, by these toys, so to speak, to divert him from intermeddling
with the desire of the reformers to effect a substantial change in religion.
CromweU, in his position of vicegerent, had an almost absolute power in
regulating ecclesiastical affairs. In the parUament of 1539, we find that he
had precedence before the archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer, with his
quiet and temporising habits, was under the control of CromweU ; but they
each had a course of policy to be worked out with the greatest caution. In
the suppression of the monasteries they would have the thorough support of
the king, for his revenues would thence receive an enormous increase. In
every form of resistance to the papal supremacy they would have the same
countenance. But in the disputed matters of doctrine, their individual desires,
if such they truly held, for an enlarged liberty of conscience, would be of no
avaU against an absolute ruler, who felt his inordinate vanity flattered in
prescribing what his subjects should believe and what not believe. " Henry
was a king with a pope in his beUy," truly says an old and plain-spoken
writer. They went ferward in a cpurse of inconsistency, hanging disobedient
abbots, and racking and burning Lutheran reformers. There is nothing
absolutely to hate in either of these men ; but there is little to love. Cranmer
was a servUe tool. Cromwell was a bold and unscrupulous minister. They
accompUshed one good work, of which their intolerant master did not see the
final result. They gave us the EngUsh Bible.
The circulation of Tyndale's EngUsh Testament, printed at Antwerp in
1526, had been prohibited by Henry, in his zeal against Luther and the
reformed doctrines. Ten years later he was moved to consent to the publica
tion of an English Bible. In August, 1537, Cranmer wrote to Cromwell to
exhibit a Bible in English to the king, which was of " a new translation and
a new print;" soliciting him "to obtain of his grace, if you can, a licence
that the same may be sold, without danger of any act, proclamation, or
ordinance heretofore granted to the contrary ; until such time that we, the
bishops, shaU set forth a better translation, which, I think, will not be tUl a
day after doomsday." f This was Coverdale's Bible, printed anew under the
name of Matthews. In 1538, another Bible was printing in Paris by
Coverdale and Grafton ; and they write to Cromwell, sending specimens of
the same, desiring " to be defended from the papists by your lordship's
favprable letters." f Another editfon of the Bible was printed in 1538,
knpwn as " Cranmer's, er the Great Bible." These Cranmer appointed
to be spld at 13s. 4id. each; unless CromweU would give the printers
* State Papers, voL viii,, p, 7. + Ibid,, vol, i., p. 561. J Ibid,, p, C'6.

406

ANOMALIES OF THE REFORMATION,

[1538.

exclusive pri-rileges, when they might be seld at 10s. In 1538, injuncticns
¦were given tp the clergy tp set up the Bible in parish churches ; and to
encourage the people to peruse it. In a few years that liberty was partially
withdrawn. But the great principle was proclaimed in Cromwell's injunctions,

Henry VIII, delivering the Bible to Cranmer and Cromwell, (Being a portion of the Engraved
Title-page of Cranmer's, or The Great Bible,)

that in the Scriptures was to be sought the way to eternal happiness, they
" being the true lively word of God, which every Christian ought to believe,
embrace, and foUow, if he expected to be saved,"
If the English people could have viewed the extraordinary anomalies of
this peripd pf the Eefermatipn in England as we new "view them, they would
have probably subsided into that most unhappy condition of a nation —
universal scepticism. There appear to us to have been no secure resting-
places for honest opinion. Those whp held, as many earnestly did, tp the
principles and ferms pf the old reljgion, based as it was upon obedience to
one spiritual head of the church, were traitors. Those who, in rejecting the
papal supremacy, rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation, were heretics.
The shrine of Thomas a Becket is plundered and destroyed ; and a royal
proclamation forbids him to be any longer received as a saint. Instead of
the pUgrims to Canterbury wearing the steps of the high altar, there is a
great crowd in Westminster Hall to hear a king confute a " sacramentarian."
John Nicholson (kno-wn commonly as Lambert) has been accused of denying
the corporal presence in the eucharist. Henry has renewed the old excite
ment of his polemical studies ; and he causes it to be solemnly proclaimed
that he will publicly examine and judge the heretic. He sits upon his throne
dressed in white satin, with his guards all in white. He calls upon the
unhappy man to declare his opinion, which, according to Burnet, did not
differ from that then held by Cranmer and Latimer, being the Lutheran

1538.] TRIAL OF LAMBERT. 407
doctrine of consubstantiation. The king, the bishops, and the accused,
entered upon scholastic disputations, which lasted five hours. The poor
unaided disputant, with ten ppppnents, pne after anether, engaging with him,
and the kingfrewning in his mpst awful manner, was at last silenced ; and the

Trial of Lambert in Westminster Hall.

people in the haU sheuted their applause at the reyal victpry. Lambert was
then asked by Henry whether he wpuld live pr die ; and he answered, "that he
cemmitted his soul to God, and submitted his body to the king's clemonoy."

408 VISITATIONS AND SURRENDERS OP RELIGIOUS HOUSES. [1539.
He was condemned to be burnt, and Cromwell read the sentence ; and burnt
he was in Smithfield, crying aloud in his agony, " None but Christ." It is
fearful to see those whose memories we must regard with some respect
mised up with these horrors. The superstitions of the ignorant are pitiable.
The zealotry of the wise and learned is revolting. There was an image in
Wales called Darvell Gathern, to which the people resorted by hundreds,
believing that the wooden block had power to save. DarveU Gathern was
brought to London, and was burnt in Smithfield. But the " huge and great
image " was brought under the gaUows where an Observant friar. Forest, was
hung in chains alive ; and the idol being set on fire under the wretched man,
who was accused of heresy and treason, they were consumed together.
Worst of all, " there was also prepared a pulpit, where a right reverend father
in God, and a renovmed and pious clerk, the bishop of Worcester, called
Hugh Latimer, declared to him (Forest) his errors ; and openly and mani
festly by the Scripture of Ged confuted them ; and with many and gedly
exhortations moved him to repentance. But such was his frowardness that
he neither would hear nor speak." *
After the great insurrections of 1536-7 had been effectnaUy repressed, it
became evident that the destruction of the larger reUgious houses would soon
follow that of the smaUer. It was not necessary for a parliament tp be
sitting tp pass a second law of suppression. The government adopted the
principle of terrifying or cajoling the abbots and priors into a surrender of
their possessions. The ecclesiastical commissioners continued their work
with larger powers. Their reports exhibit a dreary catalogue of abuses,
which, however coloured by the .prejudices and interests of the reporters,
would afford some justification for the sweeping spoliation, if particular
examples could be received as types of a general depravity. The records of
these proceedings, imperfect as they are, present so many interesting points
of historical information as to this great ecclesiastical and political revolution,
that we shall endeavour to condense some of the facts, in addition to the
details we have already given.f
The act of 1539, for Dissolutipn of Abbeys, recites that since the 4th
of February, in the 27th year of the reign of Henry, divers heads of
religious houses had voluntarily surrendered their possessions to the king.
The 27tli regnal year comprised the period between the 22nd of April, 1535,
and the 21st of AprU, 1536. In that 27th year, after the 4th of February,
there were four surrenders. In the 28th year there were three. In the
29th year there were twenty-four. In the 30th year there were a hundred
and seventy.four. In the 31st year there were seventy-six. We may
judge, therefore, what powerful influences were set in action, after the
chances of a successful popular resistance were at an end.f The visitation of
the commissioners had several objects — to search out and publicly expose the
alleged impostures and depravities of the monastic life ; to induce the abbots
and monks to resign, and to arrange the terms of resignation ; to appropriate
the revenues and available property of these institutions. In addressing the
rebels of Lincolnshire, in 1536, the king had said, — " There be none houses
* HaU's Chronicle, p. 826, + See ante, p. 366.
X In Burnet (Records) the Lists of Surrenders, as found in the Augmentation Offtce, are given.

1639.] IMAGES AND RELICS. 409
suppressed, where God was well served, but where most vice, mischief, and
abomination of living was used." * In carrying out a much more extensive
measure of suppression, it became necessary to have materials for urging tho
same plea.
The impostures connected with images and relics are amongst the most
curious manifestations of human credulity ; and it was a necessary step in
the estabUshment of a pure worship that the system of deceit, which was of
no modern origin, should be thoroughly exposed. In 1538 Cranmer writes
to Cromwell, " Because I have in great suspect, that St. Thomas of Canter
bury his blood, in Christ's Church in Canterbury, is but a feigned thing, and
made of some red ochre, or of such like matter, I beseech your lordship that
Dr. Lee, and Dr. Barbour, my chaplain, may have the king's commission to
try and examine that, and aU other like things there." t The commissioners
went to the abbey of Hales, in Gloucestershire, and reported of their finding
"jewels, plate, ornaments, and money, besides the garnishing of a small
shrine, wherein was reposed the counterfeit relic in times past." J This
counterfeit relic was "the blood of Hales," which Latimer made famous, by
preaching at Paul's Cross that it was "no blood, but honey clarified, and
coloured with saffron." But when the same plain-speaking bishop preached
before Edward VL, he told a tale bf " the blood of Hales," which shows how
the most palpable imposture had established its stronghold, even in the
mind of the supreme head of the Church. Henry himself believed that in
the crystal vessel, opaque on one side, and transparent on the other, was held
the blood that flowed in the Agony in the Garden. The pretended blood
was sho-wn or not according to the price paid for the sight. Latimer says,
""What ado was there to bring this out of the king's head. This great
abomination of the blood of Hales could not be taken a great while out of his
mind. . . . Unpreaching prelates have been the cause that the blood of Hales
did so long blind the king." § Barlow, bishop of St. David's, writes to
Cromwell that he had openly detected the abuse of " the taper of Haverford
west ;" "but sithence I chanced upon another taper of much greater credit,
and of more shameful detestation, called Our Lady's taper of Cardigan,
which I have sent here tp ypur Iprdship, with cpnvenient instmctiens of that
deviUsh delusion." There was in the priery pf Cardigan an image pf the
Virgin, with a taper in her hand, which was fpund standing pn the river
Tyne, with the taper always burning ; but being carried inte Christ's Church,
in Cardigan, the image wpuld not stay there, " but was found three or four
times in the place where now is builded the church of our Lady, and the
taper burning in her hand, which centinued still burning the space pf nine
years withput wasting, until the time that pne forsware himself thereon, and
then it extincted, and never burned after." So stated the prior, in his
examination. 1 1 Wales was the especial seat of these superstitions. There
was an image at Bangor, worth to the friars " twenty marks by the year in
com, cheese, cattle, and money." Tf But the counties nearer London had
their reUcs, ancient and modem. At Caversham, near Eeading, the friars
* State Papers, vol. i., p. 464. t See a/nte, p. 246.
J Suppression of Monasteries, p. 237. § Seventh Sermon before Edward TI,
II Suppression of Monasteries, pp, 188 — 186. If Ibid,, p. 212.

410

ALLEGED ABOMINATIONS OF LIVING.

[1539.

showed " the holy knife that kUled St. Edward," and " the holy dagger that
kiUed king Henry," * At Eeading abbey the reUcs " would occupy four
sheets of paper to make an inventory of every part thereof." Walsingham,
famous for these curiosities, contributed a more than common proportion to
the bonfire which CromweU made at Chelsea of these memorials of a perish
ing beUef. At St. Paul's Cross some of the images were exhibited and
broken in pieces. The famous rood of Boxley, of which the figure could

Elm formerly in St. Paul's Churchyard, on the spot where the Cross stood.
move his threatening eyes, twitch his nostrUs, throw back his head, or nod
approbation, is elevated on a scaffold, and goes through the performance at
which past generations had trembled and wondered. The imposture is
proclaimed from the pulpit ; the image is cast down into the street ; its
machinery is disclosed ; and amidst the hootings of the people is consigned to
the flames.
The " abomination of living," of which the inmates of the religious houses
were accused, are exhibited in these returns of the commissioners. Some
times their neighbours have evil things to say of them ; sometimes the monks
themselves relate some of the evil deings pf their brethren, at which they
duly prpfess their herrpr. Eichard Beerley, a menk of Pershore, implores
CromweU, as " the most gracious lord and most worthiest vicar that ever
came amongst ns," to " help me out of this vain religion." He says that
mpuks come to matins drunk ; play at cards, dice, and tables, with many pther
* Suppression of Monasteries, p. 222-

ij;39."

DEPRIVATIONS OF ABBOTS.

411

vices.* In some cases an abbot and his monks were at variance ; and the
disorders of the house ihastened its suppression. In the terror that preceded
the surrenders and suppressions, some of these institutions became wholly
disorganised. The brethren of the Charterhouse, iu the isle of Axholm,
write to the prior of Shene, that their father prior is daily conveying goods
out of their house. He went to London, leaving the monks without money.
Our husbandry, they say, is not looked upen ; our land is not tiUed ; muck

Glastonbury.
is not carried ; our corn Ueth in the barn, and taketh hurt with vermin. AU
their servants are gone away.f The heads of some of the richer houses hid
their valuables, or carried them off. At Glastonbury, the commissioners
write to Cromwell, "we have daily found and tried out both money and
plate, hid and muried up in walls, vaults, and other secret places ;" and that
" the abbot and the monks have embezzled and stolen as much plate and
adornments as would have sufficed to have begun a new abbey, f The abbot
and the monks felt as the people of an invaded cpuntry feel when they cpnceal
their treasures frpm the fpreign marauders ; and the cpmmissipners felt as a

* Suppression of Monasteries, p. 133.
X State Papers, vol. i,, p, 620.

t Ibid., 126.

412 PENSIONS TO MONKS. [1539,
rapacious soldiery feel when their hopes of booty are disappointed. The
abbot of Glastpubury had little chance against his persecutprs. He was tried
at WeUs on the 14th of November, 1539 ; " and the next day put to execu
tion with two other of his monks, for the robbing of Glastonbury church, on
the Tor hUl next unto the town of Glaston ; the said abbot's body being
divided in four parts, and head stricken off." * Eichard Whiting's head was
fixed on the abbey gate, to crumble into dust with the perishing fabric, once
so glorious.
George Giffard, one of the ecclesiastical cpmmissipners, ventures, hpwever,
tp speak a good word in favour of the house of Woolstrope, in Lincolnshire.
The head of the house is well-beloved of all the inhabitants ; the priests are
of good conversation, living religiously ; they employ their time in em
broidering, writing books, making their own garments, carving, painting, or
engraving. In the house, standing very solitary, such hospitality is kept
that, unless there were singular good provision, the lands could not maintain
the relief which is daily afforded to the poor inhabitants. But George
Giffard trembles at his own boldness in writing the truth ; for he says, that
when he wrote to the Chancellor of the Augmentations in favour of the abbey
of St. James and the nunnery of Catesby, the Chancellor showed his letter to
the king, whereof " the king's highness was displeased, as he said to my
servant, Thomas Harper, saying that it was like that we had received rewards
which caused us to write as we did." f Is it to be wondered that we find few
records of the virtues of the monks ? And yet the unwelcome honesty will
occasionally have its course. At the Benedictine nunnery of Polesworth, in
Warwickshire, still picturesque in its ruins, the abbess was a discreet and
religious woman, and the nuns of virtuous lives, by the fame and report of aU
the country. The nuns, it would seem, educated children of the neigh
bouring gentry, who boarded in the house to the number of thirty or forty,
who were right virtuously brought up. " And in the town of Polesworth are
forty-four tenements, and never a plough but one : the residue be artificers,
labourers, and victuallers, and live in effect by the said house." J The
nunnery and its school were swept away. The artificers and labourers had to
swell the number of vagabonds that were stocked, whipped, and hanged when the
means of profitable industry were taken from them. The nuns of Polesworth
protested against leaving and forsaking their habits and reUgion. They were
unfitted for the ordinary duties of the world ; and so were the whole regular
clergy. They had, for the most part, small pensions assigned them, " of his
grace's chanty;" but we have hints and assertions that they were rarely paid.
The commissioners made bargains for the crown, of which Tewkesbury
may serve as an example. The clear yearly value of the possessions was
1595Z. 15s. Gd, They gave the abbot the large annual sum of 266Z. 13s. M,
Seven monks had pensions varying from 71, to 16Z. Twenty-seven monks
had 61. 13s. id. each ; making a total of 5511. 6s. 8d. " And so remains
clear, 1044?, 8s, lOd," § In the smaller monasteries the ejected monks had
pensions varying, according to their ages, from 4Z, to 53s, 4id, But some
monasteries were in a state of miserable poverty, with only a few acres of
* Lord J. Russell to Cromwell, ElUs, First Series, vol. u,, p, 98,
+ Suppression of Monasteries, p, 136. J Ibid,, p. 139. § Bumet, Recoras.

1539.] PLUNDER AND FAVOURITISM, 413
arable land, and the ruinous house that sheltered the half-starved inmates.
Many of the convents were deeply in debt. The bishop of Dover writes,
" many shall lose much money by the friars, the which wiU make a great
clamour among the people," * But, whether the houses were rich or poor,
resistance was useless. The abbot of St. Albans " sheweth himself so stiflT,
that, as he saith, he would rather choose to beg his bread all the days of his
Ufe than consent to any surrender." f The plan pursued in such cases is set
forth in the commissioner's letter. It was to pass a sentence of deprivation
on the abbot for aUeged misconduct ; " which done, the house wiU be in such
debt that we think no man will take the office of abbot here upon him,
except any do it only for that purpose to surrender the same to the king's
hands ; and by these means we think this thing may most easUy and with
least speech be brought to the king's highness' pleasure."
With the king's highness eager for the sUver shrines, the parcel-gilt cups,
the embroidered copes, the very lead and timber of the conventual buildings, to
be turned into money ; with grasping courtiers ready to bribe the king's
vicegerent for grants of land and leases, — there was no difficulty in ccn-
verting the monastic possessions to immediate advantage. It is lamentable
to trace the degradation of a period when to bribe and be bribed was no
disgrace. Audley, the chanceUor, pffers two hundred pounds to CromweU
for one job. Sir Thomas Elyot, a scholar, an accomplished writer, the friend
of More, offers the -vicegerent the first year's fruits of " some convenient
portion of the suppressed lands." All this was natural. But the shameltess-
ness of public men was never more clearly exhibited than in Elyot's slavish
address to CromweU, in which he beseeches him, " to lay apart the remem
brance of the amity between me and sir Thomas More." He thinks so
meanly of the king and of his minister, that he cannot ask a favour -without
declaring his base ingratitude to the memory of the man whp was his
dearest friend. With such a spirit in the rapacipus suitprs of the court, it
was not likely that the work of spoliation should not be carried through most
thoroughly. There were hungry claimants for the crumbs of the table, as
well as for the sumptuous banquet. Stow records that the widow Cornwallis
obtained a fair heuse and tenements of a dissolved priory by the timely
present of some fine puddings te the king, CremweU had a grant pf Lewes
abbey, besides many ether valuable estates and manors. It was one of the first
to be swept away. In 1537, CromweU has a minute account from some officer,
" how we had begun to pull the whole down to the ground ; " and " with how
many men we have done this." The superintendent brought from London
seventeen persons — " these are men exercised much better |;han the men that
we find here in the country." J The first process, in aU cases, was to strip the
roofs of the churches and other buildings, and to cast the lead or make it up
into fodders. At Jervaux, the nimble destroyers got down the lead ; but
" the said lead cannot be conveyed nor carried until the next summer, for the
ways in that country are so foul and deep that no carriage can pass "in
winter." The careful Eichard BeUasis, who has the superintendence of this
work, is much distressed that he cannot sell the bells for above twenty-five
* Suppression of Monasteries, p, 241. f Ibid,, p. 250. Legh and Peto to CromweU.
X Ibid,, p. 180.

414

DESTRUCTION OF MONASTIC HOUSES.

[1539.

shiUings the hundred.* Sir Eichard Eich was now chancellor of the Court
pf Augmentatipns, for managing the revenues pf the suppressed hpuses. He
writes te John Scudamore, one of the king's officers for the dissplved pesses-
sions, that he is informed " that the late monastery of Bordesley is defaced
and plucked dewn, and the substance thereef sold to divers persons without
profit or lucre paid or answered to the king's majesty's use for the same."t
It was a season of general plunder and waste. Philip Hoby desires John
Scudamore to let him have what is left of the stone of Evesham. The
anxious PhUip had obtained a grant of the monastery ; and no doubt he made
the best of his bargain : " As concerning the spoil or waste that ye wrote to
me of that hath been done there, I assure you both I and mine be guiltless
thereof." J: When Leland visited Evesham soon after 1539, the abbey was
called by him "the late abbey." John Scudamore had cleaned out the
sisteen altars, and the hundred and sixty-four gilded pUlars of its church.
Chapter-house, Ubrary, refectory, dormitory — aU were gone. The campanUe of
the cemetery alone remains to indicate its ancient splendour.

Suppression of Monasteries, p. 165.

t Ibid,, p. 279.

X Ibid,, p. 283.

Evesham.

[St. John's Gate. From Hollar.]

CHAPTER XXVI.

Parliament of 1539 — Conformable knights and burgesses — A tractable parUament the instru
ment of tyranny — Complaints against the suppression of the abbeys — Act for the king
to make bishops — AppUcation of the revenues of religious houses — Six new bishoprics
— Destruction of the Hospital of St, John — The Six Articles — Penalties under the Statute
in which they are declared — Latimer and Shaxton resign their bishoprics — Reformers
executed or expatriated — Arrests of the Pole family, and convictions — Margaret, countess
of Salisbury — Anne of Cleves — Her progress to England — The king and his bride — The
marriage declared invalid — Fall of Cromwell— His attainder — Queen Catherine Howard.
The parliament which was summoned to assemble at Westminster on th&
28th of April, 1539, met for the sole purpose of accompUshing a despptic
revelutipn, with all the ferms pf representative gpvernment. Never had a
parUament pf England assembled under circumstances so fuU of strange
anxiety. In the parliament of 1536, there were present fifteen abbots ; and
thirteen other abbots voted by proxy.* In the parliament of 1539, there
were seventeen abbots present, and three sent their prexies. UnwUlingly the
abbets must have come. There could be no doubt that they vvere about to
pass away from their high position in the state. No more would the mitred
lords of Tewkesbury and St. Albans, of St. Edmondsbury and Tavistock, of
Colchester and Malmesbury, ride to Westminster with their armed and
liveried servants, with crowds on the highways kneeUng for their blessing.
The abbot of Glastonbury earnestly entreats to be pardoned fpr non-
• lords' Journals, July 17,

416 A TRACTABLE PARLIAMENT. P539.
attendance. " But if the king's pleasure be so, I would be gladly carried
thither in a herse-litter, tp accpmplish his grace's pleasure and commandment,
rather than to tarry at home." * He was not one ef those who met tp register
their Pwn fall. He had a harder fate than mere deprivatien. In that
parliament there were alsp present the twp archbishpps and eighteen bishpps.
There were ferty-nine temppral peers summpned. If the ecclesiastics had
mustered in their full strength, the spiritual and temppral peers would have
been of equal number.f In the secpnd sessien of the same parUament the
prppprtipn was changed, never again te be restored. The abbots had then
vanished from the legislature. " His grace's pleasure and commandment"
had been accomplished. But it was not accomplished without an amount of
labour and management which might appear to be a characteristic of modem
rather than of ancient times. The returns te the Lpwer Heuse pf knights
and burgesses, whp should be wholly conformable, was accomplished by the
unremitting care of Henry's ministers. On the 17th of March, five weeks
before the meeting of parliament, CromweU writes to Henry, " For your
grace's parliament, I have appeinted ypur majesty's servant, Mr. Mprispn,
tp be pne of them. No doubt he shaU be ready to answer, and take up
such as would crack pr face with literature pf learning, pr indirected ways,
if any such shaU be, as I think there shaU be few pr npne ; fpr as much
as I, and pther yeur dedicate cpunciUcrs, be abput tp bring aU things so
to pass, that your majesty had never more tractable parliament." J A
" tractable parliament " was the machinery by which tyranny sought to do
its work in England, after the old spirit of freedom had been crushed under
the Tudor heel. It was necessary tp put the drapery pf representation over
the naked form of despotism. One sound constitutional historian, in stating
that the immense revolutions of Henry's time could never have been effected
without the concurrence of parUament — ^that the spoliation of prpperty, and
the condemnation of the innocent, were accompUshed by their acquiescence
and co-operation — holds that their subservience was not ultimately injurious
to public liberty, because " it accustomed the people to set no bounds to the
authority of those who bestowed it on the king." § But let us not forget
that if the people had not been trained, by long traditions of individual
liberty, to rely upon themselves, the subservience of parliament might have
ultimately accomplished a more dangerous, because more complicated,
tyranny than that of uncontrolled monarchical supremacy. HappUy the roots
of English freedom were too deeply imbedded in the soil, for the old tree to
be destroyed by the storms of regal power, or the blights of representative
corruption. The ancient spirit which upheld justice and civil rights survived
in the most dangerous times, such as in other countries l^ft the peeple
groveUing before the throne. The essential difference was, that in England,
from the earliest days a great part of the administrative functiens pf
government was wrought out by the people themselves. The local constitu
tions of the feudal ages had not been destroyed or changed. They were
carried forward into the whole theory and practice of a state of socie-ty from
which slavery and vUlanage had departed. They retained their strongholds
* State Papers, vol. i., p. 607. f See the list in Parliamentary History, vqL t, p, 533,
X State Papers, vol, i,, p. 603. § Mackintosh, History of England, vol. ii., p. 240.

1539,] ACT FOR THE KING TO MAKE BISHOPS. 417
in parish and borough — in the* viUage vestry and the corporate guild. They
survived in the constable and the justice of the peace. There were institu
tions besides those of crown and parliament. These might be tyrannous and
corrupt ; but the elements of freedom still abided with the people. " The
imperfection of certain organs matters nothing, because the whole is instinct
with life." ¦* If Ealph Sadler, in 1539, could openly write to a new member
tp repair tp him, " tp speak with the duke ef Norfolk by whom ye shall
know the king his pleasure, hew ye shall order yourself in the parliament-
house," t — there were, no doubt, others who endured such domination in
secret displeasure. The Saxon temper would chafe and fume, and would
have to bide its time, even for a century. But it was the spark that, some
day, would fiy up in the face of tyranny. Even in the ashes of freedom lived
its wonted fires.
The " act for dissolution of abbeys " was a formal statute, to make perfect
the wprk that was practically accomplished. It vested the remaining
monastic possessions in the king, of which the greater number had been
surrendered ; and it confirmed aU future surrenders. It annuUed leases
granted a year previous to each surrender. Other business had pre
ceded this enactment ; but all other matters were of secondary importance,
or depended upon the accomplishment of this measure. Of the pubUc
opinipn as tp this sweeping ccnfiscatipn, Burnet says, " this suppressien pf
abbeys was universaUy censured ; and besides the common exceptions which
those that favoured the old superstition made, it was questioned whether the
lands that formerly belonged to religious houses ought to have returned to
the founders and donors, by way of reverter ; or to have fallen to the lords ot
whom the lands were holden, by way of escheat ; or to have come to the
crpwn." X Lprd Herbert says, " this rapine uppn the Church, with the
miserable ruin of themselves and houses, was divulged abroad in such terms
as astonished the whole Christian world. For though the excessive number
of them excused the king in some part, for the first suppression, the latter
had no such specious pretext." In our day we properly look upon these
institutions as having been, if not nurseries of vice and idleness, unsuited
even to their o-wn times, and as utterly incompatible with the progress of
religions freedem, and therefpre with natipnal prpsperity and happiness. But
we sheuld grossly err if we beUeved that they were wholly useless. Even Henry
did not dare to appropriate these vast possessions without a pretence that he
was about to devote some portion of them to great public uses. The act for
the dissolution of the abbeys was foUowed by " an act for the king to make
bishops." The preamble to the draft of this statute is written in king
Henry's own hand : " Forasmuch as it is not unknown the slothful and
ungodly life which hath been used amongst aU those sort which have borne
the name of religious folk ; and to the intent that from henceforth many of
them might be turned to better use as hereafter shaU foUow, whereby God's
word might be the better set forth ; chUdren brought up in learning ; clerks
nourished in the universities ; old servants decayed to have livings ; alms
houses for poor folks to be sustained in ; readers of Greek, Hebrew, and
* De TooqueviUe, " Society in France," translated by Henry Reeve, page 321.
+ Letter in "Henry VIII.'s Scheme of Bishoprics," p. 101.
X Reformation, vol. i., p. 261, ed. 1681.
VOL. II. E It

418 APPLICATION OF THE MONASTIC REVENUES, [1539,
Latin to have good stipend; daUy alms to be ministered; mending of
highways ; exhibition for ministers of the Church ; it is thought unto the
king's highness most expedient and necessary that more bishoprics and
coUeges shaU be estabUshed,"* Here is, indeed, a goodly catalogue of
noble intentions. Who, after the effects of the first sudden change had
passed away, could have failed to rejoice in seeing the Gospel preached,
children educated, learning encouraged, the indigent assisted, the means of
communication promoted! Here is a large project of eivUisation, to^ be
accomplished by the absorption of one-fifth of the lands of the kingdom into
the possessions of the cro-wn ! What a noble title of the honest reformer
would king Henry have attained by the reaUsation of these projects ! The
abbey- walls were puUed down ; the lead melted ; the timber sold ; the
painted windows destroyed. Alas ! the records of the time show wonderful
schemes for the establishment in each bishopric of preachers, readers, students,
schelars, schoolmasters — large sums for alms, mending of highways — aU to
be " founded and established by the king's majesty's goodness." But the
far greater part of these waste-paper prejects remained whelly undpne tUl
the next reign, and then mest grudgingly and imperfectly. "The king's
majesty's gcpdness" remained satisfied that he sheuld have a cpnvenient fund
tp draw uppn fpr the maintenance pf his extravagant heuseheld and his
absurd wars ; for " the upholding of dice-playing, masking, and banquetting,"
with other recreations that are not suited to delicate ears. The king grew
bolder in a shert time ; and when he went to parliament to sanction another
spoliation, the abolition of the chantries — ancient endowments for alms
giving connected with obits, or praying for souls — he honestly said, speaking
by the voice of the slavish parUament, that the revenues of the same should
be devoted to the expenses of the wars against France and Scptland ; and
" fpr the maintenance pf ypur mpst rpyal estate, henour, dignity, and estima
tion, which all your said loving subjects, of natural duty, be bound to con
serve and increase by all such ways and means as they can devise."t Schools,
alms-gifts, were attached to the smallest as weU as the largest reUgious
houses. These were aU destroyed, when the funds for their support were
swept into the king's exchequer. Henry's " geodness" was chiefly confined
to the establishment of six new bishoprics, by his letters patent. This was a
small performance of a large promise. Whilst he swept away the strong
holds of the supremacy of Eome, he annihilated the greater part of those
ancient possessions, out of which a pure religion might have been diffused
over an instructed people. The magnificent endowments of ages that were
past might have been preserved, not to perpetuate error, but to become living
fountains of future piety and knowledge. It was the divine wUl that it
should be otherwise ; that, painfully and laboriously, the reformed faith might
be built up upon sounder foundations than the temporal riches of an outworn
institution. The destruction of the hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, in 1540, was as
remarkable an example of the changes of opinion as the dissolution of the
abbeys. Eighteen years only had passed since the heroic defenders of Ehodes
had quitted their island for ever. When their cenquerer, the Sultan
* 31 Henry VIII. c. 9. t 37 Henry VIII. o. 4.

1589.] THE SIX ARTICLES. 419
Solyman, had paid a tribute of respect to their grand-master, he said, " It is
not without pain that I force this Christian, at his time of life, to leave his
' dwelling." Henry of England had less generosity than the infidel. The
act of parliament which expelled the knights of St. John from their ancient
priory in ClerkenweU — to appropriate its vast buildings " as a storehouse for
the king's toUs and nets for hunting, and for the wars " * — coldly says, that
" considering that the isle of Ehodes, whereby the said reUgion took their pld
name and fpundatipn, is destroyed by the Turks," it is " much better " that
the possessions of the order should be " employed and spent within this
realm." t L'Isle Adam, the defender of Ehodes, broke his heart when he
learnt that a king, who stUl affected some of the pomp of chivalry, had
destroyed the last link that connected the England of the sixteenth century
with the glories of the Crusades.
The act for dissolution of abbeys is immediately followed in the statute-
book by " an act abolishing diversity in opinions." The very title of this
statute is sufficient evidence of its vain presumption. The king's majesty,
being by God's law Supreme head of the whole Church and congregation of
England, caUing to mind the commodities which have ever followed unity
of opinions, and the dangers of diversities of minds, especiaUy of matters of
Christian religion, caused certain articles to be discussed in parUament and
in convocation. And also he " most graciously vouchsafed in his p-wn
princely perspn tp descend and ceme intp his said high cpurt of parliament
and council, and there, like a prince of most high prudence, and no less
learning, opened and declared many things of high learning and great
knowledge touching the said articles, matters, and questions, for an unity to
be had in the same." J The statute then sets forth that the desired unity
was to be "charitably estabUshed," by the observance, under the most
tremendous penalties, of Six Articles. Fox caUs this statute, " The whip
with sis strings." It was something more terrible than a whip. It breathed
the amplest threats of the stake in Smithfield and the gaUows at Tyburn.
The first article sets forth the doctrine that " in the most blessed sacrament
of the altar, by the strength and efficacy of Christ's mighty word, it being
spoken by the priest, is present reaUy, under the form of bread and wine, the
natural body and blood of our Saviour," and that " after the consecration
there remaineth no substance of bread and wine, nor any other substance but
the substance of Christ." This article regarding the real presence thus
involves a condemnation of the minuter difference from the orthodox doc
trine which the Lutherans caUed consubstantiation, as distinguished from the
Eomish doctrine of transubstantiation. The Defender of the Faith, in his
character of Supreme head of the Church of England, has utterly rejected
the papal authority ; he has declared against pilgrimages, images, and reUcs ;
he has destroyed the monastic institutions ; he has even permitted the trans
lation of the scriptures in the -vulgar tongue ; — ^but net pne tittle -will he
relax from the enforcement of those doctrines of the Epmanists which are tho
barriers tp any true refermatipn. The ether five articles are directed against
these who preached the necessity of administering the eucharist, in both
. Idnds, to the laity; whp advpcated the marriage pf priests, or the non-
* Stow. t 32 Hen, VIII. c. 24, J 31 Hen. VIII, c, 14.
E E 2

420 LATIMER AND SHAXTON RESIGN THEIR SEES, [1539,
observance of female vows of chastity or -widowhood ; who maintained that
private masses were not lawful or laudable ; who asserted that auricular
confession was not expedient. The jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts
upon such subjects was removed ; and commissioners were appointed to
examine accused persons, to commit to prison, to try before a jury of
twelve men, and to pass sentence. Those who were convicted under the
first article, " shaU be deemed and adjudged heretics ; " and " every such
offender shall therefore have and suffer judgment, execution, pain, and pains
of death by way of burning, without any abjuration, clergy, or sanctuary to
be therefore permitted." Burnet remarks, that denying such offenders the
benefit of abjuration was a severity beyond what had ever been put in prac
tice before; for which remark Dr. Maitland sneers at the bishop's ideas
of " honesty and martyrdom." * For any violation of either of the five other
articles, by preaching or teaching in any school to the contrary, " every
offender, on the same being therefpre duly cenvlcted pr attainted," shaU be
adjudged a felen ; " and shaU therefpre suffer pains pf death, as m cases of
felony." Any man or woman whp had advisedly prefessed chastity pr
widpwhpod, and should afterwards marry, was to suffer the same penalty
of death. Those who maintained doctrines against the articles where
preaching was felony, were to lose lands and gopds, and to be imprisoned ;
and for a second offence to suffer death.
This, then, from the 12th of July, 1539, when the act of the Six Articles
was to take effect, to the end of the reign of Henry, was the England pf the
Eeformation. It would be difficult to understand how such a statute could
have passed, if the great body of the people had been inclined to a higher
species of reformation than consisted in the destructive principle which
assailed the externals of the Church. Cranmer was too yielding, and Crom
well too poUtic, to oppose the party which carried this statute, backed by the
irresistible force of the king's will. The doctrinal reformers were clearly a
minority. The political reformers had got aU they wanted in the plunder of
the ancient Church. The subservient courtiers, who had become impro
priators, and provided half-starved monks to do the service of the altar at the
cheapest rate, were whoUy indifferent to the principles through which the
continental reformers were daily waxing in strength. Cranmer spoke against
the biU ; but he finally sent away his wife, to evade its penalties, and locked
up for a more convenient season the secret of his heart as to the real
presence. Latimer, on the 11th of July, resigned his bishopric of Worcester.
He was subsequently arrested, on a charge of having spoken against some of
the Six Articles ; and he wore out six years of his life in a close imprison
ment in the Tower. Shaxton, the bishop of Salisbury, also resigned. But
he had to endure something far more terrible than the close ceU in which
Latimer fortified his heart against all fear of man's power to harm. The
story of Shaxton' s fall wiU be told in its due order. An acute and learned
-writer, somewhat startled intp anpther extreme by the exaggerated state
ments of bloody persecutions under the Six Articles, has given a list of aU
the martyrs whom Fox mentions as having been put to death during the time
that the act was in force — that is, during the last seven years of Henry the
* "Essaira on the Reformation," p. 255.

1539,]

REFORMERS EXECUTED OR EXPATRIATED.

421

Eighth's reign.* These amount to twenty-eight. But, says this writer,
speaking of the statute against diversity in ppinipns, " it was meant to frighten
rather than to hurt, to intimidate and quiet the people rather than to destroy
and slaughter them by wholesale. In the first place it caused many of the
more violent partisans of the Eeformation to quit the ccuntry ; and, secondly,
it made those whp stayed at heme mere quiet and peaceable." He rightly
attributes this act tp the king, which we may readily infer frem its preamble :
" I believe that he was reused by an idea that the Church, pf which he was
reselved tp be the supreme head, was likely tp be pverthrewn by a tprrent of
what he considered infidelity and blasphemy ; and that he devised, and
insisted on, and would have, and carried such a measure as he thought was
suited to check the frightful evil." t Pe it so. He who had stalled his
horses in monasteries, even before the diBsolution,J looked quietly on whilst
painted windows were
smashed, and consecrated
bells were melted ; saw
noble libraries sold to
grocers and soap-boilers ;
heard the cries of the unfed
poor at the desolated abbey-
gate, and consigned them
to the beadle's whip; turned
out ten thousand nuns into
the -wide world, to find
resting-places where they
might, — forbidden to marry
under the pains of felony,
with no strict or tender
mother-abbess to watch
over their ways ; — he to
oppose " a torrent of what
he considered infidelity and
blasphemy ! " The profane
songs — the plays and in
terludes, " tending any way
against the six articles," —
¦ the disturbances of con
gregations during the ser
vice of the mass — these
things were evUs. But it
was a far greater evil to
render England a land un
inhabitable "by the mere
violent partisans of the Eefermatipn ; " by which " viclent partisans " we
understand that consistent body of earnest thinkers who have since been
honoured with the name of Puritans, These were the men who did not rest

An English Abbess.

* Maitland ; Essays, p, 259,
X Latimer's first sermon before Edward VI.

t Ibid., p, 270.

422 ARRESTS OF THE POLE FAMILY. [1539.
satisfied that the king had " destrpyed the pepe, but net pppery." * "Whether
twenty-eight perspns were executed under the statute pf the sis articles, or
twfenty-eight hundred; whether ten reformers fied from England pr ten
thpusand ; whether the great mass pf the people rejoiced in this persecuting
law,— and, tp use the wprds of Hooper in 1546, " the impious mass, the most
shameful ceUbacy of the clergy, the invocation of saints, auricular confession,
superstitious abstinence from meats, and purgatory, were never before held
by the people in greater esteem " — we cannot, at this day, look upon such a
law withput borror, nor hesitate to entertain the mpst unmeasured disgust fpr
its rpyal author and supporter. Our history tells of other tyrants, crafty and
cruel as this Henry, who had slight regard for the life of man, and scrupled
not to sacrifice friend and foe to their persenal ambitipu. But this tyrant
stands alpne in his preppsterpus claim to unlimited obedience. He would
absorb into himself aU the inordinate powers of popes and councUs, to pre
scribe what should be truth and what untruth. He would pretend tp gpvern
by parliament, accerding tp the ancient laws ef the realm, and yet precure his
parUament te enact that his proclamations should have the force of statutes.f
To the very last he looked upon the five milUons of the people of England
as his property ; and the councU that by his wUl were to govern during his
son's minority were called his executors, " to keep up," says Mackintosh,
" the language of the doctrine of ownership."
The general prpceedings of the English government, — not halting between
two opinions, but punishing and threatening whoever differed from the
fluctuating and inconsistent dogmas of the supreme head of the English
Church, — outraged the earnest partisans of " the new learning," and pro
pitiated none of the vast body that cleaved to the old reUgion. The papal
buU against Henry had been published, after a long delay ; and the cardinal
Pole, nearly allied in blood to Henry, had conducted negotiations to induce
the emperor and the king of France to unite in hostiUties against England. ,
Neither of these powerful monarchs dared singly to brave the resentment of
Henry ; and they were too jealous of each other to jpin in any measures,
such as those suggested for the conquest of England, or for removing its
contumacious sovereign. But enough was done to provoke the revenge of
Henry upon those who were within his reach. Eeginald Pole was the grand
son of George, duke of Clarence ; and although educated by Henry, he
pubUshed a book reflecting with bitterness upon the subject of the divorce
of Catherine. The Tudor king, and the descendant of the house of Tork,
thus became mortal enemies. Lord Montague, the elder brother ef Eeginald,
with pther relatives and friends of their family, were arrested in 1538, on a
charge of treason. On the 13th of November, sir Thomas Wriothesley
writes from Brussels to sir Thomas Wyatt, in Spain, to say that lord
Montague had been sent to the Tower, with the Marquis of Exeter ; that the
king, through his special favour towards them, had "passed over many
accusations made against the same of late by their own domestics," but
that he was constrained to commit them to ward, " for avpiding of such maUce
as was prepensed bcth against his person royal, and the surety of my lord
prince, our only jewel after his majesty."! I* is asserted that Geoffrey Pole,
* Letter of Hooper. t 31 Hen. VIII. c. 8. X EUis, Second Series, vol. ii. p, 109.

1539.] MARGARET, COUNTESS OF SALISBURY. 423
who was arrested at the same time, was a witness against his brother
Montague and Exeter were convicted by their peers, and executed, with Sir
Edward Neville, and other commoners, accused of treasonable and seditious
offences. The life of Geoffrey Pole was spared, for the remorse of a life-long
imprisonment. The aged mother of the Poles, the countess of Salisbury,
was arrested at her house at Warblington, near Havant, by the earl of
Southampton and the bishop of Bly. They wrote to Cromwell, " We assure
your lordship we have dealed with such a one as men have not dealed withal
before us. We may caU her rather a strong and constant man than a
woman. For in aU behaviour howsoever we have used her, she hath showed
herself so earnest, vehement, and precise, that more could not be." * She
maintained her innocence with such consistency, and the materials for an
arraignment were so utterly wanting, that CromweU resprted te an expedient
which has breught as much disgrace uppn his mempry as any pf his acts of
spoliation. He put a question to the judges whether parliament might
condemn a person accused of treason without a hearing — ^without trial or
confession. A nice and dangerous question, said the obsequious ministers of
justice ; but parliament is supreme, and an attainder in parliament is good in
law. The bill of attainder was passed against the countess of Salisbury ; her
grandson, the eldest son of lord Montague ; and the marchioness of Exeter.
The marchioness obtained a parden. The grandspn's fate is unknewn. Let
us finish this hateful stery. After mere than twp years' imprisenment, on the
27th of May, 1541, Margaret Plantagenet, — the last in the direct line of that
iUustrious race, — was brought out to suffer death pn Tpwer-hUl. If any
thing cpuld add tp the terrpr pf this murder, the scene at the execution would
have made a people, too much familiarised to exhibitions of blood, start and
wonder how England endured such atrocities. The unyielding countess
refused to lay her head upon the block. It was for traitors so to die, and
she was not guilty of any treason. She struggled against the force which
held her do-wn ; and her gray hairs were covered with gore before the head
parted from the body. Ten months before this terrible event took place, the
chief instrument in the attainder of the countess of SaUsbury had faUen by
the same mockery of justice — and few pitied him :
" For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist -with his o-wn petar."
It has been considered as a proof of king Henry's undissembled grief at
the loss of Jane Seymour, that he continued two years a widower.f We have
seen that on the very day of her death his ambassadors were instructed to
look out for a new consort. The real motive or the pretence was anxiety for
the succession, which has been called " the ruling frenzy of Henry's mind."J
Hutton had disparaged the personal charms of Anne, the daughter of the duke
of Cleves, upon the first intimation of the king's desire again to wed.§ But
CromweU, — who felt the importance of a Protestant connexion at a period
when the Eomanists were using every effprt to regain their ascendancy, — was
* ElUs, Second Series, vol, ii. p. 114,
¦f See Southey, "History of the Church," vol, ii, p. 77.
j Mackintosh, "History," vol. ii, p. 243. § See ante, p, 404.

424

ANNE OF CLEVES.

[1539.

not to be diverted from his determination to marry his master to this daughter
of one of the princes of the German Confederacy, by vague statements that
there was no great praise of her person. In March, 1539, OromweU wrote to
the king : — " Every man praiseth the beauty pf the same lady, as well for the
face as fer the whole body, above aU other ladies exceUent. One amongst
other purposes, said unto them of late, that she exceUeth as far the duchess
as the golden sun exceUeth the silvery moon."* The " sUvery moon" was the
duchess of Milan, who is reperted tp have met Henry's advances by saying
that she had but pne head ; if she had ppssessed two, one should have been
at his majesty's service. In this affair the poUtic CromweU was too eager.
Nicholas Wotton and Eichard Berde were sent to negotiate the marriage
with Anne of Cleves. She was not bound, they wrote, by any covenants
between the old duke of Cleves and the duke of Lorraine ; she was at liberty

Calais from the Sea. From an old Print,

CO marry wherever she would. She had been very straitly brought np, they said,
by the lady duchess, her mother. She occupied her time mostly with the
needle. She knew not French nor Latin, neither could she sing nor play
upon any instrument ; " for they take it here in Germany for a rebuke and an
occasion of Ughtness that great ladies should be learned or have any knowledge
of music." Her wit was good, and she would soon learn English. She was
temperate in her diet : — " I could never hear that she is inclined to the good
cheer of this country." Finally, " your grace's servant, Hans Holbein, hath
taken the effigies of my lady Anne and the lady Amelie, and hath expressed
• State Papers, vol. i. p. 605.

1539.]

HER PROGRESS TO ENGLAND,

425

their images very lively."-* Thus wrote Wotton on the 11th pf August, 1539.
On the 12th pf December, the lady Anne was at Calais, abeut tp embark fer
England. She came frpm Dusselderf, with a train pf twp hundred and sixty-
three perspns ; and was received with the greatest state by Fitz- William, then
the earl pf Sputhampton, and four hundred noblemen and gentlemen, in coats
of satin damask and velvet. The English admiral writes with honest pride of
the exhibition he made of his country's naval power : " Her grace saw, as well
the ship that is prepared for her passage, as other your grace's ships ; which
were not only right well appointed and trimmed with streamers, banners, and
flags, but also no less well furnished with men standing en the tpps, the
shrouds, on the yard-arms, and ether places accprdlngly ; and their shot pf

Anne of Cleves. From a Painting by Holbein,
prdnance therein marvelleusly weU erdered. And surely not only she, but also
aU such strangers as were with her, much commended and liked the same ; and
thpugh I say it, it was to be liked," t But the weather was unfavourable for
embarkation ; and Southampton entreated, with great humility, " that your
majesty, of your gracious goodness and high wisdom, will consider that neither
the wiud nor the sea will be ordered at man's wiU," But Southampton has
a greater difficulty to contend with than the wind or the sea. Anne of Cleves
wUl not readUy conform to the English notions of royal dignity. She prays
* EUis, First Series, vol, ii. p. 121. A miniature supposed to have been this identical
picture was considered by Walpole the most perfect of Holbein's works. The Flemish fairness
was remarkable. f Southampton to Henry, State Papers, vol, viii, p, 208.

42(5 THE KING AND HIS BRIDE. [1540.
, Southamptpn tp cpme tp supper with her, " and te bring spme neble folks
with me to sit with her, after the manner of her country. I showed her it
was not the usage of our country so to do, and therefore besought her grace
to pardon me of that, for I durst not consent thereunto." But again and again
the princess repeated her request — " for this one night ; " — for "she was much
desirous to see the manner and fashion of EngUshmen sitting at their meat."
And so Anne of Cleves supped graciously with Southampton and eight other
Englishmen. The earl begs for pardon if he had done amiss. Henry was perhaps
not in the best humpur at her freedem when he first met her, and was
'' marvelleusly astpnished and abashed." Hans Helbein had been a flatterer.
The king embraced her, but scarcely speke twenty wprds, and did npt pffer
the present he had prepared fer her.* Sir Antbeny Brpwn, the master ef
the herse, had gene before the king, and " was never sp much dismayed in
his life tp see the lady so far unlike what was reported." f In the last month
of his life, CromweU was commanded by his master, on the peril of his soul,
to -write truly what he knew cpncerning the marriage with the princess cf
Cleves. What is fit to be repeated of this document is of curious interest.
Anne was to be at Eochester on New Tear's eve ; and Henry declared to
CromweU that he would visit her privily, " to nourish love," The next day,
at Greenwich, says CremweU, " I demanded of your majesty. How ye liked
the Lady Anne : your highness answered, as me thought, heavUy, and not
pleasantly — Nothing so well as she was spoken of; saying further. That if
your highness had knpwn as much befpre as ye then knew, she sheuld npt
have ceme within this realm ; saying, as by the way pf lamentatien. What
remedy?" J After Anne's public entry at Greenwich, the king caUed a
Cpuncil ; and the agents pf the duke pf Cleves were questiened abeut
ccvenants, and tpucbing a pre-centract pf marriage with the duke pf,
Lprraine's sen and the princess. The deputies pffered to remain prisoners
tUl ample satisfaction was given upon both points. But when CromweU
informed the king of all the circumstances, "your grace," he says, "was
very much displeased, saying, ' I am not weU handled ' — adding, ' If it were
not that she is eome so far into my realm, and the great preparations that
my states and people have made for her ; and for fear of making a ruffle in
the world, — that is to mean, to drive her brother into the hands of the
emperor and the French king's hands, — being now together, I would never
have married her.' " Anne was called upon to make a protestation that there
was no pre-contract ; which she readUy made ; and which CromweU reported
to Henry : " Whereunto your grace answered in effect these words, or much
like, — ' Is there nene ether remedy, but that I must needs, against my wUl,
put my neck in the yeke ?' " There was up instant remedy ; and the
marriage ceremcny was gpne thrpugh. The king, whilst waiting for the bride
in the presence chamber, said to CromweU, " My lord, if it were not to
satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do that I must do this day, for
¦ * Modem history has its parallel scene. When George, prince of Wales, first met Caroline
of Bmns-wick, lord Malmesbury says, "he embraced her, said barely one word, turned round,
retired to a distant part of the apartment, and calUng me to him said, ' Harris, I am not well ;
pray get me a glass of brandy,' " — Malmeshwry's Diaries, die, vol. iii., p, 210.
•t Strype, " Ecclesiastical Memorials,"
X Cromwell's Letter in Bumet, vol, i., p, 193, The same letter is given by Sir H. EUis,
with considerable variations. The original iu the Cotton Library is much injured bv fire.

1540.] THE MARRIAGE DECLARED INVALID. 427
none earthly thing." In this temper Henry sulked and lamented : he
" should surely never have any more chUdren for the comfort of this realm"
if this marriage shpuld cpntinue. A secpnd experiment of the Calais
executioner's sword might have been dangerous with a foreign princess.
There was a "remedy," of a less serious nature. Anne of Cleves made no
resistance to a separation, with an adequate provision. She was a woman of
judgment, and no doubt heartily despised the fastidious sensualist. A Con
vocation was caUed, exactly six months after the marriage, which was
empowered to determine its validity. On the 4th of July Henry -wrote to Pate,
his ambassador at the emperor's ccurt, tp infprm Charles that the Lerds and
Cpmmpns, "perceiving seme deubts tp be in pur last marriage with the
daughter pf Cleves," and wishing "to draw a most perfect certainty of
succession," had requested him to commit the examination of the marriage
to the bishops and clergy of the realm. The cunning politician adds, that the
ambassador was on no account to explain what were the " grounds and causes
of this motion." -* On the 10th of July the marriage was declared invalid ;
the chief pretence being a doubtful pre-contract ; and the unblushing argu
ment, " that the king having married her against his wUl, he had not given a
pure inward and complete consent."t CromweU had gone to the blpck ;
and " Cranmer, whether pvercpme with these arguments, er rather with fear,
for he knew it was centrived tp send him quickly after CromweU, consented
with the rest." f
CromweU had gone to the bleck. On the 17th pf AprU, 1540, the
fprtune of CromweU seemed at its culminating point, for he was created earl
of Essex. On the 12th of April a parUament had been assembled, which
CromweU had addressed as the king's vicegerent, and had declared that
" there was nothing which the king so much desired as a firm union amongst
aU his subjects. • * * The rashness and Ucentiousness of some, and the
inveterate superstition and stiffness of others in the ancient corruptions, had
raised great distinctions, to the sad regret of all good Christians. Some
were caUed papists ; others heretics ; which bitterness of spirit seemed the
more strange, since now the Holy Scriptures, by the king's great care of his
people, were in aU their hands in a language which they understood." § In
this parUament he carried a bUl for a great subsidy tp be raised upon the laity
and the clergy. The promises that the necessities of the state should be pro
vided for out of the spoU of the church, were violated without the slightest
apology. The odium of this taxation was solely laid upon Cromwell. The
exorbitant demand " gained him an universal hatred amongst the people, and
was one reason of his sudden faU after it." || The minister's work was done.
He had carried through a great revolution with comparative success.' He
had impartiaUy racked, beheaded, and gibbeted papist and heretic. His loose
papers of " Eemembrances " show that he kept as careful memoranda of
business to be done, as the most careful scrivener. Take a few specimens —
" Item, to remember aU the jewels of aU the monasteries in England, and speciaUy for
the cross at Paul's, of emeralds.

• State Papers, voL viii, p. 374. t Bumet, voL i., p. 280.
t Ibid., p, 281. § Burnet, and ParUamentary History. || Lord Herbert.

428 FALL OF CROMWELL. [1540.
"Item, the Abbot of Reading to be sent down to be tried and executed at Reading -with his
compUces.
" Item, the Abbot of Glaston to be tried at Glaston, and also to be executed there, with
his complices.
" Item, to see that the evidence be weU sorted, and the evidence weU drawn, against the
said abbots and their complices.
" Item, to remember specially the Lady of Sar [Salisbury].
" Item, what the king -will have done with the Lady of Sarum.
" Item, to send Gendon to the Tower to be racked.
" Item, to appoint preachers to go throughout this realm to preach the gospel and tme
word of God." *
WeU might Cromwell, in his adversity, write to Henry, " I have meddled
in so many matters under your highness, that I am not able to answer them
all ; but one thing I am well assured of, that wittingly and -wilUngly I have
not had wUl to offend your highness ; but hard it is fpr me pr any other,
meddUng as I have done, tp live under yeur grace and ypur laws but we must
daily pffend." t The sky began tp grpw dark for CromweU, at the very
instant when parliament was to be prorogued, after the subsidy had been
carried. On the 9th of May, a letter comes from the king to his "right
trusty and well-beloved cousin " — in which the sign manual was affixed by a
stamp — most prpbably as a mark pf displeasure. The eld famUiar wprds are
np Ipnger written ; but '' our pleasure and commandment is, that forthwith,
and upon the receipt of these our letters, setting aU other affairs apart, ye do
repair unto Us, for the treaty of such great and weighty matters, as whereupon
doth consist the surety of our person, the preservation of our honour, and the
tranquillity and quietness of you, and all other our loving and faithful
subjects." X On the 10th of June, he was arrested by the duke of Norfolk,
while at the council table. The divorce of Anne of Cleves had not yet been
mooted. Had Cromwell imprudently pressed upon Henry to cleave to a
Protestant queen ? Had Norfolk as resolutely urged upon his master, who
now hated heretics more than papists, to consider the charms of his niece,
Catherine Howard, who would support him in resisting the " rashness and
licentiousness " that had come upon the land ? There is no solution of these
questions, beyond the fact that Cromwell was attainted for treason and
heresy, by act of parliament, on the 29th of June. He was charged to have
been " the most corrupt traitor and deceiver of the king and the crown that
had ever been known in his whole reign." It was aUeged that "he, being
also a heretic, had dispersed many erroneous books among the king's subjects,
particularly some that were contrary to the belief of the sacrament;" and
that when some complained to him of the new preachers — such as Barnes
and others — he said that their preaching was gppd ; and " that if the
king wpuld turn frpm it, yet he wpuld not turn. And if the king did
turn, and all his people with him, he would fight in the field in his own
person, -with his sword in his hand against him, and all others." What
ever crimes may be laid to the charge of Cromwell, no one can beUeve
that he was the foolish braggart whieh these words imply. That he was
an oppressor ; that he received bribes ; that he had made a great estate
for himself by extertipn, were np dpubt true. Spme of the public plunder
* See the curious extracts from the Cotton MS. in EUis, Second Series, vol, u, p. 120.
t EUis, Second Series, voL ii. x>. 165. J State Papers, vol. i, p, 628.

1540.]

HIS ATTAINDER.

429

stuck to his fingers. He made as free with the lands and moneys of the
king's subjects, as he did with the wooden house in Throgmorton-street,
belonging to old Stow's father, which house he wanted out of the way when
he buUt his own mansion : and so moved it upon roUers twenty-two feet, and
seized the land upon which it stood.* Cranmer said with truth, though npt
with firmness, « that he thpught np king pf England had ever such a servant

Qaeea Catherine Howard. From a Fainting by Vander Wein,
 but if he was a traiter, he was glad it was discovered." Though
CromweU was unscrupuleus in carrying put the cruel judgments of his
master and his base parliaments, he knew in his own case what was the
justice which an Englishman had a right tp demand. In his last letter tp
Henry, frpm the Tewer, he says that he had been informed by the honourable
personages who came to him, that "mine offences being by honest and
probable witness preved, I was by ypur hpnpurable lerds pf the Upper Heuse,
and the wershlpful and discreet Cemmpns pf ypur nether Heuse, cenvicted
and attainted. Gracieus spvereign, when I heard them I said, as new I
say, that I am a subject and bcm tp pbey laws, and knew that the trial pf aU
laws pnly cpnsisteth in honest and profitable witness  Albeit, laws be
laws." The principle of attainder, without hearing or confession, was not
law. He perished by attainder ; having in vain written to his remorseless
* '• Survey of London, ' Thom's edit. p. 67.

430

QUEEN CATHERINE HOWARD.

[1540.

master — ^who, however, sent him a Uttle money whUe in prison — "Most
gracious prince, I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy." The cry nioved the heart
of Henry for a moment ; he dropt one tear. But the servant of twelve years
was executed on the 28th of July. The divorce of Anne of Cleves had been
completed four days before ; and on the day when CromweU was beheaded,
king Henry married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard.

^andown Castle ; one of the fortroases erected by Henry VIII. in apprehension of an invasion by
allies of the Pope.

Palace of Nonsuch, built by Hemy VIII,

CHAPTER XXVIL
Three priests burned as heretics, and three hanged as traitors — Other executions for denying the
supremacy — Queen Catherine Howard appears in pubUc — Her shame discovered —
Cranmer's Letter to Hemy — Mercy promised to be extended towards her — ^Aot of
attainder against her and lady Rochford — New law of treason — Catherine Parr — ^War
with Scotland and -with France— State of Scotland under James V. — David Beaton — The
first Scottish Reformer — Efforts to stop the progress of Lutheran opinions — James rejects
the overtures of Henry — Invasion of Scotland by forces of the dute of Norfolk— James
deserted by his nobles — Plight of Solway Moss — Death of James — Birth of the princess
Mary of Scotland— Treaty for a marriage between prince Edward and the infant princess
— The treaty broken ofi- — ^Invasion of Scotland by earl of Hertford — -Edinburgh taken —
Kelso destroyed — Jedburgh burnt — Ravages of the southern districts — Proposition to
assassinate cardinal Beaton — He is murdered in the foUowing year — France invaded by
Henry in person — Boulogne besieged and'taken — ^Attempts of France to invade England —
Francis and the emperor conclude a peace — French make continued efforts to retake
Boulogne — ^Peace -with France, in which Scotland is included — Anne Askew and others
burnt as heretics — Duke of Norfolk and the earl of Surrey arrested — Surrey convicted of
high treason and beheaded — Norfolk attainted— Death of king Henry.
The public executioners had ample work in the dog-days of 1540. The
•record of CromweU's fate by the chronicler of the Grey-friars is followed by

432 A QUEEN'S SHAME DISCOVERED. [1541.
this entry : " And the 30th of the same month was Dr. Barnes, Jerome, and
Garrard drawn from the Tower into Smithfield, and there burned for their
heresies." The heretics were clergymen. The record then continues:
" And that same day also was drawn from the Tower, -with them. Doctor
PoweU, with two other priests ; and there was a gaUows set up at Saint Bar
tholomew's gate, and there were hanged, headed, and quartered." The
traitors were condemned for affirming the legality of the marriage with
Catherine of Arragon ; one of them named Abel having been her chaplain.
In the Beauchamp tower, whose walls are covered with the sad memorials of
the wretched, is the carving of a Bell with an A. Belew this is anpther
mementp pf a cpndemned prispner, Doctob : CooK.* He was the pripr of
Doncaster, and -with six others was executed at Tyburn, on the 4th of
August, for denying the royal supremacy. It may be doubted whether the
people exactly comprehended the nice distinctions of these punishments.
These sufferers of the 30th of July — ^three reformers, the stedfast opponents
of the pepe ; and three deveted adherents tp the supremacy cf the pppe — rede
out of the Tower in sorrowful companionship, one of each being placed upon
the same hurdle, by express desire of the king, that his impartiaUty might be
duly exhibited. Arrived in Smithfield, they each went their several way,
three to the gibbet, and three to the stake. It was a merry time at court,
whatever tears might faU in Smithfield. Queen Catherine Howard appeared
in public on the 8th of August — a beautiful girl, the very opposite of " the
Flanders mare," whom Henry had rejected. Catherine, the " parvissima
pueUa," as she was called, had fifteen months of what, in the language of
romance, is termed uninterrupted felicity. When the little queen was
traveUing with her semewhat un-wieldy lerd in the nerth, in 1541, he then
splemnly effered thanksgiving for the happiness he found in her society. On
their return to Lpndpn, Cranmer had a private audience of the king ; and he
exhibited a paper, which purported to be the examination of a servant of the
duchess of Norfplk, setting forth the profligacy of the queen befpre her'
marriage, and alleging that her parameur fprmed one of her regal establish
ment. Let us pass over the revolting story, giving only a few extracts from
a remarkable letter of Cranmer te the king. It is a touching exhibition of a
sinful woman, plunged into the depths of despair : — " It may please your
majesty to understand, that at my repair unto the queen's grace, I found
her in such lamentation and heaviness, as I never saw no creature, so that it
wpuld have pitied any man's heart te have lepked upen her ; and in that
vehement rage she continued (as they informed me, which be about her),
from my departure from her, unto my return again ; and then I fpund her, as
I do suppose, far entered tewards a frenzy, which I feared befpre my
departure frpm her at my first being with her . . . And as for my message
from your majesty unto her, I was purposed to enter communication in this
wise ; first, to exaggerate the grievousness of her demerits ; then to declare
unto her the justice of your grace's laws, and what she ought to suffer by the
same ; and last of aU, tp signify untp her ypur mpst gracious mercy ; but
when I saw in what condition she was, I was fain to turn my purpose, and to
begin at the last part first, to comfprt her by ypur grace's benignity and mercy
* Bayley, "History of the Tower," p. 160-1.

1541,] ACT OF ATTAINDER AGAINST CATHERINE HOWARD, 433
.... and after I had declared your grace's mercy extended unto her, she
held up her hands, and gave most humble thanlis unto your majesty, who had
shewed more grace and mercy than she herself thought meet to sue for, or
could have hoped for, .and then for a time she began to be more temperate
and quiet, saving that she stUl sobbed and wep-f? ; but after a little pausing,
she suddenlj^ fell into a now rage, much wcrse than she was before. * * * *
And for anything that I could say unto her, she continued in a great pang a
long while ; but after that she began semething tp remit her rage, and ceme
tp herself; she was mightily weU until night, and I had very gppd cpm-
munication with her, and as I thought, had brought her into a great quietness.
* * * * The cause, that master Baynton sent unto ypur majesty, was partly
for the declaration of her estate, and partly because, after my departure from
her, she began to excuse, and to temper those things, which she had spoken
unto me, and set her hand thereto ; as, at my coming unto your majesty, I shaU
more fuUy declare by mouth." * The unhappy woman was thus solemnly
assured by Cranmer, as he wrote to Henry, " of your grace's mercy extended
nnto her." The archbishpp thought that he should be able to establish a
precontract with Francis Derham which would have rendered the marriage of
Henry invaUd. The matter was not clear ; and the promise of mercy was a
mere breath of idle words.
The act of Parliament for the attainder of queen Catherine Howard
includes the lady Eochford as an accompUce — she who had sacrificed her pwn
brpther in the case cf Anne Bpleyn. Derham, and anpther man involved in
the accusation against the qu.een, had previously been hanged. The king's
council on the 12th of November wrote to Paget, the English ambassador in
France, stating the allegations against the queen ; and " they are related with
a circumstantial exactness, fprming almpst a cpntrast tp the vagueness of all
former proceedings of the Uke sort." t The ambassador writes on the 28th
of Npvember te Henry, detaiUng, vrith the greatest coolness, the discourses he
had held on this terrible disclosure with the king of France and the queen of
Navarre. Francis " swore, par la fog de gentil homme, that he was very sorry
fpr the chance." But the French ambassador in London had told Francis
more than Paget could communicate ; particularly that " she would neither
eat nor drink since the matter was known, but intended to kill herseK; and
that therefore knives, and aU such other things as wherewith she might hurt
herself, were taken from her ;" with many of the odious particulars of the bill
of attainder. "Far la fay de gentil homme, quoth the king, and laid his hand
upon his breast, she hath done wondrous naughtily, and I am right sorry that
my good brother should have such an occasion of unquietness." J The par
Uament, desirous that condign punishment should not be delayed, requested
the king not to trouble himself personally to give the royal assent to the bill
of attainder against the queen and lady Eochfort, but to agree to the same by
letters patent. So the letters patent were granted ; and the unhappy women
were executed on the 12th of Febmary. In the statute there isa remarkable
¦clause, that any single woman of impure life who, before marriage with the
king, should not confess the same, should be declared guilty of high treason.
* State Papers, vol, i. p, 691. + Mackintosh, History, p. 230,
X State Papers, vol. viu., p, 635.
VOL, 11. ^ ^

434

NEW LAW OF TREASON.

[1541.

" To make the concealment pf vices a capital effence was worthy of such a
reign." * Lord Herbert says that there were no more youthful candidates
for the honour of Henry's hand, after this enactment. There was np
Sheherazade again tp be fpund ready tp trust the safety ef her head to her
power of amusing king Shahriar. Henry wisely rejected the chance of a fatal
termination of another union, under this new law of treason, by obtaining
the hand of a discreet widow, who had been twice before married. The maiden
name of this lady was Catherine Parr. She became the queen of Henry
in July, 1543. Before we enter upon her personal history, as connected
with the two great religious parties into which England was now divided, we
purpose to take a rapid view of the foreign relations of the kingdom to the end
of Henry's reign, involving as they did a war with Scotland and with France.

Queen Catiierine Parr, From a Painting by Holbein,
The minority of James V. of Scotland was a disastrous period for his
country. The regency was a constant object of contention between the
factious nobles. The power of the great feudal chiefs had not been subjected,
as it had been in England, to the superior power of the crown. A new
element of discord was introduced by the progress of the new opinions in
reUgion. The reforming spirit assumed - a simpler character than in the
neighbouring country, where it was mixed up with the perspnal quarrel of the

Mackintosh, p. 231.

1541.] STATE OP SCOTLAND UNDER JAMES V. 435
king -with the papal see. It was the earnest spirit of the first LoUards, revived
in the doctrines of Luther, and spread through Europe by his unwearied
labours. But though the reformers were dreaded for their singleness of purpose,
the old ecclesiastical power was completely ascendant. The fatal day of
Flodden had cut off the most influential of the nobles ; and those who remained
were inferior in wealth, and therefore in authority, to a body which possessed
half the land of the kingdom. The spiritual and temporal dominion appeared
consolidated when David Beaton was appointed lord privy seal. Patrick
Hamilton, the first Scottish reformer, was burnt by this persecuting prelate
at St. Andrews, in 1528,* As early as 1525, the Scottish parliament had
enacted, that — " forasmuch as the damnable opinions of heresy are spread in
divers countries by the heretic Luther and his disciples, and this realm and
liege has firmly persisted in the holy faith since the same was first received,"
— no stranger arriving should bring any books of the said Luther or his
disciples, on pain of forfeiture of ship and goods, with imprisonment.f But
the books found their way ; the doctrines were preached ; and what this statute
calls "filth and vice " became the secret food and medicine of earnest men in
busy towns and secluded valleys. And so Patrick Hamilton, high-born, ac
complished, went to the stake in his enthusiastic youthfulness. Beaton soon
obtained the complete control of the young king. He negotiated his marriage
with Mary of Guise, after James had lost his flrst wife, the princess Magdalen
of France. Mary of Guise was a pewerful instrument in ccnfirming the
devptipn pf the Scettish king tp the ancient church ; and Henry pf England
in vain endeavoured tp tempt him tp fpUpw his example in seizing the menastic
property. James, in whose mind the cause of Eeformation was associated with
the idea of rebeUieus subjects, refused tp listen te these temptations ; and, as
it wpiUd appear frem a letter pf Wripthesley tp some person in the Scottish
court, written in 1541, the king of Scotland had set up pretensions to the title
upon which Henry most valued himself, even at the time when he was shaking
the piUars of the ancient church, and pulling down its comer-stones : — " It
shaU Uke you to understand, that upon the arrival of the said Mr. Sadleir,
there were conveyed hither from Scotland sundry little books imprinted ; and
amongst pthers, pne entitled ' The Trumpet pf Hpnpur,' wherein, in the very
titling in the first frpnt pf the bepk, the king yeur master taketh uppn him
a piece of the title of the king's majesty, being the king your master therein
caUed Defender of the Christian Faith, whereby his majesty should have great
cause to think more than unkmdness, if he would -wUlingly take his title upon
him. And the conjecture is the more pricking, because he added thereto the
Christian Faith, as though there should be any other than the Christian
Faith ; which seemeth to have another meaning in it than one gppd prince
can think pf another, much less a friend of his friend, or a nephew of his
uncle, if he would show himself to esteem his friendship." J Out of such
sensitiveness, direct hostUity would be pretty sure to arise.
Beaton, now a cardinal, had been to Eome in 1541, on a secret embassy.
Henry determined to try the effect of a personal interview with his nephew,
James ; and it was agreed that they shpuld meet at Yerk in the autumn.
? The Ufe of " the first preacher and martyr of the Scottish Reformation," has been pnbUshed
(1857) bv the Rev. T. Lorimer. .. „„_ *<,,.¦„ , mi
+ The Acts of the ParUaments of Scotland, vol. u. p. 295. J State Papers, vol. v. p. 191

486 INVASION OP SCOTLAND.— DEATH OF JAMES. [1542.
Thither the king of England went, accompanied by Catherine Howard. But the
king of Scotland was induced by the wily cardinal not to hold to the appoint
ment. Henry was furious, and determined upon war. He resolved upon renew
ing tTie old claim of the EngUsh kings to the crown of Scotland ; and the privy
council directed the archbishop of Tork to search in " ancient charters and
monuments " for a " clearer, declaration to the world of his majesty's title to
that realm." * A manifesto of enormous length was issued, entitled " A
declaration containing the just causes and considerations of this present war
with the Scots ; wherein also appeareth the true and right title that the
king's mest rpyal majesty hath tp the sovereignty of Scotland." t The duke
of Norfolk entered Scotland with a large army in 1542 ; after the EngUsh
warden of the east marches had sustained a defeat in Teviotdale. Having
accompUshed the usual destruction, Norfolk retreated to Berwick, for James
was assembling an army in his front. The feudal chiefs gathered round the
royal standard on the Borough Muir, as they had gathered under the standard
of James IV. Onward they marched for the invasion of England. There
was division amongst the host. The rebeUious Douglasses were on the side
of England. Many of the nobles were favourable to the principles of the
Eeformation, which their king opposed. The catastrophe came, without any
real contest between the two armies. James was deserted by his nobles :
" Pleaseth your grace, the king of Scotland the last day of October was at
Lauder, and the Lords and Commons of his whole realm with him. The king
was very desirous to be in England, but the lords would not agree thereunto ;
and upon this they returned, and are dispersed, and every man gone into his
country." J The deserted James, in grief and indignation, returned to
Edinburgh. An army of ten thousand men was, however, got together, under
lord MaxweU ; with which he proposed to enter England by the western
marches. Maxwell crossed the border. But the spirit of jealousy destroyed
any chance of success, even in burning and plunder; for pne whp is termed
the king's minien, Oliver Sinclair, preduced a cemmission giving him supreme
command. The nobles refused to serve under him, and the clans mutinied.
A body of English horse came up, who were believed to be the vanguard of
the great army ; and in a panic the Scots fled, with the loss of a large number
pf prispners — some wiUing prisoners, as it has been asserted. The king gave
himself up to despair. He immured himself in his palace of Falkland ; would
speak to no one ; sickened ; and sank under a slow fever, heart-broken, on
the 14th of December. A week before, his queen had borne him a daughter
— that Mary, whpse long struggles with adversity form a striking contrast to
the hopelessness of her father.
The lords who were taken at Solway Moss were first harshly treated by
Henry, and then propitiated by indulgences. His first object was to nego
tiate a marriage between his son, Edward, and, the daughter of James V., and
thus to effect a natural union between the two countries. His second design
was to demand the government of Scotland, as the guardian of the infant
queen. The imprisoned nobles concluded a treaty with him, that they would
deliver up Mary, and acknowledge him as their sovereign lord. They were
released, and returned to Scotland to carry out their plan. But Cardinal
* State Papers, vol. v. p. 212. + HaU, p. 846. J State Papers, vol. v. p. 213.

1544,] INVASION UNDER HERTFORD, 437
Beaton produced a wiU of James V., appointing the cardinal governor of the
realm, and guardian of the queen. The earl of Arran was presumptive heir
to the throne ; and he possessed sufficient power to obtain the regency, and
drive Beaton from his usurped authority, the will being affirmed to be a
forgery. But Arran belonged to the reforming party ; and the church was
as yet too strong to aUow a dominion that placed its dignities and possessions-
in imminent perU. Arran was, after some time, during which Beaton had
been imprisoned, gained over to the party of the church ; and he became an
instrument in the hands of the cardinal and the queen-mother. In
December, 1543, Beaton became chancellor, and in the foUowing January
was constituted the pope's legate d latere in Scotland. He was now
supreme in church and state ; the friendship and alliance of the excommu
nicated king of England was renounced ; and a treaty with England, which
gave Henry some of his demands, was set aside. There was patriotism as
weU as intolerance in the policy of the papist faction. We cannot follow the
dark intrigues of this period ; in which some of the reformers were prepared
to sacrifice their natipnal independence, and the Eemanists to hold their
power by craft and persecution. As to any ppUtical morality on either side,
the EngUshman or Scot who wishes to trace his hatred of dishonour to
the integrity of statesmen at this great transition period, wiU be disappointed.
The people of Scotland, according" to the most acute of observers, Ealph Sadler,
would, in 1543, rather " suffer extremity, than come to the obedience and
subjection of England : they would have their realm free, and live within
themselves, after their own laws and customs," The kirkmen were against
the unity of the twp realms. The npbles, he theught, " in time wpuld fall to
the ebedience and devptipn pf the king's majesty, whereupon the earl of
Angus and his brother, with other lords prisoners, do make a perfect founda
tion." * Wherever we turn we find corruption and treachery ; dark plots and
contemptible rivalries.
Scotland was again invaded in May, 1544. The earl of Hertford arrived
in the Firth with a powerful fleet, carrying a force of ten thousand men. He
demanded that the infant queen should be immediately surrendered. The
regent refused ; and Hertford, with an additional force from Berwick, marched
upon Edinburgh. One of the gates was battered down, and the city was
entered and given up to conflagration and plunder. The castle held out ; and
some who had been -willing to sell Scotland to England, appear to have felt
that their duty was new tp resist pretensions that were enforced by an in
vading army. Troops under the command of faithful Scots, and of those who
had deserted the English cause, were marching upon Edinburgh in cpnsider-
able numbers ; and Hertferd, after burning Leith, retired to Berwick. For
two years the war was continued with the usual terrible inflictions upon the
peaceful cultivators of the soU. The letters of Hertford in 1545, present a
fearful picture of the ravages of his troops in border towns and fertile districts,
which poetry and romance have made fampus thrpugh every land. On the
5th ef September Hertferd mpved with his army out of Newcastle. He haa
been directed to demoUsh the abbey of Kelso, and to construct a fortress
upon its ruins. The abbey was taken by assault ; but the ancient churchmen
* "Sadler to Parr," State Papers, voL v, p. 271,

438

KELSO DESTROYED.

[1545.

had buUt too strongly for the massive waUs to be threwn dpwn by such
engineering ppwer as belenged tp the sixteenth century. Hertferd wrete
that he cpuld construct nothing tenable, under four or five months, out pf
thpse " buUdings pf stpne, of great height and circuit,— which, ^to make any
convenient fortress there, must of force be down and avoided." The noble
ruin still shows that the difficulty was not over-rated. And so Hertford
writes, " We have resolved to raze and deface this house of Kelso, so as the

Kclso.

enemy shaU have Uttle commodity of the same, and to remain encamped here
for five or six days, and in the mean season to devastate and bum all the
country hereabouts, as far as we may with our horsemen." Eazed and defaced
the great abbey was ; and onward went the merciless destroyer in his aUotted
work. Thus his narrative continues : —
" As to-morrow we intend to send a gepd band pf hprsemen tp Melrese
and Dryburgh, te burn the same, and all the cern and vUlages in their way,
and SP daily to do some exploits here in the march ; and at the end of the said
five or six days to remove our camp, and to march tp Jedwerth [Jedburgh]
te burn the same, and then te march through a great part of Tyvydale
[Teviotdale] to overthrow their piles and stone-houses, and to bum their com
and villages, with all annoyance to the enemy that we can ; which in our
opinions would be such a scourge and impoverishing to the enemy, as they
shaU not be able to recover a long seaspn." * Such were the " expleits" pf
Warfare three hundred years age, — exploits which the great believed just and
* State Papers, vol, v, p, 513.

1545,]

JEDBURGH BURNT.

439
honpurable ; and which men might still so believe if a stronger power than
the wiU of princes and nobles had not arisen in the worid— tho power of public
opinion founded upon the progress of knowledge. Yet even in those times
there was a spirit of humanity growing up amongst the rude inhabitants of a
country, accustomed frem time immemprial tp murderous forays. In another
letter ef the 18th ef September, Hertferd says that he had sent hersemen
whp fprayed, burnt, and wasted a great part of East Teviotdale ; " and for the
better execution thereof I sent with them one hundred Irishmen, because the
borderers would not most wUUngly bum their neighbours," The commander
is perfectly aware of the ravages he is committing upon innocent people, and
he glories in them. His description presents a picture of Scotland, 'very

Jedburgh,
different from the barrenness and imperfect culture that some assign to this early
peripd : — " Surely the country is very fair, and so good a com country, and
such plenty of the same, as we have not seen the more plenteous in England ;
and undoubtedly there is burnt a wonderful deal of corn, for, by reason that
the year hath been so forward, they had done much of their harvest, and
made up their corn in stacks about their houses, or had it lying in shocks in
the fields, and none at aU left unshorn ; the burning whereof can be no
little impoverishment unto them, besides the burning and sppU pf their
hpuses." * There is np intermissien when " havec " has been cried. Frem
Kelso the main bedy pf the army marched upen Jedburgh ; and a detach-

Slatc Papers, vol, t, p, 513.

440 PROPOSAL TO ASSASSINATE BEATON. [1545.
ment pf fifteen hundred light horsemen advanced six or seven miles beyond,
"brenning and devasting the country." The abbey of Jedburgh, stiU
glorious in ruin, met the same fate as that of Kelso, though the demolition
was not so complete : — " I caused the abbey, the Friars, and town of Jedburgh,
and aU the vUlages within two miles and more about the town, to be
brent, where was destroyed also no little quantity of cprn."
WhUst the earl pf Hertfprd was carrying fprward this ignoble work in
Scotland, king Henry and his Council were busy in negotiations far more
disgraceful than the most barbarous open warfare. Cardinal Besrton was
calling forth every means of resisting and annoying Henry ; and Henry had
commanded Hertford to spare no one in Scotland, who was alUed in blood, or
associated in friendship, with Beaton. He did not hate the cardinal because
he burned and imprisoned the movers of the Eeformation. He might have
destroyed all the Lutherans in Scotland -without offence to the intolerant
king. He was the head of the papal faction — he upheld the supremacy of
the pope — he was the opponent of Henry's designs upon the independence of
Scotland, and thus no means would be too base to accomplish his destruction.
Whilst Hertford was carrying on his war of devastation in 1545, the Privy
CouncU of England wrote to inform him that the king had seen some letters
from the earl of Cassilis to Mr. Sadler, " one containing an offer for the
killing of the cardinal, if his majesty would have it done, and would promise,
when it were done, a reward," Does Henry indignantly reject this proposal
to remove his enemy by assassination ? The letter of the Privy CeuncU,
which is signed by A¥ricthesley, the chanceUcr ; the duke pf Suffolk ; the
bishop of Winchester ; and four other counsellors, has this answer to the pro
position : — " His majesty hath wiUed us to signify unto your lordship, that his
highness, reputing the fact not meet to be set forward expressly by his
majesty, will not seem to have to do in it; and yet not misliking the office,
thinketh good that Mr, Sadleir, to whom that letter was addressed, should
write to the earl of the receipt ef his letter cpntaining such an pffer, which he
thinketh net convenient to be communicated to the king's majesty ; marry,
to write to him what he -thinketh of the matter, (heshaUsay) that if he were
in the earl of Cassel's place, and were as able to do his majesty good service
there, as he knoweth him to be, and thinketh a right good will in him to do
it, he would surely do what he could for the execution of it, believing verUy
to do thereby not oiJy acceptable service to the king's majesty, but also a
special benefit to the realm of Scotland, and would trust verily the king's
majesty would consider his service in the same ; as you doubt not, of his
accustcmed goodness to them which serve him, but he would do the same to
him." * Beaton was murdered in 1546 ; and if the king of England was
not an accessary, it was not for the want of inclination.
The guilt of the king of England and his government, in giving encourage
ment to the proppsal to assassinate Cardinal Beaton, is a sufficient proof of
the low morality of that age. Cassilis proposed the crime as "a special
benefit to the realm of Scotland." The counsellors of Henry accepted it
as " an acceptable service to the king's majesty." What was denominated
" subtle poUcy," was a cloak for revolting wickedness. In judging of the
* Siite Papers, vol. v, p, 449.

1544,] WAR WITH FRANCE, 441
men pf this period we must couslder what was the standard of opinion ; and
thence find occasion to be thankful that a higher standard has gradually been
created, by which public servants, not of individual compulsion but of a
necessary cpuformlty, regulate their actions. Familiarity with bloodshed,
with treachery, with pecuniary corruption, no longer has any support in a
comihon example. But the guilt of political agents may appear less flagrant,
because more in accordance with a prevailing spirit, when we are informed
that one of the most zealous of the Scottish reformers did not hesitate to
sanction the assassination which a ferocious noble proposed. Henry directed
that the Scottish earls, with whom he was treating in 1544, should " cause
the word of God to be truly taught aud preached among them, and in
their countries, as the mere and only foundation from whence proceedeth
all truth and honour." * One of the most effective preachers was George
Wishart. From a dispatch of Ealph Sadler, in 1544, it appears that " a
Scottishman called Wyshert " brought him a letter, the object of which was
to state that the Laird of Grange and the Master of Eothes "would attempt
either to apprehend or slay the cardinal, at so^e time when he should pass
through the Fife-land." The persons named in the letter were actually
concerned in tbe murder. But Wishart had been seized while preaching
in the town of Haddington ; and being carried to St. Andrews, was tried
for heresy before a special ecclesiastical commission, and was burnt on the
26th of March, 1546. There may be a doubt, however slight, whetiier
Wishart the agent of assassination was Wishart the martyr. But the
zealotry of those times would sometimes shut out the natural perceptions
of " truth and honour," even from the eyes of the pious and enlightened.
Knox speaks of the murder of Beaton in a tone of exultation ; and Buchanan
records it without any expression of disapproval. Beaton was murdered
in the castle of St. Andrews. On the 29th of May, between five and
six o'clock in the morning, armed men entered with masons and other
workmen coming in to their labour. The workmen were thrust forth ; the
household servants driven naked from their dormitories ; and the cardinal,
hearing the din, came out of his chamber and was slain. The town-bell was
rung ; the provost and townsmen gathered round the castle ; the murderers
appeared on the wall, and " speered what they desired to see — one dead
man ? " They then brought the dead cardinal to the wall-head and hung
him over the wall by one arm and one feet, and " bade the people see
there their god." t
To complete our rapid view of the foreign affairs of the kingdom we pass
from Scotland to France. In 1544 Henry went tp his parliament with a
leng tale pf his griefs. Out of his -inestimable goodness, and Uke a most
charitable, loving, and virtuous prince, he had for a long time loved and
favoured Francis, the French king. He had freed his chUdren from
thraldom ; he had reUeved his poverty by loans pf money. But new the
ungrateful Francis had withdrawn the pension which he had been accus
tomed tp pay ; he had cpnfederated with the Great Turk, common enemy of
aU Christendom ; and he had stirred the Scots to resist his majesty, contrary
to their duty and aUegiance.J The king, therefore, declares his intention to
* State Papers, vol, v, p. 387. + Ibid., p, 5G0. X 35 Hen. VIIL, u, 12,
VOL, IL '^ ^

442 FRANCE INVADED BY HENRY. [1544.
go to war with France as well as with Scotland—" to put his own rpyal perspn,
with the ppwer pf his realm and subjects, in armpur." But inestimable
sums wUl be required fer the maintenance pf these wars. The faithful
parUament, by this statute, again sancticn the same species of robbery that
the parliament of 1529 sanctioned ; and for the alleviation of such charges,
declare all loans made to the king in the two previous years of his reign to
be entirely remitted and released, and all securities for the same to be
utterly void.* Thus, with the proceeds of this swindle in his pocket, king
Henry goes to ,the wars. He had previously propitiated the emperor,
Charles V,, by a compromise as to the succession to the crown, which
recognised some claims in the person of the princess Mary, the emperor's
niece. This was the third act for regulating the succession to the throne,
which all persons were to accept and swear to, under the penalties of treason.
The princess Mary had been declared illegitimate under the act of 1534.
The princess Elizabeth had been declared illegitimate under the act of 1536.
By this act of 1544, they were restored to their place in the succession, in
default of issue of the king and prince Edward, but without any declaration
of their legitimacy, which would have been to declare the divorces of their
mothers unlawful, •)¦ The emperor and the king of England were now joined
in a treaty for the invasion and partition of France. Charles was to claim
Burgundy ; Henry the ancient possessions of the Plantagenets, unless
Francis would agree to certain conditions. The chivalrous French king
spurned their pretensions ; and so, in July, 1544, Henry put on his armour,
and with thirty thousand men crossed the channel. The emperor was to
enter France by Champagne, and the king by Picardy ; and their united
armies were to march to Paris, But no plan of mutual operations could
detach the vain-glorious Henry from the pomp and circumstance of some
gorgeous personal exhibition. He crossed the seas in a ship whose sails
were of cloth of gold. He advanced at the head of the English and Imperial
forces, to assist in the siege of Boulogne, which the duke of Suffolk was
investing, " Armed at all points upon a great courser," — as he is now
exhibited in the armoury at the Tower, — he paraded his huge body before
the besiegers, for two months. In vain the envoys of the emperor urged him
to mpve forward, according to their compact. The emperor, said Henry,
had taken some frontier forts, and he, the king, would have Boulogne. The
lower town surrendered en the 21st ef July. The upper tpwn held put till
the 14th of September. There had been a brave defence by the French
governor against that portion of the EngUsh troops that were in earnest ;
whilst the royal showman was conducting his part of the business of war
with the safer parade of a tournament. At length the great day of triumph
arrived ; for which he had broken faith with his ally. On the 18th of
September he made his triumphant entry into Boulogne, which pageant
Hall describes -with a corresponding magniloquence : — " The king's highness
having the sword borne naked before him, by the lord marquis Dorset, Uke
a noble and valiant conqueror rode into BuUeyn, and the trumpeters
standing on the walls of the town, sounded their trumpets, at the time of
his entering, to the great comfprt pf all the king's true subjects, the same
* See ante, p. 328, t 35 Hen, VIII, c, 1.

1544.]

BOULOGNE BESIEGED AND TAKEN.

443

beholding. And in the entering there met him the duke of Suffolk, and
deUvered unto him the keys of the town, and so he rode towards his lodging,
which was prepared for him, on the south side of the town. And within two
days after, the king rode about all the town, within the walls, and then
commanded that pur Lady church of BuUeyn should be defaced and plucked
down, where he appointed a moat to be made for the great force and strength
of the town." But whUst the " noble and valiant conqueror " was listening

Henry VIII, in his later armour.
to the trumpeters on the walls, Francis and Charles, -with great wisdom,
had concluded a separate peace, Henry had constituted queen Catherine
regent, during his absence ; and her letters to him show that she attended to
his affairs with dUigence, by sending fresh supplies of money and men.* He
returned to England on the last day of September, — in no very placable
humour, if we may judge from a letter of the dukes pf Norfplk and Suffolk

State Papers, vol, x, p, 12.

444 ATTEMPTS OF FRANCE TO INVADE ENGLAND. [1545.
and others, in which they entreat the councU to avert his majesty's wrath,
" in our departing from Boulogne as we have done ; whose displeasure is
death unto us." *
But if Henry was slow in his projected march to Paris, Francis was the
more ready to contemplate a march to London. There is a most curious
letter from Vaughan to the king pf England, dated frpm Antwerp.
February 21st, 1545, in which he enters intp a minute detail pf a discpvery
communicated to him by a Flemish broker, of the mission of three spies to
England, who were paid by the French government, to report upon the
practicability of a plan of invasion. Two of these, who were men of
Antwerp, had sailed in a hoy, with eleven packs of canvass, to be sold in
London ; where the third man was to meet them, in the house of a Fleming
dwelling by the Thames. The first two had charge " to view the Isle of
Sheppey, Margate, and the grounds between them and London ; what landing
there may be for an army, what soils to place an army strongly in," For,
said he, " The French king purposeth, with his army that he appointeth, to
land in the Isle of Sheppey and at Margate ; to send great store of victuals,
which shall be laden in boats of Normandy with flat bottoms, which, together
with galleys, shall there set men a-land. He will send with his army no
great ordnance, but small ; and set upon such frame of wood as neither shall
be drawn with horses, nor yet have wheels. This army the French king
purposeth shall go so strong that it shall be able to give the battle ; and is
minded. If the same may be able to go through, to go to London ; where
(said he) a little without the same is a hill from which London Ueth aU open ;
and, with their prdnance laid, from thence the said army shall beat the town."
The ambassador adds, " Where this hill should be so near London he could
not tell me; but, as I guess, it must be about Finsbury or Moor-field." f
This tale of the spies does not appear to have been altogether a delusion ;
for Paget, the secretary of state, when in Flanders in the following month,
received corroborative information. This project of invasion seems altogether
founded upon rather imperfect knowledge as to the topography of the
country. But such a scheme was not utterly hopeless ; for the English
government was sorely straitened for money, and the means of defence were
of the weakest kind. The religieus dissensions, and the bad faith of their
rulers in aU pecuniary engagements, had made the loyalty of the nation a
matter of doubt. That the people would have raUied round the king's
standard the instant that an invader stepped upon the soil we may be
nevertheless certain. In the summer of 1545, however, Francis was making
strenuous efforts for the invasion of England ; and the coasts had been
speciaUy surveyed for defence by the duke of Norfolk. New bulwarks were
being constructed, and decayed ones repaired, along the coasts pf the channel.
But the cpmmpuest appUances were wanting fpr an effectual resistance on
shore. At Portsmouth, the works could not be completed for want of tools.
" As for shovels and spades," writes the duke of Suffolk, " we have had some
from London ; but as for mattocks we have had none." J Money was equally
Wanting for defence. Wriothesley, the chancellor, writes that it is no use
telling him, "pay, pay, prepare for this, prepare for that." He cannot pay,
* State Papers, vol, x, p, 114, t Ibid., p, 302, J Ihid,, vol, i, p, 796,

15^6.] PEACE WITH FRANCE AND SCOTLAND, 446
The subsidy is gone ; the lands are consumed; the plate of the realm molten
and coined. Corn is scarce and excessively dear. The country will bear no
more tax,* The king had drained as much as he could under the old plea of
ft "Benevolence;" and so little was there of the voluntary principle In the
matter, that an alderman of London had been compelled to serve in the Scottish
war because he was stubborn in holding fast his money. But the true defence
of England was not wanting in this season of peril. According to a return of
this date, there was a fleet in the channel, of a hundred and four vessels,
carrying more thian twelve thousand men. This fleet contained every variety
of craft, from the Henry Grace a Dieu, of one thousand tons and seven
hundred men, te the Mary Winter of Plymouth, of forty tons and thirty-two
men. But of these hundred and four vessels, only twenty-eight were above two
hundred tons. The fleet was in three divisions, the Vanward, the Battle, and
the Wing. The watchword and countersign point to the traditionary origin
of our national song : " The watchword in the night shall be thus, ' God save
King Harry ; ' the other shall answer, ' And long to reign over us.' "f There
was an indecisive action off Portsmouth, in July, 1545 ; and a serious mis
fortune in the accidental sinking of a large ship, with four hundred men, in
the harbour of Portsmouth. The Mary Eose went down like the Eoyal
George. The king was on shore, and saw his noble ship laid on her side
and overset. " It was not iu the battle.
No tempest gave the shock,"
The danger of invasion was soon overpast. The French sent assistance
to the Scots ; devastated the neighbourhood of Calais ; and made' the
most strenuous efforts to retake Boulogne, At length a peace was con
cluded in June, 1546 ; one of the articles of which was that Boulogne should
be restored to France, at the expiration of eight years, upon the payment pf
two millions of crowns, and another that Scotland should be included in the
paciflcation. The remainder of Henry's reign was not disturbed by foreign
warfare. The marriage of Henry with Catherine Parr, in 1543, was probably
brought about by the party of the Eeformation, as far as any party could
influence the king's personal inclinations. Unless the lady had been of
singular discretion her own religious convictions might have been as dangerous
to her as her light-heartedness was to Anne BuUen and her impurity to
Catherine Howard. The persecutions for heretical opinions went fiercely on,
whilst the solid principles of protestantism were graduaUy establishing them
selves in the minds of the laity as the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures came
to be more widely diffused. But the anti-reforming party had contrived to
interpose a barrier between the people and the day- spring. In 1543 an act
was passed which Umited the reading of the Bible and the New Testament
in the English tongt^ to noblemen and gentlemen ; and forbad the reading
of the same to "'the lower sort "—to artificers, prentices, journeymen, serving-
men, husbandmen, and labourers, and to women, under pain of imprisonment. J
* State Papers, vol, x, p, 830,
+ Ibid,, p. 814, " The Order for the Fleet," August 10, 1645. : *
t 34 & 35 Hen, VIIL, c. 1.

446 PERSECUTIONS FOR HERETICAL OPINIONS. [1543
We shall have occasion subsequently to notice this statute, which offers some
ciirlous illustrations of the state of popular knowledge. It may suffice here
to regard it as a clear indication of the anomalous character efthe ecclesiastical
refcrm, as it had hltherte prpceeded in England — a refcrm which let in the
sunlight tp the dark and decaying chambers ef the ancient church, and then
endeavpured tp shut it put again, that the patchwprk reparatien might be
cencealed. The Act pf the Six Articles was especiaUy retained in full force
by the statute of 1543 for the Advancement of True Eeligion ; with the
exception that there was a provision for allowing the clergy, accused of
preaching contrary to the king's doctrines, tq recant upon the first offence ;
to abjure and bear a faggot on the second offence ; and not to be burned
unless they refused to abjure, or committed a third offence. The chase of
heretics thus became more prolonged and more amusing to the hunters.
When the flying animal was caught the first time, he was saved for the
chance of another run ; and so of the second finding. But when the hounds
a third time gave tongue, the poor wearied beast was left to the dogs.
One of the mightiest of the heretic-hunters was Stephen Gardiner. As
chancellor and bishop he fills a large space in the history of the persecu
tions in the reign of Mary ; but his earlier career is marked by his strenuous
exertions to accomplish the divorce of Henry frpm Catherine ef Aragpn, by his
negpciatipns and by his pubUshed writings. He had ppppsed the supremacy of
the pope ; and yet he clung to and asserted, with unflinching zeal, " doctrines
and practices which the adherents to the pope maintain, but which protestants
have rejected." * Cranmer, Latimer, and other early reformers, saw, with a
truer judgment, that to reject the supremacy of the pope was necessarily to
destroy the superstructure of which the papal authority was the foundation.
But during the reign of Henry it was exceedingly difficult for conscientious
reformers to carry forward their opinions to their logical conclusions.
They looked on, not with indifference, perhaps with horror, whUst papists
and sacramentarlans were imprisoned and burnt with a fearful impartiality.
After- the death of Cromwell the prevailing spirit of the king's council was
a desire to terrify the humbler classes of the people by the punishment of
those who avowed heterodox doctrines. One singular example of the avidity
with which this object was pursued is exhibited in a letter to the council in
1542, from Wallop, the ambassador to France, in which he says, that, " as
touching the heretic," he has given thanks for the genteel offer of the
French authorities ; and the said heretic has been " delivered unto those I
sent ; whom I have this day sent to Calais according to the king's com
mandment." t The wretched fugitive, an Englishman named Denis Tod,
thus handed over to his unmerciful countrymen, was burnt at Calais a few
weeks after the date of this letter. If the heretic could not escape even
when he put the sea between himself and his persecutors, we may readily
believe how keen would be the search, and how unrelenting the punishment,
when men who dared to think for themselves were found within the very
precincts of the king's palace. At the time of Henry's marriage with Catherine
Parr, that is in July 1543, there were four men of Windsor confined under
charges of heresy- — Anthony Peerson, a priest ; Eobert Testwood and John
* Maitland, "Essays on the Reformation," p, 396, t State Papers, vol, ix, p, 96,

1513]

BURNING OF HERETICS AT WINDSOR,

447

Marbeck, singing-men ; and Henry FUmer, a townsman of Windsor Thev
were brought to trial at Windsor, on the 27th of July, Three were indicted
that they had uttered words against the mass ; and Marbeck that he had
copied out an epistle by Calvin against it. The case of Marbeck shows how
earnestly some men endeavoured to a^¦ail themselves of the knowledge which
was opened to them by the reading of the Scriptures, This singing-man of
Windsor CoUege, when Matthew's Bible was published In 1537, borrowed a
copy, and commenced transcribing it. But printed Bibles becoming more
accfessible, he was diverted from this labour, and employed himself in making
a Concordance to the Scriptures, upon the plan pf the Cpucordance to the
Latin Vulgate, This unfinished manuscript was found when Marbeck's
papers were seized. The fpur men were condemned. Three were burnt-

Burning of Peerson, Testwood, and Filmer, before Windsor Castle. From Fox's " Acts and Monuments,'
but Marbeck was spared — at the request ef Gardiner, accerding to some
authprities, at the cpmmand pf Henry, according tp pthers ; the king saying
that Marbeck had employed his time better than those who examined him.
It is added by Fox that when Henry heard of these executions, he said,
"Alas, poor innocents,"
Amongst the escapes of the suspected clergy, that of Cranmer is the
most remarkable. It presents the almost solitary instance of the king
interposing to save an old friend and servant from the intrigues of a
powerful party, Cranmer triumphed over Gardiner in 1543, when Henry
made him acquainted with the charges that were brought against him of being
an encourager of heresy ; and when Cranmer, discovering his secret enemies
and pardoning them, earned the praise of the common voice — " Do my lord
of Canterbury a shrewd turn, and he is your friend for ever,"-* Cranmer
again triumphed in 1546 ; when the remarkable scene took place which
Fox has described and Shakspere has dramatised — carefully foUowing his
authority as to the incidents, but disregarding their date. The Council
ere, " Henry VIIL," act v, ac, 2.

448 CEANMKR SUSPECTED OF HERESY, [1646.
preparing to send the obnoxipus prelate tp the Tower ; the doomed man kept
waiting at the door, as if his disgrace were already accomplished; the
accusations and the threats ; the king's signet produced ; the conspirators
covered with shame — these circumstances make up a vivid picture, coloured
no doubt in the original relation, and heightened by the poet's art. But
there is one point in the narrative of Fox which stands put in the pratorical
discourses which he gives between the king and the archbishop. When
Henry says that the council had requested him to commit Cranmer to the
Tower, " or else no man dare come forth as witness in those matters, yeu
being a cpunseller," — and Cranmer replies, that he is centent tp gp thither,
that he may ceme to his trial, the king thus answers : " Oh, Lord, what
manner of man be you ? What simplicity is in you f I had thought that
you would rather have sued to us to have taken the pains to have heard you
and your answers together for your trial, without any such indurance. Do
you not know what state you be in with the whole world, and how many.
great enemies you have ? Do you not consider what an easy thing it is to
procure three or four false knaves to witness against you ? "* It was not
the practice in state-trials to bring the " false knaves " face to face with the '
prisoner. No one could have a more complete knowledge than Henry had
of the mode in which convictions were procured during his reign. " Previously
to the time of Edward VI. and queen Mary," says Mr. Jardine, " there is no
instance of the admission of the viva voce examinatien pf witnesses, either fer
the prpsecuticn pr the defence, in cases of treason or other state offences."
It was held " too dangerous to the prince " tp prpduce witnesses who might
be questioned by the accused. The evidence consisted almost entirely of
written depositions and examinations, taken before the Privy Council or
before commissioners. Interrogatories were previously prepared by the
crown lawyers. These were submitted to the witnesses individually. If
they were conformable in their answers it was well. If they were not so,
the rack was introduced. The fear of torture was present to the mind of
every witness. When the depositions had been shaped after the most
approved fashion, the prisoner was subjected to the like tender inter
rogatories. The trial, so called, having come on, the counset for the crown
carefully noted what in the depositions was to be read and what omitted ;
and the officer of the court as carefully obeyed his directions. What
chance a prisoner had of an acquittal may be readily conceived.f When
king Henry interfered with the insane resolution of the archbishop to
seek a trial, he truly said, " Tou wUl run headlong to your undoing if I
would suffer you,"
The searchers for heresy appear to have manifested great anxiety to fix
their accusations upon persons of the royal court. During the persecution
at Windsor false charges were made against sir Thomas Hoby and others.
Dr. London, one of the least scrupulous of the commissioners appointed to
ferret out the delinquencies of the religious heuses, was new employed in an
epposite direction. His charges against members of the king's household
were held to be founded in perjury and conspiracy ; and Dr. London and his

* Fox, " Acts and Monuments,"
t See Jaidiuc's "Criminal Trials," Introduction, vol. i, p, 26>

1546.]

ANNE ASKEW AND OTHERS BURNT.

443

associates were set in the pillory. The unscrupulous doctor did not survive
the disgrace.-* The queen, whose Lutheran tendencies were mOre than
suspected, had influence enough to save her friends for some time. That
influence perhaps saved Cranmer. But the blow at last fell upon one of
the most interesting of victims. Anne Askew, a lady known at court, if not
about the queen's person, was an avowed protestant. She had been married
against her wiU, and had been discarded by her bigoted husband for the
strength of her convictions. Anne Askew delivered her opinions on the
Eucharist with some imprudence ; and was subjected to an examination by
the bishop of London, She escaped for a time ; but was again examined
before the CouncU, Otwell Johnson, a merchant of London, writing to his
brother at Calais, thus relates the issue, amongst other news : " Quondam
bishop Saxon [Shaxton], Mistress Askew, Christopher White, one of Mistress
Fayre's sons, and a tailor that came from Colchester or thereabout, were
arraigned at the Guildhall, and received their judgments of my Lord
ChanceUor and the Council to be burned, and so were committed to Newgate

i--ifiirj

"~n «i Mmmmmi'-^'Sl^^i^r '^g zIH 4 

Burning of Anne Askew and others. From Fox.
again. But since that time the aforesaid Saxon and White have renounced
their opinions ; and the talk goeth that they shall chance to escape the fire
for this viage. But the gentlewoman and the other men remain in stedfast
mind ; and yet she hath been racked since her condemnation, as men say ;
whieh is a strange thing in my understanding. The Lord be merciful to us
all," t Burnet says that he had seen an original journal of the transactions
in the Tower, which shows that " they caused her to be laid on the rack.

* Burnet, book iii, p. 327.

t Ellis, Second Scries, vol. ii. p. 177.

450 QUEEN CATHERINE PARR IN DANGER, [l046,
and gave her a taste of it." But Burnet has doubts of the relation of Fox,
that the chancellor, Wriothesley, when the Ueutenant of the Tower refused
"to stretch her more," threw off his gown, and himself "drew the rack so
severely, that he almost tore her body asunder." Lord Campbell gives this
horrid story without noticing the doubt of Bumet ; and adds that Griffin,
the solicitor-general, assisted in the detestable crime. Wriothesley was a
determined bigot ; and when the passions of the zealot and the policy of the
statesman were combined, there was no atrocity from which the men of this
time would shrink. Let us hope that in this case human nature was not so
utterly degraded as the somewhat credulous historian of the English martyrs
has represented. There was a disgusting scene in Smithfield which soon
followed the torture of the high-minded woman, who, amidst her sufferings,
would npt utter one word to implicate her friends. Upon a bench under
St. Bartholomew's church, sit the Lord Chancellor, the duke of Norfolk, the
earl of Bedford, the Lord Mayor, and other dignitaries. There are three
martyrs, each tied to a stake. The apostate Shaxton is to preach the sermon.
It is rumoured that gunpowder has been placed about the condemned, to
shorten their sufferings. The Chancellor and the other high functionaries
have no compunction for their victims ; but they are iu terror for their own
safety. Will not the exploding gunpowder drive the fire-wood where they
sit ? They hold a grave consultation, and are persuaded to sit out the scene.
The gentlewoman and her feUow-sufferers die heroically — a noble contrast
to the cowardice that quakes in the extremity of its selfishness upon the
bench under St. Bartholomew's church.
Such were the scenes that marked the closing days of the life of Henry.
He is a pitiable spectacle of human infirmity. Moved about by mechanical
aid from chamber to chamber — a vast mass of obesity — there is one patient
nurse for ever about him, soothing the paroxysms of his temper by
endeavours to alleviate his bodily sufferings. But the belief in his own
infallibility is as strong as ever ; and he listens to the whispers of those who
tell him that his queen, that faithful nurse, is a heretic. She is sincere in
her opinions ; and endeavours to influence him to go on with the work of
Eeformation. "A good hearing it is," he exclaims, " when wpmen beceme
such clerks ; and a thing much tp my cpmfort to come in mine old age tp be
taught by my wife,"* Gardiner and i Wripthesley seize the right moment
when the old pride of the polemical deSpot is in the ascendant ; and have
his authority to prepare articles for Catherine Parr's impeachment. But the
king passed out of life without a third queen's head falling on the scaffcld in
the Tewer. His wrath was appeased ; and, according to Fox, his anger feL
on the bishop of Winchester, the scheming Gardiner. The story says that
the queen diverted his fury by an adroit appeal to his self-love. " Kate, you
are a doctor," said the king, " No, sir," she replied, " I only wish to divert
you from your pain by an argument, in which you so much shine," Kate
was again his friend and "sweetheart;" iind when Wriothesley came with
a warrant for the queen's arrest, he was driven away with the royal salute of
"knave, arrant knave, beast, fool," We can scarcely receive these detaUs
amongst the authentic matters of history ; though we may readUy beUeve
• Fox,

1546,] NORFOLK AND SURREY ARRESTED, 461
that In the fierce contest of parties, at a time when the despot cculd be more
readily than ever moved to sudden hatreds, the protestant tendencies of
Catherine Parr might have been easily perverted into the means of her
destruction. But as the king was necessarily becoming a more passive instrument in
the hands of others, the party of the Eeformation -was gaining strength.
The earl of Hertford, afterwards famous as the Protector Somerset, — the
uncle of the heir to the crown — was undoubtedly in the ascendant. How
far may be imputed to his counsels the last iniquitous acts of Henry's reign
must be a matter of conjecture rather than of proof, Hertford was a
decided reformer. The duke of Norfolk, and his son the earl of Surrey,
were as firm opponents of further changes. The Howards were of the
ancient nobility — the Seymours were "new men," There were political
hatreds between them, as well as theological differences, Surrey had been
superseded by Hertford in the lieutenancy of Boulogne, Norfolk acknow
ledged that he had been " quick against such as have been accused for
sacramentaries." There was one point in which the jealousy of Henry
could be easily aroused against the Howards. They were of the blood royal
by descent. They might aspire to the throne during the minority of the
young prince Edward. Surrey had something of the wilfulness which
mankind are too ready to ascribe to the poetical temperament. He who
was the first and the most successful in familiarising English verse to a new
accentuation — he who led the way in the use of blank verse, the noblest
instrument of our noble language — the mest accpmplished schelar, the
bravest gentleman — was punished at pne time fer eating flesh in Lent ; and
at anether time fpr the coarse frolic of walking the streets at night, and
breaking -windows with a cross-bow. It was his impulsive and incautious
nature which precipitated his fall. In 1546 he was imprisoned for using
bitter language to the earl of Hertford. A few months later, he and his
father, the aged duke of Norfolk, were committed to the Tower upon a
charge of treason. This was in the beginning of December. The king
was dangerously iU. There is an official paper, in the handwriting of
Wriothesley, which contains the ground-work of the charges against
Norfolk and Surrey. -These are in the form of questions ; and the two
first questions, which contain interlineations by Henry himself in a
tremulous hand, have reference to the principal charge upon which the
father and son were condemned. It was high treason " to do any
thing by word, writing, or deed, to the scandal or peril of the established
succession to the crown." The first question in the state paper is as
foUows : — " If a man, coming of the collateral Une to the heir of the crown,
who ought not to bear the arms of England but on the second quarter,
do presume to change his right place, and bear them in the first quarter,
leaving out the true difference of the ancestry ; and, in the lieu thereof, use
the very place only of the heir-male apparent ; how this man's intent is to
be judged ; and whether this import any danger, peril, or slander, to the title
of the prince or very heir-apparent ; and how it welgheth in our laws ? "
The same inference is made in the second question, — " if a man presume tp
take intp his arms an pld cpat pf the crpwn, which his ancester never bare,
ner he of right ought to bear, and use it with a difference ; whether it may be

452

SURREY BEHEADED. NORFOLK ATTAINTED.

[1547.

to the peril or slander of the very heir of the crown ? " * The sister of Surrey,
the widow of the duke of Eichmond, who spoke of her brother as " a rash
man," and Mrs. Holland, a mistress of the duke of Norfolk, were witnesses
against the Howards ; but they only testified to their dislike of the Seymours
and "the new nobility," with something about the royal arms. The " old
coat,"— that of Edward the Confessor,— and the liens of England "in the
first quarter," were the evidence for their condemnation. Wotton, the am
bassador to Francis I., told that king, on the 22nd of December, that the
matter was sufficiently proved, bythe confession of Surrey, "both against
himseK and his father too." t What Surrey confessed is not recorded. He

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.
was tried by a jury, after the fashion of those, times ; and though he showed
that he had borne the same arms for many years by a decision of the heralds,
he was condemned ; and on the 19th of January he went to the block,
Norfolk was attainted, upon his confession of having borne the obnoxious
arms ; and the royal assent to the bill was given by commission. His execu
tion was to have taken place on the 28th of January. Before that day
dawned, Henry lay dead. His last moments were not sppthed by an act pf
mercy to his aged servant. But Norfolk escaped, if escape it were, to
linger in prison, while the Eeformation, which he opposed, held on its
inevitable course.

State Papers, vol. i, p, 891.

t "Despatch to the King," ihid., vol. xi. p, 388.

1547.] DEATH OP KING HENRY THE EIGHTH. 453
Henry the Eighth died at two o'clock in the morning of the 28th of
January, in his palace at Westminster. His death was concealed for three
days. On the 31st of January, the Commons were summoned to the House
of Lords, and Wriothesley wept while he announced the event. The Will of
the king, by which the succession was defined, and the government of the
realm dunng the minority of his son was regulated, was then read in part.
Hertford and Paget had employed the three days of secresy in determining
the course to be pursued under the will, which was in their private keeping,*
Some suspicions have arisen that the will was fprged. The natipu did not, in
all likelihood, feel the loss of the most arbitrary monarch that had ever filled
the English throne as a great calamity. On the 5th of February, the bishop
of Winchester wrote to Sir W. Paget, secretary of state, " To-morrow, the
parlshoners of this parish and I have agreed to have a solemn dlrige for our
late sovereign lord and master, in earnest, as becometh us ; and, to-morrow,
certain players of my lord of Oxford's, as they say, intend, on the other
side, within this burgh of Southwark, to have a solemn play, to try
who shall have most resort, they in game or I in earnest." f The sorrow
could not have been very violent when the players thought that a diversion
would be welcome, even before the king's body was conveyed to earth at
Windsor, Though Henry is said to have wrung Cranmer's hand on his
death-bed, his last religious exercises were in accordance with the practice of
the Eomish church. In the same spirit were his funeral solemnities con
ducted : " The body lay in state in the chapel of Whitehall for twelve days,
with masses and dirge sung and said every day ; Norroy standing at the choir
door and beginning with these words, pronounced aloud, ' Of your charity,
pray for the soul of the high and mighty prince our late sovereign lord. King
Henry the Eighth.' " J
* Tytler, "Original Letters," vol, i, p, 18, + Ibid., p, 21.
X Hayward, " Life of Edward VI.

Amtograph of Henry VIII.

Edwaid VI. and his Council. (From a Woodcut on the Title to the Acts of Parliament, 1551.)

CHAPTER XXVIII.
General notice of the condition of England, about the middle of the sixteenth century — Sources
of information — Population — Parish Registers — Capital — Taxation — England a lightly
taxed nation in these times — Evasions of subsidies — Sources of revenue — The royal house
hold — Military expenditure — Military organisation — Archery — The Navy — Defence of the
coasts — Civil administration — Despotism of the government — Bribery — Small salaries of
officers — Parliaments — Their subserviency — The Nobility and Gentry — Justices of the
Peace — Merchants become landed men — Commercial spirit entering into rural affairs —
Aspect of the country districts — Inclosures — Monastic lands let as copyholds — New
distribution of land — Effects upon the labouring population — Common and Several —
Inclosures defended — The Statute of Vagabonds indicates an exceptional state of society —
Its horrible enactments— The Statute repealed — Offences against property — Impostors —
Agricultural industry — Distribution of the produce of land — Dearth — Rise of Rents and
prices of commodities — Attempts to keep down prices and force sales — Debasement of the
Coinage — Effects upon prices at home and upon exchange abroad — Sufferings of the
labourers.

Beeore we proceed in our narrative of the historical events of the reign ol
Edward VI,, we propose to ofier a general notice of the condition of England at
the close of the long reign of Henry VIII, ; including some aspects of society
of which the features had become more distinct a few years later.
Between this state of social existence and our only possible point of view,
the veil of three hundred years is interposed. Those whose lives were con
temporary with the middle, or even with the close of the sixteenth cnntury,
might have beheld some things under a stronger light than we do ; but even
they saw only a part, and that part very indistinctly. If there had been no
great social movement at that period, they might have formed a clearer judg-

1547.] CONDITION OF ENGLAND— POPULATION, 465
ment of many circumstances pf which they have left us a cenfused ppinipn.
So the task of the historiau would be more defined, if he could now look upon
' each change of many-coloured life," and even upon the external face of
nature in wilds and solitudes, without being disturbed by rapid transitions,
which, like a shifting object in a photographic camera, preclude a distinct
image. As it is, he is compelled, out of the most fragmentary and iU-assorted
materials, to piece out a rough and imperfect picture, having the want of
proportion and harmony which essentially belongs to such mosaic work. That
was an age in which the foundations of all statistical inquiries was laid bythe
estabUshment ot parish registers ; but many generations had left in those
books the brief records of their comings and their goings, befpre the larger
uses of Eegistration were discovered. It was an age when Statutes contained
long preambles, out of which we may draw conclusions as uncertain as those
derived from some modern ParUamentary Eeports ; but in the Statutes them
selves are to be found the best materials for a correct though limited account
of Ufe in England, from the peer to the beggar. Proclamations, Minutes of
CouncU, Letters of Ministers — furnish incidental glimpses of society beyond
the verge of chambers of state. The Chroniclers have their occasional value
in addition to that of poUtical annalists ; but it is not from them that we
must principally seek to trace the course of industry or the tone of morals.
The foreign visitors, who note what seemed to them remarkable, too often
deal in generalities ; but they sometimes give minute tohches which are of
lasting interest. Our ambassadors to foreign courts present us contrasts with
the state of their own country. The .poets of manners were not as yet : for
the drama, properly so caUed, had not risen into its of&ce of a mirror of
nature, Tet we may discover the routine life of the husbandman in ene
homely poet, who had the rare merit of describing what he knew. With a
Diary or two, equally trustworthy whether the journal of a king or of a
funeral-furnisher — with WiUs, Trials — last, but not least valuable. Sermons —
we may farther obtain facts or suggestions. With these aids, then, let us
pick our way through somewhat dif&cult ground, and endeavour to leave
some review of our footsteps, not whoUy without accuracy. We can pretend
to no completeness.
We have stated that at the beginning of the sixteenth century the Popula
tion was estimated, upon very uncertain data, at four miUions.-* We have no
distinct materials for any such guess in the middle of that century ; but
twenty-five years later we have a precise statement, which enables us to form
some judgment. Harrispn recprds that, in the muster ef able men for
service in 1574 and 1575, the number amounted to l,172,674,t Taking the
able men as a fourth of the entire population, we have a total of upwards of
four miUions and a half. In the Injunctions of CromweU to the clergy, a
Book, or Eegister, was directed to be kept by every parson, vicar, or curate,
for every church ; in which, on each succeeding Sunday, the clergyman should
enter the particulars of the weddings, christenings, and burials made the whole
week before. This injunction was evidently neglected ; for in the reigns of
Edward VL, and of EUzabeth, the injunction was repeated. On the first
attempt to enferce this mest salutary measure, the peeple were " in great
• Ante. p. 247. + "Description of England," book ii, c. 16.

456 CAPITAL. TAXATION. [1547.
fear and mistrust," au Sir Piers Edgecombe wrote to Cromwell. " Their mis
trust is," he says, " that some charges, more than hath been in times past,
shaU grow to them by this occasion of registering these things," * It was
the same fear which excited hostiUty to the census of 1801. The Parish
Eegisters, of inestimable value as local and family records, were never regarded
as the foundation of national statistics ; and it was not till the Eegistration
Act of 1836 was brought into fuU exercise by the most skUful organisation,
and its deductions made avaUable for the general benefit by scientific
analysis, that we could ascertain the amount of one of the great elements of
progress, the increase of population ; and form a right judgment of the
causes by whjch such increase was accelerated or retarded. As we proceed
in our view of the condition of the people in the middle of the sixteenth
century, we shaU meet with constant complaints of the decrease of population.
These are founded upon the most extravagant estimates of the number of the
more ancient inhabitants ; and an equally blind confidence in an aUeged de
crease " by laying house to house and land to land, whereby many men's
pccupyings were ccnverted intp pne, and the breed pf pepple net a little
thereby diminished." t Henry VIIL, we are thus informed, "lamented oft
that he was constrained to hire foreign aid, for want of competent store of
soldiers here at home. . . . He would oft marvel in private talk, how that,
when seven or eight princes ruled here at once, one of them could lead thirty
or forty thousand men to the field against another, or two of them a hundred
thousand against a third, and these taken out only of their own dominions, "J
It might have occurred to the king, if he had been less engrossed with matters
beyond reason, to have also marveUed how such vast armies subsisted in the
Saxon land of woods and morasses ; especially when we find him, in his own
days of improved cultivation, forbidding the Scottish king to pass with his
train from France through the north of England, as " his highness could not
have there victuals and other necessaries, for the furniture of his own train,
when he should repair into those parts, "§
The direct taxation of a people will always, to some extent, enable us to
form a notion of their available Capital. The rate of subsidy in the time of
Henry VIII, will show at how low an estimate the government fixed the
power of the saving classes to contribute. By the " Act for the Subsidy of
the Temporalty" in 1542-3,|| a grant payable in three years was made upon
personalties. Upon subjects not worth more than five pounds, in coin, plate,
stock, merchandise, corn in store, household stufi', and other moveable goods,
and money owing above just debts, four pence in the pound was to be paid ;
with a rising scale of eight pence, sixteen pence, and two shillings, to twenty
pounds and upwards. There was a double rate upon aliens. On real estates
of one pound to five pounds annual value, eight pence in the pound was
levied ; from five pounds to ten pounds, sixteen pence ; from ten pounds to
twenty pounds, two shUlings ; above twenty pounds, three shillings. In 1545,
there was another subsidy of two whole fifteenths and tenths, levied in the
same manner. And yet this income and property tax, going as low as the
persons who had only accumulated five pounds beyond their average earnings
* State Papers, vol. i. p. 612. f Harri.wn, book ii.c, 19, + /M
5 State Papers, vol. i, p, 536. || 34 & 85 Hen, VIII. c, 27.

1547.] EVASIONS OF SUnSiniKS. 457
produced a sum so inconsiderable, when compared witli our modern experience
of the extent of taxation, that we might wonder where the accumula
tion existed to enable the industry of the country regularly to go forward in
a course of improvement, Wriothesley, the chancellor, writes to the council
.n 1545, " Tou see the king's majesty hath, this year and the last year, spent
1,300,000Z, or thereabouts ; and his subsidy and benevolence ministering
scant 300,OOOZ, thereof, I muse sometime, where the rest, being so great
a sum, hath been gotten." * Having regard to the altered value of money,
partly by the influx of silver into Europe, and partly by the debasement oi
the coin, we can scarcely reckon this three hundred thpusand pounds at more
than three millions. And yet that Is a large revenue from taxation during two
years. It is especiaUy to be considered large when compared with the
amount annually raised by taxes in the time of Charles II,, which did not
much exceed a million and a quarter, when the difi'erence in the value ol
money was much less than at a hundred years previous,t Compared with
other countries England was always a lightly-taxed nation, even up to the
iaja of Sir Eobert Walpole. With the exception of these occasional
subsidies, and the duties upon goods exported and imported, the revenue was
wholly derived from resources which Henry VIIL constantly asserted were
his private possessions, but which the parliament as constantly took care should
he applied, as far as possible, to public uses. The Venetian ambassador, Micheli,
in a luminous description of England in 1557, addressed to his Senate, says,
" The liberty of this country is really singular and wonderful ; indeed, there is
no other country, in my opinion, less burthened and more free. Eor they
have not only no taxes pf any kind, but they are not even thought of : no
tax on salt, wine, beer, flour, meat, cloth, and ether necessaries pf life, which,
in aU parts pf Italy especially, and in Elanders, are the more productive the
greater is the number of inhabitants which consume them." J It was this
absence ef taxation upon the necessaries of life, and upon the materials of
industry, which enabled England to go so rapidly in advance of other nations
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. She still went forward, but with
comparative slo-wness, in the eighteenth ; and it was not till the nineteenth
century had far advanced that the great obstacles to national prosperity were
cast off, and we saw the wisdom of making the producer work under a lighter
load, and the consumer enjoy at a diminished cost. The problem of reduced
individual taxation and increased national revenue was only solved three
hundred years after the times of which we are writing.
The amount produced by a subsidy will scarcely enable us to form any
estimate of the available Capital of the country. The one divine of the age
who boldly assaUs every moral delinquency, tells us that a fraudulent return
of property was a customary sin : " When the parUament, the high court of
this realm, is gathered together, and there it is determined that every man
shaU pay a fifteenth part of his goods to the king, then commissions come
forth, and he that in sight of men, in his cattle, corn, sheej), and other goods,
is worth an hundred marks, pr an hundred ppuud, wiU set himself at ten
pound ; he wIU be worth np more to the king but after ten pound. Tell me,
now, whether this be theft or no ? " § "He wiU marry his daughter," says
. State Papers, vol, i, p, 831 , + See Macaulay, vol, ip^ 287
± Ellis, 2nd Series, vol, ii, § Latimer, bermon at Stamford."H H
VOL. II,

458 SOURCES OP REVENUE, THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD, [1547.
the preacher, " and give with her four or five hundred marks, and yet at the
valuation he will be a twenty pound man," The salve for the conscience,
probably, was the general belief that the king was very well suppUed with
money without entrenching upon a daughter's marriage-portion, Henry VIII.
had told his people that when he had driven the idle and luxurious monks
from their possessions, he would apply their revenues to great public uses.
He had absorbed those revenues. He was richer than any king of England
before his time. His ordinary income, — from the guardianship of Wards, of
whose property while they were minors the crown had the usufruct ; from
Livery, or one year's income upon their succession, of those who held lands
under the crown ; from Eeliefs, or sums paid on the renewal of military fiefs ;
from the Duchy of Lancaster ; from the First-fruits of bishoprics ; and from
various other ancient sources, — amounted to about 150,000Z, per annum. The
seizure of church property was held to have doubled this permanent income.
And yet we may wonder, with the prudent chancellor, how the king con
trived to spend 1,300,OOOZ. in two years ; if we did not know that the crown
was always in debt, and that it sometimes applied the sponge to its debts.
Edward VI. was overwhelmed with debt, upon which he paid fourteen per
cent, interest.* We shall have to notice, hereafter, some of the effects of
one of the notable expedients of his reign, and of that of his father, for
diminishing the debt by debasement of the coin — an expedient which, in the
strictest sense of the image, could do nothing but commend the ingredients
of the poisoned chalice to their own lips.
The household expenditure of the second Tudor sovereign was upon a
larger scale than that of any of his predecessors. The Venetian ambassador
says, "There is no nation which in its manner of living and ordinary expenditure
is more extravagant than the English; because they keep more servants,
with a greater distinction of oflaces and degrees in which such servants are
placed. In this manner, to mention only one particular, in order to give an
idea of pther expenses of greater moment, the expense of the court in the
mere article of living, that is, of eating and drinking, and of what solely
relates to the table, amounts to from fifty-four to fifty-six thousand pounds
sterling a-year." He is speaking of the time of Queen Mary, and says that
not the fourth part was then expended as in the time of Henry VIIL and
Edward VI. The cost of national defence, of ambassadors, judges, and other
public servants, he holds to be small in comparison with the enormous house
hold expenditure.f We may judge from later times of the cost of the great
ofiicers about the royal person — the lord steward, lord treasurer, lord great
chamberlain, earl marshal, lord chamberlain, treasurer of the household,
comptroUer of the household, vice-chamberlain, cofferer, master of the horse.
But we can form no idea from modern experience of the array of inferior
ofiicers. We know that Burke, in his great speech on economical reform,
said that every attempt to regulate the civil list had faUed, because the turn
spit in the king's kitchen was a member of parliament. A statute of
Henry VIIL, which clearly bears the mark of his own master mind, regulates,
with a tragi-comic attention to parade, the execution of a sentence by the
lord steward upon an offender convicted on the verdict of a jury of the
* King Edward's Journal, in Burnet, p. 51, ed, 1683, t EUis, 2nd Series, voL ii..

TS47.] MILITARY EXPENDITUUF,. 459
household for striking within the precincts of the palace. The pff'ender Is
tp Ipse his hand. The chief surgeen is tp be present, tp sear the stump
when the hand is stricken off. The serjeant of the pantry is to give bread
to the maimed man. The serjeant of the cellar is to be ready, with the same
tenderness, with a pot of red wine. The serjeant of the ewry is to
bring linen fer the surgeon. The yeoman of the chandry is to bring seared
cloths. The master cook is to be present with a dressing-knife, which he is
to deliver to the serjeant of the larder, who is to hold the knife till execution
be done. The serjeant of the poultry is to be ready with a cock for the
surgeon to wrap about the stump. The yeoman of the scullery is to prepare
a fire of cpals, and the searing irens. The chief farrier is tp heat the searing
irons. The groom of the salcery is to bring vinegar. The serjeant of the
woodyard is tp prpvide the fatal bleck and beetle.* We may judge frem
this terrible array pf hpusehold potentates, to give solemnity to the maiming
of an unhappy offender against the sanctity of the king's palace, what an army
of deputies there must have been to do the real work of the kitchen and the
larder. The parliament, in enacting the subsidy of 1545, for the prosecution of the
war against France and Scotland, employ the mpst humble language in
presenting the grant tp the king, beseeching him tp accept their gift, even
" as it pleased the great king Alexander tp receive thankfully a cup cf water
of a poor man by the highway side." Wars did not touch the people of
England, they justly say, as other nations not so happily situated. They were
not afflicted with " spells, burnings, and depppulatipns." " We," they declare,
" so Uve out pf aU fear and danger as if there were np war at all ; even as
the smaU fishes of the sea in the most tempestuous and stormy weather do
lie quietly under the rock or bank-side, and are not moved with the surges of
the water, nor stirred out of their quiet place, howsoever the wind bloweth," t
This flowery language expresses a great practical truth. To her wall of the
sUver sea, England owed her security from " the hand of war," during the five
hundred years which had preceded the Tudor rule ; and to this, more than to
any other of her happy conditions, we are indebted for the constant progress
of her industry, and the cpmparative Ughtness pf her burthens. But, never
theless, the cpst pf her defence, and her fpreign armaments, was net incon
siderable, in the years when her gpvernment was not restrained by poverty
or prudence from rushing into war. In the State Paper Oflice there is " a
brief declaration of the whele military and naval expenses incurred by
Henry VIIL and Edward VL during their wars with France and Scotland,"
This abstract alsp includes the ccst of suppressing the insurrection of
1549 and the charges of castles and garriscns. The tetal amount from Sep
tember 1542 to September 1552, is 3,491,471Z. J This gives an annual military
expenditure of 350,000Z. The government was always embarrassed during
these seasons of hostility. " The poor labourers,"— says Latimer, preaching
before Edward VI. in 1550, — " gun-makers, powdermen, bow-makers, arrow-
makers, smiths, carpenters, soldiers, and other crafts, cry out for their dues.
• 33 Hen. VIIL o, 12, clause iii, t 37 Hen. yill, c, 25, Prearable.
X "Calendax of State Papers, Domestic Series," 1547-1580, Edited by Robert Lemon,
p. 44. Published by authority, 1856. H aS

460 MILITARY ORGANISATION, [If 17
They be unpaid, some of them, three or four months ; yea, some of them, half
a year ; yea, some of them put up bills this time twelve months for their
money, and cannot be paid yet," There was a large cost, and there were
heavy arrears, although England had no standing army.
The mUitary organisation of the sixteenth century did not materially differ
from that of the fifteenth,* The nobles were still called upon, each to bring
his quota of armed men into the field, when the king demanded their services,
Cromwell was showing his private armoury to the Marshal de Castillon ; and,
when the marshal wondered at the store of harness and weapons, Cromwell
said, " there were other particular armouries of the lords and gentlemen of
this realm., more than the number of twenty, as well or better furnished than
mine was." t Micheli conjectured that, in the time of Mary, twenty-five
thousand troops could be raised, all provided with cuirasses and polished
arms. But in all cases of apprehended danger, er fpr foreign service, the
muster-roll was taken in every county, and in every city. England then
possessed an armed population. Perlin, a French physician who came to
England at the time of queen Mary's accession, says, " The labourer, when he
cultivates the land, leaves in a comer of the field his buckler and sword, and
sometimes his bow ; for in this country it is as if all the world carried arms." J
There may be some exaggeration in this ; but, without doubt, the bow, if not
the sword and shield, was amongst the possessions of every man who had a
recognised station in the commonwealth. In all emergencies the crown sum
moned the natipnal force to its assistance. In 1549, king Edward, being with
Somerset at Windsor, when the lords were seeking to drive the Protector
from his sway, sends to the bailiff and constables of Lxbridge, " to levy all the
force in their power, especially archers, and to bring them well victuaUed to
Windsor Castle." § Archery was the natienal spprt ; and all pther games
were forbidden by statute, y Complaining of the decay of archery, Latimer
says, " In my time my peer father was as diligent to teach me to shoot, as to
learn me any other thing ; and so I think ether men did their children.
He taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow, and not to draw
with strength of arms, as other nations do." The good bishop exclaims, with .
the enthusiasm of a patriot, — " It is a gift of God that he hath given us to
excel aU other nations withal: it hath been G-od's instrument, whereby he
hath given us many victories against our enemies." It was not the weapon
alone that made the English formidable. Micheli,' speaking of the means pf
defence ppssessed by us, says, — " The ardpur in fighting wpuld be shared by
all, the veterans as weU as the raw levies ; because, as every body knows, there
is not a nation in the world that esteems danger and death more lightly than
the English." Eoger Ascham, writing from the Continent, declares that
" England need fear no outward enemies. The lusty lads verily be in EngJand.
I have seen on a Sunday more likely men walking in St. Paul's Church
than I ever yet saw in Augsburgh, where Ueth an emperor with a garrison."
The lusty lads held to the bow. The harquebuss came very slowly into use
in England. To discharge the original hand-gun the match was held in the
hand. The harquebuss had a trigger conveying the match to the priming.
* See ante, p, 104, t Letter in Cotton Library ; quoted in Ellis, 2nd Series, vol, ii.
X "Description des Royaulmes d'Angleterre et d'Esoosse," Paris, 1558. Reprint, p, 29.
..Ji Calendar of State Papers, p, 24, ,|| 33 Hen, VIII. e, 9.

1547.] THK N.U'Y. CIVIL ADMINISTRATION, 461
The musket was .an improved harquebuss, Somerset had his musqueteers;
but they were foreigners. Nor was our cavalry cf so great importance as
the vast body who could be called into the field at a day's notice, with
the light skull-cap aud the quilted jacket, the long bow and the pike,
There was a general assessment in time of war for providing light horse
men and demi-lances ; but, if we are to rely upon the intelligent Venetian,
who presents such clear statistics of this period, the horses of England,
though produced in greater number than in any other country of Europe,
were " weak and of bad wind." They were fed merely on grass, he says.
Horses fit for heavy cavaby, he adds, were not bred in England, but were
imported from Flanders. The uavy of this period has been noticed in
the last chapter. The constant expense of keeping ships afloat was a bar
to pur early maritime efficiency. The hundred ships ef Henry VIII, were
dwindled tp fprty in the reign pf Mary. But there were merchant vessels
in every pert, which cculd easily be armed in time of need. The royal
ships were larger than those of other nations. When Philip of Spain
came to wed Mary, the English admiral affronted the Spaniards by calUng
their ships mussel-shells,* The English shores were never unguarded.
On every eminence there was a beacon and a flag-staff. If an enemy
approached in the daytime, the signal fluttered from hill to hill. If in the
night, a thousand watch-fires were ready to spread the alarm from the
North Foreland to the Lizard, from the Naze to the Tyne, The people
gathered at the point of danger from town and viUage, The noble and the
esquire were at the head of their tenants. The portly alderman led forth
his stout burghers and his nimble apprentices. Whatever was the dis
content at home, EngUshmen would fight to the death against tho foreign
enemy. The foreigner knew this ; and left us to decide our quarrels amongst
ourselves. The ambassador of the Venetian Senate regarded the government of the
Tudors as a despotism. The kings, he says, are absolute lords and masters.
They govern through a Couucil, as the Grand Turk governs through the
Bashaws. The Council, composed of the great household officers, and of other
persons of rank, follow the king's person wherever he goes. Their mandates
are obeyed as though they proceeded from the king himself. The State
Papers of the reign of Henry VIIL show, however, how constantly the king
himself attended to the administration of affairs. Undoubtedly Henry was
a sovereign of great industry ; of considerable talent ; of various knowledge.
But his inordinate self-love ; his desire for personal display ; his jealousy of
every servant who was not a slave to his will, in the most unlimited abne
gation of a free judgment, — these qualities, as he advanced in life, drove him
into the most heartless and cruel despetism. By the force of terror, or the
avidity for gain, every civil officer, whatever his rank, — a Cromwell or a
Cranmer, a Norfolk or a Eussell, — was a crouching menial. The ecclesiastics
who filled civil offices were amongst the most abject, with the sole exception
of Wolsey, who, by the extraordinary power of his intellect, held a divided
sway with his master. That position Wolsey reached as the supereminent
churchman as much as the accomplished statesman. After the domination of
* Tytler, " Original Letters,'' vol, i. p. 414,

462 BRIBERY, SMALL SALARIES OP OFFICERS. [15*7.
the Eomish church had been destroyed, the bishops who discharged civil
functions were little more than ambitious sycophants. Latimer has given a
striking picture of " unpreaching prelates " holding civil offices, — " placed in
palaces, couched in courts, burthened with ambassages," — lords of parliament,
presidents, comptrollers of mints. The bold bishop says, " I would fain
know who controUeth the devU at home in his parish, whUe he [the priest]
controUeth the mint ? " * The comptroUer of the mint was usually a jobber
of the rankest character. But all the civU officers were underpaid in their
salaries. They all looked to grants and leases for their reward ; and they all
lived upon something even better than expectancy, for they aU were bribed.
The secondary offices were openly bought. There was small pay, but large
peculation. It was in vain that Latimer cried out to the young king Edward,
" Such as be meet to bear office, seek them out ; hire them ; give them com
petent and liberal fees, that they shall not need to take any bribes." t In
the letters of ambassadors we constantly find them complaining of the
insufficiency of their pay. If they could bide their time, they received some
place in whicli they might pillage without offence. The high places pf the
law were these in which the bribe was most regularly administered. When
Bacon fell, in the next half century, for receiving bribes, he foUowed the
most approved precedents, according to which chancellors and chief justices
before him maintained their state and ennobled their posterity. The system
went much lower. The bribery of juries was so common, that a man-killer
with rich friends could escape for a crown properly administered to each
quest-monger ; for so the vendor of a verdict was caUed.
The later history of the reign of Henry VIII. is the history of the
subserviency of ParUaments. The degradation of this great bulwark of
English liberty in earlier times was now manifest to foreign observers. " In
the beginning, and, indeed, many years after the introduction of parUaments,
the liberty and security of those three estates [clergy, nobles, and commons]
were such that even the lowest person of them might, without any danger,
were it even against the king's person, give free utterance tp any expressions
calculated fer the public good, or dictated by zeal for his country ; the kings
in those times being looked upon rather as political and civil chiefs than as
lords and masters, or monarchs, as they are at the present day." Q'he
Venetian who writes thus, had accurately read English history. But he adds,
with an equally accurate observation of matters of his own day, that the
kings could keep put pr bring in whpever they pleased as representatives.
" They are at this time become so formidable and powerful that they may do
even as they please ; nor can anybody, whether it be in parliament or out of
it, impunely, and, indeed, without utter ruin to himself, venture to stand
up in opposition, or even to make the least show of resistance, to their
pleasure. In short, servants they enter parliament, and servUe are their
proceedings therein." J The addition of thirty-one members to the House
of Commons, in 1536, by the legislative incorporation of Wales with England,
though a measure of justice and of ultimate national benefit, necessarily
secured a larger number of subservient representatives. The influence of
* Sermon of the Plough. t Fifth Sermon before Edward VI,
X Micheli, Ellis, 2ud Series, vol, ii.

1547.]

PARLIAMENTS. THEIR SUBSERVIENCY.

463

the crown m the principality had been so long predominant, that few Welsh
members could have entered St. Stephen's chapel-for there, about the
middle of this century, did the Commons sit-with any disposition to assert
an independence which they did not find amongst their English fellows By
a special statute the knights of the Welsh counties were to be paid wages of
four shiUmgs a day, and the burgesses two shillings, during the continuance
of the parliament, and during their journeys to and from the place of sitting.
These were the wages of the English members, and they were levied by the

st Stephen's Chapel

sheriffs and mayors ; but it appears from this act for Wales that the assess
ment and the payment had in some cases been neglected.* The wages were
a just payment for the loss of time in public service. The wages were not
the cause of the general corruption. The crown was supreme, because the
king's displeasure was death, and the king's smile promised a golden harvest.

35 Hen, VIII. c. 11,

464 THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY. JUSTICES OF THE PEACE. [1547,
The nobility and gentry for the most part dwelt in their respective
counties. The more ambitious hovered about the court, and had their houses
in London and Westminster. " There be some gentlemen in England," says
Latimer, " which think themselves bom to notiiing else but to have good
cheer in this world ; to go a hawking and hunting," * There were public
duties for all of them to perform, besides effices cf hospitality and charity to
their tenants and poor neighbours. The times were changed, when there
was only one of the high-born in a wide parish, who was the absolute lord of
the district. In that curious paper ascribed to Edward VI,, entitled " A
Discourse about the reformation of my abuses," he says, " The grazier, the
farmer, the merchant, become landed men, and caU themselves gentlemen,
though they be churls, » » » * The artificer will leave the town, and, for his
more pastime, will live in the country ; yea, and more than that, will be a
justice of peace, and will think scorn to have it denied him," f The great
nobles knew the potency of that industrial strength that was quietly laying
.new foundations of civil liberty and equaUty of rights, even under a govern
ment that was destroying the old. The proud admiral, lord Seymour, said to
the marquis of Dorset, " I advise you to make much of the head yeemen and
franklins of the country, specially those that be the ringleaders, for they be
men that be best able to persuade the multitude, and may best bring the
number ; and therefore I will wish you to make much of them, and to go to
their houses, now to one, now to another, carrying with you a flagon or two of
wine and a pasty of venison, and to use a familiarity with them, for so shall
you cause them to love you." J The artificer wanted to be a justice of the
peace. He saw the commonalty exercising judicial functions in towns —
mayors, aldermen, sheriffs — and why not in the country P He had his desire
when he gained the money-qualification. The office of justice of the peace
was originally one ef high dignity and power. The regular administration ot
the law by the judges in circuit abated the local authority which was often
abused. An attempt was made by the government of Henry VIIL, to
extend the functions of the justices of the peace beyond their ancient courts
of Quarter Session, by allowing them to divide themselves into districts, two
at least in each district, and hold Petty Sessions. The statute of 1541-2,
which gave this power, indicates how wide a field was presented to the local
magistracy, for honest and intelligent or dishonest and ignorant action. They
were to put in execution the laws against vagabonds ; against retainers and
giving liveries ; they were to enforce archery and put down other games,
called unlawful ; they were to proceed against forestallers and regrators ; aU
matters concerning victuallers and inn-holders came within their province.
It was soon discovered that magisterial vigilance in excess might be as great
an evil as magisterial supineness. In 1545 the six-weeks' sessions were
abolished by statute, and the functions of the justices were again confined
to their ancient Quarter Sessions ; " as the king's most loving subjects are
much travailed and otherwise encumbered by the keeping of the said six-
weeks' sessions." §
" The merchants become landed men. The artificer will leave the town."
* Sermon on the Beatitudes, + Burnet, " Records," vol, ii. p. 71.
t Tytler, "Original Letters," vol, i. p, 140. § 37 Hen. VIII. c, 7.

1547.] COMMERCIAL SPIRIT ENTERING INTO RURAL AFFAIRS, 465
If we assign their due import to these words of Edward VI., we may be
enabled, with the aid of some illustrative facts, to understand the material
conditipn pf England at this period, M, Guizot lias indicated one of the great
principles out pf which a new state of things had arisen : " In the course of
the sixteenth century, the commercial prosperity of England had increased
with extreme rapidity ; and in the same period territorial wealth, landed
property, had in great measure changed hands. This progress of the division
of land in England during the sixteenth century, through the ruin of the feudal
aristocracy and other causes, is a fact tp which sufficient attention has scarcely
been given. All documents of that period show us the number of landed
proprietprs prpdigipusly increasing ; and great part pf the lands passing into
the possession of the gentry, or lesser nobUity [petite noblesse], and of the
citizens [des bourgeois]," * What had taken place at an earlier period in the
towns, was now taking place in the country districts. As the feudal tenants
who had clustered round the baronial castle were now grown into independent
burgesses, so the vUlains, having substituted rent for service, had grown into
farmers and graziers, and so on to landed proprietors. Those of the towns,
who had saved money as artificers or dealers, came to share the advantages
which they saw were derived from the judicious occupation of land. There
were some of the richest soils in the kingdom ready for occupation. There
were some of the abbey lands to be sold or let, where flocks and herds had
cropped the richest pastures, and the barns had been filled with the finest
wheat. There were vast unenclosed grounds, which the manorial lords would
gladly grant as copyhold to the provident burgess who had been dealing in
oroad-cloth, and now wanted to become richer by raising the great material
for its production. Eents were everywhere rising, which circumstance
encourged the dUigent man who had saved money to invest it in land for
profit. The commercial spirit had deeply penetrated into the whole system
of rural affairs ; and the old iron bond of feudal protection and dependence
was changed for the lighter link of mutual interest. Let us endeavour to
form some notion of the aspect of rural England at this epoch.
The French physician who came to look upon England, and abuse it, in
the time of queen Mary, describes the country as enclosed with all sorts of
trees, " so that you might think in passing along that you were in a perpetual
wood," t The foot-people, he says, can get into the foot-paths in the grounds
[sentiers] by climbing up ladders [escaliers], but horsemen must keep on the
highway, A messenger pf Cecil, travelling post to Stamford, in 1548, describes
how he was caught in a storm ; and by way of a shorter cut, made a hole to
squeeze through my Lord Privy Seal's hedge at Tbornhaws.J But there were
vast tracts of marsh-land in every county and not only in the fenny countries.
These wel-e abandoned to the crane and the bustard, the bittern, the heron,
the shovelard, and the maUard. A statute of 1543-4, laments that there were
formerly within the realm great plenty of wild-fowl, whereby the king's
househpld, and those of noblemen and prelates, were furnished, and markets
abundantly supplied ; and it forbids the use of nets, and the taking of eggs
at certain seasons. Ducks, mallards, widgeon, teal, and wild-geese, are herein
-• " CivilLsation in Europe," Le?onxiii,
+ Perlin, p, 25, t Tytler, " Letters,'' vol. i, p, 118.

466 ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY DISTRICTS. INCLOSURES. [1547.
enumerated, in addition to those birds above recited, now almost unknown.
In the last century, the crane had fersaken the island. In the time of Henry
VIIL, the eggs of the larger and smaller wUd-fowl were not only destroyed,
and the birds taken in unlawful nets, but the breeding-places had been par
tially obliterated by the progress of cultivation. When the marshes were
made profitable in the neighbourhood of towns, the fioors of houses ceased to
be strewed with rushes. StiU, there were thousands of acres of marsh land,
and thousands of acres of heath. The statutes indicate the advance of man
in subjecting the land to his use. One act of parliament encourages roads to
be made thrpugh the Weald of Kent.* Another provides for the inclosure of
4293 acres of Hounslow Heath, extending not only over the districts that in
recent times comprised Hounslow Heath, but to the parishes of Brentford,
Isleworth, Twickenham, and Teddington. The barrenness and infertility
thereof are ascribed to the want of diligence and industry of men.f In the
inclosure cf Hpunslpw Heath, commissioners were appointed to view the
ground, and to aUot certain portions of the same to the inhabitants of the
various parishes, to be held in severalty as copyholds, and to be converted intp
tUlage and pasture. What the king could do with Hounslow Heath, was
done by the lords of manors throughout the country. There was in many
cases a similar division of the lands of the suppressed monasteries. " A BiU
concerning the houses, tenements, and lands lying in Walsingham, to be letten
by Copy, which late were belonging to the Priory," recites that the tewn,'
fprmerly " pppulous, wealthy, and beautifully buUded, is at the present time,
by great decay, and by the withdrawing of the trades of merchandise there,
and by divers other sundry occasions of late happened, like to faU to utter
ruin, and to be barren, desolate, and unpeopled." The act therefore provides
that all the lands and granges shall be declared Copyhold, and granted by the
stewards of the manors to any persons, who would pay the rents, heriots, and
fines prescribed.}: The town of Walsingham had fallen into decay, "by
sundry occasions of late happened," when no pilgrims resorted thither ; when
the monks ceased to employ artisans about their house, labourers to dig,
retailers to prpvide many comforts and luxuries, servants to wait upon them.
The like process of inclosure of waste lands, and division of large . feudal
property, had been going on throughout the kingdom, from the time of Henry
VII. ; but the system proceeded much more rapidly and universally after the
dissolution of the monasteries. So entire a revolution in the distribution of
property never before occurred in England, and has never occurred since.
That it was ultimately productive of incalculable benefit cannot be doubted ;
but it was also the cause of enormous misery, for a season, to the humblest
classes of society. The attempts of the state to remedy or even control this
inevitable evil were always futile ; and it was aggravated by proceedings pf
the gpvernment, of which few saw the consequences, and which fewer dared
to expose. The complaint against the conversion of arable land into pasture for the
breeding of sheep, forty years before this period, has been fully noticed in
a previous chapter. § As the process went on, more land was demanded.
* 14 & 15 Hen. VIII. c. 6, t 37 Hen, VIII. c. 2.
X 35 Henry VIII. c. 13, § Ante, p, 248.

1547.] NEW DISTRIBUTION OF LAND. 467
The capital of the country sought employment in an extension of cultivation ;
and the extension came through the system of Inclosures. The general desire
to invest capital in land and rural occupations, and the facUities now opened
for its investment, also led to the quickest profitable employment of capital.
The increasing population demanding increased clething, and pne pf the
greatest experts ef native preduce being wcol, immense flocks of sheep were
kept upon the newly inclosed lands, and upon many of the farms where the
old cottier tenants had given place to a farmer or grazier who conducted his
business upon a larger scale. The monastic houses had been invariably
surrounded by smaU hplders pf church lands ; and their cwn wants had
required that they shpuld have a due proportion of grass land and corn land.
At the dissolution of Fountains Abbey, an inventory of their effects showed
that the monks possessed 2356 horned cattle, 1326 sheep, 86 horses, 79
swine, 391 quarters of wheat, oats, rye, barley and malt, and 392 loads ol
hay. To conduct their various farming operations a large number of labourers
were necessarily required. When the tenure pf these great properties was
whoUy changed ; when the monastic domains fell into the hands of those who
only spught tp pbtain the best rents ; there was a disturbance ef the labeuring
pppulatipn, of which we have ample evidence in the undoubted increase of
pauperism and vagabondage. The effect of the dissolution of the abbeys upon
this increase of misery, clamouring for aid, has been usually limited to the
supposed absence of the relief which those houses afforded to the local poor,
by doles out of their abundance. Upon this it has been argued that the
monasteries encouraged idle and improvident habits ; and that their suppres
sion was a real beneflt to the labourers. This was only true in part. There
was many a small town and village that fell into decay, besides the town of
Walsingham, when these large revenues were wholly diverted to other channels,
and were applied, however in accordance with sound commercial principles,
to the support of other modes of industry than those which had become habitual
to many generations of herdsmen and earth-tUlers. But in some cases the
change was even more complete, and the results more grievous to the poor.
Sir Arthur Darcy writes to Cromwell that he was present at the suppression
of Jervaulx Abbey, and looked upon its fair meadows, and great demesne, and
surrounding granges. Let the king, he says, take possession, and send his
studs of mares here, to occupy the large and high grounds in the summer,
and the woods and low grounds in the winter. The breed of men was to
give place to the brood-mares.* It was not vrith the lands of all monastic
• houses, deserted by the ancient employers and servants, that the same
sensible system was pursued as with the rich fields and substantial granges
of Walsingham. The grantees of the abbey lands did not in general divide
them amongst smaU copyholders. The lordly mansion often grew up, very
commonly near the spot where the chapel and the cloister were soon moulder
ing into shapeless ruin— a ruin not then made beautU'ul by time. The sober
refectory, with carved roof and lancet windows, was transfprmed intp the
tapestried banqueting hall. The pastures and the plpugh land were thrpwn
tpgether, and became the vast deer-park. The monks wandered about the
country, asking the alms which they fermerly bestpwed. Their servants and
• " Suppression, " p. 158.

468 COMMON AND SEVERAL. [1547,
labourers swelled the number of the roving population. Thus the system
which was raising the middle class into "landed men," and adding largely to
the possessions of the higher proprietors, went inexorably forward to embarrass
the man who had no possession but his power of labour. The course of
industry was changed, with serious damage to the living generation. The
effects became more alarming when the growing system of inclosures dis
possessed the irregular labourer pf his hpvel and his patch pf waste ; and flecks
pf sheep fed, where his half-starved ccw had browsed upon the heath, and
his scanty crop of cabbages and parsnips had eked out his miserable
existence.* But the squatter upon the commons clung to this life of penury
and freedom. When the system of inclosures forcibly applied the land to
more profitable uses he became a vagabond and a thief.
The miserable labourers who eked out a scanty subsistence upon a barren
heath were not the only people who were necessarily hostile to inclosures.
The ancient race of small farmers had a deep Interest in the preservation of
unallotted land. Latimer, who was perfectly acquainted with country affaii's,
tells us of the old time, in a well-known passage ; — " My father was a
yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or four
pound by year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept
half a dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep ; and my mother
mUked thirty kine." t The kine and the sheep fed on the common- pasture-
land. In anether passage he describes hpw a plpughman must have sheep tp
manure the grpund. The turnip husbandry was then undreamt pf. He must
have hpgs, and hprses, and kine fer milk and cheese. " These cattle must
have pasture, which pasture if they lack the rest must needs fail them.
And pasture they cannet have if the land be taken in, and inclosed from
them." X There is a proposal for a tax on sheep, in 1551, in which it is
estimated that a million and a half are kept in the commons, and a million and
a half in inclosed pastures. The extension of these inclosed pastures irritated
the people. The protector Somerset appointed a commission in 1548, to
inquire into the decay of tUlage, and the excessive inclosure of land for
pasturage ; wnich system, it is alleged, has brought the land to a marvellous
desolation. In the same year the government was issuing proclamations
"against the assembling of lewd persons to pull down inclosures." § In
1549, the people of Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Dorset, Norfolk, and other
counties were in rebellion for redress of this their grievance. But even then
there was a sensible farmer who saw the evil of these common-lands, and the
benefits of the improved cultivation which belonged to inclosures. Look at
Essex and Suffolk, says Tusser, where inclosure is most. There, is most
abundance ; most work for the labourer ; there, are the fewest beggars. The
champion, — that is, the dweller on commons, he says, rpbbeth by night and
prowleth and filcheth by day. He is indignant at the outcry against inclo
sures from those who will not " live by their work," and are banded together
to do lawless acts without fear. He stands up boldly for the profit of
"pastures in several;" of the superior comfort of the poor man who has
even two acres of inclosed land, as compared with the " commoner," 11
* See Harrison, in Holinshed, p. 193, f First Sermon before Edward VL
} Last Seririon before Edward VI, § Calendar of State Papers, p. 18.
11 * ' Champion and Several, "

1547,] THE STATUTE OF VAGABONDS, 469
Tusser was no doubt a better ecpnpmlst than Somerset or Latimer, But the
statesman and the preacher had witnessed a terrible social convulsion, which
manifested itself in a way which bewildered legislators, and which they
attempted to control by one of the most savage laws that ever disgraced
our statute book. The Statute of Vagabonds, of the first year of
Edward VI,, opens to our view a picture of society In England which was
certainly an exceptional state, but was also a natural result of the momentous
changes of that period of transition.
We have already pplnted tp the significant fact, that the laws against
beggars and vagabends had been written in letters pf bipod, after the fifteenth
century. During the hundred and forty-seven years which had elapsed frem
the seventh year pf Eichard II. (1384), to the twenty-second year of Henry
VIII. (1531), vagabonds were put in the stocks. Then the whip was added
to the stocks. In 1536, the whip was a mild punishment ; to which mutila
tion and death were supplemented.* But even the cart's tail, the butcher's
knife, and the hangman's noose, inspired no adequate dread ; and were regarded
by the government as feeble remedies when Edward VI. came to the throne.
The system of terror had wholly failed ; and so it was to be carried as much
farther as the cruelty of man could devise. In 1548, one who was going
about amongst the rural population says, " The people confess themselves
most bound to God that he hath sent them such a king, in whose so tender
age so much good is intended towards them ; and have a great hope that the
Iron world is now at an end, and the Golden is returning again," f Certainly
those who a few years later had acquired the name of " the thriftless poor "
— those who ran " to and fro over aU the realm, chiefly keeping the champain
soils in summer to avoid the scorching heat, and the woodland grounds in
winter to eschew the blustering winds." J — certainly this class could not
think that the golden world was come for them. The king of " so tender age "
was taught to consider these unhappy people as weeds to be rooted out. He
speaks of them as the " fllth " of the body poUtic. " The vagabonds ought
clearly to be banished." § And so, in 1547, there is no hesitation in passing
"An Act for the Punishment of Vagabpnds," of which the following are the
chief provisions : —
AU the former Acts against vagabonds and sturdy beggars being repealed,
it is provided that every man or woman, not being prevented from working
by old age, lameness, or disease, who shall be found loitering or wandering,
and not seeking work, during three days, or who shall leave work when
engaged, may be lawfully apprehended, and brought before two justices of the
peace ; who, upon confession, or on the proof of twp witnesses, " shall imme
diately cause the said Iciterer te be marked, with a bet iron in the breast, the
mark of V, and adjudge the said person, living. so idly, to his presenter, to
be his Slave," The presenter, as he is called, is to have and hold the Slave
for two years; and, only giving him bread and water and refuse food, to
" cause the said Slave to work, by beating, chaining, or otherwise, in such
work and labour, how vile soever it be, as he shall put him unto," If the
Slave, during the two years, shall run away, he is to be pursued ; and any
* Ante, p. 342. t John Hales to Somerset, Tytler, vol. i. p, 114.
X Han-ison, chap, x, p. 182. § Bumet, "Records," vol, ii. p. 70.

470 THE STATUTE REPEALED, [1547,
person detaining him is to be liable to a penaltv of ten pounds. Convicted of
running away, the justices shall cause such Slave to be marked on the forehead
or ball of the cheek with a hot iron, with the sign of S, ; and then adjudged
to his master as a Slave for ever. If he run away a second time, he is to suffer
death as a felon. The person to whpm the Slave is adjudged, may put a ring
of iren abput his neck cr pn his limbs. If there is no man found who -wiU
take the loiterer as his Slave, he is to be sent to the place where he was born,
to be kept in slavery on the public roads ; pr he may be let er sold to any
private perspn who will chain, starve, and beat, according to the tenour of this
statute. There is an especial provision for committing Clerks convict — Cler.
gymen convicted of offences — to limited periods of slavery. Infant beggars
may be bpund tp the service pf any perspn whp will take them, te use their
services tUl the males be twenty-feur years pf age, and the females twenty ;
and if they run away, they are tp be breught back, and receive the discipline
of slavery. This Statute of Vagabonds, in which the very revival of a name that had
wholly fallen into disuse in England is sufficient proof of a most extraordinary
condition of society, was repealed in little more than two years after its
enactment. The insurrections of 1549 probably forced the government into
the acknpwledgment that " the extremity " pf the penalties had prevented
their execution. The legislature then went back to the comparatively mild
provisions of the act of 1532 ; passing over the heavier inflictions contem
plated by that of 1536. Of all these statutes it has been most truly observed
that "each gradation in the scale of punishment was tried, abandoned,, re
established with added stringency, and again abandoned, with a Ungering
pertinacity which can only be accounted for by the struggle between experi
ence and preconceived notions." * The parishes were caUed upon to relieve
the sick and aged ; and the justices to punish strong beggars, according to
the regulations of the flrst statute of Henry VIII. The time was approach
ing when a cpmpulspry prpvision for the poor would place this great and
difficult question upon the basis of all subsequent legislation ; but ibr years
vagabondage was the great evil of English society. The constant cry was
against the " covetpus man," whp daily made beggars by " wiping many put
pf their pccupyings, tp turn the same inte his private gains." t The extraer-
dlnary prpvislpns pf the flrst statute ef Edward VL, fpr making Slaves pf
unwilUng labpurers, pffers a distinct prppf that there was a demand fpr
labpur ; but that the lewest pf the rural pppulatipn, who had been long ac
customed to an unsettled and irregular industry, which had about it a sort of
wild independence, would not work for the masters who pulled down their
hovels, and made the waste lands profitable. It appears that " the wise and
better-minded of these emigrated, and sought to live in other countries, as
France, Germany, Barbary, India, Muscovy, and very Calicut ; complaining
of no room to be left for them at home." J The extension of that commercial
principle which drove these poor people to distant countries has provided
profitable labour for five times the amount of the population that then derived
a meagre subsistence from the land. It was the horrible fate of those who
held to what they called their "liberty,"— to wander about, "under the
* Sir G, Nicholls, " History of the English Poor-law," vol, i, p, 201,
+ Harrison, chap, x. + Ihid,

I647.J OFFENCES AGAINST PROPERTY, IMPOSTORS, 471
terror of the whip," or " to continue staric thieves, till the gallows do eat
them up," In 1545, we can trace in a very remarkable statute, how the dis
position to destroy private possessions, like the rick-burnings of our own
times, manifested the feeling of the labourers that they were suffering under
injustice. The statute recites that malicious and envious persons " have of
late invented and practised a new damnable kind of vice," which cpnsisted in
varipus pffences against perscn and prpperty.* " Cutting off the ears of the
king's subjects" appears to have been a dire revenge for the legal severities
of the statute against vagabonds of 1536, " The secret burning of frames of
timber, prepared and made by the owners thereof, ready to be set up and
edified for houses," was the malicious assertion of the imaginary rights of the
squatters upon waste lands to hold to their own hovels of sticks and dirt.
Such, also, was the war against civilisation of those who cut the heads of
ponds and conduits ; burnt carts laden with charcoal ; set fire to heaps of feUed
wood ; barked apple and pear trees ; and cut out the tongues of cattle. It was
the war of the savage against the settler — a war which always contains some
rude principle of imaginary right, but which must be repressed with heavy
penalties, unless a barrier is to be set up against human progress.
The generaUy accepted statement that during the reign of Henry VIII.
there were seventy-two thousand thieves and vagabonds hanged, appears to
have been founded upon the loose estimate that about two thousand were
hanged in each year of that reign. During the latter years of this king the
army pf rpbbers and cheats seems to have acquired something of a professional
organisation. In Thomas Harman's " Caveat for Cursetors," first printed in
1566, we are informed that " their language, which they term Pedlers' French,
or Canting, began but within these thirty years, er little abeut." f This
histprian pf Vagabpnds, dignified with the name pf Cursetprs, shows the long
continuance of the fraternity, by describing, upon the report of an aged man,
a burial of a man of worship in Kent, in 1521, " where there was such a
number of beggars, besides poor householders dwelling thereabouts, that
scarcely they might lie or stand about the house;" and for these was pre
pared a great bam ; a fat ox was served out, with drink ; and a dole of twp-
pence was given to each. When these habits of feudal hospitality were fast
passing away, the beggars lest what is called " their bousing and beUy cheer,"
and took to helping themselves. The world was being re-modelled ; and there
was no place for the vast numbers that were shifting about on the outskirts
of civilisation. Edward VI. writes, " For idle persons, there were never, I
think, more than be now." And yet it was quite impossible that cultivation
should have been improved, manufactures developed, and commerce extended,
without producing a larger permanent demand for profitable labour. But, at
the same time, there were no facUities for helping those who were obliged to
seek a change of occupation, to turn from irregular employments, — to a certain
extent predatory employments, — to become diligent and trustworthy servants.
The exclusive system under which the artificers of the town had grown up in
casts, under the mpst rigid cpnditipns pf apprenticeships and guUds, fprbade
the wanderer pbtaioing a living in trading cpmmunitles. If he appreached
the porch of the farmer, who had his homestead amidst his plough-land and
• 37 Hen. VIII. c, 6, t Reprint, 1814, p, 5.

472 AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY. [1647.
his meadows, the door would be doubly barred and the ban-dog let loose. The
farmer had his own hereditary in-door labourers, each in his appointed station
— frugally but abundantly fed upon salted fish and salted beef; with veal
and bacon, grass-beef and pease, roast meat on Sundays, arid on Thursdays at
night : " "With sometimes fish, and sometimes fast.
That household store may longer last," *
The farmer's year was one of unvarying routine : his people had many occu
pations that demanded more skill than usually belongs to the agricultui'al
labourer under the modern division of employments. To plough, to fence, tc
spw, tp reap, tp thrash, tp tend cattle and sheep, tp gather up mast fpr the
hpgs : these were cpmmon services. But the farmer of the sixteenth century
pursued many trades in his little homestead. He had eels in his stew, and
bees in his garden. He grew his own hops and made his own malt. Many
of his rough implements were of his own construction. He raised his own
hemp, and twisted his pwn cart-rcpes. His flax was cleaned and spun at
home. Some of his wool he sold to the " webster," and some kept the
spindles moving on his kitchen flopr. He sawed put his pwn timber. He
made his Pwn mud-walls rpund his cattle-yard. He was his pwn farrier. He
kUled his sheep or his calf without the aid of the butcher. He made his own
candles, and burnt his own wood into charcoal. He cultivated herbs for
physic, which his wife dried or distilled. His cheese was manufactured in
his own press. His corn-crops were varied by the culture of saffron and
mustard seed.f The sclentiflc cultivator of our days may smUe at these
simple employments, whose success depended upon traditionary pbservatien
and unwearied thrift, ,The henest farmer labeured en cpntentedly, in the
assured belief that his success depended uppn the AU-giver —
" Man taketh pain, God giveth gain,
Man doth his best, God doth the rest,"
Having, thus, se many varipus respurces fer the maintenance of his
famUy, it might be supposed that the agriculturist of this age would grow
rich out of the produce of his arable land, Tusser divides his corn-harvest into
ten parts, — one for rent, one for seed, one for tithe, two for implements, one
for teams, one for wages, one for the food of his house, one for needful things
for his wife, and one for himself. The tenfold produce which this passage
indicates shows that husbandry was greatly improving. The complaint, so
often repeated, that pasture was driving out tillage, does not seem to be
sustained by the fact that the emperor Charles V,, in August 1542, writes to
Henry VIII. to request that he would permit corn from EngLand to be
exported to Spain, where the crop had failed thrpugh the dryness pf the
season, J The ancient regulations under which the tenant could only grind
at the lord's mill were necessarily relaxed, as the produce of the country
increased, A statute of 1543 gives permission to erect a windmill upon
waste ground at Poole, and sets forth that the inhabitants, time out of mind
* Tusser.
t These, and many other minute operations may be traced in "Five Hundred Points of Good
Husbandry," J State Papers, vol, ix. p. 125.

1547.] RISE OF RENTS, AND PRICES OF COMMODITIES. 4T8
had been compelled to carry and re-carry tlieir corn to mills four miles
distant.-* The produce generally, whether of coi'n cr cattle, was, we may
believe in spite cf many complaints, comparatively abundant. Eoger
Ascham, writing from the Netherlands, in 1550, says, — ¦" This know, there is
no country here to be compared for all things with England. Beef is little,
lean, tough, and dear. Mutton likewise." f And yet, about the end of the
first half of the sixteenth century, we are constantly led to reflect upon the
perpetual occurrence, in letters and other sources of information, of the
word Dearth. We must, however, accept this word in its sense of dearness,
rather than of scarcity, although the meaning is often confounded in these
contemporary authprities. Latimer cpmplains of Eents being more than
doubled. " Of this, too much cometh [that] this monstrous and portentous
dearth is made by man ; notwithstanding God doth send us plentifuUy the
fruits of the earth. . . . Poor men, which live of their labour, cannot with the
sweat of their face have a Uving, aU kind of victuals is so dear ; pigs, geese,
capons, chickens, eggs." J Bishop Hooper, in 1551, writes to Cecil, from
Gloucester, — " For the love and tender mercy of God, persuade and cause some
order to be taken upon the price of things, or else the ire of God will shortly
punish. All things be here so dear, that the most part of people lacketh, and
yet more wUl lack, necessary food." § The Council, at the end of 1549,
commanded the justices to search aU barns for corn ; to compel a supply to
be breught tp market ; and tp apprehend aU regrators and fprestaUers.|| In
Nevember, 1550, special cpmmissipners were appointed in each county to
enforce the same commands. We are told, that in these happy times the
" laws of supply and demand, which we are now taught to regard as immuta
ble erdmances pf nature, were absorbed or superseded by a higher code." %
A higher code ! There was a statesman of that day, who had learnt no system
of poUtical economy from books, but who derived his notions from the dic
tates of common sense. Sir John Mason, one of the most sagacious of
diplomatists, wrote thus to Secretary Cecil, from France, on the 4th of
December, 1550, as to the efforts of the Council, to " cause some order to be
taken about the price of things :" " I have seen so many experiences of such
ordinances ; and ever the end is dearth, and lack of the thing that we seek to
make gpod cheap. Nature will have her course, etiam si furca expellatur ;**
and never shaU you drive her to cpnsent that a pennywprth pf new [produce]
shall be sold for a farthing. . . . For who will keep a cow that may not sell
the mUk for so much as the merchant and he can agree upon ?" ft There were
perhaps others in the CouncU, who saw the tendency of such proceedings to
check the supply of commodities, and thus to raise the price, as clearly as Sir
John'Mason did ; for on the 6th of December, 1550, the proclamation relative
to grain, butter, and cheese, was revoked, and the matter left to the discretion
of buyers and sellers, JJ Nature had been driven out; but she was stronger
than the ignorance of lawgivers.
* 34 & 35'Hen. VIIL e, 25, t Tytler, vol, ii. p. 128.
X First Sermon before Edward VL § Tytler, vol, i. p, 365.
n Calendar of Stcte Papers, p, 26, "U Froude, vol. i. p. 79,
** " Naturam expellee furcA, tamen usque recurret," You may with a fork [with viilence]
expd Nature, but she will come back, — Horace.
tt Tytler vol, i, p. 341. +* GaJendar of State Papers, p. 31.

VOL.

I I

474 DEBASEMENT OF THE COINAGE. [1547,
In addition to the natural causes that affected the market-value of the
necessaries of Ufe, there was a cause, net tp be pverceme by prpclamatipn and
threat ef fine er imprispument, that kept the corn in the barn of every man
who was not pressed to sell by the direst necessity. The value of money was
so debased at this especial period, that an excessive rise in the prices of all
commodities was inevitable ; and the great body of consumers, the labourers
and artificers, not receiving a proportionate advance of wages, all the ordinary
relations of supply and demand were disturbed to a fearful extent. This
abominable process for the relief of the king's necessities had been going on
for a long period ; but Henry VIII, carried it to a disgraceful excess. He
introduced copper into his gold and silver coin, not as a necessary alloy, but
as a fraudulent diminution of its intrinsic value. He began, in 1543, with two
punces pf aUpy to ten ounces of silver ; in 1545, he made his so-caUed silver
pieces half of pure metal and half of alloy ; and in 1546, had eight ounces of
alloy to four ounces of silver. He not only perpetrated this deceit ; but
he coined the pound of mixed metal, first into 540 pennies, and then into 576
pennies, instead of 450 as had been the proportion from the time of
Edward IV, But the first years of the reign of Edward VI, saw the alloy
increased to the proportion of nine ounces of base metal to three ounces of
silver ; and this pound of mixed metal was coined into 864 pennies. The
young king records these proceedings in his Journal, with the most perfect
unconsciousness of the evU that his counsellors were perpetrating. " It was
appointed," he writes in April, 1550, " to make 20,000 pound weight, for
necessity, somewhat baser, to get gains 16,000Z, clear." In June it was
found that they were going a little too fast : " Whereas before, commandment
was given that 16O,O00Z. should be coined of three ounces in the pound fine,
for discharge of debts, and to get some treasure, to be able to alter all ; —
now was it stopped, saving only 80,000Z. to discharge my debts." * Latimer,
preaching before Edward in 1549, has a sentence of the bitterest sarcasm :
" We have now a pretty little shUluig indeed, a very pretty one. I have but
one, I think, in my purse ; and the last day I had put it away almost for an
old groat ; and so, I trust some will take them. The fineness of the silver I
cannot see : but therejn is printed a fine sentence, that is ' Timor Domini
fons vitm vel sapientics' " (the fear of the Lord is the fountain of Ufe or
wisdom). The sturdy bishop fell into some trouble about his " merry word
of the new shilling: " he was accused pf speaking seditiously. The Council,
however, tried to retrace their steps, by what was termed '' calling down the
money." The base shilling was issued for twelve pence, and the groat for
four pence. They were. In 1551, called down to threepence and ninepence.
But this was useless. The government could not remedy the artificial high
prices of home produce, nor preserve a due rate of foreign exchange, tUl they
became honest. Sir Thomas Chamberlayne, pur ambassador, writes from
Brussels to the Council, in June 1551, that where formerly the English
pound was exchanged for thirty shillings of the money there, it would npw
only obtain fourteen sbilUngs. He warns the government, that whUst the
money was " called down " by little and little, large sums, forged and coun
terfeited in foreign parts, would be carried into the realm. He says, that the
* "Remains," in Burnet, vol. ii, p, 27.

1547.]

SUFFERINGS OF THE LABOURERS,

475

true value of English goods could never be ascertained, "until such time as the
money were called down to the very value in sterling silver which is in each
piece thereof." * Such were the inconsistent proceedings of a government
which was endeavouring te fprce sales at lew prices, when its leng-contiuued acts
of fraud had been the main cause of the excessive rise of prices. We are re
quired to believe " the penny, in terms of a labourer's necessities, to have
been equal in the reign of Henry VIII. to the present shilling." But what
was the labourer's position, when the three pennies a day which he was to
receive under the Act for Wages of 1515, were so debased in real value,
that they would only be equal to three halfpence in 1545, and to three
farthings in 1550. The suflerings of the people from the consequent rise of
prices were attributed to inclosures, to the increase of pasture, to higher
rents ; — few saw the inevitable effects of the debasement of the coin.
The advance of all vendible things was unequal. The advance of wages,
which could not depend upon the price of food or other necessaries, was
necessarily disproportionate. The wretched workmen, — clothiers of the
west and agriculturists of the east, — rushed into insurrections, and were
slaughtered by thpusands. It has been usual te attribute the rise pf rents
and pf the price pf cpmmpdities at this period, to the influx of silver from
the American mines. But the effect of that increase of the metallic currency
of Europe was undoubtedly much more gradual. The evU course of the
governments of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. was remedied under that of
EUzabeth, upon whose tomb was inscribed, as one of the glories of her reign,
" Moneta injustum valorem reducta," f
* Tytler, voL i. p. 380.
+ See Sir R. Peel's speech on Resumption of Cash Payments, Hansard, vol, xl. p, 694,

ShilUng of Edward VI.

sar.

i*

!¦->.-.

House formerly standing at the comer of Cb.^ncery Lane, iu Fleet Street.
Temp. Edward VI. (From Smith's 'Topography of Loudon.')
CHAPTER XXIX.
General notice of England — Decay of towns — Growth of villages — Ports — Coal trade — Building —
Paving in London — Sewers — Highways — Conduits — -Washing-grounds — Lighting of Lon
don — -Watermen of London — Burying in towns — -Wholesale traders — Foreign trade —
Fairs and Markets — Inns — Insecurity of travelling — Frauds — Increase of luxury — Moral
and intellectual progress — Various forms of Church Service — Dissensions and scofBngs —
Holidays — Popular Sports — Prohibited Books — Popular Reading — Mysteries and Miracle
Plays — The drama — Education of the young — Schools — Universities — Physicians and
Surgeons — Barber-Surgeons — Empirical remedies — Painting — Holbein.
With the unquestionable evidence that the industry of England had been
rapidly advancing in productiveness from the beginning of the sixteenth
century, there is nothing more startling than the systematic averment of the
decay of towns. A statute pf the 3rd ef Henry VIIL (1512) prbviding for
a difiiculty which had arisen out of a statute of Edward IL, that no victualler
1547.] DECAY OF TOWNS— GROWTH OP VILLAGES. 477
should fix the assize during his term of ofiice, says that " the most part of
all the cities, boroughs, and towns corporate, within the realm of England,
are fallen in ruin and decay, and are not Inhabited by merchants and men of
such substance as at the time of making that statute." Bakers, vintners,
fishmongers, .and other vIctuaUers are the chief inhabitants, and there remain
few others to bear the offices. This theory of the decay of towns assumes a
more distinct shape, in acts of parliament of the later years of Henry VIII.
In four statutes passed from 1540 to 1544, the preamble is uniformly in
these words : " Forasmuch as there have been in times past divers and many
beautiful houses of habitation within the walls and liberties of the cities,
boroughs, and towns pf [reciting names], and new are fallen dewn, decayed, and
at this day remain unreedifled, and dp lie as deselate and vacant grpunds."
The difficulty pf giving credit te this distinct ccmplaint is not whpUy
splved by the statement pf a quarter ef a century later, that, in past times,
" stately building was less in use. Eer albeit that there were then greater
number ef messuages and mansions almost in every place, yet were their
frames sp slight and slender, that one mean dwelling-house in our time
is able to countervail very many of them." * The statutes of Henry VIII.
only provide that if the owners of the decayed houses do not rebuild within
three years, the lords of whom they are holden, or the mayors of the towns,
may reconstruct them. If it had been profitable for the " men of substance "
to have remained within the " cities, boroughs, and towns corporate," their
"beautiful houses of habitation" would not have faUen inte ruin. The
corporate privileges had become as oppressive as the old feudal services.
Those who had capital bought land when the ancient difficulties of purchase
were removed. They fixed themselves in the country with their flocks. A
home-manufacture grew up arcund the grazier's demain. Cpttages were
built by the side ef the mansion, where the shuttle was thrown and the
spinning-wheel went round. These in time became populous villages ; and
acts of parUament were passed, but passed in vain, to confine the clothing
industries to their old seats, or to make the smaller places dependent upon
those seats. Tarmouth and Lynn had adopted the worsted trade ; but no
one in Norfolk was to dye, shear, and calendar cloth but in Norwich.f The
woollen-cloth manufacture had extended from Worcester to Evesham, Droit-
wich, Kidderminster, and Bromsgrove. The statute which attempts to con
trol its further extension tells the whole history of this alleged decay of
towns : " Divers persons inhabiting and dweUing in the hamlets, thorpes, and
vUlages adjoining to the said city, boroughs, and towns within the said shire,
for their private wealth, singular advantages, and commodities, &c., have not
only engrossed and taken into their hands divers and sundry farms, and
become farmers, graziers, and husbandmen, but also do exercise, use, and
occupy the mysteries of cloth-making, weaving, fulling, and shearing within
their said houses, ... to the great decay, depopulation, and ruin of the said
city, to-wns, and boroughs." The manufacture in the hamlets, thorpes, and
viUages, is therefore forbidden under penalties.! An act of 1542 declares that
none shaU make worsted coverlets except in the city of Tork ; apprentices
. Harrison, p. 212. + 14 & 15 Henry VIIL o. 1.
X 25 Henry VIIL c. 18.

178 PORTS— COAL-TRADE, [1547.
withdrawing themselves from the city, and other persons inhabiting in neigh
bouring villages and houses, having intermeddled with the same craft.* These
statutes, and many pthers, were ineffectual attempts of the cprpprate tpwns tp
retain a monopoly of certain great branches of manufacture. At this period,
Manchester, an unwalled town, had asserted the vigour of its commercial
industry, as " a town well set a work in making of cloths, as weU of linen as
of woollen." A special statute was therefore passed to protect its manufac
tures from depredation, by the abolition of sanctuary there. " Cottons" are
mentioned in this act ; but they were woollen garments. The age of cpttpn,
prpperly sp called, was twc centuries distant.
Ampngst the ancient decayed places, the tpwns pf the Cinque Ports are
enumerated in the statute of 1541-2. Of the coast towns, Portsmouth,
Plymouth, Poole, Lyme, Southampton, Tarmouth, are also mentioned. It
seems clear that the decay of these ports had been produced by the neglect of
the fisheries ; and, in some degree, by the monopoly of fpreign ccmmerce by
a great cempany pf merchants in London. Thomas Barnabe, who writes to
Cecil in 1552, complains of the smaU number of mariners on the EngUsh
coast, compared with those on the coast of Erance : " I have seen come
out at one tide in Dieppe five hundred and five boats, and in every boat ten
or twelve men ; the which was a marvellous matter to see, how they be main
tained by fishing, and what riches they get by the sea, and how they maintain
their towns and ports. And as for us, let us begin at Sandwich, and go to
Dover, Hythe, and Hastings, and to Winchelsea, and see how they go down
for lack of maintenance, and, in a manner, no mariners in them, which is for
lack of good policy to set them a work." f He had a scheme for their em
ployment. It was to fetch Newcastle coals to the coast of Kent, and there
make a staple, for the king's benefit, to supply them to France, which " France
can live no more without than a fish out of water," for the manufacture of
everything "that passeth the fire." It appears from this that Norman and
Breton ships carried on this trade ; buying coals at two shillings and two
pence a chaldron at Newcastle, and selling them at an enormous profit.
For three centuries the exportation of coals to foreign countries was almost
prohibited by excessive duties, lest the mines should be exhausted, and our
pwn manufacturing superiority endangered. England, at this period, had
very little employment for this great source of her wealth. There were no
machines to raise the water out of the pits, or to lift the coal to the surface.
Iron works were few, and chiefiy confined to the wooded districts. Pottery
there was none. The varieties of the woollen manufacture were of the
simplest character, and performed -with the rudest mechanical power. The
linen fabrics were chiefly of domestic production. But there were skilled
artiflcers in London and the principal towns ; although factories were un
known. These were principaUy connected with the arts of building and pf
clothing. Elaborately carved fronts, in which each story of the timber
houses overhung the lower for protection, stiU attest the ingenuity of the
joiner. " Our workmen," says Harrison, " are grown generally to such an
exceUency of device in the frames now made, that they far pass the finest of
the old." Throughout the country there was a more solid mode of building
* 33 & 34 Henry VIIL c. 10. t EUis, 2nd Series, vol. u. p. 198.

1547.]

i^'JlLDING-rAVING OF LONDON.

479

than m previous periods, and oak had taken the place of tho less durable woods.
Tne ambitious citizens of London raised high towers of brick, at which Stow
IS indignant ; for he holds that they were constructed that the owner might

Old House, formerly at Warwick.

overlook his neighbours. The plain brick work of this period may still be
seen in the gateway of Lincoln's Inn. The progress of improvements in
towns was necessarUy most rapid in London — the chief city of commerce, the
seat of government and of law — with a population estimated at a hundred and
¦ fifty thousand.* The paving acts for the metropoUs in the time of Henry
VIII. indicate something of the vigUant superintendance of the general
government ; but they also show the chief cause of local neglect. The com
mon highway between Charing Cross and the Strand Cross is very foul and
jeopardous, and the owners of lands are required to pave the same under a
penalty of sixpence for every square yard not sufficiently paved by a certain
day.t Holborn, which is described as the common passage from the west
and north-west parts of the realm, is full of sloughs, from the same neglect. J
The highways from Aldgate to Whitechapel ; in Chancery Lane, Shoe Lane,
Fetter Lane, and G-rays-inn Lane, are in the same dangerous condition, § At
a later period, numerous streets in London and Westminster, recited in the
statute, are perilous to all the king's subjects passing on horseback or on

Micheli, 25 Henry VIII.

t 24 Henry VIIL c. 11,
§ 32 Henry VIII. c. 17.

480

SEWERS— HIGHVTAYS.

[1547

foot.* But to remedy these evUs no system of co-operation is proppsed.
There is np general rating tp accomplish at once, and effectually, what every
owner of prpperty cpuld pnly slpwly and imperfectly accpmplish. The prin
ciple pf equal assessment fpr public pbjects was net then understppd. Until
that principle was fully applied in the reUef of the pcpr, the peeple pf Eng
land were net familiarised tp a system which was especially adapted to their

Lincoln's Inn Gateway,
parpchlal and municipal crganisatipn ; and which has enabled them tp carry
all the appliances pf civillsatlcn more effectually forward than, in any other
country, has been accomplished by individual energy or state control. The
first large attempt to organise labour for public improvements is to be fpund
in the Statute pf Sewers of 1427, under which commissioners were appointed,
by whose authority all damages caused by breaches of the sea were to be
repaired, and collections made to uphold the sewers and causeways in marsh
lands. Out of such cpllectipns labpurers were to be employed upon compe
tent wages.f The first general Highway Act is that of 1555, under which two
surveyors are annuaUy appointed, to employ the occupiers in repairing the
roads of a parish, upon the system still known as Statute-labour.
"The Bill concerning the Conduits in London" recognises the necessity
that all cities and towns shpuld be supplied " with sweet and whelesome
running waters and fresh springs." But it complains that the old springs
and ancient conduit-heads are failing ; and that the old abundance of water is
diminished. The act therefore empowers the Corporation to lay new pipes,
and form new conduits, for the conveyance of water to the city from springs

34 & 35 Henry VIII. c. 12,

t 6 Henry VI. e. 5.

1.547.]

CONDUITS— WASHINQ-GROUNDS-LIGHTING.

481

discovered at Hampstead Heath, and other places within five miles,* The
great thoroughfares of London had their ornamented fountains, to which the
water from the conduit-heads was conveyed by leaden pipes. It was the duty
of the maypr and aldermen tp visit these heads ef the fresh springs ; and to
give a spirit tp their cpuntry excursiens, they hunted the hare and the fox on
these occasions. Grafton records as a matter of historical interest m the
reign of Henry VIIL— in this respect a wise chronicler— that "the manner
of casting pipes of lead for the conveyance of water under the ground,
without occupying pf spider fpr the same, was invented by Eobert Brock|
clerk, one of the king's chaplains,— an invention right necessary for the

Bayswater Conduit.
saving of expenses." PubUc Washing-grounds, pn the banks pf rivers, were
established in every town ; where the Unen cleansed in the stream, cr in the
buck, was spread uppn the turf, or hung upon the hair-line. In writing to
Cromwell from Eeading, Dr. London recpmmends that the church of the
Grey Friars should be given to the Corporatipu fpr public purppses : " Their
tewn-haU is a very small house, and staifdeth upon the river, where is the
common washing-place of the most part of the tpwn ; and in the sessien days
and other court days there is such beating with battledores, as one man
cannot hear another, nor the quest hear the charge given," t The lighting ot
London and its suburbs was indifferently provided for. The steeple of
Bow-church, erected in 1512, had lanterns, which " were meant to have been
glazed," says Stow, " and lights in them placed nightly in the winter, whereby
travellers to the city might have the better sight thereof, and not to miss of
their ways." The mayor commanded, a century earlier, that lanterns and
lights shoiUd be suspended in front of the houses, on winter evenings.
" Hang out your lights," was the cry of the ancient watchman. A statute
of 1515, " concerning Watermen on the Thames," shows us the usual course
of the traffic on this " silent highway," and the low fares, which the watermen

* 35 Henry VIIL o. 10.

t "Suppression of the Monasteries," p, 223.

482

WATERMEN -CHURCHYARDS.

[1547

were forbidden to exceed. There was a daily boat, to and from Gravesend,
at two-pence each passenger, provided that there was a load of twenty-four
persons ; to Erith for a penny ; to Greenwich and Woolwich for a farthing ;
to aU places between Lambeth and St. Mary Overies, a farthing. But the
watermen rebeUed at these fares ; and the act says that assaults and frays
daUy ensued, and oftentimes manslaughter,* The introduction of hackney-
carriages was a century distant. In 1552 the Londoners were as indifferent
to one of the great causes of sickness and mortality as they were previous to
the passing of the Burial Acts of our immediate times, Latimer saw the

Public Wiisliiog Grounds,

evil : " I do much marvel that London, being so rich a city, hath n'ot a
burying-place without ; for no doubt it is an unwholesome thing to bury
-within the city, specially at such a time when there be great sicknesses, so that
many die together, I think verily that many a man taketh his death in
Paul's churchyard," t
The wealth of individual traders in London was the amazement of
foreigners. The Venetian ambassador says that many citizens possessed
from fifty to sixty thousand pounds sterling. He is astonished at the riches
of some of those who deal in salt-fish. All large fortunes are made by the
supply of articles in universal demand ; and it was so, especially at this
period, when^ the consumers were rapidly increasing, and competition was
slowly growing. Commerce was putting out its long arms in large wholesale
dealings. The moralists were scand.illsed, and caUed the great traders
regrators. It was imagined that these large dealings tended to raise the
price of commodities, and to oppress the poor. In a letter of Edward VI.
to the bishops, in 1551, on the alarm of the Sweating Sickness, he specially
tells them that they and the clergy should exhort men " to refrain their

* 6 Henry VIIL c. 7.

t Sermon, 1552.

1647]

WHOLESALE TRADERS— FOREIGN TRADE.

4S8

greedy appetites from that insatiable serpent of covetousness, wherewith
most men are so infected that it seemeth the one would devour another without
any charity, or any godly respect to the poor, to their neighbours, or tp their
commonwealth." * Latimer bitterly complains of a merchant who told him
that if he were licensed so to do, " he would get a thousand pound a year, by
only buying and selling grain here within this realm," The dealers in fuel
come in for his anger : " As I hear say, aldermen now-a-days are become
coUIers, They be both woodmongers and makers of coals, 1 would wish he
might eat nothing but coals for awhile, tiU he had amended it. There cannot
a poor body buy a sack of coals, but it must come through their hands." -f
Such complaints were natural, however
opposed to the sounder principles upon
which the great merchant, whp buys
cheaply, and hplds his purchase till a
seasen of profit arrive, is to be held as a
benefactor to the community. Those
only were injurious to the public who
made fortunes out of monopolies. Such
were the privileges which had been
granted by successive sovereigns to the
Almayn merchants, or Germans of the
Stillyard ; whose " rights," as they
called their exemption from duties im
posed upon others, were effectually re
sisted by the commercial genius of
Gresham, in 1552. The Merchants
Adventurers then became their success
ful rivals. The great article of export
was EngUsh cloth ; and of this staple
branch of commerce theseforeigners had
almost an exclusive command, till the
trade was equalised by equal imposts.
Those energies of EngUshmen, which have made them the great discoverers
and colonisers of distant regions, were struggling into activity in the reign
of Henry VIIL, and of Edward VI. Sebastian Cabot had been pensioned by
the government of Edward. In 1553, sir Hugh WiUoughby had perished
on the coast of Nova Zembla, in the attempt to discover a north-east passage
to China. Eichard Chanceller, whp commanded one of the vessels in Wil-
Ipughby's expeditien, had made the harbpur where Archangel was afterwards
built, and had negpciated with the Eussian czar, the ferecipus Ivan, at Moscow.
Anthony Jenkinson, at the same period, had obtained a licence from Sultan
Selim to trade with the Ottemans. But the great expanslen of EngUsh
commerce belongs to the reign of EUzabeth. StiU, the commercial principle
was asserting itself. In the time of Henry VIII., one great impediment to
the operation of accumulated capital, was removed in the practical repeal of
the laws against usury, by limiting the rate of interest to 10 per cent. J A
law of bankruptcy was passed, which provided for the equal distribution of the

Gresham,

Tytler, i. p, 405.

t Sermon before Edward VI. 1550.

X 37 Henry VIIL c. 9,

484

PAIRS AND MARKETS.

[1547.

property of debtors.* The principle of the earlier Navigation Acts was held
to by Henry VIIL ; but whUst goods were required to be shipped in English
vessels, the cost of freight from the port of London to foreign ports was
strictly regulated. The trade of London appears from this act, to have been
principally with ports of Flanders, Denmark, the south of France, Portugal,
and Spain. The trade with Calais was under other regulations.t
Much of the interchange of the country was transacted, as in earlier
times, at fairs and markets. The farmer had no price-current to guide him
as to the rise or fall of corn and cattle. He went to market for knowledge
how to buy and sell : —
" This lesson is learned, by riding about.
The prices of victuals, the year throughout." J
He went to fairs, to lay in his annual stores : —
" At Bartlemew tide, or at Sturbridge fair.
Buy that as is needful thy house to repair," §

-Wliarf of the Almayn Merchants of the Stillyard — Hollar,
At the corn-markets, the great complaint was of the inequality of measures.
" Every market-town hath in manner a several bushel ; and the lesser it be,
the more sellers it draweth to resort unto the same." || Laws there were,
as we have seen, for one standard ; but the laws were disregarded, and the
principle of uniformity despised, even as in some places at the present day.
The laws which limited the infamous system of purveyance were also held in
contempt by the hosts of oppressors, who came into every market with the

34 & 35 Henry VIIL .
± Tusser.

\ Ihid,

t 32 Henry VIIL c, 14-
II Harrison,

1547.] INNS-INSECURITY OF TRAVELLING. 486
plea that they required previsions for the king's use. " The purveyor
aUpweth fpr a Iamb wprth twp shUlings but twelvepence ; fer a capon worth
twelvepence sixpence, and so after that rate." * There was loss in the price,
and the payment for the commodity was often delayed, and not recovered
tiU "after long suit to the officers, and great cests suing fpr it." The
great fairs were Sturbridge, Bristpl, Barthplpmew (in Lendon), and Lynton.
But there were fairs threughout the land. "There is almost no town in
England but hath one or more such marts holden yearly in the same." f
The constant resort to markets and fairs made the inns flourish, especially on
the great high roads. They were under better regulation than those of the
continent. The host was not a despot amongst his guests. Every man
might have what he called for, and be lodged in a clean chamber, of which he
kept the key. The rooms were abundantly furnished, especiaUy with linen.
If the traveller lost anything while in the inn, the landlord was responsible.
But it was beUeved that although the host was honest, the tapsters and
chamberlains had a private understanding with thieves.J The robber on the
highway was the terror of the splitary traveller ; and he -was glad tp ride iu
cempany, however doubtful of the stranger who rode by his side. There is
no more curious picture of the insecurity pf the cpuntry and the tpwn, than
is presented in the narrative ef Hplinshed, ef the circumstances which
attended the murder of Arden, of Feversham, in 1551. § Alice, the wife of
Arden, desired to take away the life of her husband. She first attempted to
poison him ; and then openly prpposed to one Green, a serving-man, who
had a cause pf hatred against Arden, tp procure his death. Green had
business in London, where Arden was staying ; and having to ride thither,
with valuables about him, desired a neighbour of Feversbam to accompany him
to Gravesend ; and so they rode on together. " And when they came to
Eainham Down they chanced to see three or four serving men, who were
coming from Leeds [a viUage -with a castle, in Kent] ; and therevrith
Bradshaw espied, coming up the hill from Eochester, one Black WUl, a
terrible cruel ruffian with a sword and a buckler, and another with a great
staff on his neck." Bradshaw knew the ruffian, for he had served with him
at Boulogne ; and when he described his villainies to Green, the revengeful
serving-man thought that he had now found one to his purpose. At an inn
at Gravesend at night, the business was arranged over " sack and sugar," for
a promise of ten pounds. They reached Londpn ; and there the victim was
pointed out to the blood-seeker, walking in Paul's. He would have met
his death in the churchyard there, but for the crowd of friends who sur
rounded him. Arden's servant conspired against his master ; and agreed to
let Black Will into the house where they slept. But his heart failed him ;
and the ruffian in vain tried the bolted door. Arden was then to have been
murdered as he rode home by Eainham Do-wn ; but a third time he was
saved by meeting with acquaintance, who rode with him ; and he reached
home safely. Black WiU, who had followed Arden, was to have accomplished
the murder the next morning, and was np betimes to way-lay him ; but he
missed him as he went ferth, and again missed him at night, fer he returned
* Tytler, vol. i. p. 369. t Harrison, _ , ,,_
X Harrison. The chapter on inns is veri curious, § Chronicle, vol, iii. p, 1062.

486 FRAUDS-INCREASE OF LUXURY. [1547
not " by the broom close," for it was late. Arden is at last killed in his
own house, by his wife and her paramour, assisted by the persevering ruffian.
From the extreme minuteness with which the chronicler tells this story,
we may conclude that such premeditated guilt was not common. The
English were too prone to deeds of violence in moments pf passion ; but
crimes like this were foreign to the character of the people. The murderess
was burnt, and some of her accomplices were hanged. Green and Black Will
fled ; but they eventuaUy met the dopm pf the shedders ef blppd.
As wealth extends, and the cemmerclal relations of society are more
complicated, fraudulent offences gradually become more common than the
violent assaults upon property which belong to an earlier period. We
can trace this principle in the statute-book of Henry VIII. The deceits of
manufacturers are again and again attempted to be prevented by special
enactments. The preacher descants on the wickedness of those who put a
strike of good malt in the bottom of the sack, two strikes of bad malt in the
middle, and a geod strike in the sack's mouth.* He exposes the cloth-maker,
who stretches his eighteen yards of clpth to twenty-seven, and then thickens
it with " flock-powder " f — the " devil's dust " of modern times. But crimes of
a new character were developing themselves. Those who stole property knew
the penalty of death which awaited them. They devised a mode of obtaining
goods which a law, made expressly to meet the offence, only punished with
the pillory. Evil persons, says .';his statute, "not minding to get their
living by truth," have of late deceitfully centrived " privy tekens and cpunter-
feit letters in pther men's names, unto divers persons their special friends
and acquaintances, by colour whereof the said evil-disposed persons have
gotten great substance of money, goods, cattle, and jewels into their hands. "J
This was the offence of men who, from the very nature of the crime, must
have had some intimacy -with the wealthy — men who kept up false appearances,
like the forgers and swindlers of modern times. Such men abound in
every age when the middle classes of society are pressing upwards ; and are
imitating the luxurious habits of those who claim by birthright the privilege
to waste their substance. The extravagant caprices in dress were ridiculed by
the satirist, and caricatured by the engraver :
" I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here.
Musing in my mind what raiment I shall wear ;
For now I will wear this, and now I will wear lihat.
And now I will wear — I cannot tell what." §
Few of the industrious classes had the sense to dress as the famous clothier,
' Jack of Newbury, who is represented to have gone before Henrys VIII. " in
a plain russet coat, a pair of white kersey slops [or breeches], without welt
or guard [lace or border], and stockings of the same piece, sewed to his
slops." II The pepple lived luxurieusly in taverns. Artisan* would stake a
crown upon their games. The houses were gay with tapestry and painted
cloth. At their banquets the guests pledged each pther till they were
drunken, and swere that the fereigner should drink with them, out of their
* Latimer, 5th Sermon on the Lord's Prayer. f Ibid., 3rd Sermon before Edward VI.
X 33 Heni-y VIII, c, 1. § Andrew Borde, || Planche, "Costume," p. 312.

1547.]

MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS.

487

silver cups. So writes the French physician, envious and spiteful* One
fact he mentions as characteristic of the nation that he abuses: — "Tlie
EngUsh are joyous one with another, and they greatly love music,"
Having attempted a brief sketch of the condition of society in the rela
tions of the government to the people, and exhibited some characteristics of
the rural and of the urban population, we proceed to complete our account by

General Costume of tlie time of Edward VI,

a notice of those circumstances which infiuenced the moral and intellectual
progress of the nation. And first of the Clergy, and of the state of religious
instruction after the great revolution which destroyed the regular ecclesiastics
— those who had absorbed so large a portion of the property of the commu
nity, and who, to a great extent, had outlived their utility. The reUgious
teaching of the people was now in the hands of the secular clergy — bishops,
vicars, and curates. The bishops had aU outwardly conformed to the great
change in the condition of the Church ; but there were several, as will be
traced in the course of pur historical narrative, who were strongly opposed
to the principles of the Eefermatipn. Others were, as men in ppssessien
generaUy are, wUling tp live in quiet under the existing state pf things.
A few were zealpus in the desire tp carry fprward the movement which had
'freed England from papal domination, into a very complete abolition of aU
those ceremonies and beliefs which distinguished "the old learning" from
the new. The parsons, or holders of benefices, and their curates, were, in
many respects, in a happier position than before this change. No lordly
abbot — no full-fed monks — paraded their abundance as a contrast to the
humble means of the working Clergy. Whether in town or country, the
"poor parson" — he who was "rich of holy thought and work;" whose
« Perlin, pp. 22, 21.

4S8

THE PAROCHIAL CLERGY,

[1.^7.

parishioners " devoutly would he teach ;" whe -visited rich and popr in sickness
and misfortune, though " wide was his parish ; " who " set not his benefice
to hire ; " who taught " Christ's lore " after " he followed it himself " — he, so
beautifuUy described by Chaucer, was of the old English grp-wth ; and his
npble character was unchanged amcngst many when the Eefermation came.
One circumstance, cennected with that change, mere truly develpped the most
beautiful points of that character. He became a husband and a father.
The act of 1548, " tp take away aU pesitive laws against marriage pf priests,"
was a timid re-assertion of the rights of nature against the dogma of
the church, which had produced, in old times, such perilous contentions. It
were better, says this statute, that priests should live separate, and be
" unburdened from the care and cost of finding wife and children ; " but,
nevertheless, " all canons, constitutions, and ordinances made by the authority
of man only, which do prohibit or forbid marriage to any ecclesiastical or
spiritual persons," should be veid and of none effect.* And so to the humble
parsonage, covered -with the ivy of a hundred years, the priest might bring a
helpmate; who would make him "less intricated and troubled -with the

Ancient Parsonuge at Lyntun.

charge of household;" who would see that his dairy was kept sweet; his
wool converted into useful raiment; his strawberry plants trimmed and.
watered; and his bees hived in due seaspn. When the disselution of the
mpuastic houses was gcing fprward, some ef the secular clergy theught that
the restrictipns uppn the marriage ef priests wpuld naturaUy be rempved.
There is a letter frpm pne Jphn Fpster te Cromwell, in which he says, that
he had accomplished marriage ; but he learns that he has done amiss, and has

2 & 3 Edward VI, c. 21,

1547.J VARIOUS FORMS OF CHURCH SERVICE, 489
" sent the woman to her friends three scpre miles frem me," He states that
" if the king's grace cpuld have fpund it lawful that priests might have been
married, they wpuld have been tp the crpwn dpuble and double faithful." *
This fidelity was assured in many cases by the statute of Edward ; but it
drew a broad line of separation between those who adhered to the old dis
cipline of the church, and tliose who desired a greater freedom, not incom
patible -with a holy life.
The "Act for the Uniformity of Service and Administration of the
Sacrament throughout the realm," f belongs not to the transition period of
which we are treating. Before the Book of Common Prayer was prepared
and issued under this statute of 1548, we learn, from its preamble, that for a
long time various forms of service were used ; " and, besides the same, now
of late much more divers and sundry forms and fashions have been used in
the cathedrals and parish churches." In June, 1544, there was a King's
Letter to the archbishop of Canterbury, respecting the service used in " pro
cessions ; " to which " the people, partly for lack of good instruction and
caUing on, partly for that they understood no piece of such prayers and
suffrages as were used to be sung and said, have used tp cpme very slackly."
To remedy this, the king writes, " we have set forth' certain godly prayers and
suffrages in our native English tongue." The learned editor of the volume
from which we quote, the Eev. Joseph Hunter, says, " The prayers which
accompanied the King's Letter were the first body of public prayers for
general use in English published with authority. They may perhaps be
regarded as the original of the Book of Common Prayer." J That there
should have been the most violent dissensions amongst the clergy and their
congregations, previous to the Act for the Uniformity of Service, was a
necessary result of the very conditions of ecclesiastical tenure. The priests
held their benefices under the ancient tenure of Frankalmoigne, or of Free
Alms ; by which they were bound " to make orisons, prayers, masses, and
other divine services for the souls of their grantor or feoffor, and for the
souls of their heirs which are dead." This is the explanation of the tenure
by Littleton. The clergy who went along with the principles of the Eeforma
tion would naturaUy hold such prayers as contrary to their doctrines ;
although their tenure of lands depended upon observing the wills of the
grantors. After the Eeformation was estabUshed, it was maintained that the
tenure by which the parochial clergy and ecclesiastical foundations held in
Frankalmoigne remained undisturbed; for, says Coke, "the changing of
spiritual services into other spiritual services altereth neither the name nor
the effect of the tenure ; " which "is now reduced to a certainty contained in
the Book of Common Prayer," the change being made "by authority of
ParUament." In the state of transition from the Latin mass-bopk to the
EngUsh Common Prayer, we may picture to ourselves the disquiet that must
pccasipnaUy have affprded cause pf exultatipn tp thpse whp were opposed to
change, and of grief to those who desired to see the purified worship go
peacefuUy forward. It was a season in which the licentious brought dis
credit upon religion itself, by indecent scoffings at the ancient ceremonies.
* Suppression of the Monasteries, p. 161. + 2 & 3 Ed, VI. c. 1.
X "Ecclesiastical Documents," Camden Society, p, 91.

DISSENSIONS AND SCOFFINGS.

[1547.

Even the honest enthusiasts carried their hatred of superstition into
unchristian irreverence. Coarse and profane songs against the mass were
heard in streets and taverns. A preacher would ascend the pulpit, and
declaim against making the host an object of idolatry, whUst the priest was
performing the ancient ceremonies before the altar. Sometimes the magistrate
would pull the preacher out of the pulpit. Sometimes the clergy would leave
the church, and ancient members of the congregation woiUd denounce him, and
cry out " come from him, good people ; he came from the devU." * A statute
of 1551-2 shows the bitter and contentious spirit of the time : " Forasmuch
as of late divers and many outrageous and barbarous behaviours and acts have
been used and committed by divers ungodly and irreligious persens, by quar
relling, brawling, fraying, and fighting, ppenly in churches and churchyards." t
Latimer cemplaina pf indecencies at burials : " In the time ef pppery, befpre

Tlie Robin Uood JProcession.

the gpspel came amcngst us, we went tp burials with weeping and wailing, as
though there were no God : but since the gospel came untp us, I have heard
say that in seme places they ge with the cerses, grinning and fiearing, as
thpugh they went te a bear-baiting." J The peeple rushed frem pne extreme
to the otlier, as is mostly the case in seasons of change. Some inveterately
clung to the old holidays, which wasa serious grief to the earnest reformers.
They, like their puritan successors, did not make sufficient aUowance for the
force of long-continued customs ; and shut their eyes to the positive benefit,
physical and moral, derived from occasional relaxation and merriment. They
relied too much upon their power of making men wiser and better by

See the account of Thomas Hancock, in Strype's Life of Cranmer.
Sermon in 1552,

t 5 & 6 Ed. VI. c. 4.

1547.]

HOLIDAYS— POPULAR SPORTS.

491

instruction, and nothing but instruction. The good Latimer is not very
hard upon those who slept at sermons ; and he tells a story of a gentlewoman
of London whose neighbour met her in the street, and said, " Mistress,
whither go ye ? " " Marry," said she, " I am going to St. Thomas of Acres
to the sermon : I could not sleep all this last night, and I am going now
thither: I never faUed of a good nap there." * But he is not so placable
with what he calls "no laughing matter." He had sent werd that he would
preach in a certain place, in his journey to London. It was a holiday.
When he came there, the church-door was fast locked. " I tarried there
balf-an-hour and more. At last the key was found ; and one of the parish
comes to me and says, ' Sir, this is a busy day with us ; we cannot hear you ;
it IS Eobin Hood's day. The parish are gone abroad to gather for Eobin
Hood.' " Eobin Hood was the chief personage in the ancient celebration
of May-day ; and the gathering for Eobin Hood is duly recorded in old
parochial accounts.t When the May-pole was brought in, with morris-
dancers and taborers, Eobin Hood, and Little John, and Maid Marian, and
tha Hobby-horse, and the Dragon, were the joy of town and country.

The Bear at the Stake.

Gradually the first reformers saw the wisdom of not being severe upon these
amusements of the people ; and they ceased to be associated with the cor
ruptions of the Eomish church, except by those who looked with indignation
upon aU pastimes, hpwever harmless. One pf the sports, most popular amongst
aU ranks, was far more depraving than the boisterous mirth of the ancient

Sixth Sermon before Edward VI.

t See Ellis's Brand, vol. i. p. 147.
K K 2

492 PROHIBITED BOOKS. [1547.
holidays — the Whitsun-ales, and Hock-tides, and May-day gatherings. Bear-
baiting was the passien pf the multitude pf this peripd; as cpcting was
of a later time ; and prize-fighting in pur pwn day. An admirer pf bear-
baiting thus describes the scene cf a bear-garden : " It was a sport very
pleasant of these beasts, to see the bear -with his pink eyes leering after his
enemy's approach ; the nimbleness and wait of the deg, tpp, to take his
advantage ; and the fprce and experience pf the bear, again, te avpid the
assault. If he were bitten in one place, how he wpuld pinch in another to
get free. If he were taken pnce, then what shift with beating, with clawing,
with rearing, tpssing and tumbling, he wpuld wprk tp wind himself from them.
And when he was loose, to shake his ears twice or thrice with the blood and
slaver about his visnomy, was a goodly relief." * Burnet has diversified his
annals of the Eeformation, by a story of Cranmer's danger, in consequence
of a paper which he had written against the Six Articles falUng into
improper hands. He had sent it from Lambeth by his secretary, to be
delivered to the king, who had commanded the archbishop to write dovm his
ppinipns. The people who were with the messenger in a wherry would gp
to the Southwark side, to look on a bear-baiting near the river, at which the
king was present. The bear broke loose and took to the river with the dogs
after her. The passengers in the boat aU leaped out except the secretary,
and the bear climbed in. The boat was upset ; the secretary half-dro-wned ;
and the archbishop's book floating on the Thames. A priest got hold of it ;
and reading a few sentences said that whosoever owned it would be hanged for
his pains. The power of CromweU was caUed into action to recover the
dangerous volume ; and so, says Burnet, " Cranmer escaped this hazard."
The " Act for the advancement of true religion," which forbade the read
ing of the Bible and the New Testament to the " lower sort," f also declares
the expediency of suppressing, by laws dreadful and penal, " all such books,
writings, sermons, disputations, ballads, plays, rhymes, songs, teachings, aud
instructions, as be pestiferous and noisome," J Every printer, book-binder,
or bookseller, uttering such books, was to be fined and imprisoned for the first
offence, and for the second to lose al. his goods and to be perpetuaUy impri-
spned. Tyndale's translatien pf the Scriptures was forbidden; and any com
mentary in other translations was to be blotted, or cut out. There was a
special clause against persons not duly appointed reading the Bible aloud in
any church. The man who sought to know the truth might muse over the
chained volume ; but he was not to read any portion of it to the less instructed
by-standers. Noblemen and gentlemen might read the Bible aloud to their
families. Ladies might only read it privately ; and so, also, might merchants.
The qualified permission to read the Scriptures, thus extended to aU but arti
ficers, prentices, journeymen, and serving-men, appears to indicate that the
abUity to read was very general. But we must not hastily assume this ; for,
in a statute of 1547, the benefit pf clergy was allowed to a Lord pr Peer pf
the realm, " theugh he cannet read." § The ppinion pf Henry's statute, that
" the lpwer sert," especially, are incapable pf ccmprehending what is pf uni
versal applicatipn, is an pld faUacy stiU cherished ampngst us. There was a
-* Letter from a London Mercer ; quoted in Andrews' Continuation of Henry, vol. ii, p, 357.
t See ante, p. 445. J 34 & 35 Henry VIIL c. 1. § 1 Ed. VI. o. 12.

1547,]

POPULAR READING.

493

Cambridge friar, just before the suppression of the monasteries, who denounced
the reading of the Bible by the vulgar ; for the baker, he said, who fpund it
-written that a little leaven wpuld ccrrupt the whole lump, would give us bad
bread ; and the ploughman would be afraid to labour, when he learnt that if
he looked back from his plough he were unfit for the kingdom of heaven.*
In the statute for the advancement of true religion, we have a glimpse of
what was the popular reading which the government tolerated. " Chronicles,
Canterbury Tales, Chaucer's books, Gower's books, and Stories of men's
lives, shall not be comprehended in the prohibition of this Act." This was
substantial and agreeable nourishment for a people of vigorous minds —
history, biography, and the most captivating fictions told in nervous verse ;
added to the primers, er selectiens frpm the Scriptures, which they were per
mitted to read without restriction. With these materials of knowledge, such

Chained Bible.
a pepple would be educating itself to become " a nation not slow and dull,
but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit ; acute to invent, subtle and
sinewy to disccurse." t Seme pf the bepks which belenged te this early age
of English printing are stiU read with pleasure and prefit. Our Bible is
founded with little change upon the translations of Cranmer's time. Those
who appreciate the strength of the old homely idiom, prefer Lord Berners'
Froissart to the more refined, but feebler, modern version. We stUl read the
baUads of this period with genuine admiration. Sternhold's Psalms are not
whoUy banished from our churches by damtier rhymes ; and many a country
congregation stUl lifts up its voice in the noble verse which Dryden praised. J

Gilpin's Life of Latimer.

"On Cherubs and on Cherubims
Full royally He rode,
And on the wings of all the winds
Came flying all abroad."

+ Milton, " Areopagitica,"

494

MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS,

[1547.

The statute pf 1542-3 recpgnises anether, and perhaps the most important,
branch of popular intellectual amusement: "It shaU be lawful to aU and
every perspn and persens tp set fprth spngs, plays, and interludes, te be used
and exercised within this realm and pther the king's dominions, for the
rebuking and reproachuig of vices, and the setting forth of virtue ; sp always

Coventry Mystery.
the said sengs, plays, pr interiudes meddle net with interpretations of
Scripture, contrary to the doctrine set forth by the king's majesty." It was
lawful to represent upon moveable stages, and in inn-yards-upon the viUage
green and the city market-place-Mysteries and Miracle Plays founded upon
the leading events of Scripture-history. The Creation and the FaU; the
Flood and the Israelites m Egypt; the Salutation and the Adoration of the
Shepherds; Christ befpre PUate, the Eesurrection, and the Ascension-
Doomsday,-such were the subjects that occur amongst the « Ceventry
Mysteries," and the "Chester Plays." We shrink frpm the apparent pro-

1647.] THE DRAMA--EDUCATION OP THE YOUNG. 495
faneness of exhibiting a personation of the Eedeemer to the gaze of a vulgar
crowd ; but we forget that the same incongruity is overlooked when the
sublime strains of Handel or Mendelssohn are poured forth by a Judas
MaccabsBus or an Elijah in a coat of the last fashion. The people of tho
fifteenth century beheld such exhibitions in the most simple and sincere spirit.
They were originaUy performed in churches ; and the great festival days were
selected for their performance. The priests were in many cases the per
formers. Sir Eobert Cooke, vicar of Hawgley, in 1537, bequeathes to his
brother Eobert, " all my play-books." * " Before the suppression of the
monasteries," writes Dugdale, " this city [Coventry] was very famous for the
pageants that were played therein upon Cprpus-Christi day ; which pccasipn-
ing very great cpnfluence pf peeple thither frem far and near, was pf no
smaU benefit thereto ; which pageants being acted with mighty state and
reverence by the friars of this house, had theatres for the several scenes,
very large and high, placed upon wheels." There were interludes, of a less
serious character, which afforded diversion in banqueting-haU or bam. The
court plays were probably more dull than those of the people, if we nlay
judge by one acted befpre Edward VI. , and recprded in his journal. It was
" a Talk between one that was called Eiches and the other Touth, whether of
them was better. After some pretty reasoning, there came in six champions
of either side." The secular drama, with its "pretty reasoning," or coarse
jokes, was still in the weakest condition of its rickety infancy. But, whether
before or after the beginnings of the great ecclesiastical change, we may trace
from the mest authentic sources how completely the charm of impersonation
was associated with the amusements of the people. When the dramatic
principle had passed out of its religious character into its secular condition —
when it became the most potent form of poetical expression — its universality
produced a literature unequalled in any country. But we must not forget
that there was little mere than the interval pf a quarter pf a century between
the " Gammer Gurtpn's Needle " pf William Still, the bishop, and the
" Love's Labour's Lost " of WUliam Shakspere, the actor — one a specimen
of meaningless vulgarity ; the other of high poetry and refined wit. However
we may refer this marvellous progress to individual genius, we may be
satisfied that it could not have been accomplished except amongst a people ot
high capacity and no contemptible acquirements, — a people that had kept
their minds fresh under many . adverse conditions ; for the ancient spirit of
liberty still survived, and its fruit was a healthy national intellect.
The education of the young was the business of the Church under the
ancient ecclesiastical system of England. There were schools attached to
many of the abbeys. " In the town of St. Edmund, the abbot purchased
stone-houses, and assigned them for the use of the schools ; so that thereby
the poor clerks should be for ever free from house-rents ; toward payment
whereof all the scholars, whether able or unable, were compelled twice in the
year to subscribe a penny or an halfpenny." f This good work of the abbot
was done about the end of the twelfth century. Many grammar-schools
were founded -in the reign of Henry VIII. Pious men and women bequeathed
small sums for the aid of schools and exhibitions. In 1504, Anne Barrett, by
* Bury Wills, p. 129.
+ Chronicles of Joeelin of Brakelond, p. 13, of Tomlins' Translation.

496 SCHOOLS— UNIVERSITIES. [15-47-
her last wUl, provides that fprty shiUings by year " be given among poor
scholars, to help them tp their exhibition and learning, those that be good
and honest." * After the monastic schools were swept away, we find a
humble schoolmaster of the same town of Bury, who leaves very little mpney
and few gppds, making a ccntributipn tp the future service of the school in
which he had taught : " I do give for implements, to remain unto the school,
the hangings in my chamber, one table, one joined form, one sede, Pline de
naturaU historia, Virgilius cum commento, Oratius cum commento, Ovidius
cum commento." f Bury may be taken as an example of the individual
desire throughout the land to promote education. The Foundation schools of
Edward VI. — the small contribution, out of a large spoU, to public uses — have
to be noticed hereafter. One of the most famous endowments of that reign
may however be mentioned here, to ppint put that the cprditipn of the
humblest in the social scale was not entirely disregarded. The original
pbject pf Christ's Hpspital was, " tp take the child put pf the street, which
was the seed and increase ef beggary, by reaspn pf idle bringing-up, and to
nourish the same chUd in some good learning and exercise profitable to the
common weale." But stUl, after the monastic institutions were broken up,
the preacher evermore cried out, " Truly it is a pitiful thing to see schools
so neglected, scholars not maintained  Schools are not maintained,
scholars have not exhibition." J The course of a poor lad's education is told
by Tusser in his quaint rhymes. He was forced from his home at EivenhaU,
in Essex, to become a chorister at WaUingford. The schoolboy's life was a
hard one; — "touzed ears" — "bobbed lips" — "robes how bare" — "bread
how stale." He was dragged about from choir to choir; but was advanced
to be a scholar at Paul's, and thence went to Eton ; " to learn straightways
the Latin phrase." At once he had " fifty-three stripes " for a small fault.
At last he became a student of Trinity, at Cambridge — ^where he was in
peace. Severe discipline of children was the characteristic of an age in
which men, and boys, and even girls, were governed more by terror than by
love. Peter Carewe, when he ran away from school, was led home in chains
like a dog ; and was coupled to a hound in a filthy outhouse.§ Lady Jane
Grey described to Ascham how, in the presence of her parents, she was com
peUed to deport herself in every action of Ufe according to the strictest
rules ; " pr else I am sp sharply taunted, sp cruelly threatened, yea presently,
seme times, with pinches, nips, and bebs, and pther ways which I will net
name for the honour I bear them, so without measure misordered that I think
myself in hell." The poor lady, however, considered the severity as a
blessing, for it taught her to value the exceptional kindness of her schpol-
master ; " who teacheth me, sp gently, so pleasantly, -with such fair aUure-
ments to learning, that I think all the time nothing whUes lam with him." ||
The same learned education was bestowed upon young women of high rank,
as upon the youths. The daughters of Henry VIII. were as exceUent
linguists, and as weU-informed, as their precocious brpther. But female
educatien was carefuUy attended to, as we know from the Paston and other
letters, a long time previous. In the middle of the sixteenth century the art
* Bury WiUs, p. 96. t Ibid,, p, 140. J Latimer.
5 " Once upon a Time," voL i. p. 102. || Ascham's "Schoolmaster," p. 11, ed. 1670.

l'''*7.J PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS. 497
of Printing had given an Impulse tp all educatien, Oxford and Cambridge
had made great advances in philological studies. Greek was taught at
Cambridge iu the latter years of Henry VIII. ; and in the statutes of the
new cathedrals established in 1541, a grammar-school was to be attached to
each, with a head-master, "learned in Latin and Greek."* The higher
public schools, and the universities, were mostly filled by the sons of yeomen
and traders — themselves very often of " gentle lineage." The means of most
scholars were very scanty. Some did not scruple to solicit alms, after the
fashion of the mendicant friars. The statute of 1531 classes amongst
vagabonds, " scholars of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge that go
about begging, not being authorised under the seal of the said universities."
But, severe as was the discipline, and many the privations, of the lad of
humble means who was dedicated to the pursuit of learning, the desire for
academical instruction kept the schools and universities always full. Some
desired knowledge for its own sake, as the accomplishment of the gentleman.
But the Church required a constant supply of new men for its oQices, and it
readily found them, however scanty the endowments of the greater number
of the clergy. The prizes of the clerical profession had become fewer, but
there were stiU rich preferments for the ablest men. The ecclesiastics who
were conversant with languages — the lawyers who had acquirements beyond
the technicalities of their profession — ^became ambassadors and secretaries.
Whatever were the faults of Henry's character, and however servile the
ministers of his will, he was always surrounded with able men. The soUd
nature of the knowledge of the period, however narrow, may be coUected
from the correspondence of the confidential servants of Henry's long reign.
There are few amongst them who faU to display an acute power of observa
tion, a keen judgment of political complications, and a strong common sense,
in their official correspondence. That their state-craft -w'as too often a
system of ignorant expedients, was a necessary consequence of the contending
forces of despotism and pppular rights. The tendencies ef spclety were very
difficult to understand ; and those who saw more clearly than the rest did not
always dare to speak their minds. The governing classes were far from a
recognition of the principle that the good of the people is the end and object
of all gpvernment.
During the reign ef Henry VIIL, the mest beneficial application of
Science to the welfare of man, the knowledge of Medicine and Surgery,
made extraordinary advances. The CoUege of Physicians was founded in
1518. By a statute of 1523 their charter of incorporation was confirmed ;
and to them was committed the power of examination, not only for London
but for the whole realm, except for those who were graduates of the uni
versities, so that the practice of the healing art should be limited tp " thpse
persens that be prefpund, sad, and discreet ; groundly learned and deeply
studied in physic." t The previous act of 1512, " concerning Physicians and
Surgeons," indicates the necessity of some exercise of authority to secure the
most skilful practitioners that the state of medical knowledge would allow. It
says that a great multitude of ignorant persons — "common artificers, as smiths,
weavers, and women " — some of whom " can [know] no letters on the book —
* HaUam, "Literature of Europe," chap, v, + 14 & 15 Henry VIII. c. 5.
VOL. II. K K *

498 BARBER.SURGEONS— EMPIRICAL REMEDIES. [1547.
daily exercise the science and cunning of physic and surgery." The remedy
for this evil appears to have been very equivocal ; for the practitioner was to
be Ucensed by the bishop of London or the dean of St, Paul's. When an
incorporated body of physicians, with Linacre, a man of real knowledge, at
their head, gave licences in their own branch, a vast step was mafle towards
lessening " the grievous hurt, damage, and destruction of many of the king's
liege people." * The Surgeons at this time separated themselves from the
Barber-Surgeons, whp were a cempany incprpprated by Edward IV. Hpw the
barber and the surgeen carried en their pperatlens under the ancient system
may be inferred frem this extract frem a barber's wiU of 1558 : " Item. I give
and bequeath to the said John, my son, six hanging basons of latten, ten
shaving cloths, one hone, and my case with knives, whole. Item. I give and
bequeath to the said John, my son, my brazen mortar and my leaden mortar,
with the pestles ; the bed whole complete that he Ueth in ; three barber's
chairs, a drying bason as it standeth, my case vrith instruments pertaining to
surgery, with aU my glasses and boxes belonging to the same."t The
Surgeens pf Lpndpn went pn in their exclusively scientific pursuits without
being incorporated. The Barber-Surgeons shaved, and drew teeth, and bled,
and attempted cures, under their corporate privUeges. In 1540 the two
bodies were united by statute, as the Company of Barbers and Surgeons.
But their vocations were to be separate. Surgeons were not to exercise
" the feat er craft pf barbery er shaving." Barbers whp centinued tp have
shaving-shpps were ferbidden tp " pccupy letting pf blppd, pr any other thing
belonging to surgery, drawing of teeth only except." J Under this act the
value of dissectien was first legally recpgnised ; and surgeons were empowered
to take annuaUy four bodies of malefactors to anatomise. Vesalius, the
great anatomist of that age, had run many risks in obtaining bodies for-
dissection ; and the English government wisely permitted this indispensable
privilege. The people, as might be expected, placed as much confidence in
the wise women who administered decoctions and ointments as in the regular
foUowers of Galen and Hippocrates. By a statute of 1543, the act of 1512
is repealed, as far as it sanctioned the interference of physicians and surgeons
with uneducated pretenders ; and " divers honest persons, as weU men as
women, whom God hath endued with the knowledge of the nature, kmd,
and operation of certain herbs, roots, and waters," are to be permitted to
prescribe for outward sores and sweUings, for " the web and pin " of the eye,
for scalds and burns, for agues, and even for the most dangerous afflictions,
such as the stone, without suit or vexation. § The beUef in empirical remedies
was not confined to the humbler classes. Lord Audley, in 1553, sends to
CecU, who was seriously UI, recipes for two medicines which he had proved
upon himself and his wife. One of these is founded upon the healing
virtues of a sow-pig, nine days old, distUled with many herbs and spices.
The other is more ample : " Item. Take a porpin, otherwise caUed in EngUsh
hedgehpg, and quarter him in pieces, and put the said beast m a stUl with
these ingredients : item, a quart of red wine, a pint of rose water, a quart of
sugar, cinnamon and great raisins, one date, twelve nepe [turnips]. || If
I ll^r^l R "• %TrV ,. ¦*" ^"'^ ^^'' P- ^5°- * 32 Henry VIII, o. 42.
§ 34 & 36 Henry VIIL c, 8. || Tytler, vol, u, p, 170.

1547.] PAINTING— HOLBEIN. 499
Doctor Andrew Borde was a type of his class, even the learned physician did
not disdain tp make his knewledge pepular by spme of the arts of the mounte
bank. Dr. Borde held forth at markets and fairs, varying his orations with
the most bpmbastic phrases and the cemmpnest jokes. Hearne, the anti
quary, ascribes to his facetious practice the origin of the term Merry Andrew.
The physicians of the period, after the ecclesiastical revolution, availed them
selves pf pne great reUc cf the pld pppular belief, — they became the guardians
pf the hely weUs instead pf the mpnks. Sir William Bassett, pne pf CromweU's
commissioners, in 1536, "locked up and sealed the baths and weUs at Buxton;"
and took away the image of Saint Anne, who presided over the healing waters.
When Harrison -wrote, Buxton was again in fashion; and, of baths and hot-wells
generaUy, he teUs us that " no man, especiaUy such as be able to entertain
them, doth enter into these baths before he consult with the physician."
The tastes of the general population of England were not carried forward,
as in Italy, by a famUiarity with the highest works in sculpture and painting.
The grand cathedrals, with their massive columns, their elaborate carvings,
and their painted windows, were in harmony with the traditional devotion
of a refiective people ; but a pleasurable sense of the beautiful had net
been cultivated by any native exceUence in the arts of design. Tet as
Charles V. gave a lustre to his court in appreciating the genius of Titian,
and Francis I. paid homage to the greatness of Leonardo da Vinci, Henry
VIII. had his favourite painter in a foreigner of eminent merit, Holbein.
But this master, in many essentials so admirable, produced few works which
could have raised our national taste. His best paintings were portraits ; and,
as such, were seen only in palaces and mansions. At the present day, we
know far more of Holbein's works than the people of his time. We see some
of the mpst curious of them in the gallery of Hampton Cpurt. The men
and women of that period are there marshalled before us, with their quaint
and picturesque costumes. We behold the king, in his ruddy childhood, and
his bluff manhood. We look upon him in his domestic relations, with his
last queen, and his son on pne side, and his daughters on the other. The
Court Fool, with an ape on his shoulders, completes the group — a stern and
melancholy Fool. There is a portrait of Surrey — a personage with little
poetry in his countenance — hard and repulsive. Elizabeth is there in another
picture — not the Elizabeth of ruffs and jewels — superb and -wrinkled — but a
fresh girl, dressed in a plain crimson gown, with a bopk in her hand — meek
and diffident. Here, tpp, may be seen the picterial recerds pf two leading
events of Henry's reign — ^the Field of the Cloth of Gold and the Battle of
Spurs. Francis I. is here too, with a coarse, sensual face — the very
ppppsite tp PUT nptipn pf a chivalrpus character. Frem these pictures we
may gather images mere durable than werds can convey, of some of the
leading persons of this period. We have endeavoured to speak of the prin
cipal figure of these works of art -with impartiality. His character and his
actions render it impossible for us to love or to reverence his memory. But
he must ever fiU a prominent position in English history —
' ' The majestic lord
That broke the bonds of Rome.*

500

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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Gift of

GEORGE WATSON COLE