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omparativtf Sftarfs of Resources.
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Prasant Condition nF al! Principal Nations.
BRITISH AUTHORS.--- * -r ENGLISH LITERATURE.
GONTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS
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GAY'S SERIES OF STANDARD HISTORIES,
SECOND SERIES.
THE UNITED KINGDOM,
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND,
FROM THE EARLIEST PERIODS TO 1884.

CHARLES KNIGHTS
POPULAR

History of England,
ABRIDGED, REVISED, AND CONTINUED, BY J. H. BEALE, A.M.
M. F. CUSACK'S, S.M.F.C,
HISTORY OF IRELAND,
CONDENSED, REVISED, AND CONTINUED, BY J. H. BEALE, A.M., AUTHOR OE
"OUR GREAT REPUBLIC."

CHABTS OF RESOURCES AND PEESENT CONDITION OF ALL THE PBINCIPAL NATIONS,
BBITISH ATTTHOES, ENGLISH LITEEATUBE, CONTEMPORABY SOVEBEIGNS,
STEEL ENGRAVINGS, CHBONOLOGICAL TABLES, INDEXES,
MAP, ETC. EACH HISTOBY COMPLETE IN ITSELF
AND SOLD BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY.

NEW HAVEN, CONN.:
WILLIAM GAY AND COMPANY,
SUCCESSORS TO GAY BROTHERS.

E. B. SHELDON & CO..
Compositors and Electrotypers,
New Haven, Conn.

WILLIAM GAY & CO.;
Printers and Binders,
New Haven, Conn.

THE GREAT MODERN NATIONS.

jH-E proper presentation of history is in itself considered
invaluable for two reasons : it links the living generation
with the long-gone past, and thus lifts the acts and
achievements of the present to a position of dignity in
their relation to the whole. It also widens the vision of
the student by raising him to a standpoint of advantage
from which he can take a survey of the progress of the
race in its entirety, and by this inspection of the whole army
can better judge of the relative importance of the achievement
of any detachment. The time has long since passed when the
man of average intelligence in any country is content to regard
the history of his native land as the embodiment of all that is
noble, true, and good in the wide range of history. The real
fact is that the history of any nation, like that of an individual,
consists of an origin, environed with conditions peculiar to itself
and for which it is nowise responsible, and from which there
must be a distinct growth, development, and destiny, which in
turn have their periods of progress, their times of apparent inactivity, their full
maturity, and their seasons of retrogression. Their history therefore seems to
to be made up of a series of conflicts, in which triumph and defeat follow each.
-other. There is rapid advancement at some times, and then periods of growth
by the silent, unperceived processes which can be determined only by compar
ing the conditions at different points separated by some considerable interval.
All these distinct national histories, with their varied relations, connections,
-conflicting policies, and destinies, unite to make up the line of general history.
Now as the life of any one man presents innumerable phases corresponding to
the point of vision from which we may view it, — social, commercial, religious,
intellectual, or physical, — and all these blend in one to constitute a distinct in
dividuality, so the history of a nation has many lines of approach, each of
-which is in itself important and correct, and all of which must unite to make a
symmetrical whole. In this view of the case there can be no complete history
of any nation, since no human mind can discern all sides of the same question
at once. Hence it follows that there may be any number of histories of the
same events, and each in its own sense be complete while all are dissimilar.
The labor of an impartial historian, if indeed there can be such an one, is
a difficult and thankless task. In fact we have our seriou,s doubts if such a
work is possible, since from the very nature of the case any independent mind
must be unconsciously affected by his own preconceived opinions. If he have
aione, or deviate from those which he has held, he will by this very mental pro-

4 THE GREAT MODERN NATIONS.
cess as unconsciously incline to the judgment upon which he relies or to which
he defers. Any other course would necessarily result in the recital of the
barest chronological statement of facts, or a continual shifting from one side
to the other of a given sentiment.
While this may be true, it is eminently true that the history of any particular
country can be more competently written by a talented native of that country,,
who is conversant with its forms of government, types of national character
and national thought, and who has something of national pride in his themer
than by an alien stranger. The histories combined in this work have been:
written by authors eminent for their ability as well as their deep attachment
by principle and sympathy to the cause of the common people. They have
each presented the history of his own land from the standpoint of the people
and for the people. For this reason if for no other they appeal to the sym
pathies and interest of the American reader, and bind these histories by a com
mon bond which gives them increased value.
" The Popular History of England," by Charles Knight, is emphatically a
work of this description, while M. Guizot's popular " History of France" has.
won its way, for the same reason, to the hearts of every lover of freedom on both
sides of the Atlantic. Dr. Miiller's admirable " History of the German People,'"
from the beginning to the close, presents the important relation of " the people '*
to the progress of that history and the development of its national character,
and Cusack's " History of Ireland " displays an intense sympathy for the com
mon people as such. These have been necessarily abridged and condensed to
bring them within the scope of the average American reader, but in doing-
this great care has been taken to preserve the main line of history, omitting
only those details which are essentially local in their character and not impor
tant to the student of general history. At the same time each writer has dis
played, as a matter of course, something of the national esprit de corps which.
enhances the interest of the reader. This must, of course, be borne in mind
when comparing the statements of each upon events which synchronize. We
are confident that our continuation of the narrative in each case down to the
present time has performed a service for the great body of readers whom we
had in mind while preparing this series of histories.
An invaluable feature of this work has been prepared with much pains
taking by the American author, consisting of chronological tables and charts,
tabulated statement of the wealth, power, resources, and present condition of
the nations of the world, charts of contemporary sovereigns, also of English
and American literature, and complete indexes. These are accurate and re
liable, and will prove of inestimable value to the methodical student as well.
as useful for reference. In addition to all this, that admirable essay by
Lord Macaulay, entitled "History," has been inserted, together with condensed
histories of Greece and Rome, based upon the works of Charlotte M. Yonge
and Mr. Gibbon. All these combined constitute a series of standard histo
ries which cannot fail to meet the demand of an intelligent American public.

GAY'S SERIES OF STANDARD HISTORIES.

SECOND SERIES.

The United Kingdom,
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
PROM THE EARLIEST PERIODS TO 1884.

Charles Knight's
POPULAR
HISTORY of ENGLAND.

ABRIDGED, REVISED, AND CONTINUED BY J. H. BEALE, A.M., AUTHOR OF
" OUR GREAT REPUBLIC."

•CHABTS OF EESOUECES AND PEESENT CONDITION OF ALL THE PBINCIPAL NATIONS,
BBITISH ATJTHOBS, ENGLISH LITEBATTTBE, CONTEMPOEABY SOVEEEIGNS,
STEEL ENGBAVTNGS, CHEONOLOGICAL TABLES, INDEXES, MAP,
ETC. EACH VOLUME COMPLETE IN ITSELF, AND SOLD
BY SUBSCBIPTION ONLY.

NEW HAVEN, CONN.:
WILLIAM GAY AND COMPANY,
SUCCESSORS TO GAY BROTHERS.

E. B. SHELDON & CO.,
Compositors and Electrotypers,
New Havbn, Conn.

WILLIAM GAY & CO.,
Printers and Binders,
New Havkn, Conn.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.
Introduction  9
Preface to American Edition  u
¦Sketch of Charles Knight  12
I. Britain Under the Romans (55 B.c-409 a.d.)  13
II. The Saxon Period (410 — 1066).
Invasion and Conquest. — Alfred the Great  20
The Saxons and Danes. — Battle of Hastings. — Close of the Saxon Period  34
III. England Under the Normans (1066-1154).
William I. — -Doomsday Book  48
The Crusaders. — Jerusalem Taken. — The Charter of Liberties. — William Rufus.
— Henry I. — Stephen and Matilda  54
IV. The Plantagenets (1154-1485).
Henry II. — Richard I..  69
King John.— Henry III  85
Edward I. — Subjection of Wales. — Llewellyn Slain  99
Edward II. — Piers Gaveston. — Invasion of Scotland. — Robert Bruce. — The
Templars. — Edward III  107
Richard II. — Insurrection of Wat Tyler  129
House of Lancaster. — Henry IV. — Henry V   '.  142
Henry VI. — Bedford's Regency. — France saved by Joan of Arc. — War of the
Roses  157
Edward IV. — House of York. — War of the Roses, Continued. — Henry VI. Re
stored. — Edward IV. Victorious. — Accession of Edward V. — Richard III . . . 176
V. The Tudors (1485-1603).
Henry VII. — Pretensions of Perkin Warbeck, Assumed son of Edward IV  195
Invasion by the Scots. — The Cornish Insurrection of Warbeck. — Court and
Administration of Henry VII  202
Henry VIII. — The Reformation  206
Edward VI. — Lady Jane Grey.— Queen Mary  241
Table Showing the Heirs Female in Remainder to the Crown named in the Will
of Henry VIII  253
Government of Queen Elizabeth. — Trials of Mary, Queen of Scots. — Spanish
Armada  267
VI. The Stuarts (1603-1649).
James 1  302
Charles I. — Civil War. — Execution of Charles  317
VII. The Commonwealth (1649-1660).
The Republic  362
The Protectorate  371
VIII. The Stuarts Restored (1660-1714).
Charles II  ,  387
The Colonies.— Reign of James II. — William of Orange.— Abdication of James. 417
Government of William and Mary. — William III. — The Interregnum  433

I CONTENTS.
PAGE.
Review of National Industry.
Statistics, Population, Manufactures, Commerce. — Classes and Condition of the
People  435
Government of Queen Anne  482
Literature, Art, Society. — Manners. — The Drama. — Classes  497
IX. The House of Brunswick (1714-1884).
Government of George 1  509
Government of George II  532
Frederick II. of Prussia. — Maria Theresa of Austria. — England in the Silesian
Wars  ,  556
Home Administration. — The Pretender  563
British Colonies in Asia and America. — French and English. — Struggle for Su
premacy in India and America  569
England and Prussia as Allies in the Seven Years' War  574
Government of George III. — American War  581
The North American Colonies Resist Taxation. — The Struggle for Independence 586
Retrospect of the State of Ireland. — Irish Parliament. — Eloquence of Henry
Grattan  663
Commerce. — Fine Arts. — Methodism. — India. — George III., Continued  674
The French Revolution  689
Literature, Art and Architecture  816
Government of George IV  819
Government of William IV  825
Government of Queen Victoria  835
Postscript of Charles Knight  859
Continuation From the Close of Charles Knight's History to the
Present Day (1848-1884).
From the Parliament of 1849 to the Success of Mr. Gladstone  860
The Eastern Question and the Crimean War  867
The Sepoy Rebellion in India.  876
The Explosion of Orsini's Bomb  883
The Ionian Isles. — Affairs in Italy  885
The Civil War in America  888
The Abyssinian War. — Reform Movements  896
The Black Sea Treaty. — The Alabama Claims  899
A Change in Governmental Policy  002
The Eastern Question Once More  ooe
The War in Egypt  oI2
William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister of England  014
Notable Events of 1 883  otg
Index  c,ig

PREFACE.

WISH to set down, with plainness and sincerity, the
motives that have induced me to undertake a new his
tory of England, and the objects I propose to myself in
the task.
. In October, 1854, upon the occasion of Lord John
Russell delivering an address at Bristol on the Study of
History, the following observations appeared in the
Times : —
" We have no other history of England than Hume's. The
cool, scoffing philosopher, who could relate with unruffled temper
the outrages of despotism, the vices of kings, and the extravagances
of superstition, and reserved his criticism for genius and his sar
casms for zeal, still retains his place on our shelves and our tables.
Goldsmith has put him out of boys' schools, and Mrs. Markham has
hit on a style that does admirably for young ladies ; but when a
young man of eighteen asks for a ' History of England,' there is no
resource but to give him Hume."
Many of the materials for " The Popular History of England "
Tiad been collected and arranged before these remarks were published. I had
Jong desired to write a- " History of the People ;" a history which should not
merely disport in " a gay wilderness of anecdotes, manners and customs, fur
niture and fashions," but should connect domestic matters with the course of
public events and the political condition of the various classes of society.
One observation of the accomplished journalist gave a definite character to
this desire. I considered the " young man of eighteen " the representative of
a very large class of readers in the present day — those, of either sex, who with
the average amount of intelligence that has now made us a reading people,
have no superabundant leisure for pursuing the history of their country as a
laborious and difficult study. Hume gives us the history of our country to
1689. More than a century and a half of the most instructive history of mod
ern times is to be sought in professed " continuations," which, if they are
free from the taint of Hume's manifold defects, have little claim to share the
honor of his surpassing merits. Smollett takes up the narrative of Hume ;
and, with no great labor of research, finds his way through another seventy
years. We have to choose between the " continuations " of Smollett for the
'history of nearly a century before we reach our own period. Looking at the
jbulk of these various performances which have been accustomed to travel in
an ill-assorted companionship with Hume, we may ask if a history of propor
tionate dimensions is not wanting in our time ? Above all, is not a compencb

10 PREFACE.
ious work, full without overflowing, and written upon an uniform plan, particu
larly needed, " when a young man of eighteen asks for a ' History of England ' ? "
In coming to a definite view of the nature of the book which I should
desire to offer, I had no inducement to depart from my original design of
writing a history of the people. Such a history appears to me best suited
for those who are putting on the duties of life, and looking forward to dis
charge them with a clear view of their rights and obligations, founded upon a.
comprehensive understanding of the past. But to avoid giving an impression
that I was about to write the domestic history of our country, apart from its
public history, I determined to entitle my book ".The Popular History of
England." The people, if I understand the term rightly, means the commons of
these realms, and not any distinct class or section of the population. Ninety
years ago, Goldsmith called the "middle order of mankind" the "people,"
and those below them the " rabble." We have outlived all this. A century
of thought and action has widened and deepened the foundations of the
State. For myself, I may say that having no pretension to aim at what is
called the dignity of history, not laboring to establish any preconceived
theory of public good beyond asserting the great principle of social progress,
and cherishing a disposition more to general tolerance than sectarian animos
ity, I aspire only to make the history of my country a connected narrative
of the progress of the people of my country. If I accomplish this, I shall not
be very careful about selecting facts that may especially vindicate " philoso
phy teaching by example." I shall tell fairly what I believe to be true, with
out concerning myself whether it offend or conciliate adverse opinions, politi
cal or religious.
Charles Knight.

AMERICAN REVISION.

>HIS American revision of Charles Knight's " Popular His
tory of England " is a condensation and abridgment of
the eight volumes which compose the work of that
eminent author. This labor has been undertaken in the
confident hope of bringing within the reach of a large
class of readers the general line of English history
as written from the standpoint of Mr. Knight. The
mass of material in which he treats of those questions pertaining
to shires, towns, and districts of England, and which are solely of
local interest, havt been in part omitted, but no portion of his
work which is serviceable to a full and correct presentation of
the main line of history has been discarded. Indeed, the most
conscientious pains has been taken to retain every line which
¦j is essential to a proper presentation of the subject with equal
justice to the original author's method and to the American
reader. Wherever an attempt has been made to condense the
work of Mr. Knight it has been done with a view to aid the
American reader by bringing within the immediate range of vision the scat
tered details which tend to confuse rather than aid the ordinary mind. The
arrangement and subdivision of chapters have been entirely changed by the
American editor, because Mr. Knight, in writing for an English public, has pre
sumed upon the acquaintance of his readers with the outlines of English his
tory. As an aid to the average American reader we have divided the history
, of England into the various eras, epochs, or periods which synchronize with
the reigning houses occupying the throne, and by this means have endeavored
to present the history of each in its compact and chronological order.
Mr. Knight has brought the line of his historical narrative down to the
session of parliament which opened in February, 1849. The remaining chap
ters from that date have been prepared by an American writer, who has judi
ciously and carefully presented the events which have occurred since that time
in their relation to the general scope of history. The historical student as
well as the ordinary reader cannot fail to recognize the value of this contin
uous presentation of a history, which extends from the dawn of English annals
to the present moment. This makes the present volume the only complete
history of England which has yet appeared.
The publishers of this work have selected from the list of English historians
that of Mr. Charles Knight for the reason that it is a popular history, as stated,
and also because his narration is a continuous one up to a point within the
memory of the present generation. The celebrated history of Mr. Hume
ends with the abdication of James II. in 1688, which Lord Macaulay has con
tinued in his unsurpassed style one hundred years later, while Mr. Green's
brief " History of the English People " ends at 1815. The history of Mr. Froude
is intensely partizan, while other writers of English history have confined their
researches to a limited period of the national existence.

SKETCH OF CHARLES KNIGHT.
[From " Chambers' Encyclopedia " (American Edition), 1880, vol. viii. p. 547.]
Charles Knight, an eminent English publisher and author, was born
in 1 791, at Windsor, where his father carried on the business of a bookseller.
Knight was brought up to the same profession, but early turned his attention
to publishing. Among his first attempts in this department was the Etonian,
a periodical supported by the Eton boys, and which, in spite of its juvenility,
obtained a considerable reputation. He next started (1823) Knight's Quar
terly Magazine, and continued it for some time in London, to which he
removed in the following year. The whole of his honorable career was devoted
to populai literature, of which he was one of the earliest and most accomplished
advocates. He died March 9, 1873. Among the works which Knight published
or edited are the Penny Magazine (1 832-1 845), which was started only a
month or two after Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, and at one time enjoyed a
¦circulation of nearly two hundred thousand copies weekly ; the " British
Almanac," and "Companion to the Almanac;" "Penny Cyclopedia " (30
vols. 1833-1856); "Library of Entertaining Knowledge" — the volume on
the Elephant (183 1) being written by himself; "Pictorial History of Eng
land;" "Pictorial Bible" (1838), now the property of Messrs. Chambers;
" Pictorial Book of Common Prayer " (1838) ; " London Pictorially Illustrated "
(6 vols. 1841-1844) ; " Old England : A Pictorial Museum of National Antiqui
ties " (2 vols. 1845) ; " Half-hours with the Best Authors " (4 vols. 1847-1848);
" The Land we Live In " (4 vols. 1848); " Cyclopedia of the Industry of all
Nations " (1851) ; and " The English Cyclopedia " (22 vols. 1 854-1 861), which is
based on the " Penny Cyclopedia," but is a great advance even on that admira
ble work, and, in fact, forms one of the most complete and accurate cyclopedias
in the world. Knight, in addition, won a highly respectable position as an au
thor by his " Pictorial Shakespeare," which is accompanied by a " Biography,"
and a " History of Opinion, with Doubtful Plays," etc. (8 vols. 1839-1841);
library edition (12 vols. 1 842-1 844) ; national edition, with " Biography " and
" Studies" (8 vols. 1851-1853), "Life of Caxton " (1844) ; " Plays and Poems,
with Glossarial Notes " (7th ed. 1857); "Knowledge is Power " (1S55) ; and,
. above all, by his " Popular History of England," and " Illustrated History of
Society and Government from the Earliest Period to our own Times" (1856-
1862). This work is probably the very best history of England that we pos
sess — "the history," according to the Times, " for English youth."

V if
ler

iNELANii

H^

'!'•//.

I.

entering space of

(55 B.C. — 409 A. D.)
ALBION was once believed to have
been originally a part of the Continent :
"That our isle of Albion hath been Conti
nent with Gallia hath been the opinion of
divers." Thus writes Richard Verstegan,
some two centuries ago, and supports " the
opinion of divers" with "sundry pregnant
reasons." One very satisfactory reason was-
pleasantly imagined, a century earlier, by
Sir Thomas More : " Howbeit as they say,
¦<S^^^^^&3M and as tne fashion of the place itself doth
partly show, it was not ever (always) com
passed about with the sea. But King
Utopus, whose name, as conqueror, the
island beareth, even at his arriving and
upon the land, forthwith obtaining the victory, caused fifteen miles
uplandish ground, where the sea had no passage, to be cut and

14 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE ROMANS. [55 B.C.
digged up ; and so wrought the sea round about the land." If King
Utopus (by which name is shadowed forth Brutus, the mythic colonizer of
Britain) had not performed this prodigious feat— compared with which a
ship-canal through Darien would be the work of children scratching runnels
in the sands — or if some greater power had not willed, in countless ages
before Troy fell, and Brutus was a wanderer, that this labor was unnecessary
— no History of England would have been written. The Commentaries of
Caesar, our first authentic historian, would have dealt with that small
peninsula as a portion of Gaul. The Roman, the Saxon, the Dane, the
Norman, would not have struggled for the mastery of the island during ten
centuries. For four centuries onward, the great mixed nation, which had
grown upon the island, would not have gone forth in their ships to crusade or
conquest. What is more important, they would not have gradually modeled
their own institutions at their own will, and have created a national character,
which, at the end of four centuries more, enables them to look back upon a
course of unceasing progress, whether of power in the State, or of civiliza
tion in the people. If this sea-bridge had remained, no " nook-shotten isle of
4lbion " would have planted America, or built up an empire in India, or
Alonized Australia. The language which is filling the earth would have
in"4 no distinct utterance. In the literature of that language we should not
•circt. boasted a nobler possession than "the wealth of Ormus or of Ind."
The history of England would have been the history of a province. Our
island history commences with Caesar. Fables, such as Geoffrey of Mon
mouth's, translated out of the language of Brittany, of a line of kings before
the Romans, have left one legend that has become to all a wondrous
reality — the story of King Lear. But all these legends, the cherished lore
of the monasteries, were the assured belief of the chivalric ages. Spenser
has versified them ; Milton has embodied them in stately prose, with a poet's
half credulity. No one now craves "to read those books," as the knights of
* The Faery Queen ' desired : — " burning both with fervent fire
Their country's ancestry to understand."
It has been too hastily supposed that mere savages peopled this Britain
in her early existence. The Britons, as known to the Romans, were a
people of high courage, disciplined and obedient to authority, and yet
impatient of subjection ; not unacquainted with some important arts of life ;
exchanging commodities for money of copper and iron ; mining and smelting
their native tin ; possessing an agriculture not wholly unscientific, for they
understood the process of marling, and raised cattle in great numbers : — a
naval people, with boats, and probably vessels of burden, sailing far away
into a tempestuous sea; a warlike people, with swords and shields and
chariots, that could not be fabricated without some mechanical knowledge; a
religious people, building temples of gigantic proportions, and raising
memorials of the dead in earthworks that rival the wonders of modern

409A.D.J THE BRITONS.— LANDING OF CESAR. 15
engineering. Their priests were their lawgivers, and the great ministers of
whatever moral or material civilization they possessed ; and we see that the
most perfect element of the learning of the priests was considered to exist
in Bfitain. Were these teachers and lawgivers surrounded by few votaries
and subjects? "The population is very great, and the buildings very
numerous," says Caesar. All merely savage nations never replenish a land,
because they never subdue it to their use.
"The system of Druidism " has been minutely described by Caesar.
The Druids were the ministers of sacred things. The young resorted to
them for instruction. They were the arbiters of disputes, the judges of
crime ; and men under their interdict were held accursed, and were banished
from human intercourse. Over this body one chief Druid presided. The
Druids were exempt from military service, and from the payment of taxes.
Their instructions were oral. They held that after death the soul does not
perish. Their sacrifices were brutal ; for they offered up criminals to
propitiate the gods, and if criminals were wanting they sacrificed the
innocent. Their teaching was not confined to their own worship. They
discoursed of the heavenly bodies and of their motions, — of the extent of
the world, and the people of distant climes. But there was another
order with power and privilege — the equestrian. The knights had armed
followers, as the Druids had studious disciples. There were bards also who
sang the praises of their heroes. But the great mass of the people were
dependent upon the two privileged orders, at least in- Gaul, and were
oppressed by grievous exactions — the vassals of hard task-masters.
Upon the shores, then, of this our Britain, in the latter part of the
summer of the year 55 before the birth of the Redeemer, appeared a
mighty fleet crossing the narrow sea from a port between Calais and
Boulogne. The alarm went inland through many a tribe. The four princes
of the Cantii, or men of Kent, rapidly gathered their followers. Nearer and
nearer came the galleys. The armed natives crowded to the heights, shouting
defiance from their natural defenses. The ten thousand soldiers on board
the ships saw the beach crowded with horses and chariots, and skin-clothed
and painted infantry, with great pointless swords, and small shields, howling
in contempt, or encouraging each other with songs of battle. The Romans
hesitated ; but the standard-bearer of the tenth legion leaped from one of
the galleys into the water, with a cry of " Follow me." Then met the British
and the Roman arm in mortal conflict ; — but discipline made good a landing
againt obstinate courage.
The Britons retreating before the legions, Caesar advanced into the
interior, and encamped, according to some writers, on Barham Downs. The
great consul had no desire to remain in the country, and he contemplated
wintering in Gaul. He was ready, therefore, to conclude a treaty with the
invaded tribes. But a storm arose, and scattered the ships which were
bringing the Roman cavalry to these shores; and a heavy spring tide — an
unfamiliar phenomenon to the people of the Mediterranean — dashed the

16 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE ROMANS. [55 B.C.
transports on the beach, and swamped the lighter galleys. The Britons,
encouraged by these misfortunes of their enemy, broke the peace. Caesar
says the Britons was signally defeated. He hastily repaired his ships and
sailed to the opposite shore, even without hostages. But early in the next
year he returned, with a greater armament, to a sterner conflict. Again he
landed on the flat shores of Kent, now undefended ; and he marched forward-
to meet those whom he describes as the inland people, who, " for the most-
part, do not sow corn, but live on milk and flesh, and have their clothing of
skins." The people of Cantium either left his passage free, or made no-
effectual resistance on the sea-marshes : but when he arrived at a river, most:
probably the Stour, he saw the rising ground behind occupied by the natives.-
His cavalry drove them into the woods. Csesar represents his second landing
as a conquest, and that the tribes one by one submitted. But the invaders
quitted the country the same year, and went back to Gaul. Caesar did not
conquer Britain, says Tacitus, but only showed it to the Romans. It was.
ninety-seven years before another invasion was attempted. In the course of
that period there was peaceful communication with Rome ; and the whole
island, according to Strabo, became " intimate and familiar to the Romans."
But the people were as free as if Caesar had never landed. In the early
intercourse of Rome with Britain, the southern and eastern coasts were
probably known to the strangers most completely, if not exclusively : but in
subsequent periods the midland and northern districts became familiar to
them, in a series of tremendous struggles with the hardy people.
" Why tribute ? Why should we pay tribute ? If Caesar can hide the
sun from us with a blanket, or put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him.
tribute for light ; else, sir, no more tribute." The dramatic poet has faithfully
interpreted the spirit of the Britons in their dealings with Rome, after the:
generation had passed away which had witnessed the might of the great
Julius. The island was, no doubt, under the shadow of the eagle's wing, but
there was no homage, and no violence. It was not the policy of Rome to
extirpate the natives as one inferior race, but to use them as brave and
intelligent instruments for advancing its own wealth and power. Ninety-five
years after the invasion of Caesar, the Romans again visited Britain and finally
conquered all the southern portion of the island.
In the revolt of Boadicea, which took place while Seutonius was making
his attack upon Mona, the extraordinary impulse which collected a hundred
and twenty thousand of the natives in arms was as much given by the insults
to their national worship and their sacred places, as by the rapacious extor
tions and the gross licentiousness of the Roman officials. Boadicea
•' bleeding from the Roman rods," stirred the Iceni to vengeance not more
than "the temple built and dedicated to the deified Claudius." When the
statue of Victory in that temple fell down without any visible violence and
the affrighted Romans of Camalodunum saw terrible omens in the appearances
of the tidal lakes, women chanted prophetic denunciations in the streets, and
strangers howled and murmured in the public places. Contempt and defiance

409 A.D.J BOADICEA, HER VICTORY AND DEFEAT. 17
preceded the work of destruction. Tacitus, a contemporary, relates her
injuries, and the terrible retribution inflicted upon the Romans and theii
allies by the multitudes whom she led. Their chief objects of attack were
the towns of Camalodunum, Londinium and Verulam. These events
happened in the year 61, only eighteen years after the invasion of Claudius.
Londinium, first noticed by Tacitus, is described as a place of importance,
" not indeed dignified by the name of a colony, but yet of the highest
distinction for abundance of regular merchants, and of traffic with other
places." Verulam was a municipal city. In those three places, seventy
thousand souls perished, "all Romans, or confederates of Rome." The
Romans, in eighteen years, had created their Londinium, and Verulam, and
Camalodunum, upon spots where the natives had planted their stockades and
their hill-forts, or carried on a small commerce by the vessels that sailed up
the great estuaries of the Thames and the Colne. Whether Camalodunum
be the present Colchester, or the neighboring hill of Lexden, the valley
beneath was undoubtedly in great part a marsh, and the Colne overspread
its banks at every flow of the tide. The whole of the low ground between
the Essex hills and Camberwell was considered by Sir Christopher Wren to
have been anciently a great arm of the sea ; and thus what the early Romans
described as the mouth of the Thames would only have been a few miles
below London, where the river was confined in artificial embankments. The
great wall of the Thames, which the steamboat traveler now gazes upon at
low water, on the Essex shore, is an ancient work, either British or Roman.
Upon these cities, surrounded by waters and woods, the infuriate forces of
Boadicea made their devastating attacks. They came, — they, the Iceni and
the Trinobantes, — from the scattered villages of Norfolk, and Suffolk, and
Essex, and Hertford, where they lived and worshiped after the fashion of
their forefathers, to do battle with their oppressors, who Iiad thrust their
countrymen forth from their ancient seats, and had built more luxurious
dwellings amid their old cabins, and raised temples to strange gods whom
their own sacred priesthood despised. They came for vengeance ; but their
triumph was of short duration.
The locality where Suetonius, with his ten thousand legionaries, in serried
ranks, encountered the multitudinous army of Boadicea, has not been
determined with any certainty. Suetonius had abandoned Londinium to the
fury of his enemy. After the devastation of Camalodununv, the British had
spread westward, and left the eastern citadel open for the re-occupatiOn of
the Romans. To that neighborhood it is held that Suetonius marched, with
the native hordes pressing on his rear. The description of Tacitus clearly
shows the immense superiority of the Roman strategy. He prepared for
encountering the enemy in open battle. He was posted in a place which
stretched out into a hollow and narrow valley, with steep sides, and girt
behind with a wood. He knew that the Britons were to be expected upon
the plain in front. They came ; everywhere exulting and bounding, in great
separate bands, some of horse, some of foot The legionary soldiers were
2

18 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE ROMANS. [55 B.C.
drawn up in thick and condensed ranks. The Britons came, encumbered
with multitudes of women, and weak followers, in crowded wains, with which
they surrounded their camp. Boadicea was borne about on a chariot, wherein
sat her two daughters. The Britons advanced upon the Roman army, who
remained secure in their vantage ground ; but when they came within
arrow-shot, the Romans rushed out with the force and keenness of a wedge.
The rout was terrible. Eighty thousand, says the historian, were slain in that
bloody field. Some escaped ; but could never rally. Boadicea ended her
life by poison. The remnant of the dispersed armies was pursued with unre
lenting hostility ; and every tribe that appeared inimical to Rome was
devastated by fire and sword. The power of the confederated natives of
Southern Britain was utterly broken. Yet there were still remaining the
smouldering embers of revolt ; and Tacitus has recorded the curious fact, that,
however terrible was the power of the Roman arms, the subdued people
would still indulge in the bitter luxury of contempt. The Roman govern
ment had no desire to hold a devastated country which would yield nothing
to the conquerors. The Romans built towns and roads and held Britain for
four hundred and seventy years and taught the people of the south of Britain
to read, write, speak and dress like themselves.
The population of England at the end of the third century, we are
inclined to believe, in accordance with opinions that appear founded upon
careful research, was a very mixed one. " The history of the conquest of the
world by Rome," says M. Guizot, " is the history of the conquest and
foundation of a great number of cities." The government of Rome was,
therefore, essentially municipal. It would thus appear to have been far
removed from unmitigated despotism, and to have conferred great powers
and privileges upon the municipality. We must not judge of this by any
modern analogies. The inhabitants of a city were permitted various condi
tions of self-government, according to the nature of its relations with the
centralizing power ; and these distinctions were preserved in Britain, where,
of the ninety-two cities mentioned by Richard of Cirencester, some were
ranked as municipal, some as colonial, some as under the Latin law, and
some as stipendiary. There were privileged residents in each of these cities,
who, in historical documents, are termed senators. How they were consti
tuted, and what were their duties, does not appear very clear. The active
and really important members of the municipal body were the " curiales "
(sometimes called " decuriones ") men of landed property residing within the
walls of the city, and discharging every municipal function, from that of the
tax-collector to the chief magistrate. They were not representatives of the
great body of the citizens ; there was no election to the office ; to belong to
the " curia " was not claimed by them as a right, but forced upon them as a
task. It was, indeed, a task involving many restrictions and some risks even
in the best times. They were not allowed to absent themselves without per
mission from their town ; a portion of their property, at their decease, went
to the common stock of the " curia;" they were not the assessors of the taxes

409 a.d.] ROMAN MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 19
but were bound to collect what was imposed and were responsible for any
deficiency. They were exempted from torture and ignominious punishment,
to which those below them, the " plebs," were subject; but they had the
constant torture of being harassed by the Roman officials, civil and military,
whose chief labor was to extract as much as possible out of the municipality,
with slight regard to the ease of the people. The great " procurator," or
revenue officer, of the province, had his subordinates in every city to look
after the " curiales," and to take special care that no lenity interfered with
the rigid collection of the poll-tax, the funeral tax, the legacy-tax, the auction-
tax, the tax on the sale of slaves, the tithe of mining produce, and the tribute
of corn, hay, and cattle. Sometimes the levy was just ; often it was frightfully
oppressive. We may be pretty well assured, if the procurator and his officers
pressed the curiales, that the curiales, who had to make up a deficient impost,
equally pressed the plebeians. These, the holders of small patches of land,
the artisans and the traders, had no responsibility in the management of
affairs, and no power of control over those who were responsible. They
pursued their occupation. At the end of the third century, it may be reason
ably assumed that the class of free artisans was established in the British
cities. But, one and all, they had no political powers. The curiales and the
plebeians had, at one period, and in some places, voices in the election of
magistrates. There was nothing confiding or generous in the Roman rule.
Modern nations have tried the same system of colonial oppression, and have
gathered the same fruits of injustice. Britain was never a secure possession.
Her resources were never fully developed; because her nationality was
outraged, and her people were disarmed and fettered. Such was the muni
cipal economy of Roman Britain for four centuries. The visible head of this,
mighty dominion was the consul — sometimes called legatus, sometimes
praefectus or propraetor. In him was the supreme military and civil power
vested, up to the time of Constantine. But over him was the jealous control
of the Caesar of the hour, and round him was the imperial spy. He might be
recalled to a triumph or a grave. He might remain to seduce the legions,
and become himself a Caesar.
M. Guizot, endeavoring to express a general truth in a few words, says
that among the elements of modern civilization, the spirit of legality, of
regular association, was derived from the Roman world, from the municipali
ties and the Roman laws. From the Germans came the spirit of personal
liberty. When we consider how essentially these two great elements have
been blended in the political institutions of modern Britain, and in the
individual character of the British people, we may feel some reverence,
however qualified, for the municipal principle of Rome thus impressed upon
us, so as to have become united with the other principle of personal freedom
which we derive from the Saxons, and with which the social state of Rome
had no identity. Of the state of the arts in Britain we have no very distinct
means of judging ; nor can we separate, in the erection and ornament of any
building, the skill of the Roman workman from that of the British. There is

20 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE SAXONS. [410
ample evidence that a Christian church of some importance was established
in Britain at the beginning of the fourth century. At the first council of
Aries, in 314, three British bishops are recorded to have been present, and to
have asserted opinions in some degree differing from those of the Romish
Church. Constantine, leaving Britain to carry on a more extended resistance
to the emperor Honorius, the Britons threw off their allegiance to the Roman
authority, and by one vigorous effort repelled their fierce assailants by their
own strength. Here, then, in the year 409, was our England an independent
state.

n.

(410 — 1066.)
INVASION AND CONQUEST.— ALFRED THE GREAT.
(410-901.)
E now approach the period of wha is termed the
Saxon invasion. Out of the Roman municipal insti
tutions had risen the establishment of separate sover
eignties. The Roman municipal government was
kept compact and uniform under a great centralizing
power. It fell to pieces here, as in Gaul, when that
power was withdrawn. It resolved itself into a num
ber of local governments without any principle of cohesion. The
vicar of the municlpium became an independent ruler and head of a
little republic ; and that his authority was contested by some who
had partaken of his delegated dignity may be reasonably inferred.
The difference of races would also promote the contests for command.
If East Anglia contained a preponderance of one race of settlers, and
Kent and Sussex of another, they might well quarrel for supremacy.
Hengist and Horsa, who, according to the Anglo-Saxon historians,
landed in the year 449, were the sons of Wihtgils ; Wihtgils son of Witta,
Witta of Wecta, Wecta of Woden. So says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and
adds, "From this Woden sprung all our royal families." These descendants,
in the third generation, from the great Saxon divinity, came over in three
boats. They came by invitation of Wyrtgeone — Vortigern — king of the
Britons. The king gave them land in the south-east of the country, on
condition that they should fight against the Picts ; and they did fight, and
had the victory wheresoever they came. And then they sent for the Angles,

901] HOSTILE BANDS.— ETHELBERT. 21
and told them of the worthlessness of the people and the excellences of the
land. This is the Saxon narrative. The seductive graces of Rowena, the
daughter of Horsa, who corrupted the king of the Britons by love and wine,
is an embellishment of the British traditions. Then came the great battles
for possession of the land. At Aylesford and Crayford the Kentish Britons
were overthrown. Before the Angles, the Welch fled like fire. These events
occupy a quarter of a century. While they are going on, the Roman
emperor receives an auxiliary force of twelve thousand men from Britain.
For a century and a half a thick darkness seems to overspread the history of
our country. In the Anglo-Saxon writers we can trace little, with any
distinctness, beyond the brief and monotonous records of victories and
slaughters. Hengist and ^Esc slew four troops of Britons with the edge of
the sword. Hengist then vanishes, and ALlla comes with his three sons. In
491 they besieged Andres-cester, " and slew all that dwelt therein, so that not
a single Briton was there left." Then come Cerdic and Cynric his son ; then
Port and his two sons, and land at Portsmouth ; and so we reach the sixth
century. Cerdic and Cynric now stand foremost among the slaughterers, and
they establish the kingdom of the West Saxons, and conquer the Isle of
Wight. In the middle of the century Ida begins to reign, from whom arose
the royal race of North-humbria. In 565 Ethelbert succeeded to the kingdom
of the Kentishmen and held it fifty-three years. Bede's account of the
country of the invaders, and the parts in which they settled, gives us the
following results. They consisted of " the three most powerful nations of
Germany — Saxons, Angles, and Jutes." Later in the fifth century, the same
people, under Cerdic, established themselves in the district extending fro'm
Sussex to Devonshire and Cornwall, which was the kingdom of the West
Saxons. Other Saxons settled in Essex and Middlesex. The Angles, says
Bede, came from " the country called Angelland." These people gave their
name to the whole country, from the greater extent of territory which they
permanently occupied. As the Saxons possessed themselves of the southern
coasts, the Angles established themselves on the north-eastern.
" This year," A.D. 597, says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, " Augustin and his
companions came to the land of the Angles to teach and convert." " At that
time Ethelbert was the powerful king of Kent, who had extended his dominions
as far as the great river Humber, by which the southern Saxons are divided
from the northern." In the first Ethelbert we recognize the existence of some
powerful authority which appears to belong to the title of king. In the
Kentish kingdom were now included those of Essex and Sussex, as a confed
eration acknowledging the supremacy of Ethelbert. The kingdom of the
West Saxons was another powerful confederation, which ultimately became
the acknowledged seat of the sovereignty of England. Mercia claimed much
of the remainder of England east of the Severn and south of the Humber;
but Ethelbert had subjected its petty sovereigns to his authority. Northum-
bria, uniting the two kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia, extended beyond the
Humber to the Borderland. There, in the north, were the Picts and Scots.

22 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE SAXONS. [410
In the farther west of England, and throughout Wales, were large portions of
the unsubdued British race. Ethelbert had married Berhta, the daughter of
Charibert, king of the Franks, who, by her marriage contract, enjoyed the
exercise of Christian worship. He allowed the missionaries publicly to teach
their religion, and gave them a dwelling-place in his metropolis of Canterbury.
- In due time Ethelbert became himself a convert. He died in 616.
The history of the establishment of Christianity in the seventh century
is, to a great extent, the only portion of our history before Alfred which has
an abiding human interest. When we come to the story of the conversion of
King Edwin by Paulinus, we are once again in the society of men, and not of
fighting savages. Edwin is king of Northumbria. His youth has been one
of exile and suffering. He has regained his kingdom, and has married the
Christian daughter of Ethelbert of Kent. Paulinus, an ordained bishop, had
sought in vain to convert the king. An assassin sent by the king of the
West Saxons attempted the life of Edwin ; but the king was saved by the
fidelity of one of his nobles, who interposed his own body to avert the death-
stroke from his lord. At the same hour Ethelburga bore a daughter. The
young king vowed, that if he could obtain a victory over him who had sent
the assassin, he would renounce his idols. The victory was gained. The
king summoned his council. At the council the chief priest, Coin, gave a very
satisfactory reason for believing that the old religion had no virtue in it :
" For not one of your people has applied himself more diligently to the
worship of our gods than I have ; and yet there are many who have received
from you greater benefits and greater honors, and are more prosperous in all
their undertakings ; whereas, if the gods were good for anything, they would
rather forward me, who have been so zealous to serve them." An old earl
stood up and said : " The life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison
with that which is hidden from us, to be like the sparrow, who, in the winter
time, as you sit in your hall with your thanes and attendants, warmed with
the fire that is lighted in the midst, rapidly flies through, to seek shelter from
the chilling storms of rain and snow without. As he flies through, entering
by one door and passing out by another, he has a brief escape from the storm,
and enjoys a'momentary calm. Again he goes forth to another winter and
vanishes from your sight. So also seems the short life of man. Of what
went before it, or of what is to follow, we know not. If, therefore, this new
doctrine brings us something more certain, in my mind it is worthy of
adoption." Then Paulinus discoursed of God and the true worship with
Edwin and Coin, and the king and the priest were converted. Then Coin
hurled his lance against the idol, and the temple was set on fire. Wilfred, the
bishop of York, builds churches in his diocese ; and also teaches industrial
arte to the South Saxons. Benedict Biscop, the abbot of Wearmouth, fills his
monastery with books and pictures which he brought from Rome. Caedmon
the cowherd, sings The Creation and The Fall in strains which have obtained
for him the name of the Saxon Milton.
It is the last year of the eighth century. There is an English exile at the

90iJ EGBERT.— THE COMING OF THE NORTHMEN. 23
court of Charlemagne, who, for thirteen years, has been a humble follower of
the fortunes of the great king of the Franks. Egbert the son of Alckmund,
king of Kent, aspired to the crown of the West Saxons ; but Beortric was
preferred. Each claimed to be descended from Cerdic. As he marched with
the armies of the great king against the Lombards and the Bavarians, the
Huns and the Saxons, he saw war upon as grand a scale as the world had
ever beheld. It is the year 800, and Charlemagne is about to be crowned at
Rome as the emperor of the West. There comes to his court a singular
fugitive, Edburga, queen of Beortric, who had thrust Egbert from the throne
of Wessex. The daughter of Offa is a murderess. She attempted to poison
a friend of her husband ; and both drank of the fatal cup, and died. The
people have expelled her from the country. But her guilt placed Egbert on
the throne of Wessex. He returned to his country ; and was at once chosen
as the successor of Beortric ; and, during his reign of thirty-six years, he
accomplished that consolidation of authority which justified him in taking
the title of King of England. How rapidly England under one ruler might
have repaired the never-ceasing warfare of three centuries was not yet to be
manifested. There was an enemy coming upon the Anglo-Saxon power far
more to be dreaded than the Welch or the Picts. The enemy, whose race
was destined to make two successive conquests of England, was the Dane, so
called. He came at first for pillage'to the estuaries and rivers of Gaul and
Britain. In a few years he came to both countries for territory. Before the
century was over, East Anglia and Northumbria were the prizes of the
Northmen ; and in a few years more they were finally established in that
noble province of France to which they gave their name.
The Northmen were designated as Danes by the Anglo-Saxons, but they
were not exclusively natives of Denmark. Their home was the sea. The
law of primogeniture has been assigned as a cause. " The eldest son of an
aristocratic house inherited the family property. The younger ones were not
indeed quartered on their own country, but were sent forth in ships, for the
purpose of plundering the happier lands of the south. From these expedi
tions the idea first sprang of making permanent conquests, which ended in
the establishment of Scandinavian dynasties in England. The son of a king
or chief who had a maritime command was termed a viking ; and thus we
term generally those fierce captains whose ravages afflicted our country, so
exposed to their incursions. They came in numerous small vessels, in which
they penetrated narrow rivers. If there was obstruction in a river, the crews
would drag their boats on shore, and carry them forward till they had passed
the rocks or the shallows. They distracted and terrified the peaceful
inhabitants by their combined attacks upon different points. Henry of
Huntingdon has described their system with picturesque simplicity : — " It was
wonderful how, when the English kings were hastening to encounter them in
the eastern districts, before they could fall in with the enemy's bands, a
. hurried messenger would arrive and say, ' Sir King, whither are you marching ?
The heathens have disembarked from a countless fleet on the southern coast,

24 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE SAXONS. [410
and are ravaging the towns and villages, carrying fire and sword into every
quarter.' The same day another messenger would come running, and say,
' Sir King, whither are you retreating ? A formidable enemy has landed in
the west of England, and if you do not quickly turn your face toward them,
they will think you are fleeing, and follow in your rear with fire and sword.'
Again, the same day, or on the morrow, another messenger would arrive,
saying, ' What place, O noble chiefs, are you making for ? The Danes have
made a descent in the north ; already they have burnt your mansions ; even
now they are sweeping away your goods; they are tossing your young children
raised on the points of their spears ; your wives, some they have forcibly
dishonored, others they have carried off.' " This is a vivid picture, scarcely
over-colored as to the cruel barbarism of these Northmen, and corresponding
generally with what we learn from other sources.
Egbert died in 837 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Ethelwulf.
Ethelwulf deputed the governments of Kent, Essex, Surrey and Sussex to
his son ^Ethelstan. This divided sovereignty was probably a fatal obstacle tc
unity of action in the defense of the country. The same causes operated in
France after the division of the empire on the death of Charlemagne. In
the middle of the ninth century the terrible Vikings ranged over the English
channel, — now landing in Devonshire to be defeated ; now worsted in a sea-
fight at Sandwich; now wintering in the Isle of Thanet, or, according to
some chroniclers, in Sheppey. Then they arrive with a mighty fleet at the
mouth of the Thames, — plunder Canterbury ; sail up to London ; and,
penetrating into Surrey, are defeated and driven back by Ethelwulf and his
son Ethelbald. " The warriors fell on both sides like corn in harvest." We
are entering upon an epoch with the general outline of which every English-
man is supposed to be familiar, — that of Alfred. The great Saxon was born
in 849. King Ethelwulf had four sons and a daughter. His wife was Osburga,
the daughter of Oslac, his cup-bearer. At a time when nobility was derived
from personal service upon the king, the cup-bearer was among the most
honored of the royal officers. Osburga was of the race of Cerdic, from whom
Ethelwulf himself derived his lineage. The eldest son of Ethelbald was
aiding his father in a great battle against the Danes in 850. The youngest,
Alfred, was born the year before. The eldest had arrived at manhood when
the youngest was an infant in his father's halls at Wantage. The king, like
the great body of the freemen, was a landowner. He had larger hereditary
possessions than others ; he was surrounded by wealthy and noble retainers ;
his life was put at a higher value than any other member of the community ;
he was the first in rank and in power ; he presided over public deliberations ;
he was the chief magistrate ; he was the head of the national levies, which he
could call out for attack or defense. But the estates of others were indepen
dent of his control. He claimed no absolute lordship, as in the feudal system
He had tolls upon markets, and dues upon mines; he received voluntary
gifts, and a portion of the fines levied upon offenders, But he seized upon no

901] EARLY YEARS OF ALFRED. 25
possessions of others ; holding his own by inheritance or purchase. He
disposed of his acquired property by will as any other owner, although certain
estates always went with the crown. That property was scattered about the
country. Alfred was born at the royal house at Wantage. Ethelswitha, his
only sister, was married to the king of Mercia in another royal house at
Chippenham. In these mansions there was no great pomp, and very little of
what we call comfort. The king had a large body of thanes, his friends and
servants — his defenders and ministers. They were the leaders in his wars —
they were the comptrollers in his household. Great ecclesiastics, too, lived in
fellowship with him, and assisted in his councils. The learning of the Church
often gave an important direction to the rougher impulses of the crown.
But little of the regal splendor of feudality had yet arisen. The king wore
his golden circlet ; his nobles had their golden-hilted swords. There were
banquets and there were processions. The king and his ealdormen sat upon
the high seat, and the wine-cup was served ; and the warriors and attendants
stood around, and for them were the drinking-horns duly filled. But the
slavish homage of the vassal to the suzerain belonged not to the personal
independence of the Saxon times. We may imagine, then, the family
arrangements amid which the child Alfred was reared, as regards the kingly
position of his father. Considerable doubt rests upon the narrative of Asser
as to the nurture which he received from his mother. AsSer records the public
events of the kingdom up to the year 866, when Alfred was in his eighteenth
year, and then proceeds thus : " I think right in this place briefly to relate as
much as has come to my knowledge about the character of my revered lord,
Alfred, king of the Anglo-Saxons, during the years that he was an infant and
a boy. He was loved by his father and mother, and even by all the people,
above all his brothers, and was educated altogether at the court of the king.
. . . . His noble nature implanted in him from his cradle a love of
wisdom above all things ; but, with shame be it spoken, by the unworthy
neglect of his parents and nurses, he remained illiterate even till he was
twelve years old, or more."* He listened, it is added, to the Saxon poems
which he often heard recited, and easily retained them in his memory. He
was a zealous practiser of hunting in all its varieties. At this age, then, of
twelve years, " his genius," according to Hume, " was first roused by the recital
of Saxon poems, in which the queen took delight ; " and "he soon learned to
read those compositions, and proceeded thence to acquire a knowledge of the
Latin tongue." This theory is built upon the charming story of Asser, that
one day, when his mother was showing him and his brothers a volume of
Saxon poems, with illuminated letters, she said, " Whichever of you shall
soonest learn this book, to him will I give it." The youngest of the three
brothers — Ethelbert, Ethelred, and Alfred — made himself certain of the
conditions. " Will you assuredly give that book to one of us, — will you give
*The words of Asser are, "illiteratus permansit." This certainly does not warrant Hume's
interpretation, " totally ignorant of the lowest elements of literature," even if we accept Asser's " twelve
years old " as correct.

26 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE SAXONS. [410
it to him who may first be able to understand and repeat it to you ?" " Most
certainly I will," said the mother laughingly and joyfully. The boy " carried
it to his teacher, and read it ; and after he had read it, he brought it back to
his mother and recited it." The story evidently belongs to a much earlier
period of Alfred's life than that of his twelfth year.
In 853, says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, " King Ethelwulf sent his son Al
fred to Rome." In 855, we find in the same record, " King Ethelwulf went to
Rome in great state, and dwelt there twelve months, and then returned home
wards." His marriage, and his death about two months afterward, are subse
quently recorded. We have then, in one of the MSS. of this Chronicle, the
following entry: " Alfred, his third [fourth] son, he had sent to Rome ; and
when Pope Leo heard say that Ethelwulf was dead, he consecrated Alfred king,
and held him as his spiritual son at confirmation, even as his father, Ethel
wulf, had requested on sending him thither." This remarkable passage
appears to us to have been overlooked by our historians. Ethelwulf died in
858, when Alfred was nine years old.*
Ethelbald, the eldest brother of Alfred, had met Ethelwulf with unfilial
hostility when he returned from France with his young wife ; and before
Ethelwulf's death this son had, by a compulsory partition, attained the
dominion of Wessex. The father bequeathed Kent and his other dominions
to his second son Ethelbert. After the death of Ethelbald, if he were
childless, the succession of Wessex was left to Ethelred, the third son, and to
Alfred. In little more than two years after the decease of his father. King
Ethelbald dies. Alfred is now twelve years old. The two younger brothers
assert no claim to the separate sovereignty, and Ethelbert of Kent is king also
of the other dominions. There is no doubt that Alfred lived with his reigning
brother, as documents exist bearing both their signatures. He, as well as
Ethelred, had given up the patrimonial inheritance to him who was to
maintain the dignity of the family and the safety of the kingdom. The Danes
were again in fierce activity. They landed at Southampton, and plundered
Winchester. They landed in Thanet, and kept Kent in terror by their
predatory incursions. The inland counties were the safest ; and we may con
template Alfred dwelling in his birthplace. From the accession of Ethelbert
in 860, to his death in 866, Alfred is without responsibility, except that of
self-improvement. He is of weak health ; but he leads no sedentary life.
Asser distinguishes between " manly arts, such as hunting," and " liberal arts."
Alfred saw that, however excellent were books, there were other means of
education ; and thus he became, not only the great warrior and statesman,
but the most practical improver of the people, elevating their knowledge and
exciting their industry. He taught workers of gold and other artificers how
best to labor in their crafts. He instructed his falconers, hawkers, and dog-
keepers. He built houses, majestic and good beyond all the precedents of
* In Alexander Cook's curious " Dialogue between a Protestant and a Papist " (1610), the Papist
asserts that Alfred was educated at Rome ; and is answered by the Protestant, contending that at twelve
years old he could not read. See " Harleian Miscellany."

901] RAVAGES OF THE NORTHMEN. 27
his ancestors, by his new mechanical inventions. Thus Asser describes his
later life. Alfred, the king, before he came to the throne, had made himself
well acquainted with the condition of the population over which he was to
rule. During the eight years which had elapsed since the death of Ethelwulf,
two of Alfred's brothers had reigned. Upon the two younger sons now rested
the destinies of England. Ethelred succeeded to the crown of the united
kingdoms of Wessex and Kent. Alfred appears to have had a responsible
position. He is called " Secundarius." Some conjecture that he ruled over
a small district ; others that he had a joint authority with his brother. Alfred
is now married. It was an early age for marriage, and a strange time for
marrying. His wife was Elswitha, the daughter of a famous ealdorman of
Lincolnshire ; and through her mother, who afterward lived in Alfred's home,
she was descended from the royal house of Mercia. Alfred's sister had been
married fifteen years before, to Burrhed, king of Mercia. There was thus
intimate union between the two states in their family alliances.
In 868 the Danes» who had established themselves at York, crossed the
Humber, for the invasion of Mercia. They possessed themselves of Notting
ham, where they wintered. The Mercian king immediately sent for succor
to his brothers-in-law of Wessex ; and Ethelred and Alfred marched to his
assistance. They besieged " the house of caves," as Nottingham was called,
and compelled the enemy to quit its occupation, and return to Northumbria.
There was rest for a year ; and then the devastating power of the Dane rolled
onward like a vast engulphing sea that no barrier could shut out. In 870,
the Danes again crossed the Humber. "The army," says the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, " rode across Mercia into East Anglia, and took -up their winter-
quarters at Thetford." By the term " the army" — "the heathen army" —
the Anglo-Saxon reco'rds now begin to distinguish the invaders. They were
no longer mere predatory " crews ; " — they were " the army " — wintering in
one place ; garrisoning in another ; coming, again and again, in larger numbers
from the icy capes of the Baltic ; occupying the small islands that cluster
round Britain ; and planting at length a firm foot upon a territory far more
valuable than the Orkneys and the Hebrides. They " rode across Mercia."
It was a terrible ride for the scattered cultivators and the solitary monas
teries of the fen countries. The united forces attack the Northmen in their
advance, and drive them back to their earthworks. The alarm goes forth ;
and the ravagers from other parts hasten to the rescue. Many of the Mer
cians fly from the terror of their increasing enemies. But Algar, the earl of
Holland, and Morcard, the lord of Brunne, and Osgot, the sheriff of Lincoln
shire, and Tolius, the soldier-monk, and Harding of Rehale, stand firm,
through an autumn day of attack and repulse. In the evening the Northmen
make a feint of withdrawing from the field. The English rush forward to
the pursuit. The Danes rally ; and a noon of sagacious resistance is ended in
a night of carnage in which all the patriotic chieftains perish. A few of their
followers escape to Croyland. The abbot and his monks are performing

28 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE SAXONS. [410
matins, when the terror-stricken fugitives tell of the approaching destruction.
Some of the timid prayer-men take boat, and leave their fertile gardens, and
their sunny orchards, where the vines and the apple-trees luxuriated amid a
waste of waters, — to hide themselves in the marshes. The bold and the aged
who remain at their altars fall in one general slaughter. A little boy only is
spared to be led away by Sidroc, one of the Danish chiefs, when they marched
forward, and left Croyland in flames. Onward they march, by the ancient
roads which cross this land of fens, to Peterborough. The abbot of this great
monastery, famous for its architectural beauty, and whose library was rich
with the collected manuscripts of two centuries, resisted the assailants. His
courage was unavailing. All perished ; and a pile of smouldering ruins alone
remained, where the piety of many generations had heaped up precious relics
and costly shrines, and where the transcriber and illuminator had been work
ing at illustrated chronicles which have now perished. The boy of Croyland
escaped from his captivity. Wandering amid pathless marshes, hiding amid
reeds and bulrushes, he went on his perilous way to Croyland, and told his
dismal experience to the few fugitives who had returned to behold the devas
tation of their pleasant seats. Onward went the Northmen. The abbey of
Ely was ravaged, as Peterborough and Croyland had been, and all its inmates
were murdered. These Danes had left fearful traces of their course, as " they
rode across Mercia," before they " took up their winter-quarters atThetford."
They are now in East Anglia. Edmund, the king, obtained the crown of
that separate province, in 855. He has held his rule in peace till this fatal
invasion, which is destined to end the dominion of the Anglo-Saxon race in
that part of the island. In a battle with Ingvar, the most cruel of , the
Danish chiefs, Edmund is taken prisoner. The Danes sent their messengers
to Edmund, to demand that he should abjure his religion, divide his treasures,
and reign under their supremacy. The proposal was rejected ; and the king
disdained to fly. Resistance was now vain. He was bound to a tree ;
scourged with whips ; pierced with arrows, and finally beheaded.
The great danger of England is drawing closer and closer round the rulers
and the people of Wessex. Northumbria is in the power of the invaders.
Guthrum, the Dane, rules over East Anglia : Mercia is weak and irresolute.
This year, 871, King Ethelred and Alfred his brother led a large force to
Reading, and fought against the army, and there was great slaughter made
on either hand. " About four days after this, King Ethelred and Alfred his
brother fought against the whole army at ./Escesdun." It is now, for the
first time, that we distinctly see the man Alfred, in his character of a great
military leader. He is twenty-two years of age. Malmesbury, describing
Alfred at a later period of his life, says, " The king himself was, with his usual
activity, present in every action, ever daunting the invaders, and inspiriting
his subjects, with the signal display of his courage. He would oppose him
self singly to the enemy, and by his own personal exertions rally his declining
forces. The very places are yet pointed out by the inhabitants where he
felt the vicissitudes of good and evil fortune. It was necessary to contend

90i] ETHELRED DIES.— ALFRED SOLE KING. 29
with Alfred even after he was overcome." We believe the whole history
of this remarkable man may be associated with these two leading character
istics of his mind, his boldness and his perseverance. The danger of that
conflict was escaped ; and the banner of the White Horse floated triumphantly
over the Danish raven. But though signally defeated in the greatest battle
that the Northmen had fought on the English soil, they would shrink from
no contest as long as the fertile lands of the west and the south were to be
won. They came, with great re-enforcements, from their native seas. They
fought with Ethelred and Alfred at Basing, and were not driven back. In
two months after, they fought at Merton ; and the Saxon brothers were
victorious during a great part of the day, and there was great slaughter on
either hand. At Easter, after this battle, King Ethelred died, " worn down
with numberless labors," as Malmesbury records. Others say that he received
a fatal wound in the battle of Merton.
Alfred is king. He marched to attack the Danes at Wilton. He was
defeated. In one year nine battles had been fought, and the Saxons were
reduced to a small band. The invaders agreed to quit Wessex, upon the
payment of a tribute. The next year Mercia submitted to the same humili
ating conditions. No submission could save Mercia and its unhappy king.
The Danes again ravaged the country, and the brother-in-law of Alfred fled
from the shores of England to die a pilgrim in Rome. Alfred's sister survived,
and probably found an asylum with her brother. The throne of Mercia was
then filled by Ceolwulf, " an unwise king," as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle calls
him, who was a traitor to his country. He was soon dethroned by those to
whom he had become a tributary. In Northumbria, the Danes became estab
lished settlers, "and that year (876) Healfdene apportioned the lands of North
umbria, and they thenceforward continued plowing and tilling them." This
record of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is highly important, as showing the
process that was going on in the subdued districts, of peaceful cultivation
instead of lawless plunder. Proceeding from the same original stock, the Dane
and the Saxon, having no great dissimilarity of language or. manners, would
gradually intermix, especially when the heathen obstinacy had ultimately
yielded to the general progress of Christianity on the European continent.
But the ambition of the Northmen was still unsated : they aimed at the sub
jection of all England. As Rollo overran Normandy, and wholly subdued it,
at this very time, Healfdene and Guthrum sought to conquer Wessex, the
only barrier to their overwhelming power. Alfred, for seven years, had been
carrying on a desultory contest, with no marked result. He made truce after
truce ; he exacted oaths ; he received hostages. With the exception of his
first naval battle, in 875, the king appears to have been constantly aiming at
a false security by vain negotiation. This, as it presents itself to our imper
fect historical knowledge, is inexplicable except upon the theory that he had
lost the confidence of his people. Mr. Turner adopts this belief, with every
desire to do justice to the character of Alfred.
There can be no doubt that Alfred was left, in his great hour of need,

30 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE SAXONS. [410
without support, if not without sympathy. It appears to us that the humili
ating treaties, which have been imputed to him as an individual fault ; the
comparative inaction during seven years ; the somewhat absurd imposition of
Christian oaths upon pagan enemies, — may find a reasonable explanation, —
that Alfred was surrounded by a timid and feeble witan. The king had no
power of himself to conclude peace or make war, without the authority of the
witan. The great peace which was concluded with Guthrum in 878, runs thus :
" This is the peace that Alfred the king, and Guthrum the king, and the witan
of all the English nation, and all the people that are in East-Anglia, have all
ordained," etc. Authentic history shows that he was meditating a deliverance
from foreign foes — perhaps from domestic treason — by one of those bold
actions which decide the fate of nations. " This year (878) during midwinter,
after twelfth night, the army stole away to Chippenham, and overran the land
of the West-Saxons, and sat down there ; and many of the people they drove
beyond sea, and of the remainder the greater part they subdued and forced
to obey them except King Alfred." Where was King Alfred ? He is fled, no
one knows whither. Where are his thanes and his prelates ? They are not
with him. " He, with a small band, with difficulty retreated to the woods,
and to the fastnesses of the moors." King Alfred relies upon himself alone.
He is naked and powerless ; but he was never so truly master of his own
fortune, as in this point of his uttermost depression.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notices a triumph over the Danes in Devon
shire ; and then takes up the story of Alfred again. The king retreated to
the woods and moors, after Twelfth-night, in 878. " At Easter," says the
Chronicle, " King Alfred with a small band constructed a fortress at
Athelney ; and from this fortress, with that part of the men of Somerset
which was nearest to it, from time to time they fought against the army."
In the genuine text of Asser we find that during this wintry season, from
Twelfth-night to Easter, the king, with a few nobles, and certain soldiers and
vassals, led an unquiet life, in great tribulation, among the woodlands of
Somersetshire. It was the outlaw's life. Under the Anglo-Saxon laws
every man was bound to have a settled habitation. Whether freeman or
thrall, to be a wanderer was to be in peril. In the laws of King Ina, which
were confirmed by Alfred, it is written, — " If a far-coming man, or a stranger,
journeying through a wood out of the highway, and neither shout nor blow
his horn, he is to be held for a thief, either to be slain or redeemed." But
this fugitive band were not only hiding from their oppressors, but were
compelled to plunder for subsistence. Utterly destitute of the necessaries of
life, they sallied forth from their coverts, to compel the pagans, or those who
were under the dominion of the pagans, to give them food. The stories
which relieved the dry historical narrative of its uniformity, and which the
dramatist and the painter alike rejoice in, belong to this period. Alfred sits
by the fire in a cowherd's cottage, in which he had found refuge, mending
his bow, instead of minding the loaves which are baking on the hearth.
Who knows not how the impatient housewife vented her anger upon the

901] BATTLE OF ETHANDUNE.— ITS RESULTS. 31
stranger, reproaching him that he suffered the bread to burn which he was
ready enough to eat ! The wrathful speech of the good dame appears in
the original in the form of two Latin verses. We have no complaint against
the parade of knowledge which thus puts the mark of a cloister upon the
traditionary songs of the people. Again, the legendary tales show how the
Saxon hero, in his adversity, was visited by Saint Cuthbert, who, in the
shape of a poor man, asked for alms of the fugitive. In a miserable hut
sits Alfred with his wife. He has one loaf of bread which he divides with
the beggar. The saint vanishes ; but in a vision announces that the days of
the king's adversity are passed, and that glory and honor are before him.
Again : Alfred is a minstrel. He finds admission to the Danish camp. He
wanders from tent to tent with his harp. His skill reaches the knowledge of
the Danish king.- He is feasted and welcomed. But he has noted the
numbers and position of his enemies, and returns to Athelney, to lead forth
his followers to victory. Who would be fastidious about the authenticity of
such narratives ? They affect no principle. They lead to no erroneous
conclusions. We must take them for what they are, and be glad of them.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says : " Then, in the seventh week after
Easter, he rode to Ecgbryht's-stone, on the east of Selwood ; arid there came
to meet him all the men of Somerset, and the men of Wiltshire, and that
portion of the men of Hampshire which was on this side of the sea ; and
they were joyful at his presence." The battle of Ethandune was one of
those decisive conflicts which entirely change the position of two contending
powers. It was the secresy and the suddenness of this movement which
saved the kingdom of the West Saxons. Once more the Saxon population
was in arms. They had a leader. They gathered round their lost king
with a rapture that cast away fear and doubt. On the third day came the
shock of battle at Ethandune. The Danes had come out from their camp to
meet the host that had so suddenly sprung up. After an obstinate fight
the Danes fled to their fortress. To the edge of their camp the king
pursued, carrying terror with him in unsparing slaughter. Shutting them
selves up in their fastnesses, they ventured no other fight in the open field ;
and after fourteen days of terrible privation, Guthrum, the conqueror of
East Anglia, offered to give hostages, and quit the kingdom of Wessex.
Alfred had conquered peace. But he had higher objects than the humiliation
of his enemy. The Danes had too secure possession of East Anglia
to be easily driven out. There, they had become settlers and cultivators.
They had entered into the nationality of England. They desired to
enter into the community of Christian States, and to renounce the
heathendom which they had brought from the great seats of northern
superstition. Guthrum, the king, seven weeks after his submission, was
baptized with thirty of his officers ; Alfred being his sponsor, and he
receiving the name of Athelstan. There can be no doubt of the wisdom of
this reconciliation. There was to be equal justice for English and Danish :
" If a man be slain, we estimate all equally dear." The same principles of

32 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE SAXONS. [410
Teutonic law applied to both people. " If a king's thane be accused of
man-slaying, if he dare to clear himself, let him do that with twelve king's
thanes." If any one accuse that man who is of less degree than the king's
thane, let him clear himself with eleven of his equals, and with one
king's thane. There is a clause in this treaty which clearly indicates that
the Saxon and the Danish people were at feud, and that it was dangerous to
rely upon peaceful and neighborly intercourse between them. It was
ordained that, " neither bond nor free might go to the host without leave, no
more than any of them to us." If there was to be traffic among them,
with cattle and with goods, hostages -were to be given in pledge of peace,
and as evidence that those who went to the strangers' camp or frontier went
for lawful purposes. Such regulations exhibit a remarkable picture of
society, in which man-slaying and plunder were especially to be provided
against. The Saxon king now presents himself to our view as invested with a
more exclusive power than appertained to the old Teutonic rulers. Although
chosen from a peculiar royal race, the sovereign was anciently little elevated
above his ealdormen. A higher value was set upon his life ; and a higher bot,
or compensation, was to be paid to him by offenders. But in Alfred's laws,
in which the principle of compensation was ascribed to the influence of
Christianity, instead of to the old institutions of the Saxon people, the bot
was expressly set aside in the case of treason. The peculiar character of
Alfred's code, differing in that respect from the "dooms" which had
preceded it, is the incorporation of the commandments delivered to Moses,
and the precepts of Christ, with the enactments that belonged to the social
condition of the Anglo-Saxon people. Many of the minor laws of the
Hebrew legislator are also copied with slight variation. But the great
Christian law of mercy and justice is also enacted : " That which ye will
that other men do not unto you, do ye not that to other men ; " and it is
added, " From this one doom a man may remember that he judge every one
righteously; he need heed no other doom-book." In the religious sanctions
and obligations of Alfred's laws we trace the distinct incorporation of the
Church with the State. That Alfred was a cautious legislator is manifest
from his own declaration in promulgating this code : " I, Alfred, king,
gathered these together, and commanded many of them to be written which
our forefathers held, those which to me seemed good ; and many of those
which seemed to me not good, I rejected them, by the counsel of my witan,
and in other wise commanded them to be holden. For I durst not venture
to set down in writing much of my own, for it was unknown to me what of
it would please those who should come after us."
In that interval of rest which followed the submission of the Danes in
878, the king gathered around him learned men from various districts. They
read to him ; they interpreted to him. In 884, he induced Asser, a Welsh
monk, to reside with him during a part of the year. In one sojourn of eight
months, Asser says, " I translated and read to him whatever books he wished

GAY'S CHRONOLOGICAL CHARTS OF

The name of each author, the dates of his birth and death, as far as could be ascertained, the title of the work by which he i
Poets and Novelists ; the second, the writers on History, Geography, and other matters of exact del
is often celebrated in various departments of knowledge. His name v

1804—1809.
IMAGINATION.
.1805  W. Iff. Xli\%wort\\^ix Rookwood" Novels.
— 1S81 IS. Ebisraeil (Beaconsfield), Vivian
Grey ; Novels.
— 1S73 Sir IS. ii. E. C Bnlwer (Lord Lyt
ton)., •" l he Laxtons"
6—1844 Jfuo. Sterling, Poems ; Tales ; Essays.
7—1877 Sara'l Warren, Ten Thousand a Year.
8— 1861 Ciias. Jas. Lever, Charles O'Af alley ;
Novels.
— 1879 Hon. Mrs. Norton, The Undying One ;
foetus.
9— 1861 Eliz. Barrett Browning, Aurora
Leigh ; Poems.
 Jno. S, Backie, Laws and Legends of
Greece.

FACT. 1804  Sir Jas. E. Tennent, Hist. of Mod. Gr.
—1872 Sir Hy. Lytton Buhver, Historical
Characters.
5 — 1875 Earl Stanhope (Lord Mahon), Hist.
of England.
— 18'/4 Agnes Strickland, Queens 0/ England ;
Letters of Mary, Queen of Scotts.
7  W. F. Allisworth, All Around the
World.
»8  Chris. Wordsworth, Pict. Dis. and
Hist.
S  Mrs. Cowdcn Clarke, Can. to Shakes
peare.
 Jno. Hill Barton, Hist, of Scotland.

SPECULATIVE AND SCIENTIFIC.
1S05  Sam'] Wilberforco, Sermons; Life of
Hit. . H ilberforce.
G— 1873 Jno. !il»lart Mill, Logic; Political
Economy.
—1863 Sir G. C. Lewis, Authority in Matters
of Opinion.
7  IS. €. French, Notes on the Miracles.
8  Jas. Ffr«uson, Prin. Beauty and Art.
9—1882 W. E. <; indstone, State and Church.
—1882 Chas. Darwin, Origin of Sfecies.

1810-1816.

1810  Martin Farqnliar '[upper, Prover
bial Phil.
 Alfred Tennyson, Poems.
H—1863 JUT. M. Thackeray, Vanity Fair ; Nov
els.
12  Robert Browning, Poems.
— 1881 Chas. Dickens, Sketches by Box; Novels.
13—1865 W. E. AytOUn, " Lays of Scot. Cav."
 Chas. Machay, Life and Lib. in Amer-

16-

ica ; Poems.
P. J. Bailey, Festus.

1810— 1S77 Thos. Wr-Ight, Queen Elizabeth and Her
Times.
12  Sir Goo. Grey, Dis. in Australia.
 Sir E. S. Creasy, Fifteen Decisive Battles.
of the World.
— 1S43 Jno. Foster, Life of G.ldsmith.

1810  Sir EI. C. Kawlluson, Philology.
12  Ales. W. Crawford (Lord Lind
say), Christian Arts.
 K. G. Latham, I'ar. of Mankind.
13  W. 15. Carpenter, Prin. of Physiology.
14—1374 Edwin Lankestcr, Natural History.
VVin. Slliith, Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Ant.
15  Arthur Stanley, Sinai and Palatine,
Pub. 1856.
15—i8s4 Edward I'orbes, Geology; Nat. Hist.
IO-1853 F. W. Kob'-rtson, Sermons.

Designee? for Gay's Standard Histories, byTOLIAM (TAV

NGLISH AUTHORS AND LITERATURE.

known. The names are arranged under three heads : Imagination ; Fact ; Speculative and Scientific. The first includes the
the third, those who treat of Philosophy and Science. This division cannot be perfect, for an author
;re be found in the division which includes his best known productions.

1817—1821.

1817  Eliza Cook, Poems.
19— 1S75 Chas. Kingsley, Alton Locke.
20— 1S80 Marian Evans (Geo. Eliot), Daniel
Dcronda.

1817  Austin Hy. Layard, Nineveh and its
Ken, aim.
— 1873 David Livingstone, Missionary Trav
els in South Africa.
18  J. A. Froude Hist, of England.
21  J. O. Halllweil, Diet. . Life of Shak.
 Wm. Hep worth Dixon, Jno. How
ard, a Memoir.

19-

20- 21-

— Jno. Knskin, Modern Painters.
— Sam'l Sasiies, Self-Help, Pub. 1859.
— Herbert Spencer, Sociology.
— Arthur Cayley, Math.. Terminology.

1822—1841.

1822— 1865 Elizabeth C. Gaske.ll, Mary Barton.
24—1855 Charlotte Bronte (Currer Bell),
"Jane Eyre ; " Novels.
25  W. Wllkic Collins, Woman in White
Novels.
 Adelaide Anne Procter, Legends;
Lyrics ; Poems.
Dinah Maria Mulock, Jno. Halifax.
Gentleman.

26-

28- 31-

32-41-

'

Gerald Massey, Poems.
Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton
(Oiven Meredith), Lucille.
Edwin Arnold, " The Light of Asia ."
Wm. Black, " Princess of Thule."

1822— 1862 Hy. T. Buckle, Hist, of Cir. in Eng.
30  Justin McCarthy, History of Our Own

1822  Matthew Arnold, God and the Bible ;
Poems.
25  Thos. W. Huxley, Physiology.

CHART VIII

BIRTHS,
1804—1841.

AUTHORS AND LITERATURE.

& CO., 256 Chapel St.. New Haven, Conn. COPYEIGHT 1883.

rjoi] DEFEAT OF THE DANES.— LITERARY WORK. 33
which were within our reach ; for it was his peculiar and perpetual custom,
day and night, amid all his afflictions of mind and body, either to read
books himself, or to have them read to him by others." In due time Alfred
himself became a teacher. No one ever devoted himself to the business of
authorship with greater earnestness and a higher sense of duty than this
remarkable Saxon. During the fourteen years which had followed the peace
with Guthrum, although he was exposed to occasional incursions of the
northern pirates, his great works were the establishment of order, the con
solidation of his kingdom, and the improvement of his people. The
Scriptures had been translated from Hebrew into Greek and Latin and
other tongues.
The Danes, under their great leader Hasting, are blockading the Loire,
in 882. Suddenly they turn to England, having concluded a truce with
France. Alfred has learned the true defense of the island, and defeats his
enemies at sea. In 884 they land in Kent, and besiege Rochester. Alfred
>.a there with his army, and drives them back to their ships. He has again
rest. The internal improvements of the country is his chief care. He
founds new religious establishments. He establishes schools in the various
towns. He builds fortresses. He repairs roads. He constructs cities,
especially London, out of the ashes of a desolating warfare. But amid
all this earnest work, he has time for his books. He translates Boetius,*
interspersing the original with constant additions from his own rich thoughts.
Bede's English History is rendered by him from Latin into Saxon ; and so
is the ancient History of Orosius, to the geographical portions of which he
made interesting additions. Some of the original copies of these works are
still preserved. Other translations are ascribed to him. The Pastorale of
Pope Gregory was a plain treatise on the duties of the parochial clergy. It
was not addressed to the learned ; but was a practical manual for those who
were the natural instructors of the laity. It was, in English, " The Herds
man's Book." For the people themselves he prepared works of history and
geography. He corresponded with Rome, by ambassadors and by letters.
He maintained a communication with the patriarch of Jerusalem ; and what
strikes us as most remarkable, he sent a bishop with bounteous gifts to the
Syrian Christians in India. His work was not ended when Guthrum, the
Dane, who had made several ineffectual attempts to shake off his allegiance,
died in 890. In 894, Alfred was, substantially, the king of all England. In
that year the Danes, who had previously established a landing in the mouth
of the Thames, effected another landing in Kent. Alfred was not unpre
pared. During the interval of peace he had created a navy. He defeated
the army of the Northmen who landed in Kent. He cleared Mercia of its
ravagers, and they fled to the Isle of Mersey. They had established an alliance
in East Anglia, and, with powerful re-enforcements, the next year marched
across the country, and took possession of Chester. Again was Alfred after
* This Latin book, "De Consolatione Philosophic," was written early in_ the sixth century, and
was very popular in the middle ages.
3

34 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— SAXONS AND DANES. [901
them ; and again he drove them to the east. They towed their ships up the
Thames into the Lea, where they fortified themselves. The Londoners
attacked them, but were repulsed. It was the approaching harvest-time of
896, and Alfred brought up his army to prevent the invaders from gathering
the corn. The Danish ships were in the Lea ; the army was close at hand in
its intrenchments. Alfred turned the course of the river below his enemy's
position. The channel by which the Danes could bring out their vessels
became dry. The invading army then marched through the midland
counties to the Severn, and the Londoners seized the deserted vessels.
Hasting intrenched himself at Bridgenorth during the ensuing winter ; but
the spirit of the invaders was broken, and Hasting left the country. The
coast was still harassed by frequent descents of the piratical enemy. The
great general now became, as Southey terms him, " The first English
admiral." The Saxon ships, as ordinarily built, were inferior to the a^ses of
the Northmen, as their vessels were termed. With these ships Alfred went
forth to his sea-fights. He swept the coast wherever the marauders
appeared, and with a terrible severity he executed the men he captured as
pirates. The great enemy was at length completely overcome. Alfred
secured his kingdom's peace in 897. Within four years, in 901, he was
called " where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."

THE SAXONS AND DANES.— BATTLE OF HASTINGS.—
CLOSE OF SAXON PERIOD.
(901-1066.)
Alfred, as we have seen, married at a very early age ; and as he was fifty-
two when he died, his eldest son, Edward, was probably about thirty when he
was called to the throne by the choice of the witan. But, chosen as he was
by the general voice, and marked out for a rule as the companion in arms of
his father, Edward found that the title to the throne was contested. In the
case of Alfred, the lineal succession was set aside ; for his elder brother,
Ethelred, had left children. His son, Ethelwold, on the election of Edward,
disputed his title ; seized upon some royal houses ; and finally fled to North
umbria, where the Danes chose him as supreme king. A civil war now
ensued, which lasted, with various fortunes, for four years. But Ethelwold
at length fell in a great fight in East Anglia, which he had invaded and laid
waste. His death put an end to this unnatural contention ; and Edward, the
next year, concluded a treaty with the Danes. King Edward possessed the
indomitable vigor of his father, however he might be wanting in those quali
ties which raised Alfred so high above the mere warrior. There was another
of Alfred's children, who had the same energy of character; and who cherished
the same resolve to consolidate the realm of England under one dominant
authority. That ally of Edward in this difficult labor was his sister Ethel-
fleda. She was the wife of Ethelred, the friend of Alfred, who held under

io66] EDWARD AND ETHELFLEDA.— ATHELSTAN. 35
Shim the rule of Mercia. He died in 912. His widow was not superseded by
¦.an ealdorman, or sub-king. She was " the Lady of Mercia ; " and wisely and
»bravely did she govern. There was perfect accord between the king and the
^sovereign lady. Ethelfleda erected fortresses to protect her territory, at
Bridgenorth, Stamford, Tamworth, Warwick ; while Edward fortified Hertford
-and Witham. But active as well as defensive warfare was still necessary.
In 911, Rollo, the great sea-king, obtained the cession of that duchy of France
to which the Northmen gave their name. This conquest, from which such
;great results were to ensue in the lapse of centuries, offered, at first, encourage
ment to new attacks upon Saxon England. Though the Danish settlers
were, for the most part, Christian, their pagan countrymen continued to
penetrate into the interior from the coasts of East Anglia and Northumbria ;
and the old contest, in which the settler and the pirate were united against
Wessex and Mercia, was still going on. The Welsh, too, appeared again in
revolt. Edward and Ethelfleda were unwearied in their resistance to the
powers which assailed them in so many directions ; and they were ultimately
successful. They became assailants, too, of the territories which had been
subdued by the Northmen. The Danes of East Anglia swore allegiance to
Tidward, who had possessed himself of Colchester, and had repaired the
Roman walls ; and Ethelfleda compelled the Danish garrisons of Derby
:and Leicester to surrender, and the Danes of York to submit to her
¦authority. Finally all the island acknowledged the son of Alfred as lord and
protector. The heroic lady of Mercia died at Tamworth about the year 920 ;".
and Edward died in 924. Their lives were a perpetual struggle, — first to
maintain the integrity of their dominions; and, secondly, to establish a more
perfect security by their extension. Upon the death of Ethelfleda, Edward
annexed Mercia to Wessex, disregarding the claims of her daughter.
Athelstan, the son of Edward, was crowned at Kingston, in 924. It appears
that this succession, though sanctioned by the witan, met with opposition ;
and a conspiracy was formed to depose him and put out his eyes. The leader
¦of this sedition is called, by Malmesbury, one Elfred.
The reign of Athelstan was spread over the short term of fifteen years,
but it was the culminating point of the glory and power of Saxon England.
" The terror of his name," according to Malmesbury, left him the undisputed
•dominion of the island, with the exception of Northumbria. The Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle gives a pithy summary of the events of this year : " And
Sihtric perished ; and King Athelstan obtained the kingdom of the Northum
brians ; and he ruled all the kings who were on this island ; first, Huwal, king
of the West-Welsh ; and Constantine, king of the Scots ; and Uwen, king of
the Guentian people ; and Ealdred, son of Ealdulf, of Bamborough ; and they
-confirmed the peace by pledge, and by oaths, at the place called Eamot, on
the fourth of the Ides of July ; and they renounced all idolatry, and after that
submitted to him in peace." Guthfric returned the next year in arms to
-claim the Northumbrian kingdom ; but he was subdued by Athelstan, and
.making his submission, was received in kindness. He soon joined the

36 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— SAXONS AND DANES. [901
piratical bands of his countrymen. The power which Athelstan had thus
won by his sword, he appears to have retained in peace for about ten years.
Louis IV. of France, in his earlier years, had sought refuge with his maternal
uncle, Athelstan, and hence he was called " D'outremer," "from beyond the
sea," during the usurpation of Rudolph. Summoned to the throne from his
English exile, he was finally protected in his dominion by the English king.
The states of France sent deputies to Athelstan on the death of Rudolph,.
who took the oath of allegiance to Louis in the presence of Athelstan and his
queen ; and when the rule of the young Frank was disturbed by his great
vassals, another treaty of alliance between the countries was entered into-
Daniel, the French historian, has this comment on the event : " This is the
first example which we have in our history, not only of an offensive league-
between France and England, but it is also the first treaty by which these
two kingdoms concerned themselves about each other's welfare. Until this
event the two nations considered themselves as two worlds, which had no
connection but that of commerce to maintain, and had no interest to culti
vate either friendship or enmity in other concerns." A league against him
was formed by the under-kings of Scotland and Cumberland in 934. Athel
stan was prompt in his measures. He marched into Scotland with a great
army, and his fleet ravaged the coast as far as Caithness. Anlaf, the son of
Guthfric the Dane, had married a daughter of Constantine of Scotland ; and
the re-establishment of the Northumbrian kingdom was the great object to
be attained by the union of all who had felt the power, and were humiliated
by the magnificence, of their Saxon lord. The Danes, the Scots, and the
Welsh appeared in arms. Anlaf, who had obtained dominion in Ireland and
the western isles, with upwards of six hundred ships, entered the Humber.
All the North was in insurrection. All the South and East went forth to
uphold the integrity of the kingdom. The chroniclers tell the same romantic
story, with variations, that they told of Alfred. Anlaf, the Dane, enters the
camp of Athelstan as a harper. He plays before the king. A soldier, who
had formerly served under Anlaf, knew the supposed harper, and communi
cated his knowledge to the king, who was indignant that he had not been
seized. The honest soldier declared that he should have scorned to betray
his former leader, but he warned Athelstan to shift his position. The king
followed the timely advice ; and when Anlaf attacked the camp at night, he
found other victims. Two days after was fought the great battle of Brunan-
burh, by which the confederacy against the Saxon power was completely
overthrown — the bloodiest fight, say authors, that ever this island saw. The
terrors of that "slaughter-place " left Athelstan in peace for his few remaining
years. He promulgated a code of laws, as his father and grandfather had
done. Athelstan died in the year 940.
According to the chroniclers, Edmund the Etheling, who had fought at
Brunan-burh, was only eighteen when he came to the crown. This appears
somewhat unlikely. During his short reign of about six years he was twice
married. But the removal of the vigorous Athelstan was the signal of fresh

3066] EDMUND.— HIS DEATH.— EDRED.— DUNSTAN. if.
troubles. Anlaf was called from Ireland, and set up by the Northumbrians as
their king. He concluded a successful treaty with Edmund, but soon after
•died. His son could not uphold the power ; and the district was again
reduced under the dominion of the king of Wessex. Edmund had also
subdued the Britons of Cumbria ; and had granted their lands to Malcolm of
Scotland, under the condition of military service. The circumstances of his
¦death, in the year 946, exhibit a scene of Saxon manners which proves how
strongly the old disposition to employ physical force still prevailed. The
king is celebrating the festival of Saint Augustin. An outlaw whom he had
banished dares to take his seat among the guests. The wine-cup goes round ;
.but Edmund discovers the intruder, and commands his removal. Upon the
man's resistance, the enraged prince rushes at him ; seizes him by the hair,
and dashes him to the ground. At the same instant the outlaw draws a
dagger, and plunges it into the breast of the ill-fated Edmund. The king
instantly died ; and the assassin was cut to pieces by the beholders of the
sudden affray. It is half a century since Alfred established the Saxon king
dom. His son and his grandson have valiantly fought to uphold it. A rule
•of another character, more mighty than the sword, is growing into form. It
lias humble beginnings. At the court of Athelstan was a precocious youth of
a noble race. His acquirements were far above those of his time ; but his
boasted visions and his superior talents and knowledge, caused him to be
regarded as a sorcerer. This youth was Dunstan ; for thirty years the real
governor of England. Under Edmund, Dunstan was simple abbot of
<jlastonbury. Edred, the brother of Edmund, succeeded to the throne, after the fatal
blow of the outlaw. Edmund left two very young sons, Edwy and Edgar.
Edred was of feeble constitution and of a confiding temper. His first adviser
was the Chancellor Turketul, who had fought at the battle of Brunan-burh.
In a few years the statesman devoted himself to religion and became abbot
-of Croyland. Dunstan now became the chief director of the public affairs of
the country. He was, in the words of one of his biographers " Rex et Regis
Imperator," king and ruler of the king. He was the keeper of his treasures.
During this reign, Northumbria, which had revolted, was finally subdued ;
¦and Edred changed its form of government, and reduced it from a kingdom
to an earldom. The great abbot of Glastonbury is stated to have refused
the see of Winchester, which was offered to him by Edred. His domination
was perhaps better secured by his comparatively humble position. He was
planning a real revolution — the establishment of the monastic rule in England,
and the concurrent supremacy of the papal power. The celibacy of the
•clergy was the leading principle to be contended for, in making the church
Romish instead of national. Although the strict canons of the Anglo-Church
did not recognize a married priesthood, the law of celibacy had never besn
rigidly enforced, especially among the parochial clergy. Their marriages
were discountenanced ; they were admonished or threatened. But the lav/ cf
nature was triumphant over the decrees of councils.

38 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— SAXONS AND DANES. [901:
Edwy, called the Fair, succeeded to the crown of his uncle by the voice-.
of the witan. The boy-king was sixteen, or at most eighteen, years of age-
at his accession ; but after a prosperous and becoming commencement of his
reign, its happy promise was cut short by a premature death. In the destruc
tion of that happy promise, and in that premature death, we have a tragedy
over which many eyes have wept. The participation of Dunstan in that trag
edy has made his name hateful with all by whom the piteous tale of " Edwy
and Elgiva" has been received with undoubting faith. The coronation of the
young king followed quickly after his accession. The coronation feast
succeeds. At this coronation feast the king retired early. The assembly
murmured with some reason at the absence of the king. Dunstan and.
another went forth, and bursting into Edwy's privy chamber, found him in
the company of Elgiva and her mother Ethelgiva. The abbot seized the
youth, and forcibly dragged him back to the hall. It has been called an act
of sudden passion. To us it appears an act of the most profound policy..
The authority of the monk was tottering; and he, for this reason,.
asserted his power before the assembled people. Dunstan was banished-
A plot was got up to separate the young queen from her husband,.
under the plea that the marriage was within the forbidden degrees. They
were " to gesybbe," — too nearly related. There was no solemn act of separa
tion. Upon the banishment of Dunstan there was soon a revolt against the:
authority of Edwy. Odo, the archbishop of Canterbury, was a Dane. His
influence in Northumbria was very great, and he instigated a general rising
in that old settlement of the Danes. In a very short time Edwy had to-
divide his dominion with his brother Edgar, who was set up, not as a sub-
ruler, but as a sole king. The rebellious subject came to Edwy and his queen
with the terrible powers of the Church. He dragged Elgiva from her
husband. There is here some confusion in the narrative of the sad sequel of
the violence. A lady was forcibly sent to Ireland, after being disfigured by
hot searing irons ; she escaped back to England ; was seized by the adherents
of the party opposed to Edwy, and was put to a cruel death. Of Elgiva we.
hear no more. Edwy died after a reign of four years. Whether he was
murdered, or whether he died of a broken heart, we are not satisfactorily-
informed. It is sufficient for the monastic chroniclers to date the triumph.
of the Benedictine order in England from the " miserable end," as they
honestly call it, of him whom they designate as " the wanton youth." ' Dunstan
was indisputable governor of the country through the reign of Edgar. The
king was still a mere boy when Edwy was removed. He was only thirteen
¦ when the land was divided between him and his brother.
The reign of Edgar was a reign of sixteen years of peace, with the
exception of an invasion of Wales, to enforce the payment of tribute. But
out of this peace of sixteen years were to come fearful wars and bitter humili
ations. The great Saxon heart was to be held in subjection to the Danish
preponderance, which had been unnaturally fostered by Dunstan for- party-
purposes. There is nothing more repulsive than the extravagant praises which.

io66] EDGAR'S CRIMES.— EDWARD THE MARTYR. 39
the monastic writers have bestowed upon this licentious and ostentatious
puppet of a bold and sagacious minister. Whenever we can distinctly see
Edgar himself, we find a selfish, arrogant, and cruel prince. The story of
Elfrida was a popular one in Malmesbury's time ; and it will hold a place in
history, for it belongs to the romance of history. The king heard of the
lady's beauty, and he sent his favorite, Athelwold, to report to him if the
universal praise was true, of one who lived in seclusion from the court.
Athelwold became violently in love with the lady ; and upon his return
concealed from the king the impression which her charms had made upon
himself; spoke disparagingly of her attractions; and subsequently married
her. The truth came to the knowledge of the luxurious king ; and he
announced to his thane that he would visit him and his bride. The terrified '
Athelwold exhorted his wife to exhibit herself as a slattern, and to conceal
her fascinations under a coarse deportment. The ambitious woman had
another policy. She put on her gayest adornings and her most encouraging
smiles. Edgar and Elfrida came to a perfect understanding. Athelwold was
run through by the king with a javelin, when hunting with him. Elfrida
became Edgar's queen. To make up the complete picture, Malmesbury
records that Edgar extended his protection to an illegitimate son of Athel
wold, because the youth, being asked by his royal master how he liked the
sport in which his father fell, replied, " I ought not to be displeased with that
which gives you pleasure." The duplicity of Athelwold, the profligate ambi
tion of Elfrida, the ferocity of Edgar, and the dastardly coldness of the
sycophantic boy, exhibit a state of morals which is not favorable to the
cultivation of Saxon sympathies. During the reign of Edgar we find many
proofs of a vigorous administration. Dunstan was his constant director. He
wielded a despotic power ; and he preserved a show of tranquility. Nothing
stood in the way of his stern justice. He made his king submit to seven
years' penance for on.e of his outbreaks of licentiousness ; and he hung three
coiners of money before he would perform mass on a Whitsunday. When
Edgar died he left two sons. Edward, the child of his first wife, Ethelfleda,
was thirteen years old at his father's death. Ethelred, the son of Elfrida, was
only seven. A strong party of the nobles demanded that the choice between
Edward and Ethelred should be determined by election. Dunstan, by one of
his vigorous movements, quelled the dispute, and presenting Edward to the
assembled thanes and ecclesiastics at Winchester, consecrated him on the
spot. Dunstan was the adviser and controller of the young king, Edward, as he
had been of his father. The innocent boy was to be sacrificed as a party
victim by those opposed to the monastic domination ; and his abandoned
step-mother, who hated him for standing in the way of her son's elevation,
was included in the plot. At Corfe, a royal manor, resided Elfrida and
Ethelred. Edward had been hunting at Wareham, and became separated
from his companions. A dwarf appears out of the forest coverts, and
proposes to guide him to a place of rest and refreshment. He reaches the

40 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— SAXONS AND DANES. [901
home of the widowed queen, who meets him at the door with a betraying
kiss. She brings out wine to the wearied boy ; and as he lifts the goblet
to his lips, sitting on his horse, he is stabbed in the back. He spurs his steed
from the fatal porch ; faints and falls ; is dragged in the stirrups ; and is
traced by his blood. We may well believe that the guilty woman, as the
chroniclers record, suffered the most fearful terrors of an evil conscience ; and
we may also believe that many a less' innocent saint has been canonized than
this poor boy " Edward the Martyr."
It would have been well for England if Ethelred " the unready " had
been destined to become the drowsy head of a monastery rather than " the
sleeping king " that he afterward became. Malmesbury goes on to tell us,
" The career of his life is said to have been cruel in the beginning ....
in the murder to which he gave his concurrence he was cruel." lie was only
ten years old when this murder took place. Dunstan hated him ; and when,
as primate, he placed the crown upon his head, he pronounced this curse :
" Even as, by the death of thy brother, thou didst aspire to the kingdom,
hear the decree of Heaven. The sin of thy wicked mother, and of her
accomplices, shall rest upon thy head ; and such evils shall fall upon the
English as they have never yet suffered, from the days when they first came
into the isle of Britain even until the present time." Dunstan lived till the
tenth year of Ethelred's reign ; but we have no record that he was " in high
esteem." There had been no attack of the Danes since the reign of Athel
stan. In 980, Sweyn, the banished son of the king of Denmark, was devastat
ing the British shores. In a few years the attacks of the Danes became
more systematic. In 991, they landed in East Anglia ; and here, alone, they
found a sturdy resistance among those of their own lineage. " And in that
year it was decreed, that tribute, for the first time, should be given to the
Danishmen, on account of the great terror which they caused by the sea-coast.
That was at first ten thousand pounds : this counsel advised first archbishop
Sidric." It was a fatal counsel ; " an infamous precedent." In 991, they
were bribed and bought off with ten thousand pounds of silver ; in
994, with sixteen thousand ; in 1001, with twenty-four thousand ; in
1007, with thirty-six thousand ; and in 1012, with forty-eight thousand.
A pound of silver was worth about three pounds of modern monev
and would have purchased eight oxen, or fifty sheep. The Danes had
probably become insolent and overbearing ; so that " the common people
were some of them oppressed, that for fear and dread they called them, in
every house as they had rule of, Lord Dane." In 1002, Ethelred had
married Emma, the sister of the duke of Normandy. Immediately after his
marriage, on the feast of St. Brice, the king issued orders for a massacre
of the Danes within the district over which he had authority. On that terri
ble 13th of November, as bloody a tragedy was enacted in this country as the
history of religious persecution or national hatred can furnish in any country
Men, women, children, were indiscriminately butchered. The sister of
Sweyn, the Northman, who was married in England, and had adopted the

1066] SWEYN PROCLAIMED KING.— CANUTE. 41*
Christian faith, was among the victims. In the agony of her last hours the
heroic Gunhilda warned her murderers that a terrible retribution would
come upon England for this national crime. In less than a year Sweyn was
in the land with fire and desolation.
From the year 1003 to 1007, the retribution which Gunhilda had foreseen
was going on. Devastation came after devastation, and tribute was exacted
after tribute. The people in a brief time would pay no longer ; and a bolder
and wiser policy was adopted. A man in harness was to. be provided upon
every eight hides of land, and a vessel from every three hundred and ten
hides. Out of the latter contribution came the precedent for that claim for
" ship-money," to the resistance of which claim we probably owe the power
yet to build ships and to man them. A vast naval force in 1009 was
assembled at Sandwich. But there was a quarrel among the commanders,
and a great wind cast the ships upon the land. At this period there was
treachery on every side. There were minor traitors who were punished ; but
the great traitor, Alfric, who again and again betrayed his country, retained
all his ancient power. There was another traitor, the king's favorite, Edric ;
who, after a series of intrigues against his weak master, finally joined the
Danish forces with a large body of men, and assisted in the ravage of Canter
bury. There came at last a fleet from Denmark to carry on a war of exter
mination. The king of Denmark was at length under the walls of London.
Sweyn retreated to Bath, and there proclaimed himself king of England, and
received homage from all the western nobles, and from those of the north.
Ethelred now fled to the Isle of Wight, and London surrendered. To
Pvichard of Normandy the king went. In 1014 Sweyn died. His army
proclaimed his son Canute as king ; but Ethelred was recalled by " all the
witan who were in England, clergy and laity." They recalled him upon
terms — " that no lord were dearer to them than their natural lord, if he would
rule them rightlier than he had done before." This condition (in which it is
held " we may discern the germ of Magna Charta, and of all the subsequent
compacts between the king and the people of England "*) was accepted by
Ethelred, on condition that they all, with one consent, would be obedient to
him without deceit.
Edmund, the son of Ethelred, was well qualified by his bodily strength,
which gave him the name of " Ironside," and by his energetic valor, to be
that leader which the Saxon race had so long needed. Edric was circumvent-.
ing Edmund at every step. In the mean time Canute was establishing his full
¦claim to sovereignty. In the April of 1016 Ethelred died. The citizens of
London proclaimed Edmund king. A council sitting at Southampton, which
had previously decreed that every Danish king should be an outlaw, took the
oaths to Canute. There was instant preparation for war on both sides.
Canute had a great fleet in the Thames. Edmund marched boldly into
Wessex, and was' there accepted as king. He then raised the siege of
London. Battle after battle ensued ; and the Ironside would have cleared
* Palgrave, History of England, chap. xiii.

42 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— SAXONS AND DANES. [gor
the land of his enemies, but for that false confidence which had ruined his
father. He trusted once more to Edric : and in the moment of victory, the
betrayer, who had a command in the Saxon army, suddenly cried out, " Flee,.
English, flee ; dead is Edmund." The English fled. Edmund and Canute
agreed to divide the sovereignty. In a very short time Edmund died, and
his death is attributed, reasonably enough, to the hand of Edric. It is
recorded that when Edric came to urge rewards for service, Canute told him
that a new lord could expect little fealty from one who had murdered his old
lord ; and that, upon this hint, Eric of Northumbria slew the traitor with his
battle-axe. Canute the Dane is in 1017 sole king of England. Edmund's two infant
boys were sent to the king of Sweden, by Canute. The children grew to-
manhood ; and the younger, Edmund, became the father of Edgar Atheling,
and of Margaret, the queen of Malcolm of Scotland. Edwy, the brother cf
the heroic king Edmund, was slain by command of Canute. There were two
other claimants to the English throne, Edward and Alfred, the son's of
Ethelred by his wife Emma of Normandy. Their rights were asserted by
their uncle Richard ; but Canute settled the dispute by marrying their
mother. There is a well known legend of Canute and his courtiers. The
king plants his chair on the sands, commanding the waves to retire, but the
waters will not obey ; and Canute moralizes upon the vanity of earthly rule,.
compared with that of the Power who alone could say to the sea, " Thus far
shalt thou go, and no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.""
When he ceased to be an enemy of England he became a real friend. His
power was too strong to be disputed ; and he therefore wielded it with
moderation after the contest for supremacy was fairly over. He, the emperor
of the Anglo-Saxons, as he chose to be called, was also king of Swedes, and
Danes, and Norwegians. Canute died in 1035.
Canute had two sons previous to his marriage with Emma of Normandy.
They were illegitimate. The one was Sweyn ; the other Harold, called the
Harefoot. His legitimate son by Emma was Hardicanute. At the time of
Canute's death, the two sons of Ethelred, also the children of Emma, were
living in Normandy. The two sons of Edmund Ironside were in Hungary.
Of these possible claimants to the crown of England, Harold was the only one
in the country. Sweyn had the kingdom of Norway assigned to him in his
father's lifetime. Hardicanute was in Denmark. The great nobles were
divided as to the choice of a successor to the Danish king ; but at a witena-
gemot held at Oxford, it was decided that Mercia and Northumbria should be
assigned to Harold ; while Wessex should be held by Emma, as regent for
her son Hardicanute, who remained in his Scandinavian kingdom. There
was a strong party in Wessex, who would have preferred the sons of their old
Saxon king Ethelred. Edward, in consequence, came over with Norman
soldiers. But these new followers of an English prince were hateful to the
people ; and Edward very soon gave up an enterprise which involved so
much of personal risk. A similar attempt of his brother Alfred had a tragic

io66] HAROLD.— EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 45
ending. The unfortunate Alfred was the victim of an abominable plot. A
letter had been written in the name of his mother, urging her son to make an
attempt to obtain the kingdom. When Alfred had advanced into the country,.
Earl Godwin, who had supported the claims of Hardicanute, received hinx
with open arms and conducted him to Guildford. In the night the weary
adventurers were seized and manacled. Some write that the greater number
were massacred ; and that Alfred was blinded, and finally put to death at Ely.
The mother of Alfred fled to Burges; and Harold was proclaimed king of all
England. The illegitimate son of Canute did not long retain his ill-gotten power.
He died in 1039. Hardicanute was now invited to take possession of the
vacant throne. His election equally satisfied the Saxons and the Danes.
He was propitiated by the splendid presents of the powerful Godwin ; and.
suffered his mother and the great earl to rule the kingdom, while he
abandoned himself to his feasts and carousals. Hardicanute, the last of the-
Danish kings, soon made an end of his feasts and dominion. At a great
marriage -banquet at the house of Clapa, one of his thanes, the king stood up
at a late hour of the night to pledge the company, and dropping speechless,
was carried to his death-bed, after having reigned a little less than two years.
There was a man in England, of eminent ability, of almost supreme power,.
who had that intense feeling of nationality which would make the Saxon race-
again predominant. That man was Earl Godwin. He put Edward the son of
Ethelred upon the throne.; and he gave to him his own daughter in marriage.
Godwin is the prominent man in the reign of Edward the Confessor. At
the accession of Edward he held the greatest earldom of the south, including
Sussex, Kent, and part of Wessex. His sons, Harold and Sweyn, were, with.
their father, the lords of all the land from the Humber to the Severn.
They had the command of half England, and of the richest half. Edith, the
daughter of Godwin, who became queen, exhibits, in the quiet charms of her
character, a proof that in the family of the ambitious earl she had received a
gentle nurture. Her husband, with the superstition of the cloister, first
neglected her. Then came a time when he persecuted her.
There were two other mighty chieftains, who divided the kingdom with.
Godwin and his family, as the delegates of the sovereign : Leofric, who ruled
the northern counties of Mercia ; and Siward, whose earldom reached from
the Humber to the Scottish borders. This was the Siward of Shake
speare — -"Warlike Siward" — "Old Siward" — the protector of Malcolm,
the son of the murdered Duncan — the father of " young Siward," who
perished in the battlefield where Macbeth fell. "Where were his wounds?""
said the stout old earl. " In front." " Then I would wish no better fate."
By these powerful nobles was the throne of Edward upheld, at the
beginning of his reign. They asserted the Saxon supremacy. Edward was,
however deficient in force of character, a gentle and merciful ruler. He had
abolished the Dane-gelt. Under the old laws, the Saxon and the Dane now
lived in peace. They pursued their industrious occupations, and the country

44 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— SAXONS AND DANES. [901
was flourishing. The gentle king was, moreover, a healer of the sick, and a
restorer to sight of the blind. It was he who first used " the healing benedic
tion," which he left to " the succeeding royalty."
Eustace, Count of Boulogne, had married Goda, the sister of Edward. He
came to the court of his brother-in-law with a great retinue. Here he would
meet with bishops and abbots, earls and knights, of French lineage. Radulf,
the foreign nephew of the king, was there, all powerful. Eustace naturally
thought that England was a tribute-land for the Normans, and that the Saxon
was a born slave. On his return to Boulogne, he had to rest at Dover ; and at
the head of his followers he demanded quarters of the sturdy householders.
The burghers resisted the insolent mandate ; and one who refused entrance
to the foreigners- was slain. Then Count Eustace, when the cry of vengeance
rose among the people, made a furious onslaught with his spearmen upon the
inhabitants, and many fell under the French lances. The burghers slew
nineteen. At Gloucester, surrounded by his Norman court, the pacific
king showed unwonted fury against his rebellious subjects, who had resisted
the will of his brother-in-law. He sent for Earl Godwin, in whose earldom
this outbreak had taken place, and ordered him to visit the people of Dover
with a summary vengeance. The earl refused. They should have legal trial
in the burh-gemot ; he would see justice done ; but he would not punish,
without a hearing, those whom the king was bound to protect. Suddenly
Edward yielded. But the Norman counselors represented the discretion of
Godwin as direct rebellion ; and he was summoned to appear before a great
council at Gloucester. While Edward was surrounded by his new favorites,
Godwin saw danger ; and he came prepared for resistance. He and his sons
marched to the west with a large force. Civil war seemed imminent. But
Earl Leofric and some others proposed that, exchanging hostages, the king
and Godwin should on the day named meet at London for a conference.
The king employed the interval in raising a great army ; while Godwin's
adherents returned to their homes. Then Sweyn, by sentence of the witan,
was outlawed. Godwin and Harold were sentenced to banishment — to depart
out of England within five days. The unmanly king extended his revenge to
his own wife. He sent her to the cheerless prison of a monastery, that of
Wherwell, where his own sister, the abbess, would be ready enough to
persecute one so fair and so accomplished as Edith, the daughter of the
banished earl. The time was fast approaching when no earl would defend a
burgher against injustice. One system of government is melting into another
system. When Canute leaped into the English throne, and married the widow of
Ethelred, her brother Richard II. became the protector of her two sons by her
first marriage ; and they remained under his guardianship till his death, about
1026. His eldest son, Richard III., succeeded to the dukedom; but he soon
gave place to his brother Robert. That brother was for ten years the bold
and powerful duke, who is sometimes styled " Robert the Magnificent " and
more commonly " Robert the Devil." He went upon a pilgrimage to the

1066] EARL GODWIN'S DEATH.— HAROLD. 45
Holy Land. Before his departure he presented to the nobles a little boy who
he said was his son ; and told them that his "little bastard" should be
their lord if he saw them no more. He died in Bithynia, in 1035, the same
year in which Canute died. The young William of Normandy was placed
under the care of Henry I. of France. At the death of Robert he was put
in possession of his father's dominions. Edward of England and William of
Normandy were second-cousins. William in 105 1 was free to visit his cousin
Edward in England. William sojourned a little while at the court of Edward ;
and he there found ample encouragement for his ambition, and ready
instruments of his will, when the fortunate hour should come. In 1052 Harold
and Leofwine sailed from Ireland, and entered the Severn. They landed,
and defeated the opposing thanes, whose districts they ravaged. Godwin, in
the mean time, had fitted out a fleet from Flanders, and found all the mariners
of the coast, and all the people of his old earldom, ready to follow his bidding.
Harold came round the coast, and joined his father at Portland. They seized
upon the king's ships ; they received hostages ; they obtained supplies
wherever they touched. At length they sailed up the Thames, and found the
people of Southwark favorable to their cause. The king at length yielded.
Then the Normans, who were with the army and the king, hastily fled. The
witan was assembled ; and decreed the restoration of the earls, and held them
innocent of the acts and designs which had been imputed to them. The greater
number of the foreign advisers of Edward were declared outlaws. The joy
of the Anglo-Saxon race was unbounded. They had achieved a great triumph
with little bloodshed. Within a year after his restoration the energetic and
sagacious Godwin died.
In the year 1065 Harold is practically the foremost man of England.
He has won the king to the endurance of his power, and has almost com
manded his confidence and affection. He was the idol of the Saxon race.
He had subdued the British people to his fealty by the terror of his arms.
The Northumbrians were, he might believe, unequal to contend with him in
any great contest for supremacy. That he looked to the crown of England
on the death of Edward was a natural result of his character and his position.
Harold visited William of Normandy. His ostensible reason for going was
to redeem his young brother Ulnoth, and his nephew, who had both been
confided to William, when Godwin gave them as hostages upon the conclusion
of his revolt. They had been detained in Normandy, though not ill-treated.
They talked of England ; and the duke said that when he and Edward were
living under the same roof in Normandy, Edward had affirmed that if ever
he became king of England, William should be his successor. The timid
man of forty was making this promise to the bold boy of fourteen, if we are
to believe the Norman chronicles. William then asked whether Harold would
support him in realizing that promise. The Saxon was in his power. These
were not times when ambition was easily surrendered to conscientiousness.
Harold assented. But his assent was to be more solemnly enforced. He was
to swear. He did swear. But he swore with a mental reservation.

46 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— SAXONS AND DANES. [oor
Harold, at length, returned to England. In that voyage across the
narrow sea he had lost much. He had lost his future freedom of action. He
would be false to his oath ; or he would surrender his nationality to a crafty
and imperious lord. The season of his return was not one of inaction for
Harold. His brother Tostig and William of Normandy had married sisters, —
the daughters of Baldwin, count of Flanders. In his earldom of Northumbria,
Tostig was most tyrannous and oppressive, even beyond the usual oppression,
which others of these petty kings exercised over their people. We may
know what was the general nature of this oppression from the story of
Godiva. A true poet has told that story with more than historic fidelity.*
We see the gentle woman appealing to her grim lord, Leofric, to remit a tax
u.pon the people of Coventry :
" She told him of their tears,
And pray'd him, ' If they pay this tax, they starve.' "
And so, to procure the remission of the tax, she did her lord's imperious
bidding ; and " Then she rode forth, clothed on y.-i;h chastity."
Tostig went beyond the enormities of most of the grasping and licentious
nobles, "who made a prey of the common people," as Malmesbury writes.
The people of Northumbria rose against his power, drove him from York,
and chose Morcar, one of the sons of Leofric, as their chief. The whole
country was in alarm ; and Harold was deputed to put down the insurrection.
The fraternal bond — the pride of family which would shrink from the
•elevation of a son of Leofric over his own house — might have moved Harold
to throw his whole military strength into the contest. But he summoned the
insurgent people to a conference. They stated their wrongs. He tried to
extenuate the deeds of Tostig, and to plead for his restoration. " We were
horn free," said the Northumbrians. "We were brought up in freedom.
We will have no tyrant." Harold returned to the king without striking a
blow ; and he brought back to the insurgents pardon and peace. Tosti°- fled
to Flanders ; and became Harold's implacable enemy. Upon the banishment
of Tostig, Harold contracted a marriage of policy. He married the daughter
of Algar; she being the widow of Griffith, king of Wales, whose sons had
succeeded to the kingdom. He was thus placed in alliance with two of the
most powerful of the other chieftains. Edward died on the 5th of January,
1066. Some of the chroniclers, among others Hoveden, state, that before his
decease the king appointed Harold his successor. The fact is generally
admitted. The Saxon king was crowned on the day of Edward's burial, by
the Saxon archbishop Stigand, who had been raised to the see of Canterbury
when the monk of Jumieges was expelled. Stigand was never acknowledged
by the papal power, and his support of Harold was a new offense to Rome.
Duke William is in his city of Rouen, in the January of 1066. He has
had news from England ; and all Rouen has heard the same news. Edward
* Tennyson's " Godiva."

io66] DUKE WILLIAM.— THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 47
is dead ; Harold fills his throne. The duke secured the aid of Rome.
William had still to surmount difficulties with his own people. He called a
great council at his castle of Lillebonne. On this spot were assembled
warriors, churchmen, burghers, when the duke told them of his plans, and
asked for their aid. They sturdily refused what William asked. They
would defend their own country ; but they would not aid their duke in
making a conquest of a land beyond the sea. William found out a secret
which has been transmitted to later times. Those who were obstinate in a
public assembly were pliant enough in private negotiation. Gold did more
than eloquence. Then went forth a proclamation, that, supported by the Holy
Father of Christendom, who had sent to him a consecrated banner, William,
duke of Normandy, was about to demand, by force of arms, his rightful
inheritance of England ; and that all who would serve him with spear, sword,
or cross-bow should be amply rewarded. At this call gathered together all
the adventurers of Western Europe. They should have land ; they should
have money ; they should wed Saxon heiresses ; the humblest foot-soldier
should be a gentleman. The summer of 1066 was almost passed before the
preparations were complete. A large fleet had assembled at the beginning of
September at the mouth of the Dive. The fleet was detained for a month
by contrary winds. The vessel of William led the way ; and he outsailed
the fleet. After some anxiety, for the ships were widely dispersed, they were
again together on the morning of the 28th of September. William leapt
from his boat ; and falling to the ground, a cry went forth that it was an evil
omen. He grasped the sand, and turned the omen into a sign of gladness,
for he had taken seizin of his kingdom. The castle of Pevensey was at a
short distance. In a few days the army marched to Hastings. King Harold
was far away when Duke William landed on that unprotected shore. His
exiled brother, Tostig, had been to Normandy, and had arranged with
William a plan of united action for the invasion of the country. A great
battle was fought at Stamford-bridge on the Derwent ; and Hardrada and
Tostig were among the slain. That day of carnage was the same 27th of
September on which William sailed from Saint Valery. As Harold sat at a
banquet at York, after the victory, the news came of the Norman landing.
Harold rested not a day in Northumbria. He marched direct for London ;
where all the warlike population rallied round his standard. Meanwhile, the
Normans had intrenched themselves near Hastings. On the 13th of October,
the army of Harold was encamped on a range of hills, near a place then
called Senlac. This is the modern " Battle. " The sea was in the distance,
and the English ships were ready to cut off the retreat of the invaders. The
army of William was on another range of hills. The watch-fires of each
camp could be seen by the other as the night closed in. There was revelry
in the English camp. There was silence and prayer in the Norman. On the
14th at nine o'clock the Normans moved across the little valley, with the
papal banner carried in advance of the duke. They were formidable in their
cavalry and their bowmen. The English waited the attack with their battle-

48

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE NORMANS.

[1066

axes. The Anglo-Saxons kept their ground like a mighty wall ; and they
advanced in the same firm array. After a fight of six hours, William com
manded his men to turn their backs. The English raised a cry of triumph,
and, breaking their ranks, rushed from their commanding position into the
plain. Then the Norman cavalry wheeled round, and a terrible slaughter
took place. Harold fell a little before sunset. There was still a struggle ; but
the great leader had passed away.

in.

EfflAi IDEB TEE NOEMAE
(1066-1154.)
WILLIAM I.— DOMESDAY BOOK.

(1066-1087.)
ROM the day of his coronation, the 25th of December,
1066, we shall date the commencement of the reign of
William I. If the Norman duke won the crown by the
victory of Hastings, we may date his accession from
the 1 6th of October. If, more than two months after
that eventful day, he was elected king, and, consequently,
crowned king, we must date his accession from the day
of his coronation. Successful as the arms of William
had been, the crown continued elective, as in the Saxon time.
There was a lineal descendant of their ancient kings among them,
— Edgar, the grandson of Edmund Ironside. He was unques
tionably the heir to the crown. The people of the south, and of
London, chose Edgar Atheling as king. William advanced
toward London, and the people exhibited a show of resistance ;
but they finally made their submission, through the archbishop
and great nobles, who did homage to the invader at Berkhampstead. He was
crowned king at Westminster on Christmas-day. He built a fortress to
overawe "the fierce and numerous population" of London. He gave the
custody of other strongholds to his Norman leaders. The king was now
called "Conquestor, " or " Conquereur ; " but not in our modern sense of
"Conqueror." That term involved no idea of the forcible subjection of a
people. It signified an "acquirer;" one who had sought and obtained a
right. King William has gone to Pevensey, to take ship for his own

1087] WILLIAM'S RETURN.— MATILDA CROWNED. 49
Normandy. The spring, the summer, the autumn are passed, and he is still
in Normandy. During the long absence of the conqueror from England, his chieftains
commenced a system of oppression which might have exterminated a
people less bold and enduring than the Anglo-Saxon race. Odo, the bishop
of Bayeux, and William Fitz-Osborn, "the king's lieutenants, gave no heed
to the reasonable complaints of English subjects, and disdained to weigh
them in the balance of equity." The men-at-arms outrageously robbed the
people. The women were exposed to their gross licentiousness. There was
no punishment but for those who complained of their wrongs. The tyranny
of the invaders drove many of the best and bravest into exile. Others
sought foreign aid for their country's deliverance. They invited Sweyn,
king of Denmark, to repossess the land in which Canute had been king.
They invited Count Eustace, once so obnoxious to the Saxon, to seize upon
Dover. He came ; but his expedition was unsuccessful. The two sons of
Harold sailed from Ireland, and ascending the Avon, ravaged the country
near Bristol. William was alarmed by the news of all this disaffection and
disquiet, and sailed on the night of the 6th of December. He kept his
Christmas at London ; and assembled around him the English bishops and
nobles. " He received each with open arms, gave them the kiss of welcome ;
and was affable to all." The Londoners were satisfied ; and the king
departed to carry his arms to the west and to the north. At the Christmas
of 1067 he is feasting in London. In January his army is before Exeter.
William had sent messengers to demand their allegiance ; and they replied, —
" We will neither swear allegiance to the king, nor admit him within our
walls , but will pay him tax, such as we have been wont to pay ; " and
William replied, " It does not suit me to have subjects on such conditions."
The men of Exeter were bold, and they fought stoutly for eighteen days.
But they finally surrendered. William displayed exemplary moderation.
He saved the city from pillage, and he made no immediate confiscations.
But he planted a garrison within the walls. Easter fell that year on the 23d
of March, and he celebrated the festival at Winchester. His queen Matilda,
who had arrived from Normandy, was crowned in that city. Edwin of
Northumbria had, with his brother Morcar, given his adhesion to the
Norman ; and he was tempted, as Harold was tempted, by the charms of a
daughter of the great duke. William had promised this lady to the
powerful earl. But when he became more secure, William " refused to give
him the princess who was the object of his desire, and for whom he had long
waited." The brothers, indignant, summoned the English and Welsh to'
their standard. But the prompt vigor of the king put down the insurrection
before it became general. But during this expedition he planted a line of
fortresses to overawe the people in the settled districts, and to arrest the
advance of those who were not yet under the yoke. In this year Edgar
Atheling fled, with his mother and sisters, to Scotland.
One of the chiefs of William, Robert de Comines, had received the
4

50 HISTORY OF ENGLAND— THE NORMANS. [1066
county of Durham as his earldom. He entered Durham at the head of
five hundred men, took possession of the bishop's palace, and commenced
the usual course of spoliation. In the stillness of the night, the English
gathered together in great numbers ; and before day-break burst into the
city, set fire to the palace where the intrusive earl and his followers were
sleeping after late revelry, and massacred all the Norman soldiers except two.
York then rose upon its foreign garrison. Again the king came in person
against the insurgents, and routed them with unsparing slaughter. The
queen Matilda, who had given birth to a prince, afterward Henry I., now re
turned to Normandy. It was a time of fearful uncertainty. In June, the
sons of Harold again came in force, and landed near Plymouth. They were
repulsed. For two years Sweyn, the king of Denmark, had been preparing
for an invasion. His son Canute came, with a mighty fleet, in June. These
forces were repulsed ; but in August the invaders sailed for the Humber.
They were here joined by a fleet under Edgar Atheling, and some English
earls. As this army advanced toward York, the Normans in garrison set fire
to the'houses, and the city was burning for three days. The Normans made
a sally upon the Danes and English, who had invested the city, and were
utterly defeated with immense loss. William swore, with one of his terrible
oaths, that not a Northumbrian should escape his revenge. He marched to
the north with an overwhelming force. But he trusted not to force alone.
His agents were busy among the Danish chiefs ; and their powerful army
retired to their ships. The English, who had joined the Danes at the
Humber, fell back to the Tyne. York was left to be defended by Earl
Waltheof alone. The insurrectionary spirit had spread upon the news of the
Danish landing, and William had to fight his way through a hostile population
in the midland counties. He entered York, which he found abandoned.
He dispersed his commanders in separate divisions over a surface of a
hundred miles, with orders to destroy every living man, and every article
that could minister to the sustenance of life. Alain of Brittany, the nephew
of the conqueror, received a grant of all the villages and lands in Yorkshire
which belonged to the Saxon earl Edwin, and here he built the castle of
Richmond. Trodden down, villified, despised as was the Saxon race, it had
lost the unity of a nation, but there still was a people.
But the submission of the wretched inhabitants of the north provokes
the resentment of Malcolm, king of Scotland, and he becomes their enemy.
At the head of an army he crosses the Tyne, and completes the work of
devastation. He was, no doubt, fancying that ;he was asserting the right
of Edgar to the crown, and that the pretensions of the Atheling would one
day be acknowledged, for he sought Edgar's sister, Margaret, in marriage :
and from this alliance came what has been called " The Union of the Races "
when Henry I. married Matilda, the daughter of Malcolm and Margaret.
From the desolated Yorkshire, William, in the March of 1070, led his army
to Chester. England at length has rest. The politic conqueror has destroyed the

1087] NOBLES REVOLT.— ROBERT'S ACTS. 51
Saxon independence, by force or by cunning. Malcolm of Scotland has
submitted to him, and remains at peace. Edgar Atheling has become a
pensioner upon the bounty of William, who thrust him from a throne. The
people are settling into their old habits of rural industry. Many of the
dispossessed and hunted proprietors and tenants of the northern counties
had found shelter in Scotland, under the protection of Margaret the queen.
William, in 1073, is in Normandy. Roger Fitz-Osborn,, the earl of
Hereford, and Ralph de Guader, the earl of Norfolk, had agreed to unite
their interests by the marriage of the sister of one to the other. But the
king issued his commands that no such marriage should take place. He was
absent, and the earls gave no heed to his prohibition. There was a great
feast at Norwich , and there came bishops and barons, Saxon as well as
Norman, to honor the bridal of Emma with De Guader. The Normans
complained of his ingratitude; the Saxons of his oppressions. The murmurs
ripened into plots. Waltheof, the Saxon earl, was made privy to the
conspiracy. The insurrection broke out, but was speedily subdued. A great
battle was fought in Norfolk, before the arrival of William from Normandy.
He came to determine the fate of the captive rebels. The Norman leaders
were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Waltheof was betrayed by his
wife — the conqueror's daughter, Judith ; and after lingering a year in prison,
was beheaded at Winchester. The Norman princes of the blood have no
very prepossessing associations belonging' to them. Robert is the eldest.
Before the conquest of England he had been named as his father's successor
in Normandy. Richard, the second son, had been killed in England by an
accident while hunting. Robert desired to have the crown of Normandy
during his father's life, and his father was not at all willing to forego any
power. William, the next brother, who was now twenty-one, took part
against Robert. Henry was a boy of nine years. The younger brothers
were playing at dice in the gallery of a house at Maine, and Robert was
beneath. To insult their brother, they threw water on the heads of him
and his followers , and the fiery Robert followed his brothers to the
banqueting-room in fierce anger. Their father interposed. But the elder
son could not forgive the insult, and was soon in arms to enforce his
pretensions. The parent and child met in battle , and the son unhorsed the
father. Perceiving whom he had at his mercy, the son begged the forgiveness
of the parent. But the very stark man would not be fully reconciled ; and
after a few years of secret hostility they never again met. Odo, the half
brother of the king, gave him dire offense by entertaining the ambition of
becoming pope. William seized him as he was sailing from the Isle 01
Wight, and kept him strictly imprisoned, till death conquered the conqueror.
On the left of the passage which leads to the entrance of Westminster
Abbey, called "Poet's Corner," stands the chapter-house of the abbey. In
one of the closets of this building is locked up the most precious document of
English history — the Register of the Survey made under the orders of the
conqueror and his witan. This document is called "Domesday Book."

52 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE NORMANS. [1066
The survey thus contained in this ancient register extended to all England,
with the exception of Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and
Durham. All the country between the Tees and the Tyne was held by the
bishop of Durham ; and he was reputed a count palatine, having a separate
government. Let us first see, from the information of Domesday Book, by
" what men " the land was occupied. First, we have barons, and we have
thanes. The barons were the Norman nobles; the thanes, the Saxon.
These were included under the general designation of liberi homines, free
men ; which term included all the freeholders of a manor. Many of these
were tenants of the king "in capite " — that is, theyheld their possessions
direct from the crown. Others of these had placed themselves under the
protection of some lord, as the defender of their persons and estates, they
paying some stipend or performing some service. In the register there are
also libera femince, free women. Next to the free class were the sochemanni
or " socmen," a class of inferior land-owners, who held lands under a lord,
and owed suit and service in the lord's court ; but whose tenure was perma
nent. They sometimes performed services in husbandry ; but those services,
as well as their payments, were defined. Descending in the scale, we come to
the villani. These were allowed to occupy land at the will of the lord, upon
the condition of performing services, uncertain in their amount, and often of
the meanest nature. But they could acquire no property in lands or goods ;
and they were subject to many exactions and oppressions. There are entries
in Domesday Book which show that the villani were not altogether bondmen ;
but represented the Saxon " churl." The lowest class were scrvi, slaves ; the
class corresponding with the Saxon "theow. " The two classes were brought
gradually nearer together ; till at last, the military oppression of the Normans
thrusting down all degrees of tenants and servants, one name was adopted
for both of them as a generic term, that of villeins regardant. When William
ascended the throne, being a great lover of forests, he laid waste more than
sixty parishes and substituted beasts of the chase for human beings, that he
might satisfy his ardor for hunting. The chases were opened through the
ancient thickets, and hamlets and solitary cottages were demolished. All
these extensive tracts were, more or less, retreats for the dispossessed and
the discontented. The Normans, under pretense of preserving the s'tag
and the hare, could tyrannize with a pretended legality over the dwellers in
these secluded places , and thus William might have driven the Saxon people
of Ytene to emigrate, and have destroyed their cottages, as much from a
possible fear of their association as from his own love of " the high deer."
Whatever was the motive, there was devastation and misery. The Domesday
Survey shows, that in some towns there was an admixture of Norman and
English burgesses ; and it is clear that they were so settled after the conquest,
for a distinction is made between the old customary dues of the place, and
those the foreigner should pay. The foreigner had to bear a small addition
to the ancient charge. But their manners were gradually assimilated. The
Normans grew fond of the English beer, and the English adopted the Normans

1087] NORMAN CASTLES.— FEUDAL SYSTEM. 53
dress. The ancient demesnes of the crown consisted of fourteen hundred and
twenty-two manors. But the king had confiscated the properties of Godwin,
Harold, Algar, Edwin, Morcar, and other great Saxo.p earls ; and his revenues
thus became enormous. The numbers of manors held by the favorites of the
conqueror would appear incredible, if we did not know that these great nobles
were grasping and unscrupulous ; indulging the grossest sensuality with a
pretense of refinement ; limited in their perpetration of injustice only by the
extent of their power ; and so blinded by their pride as to call their plunder
their inheritance. But when a period of tranquillity arrived came the era of
castle-building. The Saxons had their rude fortresses and intrenched earth
works. But solid walls of stone, for defense and residence, were to become
the local seats of regal and baronial domination. Domesday contains notices
of forty -nine castles ; but only one is mentioned as having existed in the
time of Edward the Confessor. Some which the conqueror is known to have
built are not noticed in the Survey. Among these is the White Tower of
London. The site of Rochester Castle is mentioned. Of parish churches
in Domesday, the number enumerated is a little above seventeen hundred.
The conqueror went to work when he knew how many tenants-in-chief he
could command, and how many men they could bring into the field. He
instituted the great feudal principle of knight-service. His ordinance is in
these words : — " We command that all earls, barons, knights, sergeants, and
freemen be always provided with horses and arms as they ought, and that
they be always ready to perform to us their whole service, in manner as they
owe it to us of right for their fees and tenements, and as we have appointed
to them by the common council of our whole kingdom, and as we have
granted to them in fee with right of inheritance." These words, "in fee with
right of inheritance," leave no doubt that the great vassals of the crown were
absolute proprietors, and that all their sub-vassals had the same right of
holding in perpetuity. The heir, however remote in blood, was the only
legitimate successor. If the heir were a minor, the lord entered into
possession of the estate, without any accountability. If it descended to a
female, the lord could compel her to marry according to his will, or could
prevent her marrying. It was now established that every tenant-in-chief
should do homage to the king ; that every superior tenant should do homage
to his lord ; that every villein should be the bondman of the free ; and that
every slave should, without any property however limited and insecure, be
the absolute chattel of some master. The whole system was connected with
military service. This was the feudal system. The casting off of the
chains of feudality was the labor of six centuries.
King William was holding his court at Westminster in 1086. His young
est son, Henry, who is eighteen years of age, had been knighted by his father.
He was the Beau Clerc — the lettered prince — of the family. In January, 1087,
William returned to Normandy. He had a long-standing dispute to settle with
Philip I. of France, about his claim to the territory of the Vexin, which had
been dismembered from Normandy and annexed to France. The French king

54 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE NORMANS. [1087
despised the demand of the Norman duke, and made a coarse joke about his
corpulency. William, old and heavy, had still that alacrity of mind and that
unconquerable will which won and kept England. He left his bed at
Rouen, and in August* was on his war-horse before the town of Mantes.
The fierce soldiers took the town by assault. William, under the hot
autumn sun, rode among the smouldering ruins of the burning town. His
horse fell, with his bulky rider, who received a severe injury, and was carried
back to Rouen. His 'two sons, William and Henry, were around their father.
Robert, the elder, was at the court of France. The king hated him. Still, he
could not deny him his right to the inheritance of Normandy. To William he
recommended an instant journey to England to secure the possession of the
crown. To Henry, who was then only eighteen years of age, he bequeathed
five thousand pounds of silver. The great duke and king suddenly expired,
on the morning of the 9th of September.

THE CRUSADES.— JERUSALEM TAKEN.— THE CHARTER OF
LIBERTIES.— WILLIAM RUFUS.— HENRY I.— STEPHEN AND
MATILDA.
(1087-1154.)
The " Red King " was crowned at Westminster on the 26th of S eptem-
ber, 1087. He was on his road to England while his father was dying. The
first proceedings of William II. gave evidence of his character. The death
bed clemency of the conqueror had bestowed freedom on Mocar, and on
Wulfnoth, the brother of Harold. They followed Rufus to England ; and he
rewarded their confidence by immediate imprisonment. He had greater
dangers to apprehend from the Norman chiefs. Some of the more powerful
were strongly against a divided sovereignty. They had large possessions in
both countries. If they clung to William, Robert would seize upon their
Norman estates. If they clung to Robert, William would seize upon their
English estates. Robert was of an easy temper; William was arrogant. Odo
and others therefore tendered their allegiance to Duke Robert. An insurrec
tion very soon broke out in different quarters. William raised a large army,
and besieged Odo, who was the most formidable of the conspirators, in Roch
ester Castle, after a previous encounter at Pevensey. At length the garrison
was allowed to capitulate ; and the Norman revolters marched out. Odo
never returned ; and his enormous possessions were confiscated. The other
disaffected nobles and bishops were subdued or propitiated. In 1089
Lanfranc, the archbishop of Canterbury, died. To his firmness and moderation
William II. was mainly indebted for his throne. William appointed no
successor to the archbishop, but held the revenues of the see in his own
hands. He soon found a more congenial minister than Lanfranc. There was
in his court a Norman clerk of the name of Ralph, of handsome person and
fluent speech, sensual and ambitious. He was a subtle financier. Flambard

1 154] ROBERT OF NORMANDY AND HENRY. 55
and his master seized church properties, and made exactions upon the laity,
with no pretense of justice. The state of manners at the court of Rufus is
described as the most disgusting mixture of folly and licentiousness.
Robert, duke of Normandy, was destroying the resources of the state by
improvident liberality. He had sold a third part of his duchy, the province
of Cotentin, to his brother Henry, while his kind brother of England was
using every intrigue to dispossess him of all that was left of his dominions,
and had already obtained possession of fortresses on the right bank of the Seine.
In 1090 the city of Rouen was incited to insurrection, chiefly by the bribes
and promises of William. Henry came to the aid of Robert, although they
had previously quarreled ; and through his determined boldness the revolt
was quelled. The townsmen were divided. Some fought for the king, and
some for the duke. The revolters against the ducal government were led by
Conan, a rich burgess of Rouen. The revolt was put down, and he was
taken prisoner, and led to the castle. Then Prince Henry took him to the
summit of a tower, and bade him look upon the beautiful prospect beneath
him — the wooded glades of the park on the south bank of the river — the
vessels laden with merchandise — the populous city, with its high walls, and
rich churches, and stately houses. " These are the things of which you
desired to be master," said the prince to the citizen. "Take all my wealth
for ransom," cried the trembling prisoner. " By the soul of my mother I will
take no ransom , " and with these words the strong youth seized the wretched
man, and threw him headlong from the lofty window. Robert, the duke,
had many affairs on his hands at this period. When he was roused by war he
appears to have been foremost in battle and siege. In 1090 he is besieging
Brionne, and setting fire to the castle by arrows whose steel points were made
red-hot in a furnace. In 1091 he is before Courci, where the garrison made a
resolute defense. The king passed many months in Normandy during the
year 1091 , and the brothers came to terms of agreement for their future
government. Edgar, the Atheling, is still upon the stage ; and he is now
deprived of his estates in Normandy, and compelled to seek an asylum in
Scotland. The king and the duke have now grown jealous of Henry, who
has put his five thousand crowns to such good interest that he has become
formidable. Among several strong castles, he has secured Mount St. Michael,
although obliged to abandon other fortresses. Here, on this lofty rock, which
stands, twice in the day amid a plain of sand, and twice encompassed with
tidal waters, Henry bade defiance to the assaults of armies. But the waters
which surrounded the castle were useless to allay the cravings of his famished
garrison, and he was finally obliged to capitulate. There are two occurrences
during this siege which are told by Malmesbury as characteristic of the king
and the duke. William was unhorsed by a soldier, who was about to kill him,
when he cried out, " Hold, rascal, I am the king of England." The king was
spared, and the soldier rewarded. Robert, having learned that Henry was
suffering in the beleaguered castle with his men, contrived that they should
obtain some water, at which the less tender William was enraged. " Oh,

56 N HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE NORMANS. [1087
shame," said Robert, " should I permit my brother to die of thirst ? and
where shall we find another if we lose him ? "
In 1092 the king returned to England, accompanied by the duke of
Normandy. During his absence, Malcolm, the king of Scotland, had invaded
the northern counties ; and William hastened to drive him back. The armies
met in Lothian ; but a peace was concluded. On the return to the south,
the English king seized Carlisle, which had been considered an appanage of
the crown of Scotland. Another quarrel was the consequence ; and Malcolm,
after having met the English king at Gloucester, and resisted his claims,
invaded Northumberland. Here the unfortunate king of Scotland, and his
son Edward, were killed in a sudden surprise — some say by treachery. The
good Queen Margaret survived her husband and son only four days. Duke
Robert had come to England to obtain indemnity for possessions which he
had surrendered in Normandy. He obtained nothing. According to the
custom of chivalry, Robert sent to England two heralds to denounce his
faithless brother as a perjured knight. William, like many other guilty men,
would bear no imputation upon his honor, and went to Normandy to submit
the points in dispute to arbitration. Twenty-four Norman barons decided
against him. He then resolved upon war; and collected a large army at
Hastings. The chroniclers say that the unscrupulous financier, Ralph Flam-
bard, made this a new pretense of extortion. The war with Robert was not
undertaken ; and the soldiers were dismissed to their homes, upon making a
handsome contribution to the wants of the king. He had more bribery to
accomplish in Normandy. But he suddenly returned home, to put down an
outbreak of the Welsh ; to which succeeded an insurrection of the nobles in
the north. Rufus was as energetic and as merciless as his father ; and the
dangers were averted.
But there was a new arrangement between the rival brothers which was
eventually to unite England and Normandy again under one king. Robert, in
1096, pawned his dukedom to William for five years. The mortgage-money
of ten thousand pounds was, of course, to be paid by the people of the island.
William and Robert are once more bound in hollow friendship, bought by " an
edict for an intolerable tax throughout England." In 1092 the greater part
of London was destroyed by fire. Robert of Normandy was one of the
leaders of the first crusades. " It was one of those events," writes Guizot,
"which change the condition of the people." In November, 1095, Pope
Urban II. attended the great council of Clermont, in Auvergne ; and from a
lofty scaffold in the market-place of Clermont preached the crusade to
assembled thousands. A vast multitude had arrived from all the surrounding
districts. For a zealous missionary had gone through Italy and France and
had proclaimed in every land that the holy sepulcher, which Christian pilgrims
had freely visited from the days of Haroun Alraschid, was now closed against
them by the Turk who had conquered Syria ; and that the servants of the
cross were massacred, plundered, sold into slavery, This was Peter of
Amiens, known as Peter the Hermit. The prospect of visiting far-off and

1 154] FIRST CRUSADE.— RUFUS IN NORMANDY. 57
famous lands ; of fighting against heathen miscreants ; of returning with
wealth and glory ; or of dying in the assured hope of felicity ; made the
crusade as welcome to the feudal lord as the gayest tournament. If wealth
was not to be won, and new homes were not to be conquered, there were
unearthly mansions prepared for the soldiers of the cross. With one voice,
therefore, the people in the market-place of Clermont shouted, Deus lo volt ;
Deus lo volt. " It is indeed the will of God," said the pope. " Let that
acclamation be your battle-cry. Wear the cross as your sign and your
solemn pledge."
The great army of the East was to be gathered together from all nations
by another year. But the impatience of the people would not wait for arms
or leaders. In the March of 1096, a vast multitude set forward from France,
gathering fresh crowds as they proceeded. They irritated the inhabitants of
the wild countries through which they passed, and suffered the most terrible
defeats in Bulgaria. At last the remnant of the hundred thousand that had
undertaken this perilous journey reached Constantinople. They began to
plunder the beautiful city, and they were driven out to seek the Asiatic side
of the Bosphorus ; and they were finally routed and cut to pieces by the
Turks. The regular army of the crusaders at length approached Asia under
the commanders whom history and poetry have made famous — Godfrey of
Bouillon, Hugh of Vermandois, Robert of Normandy, Robert of Flanders,
Stephen of Chartres, Raymond of Toulouse, the ambitious Bohemond, and the
accomplished Tancred. The history of their progress belongs not to our
narrative. It was more than three years after Pope Urban had preached the
crusade at Clermont that Jerusalem fell, and the holy sepulcher was free.
A terrible massacre disgraced this Christian triumph. But it is not the crimes
of the fanatical warriors who won the Holy Land, or the rashness of the
ignorant multitudes who preceded them, that should lead us to speak of the
crusades "as the most signal and most durable monument of human folly that
has ever yet appeared in any age or nation." * While Duke Robert was at the
head of his knights and their horsemen in siege and battle, enduring
privations unknown to the Norman military life, exposed to diseases peculiar
to a climate so different from that of his own pleasant lands, William, the
king, was foreclosing upon the property of Normandy like a grasping usurer.
In 1095 " he crossed over the sea in the month of September, and, obtaining
possession of Normandy for the price he paid, trampled it under foot for
nearly five years, that is, all the rest of his life." Hume, without any distinct
authority, but with a just estimate of the character of Rufus, has said, "It is
likely that he made the romantic chivalry of the crusades the object of his
perpetual raillery." In 1099 William was hunting in the new forest when he
received a message that the Baron Helie had defeated the Normans and
surprised the city of Mans. Without drawing bit, he galloped to the coast,
. and jumped into a vessel lying at anchor. The day was stormy, and the
sailors were unwilling to embark. " Sail instantly," cried the bold man,
* Hume.

58 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE NORMANS. [1087
" kings are never drowned." He landed at Touques, a small port, and was soon
at the head of his troops. Helie fled, without offering battle.
In July of 1099, at which time Duke Robert is marching into Jerusalem,
King William is ravaging Maine. But he cannot leave England for long to its
own guidance. Moreover, he wants more money from his island subjects.
The king has built Westminster hall, a vast room, whose roof was supported
by columns, upon the site of the present noble structure, whose walls encase
some of the timbers of the hall of Rufus. He has magnificent ideas ; for he
says that the hall shall be a mere bedroom compared with the palace which he
means to build. He has erected a wall, too, around the tower of London.
Wherever he moves — and these Norman kings were constantly hurrying from
city to city, and from castle to castle — the royal household plundered like an
invading army. The king, in common with many other mighty tyrants,
mingled jest with savagery. A Jew, whose son had become Christianized,
ventures to implore William to use his influence to bring the convert back to
the faith of his fathers ; and the king accepts the office for a present payment.
The young man will not yield, and the Jew asks the king for his money again ;
he obtains only half, for the magnanimous prince keeps the other half as the
payment of his trouble. The king is in Malwood keep, in the new forest,
hunting and feasting on the 1st of August, 1100. That night he has had
dreams ; and a certain foreign ecclesiastic also dreams about the king coming
into a church with menacing looks, and, insulting the symbol of religion, was
struck down by the image. This is told to William ; who says, " He is a
monk, and dreams for money like a monk ; give him a hundred shillings."
But he is moved and dispirited, and will not hunt. Dinner comes, with
copious draughts of wine ; and then he will ride in the forest. He is alone
with Walter Tyrrel. The sun is declining. The king has drawn his bow and
wounded a stag ; he is shading his eyes from the strong level light, when
Walter, aiming*at another stag, pierces the king's breast with a fatal arrow
which glances from a tree. Breaking off the shaft of the arrow, William falls
from his horse and "speaks word never more." Walter immediately runs up
to the body, and then leaps upon his horse, none perceiving him. A few
countrymen convey the body in a cart to Winchester, and there " it was
committed to the ground within the tower, attended by many of the nobles,
though lamented by few."
On the 2d of August, in the year 1100, there was a chase from Malwood,
across the new forest, and onward to Winchester, in which chase the prey
was of far greater importance than stag or boar. Henry, to whom his father
gave five thousand pounds, had been riding near the spot where William fell.
Immediately that the death of' his brother was certain, he spurred his horse
along the green glades, for a gallop of twenty miles in that autumn evening.
But another horseman was at his heels. William de Breteuil, the treasurer of
Rufus, divined the prince's purpose. They arrived at Winchester at the
same hour. Henry hastened to the Treasury. The prince authoritatively
demanded the keys. William de Breteuil insisted that they should not be

1 1 54] HENRY I. CROWNED.— MARRIES MAUD. "~" 59
given up, saying that Prince Henry, as well as himself, had paid Robert, the
elder brother, homage, and that he was the rightful successor. Henry drew
his sword, and at length, by force and persuasion, obtained the royal treasures.
The next step was easy. He was crowned at Westminster on Sunday, the 5th
of August. Duke Robert, after the conquest of Jerusalem, had set out
homeward. Passing through the Norman dominions in Italy he was cordially
received at the court of Geoffrey of Conversana, in Apulia ; and there, amid
all the refinements of a chivalric life, he lingered long, and finally married
Sibylla, the daughter of his entertainer. With his young and beauteous wife
he received a marriage-portion, amply sufficient to redeem his mortgaged
dukedom. They arrived in Normandy, within a few weeks after Henry was
firmly seated on the throne of England. The sovereignty of Henry was so
clearly an usurpation, that he sought to conciliate all classes of his subjects.
He published a charter of liberties in 1101, in which he engaged to put in
force the laws of Edward the Confessor, which the Anglo-Saxon race had
so earnestly demanded. To the Church he promised that he would retain no
vacant benefices, nor sell them, nor farm them. He granted to his immediate
vassals — and required that they should grant the same to their sub-vassals —
to be in future free from arbitrary exactions in the form of reliefs , that the
lord should not interfere with the marriage of their daughters ; and that
heiresses and widows should not be compelled to marry against their will.
He, however, retained the royal forests, and the forest laws.
It is now thirty-five years since the Conquest. A generation has passed
away, to whom the name of Norman was odious. The court of Rufus had
been contemptible for its unscrupulous profligacy. Henry lived in that court,
and he partook of its voluptuousness, while his cultivated intellect revolted at
its grossness. Upon his accession he purged his government of the evil
ministers of his brother's pleasures, and the corrupt administrators of his
oppressive exactions. Ralph Flambard, the bishop of Durham, who was
particularly obnoxious, was committed to the Tower, whence he contrived to
escape to Normandy. His friends had conveyed to him a rope in a pitcher
of wine, and after a night of carousal with those who should have guarded
him, he let himself down by a window, and reached the coast in safety, where
he found a ship ready to bear him across the channel. He soon became an
instrument of mischief at the court of Duke Robert. Meanwhile Henry had
married. His choice of a queen appears to have been decided by a just and
wise desire, to propitiate the English population. Maud, the daughter of
Malcolm, king of Scotland, and of Margaret, the sister of Edgar the Etheling,
was of the lineage of the Saxon kings. And the king, " having been long
attracted by her many graces and virtues," according to Ordericus, shared his
throne with her, and she was crowned by Gerard, bishop of Hereford. This
marriage, which was called, " The Union of the Races," was a cause of
offense to the imperious Norman nobles. The proud countrymen of Henry
gave him the nickname of Godric, and the queen that of Godiva — both
conveying some opprobrium. The duke of Normandy landed at Portsmouth

6o HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE NORMANS. [1087
on the 1st of August. Some of the Norman barons openly joined him :
others secretly encouraged his pretensions. Henry desired a conference with
his brother ; and they met in the presence of the hostile troops, who " formed
a magnificent circle round them." They were reconciled. Robert was of a
generous and yielding nature ; Henry was far-seeing and prudent. Robert
and his army returned to Normandy ; and the troops of Henry were
disbanded, after the duke had remained a guest for several months at the
court of the king. In the following year Henry commenced a series of
persecutions against those of his barons who had favored the enterprise of
Robert. They were protected by the treaty of 1 101, in which there was an
amnesty for political offenses. But the king brought many of them to trial,
on charges which had probably some solid foundation. Thus, Ivo de Grantes-
menil was subjected to an enormous fine, for having "set the example of
engaging in war on his own account, and given to the flames the territories of
his neighbors, such private wars being hitherto unknown in England." One
of the principal offenders was Robert de Belesme, earl of Shrewsbury. No
one of the Norman chieftains was more cruel or rapacious, no one more
powerful. The king had surrounded him with spies, and preferred many
charges against him of the heaviest nature. The earl fled to his castles, and
refused to appear to abide a trial. Henry immediately called out the whole
military force of the country, so formidable was this baron. His castles of
Arundel and Blythe surrendered ; and Bridgenorthv after a long siege, was
opened to the royal troops. Robert de Belesme had possession of Shrewsbury,
and the king marched with a vast army to besiege the town. The rebel earl
, surrendered, and was banished ; and at the fall of the tyrant, according to
Ordericus, " all England was in a tumult of joy." And during the thirty-
three years of Henry's subsequent reign no one afterward dared to revolt in
England, nor held any fortress against him." But the terrible earl, who had
vast estates in Normandy, went over to a land where there was no energetic
ruler to oppose him ; and for several years ravaged the country, and defied
the power of the duke, who had entered into a mutual engagement with
Henry to make common cause against any traitor to either of them. At
length Duke Robert concluded a peace with the fierce earl, and admitted him
to his patrimonial estates. There was now a new cause for enmity between
the reigning brothers. The catastrophe was fast approaching which had
been long foreseen.
In 1 104, Henry went over to Normandy. Many of the nobles, who had
also estates in England, gathered round him, and stimulated what was no
doubt the secret desire of his heart ; yet the brothers parted friends. Again
the province was ravaged by the private hostilities of those who were
considered the friends of Henry, and those who hated him. The country
people in many districts fled into France, leaving their lands uncultivated.
In the spring of 1105, the king of England took a final step toward the union
of the two crowns. Henry landed on Easter Eve. At Whitsuntide, Henry
and Robert had a conference, without coming to agreement. The Normans

1 154] NORMANDY SEIZED.— DEATH OF MAUD. 61
took their several sides ; and the country was burnt and pillaged. Henry
returned to England for money and men. But in 1106 he was in Normandy
with a far greater force, and constructed a fort before Tenchebrai. There
was some negotiation before the decisive battle,t which took place on the 28th
of September, the anniversary of William the Conqueror's landing at
Hastings. When the ranks met, one of Henry's chaplains, Baudri, took the
duke prisoner, after he had gallantly fought with unequal numbers. The
contest was over. Among other prisoners was Edgar the Etheling, who
passed the remainder of his eventful life in England, without molestation, an
object of pity rather than of fear. The deposed Duke Robert was kept a
prisoner in Cardiff Castle. " Nor was he liberated till the day of his death."
That release from a captivity of twenty-eight years arrived in 1135. At the
time of the battle of Tenchebrai, Duke Robert had a son of five years old, who
had been brought up at Falaise. When Henry took possession of the place,
the little boy was led to him. This possible heir of two kingdoms bore the
name of his grandfather ; and the William of five years old shrank with
terror from his conquering uncle. Henry used no violence to the child, but
committed him to an honest guardianship. The king appears, in another
year, to have repented of his honesty, and to have desired to get the young
prince into his power. But Helie de St. Saen fled with his charge; and put
him under the protection of Louis, king of France, and Fulk, earl of Anjou.
At length there was open war between France and Normandy, and in 11 19
was fought the battle of Noyon, or Brenneville, a place on the road from
Rouen to Paris. Louis was here defeated, and fled.
In 1118 "the good Queen Maud" died. Henry was probably not
inconsolable ; for she had long retired to the monastery of Westminster,
where she spent her revenues in the relief of the sick, and in acts of
penitential piety. Her daughter had been betrothed to the emperor of
Germany in 1108, and was married in 11 14; and the king, on the feudal
principle, taxed every hide in England three shillings upon that occasion.
The story of the son's death has presently to be related. In 11 19, William
the Etheling, — the Saxon title being still applied to the heir to the crown,-r-
was married to the daughter of Fulk, count of Anjou. The young prince
remained in Normandy ; and peace having been restored between Henry and
the king of France, did homage to that king, Louis-le-Gros, for the fief of
Normandy. The king had many illegitimate daughters, and one was married
to Eustace of Breteuil. There had been deadly enmity between the king
and his son-in-law, in which his daughter partook with a passion which
demands excuse and pity. In 11 18, Eustace and the king had a dispute
about the castle of Ivri ; but Henry was desirous to retain the allegiance of
Eustace, and it was agreed that hostages should be exchanged. Ralph
Harenc, the commander of the fortress, gave his son to Eustace, and Eustace
gave his two little daughters to the custody of Henry. The quarrel was not
made up, and the count of Breteuil, with a savageness which is even
wonderful in that age of ferocity, put out the eyes of the innocent boy.

62 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE NORMANS. [1087
Ralph de Harenc, in a transport of rage, presented himself to the king, and
demanded vengeance. Henry, without hesitation, gave up his two grand
daughters. The children were sacrificed to the revenge of Ralph de Harenc.
But the mother's injuries were too deep for a common indignation. She had
undertaken the defense of Breteuil in the absence of her husband. The
king pressed the siege. Juliana appeared on the walls, and demanded a
conference with her father ; and when he appeared she launched a bolt at
him from a cross bow. Henry, who was unhurt, broke down the drawbridge,
so that escape was difficult. But Juliana dropped from the wall into the fosse,
on a freezing night in February. In 1 1 19, when Henry was everywhere
victorious, Eustace and his wife knelt before the king in his tent ; and there
was reconciliation and forgiveness. We have to relate another tragical
history ; but it is not one in which an age of chivalry is presented to us with
abhorrent features. Henry was about to leave Normandy in the early part
of the winter of 1120. On the 25th of November he was at Barfleur with his
son William, and his natural son Richard, with many a noble in his train.
There came to him a mariner, and said, that Stephen, the son of Airard, was
his father, and that Stephen was the owner of the ship that conveyed the
conqueror to make war on Harold ; and he asked the king to sail with him in
his ship, the Blanche-Nef. Henry replied he had chosen his ship, but that his
son might sail with the son of Airard. The king put to sea in the first
watch of the night, and reached England in safety. The young prince and
his companions went on board full of merriment and wine, and the rowers
and their steersman were mad with drink. As they pulled out of the harbor,
incapable of directing the vessel, she struck upon a rock, filled, and went
down. One man only out of three hundred on board was saved — Berold, a
butcher of Rouen. Malmesbury says, " The water washed some of the
crew overboard, and, entering the chinks, drowned others ; when the boat
having been launched, the young prince was received into it, and might
certainly have been saved by reaching the shore, had not his illegitimate
sister, the countess of Perche, now struggling with death in the larger vessel,
implored her brother's assistance ; shrieking out that he should not abandon
her so barbarously. Touched with pity, he ordered the boat to return to the
ship, that he might rescue his sister ; and thus the unhappy youth met his
death through excess of affection ; for the skiff, overcharged by the multi
tudes who leaped into her, sank, and buried all indiscriminately in the deep.
One rustic alone escaped, who floating all night upon the mast, related in the
morning the dismal castastrophe of this tragedy." The news reached
England. The king was in great anxiety ; but no one dared to tell him of
the event. By a concerted plan a boy threw himself at the king's feet,
weeping bitterly, and told his tale. Henry instantly fell to the ground.
That proud heart was stricken ; and in the solitude of his chamber he might
have thought of the agony of his daughter Juliana weeping for her children.
In 1 121 King Henry married Adelaide, the daughter of the duke of Lou-
vain. They had no issue. His enemies in Normandy took up the cause of

1 154] MATILDA.— HENRY DIES.— STEPHEN CROWNED. 63
the son of Robert, and the king of France bestowed on him the hand of his
sister-in-law. Finally he succeeded to the earldom of Flanders. He was
now in a position of great power and prosperity, and stood in the way of the
far-seeing designs of the king of England. Henry's only legitimate child,
Matilda, was destined by him to inherit his greatness. The empress of Ger
many had become a widow in 1124 ; and at the Christmas of 1126, at a solemn
assembly at Windsor, of nobles, and bishops, and the great tenants of the crown,
it was declared that the ex-empress was the next heir, failing any future legiti
mate male issue to the king. They then all swore to maintain her succession ;
and among the nobles who took the oath was Stephen, earl of Boulogne, the son
of Adela, the daughter of the Conqueror ; and Robert, earl of Gloucester, the
illegitimate son of Henry. David, king of Scotland, who was present as an
English earl, also swore to maintain the succession of his niece Matilda. That
Christmas day of 1126 was to be fruitful of years of calamity for England.
Fulk, the earl of Anjou, had surrendered his European states to his eldest son
Geoffrey, for he had accepted the higher dignity of king of Jerusalem. An
alliance with the Plantagenets was one of the great objects of Henry's
ambition , and he negotiated a marriage of Matilda with the young earl.
This marriage of policy was not a happy one. The king had constantly to
interfere between the husband and wife. Matilda had much of her father's
imperious spirit ; and Geoffrey made demands which Henry resisted. There
was deep enmity between them. But in 1133 Matilda bore a son, Henry.
The oaths to maintain the succession were renewed. Before this period,
however, the king had been freed from much disquiet, by the death of his
nephew, William, the earl of Flanders, who was wounded under the walls of
Alost in 1 128, in a revolt headed by the earl of Alsace, and fomented, no doubt,
by the intrigues of the English king. The castle of Lions, about six leagues
from Rouen, was Henry's favorite hunting-seat, and he arrived there on the
25th of November, 1135. He had not lost his active habits at the age of
sixty-five, and he gave orders for the chase on the next day. But the next
day saw him sick. He had feasted upon a dish of lampreys, and after four
days he died, beating his breast and lamenting his sins.
Stephen, earl of Boulogne, the nephew of King Henry I., was no
stranger to the country which he aspired to rule. He had lived much in
England, and was an universal favorite. His brother Henry was bishop of
Winchester ; and his influence with the other dignitaries of the Church was
mainly instrumental in the election of Stephen to be king, in open disregard
of the oaths taken a few years before to recognize the succession of Matilda
and of her son. King Henry I. died on the first of December, 1 135.
Stephen was crowned on the 26th of December. By the Londoners he was
received with acclamations ; and the witan chose him for king without
hesitation. Stephen succeeded to a vast amount of treasure. All the rents
of Henry I. had been paid in money, instead of in necessaries ; and he was
rigid in enforcing the payment in coin of the best quality. With this
possession of means, Stephen surrounded himself with troops from Flanders

64 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE NORMANS. [1087
and Brittany. King Stephen vindicated the choice of the nation at the very
outset of his reign. He went in person against the robbers who were
ravaging the country.
David, king of Scotland, had advanced to Carlisle and Newcastle, to
assert the claim of Matilda which he had sworn to uphold. But Stephen
came against him with a great army, and for a time there was peace.
Robert, earl of Gloucester, the illegitimate son of Henry I., had done homage
to Stephen ; but Robert of Gloucester very soon defied the king's power.
Within two years of his accession, the throne of Stephen was evidently
becoming an insecure seat. To counteract the power of the great nobles, he
made a lavish distribution of crown lands to a large number of tenants in
chief. Some of them were called earls ; but they had no official charge, as
the greater barons had, but were mere titular lords, made by the royal
bounty. All those who held direct from the crown were called barons ; and
these new barons, who were scattered over the country, had permission from
the king to build castles. Such permission was extended to many other lay
barons. The Bristolians, under the instigation of the earl of Gloucester, were
partisans of the ex-empress Matilda ; and wherever the king or his adherents
had estates they came to seize their oxen and sheep, and carried men of
substance into Bristol as captives, with bandaged eyes and bits in their
mouths. These and other indications of an unsettled government took place
before the landing of Matilda to assert her claims. An invasion of England
by the Scottish king, without regard to the previous pacification, was made
in 1 1 38. But this attempt, although grounded upon the oath which David
had sworn to Henry, was regarded by the Northumbrians as a national
hostility which demanded a national resistance. The issue of the battle was
the signal defeat of the Scottish army, with the loss of eleven thousand men
upon the field. A peace was concluded with King Stephen in the following
year. The issue of the battle of the Standard might have given rest to
England, if Stephen had understood the spirit of his age. In 11 39, he
engaged in a contest more full of peril than the assaults of Scotland or the
disturbances of Wales. He had been successful against some of the
disaffected barons. He had besieged and taken Hereford Castle and
Shrewsbury Castle. Dover Castle had surrendered to his queen. Robert,
earl of Gloucester, kept possession of the castles of Bristol and Leeds ; and
other nobles held out against him in various strong places. London and
some of the larger towns appear to have steadily clung to his government.
In July, 1 1 39, a great council was held at Oxford; and thither came
three bishops with military and secular pomp, and with an escort that became
" the wonder of all beholders." A quarrel ensued between the retainers of
the bishops and those of Alain, earl of Brittany, about a right to quarters ;
and the quarrel went on to a battle, in which men were slain on both sides.
The bishops of Salisbury and Lincoln were arrested, as breakers of the king's
peace. The bishop of Ely fled to his uncle's castle of Devizes. The king
resolved to dispossess these dangerous prelates of their fortresses, which were

1 154] MATILDA.— GLOUCESTER.— CHESTER. 65
all finally surrendered. " The bishops were reduced to a simple ecclesiastical
life, and to the possessions belonging to them as churchmen." The bishop of
Winchester, the brother of Stephen, had become the pope's legate in
England ; and he summoned the king to attend a synod at Winchester. He
there denounced the arrest of the bishops as a dreadful crime. The council
was adjourned ; but on a subsequent day came the archbishop of Rouen, as
the champion of the king, and contended that it was against the canons that
the bishops should possess castles. Stephen, according to one authority,
made humble submission. Within a month Earl Robert and the Empress
Matilda were in England.
Matilda and the earl of Gloucester landed at Arundel, where the widow
of Henry I. was dwelling. They had a very small force to support their
pretensions. The earl crossed the country to Bristol. Stephen invested the
castle of Arundel. But in the most romantic spirit of chivalry he permitted
the empress to pass out, and to set forward to join her brother at Bristol,
under a safe conduct. In 1140 the whole kingdom appears to have been
subjected to the horrors of a partisan warfare. Robert Fitz-Herbert, with a
detachment of the earl of Gloucester's soldiers, surprised the castle of
Devizes, which the king had taken from the bishop of Salisbury. Robert
Fitz-Herbert varies the atrocities of his fellow barons, by rubbing his
prisoners with honey, and exposing them naked to the sun. But Robert,
having obtained Devizes, refused to admit the earl of Gloucester to any
advantage of its possession, and commenced the subjection of the neighbor
hood on his own account. Another crafty baron, John Fitz-Gilbert, held the
castle of Marlborough ; and Robert Fitz-Herbert, having an anxious desire to
be lord of that castle also, endeavoring to cajole Fitz-Gilbert into the admis
sion of his followers, went there as a guest but was detained as a prisoner.
Upon this the earl of Gloucester came in force for revenge against his treach
erous ally, Fitz-Herbert, and conducting him to Devizes there hanged him.
Ranulf, earl of Chester, and William de Roumare, his half brother, were
avowed friends of King Stephen. But their ambition took a new direction
for the support of Matilda. The garrison of Lincoln had no apprehension of
a surprise. The countess of Chester and her sister-in-law, with a politeness
that the ladies of the court of Louis-le-Grand could not excel, paid a visit to the
wife of the knight who had the defense of the castle. While there, at this
pleasant morning call, " talking and joking " with the unsuspecting matron, as
Ordericus relates, the earl of Chester came in, " without his armor or even his
mantle," attended only by three soldiers. His courtesy was as flattering as
that of his countess and her friend. But his men-at-arms suddenly mastered
the unprepared guards, and the gates were thrown open to Earl William and
his numerous followers. The earls, after this stratagem, held the castle
against the king, who speedily marched to Lincoln. But the earl of Chester
contrived to leave the castle, and soon raised a powerful army of his own
vassals. The earl of Gloucester joined him with a considerable force, and
they together advanced to the relief of the besieged city. The king had
5

66 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE NORMANS. [1087
been more than a month laying siege to the castle, and his army was
encamped around the city of Lincoln. When it was ascertained that his
enemies were at hand he was advised to raise the siege, and march out to
strengthen his power by a general levy. He decided upon instant battle.
The desperate bravery of Stephen, and the issue of the battle, have been
described by Henry of Huntingdon with singular animation : " King Stephen,
therefore, with his infantry, stood alone in the midst of the enemy. These
surrounded the royal troops, attacking the columns on all sides, as if they
were assaulting a castle. Then the battle raged terribly round this circle ;
helmets and swords gleamed as they clashed, and the fearful cries and shouts
re-echoed from the neighboring hills and city walls. The cavalry, furiously
charging the royal column, slew some and trampled down others ; some were
made prisoners. No respite, no breathing time was allowed ; except in the
quarter in which the king himself had taken his stand, where the assailants
recoiled from the unmatched force of his terrible arm. The earl of Chester
seeing this, and envious of the glory the king was gaining, threw himself upon
him with the whole weight of his men-at-arms. Even then the king's
courage did not fail, but his heavy battle-axe gleamed like lightning, striking
down some, bearing back others. At length it was shattered by repeated
blows. Then he drew his well-tried sword, with which he wrought wonders,
until that, too, was broken. Perceiving which, William de Kaims, a brave
soldier, rushed on him, and seizing him by his helmet, shouted, ' Here, here
I have taken the king ! ' Others came to his aid, and the king was made
prisoner." After the capture of King Stephen, he was kept a close prisoner at,
Bristol Castle. Then commenced what might be called the reign of Queen
Matilda, which lasted about eight months. On the third Sunday in Lent,
1 141, there was a conference on the plain in the neighborhood of Winchester,
— a day dark and rainy, which portended disasters. The bishop of Winchester
came forth from this city, with all the pomp of the pope's legate ; and there
Matilda swore that in all matters of importance, and especially in the
bestowal of bishoprics and abbeys, she would submit to the Church ; and the
bishop and his supporters pledged their faith to the empress on these condi
tions. After Easter, a great council was held at Winchester, which the bishop
called as the pope's vicegerent. The unscrupulous churchman boldly came
forward, and denounced his brother, inviting the assembly to elect a sovereign.
The bishop then said to the applauding assembly, " We have dispatched
messengers for the Londoners, who, from the importance of their city in
England, are almost nobles, as it were, to meet us on this business." The
next day the Londoners came. They were sent, they said, by their fraternity
to entreat that their lord, the king, might be liberated from captivity. The
legate refused them, and repeated his oration against his brother. It was a
work of great difficulty to soothe the minds of the Londoners ; and Saint
John's day had arrived before they would consent to acknowledge Matilda.
Many parts of the kingdom had then submitted to her government ; and she

3154] CIVIL WAR.— STEPHEN AND MATILDA. 67
entered London with great state. Her nature seems to have been rash and
imperious. Her first act was to demand subsidies of the citizens ; and when
they said that their wealth was greatly diminished by the troubled state of
the kingdom, she broke forth into insufferable rage. The vigilant queen of
Stephen, who kept possession of Kent, now approached the city with a
numerous force ; and by her envoys demanded her husband's freedom. Of
course her demand was made in vain. She then put forth a front of battle.
Instead of being crowned at Westminster the daughter of Henry I. fled in
terror ; for " the whole city flew to arms at the ringing of the bells, which was
the signal for war, and all with one accord arose upon the countess [of Anjou]
¦and her adherents, as swarms of wasps issue from their hives." After Matilda
/had taken her hasty departure, the indignant Londoners marched out, and
they sustained a principal part in what has been called " the rout of Winches
ter," in which Robert, earl of Gloucester, was taken prisoner. The ex-empress
escaped to Devizes. A convention was agreed to between the adherents of
each party, that the king should be exchanged for the earl. Stephen was
-once more " every inch a king." But still there was no peace in the land.
The bishop of Winchester had again changed his side. When Stephen had
shaken off the chains with which he was loaded in Bristol Castle, the bishop
summoned a council at Westminster, on his legatine authority ; and there
" by great powers of eloquence, endeavored to extenuate the odium of his
•own conduct : " affirming that he had supported the empress, " not from
inclination, but necessity." He then " commanded on the part of God and of
the pope, that they should strenuously assist the king, appointed by the will
of the people, and by the approbation of the Holy See."
In 1 142 the civil war is raging more fiercely than ever. Matilda is at
Oxford, a fortified city, protected by the Thames, by a wall, and by an impreg
nable castle. Stephen, with a body of veterans, wades across the river, and
enters the city. Matilda and her followers take refuge in the keep. For
three months the king presses the siege, surrounding the fortress on all sides.
Famine is approaching to the helpless garrison. It is the Christmas season.
The country is covered with a deep snow. The Thames and the tributary
rivers are frozen over. With a small escort Matilda contrives to escape,
and passes undiscovered through the royal posts, on a dark and silent night,
when no sound is heard but the clang of a trumpet or the challenge of a senti
nel. In the course of the night she went to Abingdon on foot, and afterward
reached Wallingford on horseback. The author of the " Gesta Stephani "
expresses his wonder at the marvelous escapes of this courageous woman.
The changes of her fortune are equally remarkable. After the flight from
Oxford the arms of the Earl of Gloucester are again successful. Stephen is
beaten at Wilton, and retreats precipitately with his military brother, the
bishop of Winchester. There is now in the autumn of 1 142 universal turmoil
and desolation. Many people emigrate. Others crowd round the sanctuary
of the churches, and dwell there in mean hovels. Famine is general. Fields
are white with ripened corn, but the cultivators have fled, and there are none

68 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE NORMANS. [1087
to gather the harvest. Cities are deserted and depopulated. Fierce foreign
mercenaries, for whom the barons have no pay, pillage the farms and the
monasteries. The bishops, for the most part, rest supine amid all this storm
of tyranny. When they rouse themselves, they increase rather than mitigate
the miseries of the people. Milo, earl of Hereford, has demanded money of
the bishop of Hereford to pay his troops. The bishop refuses, and Milo
seizes his lands and goods. The bishop then pronounces sentence of excom
munication against Milo and his adherents, and lays an interdict upon the
country subject to the earl's authority. We might hastily think that the
solemn curse pronounced against a nation, or a district, was an unmeaning
ceremony, with its "bell, book, and candle " to terrify only the weak-minded.
It was one of the most outrageous of the numerous ecclesiastical tyrannies.
The consolations of religion were eagerly sought for and justly prized by the
great body of the people, who earnestly believed that a happy future would
be a reward for the patient endurance of a miserable present. As they were
admitted to the Holy Communion, they recognized an acknowledgment of
the equality of men before the great Father of all. Their marriages were
blessed and their funerals were hallowed. Under an interdict all the churches
were shut. No knell was tolled for the dead ; for the dead remained unburied.
No merry peals welcomed the bridal procession; for no couple could be
joined in wedlock. The awe-stricken mother might have her infant baptized,
and the dying might receive extreme unction. But all public offices of the
Church were suspended. If we imagine such a condition of society in a village
devastated by fire and sword, we may wonder how a free government and a
Christian Church have ever grown up among as.
Geoffrey of Anjou, while his duchess was in England, had become master
of Normandy, and its nobles had acknowledged his son Henry as their
rightful duke.. The great earl died in 1147. After eight years of terrible
hostility, and of desperate adventure, Matilda left the country. Stephen's
brother had been superseded as legate by Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury,
in consequence of the death of the pope, who had supported the bishop of
Winchester. Theobald was Stephen's enemy. The archbishop excommu
nicated Stephen and his adherents, and the king was enforced to submission.
Henry of Anjou was grown into manhood. Born in 1 133, he had been
knighted by his uncle, David of Scotland, in 1149. His father died in 1151,
and he became not only duke of Normandy, but earl of Anjou, Touraine,
and Maine. In 11 52 he contracted a marriage of ambition with Eleanor, the
divorced wife of Louis of France, and thus became lord of Aquitaine and
Poitou, which Eleanor possessed in her own right. He landed with a well-
appointed band of followers in 1 1 53, and besieged various castles. But no
general encounter took place. The king and the duke had a conference,
without witnesses, across a rivulet, and this meeting prepared the way for a
final pacification. The negotiators were Henry, the bishop, on the one part,
and Theobald, the archbishop, on the other. Finally Stephen led the prince
in solemn procession through the streets of Winchester, " and all the great

1 154] STEPHEN DIES.— THE FIRST PLANTAGENET. 69
men of the realm, by the king's command, did homage, and pronounced the
fealty due to their liege lord, to the duke of Normandy, saving only their
allegiance to King Stephen during his life." Stephen's son Eustace had
died during the negotiations. The troublesome reign of Stephen was soon
after brought to a close. He died on the 25th of October, 11 54. His
constant and heroic queen had died three years before him.

IV.

(1154—1485-)
HENRY II. — RICHARD I.

(1154^1199.)
ENRY was in Normandy when Stephen died ; and
it was six weeks after that death before he arrived
in England. He was crowned at Westminster, on
the 19th of December, 11 54— the first king of the
Plantagenet race, which ruled England for more,
than three centuries. At the time of his accession
Henry II. was twenty-one years of age. His reign
The chancellor of Henry, who

W^7 extencJed over thirty-five years.
fgigi^ became the most influential of his advisers, was Thomas-a-Becket.
Gilbert Becket was a citizen of London in the reign of Henry I.
His son Thomas was born there in n 19. Gilbert Becket was in
the Holy Land after the first crusade. He fell into the hands of a
Saracen, and was held by him in long captivity. The misbe.
liever took a pleasure in the society of the Englishman ; and the
emir's daughter bore toward him a tenderer regard. Gilbert
by her aid escaped, and returned to London. A few years after,
in that commercial city, a lady was wandering through its streets, who could
Titter no intelligible words but " London " and " Gilbert ; " and so she moved
on, a desolate stranger. Gilbert and the beautiful oriental at last met. She
became Becket 's wife, and the mother of his famous son. Thomas-a-Becket
received his early education at the abbey of Merton. His abilities soon
-commanded attention, and he received valuable benefices from Theobald,
archbishop of Canterbury, and became archdeacon of that diocese. By him
lie was employed in two difficult negotiations at Rome, one of which was to

70 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [11541
obtain a papal bull against any bishop officiating at the coronation of Eus
tace, the son of Stephen. When Henry II. became king this service brought
Becket into favor. He had all the qualifications of a courtier — a fine person,,
a cultivated mind, a pleasing address. After a short period, he was appointed
chancellor. Hoveden gives the date 1 1 57 as that of Becket's elevation to the-
chancellorship. Becket was then thirty-eight years of age — Henry twenty-
four. A little later in Becket's history we find that he raised a force of
seven hundred knights at his own expense, and marched at their head to the-
siege of Toulouse ; and in a subsequent campaign we learn that the chancel
lor, beside seven hundred knights of his own family, had under his command
twelve hundred cavalry, whom he had taken into pay, and four thousand-
infantry, for the space of forty days. In five years, then, we see an adven
turer, a deacon only in the Church, — we see this London citizen having earls.
to do him homage, and knights to follow in his train.
The first seven years of Henry's reign were not without the vicissitudes
of policy and the difficulties of war. Normandy was his, by the same right as
England. He derived the sovereignty of Aquitaine from his marriage. His
father was count of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine ; and he would have law
fully inherited these possessions had he not sworn that he would perform
every article of his father's will. One article was that he should resign these
territories to his younger brother, Geoffrey, should Henry obtain possession
of England. Henry applied to the Roman see to give him a dispensation
from his oath, which he said he had blindly taken ; and the obsequious pon
tiff granted the formidable king's desire. Geoffrey was not so easily satisfied,
and assembled an army ; but his brother quickly subjected him, and gave
him a pension to compensate for the loss of his coronet. Henry did homage
to Louis of France for all these vast possessions ; and Louis " had reason to-
tremble " while he received Henry's fealty. The counties of Cumberland,
and Northumberland had passed into the possession of the Scottish crown,
either as fiefs or by special grant. There was an oath in the way of their
resumption, which had been imposed upon Henry when a youth under the-
protection of his great-uncle, the Scottish king. But the surrender of the
northern counties, which Henry demanded, could not be resisted ; and the-
young King Malcolm also did homage to Henry for Lothian. This homage,
according to Sir Walter Scott, " was done by the Scottish kings for Lothian,
simply because it had been a part or moiety of Northumberland ceded by
Eadulf Cudel, a Saxon earl of Northumberland, to Malcolm II., on condition
of amity and support in war, for which, as feudal institutions gained ground,
feudal homage was the natural substitute and emblem." Wales, during the
contest between Stephen and Matilda, had, under brave chieftains, recovered
much of its ancient territory from the English. To assert the authority of
England over the Welsh princes was a part of Henry's policy. In 1157, the
king led a powerful army into Flintshire. When Henry marched into North
Wales, to encounter the chief Owen Gwynneth, Owen was encamped at

1 199] THOMAS-A-BECKET.— CONFLICT WITH HENRY. 71
Basingwerk. The Welsh, with all the advantage of local knowledge, routed
the king's forces.
In the June of 1162 Becket was elected archbishop of Canterbury by the
suffragan bishops and the prior and monks of Canterbury, assembled at West
minster. In this proceeding there was nothing beyond the pretense of elec
tion ; for Henry had sent his justiciary from Normandy, to bear his royal
mandate for the elevation of his chancellor to the primacy. The man who
had displayed before the astonished people the most extravagant luxury, with
nobles in his train and belted knights for his body guard, now wears a monk's
frock and a hair-cloth next his skin ; feeds the poor daily in his private cham
bers, waiting on them, and washing their feet ; and when, in the holiest office
of the cathedral he kneels before the altar, weeps and groans as the most
afflicted of penitents. The king is astonished that Becket should have
resigned the chancellorship. He comes to England and requires the arch
bishop to give up his archdeaconry, which he had continued illegally to
retain. Becket is obliged to yield. The old friendship is gone. The next
year the archbishop, with most of the other dignitaries of the church,
proceeded to a great council at Tours, to meet Pope Alexander and his cardi
nals. It was here determined that a severe canon should be made against all
who usurped the goods of the Church. Upon his return to England the
archbishop demanded from several barons, and even from the crown, the
restoration of manors and castles which had belonged to the see of Canter
bury. At this period trial by jury was coming into general use; and in
1 176 a precise enactment established the jury as, the usual mode of trial.
After the appointment of Becket to the primacy, a priest of Worcester
shire committed the infamous crime of murdering a father, that he might be
undisturbed in a guilty intercourse with his daughter. This offender was
required to be delivered up for trial in the king's courts. Becket interposed
the shield of the Church between the criminal and the outraged laws ; and
passed upon him a sentence of degradation only, contending that the degraded
priest could not be a second time brought to trial for the same offense. Hen
ry called an assembly of prelates at Westminster. He asked them, " whether
they were willing to submit to the ancient laws and customs of the kingdom ? "
The reply, framed by Becket, was that they would observe them " saving the
privileges of their order." The king was indignant : and immediately deprived
the archbishop of the temporal appointments which he held at the pleasure
of the crown. Some of the friends of Becket counseled his submission ; but
he said that if an angel should come from heaven and advise him to abandon
the saving clause, he would anathematize him. Yet the passionate man
ultimately went to the king and gave his unconditional assent to the demand.
But Henry required a more formal assertion of the principle which he main
tained, of the equality of the clergy and the laity before the law. He called
a great council at Clarendon, and thither came the eminent men of the realm,
whether lay or ecclesiastic. A series of resolutions were proposed which
have since been known as " The constitutions of Clarendon." These, when

72 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1154
passed, were essentially a statute, and had the force of law. They were
earnestly debated for three days ; and were ultimately carried, even with the
consent of Becket. Taken altogether, they were a formidable attack upon
the power of the clergy at home, as well as upon the interference of the papal
see with the affairs of the English Church. The constitutions were sent to
the pope for confirmation, and Alexander refused his consent to ratify them.
Becket then boldly set about acting in defiance of the statute he had con
sented to pass. He was arraigned as a traitor, and being held as guilty his
possessions were decreed to be at the king's mercy, which means that the
king had absolute power over them. The heroic attitude of this extraordi
nary man now claims our wonder and almost our admiration. Having
preached at the morning service from the text, "Princes sat and spake
against me," he went in solemn procession to the king's palace, bearing the
archiepiscopal cross in his own hands. Henry was in great anger and the
bishop of Exeter came out, and throwing himself on his knees before Becket,
besought him to have pity on himself and upon his brethren. His answer
was, " Fly, then, thou canst not understand the things that are of God." The
bishops then came out and renounced their obedience to him, on the score
that he had sworn falsely to observe the constitutions, and had then resisted
them and broken his fealty. " I hear what ye say," was his only reply. The
barons then pronounced a sentence of imprisonment against him, and the
earl of Leicester came into the hall to read the sentence. The achbishop
interrupted him with, " Sir earl, hear you first ; " and then, after a defense of
himself, concluded by disclaiming the king's judgment, and that of the peers,
" being only to be judged under God, by our lord the pope." He then cited
the bishops, who, he said, had chosen to obey men rather than God, to appear
before the presence of the pope. As he rose to depart, some called him trai
tor. The ancient spirit of the warrior was roused, and he exclaimed, " If my
holy office did not forbid it, I would make answer with my sword." In the
dead of the night he left the town, in the garb of a monk, with only two attend
ants ; and was at length luxuriously established, by the influence of the pope,
in the abbey of Pontigny, in Burgundy, after an interview with the pontiff at
Sens. Henry pursued his ancient friend with a miserable revenge, by banish
ing all those who were connected with him by any ties, either of blood or
affection. The expatriated prelate was less subdued than even in the early
days of this great contest. In 1166 he proceeded from Pontigny to Vezelay,
near Auxerre ; and, on the festival of the Ascension, mounting the pulpit,
denounced all those whom he called the enemies of the Church. Then the
bells tolled, the crosses were inverted, the priests stood around with lighted
torches ; and the horrible form of excommunication was pronounced against
John of Oxford and certain dignitaries of the Church ; against Jocelin de
Baliol, the chief justiciary ; and against all who should abet,' enforce or obey
the Constitutions of Clarendon. The sentence was not pronounced by Becket
against Henry himself ; but the king was called upon, byname, to repent and
atone for the usage he had offered to the Church, for otherwise the same mal-

1199] HENRY AND BECKET AT TOURAINE. 73
ediction should fall upon him, and he should be cursed as those already
denounced as evil-doers, to whom the heavens should be as brass and the
earth as iron, — whose goings-out and comings-in, whose sleeping and waking,
should be equally accursed, — who should be visited with hunger- and cold,
with sickness and blindness, — whom none should compassionate, and for
whom even prayers should be turned into curses. At the conclusion of this
miserable scene of a blasphemous superstition, the torches were extinguished,
even as the souls of those delivered to perdition should be quenched in eternal
darkness. Such denunciations look like the ravings of madness, as impotent
as they are wicked. They were dreadful realities. The offender threatened
was pursued as unrelentingly by public opinion as the wretched victim of the
old Druidical laws : — " cut off by sacerdotal ire
. From every sympathy that man bestow'd."
The personal contention between the king of England and the arch
bishop of Canterbury had proceeded for five years with unabated virulence.
Becket, coming forth from his retreat at Pontigny to denounce the vengeance
of the Church against the supporters of the Constitutions of Clarendon, offers
a no less pitiable example of unchristian anger than Henry, threatening that
he would confiscate all the estates of the Cistercians in England if Becket
were still harbored in a Cistercian monastery. The threat had its effect ; and
the fugitive archbishop, not to bring trouble upon his friends, repaired to
Sens, where Louis of France appointed him another asylum. A petty war
was proceeding between this king and Henry, sometimes ending in a hollow
reconciliation, and again breaking out into new jealousies and revenges. But
Henry managed to conciliate the court of Rome by unanswerable arguments,
more potent than the bitter letters of Becket to the pontiff, in which the king
was called a malicious tyrant. The mortified archbishop- implied that he had
been deserted for gold, when the pope withdrew the commission by which he
had been appointed legate, and prohibited him from excommunicating any
person in England, or of using letters of interdict against the kingdom. At
last it was settled that Henry and Becket should meet in a solemn conference
in which the king of France should be present. They failed to come to terms
of agreement. At last, in 11 70, a solemn meeting took place near Touraine.
The archbishop was to be restored to his see, with all his lands, livings and
privileges ; and Henry was content with Becket's agreement to love, honor
and serve him, " in as far as an archbishop could render in the Lord service to
his sovereign." But they parted without the kiss of peace. Becket antici
pated danger, and he was repeatedly warned against going to England.
Amid an escort of poor people he returned to Canterbury, and on Christmas
day preached in the cathedral, from the text, " I come to die among you ; "
and afterward resorted to his old weapon of excommunication. The prelates,
against whom Becket had borne letters of excommunication, had crossed to
Normandy, to represent their grievances to the king. There is no evidence
that Henry gave his sanction to assassination, but it is clear that in his passion

74 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1154
he exclaimed, "Is there no one to deliver me from this turbulent priest?"
Four knights of Henry's court, "whose names were as follows: William de
Tracy, Hugh de Morville, Richard Brito and Reginald Fitz-Urse, men of
family, conspicuous for eminence," made their way into the archbishop's
chambers, and addressed 'him insolently. Threats were exchanged. The
knights required the prelate to withdraw the excommunication of the bishops
and to do fealty to the king for his barony. But Becket was unmoved by
terror or by entreaty. He resolved to go to vespers in the cathedral. As he
came from the conventual buildings into the cloister there was heard the
tramp of armed men. Quietly he proceeded into the church. "Where is
the traitor? Where is the archbishop ? " exclaimed Tracy. The courageous
prelate answered, " Here am I, the archbishop, but no traitor." " Thou art a
prisoner," said Tracy, and took him by the sleeve; but the old martial tem
per was roused, and the archbishop threw him off with violence. He refused
to fly ; or to make any submission. He was then struck at, and as the sword
of Fitz-Urse was descending upon his head, his faithful cross-bearer, Edward
Gryme, received the blow upon his arm. Becket was slightly wounded and
fell. Another and another blow completed the murder. Henry was in every
mental quality of greatness the superior of Becket. He was not a man of
shows, but of realities. Had Becket not been so wickedly and rashly slain by
the rude knights wno saw but one way of terminating so violent a contention,
the king must have triumphed and the claims of ecclesiastical tyranny must
have been reduced to moderate dimensions at an earlier period of our history..
In the reign of Henry II. commenced that direct connection of Ireland
with the government of England which has lasted nearly seven hundred
years. In May, 1169, the first landing in Ireland of the Anglo-Normans
took place. For several centuries the inhabitants of Ireland had made
hostile descents on England, to take part in the various contests between
Saxon and Briton. Early in the reign of Henry, Pope Adrian had given
him a pretended authority to subdue Ireland, and to reform its barbarous
people. There had been great agitation in the country since the time when
Dermot, king of Leinster, had carried off the wife of O'Ruarc, prince of
Leitrim ; and after years of battle and vicissitudes of power, Dermot was
driven out of the island in 1167. He went to Aquitaine, did homage to
Henry, and obtained permission to enlist adventurers to recover his
dominions. He obtained the aid of Richard de Clare, earl of Pembroke
' r
surnamed Strongbow, and of two Welsh brothers, Robert and Maurice
Fitzgerald. Dermot joined them with his native adherents ; and they gained
victories, and perpetrated atrocious cruelties. Dublin and Waterford were
taken. Strongbow married Eva, the daughter of Dermot ; but the native
king died the same year, and the ambitious adventurer from England
assumed the royal authority. Henry was not disposed to have an energetic
rival quite so near his own dominions ; and he forbade any more English to
engage in the invasion, and commanded Strongbow and his adherents to
return. The adventurer was alarmed, and hastened to lay his authority and

1 199] IRELAND.— HENRY'S SONS REVOLT. 75
acquired possessions at the feet of Henry, as his liege lord. The king of
England proceeded himself to Ireland, with a disciplined and numerous
band. He landed at Waterford and marched to Dublin, receiving the homage
of native princes as he went forward. The princes of Ulster alone refused
to bow to the authority of the English king. Henry returned to England
in the spring of 11 72. He had made no conquests; and his possession of
the island, even as a feudal superior, was exceedingly precarious. But in
1 175, Henry produced the bull of Pope Adrian, and claimed to be monarch
of Ireland. He then granted to Roderic, king of Connaught, that he should
be king under the English crown, over the other chieftains, tribute being
paid by all to Henry. Strongbow, the king of Leinster, died in 1177. The
same year the king obtained a papal bull, giving him power to enfeoff either
of his sons with Ireland, as its lord ; and he conferred that authority on
Prince John, then twelve years of age. The king, however, chose a sagacious
lord-deputy, Hugh de Lacy ; who labored successfully to reconcile the
people to the authority of the English strangers. He was recalled in 1185,
and Prince John, with a numerous force, proceeded to Ireland. The chiefs
of Leinster came to acknowledge John as their lord, and he encouraged his
silk-clad attendants to ridicule their homely dresses, and to pluck their
bushy beards. Instead of loyalty the English now found revenge. The
oppressions which this impolitic boy encouraged raised up enemies on every
side ; and after a perilous and contemptible rule of less than a year his father
recalled him.
After excommunicating the assassins, with all the advisers and abettors
of Becket's death, Alexander sent two legates into France to investigate the
whole circumstances of the unhappy affair. Henry immediately withdrew
from Normandy, and in Ireland he waited the result. At length aa
encouraging issue of five months' debate was announced to him ; and then
his characteristic vigor was displayed by his immediate presence in
Normandy. Henry met the legates ; solemnly swore in the cathedral of
Avranches that he was innocent in word or deed of the murder of the
archbishop ; and was as solemnly absolved of all censure upon agreeing to
certain concessions in favor of the Church, which had the effect of suspend
ing the operations of the Constitutions of Clarendon. Henry was now in
his fortieth year. At this period Henry, it may be concluded, lived unhappily
with the queen ; for the romantic stories of Rosamund Clifford, and of the
secret bower of Woodstock, where the enamored king concealed his
beautiful mistress from the revenge of his wife, have this much of fact in
them, that William Longsword, earl of Salisbury, and Geoffrey, who became
archbishop of York, were the sons of fair Rosamund, and Henry was their
father. In 1172, some influence had been at work to produce a powerful
confederacy against the great king of England ; and in this confederacy
Queen Eleanor and her sons, Henry, Richard, and Geoffrey, were involved.
The young Henry had been a second time crowned at Westminster, with his
wife, the daughter of the king of France ; and he was termed king, from this

76 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1154
circumstance. It was not unusual, according to a custom of the French
monarchy, to crown the heir-apparent. But Prince Henry, at the instigation,
it is believed, of his father-in-law, set up a pretension to divide the royal
power with his father, and demanded that the king should resign to him
either England or Normandy. In the same spirit, Richard, the boy of
fifteen, claimed Aquitaine, because he had performed homage to Louis for
that duchy; and the other boy of fourteen, Geoffrey, claimed the immediate.
possession of Brittany. The rebellious sons fled from the court of their
father to the French king ; and their mother soon followed. King Henry
secured her person, and kept her in close durance for many years. This was
something more than a domestic quarrel. Louis of France dreaded the great
extent of Henry's possessions, and stood in awe of his talents. The people
of Normandy, and Aquitaine, and Brittany — and especially those of Aqui
taine, of whom Eleanor was the duchess— were desirous of independence. To
avert the severance of his vast dominions, Henry had need of all his great
qualities. Louis of France bound himself, with the usual oaths, to aid the
young Henry in his attempt to possess England ; and the young Henry vowed
jiever to make peace with his father, unless France should give consent. There
were two other princes who became parties to this league — William, king of
Scotland, and Philip, earl of Flanders. Henry collected an army of twenty
thousand adventurers. The allied enemies of the king entered Normandy ;
hut they were repulsed. The Scots made incursions upon the north of
England, but they were driven back by Richard de Lacy, the justiciary, and
Humphrey de Bohun, the lord constable, who ravaged Lothian and burnt
Berwick. Meanwhile, the earl of Leicester, who had taken part against the
"king, had brought over a large body of Flemings ; and the force was joined
by the earl of Norfolk, at Farmlingham Castle. They were met by the army
which had returned triumphantly from Scotland. The rebel forces were
entirely defeated, and the earl of Leicester and his countess were taken
prisoners. The rebellious barons being thus defeated, many captives were
sent to Henry in Normandy. In 1 184, the rebellion became even more
formidable. The Scots again entered England in great force. The insur
rectionary standard was raised in the northern, the midland, and the eastern
counties. A fleet was ready at Gravelines to bring over the young Henry.
On the 8th of July, the king took ship, and crossed the channel in a heavy
storm. His ordinary gaiety of heart was overclouded by deep thought.
The man who had fallen dead at the shrine of Saint Bennet at Canterbury
was now a canonized saint, at whose tomb miracles were wrought which
noble and churl equally believed. On the 10th of July, Henry rode from
.Southampton during the night, and as he saw the cathedral towers of
Canterbury looming in the gray dawn, he alighted, and walked in penitential
garb barefoot to the city. He knelt at the tomb of Becket in deep humilia
tion. The bishop of London preached, and maintained that Henry had
thus appealed to Heaven in avowal of his innocence of the guilt of blood.
Then the great king, before the assembled monks and chapter, poured forth

1 199] REVOLT ENDS.— HENRY.— GEOFFREY.— RICHARD. jj
his contrition for the passionate exclamation which had been so rashly
interpreted ; and he was scourged with a knotted cord. Pie spent the night
in the dark crypt, and the next day rode fasting to London. There he fell
ill. But on the fifth night of his fever, a messenger came from Ranulf de
Glanville. "Is Glanville well ? " said the king. "He is well, and has now
in his custody your enemy, the king of the Scots." The insurrection was at
an end in England. The army which Henry had sent to oppose the rebel
lords was now turned against his rebel sons and Louis of France. In another
month Henry had scattered or terrified all his enemies ; and at the end of
September there was peace.
The king of Scotland was confined for several months in the castle of
Falaise. A deputation of Scottish nobles and prelates assembled in
Normandy to advise their king ; and he was finally liberated, after doing
homage to Henry as liege lord, it being stipulated that the Scottish clergy
and barons should also take an oath of fealty to the English king, and that
certain castles in Scotland should be garrisoned by English. This treaty
was ratified at York in the succeeding year. It was some time before Henry
would receive the reconciling homage of his eldest son; but in 1175 they
sailed to England in company, and lived in apparent cordiality together.
During the peace which Henry enjoyed for eight years after the suppression of
the revolts of 1 174, he devoted himself to the unremitting discharge of his
civil duties. Henry, the eldest son, had been the foremost in every
tournament ; and Richard and Geoffrey were equally emulous of the fame of
accomplished knights. In 1183, the king commanded Richard to do homage
to his elder brother for Aquitaine. He refused ; and Henry entered Richard's
territory with an army. The father interposed and apparently reconciled
the sons. But new causes of quarrel arose ; and then Henry and Geoffrey
rebelled against the king. Being about to give battle to his father, the
young Henry fell ill; and then he became penitent. The king, always
forgiving, sent him a ring as a token of his love, and the unhappy man died,
pressing that token to his lips. Geoffrey was pardoned ; but he then made
new demands, and repaired to the court of Philip, now king of France, to
excite new troubles. In 1186, he was thrown from his horse at a tournament,
and died in a few days.
In 1 187, Jerusalem was surrendered to Saladin. Then went forth deep
lamentation throughout Europe. A pope died of grief. A king wore
sackcloth. In 1188 Henry proceeded to France, and he and Philip Augustus
resolved to take the cross. He was yet vigorous, though past the prime of
life. But a suspicious friendship had arisen between Philip and Henry's son,
Richard. The real causes of the troubles that ensued are not very manifest ;
but the disputes ended in Richard joining the French king in a war against
his father. The projected crusade was necessarily suspended. Philip and
Richard took his castles, while Henry remained in a condition of unusual
supineness. He was now broken in spirit. He met the king of France in a
plain near Tours, during a violent thunder-storm. His agitation was great.

78 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1154
In his weakened health he yielded, almost without a struggle, to the demands
which were made upon him. They were exorbitant ; and put that proud
heart wholly under subjection to the will of Philip, and that of his rebellious
son Richard. Throughout these unnatural conflicts he had rested his hopes
upon his beloved John to whom he had required his seneschal to deliver his
castles in the event of his death, and who he had hoped might possess
Normandy. On a sick-bed he signed the treaty. He had asked for the
names of those barons who had joined the French king. The first name he
saw was John. He read no more. He turned his face to the wall, and
exclaimed, " Let everything go as it will." He was then carried in a litter
to his pleasant palace of Chinon, and there laid himself down to die. One
only watched over him with real affection — his illegitimate son, Geoffrey.
His great heart was broken. On the 6th of July, J 189, Henry II. was no
more. Roger de Hoveden, who writes of these events as a contemporary
authority, thus speaks of the demeanor of Richard at the burial of his
father : " When he was being carried out for burial, earl Richard, his son and
heir, came to meet him, and, smitten with compunction, wept bitterly." He
adds, — in the belief of that age that the body of the murdered bled at the
presence of the murderer, — " immediately on which, the blood flowed in
streams from the nostrils of the body, at the approach of his son." His
remorse produced an unexpected result : " All the persons, clergy as well as
laity, who, leaving his father, had adhered to himself, he held in abhorrence,
and banished from his acquaintanceship ; while those who had faithfully
served his father, he retained with him, and enriched with numerous
benefits." Richard was crowned king of England at Westminster, on the 3d of
September, 11 89. During the interval of two months from his father's death,
his mother, Eleanor, had exercised some administrative powers ; and had
ordered the liberation of all prisoners, " for the good of the soul of Henry,
her lord, inasmuch as, in her own person, she had learned by experience, that
confinement is distasteful to mankind." Then the chief men of the Jews
came to offer presents to the king. They had been forbidden to come, but
they came with gifts. The common people, according to the chronicler,
rushed upon the Jews, stripped them, and cast them forth out of the king's
hall, with wounds and blows. The citizens of London, following the
example, attacked and murdered the Jews in the city, and burnt their houses.
Some of the offenders were hanged, by the king's command. After the riot
of London, the spirit of persecution went through the kingdom; and the
Jews were barbarously treated and atrociously massacred in many a town.
The crusade was resolved upon. Richard and Philip of France had agreed
to proceed to the Holy Land, after the Easter of 1190. Large bodies of
crusaders were gathering in England ; and, as they marched to the coast for
embarkation, they exhibited the Christian spirit in which they proceeded
upon their adventures, by inciting the people to plunder and murder the
Israelites. At York, this persecuted race exhibited a sublime heroism. A

1199] THIRD CRUSADE.— CAPTURE OF ACRE. 79
body of armed men entered the city, and commenced their work of plunder
and massacre, by attacking the house of a Jew who had perished in the riot
of London. All the Jews of York then claimed shelter in the castle. They
were admitted, to the number of five hundred. The governor went away ;
and, upon his return, the Jews, alarmed for their safety, refused him
re-admission. The fortress was attacked on all sides, and ransoms were
refused. Then the desperate race, all except a few, put their wives and
to death, and stabbed each other, that they might not fall into the hands of
their cruel enemies.
Under such auspices was the third crusade commenced. Richard, whom
the monk of Devizes calls "a king worthy of the name of king," exhibited
his royal spirit in one universal swoop of extortion and corruption, to raise
money for his great adventure in the East. In his father's treasury he found
a hundred thousand marks ; but this sum was a trifle for his extravagant
purposes. He put up the crown demesnes for sale. He sold the public
offices. He sold earldoms. He sold the claim which Henry had asserted to
the right of homage for the crown of Scotland. He has no shame in thus
degrading the king for the ambition of the crusader. " I would sell London,
if I could find a chapman," he exclaimed. When the wholesale dealer re
turned, after an absence of four years, he forcibly resumed the lands which
he had sold, and turned out the officers who had purchased their places. It
was midsummer in 1190 before Richard and Philip set out on their great
expedition. At Messina he engaged in a quarrel with the prince and the
people about the dower of his sister, and it was at last ended by the payment
of forty thousand ounces of gold by Tancred, the king of Sicily. Richard's
mother and bride arrive at Messina. He engages in a contest with Isaac,
emperor of Cyprus ; subjects him to a heavy tribute ; binds him " in silver
chains," and keeps him in captivity till he is released by death. The conquest
of Cyprus was useful to the crusaders, and Richard exhibited, perhaps uncon
sciously, some of the policy of a wise commander in his attack upon it. At
Lymasol, in Cyprus, Richard married Berengaria, the daughter of the king of
jMavarre. Richard at length set sail from Cyprus, on the 5th of June, 1191.
Day by day there were desperate battles in the trenches. But still the siege
went on. The Greek fire was rained from the walls of Acre on the besiegers ;
and the besiegers cast large stones among the besieged from their cumbrous
machines. During the siege the loss of human life was enormous. Geoffrey
de Vinsauf estimates that three hundred thousand Christians perished from
the time of its commencement to the surrender of the city.
Philip of France, after the capture of Acre, resolved to return home.
He was jealous that among all the host of the Crusaders, " there was not of
him a word, but all of Richard the king." He had his own schemes to
pursue in the absence of Richard from his continental dominions. The duke
of Normandy bound his feudal superior by the customary oaths not to make
war upon his territories while he was not there to defend them ; and the
."king of France left ten thousand soldiers under the command of Richard.

80 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1154
But they parted in anger and mutual hatred. If he had remained, perhaps
his policy, if not his religion, might have saved the Christian character from
the eternal disgrace of one of the atrocities of the "lion-hearted." We shall
not trust ourselves to narrate this crowning horror of the siege of Acre in
any other words than in those of the chronicler, Geoffrey de Vinsauf, who
was himself a crusader. Saladin had delayed to restore the cross within the
time agreed ; and he had asked further time. " When it became clearly
evident to King Richard that a longer period had elapsed than had been
fixed, and that Saladin was obdurate, and would not give himself trouble to
ransom the hostages, he called together a council of the chiefs of the people,
by whom it was resolved that the hostages should all be hanged, except a
few nobles of the higher class, who might ransom themselves, or be
exchanged for some Christian captives. King Richard, aspiring to destroy
the Turks root and branch, and to punish their wanton arrogance, as well as
to abolish the law of Mahamet, and to vindicate the Christian religion, on
the Friday after the Assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary, ordered two
thousand seven hundred of the Turkish hostages to be led forth from the city
and hanged ; his soldiers marched forward with delight to fulfill his com
mands, and to retaliate, with the assent of the divine grace, by taking
revenge upon those who had destroyed so many of the Christians with
missiles from bows and arbalasts." In the guilt of Richard, the duke of
Burgundy participated, by massacring the prisoners which had been taken
under the banner of France. Saladin retaliated by the decapitation of his
Christian prisoners.
A most signal victory was obtained by Richard over Saladin, on the 7th
of September, 1191. Again the Christian host marched forward, in the hope
of reaching Jerusalem. They had halted long at Jaffa. They were within
thirty miles of the Holy City, and Richard was eager for advance. The rains
set in ; provisions failed ; sickness daily thinned the reduced ranks ; the
Christians lost heart. Richard had the prudence to return, retreating rapidly
to Ascalon. This strong place had been dismantled by the Saracens, and the
crusaders found its walls and gates but a heap of stones. They vigorously
applied themselves to the labor of rebuilding the fortress. " All engaged in
the work — princes, nobles, knights, esquires, clerks and laymen," says
Vinsauf. Richard's strong arm and more influential purse were always
ready. But there was disunion and jealousy in the crusading ranks. Richard
is indifferent to the anger of the duke of Austria, or the desertion of the duke
of Burgundy. Saphadin, the brother of Saladin, has interviews with him ;
and Richard " girds with the belt of knighthood the son of Saphadin." The
courtesies of chivalry are exchanged between Christian and Pagan. As
warriors, Richard and Saladin have learnt to appreciate each other.
The news which Richard receives is not of an exhilarating nature. He
has some interest in England, although he was never but once in the country,
and then stayed only four months. But it is a great treasure-house of money
and a great hive of men. His brother John is playing him false. The most

i igg] FOLK-MOTE.— LONGCAMP DEPOSED. 81
striking account of these proceedings is given by Richard of Devizes. On
the 8th of October, 1191, Prince John had arrived in London at night,
and was joyfully received by the citizens with lanterns and torches. On
the 9th there was a great assembly of nobles and prelates in St. Paul's
Church, at which Geoffrey, archbishop of York, whose landing in England
had been resisted by the chancellor, preferred heavy complaints against him.
Prince John warmly espoused the quarrel of his illegitimate brother; and the
assembly finally deposed the chancellor, saying, " We will not have this man
to reign over us." John was then elected chief justiciary of the whole king
dom. There was another meeting on the 10th, which offers a curious picture
of the participation of a large body of the people in state deliberations: "The
sun having now appeared, the earl (John), with his noble troop, withdrew to
the open field which is without London, toward the east; the chancellor went
thither also, but less early than his adversaries. The nobles took the center,
around whom was next a circle of citizens, and beyond an attentive populace,
estimated at ten thousand men." There was much speaking. The chancellor
was overthrown ; and the citizens of London swore fealty to John, against all
men, saving always their fealty to King Richard. This meeting of the great
body of the citizens, in co-operation with the nobles and prelates who had
assembled on the previous day in St. Paul's Church, was, we may believe,
what before the conquest was called a folk-mote — a people meeting. In the
struggle between Henry III. and the barons, there was a great folk-mote at
Paul's Cross ; and that people-meeting is not spoken of as if it had been new
to that time. The popular voice had, however feebly, contrived to make
itself heard, from the Saxon days ; and out of these rude beginnings arose, in
gradual development, the perfect idea of a representative system of govern
ment, in which the body of the people should assert their rights to considera
tion, without the partialities of a mere privileged assembly, or the tumultuous
impulses of an indiscriminate gathering of excited masses.
We leave Prince John to pursue his political triumph. The deposed
chancellor, who it appears was lame, walked down from the heights of the
castle to the beach disguised in a woman's green gown of inconvenient length,
having some brown cloth in his hand, as if for sale, and carrying a measuring
rod. He sits upon a rock on the shore, and a fisherman is rude to the
supposed lady. A woman comes up and asks the price of an ell of cloth, to
which the unhappy chancellor can give no answer, for he understands not
a word of English. Other women gather about him, and, having pulled off
his hood, beheld a swarthy man, recently shaved. He is then rabbled, and
dragged through the town, the men and women crying, " Come, let us stone
this monster, who is a disgrace to either sex." Thrown into prison, the
chancellor is at • length liberated by an order from Prince John ; takes ship ;
and lands in Flanders. The spring of 1 192 had set in and King Richard
began again to attack the Turks with indefatigable ardor. The army was put
into good humor by the capture of an enormous caravan by Richard and a
select band of his own soldiers, and of the French. This prize was not
6

82 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1154
obtained without a severe battle. But the luxuries of the East were poured
into the laps of the captors — gold and silver, silks, spices, robes, cushions,
pavilions, sugar, wax ; besides the most useful necessaries of bread, meat,
and grain. Vinsauf records that four thousand seven hundred camels
and dromedaries, besides mules out of number, were left by the slaughtered
or fugitive Turks. The " twenty discreet men " now said that the enterprise
of besieging Jerusalem was become more difficult ; for, except the stream of
Siloah, not a drop of water fit for drink could be found within two miles of
the city. To the indecision of Richard, the French imputed these delays.
He was grown wiser since he kicked the duke of Austria, when he refused to
work on the walls of Ascalon. At last, Saladin, knowing the distracted state
of the Christian councils, refused to agree to a truce ; and Richard retreated
in the direction of Jaffa, and thence proceeded to Acre, with a part of his
forces. Saladin now assaulted Jaffa with petraria and mangonel ; and captured
the town after a great slaughter. Richard was preparing to embark at Acre,
when the news arrived of the siege of Jaffa. At the first words of messengers
from the besieged, Richard determined to go to the relief of the Christians in
the citadel, and with a small band of followers recovered the castle. He then
boldly encamped outside the gates, having among his two thousand men only
ten who were mounted. A great body of Turkish cavalry attacked this small
force of bowmen and spearmen. Their ranks were unbroken by the clouds of
horse ; for the spearmen fixed the butts of their lances in the sandy earth, and
with the pointed shafts made a fence of steel against the light-armed Turks ;
while the archers discharged their arrows from the arbalasts. Richard and his
ten knights scattered the Saracens wherever they rushed. Saphadin, . the
brother of Saladin, sent Richard during the fight two noble horses, requesting
him to accept them. From the morning sun to the setting sun Richard had
fought against great odds. That day's terrible toil was followed by fever.
His true friend, Saphadin, was at hand, to arrange an armistice. A truce for
three years was finally determined on ; by which the pilgrims were to have
free access to Jerusalem. The great Curdish soldier, the magnanimous and
wise Saladin, died within six months of this truce. He had a higher notion
of the duties of a sovereign than the Richard whose courage he admired.
" Spill no blood," he said to his son, " for it will one day reach thy head.
Preserve the hearts of thy subjects by loving care, for they are entrusted to
thee by God."
Richard sailed from Acre on the 9th October. The impatient adventurer,
with a single attendant, rode day and night, till he arrived in the neighbor
hood of Vienna. He rested at a little village, while, his companion went out
to buy food. The person of this attendant was known to one who had been
with the duke of Austria in Palestine ; and this knowledge led to the captivity
of Richard. Leopold of Austria had been scorned by Richard at Acre ; and
he was also brother-in-law to Isaac of Cyprus. His mean soul had the grati
fication of a cowardly revenge ; and he sent Richard a prisoner to the castle of
Tyern«£eign. The terrible Richard was now in worse hands than those of

H99] RICHARD RELEASED.— IN ENGLAND. 83
Saracens. The duke of Austria sold his captive to the emperor of Germany,
and the emperor was ready to sell him again to the highest bidder. He kept
Richard safely chained in a castle in the Tyrol. His imprisonment was made
known to Europe by a letter from the emperor to the king of France. In
England, the people were faithful to their captive king. Prince John was
in open hostility to his brother. He surrendered to Philip some portions of
the continental dominions of Richard, and did homage to him for the rest.
He returned to England with a band of mercenaries, and proclaimed that the
king had died in prison. But the prelates and barons were firm ; and the
schemes of John were overthrown. Philip invaded Normandy, but with very
partial success. Longchamp, the deposed chancellor, was the first to make
any active exertions for the deliverance of Richard ; and he succeeded in
bringing him before the diet of the empire at Hagenau. An investigation of
the charges against the king took place ; but he defended himself with siach
spirit that his chains were struck off, and the amount of ransom was the only
question in dispute. It was some months before a sufficient installment of
the amount required — a hundred thousand marks — could be raised by taxa
tion in England ; and even then the emperor negotiated with John for a bribe
to detain his brother. The treaty was finally accomplished. When the king
of France knew that this game of state-craft and treachery was at an end, he
wrote to John, "Take care of yourself, for the devil is let loose." After a
captivity which, Hbveden says, lasted one year, six weeks and three days, the
king of England was delivered to his mother Eleanor. He hastened on his
way to Antwerp ; and reached England for a short sojourn. Richard had
been absent more than four years from the land of which he was king.
Richard landed at Sandwich on the 12th of March, 1194. On the 28th
of March, the castle of Nottingham, which was held by men-at-arms in the
interest of John, surrendered to the king. 'Richard never saw England after
this visit of two months. A fortnight of March is passed in the favorite
occupation of fighting for the castles which were occupied by the creatures
of his brother John. On the 31st he holds a great council at Not
tingham, dispossesses certain barons of fortresses and shrievalties, and puts
them up for sale to the highest bidder. He calls, too, for a judgment against
John, who is cited to appear within forty days, or forfeit all right to the king
dom. The- judgment was given. At the beginning of April, Richard had a
meeting with the king of the Scots. They had many discussions about their
respective rights, and a charter was finally granted at Northampton, which
did much for the dignity of the king of Scotland. On the 17th of April the
king of England went through the ceremony of a second coronation. He was
now looking to depart ; but he first reconciled Geoffrey, the archbishop of
York, with Longchamp the chancellor. With his mother, Eleanor, he stayed
at Portsmouth till the 30th, " which appeared to him very tedious." At
length he lands at Harfleur, and his warriors with their horses and arms arrive
in a hundred large vessels. John falls on his knees before him, and obtains
his pardon. The king of France was besieging Verneuil ; but on hearing of

84 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1154
Richard's approach leaves his troops. " The king of England being full of
activity, and more swift than the discharge of a Balearic sling," hurries to do
battle with his great suzerain, and pursues his retreating army with the edge
of his sword. Richard is now in his proper line of business. In a few
months he drives Philip of France out of Normandy, Touraine, and Maine.
In England Hubert, the archbishop of Canterbury, is guardian of the realm,
and his chief duty is to raise money for these wars. We shall not attempt to
pursue the records of this sanguinary contest, which was continued for six
years, with an occasional truce when each of the combatants was exhausted.
The horrible cruelties that were inflicted upon prisoners, the desolation of the
seat of war, the privations endured by the English people to meet the
exactions of their rulers, — these are the consequences at which we must
steadily look, instead of following the narratives of siege and skirmish, of
towns burnt and churches plundered. The modes by which the lion-hearted
king, through his ministers, raised money in England appear to combine the
attributes of the tyrant and the swindler. To order the great seal to be
broken, and proclaim that no grant under that seal should be valid, unless the
fees due to the crown were paid a second time for affixing the new seal, is an
act which scarcely accords with the magnanimity which it has been somewhat
the fashion to ascribe to this Plantagenet. The mean qualities of his brother
John excite no surprise. In the characters of these two sons of Henry II.
there were striking points of resemblance as well as of difference. The last
scene of Richard's life is an epitome of his qualities. .He perished, not fight
ing for a dukedom, but for a paltry treasure which one of his barons had dis
covered on his estate. The royal right to treasure so found was asserted by
the king. The viscount of Limoges refused to surrender all the gold and
silver, though he offered a large portion. Richard, accordingly, laid siege to
the viscount's castle of Chaluz ; and would allow the garrison no conditional
surrender. They asked for safety of life and limb ; but the king "swore that
he would take them by storm, and hang them all, and accordingly the knights
and men-at-arms returned to the castle in sorrow and confusion, and prepared
to make a defense." Reconnoitering the fortress, Richard was wounded in
the arm by an arrow, aimed by Bertrand de Gurdun. The castle being cap
tured, the king ordered all the people to be hanged, one alone excepted  the
youth who had wounded him. In those days of the rudest surgery, the
barbed iron head of the arrow could not be extracted from the flesh, without
the limb being cruelly mangled. For twelve days Richard suffered the
agonies of his wound, and saw at last that death was approaching He
bequeathed the kingdom of England and all his other dominions to John •
and ordered a fourth of his treasures to be distributed among his servants and
the poor. Hoveden tells the rest of the dying scene: — "He then ordered
Bertram de Gurdun, who had wounded him, to come into his presence and
said to him, ' What harm have I done to you, that you have killed me?'' On
which he made answer, ' You slew my father and my two brothers with your
own hand, and you intended now to kill me ; therefore take any revenge on

1 199] RICHARD DIES.— JOHN LOSES FRANCE. 85
me that you may think fit, for I will readily endure the greatest torments
you can devise, so long as you have met with your end, after having inflicted
evils so many and so great upon the world.' On this the king ordered him to
be released, and said, 'I forgive you my death.'" This part of the dying
man's wish — this last effort of a nature not altogether cruel — was disregarded.
Marchades, the chief of the hireling soldiers, called Routiers, after Richard's
death flayed the youth alive and then hanged him.

KING JOHN.— HENRY III.
(1199-1274.)
The first Richard died on the 6th of April, 1199. The reign of John
commences from Ascension-day, the 27th of May, when he was crowned at
Westminster. The rival claim of the young Arthur of Brittany, son of
Geoffrey, the third son of Henry II., and who was only 12 years of age, was the
weak point in the succession of John. Philip of France espoused the cause of
Arthur, not from any regard to justice, or any sympathy for an injured youth.
The boy was a tool in his hands, to be taken up, or laid aside, as best suited
the purposes of this wary politician. In Arthur's interest, Philip invaded
Normandy, and placed garrisons in Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. There was
war for eight months between the rival kings, and then an armistice. On the
23d of May the kings of France and England conclude a peace. The interests
of Arthur are abandoned by Philip, and he is compelled to do homage to his
uncle for Brittany. John has a niece, Blanche of Castile, whom he endows
with money and fiefs as her marriage-portion ; for the alliance is to be
cemented by Lewis, the son of Philip, becoming the husband of Blanche.
But John belongs to that order of minds who make for themselves great
reverses. He had been married since 11 89 to Hadwisa, the daughter of
William, earl of Gloucester. He now finds it convenient to obtain a divorce
on the usual plea of consanguinity ; for he had fallen into that desperate state
of passion miscalled love, which tyrants, whether Plantagenet or Tudor, have
claimed the privilege to gratify at every cost of honor or decency. In his
progress through Aquitaine he had seen the beautiful betrothed of Hugh,
count of La Marche ; and the lady, although she was privately espoused as
some believe, was tempted to violate her faith and become the wife of John.
He went to England in October, 1200, to be crowned with his new queen.
The count of La Marche headed an insurrection against John in Poitou and
Aquitaine. The force which the king of England brought into the field was
too strong for him to resist. But the count had a secret ally in the crafty
Philip, to whom he appealed to redress his wrongs. John, from the June of
1 201 to the December of 1203, was away from England. During these two
years and a half he lost Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. All that
had been inherited from William of Normandy, and Fulk of Anjou, was gone.

86 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1199
During these wars Arthur was taken prisoner by John with two hundred
nobles and knights who had followed his unhappy fortunes.
Over the precise circumstances of the fate of Arthur there hangs a terrible
mystery. At the beginning of the thirteenth century we have no contempo
rary chronicler, except Wendover. The later historians furnish us with very
doubtful and imperfect notions of the death of the duke of Brittany. That
Hubert de Burgh was commissioned to put out the eyes of Arthur, and that
he forebore to commit that atrocity, rests upon the authority of one of these
transmitters of popular tradition. Shakespeare has made the legend an imper
ishable fact. Hubert was warden of the castle of Falaise, where the young
prince was first confined. He was then moved, according to some writers, to
Rouen. He suddenly vanished, says one, in a manner unkown to all. The
king was suspected to have killed him with his own hand, says another. A
more circumstantial account says, he took Arthur into a boat, stabbed him
twice with his own hand, and threw the dead body into the river, about three
miles from the castle. That he was murdered, and at the instigation of John,
if not by his hand, there can. be little doubt. The pope of this period,
Innocent III., was one of the most resolved and ambitious men that ever filled
the papal throne. He assumed the regency of Sicily during a minority. He
decided between rival claimants to the imperial crown of Germany, first setting
up one prince and then deposing him. He excommunicated Philip of France
for an unlawful marriage, and compelled him to take back his repudiated wife.
John of England, always a slave to his violent impulses, when he had lost
France, and was unpopular in England, embarked in a quarrel with this danger
ous pontiff. In 1207, the see of Canterbury was vacant. The monks of St.
Augustine's abbey had always contended, though in vain, for the right to
elect the archbishop. On the vacancy of 1207 the monks of Canterbury clan
destinely assembled, and elected their sub-prior to be the head of the Church
in England. They dreaded the opposition of the king and the prelates, but
they had hope in the character of the pope, and sent their sub-prior to Rome.
He divulged the secret ; and, upon leaving the kingdom, avowed himself
archbishop elect. The monks were alarmed when their proceedings became
known, and immediately yielded to the nomination by the king of John de
Gray, bishop of Norwich. A deputation of their body was sent to Rome, and
they made oath to John that they would support the bishop of Norwich if
a fresh election were required. The pope, having decided that the choice was
in the monks, in preference to the suffragan bishops, absolved the deputation
from their oaths, and set aside the sub-prior and John de Gray. The monks,
under the papal direction, chose Stephen Langton, an Englishman of great
learning and ability, then a cardinal at Rome. The choice was, eventually, a
fortunate one for England ; and it might have been wise for the king to have
acquiesced. He took the usual course of his willful and revengeful nature.
He seized upon the monastery of Canterbury, banished the monks who
remained, and appropriated its revenues. Innocent, it is stated, wrote him

1274] THE POPE'S INTERDICT.— LONDON BRIDGE. 87
conciliatory letters, which John met with angry defiance. In another year
the whole kingdom was placed by the pope under an interdict.
We have described the effects of an interdict upon a province. When
the bishops of London, Worcester, and Ely, by command of Innocent,
pronounced the sentence against all the king's dominions, in Passion Week of
1208, they fled the country. Other bishops quitted their pastoral charge, one
only being left in England. The monks and nuns had their religious offices
within their own walls, but all the churches were closed to the people. This
anomalous condition of society lasted more than six years. During this
period John appears to have conducted himself with more vigor and decision
than at any other part of his reign. He compromised a difference with the
king of Scotland, without any actual warfare. He led a great army into
Ireland, which had been distracted by the rivalries and oppressions of the
proud barons who had been deputed to its administration since the time of
Henry II. The presence of the English king, with a powerful force, was held
as a blessing by the native chiefs and the body of the people. William de
Braiose, who had received extensive grants of land at the beginning of John's
reign, conscious of his crimes, hurried to France, leaving his wife and son in
the hands of John. A brief entry in the chronicle of Florence of Worcester
tells their fate : "Matilda de Braiose and William her son were starved to
death at Windsor." The two De Lacys, among the most oppressive of the
Norman aristocracy in Ireland, also fled to France, and subsisted as laborers
in the garden of an abbey. After two or three years their rank was discovered
by the abbot, and through his intercession they were restored to the king's
favor. John originated some useful reforms. He divided the portions of
the kingdom in his possession into shires, each with its sheriff and other
officers, and he coined the first sterling money circulated in Ireland. A record
of the reign of Henry III. says that King John " brought with him into Ireland
discreet men, skilled in the laws, by whose advice he commanded the laws of
England to be observed in Ireland." He left John de Gray, bishop of
Norwich, as his chief justiciary, a man of talent and discretion. During the
troublous future of England in this reign the sister island was tranquil and
prosperous. The expedition to Ireland was followed next year, 12 1 1, by
an attempt to repress the incursions of the Welsh.
London bridge — the identical bridge over which thousands now living
have passed — the bridge which stood boldly up against flood and frost for
more than six centuries — was finished in 1209, having been thirty-three years
in course of erection. The original architect was Peter Colechurch, a London
curate. In 12 13 Innocent proceeded to act upon the formal excommunica
tion which he had previously issued, by deposing the king of England, absolv
ing his vassals from t-heir fealty, exhorting all Christian princes and barons to
unite in dethroning him, and excommunicating those who held any inter
course with him. Had John been a man boldly and confidingly to throw
himself upon his people, it is probable that this outrage would not have been
endured by the nobles and freemen of England ; for by this excommunication

88 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1199
all the ordinary operations of law were suspended. There was impunity for
crime. There was no safety for property. Dr. Lingard explains how the
popes came to assume the power of deposing kings. They were at first con
tented with spiritual censures ; but when all notions of justice came to be
modeled upon the feudal principles, it was maintained that sovereigns; who
held their fees from God, became traitors by disobedience ; that as traitors
they ought to forfeit their kingdoms or fees ; and that the pontiff, the vice
gerent of God upon earth, had the right to pronounce sentence against them
for the violation of fealty. He promised to grant Philip of France the king
dom ; and Philip assembled a great army at Rouen, and an armament of
seventeen hundred ships in the Channel, for the invasion of England. John,
to do him justice, was not inactive. He issued orders that every ship in his
dominions capable of the freight of six horses, should assemble at Portsmouth ;
and every man that could bear arms was summoned to the coast of Kent.
Instead of waiting for Philip, this fleet crossed the Channel, destroyed many
ships at Fecamp, and burned Dieppe. The invasion was postponed by this
well-timed boldness. While he awaited at Dover the result of the expedition
to the shores of Normandy, the legate Pandulph again arrived. John was
now terrified by imaginary dangers as well as by real ones. There was in the
depths of that soul, so destitute of real veneration for sacred things, that grain
of superstition which terrifies and enfeebles those with whom earnest belief
has no consoling and strengthening influence. A fanatic called Peter — the
" Peter of Pomfret " of Shakespeare— had prophesied that before Ascension-day
John would cease to reign. That feast of the Ascension fell on the 16th of
May. To avert this danger he hurriedly submitted- to the legate. On the
13th of May he subscribed an instrument by which he promised to obey the
pope, in the admission of Stephen Langton to the archbishopric ; to recall the
exiled bishops, and others who had taken part against him ; to reverse out
lawries ; to make restitution for property unlawfully seized. These conditions
being fulfilled, the interdict and excommunication were to be revoked. Four
of the most powerful barons guaranteed these stipulations on the part of John.
The next day was spent in secret council with the legate. On the 15 th of
May an act was done out of whose consequences sprang, in all probability,
much of the future civil and religious freedom of England. He laid the king
dom of England at the feet of the pope of Rome. He took an oath of fealty
to the pope as his vassal. He put an instrument into the hands of the legate,
subscribed by himself, nine earls, and two barons, by which he granted to
Pope Innocent and his successors the kingdom of England and Ireland, to be
held of him and of the Roman Church in fee, by the annual rent of one thou
sand marks, reserving to himself and his heirs the administration of justice
and the peculiar rights of the crown. Ascension-day. came, and John hanged
Peter as a false prophet. The people said that he was a true prophet, for
that John had ceased to reign in doing fealty to the pope.
In this disappointment of his ambition Philip unwillingly acquiesced ; and
proposed to invade England unsupported by any papal encouragement. Fer-

1274] JOHN IN FRANCE.— BATTLE OF BOUVINES. 89
rand, earl of Flanders, who held this earldom as a vassal of France, refused
his consent to join in the invasion ; and a war ensued. Ferrand invaded
France, and John sent assistance to him from England, in a powerful fleet.
There was a signal victory, in which English ships, loaded with armed men,
captured and burned a French fleet. But this partial success was converted
into an evil by the misjudging king, who in his elation of spirit imperiously
called upon his barons to follow him to war in France. They came at his
bidding to Portsmouth, with their armed retainers; but they refused to
embark till he had recalled the exiled prelates and laity as he had covenanted.
He at length complied. Stephen Langton now came to take possession of his
see, and with him the churchmen who had fled the kingdom. There were
tears and promises on the king's part ; but none confided in him. Still the
barons refused to sail with him. They said their term of feudal service was
expired. They stayed behind, to deliberate upon the grievances of the king
dom, at a council at St. Alban's. They then issued a proclamation, in the
royal name, commanding the laws of Henry I. to be observed. When the
king found that the barons had not followed him to Jersey, where he waited,
he returned in fierce indignation, determined to punish those whom he
denounced as traitors. Langton met him, and told him the honest truth, that
it was not for a king to punish any man without trial, and that the barons
were ready to answer in the king's court. The patriotic archbishop convened
another council at London, and here he produced what was called the charter
of Henry I.— a code of ancient Saxon laws with Norman additions. All those
of the council then took an oath to maintain their liberties. In this brief trial
of strength the people were roused. The oppressions of several generations
had bound men in a fellowship of suffering. They were now ready for
revenge. But blood was not then spilt. In 12 14, John landed at Rochelle,
and obtained some advantages in Poitou. While John was in Poitou, France
was invaded by troops under the emperor of Germany, the earl of Flanders,
the earl of Boulogne ; and by the English under the earl of Salisbury. Philip
met these combined forces, amounting to a hundred and fifty thousand men,
with half the number of the chivalry of France. On the 27th of July a great
battle was fought at Bouvines, and its result was the utter rout of the allied
armies, and the overthrow of the hopes of John. He concluded an ignomin
ious truce with Philip, and returned to England in October.
In the train of John came a large body of foreign mercenaries. After an
unquiet time of eight months, the king was compelled to write, "We will send
out of the kingdom, as soon as peace is restored, all foreign soldiers, cross-
bowmen, and stipendiaries, who are come with horses and arms, to the injury
of our kingdom." But he came, in that autumn of 12 14, with the belief that
with horses and arms he could be, " for the first time, king and lord of Eng
land." These are the words which he is reported to have used when he heard
of the death of his justiciary, Fitzpeter, who had held John's arbitrary nature
under some sort of control. The bishops and barons were the great council
of the nation. Parliament, including the commons, was not as yet. The

90 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1199
memorable meeting of Runnymede was preceded by a more solemn meeting ;
when upon the altar of Saint Edmundsbury the barons, on the 20th of
November, 1214, solemnly swore to withdraw their allegiance from John, if
he should resist their claims to just government. They had hot only public
wrongs to redress, but the private outrages of the king's licentiousness were
not to be endured by the class of high-born knignts whom he insulted through
their wives and daughters. From Saint Edmundsbury the barons marched to
London, where the king had shut himself up in the Temple. When their
deputies came into his presence, he first despised their claims, and then asked
for delay. The archbishop of Canterbury, the earl of Pembroke and the
bishop of Ely, guaranteed that a satisfactory answer should be given before
Easter. He sent to Rome, to implore the aid of the pope in his quarrel
And the pope came to his aid ; and commanded Langton to exercise his
authority to bring back the king's vassals to their allegiance. At Easter, the
barons, with a large force, assembled at Stamford. John was at Oxford, and
Langton and Pembroke were with him. They were sent by the king to ascer
tain the demands of their peers ; and these messengers, or mediators, brought
back the written articles which the king signed at Runnymede. As the arch
bishop solemnly repeated these demands, John went into a furious passion,
and declared that he would never grant liberties which would make himself a
slave. The archbishop and the earl took back his refusal. " The army of
God and holy Church," as the barons proclaimed themselves, then advanced
upon London, which they entered on the 22d of May. The citizens had
previously agreed to make common cause with them. On Monday, the 15th
of June, 121 5, John goes from the adjacent castle to Runnymede. The time
and place of meeting was by solemn appointment. The great business of the
assembly was accomplished on that day. From London has marched the
army of the barons.
Magna Charta, the Great Charter of Liberties, is commonly regarded as
the basis of English freedom. This is, to some extent, a misconception. It
was a code of laws, expressed in simple language, embodying two principles ; —
the first, such limitations of the feudal claims of the king as would prevent
their abuse ; the second, such specification of the general rights of all freemen
as were derived from the ancient laws of the realm, however these rights had
been neglected or perverted. It contained no assertion of abstract principles
of freedom or justice, but met unquestionable evils by practical remedies. It
limited the royal practice of extracting arbitrary sums under the name of
reliefs ; of wasting the estates of wards ; of disposing in marriage of heirs
during minority ; and so of heiresses, and of widows. It brought back the
right to demand aids strictly to the original conditions of the feudal tenures
which had been perpetually extended at the pleasure of the king. Passing
over the clauses of the charter which protected the tenants and sub-tenants
from illegal distresses of the crown, let us look at the broad principle of gov
ernment which is contained in these words : " No free man shall be taken or
imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or banished, or any otherwise destroyed ¦

1274] MAGNA CHARTA.— BARONS AND LOUIS. gt
nor will we pass upon him, nor send upon him, unless by the legal judgment
of his peers, or by the law of the land. To no man will we sell, to no man
will we deny or delay, right or justice." In the charter of Henry III., which
was a confirmation of that of John, we find that no man was to be "disseized
of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs," by any arbitrary proceeding.
Life, liberty and property were thus protected.
The Great Charter, as we see in these broad provisions, applied only to
free men. A large portion of the people were in the condition of villanage.
Some were in a state of slavery. Those who held by servile tenures were
thus incidentally mentioned in a clause respecting wardship : " The warder of
the lands of such heir who shall be under age, shall take of the land of such
heir only reasonable issues, reasonable customs, and reasonable services, and
that without destruction and waste of the men and things." The men went
with the land as chattels. Generations passed away before villanage and
slavery ceased to exist in England.
On the 23d of June, 1215, the deliberations were closed at Runnymede.
Twenty-five barons were to be chosen by the barons assembled, to maintain
the observance of the peace and liberties granted and confirmed ; so that if
the king or his officers violated any of the conditions, four out of the twenty-
five barons so chosen might petition for redress of the grievance, and if not
redressed within forty days, the cause being laid before the rest of the
twenty-five, they, " together with the community of the whole kingdom, shall
distrain and distress us all the ways possible ; namely, by seizing our castles,
lands, possessions, and in any other manner they can, till the grievance is
redressed according to their pleasure, saving harmless our own person, and
those of our queen and children ; and when it is redressed, they shall
obey us as before." Gradually numerous bodies of freebooters, from Poitou,
from Gascony, from Flanders, from Brabant, landed in the country, and
gathered around the king at Dover. Rochester castle was in the hands of the
barons ; and John arrived with his army to besiege it. After a siege of eight
weeks, it was reduced by famine. One great ally he has — the pope. A bull
is issued, excommunicating the barons, and annulling the charter. England,
said the insolent mandate, had become a fief of the holy see, and the king of
England had no right to surrender the privileges of the crown without the
consent of his feudal superior. England replied by utterly despising the
authority of the arrogant head of the Church, and telling him that in temporal
concerns his interference was without any warrant ; for that to Peter and his
successors the control in ecclesiastical matters had alone been entrusted.
There were great statesmen in England in that crisis. There were honest
churchmen, who had the hearts of patriots. Stephen Langton, the arch
bishop, was one of these. He refused to excommunicate the disobedient
barons, and was, of course, suspended from his functions. Their leaders came
at last to a desperate resolution. They offered the crown to Louis, the eldest
son of the king of France. Louis advanced some pretensions to a title to the
English crown, in the right of his wife, Blanche, the niece of John. John is at

r.

92 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1199
Dover with his mercenaries in great force, in May, 12 16. Then, as the French
fleet appears in sight, he commences a retreat upon Winchester, ravaging
the country after his usual custom. On the 30th, Louis lands at Sandwich,
reduces Rochester, and marches upon London, where he is received in solemn
procession, and is paid the homage of the barons and the citizens, he swearing
to govern justly, to defend them against their enemies, and to restore them
to their rights and possessions. There can be no doubt that Louis was the
object of popular enthusiasm. His career was for some time a triumph.
Louis of France soon lost the confidence of those who had placed the
kingdom at his feet. He began to dispense honors and possessions to his
own countrymen. On the 12th of October John has marched to Wisbeach.
He resolved to cross the Wash — that estuary which the Romans made
passable by embanked roads, and which at low water might be safely
traveled over. Part of the army had securely crossed. But the tide was
flowing in. The river Welland was descending in a strong current. At a
spot still known as King's Corner, between Cross Keys Wash and Lynn, the
king's baggage wagons, his sumpter horses — all the movables of a royal army
— were swallowed up by the waters, and John stood, on the northern shore of
the Wash, helpless and despairing. Fatigue and anguish of mind brought on
a fever and he died on the 18th of October. The death of John was a
providential event for England.
A boy of ten years old, for such was Henry III., might be held in subjec
tion by those who desired the secure establishment of a just government, that
should equally avoid the dangers of an oligarchical rule and the despotism of
one unbridled ruler. But the first business was to free the land from the
foreigner. To the earl of Pembroke, who had adhered to the fortunes of
John, England chiefly owed the release in a year or two from the dominion of
the stranger. The feast of Saint Simon and Saint Jude was on the 28th of
October. The form of coronation by which the king was " made " was hastily
gone through A fillet of gold was placed on the child's head, for the crown
had been lost in the fatal crossing of the Wash. Gualo, the pope's legate,
performed this office. The usual oaths were administered, and homage to the
pope was exacted. On the nth of November, at a great council held at
Bristol, Pembroke was chosen regent. Gualo, the legate, brought his spiritual
weapons to the support of the new government, by excommunicating Louis
himself, and all who adhered to him. Louis hurried to France, and back with
re-enforcements ; but he found that a spirit of dislike to his pretensions had
grown up in the nation. At last a decisive battle was fought at Lincoln, at
the end of April in 12 17.
The victory might not have decided the contest, had it not, within three
months, been followed up by a great naval success. Under the command of a
famous pjrate> Eustace the Monk, an armament of eighty large vessels put to
sea from Calais, on the 24th of August, for the purpose of effecting a landing
on the Thames, to aid Prince Louis. Hubert de Burgh, the justiciary, a reso
lute and able man, collected forty vessels in the Cinque Ports, and boldly set

1274] PEMBROKE.— DE BURGH.— THE BEGGAR-KING. 93 '
sail from Dover to meet the invaders. The victory was complete. From
that day the cause of Louis was hopeless. On the nth of September a treaty
was signed. An amnesty, with a participation in all privileges, was granted to
the English adherents of Louis ; he and his followers were absolved from all
spiritual censures ; and he was conducted to the coast by the earl of
Pembroke. Unfortunately for the country, the regent Pembroke died in
1219. But by his moderation and love of justice the charter of John was now
perfected by a charter of the forests, in which the terrible penalties for
destroying the king's deer were abolished, and the milder punishments of fine
or imprisonment were substituted. Pembroke bestowed the charter upon
Ireland ; and provided that it should live in the popular mind of England, by
being read periodically in the county courts.*
Upon the death of Pembroke, Hubert de Burgh succeeded to the
regency. His nature, unlike that of Pembroke, did not rise above the
tyranny and cruelty of his times. He repressed disorders with unrelenting
severity ; and he obtained, in 1223, a bull from the pope, declaring Henry
competent to do all royal acts. When this young king, whose " free will "
was henceforth to be the guide " for us and our land," had taken his affairs
into his own hands, he undertook an expedition into Wales, from which he
quickly returned. The next year he collected an army for the invasion of
France ; but suddenly quarreled with his minister, De Burgh, and dispersed
his troops. In 1230, he received homage in Poitou and Gascony. From that
time, foreigners became his favorites. His quarrel with his able but unscrupu
lous justiciary, De Burgh, now assumed a formidable character ; and, after a
violent contest, the minister lost his power. The king's chief minister is now
Peter de Roches, the bishop of Winchester ; and he and his foreign adherents
are hateful to the English nobles, and the nation is again on the point of civil
war. In 1234, De Roches and the Poitevins are dismissed. Henry then
enters into the trade of kingship upon his own account. With him, the royal
office was indeed a trade. History presents him in scarcely any other light
than that of an extortioner or a beggar.
In 1236, Henry married Eleanor, the daughter of the count of Provence.
In 1239, the queen bore a son, Edward. " Lend me a hundred pounds," said
the king to the abbot of Ramsay ; and the abbot replied, " I have sometimes
given, but never lend," and so went to the money-lenders, and borrowed it,
" that he might satisfy the wants of this beggar-king." But not unfrequently,
as we learn from a remonstrance of parliament in 1248, the king rose above
the meanness of the beggar to do the more legitimate work of the robber.
" He seized by force on whatever was used in the way of meat and drink —
especially wine, and even clothes — against the will of those who sold these
things." The Jews, according to the custom of the age, were lawful plunder ;
and Henry, as regarded them, did not depart from the pious usage of his
father. But he did more than any of his predecessors in the spoil of the
Israelites. He sold them, as he would a farm, to his brother Richard. The
* The monument of Pembroke is still to be seen in the Temple Church of London.

94 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1199
city of London, in the middle of the 13th century, was a great commercial
port, carrying on trade with the ports of the Channel, with Flanders and
Germany, and with some parts of Italy. The merchants of Almaine, as they
were called in the charter of the 44th of Henry III., had their hall in London,
afterward known as the Steel-yard. They were large importers of grain, flax
and hemp, of pitch, of steel. Tin was imported in 1241 from Germany at a
lower rate than the tin of Cornwall. London was flourishing. Her mer
chants were rich. Henry sometimes begged from them and sometimes
trafficked with them. The Londoners, in 1248, bought his jewels, when
Henry thus expressed himself : " I know that if the treasure of Augustus
were for sale, these ill-bred Londoners would suck it all up. They call them
selves barons, indeed. They possess a surfeit of riches. That city is an
inexhaustible well." And so he constantly dipped his bucket into the well.
From his exactions and caprices, there grew up a deadly hatred between the
Londoners and their king. The temper of the citizens began to look alarm
ing. So in 1250 he assembled them and their families in Westminster Hall,
and " humbly, and as if with rising tears, entreated that each and all of the
citizens would with mouth and heart forgive him for his anger, malevolence,
and rancor toward them." The queen had a perpetual quarrel with the
citizens about the claim that all vessels navigating the Thames should
unlade at Queenhithe, and there pay to her heavy dues. During Henry's
absence in Gascony, in 1253, she was lady keeper of the great seal ;v
and with that power vigorously enforced her dues, and committed the two
sheriffs to prison for their resistance to the payment of what she termed
" queen-gold." She had wounded the citizens in the tenderest place ; and
thus, in 1264, in passing through London Bridge in her barge, she was
assailed with cries of " Drown the witch ! " and was pelted with mud and
stones. Her son Edward never forgave this outrage upon his mother ; and
he found the opportunity for a terrible revenge at the battle of Lewes.
The parliament, for so the great council has begun to be called, is
constantly remonstrating. In 1242 it refuses a supply, when the king desires
to go to Poitou with a sum of money to carry on the war against the French.
The nobles refuse the subsidy, but scold the king, " with great bitterness of
spirit." In this proceeding we trace the English jealousy of the Poitevins,
who had excited Henry to this war ; and the result of the king's expedition
is the total loss of Poitou. In 1253, the aspect of the kingdom is becoming
serious. A parliament was heldt at which the wish of the king for a grant to
enable him to undertake the crusade was again debated ; but being conceded,
the expenditure was to be " at the discretion of the nobles ; " and the king
promised, in all good faith, that he would strictly observe the Great Charter
and all its conditions. A remarkable scene then ensued. The archbishop of
Canterbury pronounced the- sentence of excommunication against "all viola
tors of the liberties of the Church, or the ancient and approved customs of
the kingdom, and especially the liberties and free customs which are con
tained in the charters of the common liberties of England and of the forests "

1274] FAMINE.— "MAD PARLIAMENT."— THE COUNCIL. 95
The prelates and nobles, and all present, except the king, held lighted candles ;
and at the conclusion of the sentence the candles were thrown down, with the
accustomed denunciation. But the king stood up, and said, " So help me God,
all these terms I will faithfully observe, as I am a man, a Christian, a knight,
and a crowned and anointed king." The king was suspected when he
declined to hold the lighted candle which was presented to him. The pilgrim
age was never entered upon ; and the king, having obtained a part of the
grant, lavishes it at Bourdeaux. More parliaments, more promises, and more
grants, till 1258, when a crisis has arrived.
In the spring of 1258 England was severely visited by a common
calamity of the Middle Ages — a scarcity of corn so great as to produce a
famine. Fifteen thousand people had died in London, when a herald went
forth and proclaimed that those who wanted bread should apply to certain
nobles, who would bestow alms upon them. Ships arrived from Germany,
bringing as much corn as was equal to the produce of three English counties ;
and a proclamation was issued, forbidding any merchant to buy corn for stor-
ing-up. A portion of the kingdom had been laid waste by fire and sword.
There had been an insurrection of the Welsh in 1257, and the border lands
had been reduced to an uninhabited desert. With these evils around them,
the parliament met at Westminster on the 2d of May. In the great hall
was a large body of barons assembled, each in complete armor. As the
king entered, there was a clatter of swords ; and Henry, looking round in
alarm, said, "Am I a prisoner?" "No, sir," said Roger Bigod, "but your
foreign favorites and your prodigality have brought misery upon the realm;
wherefore we demand that the powers of government be delegated to a
committee of bishops and barons, who may correct abuses, and enact good;
laws." In that assembly was the most remarkable man of those times,
Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester. In the great meeting in Westminster
Hall, on the 2d of May, 1258, Simon de Montfort stood the- most dreaded
man of the formidable league. The king's tyrannical half-brother, William
de Valence, and the earl of Leicester, were at bitter enmity. But no violence
of Henry's adherents could prevent the completion of the agreement which
placed the power of the State in other hands. A commission of twenty-four
was decided on, one half of which had been selected from the king's council,
and the other half was to be appointed by the barons at a parliament to be
held at Oxford. On these conditions it was agreed that the king's adebts
should be paid. On the nth of June this famous parliament met at Oxford.
It has been called, " The mad parliament." It would have been well for
England if all parliaments had been equally sane. The principle of the
securities then required from the crown was adopted from the Great Charter ;
and the appointment of a supreme council of State was one of the conditions
imposed upon John, with the more stringent demand that the twenty-five
barons, who were then to control the executive, should be selected without
the concurrence of the king. The earl of Leicester was nominated as head of
the council. It w3s enacted that four knights should be chosen by the votes

96 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1199
of the freeholders in each county, who should submit all breaches of law and
justice to a parliament, to be called together regularly thrice in each year;
that the sheriffs of the counties should be chosen by the freeholders ; and that
the great officers of State should be re-appointed. Prince Edward reluctantly
took the oaths to ohserve the provisions to which his father had sworn. But
the king's half-brothers, though two of them had been nominated to the
council, openly expressed their dissatisfaction ; and De Montfort, threatening
them with the loss of their lands, and even their lives, they fled to France,
with a host of followers who were hated by the English.
In July, the king was at Westminster, and being in his pleasure barge on
the Thames, a thunder-storm came on, at which he was alarmed, and landed
in the garden of the bishop of Durham. De Montfort was in the palace of
the bishop, and went forward to greet the king. " What do you fear, sir ? "
said the earl ; " the storm has passed over." The king replied, " I fear
thunder and lightning beyond measure ; but, by God's head, I fear you more
than all the thunder and lightning in the world." At the beginning of 1259,
the king's brother Richard, who was now king of the Romans, came to
England to look after his pecuniary interests. He was not allowed to set foot
in the country till he had sworn to the Provisions of Oxford. He took the
oaths, and then commenced a vigorous opposition to the committee of
government. In a short time, this controlling power of the State was split
into two factions — that of the earl of Leicester and that of the earl of Glou
cester. De Montfort withdrew to France. The king having obtained a dis
pensation from the pope to violate the provisions of Oxford, told the com
mittee of council, in 1261, that he should rule without them. He obtained
possession of the Tower of London, and commanded the citizens to renew
their fealty to him. Edward was in France, but he hurried home ; and though
his father had also procured for him a dispensation, he refused to violate the
oath which he had taken at Oxford. There is a show of civil war for a year,
which the king carries on with mercenary troops; but in 1262 he again
consents to observe this solemn pledge. In 1263 Leicester returned to Eng
land. His rival, Gloucester, was dead ; and the son of Gloucester gathered
his retainers and put himself under the guidance of De Montfort. On the 13th
of May, 1264, the two armies of the king and the barons met on the downs of
Lewes. The barons had sent a message to the king, assuring him that they
desired to preserve the health and safety of his person, and to punish only the
enemies of his kingdom ; and Henry returned an indignant answer, in which his
brother Richard and Prince Edward concurred, defying each and all of them
as public enemies. These were feudal forms of mutual defiance ; and Edward
and Richard accompanied the king's letter with a challenge to Simon de
Montfort and Gilbert de Clare (the earl of Gloucester) to meet them in
mortal single combat. Edward, who commanded a division, made a fierce
onslaught with his cavalry on that division of the adverse forces in which
were the great body of the Londoners. He put them to the rout. When he
returned, satiated with the blood of three thousand of these rebellious citi-

1274] BATTLES OF LEWES AND EVESHAM. 97
zens, whom ne regarded as the personal enemies of his family, he found that
the field was lost. His impetuosity had given an advantage to the prompti
tude of De Montfort, who threw all his force on the weakened divisions of
King Henry and the king of the Romans, and made both these leaders his
prisoners. The next day a treaty was entered into, by which it was agreed
that Prince Edward, and Henry, the son of the king of the Romans, should
remain as hostages for their fathers ; and that the whole matters in dispute
should be referred to arbitration. Edward was sent to Dover Castle.
Though the king was subject to no confinement in stone walls, as his brother
Richard was, he was really a prisoner in the hands of the victors. No arbi
tration was attempted, for the referees refused the office. It was a triumph
which placed the administration of the realm of England in the hands of De
Montfort and De Clare. The pope had excommunicated De Montfort and
his adherents ; but the people were indifferent to the once terrible denuncia
tion ; and the name of the earl of Leicester went through the land as " Sir
Simon the Righteous." All the acts of his government were done in the
name of the king, who was treated with every outward respect. There were
no deaths or forfeitures for political offenses.
The earl of Leicester kept his Christmas at Kenilworth, his maternal inher
itance. In the king's name he issued writs for the meeting of a parliament.
The writs of Simon de Montfort were the first in which we distinctly recog
nize the parliament of England. They were directed to the sheriffs, com
manding them to elect and return two knights for each county, two citizens
for each city, and two burgesses for each borough. Only eleven prelates and
twenty-three peers were summoned ; but a large number of the dignified
clergy came to this national council. The parliament of 1265 determined
upon the release of Edward from confinement, but that he should remain " in
free custody " at Hereford. It decreed that the charters and ordinances
should be inviolably observed, and prescribed some strong securities, which left
the king little exercise of his free-will. Dissensions grew up between the
earls of Leicester and Gloucester. The natural and acquired superiority of
De Montfort provoked jealousy. His elevation was dangerous for himself.
In the May of 1265, Prince Edward escaped from his" free custody," by
proposing a trial of horse, and having obtained the fleetest, outrode his
pursuers. There were nobles speedily in arms for the royalist cause, and the
king's banner was raised under the earl of Gloucester at Ludlow. The
prince received the command ; but the nobles who joined him had the wisdom
to make him swear that he would respect the charters. De Montfort having
the king in his possession marched upon Worcester. Edward obtained at
Kenilworth an advantage over Simon, the son of the great earl, and went
forward to give battle to De Montfort, who had taken up a position at
Evesham. De Montfort scorned to fly. He marched forward on the road
by which his enemy was advancing. Henry, the king, was in the midst of his
host. The battle was gained. The king, turned loose upon a war-horse,
saved himself from his own friends by crying, " I am Henry of Winchester."
7

98 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1199
De Montfort and his son Henry fell. There was no quarter given; and the
mutilation of the remains of the great earl disgraced the conquerors.
In the parliament held at Kenilworth, in November, 1266, it was an
especial object to restore the peace of the kingdom by assigning to the king
his legitimate power, under the condition that he should adhere to his oath
to preserve and keep the liberties of the Church, and the charters : and that,
with certain exceptions, all those who, during " the present troubles of the
realm," had committed offenses against the king or his crown, should be
wholly pardoned, if they should come in to his peace. This disposition to
enforce an almost general amnesty is an indication of the extent to which
the opposition to the royal authority had gone. That opposition was not at
an end when Simon de Montfort fell at Evesham. A band of his adherents
defended the castle of Kenilworth against the royalist forces ; and its
garrison only surrendered under the pressure of famine, in November, 1266.
Simon, the eldest son of the great earl, long defied the king's armies in the
Isle of Ely and the Isle of Axholm ; the Cinque Ports, which were strongly
attached to the interests of De Montfort, resisted Prince Edward, who took
Dover and Winchelsea after much bloodshed. Eleanora, the widow of the
earl of Leicester, " desolate and confounded at the death of her husband,
would not stay longer in England, but went to transmarine parts ; and though
she was the sister of the king of England, yet the king accounted her as a
stranger on account of the hatred he had borne her husband." Thus writes
a contemporary chronicler. Simeon and Guy, two sons of this unfortunate
house, wandering on the continent, took a fearful revenge for the fate of
their father, by murdering Henry, son of the king of Germany, and nephew
to Henry III., in 1271. The De Montforts were all proscribed by the English
government. They were excepted from the pardons and commutations of
" The award of Kenilworth." The capricious earl of Gloucester, having
quarreled with the king, again took up arms, and seized London in 1267, the
citizens making common cause with him. But he soon submitted, and the
land was at peace.
In 1269, the victor of Evesham, with many barons and knights, took the
cross at Northampton, before setting out upon an expedition to the Holy
Land. Henry, in 1268, obtained a grant from the people of the tenth of
the church revenues for three years, for the purposes of this crusade, and a
general subsidy of a twentieth of the goods of the laity was also raised.
Edward borrowed a large sum of the king of France, secured upon the
revenues of Bourdeaux. Louis IX. himself had set out on the expedition in
127a; and Edward, with his train of barons and their hundred and four
knights, and accompanied by his faithful wife, Eleanor of Castile, set sail for
the Holy Land. Edward then gained some battles. The emir of Jaffa was
in correspondence with the English prince, and had gained his confidence by
professing his willingness to embrace Christianity. The messenger of the
emir had arrived with a letter, and was admitted to Edward's chamber. The
prince was dressed in a loose robe; and the Saracen, finding a favorable

1274] HENRY III. DIES.— EDWARD IN WALES. 99
occasion for a perfidious act, struck him in the arm twice with a dagger.
Edward, [one of the most powerful of an athletic race, seized the assassin,
•and dispatched him with his own weapon. The dagger was poisoned.
Some later chronicler has told the story of Edward's recovery. Eleanor, the
¦affectionate wife to whom Edward had been married for eighteen years,
.sucked the poison from the wound at the risk of her own life. Edward,
.having concluded a truce with the sultan, left Acre in the autumn of 1272,
and set sail for Europe. As he passed through Calabria he learned that his
father had died on the 16th of November.

EDWARD I.— SUBJECTION OF WALES.— LLEWELLYN SLAIN.
(1274-1307.)
On the 3d of August, 1274, King Edward landed at Dover, and on the
19th of August he and his queen were crowned at Westminster. The prince
-of Wales, Llewellyn, had been in arms against Henry III. in the war of the
barons, but had promised fealty to the king before Edward went on his
•crusade. But there was always doubt in the mind of the Welsh prince of the
intentions of Edward toward him. He had suffered much hardship at
the hands of Henry III. during his youthful captivity. He was deeply
attached to the family of De Montfort ; and in the days of their prosperity,
when Kenilworth was the seat of the countess of Leicester's abundant hospi
tality, he had pledged his hand to Eleanora, her daughter. When ho was
summoned as a vassal of the English crown to the coronation of Edward he
refused to attend without a safe-conduct. Edward repaired to Chester.
Llewellyn was again summoned, and refused to meet the king. He was
further summoned to attend a parliament at Westminster in 1275, and again
he declined to appear. Before the death of the widow of the earl of
Leicester, in 1275, the young Eleanora was married by proxy to the Welsh
prince, who kept that faith to the poor and exiled orphan which he had
-vowed in the days of her prosperity. She sailed with her brother Almeric,
in 1276, to join her affianced husband in Wales. The vessel which bore her
from the continent was intercepted off the Scilly islands : and Eleanora and
her brother became the captives of their cousin Edward. Llewellyn
indignantly demanded the release of his bride ; and once again refused to
attend a parliament. He offered a ransom for Eleanora and her brother, but
the king was inexorable. The crafty politician felt that he could trample
upon the independence of Wales, through his ungenerous outrage upon the
affections of its prince. When Llewellyn refused to come to the parliament
of 1276, his lands were declared to be forfeited ; and in 1277 Edward led an
army into Wales. The mountain chiefs were unable to make head against
this invasion ; and David, the brother of Llewellyn, was seduced by Edward
to forget the cause of his country in revenge for some personal injury in the
matter of his patrimony. Llewellyn, beset by foreign foes and domestic

ioo HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1274:
treachery, submitted to the hard terms which the king of England imposed.
upon him. He retained only the complete sovereignty of the district of
Snowdon and the isle of Anglesey, though the title of prince of Wales remained
to him. Upon the promise of a large tribute, which could never be paid,
Eleanora was given up to Llewellyn, and they were married at Worcester, in
1278, in the presence of Edward and his court. Almeric de Montfort was-
kept in confinement four years longer.
In 1279, King Edward visited King Philip of France at Amiens. At
this meeting some of the causes of dispute between the crowns were wisely
removed, by Edward receiving formal possession of Gascony, and as formally
resigning Normandy. The Jews, throughout England, were all seized, on
one day, upon a charge of clipping the coin ; and says Matthew of West
minster, " of the Jews of both sexes, there were hanged in London, two
hundred and eighty, and a very great multitude in other cities of England."
Some Christians were involved in the accusation ; and for most of them the
king received ransom. In a few years more, in 1290, the whole community of
Jews in England was banished. Three or four years before their expulsion
the pope addressed a bull to the archbishop of Canterbury, forbidding the
association of Christians and Jews. It is on record that the bishop of
Hereford, in 1286, excommunicated certain Christians of Hereford for
attending a nuptial entertainment given by a rich Jewish family living in that
city. The Jews wore the badge of their tribe ; but by their commercial.
activity and command of capital, even without violation of the statute of
usury which Edward had passed, they were a numerous and powerful body,
and not without some partial sympathy among their fellow citizens. It is
difficult to understand the immediate cause of their banishment.
It was in the spring of 1282, that the fancied security of the English
government was disturbed by a national outbreak of the Welsh. On the
night of Palm Sunday, David, the brother of the prince of Wales, surprised
the castle of Hawarden. The justiciary, Roger de Clifford, was carried off a
prisoner to the recesses of Snowdon, and all his retinue of knights and
servants were put to the sword. There appears to be little doubt that the
Welsh on the border were subjected to many oppressions from the English
officers. De Clifford is described in the Welsh annals as a cruel tyrant. Upon
the outbreak of his brother David, the prince, Llewellyn, immediately besieged
the castles of Flint and Rhuddlan. The mountain chieftains hastily assembled
their dependents, and pouring down upon the lowlands, drove the English
intruders across the marches. Edward sent for foreign aid from Gascony. The
advance of Edward was not very rapid. In' one battle his advance was
decidedly checked. Further, in passing the Menai strait upon a bridge of
boats, so wide that forty horsemen could go over abreast, the alarm was given
that a strong force was coming from their ambush in the hills ; and, in a pre
cipitate retreat, many knights and foot-soldiers perished in the turbid wintry
waters. Llewellyn was elated by the partial success which as yet attended the
daring enterprise in which he had engaged. He left the passes of Snowdon to

1307] DEATH OF LLEWELLYN.— BOHUN AND BIGOD. 101
be defended by his brother, and descended into the open country. It was a
time of domestic grief ; for his wife had died shortly before the last struggle
for Welsh independence had commenced. Llewellyn fell in a sudden skirmish
¦at Builth, in the valley of the Wye. He fell, without being recognized by the
knight who had surprised his party. When his rank was discovered, his
head was sent to Edward, who placed it on the walls of the Tower of
London, crowned with an ivy wreath. Upon the death of Llewellyn, the
principal chiefs, with the exception of David, made their submission to the
king, who was too politic to treat them with severity. For six months,
the last of the unfortunate princely family held out against the invaders;
but being betrayed, he was imprisoned in the castle of Rhuddlan ; and on
the 30th of September, 1283, was arraigned as a traitor before a parliament
-summoned to meet at Shrewsbury, and in the high street of that city David
.suffered the penalties of treason. King Edward remained more than a year
in Wales, completing the pacification of the country. The queen of Edward
was with the king during his abode in Wales ; and there, at Caernarvon, her
.son Edward was born on the 25th of April, 1284. The child was afterward
declared prince of Wales.
During the absence of Edward I. from England, from 1286 to 1289, the
public events of the kingdom were not of great importance. There was an
insurrection of the Welsh, in 1287, which was subdued by the king's justiciary.
It was in 1297, when the Scots were in arms against the claims of the king of
England, that his subjects exacted from him the statute of the confirma
tion of the charters. This famous law went, however, much further than the
•previous charters in placing the liberties of the country upon a solid founda
tion. There were two eminent men at that time who fought this great battle
of the constitution, Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford and Essex, and Roger ,
-Bigod, earl of Norfolk. These men were to the age of Edward I. what John
Hampden was to the age of Charles I. When these sturdy patriots called
upon the sheriffs to levy no more taxes till the charters were confirmed
without any insidious reservation of the rights of the crown, the Plantagenet,
imperious and bold as he was, felt that it was true wisdom to yield. There
-was a time when the exactions of Edward upon the Church and the laity were
-very nearly exciting another civil war, such as he had witnessed under De
Montfort. He was stripping the clergy of their possessions ; he was not only
taxing wool and hides at an unprecedented rate, but seizing merchandise and
agricultural produce without present payment, in the most wanton exercises
of purveyance. Bohun and Bigod then openly resisted the king's commands
that they should sail with a re-enforcement of troops to his army in Gascony.
The king assembled the clergy and the people at Westminster. He lamented
that he had been compelled to impose heavy burdens upon them, for the sole
purpose of protecting them against the Welsh, the Scots, and the French, who
-sought his crown while they thirsted for their blood. The king sailed for
Flanders. The barons then rose in arms, but they strictly preserved the
peace of the kingdom. The young Prince Edward was surrounded by a

102 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1274.
council ; and by their advice the famous statute of the confirmation of the
charters was agreed to, and sent to the king abroad. From that day, the ioth.
of October, 1297, the sole right of raising supplies has been invested in the
people. The parliament demanded his signature to their act by the 6th of
December. The Scots had obtained a great victory at Sterling ; Edward was.
opposed in Flanders by a superior force of the French king. On the 5th of
November, at Ghent, he signed the act which was never reversed, although he-
often struggled hard to violate it. The resistance of Scotland to oppression
had thus a powerful influence upon the liberties of England.
The kings of Scotland, from the earliest times, had done homage to the
English sovereigns, either in their character of Scottish monarchs, or as
holders of fiefs in England. The precise nature of that homage has now
become a mere antiquarian problem. It was debated at one time with all the
fury of national partisanship. The Scottish nobles, who so readily admitted
the claims of Edward, looked at this question with a more intimate knowledge-
of the nice limits between feudal submission and national independence than
we can possess. They were not the less patriots because they acknowledged.
the right of Edward, as superior lord, to decide who should fill their vacant.
throne. When, after a long course of deliberation, the commissioners had
reported in favor of John Balliol, and the king of England had confirmed the
decision, he required Balliol to do homage to him as his " liege man for
Scotland," saying, "which kingdom I hold, and ought of right, and claim to-
hold by inheritance, for myself and my heirs, kings of Scotland, of you and.
your heirs, kings of England." We find Edward in 1293 summoning Balliol
to his court at Westminster to answer to charges of mal-administration, and
refusing himself, in 1294, to appear at the court of the king of France, to
answer for the alleged misconduct of some of the people of Gascony. Balliol
goes to Westminster, and is treated with some indignity. Edward refuses to-
go to Paris, and his fiefs in France are declared forfeited. A war ensues..
Edward renounces his fealty to France, and raises a large army to assert his,
independence. The Welsh take the opportunity of rising; but they are
defeated when Edward postpones his French expedition to put himself at the
head of his troops in Wales. The revolt was very serious, and the king
himself was besieged in Conway Castle, and reduced to the extremest neces
sity. At last, having subdued the Welsh, he began to make his dominion felt
in Scotland. The Scottish barons now understood what the feudal submission
of their king really implied ; and they incited Balliol to assert the indepen
dence of their country. He resigned the conduct of the war which was.
impending to twelve guardians of the realm ; and a secret treaty was.
concluded between Scotland and France. In 1296, Edward was on his march
to Scotland. On the 28th of March King Edward crossed the Tweed, with five-
thousand horsemen and thirty thousand foot. On the 30th he " took the
town of Berwick-upon-Tweed by force of arms, without tarrying." This little
phrase, " by force of arms," means that this important place, a free port whose

1307] SCOTLAND.— BALLIOL.— BRUCE.— WALLACE. 103
customs amounted to a fourth of those of all England, a commercial emporium,
full of the wealth which belongs to a large interchange with foreign countries,
that this second Alexander, as it was termed, was taken by assault ; its inhab
itants, to the number of many thousands, massacred ; and the whole place given
up to pillage. The king and his host remained there a month, " every man in
the house that he had gotten." Many of the Scotch nobles, among others
Robert Bruce, sided with Edward. While the king was at Berwick, a
messenger arrived with a letter from Balliol, renouncing his fealty, and
refusing to obey the summons of Edward to appear before him. "The felon
fool ! " exclaimed the king ; " since he will not come to us we will go to
him." While at Berwick, the king dispatched a portion of his army to
Dunbar, which was in the hands of the Scottish forces. A great battle
ensued between the English and Scotch, in which Sir Patrick Graham and ten
thousand men were slain. Edward himself arrived at the castle, which was
surrendered on the 29th of April. Onward went the "ruthless king,"
capturing Roxburgh Castle on his way to Edinburgh. He immediately
commenced a siege of the castle. On the 14th of June Stirling surrendered
without resistance. The king proceeded to Montrose, " and there came to
him King John of Scotland to his mercy, and did render quietly the realm
of Scotland, as he that had done amiss." This important act having been
accomplished, Edward proceed to Aberdeen, " a fair castle and a good town
on the sea." At Berwick the king of England held a parliament, and
there he received the homage of the bishops, barons and knights of Scotland.
He appointed John Warenne, earl of Surrey, regent of the subjected
kingdom ; and moved on to London, with the crown and scepter which John
Balliol had surrendered, and with the sacred stone, " the stone of destiny," on
which the Scottish kings were seated at their inauguration. Castles, hostages,
regalia, were the king of England's. But the heart of the people was not
his. The conquest was not accomplished.
William Wallace was essentially the hero of the people. There was
scarcely a Scottish noble who had not sworn fealty to the English king, and
exhorted his countrymen to submission. One man, not of noble birth, was
hiding in the mountains with a few followers ; and out of the partisan warfare
which he carried on was engendered the spirit which finally made Scotland
free. The early life of William Wallace belongs to legend rather than to
history. At the time that Balliol surrendered his crown to Edward, Wallace
is supposed to have been about twenty-five years of age. He is said to have
been the younger of two sons of Sir Malcolm Wallace of Ellerslie, and his
paternal residence was in the neighborhood of Paisley. The youthful deeds ,
of Wallace, as reflected in tradition, mark him from the first as a hater of
oppression. He is fishing in the river of Irvine, near Ayr, and some
English soldiers attempt to seize his well-filled basket. He kills one of the
rude warriors with the butt-end of his fishing-rod, and puts the others to
flight. Another tradition is that he slew the son of the English governor of
Dundee who had offered him some insult. A third legend connects his

104 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1274
patriotic career with an outrage upon his dearest affections. Walking with
his wife in the town of Lanark, an Englisman ridicules his gay garments, and
a quarrel ensues, which ends in the death of the man who insulted Scotland in
Wallace's person. He flies to a wild bushy glen called the Cartland-crags ;
and there hears that his house has been burnt, and his wife and children put
to death by the ferocious English governor. He collects a band around him ;
and descending upon the town of Ayr fearfully revenges an act of treachery
committed by another English governor. The fame of his exploits goes
through the land. Nobles flock to the standard of the obscure man ; and
Wallace, the outlaw, became the commander of a great army. He was joined
by Sir William Douglas, Sir John Graham, and ultimately by Robert Bruce,
the grandson of the Bruce who competed with Balliol for the crown. A
general revolt against the English authority broke out in the spring of 1297.
Edward was in Gascony. But two powerful armies were formed in Scotland ;
and that on the western coast, under Henry Lord Percy and Sir Robert
Clifford, came in presence of the Scots near Irvine. Bruce, and Douglas, and
other nobles, agreed to acknowledge Edward as their sovereign lord. Sir
William Wallace — for he then bore the title which belongs to knighthood —
and Sir Andrew Moray, with a considerable body of adherents, retired to the
north. The national spirit soon gave him the means of compensating for the
desertion of the proud nobles, who dreaded the loss of their estates. Wallace
had only honor to lose. But the tenants of many of the Scottish chiefs were
secretly encouraged to join the insurgents. After various successes, Wallace
met the English army near the town of Stirling. Warenne, the guardian of
the kingdom appointed by Edward, offered pardon to Wallace and his
followers if they would lay down their arms. The offer was indignantly
rejected. The English, on the morning of the 10th of September, began to
cross the river by a narrow bridge ; and when a portion of the army, horse
and foot, had passed, Wallace poured down from the hills upon the separated
force, and nearly all the English on the north bank perished by the sword or
in the stream. The treasurer of Edward, Cressingham, was one of the slain.
The chief loss on the side of the Scotch was Sir Andrew Moray. Warenne
retreated rapidly into England. Every place of strength was abandoned ;
and Wallace, with the son of Moray, at the head of the army which they
proclaimed to be that of John, king of Scotland, crossed the Tweed, and for
several weeks made fearful ravages upon Northumberland and Cumberland.
It was at this moment that the English barons obtained the confirmation of
the charters. The Scottish army penetrated as far south as Newcastle.
John Balliol was then in the Tower of London. After his return from the
invasion of England, we find that in 1298, as appears in a charter dated on the
29th of March, "William Walleys, miles," is styled " Custos regni Scotia? " 
he is guardian of the kingdom in the name of King John.
The elevation which Wallace had now attained was not of long endurance.
The nobles said, "We will not have this man to rule over us." When
Edward having hurried from France was once again in Scotland, which he

1307] FALKIRK.— PARLIAMENT OF LINCOLN. 105
entered in the June of 1298, the attachment of the humbler classes of the
people was not powerful enough to sustain the great popular leader in his
triumphant course. The nobles kept aloof. Edward came on with his
mailed chivalry and his terrible bowmen. At Falkirk the unequal forces met.
Advancing to this field of Falkirk Edward was thrown from his horse, and
broke two of his ribs. Regardless of the injury, he led his cavalry forward
to meet the whole Scottish army standing in close array. Wallace was not a
man to fly. He fought in that field of Falkirk, in which his spearmen long
stood up against the English knights, till his friends Stewart and Graham, and
thousands who have left no name, had fallen. All was finished. Wallace,
according to tradition, hid himself in an oak in the adjoining forest, of which
Sir Walter Scott saw the roots when he was a boy. For seven years after the
fatal battle of Falkirk we hear little of Sir William Wallace. He was
deprived of his office of guardian of the kingdom. The war was continued ;
but Bruce, and Comyn, and the bishop of St. Andrews, were joint guardians
in the name of Balliol. Wallace carried on his former system of desultory
warfare, which had first roused a general resistance to Edward. Legendary
history tells of his mighty deeds. That the career of Wallace was one of
patriotism, in the loftiest sense of the word, may be doubted ; nor was it
upheld by those high social considerations by which the opposition to injustice
becomes a great moral effort, as in the instance of Washington.
While Wallace was carrying on his desultory warfare, the new regents
followed up a measure which the previous government had originated, in
appealing to the interference of the pope to protect Scotland from the
aggressions of the English king. The envoys of Bruce and Comyn demanded
this interference upon the ground that Scotland was a realm which belonged
of right to the see of Rome. In June, 1299, the pope, Boniface, set forward
this pretension in a letter addressed to Edward, and demanded that every
controversy between England and Scotland should be referred to the decision
of the pontiff. The delivery of the letter was delayed for more than a year ;
and upon its arrival Edward returned for answer that he should submit the
matter to his parliament. On the 20th of January, 1301, a parliament was
accordingly assembled at Lincoln. The sagacity of the king was never more
strikingly exemplified than in this proceeding. To this parliament of Lincoln
there came upwards of three hundred persons — prelates, abbots, barons,
knights and burgesses. The pope received an answer which was worthy of a
great representative assembly. He was told that " it is, and by the grace of
God shall always be, our common and unanimous resolve, that with respect
to the rights of his kingdom of Scotland, or other his temporal rights, our
aforesaid lord, the king, shall not plead before you, nor submit in any manner
to your judgment, nor suffer his right to be brought into question by any
inquiry, nor send agents or procurators for that purpose to your court."
Edward had concluded a truce with Scotland, which lasted for ten mo-ntl-.s
of the year 1302. He had been negotiating a peace with France, but a
demand was made that Scotland should be included. To this demand the

106 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1274
English assent was refused, and the war was renewed at the beginning of 1303.
Stirling Castle was taken by the Scots, and the English army was defeated
at Roslin. Edward had now made peace with France and obtained the
restoration of Gascony. He was thus ready to carry his personal vigor to the
Scottish war. He soon enforced an unwilling submission, and concluded a_
treaty with Comyn and the other leaders on the 9th of February, 1304..
Wallace was not included in the capitulation, but it was said that he might,
if he pleased, give himself up to the king's will and grace. He was afterward
summoned to appear before a parliament of nobles of the two nations, but he
continued contumacious and was pronounced an outlaw. The reduction of
Scotland was completed in the summer of that year by the surrender of
Stirling. Wallace was at length taken prisoner near Glasgow. His head was
struck off and placed upon a pole on London-bridge. His body was divided
into four quarters. William Wallace, thus betrayed and outraged, was never
so dangerous to the power of King Edward as when his mutilated arms and
legs were exhibited to the Scottish people on the public places of Newcastle,
Berwick, Perth and Aberdeen. Sir Simon Fraser, one of the brave adherents
of Wallace, was also executed in the same year, and his head was placed on
London-bridge beside that of his great leader. There was exultation in
England over the fate of these brave men. There was wailing in Scotland ;
but the lament was smothered in a passionate desire for revenge. In four
¦months Robert Bruce was in arms.
John Balliol, the King John of Scotland, was dead. His son was in captiv
ity in London, and the name of Balliol was held in scorn. Robert Bruce, the
grandson of the competitor for the crown, was now twenty-three years of age.
Scotland had been apparently settled by the pacific policy of Edward, and
young Bruce appeared to be in his confidence. John Comyn, the son of
Balliol's sister, was an object of jealousy to the king of England, for he in
some degree represented the rights of the Balliol family with a boldness which
might have been dangerous. Bruce came to Scotland. Bruce and Comyn
met in private conference. According to Fordun, the ancient feud between the
two families was the cause of the fatal result which ensued from this meeting.
Bruce plunged his dagger into the breast of Comyn. The attendants of Bruce
completed the murder. The guilt of blood was upon Bruce. Bruce immedi
ately assumed the title of king, and he was crowned as King Robert of
Scotland, at Scone, on the 27th of March. Edward was now failing in health.
At a great banquet, when two swans were placed on the table of the regal
hall, the king swore before God and the swans that he would revenue the
murder of Comyn, and punish the rebels who had thus defied him. The
prince departed with a large company of knights the next morning. The
king, who, apprehensive of his approaching end, had begged that his body
might remain unburied till his vow was accomplished by his son, slowly
followed. Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, was in the neighborhood of
Perth, when the army of King Robert attacked him. The result was defeat.
Bruce escaped with a small band of his followers ; and for several months the

1307] DEATH OF EDWARD I.— EDWARD II. MARRIED. 107
fugitives wandered amid the Grampian hills, sustaining many severe privations.
In the spring of 1307 King Robert came forth from his retreat. He was again
joined by many adherents, and he obtained some successes over the earl of
Pembroke and the earl of Gloucester. On the 3d of July King Edward with
a large army set out for Carlisle on horseback. His impatience to take the
field against the insurgents would no longer endure the restraint which was
demanded by his bodily weakness. The effort was fatal. Edward I. expired.
at Burgh-on-the-Sands on the 7th of July.

EDWARD II.— PIERS GAVESTON.— INVASION OF SCOTLAND.—
ROBERT BRUCE.— THE TEMPLARS.— EDWARD III.
(1307-1377.)
Edward of Caernarvon was twenty-three years old when his father died.
In February, 1307, at a parliament held at Lanercost, an order was issued that
Piers Gaveston should be banished forever from the kingdom as a corruptor
of the prince of Wales. In five months he had the power, as king, of revoking
the sentence of his sagacious father. On the 8th of July the nobles and.
others assembled at Carlisle recognized Edward as king, and there did homage..
The king departed from London, leaving Aymer de Valence guardian and-
lieutenant. Before the ensuing Christmas, the ministers of his father were
deprived of their employments ; Gaveston was loaded with wealth and honor ;.
was married to Margaret, the king's niece, and was appointed regent of the
kingdom on the departure of Edward for France, to marry Isabella, the
daughter of Philip le Bel, the French king. The marriage took place at
Boulogne; and on the 24th of February, 1308, Edward was crowned at
Westminster. All the old claims to precedence at the coronation of the kings
of England were disregarded on this occasion ; and the place of greatest
honor — to carry the crown and walk before the king in procession — was given
to Gaveston. In three days the offended nobles petitioned for the banishment
of the favorite. The king referred the matter to a parliament to be-holden
after Easter, and this tribunal would hear of no compromise. Gaveston was
sentenced to banishment, and was compelled to swear that he would never
return. In another month it was learned that the infatuated king had
appointed him to the government of Ireland. The favorite appears to have
conducted himself in this office with courage and ability. At a tournament.
he unhorsed the four great English earls who were his bitterest enemies. He
was tasteful amid his prodigal magnificence. The king at length persuaded a
party of the nobles to consent to Gaveston's recall ; and the pope gave the
favorite a dispensation from his oath to remain abroad. Then the court
became the scene of perpetual banqueting. Gaveston was supreme ; but the
great barons looked on in sullen and suppressed hatred. The day of vengeance
would come, when Thomas of Lancaster would exact a terrible penalty for

108 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1307
the nick-name which the upstart had bestowed upon him of " the old hog ; "
when the earl of Pembroke would remember that he had been called " Joseph
the Jew;" and when the earl of Warwick, " the black dog of the wood,"
would make the sarcastic favorite " feel his teeth." On the 16th of March the
barons came in arms to a parliament at Westminster ; and they enforced the
appointment of a committee, under the" name of ordainers, to provide for the
better regulation of the king's household, and to remedy the grievances of the
nation. The moving principle of this strong measure was a hatred of
Gaveston. The ordainers sat in the capital. Edward went to Scotland, but
met no enemy, for Bruce had retired beyond the Forth. The English king
wintered at Berwick, and the next spring confided the conduct of the Scottish
war to his favorite, who conducted himself with courage and prudence.
Edward returned to London to meet the ordainers, leaving Gaveston at the
castle of Bamborough. In the articles of reform which were presented
to the king came a clause decreeing the banishment of Gaveston for
having given bad advice to the king, embezzled the public money,
obtained blank charters with the royal seal affixed to them, formed a con
federacy of men sworn to live and die with him, and estranged the affec
tions of the king from his subjects. In vain the king struggled with the
inexorable ordainers. Gaveston was exiled and went to Flanders. In 13 12 he
was again in England, and the king published a proclamation stating that the
exiled man was a true and loyal subject, and returned in obedience to the royal
command. Thomas of Lancaster, the grandson of Henry III., was appointed
leader of an association of barons who were ready to resort to force. They
assembled a large body of knights at a tournament, and then marched to
York, where the king had been joined by Gaveston. Onward they followed
the flight of their sovereign to Newcastle ; and thence to Scarborough, where
Gaveston remained in the castle while the king returned to York. The earls
of Surrey and Pembroke besieged the castle ; and Gaveston surrendered to the
earl of Pembroke under a pledge of safety for himself which had been given to
the king. From Scarborough he was conducted by Pembroke to Dedington
in Oxfordshire. At the gate of Dedington he found himself in the presence
of "the black dog of the wood " — the terrible earl of Warwick. He was
-placed on a mule, and surrounded by a numerous force was carried prisoner
to Warwick. As he entered the walls of Guy's lofty tower he found himself
in the presence of those haughty barons whom he had despised and insulted.
His skill in the tournament, his courage in battle, his magnificent apparel, his
jeweled rings, his high-sounding titles, his reliance upon the kingly power —
all were worthless in this terrible moment. He stood before his enemies, and
they sentenced him to die. Out of that grim fortress was Gaveston led to
execution. Robert Bruce was establishing his power in Scotland with a firmness and
wisdom that was scarcely to be looked for after the rash murder in the church
at Dumfries. But he had endured great adversity. He had been hunted by
hlood-hounds ; he had waded in rapid streams, to elude their scent ; he had

1377] ALBERT BRUCE, KING.— BANNOCKBURN. 109
defied his enemies single-handed in the mountain-pass, and in the river-ford.
The fugitive was now an acknowledged sovereign. In 1309 he was recognized
as king by the most influential body of Scotland — the clergy — at a general
ecclesiastical council held at Dundee. In that year a truce was concluded
between England and Scotland, which endured till August, 13 10. The
renewed war was for some time a succession of contests on the borders, in
which exemption from plunder was purchased by the English lords-warden by
money payment. In 13 12 Bruce besieged Perth, which was in the hands of
King Edward's officers. One after another, the strong places of Scotland were
taken by Bruce. He then, encouraged no doubt by the fearful dissensions of
England, crossed the Tweed, in 13 12, with a large force; burnt the towns of
Hexham and Corbrigg and part of the city of Durham, and penetrated as far
as Chester. The terrible calamities of war were brought home to the wretched
people of both countries. While Bruce was ravaging Northumberland, some
English leader or other was wasting Scotland. Linlithgow was won through
the " subtlety and stratagem " of a peasant named Bennock, " a stout carle
and a stour," who had been accustomed to supply the garrison with forage.
He concealed soldiers under the hay with which his wagon appeared to be
loaded ; passed the drawbridge, and the gates being opened, placed his wagon
so that they could not be closed. The concealed men attacked the garrison,
and another band who had been in ambush rushed in and completed the work.
But these successes were only preliminary to the great blow which was struck
for the independence of Scotland. England was in danger. Her towns were
burned ; her fertile lands were devastated ; her people were reduced to the
most abject misery, wherever the Scot came with his little hackney, and his
bag of oatmeal. At a parliament held on the 15th of October, 1313, King
Edward and his barons were in some degree reconciled ; and it was " with one
accord assented and agreed, that no one, of what state or condition soever he
be, in time to come, be appealed or challenged by reason of the taking,
detaining, or death of Piers de Gaveston."
Edward Bruce, the brother of King Robert, had been besieging Stirling ;
and the English governor, Philip de Mowbray, agreed to surrender the castle
if not relieved by the 24th of June, the feast of St. John the Baptist. On
the 16th of June, only a week before the day fixed for the surrender of
Stirling, Edward marched from Berwick, at the head of a great army. This
vast force arrived in the neighborhood of Stirling on the eve of St. John. On
a line which the English would have to cross, Bruce caused pits to be dug, in
which were inserted pointed stakes, covered slightly over with turf and rushes.
His determination was to fight on foot, and to meet the charges of the cavalry
with his battle-axes and spears. The English knights came on, with the earl
of Gloucester, the nephew of the king, at their head. He fell covered with
wounds. The horses stumbled in the pits which Bruce had dug. There was
confusion in the ranks : and the few Scottish horse which were in the field
were led by Sir Robert Keith to a victorious struggle. All the camp-followers
of Bruce's army had been stationed apart, behind a small hill, still known by

no HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1307
the name of GilHeshill (the servant's hill). There were soldiers, no doubt,
mixed with them, for they suddenly abandoned the baggage, and came down
the hill in a body of fifteen thousand men, armed with pikes and oxen-goads.
Bruce charged the main body. Then ensued a general rout. King Edward
refused to fly, till the earl of Pembroke seized his bridle-rein, and hurried him
from the field. The spoil which remained to the victors was enormous.
Stirling was surrendered the day after the battle. In exchange for some of
his English prisoners, Bruce obtained the release of his wife, sister, and
daughter, — of the bishop of Glasgow and the earl of Marr. Thus complete
was the great victory that made Scotland a nation. In 13 14 there was a
¦deficient harvest. The price of corn became enormous. The next season
was more disastrous. There was a murrain among the cattle, and a general
pestilence among the starving people. And the country, necessarily, swarmed
with plunderers. The " ordinances " which had been agreed to before the fall
of Gaveston were resisted by the king, while their enforcement was demanded
by the barons. In this horrible condition of famine, pestilence, and anarchy
was the unhappy kingdom, when the Scots came, again and again, to plunder
and destroy. A war was going on in Ireland between the English and Scots.
•Edward Bruce had landed at Carrickfergus, in 13 15, to drive the English
settlers from the island, in concert with the native chiefs. After various
conflicts he was crowned king of Ireland, in 1316; and he reigned some time
in Ulster. The Welsh were again in insurrection, and formed an alliance
with Edward Bruce. Robert, the king of Scotland, had gone over to Ireland
to aid his brother. During his absence the war in Scotland had been renewed
by the English. But Robert Bruce returned to the land of his triumphs, in
13 18; and he succeeded in capturing Berwick. The Scots, marching into
Yorkshire, burned many towns, and had nearly taken Edward prisoner on one
occasion, and his queen on another. An attempt was made to retake
Berwick; but it was unsuccessful. At length, in 1320, a truce for two years
was concluded " between Edward, king of England, and Sir Robert de Brus,
for himself and his adherents." The Irish invasion had been previously
terminated in 13 18 by the death of Edward Bruce, who was defeated in a
battle near Dundalk, and fell on the field with two thousand of his country
men. But no success and no truce could put an end to the intestine troubles
of England. Another favorite had arisen ; and another war with the barons
was impending. Many of the important facts in the history of our country are written in
its statutes. In three acts of parliament of the 15th of Edward II., we find
the distinct traces of a revolution, and of a counter-revolution. In the first
of these statutes, that decreeing " The exile of Hugh le Despenser, father and
son," we learn that at a parliament held at York in the twelfth year of
Edward, Sir Hugh, the son, was named and assented to be in the office of
chamberlain of the king. This young man was of high family. His grand
father was killed on the side of the barons at Evesham. His father had
served in the wars of Edward I., both in France and Scotland. Edward II.

137;] THE DESPENSERS BANISHED AND RESTORED. in
was lavish in his bounties to his chamberlain. He united him in marriage
with a daughter of that earl of Gloucester who was killed at Bannockburn, by
which marriage he became possessed of the greater portion of Glamorganshire.
His material wealth, according to a parliamentary document, was enormous.
He had flocks of ten thousand sheep ; herds of a thousand oxen and cows ;
hundreds of pigs ; arms and armor for two hundred men. The possessions of
the father were more than double those of his son. The young Despenser
soon became embroiled with his neighbors, the lords of the marches ; who,
assembling in arms, attacked his castles, and destroyed or carried off his
property. The earl of Hereford, the king's brother-in-law, one of the peers
appointed to enforce the " ordinances," encouraged this violence ; and the
earl of Lancaster, the cousin of the king, joined with him and the lords of the
marches and other barons and knights, in an indenture binding them in a
common cause against the power and influence of the Despensers. They
marched to London, and on their way plundered the manors of the elder
Spencer, as they had those of his son. From St. Alban's they sent a message
to the king, demanding the banishment of these objects of their hatred ;
which demand Edward refused with indignation. The confederates advanced
to London, where the parliament was sitting ; and then was passed the
statute of exile of Hugh le Despenser, father and son, " to the honor of God
and holy Church, and of our lord the king, and for the profit of him and his
realm, and for maintaining peace and quiet among his people."
In this parliament, which was held at Westminster in three weeks after
midsummer, in 1 321, indemnity was granted against all men, of whatsoever
state or condition, who had done what might be noted for trespasses and
against the king's peace " in pursuing and destroying Hugh le Despenser, the
son, and Hugh le Despenser, the father." In a parliament held at York, in
three weeks after Easter, in 1322, this statute of indemnity was repealed, it
being shown that "it was sinfully and wrongfully made and granted," and
that the assent " of the prelates, earls, barons, knights of shires, and common
alty," assembled in 1321, "was given for dread of the great force which the
earl of Hereford and the other great confederates suddenly brought to the
parliament of Westminster, with horse and arms, in affray and abasement of
all the people." In the same parliament of York, the exile of the Despensers
was annulled. During that short period there had been a counter-revolution.
In the October of 1321, King Edward took up arms, ostensibly to revenge an
affront offered to his queen ; and after capturing Leeds castle, in Kent, — to
which his queen had been denied admission, — led his forces northward. It
was alleged that before the truce of 1319, the earl of Lancaster had been in
traitorous correspondence with the Scots ; and that through his complicity
with Robert Bruce, Berwick had not been recovered by the English. The
truce of two years was now about to expire. The Despensers had returned
to England ; and Lancaster now kept no terms in his opposition to the
government of Edward. There can be no doubt that at this period he and
the earl of Hereford were in alliance with Bruce. The Scots army was to

112 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. 1307
enter England, to aid the earls and their confederates in their quarrel, but on
no account to lay claim to any conquest ; and the earls were to use their
endeavors that Bruce should enjoy his kingdom in peace. As Edward
advanced, Lancaster retired into Yorkshire. At Boroughbridge he was
encountered by a strong force, under the governors of York and Carlisle, and
here Hereford was killed. Lancaster expected the arrival of his allies from
Scotland, but no army came. He was taken prisoner, and was conducted to
his own castle at Pontefract, at whose gates he had stood when Edward
passed by in returning from the siege of Berwick, and jeered his king with
bitter scorn. To that castle Edward now came a triumphant lord ; and in his
own hall was Lancaster, who at Warwick had adjudged Gaveston to die,
arraigned as a traitor. On a gray pony, without a bridle, he was led to
execution ; and kneeling down on an eminence outside the town his head was
struck off. Eighteen others of the confederates were executed in London and
other places. Thus it was, that the parliament of York, in 1322, passed the
statute which we have mentioned. But they did more than this. They
revoked all the " ordinances " which had been made ten years before, it being
found "that by the matters so ordained the royal power of our lord the king
was restrained on divers things, contrary to what it ought to be." But not'
only these "ordinances " were repealed, but all provisions " made by subjects
against the royal power of the ancestors of our lord the king " were to cease
and lose their effect forever. Edward II. was now in the plenary possession
of sovereign power. He had an obsequious parliament. The great barons
who interfered with his will were removed. Hugh Despenser, the son, might
reign supreme in the palace, as he had reigned before. Edward would him
self wipe out the disgrace of Bannockburn, and win back Scotland to his
crown. He addressed a letter to the pope, stating that having put down the
carl of Lancaster, he was engaged in preparing to invade Scotland, desiring
no peace between the two kingdoms.
The Scots, anticipating the coming war, entered England, and penetrated
to Lancashire. They then returned without molestation, laden with immense
booty. As the great host of Edward marched on to the Forth, he found a
desert. The stores of corn, the herds of the Lothians, had all been removed
northward. The houses were deserted. The English fleet, which had been
prepared to co-operate with the invading army, was detained by contrary
winds. Famine and sickness were doing the work which Bruce waited to
complete. King Edward hastily marched back to the border ; and King
Robert came forth from his encampment at Culross, in Fifeshire. Douglas
began to harass the English in their rear ; and Edward, appointing guardians
of the marches, retreated to a strong position near Byland abbey, in Yorkshire.
The greater part of his army was disbanded. Edward felt himself secure.
But a body of Scottish knights suddenly appeared before the abbey, and
obtaining a victory, the king of England fled precipitately to York. The war
of twenty-three years with Scotland was at an end. On the 30th of May,
1322, a truce between the two kingdoms was concluded for thirteen years. It

1377] THE TEMPLARS AND KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN. 113
was during the revolutionary period of which we have been treating that the
great military order of the Templars was dissolved, after having attained the
highest authority and influence in Europe during nearly two hundred years.
One of the charges against the Despensers was, that they prevented justice
being done, touching the lands of the Templars. When Philip le Bel, king
of France, in 1307, suddenly took possession of the palace of the Temple in
Paris, and threw the grand master and all his knights into prison, the main
object of this despotic act was to obtain possession of the enormous
properties of the order throughout France. The total ruin of the body so
illustrious for their deeds of arms, so obnoxious for their pride and luxury,
was soon accomplished throughout Europe, under the sanction of the
spiritual head of the Church. In 1308, under sealed directions sent to all the
sheriffs in England and Ireland, about two hundred and fifty knights were
arrested, and all their property was attached. Before a tribunal of prelates
and envoys of the pope, forty-seven of these knights boldly maintained their
innocence. They were imprisoned ; and had a daily pittance allowed for
their support. Meanwhile, the Hospitallers, or Knights of St. John, who had
maintained their influence in the East, and continued to make a show of
defending Christendom against the Mahomedans, kept their large possessions
without molestation, and in their great priory of Saint John, in Clerkenwell,
maintained as much state as the Templars on the bank of the Thames. At
last came the grand question of the revenues of the Templars. After sixteen
years, during which the king, and his favorites, and his nobles, partook of the
spoil, a statute was passed, in 1324, which recited that the order of the
Templars having been dissolved, the lands and tenements in demense were
seized into the hands of the king and of divers other lords of the fees of
them; but that now, as the Order of the Brethren of Saint John of
Jerusalem is provided, instituted, and canonized, for the defense of Christians,
the lands and all appurtenances should go to that order, to be employed, as
the Templars were bound to employ them, in relieving the poor, in hospital
ities, in celebrating divine service, and in defense of the Holy Land.
England escaped the guilt of France, in abolishing this powerful body with
out bloodshed. The Knights of Saint John held their wealth in England till,
two centuries later, their order was suppressed by one before whom lord-priors
melted away in the common ruin of monastic institutions. In the reign of
Edward III. the students of law took possession of the great house of the
Templars in London ; and their preceptories, in the rural districts, fell into
decay, or became the homesteads and barns of the descendants of the Saxon
villans whom the proud Norman knights had despised and trampled upon.
One of the principal supporters of the earl of Lancaster, who was
beheaded at Pontefract in 1322, was Roger Mortimer, lord of Wigmore. He
was confined in the Tower of London. In 1323 he escaped to France.
Isabella, the queen of Edward II., was sister to Charles IV. of France ; and
to reconcile some differences between Edward and Charles in the affairs of
Gascony, Isabella was deputed to the court of her brother, with power to

ii4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1307
conclude a treaty. This she accomplished, upon terms not very advantageous
to her husband, in May, 1325. In September of the same year the king of
England was induced to transfer his foreign possessions of Gascony and
Ponthieu, to his son Edward, then thirteen years of age ; who went to Paris,
and there did homage for them to the feudal lord, Charles IV. At Paris,
Roger Mortimer joined the queen, and became the chief officer of her house
hold. The return of Isabella and her son to England, as soon as the homage
was performed, was expected by Edward. But they came not. On the 1st
of December, 1325, the king thus writes to the queen : "Dame: Oftentimes
we have commanded you, as well before the homage as since, to return to us
with all haste, without any excuses." But still the wife came not, nor the
son. On the 1st of March, 1326, the king again writes to the young Edward,
commanding him to contract no marriage without his father's consent ;
defending Hugh le Despenser as his dear and loyal servant ; bitterly adverting
to the alliance of Queen Isabella with Roger Mortimer, a false traitor, and the
king's mortal enemy ; and ordering his son immediately to return. In a letter
to the king of France, of the same date, Edward says, that he truly perceives,
as all men may perceive, that the queen does not love him as she ought to
love her lord. These domestic differences were soon brought to public issue.
The king of France invaded Gascony, and Edward declared war against him.
William, count of Hainault, received Isabella at his court, for the pope had
exhorted Charles to dismiss her from Paris. The young Edward was
contracted in marriage with Philippa, the daughter of the count. A force of
two thousand men, under the command of John of Hainault, was placed at
the disposal of Isabella ; and on the 24th of September, the wife and the son
of Edward did return to England, landing at Orwell in Suffolk, not as
suppliants but as complainants, in arms for the redress of injuries. Isabella
came surrounded by nobles who had been banished or fled when the insurrec
tion of Lancaster failed. Powerful lords, including the brothers of the king,
the earls of Kent and Suffolk ; his cousin the earl of Richmond ; and several
bishops, joined Isabella. A proclamation was issued, stating that the queen,
the prince, and the earl of Kent had come to free the nation from the tyranny
of Hugh le Despenser. Edward, having appealed in vain to the citizens of
London for aid, fled with the two Despensers and the chancellor, Baldock.
The populace rose, and murdered the bishop of Exeter, who had been sent
by the king as envoy to France, to induce the queen and her son to return.
The elder Despenser took refuge in the castle of Bristol. The burghers
compelled him to surrender the place to the forces of Isabella ; and after a
brief form of trial, the old man was executed as a traitor, on the 26th of
October. Edward the king had put to sea, with the intention of establishing
himself in the Isle of Lundy, which had been fortified. He was unable to
reach the island, and landed at Swansea, concealing himself in that neighbor
hood. Meanwhile the prelates and barons who had taken part with the
queen assumed the powers of a parliament ; and, having resolved that by
the king's absence the realm had been left without a ruler, they appointed

11771 EDWARD III.— SCOTS INVADE ENGLAND. 115
Prince Edward guardian of the kingdom. The king at length surrendered to
his cousin, the earl of Richmond ; and was conducted to the castle of
Kenilworth. The younger Despenser and the chancellor were taken
prisoners in Wales. They were carried to Hereford, where Despenser
perished as " a wicked and attainted traitor," and his mutilated body was
hanged on a gallows fifty feet high. The earl of Arundel and others were
beheaded. Baldock died in prison.
At the parliament which was summoned at Wesminster, on the 7th of
January, 1327, after a suspense of only one day, the young Edward was, by
acclamation, declared king. On the 13th of the same month, by a bill of six
articles, it was resolved that the reign of Edward of Caernarvon had ceased.
The queen affected to believe that the parliament had exceeded its just
power ; and a deputation was accordingly sent to Edward, at Kenilworth, to
bring back his resignation of the crown. The deputation returned with the
iextorted instrument ; having gone through the ceremony of renouncing the
-.fealty of the earls, barons, and others, by Sir William Trussel, their procurator.
On the 28th of January, the heralds proclaimed the accession of Edward III. ;
and the young king was crowned on the 29th. In these hasty and violent
proceedings, in which we cannot find that the unhappy prisoner of Kenilworth
had a single friend or supporter, there is undoubtedly some dark mystery.
Isabella, who was notoriously open to suspicion in her connection with
Mortimer, had yet the support of the leaders of the Church and the nobles.
The great body of the people were equally in her favor, and equally opposed
to the continued rule of one who had not governed with wisdom, but in most
instances without oppression. Let the terrible death of Edward II. atone for
those faults of his conduct and character which are manifest, and for those
which are unrevealed. He was murdered in Berkeley castle, with circum
stances of horrible cruelty, after having endured the most atrocious indignities.
Mortimer confessed, when his own life was about to be forfeited, that he had
commanded the commission of the crime ; and that Thomas Gournay and
William Ogle perpetrated it. The "she -wolf of France " might be privy to
the wickedness ; and in the forced seclusion to which, after a few years, she
was condemned, " the shrieks of death " that rung " through Berkeley's
roofs " might haunt her repose —
" Shrieks of an agonizing king.''
Of the truce with Scotland, concluded for thirteen years in 1323, scarcely
four years had elapsed when an invasion of England was determined on by
King Robert Bruce. In June, 1327, an army of twenty-four thousand Scots,
under Douglas and Randolph, — for Bruce was sick, — crossed the borders, and
ravaged Cumberland. The young Edward, with a precocious heroism, put
himself at the head of a great army. The two armies were ranged in order
of battle. Heralds summoned the Scots to come into the plain and fight ;
but the Scots answered, " Here we shall abide, as long as it shall please us."
For three days the armies remained in this position ; but on the fourth

116 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1307
morning, when the English looked upon the mountain, the enemy was no
more seen. Edward followed, and found them in a still more formidable
position, and for eighteen days, " they lodged each against other." But on
the first night two hundred Scots broke into the English camp, with the cry
of "Douglas! Douglas! ye shall die, thieves of England," and they nearly
captured the young sleeping king, cutting asunder the cords of his tent.
At last, the Scots again silently retreated by a night-march, and the English,
giving up the pursuit in despair, returned to Durham, and thence to York.
This was the first lesson in warfare of the great Edward. The youth was
out-generaled ; and it is recorded that he wept, when he was finally circum
vented by the skill of an enemy so inferior in numbers. In the ensuing
spring of 1328, a peace was concluded with Scotland, by which the
independence of that country, under King Robert Bruce, was fully recognized,
the claim of feudal superiority being wholly renounced. It was also agreed
that the Scotch regalia, as well as "the stone of destiny," should be restored.
Thirty thousand marks were paid by Scotland, in compensation for the
damages caused by the invasion of the previous year. Further, the sister of
Edward was contracted in marriage with David, the son of Robert Bruce,
who became king, upon the death of his heroic father, in 1328. A few
months after his return from his northern campaign, Edward was married to
Philippa, daughter of the count of Hainault. But Mortimer and Isabella were
still the ruling powers in the State. A confederacy against them was formed
between the earl of Lancaster, nominally the head of the regency, and the
late king's brothers, Kent and Norfolk. These princes were irresolute, and
Lancaster was visited by a heavy fine. The earl of Kent, a weak young man,
was persuaded by the spies and agents of Mortimer, that Edward II. was
still alive ; and he was imposed upon to the extent of addressing a letter to
the deposed king, under the belief that he was in captivity. The letter was
conveyed to Isabella and Mortimer, who summoned a pretended parliament,
composed of their partisans, which adjudged the unfortunate victim to die as
a traitor ; and he was accordinglybeheaded on the 19th of March, 1330. A
little after this, Queen Philippa gave birth to a son, Edward, so renowned in
coming years «as the Black Prince. A parliament was to assemble at
Nottingham ; and the ex-queen took up her residence in the castle with
Edward and Mortimer. The castle was filled with guards ; and the keys of
its gates were taken every night to the private chamber of Isabella. But
there was a subterraneous passage, leading from the west side of the sandstone
rock on which the castle stands, the entrance to which from the road is still
known as Mortimer's hole. This communication was made known to Edward
and Montacute by the governor. In the silent midnight hour of the 10th of
October, Montacute entered, with sufficient force, and being joined by the
young king, they proceeded to the rooms of the principal tower, and having
seized the object of their search, by forcing his chamber door and slaying
those knights who defended the entrance, they carried him off in spite of
Isabella's cries of " Spare my gentle Mortimer." The next morning the king

1377] DAVID OF SCOTLAND AND HIS FORTUNES. 117
issued a proclamation, in which he announced that the affairs of the kingdom
had been evil-managed, to the dishonor of the realm, and to the impoverish
ment of the people ; that he had caused the earl of March, and others, to be
arrested, as the principal movers of these ills ; and that all men should know
that for the future he would himself govern his people by right and reason,
as became his own dignity, and with the advice of the common council of
the realm. On the 26th of November, Mortimer was condemned as a traitor,
by a parliament at Westminster. He was executed on the 29th of November,
with four others, as his accomplices. The pope wrote to Edward not to
expose the shame of his mother ; and she, therefore, passed the rest of her
life, twenty-eight years, in confinement at her manor of Risings. Edward
was twenty years of age in 1332. His great talents, his resolved character,
and his towering ambition, were rapidly developing themselves. In him the
martial spirit of his grandfather had revived with a loftier and more
chivalrous generosity.
The attempt of Edward Balliol to recover the crown of Scotland during
the minority of the young king, David, arose out of the discontent of some
English lords who claimed lands in that country. The king of England is
supposed, with good reason, to have encouraged the attempt ; but the passage
of armed men through the northern counties was strictly forbidden ; and
Balliol sailed with his associates from the Humber, and landed in Fife, in
August, 1332. His success was marvelous. On the 27th of September he
was crowned at Scone. But his reverse of fortune was equally rapid. On the
16th of December he was surprised at Annan, and fled to the marches.
During his brief tenure of power, Balliol had acknowledged that the crown of
Scotland was a fief held under the crown of England ; and Edward had con
cluded with him a treaty of alliance. Early in 1333, the Scots, under the
leaders who acted in the name of King David, invaded England; Balliol
commenced the siege of Berwick; and the English king came in May to his
aid. On the 19th of July was fought the great battle of Halidon Hill, in
which Edward was completely victorious. Here, amid a fearful slaughter of
his countrymen, fell the regent Douglas, and many earls and barons. Berwick
was surrendered to the English, and Balliol was again seated on his uneasy
throne. Then, at a parliament held at Edinburgh, a large portion of the south
of Scotland was annexed to England. This impolitic dismemberment of the
kingdom was an outrage upon the national feeling, and Balliol was again
driven forth, in 1334. Again, in 1335, Scotland was ravaged by the English
forces, in concert with Balliol ; and for several years a struggle was carried on,
with varied success. But Edward had other objects presented to his ambition.
The king of France had espoused the cause of the Scottish nation against
Balliol and his powerful supporter ; and Edward had now an ostensible motive
for commencing a great war, for the purpose of asserting his pretensions to
the crown of France. In a few years the adherents of David were the win
ners of fortress after fortress; and the son of Bruce, in 1341, returned to his
kingdom.

118 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1307
In the manifesto of the 15th of March, 1346, addressed to the provincial
of the Preaching Friars, King Edward states, that upon the death of his uncle,
Charles, king of France, he being in his minority, by the advice of his lords
spiritual and temporal, and of his most skilled councilors, sent ambassadors
into France to demand the crown ; and that they were compelled to return,
their lives having been threatened by Philip, who had usurped the royal!
authority. Charles IV., called the Fair, died early in 1328, leaving no male
issue. But a posthumous daughter was born five months after his death. In
the interval, Philip of Valois, who was cousin to the deceased king, had been
appointed regent. In 1329, however, Edward went to France, and did
homage for his lands there to his rival Philip. He was then only seventeen
years of age, and was under the tutelage of Mortimer and his mother. But:
in 1337, after the king of France had taken part in the Scottish war, Edward
boldly assumed the title of king of France, and prepared to enforce his claim
at the sword's point. His claim rested upon these grounds. What is called
the Salic law, by which females in France are excluded from succession to the
throne, was an unwritten law; and was not even a well-defined and fixed
principle in all its bearings. Although it set aside the female herself, Edwardl
contended that it did not set aside the male heir of such female. His mother,
Isabella, was sister to three successive kings ; and though excluded from the
throne herself, might transmit a title to her son. He was the nearest male
heir through his mother. Philip of Valois, although the affinity was through.
his father, was not so near akin as Edward by one degree. The civilians were
greatly divided upon the question. In 1340, Edward, addressing Philip of
Valois, demanded what he called his rightful inheritance ; and added, " to pre
vent the mortality among Christians, since the quarrel apparently belongs to
you and me, we are desirous that the controversy between us may be
decided by our own persons, body to body ; and in case you shall not
vouchsafe this way, that then the dispute may be ended by the battle of one
hundred of the most efficient persons of your party, and as many of my liege
subjects. " The king of France replied, that he had seen the letters addressed
to one Philip of Valois, but as they did not come to him, he should return no
answer, but as soon as he should think fit would drive out of his kingdom
those who had presumed to enter it in arms. Edward had invaded France
from Flanders, in 1339, but upon this occasion he returned to England
without striking any important blow. He had depended upon foreign
alliances, which had failed him in the hour of need.
In 1340, Edward, who had gone over to England, leaving the queen at
Ghent, was informed that Philip had collected a large fleet in the harbor of
Sluys. There was a mighty ship, the Christopher, which had been taken
from the English the year before ; and the first success in the battle of Sluys
was the re-capture of this vessel. This battle was indeed fierce and terrible ;
and the number slain and drowned amounted to many thousands. The
victory was so complete, that the French courtiers did not dare to apprise
Philip of the event which had transferred his entire fleet to his enemy. His

1377] WAR BETWEEN EDWARD III. AND FRANCE. 119
buffoon was instructed to hint to him the issue of his great preparations to
stop the passage of Edward into Flanders. The English, said the clever
jester, are rank cowards, for they had not the courage to jump overboard like
your Majesty's French and Normans did. The naval victory of Sluys was
followed by the siege of Tournay. It was at this period that Edward
challenged Philip to single combat. But that year a truce between France
and England was concluded which lasted till 1342. In 1343 negotiations for
peace were carried on before the pope at Avignon, without any result. In
1344 the war was recommenced.
The Flemings, now under their great leader, James Artevelde, were pre
pared for the strictest alliance with England. This extraordinary man,
commonly known as "the brewer of Ghent," was a noble, allied to the first
families in Flanders. He was "a brewer," as a prince in England is often "a
fishmonger." He was a member of the guild of brewers. Edward knew the
value of this alliance with the Flemings and their democratic leader. " He
condescended to cultivate the friendship of Artevelde, the celebrated brewer
of Ghent," says Dr. Lingard. Their friendship was founded upon something
higher than the patronage of the king, or the servility of the tribune of the
people. Queen Philippa held the brewer's infant son, the famous Philip, at
the baptismal font ; and Artevelde thought to find a powerful protector for
his Flemings against the tyranny of their native rulers, and the jealousy which
France felt of a dangerous neighbor, by recommending that the burghers
should depose Louis, the count of Flanders, and call Edward, prince of Wales,
to the government. Bruges and Ypres supported the proposition. The
populace of Ghent suddenly turned against the man under whose authority
they had arrived, in common with the other towns, at an unequaled height
of prosperity — an authority far more potent than that of their sovereign
count, who had removed himself for safety to France. They murdered
Artevelde. At his instigation Edward had assumed the title of king of
France. When the king heard of his friend's death, he put to sea in great
anger, and returned to England. A deputation from all the trading towns,,
except Ghent, appeased his wrath, and the alliance was continued. " So, little
by little," says Froissart, "the death of Jacques D'Artevelde was forgotten."
This event happened in July, 1345. The commercial intercourse between
England and Flanders was, at this time, of the greatest importance to both
countries. France had scarcely any internal trade, and less foreign commer
cial intercourse. With Bruges on the north, and Bordeaux on the south, the
traffic of London and Bristol ahd the Cinque Ports had become very large.
The parliament of England willingly voted large sums for the war with
France. While Edward was negotiating with Artevelde, the earl of Derby
was winning battles in Gascony. Our armies had also previously found an
entrance to France through Brittany, in consequence of a disputed succession
to the duchy. Edward supported the claim of John de Montfort against
that of Charles of Blois, nephew of the French king. The defense of the
castle of Hennebon by Jane de Montfort, during the captivity of her husband,

120 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1307
is one of the most interesting episodes of the wars in which England was
engaged. The historian and the artist have delighted to exhibit the heroic
duchess, as described by Froissart with " the courage of a man, and the heart
of a lion," showing to the people of Rennes her infant boy and saying, "See
here my little son, who shall be the restorer of his father." They have
painted her, after the old chronicler, besieged in Hennebon, and at the last
extremity looking down along the sea, out of a window in the castle, and cry
ing aloud, smiling for great joy, " I see the succors of England coming." Sir
Walter Manny was her deliverer ; and the road to France was opened through
Brittany. All these attacks upon the French kingdom, conducted with various
fortune by England, from 1338 to 1345, were but preludes to the great
attempt of 1346; when Edward, relying more upon Gascon or Fleming than
upon his English yeomen, landed near Cape la Hougue, on the coast of
Normandy. He had with his army, his own first born son, now sixteen years
of age. He had earls of famous name, barons, and knights. But his " four
thousand men of arms, and ten thousand archers, besides Irishmen and
Welshmen that followed the host on foot," were his main strength. They
were the despised " fantassins " of the mounted warriors. They belonged to
a novel system of tactics, which the French historian, Michelet, says " arose
out of a new state of society;" and the deeds which they did " revealed a
secret which nobody suspected, — that of the real want of military power of
the feudal world, which was believed to be the only military world." The
French nobles, themselves full of courage and contempt of death, despised
the infantry and archers taken from the common people. The English earls
and knights led them on foot to victory. The French leaders were afraid of
trusting the people with the mighty bow. The English twice conquered
France with a handful of yeomen. This is the feeling with which Barante, a
Frenchman, speaks of Cressy and Agincourt — and he is right.
Edward III. assumed the title of king of France in 1337, and in 1340
he quartered the arms of France with those of England. Upon his coins he
was king of England and France. On the 10th of July, 1346, ten thousand
archers of England were lodged on the sands near Cape La Hougue. The
march of the invading army was in perfect conformity with the usual mode
of making war in the feudal times. To desolate the country, to burn the
towns if they resisted, to plunder the inhabitants even when they peacefully
submitted ; these were the aspects in which King Edward and his English
presented themselves to the people over whom he claimed to rule. Keeping
near the coast, they arrived at Barfleur, which was given up " for fear of
death ; " gold and silver and jewels were found. On they marched to Cher
bourg, " a great and rich town, but into the castle they could not come, it was
so strong." From Cherbourg they proceeded to Carenton, where the castle
was taken by assault. The army reached Caen. They entered the city •
but the people of the city cast down stones and timber and iron upon the
English who had entered their streets, and killed and wounded five hundred

1377] THE BATTLE OF CRESSY. 121
of them. The king was wroth, and would have sacked and burnt the whole
place, but he was better advised ; and after three days marched forward,
having won " great riches." Edward was now fully committed to the dangers
of his adventure ; for he sent his ships home, laden with plunder and prisoners.
The army then marched on, and finally lodged in the fields near Cressy. The
king of France heard that the afternoon flood had come in at Blanchetaque ;
and so he rested that night at Abbeville. It was Friday, the 25th of August,
when the English army crossed at Blanchetaque. Froissart describes this
battle as " the battle between La Broye and Cressy." When the battle was
at the hottest, a knight came to the king, and said that Warwick, and Oxford,
and the prince of Wales, were fiercely fought withal, and were sore handled,
and they desired aid from him and his men. Then the king asked if his son
were dead or hurt, or felled to the earth ; and the knight answered " No."
" Say then to them that sent you," replied the king, "that they suffer him
this day to win his spurs, and ask me not for aid while my son is alive."
This was the spirit of chivalry rather than the caution of sound generalship.
It was in the same spirit that the king of Bohemia, who was nearly blind, told
his men to lead him so far forward that he might strike one stroke with his
sword ; and they all tied the reins of their bridles each to the other, that they
should not lose him in the press ; and they were all slain, the king in the
midst. Before that autumn sun was set the work was done. Alencon was killed,
and the count of Flanders ; Aumarle, and Loraine, and Louis of Blois, and
Auxerre, and St. Pol. Earls and knights, who had come out of the gates of
Abbeville that morning in gallant array, with trumpet and banner, were
slaughtered or had fled. But " the Englishmen never departed from their
battles for chasing of any man, but kept still their field, and ever defended
themselves against all such as came to assail them." Before evensong time
the French king had not threescore men about him. And then John of
Hainault took the king's horse by the bridle, and led him away, till he came
to the castle of La Broye ; and the king called out in the darkness that they
should " open the gate quickly, for this is the fortune of France." There the
king stayed not, but rode through the night to Amiens. Upon the field of
Cressy torches were lighted, for it was very dark ; and Edward the king
came down from the little hill, and went to his son, and kissed him, and said,
" Fair son, God give you good perseverance. Ye are my good son, that have
thus acquitted you nobly. Ye are worthy to keep a realm." And the prince
inclined himself to the earth, honoring the king his father. Thus ended the
great day of Cressy — a day of terrible slaughter — preceded by weeks of
devastation, and followed up by years of contest and suffering. On Monday
the king departed for Montreuil ; and on Thursday, the 31st, his army sat down
before Calais, to commence the memorable siege, which lasted till the August
of 1347- The absence of King Edward in France presented a favorable oppor
tunity to the Scots for a hostile demonstration against England of a formid-

122 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1307
able character. David II., the son of the great Bruce, had been four years in
Scotland, after his long residence at the court of France. He was ready to
attend to the suggestions of his friend King Philip as his truest policy. He
resolved, therefore, upon an invasion of England, while Edward was besieging
Calais, and Derby was winning battles in Gascony. In the beginning of
October, David entered Cumberland ; took the fortress called " the pyle of
Liddell ; " and with no exception to the ordinary course of cruelty and
devastation, beheaded its governor, and went on into the bishopric of
Durham, slaughtering and plundering. But an English army had assembled
at Auckland, under the great Norman barons and the military prelates, with
which army was Queen Philippa. She went from rank to rank " desiring
them to do their devoir— to defend the honor of her lord." At Nevill's
Cross the armies met. The battle was won by the English archers. David
fought with great bravery, and was at last taken prisoner by John Coupland,
a squire of Northumberland. He was conducted to London, and lodged in
the Tower.
( Three days before the festival of All Saints, Queen Philippa joined her
lord at Calais. She took with her a great company of ladies. King Edward
was conducting his operations by the slow but certain process of blockade.
He warred not against the devoted town with scaling ladder and catapult, nor
with the formidable machines which the discovery of gunpowder is held to
have called into use at this period. The French king was approaching with a
great host to raise the siege. Edward would not put the issue of the war
upon another battle in the open field. He rendered Calais inaccessible.
His fleet blockaded the coast ; he established his army in a new town
of huts, which rose outside the wall ; he threw up intrenchments strongly
guarded. The French governor had turned out of the town every inhab
itant who had not an independent supply of provisions for several
months. Seventeen hundred men, women, and children, thus dispos
sessed of their homes, approached the English camp. They received
each a meal, and two pieces of silver, and went their forlorn course
into the highways. Five hundred more unhappy beings were afterward
thrust out, and perished between the walls of Calais and the English lines.
At the Whitsuntide of 1347, King Philip hoisted the oriflamme, and led a
hundred and fifty thousand men to Whitsand. For six weeks Philip
remained inactive, having sent a cartel to Edward to come forth and fight ;
and he then took his way to Amiens, and gave every man leave to depart.
The governor of Calais immediately hung out the flag of England and asked
to capitulate. The garrison had suffered every extremity of misery, having
eaten their horses and their dogs. The king resolved that all the grace he
would award was, that six chief burgesses of the town should come out bare
headed, bare-footed, and bare-legged, and in their shirts, with halters about
their necks ; and, with the keys of the town and castle in their hands thus
yield themselves purely to his will, and the rest he would take to mercy.
Sir John of Vienne stood again upon the wall to receive the king's answer.

1377] THE SIX BURGESSES OF CALAIS. 123
He then went into the market-place, and sounded the common bell, and told
his sad report, and the people wept, and he himself wept piteously. Then
stood forth the richest burgess of all the town, Eustace de St. Pierre, and
said, that to save the residue of the people he would be the first to put his
life in jeopardy. When he had thus spoken, every man worshiped him, and
divers kneeled down at his feet with sore weeping. Then another honest
burgess, John Dayre, rose and said, I will keep company with my gossip
Eustace. And James of Wyssant, and Peter his brother, and two others,
declared the same. And the six burgesses knelt before the king, and held up
their hands, and said, We submit ourselves clearly unto your will and pleas
ure, to save the residue of the people of Calais, who have suffered much pain.
The earls, and barons, and others who were there, wept for pity ; but the
king looked felly on them, for greatly he hated the people of Calais ; and he
commanded their heads to be struck off, and would hear no man in their
behalf for mercy. Then the queen being great with child kneeled down, and
said : Gentle sir, since I passed the sea in much peril, I have desired nothing
of you ; therefore now I require of you, in the honor of the Son of the Virgin'
Mary, and for the love of me, that you will take mercy of these six burgesses.
The king beheld the queen, and stood still awhile in a study, and then said, — -
Ah, dame, I would you had been now in some other place ; but I cannot
deny you. I give these men to you, to do your pleasure with them. And
the six burgesses were brought into the queen's chamber, newly clothed ; and -
she gave them to eat at their leisure ; and bestowed upon each six nobles ;
and caused them to be taken through the host in safety, and set at liberty.
This is the relation of Froissart.
After the surrender of Calais, an armistice was entered into between the
rival kings. Within a week after he had taken possession of the town,
Edward addressed a precept to the authorities of the principal places of
England, commanding them to proclaim that any of his subjects, whether
merchants or otherwise, who should come with their goods to the town of
Calais, should be provided with habitations at such a rent, as might content
them, and might dwell there securely with their families in the enjoyment of
all their liberties and privileges. The king desired to found an English
colony in this town, which he had won from France at such a heavy cost. >
For two centuries Calais remained in possession of the English crown ; and
the people attached the greatest importance to its occupation ; believing
that, while England was mistress of this nearest port of communication, the
keys of France hung at her girdle.
Edward returned to England in October. The victory of Cressy had
produced no actual result in the great controversy between the two kingdoms
beyond the acquisition of Calais. He now solemnly established the statutes
of the Order of the Garter. St. George, the archbishop of Alexandria — whose
ecclesiastical career of violence and rapacity had been forgotten after the
lapse of seven centuries, when the crusaders adopted him for their saint— St.
George the victorious, with all those fabulous accomplishments which made

124 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1307
him the dragon-slayer and virgin-deliverer, became the patron of the Order of
the Garter, and the tutelar saint of England. The " Black Book " of the
order, written in the days of Henry VIII., says that St. George in a dream
inspired the lion-hearted Richard to buckle a leather on the legs of each of
his most favored companions in arms ; and that Edward therefore made the
garter the badge of his knightly order — a symbol of fellowship in chivalry.
In this reign there were three terrible visitations of pestilence. The first and
the greatest lasted from the 31st of May to the 29th of September, 1349.
What was called the black plague, according to the best accredited accounts,
originated in Upper India and China, in 1346 ; and gradually spreading
through Asia, in four years comprehended nearly all Europe.
" The Statute of Laborers," an arbitrary act, was one of unmitigated sel
fishness. The preamble of this remarkable statute states the exigency which
demanded it. " Because a great part of the people, and especially of work
men and servants, late died of the pestilence, many seeing the necessity of
masters, and great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they may receive
excessive wages." The workmen and servants were practically aware of the
natural law which regulates wages — their dependence upon the number of
laborers seeking employment. The government set their ordinances in oppo
sition to that natural law. It was enacted that every able-bodied man and
woman, not being a merchant, or exercising any craft, or having estate or
land, should be bounded to serve whenever required so to do, at the wages
accustomed to be given in the twentieth year of the king, and in five or six
common years next before. And that if any man or woman, whether free or
bond, should be required to serve at such customary wages, and would not,
he or she should be committed to the next jail. It also enacted that laborers
departing from their service should be imprisoned ; and that those masters
who consented to give the higher wages should be liable to be mulcted in
double the amount paid or promised. The statute then goes on to apply the
same regulation to all artificers — saddlers, skinners, white-tawers, cordwainers,
tailors, smiths, carpenters, masons, tylers, shipwrights, carters. But to
balance the low wages against the price of commodities, it was also enacted,
that butchers, fishmongers, brewers, bakers, poulterers, and all sellers of
victual, shall be bound to sell the same for a reasonable price. But the laws
of nature were too strong for the laws of policy. Two years after, we have
another statute, which recites that " it is given the king to understand in this
present parliament, that the said servants, having no regard to the said ordi
nances, but to their ease and singular covetise, do withdraw themselves to
serve great men and others, unless they have livery, and wages to the double
and treble of what they were wont to take before." A scale of wages is then
set forth for laborers in husbandry ; and the wages of carpenters, masons,
tylers, and others concerned in building are also fixed. The principle of
confining the laborer to one locality is established by enacting, with the
exception of the inhabitants of Stafford, Lancaster, Derby, Craven, and of the
Welsh and Scotch marches, who may come and go to other places in harvest

1377] THE BLACK PRINCE.— THE FRENCH KING. 125
time, " that none of them go out of the town where he dwelleth in the
winter, to serve the summer, if he may serve in the same town." The first
" Statute of Laborers," in what regards a fixed rate of wages, could not have
been enforced without a limitation of the area in which the laborer should
seek employment, as defined by the second statute.
Philip of Valois, who had held a troublesome possession of the throne of
France for twenty-two years, died in August, 1350. It was a period when the
war with England was suspended, without any real approach to a permanent
peace. Edward had proposed to resign his pretensions to the French crown,
on the condition that he should receive the absolute sovereignty of the
provinces in France, which had been held as fiefs by preceding English kings.
This offer presented a secure basis for a friendly arrangement. Philip
rejected it ; John, his son and successor, consented to it. After several years
of negotiations, the French procurators refused to agree to the terms which
their king had promised. In 1355, Prince Edward led an army from the walls
of Bordeaux ; ravaged the country to the foot of the Pyrenees ; and, taking a
northward course, laid in ashes cities and towns, and filled a fertile land with
desolation, which had been unvisited by war for a hundred years. Meanwhile
the Scots had surprised Berwick ; and the king hastened home. In the
depth of winter he marched into Scotland, having retaken Berwick, and
he carried havoc through the Lothians. In July, 1356, Prince Edward, now
known as the Black Prince, marched out of Bordeaux, upon a second expedi
tion of waste and pillage. On the 17th of September, being Saturday, the
van of Prince Edward's small band fell in with the rear of King John's army.
There was a skirmish, and those English who rode ahead saw all the fields
covered with men-at-arms. The French king entered into the city of Poitiers.
Edward took up his quarters in a strong place, among hedges, vines, and bushes.
Edward offered to surrender what he had won in that expedition, and to
swear not to bear arms against the French king for seven years. But John
required, finally, that the prince and a hundrsd knights should yield them
selves prisoners. The French marshals approached with their battalions, and
their horsemen entered the road where the great hedges were set full of
archers. But a command was given ; and along the whole extent of that
crowded lane, sudden showers of arrows turned what was a procession into a
struggle of advance and retreat. " King John was that day a full right good
knight ; if the fourth part of his men had done their endeavors as well as he
did, the journey had been his in all likelihood." But the French fled from
those fields of Beauvoir and Maupertuis, even to the gates of Poitiers. There
was a great press to take the king ; and he yielded to Sir Dennis of Mor-
becque, who promised to bring him and his young son, Philip, to the prince
of Wales. That night the prince of Wales made a supper in his lodging.to
the French king, and to the great lords that were prisoners. " And always
the prince served before the king, as humbly as he could, and would not sit at
the king's board, for any desire that the king could make, and exhorted him
not to be of heavy cheer, for that King Edward, his father, should bear him

126 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1307
all honor and amity, and accord with him so reasonably that they should be
friends ever after." And the prince praised the king's great valiantness, and
said that every Englishman who saw each man's deed plainly accorded to him
the prize and chaplet.
On the 24th of May, 1357, the Black Prince returned to London, in a
triumphal procession, with his royal prisoner. King John was lodged in the
Savoy, a pleasant place belonging to the duke of Lancaster, King Edward's
son ; and in the winter following there were jousts in Smithfield, in which the
kings of England, of France, and of Scotland were present to take part in the
feats of arms. King John was then removed to Windsor with his son, Philip.
It was a festive season in England. France had not yet drained the cup of
misery to the dregs. During the captivity of John, the government of the
dauphin, Charles, was harassed by contending factions. John settled with
Edward the conditions of a peace, to take place upon the expiration of the
truce. He consented to the hard terms which the king of England insisted
upon. But the regency of France rejected the terms which their captive
monarch had agreed to. Edward again invaded France in the autumn of
1359, with a more powerful army than he had ever before assembled ; and at
the end of March he was encamped before Paris. The fatigues of his winter
campaign had greatly reduced his numbers ; and now, beleaguering a city
which was too strong for assault, he was in want of provisions, and was
compelled to retire. The route toward Chartres was covered with men and
horses that dropped from hunger and exhaustion ; and all the superstition
that in those days clung to the firmest minds, was called up by a terrible
storm, which swept the camp with a deluge of rain, and which made Edward
think of that vengeance of heaven that awaited the man of blood. Thoughts
of pacification entered his heart. Negotiations were set on foot, and the great
peace of Bretigny was concluded on the 8th of May. The king of England
resigned his pretensions to the crown of France, and to the territories of Nor
mandy, Anjou, and Maine. He restored all the conquered places, with the
exception of Guisnes and Calais. He was content to be lord of Aquitaine,
retaining Gascony, Poitou, and other dependencies, in full sovereignty. Three
million crowns of gold were to be paid in six years for the ransom of King
John. The captive king was set at liberty before the end of the year.
England, whenever a tax was demanded for carrying on hostilities, had a
parliament which always turned round steadily upon the king, and required
extension of liberties or redress of grievances. In 1348 the commons
granted a subsidy on condition that no illegal levying of money should take
place. In 1351 a statute was passed that no one should be constrained to
find men-at-arms, other than those who held land by such services, except by
consent of parliament. There was always a struggle going forward between
the king and the parliament ; but it was no longer a struggle merely between
the king and the nobles. The commons had obtained an integral share in the
government ; and before the end of the reign they were strong enough to
remove an administration, and impeach those whom they considered evil

1377] PETER THE CRUEL.— BATTLE OF NAJARA. 127
advisers of the crown. This strength of the deputies of the people is
conclusive evidence that the middle classes, during nearly half a century,
had attained so much wealth and consideration that the old feudal relations
of society may be deemed nearly at an end.
England was not permitted to remain many years at peace. If the
chivalrous King John had lived — he who, when the treaty of Bretigny was
not faithfully kept by the French, came again to England, and yielded
himself prisoner — it is probable that the high regard of the two kings for the
courage and courtesy of each other, might have cemented a friendship which
would have extended to the people of each realm. John returned to
England in 1363, leaving France under the government of the dauphin. He
died in 1364, at the Savoy; and the dauphin became king of France, as
Charles V. "There never was a king," said Edward III., " who cared so
little about arming himself, and yet gave me so much to do as this Charles."
The prince of Wales, with the title of prince of Aquitaine, was appointed to
the possession and government of the southern provinces which had been
ceded to Edward at the peace of Bretigny. The prince of Wales took up the
cause of Peter I., king of Castile and Leon, who had been driven from his
throne by his half-brother, Henry, assisted by a strong band of free
companions, under the command of the great adventurer, Du Guesclin.
Peter has been branded with the name of " the Cruel." We must content
ourselves with stating that his imprisonment, and supposed murder of his
wife, Blanche of Bourbon, provoked the invasion of Castile by the French
forces in 1366, and the dethronement of the unpopular king. Peter had
previously made an alliance with Edward III., and he now fled to the court
of the Black Prince at Bordeaux. In 1367, the Black Prince led a great
army of English, Gascons, and Normans from Bordeaux ; and entering
Navarre by the pass of Roncesvalles met the army of Henry in Castile,
near the right bank of the Ebro. The battle of Najara was a complete
victory, in which the Black Prince displayed the resources of a great
commander even more remarkably than in his previous successes. It was
a victory not only useless to the prince of Wales, but injurious in many ways
to himself and his country. The faithless Peter, when he had been restored,
refused to abide by his promise of paying the cost of the war. Edward's
army was reduced to the utmost misery by the want of provisions ; and the
prince had contracted a fatal malady, which in a few years terminated his
career of- glory. He hastily returned to Gascony. The ingrate king was in
six months hurled from his throne, and murdered by his half-brother. In
1368 the Spanish campaign was producing much public evil for the prince of
Wales. He imposed a heavy tax upon the people of Gascony ; and the
great lords carried their complaints to the throne of Charles V. The
interference of France was a violation of the treaty of Bretigny ; but Charles
ventured to summon the prince of Aquitaine to answer the complaint,
assuming the position of his feudal lord. The prince said he would come
with sixty thousand lances. The great war was now renewed. Edward III.

128 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1307
re -assumed the title of king of France. The French king adopted a bold
policy, and assembled a fleet at Harfleur for the invasion of England ; and
Philip of Burgundy was to be its commander. But Philip gave up the
attempt to invade England ; and he showed no rash disposition to encounter
the duke of Lancaster, who had landed at Calais with a great army. The
king of France would not allow a battle to be risked which might terminate
as other great battles had done. He suffered Lancaster to march through
the northern provinces. But in 1370 the French entered Gascony. The
Black Prince took the field, and the royal princes of Anjou and Berne
retired before him. Limoges had been betrayed to these dukes by the
inhabitants ; and during a month's siege Edward, sick almost to death,
was carried in a litter from one point to another of the attack. The capital
of Limousin was at length taken by storm. Three thousand men, women,
and children were butchered in cold blood when Limoges was taken.
The Black Prince, in broken health, comes back to England. His
brother, John of Gaunt, the duke of Lancaster, succeeds him in the govern
ment of Gascony. Du Guesclin is now at the head of a daring band ; and
those of Bordeaux who said of him, whom they called an ugly fellow — which
in truth he was — " There is no castle, however strong, that would not soon
surrender if he went thither to assault it," were true judges of his character.
Wherever the English banner was displayed, Du Guesclin was there at the
head of his adventurers. A sagacious policy determined the French govern
ment to prolong an indecisive but most effective war. One by one the
English lost many of their strong places. A truce was concluded in 1374,
which lasted till 1377. The possessions which had been surrendered by the
treaty of Bretigny were all lost, with the exception of Bordeaux, Bayonne,
and Calais. In 1369, King Edward lost his queen, Philippa. In 1376, her
first-born, the great prince of Wales, never rallying from the fever of his
Spanish campaign, also died. To the old king remained John of Gaunt,
duke of Lancaster, his third son (Lionel, the second, had died in 1368);
Edward of Langley, duke of York ; and Thomas of Woodstock, duke of
Gloucester. When the prince of Wales returned to England he regained
the popularity which he had lost in Gascony by opposing his father's
government. The expiring passions of " dotage," more miserable than its
"tears," had thrown the conqueror of France under the dominion of a
mistress, Alice Ferrers. To her influence, and that of her creatures, the
eldest son of the king was naturally opposed. The friends of Lancaster
were accused of misdemeanors in the parliament of 1376; but the prince of
Wales died, and Lancaster regained his influence. It would be tedious for
us to follow the ill-understood contests of the remaining span of Edward's
life. Richard, then ten years of age, was presented to the houses of
parliament as the successor to all the rights of his father. But the influence
of the duke of Lancaster was all-powerful. The speaker of the commons,
William de la Marc, who had led the opposition supported by the prince of
Wales, was imprisoned; and William of Wykeham was deprived of his

1377] JOHN WYCLIFFE.— ENGLAND'S FOES- 129
temporalities, and dismissed the court. Lancaster took up the nuse of
John Wycliffe, who was under prosecution for his opinions ; and when the
reformer was called to defend himself at St. Paul's before the bishop of
London, the duke accompanied him, and a violent quarrel ensued between
the laymen and the ecclesiastics. A riot, in which the citizens of London
took part against the king's powerful son, ensued. Thus were the last few
months of the life of Edward disturbed. He had completed the fiftieth or
jubilee year of his reign in February, 1377, and he published a general
amnesty for all offenses — evidently an act of the ruling power in the State,
for Wykeham was excluded. He died on the 21st of June, 1377, with none
to soothe his last hours but Alice Ferrers. She took the ring from his finger,
and the mighty victor was alone with the all-conqueror.

RICHARD II.— INSURRECTION OF WAT TYLER.
(1377-1399.)
The obsequies of his grandfather having been performed, Richard, on the
16th of July, was crowned at Westminster. The duke of Lancaster probably
expected to be sole regent ; but a temporary council was appointed, in which
he took no part, 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 rolls of parliament. 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 in 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 permanent
advantage ; but had engendered a spirit of revenge which 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 Roxburgh
and captured Berwick. The great border-fortress was soon retaken, and a
small 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 addi
tion to heavy duties on wool and leather, a capitation tax was granted in
1379. In principle this was an income tax, touching every person, from the
9

130 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1377
duke, who was assessed at 61. 13^. 4^., to the laborer, who was called upon to
pay i/l. for himself 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 discon
tent ; for De Montfort had concluded a pacific treaty with the French king.
The expedition had no results. Its charges were very fatal. The 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.
The insurrection of 1381 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 Tyler's daughter. The whole rural
population of that district flew to arms. 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 pris
oner to Rochester castle. The insurgents 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
the insurgents of Essex. 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
organized in a remarkable manner by correspondence in letters which bore
the signatures of Jack Milner, Jack Carter, Jack Trueman, and John Ball. 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. On the 12th of June 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. They demolished Newgate,
and burnt the duke of Lancaster's palace of the Savoy, and also the Temple.
With the usual prejudice against foreigners, they butchered the Flemish arti-
zans 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 Richard rode out of the Tower gates

1399] WAT TYLER KILLED.— WYCLIFFE'S BIBLE. 131
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 ; and a general pardon for offenses. 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 divi
sion of all property. These demands were agreed to by the king. The
remaining hours of the day and the succeeding 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 Hertfordshire, retired, bearing the king's banner.
But the Kentish Tyler remained in arms, with a body of the insurgents. He
led his men into the Tower. They murdered the archbishop and other digni
fied persons, and drove the king's mother out of her lodgings. On the 17th,
the king rode into Smithfield. 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 unques
tionably have commanded the respect of Englishmen, and turned the tide of
favor 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 Richard, 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 insur
gents fell on their knees and implored his mercy. Richard commanded them
to return to their homes ; but would allow no attack to be made upon them
by the forces which were gathering 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.
Wycliffe had translated the Scriptures into the English language. When
ever 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 labor 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. 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 afterward subdued or materially weak
ened. He fought a brave fight for religious freedom, with very unequal forces
against a most powerful hierarchy. But such contests are not terminated in

132 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1377
a few years. In the reign of Edward III. there had been a legislative resist
ance to the claim of the pope to appoint to benefices in England. In the
third year of Richard II., 1379-80, it was declared by parliament that the
statutes in this regard were not effectual. 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 life, 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 suit was instituted in England, in which judg
ment was given for the king. The bishops had supported the decision of the
king's court, and had executed judgment accordingly. The pope, in conse
quence, excommunicated the bishops. Then the commons of England said :
" 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. An
act was passed that all persons suing at Rome, 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 over this attempt at papal usurpa
tion. 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," — full 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 transla
tions and adaptations within the reach of the many. From Boccaccio he
borrowed his Knight's Tale, " as olde stories tellin us." To this romance he
added vigorous descriptions and graceful fictions, which are wanting in his
model. His poems contain frequent allusions to the great Latin writers.
In the inventory under the will of a clerk of Bury, in 1370, we find his ser
vice 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 amuse
ment. 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.
At the age of twelve Richard was placed on the throne. For ten years
he had little share in the government, though he was put forward, as in the

1399] HENRY SPENSER.— ENGLISH AND SCOTS. 133
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. 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 Italian pope, Urban VI., was supported by
England, and by the Flemings and German States. 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.
The king of England was seventeen years of age. There is a letter in the
public records from Richard to the duke of Lancaster, in which he gravely
proposes that the quarrel between England and France should be determined
by a single combat between himself and the French king, Charles VI., 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 Richard a paper, professing to disclose a conspiracy to deprive him of
his crown, and give the kingdom to his uncle. Lancaster maintained his
innocence, and demanded that the slanderer should be committed to safe
custody. Sir John 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. The young king 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 Pontefract. 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. The united armies then marched into'
England, and had advanced toward Newcastle, when they learned that King
Richard was coming with a large army. They then retreated. But while
Richard advanced into Scotland, took Edinburgh, and marched toward Aber
deen, the French and Scots entered Cumberland and Westmoreland, burning
and plundering on every side. Richard 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.
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 negotiations 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 his mother's claims, was espoused, in 1387, by Henry III. of

134 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1377
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 genera
tions. In the absence of Lancaster, enormous preparations were made by
France for the invasion of England. In September, 1386, a larger fleet was
collected than had ever before been seen in Christendom. In the port of
Sluys were twelve hundred and eighty-seven vessels. Another fleet was
assembled at Treguier, in Brittany. The young king of France set out from
Paris with great pomp, and joined the duke of Burgundy at Arras. At length
the Duke de Berri arrived. He found the season too far advanced for the
attempt, and the great enterprise was postponed till the next year. The
furious lords and knights dispersed homewards. The next year came, and
the invasion was again postponed. The leaders quarreled ; and, instead of
England being subject to invasion, the French coast was assailed, and the
French and Flemish fleets destroyed, from Brest to Sluys.
Richard in 1386 was twenty years of age. A contest is coming on
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. In one
thing the State records and the chroniclers are agreed — that Richard 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 Richard's
household consisted of ten thousand persons ; that he had three hundred in
his kitchen ; and that all his offices were furnished in like proportion.
Knyghton, a contemporary, affirms that when the commons resolved upon
the impeachment 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 compelled to part with one for whom he would probably have
sacrificed the whole ten thouand of his household. But the commons went
further. They petitioned the king to appoint a commission of regency 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. Richard unwillingly complied. " The king," says Hume, " was
in reality dethroned ; the aristocracy was rendered supreme." In the summer
of 1387 Richard made progresses in Cheshire and Yorkshire, and received
marks of popular favor. In August he held a council at Nottingham, con
sisting of the archbishop of York ; De Vere, now created duke of Ireland ¦
the earl of Suffolk ; the chief justice, Tresilian ; and Sir Nicholas Brember
lord mayor of London. They tried to tamper with the sheriffs of the adja
cent counties, to induce them to return no knights and burgesses to the next
parliament but such as the king should nominate. This plan was unsuccess
ful. The judges were then summoned ; and the king procured from them a

1399] KINGS AND NOBLES.— OTTERBOURNE. 135
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. Richard, 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, Richard 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 Glou
cester, 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 counselors 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 Radcot 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 executions,
with banishments and confiscations, 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 interven
tion on the part of the humiliated king.
In 1388, on the 10th of August, was fought the famous battle of Otter-
bourne, upon which is founded the ballad of " Chevy Chase." 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 all 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. After the skirmish, the Scots, the next
day, marched to Otterbourne, about thirty miles from Newcastle. Harry
Percy came on, with the moon shining as bright as day, to win back his
pennon. It was no 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.

136 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1377
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
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
Richard 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 was con
cluded with France, which, several times renewed, lasted through this reign,
and Scotland was included in the pacification. William of Wykeham 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 Richard
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 display
ing his regal magnificence to a wondering people. Four of the principal
kings of Ireland, as they were called, came to Dublin, and submitted them
selves to him without constraint.
In 1396 Richard took a step which was unpopular. He resolved upon
an intimate alliance with France, by seeking in marriage Isabella, the
daughter of Charles VI., a child of eight years old. The earl marshal of Eng
land knelt to the little girl and said, " 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 negotiations were at length concluded. The
duchesses of Lancaster and Gloucester received her ; and she set forward to
Calais, where the marriage was celebrated on the fourth of November.
Richard 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 conference with the
king's officers ; when, among other matters, they asked for a bill for avoiding
the extravagant expenses of the king's household, complaining that many
bishops, who had lordships, and many ladies, with their servants, were
supported at the king's expense. Richard 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 3d

1399] HAXEY EXECUTED.— RICHARD SUPREME. 137
of February, the commons came most humbly before the king and declared
that they only intended to request him to consider the matter himself, and
make what regulations he should think proper. Two days afterward a law
was made, that whoever moved, or should move, the commons of parliament,
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 Richard II., 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 of the events of
1387-8, when the council of regency was triumphant, and exhibits to us
the first remarkable example of the aid which tyranny derives from a
corrupt and cowardly exercise of the sanctions of popular representation.
Richard and his advisers appear to have discovered how effectually a subser
vient parliament may render despotism more easy and secure than through
its own unconcealed 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
affirm the procurers of the commission to be traitors, but declared that all
who attempted in parliament 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 offenses, 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 Richard the king
absolute. The junta thus created superseded parliamentary government
altogether. The mode in which this revolution was accomplished was by such a
proceeding as we know in modern times as a coup-d'e'tat. With consummate
duplicity, Richard, 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, Richard

138 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1377
having promised, upon oath, that he should not be injured in person or prop
erty. The great blow was still to be struck. The rolls 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. 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 by the 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 Richard 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, commanding 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 that he could not produce the duke, for
that he had died in the king's prison. No inquiry was made : no surprise
expressed. 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 honors. 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 commission of regency,
and to those solely. And yet his own brothers joined in pronouncing his
attainder of treason. There is no solution of these inconsistencies but the
fact that Richard " kept in his wages ten thousand archers." Shakespeare
truly makes the widowed duchess of Gloucester attribute the "patience" of
Lancaster and York to "despair."
Richard is now supreme. He wants no parliament to grant him subsidies.
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." Of such were Hereford and Norfolk.
They were the only two who remained of the lords appellant, who had given
such dire offense in the eleventh year of Richard. They were riding between
Brentford and London, when they began to speak in whispered inuendoes.

1399] TRIAL OF NORFOLK. AND HEREFORD. 139
What they said was divulged to Richard. 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 they met in January, 1398. Hereford
was now called upon to declare what was the talk between Norfolk and him
self. Norfolk did not attend. According to Hereford's written account, as
given in the rolls of parliament, the following was the discourse in that ride
between Brentford and London :
Norfolk. " We are on the point of being undone."
Hereford. " Why so ? "
Norf. " On account of the affair of Radcotbridge."
Heref " How can that be, since he has granted us pardon, and has
declared. in parliament that we behaved as good and loyal subjects."
Norf. " Nevertheless, our fate will be like that of others before us. He
will annul that record."
Heref. " It will be marvelous indeed, if the king, after having said so
before the people, should cause it to be annulled."
Norf. " It is a marvelous and false world that we live in."
Norfolk then related a plot of certain of the king's council to undo six
other lords, among whom were Lancaster, Hereford, and himself.
Heref. " 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 in 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. 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. The beavers are closed, and the spears are in rest. But the king
casts down his warder, and the heralds shout, Ho ! ho ! Hereford and Norfolk
will not fight that day. The king affects to consult his council ; and the

14© HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1377
dangerous combatants are each banished, Hereford for ten years, Norfolk for
life. Upon the departure of Hereford and Norfolk from the kingdom, Richard
appears to have pursued the most reckless course. In the face of his declared
amnesty for all offenses, 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 no limitation but their despotic caprice. The ordinary course
of justice was interrupted. Robbers in great companies kept the fields and
highways, despoiling merchants, and plundering the cultivators of their
produce. 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 toward Hereford, whose popular demeanor had won their
hearts. Thousands waited on him weeping when he rode out of London.
And yet Richard 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 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 Richard 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.
Richard appointed his uncle, the duke of York, regent.
At the beginning of the year 1399, Henry of Lancaster is at the court of
France. Although he has been banished by Richard, the son-in-law of the
French king, he is in favor with Charles VI., and the princes and nobles.
With the duke of Orleans he has entered into a compact for mutual support
in all 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 favorably 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
France. 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 traveled thus disguised from Cologne. He brings intelligence of
great import from England. Richard 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 further aid

1399] HENRY OF LANCASTER RETURNS. 141
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 Ravenspur, in Yorkshire, on the 4th
of July. At the midsummer of 1399, King Richard 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. By command of
the king everything is set on fire. But the Irish chief, Mac-More, will submit
to no terms ; and the king, " pale with anger," swears by St. Edward that he
would never depart from Ireland till he had Mac-More in his power, alive or
dead. He marches to Dublin, having accomplished nothing by his expedition.
At last, as an eye-witness tells 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. Richard
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. Richard, 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
Ravenspur, he assembled the retainers of the crown, and raised a numerous
force. But he found a general disaffection, instead of a willingness to 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 obnox
ious to the people — the earls 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 at 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 earls of Wilt
shire, Bussy, and Green, were executed without a trial. York remained at
Bristol. Henry marched on to Chester. Richard, 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 Richard
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

142 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1399
men-at-arms and archers ; took possession of the castles of Flint and Rhud-
dlan 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 North
umberland swore. It was promised that Lancaster should come to Flint, and
having asked pardon on his knees, should be restored to the estates and
honors of his family. The earl left Conway to prepare for this interview at
Flint, and the king followed him. Descending a steep hill, Richard 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 morn
ing Richard 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 tell you. The common report of your
people is such, that you have, for the space or two-and-twenty years, governed
them very badly and very rigorously, and in so much that they are 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 Richard 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 understood them
very well." The king was lodged in the Tower. On the 29th of September,
according to an entry on the rolls of parliament, Richard 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.

HOUSE OF LANCASTER.— HENRY IV.— HENRY V.
(1399-1422.)
Henry, a few years afterward, 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 ;

1422] HENRY IV. AND HIS CLAIMS. 143
and each member expressed aloud his acceptance of it, amid 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." 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 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." 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
Richard 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. The claim of Henry was equivocally put. Richard being deposed,
Henry was not the next in the line of inheritance, as the grandson of
Edward III. The posterity of Lionel, duke of Clarence, the second son
of Edward III., had a prior claim to that of the heir of John of Gaunt, the
third son. At the time of Richard's deposition, the hereditary claim of the
Clarence branch was rested 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 Richard 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 will make children
to rule over them." Nothing could more distinctly point to the young earl
of March. John of Gaunt, when Roger 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 III., who

144 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1399
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 vigor and ability ; at the head of a
powerful army ; supported by the chief nobles ; the favorite 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. It was determined that Richard, late king of England,
should be adjudged to perpetual imprisonment, 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 discussion of the conduct of the
lords who had appealed Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick of treason. The
lords appellants lost the honors and the lands which Richard had bestowed
on them, for their subserviency. But they escaped all other punishment.
The duke of Albemarle (Aumerle) sank down to earl of Rutland ; and the
dukes of Exeter and Surrey, Richard'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 offenses enumerated in the act of
Edward III. 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 restoration of Richard, and to drive Henry from power. The
plot became known to the vigilant king, disclosed to him unwillingly by
Rutland, 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 Richard. 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. Before the
expiration of a month it was stated that the late king had died at Pontefract.
The body was conveyed to London, and there shown, with the face exposed,
so that those who knew Richard might identify him.
Owen of Gleindour,— or as we now write, Owen Glendower, — was one ot
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 Ruthyn ; 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

1422] OWEN GLENDOWER.— EDWARD MORTIMER. 145
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 rebellion ; and
the Welsh laborers employed in England escaped to join their countrymen.
Owen Glendower, by the general voice of the people, was declared prince of
Wales. In 1402, Sir Edmund Mortimer, uncle to the young earl of March,
went against Glendower ; and his army being utterly routed in Radnorshire
he was taken prisoner. The king now determined to go in person, " to check
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 Richard be alive, to restore him to his crown ;
and if not, that my honored 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 Richard be alive ! " It is nearly t»hree years since King Rich
ard's body was exposed in St. Paul's Church — a public act known to all the
kingdom — and especially known to all such as Sir Edmund Mortimer. How
can a doubt now be raised, "if King Richard be alive?" Walsingham, the
chronicler, affirms as common rumor that Richard died by voluntary
starvation. Froissart says, " How Richard died, and by what means, I could
not tell when I wrote this chronicle." The question is no nearer its solution
after four centuries and a half. It is stated that Richard's escape from
Pontefract is proved by documents in our record office; that this escape
was effected in connection with the rising of 1400, in which he was proclaimed
by the earls who afterward suffered as traitors ; that there are entries in the
public accounts of Scotland of expenses for the custody of King Richard of
England ; and that Richard lived till 1419 in Stirling castle, in a state of mental
imbecility.* The French believed in Richard's death when the son of the
* 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.
IO

146 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1399
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 Richard, late king, who is dead, should be in full life ; or that
" the fool in Scotland " is that King Richard who is dead.
However defective may be the evidence upon which impartial history
must condemn or acquit Henry IV. of the murder of Richard II., he must
bear the infamy of a political crime of broader and deeper 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 \\ ycliffe. 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 preten
sions 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 esti
mate of his time, possessed one-third of the revenues of the kingdom. 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
first victim was William Salter, a London clergyman, who was burnt on the 12th
of February, 1401. The stake and the fagot were in full activity, till the
commons shuddered at the atrocities which Englishmen had now first to
endure. In the reign of Richard 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 of the ecclesiastical courts.
The commons 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 hajf.
It was with no vague meaning that Shakespeare 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 recognize Henry as the sovereign of England. Their
truces, they maintained, were with Richard, 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 Richard as the act of the people, were
craving to punish a nation which they held as the most dangerous on earth
through its pride and insolence. The king of France, subject to partial
attacks of insanity, had received a terrible shock by the announcement of the

. Ai

1422] HENRY INVADES SCOTLAND.— HOMILDON. 147
events that had deprived his daughter of her queenly rank. Isabella was con
ducted back to Calais with ceremonies almost as magnificent 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 Richard had received.
The duke of Orleans was for commencing hostilities against Henry. The
duke of Burgundy was more cautious. These rival uncles of 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 Glendower 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 of Douglas came with a great army to revenge
the loss. They advanced beyond the Tyne, devastating and plundering with
more than usual fierceness and rapacity. 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 Wooller. On Holyrood-day, the
14th of September, the Scots took up a strong position on Homildon-hilk
The English army was placed on an opposite eminence. Percy commanded
a descent into the valley. 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 ; among 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 the prisoners of Homildon-hill from the captors, that he
might deprive them of ransom, is an error which Shakespeare derived from Hall
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 encoun
tered 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 honorably 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

148 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1399
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
unable to reimburse them. There are letters to the king and to the council
from the earl of Northumberland, in the summer of 1403, bitterly complaining
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 em
barrassments, which affected his own son as much as the Percies. He satis
fied the Percies as far as he could by small payments and large promises.
They managed their plans with such caution, that while the king was march
ing toward the north, expecting to join them in Northumberland, Hotspur
was marching through Lancashire and Cheshire, proclaiming that Richard
was alive. At Burton-upon-Trent, Henry heard the news of the revolt.
Within a week, he had fought the battle of Shrewsbury.
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.
The Northumbrian archers, who had done such terrible execution at Homil-
don-hill, now 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. The prince of
Wales was wounded by an arrow in the face ; but the valiant youth contin
ued to fight where the battle was strongest. For three hours the field was
contested 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." 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 a 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
Worcester, the baron of Kenderton, and Sir Richard Vernon were among 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

1422] GLENDOWER SUCCESSFUL.— DUKE OF YORK. 149
revolt, with the same horrible barbarities that were inflicted, for the first time,
upon the brother of Llewellyn. The 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 his 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. The people of England were subjected to various miseries by the oppo
sition that was raised to the Lancastrian rule. The French landed in Wales,
and burnt Tenby. Plymouth was burnt by ships from Brittany. Devon
shire was harassed by descents on the coast. Reprisals, of course, took place :
and the dwellers on the French shores of the channel had to endure the same
sort of 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 representative of
his father in the Welsh borders. On the nth of March, 1405, he obtained a
considerable victory at Grosmont. But this success had no decisive 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 Bardolph, and Scrope, archbishop of York,
confederated to place the earl of March on the throne. He and his brother
had been delivered from their honorable imprisonment at Windsor by the
skillful device of the widow of Despenser, one of Richard's favorites. They
were immediately retaken ; and the duke of York — known by his plots and
betrayal of others when Aumerle and Rutland — was accused by the lady, his
own sister, of being privy to the plot. The earl of Westmoreland entrapped
two of the chief of the northern confederates into his hands — Scrope and
Nottingham. The archbishop and the earl were beheaded. Northumber
land and Bardolph 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 offense against the Church,
and the pope issued a temporary sentence of excommunication against all
who had been concerned in his death. That sentence was afterward
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 humor. He charged a messenger to
deliver the armor 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
Northumberland ; and took Berwick, which had been delivered by North
umberland to the Scots. The unhappy Percy and Lord Bardolph wandered
about for two years, endeavoring to organize resistance to Henry's consolidat
ing power. In 1407 there was some discontent in England, through the

ISO HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1399
king's demand for subsidies ; and the Percy and Bardolph then ventured into
Northumberland, raised their tenantry, and risked a battle with the sheriff of
Yorkshire, Sir Thomas Rokeby, at Bramham Moor, near Tadcaster. North
umberland closed his unhappy career by falling in battle; and Bardolph,
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
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" alle
giance. The circumstances of his death are not recorded. He probably sank
into obscurity; and his memory was only preserved in the legends of his
countrymen, which told of his wanderings on his native mountains, and his
hidings in sea-girt caverns.
The connection of the government of Henry with the quarrels and
intrigues in France 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 VI., 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 young
duke of Orleans demanded justice for the death of his father. The duke of
Burgundy solicited aid from the king of England, who sent him eight hun
dred men-at-arms and a thousand bowmen. This assistance turned the scale
in favor of Burgundy. But in 1412 the Armagnacs offered better terms to
Henry, by agreeing to acknowledge him as duke of Aquitaine. The two fac
tions 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 rav
aged Maine and Anjou, and finally retired to Gascony, having received a large
payment as the cost of his expedition. Henry IV. died on the 20th of March,
141 3, in his forty-seventh year.
Henry 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. He had taken not only the most generous, but the most
prudent resolution toward 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. John Huss, a Bohemian priest, had
become acquainted with the writings of Wycliffe ; and he boldly preached the
same doctrines as early as 1405. The archbishop of Prague, in 1409, com
manded all the writings or Wycliffe to be delivered up to him by members of
the university of Prague, of which Huss was rector ; and many of these treas-

1422] COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE.— LOLLARDISM. 151
ured volumes were publicly burnt. Huss continued to preach, in spite of the
pope's excommunication, till he was silenced in 141 3. 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 141 5. 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 reform
er's body, throwing his ashes into a brook. But in the first year of Henry V.
the prelates sought to strike a more effectual terror into the followers of
Wycliffe than could be accomplished by any insult to his memory. Sir John
Oldcastle, called Lord Cobham, 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.
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
precipitated the Lollards into a movement which made the State as anxious
for their suppression as was the Church. It was stated that in the fields of
St. Giles, stretching to the Hampstead and Highgate hills, twenty-five thou
sand insurgents were to meet under the command of Sir John Oldcastle. At
midnight on 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 Roger Acton, a
friend of Oldcastle, also suffered on the 10th of February. Within a few
months a pardon was proclaimed to all the Lollards for the conspiracy,
excepting Oldcastle and eleven others. Still prosecutions went on. 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.
Oldcastle was taken in 141 8, while »Henry was in France ; and was burnt,
under the declaration of the archbishop and his provincial synod that he was
an incorrigible heretic. 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. On the 16th of April, 141 5, he announced at a great council his deter
mination to recover " his inheritance."
At the 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, 13^. t^d.

152 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1399
per day ; for an earl, 6s. 8d. ; for a baron, 4s. ; for a knight, 2s. ; for every
other man-at-arms, is. ; and for an archer 6d. On the 18th of June Henry set
out from Westminster. Within a day or two a conspiracy against him was
discovered. The conspirators were the king's cousin, Richard, earl of Cam
bridge, brother to the duke of York (Rutland) ; Lord Scrope, who was
Henry's familiar friend ; and Sir Thomas Grey of Heton. Cambridge and
Scrope suffered death on the 5th of August. Grey had been previously
executed. Henry V. landed near Harfleur on the 14th of August. The
army rested till Saturday, the 17th, and then moved to the siege of Harfleur.
After the landing of Henry, the garrison was re-enforced on the side which the
English had not then invested. 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 and towers on every side, by the
stones which his guns and engines cast. Two attempts were made to under
mine the town ; but there were counter-mines ; and the miners met and
fought underground. Disease now began to make frightful ravages in the
English camp. On the 15th of September died Richard 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 22d of September if they were not
previously relieved. No relief came. Harfleur was yielded up on that 22d
of September, with great ceremony. The siege had lasted thirty-six days.
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. On the 8th of October he com
menced his extraordinary march. With eight days' provisions the little
army went forth from Harfleur, in three battalions, on the road to Calais.
The English army had been for a month investing Harfleur before the
French government was roused from its inactivity. On the 10th of Septem
ber, the king of France took the oriflamme at St. Dennis, and departed for
;Normandy. He had arrived at Rouen with his son, when the news of the
fall of Harfleur reached the court. On the 24th, — the fourth day after they
;had crossed the Somme, — the English army arrived at Blangy, in perfect
discipline. The French army was on the rising ground about a league distant.
When Henry had crossed the river and ascended the hill, he expected instant
battle. The sun was setting ; and there was no attack. It was a night of
dread to those who knew how many thousand enemies were close at hand.
The route to Calais lay through the plain of Agincourt. Henry rose with the
dawn on that 25th of October, the feast of St. Crispin. His little band was
formed in one line, the men-at-arms in the center, with wings on the left and

1422] ENGLISH VICTORY OF AGINCOURT. 153
right, the archers being posted between the wings, with their stakes fixed
before them. The French army was in three lines, completely covering the
route to Calais. The probability is that they were ten times as many as the
English. Their position was between the two woods of Agincourt and
Tramecourt, in a space much too confined for the movements of such a
vast body. 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 honor, at last flung his truncheon in the air, and
called " Nestrocque ! " ("now strike!") The priest who was "sitting on
horseback among the baggage, in the rear of the battle," thus describes the
slaughter of the French on this day of Agincourt : " When some of them
in the engagement 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 clamor 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 com
manded a massacre of all the prisoners. 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. Remy, another French historian. Of the
chivalry of France, the flower perished. Seven of the princes of the blood
had fallen. With the duke of Alencon, Henry had fought in person, and was
beaten down, having a portion 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 in that field of carnage, of whom a hundred
and twenty were nobles bearing banners. The herald of France was taken in
the battle. 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 prison
ers, went his unmolested way to Calais. \
The great victory of Agincourt was publicly known in London on the
29th of October, the same day on which King Henry reached Calais. 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 fervor of joy which drowned the
lament for the thousands that had perished during those past three months
of sickness, want, and slaughter. When the king's ship, after a boisterous

154 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1399
passage, sailed into the port of Dover, the people rushed into the sea, and
bore their hero to the shore. From Blackheath to Westminster he was
escorted by twenty thousand of the citizens, " with devices according to their
crafts." The city was gorgeous with arches, and towers, and pavilions, out of
which innumerable virgirts and youths showered laurel boughs and leaves of
gold upon the conqueror's head, and sang English anthems with melodious
voices, and with organs. 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. The 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 unnecessary 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. There was no improvement in
the condition of France when, on the 23d of July, 141 7, the king of England
again embarked with a mighty army at Southampton. At this crisis, the
duke of Burgundy was marching upon Paris, resolved upon the extermination
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. Many other fortresses in Normandy speed
ily submitted ; and Henry went into winter quarters. The French govern
ment, 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, confiscated the estates of
Norman lords, and bestowed them upon his English followers.
The siege of Rouen was as prolific in horrors as any other event of that
sanguinary period. The people of Rouen, 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. 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. At last the garrison surrendered on the 19th 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. 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

1422] BURGUNDY MURDERED.-^-TREATY OF TROYES. 155
the mean time Henry continued to advance toward 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. On the 23d
the king, the queen, and the duke went to Paris, which was completely unde
fended. On the 29th, news came that the English had taken Pontoise. The
court removed from Paris, to which the troops of Henry were rapidly
approaching. The dauphin solicited another interview with the duke of
Burgundy, on matters of importance to the welfare of the kingdom. At each
end of the bridge there were barriers ; but there was no barrier in the center,
as was usual in these interviews of princes. The dauphin was in a sort of
lodge in the center 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 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 accom
plishment 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 English, 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 recognized as successor to the crown on the death of Charles VI.
The marriage of Henry with the princess of France was celebrated at Troyes,
on the 2d of June. A tournament was proposed as a prolongation of the
festivities ; but Henry said, " The enemies of the king are in the city of Sens.

156 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1399
Let us be ready to-morrow morning to march to its siege." He gave the
nobles the most solemn assurances that he would love and honor the king of
France. The bridal month of Henry and his fair queen was passed in besieg
ing 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 entry into Paris ; and the
three estates of the kingdom gave a solemn approval of the treaty of Troyes.
At the beginning of 142 1 King Henry held a parliament at Rouen. The coin
age which was then issued bore the inscription, " Heres Franciae." To Rouen
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 23d of February, Katherine was crowned at
Westminster. Fortunate was it that the conqueror did not long remain to
perpetuate his conquests ; and that in the feebleness of his successor, and the
distractions of a civil war, France was again lost.
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." But even in this season of popular excitement there was a petition
complaining of the intolerable burden of the war. News came which speedily
called back Henry to France. He had left his brother, the duke of Clarence,
as his lieutenant in Normandy. Anjou, which recognized the authority of
the dauphin, was invaded by the duke ; and at Beauje, on the 22d 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 killed or taken prisoners. 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. The captive
king accepted the offer of Henry to accompany him to France, to redeem the
great disaster of Beauje. 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 twenty-four thousand archers.
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 very walls of Paris. Henry undertook to subdue this brigand.
At last the garrison was starved out ; and the commander was decapitated. By

1422] DEATH OF HENRY V.— CHARLES VI. OF FRANCE. 157
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.
The king set out to raise the siege of Caen. At Corbeil he became too ill to
proceed ; and his brother, the duke of Bedford, took the command of the
army, in concert with the duke of Burgundy. It soon became evident that
his malady, whatever it might be, was beyond the medical skill of those days
to arrest orcure. Henry V. died on the 31st of August, 1422, in the tenth
year of his reign, the thirty-fourth year of his age.

HENRY VI.— BEDFORD'S REGENCY.— FRANCE SAVED BY
JOAN OF ARC— WARS OF THE ROSES.
(1422-1461.)
The duke of Gloucester had been named by the dying Henry as regent
of England ; but upon the roll 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 subsequent proceedings recorded in the rolls of parliament
it appears that 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 were 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 was 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 limitations prescribed by parliament for the conduct of the
executive government.
In less than two months after the death of Henry V., Charles VI., king
of France, also died. There were now two kings in France — an infant in
Paris, with a regent who governed north of the Loire ; and the dauphin, 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 ac
customed 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. all that had been surrendered to his arms
or his policy was utterly lost. To follow through the various fortunes of this

158 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1422
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 VII. were the battle
of Crevant, in 1423, where the earl of Salisbury signally defeated the earl of
Buchan, commanding an allied army of French and Scots ; and the battle of
Verneuil, where Bedford utterly routed the French army in an engagement
which was recorded in the rolls of parliament as " the greatest deed done by
Englishmen in our days, save the battle of Agincourt." Jacqueline of
Hainault was the sovereign lady of Holland, Zealand, Friesland, and Hainault.
She was first 'married to the eldest son of Charles VI. of France, who died
while 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 endeavored to reconcile the disputants ;
but Gloucester was obstinate, and bitterly quarreled 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 toward the English alliance. Gloucester,
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. In the dread of civil war, the duke of
Bedford came over to England ; and a parliament was held at Leicester.
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. The bishop was humiliated. He resigned
the chancellorship, and 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. 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

1461] THE WAR IN FRANCE.— MAID OF ORLEANS. 159
his wife's favorites. The earl of Warwick, who, like many other leaders
of chivalry, was an enthusiastic believer in the efficacy of vows and pilgrim
ages, 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
College, Cambridge — worthy monuments which still call upon us to respect
the memory of the most meek and most unfortunate of kings.
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. The English, it was known, were approaching
to besiege Orleans. The inhabitants prepared for its defense with unwonted
zeal. The fort of the Tournelles was finally taken. The inhabitants 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
re-enforcements. The English lost their best commander, Salisbury. The
duke of Suffolk now succeeded to the command. To meet the necessities of
the besieging army, the duke of Bedford had dispatched an immense convoy
with provisions from Paris. The convoy was attacked. The attack was ill-
advised ; and was commenced without a proper concert among 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. Famine was beginning to threaten more misery than the
sword. The resolution which still remained to the unhappy people was that
of despair. The fame of their gallant resistance had gone through France.
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. Bedford and Burgundy quarreled about the
expected prey ; and Burgundy withdrew his troops, and left the English to
continue the siege alone. The fall 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 chivalry : " 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, gentle
men and others, who are before the city of Orleans, go your ways into your
own country, in the name of God. I am sent by the king of heaven to

160 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1422
drive you out of all France." The English captains would have heard the
common rumor that from the borders of Champagne a young woman had
traveled 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 fallen 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. She had looked upon the extreme
misery of the people ; and she attributed it to the invasion which had given
the crown to an English king at Paris, while the true heir was in danger and
difficulty. Her enthusiastic 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 succor 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.
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. She sought the feudal lord of Baudri-
court at Vaucouleurs. He sent 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.
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
conduct her safely to the king. 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 pf attendants ; and to have indicated to him an acquaintance
with facts only known to himself. Her honest life was fully proved ; and in
the conviction of her sanctity learned doctors, prudent counselors, and bold
warriors, agreed that the maid should be confided in. A suit of armor was

1461] THE PUCELLE ENTERS ORLEANS. 161
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 armor. 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 Redeemer, being borne before her. The people by torchlight crowded
around her ; and she exhorted them to honor 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. The next day a
herald from the pucelle 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
among the brave yeomen of England. The Church had associated witch
craft and heresy in their proceedings against the early reformers ; and,
among the charges against the Waldenses, they were accused of holding
converse with the enemy of mankind in the form of a cat, and of riding
through the air on magical sticks. The soldiers of Suffolk and Talbot looked
on in terror and amazement, when, on a tower facing the Tournelles, a form
appeared in shining armor, and bade them depart if they would avoid misery
and shame. William Glasdale, the commander of the Tournelles, reviled the
maiden, and told her to go back to her cows. " Your men will be driven to
retreat," she exclaimed, " but you will not live to fly with them." The
French waited for succors from other garrisons. Joan was invariably for
instant attack, without heeding disparity of numbers or disadvantages of
position. The succors 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, jnounted with her banner, and rode alone to the spot
where she heard the clamor. A rash sort/'e had been made ; and the assailants
11

1 62 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1422
were driven back. When they saw the white horse and the banner of the
maid, they shouted for joy, and followed 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 defenseless, while the English were attacked on
the left bank. But the daring and confident girl had completely won ^the
real leadership of the soldiers and 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 compelled 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 lain 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 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 the 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 well-known sign of victory, the French rallied round him. Seeing what
was taking place, Joan went forward to claim her standard. The English,
who had seen her borne off wounded, felt a new alarm. The French
advanced again to the attack of the fort, under their marvelous 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
filled 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 surrounded, were retreating into the main
defense upon a wooden bridge, when a cannon-ball struck it, and the com
mander and his men fell into the stream, and were drowned. The prophetic
words of the maid, when Glasdale reviled her, were accomplished. There

•1461] ORLEANS FREE.— THE MAID VICTORIOUS. 163
'was now no chance of resistance to the impassioned assaults of the French.
The English 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, amid the shouts of the multitude, while 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 brought 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. In eieven days she had stricken
terror into an army which had been the terror of France for eleven years.
The government of Charles VII. would have rested inactive under the
triumph of Orleans. She unceasingly urged the dauphin's progress to
Reims, 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 French army. On
the nth of June, the duke of Alencon, and the chiefs who had defended
Orleans, arrived before Jargeau, which Suffolk occupied. The English 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 they
returned to the attack, and Suffolk retired within his walls. The bombard
ment of the town continued for three days ; when a breach having* been
made, Joan led the assault. Jargeau fell, and Suffolk was a prisoner. On
the 18th of June was fought the battle of Patay. The English fled ; 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
ribbon 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.
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 Reims. On the 28th of June twelve thousand

164 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1422
Frenchmen marched out of Gien to traverse a country whose towns and
fortresses were held by English and Burgundians. They reached Troyes,.
and 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
council. "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
displayed ; and the terrified garrison of Troyes surrendered the place. They
went on and took Chalons without resistance. As they approached Reims,,
the peasants of her native district came out to look upon the wonderful girl.
Joan urged the king on, and the gates of Reims were opened. On the 17th
of July Charles was crowned in 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 baptized. Charles then went on toward Paris, receiving the
submission of many towns on his march. Joan thought her mission
accomplished ; and earnestly desired to return to her father and mother, to
keep their herds and flocks. Her counsels now became vacillating. Charles
marched on to Paris. On the 12th of September an attack 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 walls ;
but was wounded, and fell into the fosse. Crawling 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. " You
would have slept there," she replied, "if you had fought as I fought." 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.
She was a prisoner of war to the Burgundians ; and was finally delivered
to the English in their city of Rouen. At length letters patent were issued
in the name of Henry VI., in which it was stated that, in accordance with
the public opinion, and at the especial request of the bishop of Beauvais and
the university of Paris, she was to be given up to the bishop, to be examined
and proceeded against under his authority. She was subjected for several
months to the most searching interrogatories. At fifteen examinations she
was never disconcerted, but answered every question with perfect frankness.
All the circumstances of her early life were related by her ; and her belief in
her voices and visions emphatically declared. Heresy and schism, meriting
the punishment of fire, were declared to be found against her. The university

3461] TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF THE MAID. 165
of Paris ratified the articles of accusation. On a public scaffold at Rouen
the sentence of condemnation was read to her by the bishop of Beauvais.
Her courage deserted her ; and she expressed her contrition and submission.
Her sentence of burning at the stake was then to be commuted to perpetual
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 Rouen a pile 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 atro
cities ; 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 pile ; the fatal cap of the Inquisition, with the
words " heretique, relapse, apostate, indolatre," was placed on her head ; the
:fire was kindled. Her last word was " Jesus." The bishop of Beauvais and
the cardinal of Winchester knew no distinction of nation when they sat on
the scaffold at Rouen to do the work of the Holy Inquisition.
On St. George's day of 1430, the boy who had been crowned at West
minster came, with Beaufort, to Calais. They remained there a month. No
army could be raised in England, through the " terrifyings " of the pucelle.
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, 143 1.
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. While these follies were enacted in England, Harfleur was re
captured by the French. The first trophy of Henry V. was for, awhile 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 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 will of his heroic brother, died at this critical period.
There was no union in the English councils. Paris was retaken by Charles in
:i436 ; and the English were expelled. " When they should pass upon their

166 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1422-
journey," says Fabyan, "they were derided and scorned of the French
nation out of all measure." After twenty-five years' captivity, the duke of
Orleans was released from his prison in the Tower of London. The war is
continued a few years longer ; and then a truce. Henry married Margaret of
Anjou in 1445 ; and one of the conditions of the marriage and the conse
quent truce was the surrender of Anjou and Maine. Normandy was soon
conquered, when Maine, the key to its possession, was gone. Gascony-
yielded to tlje French in 145 1 ; 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.
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 favorite of the people, learned, and an encourager of
learning. His wife, Eleanor, was accused of sorcery. In the year 1440, in
July, two clergymen, Roger Bolingbroke and Thomas Southwell, a canon of
St. Stephen's chapel, " were taken as conspirators of the king's death ; for it:
was said that the said Master Roger should labor to consume the king's^
person by way of necromancy." Bolingbroke 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. When he had
confessed to what was called his necromancy, dame Eleanor " was cited tc~
appear before certain bishops of the king's." Bolingbroke, the chronicle
adds, was brought to witness against her ; and he said " she was cause and.
first stirred him to labor in his necromancy." Then Bolingbroke and
Southwell 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 Cob-
ham to make the duke of Gloucester love her and wed her. The duchess was
brought before an ecclesiastical commission in October. She was confined at
Calais and the Isle of Man for the remainder of her life. 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.
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..

1461] HENRY BEAUFORT DIES.— STATUTE OF WAGES. 167
The duke of Suffolk 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 favorite. The king was
a mere puppet of sovereignty. Whatever could contribute to the ruin of
Gloucester would be acceptable to the churchmen of the council. A parlia
ment was called at the beginning of 1447. 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 nth he was arrested by the high constable of
England, and his attendants were seized and sent to different prisons. 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 Shakespeare
with a terrible power which the soberer statement of the chronicler will 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,
will not death be hired, nor will money do nothing ? "

The industrious habits of artificers and laborers 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 will 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 labor of modern times is overtasked, as compared
with mediaeval labor, should learn what is required by this statute. From the
middle of March to the middle of September, every laborer and artificer was
to be at his work before five o'clock in the morning, and he was to depart
not till 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 labor in summer
and winter was taken into account in wages. The summer wages of the free
mason and master carpenter, of 5 1-4^. without food, were reduced to A,d. in
the winter. The lower artificers and laborers, who received 3 1-4^. in the
summer without meat and drink, were to serve for ~$d. in the winter. We
shall not attempt here to enter into any comparison of the ancient and
modern rate of wages ; or now endeavor 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." That disproof, as we believe, will be
supplied by a just view of the condition of the laborers at every stage of our

1 6ft HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1422
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
denomination the occupations only of the mason, carpenter, tiler, and " other
artificers concerning building." All the various handicrafts took their regula
tions 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. 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. If we wanted any proof that the laws for the regulation of labor 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 Congre
gations 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 class of men
who, during three centuries, had covered England with its noblest monu
ments ; and now, in the assemblies where they discoursed of their art, also
complained of the oppression that leveled that art to the ordinary condition
of unskilled labor. They resisted, as they had a light to resist. They held
together, as Englishmen from that day to this have held, when tyranny has
tried to break their ranks. 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 strengthen
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 tyranny could ever endure long in England against this prin
ciple. If it were just, no arbitrary legislative interference could eventually
put it down. It was a building age in England ; and 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 labor. * Stat. 3, Henry VI. cap. I.

1461] WILLIAM CAXTON.— RICHARD, DUKE OF YORK. 169
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 movable 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. ,
William Caxton came, to render the ignorance of any large portion of society
thenceforward impossible.
Richard, duke of York, was the son of Richard, earl of Cambridge ; and
when his father was beheaded, in 141 5, 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 halt a century. Richard 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 York, and Edmund, earl of March, having been
relieved from the corruption of blood consequent upon the alleged treason of
his father. He was employed in high offices in France, until 1444, when he
was recalled, and the peace was concluded which destroyed the power
of the English. York became necessarily opposed to the government whose
policy 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 people there, that he
won such favor among them as could never be separated from him and his
lineage." During his absence from England, in 1449, till 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.
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. 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 committal to the Tower, and subse
quently exhibited a bill of impeachment against him. It was a time of serious
alarm from the temper of the people. Moleyne, the bishop of Chichester,

170 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [142*
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 favorite of the
queen. The commons appear to have proceeded against this powerful min
ister in the same spirit of determined animosity. They accused him of trait
orous intercourse with France, through which Normandy had been lost ; of
making corrupt grants to enrich his own family ; 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. We have a circumstantial relation of the fate of this unfor
tunate nobleman, in a letter written from London on the 5th of May. Whent
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 all 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 lewdest (meanest) of the ship bade him lay down 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
alleged 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 of
flattering men, the more especially and 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 of good
conversation, and of truth, and by them shall ye never be deceived nor repent.
r It
you of. In 1450 there was an encampment of many thousand Kentish, men, who-
had gathered together to demand redress of grievances. Their leader is offi
cially described as " the false traitor John Cade, naming himself John Morti
mer, late called captain of Kent." He is also chronicled as "an Irishman,
called John Cade." Upon Blackheath this assemblage kept the field for several
weeks: and the city of London, at that time, was friendly toward them.
Cade declared to the messengers who came from the king, that they were
assembled to redress and reform the wrongs that were in the realm and the

1461] CADE'S DEATH.— THE DUKE OF SOMERSET. 171
defaults of those that were the king's chief counselors. A considerable force
was raised to disperse the insurgents, but they retreated to Sevenoaks ; and
there, on the 27th of 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 Kenilworth.
Two days after, Cade resumed his camp at Blackheath, the king's forces
having dispersed. On the 1st of July the insurgents entered Southwark, and
on the 2d the gates of the city were opened to them. On the 3d, he again
entered the city from Southwark. The mayor and justices were sitting at
the Guildhall. 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 of his head.
This, and other horrible deeds, as well as the plunder of some houses, disa
bused the citizens of their belief that grievances were to be redressed by law
less tumults. Cade was in 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 with
drew, upon a promise from the archbishop of Canterbury of a general pardon.
A proclamation was, however, issued, offering the reward of a thousand marks
for the apprehension of Cade, alive or dead ; and " anon he fled into the
wood country beside Lewes ; and the sheriff of Kent him pursued ; and
there he was wounded unto the death, and taken and carried in a cart toward
London, and by the way he died." Thomas Cheyney, called Bluebeard, had
headed an insurrection near Canterbury in the preceding February.
The spirit of revolt was widely spread in England in this year. The
governor of Normandy, the duke of Somerset, to whom the more recent
losses in France were attributed, now arrived in England, and took the man
agement of affairs. For four years there was a contest for life and death
between two great parties in the State, — a contest characterized 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. 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. He advanced toward 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 wholly prevailed. 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.

172 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1422
head. In the same month, his only son was born 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." The duke of Somerset was under arrest ; but his influence was
still powerful, and the efforts of his party unremitting. The cardinal, Kempe,
chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury, the great supporter with Somerset
of the queen's party, hath armed all 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 Lancastrian lords, to make all the
puissance they can, to come to London. It was a contest for power between
Margaret of Anjou and Richard of York. In the parliament which met on
the 14th of February, a deputation of peers was appointed to wait upon
the king, at Windsor, and inform him of the death of Cardinal Kempe, his
chancellor, 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 till 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 recovery, as it was called, of King Henry produced another signal
change in affairs. Somerset was released. The protectorate of York was
necessarily 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 toward 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, with
Somerset and other nobles, to meet York in arms before he reached the
capital. 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 deliver him. The king's forces
were within the town, which was defended by strong barriers. The defenses
were again and again assaulted by the Yorkists ; but they were driven back.
At length Warwick brought up a strong force on the east side, and broke
down the barriers and the slight houses, and entered St. Peter's Street.
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 wounded by the shafts of
the archers of the north. Sir Philip Wentworth cast down the royal stand
ard and sought safety in flight ; for which unchivalrous deed, Norfolk, who
was of the opposite party, threatened that he should be hanged. 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

1461] GENERAL PARDON.— EARL OF WARWICK. 173
the same outward marks of reverence. The fall 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. Hallam calls
" my faithful guide," in that middle of July, 1455, " all 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 full of weapons daily unto Westminster." 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. 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.
Hallam has pointed out, " that whatever passed as to this second protectorate
of the duke of York was altogether of a revolutionary complexion." The
majority of the lords were Lancastrian. The house of York had its chief
supporters among the commons ; who may be held to have represented the
popular feeling. When Richard was appointed vicegerent of the kingdom,
in 1455, the rights of the son of Henry were especially protected. His second
protectorate 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
commission was superseded, and he retired with his adherents to the
privacy of his own estates. During two years the great quarrel was
suspended. 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 defense 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.
The London of this period was rich and populous, full of splendid ecclesiasti
cal buildings, and of stately mansions. What the city chronicler calls " a
dissimulated unity and concord," was accomplished in 1458. The king, and
the rival nobles walking pefore him, hand-in-hand — the queen, led by the duke
of York — went in procession to St. Paul's. And yet, in the following Novem
ber, " fell a great debate between Richard, earl of Warwick, and them of the
king's house, insomuch that they would have slain the earl." He escaped to
his barge, and departed for Calais. His appointment as captain of Calais was
superseded by a writ of privy seal, in favor of " the young duke of Somerset."

174 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1422
Warwick refused to resign, saying that he was appointed by authority of par
liament. The false unity and concord had come to an end.
' In 1459 tne civil war mav De heid to have commenced ; and it assumed a
character which left no doubt that the great issue to be tried was whether
Henry or Richard should be king of England. The Yorkist forces were now
marshaled against the royal forces. The battle of Blore Heath, in Stafford
shire, in which the earl of Salisbury, the father of Warwick, defeated Lord
Audley, was fought on the 23d of September. Salisbury was on his march to
join the duke of York, which junction after this victory he effected near Lud
low. There Warwick also joined them ; and they issued a proclamation, in
which they still maintained that they were in arms to reform the government,
but not to overthrow 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 Lancas
trian camp. The army of the Yorkists immediately disbanded ; and York
fled to Ireland, where he received a welcome from those toward whom he
he had been a just governor. At a parliament held at Coventry on the 20th
of November, the Yorkist 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. At midsummer a large force
under Warwick passed over from Calais, and landed in Kent. As this army
advanced toward London its numbers were so largely increased, that War
wick entered the capital with forty thousand men. 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
professed 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 min
istry ; and the duke of York was sent for from Ireland. The Lady Cecily,
duchess of York, the daughter of Ralph Neville, earl of Westmoreland, has
been despoiled of her possessions in the attainder of her husband. Her
second son, Edmund, earl of Rutland, now seventeen years of age, has fled
with his father to Ireland.
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
chambtr of peers, and sat down in the throne royal, under the cloth of estate,
which is the king's peculiar seat." There was a deliberate investigation of his

1461] YORK DEFEATED.— HENRY VI. CROWNED. 175
genealogical title, which, upon the principle of direct succession, could not be
disputed. The lords 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. 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. York was suddenly attacked and totally
defeated. The same spirit of exaggeration may have represented Rutland as
basely murdered, when found with his tutor away from the scene of conflict.
Instead of being a boy of twelve, as grave historians have accepted the state
ment, 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
followed up by the successful party with merciless 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 followed up his
victory by the same course of executions as those of Wakefield. After that
triumph, Queen Margaret had advanced toward 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. The ravaging bands under Northumberland, Westmoreland,
Exeter, Somerset, Devonshire, Clifford, Roos, Dacre, were drawing nigher
and nigher to the capital. On Shrove Tuesday, the 17th of February, they
had reached the neighborhood of St. Alban's. Out of the city Warwick had
marched, carrying with him the poor King Henry, in whose name all the acts
most inimical to his family 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 fell into the hands of
the queen. 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. 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 Richard of York, now
represented the White Rose. Edward went straightforward to the great
-object of his ambition ; and in an assembly of the peers, prelates, and citizens,
on the 3d 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. In every statute which had reference to the
laws of the three regal predecessors of Edward, Henry IV., Heniy V. and

176 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1461
Henry VI. were denominated " late kings of England successively, in deed
and not of right."
Norfolk is gone to his country to raise his men. Warwick has marched
out of London northward on the 6th of March. On the 12th, Edward himself
issued out of the city in goodly order at Bishopsgate, following the same
northward course. On the 13th, Henry, the Lancastrian king, is dispatching
letters under his signet from York. 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. The army of the Lancastrians has been computed at sixty
thousand. Again they were gathered under the banner of the red rose.
They were led by the earls of Northumberland, Westmoreland, Devonshire?
Wiltshire, the duke of Somerset, Sir Andrew Trollope, and others who were
ready to fight to the death. Of Edward's army there were nearly fifty
thousand. On the eve of Palm Sunday began the cruel battle of Towton at
four o'clock, when the armies joined. Through all that night, amid a fall of
snow, these fierce men madly fought till the afternoon of the next day.
Then, thirty-three thousand men lay dead on the field of battle. The
triumph of the Yorkists was complete ; but it was not signalized by the
greater triumph of mercy. 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.

EDWARD IV.— HOUSE OF YORK.— WARS OF THE ROSES
CONTINUED.— HENRY VI. RESTORED.— EDWARD IV. VIC
TORIOUS.— ACCESSION OF EDWARD V.— RICHARD III.
(1461-1485.)
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 Richard duke of Gloucester. The
king afterward went a progress through the south and west, amid some of the
towns which had been so faithful to his interests. His course was marked by
executions as frequent as banquets.
The parliament 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
VI., his queen and their son, were attainted for the death of Richard, duke
of York, and for delivering 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 all the Lancastrian princes as " kings in deed and

1485] YORK IN POWER.— MARGARET'S ESCAPE. 177
not of right," confirms their 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 hostile 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 exile 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, following 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 afterward known had a small pension
allowed him for his subsistence."
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 Dunstan
burgh were surrendered by the duke of Somerset and Sir Richard 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 narra
tive 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 quarreled 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.* In
1464 Margaret was again in Scotland ; and now an attempt of extraordinary
boldness to regain the lost throne was made by the Lancastrians. Percy and
* Hume places this event after the battle of Hexham. Turner and Lingard think it belongs to this
earlier period. 12

178 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1461
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 Monta
cute, the brother of Warwick, the warder of the east marches, went promptly
against the force which Percy and Somerset had collected. On the 25th of
April a battle was fought at Hedgeley Moor, near Wooller, 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. Executions, attainders, imprisonments,
followed this victory. Some of the fugitives from the battle-field threw them
selves into Bamborough castle, with Sir Ralph Gray, which fortress speedily
surrendered to Warwick. Gray was beheaded at Doncaster. 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.*
The repose which Edward had now attained was not favorable to the
improvement of his character. In the rush of war he was eminently brave
and daring. In peace the same energy became wild licentiousness. His
expenses were unbounded. He gave away the forfeited possessions of his
enemies with a rash liberality, and he resorted to very dangerous devices for
the supply of his own extravagance. In 1464 " King Edward changed the
coin 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." " To gain universally the favor of all sorts, he used toward
every man of high and low degree more than meet familiarity, which trade of
life he never changed." Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Richard Woodville
and Jaquetta, the duchess of Bedford, had been married to Sir John Grey,
a Lancastrian, who was killed at the second battle of St. Alban's. Edward
saw the lady at her mother's house ; when she solicited him to restore her
[ate husband's confiscated possessions. Her beauty was irresistible to the
young man of twenty-three ; and they were secretly married.
The marriage of Edward was avowed at the Michaelmas of 1464. On
the 26th of May of the following year, Elizabeth was solemnly crowned at
Westminster. She had two sons by her marriage with Sir John Grey. The
marriage with the widow of a Lancastrian who had died fighting against
Edward was not an impolitic step toward the extinction of the quarrel
between the adherents of the two houses. It was in accordance with that
* The affairs of Scotland, in connection with those of England, have not been of material impor
tance since the release of James I., in 1424. The two kingdoms were in a state of occasional border
warfare, with long truces. Toward the close of the reign of Edward IV., the relations of the two
countries assume a greater degree of interest.

1485] RISING FORTUNES OF THE LANCASTRIANS. 179
just principle which had previously dictated the proclamation of a general
amnesty to all who would submit to the new government. The marriage of
the three brothers of Elizabeth, and of her five sisters, into noble houses,
with immense possessions, rendered the Woodvilles objects of envy and
hatred. The Nevilles had placed Edward on the throne, and had since ruled
the kingdom. 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 coldness between the king and the proud noble, which threatened a
new field of St. Alban's. They were, however, reconciled ; and in 1468 the
negotiations for the marriage with Charles, now the reigning duke, were com
pleted. She was married on the 3d of July near Bruges, and entered that
city, rich with all the wealth of an industrious people, on the same day. The
queen's brother, Lord Scales, afterward Earl Rivers, 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. Henry is a
prisoner in the Tower of London. •
Queen Margaret was in the asylum of her father's court. But at this
lowest point of their fortunes, another revolution was preparing in 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 in restoring those whom he had cast down from their high
estate. On the nth 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. Richard Neville was
the son of the earl of Salisbury ; and he became earl of Warwick in 1449,
through his marriage into the great Warwick family. Richard, duke of York,
the father of Edward IV., had married the daughter of the earl of Westmore
land, 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 among the most powerful of the English nobles. But after the
accession of Edward, he and his family held offices which rendered him still
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 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

1 80 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [i46r
army at his lightest summons. Within a fortnight after the marriage of
Clarence there was a rising in Yorkshire, under a leader called Robin of
Riddesdale. 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 Woodvilles 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 Robin
of Riddesdale, who had been taken and beheaded. As their movements
advanced southward they defeated the king's army under the earl of Pem
broke at Edgecote near Banbury; and the earl of Rivers, 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 execu
tions that followed the triumph 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 little doubt, however
the fact is disputed by some writers, that they obtained possession of the
person of Edward at Honiley,* 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."
But there was a premature rising on the Scottish borders for the restoration
of King Henry. Warwick now hastened to put down 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
hostility. In the spring of 1470, the people of Lincolnshire were in arms
against the government. They were headed by Sir Robert 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, while
they were on the way to his enemies ; are herein set forth with strong indig
nation. The king, by his 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 Warwick ! Willes and
others were beheaded ; and the " Chronicle of the Rebellion " states 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 Yorkshire. 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 to
* Not Olney. See Camden Miscellany, vol. i. p. 3.

1485] QUEEN MARGARET.— HENRY VI. RESTORED. 181
•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.
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 Richard Neville were reconciled. Prince Edward, the son of Henry
VI., was to marry the daughter of Warwick. Henry VI. was to be restored.
But the immediate chance of the crown 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." Lewis strenuously urged the union, " and so the queen, thus
required by the king, as it is said, counseled 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 wholly
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. Then came another course of dissimulation of Clarence
toward 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 of 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
anything, but still followed his hunting," says Comines. He put entire faith
in the earl of Warwick's brothers. At last, on the 13th of September, 1470,
Warwick and Clarence landed at Dartmouth. Henry VI. was proclaimed :
and as the small army of the earl advanced into the country, it was swelled by
prodigious numbers of people who gathered under the standard of the all-
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 the white
rose, 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 day of
October was on shipboard at Lynn. His queen was at that time residing in
the Tower of London, where Henry VI. was detained as a State prisoner.
Elizabeth, 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 peril, was born the first son of Edward IV. The
deliverance of Henry from his captivity was accomplished on the 6th ot

182 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [146c
October, immediately, after the entry of the Lancastrian army into London-
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.
The most important guide to a comprehension of public affairs, the rolls
of parliament, 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 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 stigmatized as " the
butcher of England," but whom the father of English printing eulogizes as
" the right virtuous earl which late piteously lost his life." But no other
death on the scaffold is recorded.
On the 2d of March, 1471, there is a little fleet in the harbor of Flushing,,
and Edward the exile goes on board one of the ships. He has received some
secret succor from the duke of Burgundy and has contrived to gather two-
thousand Englishmen under the white rose banner. He arrived before the:
city of York on the 17th. 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. 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 proclamation from that time
forward." The secret compact with Clarence was now to be completed-
The duke drew toward Edward with four thousand men ; and in a fair field
out of Warwick, toward 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 endeavored to
mediate between Warwick and his brother, but " all such treaty brake and
took none effect." On the 6th of April the Yorkist army moved to North
ampton, and keeping its straight course for the capital, on the 9th was at St.
Alban's. 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 citizen's wives,,
who were proud of his gallantries, compelled their husbands to declare for him_
There was no resistance. The archbishop of York obtained a conditional

1485] PRINCE EDWARD AT TEWKESBURY. 183
promise of pardon ; and on the 14th, 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 Friday. On the Saturday Edward led his army out of
London ; for Warwick had rapidly followed him in his march, and had halted
at Barnet. Oh that Easter eve, the 13th of April, the advanced guard of the
Yorkists have encountered the outposts of the Lancastrians. Warwick fell
fighting on foot ; and so his brother Montacute. 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 the people
shouted for the young victorious king ; and the poor dethroned Henry was
led back to the Tower.
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. 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 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. The Lancastrians reached Tewkes
bury, and there determined to make a stand. Strong in their positions, the
Lancastrians repulsed the attacking army ; but Somerset boldly led his men
into the open field by by-paths, and fiercely attacked Edward's flank. He
was unsupported by Lord Wenlock, who was to have followed Somerset ; was
soon overpowered and driven back to his intrenchments, with great slaughter;
and in the frenzy of despair he killed his companion in arms, whose treachery
or fear had betrayed him in the hour of need. The king and his brother
Richard pursued their advantage with their wonted impetuosity ; and the
unfortunate remnant of the adherents of the red rose " took them to flight."
The kingdom was won.
It is now for the first time that we find Richard of Gloucester a conspic
uous 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
believe the description furnished by one who, in after years, was bis bitter
enemy, he was " little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed, his left
shoulder much higher than his right, hard favored of visage." In his conduct
at the decisive day of Tewkesbury, the gallantry of the knight is held to have
been tarnished by the cruelty of the assassin. The usual account is derived
from Polydore Vergil, whose History was writtten in Latin in the reign of
Henry VII. He says, " Edward, the prince, and excellent youth, being
brought a little after [the 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 inherit
ance : hereunto King Edward gave no answer, only thrusting the young
man from him with his hand ; whom, forthwith, those that were present,

1 84 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1461
George, duke of Clarence, Richard, duke of Gloucester, and William, Lord
Hastings, cruelly murdered." On the other hand there is the contemporary
account of the servant of Edward IV., who says : " Edward, called prince, was
taken fleeing to the townwards, and slain in the field." Another early record,
that of Warkworth, a Lancastrian, gives the same account of young Edward's
death in the field, with a circumstantial variation : " And there was slain in
the field Prince Edward, which cried for succor to his brother-in-law, the
duke of Clarence." The victory of Tewkesbury was followed by the execu
tions of the duke of Somerset and other Lancastrian leaders.
On the 7th of May, King Edward marched from Tewkesbury to
Worcester. On the nth, he was at Coventry, where Queen Margaret, who
had been discovered in a small house of religion, 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 William Falconbridge, who had kept the channel as admiral by
Warwick's appointment. 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 afterward
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 22d, he was on his march
toward Canterbury, accompanied by his brother Richard, who within a few
days received the submission of Falconbridge. There is the following circum
stantial 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 King
Edward came to London, King Henry, being inward in prison in the Tower
of London, was put to death, on the 21st 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 others. 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 Yorkist 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 23d day of the month of May." The
circumstance that Richard 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 oi York upon him who had
lost a crown, says, " The continual report is that Richard, duke of Gloucester,
killed him with a sword." Fabyan writes, " Of the death of this prince
[Henry VI.] 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."
All the enemies of the house of York are swept away by the sword or

1485] ART OF PRINTING.— TREATY OF PICQUINY. 185
the axe, or are in prison or in exile. Margaret of Anjou is a captive in the
Tower, with a small allowance. For awhile 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 were literary tastes in those times which had so
recently witnessed the waste and ferocity of civil war. The brother of the
queen was the patron of Caxton, who brought his art to England in 1474.
For Caxton's press the accomplished Rivers translated " The Dictes and
Sayings of Philosophers," which was printed at Westminster in 1477 ; and
he afterward translated two other works for Caxton, who dedicates the first
book which he printed to the duke of .Clarence, and receives a payment by
order of Edward IV., in 1479, of the large sum of 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 willing aid to the great discovery which was to
make knowledge a common property, in causing, as Caxton says Earl Rivers
did, " books to be imprinted and so multiplied to go abroad among the people."
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 Bur
gundy and the duke of Bretagne urged on the revival of the ancient claims
to the French crown. The parliament voted supplies with a profuse liberality,
which the tax-payers did not entirely approve. 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. 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. 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 negotia
tions, in which the king of France had cajoled and degraded the English —
that one was Richard of Gloucester. At the interview between the kings
Gloucester was not present, " as being averse to the treaty."
With the treaty of Picquiny, its bribes and its cajoleries, its heartless

1 86 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1461
compacts and hollow friendships, the chivalrous grandeur of England had
come to an end. The pageant was played out. 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 country
men. 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.
Clarence has lost his wife by poison ; and the duchess of Burgundy is a widow.
The king found that the ambitious duke desired to wed the only daughter
and heir of Charles of Burgundy, in which desire 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 dependants, Thomas Burdett and John Stacy,
were accused of having " worked and calculated by art, magic, necromancy,
and astronomy, the death and final destruction of the king and prince," and
they were tried and executed. Clarence asserted their innocence before the
council ; and was immediately arrested by the king, and committed to the
Tower, on the 16th of January, 1478. Edward forced on his brother's
condemnation by appearing in person to maintain a charge of treason against
him. The obsequious peers found the imprudent prince guilty, and sentence
of death was pronounced upon him by the duke of Buckingham, who acted
as high steward. On the 7th of February the commons, by their speaker,
demanded the execution 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 rumor of the period. The suspicion that the duke of
Gloucester was implicated in the condemnation of Clarence rests upon no
evidence whatever.
The chroniclers say that Edward's remorse for the death of Clarence
was constant and bitter ; and that " he was wont to cry out in a rage, — O
unfortunate brother, for whose life no man in this world would once make
request." England, in 1479, was visited with a frightful pestilence. From
the time of the death of James I., of Scotland who was murdered by 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 killed at the siege of Roxburgh in 1460. James III. was
also a minor when he came to the throne. He was of a contemplative and
indolent nature, and fell into the hands of favorites. The Boyds, who had
long governed, were at last dispossessed of their power ; 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. Albany escaped to
France. At this juncture James III. and Edward IV. quarreled. And in
1480 there was war between England and Scotland. The duke of Gloucester
commanded the English forces. Berwick was invested, but without success ;
and the two armies were content with occasional forays upon the borders.

1485] BERWICK SURRENDERED.— EDWARD V. 187
In 1482, the duke of Albany was encouraged by Edward in a rebellion 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 toward 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 Elizabeth. He saw a more
advantageous union for his son in the daughter of Mary of Burgundy.
Edward was furious, and immediately determined for war. His anger was
expressed in paroxysms of rage without any determinate plans. A serious
illness succeeded a slight ailment, and he died on the 9th of April, 1483, in
the forty-second year of his age.
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, among whom were his maternal uncle, Earl Rivers, his half-
brother, Sir Richard Grey, Sir Thomas Vaughan, Sir William Stanley, Sir
Richard Croft, and Sir Richard Hawte. Gloucester was in the north at the
time of his brother's death. Richard went on to London with a large
number of* his followers, with the alleged purpose of assisting at the corona
tion, which had been fixed for the 4th of May. Meanwhile, 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 Rivers conducting the young king to London with
an overwhelming military force. On the 24th of April Edward V. left
Ludlow, with Rivers, Vaughan, Grey, and a retinue not exceeding the number
which had been prescribed by the council ; and they traveled on until they
reached Northampton. There Gloucester and Buckingham arrived the same
day ; but the king had gone forward to Stony-Stratford, Rivers remaining at
Northampton. It is argued, on one hand, that this was a scheme to prevent
Gloucester seeing his nephew ; while, on the other hand, it is affirmed that
Rivers- returned to Northampton from Stony-Stratford, to show his respect
for Gloucester. There can be little doubt that each party was preparing to
out-maneuver the other, and that each was advancing to the perpetration of
some decided act of treachery and bloodshed.
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 companion
ship with Rivers ; and then " the dukes secretly, with a few of their most
privy friends, set them down in counsel, wherein they spent a great part of
the night." The next morning they surrounded Rivers in his inn, and
arrested him. They then rode on to Stony-Stratford, " where they found the

188 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1461
king with his company ready to 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 take refuge in the sanctuary with her second son. 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 V. publicly entered the city, the
duke of Gloucester bearing him " in open sight most reverently to the prince,
with all semblance of lowliness." The peers took the oath of fealty to
Edward. At a great council of prelates, nobles, and citizens, Gloucester was
appointed 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. Rivers, Vaughan,
Grey and Hawte were kept prisoners at various castles. Buckingham, the
great adviser and advocate of Richard, received immediate rewards for his
services. On the 13th of June took place that wonderful scene which, first
painted by More, has been reproduced in imperishable colors — enameled, as
it were — by Shakespeare. 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 attend
ance, saying he had been sleeping. " And after a little talking with them,
he said unto the bishop of Ely: 'My lord, you have very good strawber
ries at your garden in Holborn ; I require you let us have a mess of them.'
1 Gladly, my lord,' quoth he, ' would God I had some better thing as ready to
your pleasure as that.' And therewith in all 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 returned into the chamber among them, all
changed with a wonderful sour angry countenance, knitting the brows,
frowning and fretting, and gnawing on his lips, and so sat him down in his
place." The protector, after awhile, 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 all 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 small as it was never other.
And thereupon every man's mind sore misgave them, well perceiving that this
matter was but a quarrel." 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

1485] GLOUCESTER'S ENEMIES PUNISHED. 189
heinously done, they be worthy heinous punishment.' ' What,' quoth the
protector, ' thou servest me, I ween, with " ifs " and with " ands " ; I tell thee
they have so done, and that I will 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. ' Yea, thee, traitor,'
quoth the protector. And another let fly at the Lord Stanley, which shrunk
at the stroke and fell under the table, or else his head had been cleft to his
teeth ; for as shortly as he shrank, yet ran the blood about his ears. Then
were they all quickly bestowed in divers chambers, except the lord chamber
lain [Hastings], whom the protector bade speed and shrive him apace, ' for, by
St. Paul,' quoth he, ' I will not to dinner till I see thy head off.' It booted
him not to ask why, but heavily he took a priest at adventure, and made a
short shift, for a longer would not be suffered, the protector made so much
haste to dinner: which he might not go to till this were done for saving of his
oath. So he was 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 details 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. In a letter of Simon Stallworthe, he says : " On Monday last was at
Westminster great plenty of harnessed men. There was the deliverance of
the duke of York 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 hall 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. 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 York, 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 lives in the
world's remembrance, chiefly through More's description of her gentle
influence over the mind of Edward IV. " Her he loved, whose favor, to say
the truth (for sin it were to belie the devil), she never abused to any man's
hurt, but to many a man's comfort and relief." Richard did not attempt to

190 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1461
maintain his charge of 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 the procession upon a Sunday, with a taper in
her hand." She lived till the time of Henry VIII.
The general council of the realm was held at the Tower. The protector
had a special council 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 all likelihood resulted the
removal of the duke of York 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. There is a passage in the well-informed French contem
porary which has scarcely been borne in mind in the usual narratives of the
sudden events of this June of 1483. Comines says, speaking of Richard
drawing the duke of York 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, falling afterward 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
Elizabeth Woodville. Comines again says : " The bishop having discovered
this mystery to the duke of Gloucester, he gave his assistance to the execution
of the barbarous designs of the duke." If Robert Stillington, 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. It is recorded by More that Buckingham, attended by the mayor of
London and many others, went on the 24th of June to Richard, at Baynard's
castle, and there solicited him to become their king. On the 25th the
parliament had been summoned ; but a supersedeas had been received on the
2 1st of June, by the sheriffs of York, which renders it clear that the choice of
Richard to be king was not an open act of the legislature. There was some
assembly on that 25th of June, for in the next parliament 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
Richard, as his father's heir, in consequence of a pre-contract of matrimony
having been made by Edward IV. with Dame Eleanor Butler, a daughter of
the earl of Shrewsbury, by which his children became illegitimate, and that
the line of the duke of Clarence had been attainted. On the 26th of June
Richard, duke of Gloucester, sat down in the marble chair of Westminster
hall as king of England. On the day on which Richard " took possession,"
or soon after, the accomplished Rivers, with Grey, Vaughan, and Hawte, went

3485] RICHARD AND THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER. r9i
through some form of trial before the earl of Northumberland, and were
beheaded at Pomfret.
On the 6th July, 1483, Richard III., with his queen, Anne, were crowned
at Westminster. The question whether the two sons of Edward IV. were
murdered in the Tower by command of Richard, interesting as it is as a great
historic doubt, would have had no bearing upon future events, but for the
pretensions of a young man in the next reign to be the identical duke of York
who had escaped from his " unnatural uncle." Bacon, who in his " History of
the Reign of Henry VII.," relates the career of the youth called Perkin War
beck 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
York was indeed murdered." He says, that of four persons supposed to be
implicated, only two were alive, 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 Richard having directed a warrant to Brackenbury, the
lieutenant of the Tower, to put them to death, was by him refused ; that
Richard then directed a warrant to Sir James Tyrrel to receive the keys of the
Tower for one night, for the king's special service ; that Tyrrel, with his two
servants, Miles Forest and John Dighton, repaired to the Tower, and he
stood at the stair-foot, while these villains executed the murder, by smother
ing them in their beds ; that Tyrrel saw their dead bodies, which were buried
under the stairs ; and that Richard, taking exception to the dishonorable 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 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 diligence for the tracing of Perkin." If the evidence against
Richard rested upon this sole averment, we should at once see how open it is
to suspicion — how naked is this kind of proof. The more important of these
men, Sir James Tyrrel, was released from his imprisonment, was employed by
Henry VII., 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." In one important circumstance, 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 VII., and that both he and

192 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1461
Dighton were then examined. 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] children were executed is not certainly
known." 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 Richard III. "And the two sons of King Edward were put to
silence." In 1674, some alterations were going on in the White Tower, to
prepare it for the reception of papers from the sixth clerk's office. In making
a new staircase into the chapel of that tower, some bones were found under
the old staircase, whose proportions " were answerable to the ages of the
royal youths." Charles II. caused them to be removed to Henry VII.'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 Ed
ward V. and the duke of York, who were confined in the Tower, put to
death, and secretly and ignominiously buried, by command of Richard.
The character of Richard was an extraordinary mixture of hateful and
amiable qualities. Those who had served him he loaded with benefits. On
the 1 2th of October Richard himself writes a remarkable letter to his
chancellor, John Russell, who at that time was sick in London ; in which
he says, " Whereas we, by God's grace, intend briefly to advance us
toward our rebel and traitor, the duke of Buckingham, to resist and with
stand his malicious purpose, as lately by our other letters we certified
you our mind more at large ; for which cause it behoveth us to have our great
seal here." In a subsequent portion of this letter, in Richard's own hand
writing, he urges the chancellor to send the seal, if he is unable to come him
self ; 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 Buck
ingham, the most untrue creature living." Among 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
Richard on the throne ; who had been his counselor, agent, and abettor in
every act, whether of violence or craft, up to the time of his taking the crown.
" High-reaching Buckingham " and miscalled " shallow Richmond " were each
descended from John of Gaunt, by Catherine Swynford, the issue of this
irregular union having been legitimated. Margaret, countess of Richmond,
was the great-granddaughter of the duke of Lancaster, and so was Margaret,
countess of Stafford, the mother of Buckingham. But the father of Rich
mond's mother was the elder branch. Her husband was Henry, earl of
Richmond, who was the son of Owen Tudor, a gentleman of Wales, whom
Catherine, the widow of Henry V., had married.

1485] THE PLANS OF BUCKINGHAM AND RICHMOND. 193
The revolt of 1483 was soon quelled by the energetic king. The duke
was compelled to fly. The terrible Richard 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 all traitors, " without the noise and formality of trial, and without
regard to any appeal whatsoever to proceed to execution." When Richard
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 2d of November : the
other confederates dispersed. The chiefs fled to the continent ; some of
inferior note were taken and put to death. Richmond, whose fleet had been
scattered by a storm, thought it prudent to return without any attempt to
land. In Brittany he and the marquis of Dorset, son of Elizabeth Wood
ville, met to devise new plans ; and there, in the cathedral of Vannes- on the
following Christmas-day, they pledged themselves to another attempt, and
Richmond swore to marry Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV., if
he should obtain the crown.
The triumph of the king, in the failure of the plans of Buckingham and
Richmond, would naturally tend to place his government upon a more secure
basis. He found a parliament ready enough to confirm his title by passing
an act for the settlement of the crown upon him and his issue ; in which the
illegitimacy of the children of Edward IV. was affirmed, and his widow is
styled " sometime wife to Sir John Grey, knight, late naming herself and
many years heretofore queen of England." The statute of Richard " to
free the subject from benevolences " denounces these " new and unlaw
ful inventions " as the cause of " great penury and wretchedness," and ordains
that no such exactions shall in future be made, but that they be " annulled
forever." 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
jurymen be summoned but such as are of good name and fame, and have
twenty shillings a year in freehold land, or twenty-six shillings 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 seller.
A great legal authority, looking at these acts of Richard III. — fifteen
altogether — says of this, his only parliament, " We have no difficulty in pro
nouncing 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." For the first time the laws to
be obeyed by the English people are enacted in the English tongue. But,
beyond this, they are the first laws of the land which were ever printed. The
commercial acts are-not marked by any advance beyond the principle of pro
tection, except in one striking instance. There , was one commodity which
*3

194 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE PLANTAGENETS. [1461
was to come into the land as freely as the light from heaven — " for bryngyng
into this realme, or sellyng by retaill or otherwise, of any maner 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 of the said occupacions ; this acte or any
parte therof notwithstandyng."
One of the measures of Richard's parliament was to annul all letters-
patent granting estates to " Elizabeth, late wife of Sir John Grey." The
relict of Edward IV. still remained with her daughters in sanctuary. But
on the first of March, 1484, the king, in the presence of lords spiritual and
temporal, and the mayor and aldermen of London, made oath verbo regio
upon the holy Evangelists, that if Elizabeth, Cecile, Anne, Katherine, and
Bridget, the daughters of dame Elizabeth Grey, would come out of the sanc
tuary, and be guided, ruled, and demeaned after him, he would see that they
should be in surety of their lives and suffer no hurt or imprisonment, but that
they should have everything necessary as his kinswomen. This family,
accordingly, came out of their place of refuge, and submitted themselves to
the guidance of Richard. In the next month he, who was suspected of hav
ing destroyed his brother's sons, sustained 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 intelligence. But the king had too many
enemies to watch, to sit down in helpless grief. He declared his nephew,
John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln, his heir ; and applied himself to counteract
the schemes of Richmond, by negotiating with the duke of Brittany to
deliver him up. The earl of Oxford, one of the most constant of the Lancas
trians, escaped from his prison at Ham, and joined Richmond, to whom
other adherents gradually flocked. The king spent the year in active prepa
ration for the possible invasion.
Henry of Richmond set sail from Harfleur on the 1st of August, and
landed at Milford Haven on the 7th. The king took up a position at Notting
ham, as the center of the kingdom. But the landing of Richmond in Wales
was a surprise. Richard is said to have despised his adversary as " a man of
small 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 battle of the 22d of August was fought with so few men
on either side, that it would appear marvelous that it should have decided
the fate of a kingdom. With Richard, the last of the Plantagenets, expired the
political system under which England had been governed by that house for
more than three centuries. Market-Bosworth, the nearest town of importance,
gave the name to the decisive battle of the 22d of August, 1485. When the
battle begun, Richard found the Stanleys opposed to him, and Northumberland
stirring not a foot to his aid. No strategy could now be of avail. It was of
little consequence that Richmond " had never set a squadron in the field."

1485]

•RICHARD KILLED.— ACT OF SETTLEMENT.

19S

The men whom Richard had loaded with benefits deserted him in the hour
of his need, with a treachery that proclaimed that the knell of chivalry was
rung. Polydore Vergil, the eulogist of Henry, does justice to the valiancy of
Richard in this last struggle : " King Richard, at the first brunt, killed certain ;
overthrew Henry's standard, together with William 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, making 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 all fled, and King Richard alone
was killed, fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies."

V.

THE TUDORS.

(1485— 1603.)
HENRY VII.— PRETENSIONS OF PERKIN WARBECK,
ASSUMED SON OF EDWARD IV.

France,"
our now

(1485-1509.)
HE 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 Richard, " 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 conquest. 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 Settlement it is
ordained, " in avoiding all ambiguities and questions, that the
inheritance of the crowns of the realms of England and of
shall " be, rest, remain, and abide, in the most royal person of
sovereign lord King Henry VII., and in the heirs of his body,

etc.

196 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. . [1485
lawfully coming, perpetually, with the grace of God so to endure, and in none
other." 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. Henry expressed his willingness to comply with the request ;
and the marriage took place on the following 18th of January. In conse
quence of their relationship, a dispensation was necessary ; but it appears
:hat no efforts had been made to obtain it, until after this parliamentary
declaration. The new king was essentially different in character from any one of the
Plantagenet race. The period of Henry VII. was that of the invention of
printing, and the discovery of America. The spread of knowledge and the
extension of commerce were soon to work mighty changes in all nations.
The chief adherents of Richard III. had been attainted, in the usual course
of such revolutions. Henry also held the property of a great body of
Yorkists within his grasp, by revoking, on his own authority, all grants of the
crown made since 1454-55, when the influence of Richard, duke of York,
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
Richard 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 toward the Yorkists produced an injudicious rising in
i486, under Lord Lovel and Thomas and Humphrey Stafford. This was
soon quelled. In Ireland, the partisans of the house of York had filled the
chief offices, under the earls of Kildare, since the accession of Edward IV.
The love for that house was still 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 Lovel 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. 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 Kildare, the lord deputy, at
Dublin, was accompanied by a priest of the name of Simons, and he repre-

1509] SIMNEL'S FATE.— TROOPS SENT TO BRITTANY. 197
sented himself as the earl of Warwick, who had escaped from his confinement
in the Tower. Either his pretensions were implicitly believed by Kildare, or
he was a party to the scheme, which had evidently been promoted by persons
of influence. 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 favored this enterprise and knew the secret, that this disguised idol
should possess 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 Lovel 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 pupil of Simons the
priest was proclaimed king as Edward VI. Lincoln and Lovel landed on the
Lancashire coast. The number of the insurgents, and their foreign auxiliaries,
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 ill-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 Fitzgerald, Sir Thomas Broughton, and the brave
Martin Swartz, fell in the field. Lord Lovel escaped ; but was no more heard
of. The seat of this family 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 afterward neglected, either through treachery or fear, or some accident
which befell that person." The pretended earl of Warwick and Simons the
priest were captured at the battle of Stoke. The youth, who was named
Lambert Simnel, was treated by the king " as an image of wax that others
had tempered and molded," 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.
By the end of the year 1488, when Francis of Brittany had died,
his country was overrun by the French. Henry promised an English
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 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 Brittany, according to his engagement with Anne
that this force should serve in her cause for six months. The French king
knew precisely what this meant ; avoided an engagement with the English,

198 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1485
who as carefully kept out of his way ; and at the end of six months the
little army returned home. A violent insurrection had broken out in the
northern counties, to resist the payment of the tax raised for this mockery
of war. Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, who had betrayed Richard
on Bosworth Field, enforced the payment of the subsidy. And the revolted
people murdered him. The insurrection was soon suppressed by the earl of
Surrey. The king was again at his favorite work of diplomacy ; entering
into alliances with Ferdinand of Spain, and Maximilian, king of the Romans,
for the alleged purpose of restraining the growing power of France, but
each having a private and special object. At length, in October, 1492,
Henry landed at Calais with a well-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 wily king had been negotiating a peace
with Charles of Fra'nce ; and it appears in the highest degree probable that
the treaty was actually signed when the English forces landed. Henry
called a council within a week after his landing, 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 hand
somely bribed, as well as their master. Henry, however, had a motive for
pacification, which was even more imperative than his avarice. One who
called himself Richard, duke of York, was in France acknowledged as the
rightful heir to the English throne, and surrounded with a guard of honor
and other demonstrations of confidence and respect. When Henry had
concluded the pacification, the French king commanded this Richard 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."
It was about the beginning of 1492, when King Henry was busied in
making 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 among 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
rumor went through Cork that he was the second son of Edward IV., and the
citizens, encouraged by John Water, who had been their mayor, became
enthusiastic in his behalf. The earl of Desmond, who had been devotedly
attached to the house of York, declared in favor of this supposed representa
tive of that house ; and the earl of Kildare offered him some assistance. 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

1509] "RICHARD PLANTAGENET."— HIS LETTER. 199
the court of Charles VIII., 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 to ^Eneas, 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 diligence instructed, both
of the secrets and common affairs of the realm of England, and of the lineage,
descent, and order of the house of York, that he, like a good scholar not
forgetting his lesson, could tell all that was taught him promptly." We may
now turn 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.* This letter is so inter
esting, that we take the freedom of republishing that portion of it which
relates the early history of him who subscribes himself, " Richard Plantagenet,
second son of Edward formerly king, duke of York, &c."
" Most serene and most excellent Princes, my most honorable 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 killed, 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,
until 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 exile from my king
dom, and deprived of country, inheritance and fortune, a fugitive in the midst
of extreme perils, led my miserable life in fear, and weeping, and grief, and
for 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 afterward 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 recognized 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 Richmond, 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 illustrious 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 Romans, and his son, the arch-
* This most curious letter, first published by Sir Frederic Madden, is in the British Museum.

200 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1485
duke 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 pur
pose of friendship and alliance. The great nobles of the kingdom of England
did the same who execrate the proud and wicked tryanny of this Henry of
Richmond."* 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 York and further him with
assistance. At the time when the so-styled " Richard Plantagenet " wrote this letter
from Dendermonde, a town belonging to the archduke of Austria, Henry had
dispatched 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." The ambas
sadors 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
Poynings and Dr. Warham, demanded the surrender of him who called him
self Richard of York, 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 arch
duke 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 inde
pendent. Henry was indignant at this practical rejection of his demand ; and,
by way of revenge, strictly prohibited all intercourse between England and
Flanders, and removed the mart of English cloth from Antwerp.
The pretensions of the adventurer in Flanders gradually found powerful
but secret supporters in England. At this time the subtle king was engaged
in corrupting Sir Robert 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 Rose." On the 20th of January, 1495, there is this signif
icant entry in the privy purse expenses of Henry VII. : — " Delivered to Sir
Robert Clifford, by the hand of Master Bray, 500/." Toward the end of
1494, Lord Fitzwalter, Sir Simon Mountford, Sir Thomas Thwaites, Robert
Ratcliffe, and others, were arrested on a charge of high treason, and were
proved to have. corresponded with the friends of Richard abroad. All received
sentence of death ; and Mountford, Thwaites, and Ratcliffe were at once
executed. On the 7th of January Clifford, 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 supplicated 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 pow
erful knight, who had saved the life of the earl of Richmond on Bosworth
* 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.

1509] PHILIP OF BURGUNDY.— JAMES III. OF SCOTLAND. 201
Field, when the onslaught of Richard would have been fatal without such
interposition — the faithful chamberlain of King Henry VII. — was accused of
favoring the pretensions of the "garcon" in Flanders, and had said that were
he sure that he was the son of Edward he would never fight against him.
He had one quality which obliterated from the king's mind all 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 crown worth three thousand
annual pounds.
The earl of Kildare was arrested and sent to England. Henry chose to
deal with clemency toward 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
" Richard " to land at Deal, with a portion of his foreign troops. The inhab
itants 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 an ineffectual attempt to besiege Waterford. But, early
in 1496, Henry concluded a commercial treaty with -Philip, the archduke, 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 honor at the court
of James IV., in Scotland, having arrived there with a considerable military
force. The employment of spies was an established principle of the government
of Henry. He had his men, too, ready for bold acts of violence as well as
treachery. One of his most devoted instruments was Ramsay, Lord Bothwell,
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 Bothwell was in England, and was in the intimate confidence 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 266/. 13J. ^d.,
to excite an act of treachery against his neighbor-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 York , and he gave the most
absolute proof of his conviction of the truth of his pretensions by bestowing

202 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1485
upon him in marriage his own kinswoman, Lady Catherine Gordon. At the
court of James IV. the young man so favored was attended by fourteen hun
dred men, of all nations.

INVASION BY THE SCOTS.— THE CORNISH INSURRECTION.
EXECUTION OF WARBECK.— COURT AND ADMINISTRA
TION OF HENRY VII.
We may judge 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 inquisition 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." 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 Doug
las and William Dunbar. Whatever be the contradictory evidence which
prevents us 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 winter
was approaching, when James IV. and his adopted ally advanced with an
army into England. When an army of Scots, headed by the king of Scotland,
entered England, the sturdy Northmen looked upon that invasion as the act
of the ancient' national enemy, and the fierce hatreds of centuries were again
in full force. 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 defense, with which the western had no concern. Sixteen
thousand insurgents commenced a progress to London, to demand the punish
ment of the king's ministers, Archbishop Morton and Sir Reginald 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

1509] WARBECK DEFEATED AND CAPTURED. 203
place on the 22d of June. At the bridge at Deptfordthey obstinately defend
ed 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 the farrier
were hanged. Henry treated the prisoners with a politic mercy, and they
returned home. 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. He
departed from Scotland with four ships, and a small body of followers. Once
more he addressed himself to his old friends at Cork, but received no encour
agement. He then sailed to the coast of Cornwall ; and in September landed
at Whitsand bay. The Cornish men, still disposed for revolt, flocked to the
standard of Richard 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 thousand men under his com
mand. On the 17th of September 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 insurgents and their leader then quitted
Exeter, without molestation ; and proceeded to Collumpton, where, says the
earl of Devonshire, " many of his company departed from him, and I trust
more will." On the 25th of September, the king himself writes to one of his
nobles : " Cousin, trust for certain that upon Thursday about midnight, Per
kin fled from his company at Taunton, and took no leave nor license of them."
The forsaken adventurer rode through that autumn night from Taunton to the
monastery of Beaulieu, in the New Forest, whose ruins still show its ancient
importance. Here he demanded sanctuary on the 21st of September. The
privileged retreat was quickly surrounded by the king's forces ; and in a few
days he surrendered, upon a promise that his life should 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 protection of his queen.
Her beauty obtained for Catherine the name of " The White Rose," when
the utterance of that name with sympathy was no longer dangerous.
Fabyan, the Londoner, briefly relates, on the 28th of November : " Per
kin was brought through the city unto the Tower, and there left as prisoner."
The story of his confessing his imposture in the presence of his wife rests
upon no credible authority, and is not mentioned by Fabyan, Hall, or Bacon.
The confession which he is stated to have made, of which Bacon speaks so
contemptuously, was then dispersed abroad. There is no attesting witnesses
to the statement. It was altogether what Bacon describes as " the king's
manner of showing things by pieces and dark lights." Elizabeth, the widow
of Edward IV., died in the very year when this adventurer first landed at Cork.
The queen of Henry VII., and her sisters, probably never saw him. In June,
1498, he escaped, and fled toward 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

204 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [14S5
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. 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
wore 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." On the 21st of November,
1499, an indictment was preferred before the lord high steward and the
peers against the earl of Warwick for high treason. It was also averred in
the same wonderful document, that it was intended to make " Peter Warbeck,
of Tourney," king. The earl of Warwick, wholly ignorant of the ways of
the world, was induced to plead guilty. His companion in misfortune went
through some form of trial, of which there is no record. He was arraigned as
a foreigner. The doubtful Plantagenet was executed at Tyburn, — his old
friend John Water, of Cork, suffering with him, — on the 23d 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."
From the commencement of the sixteenth century 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 will 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 Isabella; and
the marriage of his daughter, Margaret, to James IV. of Scotland. In 1485
Queen Isabella gave birth to Catalina, her youngest child. Arthur, the eldest
son of Hemy VII. and of Elizabeth of York, was born in i486. Their
second son, Henry, was born in 1491. In 1499, when Arthur had reached his
twelfth year, the marriage ceremony was performed; the Spanish princess
being represented by proxy. In 1 501 Catherine arrived and the ceremonials
were again gone through at St. Paul's on the 6th of November. In March,
1496, the king granted letters-patent to John Cabot and his two sons, to sail
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, 10/." The discovery of Newfoundland had no mighty
reward. 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 the most extortionate of capitalists. The
ingrained covetousness and cunning of the man, — for " of nature, assuredly,
he coveted to accumulate treasure," and " neither did he care how cunning

1509] DEATH OF HENRY VII.— CABOT'S VOYAGES. 205
they were that he did employ, for he thought himself to have the master-
reach " — these qualities made him, to use plain words, a royal swindler.
Arthur, prince of Wales, died in April, 1502, only four months after his
marriage. The two kings 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 ad
vance another hundred thousand crowns, and the second marriage be legalized
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 which a person was appointed to object
that the marriage was unlawful, and another to defend it as " good and
effectual 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 solemnized 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."
Elizabeth, the queen of Henry VII., died in February, 1503. Mean
while the Spanish monarch withheld that part of the portion of Catherine
which was promised 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 comple
tion of her second marriage. At length two installments 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 Richmond palace on the 21st
of April, 1509. 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. The
population at the beginning of the sixteenth century has been estimated at
four millions ; but the data for this conclusion are scarcely to be relied on.
The discovery of Newfoundland by Cabot, which was not followed up by
any settlement upon the island at that time, arose out of the spirit of
enterprise which, was excited among 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, partially 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 VII., the king desired him to send for the man who had

206 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
been laboring, for seven tedious years, to make his magnificent project
comprehended 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
direction 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.

HENRY VIII.— THE REFORMATION.
(1509-1547.)
The reign of Henry VIII. commenced on the 22d of April, 1509. The
first act of Henry VIII. and his council was the arrest of Sir Richard Empson
and Edmund Dudley, the ministers of the extortions of Henry VII. 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 seize the person of Henry on
the death of his father, and to assume the functions of government. And
they were executed in the following August. The doubtful position of the
Princess Catherine was soon relieved by the determination of Henry to complete
the contract of marriage which had been legalized by a papal dispensation in
1503. They were publicly united by the archbishop of Canterbury on the 7th
of June, 1509. Their coronation took place at Westminster on the 24th of
June. Archbishop Warham, the chancellor ; Bishop Fox, lord privy seal ;
and Howard, earl of Surrey, lord treasurer, were the king's chief ministers.
In the third year of his reign King Henry was preparing for war with France
and Scotland. At the commencement of the reign of Henry VIII., the papal throne
had been filled during six years by Julius II., a pontiff who united the
characters of the priest and the warrior, and was equally 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
to be gradually furthered by sowing dissensions among the temporal princes.
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 15 10 he was besieged by a French army, but without
success. In 15 11 that papal city was taken ; and Louis took the bold step
of calling a general council " for the reformation of the Church, both in its
head and its members." He had the support of his own clergy and of five
cardinals. But the pope called another council, and set in action the spiritual
weapons of despotism and excommunication. The princes of Christendom
were invited to join the " Holy League " for the defense of the Roman

1547] THE RELATIONS OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 207
Church and the extinction of schism. The impetuous king of England
eagerly rushed to enroll himself among 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 honored title. There were reasonable causes of complaint on both
sides between England and Scotland. The statute of the 3d of Henry alleges
as an offense of Scotland that the king " hath lately taken your subjects with
their ships and merchandises on the sea." The family alliance, 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, 15 12, an English force was sent to Spain, under the marquis of
Dorset. These ten thousand Englishmen, who were intended for the conquest
of Guienne, remained inactive near Fonterabia, while Henry's ally, Ferdinand,
was carrying out his own projects in the conquest of Navarre. The army of
Guienne had returned to England, without accomplishing any object beyond
facilitating the conquest of Navarre by Ferdinand. The English fleet under
Sir Edward Howard made descents on the coast of Brittany, and committed
the usual ravages. There was a naval engagement off Brest, which was
called a victory, though the largest ship in the English navy, the Regent, was
burnt. In the following spring of 15 13 Brest was blockaded. The evil that
was inflicted upon the French coasts was naturally encountered by a similar
infliction upon the English coasts. 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 Maximilian, the emperor, and the pope
(now Leo X.), formed a new league against France. England was dragged
into a continuance of the war. Henry 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 magnifi
cence. A more vain-glorious and self-willed coxcomb never wore a crown.
The two divisions of the English army, under the earl of Shrewsbury and
Lord Herbert, were besieging Terouenne, a strong town of France, near the
Flemish frontier, when Henry, on the 15th of June, set forth toward Dover.
For three weeks he lingered at Calais, exhibiting his " garment of white cloth
of gold, with a red cross," and surrounded by the six hundred archers of his
guard, " all in white gaberdines." At length he marched on toward
Terouenne, 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."
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
red rose. 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

208 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
own in number. Henry followed 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 Maximilian, leaving their best officers in the field. Terouenne, after this
remarkable victory, was feebly defended ; and being surrendered on the 27th
of August, its fortifications were destroyed. One more feat was accomplished
before the king returned home. Tournay was besieged, and capitulated 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 Lord Lisle answered all comers," the campaign was ended ; and
Henry was again in England on the 24th of November.
The circumstances that indicated an approaching war between England
and Scotland were in full operation before Henry crossed the channel. The
continual border-feuds of the two nations kept alive the general spirit of
hostility between them. In Holyrood the gallant James has banqueted and
danced for the last time ; and on the 22d 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 six days the governor
surrendered the place, although it was considered impregnable. Three other
border fortresses, Wark, Etall, and Ford, successively fell. The earl of
Surrey, to whom was entrusted the defense of the English border, was at
Pontefract. He set up the standard of St. George at Newcastle ; and with a
numerous force marched on to Alnwick, which he reached on the 3d of
September. The battle began at four o'clock in, the afternoon of the 9th of
September. James and Surrey met in close conflict in the centers of their
armies. James fell within a lance's length of Surrey. None of his division
were made prisoners. They all perished with their king. As- night came on
Surrey drew back his men. Before the dawn the Scots had left the field.
The loss of the Scottish army has been computed at ten thousand men ; that
of the English at about seven thousand.
The intelligence of the slaughter of Flodden was received in England
with the unmixed exultation that necessarily arose out of what was deemed
a national triumph. When the king returned, Surrey was created duke of
Norfolk, and his son Thomas, the earl of Surrey. Honors 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 English, of which the ferocity on
either side was equally balanced. England made great preparations 'for war
against France in the beginning of 15 14; but the actual hostilities were con
fined to ravages on the coast of the channel. On the coast of Normandy an
English commander burnt twenty-one villages and towns. But Louis of
France was too wise to continue a contest in which his own safety was so
imperiled. Henry of England had a sister, Mary, now in her seventeenth
year. Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, had won her affections; but, in

GAY'S CHRONOLOGICAL CHARTS OF I

The name of each author, the dates of his birth and death, as far as could be ascertained, the title of the work by which he is
Poets and Novelists ; the second, the writers on History, Geography, and other matters of exact deta
is often celebrated in various departments of knowledge. His name wi

1746-1770.
IMAGINATION.

751

-1816

52-

-1842

54—1832

56-

-1833

"

-1851

59-

-1796

— _

-1808

60-

-1844

62-

-1851

63-

-1855

64-

-1823

-¦845

R. B. Sheridan, Drama.
Frances Burney (Mad. D'Arblay),
" Evelina."
Geo. Crabbe, Poems.
Will. Sotheby, Poems; Translations.
Harriet Lee, Canterbury Tales.
Kob'l Burns, Poems.
J. Hume, Dratna.
Wm, Beck ford, Vathek; Romance.
Joaimtl BailliC, Drama; Passions.
Sam. RogCl'S, Pleasures of Memory.
Ann RadcliH'e, Novels.
Rcgina Maria Roche, Children of the
Abbey: Novels.
Maria Edge wo rth, Moral Tales ; Nov
els.
Wm. Wordsworth., Poems.

1 John Gillies, Hist, of An. Greece.
> Chas. Jas. FOX, History.
Alexander Chalmers, Biog. . Diet.
Jas. Forsyth, Travels in Italy.
Henry John Todd, New Ed. Johnson's
Diet.
65—1832 Sir Jas. Mackintosh, Ethics; Philos
ophy.
—1836 Wm. Taylor, Hist. German Poetry.
1—1848 Isaac Disraeli, Hist.; Curiosities of Lit
Sharon Turner, Sacred History of An
glo-Saxons.
T. D. Fosbroke, Topography; Archceol-
ogy.

1847

SPECULATIVE AND SCIENTIFIC.
Sir Wm. JoilCS, Persian Grammar.
John Aikill, "Evenings at Home."
John Playfair, Euclid's Geometry.
Sir Chas. Wilkins, Oriental Lit.
Jno. Flaxmail, Sculpture.
Jno. Jamiesou, Diet, of Scot. Lan.
Adam Clarke, Oriental Lit..- Bibl.
Win. Carey, Trans, of Scrip. .- East. Lan.
Jno. Abernethy, Physiology; Surgery.
Jllo. Bell, Anatomy.
Rob't Hall, Apology for the Freedom of
the Press.
Jno. Balton, Chemistry.
Sir Jno. Leslie, Physics.
Sir Anthony Carlisle, Anatomy .- Sur-
841 Sir Astley Cooper, Surgery.
847 Theo. Chalmers, Thee, Met., Pol., and
Soc. Econ.

1746-

1794

47-

1822

48-

1819

49-

1836

55-

1826

59-

1838

60-

1832

61

1S34

63-

1831

-

1820

64-

1831

66-

1844

1832

68 -

1840

1841

70-

1847

1771—1787.

1771-

72-

74-75-

76-
77-79-
84-

85-86-

87-

832 Sir Wralter Seott, Ivanhoe : Poems.
854 Jas. Montgomery, Poems.
834 Sam'l Coleridge, Ancient Mariner;
Poems ; Essays.
835 James Hogg, Poems: Tales.
844 Hy. F. Cary, Translation of " Dante.''
843 Rob't Southey, Poems.
834 Chas. Lamb, Poems; " Essays of Elia."
817 Jane Austin, "Pride and Prejudice."
864 Walter Savage Landor, Poems.
850 Jane Porter, "Scottish Chiefs."
844 Thos. Campbell, " Pleasures of Hope."
S52 Thos.ffloore,j"cfw(J; Irish Melodies.
8511 Leigh Hunt, Poems ; Essays.
862 Jas. Sheridan Know les, "Leo, or the
Gypsy."
S06 Hy. Kirke White, Poems.
859 Thos. De Qulnccy, Confessions of an
Opium Eater.
1S74 Bryan Waller Procter (Barry
Cornwall), Dramas; Poems.

1771— 1851 John Lingard, Hist, of Eng.
77—1836 Sir w. Gell, Topography; Antiquities.
78—1859 Henry Hallam, Constitutional Hist, of
Eng.
79— 1S53 Sir Williani Beutham, Irish Antiqua
rian Researches.
— 1S61 Jno. Lord Campbell, Lives of Lord-
Chancellors and Chief-Justices.
— 186S Henry Lord Brougham, Col. Policy;
Hist. Mem. Pol. Phil.
82— 1S30 Jas. Keunell, Geography.

1771- 73- 74-
75-
78-
7981-83-86-87-
845 Sydney Smith, Politics: Essays.
836 Jas. Mill, /','/. Leon. . Hist, of India.
844 Francis Bailey, Astronomy.
851 Geo. Dunbar, Greek Lexicon.
861 Sir Howard Douglass, Mil. and Na
val Defenses.
829 Sir Humphrey Davy, Chemistry.
S49 Anthony Todd Thomson, Materia
Medica.
857 Andrew lire, Cheat. Diet, of Arts and
Manufactures.
860 Alex. Fletcher, Theology.
851 Geo. Crabbe, Diet, of Synonyms.
844 John Abercrombie, Met. Theo.
862 Sir EJ. C. Brodlc, Influence of Brain on
Heart.
S50 Edw'd Bickersteth, Scripture Help.
860 Horace H. Wilson, Sanskrit Law.
S63 Archbishop Whately, Bampton Lec
tures ; Logic.
Essignsd fcr G-st'? Standard Histories, by "WILLIAM GAY
NGLISH AUTHORS AND LITERATURE.

si known. The names are arranged under three heads : Imagination ; Fact ; Speculative and Scientific. The first includes tht
thetfird, those who treat of Philosophy and Science. This division cannot be perfect, for an author
lere be found in the division which includes his best known productions.

1788—1799.

88-

1824

1841

-

1S45

89-

lS-,5

90-

-

80-

1 II ;

91-

1823

92-

1843

93-

[822

94-

1835

i860

96-

1821

97-

-1868

98-

- —

-1845

99-

-1827

Geo. Lord Byron, Poems.
Theo. E. Hook, Novels.
H. Barham, " Ingoldsby Legends."
Mary Bussell Mitford, Poems.
JllO. K.cblc, Christian Year.
Frances Trollope, " The Abbess."
Chas. Wolfe, Burial of Sir J. Moore.
F. Marryatt, Peter Simple ; Sea Novels.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Poems.
Felecia Hemans, Poems.
Anna Jameson, Female Characters of
Shakespeare : Art.
Jollll Keats, Poems.
Sam'l Lover, " Rory O'More."
Will. Carleton, Irish Stories.
Thos. Hood, " Song of the Shirt ;" Poems.
BobertPollok, Course of Time.
Alaric A. Watts, Poems.

1788— 1861 Sir Francis Palgrave, Hist, of Anglo-
Saxons.
89  J. Payne Collier, Works of Shakespeare.
90— 1S49 Pat. Frazler Tytler, Hist, of Scotland.
—1855 Sir Edward Parry, A rctic Regions.
—i860 Wm. Mure, Hist, of Greek Literature.
91  Chas. Knight, History of England.
— iSCS H. H. Miliuan, History of Christianity.
92  Sir A. Allison, Hist, of Europe.
—1855 Sir T. L. Mitchell, A ustralia.
94—1854 Jno. G. Lockhart, Life of Sir W. Scott.
— 1871 Geo. Grote, History of Greece.
95—1842 Thos. Arnold, History of Rome.
—1882 Thos. Carlyle, Life of Schiller.
98—i875 Sir J. G. AVilkinson, Anc't Egyptians.
99— 1860 Sir Charles Fellows, Travels in Asia
Minor.

I788—1829 Thos. Fredgold, Building; Engineer
ing.
—1856 Sir Wm. Hamilton, Metaphysics.
—1858 Geo. Combe, Phren. Const'n of Man.
—1876 Jos. Bosworth, Elementsof Anglo-Sax-

90-i

Sir J. F. W. Herschel, Calculus; As
tronomy.
92  M. D. Hill, Jurisprudence.
93-i365 Sir Chas. Eastlake, P.R.A., Fine
Arts.
94  Mich. Farrady, Chem. Manipulations.
95—1866 Wm. Whewcll, Bridgewater Treatise
on Astronomy.
97—1874 Andrew Combe, Physiology Applied to
Health.

1800^1804.

1800

2 Jollll Banim, Irish Novels.
— Catharine St. Clair, Beatrice.
1 — 1860 G. P. R. James, Novels.
2—1839 Latitia E. Landon (Mrs. McLean),
Poems.
 Anna Maria Hall, Sketches of Irish
Character.
3— 1857— Douglas Jen-old, Mrs. Caudle' ' s Lec
tures ; Drama.
4—1879 Mary Howitt, Poems.

1800— 1S59 Thos. Lord Macaulay, Essays; His
tory of Engla nd.
 Wm. Chambers, Book of Scotland.
1  Sam'l Carter Hall, Ireland : Its Scenery,
etc.; Art Journal.
— 1875 JllO. Tlmbs, Laconics; Year Book of
Facts.
%  Rob't Chambers, Traditions of Edin
burgh.
—1876 Harriet Martineau, Hist, of England.
4 — 1854 John Kitto, Hist, of Bible.

,

1800— 1873 Thos. Guthrie, Gospel in Ezekiel.
1  G. B. Airy, Gravitation.
2—1856 Hugh Miller, Geology.
— — Nicholas Wiseman, Doct. and Practice
0/ Ca th otic Ch u rch .
4—1852 Jno. Dalrymple, A natomy of the Eye.

CHART VII,

BIRTHS,
A.D. 1746-1804.

AUTHORS -AND LITERATURE.

CO.. 256 Chapel St., New Haven, Conn. COPYRIGHT 1883.

1547] HENRY VIII. AND CARDINAL WOLSEY. 209
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 English knights.
Mary was crowned queen of France on the 5th of November, 15 14. On the
1st of January, King Louis was dead. 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. At the time of the treaty with France peace was
also concluded with Scotland.
Wolsey had been declared a cardinal in 15 16. He received the great seal
as chancellor in the same year; and he was nominated papal legate in 15 17,
with the high powers that belonged to the office of legatus a latere. From
15 1 5 to 1523 no parliament was summoned. Henry and his great minister
governed the kingdom at their sole will. To understand the relative positions
of Henry, the king, and of Wolsey, his chancellor, 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. 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 spirit with which Martin Luther first denounced the abomination of the
sale of indulgences might naturally suggest the fear that other iniquities
would be laid bare. The appointment of Henry's great minister as the papal
legate was concurrent with the time when Luther first challenged the power
of the pope to absolve the sinner from the penalties of Divine justice. In the
fourth year of Henry VIII., 15 12, a statute was passed. The act exempts
from the benefit of clergy all murderers, highway-robbers, and burglars, "such
as be within holy orders only except." And a provision was added that it
should only endure for a year. A certain abbot of Winchelcomb, in 1515,
denounced from the pulpit at Paul's Cross all those who had assented to the
act of 1 5 12. 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 council, 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. There was a paltry quarrel between the
incumbent of a parish in Middlesex and Richard Hunne, a merchant tailor of
London, about the right of the clergyman to a piece of linen, 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 praemunire, or offense against the
king's majesty, in bringing his subjects under a foreign jurisdiction. A coun
ter-charge of heresy was got up against Hunne. He was imprisoned in the
Lollard's tower at St. Paul's ; and, being brought before the bishop of
London, was terrified into an admission of some of the crimes of which he
14

210 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
was accused, one of which was that he had in his possession the epistles and
gospels in 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 chancellor 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 folly to begin anew process of heresy against
the dead body, which was adjudged guilty; and according to the sentence
was burned in Smithfield. "After that day the city of London was never
well affected to the popish clergy." 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 Bayard's castle. Wol
sey, 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 council
at the court of Rome." Henry 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. Therefore 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." Rebuking 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 themselves 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 civil justice.
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 beautifully." Still, the sumptuous churchman commanded a
respect which the wise chancellor might have scarcely propitiated. In his
hour of misfortune the duke of Norfolk said to him, " I regarded your honor,
for that ye were archbishop of York, and cardinal, whose estate of honor
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 nobility —
" He saith they have no brain their estate to maintain."
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 will."
His biographer says, " I assure you, in his time, he was the haughtiest man in
all his proceedings alive."
On the 1 2th of March, 1520, a solemn instrument was prepared by
Wolsey, for the regulation of a meeting between Henry and Francis, before

^547] THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. 211
the end of the following May. The place of meeting was to be between the
English castle of Guisnes and the French castle of Ardres. 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 walls were to
be flourished with "histories," which Master Barclay, the poet, was to devise.
On the 2 1st of May, Henry and the queen set forth from Greenwich toward
the sea-side. On the 25th they arrived at Canterbury. 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.
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 Sandwich, and Henry from Dover to Calais. In a few hours
the guns of Calais salute the English king. While Henry was contemplating
his splendors, Wolsey was busy arranging a treaty with Francis. The friend
ship of England was to be secured by a renewal of the treaty of marriage
between the dauphin and the Princess Mary.
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
provided. There was tilting with lances, and tourneys on horseback with the
"broad sword, and fighting on foot at the barriers. The kings were always
victorious against all comers. But from the court of the emperor there came
no knight to answer the challengers. 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 honor to these pageantries. " By that," says Hall,
""it seemed there was small 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 till the 10th of July. It was in vain that the
French king had come unattended and unarmed into the English quarter, to
show his confidence in the friendship of his companion in feats of chivalry.
In vain had the French nobles put all their estates upon their backs to rival
the jeweled satins and velvets of England. On the nth of July Henry met
the emperor near Gravelines ; and the emperor returned with him to Calais.
After a visit of three days, Charles accomplished 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.
In the roll of illustrious 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 dqputed on the king's part.
JBut any lineal descendant of Edward III. was still unsafe. The father of

212 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
this Edward Stafford perished through his vain conviction that he was " meet
to be a ruler of the realm." His chief enemy is said to have been Wolsey;.
and the cause of the cardinal's enmity is held to have arisen out of Bucking
ham's dissatisfaction with the expense of the great pageantry at Guisnes.
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. 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 within himself he never consented to it." 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 sentence. He said
to his judges, " May the eternal God forgive you my death as I do. I shall
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. At length, in 1520, the pope issued a bull, declaring certain passages of
Luther's writings heretical ; denouncing the penalties of excommunication
against him unless he should recant ; and threatening the same penalties
against all princes who should neglect to secure the heretic. In January, 1520
Luther, for having denied the pontifical supremacy, was expelled from the
communion of the Church. The Emperor Charles V. was called upon to
punish the reformer ; but the elector of Saxony induced the emperor to let
the question be tried before a diet of the empire. In April, 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 reformation. 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 reformer was proof against the threatenings 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. So passed the year 153 1 with the great reformer. Henry had
taken upon him the defense of Christ's church with his pen. And in
his book, denominated Luther " the archheretic." 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 nth of October. The successor
of Leo confirmed the title. The book of Henry on "the Seven Sacraments,"

1547] CARDINAL AND THE PARLIAMENT. 213
against Luther, written in Latin, was published in London in 1521, and in
Antwerp in 1522. It produced as little effect upon the progress of the
.reformation 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 and his audacious
treatises to the flames." This was written in May, 1531. On the 12th of
that month the condemned works of Luther had been burnt before Paul's
Cross. Upon the death of the pontiff, Wolsey aspired to the papal chair.
The election fell upon Cardinal Adrian, a Belgian, who had been the pre
ceptor of the emperor, and was now his viceroy in Spain. In May, 1522,
Charles again visited England, and remained with Henry five weeks. War
-was declared against France ; but the means of carrying on war were
wanting. On the 29th of April, 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 eight hundred thousand pounds. The demand
¦of the subsidy, with the previous loan, amounting to one million two hundred
thousand pounds, " could not be had in coin in the whole kingdom." A com
mission 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
iead with a pair of pincers, than to move the king to take any less sum."
Again Wolsey came to the house with all 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 among themselves." Wolsey indignantly retired ; and the
sturdy commons, — with a temper which showed that no courtly influence of
intimidation could break down the ancient spirit which the long line of kings,
-with all their feudal power, had respected, — debated among themselves for
fifteen or sixteen days. " 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." 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. 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 vigor which the command of money would

214 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509,
naturally produce. Henry had always his political agents and spies in the
Scottish court, as his father had before him. In 15 16, the lord warden of
the marches writes to Wolsey, England and Scotland being then at peace, " I
labor 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. " 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 15 14 she married the earl of
Angus. But the duke of Albany, brother to James III., 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. In 15 17 Albany went to France; and, after the-
fiercest contests between the factious nobles, Angus became supreme in
the conduct of the government. Margaret was dissatisfied with her husband ;.
and having sought a divorce in the court of Rome, 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 interfere for the prevention of the pro
jected 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 destruc
tion of the young king shall ensue." It was the object of the English
government to raise up impediments in the way of Albany, who was,
a man of vigor 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.
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." 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 succor for man ; insomuch
that some of the people that fled from the same afterward returning and
finding no sustenance, were compelled to come unto England begging bread,
-which oftentimes when they do eat, they die incontinently for the hunger

1547] INVASION OF FRANCE.— RESISTANCE TO TAXES. 215
passed. And with no imprisonment, cutting off their ears, burning them in
their faces, or 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 Scot
land, 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 sent Charles Brandon, the duke of Suffolk, to invade
France. 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 toward Paris and a devastation of the country £ould 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. The enterprise
was at an end. The duke of Suffolk returned to Calais ; and there he lingered
for a season, till he was assured that his head was safe if he ventured to England-
Before the summer of 1524, the French were driven out of Italy. On the 24th
of February, the French king moved his troops out of their intrenchments. A
general battle took place ; and Francis was taken prisoner. 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
an empty treasury. A subsidy was therefore demanded without the inter
vention of parliament ; and commissioners were appointed to levy the illegal
claim of the sixth part of every man's substance. From the clergy more was
demanded. The resistance was universal. The people of Suffolk had begun
" to rage and assemble themselves in companies." The people now openly
rebelled. " The duke of Norfolk, high treasurer and admiral of England,
hearing of this, gathered a great power in Norfolk. 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 he granted with
good will. My lord, said this ma'n, 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 all we live by
the substantial occupiers of this country, and yet they give us so little wages
for our workmanship, that scarcely vie 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 all these people, and a far greater number from work ;
the husbandmen have put away, their servants, and given up household ; they

216 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
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, Neighbors sever yourselves asunder, let every man depart to his home,
and choose further four that shall answer for the remnant, and on my honor I
will 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." 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. 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 em
bassy, says : " This season began a fame in London that the king's confessor,
being bishop of Lincoln, called Dr. 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 Alencon, sister to the French
king, at the town of Calais this summer ; and that the Viscount Rochfort had
brought 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 rumor
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." Wolsey left
the court on an embassy to France on the 3d of July, 1527, and having
fulfilled his mission returned in the autumn of 1527. The cardinal had not
only made a favorable 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 — dwelt
Sir Thomas Boleyn, the grandson of a rich citizen of London, who was
descended from an honorable Norfolk family. Here was born to him a
daughter, Anne. In that sequestered place was her childhood passed. When
Mary, the sister of Henry VIII., married Louis XII. in 15 14, 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 after
ward became the wife of Francis I. This queen died in 1524, and Anne
remained in France with the duchess of Alencon, the sister of Francis, till
after the battle of Pavia, when she returned to England. Cavendish speaks of

1547] ANNE BOLEYN.— FALL OF WOLSEY. 217
her influence at the court of Henry before the embassy of Wolsey in 1527.
She was one of the maids of honor to Queen Catherine. It is clear that
before the death of the earl of Northumberland, 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."
At the beginning of 1528, war was formally declared against the emperor
by France and England ; an armistice was concluded between England and the
Netherlands, while hostilities went on as between England and Spain. Wolsey
obtained a 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. On the 9th of December, 1528, the bishop of Bayonne gave a
minute account of the state of affairs in London : " Mistress Boleyn [Mad
emoiselle 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. * * * * At length on the 18th of June, 1529, the court of the
legates was solemnly opened. The legates continued to sit till the 30th of
July. 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 uncontrollable as it was dangerous. At the breaking up of the court he
was sent for by the king. " And being there with him 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.' ' Yea,' quoth my lord cardinal, ' if ye had been as well
chafed as I have been within this hour, ye would say it were hot.' " The
expected fall of the great cardinal was the political revolution which might
now be accomplished at any moment. 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 ; when 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." Wolsey never again saw King Henry.
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 York Place to that
humbler dwelling of Esher, whose tower still recalls the memory of the most

218 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
influential man of his time. Everything that he possessed was taken from
him under the sentence 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 a legate he had violated the statutes of
praemunire by exercising his powers under a foreign authority. To this
charge Wolsey answered : " I have the king's license in my coffers under his
hand and broad seal, for exercising and using the authority thereof [of the
legatine prerogative] in the largest wise, the which now remaineth in the
hands of my enemies."
There had not been a parliament called since 1523. During the legatine
rule of Wolsey, the pecuniary exactions of the Church had become oppressive
to all ranks of the people. The spirituality had grown essentially worldly-
minded ; and any attempt to resist their encroachments was stigmatized 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 ille
gal subsidies and compulsory loans of the crown. Sir Thomas More received
the seal. In this first great quarrel of Church and the commons there were
wounds inflicted which never healed. Sir Thomas More v/as 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 pun
ished a great number, so that for this cause a great rumor and controversy
rose daily among the people. Accused persons were now subjected to secret
examination ; were detained in custody for unlimited periods ; were discharged
without amends ; or consigned to the stake if condemned of heresy, or to
make purgation and bear a faggot to their shame and undoing. After the
parliament was ended,- the king removed to Greenwich, and there kept his
Christmas with the queen in great triumph. 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 because the great cardinal had fallen.
On the 23d of January we find that the sum of 1743/. 8s. is paid "by
the king's commandment for the depechement of my Lord Wiltshire and
others, in their journey toward 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 divinity." Among these was Thomas Cran-
mer, who was an inmate of the house of the earl of Wiltshire. While the
sweating sickness prevailed at Cambridge, in 1528, Cranmer resided with a
friend at Waltham abbey. Gardiner and Fox, afterward bishop, met him at
the table of his friend ; and the conversation turning upon the agitated mat
ter of the divorce, he expressed his opinion that the question, whether a
man might marry his brother's widow, might be settled upon scriptural author
ity, expounded by learned divines, which opinions could be obtained as well
in England as from Rome. The notion was communicated to the king ; and

1347] OPINIONS OF THE PRELATES.— DEATH OF WOLSEY. 219
Cranmer had to work out his lucky idea in 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 councils 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 VII., Cranmer was associated to defend his own propositions.
The declarations which were gathered from the universities of OxfordL
and Cambridge, and from universities and ecclesiastical bodies in France and
Italy, were favorable to the desires of the king of England, as they pronounced
against the lawfulness of his marriage with his brother's widow. In March,
1 531, these opinions were laid before the house of commons. Early in Feb
ruary, Wolsey received a general pardon ; and having been assured of the
temporalities of the see of York, he took up his residence in the archiepisco-
pal city. The council had agreed to advance him a sum for the expenses of
his journey, to which the king had added a thousand pounds. The arch
bishop had now confidence in the kindness of Henry. Wolsey had of
fended 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. On the 4th of November, the time approaching-
for his installation at York 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. " The earl trembling said, ' My lord, I arrest
you of high treason.' " As he passed out of the gates of Cawood castle,
three thousand people surrounded him, exclaiming, " God save your grace,
God save your grace ! The foul evil take all them that hath thus taken you
from us." He remained at Sheffield-park for a fortnight. Here he became ill.
Thither came Master Kingston, the constable of the Tower. After three
days' riding, the sick man and his guards reached Leicester abbey. On the
following Tuesday he was at the point of death ; when he uttered these mem
orable 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
0:1 the 29th of November, aged fifty-nine. Cavendish, after the funeral, re
paired to London ; and was sent for by the king to come to Hampton Court.
When Henry came suddenly behind him, and slapt him on the shoulder, telling
him to wait till he had made an end of his game. Cavendish then discoursed
with him for more than an hour. A 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 among 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 knowl
edge where this treasure was hidden, and Cavendish told him. " Well, then,"
quoth the king, " let me alone, and keep this gear secret between yourself

220 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
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."
In January, 153 1, 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 praemunire. 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
clanger ; and in convocation it was resolved to avoid the forfeiture of the
movable 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 York had to pay a smaller sum in the
following year. 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 acknowledgment, after much contention, was made, with the addition of
the words, "as far as the law of Christ will allow." The acknowledgment
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. The king desired that the cause should be decided in an indiffer
ent place, by indifferent judges. The emperor was wholly opposed to the
process being removed from Rome ; and urged the pope to make no more
delays in the matter. The emperor had with the pope " a voice potential."
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 Rome." 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 defense of Christian people against the infidels, and now
they be claimed and demanded as mere duty, only for lucre, against all right
and conscience." This statute limits the payment upon the papal bulls for
consecration to five pounds for each hundred of yearly value ; and in the case
of the denial of such bulls provides for consecration in England without the
papal authority. The statute, to use the familiar language of modern times,
gave the king power to put on the screw. The king did not confirm the act
of January, 1532, till July, 1533, when he had finally broken with Rome. 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 will had been supported by
any higher principle than that of the most intense self-love, we might go a

1547] ANNE CROWNED.— CATHERINE DIVORCED. 221
great way with his admirers in giving due praise to his constancy and courage
in " this great argument."
On the nth of October, 1532, Henry, with the Lady Anne, who had
been created marchioness of Pembroke, landed at Calais; where they re
mained with a most numerous attendance till the 13th of November. The
two kings met in a valley between Calais and Boulogne, on the 20th of
October ; and Francis brought his two sons. 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 Pembroke a space." 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." St. Paul's day 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.
Cranmer, having been long absent on his mission, returned to England in
November, 1532, with a reputation for " prudent and gentle demeanor." The
aged archbishop of Canterbury, Warham, who preceded Wolsey as chancellor,
died in August, 1532. Cranmer was offered the primacy. He was appointed
by papal bull, in February, 1533, — the last bishop of the English Church who
received the pall from Rome. 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. On the nth of April Cranmer writes a letter to Henry, in which he
implores his highness, " for the exoneration of my conscience toward
Almighty God, to license me, according to mine office and duty, to proceed
to the examination, final determination, and judgment on the said great
cause." The king graciously grants such license. 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 con
tumacious, the final sentence, that the marriage of Henry was null and void,
was pronounced on the 23d of May. In the proceedings at Dunstable Queen
Catherine resolutely refused to take any part. There is no more touching
picture than the report of Lord Mountjoy, her chamberlain, of the demeanor
of this resolved princess, when on the 3d of July persons from the council
waited on her to deliver certain articles on the king's behalf. " But as soon as

222 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
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 implication that her maiden
white was not truly worn at her marriage. 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 immovable. When it was urged that her resolve to bear
the name of queen should be " an occasion that the king should withdraw his
fatherly love from her honorable 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."
At the beginning of September, 1533, Queen Anne Boleyn is at Green
wich, awaiting the event which would determine the succession to the throne.
The birth of a daughter was a disappointment to the king. The parliament
liad passed the statute of appeals in 1533, the title of which sufficiently
shows its general object : " An act that appeals in such cases as have
been used to be pursued to the see of Rome, shall not be from henceforth
had nor used but within this realm." 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. " 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 spirit
uality and temporality, 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 final determination to all 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. 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 uplifting hand. Meanwhile the government proceeded boldly in

1547] TPIE LAW OF THE KING'S SUCCESSION. 223
preparing* the people for the great impending change. Practically, the final
separation was accomplished.
The time was come for renouncing the authority of the bishop of Rome.
The statute of the 25th of Henry VIII., " for punishment of heresy," declares
that speaking against the pope or his decrees is not heresy ; but that heretics,
upon lawful conviction and refusal to abjure, or after abjuration shall relapse,
" shall be committed to lay power to be burned in open places, for example
of other, as hath been accustomed." The " act for the establishment of the
king's succession " declared the 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 succes
sion, was to be taken as high treason ; and if by spoken words, as misprision
of treason. The " act for the establishment of the king's succession " con
tained a final clause, that all the nobles of the realm, spiritual and temporal,
and all other subjects of full age, should take an oath to maintain and defend
this act ; and, upon their refusal so to do, should be held guilty of misprision
of treason. More and Fisher would not swear to the preamble, although they
would swear to defend the succession. They were committed to the Tower,
attainted by the parliament in 1534, and beheaded in the summer of 1535.
The first law which the parliament of 1534 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 all 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 despot
ism. The higher clergy were terrified into the most abject prostration
before this spiritual lord.
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 all their joy and wealth," to receive
the first fruits of all spiritual dignities and promotions ; and also an annual pen
sion of one tenth part of all the possessions of the Church. A subsidy granted
in the same parliament followed the accustomed precedent. But the dangers
of every man's position were multiplied in new definitions of treason. It was
now enacted, not only that those who desired or practised any bodily 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 call the king ill-names. Who
ever 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. On the

224 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
3d of May the first grand experiment was made of the working 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 3d
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-
street." 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 policy of the government to let them alone. They were
respected by the people of London. The new statute of treasons was to be
tested upon them. There were two houses connected with the London
priory ; and 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 Cromwell and others. They were tried by a
jury upon this refusal ; of course found guilty ; and condemned on the 29th
of April. They were not the last of these Carthusians who fell in this
conflict. Other monks were hanged and headed. The act " for the punish
ment of heresy," passed in 1534, is immediately followed in the statute-book
by '" An act for printers and binders of books." By this act the statute of
Richard III., which allowed the free importation of printed and written
books, is repealed. Within three weeks of the execution of the Carthusians,
nineteen men and six women, born in Holland, were examined in St. Paul's
Church as to their opinions. Fourteen were condemned and were burnt.
" Cromwell, after the fall of his master, Wolsey, gained on the affections of
Henry VIII. till 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 observation is founded upon the
whole tone of official correspondence from 1531 to 1540, when this powerful
minister fell from his slippery elevation.
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, with
out constraint, coaction, or compulsion," had since the 4th of February, 1536,
assigned their possessions to the king, and renounced all title to the same.
Catherine died on the 7th of January, 1536.
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. 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

1.547] ANNE BOLEYN SUSPECTED OF HERESY. 225
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 that 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. The
society of which Loyola was the founder was not regularly organized 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 inti
mation 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 demeanor to those about
her, which might be construed into levity and even guilt, there could be no
great difficulty in setting " the sordid slave " Audley, and " the base and
profligate " Rich " — (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 while the axe was sharpening. He had long practised the art of
hiding his thoughts under the mask of familiarity and kindness. The usual
festivities took place at Greenwich on the 1st of May; and Henry sat by the
side of Anne as they gazed upon the tournament. In the lists was her
brother, Lord Rochfort. At that tournament Lord Rochfort was the chal
lenger 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. " And suddenly from the justs the king departed."
Norris was committed to the Tower in the morning. The letters of the con
stable of the Tower, Sir William Kingston, tell the unhappy story very
fully. It appears that the queen was examined by some of the council at Green
wich. " I was cruelly handled at Greenwich," 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
2d, 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 fell to 'a
great laughing, and she hath done, so many times since." She desired to have
the sacrament in her chamber, that she might pray for mercy; "for I am as
15

226 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
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, Nor
ris, hast thou accused me ; thou art in the Tower with me, and thou and I
shall die togther: 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 tell 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 per
suaded that Norris had spoken lightly of her, but Norris had said to her
almoner that he would swear she was a good woman. There is nothing
which indicates anything 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.
On the 10th and nth of November true bills were found by grand juries
of Middlesex- and of Kent against the queen, her brother, Henry Norris,
William Brereton, Francis Weston, and Mark Smeaton, setting forth that the
queen had incited them, including Lord Rochfort, to commit the most odious
crimes ; that they had at various times compassed and imagined the king's
death ; and that the king, " having within a short time before become acquaint
ed 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 of which he died — ulceration 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 Westminster. They were convicted, and
were executed on the 17th. These four men did not confess upon the scaf
fold to the crimes with which they were accused. As men about to die they
confessed their sins generally. 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 all. The duke of Norfolk presided. The queen was
arraigned ; and pleaded not guilty. There is no record of the trial ; no 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 Rochfort ; with the usual sentence of death for treason.
On the morning of her execution, Anne Boleyn requested Kingston to be
present while 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 consequence of a pre-contract with the earl of

1547] ANNE BEHEADED.— JANE SEYMOUR MARRIED. 227
Northumberland. This the earl denied upon oath. When she died for
alleged adultery, she was by law proclaimed not to have been the king's wife
at all. Lord Rochfort 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 therefore ; for I thought 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 women executed, and they have been in great
sorrow; and to my knowledge this lady hath much joy and pleasure in death."
And thus was her head stricken off ; she making no confession of her fault,
and only saying, " O Lord God, have pity on my soul." Queen Anne was
beheaded on the 19th of May. On the 20th, Henry was married to Jane
Seymour. The council exhorted him, we are told, to marry immediately, for
a state necessity. Nature cries out against the outrage upon all the decencies
of life ; but the political philosopher says, " He looked upon matrimony as an
indifferent official act which his duty required at the moment." We can find
no 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. The death of
the queen was manifestly "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 receive his history, in its endeavors
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."
England was delivered over, bound hand arid foot, to 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 pronounced before the execution of the late Lady Anne
for treason, her daughter Elizabeth was therefore illegitimate, 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 all who should assert the lawfulness of the issue of the former
marriages should be guilty of high treason. Here were two daughters of the
king precluded from inheriting the throne.

228 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [i^og
Under Wolsey the government of Ireland had been principally committed
to the earl of Kildare, who was ready enough to burn and destroy in the
lands of rebellious chieftains, but was himself suspected of " seditious prac
tices and subtle drifts." 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 out 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 earl of Kildare
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
muhitions of war from the king's fortresses to his own castle. The young
Fitzgerald suddenly rose in open revolt. In June, 1534, and after a desperate
struggle which lasted about a year, he was finally taken and 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 council call " the politic and surest conveying of the matter." They being
sent to London, the six members of this unhappy family were hanged at
Tyburn, on the 3d of February. There was no trial. An act of attainder
was passed, by which Thomas Fitzgerald, James, John, Richard, Oliver, and
Walter, then in the Tower of London, should suffer execution of death for
their treasons. That Lord Thomas 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. " How far," says Mr. Froude, with refer
ence to Lord Thomas, " a government is bound at any time to respect the
unauthorized 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 assurances of safety
from those in authority (as Fitzgerald was assured by the authorized represen
tatives of King Henry), would be consigned to the everlasting infamy that
cleaves to the betrayer. The supremacy of Henry as " king of Ireland " — for
the title was now changed from "lord " — was proclaimed without opposition.
Monasteries were suppressed without disturbance. The rebellion had been
clearly one of personal ambition, stimulated by the general disorganization of
civil society.
The " Answer to the Petitions of the Rebels and Traitors of Lincoln
shire," by Henry, fully shows what was the character of their demands. They
objected to the councilors that were about the king, and the prelates that he
had appointed. He replies that he had never read nor heard that " princes'
councilors and prelates should be appointed by rude and ignorant common
people ; " and he adds, "how presumptuous then are ye, the rude commons

1547] THE LINCOLNSHIRE INSURRECTION. 229
of one shire, and that one of the most rude and beastly of the whole realm, and
of least experience, to find fault with your prince for the electing of his coun
cilors and prelates." 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. 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
compel us with your insurrections and such rebellions 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. Thomas Myller, Lancaster herald,
was approaching the town of Pomfret, wearing the king's coat of arms.
Riding into the town the herald was about to fix his proclamation 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 fellows ; "
and was brought into the hall, full of people. There sat Robert Aske, the
captain of the rebellious host ; with the archbishop of York, Lord Darcy, and
other honorable persons. But Aske sat there, "keeping his port and counte
nance, as though he had been a great prince, with great rigor, 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 among 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 him," says the herald, " showing him how I was a
messenger, and charged by the king's council to read the proclamation, which
I brought, for my discharge." 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 Robert Aske cost Thomas Myller his life. He was indicted for high
treason in kneeling down before traitors, with the king's most honorable coat
of arms on bis back, and so encouraging and comforting them ; and he
suffered death at York in the following year. 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. No blood was shed in fight. Shrewsbury writes, on the 29th
of October, that the rebels had dispersed, and the king's army was dissolved.
They broke out again into open rebellion in February. A parliament to be
held at York 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. Yet the men of influence, for the most part, adhered to the
government. 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 four
teen of them were hanged on Carlisle walls. There was a terrible interval for
the leaders of the insurrection. On the 25th of May Sir John Bulmer and
five others, of whom three were ecclesiastics, were executed at Tyburn ; and

230 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509.
the Lady Bulmer was burnt at Smithfield. On the 2d 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-hill. We may add that Lord Hussey was executed at.
Lincoln ; Sir Robert Constable at Hull ; and Robert Aske and the unfor
tunate Lancaster herald at York.
On the 1 2th of October the same form of circular letter went forth asi
when the Princess Elizabeth was born, to announce that Queen Jane had;
given birth to a son. But the queen was not destined to partake of
the nation's joy. She died on the 24th of October. Cromwell, in
his position of vicegerent, had an almost absolute power in regulat
ing ecclesiastical affairs. In the parliament of 1539 we find that he
had precedence before the archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer, with his
quiet and temporizing habits, was under the control of Cromwell ; but
they each had a course of policy to be worked out with the greatest:
caution. They went forward in a course of inconsistency, hanging disobedi
ent abbots, and racking and burning Lutheran reformers. There is nothing-
absolutely to hate in either of these men ; but there is little to love. Cran
mer was a servile tool. Cromwell was a bold and unscrupulous minister.
They accomplished one good work, of which their intolerant master did not
see the final result. They gave us the English Bible. The circulation of
Tyndale's English Testament, printed at Antwerp in 1526, had been prohib
ited by Henry, in his zeal against Luther and the reformed doctrines. Ten
years later he was moved to consent to the publication of an English Bible.
This was Coverdale's Bible, printed anew under the name of Matthews'-
Another edition of the Bible was printed in 1538, known as " Cranmer's, or
the Great Bible." In 1538, injunctions were given to the clergy to set up the
Bible in parish churches ; and to encourage the people to peruse it. The
shrine of Thomas-a-Becket is plundered and destroyed ; and a royal proclama
tion forbids him to be any longer received as a saint.
The parliament which was summoned to assemble at Westminster on
the 28th of April, 1539, met for the sole purpose of accomplishing a despotic
revolution, with all the forms of representative government. In the parlia
ment of' 1539, there were seventeen abbots present; and three sent their
proxies. There were also present the two archbishops and eighteen bishops.
There were forty-nine temporal peers summoned. If the ecclesiastics had
mustered in their full strength, the spiritual and temporal peers would have
been of equal number. In the second session of the same parliament the:
proportion was changed, never again to be restored. The abbots had then
vanished from the legislature. "His grace's pleasure and commandment"
had been accomplished. The returns to the lower house of knights and bur
gesses, who should be wholly conformable, was accomplished by the unremit
ting care of Henry's ministers. On the 17th of March, five weeks before the
meeting of parliament, Cromwell writes to Henry, " For your grace's parlia
ment, I have appointed your majesty's servant, Mr. Morison, to be one of

1547] "THE WHIP WITH SIX STRINGS." 23r
them." 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 to put the drapery of repre
sentation over the naked form of despotism. The act for the dissolution of
the abbeys was followed by " an act for the king to make bishops," and an
" act abolishing diversity in opinions." The statute sets forth that the desired
unity was to be " charitably established," by the observance, under the most
tremendous penalties, of six articles. Fox calls this statute, " The whip
with six strings. " It was something more terrible than a whip. It breathed
the amplest threats of the stake in Smithfield and the gallows 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 really, 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 called consubstantiation, as distinguished from the
Romish 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 relics ,
he has destroyed the monastic institutions ; he has even permitted the trans
lation of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue ; but not one tittle will he relax
from the enforcement of those doctrines of the Romanists which are the bar
riers to any true reformation. The other five articles are directed against
those who preached the necessity of administering the eucharist, in both
kinds, to the laity ; who advocated the marriage of priests, or the non-
observance of female vows of chastity or widowhood ; who maintained that
private masses were not lawful or laudable ; who asserted that auricular con- ,
fession 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,
"shall 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." For any violation of either of the five other articles, by preach
ing or teaching in any school to the contrary, " every offender, on the same
being therefore duly convicted or attainted," shall be adjudged a felon ; " and
shall therefore suffer pains of death, as in cases of felony." Any man or
woman who had advisedly professed chastity or widowhood, and should after
ward 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 goods, and to be imprisoned ; and for a second offense to suffer death.
Cranmer spoke against the bill ; but he finally sent away his wife, to evade its

232 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
penalties, and locked up for a more convenient season the secret of his heart
as to the real presence. Latimer, on the nth 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 imprisonment in the Tower. Shaxton, the bishop of Salisbury, also
resigned. An acute and learned writer, somewhat startled into another extreme by
the exaggerated statements of bloody persecutions under the six articles, has
given a list of all 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 Eighth's reign. These amount to twenty-eight. Whether
twenty-eight persons were executed under the statute of the six articles, or
twenty-eight hundred ; whether ten reformers fled from England or ten thou
sand ; whether the great mass of the people rejoiced in this persecuting law, —
and, to use the words of Hooper in 1546, "the impious mass, the most shame
ful celibacy of the clergy, the invocation of saints, auricular confession, super
stitious 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 with
out hcrror, nor hesitate to entertain the most unmeasured disgust for its
royal author and supporter. The papal bull against Henry had been pub
lished, 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 hostilities against England. Reginald Pole was the grand
son of George, duke of Clarence ; and although educated by Henry, he pub
lished a book reflecting with bitterness upon the subject of the divorce of
Catherine. The Tudor king, and the descendant of the house of York, thus
became mortal enemies. Lord Montague, the elder brother of Reginald, with
other relatives and friends of their family, were arrested in 1538, on a charge
of treason. It is asserted that Geoffrey Pole, who was arrested at the same
time, was a witness against his brother. Montague and Exeter were convict
ed by their peers, and executed, with Sir Edward Neville, and other common
ers, accused of treasonable and seditious offenses. 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. She maintained her inno
cence with such consistency, and the materials for an arraignment were so
utterly wanting, that Cromwell resorted to an expedient which has brought as
much disgrace upon his memory as any of 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 dan
gerous 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 pardon. The grandson's fate is unknown. Let us finish this hateful story.
After more than two years' imprisonment, on the 27th of May, 1541, Margaret

1547] DEATH OF MARGARET.— ANNE OF CLIVES. 233
Plantagenet, — the last in the direct line of that illustrious race, — was brought
out to suffer death on Tower-hill. 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 down ;
and her gray hairs were covered with gore before the head parted from the
body. 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. On the
very day of her death his ambassadors were instructed to look out for a new
consort. 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 Cromwell, — who felt the importance of a Protestant connection at
a period when the Romanists were using every .effort to regain their ascend
ancy, — was 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,
Cromwell wrote to the king : — " Every man praiseth the beauty of the same
lady, as well for the face as for the whole body, above all other ladies
excellent. One among other purposes, said unto them of late, that she
excelleth as far the duchess as the golden sun excelleth the silvery moon."
The "silvery moon" was the duchess of Milan, who is reported to have met
Henry's advances by saying that she had but one head ; if she had possessed
two, one should have been at his majesty's service. Nicholas Wotton and
Richard Berde were sent to negotiate the marriage with Anne of Cleves.
"Your grace's servant, Hans Holbein, hath taken the effigies of my Lady
Anne and my Lady Amelie, and hath expressed their images very lively."
Thus wrote Wotton on the nth of August, 1539. On the 12th of December,
the Lady Anne was at Calais, about to embark for England. Henry was
perhaps not in the best humor at her freedom when he first met her, and was
•" marvelously astonished and abashed." Hans Holbein had been a flatterer.
The king embraced her, but scarcely spoke twenty words, and did not offer
the present he had prepared for her. There was no instant remedy ; and the
marriage ceremony was gone through. On the 10th of July the marriage was
declared invalid ; the chief pretense being a doubtful pre-contract ; and the
unblushing argument, " that the king having married her against his will, he
had not given a pure inward and complete consent."
On the 17th of April, 1540, the fortune of Cromwell seemed at its
culminating point, for he was created earl of Essex. On the 12th of April a
parliament had been assembled, which Cromwell had addressed as the king's
vicegerent. In this parliament he carried a bill for a great subsidy to be
raised upon the laity and the clergy. The promises that the necessities of
the State should be provided for out of the spoil of the Church, were violated
without the slightest apology. The odium of this taxation was sorely laid
upon Cromwell. The exorbitant demand "gained him an universal hatred
among the people, and was one reason of his sudden fall after it." The

234 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
minister's work was done. He had carried through a great revolution with
comparative success. He had impartially racked, beheaded, and gibbeted
papist and heretic. His loose papers of " Remembrances " show that he kept
as careful memoranda of business to be done, as the most careful scrivener.
Take a few specimens :
" Item, to remember all the jewels of all the monasteries in England, and specially for the cross at
Paul's, of emeralds.
" Item, the abbot of Reading to be sent down to be tried and executed at Reading with his-
complices. " Item, the abbot of Glaston to be tried at Glaston, and also to be executed there, with his
complices." On the 10th of June he was arrested by the duke of Norfolk, while at the
council table. Cromwell was attainted of 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." That he was an oppressor ; that he received
bribes, that he had made a great estate for himself by extortion, were no
doubt true. Some of the public plunder 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 built his own mansion : and so
moved it upon rollers twenty-two feet, and seized the land upon which it
stood. Cranmer said with truth, though not with firmness, " that he thought
no king of England had ever such a servant . . . but if he was a traitor, he
was glad it was discovered." Having in vain written to his remorseless
master — ¦" Most gracious prince, I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy." The cry
moved the heart of Henry for a moment ; he dropped 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
Cromwell was beheaded, King Henry married his fifth wife, Catherine
Howard. 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 puella," as she was called, had fifteen
months of what, in the language of romance, is termed uninterrupted felicity.
When the little queen was traveling with her somewhat unwieldy lord in the
north, in 1 541, he then solemnly offered thanksgiving for the happiness he
found in her society. On their return to London, 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 Norfolk, setting forth the
profligacy of the queen before her marriage, and alleging that her paramour
formed one of her regal establishment. Let us pass over the revolting
story. The archbishop thought that he should be able to establish a
pre-contract with Francis Derham which would have rendered the marriage
of Henry invalid. The act of parliament for the attainder of Queen

1547] CATHERINE HOWARD EXECUTED.— SCOTLAND. 235:
Catherine Howard includes the Lady Rochford as an accomplice — she
who had sacrificed her own brother in the case of Anne Boleyn. Derham,
and another man involved in the accusation against the queen, had previously-
been hanged. " Par la foy de gentil hommc, quoth the king of France, and
laid his hand upon his breast, she has done wondrous naughtily, and I
am right sorry that my good brother should have such an occasion of
unquietness." The unhappy women were executed on the 12th of February.
In the statute there is a remarkable clause, that any single women of
impure life who, before marriage with the king, should not confess the same,
should be declared guilty of high treason. " To make the concealment
of vices a capital offense was worthy of such a reign." Lord Herbert
says that there were no more youthful candidates for the honor of Henry's-
hand, after this enactment. 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 maidea
name of this lady was Catherine Parr. She became the queen of Henry in
jury, 1543.
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 sub
jected, 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 religion. 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. Beaton soon obtained the complete control of the young
king. He negotiated his marriage with Mary of Guise, after James had lost
his first wife, the Princess Magdalen of France. Mary of Guise was a.
powerful instrument in confirming the devotion of the Scottish king to the
ancient Church ; and Henry of England in vain endeavored to tempt him to
follow his example in seizing the monastic property. In 1 541, the king of
Scotland had set up pretensions to the title upon which Henry most valued
himself. Defender of the Christian Faith. Beaton, now a cardinal, had been
to Rome 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
should meet at York in the autumn. 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 appointment. Henry was furious,
and determined upon war. He resolved upon renewing the old claim of the
English kings to the crown of Scotland. The duke of Norfolk entered
Scotland with a large army in 1542, after the English warden of the east
marches had sustained a defeat in Teviotdale. Having accomplished the
usual destruction, Norfolk retreated to Berwick, for James was assembling an
army in his front. Onward they marched for the invasion of England.
There was division among the host. The rebellious Douglases were on the

236 HISTORY OK ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
side of England. Many of the nobles were favorable to the principles of
the reformation, which their king opposed. The catastrophe came, without
any real contest between the two armies. James was deserted by his nobles.
An army of ten thousand men was, however, got together, under Lord
Maxwell, 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 one who is termed the king's
minion, Oliver Sinclair, produced a commission 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 of
prisoners. The king gave himself up to despair, 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, whose 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 negoti
ate 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
Beaton produced a will 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 allow a dominion that placed its dignities and possessions in
imminent peril. 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 following January was consti
tuted the pope's legate a latere in Scotland. He was now supreme in Church
and State ; the friendship and alliance of the excommunicated king of
England was renounced ; and a treaty with England, which gave Henry some
of his demands, was set aside. There was patriotism as well as intolerance in
the policy of the papist faction. We can not follow the dark intrigues of
this period ; in which some of the reformers were prepared to sacrifice their
national independence, and the Romanists to hold their power by craft and
persecution. Scotland was again invaded in May, 1544. The earl of Hert
ford 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. Some who had been willing to

1547] SCOTLAND.— HENRY IN FRANCE. 237
sell Scotland to England, appear to have felt that their duty was now to re
sist pretensions that were enforced by an invading army. For two years the
war was continued with the usual terrible inflictions upon the peaceful culti
vators of the soil. 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 famous through every land. While Hertford
was carrying on his war of devastation in 1545, the privy council 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." Beaton was murdered in 1546; and if the king of England was
not an accessary, it was not for the want of inclination.
To complete our rapid review of the foreign affairs of the kingdom we
pass from Scotland to France. In 1544 Henry went to his parliament with a
long tale of his griefs. The ungrateful Francis had withdrawn the pension
which he had been accustomed to pay ; he had confederated with the Great
Turk, common enemy of all Christendom ; and he had stirred the Scots to
resist his majesty, contrary to their duty and allegiance. The king, therefore,
declares his intention to go to war with France as well as with Scotland — " to
put his own royal person, with the power of his realm and subjects, in
armor." But inestimable sums will be required for the maintenance of these
wars. The faithful parliament, by this statute, again sanction 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 recognized 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. The
chivalrous French king spurned their pretensions ;, and so, in July, 1544,
Henry put on his armor, and with thirty thousand men crossed the channel.
He advanced at the head of the English and imperial forces, to assist at the
siege of Boulogne, which the duke of Suffolk was investing. In vain the
envoys of the emperor urged him to move forward, according to their com
pact. The emperor, said Henry, had taken some frontier forts, and he, the
king, would have Boulogne. The lower town surrendered on the 21st of July.

238 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
The upper town held out till the 14th of September. At length the' great
day of triumph arrived ; for which he had broken faith with his ally. On the
1 8th of September he made his triumphant entry into Boulogne. But while
the " noble and valiant conqueror" was listening to the trumpeters on the
Avails, 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 diligence, by
striding fresh supplies of money and men. He returned to England on the
last day of September, — in no very placable humor, if we may judge from a
letter of the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and others, in which they entreat
the council 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. In the summer of 1545,
Francis was making strenuous efforts for the invasion of England ; and the
coasts had been specially surveyed for defense by the duke of Norfolk.
According to a return of this date, there was a fleet in the channel, of a
hundred and four vessels, carrying more than twelve thousand men. 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.' " There was an indecisive
action off Portsmouth, in July, 1545 ; and a serious misfortune in the acci
dental sinking of a large ship, with four hundred men, in the harbor of
Portsmouth. The Mary Rose went down, like the Royal George. The king
was on shore, and saw his noble ship laid on her side and overset. The
danger of invasion was soon overpast. The French sent assistance to the
Scots; devastated the neighborhood of Calais; and made the most strenuous
efforts to retake Boulogne. At length a peace was concluded 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 of two millions of crowns,
and another that Scotland should be included in the pacification. The
remainder of Henry's reign was not disturbed by foreign warfare. The per
secutions for heretical opinions went fiercely on, while the solid principles of
Protestantism were gradually establishing themselves. In 1543 an act was
passed which limited the reading of the Bible and the New Testament in the
English tongue to noblemen and gentlemen ; and forbade the reading of the
same to " the lower sort." The act of the six articles was especially retained
in full force by the statute of 1543 for the advancement of true religion ;
with the exception that there was a provision for allowing the clergy, accused
of preaching contrary to the king's doctrines, to recant upon the first offense ;
to abjure and bear a faggot on the second offense ; and not to be burned
unless they refused to abjure, or committed a third offense.
Among 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.

1547] CRANMER SAVED.— ANNE ASKEW EXECUTED. 239
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 forever." Cranmer again triumphed in
1546; when the remarkable scene took place which Fox has described and
Shakespeare has dramatized. 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, you being a counselor," and Cranmer
replies that he is content to go thither that he may come to his trial, the
king thus answers : " Oh, lord, what manner of man be you ? What sym-
plicity is in you ? 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 endurance. 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. When King Henry interfered with the insane
resolution of the archbishop to seek a trial, he truly said, "You will run
headlong to your undoing if I would suffer you."
Dr. London, one of the least scrupulous of the commissioners appointed to
ferret out the delinquencies of the religious houses, was now employed in an
opposite direction. His charges against members of the king's household
were held to be founded in perjury and conspiracy ; and Dr. London and his
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 will, 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 council. There was a disgusting scene in Smithfield which soon
followed the torture of the high-minded woman, who, amid her sufferings,
would not 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
rumored 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 in terror for their own safety.

240 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1509
Will not the exploding gunpowder drive the firewood where they sit ? They
hold a grave consultation, and are persuaded to sit out the scene. The
gentle woman and her fellow-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
forever about him, soothing the paroxysms of his temper by endeavors 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
endeavors to influence him to go on with the good work of reformation. " A
good hearing it is," he exclaims, " when women become such clerks ; and a
thing much to my comfort to come in mine old age to be taught by my wife."
Gardiner and Wriothesley 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 scaffold in the Tower. His wrath was
appeased ; and, according to Fox, his anger fell 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 ; " and 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 details among the authentic
matters of history ; though we may readily believe that in the fierce contests
of parties, at a time when the despot could 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.
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 acknowledged
that he had been " quick against such as have been accused for sacramen-
taries." 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 willfulness which mankind are too ready
to ascribe to the poetical temperament. He who was the first and the most
successful in familiarizing English verse to a new accentuation — he who led
the way in the use of blank verse, the noblest instrument of our noble lan
guage — the most accomplished scholar, the bravest gentleman — was punished

1547] ' SURREY AND NORFOLK.— HENRY DEAD. 241
atone time for eating flesh in Lent ; and at another time for the coarse frolic.
of walking the streets at night, and breaking windows with a crossbow. It
was his impulsive and incautious nature which precipitated his fall. In ^546 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 ill. The sister of Surrey, the widow of the duke of
Richmond, 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 lions of England " in the first quarter," were the evidence
for their condemnation. Surrey was tried by a jury after a 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 execution was to have taken place on the
28th of January. Before that day dawned Henry lay dead. Norfolk escaped,
if escape it were, to linger in prison, while the reformation which he opposed held
on its inevitable course. Henry VIII. died at two o'clock on the morning of the
28th of January in his palace at Westminster. 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 Romish Church. In the same spirit were
his funeral solemnities conducted.

EDWARD VI.— LADY JANE GREY.— QUEEN MARY.
(1547-1558.)
On Friday, the 28th of January, 1547, Edward, the son of King Henry
VIII., is sojourning at Hertford castle. His father lies dead in the palace at
Whitehall. Between one and two o'clock of the morning of Saturday, the
29th, the earl of Hertford, his uncle, is also at Hertford castle. The son of
Henry by Jane Seymour is a few months above nine years of age. Henry's
daughter by Anne Boleyn has seen thirteen years and four months. This boy
and girl are attached to each other. Their eldest sister, Mary, who is now in
her thirty-second year, has few sentiments in common with these young
people. Edward and Elizabeth are brought together at Enfield before their
father's death is declared to them. " Never," says Hayward, the historian of
Edward VI., "was sorrow more sweetly set forth." The parliament, which
was sitting at the time of King Henry's decease, met on the 29th of January,
and transacted business without receiving any intimation of the great change
in the monarchy. On the 31st, on which day Edward was conducted to the
Tower of London and proclaimed king, Wriothesley, the chancellor, announced
16

242 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1547-
to the lords and commons the death of " their late dread lord." A portion of
the king's will was then read, and the parliament was dissolved. That will
was dated the 30th of December; and under it sixteen executors were
appointed to exercise the powers of the crown during Edward's minority. To
assist these executors in cases of doubt, a second council of twelve persons was
also nominated. The executors of Henry VIII. raised the earl of Hertford to
the office of protector. Wriothesley opposed the nomination of any one of the
council with an authority superior to the rest. The chancellor was overruled,
The influence of Hertford prevailed. He was soon after created duke of Somer
set ; and Wriothesley was removed from office-, having in his struggle for power
committed a political offense. In these proceedings the party of the
reformation was triumphant, and after Edward's coronation, which took place
on the 28th of February, the protector was not only confirmed in his authority
by letters-patent under the great seal, but his powers were extended, and the
functions of the executors were merged in those of a general council, who
were bound to act by the advice and consent of the real head of the State.
The boy king had been crowned and anointed. He had taken the coronation
oath. He had proclaimed a general pardon. But Somerset was the sovereign
of England for the time being.
At the period of Henry's death England was at peace. The pacification
of 1546 with France included Scotland; and it was a leading object of
Henry's policy, which he held to in his dying hour, that the union of England
and Scotland should be cemented by the marriage of his son with the
child Mary, the Scottish queen. The attempt to force this marriage upon
Scotland had aroused the old national spirit of independence in her nobility ;
and the proposal of Somerset, that the former treaty for this marriage should
be renewed and ratified, was coldly listened to. Within a month after- the
accession of Edward, the Council Book shows that a state of active hostility
was approaching. On the 27th of February, Sir Andrew Dudley is appointed
to the command of the ship Pauncy, to cruise in the north seas off the
English and Scottish coasts. In less than a fortnight, Dudley had captured
the Scottish vessel Lion. At this juncture an event occurred which materi
ally affected the relations of England with France and Scotland. Francis I.
died on the 31st of March at Rambouillet. Twenty days before the death of
Francis, a treaty had been concluded between France and England. This
the new king of France refused to ratify. He preferred to cultivate an
alliance with the Scots. The duke of Guise and the cardinal of Lorraine
were the brothers of the queen dowager of Scotland, and they were among
the chief advisers of the French king. To stay the progress of the reformed
opinions in Scotland, and to prevent the marriage of the young Mary with
Edward, were sufficient motives to a decided change of policy. The castle of
St. Andrews, after the murder of Cardinal Beaton, in 1546, had been held
( against the regent Arran, by those who were favorable to the English alliance.
A. truce ibetween the regent and the possessors was concluded in February,
1547 ; -and they subsequently proceeded to make a treaty with Somerset, in

1558] BATTLE OF PINKIE.— CRANMER AND GARDINER. 243
which they engaged to forward the projected marriage, and to aid any
English force that should enter Scotland for the purpose of obtaining
possession of the queen's person. The French government, in the summer of
1547, sent a fleet to assist in the reduction of the castle. It was finally-
surrendered on the 29th of July, and was afterward demolished. On the 2d
of September, the protector crossed the border at Berwick with a powerful
invading army.
Somerset said to the people of Scotland, that living in one island, speak
ing the same language, alike in manners, and conditions, it was " unmeet,
unnatural and unchristian, that there should be betwixt us so mortal war, who,
in respect of all other nations, be and should be like as two brethren." He
proposed a solid union by the marriage of King Edward and Queen Mary.
But the words of peace were not hearkened to. The influence of France
prevailed. The priests stirred up the Scottish people to resist the English
heretics. Knox was a prisoner in France ; and the friends of the reformation
were scattered and proscribed. The great victory — the last field, most
happily, in which England and Scotland were engaged in a quarrel that could
be called national — was without any benefit beyond the unsubstantial glory
of the victors. Ten thousand Scots perished, and fifteen hundred were taken
prisoners, without any serious loss on the part of the English. Leith was set
on fire. Several castles were taken. But in three weeks after the battle of
Pinkie, Somerset recrossed the Tweed ; and entered London on the 8th of
October. The young king congratulated his uncle in a short and sensible
letter written on the 1 8th of September; and the successful general received
additional grants of landed estates.
Cranmer and his coadjutors in the Church sought to prepare a broad and
solid foundation for their reforms, in the enlightenment of the people. The
influence of the printing-press and the influence of the pulpit were to be
exerted to lead the people to think, and in thinking to reject the tyranny
which had so long kept them in darkness. Cranmer had selected the para
phrase of the New Testament, by Erasmus, as a fitting book to be translated
into English, and set up in churches. It was the work of one of the most
moderate of reformers, and contained little that could be offensive to the
professors of the old faith. But any mode of enlightening the people was
offensive to the anti-reforming party in the Church ; and Gardiner, bishop of
Winchester, attacked this translation with clever bitterness which many a
dignified ecclesiastic, even to this day, has been proud to imitate. In the
same spirit the bishop of Winchester attacked the Book of Homilies,
" appointed by the king's majesty to be declared and read by all parsons,
vicars, or curates, every Sunday in their churches, where they have cure."
With all his rancor and prejudice there is a boldness and honesty in
Gardiner's remonstrances against the measures of this period, which were ill
answered by committing him to the Fleet.
The parliament which assembled on the 4th of November; 1547, sat only
till the 24th of December ; but in those fifty days it passed some measures of

244 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1547
the highest importance. The " act for the repeal of certain statutes concern
ing treasons, felonies, etc.," swept away the manifold treasons which had been
created, by statute after statute, in the reign of Henry VIII. By this act of
'the 1st of Edward VI., all " estatutes touching, mentioning, or in anywise
concerning religion," — the statutes of Richard II., of Henry V., and of Henry
VIII., " concerning punishment and reformation of heretics and Lollards;"
the recent statutes of the six articles, and against uttering certain books ; and
" all and every other act concerning doctrine and matter of religion," were
repealed and utterly annulled. All new felonies made by statute since the
1st of Henry VIII. were also repealed. The penalties for affirming that the
king is not supreme head of the Church were, however, retained. In this
comprehensive statute, the despotic law of the preceding reign, that the proc
lamations of the king in council should be as valid as acts of parliament, was,
further, wholly repealed.
The first measure of the parliament of 1549 was " an act for the uniform
ity of service," etc. The preamble states that the king having appointed
'' the archbishop of Canterbury, and certain of the most learned and discreet
bishops and other learned men of this realm," that they should " draw and
make one convenient and meet order of common and open prayer and admin
istration of the sacraments," they had " by the aid of the Holy Ghost, with
one uniform agreement, concluded and set forth " the same, " in a book
entitled the Book of Common Prayer, and administration of the Sacraments,
and other rites and ceremonies of the Church, after the use of the Church of
England." With some variations in a subsequent edition of 1552, which was
called " the second book," this Liturgy is not essentially different from that
of the present day.
Admiral Sir Thomas Seymour, created by Edward VI. Lord Seymour of
Sudley, had, within a very short time of the death of Henry VIII., become a
suitor to his widow, Queen Catherine Parr. In King Edward's Journal, imme
diately after a notice of the recantation of Dr. Smith, at Paul's Cross,
on the 15th of May, there is this significant entry: "The Lord Seymour of
Sudley married the queen whose name was Catherine, with which marriage
the lord protector was much offended." The protector, after the marriage
was avowed, withheld the royal widow's jewels, which she alleged the late
king had given her ; and he opposed her wish as to the lease of a crown
manor. Amiable as she appears to have been, she manifested her indignation
in no measured terms, in a letter to her husband : " This shall be to advertise
you that my lord your brother hath this afternoon made me a little warm.
It was fortunate we were so much distant; ; for I suppose else I should have
bitten him." The wife of Lord Seymour was not long fated to kindle her
husband's wrath against his brother. She gave birth to a daughter on the 1st
of September, 1548, and died on the 7th. Seymour had hoped for a son,
" trusting," as he writes to his wife in June, that, " if God should give him
life to live as long as his father, he will revenge such wrongs as neither you^
nor I can at this present."

1558] SEYMOUR ACTS, TRiAL AND DEATH. 245
The death of the queen, his wife, opened to the rash and turbulent
Seymour a new prospect for his ambition. If the scandalous stories of that
time are to be believed — and they appear in the evidence of the Princess
Elizabeth's governess — there had been many strange familiarities between
the admiral and the princess, then a girl of fifteen, who was residing under
the care of Queen Catherine. He now paid secret addresses to the
princess ; who appears, in that spirit of coquetry which she retained through
life, to have given some encouragement to a man who is described as " fierce
in courage, courtly in fashion, in person stately, in voice magnificent, but
somewhat empty in matter." It was one of the charges against him, as set
forth in articles of treason in the Council Book, that before he married the queen
he attempted to marry " the Lady Elizabeth, second inheritor in remainder to
the crown," but was then prevented by the lord protector, and others of the
council. The charge then goes on to say, " that you sithence that time, both
in the life of the queen continued your old labor and love, and after her
death, by secret and crafty means, practiced to achieve the said purpose of
marrying the said Lady Elizabeth, to the danger of the king's majesty's person,
and peril of the state, of the same." In January, 1549, Seymour was arrested
and sent to the Tower. The opposition to his designs upon the Princess
Elizabeth had probably driven him to engage in the rash enterprises which
led to his destruction.
The proceedings against Seymour were conducted under that approved
instrument of oppression, a bill of attainder. The royal assent was given on
the 5th of March ; and the unhappy man was executed on the 20th. The
warrant for his execution was signed, among others of the council, by
Somerset and Cranmer. The historian of Edward VI. says, with regard to
the protector, " Hereupon many of the nobility cried out upon him that he
was a blood-sucker, a murderer, a parricide, a villain, and that it was not fit
the king should be under the protection of such a ravenous wolf." Edward
from the first was a puppet in the hands of Somerset ; and his name was often
affixed to important papers by a stamp which the protector used. That a
quick and intelligent youth should desire to be freed from a somewhat stern
control, was an inevitable consequence of his position ; and Seymour made an
artful use of this discontent to supplant his brother, and in so doing to convulse
the government. It is tolerably clear that Edward regarded his uncle, the
protector, with slight affection. Seymour had fortified Holt castle ; had
tampered with Sir John Sharrington, the master of the mint at Bristol, to
furnish him with a large supply of money, as Sharrington confessed ; and had
taken measures to embody a large armed force. Unless we were to refuse our
belief to a great body of testimony, however illegally applied to the purpose
of attainder, we must believe that Seymour suffered the inevitable, and in
many respects just, punishment of those who seek to change a government by
craft and violence, and fail in the enterprise.
There had been a partial rising in Cornwall in 1548 ; for which a general
pardon was granted to all, with the exception of the leaders. In the summer

246 s HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1547
of 1549 half of England was in a state of rebellion. The Cornish and Devon
shire insurrection, and that of Norfolk, form one of the most striking passages
of our history of the sixteenth century. On Whit-Sunday, the 19th of
June, divine service had been performed at the parish-church of Sampford
Courtenay, about sixteen miles from Exeter. On that day the act for
uniformity of service came into operation. On the Whit-Monday, the day of
church-ales and morris-dances, some of the parishioners, headed by a tailor
and a laborer, went to the priest as he was preparing for the morning service,
and told him, " they would keep the old and ancient religion as their fore
fathers before them had done : " and he yielded to their wills, and forthwith
arrayed himself " in his old popish attire," and said mass, as in times past. The
justices of the peace interfered, but without effect; and in a short time the
example spread through Devonshire and Cornwall, and the people began to
assemble in great companies. On the 2d of July commenced a regular siege
of Exeter, the gates of which city were closed against them. They burnt the
gates; they destroyed the conduits which supplied the water of the town
they undermined the walls. They had ordnance and ammunition ; and
" soldiers cashiered " taught them how to use them. For five weeks this con
test went on. The government was issuing proclamations to the rebels, and
distributing Cranmer's wise and gentle replies to their demands. On the 16th
of July martial law was proclaimed. Lord Russell had gathered a small force
at the commencement of these troubles. After an engagement with a band of
the insurgents, he at length was joined by Lord Grey, who had opportunely
arrived with a troop of horse and three hundred Italian infantry. A more fierce
encounter took place at Cliff, where the rebels were routed with great
slaughter. The prisoners who had been taken in a previous engagement were
here put to the sword. The besiegers of Exeter now boldly marched to
encounter the king's troops ; and upon Cliff Heath a bloody battle took
place, with the inevitable result that attends the contest of an armed multitude
with disciplined troops. " Great was the slaughter, and cruel was the fight ;
and such was the valor and stoutness of these men, that the Lord Grey
reported himself, that he never in all the wars that he had been in did know
the like." The Norfork rebellion appears to have been of a wholly different
character from that of the west of England. The Devonshire rising com
menced in a church. The Norfolk rising commenced in a fair. On the 6th of
July a large number of people were assembled at Wymondham, at a " public
play which had been accustomed yearly to be kept in that town. The itin
erant players had repeated their interlude again and again. In the uncouth
rhymes to which the peasants listened there were probably some incentives
to disorder. From gaping at the play the clowns proceeded to break down
hedges. John Flowerdew, gentleman, and Robert Ket, tanner, dwelling near
Wymondham, had some private grievances, and each instigated the mob to
destroy the inclosures of the other. Ket, " being a man hardy and forward to
any desperate attempt," thought this pastime might be carried further. He

I5S8] OFFERS OF PARDON REFUSED. 247
put himself at their head, calling upon them " to follow him in defense of
their common liberty." People continued to join this band in great numbers ;
and supplies of weapons, armor, and artillery were brought to them out of
Norwich. This formidable band was at first kept in some order by their bold
leader. They sent for the vicar of one of the Norwich parishes to say prayers
in their camp. They suffered the mayor of Norwich to come among them
without molestation. Ket gave judgment against evil doers, sitting in state
under an oak which was called " the tree of reformation." It was a time of
feasting and holiday for this thoughtless multitude, who reveled in the spoils
of the neighboring deer-parks, and brought in the fat sheep by thousands
from the inclosures which they had broken down. The rebels entered
Norwich, and carried the mayor and many of the principal citizens prisoners
to their camp. It was time for the government to bestir itself. The royal
forces marched into Norwich ; and their leader and the panic-stricken author
ities held a consultation how the city should be best defended. Before day
break a fierce attack was made on the walls and gates ; and after a fight of
three hours the insurgents were driven back. The next day the marquis of
Northampton dispatched Norroy king-at-arms to the camp, with an offer of
pardon. The terms were despised, and Norroy was told " that they would
either restore the commonwealth from decay, into the which it was fallen,
being oppressed through the covetousness and tyranny of the gentlemen ;
either else would they, like men, die in the quarrel." The herald had no
time to report his answer ; for the whole multitude came furiously on ;
entered the city ; fought with the royal troops in the streets ; slew Lord
Sheffield, one of the chief captains ; took many prisoners and caused
Northampton to flee hastily to London. The earl of Warwick was preparing
to march with an army to Scotland, when these commotions in the eastern
districts became so alarming. The rebels had now complete possession of
Norwich. The army reached Norwich. Hostilities were resumed ; and such
was the courage and endurance of this multitude that Warwick was repulsed
in several attempts to gain the city. His ammunition wagons were inter
rupted ; some of his pieces of ordnance were seized ; his affairs became so
desperate that many of his officers advised his abandonment of the enterprise
against such a huge multitude. Warwick, protesting that he would rather
lose his life than be so dishonored, drew his sword. The action was followed
by his captains ; and he commanded " that each one should kiss other's
sword, according to an ancient custom used among men of war in time of
great danger." They swore upon their swords never to depart, but to
vanquish or to fall.
On the 26th of August Warwick received an accession to his force of
fourteen hundred cavalry. The stirring scene of the oath on the swords had
taken place the day previous. The camp of Ket was not so easily provided
with food as in the preceding seven weeks when he sent out his purveyors to
scour the country. Warwick had possession of the roads to Mousehold-
heath ; and the cabins of bushes had now hungry inmates. On the 27th the

248 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1547
rebels resolved to break up their encampment. They set fire t6 their cabins ;
and, with ensigns flying, marched down from their strong position into Dussin-
dale, which was soon filled with the " slaughtered bodies " of the wretched
"country chuffs." After the flight of the main body of the insurgents many
held out long, " so inclosed with their carts, carriages, trenches, and stakes
pitched in the ground," that it was dangerous to attack them. They at first
refused the offered pardon ; for they maintained that the promise was " a
subtle practice to bring them into the hands of their adversaries, the gentle
men." Warwick at last offered to go himself among them, and give his word
that they should receive pardon ; and at length they threw down their
weapons and cried, " God save King Edward." Robert Ket and his brother
were conveyed to London ; and being convicted of treason, were hanged at
Norwich. Others were hanged upon the oak of reformation. But more were
spared than was agreeable to the terror-stricken landlords of East-Anglia.
After Somerset had gained the battle of Pinkie, in the autumn of 1547,
he returned, as we have seen, suddenly to London. The nobility of Scotland
resolved to apply for assistance to France. In 1548 Haddington was taken
by the English under Lord Gray of Wilton ; and several other minor successes
were accomplished. But in June a large force, partly French and partly
German, arrived at Leith ; and an army of Scots, with these auxiliaries,
marched to recover Haddington. In August, Mary was solemnly contracted
to the dauphin. The war was continued with various success ; but on the
whole was unfavorable to the English. Haddington was relieved, after the
garrison had endured the greatest suffering by famine. The English fleet
was repulsed by the peasantry in several attacks upon the Scottish coast. At
the time of the insurrections of 1549, the government of Somerset was prepar
ing to carry on the contest with renewed vigor. The French auxiliaries who
remained in Scotland had become distasteful to the people, and the king of
France was more intent upon recovering Boulogne than of aiding his Scotch
allies. The war with Scotland was, however, too burdensome to be vigorously
pursued by England ; the Scots recovered many of their strong places ; and
even Haddington was evacuated on the 1st of October, in the year of Eng
land's domestic troubles.
Warwick has returned to London. The slaughter of Dussindale has
given him political power as well as military renown. Holinshed has related
in what manner the council were gathered in London : " Many of the lords,
as well counselors as others, mis-liking the government of the protector,
began to withdraw themselves from the court ; and, resorting to London, fell
to secret consultation for redress of things, but namely for the displacing of
the lord protector. And suddenly, upon what occasion many marveled but
few knew, every lord and councilor went through the city weaponed ; and had
their servants likewise weaponed, attending upon them in new liveries to the
great wondering of many. And at the last a great assembly of the said coun
cilors was made at the earl of Warwick's lodging, which was then at Ely-place
in Holborn, whither all the confederates in this matter came privily armed."

1558] SOMERSET ARRESTED AND IMPRISONED. 249
After this demonstration the rival powers instantly came into collision. On
the 1st of October a proclamation appeared with the signature of Somerset,
commanding all the king's subjects with all haste to repair to Hampton Court,
" in most defensible array, with harness and weapons, to defend his most royal
person, and his most entirely beloved uncle, the lord protector, against whom
certain hath attempted a most dangerous conspiracy." Warwick and his
associates obtained possession of the Tower of London, removed the lieuten
ant, and placed one of their own friends in his place.
Sir Philip Hoby was the bearer of a public message to Somerset and the
council at Windsor, that the lords meant no ill to the duke, either to his
person or his goods. Sir Thomas Smith, who is the authority for this, says
that, " upon this, all the aforenamed there present wept for joy, and thanked
God, and prayed for the lords. Mr. Comptroller [Sir William Paget] fell down
on his knees, and clasped the duke about the knees, and weeping, said, ' Oh,
my lords, ye see now what my lords be.' " Upon this, Somerset consented
that his guards should be removed, and his servants dismissed. The next
day he was arrested, with the one honest friend of the council, Sir Thomas
Smith, and his secretary Cecil. It is one of the painful passages of Cranmer's
life that his name is signed, with that of Paget, to the exulting communica
tion to the lords that their victim is secured. On Monday, the 13th of Octo
ber, the duke was brought to London as if he had been a captive, carried in
triumph. In the proclamation issued by the council against the protector, it
was alleged " that he was ambitious, and. sought his own glory, as appeared
by his building of most sumptuous and costly buildings." On the 13th of
October the letters patent to Somerset, for the governorship of the king's
person and the protectorship, were revoked. His almost regal authority was
at an end. He remained a prisoner in the Tower till the 6th of February,
1550, when he was released upon payment of a fine of ten thousand pounds;
having signed articles of submission, humiliating in the extreme. Life was
sweet to the degraded man. Cecil, Smith, and others of his friends, were also
released. Bonner, the bishop of London, was deprived of his see at the time when
Somerset and the council became at mortal variance. He was committed to
the Marshalsea, where he was a prisoner during the remainder of Edward's
reign. Ridley was subsequently appointed to the bishopric. Gardiner, the
bishop of Winchester, who had been a prisoner for some time in the Fleet,
was released in 1549, and ordered to preach before the king at Paul's Cross.
He preached so boldly and offensively that he was committed to the Tower.
In 1 560 he was examined by the council, and we find Somerset among those
who were to probe his opinions. The history of these discussions, in which
Gardiner conducted himself with his usual spirit and ability, will be found in
the ecclesiastical historians. In the end, he was deprived of his bishopric,
and was confined in the Tower till the accession of Queen Mary. Heath,
the bishop of Worcester, and Day, the bishop of Chichester, had objected to
the removal of altars ; and they were committed to prison and deprived.

250 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS [1547
Tonstall, the bishop of Durham, was sent to the Tower upon a charge of
misprision of treason. There is some slight justification for these courses.
No Roman Catholic was put to death in the time of Edward VI. The
offenses of the deprived bishops were political offenses ; and under a more
despotic system the penalties of treason would assuredly have fallen upon
them. The position of domestic affairs was one of extreme danger and
difficulty ; and in no point was it more dangerous than in the firm determin
ation of the king's elder sister not to conform to the changes of religion.
The inflexible character of Mary presented an embarrassment that could not
be grappled with by any ordinary means.
On the 10th of April, Somerset was restored to a place in the council.
On the 3d of June, Lord Lisle, the son of Warwick, was married at Shene to
Ann, the daughter of Somerset ; and the king was present at the bridal.
During 1 5 50 Somerset appears to have been re-establishing his power. In
December he has a hundred guards assigned him, although Warwick and
other nobles have only fifty. But in February, 1551, a storm is gathering, as
we learn from this brief entry in Edward's Journal. " Mr. Whalley was
examined for persuading divers nobles of the realm to make the duke of
Somerset protector at the next parliament, and stood to the denial, the earl
of Rutland affirming it manifestly." The jealousies of the retainers of
Somerset and Warwick began to manifest themselves in open conflicts ; and
some of Somerset's servants were sent to the Tower. These symptoms of
disquiet appear to have subsided for six months ; and Somerset was to be
found in council and about the person of the king. On the nth of October,
the marquis of Dorset was created duke of Suffolk, and the earl of Warwick
was created duke of Northumberland. On the 16th of October, Somerset,
having that day taken his seat at the council, was arrested and sent to the
Tower with his duchess, and many of his friends. On the 1st of December
Somerset was brought to trial before the lord-steward and twenty-seven peers,
on a charge of high treason, by conspiring to seize the king ; and of felony,
under the act of the preceding session against unlawful assemblies, in
purposing, with others, to imprison the earl of Warwick, a privy councilor.
He was acquitted of the treason, and found guilty of the felony. That
Christmas Somerset spent drearily in the Tower ; while his nephew was
diverted from the thoughts of the prisoner by every courtly amusement in his
palace of Greenwich — tilts, tournaments, fights at barriers, masques, banquets.
On the 22d of January there is this business-like entiy in the royal day-book :
"The duke of Somerset hadihis head cut off upon Tower-hill, between eight
and nine o'clock in the morning." Sir Ralph Vane, Sir Thomas Arundel,
Sir Miles Partridge, and Sir Michael Stanhope, were subsequently tried and
executed, on a charge of having instigated the duke of Somerset to treason
and felony. The ill-success of the English policy in Scotland, and the defenseless
state of Boulogne, in 1549, were among the evils that were attributed to the
rule of Somerset. His successors in power wisely concluded a peace with

1558] NORTHUMBERLAND'S POLICY. 251
France, though under humiliating conditions. By the treaty of March, 1550,
it was agreed that Boulogne should be restored to France, upon the payment
of one-fifth of the sum which Francis I. had agreed to pay on the expiration
of eight years. The demand arising out of the treaty of marriage between
Edward and Mary of Scotland was abandoned. The pension which Henry
VIII. had accepted for the surrender of his claim to the crown of France was
virtually set aside.
The duke of Northumberland, though invested with no special power as
that of protector or governor of the king, was now the directing authority of
the realm. He had removed his great rival. Northumberland had obtained
the most lavish grants of estates from the crown, and was proceeding in a
career of high-handed despotism. Commissions were issued for the seizure of
all the remaining plate and ornaments of the churches, with the exception of
such chalices as were necessary for the administration of the Sacrament.
Tonstall, bishop of Durham, had been deprived of his see, "which was a
great object with Northumberland, for he proposed and carried a plan to
divide the bishopric into two sees, with a moderate income for each bishop,
and its great revenues to be vested in the king — in other words, in himself.
A new parliament was called in 1553, and especial care was taken that the
sheriffs should attend, in their returns, to the nominations of the crown, and the
recommendations of the privy councilors. In the beginning of the year the
king became seriously ill ; and when the parliament met on the 1st of March,
the two houses were assembled at Whitehall, his weakness preventing him
opening the session except in his own palace. The policy of Northumber
land now assumed a bolder shape. The king partially recovered in May ;
and that period was chosen to accomplish three marriages, by which the
power of the ambitious duke was not only consolidated, but one of which was
to be associated with a project so daring as to look like insanity. North
umberland's fourth son, Lord Guilford Dudley, was married to the Lady Jane
Grey ; the Lady Catherine Grey was betrothed to Lord Herbert, the son of
the earl of Pembroke, who was his devoted adherent ; and his • daughter,
Catherine Dudley, was united to Lord Hastings, eldest son of the earl of
Huntingdon. The marriage of Lord Guilford Dudley to the Lady Jane was
very soon followed by the most startling consequences. By the will of
Henry VIII. the crown was to devolve — 1, on his son Edward ; 2, on his own
heir (if any) by Catherine Parr, or other queen ; 3, on his daughter Mary ; 4,
on his daughter Elizabeth ; 5, on the heirs of the Lady Frances, his niece ;
6, on those of her sister, the Lady Eleanor. By this will the descendants of
his sister, Margaret, the queen of Scotland, were passed over. On the nth of
June, the lord chief justice Montague, with other law officers, was commanded
to attend upon the king at Greenwich. Edward, in presence of some
members of the .council, then declared to them that his sickness had led him
to think seriously of the state of the realm ; that he had prepared notes of an
intended new settlement of the crown ; and that he desired they should be
reduced into letters-patent. The notes are extant in Edward's handwriting.

252 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1547
They were in effect to set aside the devise of Henry to his daughters Mary
and Elizabeth, and to give the crown to the heirs of the Lady Frances, who
was the living duchess of Suffolk, but who was herself passed over. The
Lady Jane Grey was the eldest of her three daughters. She had no male
heir. The judge hesitated ; remonstrated with the sick boy ; and pointed out
that the succession according to Henry's will was confirmed by an act of
parliament. His representations were made in vain. The next day Montague
went to the council, and declared that he and his colleagues could not assist
in a measure which would be treasonable. Northumberland then came in,
and terrified the chief justice by the most violent denunciations. On the 14th
Montague and the other lawyers were again summoned to Greenwich ; and
there Edward received them " with sharp words and angry countenance."
Montague subsequently related that being " a weak old man and without
comfort," he consented, Edward promising that a parliament should be
called to ratify the letters-patent. Fifteen lords of the council, nine judges,
and other officers, then signed a paper agreeing to maintain the succession
as contained in the king's notes, delivered to the judges. King Edward died
on the 6th of July, twenty-two days after he had thus solemnly excluded his
sisters from the throne. The letters-patent, dated the 21st of June, set forth
the following reasons for this exclusion: — That they were illegitimate, in
consequence of the divorces of their mothers ; that they were only of half-
blood to King Edward, and therefore were by ancient laws not inheritable,
although they had been legitimate ; and that they might marry strangers out
of the realm, and thus endanger the commonwealth.
In looking at the imperfectly developed character of Edward VI., as
exhibited in his public actions and his private Journal, we can scarcely fail to
be impressed with its more than youthful proportion of the coldness and
pertinacity of his race. The stoical indifference with which he records the
unhappy deaths of his two uncles is not more remarkable than the egoism
with which he discards his sisters from the succession. They are " unto us
but of the half-blood." The daughters of the Lady Frances are " very nigh
of our whole blood, of the part of our father's side." His enthusiastic
adherence to the doctrines and usages of the Reformed Church had made
him, to a certain extent, as intolerant as education and long habit had
rendered his sister Mary. He was no doubt worked upon to this unjust
resolve — unjust, even upon his own principles, in the corresponding exclusion
of his sister Elizabeth— by the influence of Northumberland, who appears to
have possessed an extraordinary control over his actions. But, under the
guidance of his own sense of religious duty, Edward manifested a desire to
repair some of the injustice attendant upon the destruction of the ancient
Church. Ridley, in a sermon before him, exhorted the rich to be merciful to
the poor, and by charitable works to comfort and relieve them. The noble
institutions of St. Thomas's Hospital, of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and of
Christ's Hospital, sprung out of the practical effect of these words upon the
mind of the young king. When the chantries were swept away, the intention

TABLE SHOWING THE HEIRS FEMALE IN REMAINDER TO THE CROWN, NAMED IN THE
WILL OF HENRY VIII. AND THE DEVISE OF EDWARD VI.*

King Henry the Seventh
had issue.

I

King Henry the Eighth, Margaret, queen of Scots,
father of great-grandmother of
King James the First.

by Catherine
of Arragon,

by Anne
Boleyn.

Mary, queen of France,
mother of

by Charles Brandon,
duke of Suffolk,

The lady Mary,
jet. 38 in 1553.

The lady Elizabeth,
32t. 20 in 1553.

The lady Frances,
duchess of Suffolk,
aet. 36 m 1553.

The lady Eleanor,
countess of Cum
berland, died 1547.

The lady Jane,
set. 17 in 1553.

The lady Catherine

The lady Mary.

The lady Margaret.

***Queen Elizabeth, when she died in 1603, was the survivor of all these ladies.
The descendants of Margaret, queen of Scots, who were passed over by Henry and Edward, were :— Her grand
daughter, Mary, queen of Scotland, affianced to the dauphin of France, she being in 1553 eleven years
old; Margaret's daughter, the countess of Lennox; and Henry Darnley, the son of the countess.
• We have taken the liberty of extracting this Table from the interesting documents given by Mr. Nichols in the "Chronicle of Queen Jane."

254 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1547
to apply their revenues to purposes of education was set aside. But from
1551 to 1553 Edward founded twelve grammar-schools; of which those of
Birmingham, Shrewsbury, Macclesfield, Bedford, are especial examples of the
lasting good of such endowments. His dying prayer is a proof of his earnest
and abiding love for the faith which had made such rapid progress during his
brief reign : " O Lord God, save thy chosen people of England. O my Lord
God, defend this realm from papistry, and maintain thy true religion."
The council caused Queen Jane to be proclaimed on the 10th. Some
historians have recorded the circumstances of an interview between North
umberland, Suffolk, and their daughter ; her surprise at their unusual homage ;
her tears and her scruples to accept the crown. This is the dramatic decora
tion of a few bare facts. The most charming of all usurpers was, in all likeli
hood, an unwilling instrument for the ambition of a few ; and the only fact
that we certainly know at this point of her story is, that she came by water to
the Tower on the day when she was proclaimed. The people in anxious
silence saw her pass. It was in every mouth that the young king had been
poisoned. "He was poisoned, as everybody says." Northumberland was
odious to the people. The ragged bear is glad of the king's death, they said.
Gilbert Pot, a vinther's drawer, had his ear cut off in the pillory, " for words
speaking at time of proclamation of Lady Jane." Cecil, secretary of State,
and other crafty councilors, saw the signs of the time. " I eschewed," says
Cecil, " the writing of the queen's highness bastard, and therefore the duke
wrote the letter himself which was sent abroad in the realm." This letter, in
the writing of Northumberland, is in existence ; and is signed " Jane the queene."
On the 12th of July the council, who surrounded the Lady Jane in the
Tower, received intelligence that Mary had been joined by the earl of Bath,
and other leading men ; and that the earl of Sussex and his son were march
ing to her aid. It was determined, upon the first receipt of this intelligence,
that the duke of Suffolk should set forward, " to fetch her up to London."
The forebodings of the Lady Jane led to another determination. She,
" taking the matter heavily, with weeping tears made request to the whole
council that her father might tarry at home in her company ; whereupon the
council persuaded with the duke of Northumberland to take that voyage
upon him." The next morning Northumberland departed, with six hundred
men. " And as they went through Shoreditch, sayeth the duke to one that
rid by him, the people press to see us, but not one sayeth God speed us."
He was to have received succor at Northampton, but the promised aid of
men and munition never arrived. Meanwhile the cause of Mary was prosper
ing in every quarter. At Yarmouth the crews of six ships that had been sent
to intercept her expected flight to the continent, declared that their captains
should go to the bottom of the sea unless they would serve Queen Maiy.
" After once the submission of the ships was known in the Tower, each man
then begun to pluck in his horns ; and, over that, word of a great mischief
was brought to the Tower — the noblemen's tenants refused to serve their
lords against Queen Mary." On the 16th, at seven o'clock in the evening,

1558] LADY JANE DESERTED.— QUEEN MARY. 255
" the gates of the Tower upon a sudden were shut, and the keys carried up to
the Queen Jane." Her supposed friends were fast deserting her. Cecil was
practicing with the lord privy seal to cause Windsor castle to serve the
Queen Mary. He was opening himself to the Lord Arundel. Arundel, who
prayed God to speed Northumberland, desired Cecil and others to remove
out of the Tower, for frank speech to be had in council. So the Lady Jane
was left almost alone ; and the keys of the Tower gates were carried to her —
a precaution against open force, but none against hidden treachery. Ridley
was preaching in her favor at Paul's Cross on that day ; but Arundel and
Cecil were more effectually conspiring against her at Baynard's castle. North
umberland had retreated to Cambridge with his small army. Letters of dis
comfort had reached him. On the 19th, at night, he heard that Queen Mary
had been proclaimed at London. " The next morning he called for a herald
and proclaimed in her self." The mayor of Cambridge arrested Northumber
land after the proclamation, but upon his remonstrance let him go free.
" Then came the earl of Arundel, who had been with the queen, to the duke
into his chamber ; and as soon as ever he saw the earl of Arundel, he fell
down on his knees and desired him to be good to him, for the love of God.
' And consider (saith he), I have done nothing* but by the consent of you and
all the whole council.' ' My lord (quoth he), I am sent hither by the queen's
majesty, and in her name I do arrest you.' "
Queen Mary arrived triumphantly in London, at the head of a great
band of friends, on the 3d of August. Her sister Elizabeth had joined her
on her progress, having most wisely determined, from the first, to make
common cause against those who sought to set aside their inheritance under
the act of succession. The queen went to the Tower, where the aged duke
of Norfolk, the bishop of Winchester, and the dowager-duchess of Somerset
welcomed her to the place of their captivity. Mary raised them from their
knees, with the words " These are all my own prisoners ; " and they were
immediately set free. The prison had soon many new tenants. The duke
of Northumberland and his son the earl of Warwick, the earl of Northamp
ton, Sir Andrew Dudley, Sir John Gates, Sir Henry Gates, and Sir Thomas
Palmer were tried and convicted of high treason on the 18th and 19th of
August. On the 22'd, Northumberland, Sir John Gates, and Sir Thomas
Palmer were executed. But before being executed Northumberland desired to
hear mass and to receive the sacrament according to the old accustomed man
ner. So the altar in the chapel was arranged, and each thing prepared for
the purpose. The duke turned himself to the people and made a solemn
declaration of faith. Then all the rest confessed and so received the sacra
ment most humbly. Perchance he thereby hoped to have had his pardon.
The news of Mary's accession was received in Rome with exultation ; and the
pope resolved to send Cardinal Pole as legate to England. Mary sent letters
to the pope, which were so acceptable to Julius III. that he wept for joy,
that his pontificate should be honored by the restoration of England to its
ancient obedience. The coronation of Mary took place on the 1st of October.

256 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1547
The first parliament of Mary met on the 5th of October, Gardiner being
lord chancellor. And the only public act was that for repealing certain
treasons and felonies, and all offenses within the case of premunire. The
object of this act was to sweep away the penalties for' denying the king's
supremacy, and especially to relieve Cardinal Pole from his dangers under
the laws of Henry VIII. The people might dimly see from this measure how
the course of the government was tending ; if they could have doubted of it,
after Latimer had been committed to the Tower on the 13th of November,
and Cranmer on the 14th, and when the deprived bishops were restored to
their sees. The second parliamentary session commenced on the 24th of
October. The anti-reformers now went more boldly to work. " An act
concerning the queen's highness to have been born in a most just and lawful
matrimony, and also repealing all acts of parliament and sentences of divorce
had and made to the contrary," might be soothing to the feelings of the
queen ; but the declaring void so much of the statute of Henry VIII. as ille
gitimates Queen Mary, and indeed the whole tenor of the act, confirmed the
illegitimacy of the Princess Elizabeth, as also declared by that statute. That
this was a deep offense to Elizabeth, and to those Protestants who looked to
her as their future hope, was a consequence of this unnecessary insult. The
act for administering the sacrament in two kinds ; for the election of bishops ;
for legalizing priests' marriages ; for uniformity of service ; for putting away
divers books and images ; and for regulating holy-days and fasting days, are
all annihilated by one comprehensive clause. But something connected with
the reformation was retained. Divine service is to be performed as in the
last year of Henry VIII. The queen still retained the title of supreme
head of the Church ; the name of the pope was carefully kept out of view.
On the 13th of November, a special commission was held at Guildhall for
the trial of prisoners under charges of high-treason. These were the Lady
Jane Grey, her husband and his two brothers, and Archbishop Cranmer.
Another Dudley was arraigned in the following January. They all pleaded
" guilty," — Cranmer having originally pleaded " not guilty," and then with
drew the plea. In a very short time the people began to be stirred about
the Spanish marriage. The Emperor Charles V. proceeded in this matter
with his accustomed caution. His minister, Renard, had hinted to the queen,
in September, how desirable an alliance would be with the prince of Spain ;
and she said that whatever she should do would only be for the public good ;
It was hinted in the next reign, by Sir Thomas Smith, that " a certain lady,
having the picture sent unto her of one whom she never saw, who should be
her husband, was so enamored thereon and so ravished, that she languished
for love, and was in a measure out of her wits for his long tarrying and
absence." Her faithful commons resolved upon a petition to the queen that
she would marry, but that she would select one of her own nation. The queen
manifested most strikingly her own disposition when, on the evening of the
30th of October, she sent for the Spanish ambassador into her chamber, and
having repeated the " Veni Creator," she knelt before the host, and gave him

IS5S] THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.— INSURRECTION. 257
her sacred promise that she would marry no other man but the prince of
Spain. She dismissed the commons with a short answer when they came
with their petition, saying that she should only look to God for counsel in a
matter so important ; and the ambassador of Charles soothed many scruples
by a liberal distribution of eloquent gold. But the people were not so easily
satisfied. They abhorred the notion of a Spanish alliance. " The Spaniards,"
they said, "were coming into the realm with harness and hand-guns. * * * *
This realm should be brought to bondage by them as it was never afore, but
should be utterly conquered." So ran the talk at a Kentish farrier's shop.
An embassy departed from Brussels in December, to make a solemn tender
of Philip's hand to the queen.
The terms of the marriage treaty, which were assiduously promulgated,
were in some degree calculated to diminish the public jealousy of the Spanish
alliance. The skeptical populace did not believe that all offices would be con
ferred upon English-born subjects ; that the national laws and privileges would
be preserved ; that the English language would be used in the direction of
English affairs ; that the queen should not be taken out of the realm, nor her
children ; that in the case of the queen's death Philip should take no part in
the government of the country ; that England, at peace with France, should
not be compromised by hostility of the house of Austria to that kingdom.
The nation would not be satisfied with elaborate writings.
In January, 1554, Sir Thomas Carew and a band of friends "were up in
Devonshire, resisting the prince of Spain's coming." Carew failed in his dem
onstration, and fled to France. The precipitancy of Carew forced his confed
erate, Sir Thomas Wyat, to take the field without full preparation. On the
news arriving in London, on the 25th of January, that Wyat -was up in Kent,
the duke of Suffolk fled from his house at Sheen ; and in Leicester, and other
places, caused proclamation to be made against the queen's match. He was
betrayed by his own park-keeper at Astley, near Coventry, and conducted to
London as a prisoner. Norfolk arrived at Rochester-bridge with the queen's
guard, and a band of five hundred men hastily raised in London, of whom one
Alexander Brett was the captain. A herald proclaimed the queen's pardon,
which the insurgents refused. Norfolk was about to attack their position
when Brett cried out, " Masters, we go to fight against our native country
men of England and our friends," — and then set forth how those against
whom they were led were in arms to resist the coming in of the proud Span
iards. The Londoners then cried, "A Wyat — A Wyat;" and forthwith the
duke, and the earl of Ormond, and the captain of the guards, fled ; and Brett
and his men, and three-fourths of the duke's retinue, went into the camp of
the Kentishmen. The cannon and ammunition of Norfolk were left behind
in his flight. On the 1st of February Wyat reached Deptford ; and the same
day the queen went to the Guildhall and demanded the assistance of the city in
a spirited speech. The people of London were strangely moved by her courage
and address. The day after the queen went to Guildhall the householders of
17

258 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1547
London were in armor in the streets. On the 3d of February Wyat marched
from Deptford with two thousand men, and as they passed on the Surrey
side, ordnance was discharged at them out of the White Tower. At South
wark the rebels were favorably received ; and bands from the country, raised
by Lord William Howard, took part with them. Wyat issued a proclama
tion that no soldier should take anything without payment, and that he came
only to resist the bringing in of the Spanish king. When he heard that it
was proclaimed that whoever took him should have a thousand pounds, he
set his name of Thomas Wyat, fair written, on his cap. He lingered in South
wark till Shrove Tuesday, the sixth of February, finding it impossible to gain
a passage at London-bridge ; and all boats being forbidden to be taken to the
Surrey side of the Thames, under pain of death. He then marched to Kings
ton, which he reached at night-fall. There was then no bridge over the
Thames between London-bridge and Kingston-bridge. That bridge was
broken down ; but Wyat dispersed the men who disputed his passage and
crossed in boats. Wyat's men marched by St. James's Palace, by the road
called "the old lane." The earl of Pembroke's horsemen hovered about
them, but made no bold attempt to stop their march. Great ordnance were
fired on both sides v/ith little damage. The rebels passed on to Charing-
cross where was the lord chamberlain with the guard ; but onward the rebels
went toward the city, by the highway of the Strand. When " divers timorous
and cold-hearted soldiers came to the queen crying ' All is lost — away, away ;
a barge, a barge,' her grace never changed her cheer, nor would remove one
foot of the house." Her women were shrieking and hiding in helpless terror.
Wyat continued his march on through Temple-bar and Fleet-street, till they
came to Ludgate. He knocked at the gate ; but was refused admittance by
Lord William Howard, with the words, "Avaunt, traitor! thou shalt not
come in here." He rested awhile at the Bell-Savage gate ; and then turned
back, purposeless. After a skirmish at Temple-bar, a herald persuaded him
to yield ; and Sir Maurice Berkeley received his submission, and carried him
behind him on his horse to court. From Whitehall to the Tower was his last
journey. It was the 7th of February when the insurrection of Wyat thus com
pletely failed. Prisoner after prisoner continued to arrive at the Tower ; and
on Saturday, the 10th, the duke of Suffolk and Lord John Grey were brought
thither from Coventry. On Sunday, the nth, Gardiner preached before the
queen. From this exhortation, adds the chronicler, " all the audience did
gather there should follow sharp and cruel execution." The audience were
not deceived in their belief. On Monday, the 12th, Lord Guilford Dudley,
the young husband of Lady Jane Grey, was led out of his prison walls to die
on Tower-hill at ten o'clock. Out of the window did Jane, whose own hour
of final release was fast approaching, see him walk to the scaffold, and, long
before the bell had again sounded the hour, she saw his body taken out of a
cart, with his head in a cloth. On the green against the White Tower had a
scaffold been erected, on which the Lady Jane was to die. She was not likely

1558] DEATH OF LADY JANE.— MARY AND ELIZABETH. 259
to be pardoned who could boldly say to the priest sent to examine her, four
days before her death, " I ground my faith upon God's Word, and not upon
the Church. For if the Church be a good Church the faith of the Church
must be tried by God's Word, and not God's Word by the Church." And
.so she went forth to die, at eleven o'clock on that " black Monday." And in
.her hand she held a book, whereon she prayed all the way till she came to the
scaffold. For three hundred years the simplest recital of the fate of this
victim of ambition has stirred the sympathy of all true hearts ; and we need
not add a word to the sentences with which the ancient narrative of her execu
tion terminates : — " She tied the kercher about her eyes ; then, feeling for the
block, said, ' What shall I do ? Where is it ? ' One of the standers-by guiding
Iier thereto, she laid her head down upon the block, and stretched forth her
body, and said, ' Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit.' And so she
¦ended." On the 13th, from Billingsgate to Hyde Park-corner, there were
forty-eight men hanged at nineteen public places. On the 17th, certain
captains, and twenty-two of the common rebels, were sent into Kent to suffer
death. The duke of Suffolk was tried on the 17th, and beheaded on the 23d-.
Wyat and others pleaded guilty. Sir Nicholas Trockmorton was tried on the
17th of April. The talent and energy of Throckmorton produced a most
surprising result. He was acquitted. The court, immediately after the trial,
committed the jury to prison. Four made a submission and were released.
Eight remained in confinement for many months ; and when brought before
the council in the star chamber, were sentenced to the payment of enormous
fines. The execution of Wyat was delayed till the nth of April. Another
¦ -suspected person was Courtenay, earl of Devonshire, who had been released
from the Tower on the accession of Mary, and was now brought back to the
prison in which he had been confined from his earliest years, after his father>
the marquis of Exeter, had been beheaded. Before Mary declared for her
marriage with the prince of Spain, it was considered that Courtenay was her
favored suitor. On the 26th of January Queen Mary wrote a letter from St-
James's to the Lady Elizabeth, informing her of attempts to excite rebellion;
-and saying, " We, tendering the surety of your person, which might chance to
be in some peril if any sudden tumult should arise, where you now be, or
-about Donnington, whither, as we understand, you are minded shortly to
remove, do therefore think expedient you should put yourself in good readi
ness, with all convenient speed, to make your repair hither to us." Elizabeth
was seriously ill, and begged for delay. She did not arrive at Westminster
till the 22d or 23d of February, for the accounts vary. The queen would not
see her ; and kept her in the palace under guard. The queen tells the emper
or's ambassador that the council were laboring to discover the truth against
Courtenay and Elizabeth ; that Courtenay had corresponded in cipher with
Carew, who was endeavoring to forward a marriage between him and Eliza
beth ; that proof of an overt act of treason was still wanting ; that the council
had found by the confession of the son of the lord privy seal that he had

26o HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1547
received letters from Wyat during the rebellion, addressed to Elizabeth, which
he had delivered to her. At length Elizabeth, on the 18th of March, was
removed to the Tower. When she landed, "she said to the warders and
soldiers, looking up to heaven, ' O Lord ! I never thought to have come in
here as a prisoner ; and I pray you all, good friends and fellows, bear me
witness that I come in no traitor, but as true a woman to the queen's majesty
as any is now living; and thereon will I take death.'" On the 3d of April
Renard wrote to the emperor that he had told the queen "that it was of the
utmost consequence the trials and execution of the criminals, especially of
Courtenay and of the Lady Elizabeth, should be concluded before the arrival.
of his highness " [the prince of Spain]. The ferocious ambassador was
seconded by the crafty chancellor, who now said, " that as long as Elizabeth
was alive, there would be no hope that the kingdom would be tranquil." Urged
thus to put her sister to death, one cannot help believing that " natural kind
ness" saved Mary from the perpetration of this atrocity. Elizabeth herself
expected death as the only release from her prison. In May she asked
" whether the Lady Jane's scaffold were taken down, or no ? " On the nine
teenth of that month she was removed from the Tower and conveyed to
Woodstock, where she long remained a prisoner; and, as the chronicler
quaintly records, " hearing upon a time out of her garden a certain milkmaid
singing pleasantly, she wished herself to be a milkmaid as she was ; saying
that her case was better, and life more merrier, than was hers in that state
she was. " Courtenay was taken to Fotheringay castle; and was ultimately
released and sent to Germany.
During these agitations the ecclesiastical policy of the advisers of Mary
was sufficiently developed. The married clergy were expelled from their
livings, although the laws of Edward VI., which allowed their marriage,
remained unrepealed. Their benefices were filled by popish priests, who
renewed all the ceremonial observances that had been swept away ; and sang
masses for souls as in the past time. Seven bishops were deprived of their
sees ; one resigned ; and six new bishops were consecrated by Gardiner on
the 1st of April. In March, Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer were taken out of
the Tower ; and on the 16th of April the memorable disputations at Oxford
commenced, upon the articles which convocation had agreed upon, " of the
sacrament of the altar, of transubstantiation, of the adoration of the eucharist,
and of the reservation of the sacrament of the Church." In St. Mary's church
the thirty-three commissioners sit before the altar. Cranmer is first brought
before them, guarded by bill-men. He stands with his staff in his hand ; and,
desiring a copy of the articles, postpones his answer, offering to proceed to a
public disputation. Ridley follows, making the same request. Latimer comes,
but declines to dispute, on account of his age. On the 20th, Cranmer and his
two brethren were brought again before the commissioners ; and Weston, the
moderator, told the archbishop that he was overcome in disputation, which
Cranmer denied, complaining of the brawlings and interruptions to which he
had been subjected. They each refused to subscribe the articles, and were

3558] CRANMER.— THE MARRIAGE,— JOHN ROGERS. 261
condemned as heretics. Then Cranmer said, " From this your judgment and
sentence I appeal to the just judgment of the Almighty ; trusting to be
present with him in heaven ; for whose presence in the altar I am thus
condemned." On the 19th of July the Spanish squadron, with Philip, and a
gorgeous train of Castilian and Flemish nobles, came to anchor at South
ampton. Mary and Philip were married on the 25th, the festival of St. James,
the patron saint of Spain. Gardiner, the bishop of Winchester, performed the
ceremony. Previous to the marriage an instrument was read by one of the
council of Charles V., declaring that the emperor had bestowed upon his son
the kingdom of Naples and the duchy of Milan, so that Queen Mary might
marry a sovereign like herself.
The fourscore and seventeen chests of silver were not conveyed to the
Tower to lie idle in its vaults. With a transparent simplicity, Micheli, the
Venetian ambassador, says of Philip, " He allows pensions, amounting to
(upwards of fifty-four thousand scudi in gold, to some Englishmen who
remained faithful to the queen in the conspiracy of Wyat, without receiving
any further service from them." On the 27th the great legate met the parliament
at Whitehall, where he sat under a canopy with Philip and Mary. The lords
and commons went before the. king and queen and humbly desired that their
majesties would intercede with the cardinal for absolution, and that the whole
people of the realm should be received into the bosom of the Church as children
repentant. And then all the parliament went on their knees, and the legate
absolved. That statute of submission explains, in its second title, how the great
difficulty had been smoothed over — not of a change of religion, for that was a
trifling matter — the difficulty of dealing with the plunder of the Church. The
act is " also for the establishment of all spiritual and ecclesiastical possessions and
"hereditaments conveyed to the laity." From this degraded parliament thirty-
seven members of the House of Commons voluntarily seceded ; for which
demonstration of independence they were indicted. All was now easy. But
the crowning glory of this parliament was the revival of all the statutes against
fieretics. Without this, the great work of Mary's reign could not have been
accomplished. On the 4th of February, John Rogers was burnt in Smithfield under the act
for the renewal of the statutes " concerning punishment and reformation of
heretics and Lollards." On the 8th of February, Laurence Saunders was burnt
at Coventry. On the 9th, John Hooper was burnt at Gloucester. On the same
day, Rowland Taylor was burnt at Hadleigh. Previous to the enactment which
came into force on the 20th of January, the ordinaries " had wanted authority to
proceed " against those who were infected with " errors and heresies which of
late have arisen, grown, and much increased within this realm ; " and thus
these four of the first Protestant martyrs could not have been burnt until a
new law was passed. The meaning of the law was made perfectly intelligible
to all England from the 4th of February, 1555, to the 10th of November, 1558,
— that crowning offering of five heretics at Canterbury, of whom two were
women, having taken place one week before the death of Queen Mary. In

262 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1547-
1555, seventy-one heretics were executed; in 1556, eighty-three; in 1557,.
eighty-eight ; in 1558, forty. There was also a nice adjustment of the number
of victims to the local demand. We are accustomed to talk of the " fires of
Smithfield," as if London had a very undue proportion of the instruction of
such sights. But in these four years, during which London and Middlesex
saw fifty-eight executions, Kent had fifty-four, Essex fifty-one, Sussex forty-
one, Suffolk and Norfolk thirty-one, Gloucester nine, Warwick six, while
thirty-two were distributed over thirteen other districts. Nor was the lesson.
of the fagot confined to bishops and priests. Strype makes a total of the
burnings to be 288 ; Speed, 277 ; and he classifies them as five bishops, twenty,
one divines, eight gentlemen, eighty-four artificers, a hundred husbandmen.
servants, and laborers, twenty-six wifes, twenty widows, nine unmarried.
women, two boys, and two infants. No selection could have been more impartial..
- We have endeavored, without dwelling too minutely upon the horrors of
this frightful time, to lead the reader to understand how that temper was.
roused in the English nation, which produced an abhorrence to the Roman.
Catholic religion, " to be derived down from father to son " — " an aversion so
deeply rooted, and raised upon such grounds, as does upon every new provo
cation or jealousy of returning 'to it, break out in most violent and convulsive
symptoms." So wrote Burnet in the time of Charles II. So may we still write
when the " jealousy of returning to it " is excited by indiscretions which
proceed from a singular ignorance of the character of the English nation.
Let us conclude this painful narrative with a brief view of the final triumphs.
of the three most eminent of the sufferers.
From the 28th of April, 1554, when Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, had
been condemned as obstinate heretics, they had remained in prison in Oxford..
In September, 1555, a court was held under the papal authority at Oxford,,
for what was called their trial. Ridley and Latimer were brought before the
commissioners, the bishops of Lincoln, Gloucester, and Bristol, to answer to-
certain articles. The aged Latimer, the bent old man, " stood bolt upright,.
as comely a father as one might lightly behold." He stands, bolt upright, in
his shroud. Ridley and he " stand coupled for a common flight ; " and he
says, " Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man! We shall
this daylight such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as shall never be
put out." The courage of Cranmer was never very strong. He had made
too many compromises in life not to be tempted into one more compliance
with firmer wills, when a hope was offered to him that he might quietly
descend into the grave, at the natural expiration of his allotted years. He
signed papers of recantation, under these false promises. The hateful
betrayers thought by this cruel policy to make the great leader of the-
reformation die a cowardly apostate. They were deceived. A better spirit —
an inspiration — came over the fallen man — to make his final glory even
greater from his temporary abasement. On the 21st of March, the morning
being rainy, the sermon, which was appointed to be preached at the stake,
was preached in St. Mary's church. Cranmer having heard the sermon, iix

1558] DEATH OF CRANMER.— DEPARTURE OF PHILIP. 263
which he was reminded of his wretched estate, " of a counselor to be a
caitiff," knelt down and prayed. The conclusion of his exhortation was a start
ling one : " And now I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience
more than any other thing that ever I said or did in my life : and that is, the
setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth. Which here now I renounce
and refuse, as things written with my hand, contrary to the truth which I
thought in my heart, and written for fear of death, and to save my life, if it
might be : and that is, all such bills which I have written or signed with mine
own hand, since my degradation : wherein I have written many things untrue.
And forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, there
fore my hand shall first be punished therefor : for if I may come to the fire,
it shall be first burned. And as for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ's enemy
and antichrist, with all his false doctrine." " And here being admonished of
his recantation and dissembling, he said, ' Alas, my lord, I have been a man
that all my life loved plainness, and never dissembled till now against the
truth ; which I am most sorry for. ' He added hereunto, that, for- the sacra
ment, he believed as he had taught in his book against the bishop of
Winchester. And here he was suffered to speak no more." " Coming to the
stake with a cheerful countenance and willing mind, he put off his garments
with haste, and stood upright in his shirt. Fire being now put to him, he
stretched out his right hand, and thrust it into the flame, and held it there a
good space, before the fire came to any other part of his body ; where his
hand was seen of every man sensibly burning, crying with a loud voice,
' This hand hath offended.' As soon as the fire got up, he was very soon
dead, never stirring or crying all the while."
It is recorded in the citizen's diary that on the 29th of August, " the
king's grace took his journey toward Dover, and with a great company ; and
there tarried for the wind." Philip reached Calais on the 4th of September.
Mary wept over his departure, but was somewhat consoled by his promise to
return in the spring. He returned not to England till March, 1557. When
the sickly and irritable queen expected her husband, and received only his
excuses, she would shut herself up in her room, and see no one for days. On
one occasion, according to a document dated March 26th, 1556, " the queen,
on hearing that the king would not return to England for a long time, was in
a rage, and caused his picture to be carried out of the privy chamber."
Philip was summoned to become the head of the greatest European monarchy
by the voluntary abdication of his father. Charles had been sovereign of the
Netherlands for nearly fifty years ; he had been king of Spain for forty years ;
he had been emperor of Germany for thirty-six years. On the 25th of
October, 1555, Charles, in a solemn assembly at Brussels, although only in his
fifty-sixth year, and in full possession of his faculties, resigned the scepters of
the Netherlands and of Spain in favor of his son. He had already bestowed
upon Philip the kingdom of Naples and Sicily. In a monastery of Estrema-
dura, the greatest prince of his time was to close his long career of ambition.
His " cloister life " offers a curious study of human nature..

264 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1547
The absence of Philip from England probably caused the parliament,
Avhich assembled on the 21st of October, 1555, to dare some opposition to the
proceedings of the crown. Sir Anthony Kingston was imprisoned by the
council for his conduct as a member of the House of Commons. In 1555
Julius III. was succeeded by Paul IV. He endeavored most unwisely to
assert his spiritual supremacy, by proclaiming, to the English ambassadors,
" the restitution of the lands of the Church to be an indispensable duty, the
neglect of which would draw upon the culprit the penalty of eternal damna
tion. He also tried to re-establish the collection of the Peter's pence."
Mary was herself ready to yield to the first thunders of the Vatican ; and
caused some of the lay-nobility to be sounded upon this very delicate
question. The answer was, " that they would never part with their abbey
lands, as long as they were able to wear a sword by their sides." An act was
however passed, not without strong opposition, to restore the tenths and
first-fruits to the Church ; and the impropriations in the queen's gift. This
act had many saving clauses ; and one especially, that the legate should apply
the revenues so restored to the increase of poor livings ; for the finding of
able curates to instruct the people; for the exhibition of scholars. A proposal
to give the queen a subsidy and two fifteenths was so strenuously opposed,
that the secretary of State declared to the House of Commons that her
majesty would only accept the subsidy. There was no other parliament held
for two years.
Some young men of good family had conceived the project of assembling
together the English exiles of Germany and other parts of the continent, to
free England from the Roman pontiff and the Spanish king. Mary was to
be sent to Spain ; and Elizabeth placed on the throne. The chief leader was
Henry Dudley, supposed to have been connected by relationship with the
duke of Northumberland who had paid the price of his rash ambition. His
notion was, to organize those whom Mary called heretic traitors ; and to land
them in the Isle of Wight. He would drive out the Spaniards, he said, or he
would die for it. He had obtained some encouragement from the French
ambassador in London ; and had been courteously received by the French
king. In the office of the receipt of exchequer at Westminster, there were
bars of Spanish silver lying idle in chests to the value of fifty thousand pounds
William Rossey, keeper of the star chamber, lived near this office ; and had a
garden running along the margin of the Thames. Three of the conspirators
were enabled to obtain access to these precious chests. They were too heavy
to be removed ; and they were therefore to be broken open, and the bars
carried through Rossey 's garden to a vessel which was to be brought up
alongside. The ship was hired ; the searcher at Gravesend was bribed to let
it pass. Thomas White, one of the company, revealed the scheme to the
government. On the 18th of March, 1556, about twenty of the accused were
conveyed to the Tower. Throgmorton, a connection of the man whose
acquittal had made him famous, and Uvedale, were first tried. They were
convicted ; and suffered the death of traitors on the 28th of April. Eight

1558] CARDINAL POLE.— WAR WITH FRANCE. 265
others were executed in May, June, and July. Lord Bray was confined many
months on suspicion ; but was finally released. Others were pardoned.
Elizabeth was again questioned by an agent of the council, and was written to
by her sister ; " whereat she wrote a well-penned letter," dated the beginning
of August, utterly detesting and disclaiming the rebellion and its actors.
The day after the murder of Cranmer, Cardinal Pole was consecrated arch
bishop of Canterbury. At the period when two new colleges were founded
in Oxford, — Trinity by Sir Thomas Pope, and St. John's by Sir Thomas
White, — that university was visited by the commissioners of the cardinal ;
who burnt all the English bibles and other heretical books.
In March, 1557, Philip returned to England. France and Spain were
upon the brink of war when Philip arrived in England. He urged a declara
tion of war against France. There were grievances in the alleged encourage
ment which had been given in Wyat's rebellion. The most recent complaint
was, that France had connived at the equipment of a force by Thomas
Stafford, a refugee, who had invaded England with thirty-two followers, and
had surprised Scarborough castle. This adventurer claimed to be of the
house and blood of the duke of Buckingham, who was beheaded in the time
of Henry VIII. The proclamation which he issued from his castle of
Scarborough, which he held only two days, was addressed to the English
hatred of the Spaniards. Stafford and his band were soon made prisoners ;
and he was beheaded on Tower-hill, and three of his followers hanged, on the
25th of May. Seizing upon this absurd attempt as a ground of quarrel, war
was declared against France on the 7th of June ; and Philip quitted the
country on the 6th of July, never to return. An English force of. four
thousand infantry, a thousand cavalry, and two thousand pioneers, joined the
Spanish army on the Flemish frontier. The duke of Savoy, though young,
was an experienced soldier, and he determined to commence the campaign
by investing St. Quentin, a frontier town of Picardy. The -defense of this
fortress was undertaken by Coligni, the admiral of France, afterward so
famous for his mournful death. Montmorency, the constable, had the
command of the French army. The garrison was almost reduced to
extremity when Montmorency, on the 10th of August, arrived with his
whole force. The arrival of the French was a surprise, and the duke of
Savoy had to take up a new position He determined on battle. The issue
was the most unfortunate for France since the fatal day of Agincourt. The
French slain amounted, according to some accounts, to six thousand and the
prisoners were equally numerous. Among them was the veteran Mont
morency. On the 10th of August, Philip came to the camp. Bold advisers
counseled a march to Paris. The cautious king was satisfied to press on the
siege of St. Quentin. The defense which Coligni made was such as might
have been expected from his firmness and bravery. The place was taken by
storm, amid horrors which belong to such scenes at all times, but which
were doubled by the rapacity of troops who fought even with each other for

266 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1547
the greatest share of the pillage. After a few trifling successes, the army of
Philip was broken up.
The war between England and France produced hostilities between
England and Scotland. Mary of Guise, the queen dowager and regent of
Scotland, was incited by the French king to invade England. The dispo
sition to hostilities was accompanied by a furious outbreak of the Scottish
borderers. They were driven back. The alliance of France and Scotland
was, however, completed, in the autumn of 1558, by the marriage between
the dauphin and the young Queen Mary, which was solemnized at Paris, in
the cathedral of Notre Dame. The duke of Guise, the uncle of the queen of
Scots, at the beginning of 1558 was at the head of a powerful army to avenge
the misfortune of St. Quentin. The project committed to his execution was
a bold and patriotic one — to drive the English from their last stronghold in
France. Calais, over whose walls a foreign flag had been waving for two
centuries, was to France an opprobrium, and to England a trophy. But it
was considered by the English government as an indispensable key to the
continent — a possession that it would not only be a disgrace to lose, but a
national calamity. The duke of Guise commenced his attack on the 2d of
January. On the 7th the town capitulated. Lord Wentworth, the gov
ernor, and fifty others, remained as prisoners. The English inhabitants,
about four thousand, were ejected from the home which they had so long
colonized. In the midst of the national irritation at this great discomfiture,
the parliament assembled on the 20th of January. The chief business was
that of granting a subsidy to carry on the war against the French king and
the Scots. The combined English and Flemish landed near the town of
Conquet, having been destined for an attack upon Brest. After pillaging
and burning small towns and villages they retreated to their ships, with
out attempting any exploit that would have influenced the fortune of
the war. An English squadron, by a successful co-operation with the
Spanish infantry at Gravelines, contributed to an important victory. But in
this short period of hostilities during the reign of Mary, there was nothing
accomplished which could be held to redeem the disgrace of Calais. Eng
land had fallen. The time was near at hand when the world should see
" a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself like a strong man after sleep,
and shaking his invincible locks."
In October, 1558, the queen once more entertained the delusion that she
should present her subjects with a successor to the throne. An ambassador
arrived from Philip to offer his congratulations " on the best piece of news
which he had received since his grief for the loss of Calais." When this
ambassador, the Count de Feria, saw Mary, he found her dying of the dropsy,
with which she had been long afflicted. She was so ill,, that it became neces
sary to discuss the question of the succession ; and Mary showed no displeas
ure, but the contrary, when it was proposed that Elizabeth should be declared
her successor. On the 7th of November Queen Mary had sent for the
speaker of the House of Commons, the parliament having assembled on the

1558] DEATH OF MARY.— THE FIRST STATUTE. 267
5th, and informed him that conferences for peace between England, Spain,
and France had been opened at Cambray. On the 17th the queen was no
more. She is stated to have said, " When I die, Calais will be found written
on my heart." The more terrible events of her reign — the persecutions
which will ever be associated with her memory — were most probably not
regarded by her either as calamities or crimes. Cardinal Pole only survived
the queen twenty-four hours.

GOVERNMENT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.— TRIALS OF MARY,
QUEEN OF SCOTS.— SPANISH ARMADA.
(1558-1603.)
On the 17th of November, 1558, the day of her half-sister's death, Eliza
beth was proclaimed queen by the lords of the council. The release of all
prisoners confined for religious opinions, which took place upon her entry
into London on the 24th of November, might have been considered only as a,
politic act of grace. Her exception of Bonner to the cordial reception which
she gave to the bishops might have passed without any marked inference.
The refusal to hear mass was followed, two days after, by a proclamation for
bidding the elevation of the host, and all unlicensed preaching. It was also
ordered that the Gospels and Epistles, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten
Commandments, and the Litany, should be used in English. According to
the custom of sovereign princes, Elizabeth dispatched messengers to the vari
ous European courts announcing her accession. Among these the, pope was
included. The arrogant Paul IV. replied to Elizabeth's messenger, that it
was great boldness in her to assume the crown without his consent, and that
she must submit all her claims to his decision. Philip of Spain proposed him
self as her husband within a month after her accession. She received these
proposals with great civility ; and gave, at first, no decided refusal. The
progress of the queen from the Tower to Westminster, on the 14th of January,
previous to her coronation on the 15th, is described by Holinshed : " When-
the people made the air ring with praying to God for her prosperity, she
thanked them with exceeding liveliness both of countenance and voice, and
wished neither prosperity nor safety to herself which might not be for their
common good. It is incredible how often she caused her coach to stay, when
any made offer to approach unto her, whether to make petition, or whether to
manifest their loving affection." Cecil was the chief adviser of Elizabeth.
He was the first person sworn of her privy council; and to his sagacity must
be attributed the comprehensive view which was taken of the whole domestic
and foreign policy of the country. Sir Nicholas Bacon, the brother-in-law of
Cecil, was appointed lord keeper.
The first statute is called " an act restoring to the crown the ancient jurisdic
tion over the State ecclesiastical and spiritual, and abolishing all foreign power

268 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
repugnant to the same." The lords and commons say that by the repeal by
Philip arid Mary of the statutes of Henry VIII., the queen's subjects " were
eftsoons brought under an assumed foreign power and authority, and yet do
remain in that bondage." In the act against foreign jurisdiction the statute
for receiving the sacrament of the altar in both kinds was restored ; and the
statute of Philip and Mary for reviving the old laws for the punishment of here
sies was repealed. All archbishops, bishops, judges, and all ministers and offi
cers spiritual and temporal, were to make a declaration upon oath, " that the
queen's highness is the only supreme governor of this realm, and of all other
her highness's dominions and countries, as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical
things or causes, as temporal." The title " supreme governor " was adopted
in preference to that of " head of the Church." The penalties under this act
against persons maintaining the authority of any foreign prince or prelate
were, fine and imprisonment for a first offense ; the incurring a praemunire
for the second ; and death for a third, as in cases of high treason. By this
law of the first year of Elizabeth, it was provided that the commissioners who
might be appointed by the crown to exercise spiritual and ecclesiastical juris
diction, were not to adjudge matters to be heresy but such as had been
decided to be so by the Holy Scripture, or by the first four general councils.
This provision is held to be " equivalent to an exemption of Roman Catholics,
as such, from the imputation of heresy." Care was also taken, under the act
which was passed " for the uniformity of common prayer," to omit from the
service book of Edward VI. the offensive passage in the liturgy, praying
for deliverance " from the bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enormities."
Yet the change thus established was so sweeping after six years of the Latin
mass-book, that we cannot be surprised that nine prelates and nine temporal
peers voted against the statute. In the commons there was only one dissen
tient. The act must, however, have been felt as a great grievance by a large
body : for it absolutely interdicted the celebration of the Catholic rites, even
in private ; and rendered all persons who should absent themselves from
church, on Sundays and holidays, liable to a fine of one shilling. Many
Roman Catholics went into exile, to avoid imprisonment under the authority
of the court of high commission. The moderation which was professed by
the government of Elizabeth was in some degree rendered difficult, if not
impossible, by the uncompromising temper of the clergy in convocation.
Disregarding a warning from the queen, they set forth a document asserting
the supremacy of the pope, the real presence in the sacrament, and the
exclusive right of the Church to treat of doctrine and regulate public worship.
A solemn disputation, the lord-keeper presiding, was held in Westminster
abbey, between Catholic and Protestant divines, which only produced mutual
irritation. Fifteen bishops refused the oath : and resigned their sees, or were
deprived. There were ten vacant sees. Only two bishops conformed. A
very small proportion of the beneficed clergy surrendered their livings. At
the end of the year Matthew Parker was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury,

1603] MARY STUART.— SCOTLAND.— JOHN KNOX. 269
and he then proceeded to the consecration of four other bishops, who had
been exiles in the time of Mary.
Mary Stuart was now queen of France. She was the next heiress to the
throne of England. According to the Catholic notions of that time that the
pope had the disposal of earthly crowns, a pretense was set up that Eliza
beth's claim having been rejected by the pope, the queen of France and
Scotland was now also the lawful queen of England. Among Cecil's papers
there are " notes of Queen Elizabeth's reign," in which are the following
entries under the year 1559 :
January 16th. " The dauphin of France, and his wife, queen of Scots,
did by the style of king and queen of Scotland, England, and Ireland, grant
to the Lord Fleming certain things."
June 28th. " The justs at Paris, wherein the king dauphin's two heralds
were appareled with the arms of England and Scotland."
July i'6th. " Ushers, going before the queen of Scots, being now the
French queen, to the chapel, cry, ' Place pour la Reine d'Angleterre.'"
The character and position of Elizabeth very soon placed her at the head
of the Protestant party of Europe ; and her whole reign must be viewed with
reference to this leadership. The great leader of the Roman Catholic party
was Philip II. England had as her companions in the struggle the Scandi
navian countries, and those who spoke the German language on the eastern
shores of the Baltic. A large part of Germany was Protestant. In France
Protestantism had taken root, but its growth was to be stopped by barbarities
which were in contemplation when Elizabeth came to the throne. In the
Netherlands Charles V. and his son were pursuing the work of extermination.
Spain was in the grasp of the Inquisition, one of the powers which had been
organized to support the Church of Rome. Another engine devised for the
security of Catholicism was the order of the Jesuits. With the Inquisition
and the Jesuits, the papal power had a devoted army at its command.
The queen-regent of Scotland, the mother of Mary, boldly issued a
proclamation for conformity of religion, in which all persons were commanded
to resort daily to mass and confession. At this junction John Knox arrived
in Scotland. During an absence of two years the doctrines which he had
boldly preached in the face of danger had made extraordinary progress.
Within a week of his arrival, there was an outburst of popular fury at Perth,
when the religious houses of the Grey Friars and Carthusians were devastated
and plundered. The struggle appeared likely to end in bloodshed ; for an
army was assembled on either side. But a treaty was concluded, which
Knox denounced as only intended to deceive. Tranquillity was not long
preserved. After various acts of violence, the reformers having obtained
possession of Perth, the army of the Congregation entered Edinburgh on the
29th of June. The regent was looking for support from France ; the
reformers to England for the aid of men and money. At last Elizabeth
rendered some secret assistance ; and the Guises, who were now the real
rulers of France, sent a force of a thousand Frenchmen to Scotland, who

270 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
disembarked at Leith. The regent then intrenched and fortified that port,
against which proceeding the leaders of the Congregation prematurely remon
strated. At length they made a decided demonstration of war. On the 15th
of October they marched into Edinburgh with a force of twelve thousand
men ; and the regent retired to her stronghold of Leith. The Congregation
formed two councils, one for civil affairs, another for religion ; and they
addressed a letter to the regent, requiring her instantly to command all
foreigners and men-at-arms to depart from Leith. She replied, that French
men were naturalized subjects, and commanded the duke of Chastelherault,
who had joined the reformers, and his company, to depart from Edinburgh.
They decided that the queen-regent should be deposed from her authority.
The army of the Congregation was defeated in an assault upon Leith ; and
the capital was again occupied by the royal forces. The castle of Edinburgh
was, nevertheless, held by the reformers. Elizabeth at last consented to
render real and open assistance to the reformers, who entreated her prompt
aid upon the sole ground that it was the intention of France to make a
conquest of Scotland, and then to dispossess the queen of England of her
throne. In January, 1560, a treaty was concluded at Berwick, in which the
duke of Norfolk agreed with the commissioners of the Congregation, that
Elizabeth should send assistance, and that she would support the confed
erated lords, while they recognized Mary as their queen, and maintained the
rights of the crown. They stipulated that they would not sanction any other
union of Scotland with France than then existed, and, if England should be
attacked by France, would furnish an auxiliary force of four thousand men.
On the 2d of April, 1560, Lord Grey entered Scotland with an army of two
thousand horse and six thousand foot, and was joined at Preston by the
army of the Congregation, to the number of eight thousand.
The Scottish and English army marched on to Leith. The English fleet,
under the command of William Winter, had entered the Frith of Forth at the
end of January. The siege of Leith commenced. At this crisis the queen-
regent became dangerously ill. The town was at last surrendered, after the
conclusion of a treaty of pacification. The peace was concluded at Edin
burgh on the 6th of July. For nearly a year the queen of Scotland refused
to ratify the treaty. The estates of the kingdom, however, assembled, at the
time stipulated by the treaty, without receiving any commission from their
queen. The first proceeding of the estates was to draw up a confession of
faith, founded on the reformed doctrines as received by Calvin. The opposi
tion of the bishops and other Romanists was useless. The confession of
faith was followed up by three acts, which established the reformed religion
upon legislative sanction much more rapidly and sweepingly than had been
accomplished in England; and with a more signal display of intolerance.
The proceedings in the parliament of Scotland necessarily gave offense to
Queen Mary ; and she again refused to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh. Mary
said, with reference to the complaint of her assumption of the arms of Eng
land, that she acted under the commandment of Henry, the king of France,

1603] CATHOLIC AND HUGUENOT.— HENRY DARNLEY. 271
and of her husband : " whatsoever was then done was their act, not mine, and
since their death I have neither borne the arms, nor used the title, of
England." On the 14th of August, 1561, Mary embarked at Calais on her
voyage to Scotland. There was an evil omen in the wreck of a vessel before
her eyes as she left the harbor.
The religious wars which divided the French into two great hostile bands
of Catholic and Huguenot now commenced in terrible earnest. There were
two fierce armies in the field, by whom the people were alike plundered and
harassed. In 1561, according to some writers, a hundred thousand persons
were butchered by the contending factions. The Protestants, although
inferior in numbers, fought with desperation ; and the duke of Guise solicited
and obtained assistance against them from Philip of Spain. The prince of
Conde, on the other hand, concluded a treaty with Elizabeth, who, after some
attempts at mediation, sent a force of three thousand men to take possession
of Havre. The English warlike operations were finally unsuccessful. The
Catholics and Protestants concluded a hollow peace ; and at length, both
parties agreed in determining that the English should hold no position in
France. The garrison of Havre defended themselves for two months, and
then capitulated. They were released without ransom, and came with their
property to London. But they brought with them the pestilence which had
thinned their ranks ; and the French Catholics looked upon the infliction as a
judgment upon the English heretics. In this year, 1563, the parliament again
met, and a statute of increased rigor was passed against papists. In 1563,
Edmund and Authur Pole were convicted of a conspiracy to set Mary of
Scotland on the throne. Their associates were executed, but they wore out
their lives as prisoners in the Tower of London. When the Scottish parlia
ment met in 1563 Knox preached a vehement sermon, in which he said that
those who would consent that an infidel — for all papists were infidels — should
be head to their sovereign, would do as far as in them lay to banish Christ
Jesus from the realm, and to bring God's vengeance on the country. The
queen summoned the bold preacher before her, and asked what he had to do
with her marriage ? Knox repeated the words he had said in public ; and,
with a passionate burst of tears, Mary commanded him to leave her. The
negotiations for the marriage with Leicester gradually faded away.
In 1565, on the 29th of July, Mary married Henry Darnley. Murray,
who had been her chief adviser since her return from France, headed a revolt,
without success, and then took refuge in England, with other reforming
leaders. Mary was now free to • give the most open encouragement to the
Romanists, having the countenance of her imbecile husband. The reforming
party was too strong to be permanently resisted ; and Mary's husband
professed to have adopted their views. Within seven months of his marriage
Darnley became jealous of David Riccio, an Italian favorite of the queen, and
he, with a band of fierce nobles, murdered him in Mary's presence on the 9th
of March, 1566. Murray returned to Scotland. The differences between the
queen and her husband became notorious. James Bothwell was now Mary's

272 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
chief adviser. In 1567, on the 10th of February, Darnley was murdered in a
lone house in Edinburgh, called the Kirk of Field, and Bothwell was accused
of the murder, but was acquitted. On the 24th of April he carried off the
queen to one of his castles, and she was married to him on the 15th of May.
The nobles now took up arms ; and; in little more than two months from this
last marriage, Mary was compelled to resign her crown, and was a prisoner at
Lochleven. Mary's resignation of her crown to her infant son, who was born
June 19th, 1566, took place on the 24th of July, 1567. After nine months'
imprisonment in the castle of Lochleven, she escaped on the 2d of May, 1568.
Her Roman Catholic friends assembled an army, which encountered that of
Murray the regent, on the 13th of May; and the queen's supporters being
defeated, she fled to England, and landed in Cumberland on the 15th of May.
Mary was in her twenty-third year when she married, and Darnley was
nineteen. On the 17th, while remaining at Workington, in Cumberland, she
addressed a letter in French to Elizabeth, in which she enumerates the wrongs
she had received from her rebellious subjects ; describes the battle of
Langsyde ; and implores the queen that, having come into her country, she
would receive her for safety of her life, and further assist her in her just quarrel.
When Mary arrived at Workington she was received with kindness by the
country gentlemen ; and was conducted with respect to Carlisle by Mr.
Lowther, the deputy-governor.
The policy of the English government with regard to Mary resolved
itself into a determination that there should be a solemn investigation into
the truth of the charges against her of being accessary to the murder of her
husband. Sir Francis Knollys, a kinsman of Elizabeth, was sent by her to
confer with Mary at Carlisle ; and he used an argument toward her, as reported
by him to his queen, which opens a large field of exception to the doctrine of
the queen-mother of France : " I objected unto her that in some cases princes
might be deposed from their government by their subjects lawfully, as if a
prince should fall into madness. And, said I, what difference is there between
lunacy and cruel murdering; for the one is an evil humor proceeding of
melancholy, and the other is an evil humor proceeding of choler ; wherefore
the question is whether your grace deserved to be put from the government
or not." At this argument the tears fell from the eyes of the unhappy Mary.
Whether Elizabeth wholly approved of the logic of her representative, or
not, the decision of her government was put upon this issue. She was
removed in July to Bolton castle. Her indignation at being considered a
prisoner was unabated. The factions in Scotland were at open war. A
French army was expected with eagerness by Mary's adherents.
An armistice was at length concluded between the opposing parties ; and
a conference was opened at York on the 4th of October. The queen of
England was represented by three commissioners, the duke of Norfolk, the
earl of Sussex, and Sir Ralph Sadler, who were to hear the allegations of the
queen of Scots against her rebellious subjects; and the counter-charges
against herself, made by those who had raised war against their sovereign.

1603] TRIAL OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 273
Mary chose the bishop of Ross and Lord Herries, with others, to be her
commissioners. Murray was accompanied by four commissioners, with
Lethington and Buchanan as assistants. The representatives of Mary set
forth the notorious facts of the revolt against her by the usurpers of her
authority, of her imprisonment, her deposition, the coronation of her infant
son, the regency of Murray, her enforced flight into England. The duke of
Norfolk, who afterward paid a terrible penalty for his espousal of the cause of
Mary in the desire to become her husband — not without some inclination to
favor her claim to the English crown — influenced Murray to withhold his
accusations against the queen of Scots. But he privately exhibited to Nor
folk, Sussex, and Sadler, the written proofs of Mary's guilt, alleged to have
been found in the silver casket. The commissioners of Elizabeth transmitted
to her an abstract of these papers, with this strong opinion of their authen
ticity : — " The letters discourse of some things which were unknown to any
other than herself and Bothwell ; and as it is' hard to counterfeit so many, so
the matter of them, and the manner in which these men came by them, are
such that as it seemeth that God, in whose sight murder is abominable,
would not permit the same to be hid or concealed. " The commissioners of
Mary had now an interview with Elizabeth, when she informed them that the
enemies of their queen had entirely failed in their defense ; but that another
conference should be held in London. Murray, after some further hesitation,
made his accusation against the queen in the strongest terms ; and Lennox,
the father of the murdered Darnley, also accused Mary of conspiring his
death. Mary's commissioners now required that she should be heard in person
by Elizabeth ; which Elizabeth refused, until Murray had brought forward
his proofs. The commissioners of Mary then took an extraordinary step.
They made a proposal for a compromise, by which Murray and the queen
should be reconciled. This proposition was rejected by Elizabeth. The
bishop of Ross, and his associates, now declared that the conferences were at
an end, as Elizabeth had determined to receive from Murray proofs of his
injurious charges against Mary, before she was herself heard in the presence
of her sister-queen. The discussions and recriminations were prolonged for
some time. Murray delivered his proofs as regarded the written evidence of
Mary's complicity in the guilt of Darnley 's assassination ; and her commis
sioners still persisted in their refusal to re-open the conferences. Elizabeth,
as Norfolk had intimated, would come to no final decision. Mr. Tytler, after
fully narrating these remarkable proceedings, in which he holds that " both
Elizabeth and the queen of Scots acted with great art," says, "so far as we
judge of these conferences by themselves, they leave the mind under the
unsatisfying and painful impression that the conduct of the Scottish queen>
throughout the whole investigation, was that of a person neither directly
guilty, nor yet wholly innocent."
During the conferences at York and London, Mary Stuart had remained
under the care of Lord Scrope, at Bolton. By an order of council in January,
1569, she was placed with George, earl of Shrewsbury, and was removed to
18

274 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
his castle of Tutbury, on the 2d of February. When Murray was goaded
into a public accusation, Norfolk was greatly angered against him, but they
became reconciled, and Murray consented to favor Norfolk's project of a
marriage with Mary. In 1569 this scheme was promoted by some English
nobles, without the privity of Elizabeth; and a letter was written by Leices
ter, and three other lords, to Mary, urging her to consent to such a marriage,
to which she returned a favorable answer. A formal contract of marriage was
afterward drawn up. In August, 1569, some ladies of Elizabeth's court got
to the knowledge of this secret. Leicester, who was subsequently accused
by Norfolk as the inventor of this scheme for his ruin, revealed the transaction
to the queen and was forgiven. Elizabeth then invited the duke to dine
with her ; and, when he rose to leave, significantly told him " to beware on
what pillow he laid his head." The duke of Norfolk was committed to the
Tower on the 9th of October, 1569, where he continued a prisoner till the 4th
of the following August. Cecil honestly protested against the duke being
brought to trial for high treason upon insufficient evidence. Immediately
after the arrest of Norfolk an insurrection broke out in the northern counties,
headed by the Catholic lords, Percy, earl of Northumberland, and Neville,
earl of Westmoreland. They proclaimed their design of restoring the old
religion, and it was their intention to release the queen of Scots, and to place
her upon the English throne. They also contemplated the release of Nor
folk. Mary was hurriedly removed from Tutbury castle to Coventry.
In the desire not to interrupt the course of our narrative as regards Mary,
queen of Scots, we passed over an interesting matter of public and personal
history — the touching story of Lady Catherine Grey. This second sister of
Lady Jane Grey had been betrothed to Lord Herbert; but upon the fortunes
of the house of Suffolk falling before the ascendancy of Mary Tudor, the
alliance was repudiated, and Herbert was married to a daughter of the earl of
Shrewsbury. After the death of the duchess of Suffolk, the niece of Henry
VIII., in the first year of Elizabeth's reign, her daughter, Lady Catherine
Grey, stood next to Mary Stuart as the heir to the crown after the death of
Elizabeth ; and, according to the will of Henry VIII., she was considered by
some as having the trae title to its immediate possession. Lady Catherine
had a court appointment under Elizabeth, and was the intimate friend of
Jane Seymour, the daughter of the protector, Somerset, who was also one of
the maids of honor. His brother, Edward Seymour, who had been created
earl of Hertford, was fascinated by Catherine; and these lovers were privately
married, the bride being about twenty-one, and the husband a year older.
Hertford went abroad in 1561, and Catherine, having been unable to conceal
the consequences of this hasty union, was sent to the Tower. But the
evidence of this marriage was not forthcoming. The young people had made
their way on foot from Whitehall to the earl's house, — according to their own
, statements after Hertford had returned home and had been also imprisoned,
— and a priest, whose name was unknown, had married them, the sole
witness being Jane Seymour, who had soon after died. A commission of

1603] LADY MARY GREY.— ELIZAEETH. 275
inquiry was appointed, and it was declared that there had been no legal
marriage. A second son was born in 1563, Hertford and Catherine being
still in confinement. Some additional severity was now thought necessary,
and Hertford was fined in three several sums of five thousand pounds, by
process in the Star-Chamber. From this period till her death in 1568,
Catherine continued under the queen's displeasure ; and there are some
touching letters of her uncle, which show how deeply she felt this anger,
which kept her in a dishonorable position, and separated her from him who
she maintained was her true husband.
The Lady Mary Grey, the youngest daughter of Frances Brandon, made
also a rash marriage with Elizabeth's sergeant, Porter. She, the least at the
court, married the biggest gentleman — as Cecil described them. They also
had to endure the anger of the queen, and were sent to prison. The tiny
woman survived her husband, but died many years before Elizabeth. It was
the glory of the first ten years of Elizabeth's reign that " no English blood
had been shed on the scaffold or in the field for a public quarrel, whether
civil or religious." On the 10th of November the earls of Westmoreland and
Northumberland were summoned to repair to court. Apprehensive of arrest
Northumberland marched with his vassals to join Westmoreland at the castle
of Brancepeth. There was no longer any disguise. A proclamation was
issued, addressed to all professing the Catholic faith, to restore the ancient
worship ; and the earls marched on to Durham with a banner representing
the bleeding Saviour — " the banner of the five wounds." It was borne by a
brave old man, whose fate, and the fate of his eight sons, have been
preserved from the oblivion of dry annals by the legends which a true poet
has invested with almost historical reality. The Nortons of Rylstone may
claim our tears ; but we have little pity for the weak earls, who, when Sussex
appeared against them with a strong force, fled to Scotland, leaving their
followers to the terrible vengeance that followed a suppressed revolt.
Northumberland, after a confinement of several years at Lochleven, was
given up to the English government and executed. Westmoreland died an
exile in Flanders. There was a subsequent revolt under Lord Dacres of the
North, which was put down after a battle, in which the Catholics fought with
desperation. The English Bible and Common Prayer had been burnt by the
insurgents of 1569 in the cathedral of Durham. Their avowed intention was
to march to Tutbury, and release Mary. The triumph of 1569 was disgraced
by fearful executions.
When Pius V., on the 25th of February, 1570, signed the threatened bull
of excommunication against Elizabeth, which anathematized her and her
adherents as heretics ; absolved all her subjects from their oath of allegiance ;
and enjoined them, under pain of excommunication, not to obey her
commands ; it was not likely that the principles at issue would approach
nearer to accomodation. We are told by the catholic historian, " the time
was gone by when the thunders of the Vatican could shake the thrones of
princes." When Alva sent copies of the bull to England, and Felton, an

276 HISTORY OF. ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
enthusiastic Catholic, fixed it on the gates of the bishop of London's resi
dence, they could scarcely have meant its publicity as harmless sport.
Felton was executed ; but he died, avowing himself a martyr, and gave the
queen the title of " the pretender." There was at this time a conspiracy
detected in Norfolk. The natural issue of these attempts to shake the
government and the established religion was the enactment of more stringent
laws against Roman Catholics. A committee of the commons presented an
address to Elizabeth, asking her to proceed criminally against Mary. Divines
and statesmen concurred in urging violent measures against the prisoner.
With Archbishop Parker she was " one desperate person." With Walsingham
she was " that dangerous woman." Each called for "justice." The statute
of the 5th of Elizabeth against upholding the jurisdiction of the see of Rome
had been transgressed by bringing in bulls and instruments of absolution. It
was now enacted, that the putting in use or publishing any such bull, or
giving absolution under the same, or obtaining such an instrument from
Rome, shall be adjudged high treason ; and that such as brought into the
kingdom crosses, pictures, beads, or other " vain and superstitious things,"
claiming to be hallowed by the bishop of Rome, or under his authority,
should incur the penalties of praemunire. This statute was more comprehen
sive in its severity than at first sight appears ; for the outward conformity of
Romanists had been tolerated under absolution, without which they were
excluded from the communion of their own church. The act of the 5th of
Elizabeth, which excluded Roman Catholics from the House of Commons,
gave an ascendancy in that house to the more earnest reformers.
The duke of Norfolk had been released from his imprisonment in the
Tower on the 4th of August, 1570. On the 7th of September, 1571, he was
again arrested. During the thirteen months of his comparative freedom he
was in a sort of honorable custody, arid was not called to council or to parlia
ment. Before hjs release from the Tower, he had sent a declaration to the
queen, in which he had solemnly engaged " never to deal in that cause of
marriage of the queen of Scots, nor in any other cause belonging to her, but
as your majesty shall command me." Pn April, 1571, a correspondence was
detected, which showed that some treasonable project was in course of
formation. Further correspondence was intercepted in August, and various
persons were arrested. The duke was tried on a charge of high treason by
his peers, on the 16th of January, 1572. All the previous transactions
connected with the plan of marriage with the queen of Scots were entered
into ; and it was urged that his continued desire for that alliance had a view
to Mary's claim to the present possession of the crown of England. The
more serious charge was, that through the agency of Rudolphi, an Italian,
who had been sent by Mary to the pope, the king of Spain, and the duke of
Alva, he had received assurances of the support of these personages to a plan
for uniting Mary with the duke, for seizing the person of Elizabeth, and for
landing a foreign army in England. The trial itself was conducted with such
fairness as is compatible with evidence mainly resting upon the confessions of^

iC03] EXECUTIONS.— ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S.— JESUITS. 277
absent persons, some of which were extorted by the rack, or by its terror.
Norfolk was unanimously condemned ; but his execution was deferred till the
2d of June. Two Derbyshire gentlemen were tried and executed in May,
upon a charge of having corresponded with Mary for the purpose of deliv
ering her from the custody of the earl of Shrewsbury. The regent Murray
had Deen assassinated, from motives of private revenge, at Linlithgow, in
January, 1570. Lennox, the father of Darnley, had succeeded him. He,
also, was assassinated in September, 1571. In 1570, a treaty was concluded
between the Huguenots and the young king, Charles IX. ; who professed
great anxiety for reconciliation with this portion of his subjects.
On the 23d of August, according to the account given by Charles himself
to his sister Margaret, after the noontide dinner of the court he was told of a
treasonable conspiracy of the Huguenots against himself and his family. It
would be necessary, his relations said, to anticipate the designs of the conspir
ators by their previous destruction. He gave his consent, and expressed his
hope that not a single Huguenot would be left alive to reproach him with the
deed. Night had descended upon Paris. There was no alarm, as bands of
assassins silently congregated in the streets. A signal was to be given when
the work of slaughter was to commence. The king, his mother, and Anjou
sat amid darkness and stillness in a balcony of the Louvre. The noise of a
pistol is heard, and Charles trembles in the agony of guilty expectation. At
length the clocks of Paris strike two. Then the bell of St. Germain l'Auxer-
rois tolled forth the signal. The duke of Guise bursts into the defenseless
courts where Coligny slept, and three hundred men slaughter him and his
followers. His body is cast out of the window, and the cry of " Death to the
Huguenots," amid the sound of the tocsin, wakes up the fanatical citizens,
and one universal butchery of the Protestants is being accomplished. For
three days the slaughter goes on and the fury extends to Orleans, Lyons,
Troyes, Rouen, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and other towns. We may choose what
estimate we please of the number of the victims, from the highest estimate of
a hundred thousand, to the extenuating calculation of Dr. Lingard that
there might be about sixteen hundred. Whatever was the number, the
massacre was considered as a glorious triumph for the Catholics.'
From the terrible day of Saint Bartholomew in 1572, to the detection of
the conspiracy against the life of Elizabeth in 1586, the struggles between the
two great principles of Romanism and Protestantism was incessant in
England. In 1580, the pope, Gregory XIII., at the suggestion of William
Allen, dispatched a body of Jesuits to England. The mission of these
religious enthusiasts was to attempt the re-conversion of the heretic islanders.
They were led and organized by Robert Parsons and Edmond Campion, who
had formerly belonged to colleges in Oxford, and had been avowed Protest
ants before their conversion to Romanism. The parliament of 1581 met this
inroad of able Englishmen, trained in the school of Loyola to extraordinary
subtlety and invincible determination, by the most stringent enactments.
Campion was arrested in Berkshire, in July, 1581 ; and- was lodged in the

278 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
Tower with two other priests. He was tortured ; and revealed the names of
those who had sheltered him. He was questioned again and again, upon the
power of the pope to depose sovereigns, and, his answers being evasive, he
was racked with increased severity. Finally, he was tried for high-treason,
for compassing and imagining the queen's death. Others were tried and
convicted with him ; but three were spared, who renounced the pope's
deposing power. It was a principle of the Jesuits that the pope had an
undoubted right to deprive kings of their crowns. The Romanist exiles had
proclaimed throughout Europe that the heretic Elizabeth was an usurper.
" Thus the prisons were filled ; execution followed upon execution ; and
Catholicism, in its turn, had its martyrs." The severities of the laws against
papists went on increasing. In 1584, all Jesuits, seminary priests, and other
priests, were commanded by act of parliament, to depart from the kingdom
within forty days, on pain of being adjudged traitors ; and penalties were to
be inflicted upon those who, knowing any priest to be within the realm,
should not denounce him to a magistrate. These intolerant enactments
produced the very opposite consequences that were contemplated by the
legislature. 1
In 1577 Elizabeth had assisted the revolted provinces of the Netherlands,
whose commissioners had, in 1575, offered her the sovereignty, which she
declined to accept. But ten years later it had become of essential importance
to England to weaken the power of Philip of Spain, by keeping alive the cause
of independence and religious freedom in the Low Countries. The assassina
tion of the prince of Orange in 1584, by a religious fanatic, excited by the
reward which Philip II. had set upon his head, had produced a fierce indigna
tion in England against the'Bigoted king of Spain. An expedition was deter
mined upon at the end of 1585. Leicester was appointed to its command.
Elizabeth had again declined the sovereignty which had been again offered
her by the commissioners of the States ; and she now instructed Leicester
also to refuse their offer to put themselves under the absolute control of the
lieutenant she should send with her army, but to exhort them to listen to his
advice.. On New Year's Day, 1586, the States General, by a solemn deputa
tion, offered the queen of England's lieutenant the absolute government of
the United Provinces. He first hesitated, then yielded to further supplications,
and on the 25th of January accepted the dangerous honor. On that day, a
letter was written to him expressive of the queen's dislike of his proceedings.
He had sent his secretary with explanations, but his arrival was unaccountably
delayed. Then the queen herself wrote a letter to the earl. There was no
chance of mistaking the meaning of such sentences as these : " We could never
have imagined, had we not seen it fall out in experience, that a man raised up
by ourself, and extraordinarily favored by us above any other subject of this
land, would have in so contemptible a sort broken our commandment in a
cause that so greatly toucheth us in honor. . . . Our express pleasure and
commandment is, that all delays and excuses laid apart, you do presently,
upon the duty of your allegiance, obey and fulfill whatsoever the bearer

1603] SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.— DR. WILLIAM PARRY. 279
hereof shall direct you to do in our name ; whereof fail you not, as you will
answer the contrary at your uttermost peril." One who could thus write
might not be an amiable mistress to serve ; but she was a queen fit to be at
the head of a great nation. It was very long before the anger of the queen
could be softened. She withdrew from her first intention to compel Leicester
publicly to lay down his authority, but she restricted its exercise in many
ways which were irksome to so proud a man. Few were the heroic deeds of
Philip Sidney, who, in this disastrous campaign, closed a short career of
military experience, but his heart was the seat, of true heroism. The rare
scholar, the accomplished writer, the perfect gentleman, might have been
forgotten as a soldier, if his night-march upon Axel, and its daring capture,
had been his chief title to distinction. But his demeanor when he was carried
wounded from the walls of Zutphen will never be forgotten. " Passing
along by the rear of the army where his uncle [Leicester] the general was, and
being thirsty with excess of bleeding, he called for some drink, which was
presently brought him. But as he was putting the bottle to his mouth he
saw a poor soldier carried along, who had eaten his last at the same feast,
ghastly casting up his eyes at the bottle ; which Sir Philip perceiving took it
from his head before he drank, and delivered it to the poor man with these
words, ' Thy necessity is yet greater than mine.' " Being repulsed at
Zutphen, Leicester shortly went into winter quarters. The expedition came
to an end without calling forth any higher qualities in the general than might
naturally be expected from an intriguing courtier. Philip had laid an
embargo upon English vessels and property, through the extent of his wide
dominions. Elizabeth did not fit out royal fleets ; but she gave her subjects
permission to seize Spanish ships or merchandise wherever they were to be found.
The hope of gain sent hardy adventurers into distant seas, and eager colonists
to search for new lands to subdue. The daring spirits of Elizabeth's reign
have a strong similitude to the pirates and buccaneers that became odious
when they were no longer wanted, and to the filibusters that are still offen
sive to European civilization. Drake, in his expedition to the West Indies in
1585, with twenty-five ships, of which only two belonged to the crown,
destroyed several Spanish settlements ; took Carthagena and San Domingo ;
and brought home a considerable amount of treasure and two hundred and
forty pieces of ordnance.
In February, 1585, Dr. William Parry was convicted of high treason, and
he was executed on the 2d of March. He was, after 1580, employed as " a
collector of secret intelligence in foreign countries." He had a pension given
him in 1584. He is tried as a public enemy six months afterward. On his
trial he made a confession which implicated one Morgan, an agent of Mary at
Paris for the receipt and administration of her dower as queen of France. " I
answered him, I would do it, if it were to kill the greatest subject in England,
whom I named, and in truth then hated. ' No, no,' said he, ' let him live to
his greater fall and ruin of his house. It is the queen I mean.' I vowed to
undertake the enterprise for the restitution of England to the ancient obedi-

280 HISTORY. OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [155$
ence of the see apostolic." Elizabeth was greatly enraged against Morgan,
and called upon the king of France to deliver him up. This was refused ; but
Morgan was sent to the Bastile. Full of plans of revenge, he procured means
of correspondence with Mary, and had various agents in England, some of
whom were unable to elude the vigilance of Walsingham, and yielded up their
secrets to the wary minister, or became his own dark sentinels. In the
summer and autumn of 1585, a Catholic priest came to England, who was
dressed as an officer, and moved about under the name of Fortescue. His
real name was John Balard. One of Walsingham's intelligencers obtained
his confidence ; and after visiting various parts of this island they proceeded
to Paris. There was an English officer of the name of Savage, who had under
taken to assassinate Elizabeth ; and Ballard came back to England to tempt
violent partisans into listening to this proposal. He addressed himself to
Anthony Babington, a gentleman of Dethick, in Derbyshire.
On the 13th, 14th, and 15th of September, fourteen persons accused as
treasonable conspirators were brought to trial. Babington, Ballard, and
Savage, with four others, pleaded guilty. The remainder were also con
victed. The executions of seven, on the 20th of September, were attended
with the horrible barbarities of the full penalty of treason. Babington it was
who sought to inveigle the others into the conspiracy ; and yet his confession
was the chief proof against them. In that confession, as given upon the trial
of Mary, was also found what was alleged as a corroborative proof of her com
plicity with this attempt : — " He set down at large what conferences passed
between B. [Ballard] and him, and the whole plot of conspiracy for the
murder of Elizabeth, and deliverance of Mary." " It was determined, it is
said, to shoot the queen on the 15th of August, and according to the plan
agreed upon every Catholic in the kingdom was to take up arms, and place
Mary on the throne." From Chartley, the queen of Scots was transferred to
Fotheringay castle. Here Richard III. was born, and here Mary Stuart closed
her life. On the 5th of October, 1586, a commission was issued to twenty-nine
peers, nine privy councilors, the chancellor, and five judges. In this com
mission it was' recited, that since the first day of June, in the 27th year of
the queen, " divers matters have been compassed and imagined tending to
the hurt of our royal person, as well by Mary, daughter and heir of James the
fifth, king of Scots, and commonly called queen of Scots and dowager of
France, pretending title to this realm of England ; as by divers other persons,
cum scientia, in English with the privity of the same Mary, as we are given
to understand." To the commissioners was assigned full power to examine
all such matters, and to give sentence and judgment, under the act for the
surety of the royal person. Thirty-six commissioners repaired to the castle
of Fotheringay ; and letters from Elizabeth were delivered to Marv, apprising
her of the proceedings that were to be taken against her. At some prelimi
nary interviews with a deputation from the commissioners, Mary maintained
that she was an absolute queen ; that she was no subject ; and rather would

1603] MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 281
die a thousand deaths than acknowledge herself a subject. She ultimately
yielded. The court was opened on Friday, the 14th of October, in the great
hall at Fotheringay castle. Like all other trials for high-treason at that
period, the witnesses were not examined in open court ; the accused was not
allowed counsel. There sat, facing the empty chair of royal State, this acute-
and courageous woman, with those before her whom she regarded as her ene
mies ready to overwhelm her by their accusations or their arguments. She
repeated her declaration, that whatever answers she gave were made under
protest against the authority of the commission to try a princess who was no
subject of the queen of England. She maintained that she knew not Babing
ton ; had never received any letters from him, nor written any to him ; that
she never plotted the destruction of the queen ; and that to prove the same
her subscription under her own hand ought to be produced. Copies of Bab-
ington's letters to her were read. " Let it be proved," she answered, " that I
received them." The confessions of Babington and others were then recited, to
prove that she had written letters which showed knowledge of the conspiracy.
She said this was second-hand evidence. A copy of a letter was read, as of one
written by her to Babington. She demanded that the original, said to be in
cipher, should be produced. She hinted that Walsingham, who had placed
spies about her, might have caused her cipher to be counterfeited. Walsing
ham protested that as a private person he had done nothing unbeseeming an
honest man, nor as he bore the place of a public person had he done anything
unworthy his place. Burleigh took part in the charges against the undaunted
queen, who thus fought a battle single-handed against the most adroit states
men of that age. It was not a trial, but a most unequal debate ; and it is
painful to see how Burleigh, in many points so worthy of respect, could
describe the keen encounter between himself and an inexperienced woman.
Mary then acknowledged that notes had been written to Babington by
her secretaries ; but said that they wholly referred to plans for her escape.
She did not deny that she sought this deliverance, even through an invasion
of the realm. Letters were produced, of which the genuineness is now
scarcely disputed, in which she minutely expounded plans for the king of
Spain " to set on the queen of England ; " which invasion she would aid by
inducing the Catholic lords of Scotland to join the enterprise; and, seizing
the young King James, deliver him into the hands of the king of Spain, or
of the pope, to make him to be instructed and reduced to the Catholic
religion. Another letter was read, in which Mary expressed her intention of
bequeathing to the Spanish king her right of succession to the English throne.
The plots for invasion and the overthrow of Elizabeth's government were
almost necessarily connected with the assassination of the queen. Whether
Mary was cognizant of one part of these plots, and wholly ignorant of the
other, may be reasonably questioned. The commission unanimously delivered
as their sentence " that the Babington conspiracy was with the privity of
Mary, pretending title to the crown of England ; and that she hath compassed
and imagined within this realm divers matters tending to the hurt, death, and

282 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
destruction of our sovereign lady the queen." The commissioners added that
this sentence did not derogate from James, king of Scots, in title or honor,
but that he was in the same place, degree, and right, as if the sentence had
never been pronounced. Between the trial of Mary and the execution of the
sentence there was an interval of four months.
On the 10th of November, a committee of both houses declared the sen
tence against Mary to be just ; and the houses agreed in a petition to Eliza
beth, that proclamation of the judgment might be made, and that further
proceedings might be taken against the Scottish queen ; " because upon
advised and great consultation, we cannot find that there is any possible
means to provide for your majesty's safety but by the just and speedy exe
cution of the said queen." The answer of Elizabeth is generally considered
hypocritical : " If my life alone depended hereupon, and not the safety and
welfare of all my people, I would, I protest unfeignedly, willingly and readily
pardon her. Nay, if England might by my death obtain a more flourishing
condition and a better prince, I would most gladly lay down my life. For,
for your sakes it is, and for my people's, that I desire to live." On this occa
sion she requested time to consider. The houses again resolved that no
safety can in any wise be had as long as the queen of Scots doth live. Again
Elizabeth hesitated. At the beginning of December the judgment of the
commissioners against Mary was solemnly proclaimed in London and other
places. When Elizabeth was threatened by the French ambassador, she
wrote a letter of defiance to his master Henry III. When James sent com
missioners to England upon a mission of intercession, she delayed and pro
tested her desire to save Mary, although in a letter to James she called her
" the serpent that poisons me." As these efforts became more strenuous
Elizabeth became more determined ; and wrote to James, " though like a
most natural good son you charged them [the ambassadors] to seek all means
they could devise with wit or judgment to save her life, yet I cannot, nor do
not, allege any fault to you of their persuasions ; for I take it that you will
remember that advice or desires ought ever agree with the surety of the party
sent to and honor of the sender." Camden has described the state of Eliza
beth's mind at this period. " She gave herself over to solitariness, sat many
times melancholy and mute ; and often sighing muttered to herself, aut fir,
aut firi, — that is, either bear strokes or strike : and, out of I know not what
emblem, ne feriare, feri, — that is, strike, lest thou be stricken." At last the
struggle, or the simulated struggle, seemed over. On the 1st of February,
the queen sent for Davison, one of the secretaries, at ten in the morning.
The queen signed the warrant, and ordered Davison to carry it to the great
seal, and then dispatch it with all expedition. She told him to show the war
rant to Mr. Secretary Walsingham, who was sick : saying, merrily, that she
thought the sight thereof would kill him outright. He showed the warrant
to Burleigh and Leicester, and then went to the chancellor, and afterward to
Walsingham. The next morning the queen sent him a message, that if he
had not been already to the chancellor he should forbear till he knew her fur-

i£03] DEATH WARRANT OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 283
ther pleasure. He went therefore to the queen, and told her that the warrant
was sealed; and she said, " What needeth that haste?" She objected that
this course threw the whole burden upon herself. Davison, fearing to take
the responsibility of dispatching the warrant, went to Burleigh, who assem
bled a council, and gave his advice that they should join in sending the war
rant to the commissioners " without troubling her majesty any further in that
behalf, she having done all that in law or reason could be required of her."
Burleigh undertook to prepare letters to accompany the warrant ; and the
next day, the 3d, the warrant and dispatches were delivered by Burleigh to<
Mr. Beale, who was thought the fittest messenger. Two or three days after,
the queen spoke to Davison about another course " that had been propounded
to her underhand by one of great place," against which Davison gave reasons
"wherewith she seemed to rest satisfied without any show of following the new
course, or altering her former resolution in any point." At this interview Eliz
abeth complained that the warrant was not already executed. Such is the
straightforward account contained in a manuscript which is among the papers in
the Harleian collection. This is, in substance, the same account as that given
by Camden. But there are other statements by this unfortunate secretary, who
was prosecuted in the star chamber for not obeying Elizabeth's commands in
the matter of the warrant, which are familiar to the most cursory reader of
history, and which are usually accepted as evidence of a desire of the queen
that Mary should be privately murdered. " Moreover she blamed Paulet
and Drury that they had not eased her of this care, and wished that Walsing
ham would feel their minds in this matter." On a subsequent day, " she
asked me whether I had received any answer from Paulet, whose letter, when
I had showed her, wherein he flatly refused to undertake that which stood
not with honor and justice, she waxing angry, accused him and others, which
had bound themselves bythe association, of perjury and breach of their vow."
The earls of Shrewsbury and Kent, to whom the lords of the council had
especially sent Mr. Beale, arrived at Fotheringay on the 7th of February, after
dinner. They communicated to Mary the purpose for which they had
arrived ; and Beale read the queen's commission for her execution. She
bowed her head, made the sign of the cross, and thanked her God that the
summons so long expected had come at last. She asked at what time she
should die, and was informed at eight the following morning. Having
desired the presence of her priest and almoner, she was refused ; and was
told that in the place of her confessor she might have the spiritual assistance
of the dean of Peterborough. She necessarily declined this.
At the upper end of the great hall of Fotheringay had been erected a
scaffold. There were many persons assembled in that hall. The queen had
dressed herself " gorgeously and curiously," says Camden, " as she was wont
to do on festival days." Melvin, one of her old servants, fell on his knees
before her ; and said that it would be the most sorrowful message he ever
carried when he should report in Scotland that his queen and mistress was
dead. The official narrative thus continues : " Then the queen of Scots,

284 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
shedding tears, answered him, ' You ought to rejoice rather than weep for
that the end of Mary Stuart's troubles is now come. Thou knowest, Melvin,
that all this world is but vanity, and full of troubles and sorrows ; carry this
message from me, and tell my friends that I die a true woman to my religion,
and like a true Scottish woman and a true French woman. But God forgive
them that have long desired my end ; and he that is the true judge of all
secret thoughts knoweth my mind, how that ever it hath been my desire to
have Scotland and England united together. Commend me to my son, and
tell him that I have not done anything that may prejudice his kingdom of
Scotland ; and so, good Melvin, farewell ; ' and kissing him, she bade him
pray for her." Mary requested that her servants might be present at her
death. The earl of Kent refused. After some consultation two of her
female servants and Melvin, with two medical attendants and an old man,
were allowed to enter the hall. Melvin carrying her train, she stepped up the
scaffold with a cheerful countenance. The dean of Peterborough, Dr.
Fletcher, standing outside the rail directly before her, began an exhortation ;
but she stopped him saying, " Mr. Dean, I am settled in the ancient Catholic
Roman religion, and mind to spend my blood in defense of it." The
pertinacious dignitary replied, with more zeal than charity, " Madame, change
your opinion, and repent of your former wickedness, and settle your faith
only in Jesus Christ, by him to be saved." Mary told him to trouble himself
no further ; and Shrewsbury and Kent said they would pray for her. She
thanked them, " but to join with you in prayer I will not, for that you and I
are not of one religion." The dean then prayed aloud from the English
liturgy ; and Mary with steadfast voice, having in her hand a crucifix, began to
pray in Latin ; and she finally prayed in English for Christ's afflicted Church,
for her son, and for the queen of England. The callous earl of Kent was
not moved even by this solemn earnestness, but told her to " leave ihose
trumperies." Such is fanaticism, from whatever perverted view of the
religion of love it may spring. The last dread trial was sustained with equal
fortitude and steadfastness by Mary, in whom, whatever were her faults, were
many of the elements of true heroism. As her two women wept, she
besought them to be calm : " I have promised for you." A Corpus-Christi
cloth being pinned over her face, she knelt down upon the cushion " most
resolutely," reciting aloud the Latin psalm, In te confide- — " In thee, O Lord,
do I trust." Groping for the block, she laid down her head, and cried, In
manus tuas, Domine — " Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit." Her
head was severed in two strokes. One poor servant there was who went
upon that scaffold without permission. Her little dog was taken from
beneath her robes ; and " afterward would not depart from the dead corpse."
The next morning Davison met the other members of the council, who told
him that " her majesty seemed greatly offended against them all about this
action, disavowing that she had either commanded or intended any such
proceeding therein." Davison was sent to the Tower, and tried in the star
chamber. Burleigh was forbidden to appear in court. The assertions of

1603] SPAIN PREPARES TO INVADE ENGLAND. 285
Elizabeth have been attributed to "the earnestness of a dreadful self-
deception." Burleigh told the council, having read the instrument to them,
that they were met to advise of " such means as might be most honorable
and expedient for the dispatch thereof ; seeing her majesty had for her part
performed as much as in any honor, law, or reason, was to be required at her
hands." They took upon themselves the responsibility, fully understanding
" her doubted inclination to drive this burden, if it might be, from herself ; "
and they determined to apply no more to the queen, lest she, " upon such a
needless motion, should have fallen into any new conceit of interrupting and
staying the course of justice."
In the spring of 1587 it was certain that Spain was making great prepa
rations for the invasion of England. Elizabeth provided Drake with four
royal ships, and twenty-four other vessels were placed under his command by
the citizens of London. On the 19th of April he entered the harbor of
Cadiz, which was filled with many Spanish ships, and destined to proceed to
join the great armament at Lisbon. Defying the guns of the fortress, and the
huge Spanish galleys, Drake made himself master of the roadstead ; and in
the course of two nights and one day had sunk, burnt, or captured shipping
of ten thousand tons lading. Till another year the mighty attempt upon
England was delayed by the skill and courage of the Devonshire captain.
Setting sail for the Azores, Drake fell in with a most valuable Portuguese
carrack, returning from the East Indies ; and he took this ship with a lading
which made the San Philipe the greatest prize that had ever rewarded the
energy of English mariners. " The English, ever after that time, more
cheerfully set upon those huge, castle-like ships, and also they so fully under
stood, by the merchants' books, the wealth of the Indian merchandises and
the manner of trading in the eastern world, that they afterward set up a
gainful voyage and traffic thither, ordaining a company of East Indian
merchants." James had become of full age; and he was urged on many
sides to revenge the death of his mother, by joining in the projects of Spain.
It is difficult to understand what were his real inclinations. Henry Cary,
Lord Hunsdon, was sent as an ambassador to James ; and Elizabeth professed
great confidence in his friendship. James admitted that he had received
tempting offers from Spain : but declared that he detested, as much as her
self, the plots of the papists. The "bad company "of which Hunsdon
speaks consisted of Huntley, and other Catholic lords, who were preparing
to collect forces to revolutionize Scotland, and aid, by a diversion, the great
attempt upon England. Some of the band were intriguing in foreign courts,
and communicating with Spain and Rome. But Elizabeth and her agents
eventually prevented James from being led away by his " bad company,"
by present payments and large promises. Raleigh, the most sagacious in
counsel or action, held that an invader could only be prevented landing by
the resistance of a fleet. Pope Sixtus V. made a solemn treaty with Philip,
and promised him an enormous subsidy, to be paid when he had taken
absolute possession of any English port. The warlike pontiff was equally

286 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
ready with his spiritual weapons. He published a new bull of excommuni
cation against Elizabeth, and called all Catholics to a crusade against England,
as for a holy war against the infidel. They came from all lands where the
doctrines of the reformation had never taken root or had been extirpated —
they came, needy adventurers with high-sounding names, ready to fight for
the true faith, and to have each a dainty plot of the English garden.
The unequaled magnitude of this armament wrought no terror in England.
" The city of London entreated their lordships, in sign of their perfect love
and loyalty to their prince and country, kindly to accept ten thousand men
and thirty ships, amply furnished." At the great camp at Tilbury was
collected an army of train bands from the adjacent counties. Another army
was in the interior for the defense of the queen's person, and to be used as a
disposable force. There was not a port where mariners were not trained to
hardy and dangerous adventure. They had gone forth, once from Deptford
and twice from Harwich, with Frobisher, to search for the north-west passage.
Davis followed Frobisher in the same enterprise. Our mariners had circum
navigated the world with Drake ; and had carried the terror of the English
flag, floating from the Pelican of Plymouth, into what was called the Indian
Sea. In the year of the armada, Cavendish was circumnavigating the world,
and was warring against Spain, after the example of Drake, upon the coasts
of Chili, and Peru, and New Spain : and he had taken a great galleon on the
coast of California. But " the intrepid corsairs, who had rendered every sea
insecure, now clustered round the coasts of their native island." There were
with them at this time an enterprising band who were preparing to send out a
new colony to Virginia. The first noble projects of Sir Humphrey Gilbert
and his half-brother, Raleigh, had failed. Sir Richard Grenville had effected
a settlement on the island of Roanoak : yet the hostilities of the natives and
the disputes of the colonists had prevented any effectual establishment of the
English in North America at that period. The governor had returned home,
despairing of success. Of all the defenses of the realm at this crisis there
were none which gave the people a greater confidence than the demeanor of
the queen. At the camp at Tilbury, she was, day by day, in the midst of her
soldiers ; going among the levies in their particular stations ; reviewing them
when they were trained in battalions ; saluted, wherever she moved, " with
cries, with shouts, with all tokens of love, of obedience, of readiness and
willingness to fight for her." To that camp of Tilbury, and to the towns
near London, came bands of men from distant places. The soldiers gazed
upon their sovereign riding amid the camp, bearing a marshal's truncheon ;
and knights and gentlemen pressed round her tent, where she sat surrounded
by her great nobles, and having proffered their services and received her win
ning acceptance, led their bands home to spread the fame of the great queen,
who was resolved, as she said, " to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom,
and for my people, my honor and my blood, even in the dust." Thus she
said, in the famous oration which has been handed down to us — "words that
burn," — words which England has never forgotten in any hour of similar peril.

¦J603] THE GREAT ARMADA ENTERS THE CHANNEL. 287
But of all the defenses of the country at this perilous crisis the loyalty of
the great body of the Catholics was among the most important. On the
approach of the armada some of the recusants were thrown into prison ; but
they were released upon subscribing a declaration that the queen was their
lawful sovereign, notwithstanding any excommunication ; and that they
would defend her with life and goods against prince, pope, or potentate. The
confidence of the government in the patriotism of the great body who
adhered to the ancient Church was strikingly exhibited by the appointment of
Howard, a Catholic, to the command of the fleet. The noble example of the
Catholics of 1588 has always endured, as one of the best arguments for a final
and complete justice to their descendants. On the 29th of May, 1588, the
captain-general led the way down the Tagus ; the mighty armada followed him.
But when the Spanish fleet had nearly reached Cape Finisterre, a storm arose,
which scattered the ships, and compelled the great body of the armament to go
into Corunna to refit. For a month did the great fleet lie in Corunna harbor.
The prince of Parma's flat-bottomed vessels, for the conveyance of thirty-
five thousand men, were lying at Bruges ; and the ports of Nieuport and
Dunkirk, from which they could have put to sea, were blockaded by a com
bined English and Dutch fleet. The queen's ships at Plymouth, under the
lord high admiral, were thirty-four in number. With coasters and volunteers,
the whole number of ships, large and small, was one hundred and ninety-
seven, having one-half only of the tonnage of the Spanish fleet. The whole
number of sailors in the fleet was fifteen thousand seven hundred and eighty-
five. The mariners were the only fighting men of the ships. The Portuguese
galleys, each with three hundred rowers, could move against the wind as if
by steam. But the poor slaves were perfectly exposed to the shot of large
and small arms ; and the movements of the enormous vessels were thus liable
to serious interruption. The galleons were unwieldy floating towers, with
many decks, where the soldiers and gunners were stowed amid comforts
unknown to the mariners. The English ships were short in the build ; and
were rigged so as readily to tack.
On the 12th of July the Spanish fleet stood out to sea from Corunna.
The wind shifting from north-east to west, and then to east-south-east,
dispersed the ships ; and they were scarcely gathered together when the
English coast was in sight. On the 19th they were seen entering the channel
by Fleming, a captain of a pinnace, according to Camden ; but by other
accounts a Scottish pirate. This captain made all sail for Plymouth, to
communicate his momentous news. And so, on the night of the 19th, the
fleet was warped out of the harbor. On the 21st, " about nine of the clock,
before noon, the lord admiral commanded his pinnace, called the Disdain, to
give the defiance unto the duke of Medina." The pinnace fired a shot at the
first ship it met, and Howard, like a gallant leader as he was, began the fight :
" With much thundering out of his own ship, called the Ark-Royal, he first set
upon the admiral, as he thought, of the Spaniards ; but it was Alphonso de
Lena's ship. Soon after, Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher, played with their

288 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
ordnance upon the hindmost squadron. At which time the duke of Medina
gathered together his fleet scattered here and there, and hoisting more sail,
held on his intended course. And now had they maintained a hot fight the
space of two hours, when the lord admiral thought not good to continue the
fight any longer, for that forty of his ships were not yet come in, being scarce
yet gotten out of the haven." The night that followed was one of strange
tumult in those waters. The sea was troubled ; the sky was dark ; a huge
Biscayan vessel took fire ; and in the confusion the galleon of Don Pedro de
Valdez got foul of another ship, and was left behind. Howard, with two
ships, had held on through the night after the Spaniards. Drake fell in with
the great galleon abandoned by her companions ; and Valdez became his
prisoner, with a booty of fifty-five thousand ducats, which were distributed
among the crews. The next morning Howard was better prepared for a general
engagement. His men were in great heart, for the invincible armada was found
to be vulnerable. The remainder of the fleet has come out of Plymouth, and
Raleigh has come with them. The armada on this morning of the 23d of
July is off Portland. And now, says Stow, " the English navy, being well
increased, gave charge and chase upon the enemy, squadron after squadron
seconding each other like swift horsemen that could nimbly come and go,
and fetch the wind with most advantage. . . . The English ran in under
the great galleons, and having delivered their broadsides, sheered out of the
range of the Spanish guns, which were high above the water-line. In the
furious skirmish there was alternate success. One English commander only
fell — " Cock, an Englishman." From morning till night this fight continued.
The 24th is a day of rest. The fleets are becalmed. From every port of
Dorsetshire and Hampshire fresh ships have come forth, hired and armed by
the gentlemen of England to aid in this great defense. The armada lies
becalmed, on the 25th of July. A great galleon, disabled in the fight of the
23d, has dropped astern ; and Hawkins, in the Victory, has been towed to
take possession of her. But the battle, for a breeze had sprung up, again
becomes general. The issue is long doubtful. But the English powder is
exhausted ; and there is no more fighting on that summer afternoon. For
their services in these six days of incessant work, Lord Sheffield and Lord
Thomas Howard, Frobisher, Townsend and Hawkins were knighted " for
their valor." For seven days has the Spaniard been fighting his way through
the channel, and at length he is at anchor before Calais on the Saturday night
of that week of memorable conflict. But when the morning of Sunday dawns,
the English fleet of a hundred and forty sail is riding in Calais Roads within
cannon-shot of the exceeding great ships. The duke of Medina has dispatched
messenger after messenger to the duke of Parma, to bid him send " light
vessels," without which the Spaniard could not well fight with the English;
and to urge him to put to sea with his army, which the Spanish fleet would
protect till the landing upon the hated shore was accomplished. Parma's
boats were leaky ; his provisions were exhausted ; his sailors had deserted ;
he was kept in port by the vigilant Dutch. It is two o'clock of the Monday

GAY'S CHRONOLOGICAL CHARTS OF

Tiie name of each author, the dates of his birth and death, as far as could be ascertained, the title of the work by which he ii
Poets and Novelists ; the second, the writers on History, Geography, and other matters of exact del
is often celebrated in various departments of knowledge. His name v

1804—1809.

IMAGINATION.

.1805  W. M. AinswortU, ll Koolewood" Novels.
— iSSi B. Disraeli (Bcaconsfield), Vivian
C rey : Novels.
— 1S73 Sir E. G. E. L. Bulwer (Lord Lyt
ton), " The taxtons.1'
6—1844 Jno. Sterling Poems; Tales : Essays.
7 — 1S77 Sam'l Warren, Ten Thousand a Year.
8— 1861 Chas. Jas. Lever, Charles O'Ai alley ;
Novels.
— 1S79 Hon. Mrs. Norton, The Undying One ;
Poems.
9— 1861 Ellz. Barrett Browning, Aurora
Leigh ; Poems.
 Jno. S. Backle, Laws and Legends 0/
Greece.

FACT. 1804  Sir Jas. E. Tennent, Hist, of Mod. Gr.
— 1872 Sir Hy. Lytton Bulwer, Historical
Characters.
5— 1S75 Earl Stanhope (Lord ITInhon), Hist.
of England.
— 18;4 AgllOS Strickland, Queens of England :
Letters of Mary, Queen of Scotts.
7  W. F. Aiusivorth, All Around the
World.
8  Cliris. Wordsworth, Pict. Dis. and
Hist.
9  Sirs. Cowdcn Clarke, Con. to Shakes
peare.
 Jno. Hill Barton, Hist, of Scotland.

SPECULATIVE AND SCIENTIFIC.
ISO j  Sam'l Wilberrorcc, Sermons; Life of
Wat. M'ilberforce.
6—1873 Jno. Stuart Mill, Logic ; Political
El onomy .
—1863 Sir G. C. Lewis, Authority in Matters
of I 'pinion.
7  K. C. French, Notes on the Miracles.
8  JUS. FergllSOIt, Prin. Beauty and Art.
9—1882 W. E. Gladstone, State and Church.
—1882 Chas. Darwin, Origin of Species.

1810—1816.

1810  Martin Farquhar Tupper, Provei
Hal Phil.

11-

Alfred Tennyson, Poems.
W. M. Thackeray, Vanity Fair ; Nov

els.

12  Robert Browning, Poems.
— 1881 Chas. Dickens, Sketches by Boz ; Novels.
I3—1865 W. E. Aytoun, " Lays of Scot. Cav."
 Chas. Maekay, Life and Lib. in Amer
ica ; Poems.
16  P. J. Bailey, Festus.

1810— 1S77 Thos. W night, Queen Elizabeth and Hi,
Times.
12  Sir Geo. Grey, Dis. in Australia.
 Sir E. S. Creasy, Fifteen Decisive Battlei
of the World.
— 1S43 Jno. Foster, Life of Goldsmith.

1810  Sir II. C. Ra w llnson. Philology.
12  Alex. W. Crawford (Lord Lind
say), Christian Arts.
 R. G. Latham, far. of Mankind.
1 3  W. B. Carpenter, Prin. of Physiology.
I4—1874 Edwin LankestCr, Natural History.
 Wm. Smith, Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Aut.
15  Arthur Stanley, Sinai and Palestine,
Pub. 1856.
15— 1S54 Edward Forbes, Geology: Nat. Hist.
16— 1853 F. W. Robertson, Sermons.

Designed for Gay's Standard Histories, by WILLIAM GAT

MGLISH AUTHORS AND LITERATURE.

known. The names are arranged under three heads : Imagination ; Fact ; Speculative and Scientific. The first includes the
lie third, those who treat of Philosophy and Science. This division cannot be perfect, for an author
ie be found in the division which includes his best known productions.

1817-1821.

1817  Eliia Cook, fe»u.
19—1875 Chas. Kingslcy, Alton Locke.
20—i88o Marian Evans (Geo. Eliot), Daniel
Deronda.

1822-1841.

1817-

Anstin Ky. Layard,
Remains.

Nineveh and its

— 1873 David Livingstone, Missionary Trav
els in South Africa .
18  J. A. Froude Hist, of England.
21  J. O. Halllwell, Diet. . Life of Shak.
 Wm. Hepworth Dixon, Jno. How
ard, a Memoir,

19-

20- 21-

Jno. Rnskin, Modern Painters.
Sam'l Smiles, Self-Help, Put. 1859.
Herbert Spencer, Sociology.
Arthur Cayley, Math.. Terminology.

1822— 1865 Elizabeth C. Gaskell, Mary Barton.
24—1855 Charlotte Bronte (Currer Bell),
"Jane Eyre;" Novels.
W. Wilkie Collins, Woman in White
Novels.
Adelaide Anne Frocter, Legends;
Lyrics : Poems.
Dinah Maria Muiock, Jno. Halifax,
Gentleman.
Gerald Massey, Poems.
31  Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton
(Owen Meredith), Lucille.
32  Edwin Arnold," The Light of Asia."
41  Wm. Black, " Princess of Thule."

25-

26-

28-

:te ...
i.X.

1822— 1862 Hy. T. Buckle, Hist. ofCir. in Eng.
30  Justin McCarthy, History of Our Own

1822  Matthew Arnold, God and the Bible ;
Poems.
25  Thos. W. Huxley, Physiology.

CHART VIII.

BIRTHS,
1804—1841.

AUTHORS AND LITERATURE.

CO., 256 Chapel St., Hew Haven, Conn. COPTBIGHT 1883.

1603] THE ENGLISH TRIUMPH OVER THE ARMADA. 289
morning. There are eight small vessels being towed from the main body of
the English fleet, and they are bearing with the wind upon the Spanish
anchorage. Suddenly a strong light bursts out from each vessel. The tow-
boats leave them, and they drift with the breeze right into the center of the
armada. Then vast volumes of flame and smoke roll out from the burning
hulks, with fearful explosions and sulphury stenches. The bold stroke,
devised by Elizabeth herself as contemporaries say, has been successful
beyond hope. Some cut cables, others let the hawsers slip, and happiest they
who could first be gone, though few could tell what course to take. One of
the largest of the galeasses was stranded near the town of Calais, and was
taken, after a fierce engagement, in which many English were slain, and the
Spaniards lost four hundred men. The bulk of the fleet was running up
channel in wild confusion. Some went ashore on the Flemish coast ; others
stood out to sea ; many got together as well as they could near Gravelines.
But Drake and Fenner were fighting them from the first peep of the dawning ;
and now come up Hawkins and ^Fenton, Seymour and Cumberland, Southwell
and Frobisher, and there is again a general battle under the castle of Grave-
lines ; for Howard himself is up at his post. In that fleet the " mighty ships
and of great strength," were as four to one compared with the larger ships of
the English. The Spanish castles have fearful difficulty in avoiding the
shallows. They are hemmed in with danger. A galleon of Biscay, the San
Matthew, has surrendered ; another great ship is stranded ; the San Philipe
is drifting disabled upon the Flemish shore. No help will come from the
duke of Parma. " The English forces," says Stow, " continuing four days'
fight in more deadly manner than at any time before, chased the Spaniards
from place to place, until they had driven them into a desperate estate.
The last great fight was on the 29th of July. The scattered remnant of
the armada holds on its perilous course, full into the North Sea. No more
will the beacon-fires be lighted on the southern coast of England. The
eastern has nothing to fear from these enemies. Drake is in the wake of the
flying squadrons. The prince of Parma had failed the Spaniards. Howard
writes, on the 7th of August, to Walsingham, " Notwithstanding that our
powder and shot was well near all spent, we set on a brag countenance and gave
them chase, as though we had wanted nothing, until he had cleared our own
coast and some part of Scotland." The fleet did its work nobly. It saved
England in those twelve days of desperate fight and stormy chase. About the
20th of August there came on a great storm which divided the fleet ; and ten days
after, another storm scattered them around the shores of Connaught-and Kerry.
The duke of Medina kept out in the open sea, and entered the Bay of Biscay
about the end of September. A few ships reached Spain, under the command
of Recalde, in a shattered condition. They lost eighty-one ships in this
expedition, and upward of thirteen thousand five hundred soldiers.
In the midst of this triumph Leicester had died. The private sorrow of
the queen retarded her participation in the public joy. But on Sunday, the
24th of November, a solemn thanksgiving was offered up, and the glory
19

290 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
given to God only. Philip resolved to build smaller vessels, and to sail
direct to the English coast from his harbors in the peninsula. He would
persevere, even if he sold the silver candlesticks which stood on his table.
The Anglo-Saxon spirit was now thoroughly roused ; and any scheme for
attacking Spain was sure to receive the heartiest encouragement. The
people, therefore, were encouraged to fit out expeditions at their own cost,
in which the queen lent assistance. " When her majesty came to the crown,
she found it four millions indebted. Her navy, when she came to view it,
she found greatly decayed. Yet, all this she hath discharged, and, thanks to
God, is nothing indebted ; and now she is able to match any prince in Europe,
which the Spaniards found when they Came to invade us." The government
gave sixty thousand pounds toward a great expedition for winning Portugal
from the Castilians, — whom the Portuguese hated, — to place the crown upon
the head of Don Antonio, an illegitimate branch of the royal line of that
country which Philip had added to Spain. Sir Francis Drake and Sir John
Norris undertook to lead this somewhat rash enterprise. They attacked
Corunna ; burnt some ships ; defeated a Spanish army ; and took the lower
town. But Philip was now prepared. They could only obtain possession of
the suburbs of Lisbon ; and were speedily forced to re-embark for want of
ammunition and provisions. On their return they took and burned Vigo ;
and they came back to England — triumphant to a limited extent, but having
lost one half of the adventurers, many in fight, but the greater number by
famine and sickness. The young earl of Essex took part in this enterprise.
The prosperous issue of the great contest was little advanced by this and
other detached enterprises.
The clergy who returned from their seven years' exile during the time of
persecution, were put in possession of many of the livings from which the
Romish priests had been in their turn ejected. They very soon ceased to
regard the act of uniformity as imperatively binding; and great irregularities
in the performance of ceremonies crept in, and were for some time tolerated.
But at length a rigid observance of the rubric was enforced ; and the
ministers who would not conform were thrust out from their benefices. In
1567 a congregation of dissenters were seized at Plumbers' Hall, and some
were committed to prison. As yet, the contest had been about what the
Puritans held -as superstitious ceremonies. Burleigh and Walsingham, and
even the favorite, Leicester, knew that if the civil government became
persecutors of these zealous men it would alienate its warmest supporters in
the contest between Protestantism and Romanism. Archbishop Whitgift,
who succeeded to the primacy in 1583, was determined to put down rather
than conciliate the party of the Puritans. As might be expected he drove
them into non-conformity. The clergy were now absolutely driven to sub
scribe to the point of the queen's supremacy, to that of the lawfulness of
the common prayer and the ordination service, and to the thirty-nine
articles. He appointed a new ecclesiastical commission, who were to
examine the clergy upon twenty-four articles, of so stringent and subtle a

^603] PAPIST.— PURITAN.— THEATERS AND ACTORS. 291
mature that Burleigh wrote to the archbishop : " I find them so curiously
penned that I think the inquisition of Spain used not so many questions to
•comprehend and to trap their priests." Burleigh remonstrated in vain. The
:result was first a furious attack upon episcopacy in the pamphlets of Martin
.Marprelate ; and then severe laws against the Puritans, which had no ultimate
-effect but that of fortifying their opinions, and ultimately of making their
¦cause the rallying point of civil and religious liberty. An act of increased
.severity was passed against " popish recusants." The times were changed.
There was now little distinction between the non-conforming Protestant and
the recusant Romanist, in the eyes of the dominant Church. The ecclesi
astical commission ejected ministers ; the government hanged libelers ; and
Tenry, the supposed author of the Marprelate tracts, was hastily and cruelly
.executed under the statute of 1581, for seditious words and rumors against
the queen. Drinking, dicing, bear-biting,, cock-fighting, — the coarsest tempta
tions to profligacy, — were not such abominations in the eyes of the Puritans,
~as " stage-plays, interludes, and comedies."
The history of the stage is an interesting chapter of our social history,
through several generations. In the latter years of the reign of Elizabeth,
-when the Puritans, zealous, persevering, and united had possessed themselves
-of much of the municipal power of the larger cities and towns, there was
frequent warfare between the civic authorities and the performers of plays.
"The severe moralists called them " caterpillars of the commonwealth," the
law defined them as "vagabonds." There was frequent opposition to the
acting of plays, especially in London; and thus the earl of Leicester's
players, of which company James Burbage was the chief shareholder, being
refused a license to perform within the walls of the city erected a theater in
the Blackfriars, in 1576. The original theatrical performances were in the
Inn-yards of the city, such as the Belle-Savage. The better sort of spectators
:sat in the gallery which connected the inn-chambers ; the larger number of
-the audience stood in the open yard. Gradually, hostelries were converted
.into theaters, and new buildings were erected for dramatic representations.
They were multiplied in various parts of the town, and especially in South
¬wark. The company of the lord chamberlain, who were the queen's
household servants, had two theaters — the Blackfriars and the Globe — the
-one for winter, the other for summer performances. Of this company Richard
Burbage was the chief actor, and William Shakespeare was a shareholder in
1589. This we know from a document, in which the "poor players" address
Xord Burleigh, affirming that they " have never given any cause of displeasure,
dn that they have brought into their plays matters of state and religion, unfit
to be handled by them, or presented to lewd spectators." A commission had
'been issued to inquire what companies of players had thus offended. This
-was the period of the Marprelate controversy; and the stage was made an
instrument for attacking the Puritans. Spenser has described this period of
license as one of ugly barbarism and brutish ignorance, of scoffing scurrility
¦and scornful folly ; and he asks why " the man whom Nature self had made

292 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
to mock herself " — " our pleasant Willy" chooses "to sit in idle cell" rather
" than so himself to mockery to sell." There can be little doubt that " the
gentle spirit," thus alluded to by the greatest poet of that time — a poet of
enduring greatness — was Shakespeare. He had, we are assured, already
written two or three of his comedies, of which " unhurtful sport, delight, and
laughter " were the characteristics. A grander labor was before him — the
labor of preserving for all ages and all nations the influences of what has
been truly called "great Eliza's golden time;" a time of free thought and
heroic action, when individual prosperity had not deadened the sympathy for
national greatness ; when men lived for their country as much as for them
selves ; a time of security and comparative peace, born out of a long period
of unrest. Henry of Navarre, the great champion of Protestantism, by a tragical
event was suddenly placed upon the throne of France. On the 8th of
August, 1589, Jacques Clement, a monk, stabbed Henry III. ; and the king
died of his wounds on the following day. Henry IV. became the sovereign
of a troubled kingdom, reduced by long intestine conflicts to extreme
weakness and misery. The king of Spain was ready with his most strenuous
aid to keep a Protestant out of the throne of France, coveting probably
that great kingdom for himself. Elizabeth of England hesitated not to give
her support to the Huguenot king, who had so long battled with the most ad
verse fortune. She sent him twenty-two thousand pounds ; Henry declared it
was a larger treasure than he had ever seen. An English force, under the com
mand of Lord Willoughby, soon after landed at Dieppe ; and the king was
thus encouraged to contiriue a contest which without this timely assistance
might have been hopeless. At the great battle of Ivry a gallant army follow
ed his white plume to a complete victory. But the duke of Parma, with the
forces of Spain, came to the relief of the league, and compelled Henry to
raise the siege of Paris. Elizabeth again sent him succor. In April, 1591,
Sir John Norris landed at France with a force of three thousand men ; and in
July of that year another small army, four thousand in number, under the
earl of Essex, was also sent to the aid of Henry. But the duke of Parma,
the most accomplished general of that time, again came to the relief of the
league ; and the expeditions of England had no satisfactory result.
Robert Devereux was the son of a distinguished but unfortunate noble
man, Walter, earl of Essex, who died at Dublin in 1576. He committed his
eldest son, Robert, who was born in 1 567, to the kindness of the queen,
requesting that he might be brought up in the household of Lord Burleigh.
Honors were showered upon him, to an extent which provoked the jealousy
of older courtiers, and increased the dangerous impetuosity of his own
nature. Raleigh and Essex were each jealous of the influence of the other.
The petted earl claimed an almost exclusive right to the royal smiles ; and
having offered an insult to Sir Charles Blount, to whom Elizabeth had given
some mark of approbation, a duel ensued, in which Essex was wounded.
The queen upon the occasion exclaimed, " By God's death, it was fit that

1603] SPANISH WAR.— THE CROWN AND COMMONS. 293
some one or other should take him down, and teach him better manners,
otherwise there would be no rule with him." Such was Essex, at the age of
twenty-four, when he was appointed to the command of the expedition sent
to the aid of Henry IV. He conducted himself with his native gallantry;
but made a singular display of his want of discretion, by sending a challenge
to the governor of Rouen to meet him in single combat. He had attempted
the same revival of the worn-out spirit of chivalry in his Lisbon campaign.
The only brother of Essex, Walter Devereux, was killed in the unsuccessful
-warfare of 1591.
The mode in which the war against Spain was carried on by England
made the wealth of the Indies a very insecure possession to King Philip.
Rich carracks were sometimes taken and sometimes destroyed. Real
treasures, such as fourteen hundred chests of quicksilver, which were found
in two ships captured by a Londoner, were abstracted from the riches of the
Spaniard ; and the Catholic king's dealings in a commodity which he sold at
great profit to his Indian subjects were also interrupted. Thomas White, the
Londoner, with his valuable quicksilver, also obtained a prize, worthless in
England, of two millions of papal bulls for indulgences. But this war was
also costly to England.
There was a discontented temper among some members of the parliament
of 1593, and the queen put it down with a haughtiness which looks like
unmitigated despotism. When the commons asked, according to ancient
usage, for liberty of speech, the lord keeper replied, in the name of the
•queen, " Privilege of speech is granted, but you must know what privilege
you have ; not to speak every one what he listeth, or what cometh in his
Drain to utter that ; but your privilege is, aye or no. Wherefore, Mr. Speaker,
her majesty's pleasure is, that if you perceive any idle heads, which will not
stick to hazard their own estates ; which will meddle with reforming the
¦Church, and transforming the commonwealth ; and do exhibit any bills to
such purpose, that you receive them not, until they be viewed and considered
by those who it is fitter should consider of such things, and can better judge
of them." A few bold members were not daunted by this temper; but
prepared a bill for entailing the succession to the crown. This, of all other
subjects, was the most disagreeable to the queen ; and four of the members
-were committed to prison for this hardihood. The courage of the Puritans
was not subdued by this severity, for Mr. Morice brought in a bill for cor
recting the abuses of the ecclesiastical court. The queen sent for the
speaker, who delivered a message to the house, that her majesty commanded
that "no bills touching matters of state, or reformation in causes ecclesiastical,
be exhibited." The same day Morice was committed to custody, and,
according to some statements, was in confinement when he died in 1596.
Such men as Morice built up the constitutional freedom whose foundations
-were still strong, however decayed the old fabric. Upon the matter of the
subsidy, the commons met the wishes of the crown, but with evident
-reluctance. Francis Bacon, then rising into importance, made a strong speech.

294 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558:.
against the amount of the subsidy, and for some time lost his chance of court:
favor. The contest between the crown and the commons, in the question of the-
succession, was the renewal of a controversy which had been conducted with.
some bitterness in 1566. There had been other occasions on which the queen.
resisted the freedom with which members uttered opinions which seemed to
limit her prerogative. Mr. Yelverton, in 1576, said that princes were to have-
their prerogatives, but yet to be confined within reasonable limits ; the queen
could not of herself make laws, neither could she break them. In 1576,.
Peter Wentworth complained that the liberty of free speech had been
infringed ; and he went so far as to say, " none is without fault, no, not oui~
noble queen, — but has committed great and dangerous faults to herself."'
The commons themselves consigned Wentworth to the Tower; but after a.
month's imprisonment, the queen said she remitted her displeasure towardl
him. Before we join in the common cry against the despotism of Elizabeth
as a personal attribute we must bear in mind that in those days the doctrine
of ministerial responsibility for every act of the crown was utterly unknown..
Elizabeth was responsible to public opinion for her public acts, and she:
almost invariably took these acts upon herself.
In 1593 Elizabeth was to be assailed through Scotland. Philip was;
conspiring with the earls of Angus, Errol, and Huntley, to send an army to*
operate with them in re-establishing Romanism in Scotland, and to marclx.
upon England with a united force for the same purpose. This conspiracy the-
king of Scots was hardly brought to believe, but that her majesty advertised"
him thereof, having entertained intelligence thereof. James at length took
arms against the " Spaniolized rebels," and this danger was past. But Philip*
had in his armory another weapon against Elizabeth. He bribed her domestic
physician, Roderigo Lopez, a Portuguese Jew, to poison her. This man had
been taken prisoner in one of the ships of the armada, and his skill in medicine,,
according to the imperfect knowledge of that time, recommended him to the
queen. The Count de Fuentes accepted the offer of Lopez to poison the
queen for a reward of fifty thousand crowns. Lopez had two Portugueses
refugees as confederates. They were convicted, and hanged on the 7th of
June, 1594. The discovery of this atrocious scheme was due to the persever
ance of Essex. In 1593 Henry IV. made a formal abjuration of those-
Protestant opinions for which he had so long gallantly fought. Without
this concession he would probably never have succeeded in tranquilizing
France. But he did not, as many aspostates have done, persecute the-
religion which he had forsaken. Elizabeth, although displeased at the
position which Henry had taken, still continued to render him aid in
his war with Spain — the common cause of each country. An English navaL
armament assisted him, in 1594, in taking Brest from the Spaniards. In
the attack upon this fort, Sir Martin Frobisher was mortally wounded-
Two other of the heroes of 1588 fell victims to disease, in an expedition.'
against the Spanish settlements in the West Indies. They made an assault

1603] ENGLISH FLEET IN THE HARBOR OF CADIZ. 295
on Porto Rico ; but they were repulsed. Hawkins soon after died. Drake
went forward, and landed at Nombre di Dios, in the isthmus of Darien.
The success which had attended his early exploits had now deserted him.
The Spaniards were prepared, as at Porto Rico. The enterprise failed,
and the great admiral succumbed to sickness and to disappointment. Basker-
ville returned home, after having fought with a Spanish fleet off Cuba, with
no decisive results on either side.
The year 1 596 was signalized by an expedition against Philip's European
dominions. He was making preparations for another invasion of England ;
and the lord high admiral, Howard, of Effingham, counseled that the blow
should be anticipated by an attack upon Spain herself. Essex was appointed
commander of the expedition, but somewhat restrained by a council of war.'
The English fleet sailed from Plymouth on the 1st of June, 1596. The
harbor of Cadiz was known to be full of shipping ; and after an attempt,
which failed, to land at St. Sebastian's, it was determined to attack the
galleys in the bay. Essex, when the council had somewhat unwillingly come
to this determination, threw his hat into the sea, in the extravagance of his
joy ; and, although against the orders which had given the honor of leading
the attack to Raleigh and Lord Thomas Howard, broke through the midst of
the fleet in which he had been stationed, and was soon in the heat of the
action. The Spanish ships fled to the protection of the guns at the fort of
Puntal, where some were set on fire by their own crews. The English admiral
refused to accept a price as the ransom of the remainder ; and they were all
burnt by the Spanish commander. Essex now led his men to an attack
upon the town of Cadiz, which was strongly fortified. At the moment when
the issue of the attack seemed doubtful, Essex threw his own standard over
the wall ; " giving withal a most hot assault upon the gate, where, to save the
honor of their ensign, happy was he that could first leap down from the wall,
and with shot and sword make way through the thickest press of the enemy."
The town was taken, and given up to plunder. The town was burnt, after
the unhappy inhabitants had been permitted to withdraw. It was the wish of
Essex to hold Cadiz ; but he was over-ruled by the council. The fleet
returned to England, with no greater success than the large destruction which
had been effected of the resources of Spain, whose loss was estimated at
twenty millions of ducats. Essex wrote a " Censure " upon the conduct of
the expedition, in which he blamed the lord admiral and Raleigh. His
impetuous nature was calculated to draw down opposition, even in the hour
of the most brilliant success. For such a feat as the capture of Cadiz he was
eminently fitted ; and in being restrained in carrying forward his victory some
injustice was probably inflicted upon him. In our time, what Essex did at
Cadiz has been described as " the most brilliant military exploit that was
achieved on the continent by English arms during the long interval which
elapsed between the battle of Agincourt and that of Blenheim." In the
following year another naval armament was fitted out against Spain. A fleet
sailed from Plymouth, on the 9th of- July, 1597; but was driven back by a

296 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
storm, in which many of the ships were disabled and sunk. The remainder
of this shattered squadron sailed again on the 17th of August. The com
manders, Essex and Raleigh, had disagreements ; and the only success that
saved the expedition from disgrace was the profitable capture of three ships
returning from the Havannah.
In August, 1598, died William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, the faithful counselor
of Elizabeth for forty years. He was the acknowledged head, by character as
well as by office, of that illustrious band, whom Mr. Macaulay terms " the
first generation of statesmen by profession that England produced." Within
a month of the decease of Burleigh died Philip II. In 1599 Spain again
threatened invasion ; and extensive preparations for resistance were made
with the usual alacrity. The weak place of Elizabeth's dominions was Ireland.
The first remedy for the evils of Ireland at the end of the sixteenth century
was to put down rebellion with a sufficient force. Hugh O'Neale, earl of
Tyrone, had been for some time in insurrection against the English govern
ment. He had received arms and military stores from Spain. As yet he had
met with no adequate resistance. Sir John Norris, with the few thousand
men that the English government maintained, was unable to make head
against an enemy whose defeat only drove his wild companies to the woods
and morasses, again to sally forth in new strength. Norris died of fatigue
and vexation in this troublesome warfare. Another commander, Sir Henry
Bagnal, was defeated with great loss, and himself killed, in an attempt to
relieve the fortress of Blackwater, which was besieged by Tyrone's men. It
became necessary to make some great effort, if Ireland were to remain to the
English crown.
The determination to employ Essex in subduing the Irish rebels was
unfortunate for Elizabeth's government, and more unfortunate for himself.
He was a courtier, but not a statesman. Friends and foes alike predicted his
fall. He differed in council with the queen, and then insolently turned his
back upon her. The thin jeweled hand of Elizabeth was raised in uncontrol
lable anger, and she boxed his ear as a mother would a petted child. The
earl put his hand upon his sword, and swore that he would not have borne
such an affront from Henry VIII. For months he sulked and kept away
from court. At length, probably to remove him without disgrace, he was
appointed to the lord lieutenancy of Ireland, with higher powers than had
ever before been granted to that great office. At the end of March, 1599, he
left London for Dublin, surrounded by a train of nobles and knights, and
greeted by the acclamations of the people, with whom he was an especial
object of regard. There were those who said that the high trust bestowed
upon Essex would be fatal to him. He swore that " he would beat Tyr-Owen
in the field, for nothing worthy her majesty's honor hath yet been achieved."
He had a force of sixteen thousand men when he marched out of Dublin on
the 10th of May. From some extraordinary vacillation, produced, it is said,
by interested advisers in the Irish council, instead of leading his force against
Tyrone, he made a progress of seven weeks through Munster ; now and then

1603] ESSEX IN IRELAND.— HIS RETURN. 297
skirmishing with small parties of rebels, and displaying his superfluous
energy, " flying like lightning from one part of the army to another ; " and
having his love of popularity abundantly gratified by his reception in the
towns. Essex remained at Dublin from the 3d of July till the 28th of August,
and then set forth into Ulster to do battle with Tyrone. After a skirmish,
the queen's army and the rebel's army were in sight of each other ; and
Tyrone sent a message that he desired her majesty's mercy, and asked that
the lord lieutenant would hear him. He proposed to meet Essex at the
ford of Bellachinche. There was a second conference, when others on
each side were present ; and the result was an armistice for six weeks. " This
being concluded," says Harrington, " on the 8th of September, on the 9th the
lord lieutenant dispersed his army." Tyrone retired with his forces. On the
17th of September Elizabeth wrote a letter to Essex, disapproving of his
proceedings in the strongest terms. The impetuous nature of the man would
not endure this reproof. He saw, and perhaps justly, that his rivals in Eliza
beth's court were working his downfall : and in a blind confidence in the
queen's favor, he took the fatal resolution of leaving his command in Ireland.
On the 28th of September, " about ten o'clock in the morning, my lord of
Essex lighted at the court-gate in post, and made all haste up to the pres
ence, and so to the privy chamber, and stayed not till he came to the queen's
"bed-chamber, where he found the queen newly up, with her hair about her
face ; he kneeled unto her, kissed her hands, and had some private speech
with her, which seemed to give him great contentment ; for when he came
from her majesty, he was very pleasant, and thanked God, though he had
suffered much trouble and storms abroad, he found a sweet calm at home.
'Tis much wondered at here that he went so boldly to her majesty's presence,
she not being ready, and he so full of dirt and mire, that his very face was full
of it. About eleven he went up to the queen again, and conferred with her till
half an hour past twelve. As yet all was well, and her usage very gracious
toward him. He was visited frankly by all sorts here of lords and ladies, and
gentlemen ; only strangeness is observed between him and Mr. Secretary, and
that party. After dinner he went up to the queen, but found her much
changed in that small time, for she began to call him to question for his
return, and was not satisfied in the manner of his coming away, and leaving
all things at so great hazard. She appointed the lords to hear him but
nothing was determined on, or yet known : belike it is referred to a full
council, for all the lords are sent for to be here this day. It is mistrusted
that for his disobedience he shall be committed."
The personal affection of the queen for Essex was, as in the instances of
other favorites, under subjection to what she held as her public duty. On
the next day Essex was examined before the council, and, instead of being
restored to favor, was commanded from court, and committed to the " free
custody " of the lord keeper, and was afterward under the same restricted
liberty at his own house. He addressed the queen in letters of the deepest

298 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
contrition. But the affairs of Ireland had grown worse ; Tyrone was again in
rebellion. Another lord deputy was sent, and Blount, Lord Mountjoy,
although without military experience, soon restored obedience to the English
authority by his energy and prudence. The contrast was injurious to Essex,
and gave new opportunities to his rivals. He was again examined before
commissioners ; and received the severest censure in being suspended from
his offices of privy counselor, of lord marshal, and of master of the ordnance.
He was released from custody in August but was still commanded not to
appear at court. A valuable monopoly of sweet wines which he held having
expired, the queen refused to renew the patent, saying " that in order to
manage an ungovernable beast, he must be stinted of his provender." Under
these indignities the mind of Essex lost all balance.
The queen was now sixty-eight years of age ; and although she had
shown no signs of a failure of intellectual vigor, the people were naturally
looking forward to a successor. James VI. of Scotland was intriguing in
various quarters to procure his official recognition as the future king of Eng
land ; but upon this point Elizabeth was unapproachable. The wary Cecil
was in secret correspondence with James ; but the incautious Essex had not
scrupled to contemplate the possibility of compelling the government into
such recognition ; and had even proposed to Mountjoy, the lord deputy of
Ireland, to bring over a body of troops for that purpose. His own plans to
the same end during his tardy prosecution of the Irish war were more than
suspected. Essex surrounded himself with a number of those who had been
his companions in arms ; but he placed a greater reliance upon his popularity
with the Londoners. On Sunday morning, the 8th of February, the earls of
Rutland and Southampton, the lords Sandys and Monteagle, with about
three hundred gentlemen assembled at Essex House, in the Strand. Essex
had sent round to say that his life was threatened by Raleigh and Cobham.
The queen was apprised of this remarkable gathering, and she dispatched the
lord keeper, the comptroller of the household, the lord chief justice, and the
earl of Worcester to demand the cause of this assembly. They found the
court full of men. The lord keeper declared their errand, to which Essex
replied that his life was sought, and that he had been perfidiously dealt with.
These great officers assured him that he should have honorable and equal
justice. The earl of Essex left the lord keeper and the others in custody, he
drew his sword, and rushed out of his house, followed by a large number of
his adherents, and he shouted, " For the queen, for the queen, a plot is laid
for my life." The people, as he rode at the head of his company, either did
not comprehend his object, or were unwilling to assist him ; not a sword or a
musket was brought forth to give him assistance. Disheartened, the unhappy
nobleman and his friends attempted to return from the city ; but they found
the streets barricaded with empty carriages. At Ludgate the chains were
drawn ; and a party of soldiers opposed their progress. A fight ensued, in
which several were killed. Essex escaped by water to his own house ; which
he attempted to defend, with those who got in with him. But no succor

I6b3] TRIAL OF ESSEX AND SOUTHAMPTON. 299
from the city reached him, and they surrendered. Essex and Southampton
were that night removed to the Tower.
On the 19th of February the two noble friends were put upon their trial,
in the court of the lord high steward. There was no straining of the law to
procure the condemnation of these rash men ; although we may well believe
the truth of the solemn averment of Essex, " Here I protest before the living-
God, as he may have mercy upon me, that my conscience is clear from any
disloyal thought of harm to her majesty, and my desire ever hath been to be
free from bloodshed." Coke, the attorney-general, bitterly alluded to that
part of the indictment which accused him of aiming to be king, saying of
Essex, " He of his earldom shall be Robert the Last, that of a kingdom
sought to be Robert the First." Essex, to this charge, made his denial in
these words : " And thou, O God, which knowest the secrets of all hearts,
knowest that I never sought the crown of England, nor ever wished to be o-f
higher degree than a subject." Francis Bacon was one of the queen's
counsel, and he was officially employed against Essex in this trial. The gen
erous earl had given him an estate, because he could not procure for him a
lucrative appointment. Essex had struggled against the ill-will of the Cecils
to advance Bacon's fortunes, in season and out of season. Yet upon the trial
Bacon said stronger things against his friend than were urged by his bitterest
adversaries. There was a general indignation expressed against Bacon for
this severity. To shut out Essex from mercy, Mr. Macaulay says that Bacon
"employed all his wit, his rhetoric, and his learning." That Bacon was a
high-minded man in public transactions is as difficult to believe as that he
possessed a treacherous and cruel nature. We must feel acutely the mean
ness of the great writer — he who had already published a volume of his noble
" Essays " — in becoming such an unworthy instrument of expediency. But
there were excuses. He was poor ; he was ambitious. In penning his-
apology for his conduct in the unhappy affair of Essex, he is manifestly
unconscious of his own degradation. The earl of Essex was beheaded within
the walls of the Tower on Wednesday morning, the 25th of February. Lord
Southampton was confined during the remainder of Elizabeth's reign. Sir
Gilly Meyrick, Henry Cuffe, Sir Christopher Blount, and Sir Charles Danvers,
were executed as adherents to the conspiracy. The correspondence of Essex
with King James VI. was certainly among the causes which prevented his
restoration to the favor of Elizabeth. At a convention of the Scottish
estates, in June, 1600, the king proposed that a tax should be levied, for the
purpose of asserting his claim to the succession to the crown of England.
This demand met with the most strenuous resistance. The king was furious
against his parliament. They had laughed at his notion of raising money to
make a conquest of England ; and altogether refused to give him more than
forty thousand pounds Scots. After this, Robert Cecil was informed that
James had a party in England, and intended not to tarry for the queen's death.
On the 20th of November a bill was brought in by Mr. Lawrence Hyde,
entitled, " An act for the explanation of the common law in certain cases of

3co HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE TUDORS. [1558
letters patent." Bacon, as attorney-general, opposed the bill, saying, " the
use hath been ever to humble ourselves unto her majesty, and by petition
desire to have our grievances remedied, especially when the remedy toucheth
her so nigh in point of prerogative." Many independent members used
strong language in support of the bill, for considering which a committee
was formed. On the 25th of November, the speaker stood up, the house
-wondering at the cause, and said that he had been commanded to attend
upon the queen, and had a message to deliver. She thanked them, he said,
most heartily for the subsidy : and then added, " that partly by the intima
tion of her council, and partly by divers petitions that have been delivered
-unto her both going to the chapel and also to walk abroad, she understood
that divers patents, which she had granted, were grievous to her subjects ;
and that the substitutes of the patentees had used great oppressions." She
concluded by declaring, said Mr. Speaker, " that further order should be taken
presently, and not ' in futuro ; ' and that some should be presently repealed,
some suspended, and none put in execution but such as should first have a
trial according to the law, for the good of the people." Then Mr. Secretary
Cecil stood up, and in a speech as important as amusing, declared that no
new patents should be granted, and that the old ones should be revoked : " I
say, therefore, there shall be a proclamation general throughout the realm, to
notify her majesty's resolution in this behalf." The house was in a fever of
rapture at the declaration of the queen ; and it was moved that the speaker
should convey their thanks to her majesty.
" The following curious story was frequently told by Lady Elizabeth Spelman, great-granddaughter
of Sir Robert Carey, brother of Lady Nottingham, and afterward earl of Monmouth, whose curious
Memoirs of himself were published a few years ago by Lord Coke : — When Catherine, countess of Not
tingham, was dying (as she did, according to his lordship's own account, about a fortnight before Queen
Elizabeth), she sent to her majesty to desire that she might see her, in order to reveal something to her
-majesty, without the discovery of which she could not die in peace. Upon the queen's coming, Lady
Nottingham told her that while the earl of Essex lay under sentence of death, he was desirous of asking
her majesty's mercy in the manner prescribed by herself during the hright of his favor ; the queen hav
ing given him a ring, which, being sent to her as a token of his distress, might entitle him to her protec
tion. But the earl, jealous of those about him, and not caring to trust any of them with it, as he was
looking out of his window one morning, saw a boy with whose appearance he was pleased ; and, engag
ing him by money and promises, directed him to convey the ring, which he took from his finger and
threw down, to Lady Scroop, a sister of the countess of Nottingham, and a friend of his lordship, who
attended upon the queen ; and to beg of her, that she would present it to her majesty. The boy, by
mistake, carried it to Lady Nottingham, who showed it to her husband, the admiral, an enemy of Lord
Essex, in order to take his advice. The admiral forbade her to carry it, or return any answer to the
message ; but insisted upon her keeping the ring. The countess of Nottingham, having made this dis
covery, begged the queen's forgiveness ; but her majesty answered, ' God may forgive, but I never can,'
and left the room with great emotion. Her mind was so struck with the story, that she never went into
"bed, or took any sustenance from that instant ; for Camden is of opinion that her chief reason for suf
fering the earl to be executed was his supposed obstinacy in not applying to her for mercy."
The remaining events of this reign may be briefly told. Lord Mountjoy
was more fortunate than Essex in his Irish administration. The Spaniards
had landed in Ireland to assist the Roman Catholic insurgents. They took
up a strong position at Kinsale, with four thousand troops. Tyrone came to

I&3] DEATH AND CHARACTER OF ELIZABETH. 301
the assistance of the Spanish commander, with six thousand Irish, and some
foreigners. Mountjoy defeated him ; and the Spaniards capitulated. Tyrone
in 1602, surrendered, upon a promise of life and lands. In March, 1603,
Elizabeth was fast sinking. Some have held that she looked back with poig
nant anguish to the fate of Essex, and hence " the deep melancholy visible in
her countenance and actions," noticed by Beaumont, the French ambassador.
But he more justly ascribed her dejection to " the sufferings incident to her
age." She died at three o'clock in the morning of the 24th of March. On
the night before, she was entreated to name a successor. Her reply was
equivocal. Cecil, however, affirmed that she declared by signs that the
king of Scots should succeed her ; holding her hands joined over her head,
in manner of a crown, when his name was mentioned.
The historian Hume, in his desire to exhibit the reign of Elizabeth as a
period of uncontrolled despotism, says, " It is remarkable that in all the
historical plays of Shakespeare, where the manners and characters, and even
the transactions, of the several reigns are so exactly copied, there is scarcely
any mention of civil liberty J '" The "manners and characters," not only of
Shakespeare's historical plays, but of all his other dramas, are instinct with all
the vitality that belongs to a state of social freedom, in which what we hold as
tyranny was exceptional. Spenser dealt much more largely than Shakespeare
with the events and characteristics of his age. In his " Shepherd's Kalendar,"
he is a decided Church-reformer. In the " Faery Queen " he shadows forth
"the most excellent and glorious person " of Elizabeth; and many historical
personages may be traced in the poem. The tone of Spenser's poetry must
at any rate have been in accordance with the mental condition of those with
whom " the Faery Queen " became at once the most popular of all books. It
ceased to be popular after two generations had passed away, and the Roches
ter and Sedleys were the great literary stars. Spenser was the most popular
of poets while the ideal of chivalry still lingered in the period that had pro
duced Sidney, and Essex, and Raleigh, and Grenville. The great laureate's
popularity was gone when the Dutch sailed up the Medway ; for the spirit of
the Elizabethan " golden time " was gone. The age of Elizabeth may pre
eminently claim the distinction of having called up a great native literature.
,The national mind had already put forth many blossoms of poetry, and in the
instance of Chaucer the early fruit was of the richest flavor.
The architecture of the reign of Elizabeth is essentially characteristic of
the period, not only in the simple manor-house of the squire, but in the
" great house " of the noble. The house itself was built of fair and strong
stone, not affecting so much any extraordinary kind of fineness, as an honor
able representing of a firm stateliness. The Elizabethan manor-house is too
well known to need any description. It is generally a plain building, with
two projecting wings and a central porch. The reign of Elizabeth, which
witnessed such an outburst of our native literature, had not neglected that
cultivation of ancient learning, upon which sound literature and correct taste
must in a great degree be built. New colleges had been founded at Oxford

302

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS.

[1603

and Cambridge. Elizabeth had also founded Trinity College, Dublin. James
VI. had erected the University of Edinburgh, in addition to the Scottish
academical institutions ; and Marischal College, Aberdeen, was built in his
reign. To the London grammar schools of St. Paul's and Christ Church had
been added Westminster School, by the queen, and Merchant Tailors' School,
by the great city company of that name. The grammar-schools were essen
tially the schools of the people ; and it is a sufficient praise of Elizabeth's new
foundation of Westminster to say that Camden there taught, and thai
Jonson there learnt.

VI.

(1603— 1649.)
JAMES I.
(1603-1625.)
URING his journey of thirty-two days from Edin
burgh to London, James showered the honor of
knighthood on two hundred and thirty-seven gen
tlemen who were presented to him. Elizabeth
bestowed such honors sparingly upon her states
men and soldiers. He at last rested at Theobalds,
where the adroit Cecil made his arrangements for a
long tenure of power. The king entered London on the 7th of
May. That the king had no large views of toleration was soon
evident. He bestowed some honors and lucrative places on a few,
upon a principle which he avowed when objection was made to
Lord Henry Howard, a Catholic, having a seat in the council;
James saying that by this tame duck he hoped to take many wild
ones. The coronation took place on the 25th of July, amid the
gloom and consternation of the people of London, for the plague
•was making the most fearful ravages in the city. At the death of Elizabeth,
the rivalry which had sprung up between Robert Cecil and Raleigh was to
have its triumph, in the confirmed favor of James to the minister with whom
he had for some time been in secret communication. The wily secretary of
State was far too strong for the bold captain of the guard. So Raleigh was
deprived of his officers ; and within a few months was under a charge of high
treason. Cobham, a very weak man, though possessed of great power from
his position, had taken part with Raleigh in his jealousy of the earl of Essex ;
and James, who considered that Essex had been sacrificed through his anxiety

1625] TRIAL OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 303
to promote that claim to the succession which Elizabeth did not recognize,
held them both in great dislike. Cecil, who was equally united with them in
jealousy of Essex, had propitiated the king of Scotland ; and. to him was con
fided the chief power of the government when James came to the English
throne. The mind of Raleigh never was exhibited in a more heroic attitude
than in his conduct on this memorable trial. Sir Walter Raleigh had been
indicted on the previous 21st of August, upon a charge of high treason ; the
overt acts alleged being that he had conferred with Lord Cobham as to
advancing Arabella Stuart to the crown of England, dispossessing the king;
and that it was arranged that Lord Cobham should go to the king of Spain
and the archduke of Austria, to obtain six hundred thousand crowns for the
support of Arabella's title, and that Raleigh was to receive eight thousand
crowns. Raleigh pleaded not guilty.
The conduct of the attorney-general upon this trial, was such as made
even Cecil remonstrate against his unfairness. Coke's brutality to the
prisoner remains as a perpetual warning to the bar and the bench. Coke
went on, traveling for out of the indictment, to associate Raleigh with every
charge against other conspirators of whose proceedings it is manifest that he
knew nothing. " To what end do you speak all this ? " said the prisoner.
" I will prove you to be the most notorious traitor that ever came to the bar,"
rejoined Coke. " Thou art a monster. Thou hast an English face but a
Spanish heart." Coke then proceeded with a recital of his charges against
Cobham. " If my Lord Cobham be a traitor, what is that to me ? " said
Raleigh. Then the great lawyer replied, " All that he did was by thy instiga
tion, thou viper, for I thou thee, thou traitor ! " " Thou art thyself a spider
of hell." Such were the flowers of rhetoric with which the attorney-general
of that day sustained the dignity of English justice. The charge against
Raleigh rested solely upon the accusation of Lord Cobham, of which a contem
porary letter-writer says, it " was no more to be weighed than the barking of
a dog." His eloquence was unavailing. He was found guilty, and sentenced
to death. The priests and Brooke were found guilty of the " Bye " plot, and
were executed. Cobham, Grey, and Markham were found guilty, and were
brought upon the scaffold to die. These were reprieved, and wore out long
years of imprisonment. Raleigh was also reprieved, and was confined in the
Tower till 1616. Those twelve years of captivity were not spent in vain
repining. In his prison chamber he wrote his " History of the World " — a .
noble book, worthy of the man and of the days in which he had gloriously
lived — full of poetry and high philosophy, and in its solemn recognitions of
the "power, light, virtue, wisdom, and goodness" of the "Omnipotent
Cause," and "Almighty Mover," furnishing the best answer to the scurrility
of the attorney-general, who called him " damnable atheist." On. the 14th,
15th and 16th of January, 1604, the king summoned to Hampton court the
archbishop of Canterbury, eight bishops, five deans, and two doctors, who
were to sustain the ceremonies and practices of the Church, and to oppose all
innovation. To meet them, four members of the reforming party were sum-

304 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1603
moned, including Dr. Reynolds. Royalty never displayed itself in a more undig
nified manner. Episcopacy never degraded itself more by a servile flattery of
royalty. James was the chief talker in these conferences. Harrington, who
was present, says " The king talked much Latin, and disputed with Dr. Rey
nolds ; but he rather used upbraidings than argument, and told the petitioners
that they wanted to strip Christ again, and bid them away with their snivel
ing  " * A few alterations were made in the common Prayer Book ; and
a new version of the Holy Scriptures was ordered to be undertaken.
On the 19th of March, 1604, the two houses were assembled. In the
proclamation by which the king called parliament together, he had, in his
grand style of common places, chosen to prescribe the sort of men the people
were to choose for their representatives. Again and again, in the reign of
Elizabeth, as they had done in former reigns, the commons had successfully
maintained the principle that no writ for a second election of knight or
citizen ;>r burgess should issue, without an order from the house itself. Sir
Francis Goodwin had been returned for Buckinghamshire, in opposition to
Sir John Fortescuc, who was favored by the government. An outlawry had
been found to have formerly hung over him ; and the election of Goodwin
being declared void, a new writ was issued from chancery. The house
restored Goodwin to his seat ; and then James, in his impatient ignorance of
the spirit of the English monarchy, told the commons that " they derived all
matters of privilege from him, and from his grant." The dispute went on ;
and then this interpreter of the spirit of the old free monarchy of England said,
" We command, as an absolute king, a conference with the judges." The mat
ter ended by both elections being set aside. James was wise enough not to
engage in such a conflict a second time. But it was not only upon the
question of their privileges that the commons were not in accord with the
crown. There had been, with the king's assent, a novel code of canons
established in convocation which aimed at excluding non-conformists from
civil rights, and setting up an unconstitutional authority over the laity, as
well as the clergy. The commons, in a conference with the lords, remonstra
ted against such an innovation. They say to the king, " Your majesty would
be misinformed if any man should deliver that the kings of England have any
absolute power in themselves, either to alter religion, which God defend
should be in the power of any mortal man whatsoever, or to make any laws
concerning the same, otherwise than, as in temporal causes, by consent of
parliament. We have, and shall, at all times by our oaths acknowledge that
your majesty is sovereign lord and supreme governor in both."
In August, 1604, a treaty of peace was concluded between James, king of
England, the king of Spain, and the archduke of Austria. The policy of the
country was wholly changed in the change of its sovereign. Previous to the
accession of James, the sovereign, in the unaltered style of ancient feudal
assumption, had the title of " king of England, Scotland, France, and Ire
land." On the 24th of October, 1604, James was proclaimed " king of
* " Nugas Antiquae," p. 182.

1625] JAMES EXCOMMUNICATED.— GUNPOWDER PLOT. 305
Great Britain, France, and Ireland." His vanity was abundantly gratified in
being king of Great Britain and Ireland — an absolute king, as he believed ;
and not only a king, but a master of all learning, and especially of theological
learning, of whom his chancellor declared, at the Hampton court conference,
that never since our Saviour's time had the king and the priest been so
wonderfully united in .the same person. His figure was ungaiply ; his habits
were slovenly ; he was by nature a coward. Not deficient in a certain talent
which he rarely put to a right use — " the wisest fool in Christendom." He
was a king for himself alone. Lord Thomas Howard, who had been a power
ful instrument in forwarding the accession of James, wrote to Harrington,
" Your queen did talk of her subject's love and good affection, and in good
truth she aimed well. Our king talketh of his subjects' fear and subjection,
and herein I think he doth well too, — as long as it holdeth good."
On Monday the 4th of November, the lord chamberlain, whose duty it
was to make arrangements for the meeting of parliament, went to the house
of lords ; and afterward entered the vaults under the parliament-chamber.
They observed a large store of coals and wood in a cellar ; and standing
carelessly there they saw " a very tall and desperate fellow." ' The lord
chamberlain asked who the fuel belonged to : and the man answered that
they belonged to his master, Mr. Percy, who had rented the cellar for a year
and a half. There were no more questions. But there was a general
examination, by the direction of a Westminster magistrate, of neighboring
houses and cellars, under a pretense of looking for some missing property
belonging to the royal wardrobe. The " tall and desperate fellow," was not
yet frightened from his purpose. A little before midnight on the eve of the
5th of November, the same magistrate, with a strong body of attendants,
repaired to the cellar under the parliament house. A man just stepping out
of the door was seized and searched. Slow matches and touchwood were
found upon him ; and a lantern, with a light within its dark covering, was in
the cellar. The heaps of billets were quickly removed, and beneath them
were thirty-six barrels of gunpowder. It is one o'clock in the morning.
The prisoner is led to Whitehall. His name, he says, is John Johnson ; he is
a servant of Thomas Percy ; if he had not been apprehended that night, he
had blown up the parliament house, when the king, peers, bishops, and others
had been assembled. "Why would you have killed me?" asked the king.
" Because you are excommunicated by the pope," is the reply. " How so ? "
said James. " Every Maundy Thursday the pope doth excommunicate all
heretics, who are not of the Church of Rome," is the explanation. He is
asked who were privy to the conspiracy, and answers, " he could not resolve
to accuse any." In the morning he was taken to the Tower.
That morning of the 5th of November was a time of deep anxiety in
London. The news of a conspiracy so daring in its objects, so mysterious
in its origin, so terrible in its remorseless fanaticism, filled all classes witli
alarm. Two of the conspirators had left London on the 4th. Two others
fled the instant they knew that the pretended servant of Percy was
20

306 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1605
seized. Two more lingered till the morning. Five of these joined
company, all riding with extraordinary speed, having relays of horses. A
party was collected on the 5th at the house of Lady Catesby, at Ashby St.
Legers. They were at supper when the five who had fled from London
rushed in, covered with the mire of the wintry roads, exhausted, hopeless.
They had little to think of now but self-defense. Taking with them all the
arms they could collect, the rode off to Dunchurch. Here they found a
large assembly, with Sir Everard Digby at their head, carousing, and anxiously
expecting some joyful intelligence of the triumphs of their party, which they
had been led to anticipate by vague hints of a coming time when heresy
should no longer sit in high places. Those who came with numerous
retainers to the great chase on Dunmore heath, which was to be a gathering
for more important objects than the hunting of the deer, gradually slunk away.
On that night the chief conspirators were left alone.
Robert Catesby, was imbued with a more than common hatred to the
established religion. He was concerned in the insurrection of Essex, but
was pardoned upon paying a fine of three thousand pounds ; and he was
prominent in other seditions during the two latter years of the queen's reign.
Thomas Winter was of a Roman Catholic family, who were connected by
marriage with the family of Catesby ; and he also had been occupied with
plots, and had been in Spain to negotiate for the invasion of England by a
Spanish force, in 1601. John Wright was a pervert from Protestantism, and
he had also been engaged in the treason of Essex. These men were old and
intimate friends ; and these " three first devised the plot, and were the chief
directors of all the particularities of it," as their principal associate declared
in one of his examinations. He who stated this, on the 19th of November,
was the "tall and desperate fellow " who called himself John Johnson. He
had been compelled to disclose his real name by a hateful process ; as we
may learn from the signature of Guido Fawkes to his examination before the
torture, and his signature to an examination after the torture. He was the
son of a notary of York, who was registrar of the consistory court of
the cathedral. Guido Fawkes and Thomas Winter came to London together
in 1604 ; and a few days after there was a remarkable meeting between
Catesby, Wright, Winter, Fawkes, and a new malcontent, Thomas Percy, a
relation of the earl of Northumberland. From the time of this meeting, at
which the first words which Percy uttered, were, " Shall we always, gentle
men, talk, and never do anything ? " — there was abundant work, and very
hard work, for these five fanatics.
The confession of Thomas Winter, is a very elaborate paper, minutely
detailing the rise and progress of the conspiracy. They gave each other an
oath of secrecy, " in a chamber where no other body was ; " and, going
" into the next room, heard mass, and received the blessed sacrament upon
,, the same." The object for which the oath was taken was then disclosed by
Catesby to Percy, and by Winter and Wright to Fawkes. In the State
paper office there is an agreement between Thomas Percy and Henry

l62$] THE CONSPIRATORS AT WORK. 307
Ferrers, for the hire of a house next the parliament-house. " The bloody
cellar," was not under the parliament chamber. They saw no chance of
preparing a mine beneath that chamber, but by breaking through the massive
foundation wall of the House of Lords. They had to get through a stone
wall three yards in thickness. Their labor was far beyond what they had
expected ; and they sent to Lambeth for Keyes, and obtained the adhesion
to their plot of Christopher Wright, the brother of John. They were all
followers of the Jesuits. There were none of the conspirators who belonged
to the more loyal body of Catholics who were guided by the secular priest
hood. They were to carry off Prince Charles, and his sister Elizabeth,
Prince Henry having perished with the king. They were then to proclaim
the heir-apparent and appoint a protector of the kingdom, during the
minority of the sovereign. They were to ask help of foreign princes, when
" the business was acted." They had " wrought also another fortnight in
the mine against the stone wall, which was very hard to beat through," when
they heard a rushing noise above their heads. Fawkes, always foremost in
any danger, went to ascertain the cause, in his usual disguise of a porter's
frock. He found that above the spot where they had been mining was a
cellar in the occupation of a coal-dealer, and that he was moving his coals,
being about to give up possession. That cellar was immediately under the
parliament chamber. They seized upon the opportunity. The cellar was
hired, and was quickly filled with barrels of gunpowder, covered over with
fagots and billets. In May all their stores were carried in, and, locking the
cellar, they departed from London. The conspiracy widened by the intro
duction to its secrets of Sir Everard Digby, Ambrose Rookwood, and Francis
Tresham. The latter died in the Tower before the trial. Robert and
Thomas Winter, Guido Fawkes, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert
Keyes, and Thomas Bates, were condemned, and sentenced to the penalties
of treason. Sir Everard Digby was tried and found guilty. They were all
executed. The parliament which was to have met on the 5th of November, 1605,
was necessarily prorogued to a later period. It assembled on the 21st of
January, 1606. To the previous severities of the penal code were added
various penalties which touched convicted recusants in their domestic and
.private relations. All Roman Catholics who had been convicted of recusancy,
and all who had not received the sacrament twice in twelve months in a
Protestant Church, were also required to take an oath of allegiance. England
had now got a sporting king, who told his ministers, when they implored him
on their knees to attend to the public business, that his health was the health
and welfare of all, and that he never would forego his exercise and relaxation.
His brother-in-law, Christian IV., king of Denmark, came over to England in
July, 1606 ; and James, having received a liberal subsidy from the parliament,
indulged in every species of disgusting excess, in which the royal example
was so encouraging, that, writes Harrington, " the ladies abandon their sobri
ety, and are seen to roll about in intoxication." James's early favorites were

308 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1603
needy Scotsmen who had followed the court to England. His folly in this
costly favoritism provoked the indignation of the House of Commons, and was
one of the main causes that his laudable anxiety for a perfect union of the
two kingdoms of England and Scotland was constantly defeated. Osborn
tells a curious story of the ignorant lavishness of James. He had given Carr
an order upon the lord high treasurer for twenty thousand pounds. The
wise Cecil, according to this story, placed the twenty thousand pounds in
specie upon the floor of a room to which the king was coming. " Whose
money is this?" said James. "It was your majesty's before you gave it
away." The king threw himself upon the heap, and swore that Carr should
have no more than a few hundred pounds.
The colonization of North America was still the hope of generous states
men and bold mariners. Voyage after voyage was undertaken. Bartholomew
Gosnold, having been the first to cross the Atlantic by a direct course in 1602,
discovered the promontory to which he gave no dignified name, Cape Cod ;
and he laid the foundation of the first New England colony on Elizabeth
island. Martin Pring, in 1603, surveyed the coast of Maine. George Wey
mouth, in 1605, ascended the western branch of the Penobscot. The undying
spirit of enterprise which Raleigh had first fostered received at length some
encouragement from the government. In 1606, James granted the first char
ters for colonizing North America, to a London company, and to a Plymouth
company. That same year, the London or South Virginia company sent out
three ships, with one hundred and five men who were to remain as settlers.
The sagacity of Raleigh had pointed out the Chesapeake Bay as a favorable
place of settlement. A storm drove these adventurers into that magnificent
anchorage. The two headlands were named Cape Henry and Cape Charles ;
and having ascended a fine river which they named after their king, they
planted their colony in a pleasant spot, and called it James Town.
Newport, the commander of the ships, and James Smith a man whose
name will be ever associated with the colonization of America, ascended the
James river, and saw the Indian chieftain, Powhatan. The savages were hos
tile to the strangers : " the emperor of the country," as Powhatan was styled,
protected them. But gradually the colonists, unused to manual labor, per
ished of want and disease. Newport left for England. Smith set off upon an
expedition to explore the interior. His companions were surprised and butch
ered by the Indians. He would have perished with them, had not the savages
conceived that he was a superior being when he showed them a pocket com
pass, and told how the wondrous needle always pointed to one quarter.
Among the tribes was the daughter of Powhatan, named Pocahontas. This
maiden saved the life of the Englishman, who had gained her confidence.
She hung upon his neck when the tomahawk was raised to destroy him ; and
she induced her father to receive him in a strict friendship. When Smith re
turned to his colony, the hundred and five settlers were reduced to forty.
The fortitude of Smith never failed. He restored order, and again went forth
in the summer of 1608 for new discoveries. In an open boat, with two or-

1625] SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA. 309
three companions, he navigated three thousand miles of the American coasts
and rivers. He constructed a map of the country, which is still in existence.
He saw the Mohawks, "who dwelt upon a great water, and had many boats
and many men." On his return a second body of emigrants came to join
the Virginian colony. A new charter was granted in 1609. The rage for
emigration extended. Other ships arrived, with men of broken fortunes
and dissolute gallants. Smith still maintained his authority over the useless
members of the community. But he was disabled by an accident, and
he returned impoverished and enfeebled to England. The settlement was
about to be abandoned when, in 1610, a new body of emigrants arrived
, under the leadership of Lord Delaware, who had been appointed governor
of Virginia. There was again a glimmering of prosperity ; but ill-health
compelled the return of the wise governor to England. Six ships,
with three hundred emigrants and abundant supplies, arrived at James
Town, under Sir Thomas Gates. . A distribution of land to each emigrant as
his private property gave a new stimulus to industry. The colony prospered.
Indian tribes submitted to the settlers. Pocahontas, the beautiful girl who
had saved the life of Smith, was married to John Rolfe, a young Englishman.
After four years the Indian wife and mother sailed with her husband to Eng
land ; and there she died. The savage man gradually melted away as the civil
ized man occupied his forests, and in a few years the race of Powhatan was
extinct. The Virginian colony went on to prosper. There was another
colony formed fourteen years later. The congregation of separatists from the
Church of England, who, with their pastor, John Robinson, had become exiles
in Holland in 1608, had thought much of the settlements in North America.
They had obtained a patent from the London company, and they obtained
funds, on very hard terms, from London merchants. They purchased the
Speedwell, a vessel of forty tons : and hired the Mayflower, of a hundred and
eighty tons. on tne 22d of July, 1620, having left some of the brethren at
Leyden, they embarked at Delft-Haven. Robinson, their pastor, did not
accompany them ; but he knelt on 'the shore as the emigrants ascended the
decks of the Mayflower, and gave them his blessings and his prayers. This
event, so insignificant as it must have seemed at the time, so all-important in
the real history of England, now forms the subject of a fresco in the House of
Lords. The pilgrim fathers, as they are now affectionately called, reached
after a long and stormy voyage, the northern shores of Virginia in November.
On the nth of December, an exploring party landed in Massachusetts Bay,
at a spot which they afterward determined to call Plymouth. " It was the or
igin of New England ; it was the planting of the New England institutions."
On the last day of the sixteenth century a charter was granted by Queen
Elizabeth to a body of adventurers, styled " The governor and company of
merchants of London trading to the East Indies." A direct commercial inter
course with India had been previously carried on by the Turkey company ;
but the maritime trade had been in the possession, first of the Portuguese,
and afterward of the Dutch. The trade of England with the East Indies

310 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1603
was henceforth to be carried on by sea. Their privileges were invaded by
James at the beginning of his reign. But in 1609 their charter was renewed
without limitation of time ; several voyages were attended with large profits ;
and in 1612, the Englishman planted his foot in India, having obtained per
mission from the Great Mogul to establish a factory at Surat. To the com
plaint of the heavy money payments for Indian produce it was answered that
the country saved in the cost of spices alone, seventy thousands pounds a
year ; and that we exported cloths to the annual value of fourteen thousand
pounds. The intercourse with India had its romantic aspects. The power,
the magnificence, the unbounded wealth of the Mogul conquerors of Hindo-
stan had long been familiar to the English mind.
Arabella Stuart was the cousin of King James ; being the only child of
Charles, earl of Lennox, the grandson of Margaret Tudor. Her parents died
young; and she was brought up by her maternal grandmother, the countess of
Shrewsbury. If James had died childless, Arabella Stuart would have been
the lineal heir to the crown. After the accession of James she appears to have
been in much favor. In 1604 she received the grant of an annual pension for
life of one thousand pounds. In 1609 she had the profits of a monopoly, in
the privilege of nominating the sellers of wines and spirits in Ireland. In
1610 it was discovered that William Seymour, the second son of Lord
Beauchamp, was endeavoring to gain the Lady Arabella as his wife. They
were brought before the council, and protested that they never intended
marrying without the king's consent. In a few months they were privately
married. The husband was sent to the Tower ; the wife was placed in official
custody. On the 3d of June, 161 1, she escaped from Highgate disguised as
a man. Seymour meanwhile had escaped from the Tower, also in disguise.
Arabella rode to Blackwall ; and then crossed to Lee. A French bark, hired
for the occasion, was there lying at anchor, and when she went on board, the
captain stood out to sea, without waiting for Seymour, who was expected to
join his wife. They never saw each other again. Arabella was captured in
the French bark by an English pinnace that had been sent in chase of the
fugitives ; and she was carried to the Tower. Seymour escaped to Ostend.
She died in the fourth year of her imprisonment, worn out with grief which
ended in mental derangement. Of the cruelty of the king to his kinswoman
there can be no doubt. In May, 1612, died Robert Cecil, earl of Salisbury.
" He was a good statesman, and no ill member of the commonwealth," says
Sir Simonds D'Ewes; but he died amid "a general hate, almost of all sorts."
Robert Carr succeeded Cecil, not as prime minister ; but he was all-powerful
as prime favorite. James gormandized with Heliogabalus Hay; and when
Carr, a raw Scotch lad, had broken his leg in the tilting-yard, the king
watched over his recovery, placed him about his person, pinched his cheek,
taught him Latin, bestowed on him forfeited lands, created him Baron
Branspath and then Viscount Rochester, and made him a Knight of the
Garter. For four years after that minister's death Carr ruled supreme, till
another favorite came to eject him. The history of this period is disgusting

1625] LADY ESSEX.— PRINCESS ELIZABETH.— BACON. 311
to trace in contemporary memoirs and documents, and much of it is unfit to
be related in a modern narrative.
In 1606, on Twelfth Night, a masque was performed at court. This
" Masque of Hymen " was to celebrate the marriage of the earl of Essex, a
boy of fourteen years, with Lady Frances Howard, a girl of thirteen. In
161 3, there was another masque in honor of the marriage of this lady with
Robert Carr, then created earl of Somerset. The young Essex had gone
abroad after his marriage ; and his child-bride had lived among the seductions
of the court — " incomparably the most disgraceful scene of profligacy which
this country has ever witnessed." The odious circumstances which attended
the divorce of Lady Essex,' that she might be bestowed upon her paramour,
Somerset, brought equal disgrace, in the eyes of the people, upon the king
who urged the divorce in the most unkingly manner, and upon the ecclesias
tical court which decreed it. Prince Henry was in his nineteenth year, when,
on the 6th of November, 1612, he died, after a short illness. Between Henry
and Somerset there was decided enmity. The popularity of the prince, who
was an especial hope of the strict religious section of the nation, was offensive
to the king. Henry was attached to Raleigh, whom he often visited in prison.
He has been reported to have said, with regard to the imprisoned Raleigh, that
only such a king as his father would keep such a bird in such a cage. When
Henry died there was an outcry that he had been poisoned. Some circum
stances which were disclosed a few years later have favored this suspicion.
On the 14th of February following the Princess Elizabeth was married at
Whitehall to Frederick, the elector palatine. The king again demanded a
feudal aid on this occasion, as he had demanded one when his eldest son was
created prince of Wales. It defrayed only a portion of the enormous expenses
of the marriage festivities. From the twelfth child of the Princess Elizabeth
the house of Brunswick inherits the crown of this kingdom.
Bacon, then attorney-general, Sir Henry Neville, and some others, under
took to bring the commons into a gracious frame of mind, by inducing the
king to relax some of his claims of prerogative, which were called grievances,
and thus to obtain a liberal supply. The scheme could not be concealed ;
and hence these politicians obtained the name of " undertakers." The scheme
of the undertakers was entirely unsuccessful. After a session of two months
of stormy debate, the parliament was dissolved, without a single bill being
passed. It was named the "addled parliament." No other parliament was
called till 162 1. The king committed to the Tower five of the members of
the House of Commons who had been most strenuous in their opposition.
There is " a specimen of his usual liberty of talk," as Hume terms a story
which Mr. Hallam deems " too trite for repetition," but which we venture to
repeat. Waller, the poet, when young, stood among the spectators who
were allowed to see the king dine. James, with his loud sputtering voice,
asked the opinions of Bishop Neile and Bishop Andrews, whether he
might not take his subjects' money, when he needed it, without all the
fuss of parliament ? Neile replied, " God forbid you should not, for you

312 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1603"
are the breath of our nostrils." Andrews hesitated ; but the king" insisting
upon an answer, he said, " Why, then, I think your majesty may lawfully
take my Brother Neile's money, for he offers it." Some of the high
offices were sold. Sir Fulk Greville paid four thousand pounds for the
chancellorship of the exchequer. Inferior places went to the highest bidder.
When Somerset sold the office of cup-bearer to George Villiers, one of the
sons of a Leicestershire knight, he appears to have forgotten that another
might supplant him in the favor of a king who dwelt on " good looks and
handsome accouterments." The cup-bearer was a dangerous rival. " His
first introduction into favor," says Clarendon, "was purely from the hand
someness of his person." The history of the country, to the end of this
reign, is in great part the personal history of George Villiers. In a few'
weeks, continues Clarendon, he mounted higher ; " and, being knighted, he
was at the same time made gentleman of the bedchamber and knight of the
Order of the Garter; and in a short time he was made a baron, a viscount, an
earl, a marquis, and became lord high admiral of England, lord warden of the
cinque-ports, master of the horse, and entirely disposed of all the graces of
the king, in conferring all the honors and all the offices of three kingdoms
without a rival."
The marriage of the earl of Somerset with the divorced Lady Essex, on
St. Stephen's day, 161 3, had been preceded by the death in the Tower of
Somerset's friend, Sir Thomas Overbury. The corporation of London gave
the earl and countess a magnificent banquet at Guildhall ; and when the lady,
to go to the festival, borrowed the four superb horses in which Sir Ralph
.Winwood, the secretary of State, took pride, he begged her to accept them,
as so great a lady should not use anything borrowed. In less than two years
the same Sir Ralph Winwood was laboring to discover the suspected murderers
of Sir Thomas Overbury. According to one account, an apothecary's boy,
falling sick at Flushing, confessed that he had administered a poison to Over
bury, who was then a prisoner in the Tower. Suspicion being roused, and that
suspicion pointing to the once favorite of the king — of whom, according
to Clarendon, his majesty " begun to be weary," — all the State machin
ery was put in action to bring the murder home to the instigators and
the perpetrators. Richard Weston, James Franklin, Anne Turner, and Sir
Jervis Elvis were arraigned and condemned at Guildhall, and were executed.
The countess of Somerset was committed to the Tower, where she gave birth
to a daughter ; and her husband was also committed. On the 24th of May,
1616, the countess was arraigned before the peers. She pleaded guilty, and
was sentenced to death. The examinations disclosed that Overbury, who had
exhorted Somerset not to think of a divorce for the wife of Essex, to be
followed by his own marriage, was, through the management of the deceased
earl of Northampton, committed to the Tower ; that Wade, the lieutenant
of the Tower, was removed to make room for Elvis; that Weston was
recommended as warder of the prisoner; that the countess, by the aid of Mrs.
Turner, procured poisons from Franklin; and that by Weston they were

1625] RALEIGH'S EXPEDITION TO GUIANA. 313
administered; with the connivance of Elvis. The earl of Somerset was put
upon his trial on the day after his countess had confessed her guilt. Somer
set was convicted; and was sentenced to die. In a, few days his wife
received a free pardon, which was afterward extended to himself. He'
obtained a large pension; and only lost his great offices. Somerset's trial
was undoubtedly so managed by Bacon " as to prevent him from making any
imprudent disclosure, or the judges from getting any insight into that which
it was not meant to reveal." The mysteries which were involved in the
death of Overbury, whose murder can scarcely be attributed solely to the
revenge of Lady Somerset ; the fearful secrets which Somerset might have
revealed had he not been assured of the king's pardon, and of the rewards
which he afterward received — are conjectured to be of a nature that had better
be buried with the " carrion " to which they belong. That Somerset was guilty
of being accessory to the murder of Overbury is very little to be doubted.
That the murder was for the concealment of some terrible secret can as little
be questioned. The conduct of Sir Edward Coke upon these Somerset trials
was probably not such as won the favor of the king, especially if an expression
which he is said to have used during the proceedings be authentically stated.
It was: "God knows what became of that sweet babe Prince Henry, but I
know somewhat."
Sir Walter Raleigh had been a prisoner in the Tower somewhat more
than twelve years. The dream of a gold mine in Guiana never ceased to
haunt his imagination. At length he obtained permission to employ the
liberty which was promised to be granted to him, through the mediation of
Villiers, in again attempting to work the gold mine in whose existence he
firmly believed. He was released from his prison on the 20th of March, 1616.
He was now in the sixty-fifth year of his age. Raleigh risked in this scheme
all he possessed in the world. James stipulated for a share of the profits of
the enterprise. Raleigh got together a squadron of fourteen vessels, and he
set sail on the 28th of March, 1617, having received a commission by which
he was constituted general and commander of the expedition, and governor
of the country. They landed in Guiana on the 12th of November. He was
himself weak from sickness, and was obliged to be carried in a litter. He
sent his faithful follower, Captain Keymis, to sail up the Orinoco with a part
of the squadron in the direction of the mine. The instructions which Raleigh
had given were not obeyed. If Keymis found the mine of great richness —
royal, as the term was — he was to repel any attack of the Spaniards. But if
not royal, he was to return with a basket or two of the ore, to satisfy James
that there was a foundation of reality in the attempt to find gold. Keymis
landed in the night near the Spanish town of Santa Thome, near the mine.
The Spaniards attacked his encampment ; and a battle ensued. After much
slaughter, the English drove back their assailants to the town ; and the
Spaniards coming out in fresh force, the son of Raleigh was killed. The
governor of the town, a kinsman of Gondomar, also fell. The English burnt
Santa Thome, in which they found refining houses, and two ingots of gold.

314 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1603
But the passes to the mine were defended by too strong a force to enable
Keymis to accomplish the great object of the expedition. When he returned
with his diminished crew, the reproaches of his commander led the unfortu
nate man to commit suicide. The great spirit of Raleigh was crushed. He
saw nothing before him but reproach and danger. Raleigh conducted his
fleet, with mutinous crews, to Newfoundland, and then sailed homeward.
Gondomar was now supreme at the English court, negotiating a marriage
between Prince Charles and the infanta of Spain. The destiny of Raleigh
was in the hands of the malignant Spaniard and the revengeful king.
Raleigh was arrested at Plymouth ; and after some stratagems to escape to
France, and to obtain delay, having feigned madness, he was conducted to
his old prison of the Tower. He was examined before commissioners, upon
the charge that he fraudulently pretended that he went to discover a mine,
when his real object was to make a piratical attack upon the Spanish settle
ments. He denied these charges with constancy and boldness ; but admitted
his attempt to escape, and his pretense of mental derangement, which he
excused by the desire which every man feels to escape death. The lieutenant
of the Tower was removed from the charge of Raleigh, to make way for Sir
Thomas Wilson. The king himself was urging on his creature to worm
himself into the confidence of Raleigh for the purpose of betraying him.
But all the arts of the betrayer were unavailing. It was determined at length
that the prisoner should be executed under his former sentence. Raleigh
being asked why execution should not pass against him, he urged that he
was discharged of the original judgment by the king's commission for his
voyage, which gave him new life and vigor. Execution was granted. He
was brought out of his prison the next morning to die upon the scaffold.
The last end of this heroic man was worthy of his great genius. His speech
was of a manly tone, defending himself from slanders which had been raised
against him. He took the axe in his hand, kissed the blade, and said to the
sheriff, " 'Tis a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases." So died
the last of Elizabeth's heroes.
The execution of Raleigh called forth indignation, " not loud, but deep,"
in the English mind. The people felt that he was sacrificed to Spain, against
which power, its Jesuits, and its inquisitions, he had waged no inglorious war
fare. The daughter of James had been married six years to the elector
palatine. The Bohemians, who held that their crown was elective, offered it
to Frederic, who had been one of the arbitrators to settle the difference which
had led to their insurrection. The elector palatine, after some hesitation,
accepted the dangerous promotion, and was crowned at Prague, in November^
1619. The resolve was the signal for a general array of hostile forces through
out Europe. The great battle of Protestantism and Catholicism appeared
once more likely to be fought out. The cry to arm was so loud among the
English and the Scotch, that James reluctantly marshaled a force of four
thousand volunteers, not to support his son-in-law upon the throne of Bohemia,
but to assist in defending his hereditary dominions. The scanty assistance

1625] FREDERICK'S DEFEAT.— KING AND PARLIAMENT. 315
came too late. Frederic was defeated by the Austrians at Prague, on the 7th
of November, 1620, which decisive battle entirely destroyed his slight tenure
of power in Bohemia. He was very shortly after driven from the palatinate,
which was handed over to the tender mercies 'of the conquerors. The
supporters of the elector in Bohemia, a country which had been the refuge of
persecuted reformers, were trodden down by the iron heel of Austria. The
Puritan party in England considered this misfortune as " the greatest blow
which the Church of God had received, since the first reformation by Martin
Luther in 15 17." The union of the Protestant princes was broken up. " The
Catholic principle passed with wonderful rapidity from a moment of the
utmost danger to an omnipotent sway over the south of Germany- and the
Austrian provinces."
The parliament of 1621 was in no complacent mood. James said to them,
"I have often piped unto you but you have not danced." They gave him a
small subsidy in return for unusually gracious speeches ; and then went boldly
about the redress of grievances. They revived the use of the terrible word
" impeachment," which had gone out of men's mouths for nearly two
centuries. Yelverton, the attorney-general, was connected with the prevailing
corruption, and when detected denounced Villiers as his enemy. The judge
of the prerogative court was impeached for venality ; and the bishop of
Landaff for being accessory to a matter of bribery. It was an age of universal
abuses. Local magistrates were influenced by the pettiest gifts. Upon the
highest branch of this rotten tree sat Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban's, the
great lord chancellor. The greatness of his intellect was to be appreciated
in other ages ; and his faults were then to be slightly regarded while the eyes
of all men were to be dazzled by the splendor of his genius. He was charged
by the commons, before the lords, with twenty-two acts of bribery and
corruption. The sentence of the parliament was that the Viscount St. Alban's,
late lord chancellor, be fined forty thousand pounds ; be imprisoned in the
Tower during the king's pleasure ; made incapable to bear office in the common
wealth, never to sit in parliament ; nor to come within the verge of the court.
The king remitted the fine, and released the fallen man after an imprisonment
of a few days.
England had in this year an opportunity to draw the sword in a necessary
quarrel — the suppression of the outrages of the Barbary pirates. Spain had
agreed to co-operate in an attack upon Algiers ; but she sent a very insuffi
cient force to join the English flag. James directed- the commander of his
fleet, Sir James Mansell, not to risk his ships. The Algerines, having had only
a few boats burnt, defended their harbor', and Mansell came home with nothing
achieved. The commons drew up a petition, prepared by Coke, against the
growth of popery, urging that Prince Charles should marry one of his own
religion, and that the king should turn his attention toward that power which
had first carried on the war in the palatinate. That power was Spain. James
had heard of this motion ; and he anticipated the receipt of the petition by
sending a violent letter to the speaker. The commons deliberately recorded

316 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1603
their opinions, in a memorable protestation, on the 18th of December, 1621,
in which they solemnly affirmed, that the liberties and jurisdictions of parlia
ment are the ancient and undoubted birth-right and inheritance of the subjects
of England ; that the affairs of the king and State, of the defense of the realm,
and of the Church of England, the making of laws, the redress of grievances
are proper subjects of debate in parliament ; that in handling such business
every member of the house hath, and of right ought to have, freedom of
speech : and that every member hath like freedom from all impeachment,
imprisonment, and molestation, except by the censure of the house itself.
The parliament being dissolved James again resorted to a benevolence.
In February, 1623, London was startled with the extraordinary news
that the prince of Wales and Villiers, now marquis of Buckingham, had gone
off privately for Madrid. The negotiation for the marriage with the Spanish
princess had been nearly concluded by the earl of Bristol. The motives for
the strange proceeding of the prince and the favorite remain a mystery.
They reached Paris, and in their disguise had a peep at the court, and saw
the Princess Henrietta Maria. On the 7th of March the " sweet boys and
dear ventrous knights, worthy to be put in a new ramanso," as James termed
them, arrived at Madrid. Howell, one of the most amusing of letter-writers
was then in the Spanish capital, and he describes how, " to the wonderment
of all the world, the prince and the marquis of Buckingham arrived at this
court." He tells how they alighted at my lord of Bristol's house ; how
Bristol brought in the prince to his bed-chamber ; how the marquis the next
day had a private audience of the king of Spain ; how the king came to
visit the prince ; how the royal family went out in a coach, the infanta having
a blue ribbon about her arm that the prince might distinguish her as he took
the air on the Prado ; and how when the lady saw her lover her color rose very
high. The prince and his companion were seven months absent from England.
To attempt to follow out the course of the intrigues that took place during
this period, would be far beyond our limits. When the prince and Bucking
ham returned home, and the marriage treaty was broken off, there was
universal rejoicing. The duke became immediately popular ; and in his
confidence in the altered tone of public feeling he persuaded the king to
summon a parliament. It met on the 19th of February, 1624. The king was
all graciousness. It was resolved that a grant to the extent of three hundred
thousand pounds should be made, for the specific purpose of recovering the
palatinate. In this session of three months a great good was sought to be
accomplished by the passing of a statute which declared all monopolies to be
contrary to law, and all such grants to be void. They impeached Cranfield, earl
of Middlesex, lord treasurer of England, for bribery and other misdemeanors.
He was convicted and fined fifty thousand pounds ; and was declared inca
pable of sitting in parliament. An army of twelve thousand men was raised in
England for the service of the elector palatine. Half the number were lost
from sickness by being embarked in foul and crowded ships ; and their com
mander, Count Mansfeldt, was not strong enough to undertake any offensive

1625] CHARLES I.— PARLIAMENT DISAFFECTED. 317
operations. In March, 1625, King James was taken ill at Theobalds. He died
on the 27th of that month, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and in the twenty-
third year of his reign.

CHARLES I.— CIVIL WAR.— EXECUTION OF CHARLES.
(1625-1649.)
Charles I. was proclaimed king on the day of his father's death. The
administration of government was unaltered. Buckingham was still the first
in power; with equal influence over the proud and dignified Charles of
twenty-five, as over the vain and vulgar James of fifty-nine. But from the
first the king exhibited himself as " temperate, chaste, and serious." The
personal demeanor of the king compelled a corresponding outward show in
the courtiers. The marriage of Charles with the Princess Henrietta Maria of
France was the result of a treaty made in the previous reign. The young
queen arrived at Dover on the 12th of June. On the 18th the parliament
was opened by the king. Henrietta brought twenty-nine priests in her train ;
and mass was celebrated at the palace on Sundays and saints' days. When
the commons were told by the courtly Sir Dudley Carleton'that in all Chris
tian kingdoms there were once parliaments, till the monarchs overthrew these
turbulent assemblies, and stood upon their prerogatives,, they the more
resolved that the example should not be followed in England. Hence, when
a supply was asked, they came to the old question of unredressed grievances.
They granted a very limited subsidy ; and would only vote tonnage and
poundage for one year. The plague was raging in London. " While we are
now speaking," said a member, "the bell is tolling every minute." Seven
ships had been lent to the king of France, which had been engaged under
pretense of serving against Austria. They were employed against the French
Protestants who were defending themselves at La Rochelle. When French
men were taken on board, the English sailors deserted. The king grew
importunate for more supplies ; the commons complained of the mismanage
ment of public affairs. An abrupt dissolution took place on the 12th of
August. To counteract the influence of parliament, a great fleet was to be
fitted out against Spain. Writs were issued under the privy seal, demanding
loans from private persons. If a loan was refused by a person of station and
local authority he was struck out of the commission of the peace. By these
and other arbitrary means a fleet of eighty sail was dispatched from the
Downs in October, under vague instructions to intercept the Spanish treasure
ships, and to land an army on the coast of Spain. The ten thousand English
troops, who had been set on shore near Cadiz, accomplished no greater feat
than plundering the " cellars of sweet wines, where many hundreds of them
being surprised, and found dead drunk, the Spaniards came and tore off their
ears, and plucked out their eyes." The rich fleet got safe into Lisbon. A
contagious disease broke out and some thousands died before an English port
was again made.

3i8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
A new parliament met on the 6th of February, 1626. Committees were
appointed in both houses ; and they traced the disgrace of the national flag,
and the corruptions of the time, to Buckingham. When supplies were
demanded, the commons again demanded redress of wrongs. " I must let
you know," said Charles in a message, " that I will not allow any of my ser
vants to be questioned among you, much less such as are of eminent place,
and near unto me." He threatened that if they did not hasten for his supply
it would be worse for themselves. The commons locked their doors ; and
after a long deliberation resolved upon the impeachment of Buckingham.
Eliot was arrested, as well as Sir Dudley Digges, who had opened the charges.
The house refused to proceed to any business while their privileges were thus
violated. Digges made some submission and was speedily released. Eliot
refused any compromise. After eight days confinement in the Tower Eliot
again took his place in the house. Buckingham had replied to the articles of
impeachment ; and had expressed his wish for a regular trial. The king inter
posed, and sent a peremptory message to the commons, demanding a supply
without condition. They drew up a remonstrance ; and being suddenly
summoned to the House of Peers, they found commissioners of the crown
assembled to dissolve the parliament. At this crisis the sovereign had not,
as in previous times, a subservient House of Peers to support any outbreak of
despotic power. He had caused the earl of Arundel to be arrested, during
the sitting of parliament, for some private offense. The lords asserted their
privilege that no peer should be arrested, the parliament being sitting, except
for treason or felony, or for refusing " to give surety for the peace." Arundel
was discharged. The earl of Bristol was obnoxious to the court ; for he was
the person best acquainted with the proceedings regarding the Spanish
marriage. He was not summoned to this parliament. The peers insisted
that the earl should receive his summons. He was ordered by a royal letter
not to take his place. But he did take his place ; and laid the secretary's
letter before the house. Bristol was then suddenly charged at the bar of the
lords as a traitor. The peers insisted that Bristol should be allowed to
make his accusation against Buckingham before the charge against himself
was heard. He brought forward his allegations against the duke for his
conduct in Spain, and exhibited the falsehood of his representations upon his
return to England. The earl was then accused by the attorney-general for his
conduct as ambassador. Bristol made a satisfactory reply to the charges
against him. The king and his minister were alone damaged by these impol
itic proceedings. Thus, then, had Charles dismissed two parliaments within fifteen months
of his accession to the throne. The commons had declared their intention to
grant five subsidies — "a proportion," says Clarendon, " scarce ever before
heard of in parliament." But they were required to grant them without their
complaints being listened to ; and the king, by his passionate resolution to
dissolve, was again left to unconstitutional devices. " These five subsidies were
exacted, throughout the whole kingdom, with the same rigor, as if, in truth,

1649] QUEEN'S FRENCH ATTENDANTS DISMISSED. 3 [9
an act had passed to that purpose. Divers gentlemen of prime quality in
several counties of England, were, for refusing to pay the same, committed to
prison, with great rigor and extraordinary circumstances." In the orders that
were issued to the deputy-lieutenants and justices to enforce these exactions,
the king affirmed that he was threatened with invasion. This was in July,
1626. Another fleet was sent to sea, under the earl of Denbigh ; and there
was another series of neglects and disasters. In the early days of their union
the king and queen did not live without serious disagreements. In Novem
ber, 1625, Charles wrote to Buckingham, who was in Paris, desiring that the
duke would communicate to the queen-mother the king's intention " to put
away the monsieurs " — the numerous priests and other attendants of
Henrietta. At length Charles made up his mind to get rid of these enemies
of his happiness, as disagreeable to his people as to himself. The queen,
according to the gossiping Howel, " broke the glass windows and tore her
hair." He adds, " I fear this will breed ill-blood 'twixt us and France ; " and
he was right. In a very short time there was war with France. It has been
usual to ascribe this outbreak of hostility, between two courts connected
by marriage, solely to the presumption and licentiousness of Buckingham.
" He had the ambition," says Clarendon, " to fix his eyes upon, and to dedi
cate his most violent affection to a lady of a very sublime quality, and to
pursue it with the most importunate addresses." This lady was Anne of
Austria, the queen of Louis XIII. She was a neglected wife, and heard with
too much levity the flatteries of the handsome duke. These familiarities
took place when Buckingham went to France to bring over Henrietta. It
was intimated to him that he had better decline such attempts if he would
escape assassination ; but he swore, adds Clarendon, that he would see and
speak to that lady in spite of the strength and power of France." But such
an assumption is calculated to hide the real cause of this war— the broken
faith of England to France upon the most important points of the marriage-
treaty. On the 20th of April, 1627, a treaty was signed between the French
minister, Richelieu, and the Spanish minister, Olivarez, by which it was
agreed that the two powers should unite in an evasion of England. It is
creditable to the statesmanship of Buckingham that he resolved to anticipate
the projected attack upon England by a strenuous aid to the French Protest
ants, who were asserting their religious freedom in the ancient stronghold of
the reformers, La Rochelle. The policy of the war was calculated to redeem
the odium into which Buckingham had fallen.
On the 27th of June, 1627, while Cardinal Richelieu was preparing to
besiege La Rochelle, Buckingham set sail from Portsmouth with a fleet of a
hundred ships, carrying six or seven thousand land forces. At the latter
end of July he appeared before La Rochelle, and proffered his assistance in the
defense of the town. The inhabitants, perhaps remembering that English ships
had been lent to France to be employed against them, had a natural distrust of
the proffered friendship ; and declined to open their gates to the duke.
It was then determined to occupy the adjacent island of Rhe. Buckingham

320 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
and his forces landed, having driven back the troops which opposed him. He
remained inactive while the French threw re-enforcements and provisions into
their forts. He besieged the principal fort of St. Martin without success ; and
at the time when further aid from England was expected, raised the siege and
retreated toward his ships. There were mutinies, after Buckingham's return
in the autumn, in the fleet and army. The people refused to suffer the
soldiers to be billeted on them, and opposed an impress of fresh forces.
Martial law was proclaimed, and many were executed. The general discon
tent was increased by an island army being retained during the winter. In
summoning his third parliament the king evinced some faint indication of a
desire for a better understanding with his people, by releasing those who had
been imprisoned for refusing to contribute to the forced loan of the previous
year. From seventy-seven persons thus released no submission was required ;
and no concession was offered to them for the wrong. The king opened this
parliament with words which the house of Stuart seemed to think essential to
its dignity. He asked for a supply ; if denied a speedy relief to his necessities
he would resort to other means. " Take not this as a threatening," he added ;
" I scorn to threaten any but my equals." They resolved to grant five
subsidies, to be paid within a year. Put your excellent resolution in the
form of a bill, said the courtiers. Wait a little, was the answer. We must
have securities that his money shall be no longer exacted from the subject in
the form of loans ; that no person shall be imprisoned or molested for refusing
such loans ; that soldiers shall not be billeted on private persons; that com
missions for martial law shall be revoked or annulled. Upon these demands
was founded the. " petition of right " which became one of the statutes of
the realm. It were long to tell how hard was the struggle before this
memorable petition became a law. The commons passed their bill of subsi
dies ; and there were bonfires and bell-ringing throughout the land, for there
was hope that the old days of oppression were passed. But the commons
proceeded to prepare a bill to grant the king tonnage and poundage, but
delayed passing it till they had delivered a remonstrance against the levy of
dues upon merchandise without consent of parliament. The king stopped
the remonstrance by a prorogation ; and told the commons that he drew this
branch of his revenue by his prerogative, and would not submit to have his
right questioned.
The war with France had assumed the aspect of a trial of strength
between Buckingham and Richelieu. The war has been called a duel between
these two ministers. Never was duel fought with greater inequality. Buck
ingham's highest praise was that of having such " endowments as made him
very capable of being a great favorite to a great king." This proud, insolent,
voluptuous young man, whose " inordinate appetite and passion," were the
main cause of the national calamities, was to be matched against the most
calculating and at the same time the boldest statesman of that age. It was
the battle of a pigmy and a giant. After Buckingham's inglorious return, a
second expedition had gone forth from Plymouth in the spring of 1628, under

1649] BUCKINGHAM KILLED.— FELTON EXECUTED. 321
the duke's brother-in-law, the earl of Denbigh. Having looked at the French
fleet in the harbor, he speedily came back to report what he had seen, after
the exchange of a few harmless shots. On the 28th of May, Charles wrote
to the authorities of La Rochelle, urging them to hold out to the last, and
using these solemn words of assurance to fifteen thousand people, who saw
famine slowly but surely approaching, — " Be assured that I will never abandon
you, and that I will employ all the force of my kingdom for your deliverance."
A third fleet was equipped, after parliament had granted the subsidies. The
English fleet was getting in readiness to sail from Portsmouth. The duke
had been at Portsmouth and its neighborhood for several weeks. On the 23d
of August he was sitting at breakfast in a lower room of the house which he
occupied in the town. The breakfast-room and the ante-chamber were filled
with a crowd of attendants and officers ; and among them passed in, unob
served, a short dark man, who, having looked upon the company, went back
to the dimly-lighted lobby through which the duke would pass to the street.
Buckingham stopped to speak to Sir Thomas Fryer ; and the short man being
behind stabbed the duke in his left side, leaving the knife in the body. The
duke, exclaiming " the villian hath killed me," drew out the knife, and reeling
against a chimney fell down dead. The villain was John Felton, a younger
brother of a Suffolk family. He had served as lieutenant in the expedition to
Rh6 ; he had been disappointed of some promotion ; was " of a deep
melancholy, silent, and gloomy constitution;" and, according to his own
dying declaration, was moved to assassinate the duke as " an enemy to the
public." Felton might have escaped, but in endeavoring to pass through the
crowd in the ante-chamber he lost his hat. In that hat was found a paper
with the following writing : " That man in my opinion is cowardly and base,
and deserveth neither the name of a gentleman nor a soldier, that is unwilling
to sacrifice his life for the honor of God and the good of his king and country.
Let no man commend for doing it, but rather discommend themselves ; for if
God had not taken away their hearts for their sins, he had not gone so long
unpunished. John Felton." The assassin went quietly unpursued into the
kitchen of the same house, while the people and the soldiers were wildly
rushing about, and the gates of the town were closed. The search was in
vain for the murderer; but when the multitude returned to the house, a
hatless man, standing in the kitchen, exclaimed, " Here I am," and boldly
confessed the deed. Felton was removed to the Tower of London ; was
brought to trial on the 27th of November ; was sentenced upon his voluntary
confession'; and was executed on the 29th, acknowledging that he had been
guilty of a great crime. While in the Tower " he was at one time there
threatened by Sir Edward Sackville, earl of Dorset, that he should be forced
upon the rack to confess who were privy with him and consenting to the
duke's death. T have,' said he, ' already told the truth on that point, upon
my salvation ; and if I be further questioned by torture, I will accuse you,
and you only, my lord of Dorset, to be of conspiracy with me.' In twelve
days, seventy vessels' sailed from Portsmouth, and thirty more quickly
21

322 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
followed. The earl of Lindsey was the admiral. In the town of La Rochelle
there was the most intense suffering from famine. The French army
surrounded it. The great mole, built by Richelieu, prevented any supply of
necessaries from the sea. The English fleet coasted up and down without any
fixed purpose. Lindsey sent a fire-ship or two into port, and he discharged a
few cannon. On the 18th of October La Rochelle was surrendered. The
horrors of this siege of fourteen months exceed most of the miseries recorded
of beleagued towns. Fifteen thousand persons died of hunger and disease.
Lindsey took his fleet back to Portsmouth.
On the 20th of January, 1629, the parliament was assembled. Tonnage
and poundage had been collected, as the king had threatened to do, without
consent of parliament. Brief, but ominous, was the session. There was a
committee formed on religion ; and charges against Bishop Laud were to be
presented to the king. Eliot prepared a form of three protestations, — that
whoever should bring in innovations in religion, extend or introduce popery
or arminianism ; whoever should advise the levying or taking tonnage and
poundage not granted by parliament ; whoever should voluntary pay the
same ; should be reputed a capital enemy to the kingdom and commonwealth.
On the 2d of March, Eliot brought forward these matters, in the shape of a
remonstrance. The speaker refused to read the paper ; the clerk at the table
refused to read it. Eliot then read it himself, and demanded that it should
be put to the vote. The speaker refused ; for " he had been commanded
otherwise by the king." He rose to quit the chair ; but two members dragged
him back, and there forcibly held him. Eliot threw his remonstrance on the
floor ; and placed his protestations in the hand of Denzil Hollis, who put
them to the vote. They were carried by acclamation. The commons then
adjourned to the 10th of March. Three days after, Eliot, Selden, and other
members, were summoned before the privy council ; and four were committed
to the Tower. They refused to answer out of parliament for what they had
done as members. The subsequent proceedings against them belong to the
unhappy period when England was under absolute government for eleven
years. On the 10th of March Charles dissolved the parliament, denouncing
some members of the lower house as " vipers." Peace was concluded with
France and Spain in the course of the next year. One public effort was made
for the cause of Protestant liberty in Europe by sending a small force to the
aid of Gustavus Adolphus. Of the members of the commons who were
committed to the Tower, three were indicted in the king's bench ; Eliot for
words uttered in the house, and Hollis and Valentine for a tumult in forcibly
detaining the speaker in the chair. Judgment was given against them, to the
effect that they should be imprisoned during the king's pleasure ; that Eliot
should be fined two thousand pounds ; and the others fined in a smaller
amount. After eighteen months the two who were considered the lighter
offenders were released. ' Eliot, one of the noblest of a noble band, was
sacrificed to the vengeance of the#crown. He was committed to the Tower
on the 5th of March, 1629. He died there, Of a lingering disease brought on

.1649] RISE OF WENTWORTH.— PAYNE.— LEIGHTON. 323
l>y confinement, .on the 27th of November, 1632. The rise of Wentworth to
power, after the death of Buckingham, was rapid. Created a viscount, he
was first placed in the great office of lord president of the north. Lord-
•deputy of Ireland, he still held the appointment of president of the north.
It may be sufficient to say that the Lord Deputy Wentworth and Archbishop
Laud had a perfect concord as to the principles upon which both England
:and Ireland were to be governed. William Payne published in 1633 a
pondrous work entitled " Histrio-Mastix " against stage plays, for the publica
tion of which he was fined five thousand pounds, and sustained the loss of
:his two ears, and the book was burned by the public hangman. This
marvelous book had been seven years in preparation. Her majesty had
•enacted a part in a pastoral at Somerset House, and the day after appeared
this ponderous volume. Laud and others, according to Whitelocke, "had
been angered by some of Prynne's books against Arminianism," and the king
allowed them to revenge themselves upon what he was told was libel upon his
"lively consort. It is clear that the affair had, in a great degree, become a
personal quarrel between the archbishop and the learned barrister. Doctor
Alexander Leighton, a Scotch divine, had also written a book — " Zion's Plea
against Prelacy." Leighton was whipped ; put in the pillory ; had one of his
ears cut off ; had one side of his nose slit ; and was branded on one cheek.
But the whole process was repeated with the necessary variations of ear, nose
and cheek a week afterward. Within five weeks the archbishop was conse
crating the church of St. Catherine Cree, with processions, and bowings, and
other ceremonies " as prescribed in the Roman pontificale." The four Inns of
•Court, " to manifest the difference of their opinion from Mr. Prynne's new
learning, and to confute his Histrio-Mastix against interludes," got up a
masque written by Shirley, which cost them twenty thousand pounds.
Charles had the sense to see that he could not do much more than he was
doing, unless he had an army to compel an obedience far beyond what the
.star chamber could enforce. But he did contrive to dash through " thick and
thin," to the accomplishment of many illegal acts, without drawing the
¦sword. The partnership between the Church and the State was so complete,
that it is sometimes difficult to separate the theological from the political
principle of actiort. During this anomalous period, when proclamations had
"the force of statutes, the general statements of historians give us little notion
of the heartburnings which were produced by these displays of authority.
'Charles gave a patent to a company for a monopoly in the manufacture of
soap, from which a revenue of two hundred thousand pounds was derived.
There was scarcely an industrious occupation, from the sale of coals to the
•collection of rags, that was not made the subject of a monopoly. But many
-other ingenious devices were resorted to for the supply of the wants of the
-crown beyond its large hereditary revenues. There had been proclamations
hy James and Charles against the increase of buildings in London. There
¦could be no doubt of the intention of Charles, when in 1633 a commission
ivas harassing every owner of a new house from St. Martin's-in-the-Fields to

324 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
Blackwall, by levying enormous fines, or commanding the houses to be pulled
down. Refusal to the arbitrary command was dangerous. " Writs are gone
forth from the star chamber to the sheriff to pull down the houses of Mr.
Moor, and to levy two thousand pounds fine for not having pulled them down.
by Easter." These were forty-two houses near St. Martin's Church; and
they were " pulled down to the ground." The interference with the supply
of house room was not more arbitrary than the interference with the supply
of food. Proclamations were issued minutely regulating the price of all
provisions. Some of the proclamations of Charles appear to have had no-
other object than that of a wanton interference with the convenience of the
people. At the beginning of 1635 there was a proclamation to prohibit all
hackney-coaches to pass up and down in London streets ; out of town they
may go at pleasure, as heretofore. The limitation of their use had the effect
of encouraging the system which was introduced in 1634, by a speculating
traveler, of " carrying people up and down in close chairs," called sedans.
Six years of irresponsible government have made the administration bolder.
Double rates upon imports were nothing, however, compared to a universal
tax. There is gone out a special writ to the lord keeper of the great seal,
requiring him, for the safe-guard of the sea and defense of the realm, to issue
forth writs to the several counties, cities, and towns, therein mentioned, to
provide ships, men, ammunition, provisions and wages. The lord mayor of
London demurred to the writ ; but, being threatened, the corporation yielded,
"and instantly fell to seizing in all the wards." The original writs were only
sent to London and to the sea-port towns ; and there was some reason in the
demand, for the English navy had fallen into such a miserable condition that
Algerine pirates boldly seized upon merchant vessels in the channel, end the
whole commerce of England had become insecure. These first writs required
that certain maritime places should furnish one or more ships, or their
equipments, or pay, as London had paid. In 1635 a fleet was sent to sea, for
the protection of trade. In 1636 the real writs of ship-money were issued ;
under which the sheriffs were directed to make a general assessment in all
counties and towns specified, according to the means of the inhabitants, to
produce the the proportions at which the several places were rated. Next to
London, Bristol and Newcastle are the most heavily assessed. The inland
agricultural counties are at an intermediate scale, about four thousand pounds.
When these writs were issued by the sheriffs in their respective districts there
was a general consternation. The people, who had been formerly accustomed
to the regular collection of subsidies by commissioners, doubted the legality
of this new"system. The whole country was under the pressure of tyranny.
The judges, by the royal command, put forth an opinion, not arising out of
any question before the courts, that the king might command, for the safety
of the kingdom, all his subjects to provide such number of ships as he might
think fit ; that he might compel obedience to this command ; and that he was
the sole judge of the danger of the country, and the means of preventing it.
Richard Chambers, who had bravely resisted the illegal levy upon his

1649] JOHN HAMPDEN AND THE SHIP MONEY. 325
merchandise, was imprisoned because he declined to pay his assessment of
ship-money. Wentworth, now that the mask had been taken off, desired a
land-army to effect many things that were not wholly to be accomplished by
fine and imprisonment, administered by a merciless star chamber and a
corrupt bench. On the nth of January, 1636, there is a public assembly at
which all persons attending, the entire body of landowners and housekeepers
•of the parish, are " refusers." The very assessors and constables are refusers.
John Hampden, whose name has become famous for his refusal to pay the
assessment of thirty-one shillings and sixpence ship-money, dwelt in the
parish of Hampden, where his ancestors since the old Saxon days had been
the lords of several manors in Buckinghamshire. He was the -leader of this
bold band of " refusers," and, although not wealthy was selected by the king
as an example for punishment. His trial occupied six weeks of eloquent
pleading"in the exchequer chamber before all the judges, two of whom decided
at once for the defendant, and two others joined with their decision subsequent
ly. One held that the tax was lawful, but ought not to go to the privy-purse.
On the 9th of June, 1637, the chief justice decided against Hampden and in
favor of the king, making a bare majority of the bench. But the moral
victory was for Hampden, and he at once became the most famous man in
England. After this resistance to ship-money was more general. Ship-
money judgment for the crown was given on the 12th of June, 1637. Two'
days after, William Prynne, who was brought up from his prison, but with
his ears sewed on; Henry Burton, who had been clerk of the closet to.
Prince Charles, and was incumbent of a London parish ; and Robert Bast-
¦wick, a physician of Colchester, were sentenced by the star chamber to be
fined five thousand pounds each, to be degraded from their professions, to be
placed in the pillory, to have their ears cut off and their cheeks and foreheads
branded, and to be confined for life in distant prisons. Prynne had published
a book against Sabbath-breaking, in which the clergy who had read the Book
of Sports were bitterly stigmatized ; Burton had offended in a sermon, and in
a tract had accused the bishop of Norwich of being guilty of Romish
innovation; Bastwick had in a book called " Elenchus Papismi," identified
prelacy and popery.
In the summer of 1633 Charles had paid a visit to Scotland, and was
there crowned. Not only were the two nations as distinct in their civil and
ecclesiastical systems of government as if they had been still ruled by two
sovereigns, but the Scottish affairs were separately managed by Charles him
self, without any reference to the English council. Laud, then bishop of
London, accompanied the king on his Scottish journey. Laud himself gave
great offense by the introduction of rites at the coronation which the people
considered as part of the system which the reformation had overthrown. His
temper was violent ; and the Scottish historians say that he thrust the arch
bishop of Glasgow from the king's side, because he refused to officiate in em
broidered robes. Some of the Scottish prelates were not imbued with this
love of simplicity ; and they united with the powerful English bishop in the

326 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625:
promotion of a plan for introducing a service-book in Scotland, which should.
supersede the extemporaneous prayers of the Presbyterian form of worship.
The design was not then carried into effect. But in 1637, when Laud had.
become archbishop, and all moderate measures for producing conformity in
England had been laid aside, the Scottish Church was suddenly called upon
to receive a book of canons approved at Lambeth ; and a service-book was.
directed to be used in all places of divine worship. This Prayer Book varied
from the English liturgy in points which indicated a nearer approach to the
Roman ritual. The consequences of this most ignorant rashness — ignorant,
because of its utter blindness to the course of Scottish history during the pre
vious hundred years, and to the character of the Scottish people — were
wholly unforeseen. From the date of this violent defiance of the principles
and habits of the Scottish people, the reign of Charles becomes the turning-
point of English history. The whole community enters into a national cove
nant to abjure the doctrines, rites, and ceremonies of the Romish Church, and
to resist the innovations which the prelates had introduced. In the High
Church of Edinburgh, on the 1st of March, 1638, this covenant was read,.
and the whole congregation rose and swore to maintain what is set forth.
Copies of the deed were sent throughout the land, and with tears and protes
tations the covenant was sworn to and signed by hundreds of thousands.
Charles and his one fatal adviser chose to regard it as the affair of a rabble:
and the king commissioned the marquis of Hamilton to reduce " the rascally
people " to obedience, The commissioner was to allow the Scots six weeks
to renounce the covenant. If not renounced, power was to be sent from
England ; and the king himself would hazard his life rather than suffer author
ity to be contemned. In June, 1638, the marquis of Hamilton arrived at
Edinburgh. The discussions between Hamilton and the Covenanters only
showed how earnest and resolute they were. Nothing but a general assembly
and a parliament would induce them to renounce their league. The commis
sioner was directed to temporize, and not to take any extreme measures till
an armed force was ready to support them. He went to England for further
instructions ; but he returned with powers to announce a general assembly
and a parliament, and to propose that the confession of faith of 1589, should
be signed instead of the covenant. The Covenanters protested against this ;
as an attempt to make them, under cover of a new oath, recant what they had.
been doing. In November, a general assembly was convened at Glasgow.
On the 17th the commissioner arrived. On the 20th there was a solemn fast.
The assembly was opened on the 21st. Seven days did this great meeting
debate and protest. The chief grounds of difference were the introduction of
lay members into the assembly ; and the general determination to remove
the bishops. On the 28th the marquis dissolved the assembly, and left Glas
gow. It continued its sittings till the 20th of December; and, against the
opinions of a few of the moderate, declared the total abolition of episcopacy
in the kirk of Scotland.
At the beginning of 1639 it became clear that these contests would end

l549] TROUBLE WITH SCOTLAND.— PARLIAMENT. 327
in an appeal to arms. Charles was ill-prepared for a war. On the following
26th of January, Charles sent out a letter, " commanding all the nobles and
gentry of England to attend his royal standard at York against the 1st of
April, where he was to go to the border to oppose the Scots there." But the
Scots, instead of having a discontented commonalty to impede the exertions
of the nobles and gentry, were all firmly banded together, peer and peasant,
merchant and mechanic, to maintain a cause which1 'they held to be the cause
of God and their country. The castle of Edinburgh was surprised by Leslie.
Dumbarton castle was seized by the earl of Argyle. Stirling was held by a
Covenanter. Onward marched the king toward York. " As for the forces
of England, they failed like the summer brooks ; the country was filled with
their own grievances." Wentworth made prodigious exertions to keep down
the Scottish settlers in Ulster; and he sent some Irish to the king's army.
The marquis of Hamilton sailed into the Frith of Forth ; but his forces were
quite unequal to subdue or even to awe an armed population : and the old
fortune of the miserable naval enterprises of this reign attended them. Les
lie marched toward the border. The king had advanced to Berwick ; and
from his camp at the English side of the Tweed, saw " through a prospect "
[telescope] twelve thousand Scots encamped on Dunse-Law ; the hill-top
crowded with cannon. Before the tent of every captain was a color bearing
the Scottish arms, and a legend, in golden letters, " For Christ's crown and
covenant." A small body of the royal cavalry had fled before a smaller body
of Scots. On the nth of June, the Scottish deputies arrived in the camp.
A pacification was concluded on the 18th of June. Charles returned to
London on the 1st of August. The Scottish army was disbanded. The
fortresses were restored to the officers appointed by the crown. But the
conditions of the covenant were inflexibly maintained in the general assembly,
and in the parliament which met in August. Moreover, that parliament
demanded privileges which appeared to weaken the royal authority ; and
the king's commissioners decided upon its prorogation. The members held
such prorogation was illegal without their own consent. On either side of
the border the note of preparation for war was again heard. Lowered in the
eyes of his English subjects by the pacification of Berwick ; the prestige of
eleven years' pretensions to absolute power dissipated. Charles at length
summoned an English parliament. It met on the 13th of April, 1640 ; it was
dissolved on the 5th of May. The king demanded twelve subsidies in three
years — a sum equivalent to about eight hundred and forty thousand pounds ;
and he offered to relinquish a ship-money, which was estimated to produce
two hundred thousand pounds a year. The commons would hear of no com
promise of such a nature. Ship-money was the opprobrium of the govern
ment ; the crown had claimed the right of taxation independent of the
commons ; the people had been unconstitutionally taxed ; the judgment of
the courts must be annulled, and the judges punished. The commons would
then enter upon the business of supplies. The table of the house was
covered with petitions against the abuses of the State and of the Church.

328 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
The clouds were gathering all around ; and the king thought to avert the
tempest by dissolving the parliament. The convocation of the clergy con
tinued to sit ; and large assistance was voted to the king. In that assembly
canons were framed which were well calculated to render the government of
the Church more and more odious. No Englishman of sense, and especially
no honest Puritan, would sanction the attack upon Laud's palace at Lambeth
on the nth of May. But they would regard his canons, — which preached
passive obedience to the divine right of kings and subjected Protestant dissen
tients to the same penalties as popish recusants, — as an offense against the
ancient liberties of Englishmen. Meanwhile, members of the commons were
again imprisoned. Ship-money was more rigorously enforced. Citizens were
punished for refusing a loan. The counties were subjected to novel charges
for the troops that were levied for another Scottish campaign.
The contest between the king and Scotland had for some time assumed
the character of a war. In March and April levies had been called out by
the Covenanters. On the 2d of June, the parliament met in Edinburgh, and put
forth manifestoes which were of more effect than the royal proclamations
denouncing the Scots as rebels and traitors. The parliament imposed levies.
It was resolved to march to England with a petition, supported by an army
of twenty-five thousand men. On the 20th of August they crossed the Tweed
at Coldstream. Oh the day that Leslie crossed the Tweed, Charles, having
received news of the advance of this great army, hastily left London for York.
He called all the tenants of the crown to his standard. He offered by proc
lamation to forgive the Scots, if they would crave pardon for the past as
penitent delinquents. Strafford had raised troops in Ireland that had joined
the king's forces. Altogether twenty thousand men were in arms under the
royal standard. On the 27th of August, the Scots had reached the left bank
of the Tyne about five miles above Newcastle. The next day they occupied
the town of Newburn. At low water two Scottish regiments crossed the
Tyne. The English horse fled, and the whole army moved in great disorder
to Newcastle. There was only one effort made by a gallant few to oppose
the passage of the Scots across the river. Newcastle was itself abandoned at
midnight. In Scotland, the Covenanters were equally successful ; and Dum
barton, " questionless the strongest place in Britain," capitulated. The castle
of Edinburgh also surrendered to Argyle. After these occurrences, the king
called a great council of peers to attend him at York on the 24th of Septem
ber. The first decision of the council was to appoint a commission of sixteen
peers to treat with the Scots at Ripon. A cessation of arms, for two months,
was agreed to, on the 26th of October, that the demands of the Covenanters
might be discussed in London by the commissioners. It had become known
that the king had proposed to the peers again to summon a parliament.
During this cessation of arms the Scottish army was to be maintained by a
payment of eight hundred and fifty pounds per day. The parliament was to
meet at Westminster on the 3d of November. The Scots, before the treaty
of Ripon, had demanded " the removal of three or four persons from about

1649] STRAFFORD AND LAUD.— LONG PARLIAMENT. 329
the king." Strafford and Laud were especially pointed at. Of Laud, they
distinctly said that his removal was necessary for the preservation of the
Protestant religion, " which every honest man thought at present in great
danger, by the exorbitant power of the archbishop of Canterbury." The
enemy of Strafford, " more terrible than all the others," was " the whole Scot
tish nation, provoked by the declaration he had procured of Ireland, and
some high carriage and expressions of his against them in that kingdom."
Strafford, though of undaunted courage, saw his danger in this parliament.
He wished to retire to his government of Ireland. Charles pledged himself
that not a hair of Strafford's head should be touched by the parliament.
Laud was suffering an agony of superstitious fear in his Lambeth palace. On
the 22d of October, the high commission court, so tyrannical and so odious,
was sitting at St. Paul's. " Very near two thousand Brownists made a tumult
at the end of the court, tore down all the benches in the consistory, and cried
out they would have no bishop, nor no high commission."
The long parliament — the most memorable parliament that England
ever saw — this parliament of thirteen years' duration now claims our anxious
regard.* On the 3d of November, 1640, there were sitting on the benches of
parliament men whose names will endure as long as England is a nation ;
men whose memories are now venerated in lands, then undiscovered, or chiefly
occupied by barbarous tribes, where the principles of representative govern
ment are sustaining the Anglo-Saxon race in their career of liberty, while
they fill new continents with their language and their arts. On the memor
able 3d of November, Charles opened this parliament. Charles addressed
the house in a tone of conciliation : " One thing I desire of you, as one of the
greatest means to make this a happy parliament, that you on your parts, as I
on mine, lay aside all suspicion, one of another." Troops of horsemen
arrived in London, craving redress of grievances upon their petitions. From
the Fleet prison came a petition from Alexander Leighton, who had been ten
years in confinement ; and another from John Lilburne, the sturdy London
apprentice who had been whipped and imprisoned for distributing Prynne's
books. Lilburn's petition was presented by Oliver Cromwell. From the
several distant castles in which they were confined, the petitions of Prynne,
and Burton, and Bastwick, reached the house. These prisoners were ordered
to be brought to London. It was voted that these sufferers should be restored
to their callings ; and that those who had unjustly sentenced them should pay
high damages, as compensation, to each of them. After many hours of bitter
investigation into the actions of Strafford, it was moved, " that he might be
forthwith impeached of high treason, which was no sooner mentioned than it
found an universal approbation and consent from the whole house." Pym,
at the head of three hundred members, proceeded to the House of Lords, and
there, at the bar, in the name of the lower house, and of all the commons of
England, impeached Thomas, earl of Strafford, of high treason, and required
* In our days the history of the English revolution has changed its face  The narrative
and opinions of Hume have ceased to satisfy the imagination and reason of the public." — Guizot.

330 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
his arrest. " The lords began to consult on that strange and unexpected
motion. The word goes in haste to the lord lieutenant, where he was with
the king : with speed he comes to the house. Being on his knees, he is
delivered to the keeper of the black rod, to be prisoner till he was cleared of
these crimes the House of Commons did charge him with. He offered to
speak, but was commanded to be gone without a word. James Maxwell told
him, your lordship is my prisoner, and must go in my coach ; so he behoved
to do." Strafford had been committed to the Tower on the 25th of November.
On the 1 8th of December, Denzel Hollis carried a message to the lords,
impeaching the archbishop of high treason. Laud was handed over to the
custody of the usher of the black rod. Ten weeks afterward he was com
mitted to the Tower. Articles of impeachment were prepared against the
lord-keeper, Finch, and against Sir Francis Windebank, secretary of State.
They both fled the country. Five of the judges, who had declared ship-money
lawful, were visited with a just retribution for their servility. They were
compelled to give securities to abide the judgment of parliament, while the
most obnoxious of them, Sir Robert Berkeley, being impeached of high
treason, was taken to prison from his judgment-seat in the king's bench.
The great religious party carried out the principles which had covered Scot
land with ecclesiastical ruins, by an order that " commissions should be sent
into all counties for the defacing, demolishing, and quite taking away of all
images, altars, or tables turned altar-wise, crucifixes, superstitious pictures,
monuments, and relics of idolatry, out of all churches and chapels." On the
30th of January, the charges against Strafford were laid before the House of
Lords. The Scottish commissioners, and a deputation from the Irish parlia
ment, also put forward the same charges, of endeavoring to rule the north of
England and Ireland by military power ; of attempting to subvert the funda
mental laws of the realm ; of laboring to overthrow parliaments and parlia
mentary authority. On the thirteenth day of the trial, the 10th of April,
Pym moved in the House of Commons that the proceedings should take the
new form of a bill of attainder against the earl of Strafford. The bill of
attainder of the earl of Strafford was passed by the commons on the 21st of
April. Fifty-nine members voted against it out of a house of two hundred
and sixty-three. In a house of forty-five, twenty-six peers voted Strafford
guilty, and passed the bill of attainder. While this question was under
debate in the House of Lords, the commons were singularly moved by the
disclosures which were made of the king's own participation in the design
" to disaffect the army to the parliament ; " to bring it up from the north
with the view to place absolute power in the crown. Their first resolution
was to draw up a protestation under oath to defend the Protestant Church,
his majesty's person and power, the privileges of parliament, and the lawful
rights and liberties of the people. This was immediately sworn to and signed
by every member present ; was sent to the House of Peers, who all signed
except two ; and was circulated for general signature through the kingdom.

1649] STRAFFORD'S DEATH.— ARBITRARY TAXATION. 331
This protestation became a touchstone of opinions. Some months after, four
thousand Buckinghamshire petitioners rode to London with a copy of the
protestation stuck in each man's hat. The bill which immediately followed
the protestation, — "to prevent inconvenience which may happen by the
untimely adjourning, proroguing, or dissolving this present parliament,"
— made the parliament itself the sole arbiter of its own duration. The royal
assent was given by commission to this bill on the 10th of May. On the
same day, the same commissioners consented to the bill of attainder against
the earl of Strafford. It is unnecessary here to enter into the question of
the weakness or wickedness of the king in consenting to the sacrifice of
Strafford. Charles held it, in the subsequent struggle of his life, as his one
great fault, — that which was justly punished by Heaven in his misfortunes.
Strafford met his fate with the same resolution which had characterized the
public actions of his life.
In the statute granting tonnage and poundage, it is declared and enacted,
" that it is and hath been the ancient right of the subjects of this realm, that
no subsidy, custom, impost, or other charge whatsoever ought or may be laid
or imposed upon any merchandise, exported or imported by subjects,
denizens, or aliens, without common consent in parliament." In " an act
for the declaring unlawful and void the late proceedings touching ship-money,"
it is declared that the writs and judgments thereupon " were and are contrary
to and against the laws and statutes of the realm, the right of property, the
liberty of the subject, former resolutions in parliament, and the petition of
right made in the third year of the reign of his majesty that now is." Again
and again the principle of arbitrary taxation was now to hear its death-knell.
In the act for dissolving the court of star chamber and taking away the
whole of its powers, all the ancient statutes, including the great charter,
which declares that no freeman shall be imprisoned or condemned but by
judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land, are recited. This statute
not only abolishes the court of star chamber, but the jurisdiction of the
courts of the marches of Wales, of the northern parts, of the duchy
of Lancaster, and of the county palatine of Chester. In the act for
abolishing the court of high commission, it is maintained that, under the
statute of the first of Elizabeth " concerning commissioners for causes
ecclesiastical," the commissioners " have to the great and insufferable wrong
and oppression of the king's subjects used to fine and imprison them, and to
exercise other authority not belonging to ecclesiastical jurisdiction." The
act of abolition goes further, and takes from the ecclesiastical courts the
power to inflict temporal penalties for spiritual offenses. The pacification
with Scotland was concluded by act of parliament ; and by another act, the
sum of three hundred thousand pounds was agreed " to be given for a friendly
assistance and relief toward the supply of the losses and necessities of our
brethren of Scotland." On the 10th of August the king left London for
Scotland. On the 9th of September the parliament adjourned. The king
was accompanied by two commissioners named by the lords, and four named

332 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
by the commons, among whom was Hampden. Clarendon calls them " spies."
The king had met the Scottish parliament ; had sanctioned all their proceed
ings, even to the abolition of episcopacy ; and seemed bent upon securing the
affections of the nation by swearing to the terms of the covenant, and
attending the Presbyterian worship. The House of Commons re-assembled on
the 20th of October. On the 25th the lords of the council communicated to
the house that a fearful insurrection had broken out in Ireland ; and shortly
after the king sent a letter to the parliament, apprising them of a " formed
rebellion " which must be prosecuted with a sharp war; " the conducting and
prosecuting which he wholly committed to their care and wisdom." A com
mittee of both houses at once took upon themselves the authority thus
confided to them ; " the mischief whereof, though in the beginning little taken
notice of," says Clarendon, "was afterward felt by the king very sensibly."
Such a voluntary concession of the executive power to the legislature was
indeed a dangerous precedent.
The Irish insurrection of 1641 was one of the most terrible events in the
history of that unhappy country. The Irish army, which had been raised by
Strafford, had been kept together against the desire of the parliament. The
king had wished to establish that army in Flanders, to be ready for any
service under the king of Spain ; but his plan had been prevented by a parlia
mentary resolution, which afterward became a law, against " the raising and
transporting of forces of horse or foot out of his majesty's dominions of
England or Ireland." This Catholic army was therefore disbanded; and it
became a dangerous power in a distracted country. The government was
administered by the two lords justices. The Protestant troops in Ireland
were few, and they were scattered. A general rising was at length deter
mined upon among some Irish chieftains and some of the ancient settlers of
the Pale, for the purpose of seizing the castle of Dublin, and proclaiming
that they would support the sovereign in all his rights. The plot was
betrayed as far as regarded the attack upon Dublin castle ; but Ulster was
in open insurrection on the 22d of October. Sir Phelim O'Neal was at the
head of thirty thousand men. Multitudes fled toward Dublin as their only
city of refuge. The number of those that perished has been variously
estimated. Troops at length arrived from England ; and after months of
horror the insurrection was quelled. The king could never wholly remove
the belief that he had instigated this fearful rising, or had connived at it.
The Irish insurgents themselves pretended that they acted under the royal
authority. That they had his majesty's commission for what they did, and
that they were his majesty's Catholic forces. In his progress from Scotland
the king was received with demonstrations of respect and affection. The
king was to reach London on the 25th, and there to dine with the lord
mayor, who was a devoted royalist. It is not easy to understand why the
parliamentary leaders should have chosen the moment of the king's return to
greet him, with the strongest remonstrance against the whole tenor of his
past government. With the question of the due limits of popular rights was

1649] THE REMONSTRANCE.— THE BISHOPS. 333
mixed up the equally difficult question, whether England, like its neighbor
kingdom, should become Presbyterian, or whether all State religion should
come to on end, and every congregation of Christians be a Church of itself.
The remonstrance was adopted by one hundred and fifty-nine votes against
one hundred and forty-eight. This remonstrance is a document of two
hundred and six articles. It may be read in Rushworth and Rapin, and its
general tone is very like a declaration of war by one potentate against
another. The remonstrance of the commons was presented to Charles at Hampton
court on the 1st of December. He received it with temper. The remon
strance was published ; and the king's answer to it, written by Hyde, was
also published. A bill was before the lords which had been carried in the
the other house six month's before, for taking away the votes of bishops and
removing them from the house of peers. In August, thirteen of the bishops
had been impeached by the commons, for having taken part in passing the
canons of 1640. The archbishop of Canterbury was still imprisoned in the
Tower. The idea of the abolition of episcopacy was become familiarized to
the people by the example of Scotland, and by the ready adhesion which the
king had given to the Presbyterian establishment there in his recent visit.
A petition of the aldermen and common council was carried to Westminster
in a procession of sixty coaches, praying that the House of Commons would
still be a means to concur with the king and the lords in redressing the
grievances of Church and State ; " and for the better effecting thereof that
the popish lords and bishops may be removed out of the House of Peers."
The apprentices of London also agreed to a petition to the king, showing
that they found by experience, great mischiefs coming upon their masters'
tradings, "to nip them in the bud when they were first entering into the
world ; the cause of which they could attribute to no other but the papists
and the prelates, and that malignant party which adhered to them." Colonel
Lunsford, and other officers, were now engaged in skirmishes with the
apprentices and such leaders of the daily mobs. " From these contestations
the two terms of Roundhead and Cavalier grew to be received in discourse,"
says Clarendon. The hair of the London apprentices was cut close about
their ears, and hence the name of contempt. Clarendon, who bore a decided
ill-will to Williams, the archbishop of York, attributes the evil results to the
Church, chiefly to the pride and passion of this archbishop. Hearing a youth
in the street vociferating " no bishops," the fiery Welshman seized him, and
there was a great scuffle, in which the archbishop's robes were torn from his
back. He returned to his house, the deanery of Westminster, and having
assembled twelve of the bishops, who had been often prevented attending in
their places in parliament through these tumults, proposed " that they might
unanimously and presently prepare a protestation to send to the house,
against the force that was used upon them ; and against all the acts which
were, or should be, done during the time that they should by force be kept
from doing their duties in the house." The archbishop soon drew this

334 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
document, which all signed ; and forthwith carried it to the king at White
hall, who directed the lord keeper to present it to the peers. The immediate
result was that the commons accused of high treason all those who had
signed the paper ; and the whole twelve were committed. In the debate on
the bishops' offense in the House of Commons, one member only spoke in
their behalf, and said, " he did not believe that they were guilty of high
treason, but that they were stark mad ; and therefore desired that they might
be sent to Bedlam."
With these fearful contentions around the king's palace and the houses
of parliament — Lunsford and his cavaliers drawing their swords upon the
city apprentices in Westminster Hall on one day, and the apprentices
returning in great force on another day, crying out "Slash us now" — the
commons again petitioned the king for a guard under the command of the
earl of Essex. This guard the king refused, except it were under an officer
appointed by himself. On the 31st of December it was voted in the
commons " that the house be resolved into a committee on Monday next,
January 3d, to take into consideration the militia of the kingdom." From
the time of the army plot in May, 1641, it had been the object of the
commons to vest the command of the militia in persons nominated by
themselves. The parliament, while the question of the militia was in
dispute, authorized " An act for the better raising and levying of soldiers for
the present defense of the kingdoms of England and Ireland." The king
and the parliament were at issue upon the vital point as to which should
wield the power of the sword. The commons suspected the king. The king
hated the commons. The question of the militia, and the question of
episcopacy, were the questions that made the opening year of 1642 the most
ominous in English history. The king endeavored to solve the grand
difficulty by what, in modern times, is called coup-d'<!tat. On the 3d of
January, the attorney-general, Sir Edward Herbert, appeared at the bar of
the House of Lords, and in the king's name accused of high-treason, Lord
Kimbolton, and five members of the commons. These members were Pym,
Hollis, Hampden, Haslerig, and Strode. On the same day a sergeant-at-arms
appeared at the bar of the House of Commons, and required the speaker to
place five members in his custody, whom the king had accused of high-
treason. The five members were present when the officer named them.
They remained in their places, silent. The speaker commanded the sergeant
to retire ; and sent a deputation to the king, to say that so important a
message should receive their most serious consideration, and that the
members should be ready to answer any legal charge. The paper of the
accused had been sealed up, at their lodgings, by the king's command. The
house ordered that the seals should be removed, and the speaker's warrant
issued for the apprehension of those who had affixed them. The house
then adjourned. On the morning of the 4th, the five members of the
commons were in their places. The king had acted illegally, in the <>irst
instance, by sending a sergeant-in-arms to demand the persons of the

1649] BREACH BETWEEN KING AND PARLIAMENT. 335
members without any warrant of the privy council or of a magistrate.
The commons sent a message to the lord mayor, aldermen, and common
council, to inform them that the privileges of parliament were in danger.
The house then adjourned till one o'clock. In a short time, it was made
known that the king was coming down the street from Whitehall, escorted by
three or four hundred armed persons. An account of the scene which
ensued has been preserved in the notes of one present, Sir Ralph Verney,
member for Aylesbury. It is as graphic as it is important as a parliamentary
precedent. " As soon as the house meet again [after the morning adjourn
ment], it was moved, considering there was an intention to take these five
members away by force, to avoid all tumult, let them be commanded to
absent themselves ; upon this the house gave them leave to absent themselves.
but entered no order for it. And then the five gentlemen went out of the
house. "A little after, the king came with all his guard, and all his
pensioners, and two or three hundred soldiers and gentlemen. The king
commanded the soldiers to stay in the hall, and sent us word he was at the
door. The speaker was commanded to sit still, with the mace lying before
him ; and when the king came to the door, and took the palsgrave in with
him, and commanded all that came with him, on their lives not to come in.
So the doors were kept open, and the earl of Roxburgh stood within the
door, leaning upon it. Then the king came upward toward the chair, with
his hat off, and the speaker stepped out to meet him ; then the king stepped
up to his place, and stood upon the step, but sat not down in the chair.
" And after he had looked a great while he told us he would not break our
privileges, but treason had no privilege ; he came for those five gentlemen,
for he expected obedience yesterday, and not an answer. Then he called Mr.
Pym and Mr. Hollis by name, but no answer was made. Then he asked the
speaker if they were here, or where they were ? Upon this the speaker fell
on his knees, and desired his excuse, for he was a servant to the house, and
had neither eyes nor tongue to see or say anything but what they commanded
him ; then the king told him he thought his own eyes were as good as his,
and then said his birds had flown, but he did expect the house should send
them to, him j and if they did not, he would seek them himself, for their
treason was foul, and such a one as they would all thank him to discover ;
then he assured us they should have fair trial ; and so went out, pulling off
his hat till he came to the door. " Upon this the house did instantly resolve
to adjourn till to-morrow at one of the clock, and in the interim they might
consider what to do."
The queen, who in the morning had seen the king go forth from the
palace, promising her that he would return in an hour, master of his kingdom,
saw him return under the disgrace of having attempted an unlawful act, and
failed in the attempt. The commons assembled on the 5th, and, declaring
the king's coming " in a warlike manner " a high breach of privilege,
adjourned for six days, appointing committees to sit in the city. There were •
four more days of fear and vacillation while the king andTiis family remained .

336 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
in the capital. The common council sent a petition to the king, complaining
of the attempt to arrest the members. He makes an answer which only
increases the discontent. On the 8th he issues a proclamation to arrest Lord
Kimbolton and the five commoners. The parliamentary committees in the
city meet the proclamation, by great preparations to bring them back in
triumph to Westminster. The courtiers now became alarmed for the
personal safety of the king and queen. On the evening of the 10th Charles
left Whitehall for Hampton Court. He never again entered that palace of
the English kings, till that fatal morning when he walked across the park
from St. James's attended by Bishop Juxon, and guarded by a regiment of
foot. At two o'clock of that day se'nnight on which the king had entered
the House of Commons, the accused members were brought back to the
parliament-stairs, in a rude triumph. The House of Commons having met,
the sheriffs of London were called in, and received the thanks of the speaker.
The masters and officers of ships, who had formed the river-guard, were also
thanked. Then came the freeholders of Buckinghamshire, who, to the
number of four thousand, had arrived in London to offer their services for
the defense of parliament. They came, each wearing the famous protesta
tion in his hat. A deputation from the freeholders went the next day with a
petition to the king, in which they prayed that their representative, Mr.
Hampden, and the other members who labored under a " foul accusation,"
might enjoy the just privileges of parliament. The king replied, " that
because of the doubt that hath been raised of the manner, he would waive
his former proceedings, and proceed in an unquestionable way." This
" unquestionable way " was never tried. On the day when the Buckingham
shire petition was presented, Lord Digby and Colonel Lunsford appeared
with a body of men-in-arms at Kingston. The parliament proclaimed them
traitors. Digby fled beyond sea ; Lunsford and his cavaliers attended the
king to Windsor.
In the councils of Windsor, a sensible plan of operations was resolved
upon. The king was to refrain from all open contests with the parliament ;
to hold out terms of conciliation, and gradually to retire to the north, while
his friends were gathering strength. Charles invited the houses, on the 20th
of January, to reduce all their complaints to one specific relation. The peers
hailed this as an omen of peace ; the commons would put no faith in the
king's desire for conciliation, unless he would transfer the military commands
of fortresses and the militia to those who possessed the confidence of parlia
ment. The king gave a decided refusal to the commons' " sure ground of
safety." The house then directed, by ordinance, that Goring, the governor
of Portsmouth, and Hotham, the governor of Hull, should hold those
garrisons " for king and parliament," and surrender to no one but under the
authority of the parliament. Day by day was the contest growing to a fatal
crisis. The houses passed a bill for, regulating the militia early in February.
About the same time the bill was carried " for disabling all persons in holy
orders to exercise any temporal jurisdiction or authority." To this bill, by

1649] THE FIRST STEP TOWARD CIVIL WAR. 337
which the bishops were excluded from the House of Lords, the king at
length gave his assent. The bill for the militia he rejected. The queen
urged her husband to accept the one bill and reject the other. On the 16th
of February her majesty, escorted by the king to Dover, took her departure
for Holland. She carried with her the crown-jewels ; and her real purpose
was to raise forces for resisting the demands of the parliament. The breach
between the king and the parliament upon the question of the militia was
more and more widened. Nor would the king, at the earnest entreaty of the
houses, returned to London. At last, at a conference at Newmarket, when it
was asked by Lord Holland and Lord Pembroke, whether the militia might
not be granted for a time, Charles replied, " No, by God, not for an hour ;
you have asked that of me, in this, which was never asked of a king, and
with which I would not trust my wife and my children." The king, after
this stormy conference, went on to York. Royalist forces had been raised in
the north by the marquis of Newcastle. The first step toward an actual
outbreak of civil war was quickly taken. On the 23d of April the king
suddenly appeared before Hull at the head of a strong body of horse, and
demanded admittance into the town. There was a large store of arms and
ammunition in the fortress. The mayor was about to open the gates, when
Sir John Hotham went on to the ramparts, and falling on his knees begged
the king to excuse a refusal to the demand, for that he, as governor, had
sworn to keep the place at the disposition of the parliament. Charles was
compelled to retire, proclaiming Hotham a traitor. He then complained to
the parliament, demanding justice against the governor of Hull, according to
law. The two houses voted their approval of Hotham's act. The crisis had
arrived. There was nothing more to be done for reconcilement. Thirty-two
peers, and sixty-five members of the commons, joined the king at York.
Those that remained no longer attempted to pass bills for the royal sanction.
They issued ordinances. On the 5th of May the parliamentary ordinance
for the militia was directed to be carried out. The king proclaimed this
ordinance to be illegal, and summoned the gentlemen of York to form his
body-guard. The lord chancellor, Littleton, had sent the great seal to the
king, that mystic symbol of legal government. Many gentlemen of the
county assembled in the town-hall of York, and were addressed by Charles,
who was received with loud acclamations. But under this appearance of
overwhelming strength, some fifty gentlemen, with Sir Thomas Fairfax at
their head, refused to join in the formation of a body-guard. A rnore
important demonstration of public feeling occurred in the gathering round the
hall of several thousands of the middle class, who demanded admission to
the meeting, and being refused, held a meeting of their own, and protested
against the acts of a close assembly. The king called another general
meeting upon a neighboring moor ; and thither came forty thousand men, for
the purpose of presenting a petition to the king, imploring him to be recon
ciled to his parliament. Charles read a paper, and was going away, when
young Fairfax pressed forward, and on his knee presented the petition of the
22

338 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
people. The king indignantly rode off, and after many violent ebullitions of
contempt from the cavaliers the meeting dispersed. The councils of the king
became irresolute. The decisions of the parliament, freed from the royalist
members who had retired to York, became bolder. The leaders prepared for
open war with marvelous energy. They proposed terms of accommodation
which they must have anticipated would meet with rejection. These propo
sitions went to the extent of stripping the monarch of the greater part of
the constitutional powers which, happily, in our times, have been found
consistent with the most perfect liberty of the people. The most terrible
question that can be put to a nation was now about to be put — to which of
two powers, each claiming to be supreme, will you render obedience ?
The king proclaimed Essex, the captain-general of the parliament, and
his officers, as traitors. The parliament voted the king's commissioners of
array to be traitors. Not only were the king and parliament each struggling
to obtain possession of the munitions of war by seizing the fortified places,
but each barrel of gunpowder was contested for by opposite parties. The
zealous men of influence in their several counties were in their own districts,
raising volunteers, gathering subscriptions, drilling recruits, collecting arms.
Each is subscribing largely " for defense of the kingdom." Many of the
best gentlemen of England withdrew from the quarrel which promised to be
fatal either to order or to liberty. The strength of the puritanical element
in the parliament of 1642 led to bold interferences with popular habits. The
parliamentary leaders knew that they would have the support of the most
powerful of the community of London, and of many other great towns, if
not of a majority of the nation, when they discouraged the ordinary amuse
ments of the people, — the bear-baitings, the cock-fights, the horse-races, the
May-poles ; appointed a fast on Christmas-day ; and shut up the theaters.
Bitter must have been the heart-burnings among the actors when their
vocation came to an end in London, in 1642. The king in August had
vainly attempted to obtain possession of Coventry. He had then gone to
Leicester with a body of cavalry. On the 21st of August, the king's
nephew, Prince Rupert, had joined him, and received the command of the
horse. The next day they rode to Nottingham. The king's purpose was,
upon Nottingham castle, to set up his standard — a ceremony which had not
been seen in England since Richard III. had raised his standard in Bosworth-
¦field — a ceremony which was held by some legists to be equivalent to a
declaration that the kingdom was in a state of war, and that the ordinary
¦course of law was at an end. Evening was coming on. The great streamer,
was placed upon the highest tower, with a red battle-flag waving over it.
The herald read a proclamation ; the trumpets sounded ; the friends who
stood around the castle cried " God save the king." A stormy night came
¦on; and, omen of disaster as many thought, the standard was blown down.
Charles was persuaded to negotiate — not in sincerity of heart, but in the
desire to obtain an advantage from the mere manifestation of a disposition to
negotiate. Neither party would make the first concession. And so, there

1649] WAR DECLARED.— FIRST BATTLE INDECISIVE. 339
being no alternative but war, the parliament, on the 9th of September,
published a declaration to the whole kingdom, setting forth the causes of the
war. On that day, the earl of Essex marched in great state out of London
to join the army in the midland counties with the trained bands. A few
weeks later the parliament ordered London to be fortified ; and the popula
tion, one and all, men, women, and children, turned out, day by day, to dig
ditches, and carry stones for their bulwarks.
The flame of war is bursting forth in many places at once. Fortified
towns are changing their military occupants. Portsmouth had capitulated to
the parliament's army a fortnight before the king raised his standard at
Nottingham. Lord Northampton, a royalist, had seized the stores at Banbury,
and marched to the attack of Warwick castle. That ancient seat of feudal
grandeur was successfully defended by the commander who had been left in
charge, while Lord Brook marched with some forces to the parliament's
quarters. Every manor-house was put by its occupiers into a posture of
defense! Prince Rupert, who occupies so prominent a part in the military
operations of the civil war, was only twenty-three when Charles made him
his general of horse. He had served in the wars for the recovery of the
palatine, and had exhibited the bravery for which he was ever afterward distin
guished. On the 22d of September, Essex moved his army to Worcester.
Here the first rencounter took place between the cavalry of Rupert and the
parliamentary cuirassiers. The royalists had a decided advantage. After
remaining at Shrewsbury about twenty days, Charles resolved to march
toward London. Two days after, the earl of Essex marched from Worcester
in the direction which Charles had taken. On Sunday morning, the 23d of
October, the banner of Charles was waving on the top of Edgehill. The king,
having the advantage of numbers, determined to engage. At two o'clock the
royal army descended the hill. " The great shot was exchanged on both
sides, for the space of an hour or thereabouts." The fiery prince pursued
the flying squadrons for three miles ; and in the town of Keinton he was
engaged in plundering the parliamentary baggage-wagons, while the main
body of the king's forces was sorely pressed by the foot and horse of Essex.
The king's standard was taken. Sir Edmund Verney, the standard-bearer
was killed. Brave old Lindsey was mortally wounded and taken prisoner.
Other royalists of distinction were killed. " When Prince Rupert returned
from the charge," writes Clarendon, " he found this great alteration in the
field, and his majesty himself with few noblemen and a small retinue about
him, and the hope of so glorious a day quite banished." Toward morning,
our army received a re-enforcement of Colonel Hampden's and several other
regiments, to the number of about four thousand men. It was, in most
respects, a drawn battle. Gradually each army moved off, one to attack
London, the other to defend it. There was no general' desire in either army
to renew the struggle. The " assault intended for the city" at last became a
reality. On the morning of the 12th of November, the sound of distant
guns was heard in London. Before noon Rupert was charging in the streets of

340 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
Brentford. The regiment of Hollis was quartered there, and they were not
unprepared for the attack. The contest was obstinately maintained for three
hours by Hollis's regiment. Hampden was at Acton, and Brook in a
neighboring cantonment. Again and again the parliamentary forces charged
the cavaliers. But the main body of the royal army now invested Brentford.
The fighting went on till evening, when the royalist had a decided advantage,
and compelled their enemy to retire from the town. They took many
prisoners. Many of the parliament's men were drowned in the Thames;
but the greater number made their way in boats down the stream. Essex
had arrived at Turnham green with some trained bands, who, while the fight
ing was going on, had been exercising in Chelsea fields. " All that night the
city of London poured out men toward Brentford, who every hour marched
thither ; and all the lords and gentlemen that belonged to the parliament
army were there ready by Sunday morning, the 14th of November."
Twenty-four thousand of the parliamentary army were marshaled on that
Sunday on Turnham green. The war, according to some writers, might have
been brought to a conclusion in one day of certain triumph if the irresolution
of Essex had yielded to the counsels of bolder spirits. The men were not
yet in the field who were resolved to make war in earnest, whatever might be
the consequences. Essex was brave and skillful ; but, like many other good
men, he fought with reluctance against his countrymen and his familiar
friends. The king " marched off," and on the 29th of November was in
winter quarters at Oxford.
At length, on the 2d of January, a petition from the common council was
carried to the king at Oxford, in which he was asked to return to the capital,
when all disturbance should be suppressed. Charles replied, that they could
not maintain tranquillity among themselves. He sent a gentleman to read
his formal answer to the people in the Guildhall. It was full of reproaches,
and breathed any language but that of conciliation. Amid an immense
uproar, Pym and Lord Manchester addressed the multitude, and the prospect
of peace faded from the people's view. The eastern counties formed them
selves into an " association," in the organization of which Cromwell was the
master-spirit. Under his vigorous direction, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex,
Cambridge, Herts, not only kept the war away from their own localities, but
furnished the most efficient support to its vigorous conduct in other quarters.
The counties of Lincoln and Huntingdon soon joined this eastern association,
with the like results. In the seven associated counties the cavaliers were
never of any importance. During the winter a partisan warfare was going on
in many places. In the beginning of 1643, the national feeling was
exasperated by the landing of the queen with a foreign army. On the 22d of
February she arrived with four ships, and landed at Burlington. The spring
of 1643 was passed by the court at Oxford. To Oxford came commissioners
from the parliament, toward the end of March, authorized to negotiate a
suspension of arms, and a treaty of peace. Charles displayed his usual
vacillation. He made concessions one day, and revoked them another. The f

1649] READING TAKEN.— THE QUEEN'S RETURN. 341
parliament peremptorily recalled its commissioners. The battle must be
fought out. During the civil war the judges went their usual circuits. In
the spring of 1643 this local administration of justice was temporarily
suspended. The two houses of parliament, embarrassed by the king's
possession of the great seal, resolved to establish a great seal : and under
this authority, and that of. the king, judges executed their functions as usual,
after a suspension of a few months. The suspension of arms were, on the
15th of April, declared by the parliament to be at an end. On that day
Essex marched his army to the siege of Reading. The king, on the 24th of
April, set out from Oxford to head a force for the relief of the besieged. At
Caversham bridge the royalist forces were repulsed by those of the parliament,
and fell back upon Wallingford. That day Reading was surrendered to
Essex. The war was proceeding with doubtful fortune in other quarters.
Sir William Waller was successful against the royalists in the south and west.
Fairfax was disputing with Lord Newcastle the supremacy of the north.
The Cornish men, in arms for the king, had gained a battle over Lord
Stamford. What could not be accomplished in the open field by the cavaliers
was sought to be effected by a secret plot. To arm the royalists in London,
to seize the persons of the parliamentary leaders, and to bring the king's
troops into the capital. Five persons were condemned by court-martial ; two,
Challoner and Tomkins, were executed. Waller was reserved, to exhibit in
his literary character a subserviency to power which has fortunately ceased to
be an attribute of poets. " He had much ado to save his life," says Aubrey,
" and in order to do it sold his estate in Bedfordshire, about one thousand
three hundred pounds per annum, to Doctor Wright for ten thousand pounds
(much under value), which was procured in twenty-four hours' time, or else he
had been hanged. With this money he bribed the house, which was the first
time a House of Commons was ever bribed." On the morning of the 19th of
June, the prince was with a large force in Chalgrove Field, near Thame.
Hampden, with a small detachment, attacked the cavaliers ; expecting the
main body of the parliamentary army soon to come up with re-enforcements.
The man who had triumphed in so many civil victories fell in this skirmish.
On the first charge he was shot in the shoulder. The parliamentary troops
were completely routed before Essex came up. Rupert retreated across the
Thames to Oxford. The news of the great leader having received a serious
wound soon reached Oxford. " O Lord, save my bleeding country," were his
last words. Four months had elapsed between the landing of the queen in England
and her return to her royal husband. On the 27th of May she writes to the
king from York, " I shall stay to besiege Leeds at once, although I am dying
to join you ; but I am so enraged to go away without having beaten these
rascals, that, if you will permit me, I will do that, and then will go to join
you ; and if I go away I am afraid that they would not be beaten." She had
her favorites, especially Jermyn and Digby, whose advancement she was con
stantly urging. The scandalous chroniclers of the time did not hesitate in

342 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
casting the most degrading suspicions upon the queen in connection with one
of these. Jermyn was made a peer. He is pointed out as " somewhat too
ugly for a lady's favorite, yet that is nothing to some ; for the old lady [Mary
de Medicis] that died in Flanders regarded not the feature." At length
Henrietta Maria joined the king at Oxford. At the head of four thousand
horse and foot soldiers. The tidings of a victory on the 15th over the parlia
mentary forces at Roundway Down, in Wiltshire, greeted their arrival. A
previous victory over Sir William Waller at Lansdown, in Somersetshire,
filled the royalists with the most sanguine hopes. Such partial successes on
the other side as the brave defense of Nottingham castle by Colonel Hutchin
son had no material influence upon the state of affairs. The feelings of the
adverse parties were growing more bitter. We see the proud cavaliers and
the stern Puritans hating and hated. In the summer of 1643 the power of
the parliament is visibly in danger. On the 27th of July, Bristol, a city only
exceeded by London in population and wealth, is surrendered to Rupert,
after an assault, with terrible slaughter on both sides. A design of Sir John
Hotham to surrender Hull to the king was detected. He and his son were
committed to the Tower on a charge of betraying the cause of the parliament.
London was in a state of unusual agitation. The royalist army was growing
stronger in every quarter. London was again in peril. There was one man
of extraordinary vigor who felt the immediate danger of his own district.
There is not a more characteristic letter of Cromwell than the following to
the commissioners at Cambridge, dated from Huntingdon on the 6th of
August : — " You see by this enclosed how sadly your affairs stand. It's no
longer disputing, but out instantly all you can. Raise all your bands ; send
them to Huntingdon ; get up what volunteers you can ; hasten your horses.
Send these letters to Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, without delay. I beseech
you spare not, but be expeditious and industrious ! Almost all our foot have
quitted Stamford ; there is nothing to interrupt an enemy but our horse, that
is considerable. You must act lively ; do it without distraction. Neglect no
means ! " Charles sent Sir Philip Warwick to the earl of Newcastle to propose
a plan of co-operation between the armies of the south and north. " But I
found him very averse to this," Warwick writes, " and perceived that he
apprehended nothing more than to be joined to the king's army, or to serve
under Prince Rupert ; for he designed himself to be the man that should turn
the scale, and to be a self-subsisting and distinct army, wherever he was."
With this serious difficulty in concentrating his forces, Charles determined
upon besieging Gloucester. On the 10th of August Charles sent a summons
for its surrender, offering pardon to the inhabitants, and requiring an answer
within two hours. The answer was in writing, to the effect that the inhab
itants and soldiers kept the city for the use of his majesty, but conceived
themselves " wholly bound to obey the commands of his majesty, signified by
both houses of parliament." From the 10th of August till the 6th of Sep
tember these resolute people defended their city with a resolution and bravery
unsurpassed in this warfare. The earl of Essex took the command of a force

1649] ESSEX AT GLOUCESTER.— BATTLE OF NEWBURY. 343
destined for the relief of " the godly city." On the 5th of September he had
arrived by forced marches within five miles of Gloucester. The king sent a
messenger to him with pacific proposals. The answer was returned in a spirit
of sturdy heroism : " The parliament gave me no permission to treat, but to
relieve Gloucester ; I will do it, or leave my body beneath its walls." The
soldiers shouted, " No propositions." Gloucester was relieved. The royal
army had moved away. On the 8th the parliamentary general entered the
beleaguered city, bearing provisions to the famished people, and bestowing
the due meed of honor upon their courage and constancy. On the 10th he
was on his march back to London. Essex had passed Farringdon, and was
rapidly advancing upon Newbury, on his road to Reading, when his scattered
horse were attacked by Rupert and his cavaliers. There was a sharp conflict
for several hours, and Essex was compelled to halt at Hungerford. When
Essex came near to Newbury on the 19th of September, he found the royal
army in possession of the town. The king had come there two hours before
him. It was absolutely necessary that Essex should hazard a battle. The
road to London was barred against him. He " must make his way through
or starve." On the morning of the 20th, the outposts of each force became
engaged, and the battle was soon general. It was fought all day " with great
fierceness and courage ; " the cavaliers charging " with a kind of contempt of
the enemy ; " and the roundheads making the cavaliers understand that a
year of discipline had taught them some of the best lessons of warfare. " The
London trained bands and auxiliary regiments behaved themselves to wonder ;
and were, in truth, the preservation of that army that day.
On the night of the battle of Newbury, each army remained in the posi
tion it had occupied before that day of carnage. The loss of royalists of rank
was more than usually great. Three noblemen fell, for whom there was lam
entation beyond the ranks of their party — Lord Carnarvan, Lord Sunderland,
and Lord Falkland. Falkland, especially, still lives in our memories, as one
of the noblest and purest — the true English gentleman in heart and intellect.
The relief of Gloucester and the battle of Newbury was fatal to many of
the sanguine hopes of a speedy victory over disunited rebels which the royal
ists up to this time had entertained. Although the queen was bestowing
places upon her favorite courtiers, as if Oxford were Whitehall — offering the
marquis of Newcastle to be chamberlain or lord of the bed-chamber, and in
triguing to make the faithless Lord Holland groom of the stole,— the real
power of the monarchy was fading away. The royalists called the battle of
Newbury " a very great victory." Before this issue had been tried the parlia
ment had appointed commissioners to negotiate a treaty of alliance with the
Scots ; for the parliament felt weak and dispirited. Sir Henry Vane, the
chief negotiator, had acceded to the imperative demand of the Scots parlia
ment that the religious system of Scotland should be adopted as that of
England. The exultation of the Scots commissioners in London must have
been unbounded when, on the 25th of September, all the members of parlia
ment, assembled in St. Margaret's church, swore to maintain " the solemn

344 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
league and covenant." The oath was signed by two hundred and twenty-
eight members of the commons. It was adopted in the city with enthusiastic
demonstrations of religious fervor. There is one man fast growing into one
of the most notable of men, who is raising troops, marching hither and
thither, fighting whenever blows are needful. In the early stages of his won
derful history nothing is more interesting than to trace the steps of this man,
now Colonel Cromwell. Whatever he says or does has some mark of the
vigor of his character, — so original, so essentially different in its manifestations
from the customary displays of public men. On the 10th of October, in the
skirmish of Winceby, near Horncastle, his career is well nigh ended. His
horse was killed at the first charge ; and as he rose, he was knocked down by
Sir Ingram Hopton, who led the royalists. He seized another horse, and the
enemy was routed. Pym died on the 8th of December, having sunk under a
lingering illness. Henceforward the war will assume a broader character and
a fiercer aspect. The arbitrary imposition of the covenant upon every minis
ter of the Anglican Church was the first great result of the alliance with the
Scots. The Presbyterian parliament of England became more violent for
conformity than the court of high commission which the parliament had
destroyed. The imposition of the covenant upon all the beneficed clergy was
the declaration of an intolerant tyranny against the most conscientious. The
number of incumbents ejected from their livings, for their refusal to sign this
obligation, has been variously reckoned. According to Neal, the historian of
the Puritans, it was sixteen hundred ; according to Walker, an extreme high
churchman, it reached eight thousand. The tyranny of this measure is most
odious, as coming from men who had themselves struggled against religious
persecution. Among the eminent public men who advocated the covenant as
a political measure, there were some who abhorred it as an instrument of
persecution. The younger Vane, the chief promoter of it, declared upon the
scaffold, that " the holy ends therein contained I fully assent to, and have
been as desirous to observe ; but the rigid way of prosecuting it, and the
oppressing uniformity that hath been endeavored by it, I never approved."
The year 1644 opened with great events. On the 19th of January the
Scottish army entered England. Lesley, now earl of Leven, commanded
them. The marquis of Newcastle was not strong enough long to oppose
them. He had given up his attempt to take Hull, and was in winter-quarters
at York. Lesley's army marched on to Newcastle, which they summoned to
surrender. The governor and garrison were faithful to their trust. The
Scots were straightened for provisions ; and the royalist army of fourteen
thousand men was intercepting their supplies. They determined to advance
further into the heart of the country. At this juncture the English regiments
that had been recalled by the king from Ireland, were besieging the parlia
mentary garrison at Nantwich. Sir Thomas Fairfax hurried to the relief of
the place, and totally defeated this Anglo-Irish army, which was under the
command of Sir John Byron. Negotiation after negotiation between the
king and the parliament having failed Charles very unwillingly accepted

1649] TWO PARLIAMENTS.— THE QUEEN AT EXETER. 345
Hyde's proposition. It was that of summonu^ the peers and commons that
had adhered to the royal cause to meet him in parliament at Oxford. On the
22d of December, 1643, the proclamation convoking this parliament was
issued. On the 22d of January, 1644, the parliament, or more truly conven
tion, met at Oxford. A letter written from this assembly to the earl of Essex,
expressing a desire for peace, was signed by forty-three peers, and one hun
dred and eighteen commoners. Others were absent on the king's service.
In the same January, according to Whitelocke, two hundred and eighty
members appeared in the House of Commons, besides those absent on the
parliamentary services. A large majority of the commons were with the
Westminster parliament ; a large majority of peers with that of Oxford.
The parliament at Oxford continued to sit till the 16th of April, voting taxes
and loans, passing resolutions of fidelity, but irritating the king in their
refusal to be mere instruments for registering his edicts. But they produced
no visible effect upon public opinion ; and Charles congratulated the queen
upon their being " freed from the place of all mutinous motions, his mongrel
parliament," when he had willed its adjournment.
The parliament at Westminster had adopted the rational course of
strengthening their executive authority. A council was formed under the
title of " The Committee of the Two Kingdoms," consisting of seven lords,
fourteen members of the commons and four Scottish commissioners. The
entire conduct of the war, the correspondence with foreign States, whatever
belongs to the executive power as distinguished from the legislative,
devolved upon this committee. In the spring of 1644 the parliament had
five armies in the field paid by general or local taxation, and by voluntary
contributions. Including the Scottish army there were altogether fifty-six
thousand men under arms ; the English forces being commanded, as
separate armies, by Essex, Waller, Manchester, and Fairfax. Essex and
Waller advanced to blockade Oxford. The queen went to Exeter in
April, and never saw Charles again. He remained shut up in Oxford.
Its walls were surrounded by lines of defense ; but the blockading forces
had become so strong that resistance appeared to be hopeless. On the
night of the 3d of June the king secretly left the city, and passed safely
between the two hostile armies. Essex, supported by the council of war,
resolved to march to the west. He was directed by the committee to retrace
his steps, and go in pursuit of the king. Essex replied to the committee
that their orders were opposed to military discipline ; and he marched on.
Charles suddenly returned to Oxford ; and then defeated Waller at Cropredy
bridge, near Banbury. Essex was before the walls of Exeter, in which city
the queen had given birth to a princess. The king hastened to the west.
He was strong enough to meet either of the parliamentary armies, thus sepa
rated. Meanwhile the north of England became the scene of the most
momentous conflict that distracted England had yet beheld. The dashing
enterprise of Rupert in the relief of Lathom house, so bravely held by
Charlotte de la Tremouille, countess of Derby, became of small importance

346 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
amid the greater event that was to follow in the north. The moated house of
the Stanleys had been defended by the heroic countess for eighteen weeks
against the detachment of the army of Fairfax. Their artillery could produce
little impression upon the thick walls and lofty towers ; and the demand to
submit herself, her children, and followers to the mercy of parliament,
produced from the lady, immortalized by history and romance, the reply, that
" the mercies of the wicked are cruel." Rupert hung the walls of Lathom
house with the parliamentary banners which he had captured in a fierce battle
at Bolton ; and he went on toward York to a fiercer strife and a perilous
defeat. The combined English and Scottish armies were besieging York.
As Rupert advanced toward York with twenty thousand men, the allied
English and Scots, retired. Rupert entered York with two thousand cavalry.
The earl of Newcastle was in command there. He counseled, a prudent
delay. The impetuous Rupert said he had the orders of the king for his
guidance, and he was resolved to fight. On the 2d of July, the royalist army
went forth to fight. They met their enemy on Marston Moor. Newcastle
asked Rupert what office he was to take. He replied that the earl might
repose, for he did not intend to begin the action till the morrow. Newcastle
went to his carriage, and left the prince to his supremacy. The sun had
scarcely set when the battle was finished ; and there were four thousand one
hundred and fifty bodies lying dead on that plain. The charges of Fairfax
and Cromwell decided the day. The victory of the parliamentary armies
was so complete, that the earl of Newcastle had embarked for the continent.
Rupert marched away also, with the wreck of his army, to Chester. Each had
announced his determination to the other, as they gloomily entered York on
the night of the battle. Fifteen hundred prisoners, all the artillery, more
than a hundred banners, remained with the victors. The queen now fled to
France. On the 9th of July she wrote a letter from Truro, to bid her
husband adieu. " I am hazarding my life that I may not incommode your
affairs." Soon after her. departure the king's arms had a considerable success
over Lord Essex in Cornwall. By the latter end of August he was encom
passed by the royalists. But Charles offered honorable terms of capitulation,
only requiring the surrender of the artillery, arms, and ammunition. The
army of Essex returned as fugitives to London, or dispersed through the coun
try. The king was resolved to march to London from the west. Montrose
was in arms in Scotland, and had gained two battles. Three armies under
Essex, Manchester, and Waller were called out for the defense of the capital.
Essex, though retaining his authority, did not join the troops which fought
the second battle of Newbury on the 27th of October. Manchester was there
in command. This battle was hotly contested without any decisive results.
In November, Cromwell, in his place in parliament, brought forward a charge
against the earl of Manchester, of having " always been indisposed and back
ward to engagements, and the ending of the war by the sword." He renewed
his attack in December. " It is now time to speak, or forever hold the
tongue * * * I do conceive if the army be not put into another method, and

1649] ARCHBISHOP LAUD.— TREATY OF UXBRIDGE. 347 :
the war more vigorously prosecuted, the people can bear the war no longer,
and will enforce you to a dishonorable peace." In a few months, the army
was put " into another method."
The Presbyterian party, including the Scottish commissioners, were now at
open hostility with the Independents. At a meeting at the house of the Lord-
General Essex, the Scottish chancellor proposed that Cromwell should be
proceeded against as "an incendiary." The Presbyterian party saw their
strength passing away from them. They endeavored to rekindle all the
violence of religious intolerance, by resuming proceedings against archbishop
Laud. There was meanness and cruelty in his prosecution, after four years
of imprisonment. He was condemned for high-treason. He was beheaded
on the 10th of January, 1645. On the 3d the liturgy of the Church of Eng
land, which had been previously tolerated, was abolished by ordinance. Four
others were sent to the scaffold at the same time for political offenses ; — Sir
John Hotham and his son ; Lord Macguire ; and Sir Alexander Carew. On
the 21st of January, Fairfax was nominated general; and within a month, a
new model for the army was arranged and carried. The most strenuous
attempt at pacification between the king and the parliament was made at the
beginning of 1645. " It was agreed that commissioners, should be sent from
the parliament • to treat with others to be sent from the king, about conditions
of peace. The place of their meeting was at Uxbridge. The treaty of
Uxbridge was to last twenty days. The last day expired on a Saturday, and
nothing was concluded. Argyle arrived from Scotland, stung by defeat and
disgrace ; and agreed with the extreme party in urging forward whatever
measures would lead to the active prosecution of the war. The peers with
drew from their opposition to the self-denying, ordinance, and it was finally
passed on the 3d of April. The military services of Cromwell were of such
importance that Fairfax and his officers urged that, without regard to the
ordinance, he might be temporarily appointed lieutenant-general, chief com
mander of the horse. The earls of Essex, Manchester, and Denbigh, gave in
their resignations. There was great change in the operations of the parlia
ment. There was to be an equal change in the councils of the king. It was
resolved that the prince of Wales should be sent into the western counties
with the title of generalissimo, and that the most discreet advisers of Charles
should accompany the prince, yet only fifteen years old to direct all measures
in his name. As the summer approached the king's affairs were rapidly
mending. He had taken Leicester by storm. Taunton was besieged by the
royalists. Fairfax was surrounding Oxford, but inactive. Cromwell was
active in the counties of the eastern association. Fairfax, on the 5th of
June, received commands to raise the siege of Oxford, and go to the midland
counties after the king. The general sent a requisition to the parliament
that Cromwell might be permitted to join him. He was indispensable, Fair
fax and his colonels said, as commander of the cavalry. On the 14th of June
was fought the battle of Naseby.
Cromwell wrote the dispatch announcing the result of this battle to the

34S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
speaker of the House of Commons. " He [the king] drew out to meet us.
Both armies engaged. We, after three hours' fight very doubtful, at last
routed his army ; killed and took about five thousand — very many officers,
but of what quality we yet know not. We took also about two hundred
carriages, all he had ; and all his guns, being twelve in number, whereof two
were demi-cannon, two demi-culverins, and I think the rest sackers. We pur
sued the enemy for three miles short of Harborough to nine beyond, even to
the sight of Leicester, whither the king fled. Sir, this is none other but the
hand of God ; and to Him alone give the glory, wherein none are to share with
Him." The battle was at an end. The most precious spoil of that day
was "the king's cabinet," which, when " opened," disclosed secrets which more
injured his cause than any victory of his enemies. These letters were the
damning evidence of deceit ; and those who saw the word " loyalty " had
ceased to charm, could only complain that domestic confidence was violated
when the private correspondence of a king and queen was published to the
whole world. During the summer of 1645 singular confederacies had been
formed in some places, avowedly for protecting their property against both par
ties. Those who belonged to them were known as "clubmen." They were
to some extent neutrals ; but they were principally called into activity by
royalist gentry. They were not "clubbable" men in Johnson's sense of
the term. Their business was to use their clubs as valiantly as they might.
They became annoying in the south-west to the parliamentary army ; and
Cromwell, in a march toward Shaftesbury, encountered about two thousand
of them. They fired upon a party of his horse, but of course were soon
routed. King Charles had fought his last battle at Naseby. Bristol, which
Rupert was charged to defend, was invested by Fairfax and Cromwell on the
22d of August. On the 10th of September the city was stormed. The roy
alists caused the city to be set on fire at three places. While the parliament
ary commanders " were viewing so sad a spectacle," Rupert sent a trumpet
to propose a surrender. The articles were agreed upon : and the prince
marched out with a convoy of two regiments of horse. He went to Oxford.
Charles wrote him a bitter letter of reproach from Hereford : " My conclusion
is, to desire you to seek your subsistence until it shall please God to deter
mine of my condition, somewhere beyond seas." A royal proclamation was
issued the same day, revoking and disannulling all commissions of military
authority given to " our nephew Prince Rupert." The surrender of Bristol
was perhaps the wisest act of Rupert's life ; for he had no chance of holding it
against the parliamentary forces, and the king was utterly unable to render
him assistance. But Charles would not learn from the bitter lessons of adver
sity. At the beginning of October, Winchester surrendered to Cromwell
and he then went on to the siege of Basing House. This was the house
called " Loyalty " which Cromwell battered from the higher ground till he
had made a breach ; and then stormed with a resolution which made all re
sistance vain. Never was such a rich plunder offered to the roundheads as

1649] MONTROSE DEFEATED.-CHARLES AND RUPERT. 349
was found in the mansion " fit to make an emperor's court," of the magnifi
cent Pawlet, marquis of Winchester.
With the exception of a few conflicts for the possession of garrisoned
towns and detached manor-houses, the war, during the autumn of 1645, was
wholly in the west. The great royalist army was utterly broken and dis
persed. But in Scotland there was a royalist leader whose name had become
a terror to the Covenanters. Wherever Montrose led his Highlanders he was
victorious. It was no. longer a war of clanship, but a great national contest.
On the 15th of August the Covenanting army, commanded by Baillie, was
utterly defeated. It was the seventh great victory of Montrose ; and it laid
Scotland, for a few weeks, at his feet. Edinburgh surrendered to him. In
the king's name he summoned a parliament at Glasgow. Charles decided to
attempt the relief of Chester. He marched with five thousand men, over the
Welsh mountains ; and on the 24th of September was within view of Chester.
Sir Marmaduke Langdale vigorously charged the parliamentary forces ; but a
detachment of the besieging troops came upon his rear, and decided the day.
The king retired again to the mountains. His chance of joining Montrose
was gone. On the 24th of September, Montrose was himself a fugitive. He
had advanced toward the English border, with diminished followers. Lesley
had moved from England to encounter him. On the 13th of September, at
Philiphaugh, on the left bank of the Ettrick, Montrose was surprised by the
veteran Covenanter. The camp of Montrose was attacked on each flank. It
was impossible to rally the main body of his followers. He retreated to the
Highlands. Instead of being the commander of a victorious army, he was
now only the leader of a few bands of mountaineers. Lesley re-established
the Covenanting power in the Lowlands. His victory was disgraced by a
cold-blooded slaughter of prisoners; and by the subsequent execution of
many of the royalist leaders. The king again set forward with an ill-condi
tioned Newark garrison to the aid of Montrose. On the way they learned
the truth of his final ruin. The king returned to Newark, but Digby, with
the presumption that marked his character, went on to the north. At
Sherborne, in Yorkshire, he was overtaken by the parliamentary troops, and
utterly routed. Among Digby's baggage his private papers were taken ; and
these, being published by order of parliament, " administered afterward so
much occasion of discourse."
The stormy meeting between the king and Prince Rupert at Newark,
the half-mutinous conduct of the royal garrison there, — events minutely
related by Clarendon, — are indicative of the fallen fortunes of the unhappy
king. " He must undergo a new kind of mortification from his friends much
sharper than any he had undergone from his enemies." Rupert and his
brother Maurice left Charles forever. He was alone ; no one to counsel him.
His troops were reduced to a few hundreds. During the long vacation of
this year the commons had resolved to fill up the vacancies of their house,
caused by the absence of the royal members, by issuing out writs for the
election of representatives to supply their places. The king on the 5th of

350 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
December wrote to the speaker of the House of Lords, offering to send a
deputation to Westminster with propositions that should be " the foundation
of a happy and well-grounded peace." A reply had been returned to his
first proposal, declining to receive his negotiators. He again wrote on the
29th of December, urging the plan of a personal treaty. This proposition
was also rejected. The military events of the spring of 1646 brought the
contest in the west to a termination. The remnant of the royalist army was
completely demoralized. Lord Hopton very reluctantly accepted the com
mand of this western army, at the express desire of the prince of Wales. A
braver man could not have been chosen ; a more high-minded friend of the
royal cause. As might have been foreseen, this honorable man utterly failed,
and the western army was dissolved. On the 22d of March, Lord Astley,
marching from Worcester to join the king at Oxford, was defeated at Stow-
in-the-Wold, and his three thousand cavaliers were killed, captured, or
dispersed. The brave old general was himself taken prisoner. These disasters
at length determined the prince of Wales and his council to obey the king's
injunctions to leave the country. He first sailed to Scilly. Two days after
his landing he sent Lord Colepepper to France to acquaint the queen " with
the wants and incommodities of the place," and to desire "a supply of men
and moneys." On the 22d of April Charles wrote to the queen from Oxford, complain
ing that his condition was much worse than ever " by the relapsed perfidious-
ness of the Scots." Nearer and nearer Fairfax was drawing his troops round
Oxford. In A few days the blockade would be complete. Whither was the un
happy king to fly? "I conjure thee," he says to his wife in this his saddest
hour; " I conjure thee by thy constant love to me, that if I should miscarry,
whether by being taken by the rebels or otherwise, to continue the same active
endeavor for Prince Charles as thou hast done for me, and not whine for my
misfortunes in a retired way, but, like thy father's daughter, vigorously
assist Prince Charles to regain his own." Hudson was then sent to call the
governor of Oxford, who arrived about two o'clock. To him the king
confided his intention to leave the city ; the governor went for the keys ; and
just as the clock struck three they passed over Magdalene-bridge. There was
nothing left for Charles but to go to the Scots' army at all risks. Ashburnham
says that when Charles arrived at the Scots' army before Newark, " many
lords came instantly to wait on his majesty with professions of joy, to find
that he had so far honored their army, as to think it worthy his presence
after so long an opposition." Not a night passed before the king was made
to understand his position. A guard, called a guard of honor, was placed at
his door. He claimed to give out the watchword for the night. " Pardon
me, sire," said Leven, " I am the oldest soldier here. Your majesty will per
mit me to undertake that duty." The king consented to sign an order that
his governor of Newark should give up the place to the Scots, for the
committee of both kingdoms. They rendered it to Poyntz, the English
parliamentary commander ; and very shortly after, the Scottish army, with

1649] CHARLES GIVEN UP.— THE END OF THE WAR. 351
the king, was on its march to Newcastle. From the 6th of May, 1646, till
the 30th of January, 1647, the king remained in the hands of the Scots. It
was a time of unwearied political intrigue and agitation, more complicated
than ever with the great question of religion.
The Scots, who thought they possessed a preponderating influence in
retaining the person of the king, were growing more and more unpopular in
the sentiments of the English people. A vote was at length carried in the
commons, in June, that their presence was no longer required ; and they were
requested to return home, on receiving a payment of a hundred thousand
pounds, on account of what might be due to them. They made no sign of
removing. Their great object was to induce Charles to consent to the
abolition of Episcopacy, and to the establishment of Presbyterianism in both
kingdoms. The English parliament, still governed by the Presbyterian party,
sent him proposals in July. He was to adopt the covenant ; he was to abolish
the Episcopal Church ; he was to give up the command of the military arm
for twenty years ; he was to exclude seventy of his adherents from a general
amnesty. The queen urged him to accept even these proposals. Without
an absolute rejection of these hard terms, he prepared again to come to
London. The Scottish commissioners told the king that unless he accepted
the conditions, though higher in some particulars than they could have
wished, he must not be expected to be received in Scotland. The money
question between the Scots and the parliament then occupied many weeks of
controversy. Four hundred thousand pounds were at last voted ; and a loan
was raised for the immediate payment of half the amount. The terms were
accepted. Another difficult question then presented itself. Which nation
was to retain the king ? It was, at last voted " that to the parliament alone1
belongs the right of disposing of the king's person." The treaty was
completed for the retirement of the Scottish army. On the 16th of Decem
ber there was a singular procession from London to the north. Thirty-six
carts, ladened with two hundred cases of silver, were guarded on the road to
Newcastle by an escort of infantry, under the command of Skippon. The
money and the men arrived at York on the 1st of January, 1647. In three
weeks the payment was made. " I am sold and bought," said the king. On
the 30th of January the Scots marched from Newcastle, and Charles remained
with the English commissioners. On the 9th of February he left Newcastle,
escorted by a regiment of horse, and reached Holmby house, in Northamp
tonshire, his appointed residence, on the 16th. The first civil war was at an
end. Oxford had been surrendered to Fairfax on the 22d of June. All the
royalist garrisons had yielded before the end of 1646. Great changes had
taken place since Charles fought his first battle of Edgehill. Essex, who
there brought his undisciplined troops into conflict with the cavaliers, died on
the 16th of September. Other men and other influences were now to be
paramount. There is an order of " the committee of the revenue " for fitting
Holdenby house with hangings, beddings, and other wardrobe stuff and

332 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
necessaries ; and, for melting the altar plate at Whitehall for the use of the
king's table in his new abode. Seventy-six officers of the household and
domestic servants are to be chosen by the earl of Northumberland, with
yeomen of the guard. The king's diet was to be supplied at the cost of
thirty pounds a day ; and the estimate for the whole cost of the household
amounted to three thousand pounds for twenty days. During this spring and
early summer the king was not deprived of any of the trappings of royal
state. Nor was his liberty much controlled. He was attended by two
gentlemen selected by the parliament, Thomas Herbert and James Harring
ton, who became his fast friends. Within three days after the king had
arrived at Holmby house, the commons voted that the army should be
disbanded, with the exception of the troops required for the suppression of
rebellion in Ireland, and for the service of the garrisons. It was also voted
that there should be no officers under Fairfax of higher rank than colonel ;
that every officer should take the covenant, and conform to the Presbyterian
Church. There were large arrears of pay due to the army, and a loan was
raised in the city to satisfy a portion of them. What was proposed to be
paid was very insufficient. There were murmurings among men and officers.
On the 25th of March, a petition, signed by fourteen officers, was presented
to parliament on the subject of arrears. The house, on the 30th of March,
declared that whoever had a hand in promoting this petition, or other such
petitions, was " an enemy to the State, and a disturber of the public peace."
The declaration became in itself a cause of hostility between the army and
the parliament. Cromwell whispered to Ludlow, "These men will never
leave till the army pull them out by the ears." A new class of malcontents
had arisen, more dangerous than the officers, who said to the parliamentary
commissioners, " We hope, by being soldiers we have not lost the capacity of
subjects, nor divested ourselves thereby of our interests in the common
wealth." The army had organized itself into a council of officers, and a
council of adjutators. The adjutators, who came to be called agitators, were
delegates named by the common soldiers. The difficulties of reconcilement
are now growing very formidable. The servants are fast advancing to become
masters. They are voted eight weeks' pay. We want eight times eight
weeks' pay, say the adjutators. There are disturbances in some of the
military quarters. A great crisis is impending.
On the afternoon of the 2d of June the king is playing bowls on Althorpe
Down. About midnight there is a tramping of horse around Holmby house ;
and entrance is demanded by a man who was looking at the game of bowls
on Althorpe Down. Charles had a long conference with him. The next day
the king asked Joyce under what authority he acted. He was sent, he said,
by authority of the army, to prevent the design of its enemies, who would
once more plunge the kingdom in blood. " Where is your commission ? "
said the king. " There, behind me," pointing to the soldiers. " Believe me,"
replied Charles, "your instructions are written in a very legible character."
In a few hours, the king and the unwilling commissioners were on their way

1649] THE ARMY ADVANCE TO LONDON. 353
toward the army. The king arrives at Royston on the 7th. " Fairfax and
Cromwell wait on him both together. He asks them whether they commis
sioned Joyce to remove him : they deny it. ' I'll not believe you,' says the
king, ' unless you hang him.' ' Colonel Whalley had been sent by Fairfax,
when he learnt of the king's seizure at Holmby, to take him back ; but
Charles refused to go. When in presence of Fairfax and Cromwell he
expressed the same desire to remain with the army. Commissioners were
again coming to the army on the 10th ; and Cromwell has arrived a little
before them. Twenty-one thousand men are drawn upon Triploe Heath.
The votes of parliament are first, read to the general's own regiment. An
officer stands forth, saying that the regiment would determine upon an
answer when the votes had been submitted to a council of officers and
adjutators. The men are asked if that is their answer? "All, all." The
question is also put, if any be of a contrary opinion to say " No." Not a
voice is heard. The same formality is observed toward every regiment, with
a similar result ; and a cry goes up from each, as the commissioners pass on,
of " Justice, justice." In the afternoon, this army is on its march toward
London ; and the " rebellious letter ; " is sent to the lord-mayor and aldermen.
On the 16th the army demands the impeachment of eleven members of the
commons, Hollis, Stapleton, Massey, and eight others of the leading
Presbyterians — the men of whom Cromwell spoke when he whispered about
the army pulling them out by the ears. The city is in consternation. The
army has received a month's pay, as it demanded. But it has continued to
advance. The effect is instantaneous. On the 26th of June the eleven
obnoxious members retire from parliament ; the commons vote for the
adoption of all the proceedings of the army ; and commissioners are appointed
on each side to regulate the affairs of the kingdom. There is no longer any
talk of defending London ; and the army falls back a few miles.
For more than three months have these serious differences between
parliament and army gone on. There is a pause of nearly another month,
in which the kingdom does not seem approaching to a settlement. It was
toward the end of June that the king and the Independents, — Cromwell and
Ireton, Vane and Henry Marten, — appeared to have come to such an under
standing as promised a termination to the miseries of the kingdom ; an
understanding that would have restored the king to those just rights which
were compatible with the existence of civil and religious liberty. Whether
such an arrangement would have endured, had it been effected, may justly be
questioned. The king rejected the proposals. Bands of apprentices had
surrounded Westminster Hall, clamorously demanding the return of the king.
An engagement signed by thousands, was entered into, pledging those who
signed it to make all efforts to accomplish the king's return to London.
Upon the news of these proceedings in London, Fairfax and his army had
moved toward the capital. The tumults grew more serious. On the 26th of
July, all the avenues of the houses were beset with a violent multitude.
They brought a petition, which was received at the door of the commons.
23

354 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
No answer was returned, and shouts arose of "Let us go in." Members
drew their swords, and drove back those who were crowding in the lobby.
Some of the rioters climbed up to the windows of the House of Peers, and
threw stones into the chamber. The door of the House of Commons was
at last forced open ; and a body of men rushed in, calling out " Vote, vote."
They demanded that a resolution of the previous day, carried by the
Independents, declaring those traitors who voted for the city " engagement,"
should be rescinded. The speaker left the chair, and went into the lobby,
after the house had voted as the rioters desired. This was on a Monday. The
army lay at Windsor, Maidenhead, Colnbrook, and adjacent places. The
houses adjourned to Friday, the 30th of July. The speakers of the lords
and commons have withdrawn, and many members have withdrawn with
them. The eleven members whose impeachment the army had demanded,
have now returned. The Presbyterian party appears to be triumphant. New
speakers are elected. The king has had his interview with Ireton and the
council of officers, and has indiscreetly shown his reliance upon agitations
which he is more than suspected of having excited. Suddenly the whole
course of the political movement is changed. A train of carriages arrives
from London with Lord Manchester and Mr. Lenthall, the speakers ; and
they are accompanied by fourteen of the peers, and about one hundred
members of the commons. Those who remain at Westminster have not been
idle. Troops are to be enlisted. The army is commanded not to advance.
But it does advance. On the 3d of August, Hounslow Heath is appointed
for a rendezvous of this formidable force. The speaker of the lords, and the
speaker of the commons, — the sergeant-at-arms with the mace — the most
energetic of the members — the> visible authority and the real potency of
parliament are with the army. The city had yielded. There was no longer
a present hope of profiting by dissensions between parliament and army. On
the 6th of August, Fairfax, surrounded by four of his regiments, and con
ducting the members of parliament who had fled to the army, proceeded to
Westminster. At Hyde Park they were met by the lord mayor and alder
men ; at Charing Cross by the common council. The Independents, now
supreme in parliament, took their seats. The mace was again laid on the
table. Two days after, the whole army, horse, foot, and artillery, marched
through Westminster and the city, and over London Bridge to their various
quarters in Surrey. The king was lodged at Hampton Court. The head
quarters of the army were at Putney.
The king remained at Hampton Court for three months. His children
¦were -frequently with him. " Persons of all conditions repaired to his majesty
of all who had served him ; with whom he conferred without reserva
tion ; and the citizens flocked thither, as they had used to do at the end of a
progress." Charles desired a personal treaty with the parliament, and thought
the proposals which had come from the army appeared a better ground of
settlement. Cromwell, Vane, Ireton, and their friends strenuously supported
his desire ,for a personal treaty. " The suspicions were so strong in the

1649] CROMWELL.— IRETON.— BERKELEY.— THE KING. 355
house," says Berkeley, " that they lost almost all their friends there ; and the
army that lay then about Putney were no less ill-satisfied." Cromwell was
fast losing his influence over the army. The conqueror at Naseby was now
held to be the traitor at Hampton Court. The agitators had become unman
ageable. On the evening of the nth of November the commissioners and
Colonel Whalley, missing the king at supper, went into his chamber and found
him gone. He left a paper to the parliament, another to the commissioners,
and a third to Colonel Whalley. It was arranged that the king and Legg
should proceed to a house of Lord Southampton at Titchfield ; that Berkeley
and Ashbumham should go into the Isle of Wight to Colonel Hammond, the
governor. Berkeley says that Hammond grew so pale, and fell into such a
trembling, that he expected him to fall from his horse, exclaiming, " O, gentle
men, you have undone me by bringing the king into this island, if you have
brought him." After much discussion Hammond engaged " to perform
whatever could be expected from a person of honor and honesty ; in "two
hours the king was in a boat sailing to the Fair Isle. That night he slept at
Carisbrook castle.
Berkeley set out with letters from the king and also from the governor,
and arrived at the head-quarters at Windsor. He delivered his letters to Fair
fax at a general meeting of officers. Being desired to withdraw, he was soon
afterward called in ; and was sternly told by Fairfax that they were the
parliament's officers, and must refer the king's letters to the parliament.
Cromwell and Ireton looked coldly upon him, as well as other officers with
whom he was acquainted. His servant went out to find some one to whom
Berkeley could speak ; and a general officer sent him a message to meet him
in a close behind the Garter Inn, at. twelve at night. They meet ; and his
friend urged him to persuade the king to escape ; for that it was resolved to
seize his person and bring him to trial. The agitators, he said, were not
quelled ; and he had been repeatedly with Cromwell and Ireton to tell them
that they would bring the whole army to the conviction that the king should
be brought to trial. The general further said that he hazarded his own life
in this interview ; for it was agreed that no one should speak with Berkeley,
under pain of death. The Scottish commissioners came to Carisbrook toward
the end of December. It had been voted in the House of Lords at the end
of November, that propositions should again be offered to the king in the
shape of four bills, far more stringent as to the power of parliament and the
militia than the offers at any previous time, but leaving the religious question
untouched. The Scottish commissioners in London had secretly advised the
king to reject these bills. Their own proposals were, that a Scottish army
should come into England to restore him to his rights, provided that he
confirmed the Presbyterian establishment in England for a period of three
years, and then the constitution of the Church to be finally settled. Having
concluded this dangerous alliance, Charles delivered his answer to the English
commissioners. He rejected the propositions. That evening the gates of
Carisbrook castle were closed, guards surrounded the fortress. An escape

356 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
meditated for the next night was no longer practicable. The last maneuver
of the unfortunate king rendered his difficult condition utterly desperate.
Cromwell wrote to Colonel Hammond on the 3d of January, " The House of
Commons is very sensible of the king's dealings, and of our bretheren's [the
Scots], in this late transaction."
" The House of Commons has this day voted as follows : — 1st. They
will make no more addresses to the king ; 2d. None shall apply to him without
leave of the two houses, upon pain of being guilty of high treason ; 3d.
They will receive nothing from the king, nor shall any other bring anything
to them from him, nor receive anything from the king." The lords adopted
the resolution, after some debate. There was a meeting some time after,
conducted by Cromwell — a meeting of officers of the army at Windsor castle.
These zealous men spent one whole day in prayer. They were exhorted by
Cromwell to a thorough consideration of their actions as an army, and of
their ways as private Christians. They became convinced that the Lord had
departed from them, through " those carnal conferences which they held in
the preceding year with the king and his party." They finally came to a
resolution, " That it was our duty, that, if ever the Lord brought us back
again in peace, to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for
that blood he had shed, and mischief he had done to his utmost, against the
Lord's cause and people in these poor nations." The Scots are preparing to
invade. A second civil war is fast approaching. Cromwell and some of the
other leaders attend a common-council ; but they find the Presbyterians
indisposed to listen to what they call "their subtleties." The next day there
is a formidable riot. There are forty hours of this tumult, in which the
prevailing cry is " God and King Charles." At last a body of cavalry arrive
from Westminster ; there is an irresistible charge of the men who had rode
down far more terrible assailants ; and that movement is at an end. But in
many towns there are similar riots. In Wales some Presbyterian officers of
the parliamentary army, have raised a far more formidable insurrection.
Pembroke castle is in their hands. They soon have possession of Chepstow
castle. The gentry have proclaimed the king. It is a Presbyterian-royalist
insurrection, allied in principle with the purposes of the moderate Presby
terians of Scotland, who are organizing their army for the march into
England. The Welsh outbreak is somewhat premature ; but nevertheless it
is very formidable. It is alarming enough to demand the personal care of
Lieutenant-General Cromwell. He leaves London on the 3d of May, with five
regiments. The re-action gave the Presbyterians again the command in parliament ;
and it was voted on the 28th of April, that the fundamental government of
the kingdom by king, lords, and commons, should not be changed ; and that
the resolutions forbidding all communication with the king should be
rescinded. Popular demonstrations immediately followed the departure of
Cromwell. Surrey gentlemen, freeholders, and yeomen, came to Westminster
with a petition that the king should be restored with all the splendor of his

1649] ROYALIST UPRISING.— SCOTTISH INVASION. 357
ancestors. A broil ensued between the parliamentary guard and these
petitioners, who asked the soldiers, " Why do you stand here to guard a
company of rogues ? " Several of the Surrey men, and one of the guard, were
killed. The royalists of Kent organized themselves in a far more formidable
shape. They secured Sandwich and Dover ; appointed as general, Goring,
earl of Norwich ; and assembled at Rochester to the number of seven thou
sand. Troops were raised for the royal service in the eastern and middle
counties. More dangerous to the ruling powers than all these demonstrations.
was the defection of the fleet. The sailors of 1648 put their admiral on
shore, and carried their ships to Holland, to place them under the command
of the prince of Wales, who appeared in the channel, — and did nothing.
The royalists were in the highest exultation. They expected the king soon
to be again at their head. The earl of Holland had turned once more to
what he thought would be the winning side ; and his mansion at Kensington
was again the resort of cavaliers. But the king does not appear among them.
Another dread now came over the Presbyterian party. They would negotiate
with the king ; but they would take strong measures against the royalists.
All papists and malignants were banished from London under more severe
penalties than before. Fairfax and the army marched into Kent ; dispersed
the insurgents after an obstinate fight at Maidstone ; and by rapid successes,
wherever else there was resistance, put down the rising spirit. Lord Goring,
after having led several thousand men to Blackheath, expecting assistance in
London, was compelled to see the desertion of his followers, and he crossed
the Thames into Essex. There the contest was more prolonged, Lord Capel
and Sir Charles Lucas had collected a large force, with which they intended
to march from Colchester upon London. Fairfax invested the town ; and
for two months there was a renewal of the former work of blockade and
siege, until the place was surrendered on the 27th of August. The earl of
Holland and the young duke of Buckingham broke out in revolt at Kingston-
upon-Thames, when the main army of the parliament was investing Colches-
' ter. There was an action near Kingston, in which they were defeated ; and
passing into Hertfordshire, the remnant was cut up at St. Neot's by a
detachment from the army of Fairfax, and Holland was taken prisoner. In
Wales, where the resistance to the parliament was more concentrated, the
presence even of Cromwell was not at first successful.
It was not till the 10th of July that the town and castle of Pembroke
were surrendered to him. Six days before the capitulation the Scottish army
entered England, under the duke of Hamilton. He was joined by five
thousand English, under Sir Marmaduke Langdale. The English general,
Lambert, was retreating before them, having been directed by Cromwell to
avoid an engagement, and to fall back. Two days after the surrender of
Pembroke, Cromwell was on his march from the west. He waited not for
orders. He knew where he was wanted. At this juncture a charge of
treason had been preferred against him by Major Huntington, an officer of
the army, which had been countenanced by some members of both houses.

358 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
He was accused of endeavoring, by betraying the king, parliament, and army,
to advance himself. The occasion was not opportune for such an attempt.
All Cromwell's forces have joined the northern troops by the 12th of August.
The duke of Hamilton thinks he is sure of Manchester. On the 16th of
August the duke is at Preston. The same night Cromwell is at Stonyhurst.
The next morning Cromwell has fallen upon Sir Marmaduke, and utterly
routed him, " after a very sharp dispute." Hamilton's army is a disjointed one.
The duke was separated from his main force of infantry, under Baillie, but
rejoined them only to see the bridge of the Ribble won by the enemy in a
general battle. This being ended, the Scots were charged through Preston ;
and then not only was the bridge of the Ribble won, but . the bridge of
Darwen. Night was approaching, which put an end to any further fighting
on the 17th. The Scottish generals in a council of war determined to march
off, as soon as it was dark, without waiting for Middleton and his cavalry.
They left their ammunition behind ; and the next morning were at Wigan
Moor, with half their number. No general engagement took place that day;
and the Scots held Wigan. The next day the Scots moved toward Warring
ton ; and after some hard fighting, General Baillie surrendered himself,
officers, and soldiers, as prisoners of war. The duke, with three thousand
horse, was gone toward Nantwich. His course was undetermined. The
country people were hostile. His own men were mutinous. He surrenders
to Lambert, and is sent prisoner to Nottingham. The Scottish army was
now uterly broken and dispersed. The news of Hamilton's complete failure
in the invasion of England was the signal for the great Presbyterian party
that had opposed the policy of the engagers to rise in arms. Argyle assem
bled his Highland clans. In the Western Lowlands large bodies of peasantry,
headed by their preachers, marched to Edinburgh. Argyle was restored to
power. The most zealous Covenanters were again at the head of the executive
authority. Cromwell entered Scotland on the 20th of September, and was
received at Edinburgh, not as a man to whose might their brave countrymen
had been compelled to yield ; but as the deliverer from a royalist faction that
might again have put the national religion in peril. It was evil news to the
king that the last appeal to arms had failed. The parliament now looked
with as much alarm as the king might entertain at the approaching return of
that victorious army of the North. There were violent debates ; but it was
at length agreed that commissioners should proceed to the Isle of Wight.
All was in vain. Charles had conceded the questions of military
command and of nomination to the great offices of State ; he had even
consented to acknowledge the legitimacy of the resistance to his power.
But he had conceded enough upon the question of religion to satisfy the
more violent of the Presbyterians. The conferences were broken up, after
the most violent demonstrations had been made to parliament of the temper
of the army. A week before the termination of the conferences at Newport,
the army from St. Alban's sends a " remonstrance " to the commons, — an
unmistakable document, — calling upon the parliament to bring the king to

1649] OBNOXIOUS MEMBERS REMOVED. 359
trial ; and to decree that the future king should be elected by the representa
tives of the people. It was distinctly intimated that if the parliament
neglected the interests of the nation the army would take the matter into
their own hands. On the 25th of November the army of Fairfax is at
Windsor. Cromwell had returned from Scotland, to the north of England,
on the nth of October. He is busily engaged in military affairs. The
royalist govenor of Pontefract refuses to surrender. A party from the
garrison had sallied out on the 29th of October, and assassinated the
parliamentary Colonel Rainsborough, in his lodging at Doncaster. On the
25th of November, Colonel Hammond was directed to give up his post in
the Isle of Wight to another officer, and return to the army. The king's
house was surrounded by soldiers ; and its very passages were filled with
armed men, their matches lighted. At daybreak there was an alarm at his
door. A colonel was there with a guard ; and when the door was opened,
the king was told by him that he had orders to remove him to Hurst castle.
They could not have named a worse place, said Charles. He apprehended
assassination. The army is at Windsor. On Saturday, the 2d of December,
it is on its march to London ; and before night is quartered in Whitehall, St.
James's and the suburbs. On the Monday the commons are debating all day—
they are debating till five o'clock on Tuesday morning the 5th, — whether the
king's concessions in the treaty of Newport are a ground of settlement.
The house decided, by one hundred and twenty-nine to eighty-three, that
the king's concessions are a ground of settlement. " Some of the principal
officers of the army came to London with expectation tharf: things would be
brought to this issue, and consulting with some members of parliament and
others, it was concluded, after a full and free debate, that the measures
taken by the parliament were contrary to the trust reposed in them, and
tending to contract the guilt of the blood that had been shed, upon them
selves and the nation ; that it was therefore the duty of the army to endeavor
to put a stop to such proceedings." " Three of the members of the house,
and three of the officers of the army, withdrew into a private room to attain
the ends of our said resolution ; when we agreed that the army should be
drawn up the next morning, and guards placed in Westminster Hall, the
courts of requests, and the lobby ; that none might be permitted to pass
into the house but such as continued faithful to the public interests. To
this end we went over the names of all the members, one by one. . . .
Commissary-General Ireton went to Sir Thomas Fairfax, and acquainted him
with the necessity of this extraordinary way of proceeding." Lieutenant-
General Cromwell is still in the North.
What was thus deliberately resolved on the 6th of December was as
promptly effected on the 7th. Forty-one were ordered that day to retire to
" the queen's court." The process went on for several days, till some
hundred members are disposed of. Before the minority have obtained an
entire ascendancy, Cromwell has arrived on the night after the sharp
medicine known as " Pride's purge " has been administered ; and " lay at

360 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE STUARTS. [1625
Whitehall, where, and at other places, he declared that he had not been
acquainted with this design ; yet since it was done he was glad of it, and
would endeavor to maintain it." The parliamentary minority, being now
almost unanimous in their resolve to overthrow the existing government,
voted to rescind all the votes which had recently passed as to the grounds of a
settlement. The drawbridge of Hurst castle is lowered during the night of
the 17th of December, and the tramp of a troop of horse is heard by the
wakeful prisoner. Major Harrison is arrived. The king is agitated. He has
been warned that Harrison is a man chosen to assassinate him. He is
re-assured in the morning, in being informed that the major and his troop are
to conduct him to Windsor.
During the month in which Charles had remained at Windsor, there had
been proceedings in parliament of which he was imperfectly informed. On
the day he arrived there, it was resolved by the commons that he should be
brought to trial. On the 2d of January, 1649, it was voted that, in making
war against the parliament, he had been guilty of treason ; and a high court
was appointed to try him. One hundred and fifty commissioners were to
compose the court, — peers, members of the commons, aldermen of London.
The ordinance was sent to the upper house, and was rejected. On the 6th,
a fresh ordinance, declaring that the people being, after God, the source of all
just power, the representatives of the people are the supreme power in the
nation ; and that whatsoever is enacted or declared for law by the commons in
parliament hath the force of a law, and the people are concluded thereby,
though the consent of king or peers be not had thereto. Asserting this
power, so utterly opposed either to the ancient constitution of the monarchy,
or to the possible working of a republic, there was no hesitation in consti
tuting the high court of justice in the name of the commons alone. The
number of members of the court was now reduced to one hundred and thirty-
five. They had seven preparatory meetings, at which only fifty-eight members
attended. Algernon Sidney, although bent upon a republic, opposed the trial,
apprehending that the project of a commonwealth would fail, if the king's
life were touched. It is related that Cromwell, irritated by these scruples,
exclaimed, " No one will stir. I tell you, we will cut his head off with the
crown upon it."
On the 19th of January, Major Harrison appeared again at Windsor with
his troop. There was a coach with six horses in the court-yard, in which the
king took his seat ; and, once more, he entered London and was lodged at
St. James's Palace. The next day, the high court of justice was opened in
Westminster Hall. The king came from St. James's in a sedan ; and after
the names of the members of the court had been called, sixty-nine being
present, Bradshaw, the president, ordered the sergeant to bring in the prisoner.
Silently the king sat down in the chair prepared for him. He moved not his
hat, as he looked sternly and contemptuously around. The sixty-nine rose not
from their seats, and remained covered. It is scarcely eight years since he
was a spectator of the last solemn trial in this hall — that of Strafford. What

1649] TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. 361
mighty events have happened since that time ! Under what law does the
insolent president address him as " Charles Stuart, king of England," and
say, " The commons of England, being deeply sensible of the calamities that
have been brought upon this nation, which are fixed upon you as the principal
author of them, have resolved to make inquisition for blood"? He will defy
their authority. The clerk reads the charge, and when he is accused therein
of being tyrant and traitor, he laughs in the face of the court. Again and
again contending against the authority of the court, the king was removed,
and the sitting was adjourned to the 22d. On that day the same scene was
renewed ; and again on the 23d. A growing sympathy for the monarch
became apparent. The cries of " Justice, justice," which were heard at first,
were now mingled with " God save the king." He had refused to plead ; but
the court nevertheless employed the 24th and 25th of January in collecting
evidence to prove the charge of his levying war against the parliament. Coke,
the solicitor-general, then demanded whether the court would proceed to pro
nouncing sentence; and the members adjourned to the Painted Chamber. On
the 27th the public sitting was resumed. When the name of Fairfax was
called, a voice was heard from the gallery, " He has too much wit to be here."
The king was brought in ; and, when the president addressed the commission
ers, and said that the prisoner was before the court to answer a charge of high
treason, and other crimes brought against him in the name of the people of
England, the voice from the gallery was again heard, " It's a lie — not one half
of them." The voice came from Lady Fairfax. The court, Bradshaw then
stated, had agreed upon the sentence. Bradshaw then delivered a solemn
speech to the king. The clerk was lastly commanded to read the sentence,
that his head should be severed from his body ; " and the commissioners," says
Ludlow, " testified their unanimous assent by standing up." The king
attempted to speak ; " but being accounted dead in law, was not permitted."
On the 29th of January the court met to sign the sentence of execution ;
addressed to "Colonel Francis Hacker, Colonel Huncks, and Lieutenant-
Colonel Phayr, and to every one of them."
The king knew his fate. He resigned himself to it with calmness and
dignity ; with one exceptional touch of natural human passion, when he said
to Bishop Juxon, although resigning himself to meet his God, " We will not
talk of these rogues, in whose hands I am ; they thirst for my blood, and they
will have it, and God's will be done. I thank God, I heartily forgive them,
and I will talk of them no more." He took an affectionate leave of his daugh
ter, the Princess Elizabeth, twelve years old ; and of his son', the duke of
Gloucester, of the age of eight. To him he said ;— " Mark, child, what I say ;
they will cut off my head, and perhaps make thee king ; but thou must not be
king so long as thy brothers Charles and James live." And the child said, " I
will be torn in pieces first." Between two and three o'clock the king was taken
to a scaffold covered with black, erected before Whitehall. The headsman did'
his office ; and a deep groan went up from the surrounding multitude. It is
scarcely necessary that we should offer any opinion upon this tremendous event.

vn.

(1649 — 1660.)
THE REPUBLIC.
(1649-1653.)
HERE was, at the time of the king's execution, a book
being printed which was to surround his life with the
attributes of a saint, and to invest him in death with
the glory of a martyr. The " Icon Basilike, or Portrait
ure of his Sacred Majesty in his Solitudes and Suffer
ings," purported to be written by Charles the first him
self. Milton, who was directed by the parliament to
answer this Icon, or Image, treats it in his Iconoclastes, or Image-

breaker, as if the king had " left behind him this book as the best
advocate and interpreter of his own actions." The question of
the. authorship of this book has now almost merged, as a literary
problem, into the belief that it was written by Dr. Gauden, after
ward bishop of Exeter. He published it as the work of the
king ; but he claimed the authorship after the restoration.
On the 6th of February the commons, now reduced to
little more than a hundred members, by their vote declared the
House of Lords " useless and dangerous." On the 7th another
vote was recorded : " It hath been found by experience, and this house doth
declare, that the office of a king, in this nation, and to have the power thereof
in any single person, is unnecessary, burthensome, and dangerous to the liber
ty, safety and public interest of the people of this nation, and therefore ought
to be abolished." A due provision for the exercise of the executive authority
was speedily made by the parliament, in the appointment of a council of State,
consisting of forty-one persons. This council comprised the three chief judges ;
the three commanders of the army; five peers, and thirty members of the
house. It was required of the individuals composing the council that each
should sign a document expressing approbation of the proceedings by which
the monarchy had been overthrown. Twenty-two refused to enter into such
an engagement. There were violent debates ; but moderation ultimately pre
vailed. The past was to remain unnoticed, in a pledge of fidelity for the
future. Vane became an active member of the council. He and others who

1653] TRIALS AND EXECUTIONS.— WAR IN IRELAND. 363
had refused to sanction the deeds of the regicides, did not shrink from labor
ing with them in the public service. Bradshaw was chosen president of the
council, and Milton was appointed its Latin secretary.
The courts of law were re-opened ; the command of the navy was put into
able hands, who soon made the flag of England respected in every sea.
But although the vigilance of the council was sufficient for the repression of
anarchy, with a powerful army at its command, it was not sufficient for estab
lishing a willing obedience to the parliamentary act, " That the people of Eng
land, and of all the dominions and territories thereunto belonging, are and
shall be, and are hereby constituted, made, established, and confirmed, to be
a commonwealth, or free State." It was the 30th of May before the com
monwealth was proclaimed in the city, and the late king's statues thrown
down at the Exchange and at the Portico of St. Paul's. The lord mayor
had been deprived of his office, and a new chief magistrate appointed, before
the scruples of the municipal body could be overcome. Five State prisoners,
royalists whom the fortunes of war had thrown into the hands of the parliament,
were to be sacrificed to what was called justice upon delinquents. The duke
of Hamilton, who had been in confinement since his defeat at Preston ; the
earl of Holland, to whom an opportunity of changing his side was not again
to be permitted ; the earl of Norwich ; Lord Capel; and Sir John Owen, were
brought to trial before a new high court of justice, in sittings which lasted
from the 10th of February to the 6th of March. The high court condemned
all the five to be beheaded. The court, however, referred the execution of
the sentence to the decision of parliament. For the duke of Hamilton's
reprieve there were few votes. The sentence of Lord Holland was confirmed
by a majority of one. The earl of Norwich was saved by the casting vote of
the speaker, Lenthall. Cromwell spoke upon the petition in favor of Lord
Capei. He was reserved for execution, with Hamilton and Holland. Owen
escaped through the intervention of Colonel Hutchinson. The three con
demned noblemen were executed on the 9th of March in Palace-yard. Public
indignation was loudly expressed against this severity. But the English
republicans of 1649 abstained from anymore such blood-shedding, the case of
Colonel Poyer excepted. He was tried by court-martial and shot in Covent
Garden. The civil war had burst out again in Ireland; and it was decided that
twenty-eight regiments should be sent thither, under the command of
Lieutenant-General Cromwell. The regiments to go are chosen by lot ; but
the common men have no inclination for the service. A troop of Whalley's
regiment lies at the Bull inn, at Bishopsgate ; and although not ordered for
Ireland they refused to leave London ; rise in open mutiny. Their conduct
is sufficiently alarming to demand the instant presence of Fairfax and Crom
well. The ringleaders are seized and tried by court-martial. Five are con
demned ; and one is the next day shot in St. Paul's churchyard — a strange
place for a military execution ; but not so strange when compared with the
uses to which the grand old Gothic cathedral was now applied. It had

364 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE COMMONWEALTH. [1649
become a stable for cavalry. " It was a bitter taunt for the Italian who
passing by Paul's Church, and seeing it full of horses, 'Now I perceive,' said
he, ' that in England men and beasts serve God alike.' " So amid this filth
was trooper Lockyer shot — and in a week after the tragedy of the 27th of
April, thousands of people are following his corpse to the grave. But there
are portions of the army in distant quarters, and at Banbury two hundred
men are in revolt ; at Salisbury a thousand. Fairfax and Cromwell march
with all haste to Salisbury. It is midnight when Cromwell comes suddenly
upon their quarters. A few shots are fired. A court-martial has been held ;
and ten out of every hundred of the mutineers have been set aside for death.
A cornet and two corporals are shot. They are awaiting their own fate, when
Cromwell calls them before him in the church. He speaks to them in one of
his peculiar harangues. The men weep. They are pardoned. In a few
weeks they are on their way to serve in Ireland. " Leveling, in the practical
civil or military provinces of English things, is forbidden to be."
Six months have elapsed since the death of Charles I. Charles II. is an
exile at St. Germain's. He has Hyde and other experienced counselors
about him ; and he has also more agreeable associates in adversity — frivolous
and profligate courtiers who encourage his indolence and sensuality. English
royalists resort to him, and to the queen dowager, who consoled herself in
the society of Lord Jermyn for the loss of her husband and her great station.
The course of life of mother and son was regarded with complacency even by
royalists of sober conduct. Ormond had concluded a special treaty with the
Irish Catholics, on the part of Charles II., by which they agreed to maintain
a large army to serve against the commonwealth of England, on condition
that the free exercise of the Catholic worship should be permitted. Ireland
appeared thus on the point of being separated from English control ; ready to
take a prominent part in another English civil war. The king had been pro
claimed. Dublin, Belfast, and Londonderry were the only garrisons held by
English commanders ; and Prince Rupert was in St. George's Channel with a
formidable fleet. At this juncture it was determined that Cromwell should
proceed to Ireland with full military and administrative powers — -general-in-
chief and lord lieutenant. Cromwell embarked on the 13th of August.
Meanwhile the news had reached him of a great victory obtained over the
forces of the marquis of Ormond, who was besieging Dublin. Before the
end of July a portion of Cromwell's army had landed ; and thus re-enforced,
Lieutenant-General Jones, the governor of Dublin, had sallied forth and utterly
routed the besiegers at the village of Rathmines. Cromwell himself arrived
in Dublin on the 15th of August. He was received, say the contemporary
narratives, with the firing of guns and the acclamations of the people. To
follow this Irish war through its terrible details would be as wearisome as
repulsive. Charles II. was at St. Germain's when he received the news of Ormond's
defeat before Dublin. He went as far as Jersey, where the news of the fall
of Drogheda reached him. In Evelyn's diary of the 15th of October we have

1653] IRELAND RAVAGES.— CHARLES II.— SCOTLAND. 365
this entry : " Came news of Drogheda being taken by the rebels, and all put
to the sword ; which made us very sad, fore-running the loss of all Ireland."
Cromwell marched on, taking town after town, until he met with a stout
resistance at Waterford ; and the weather being very tempestuous he went i
into winter quarters. But his rapid marches from fortress to fortress have
changed the whole aspect of affairs. General Blake has interrupted the
operations of Prince Rupert in the Irish seas. Cork Harbor is now the
victualling-place for the fleet, instead of Milford Haven. Rupert, with the
ships which he has commanded since the revolt of the sailors in 1648, has
taken refuge in Kinsdale, instead of making rich prizes of English merchant
men. Lady Fanshawe, who at this time was at Cork, writes that Cromwell
" so hotly marched over Ireland, that the fleet with Prince Rupert was forced
to set sail." This was an indirect consequence, in a little time after, of
Cromwell's hot marches. A more immediate consequence was the submission
of Youghal and of Cork to the authority of the parliament. It is not
necessary that we should follow his course of success during the spring of
1650. His boldest and most sagacious stroke of policy was that of proclaim
ing throughout the country that the men who had been in arms, and were
now scattered and utterly destitute, had full liberty to serve abroad. The
ministers in London of France and Spain availed themselves of this permis
sion, and forty-five thousand men of Ireland were levied for the service of
these powers.
When the affairs of Ireland became hopeless, Charles II. listened to the
proposals of the parliament of Scotland. He received an envoy from the
Presbyterian authorities while at Jersey ; and appointed them to meet him at
Breda to conclude a treaty for his reception in Scotland. While he was thus
negotiating with the parliament, he gave Montrose a commission to levy
troops in foreign countries, and wage war against the powers with whom he
was bargaining. In the autumn of 1649 he had collected about twelve hun
dred men at Hamburg and Gottenburg, and he dispatched a portion of them,
who perished at sea. A second party arrived safely at Kirkwall. With five
hundred more, Montrose himself landed in the Orkneys early in March, 1650.
Some cavalry, under the command of Colonel Strachan, were proceeding
against Montrose, in advance of a main body of troops under David Lesley ;
and they came suddenly upon him near a pass in the parish of Kincardine.
Here Montrose's last battle was soon ended, and he himself fled from the
field, throwing away his ribbon and George, and changing clothes with a
peasant. Wandering among the Highlands for many days, he was at last
taken on the 3d of May. An act of attainder had been passed by the par
liament against Montrose in 1644; and upon that act he was now sentenced
. to death, before he reached Edinburgh. Charles came to a conclusion with
the Scottish commissioners at Breda before the death of Montrose, although
he was acquainted with the failure of this rash expedition. He consented to
every proposition. When he heard of his friend's execution, he manifested a
disposition to draw back ; but his courtiers " persuaded the king, that he

366 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE COMMONWEALTH. [1649
might sooner take revenge upon that people by a temporary complying with
them and going to them." Upon this righteous principle " his majesty pur.
sued his former resolution of embarking for Scotland." We rejoice to know
that, before he had landed in Scotland on the 16th of June, he was compelled
to sign the covenant.
Cromwell had arrived in London on the 31st of May. He was received
with every honor that parliament and city could bestow. The parliament
had been preparing forces for a war with Scotland, having no great hope of
repose in the presence there of a covenanted king. The Scots are also making
some preparation for a war with England. It is a question which shall strike
the first blow. Fairfax was unwilling to invade the Scots. Ultimately Fair
fax resigned his commission, 'receiving a large pension, and Cromwell was
called to the great office. On the 26th of June, the act was passed for consti
tuting " Oliver Cromwell captain-general and commander-in-chief of all the
forces raised and to be raised within the commonwealth of England." On
the 22d of July, with about sixteen thousand horse and foot, he marched
through Berwick ; and setting his foot on Scottish ground he addressed a
" large discourse " to his troops, " as a Christian and a soldier:" "I exhort
you," he said, "to be wary and worthy, for sure enough we have work before
us. But have we not had God's blessing hitherto. Let us go on faithfully,
and hope for the like still." " The most dangerous of hypocrites," cries
Flume. Charles, as a measure of policy, was taken to the Scottish camp.
The Presbyterian leaders compelled Charles to sign a declaration against
popery and heresy, condemning the evil deeds of his father and the idolatry
of his mother, and protesting and promising all that he had been required to
subscribe for the parliament and the Church. He winced, refused, consented ;
and then sent a message to Ormond that the declaration was extorted from
him, and that he remained firm to his first principles as a true child of the
Church of England, and a true cavalier.
The advance of Cromwell into Scotland was met by a vigorous measure
on the part of Lesley. The population of the border districts were com
manded to leave their villages ; to drive their cattle from the fields, and to go
with their goods toward Edinburgh. At six o'clock in the morning, Lambert,
the major-general had joined with his force to lead the attack. Cromwell
writes, " The best of the enemies' horse being broken through and through,
in less than an hour's dispute, their whole army being put into confusion, it
became a total rout." There were three thousand slain on the field, and ten
thousand taken prisoners. The young king, utterly wearied with the Presby
terian statesmen and ministers, who had sent away all his cavaliers except
Buckingham, attempted to escape from them to join his more ardent friends
in the Highlands. He got away fifty miles from Perth ; but was quickly
brought back. Charles, without further question of his real intentions, was
crowned at Scone on the 1st of January, I651. After a three months' block
ade, and then a bombardment, Edinburgh castle was surrendered on the 18th
of December. Cromwell has little to do to make himself master of Scotland

1653] BATTLE OF WORCESTER.— ESCAPE OF CHARLES II. 367
on the south of the Forth — some battery of detached castles, and some skir
mishes with moss-troopers. Cromwell, on the 2d of August, had succeeded
in possessing himself of Perth. At that juncture the news reached him that
the royal camp at Stirling was broken up, on the 31st of July; and that
Charles was on his march southward, at the head of eleven thousand men, his
lieutenant-general being David Lesley. Argyle was opposed to this bold
resolution ; and had retired to Inverary. Charles had the advantage of the
start in this race for a kingdom. He took the western road by Carlisle; and
when on English ground issued a proclamation offering pardon to those who
would return to their allegiance — excepting from his promised amnesty Brad
shaw, Cromwell, and Cook. He was also proclaimed king of England, at the
head of his army ; and similar proclamation was made at Penrith and other
market-towns. There was no general rising in his favor. On the 22d of
August Charles reached Worcester, the parliamentary garrison having evacua
ted the city. He there set up his standard. On the 28th of August the
general and the commonwealth was close to Worcester, with thirty thousand
men. And now the battle raged with desperate fury. " Indeed, it was a
stiff business," writes pithy Oliver. The 3d of September was a night of
terror in the district round Worcester — the Scottish horsemen flying in every
direction — their foot-soldiers scattered among the harvest-fields, or hiding in
woods from the fury of the country people.
The prisoners taken at the battle of Worcester, and in the subsequent
flight, exceeded seven thousand. Courts-martial were held upon nine of the
most distinguished of the prisoners , and three, among whom was the earl of
Derby, were executed. The duke of Hamilton, also a prisoner, died of his
wounds. But there was one who escaped from the slaughter of Worcester,
for whose apprehension a reward was proclaimed throughout the country — a
reward of a thousand pounds to the person who should " bring in to the par
liament Charles Stuart, son of the late tyrant." Charles, on the night of the
battle, when he had ridden in hot haste from Worcester, resolved to disguise
himself " with a pair of ordinary gray cloth breeches, a leathern doublet, and a
green jerkin." A " country fellow," Richard Penderell, a Catholic, was rec
ommended to him as a guide. They rested a very short time at White
Lady's ; and spent all that day in a wood, without meat or drink. At night
they got some bread and cheese. In the middle of the night they were in
danger from a miller, who raised an outcry of " Rogues ! rogues ! " when they
refused to stand at his bidding. At last Charles found a shelter in the house
of Mr. Woolfe who secreted them in his barn. He went to Boscobel, and
there he found a royalist officer, Major Careless. They agreed to get up into
a great tree standing in an open plain, where they might see around them.
Clarendon gives the story a dramatic point, in saying they saw many from
"that blessed tree," who came purposely to look after the king; and that
Charles " heard all their discourse, how they would use the king himself if they
could take him." At Mosely, Charles was again in danger from the presence
of the commonwealth's soldiers ; and it was determined that he should leave

368 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE COMMONWEALTH. [1649
in a new character. The countryman in the leathern doublet was now trans
formed into a decent serving-man ; who was to convey his mistress, the
daughter of Colonel Lane, of Bentley, to a relation near Bristol. The lady
rode on a pillion behind him. It was fortunate for her reputation that a male
cousin was of the party. On their way, the king's horse cast a shoe. " What
news?" said the serving-man to the smith. "None, since the beating of
those rogues, the Scots ; he didn't hear that that rogue Charles Stuart had
been taken yet." Charles thought that rogue ought to be hanged, and the
smith applauded him as an honest man for his opinion. After many trials at
five o'clock on the morning of the 15th the proscribed Charles Stuart went on
board a vessel at Brighthelmstone ; and on the afternoon of the 16th he and
Wilmot were landed at Fecamp.
The authority of the commonwealth being supreme in every quarter —
England tranquil ; Ireland subdued ; Scotland incapable of attempting any
further enterprise of a royalist character ; the Channel Islands now garrisoned
by a parliamentary force — the reduction of the army was a natural policy. The
militia had been disbanded. The regular army was reduced to twenty-five
thousand men. The general was now most strenuous for the advancement of
two great measures — an act of amnesty, and a law for the election of future
parliaments. The law for the election of future parliaments was passed, by the
house voting that it would not continue its sittings beyond the 3d of
November, 1654. While the Dutch statesmen were demanding the repeal
of the navigation act, and the English council as strenuously refusing
even a temporary suspension of that measure, the fleets of Blake and the
Dutch admiral, Van Tromp, come to a conflict on the 19th of May, 1652.
The Dutchman had come into the Downs, with a fleet of forty-two vessels.
Blake thought it right to look after them, and appeared with twenty-three
ships. He fired three signal guns, to summon Van Trpmp to lower his flag.
Tromp paid no regard to the summons and sailed on. He suddenly turned
round, and sent a broadside into Blake's flag-ship. An engagement immedi
ately took place which lasted four hours. Van Tromp lost one ship ; and
when morning dawned, the gazers from the heights of Dover saw no trace of
a hostile fleet. It was a premeditated attack, said the English ; he came to
insult us on our own seas. Stress of weather drove our admiral to your
coasts, said the Dutch ; he could have destroyed your fleet if he had meant
war. War was declared against the States-General on the 8th of July.
In 1652, in anticipation of the Dutch war, Blake was appointed sole
admiral and general of the fleet. In June, 1652, Blake had a fleet of a hundred
and five ships ; carrying nearly four thousand guns. Van Tromp had a hun
dred and twenty ships. Blake's first business was to assert the bounds
of the English fishery. In the seas of the north of Scotland he dis
persed six hundred herring busses ; capturing or sinking twelve ships of war
that were protecting the fishermen's operations. A tempest came on ; the
Dutch vessels were scattered and much damaged ; and Van Tromp returned
to Holland, pursued by Blake. The large expenses of this Dutch war drove

1653] THE LONG PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED^ 369
the parliament and their council of State to resort to very arbitrary and
oppressive measures. Of many cavaliers all their real and personal property
was confiscated. Hundreds of others were required to pay one-third of their
property's value within very limited time. Cromwell was opposed to these
proceedings. While the English and Dutch were fighting in the channel in
the autumn of 1652, a petition was presented to the parliament by " the
officers of my lord-general's army." They craved reform of the law; they
asked for a gospel ministry ; they most especially urged a swifter progress to
the bill for a new representation in parliament.
In February it was determined that the existing parliament should
dissolve on the 3d of November of that year. The future number of repre
sentatives was to be four hundred, to be elected by freeholders in counties,
and owners or tenants in boroughs. The members then sitting were to
remain as the representatives of the counties or boroughs for which they then
sat ; and it was resolved that a general committee should pronounce upon the
validity of the new returns. Against the. proposal "for the perpetuating
the same men in parliament," as Cromwell afterward described this bill, he
gave his most strenuous opposition. On the 19th of April, 1653, there was
great conference of members of the house, and of officers of the army, at
Cromwell's residence of Whitehall. It was late at night when the conference
on the 19th of April, at Cromwell's house, the cockpit at Whitehall, was
come to an end. It was understood that the discussion was to be renewed on
Wednesday, the 20th. Colonel Ingoldsby now came in haste, and said that
there was not a moment to lose. The obnoxious bill was about to become
law. Cromwell instantly went forth, followed by Lambert and several other
officers. A detachment of soldiers was ordered to march to the House of
Commons. The lord-general placed his men in the lobby, and then entered
the house alone. " He sat down and heard the debate for some time. And
then the question for passing the bill being to be put, he said to Major-
General Harrison, ' This is the time — I must do it ; ' and suddenly standing
up, made a speech, wherein he loaded the parliament with the vilest
reproaches, charging them not to have a heart to do anything for the public
good, to have espoused the corrupt interests of Presbytery, arid the lawyers,
who were the supporters of tyranny and oppression, accusing them of an
intention to perpetuate themselves in power. The general stepped into the
midst of the house, where continuing his distracted language, he said, ' Come,
come, I will put an end to your prating ; ' then walking up and down the
house like a madman, and kicking the ground with his feet, he cried out,
' You are no parliament, I say you are no parliament ; I will put an end to
your sitting ; call them in, call them in.' Whereupon the sergeant attending
the parliament opened the doors, and Lieutenant-Colonel Worsley with two
files of musketeers entered the house; which Sir Henry Vane observing
from his place, said aloud, ' This is not honest ; yea, it is against morality
and common honesty.' Then Cromwell fell a railing at him, crying out with
a loud voice, ' O Sir Henry Vane, Sir Henry Vane ; the Lord deliver me
24

370 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE COMMONWEALTH. [1649
from Sir Henry Vane.' Then looking upon one of the members, he said,
' There sits a drunkard;' and giving much reviling language to others, he
commanded the mace to be taken away, saying, ' What shall we do with this
bauble? here, take it away.' Having brought all into this disorder, Major-
General Harrison went to the speaker as he sat in the chair, and told him,
that seeing things were reduced to this pass, it would not be convenient for
him to remain there. The speaker answered, that he would not come down
unless he were forced. ' Sir,' said Harrison, ' I will lend you my hand ; ' and
thereupon putting his hand within his, the speaker came down. Then
Cromwell applied himself to the members of the house, who were in number
between eighty and a hundred, and said to them, ' It's you that have forced
me to this, for I have sought the Lord night and day, that he would rather
slay me than put me upon the doing of this work.' Cromwell having acted
this treacherous and impious part, ordered the guard to see the house
cleared of all the members, and then seized upon the records that were there,
and at Mr. Scobell's house. After which he went to the clerk, and snatching
the act of dissolution, which was ready to pass, out of his hand, he put
it under his cloak, and having commanded the doors to be locked up, went
away to Whitehall."
The council of State, in spite of the remonstrance of Bradshaw, its
president, was dismissed the same afternoon by the same strong hand. The
republican leaders were indignant ; but they were powerless. This great
change had been effected without a single drop of blood being shed. The
government went on without the slighest interruption. " The lord-general
and his council of officers " issued two declarations, in which it was promised
that a certain number of persons should be summoned from all parts of the
kingdom — God-fearing men, and of approved integrity, — who should have the
direction of affairs. Meanwhile, a council of State, consisting of thirteen,
was appointed, — nine military men and four civilians, with Cromwell as their
president. The country remained in perfect tranquillity. The four commis
sioners to whom the government of Ireland had been entrusted since the
death of Ireton in November, 1651, "continued to act in their places and
stations as before," Ludlow, one of them, recording their hope that all would
be for the best. Blake called together the Puritan captains of his fleet to
consider their change of masters. He was urged by some to take part
against Cromwell. " No," was his reply, "it is not for us to mind affairs of
State, but to keep foreigners from fooling us." Amid this general submission
to what was regarded as a probable blessing, or an inevitable evil, there was
sent out, on the 6th of June, a summons to serve as a member of parliament,
addressed to each of one hundred and thirty-nine persons. These had been
selected, some after consultations of ministers with their congregations,
others by their known public qualifications, and all by the approval of
Cromwell and his council. Very different was this from a representation ;
but it was such an assembly as had been proposed by Cromwell and his
officers at the conferences which preceded the dissolution of April 20th.

n653] THE LITTLE PARLIAMENT.— LORD-PROTECTOR. 371
On the 4th of June, Blake and Monk had sent a dispatch to Cromwell,
announcing a great victory over the Dutch fleet. The council of State
•ordered a thanksgiving for the victory. The constitution of Cromwell's
.assembly was provisional. The supreme authority was devolved upon them
by an instrument signed by the lord-general and his officers, but they were to
engage not to retain it beyond the 3d of November, 1654; three months
before that time they were to choose their successors ; and these were not
to sit longer than a year, and then to determine upon a future constitution of
. government. They abolished the court of chancery, and they decreed by a
majority of two, that tithes should be abolished. Cromwell, the hypocrite,
¦or Cromwell, the fanatic, or Cromwell, the statesman and natural ruler of
:men — whatever we please to call him — saw that the fifth monarchy men, with
:Major-General Harrison at their head, were too strong in their enthusiasm, to
make a stable government of the people a practicable thing. There were
many of his adherents of the same opinion. On the 12th of December,
•Colonel Sydenham rose in his place, and forthwith accused the majority of
desiring to take away the laws of the land, and substitute a mosaic code. He
proposed that they should repair in a body to the lord-general, and resign
:the trust which had been committed to them.

THE PROTECTORATE.
(1653-1660.)
The resignation of the little parliament is quickly followed by the event
to which it was, without doubt, a pre-arranged prelude. On the 16th of
December, 1653, Oliver Cromwell was inaugurated " lord-protector of the
¦commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland." The sovereignty was to
reside in parliament. He was not to have the power of a negative on their
laws. He had a power of making temporary ordinances until the meeting of
-a parliament. A council pf State was to assist the protector in the govern
ment. And so, " having taken the oath as directed in the close of the said
instrument," writes Ludlow, " Major-General Lambert kneeling, presented
him with a sword in the scabbard representing the civil sword ; which
Cromwell accepting, put off his own, intimating thereby that he would no
longer rule by the military sword." The indignant Ludlow adds, " though
like a false hypocrite, he designed nothing more."
The lord-protector of the commonwealth, who had been inaugurated on
the 16th of December, 1654, had, some four months afterward, entered upon
the occcupation of the royal palaces of Whitehall and of Hampton Court.
From Paris, on the 23d of April, 1654, came out a proclamation in the name
¦of Charles the Second, setting forth that " a certain base mechanic fellow, by
name of Oliver Cromwell — after he had most inhumanly and barbarously
hutchered our dear father, of sacred memory, his just and lawful sovereign —
.hath most tyrannically and traitorously usurped the supreme power over out

372 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE COMMONWEALTH. [1655
said kingdoms." It thus proceeds: "These are therefore, in our name, to
give free leave and liberty to any man whomsoever, within any of our three
kingdoms, by pistol, sword or poison, or by any other way or means whatso
ever, to destroy the life of the said Oliver Cromwell ; wherein they will do an
act acceptable to God and good men, by cutting so detestable a villain from
the face of the earth." It further promises all sorts of rewards to " whoso
ever, whether soldier or other, who shall be instrumental in so signal a piece
of service." On the 20th of May, being Saturday — a day on which the pro
tector usually went to Hampton Court — his guards were to be attacked by
thirty stout men, and then and there was the deed to be done, of which the
perpetrator was to be honored with knighthood, and five hundred pounds a
year in land, and honorable employment. But the protector escaped the
ambuscade ; for five of the royalist projectors of the plot were arrested in
their beds a few hours before its intended accomplishment. Forty persons
were subjected to examination as confederates with Colonel John Gerard,
Peter Vowell, a schoolmaster, and Somerset Fox. These three were tried
before a high court of justice. Fox pleaded guilty, and was pardoned.
The other two were executed. Hyde protested, in a letter to Secretary
Nicholas, that of the " whole matter the king knows no more than you
do." Cromwell, after tedious negotiations, had concluded a peace with the
United Provinces. The naval power of the Dutch had been finally broken by
the victory of Blake, in July, 1653, when Van Tromp was himself killed by a
musket-ball. In the treaty with Holland, which was signed on the 5th of
April, 1654, were comprehended Denmark, the Hanseatic towns, and the Swiss
Protestant cantons. A treaty of friendship and alliance with Sweden was
concluded in the same month as that with Holland. With Portugal he
concluded a commercial treaty. But on the very day this treaty was signed,
he caused the law to be unflinchingly executed upon the brother of the Por
tuguese ambassador, who had killed two Englishmen, and raised a tumult with
the armed servants of the embassy, at the Exchange in London. No plea of
diplomatic privileges could prevent Don Pantaleon de Sa from being tried,
convicted, and executed for the offense. When the first parliament of the
protectorate met on the 3d of September, the lord-protector went into an
elaborate explanation of measures, domestic and foreign. There had been no
election to a parliament in England for fourteen years. This parliament
was to include representatives of the three kingdoms. The parliament
was composed of four hundred and sixty members. Scotland, which had
been declared united to England by an ordinance of the 12th of April, was to
send thirty members ; Ireland was to send also thirty members. The right of
voting for representatives was in those who possessed real or personal prop
erty to the value of two hundred pounds. Roman Catholics, and those who
had been been in arms against the parliament during the civil wars, were
excluded from voting, or from being returned as members. But by the
instrument of government, and in the terms of the writ for election, it was

i66o] CROMWELL EXACTS A PLEDGE FROM MEMBERS. 373
a condition " That the persons elected shall not have power to alter the
government as it is settled in one single person and a parliament."
Nevertheless, the very first occupation of the representatives assembled
on the 3d of September, 1654, was to proceed to the discussion of the ques
tion whether the house shall approve of the system of government by a
parliament and a single person. For three days this elementary question had
been debated ; and by a majority of a hundred and forty-six votes against a
hundred and forty-one, the house resolved to go into committee to deliberate
still further upon this fundamental proposition. On the morning when the
committee was to meet, the doors of the parliament were found closed. The
member of Lynn, Mr. Goddard, has given some details of the incidents of this
Tuesday morning. He attempted to pass up the parliament stair, but was
repulsed by soldiers ; and was required, if he was a member, to go into
the painted chamber. " The speaker and all the members were walking up
and down the hall, the court of requests, and the painted chamber, expecting
the protector's coming." The protector did come, with his guards ; and took
his seat in a chair of state ; and he then spoke for an hour and a half to the
bare-headed assembly, with an earnestness to which a feeling of wounded ,
pride gave unwonted emphasis. But the climax of his speech was that they,
the members of parliament, were his last witnesses. They came there by his
-writs directed to the sheriffs. To these writs the people gave obedience,
having had the act of government communicated to them, by printed copies,
it being also read at the places of election. The writ of return was signed
-with proviso " that the person so chosen should not have power to alter the
government as now settled in one single person and a parliament." He
required " some owning of your call and of the authority which brought you
hither. ... I must deal plainly with you : What I forbore upon a just
confidence at first, you necessitate me unto now." This thing (he produces a
parchment) when assented to and subscribed is " the means that will you let
in " (through those doors which are now locked) " to act those things as a
parliament which are for the good of the people." The parchment to be
signed at the lobby-door bore these words : " I do hereby freely promise, and
engage myself, to be true and faithful to the lord-protector and the common-
-vvealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland ; and shall not (according to the
tenor of the indenture whereby I am returned to serve in this present parlia
ment) propose, or give my consent, to alter the government as it is settled in
a single person and a parliament." Many members signed at once. Three
hundred had signed before the end of the month. But the republican
leaders refused to give any pledge; and the parliament was thus reduced
to little more than two-thirds of the members returned. The parliament,
thus mutilated, resumed its duties. Its first act was an assertion of some
independence in resolving that the pledge not to make any change in the gov
ernment did not apply beyond the first article under which the protectorate
had been constituted — that which referred to a single person and a parlia
ment ; and it adopted that article in a resolution of its own. The legislative

374 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE COMMONWEALTH. [1655;
power of the parliament was absolute ; for if the protector did not give hisu
consent to any bill within twenty days of its passing, it became law without
his consent. They triumphed over Cromwell's supposed ambition in deciding-
that the protectorate should be elective and not hereditary. They outraged
his principles of toleration, which had been recognized in the instrument of
government, by appointing a committee to define what was " faith in God by
Jesus Christ ; " and to settle what were " damnable heresies." The supplies
were voted tardily, and with impolitic economy. The government under a
parliament and a single person was becoming impossible. The crisis arrived.
The parliament was to sit five months. Five calendar months would have
expired on the 3d of February. Five lunar months expired on the 22d of
January. On that day the protector summoned the house to attend him in.
the painted chamber. Another long speech — and the parliament is dissolved.
At five o'clock on the morning of the 1 ith of March, a party of two hun
dred horsemen rode into the streets of Salisbury, headed. by Sir Joseph Wag-
staff, "a stout man, who looked not far before him," — a jolly cavalier.
Their first operation was to seize the sheriff and the two judges and to-
break open the jails. In a few hours they left Salisbury, and carrying the
sheriff with them, went forward into Hampshire and Devonshire. There
were none to join them. \ They were hungry and wearied ; and a single troop.
of Cromwell's horse, being by chance in the country, dispersed them almost
without a blow, three days afterward. Some of the leaders, and about fifty
of their followers, were taken prisoners. Wagstaff escaped to France..
Penruddock, Grove, and others, were tried at Exeter. The two gallant:
cavaliers were beheaded ; a few others were hanged ; the larger number were-
transported to Barbadoes. In the north, Wilmot had gone to take the com
mand of the insurrectionary army. That army never extended beyond a few
rash partisans. Wilmot got back to his master, out of heart.
The complex machine for governing England by a single person and a.
parliament being again out of working condition, the simpler and ruder
machine of the single person must work as it best may to prevent all govern
ment from coming to an end. At the beginning of 1655 he was left without
a legal revenue, for the maintenance of the civil and military powers of the-
government. A merchant named Cony had refused to pay custom duties, as.
illegally levied by ordinance. Cromwell tried to soothe the sturdy citizen,
who reminded him that he himself had said in the long parliament, that the-
subject who yields to an illegal impost is more the enemy of his country than.
the tyrant who imposes it. The protector sent the merchant to prison ; and.
then more arbitrarily imprisoned the counsel, who had, in pleading for his.
writ of habeas corpus, used arguments which went to deny altogether the-
legality of the authority of the existing government. There was a compro
mise in which Cony at length withdrew his opposition to the impost, and his.
legal defenders were released. Sir Peter Wentworth refused to pay the taxes.
levied upon him, and was brought before Cromwell and his council. He was.
required to withdraw an action which he had commenced against the tax-

1660] CROMWELL'S FOREIGN POLICY. 375
collector. "If you command it I must submit," said Wentworth to the
protector. He did command it, and the resistance was at an end. In his
fiscal measures the most invidious was the imposition of an especial tax upon
a limited number of royalists— a property tax, under which all those of the
king's party who were considered disaffected, and who either possessed an
income of a hundred a year from land, or a personal estate of fifteen hundred
pounds in value, were called upon for a contribution of one-tenth. At this
period the government of the protector was more than usually harsh toward
the Catholics and the clergy of the Anglican Church.
" His greatness at home was but a shadow of the glory he had abroad."
So writes Clarendon of him who, he says, " will be looked upon by posterity
as a brave bad man." He had the highest of all qualities in a prince — a
sense of public duty. He was not beset with difficulties, as at home, when
he sent forth his fleets to sweep the Barbary pirates from the Mediterranean.
Cromwell was one day surrounded in the streets by a large number of sailors'
wives. "Where are our husbands to be sent?" they demanded. "The
ambassadors of France and Spain would each give me a million to know that,"
answered the protector. While France and Spain were each under apprehen
sions when Blake's fleet of twenty-five ships had sailed, the admiral appeared
before Leghorn, and demanded from the grand duke of Tuscany redress for
the owners of three merchant vessels, which had been captured by Prince
Rupert in 1650, and sold in Tuscan ports and in the Papal States. The
grand duke and the pope-paid the indemnity. Blake then presented himself
on the coast of Africa, to demand the relief of Christian captives from the
Barbary States. His terms were complied with at Algiers and Tripoli. At
Tunis, the dey pointed to his fortresses, and told' the English to do their
worst. Blake battered the Tunisian works, and burnt the piratical fleet in
the harbor. The war with Spain had not yet been proclaimed, but the second
armament had sailed with secret orders. Blake was waiting to take his share
in the warfare, after he had chastised the African pirates. The other fleet
under Venables and Penn had gone for the West Indies. On the 14th of
April it was before Hispaniola. The commanders who had lost everything
by their disputes and feeble arrangements, sailed away, and possessed them
selves of Jamaica.
The government of the protectorate had ample public business to engage
its attention, during the twenty months in which a single person, without a
parliament, was the supreme director of the affairs of three kingdoms. The
alliance with France, and the war with Spain, gave occasion to new movements
of royalists, and new combinations of republicans. In April, 1656, a treaty of
alliance was concluded between Philip IV. and the exiled king of England,
by which the Spanish monarch promised Charles a pension and an army, and
Charles engaged that with the aid of the Irish serving in France he would
make a landing in England. Cromwell in July had issued writs for a new
parliament. The elections were fiercely contested, amid many popular
tumults. The government had secured a majority, but many of its declared

376 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE COMMONWEALTH. [1653
opponents were elected. Cromwell and his council tried to persuade Vane,
Harrison, and other opponents, to pledge themselves not to commit any act
to the prejudice of the government. They refused ; and were imprisoned.
The parliament assembled on the 17th of September. About three
hundred members had received a certificate in the following form : " These
are to certify that  is returned by indenture one of the knights [or burges
ses] to serve in this present parliament for the county [city or borough] of
 , and approved by his highness's council," which certificate was signed by
the " clerk of the commonwealth in chancery." This was a manifest violation
of the ancient parliamentary privileges, — a violation upon the broadest scale.
A hundred and two members, who had received no certificate, were prevented
entering the house. Sixty-five sent a letter of remonstrance to the speaker.
The clerk of the commonwealth produced his instructions from the council ;
and the house having then demanded of the council why certain duly elected
had not been admitted to sit, Nathaniel Fiennes, one of the commissioners of
the great seal, attended, and showed that according to the instrument of
government, " no persons could be elected to serve in parliament but such as
were of known integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation ; " and that,
by the same instrument, the council was authorized and directed " to examine
whether the persons elected were agreeable to the above-mentioned qualifica
tions." The formal letter of the constitution had been adhered to ; its
application was a bold exercise of arbitrary power. The excluded members
protested against this total infraction of the conditions of a free parliament.
A squadron of Blake's fleet off Cadiz had captured two Spanish galleons
returning home with the treasures of the Indies ; and the people crowded the
roads and streets from Portsmouth to the Tower to look upon a procession of
thirty-eight wagons laden with ingots and piastres. The treasury was replen
ished. The parliament became tranquilized. The power of the protector
seemed established on a firm basis. He felt that he could relax in some
measures of repression ; and the major-generals were abolished. There was a
mutilated parliament ; but the government of a single person was again
coming within the bounds of constitutional liberty. The powers of the
parliament and the protector now worked harmoniously together. Acts were
passed for the security of his person ; and for disannulling the title to the
crown of Charles Stuart and his descendants. The war with Spain was
declared to be just and necessary ; and four hundred thousand pounds were
voted for the expenses of the war. The ordinances which the protector had
issued were for the most part confirmed. His appointments to judicial
offices were approved. Among the new sect of Quakers was James Nayler,
who, in his frantic enthusiasm, had proclaimed that the Redeemer was
incarnate in his person ; and he had moreover given a great public scandal in
going about in a state of nudity. The quaker was arrested at Bristol ; and
brought up to the bar of the House of Commons. The madman narrowly
escaped hanging ; for eighty-two voted for his execution. He was finally
condemned to be put in the pillory, to have his tongue bored through with a

1660] SINDERCOMB'S PLOT— KINGSHIP DECLINED. 377
hot iron, and to be whipped through the streets. Cromwell saw, as the more
fanatical members had not seen, that the whole course of legal government
was threatened by this procedure of the house. The obstinacy, of the parlia
ment was Cromwell's triumph with the sober part of the nation. But this
very pertinent desire to know " the grounds and reasons " for a " proceeding
entered into wholly without Us," led to inquiries about the due apportion
ment of power, which had very remarkable results.
Charles the Second was residing at Bruges at the beginning of 1657. He
had obtained money from Spain, with which he was making some show of
preparation for an expedition to England. Colonel Sexby has been in
England, and is again with the king. He has left a trusty agent behind him,
and a certain service is to be well rewarded. On the night of the 8th of
January, the sentinel at the palace finds a basket of wildfire, and a slow
match gradually burning onward to explode it. A life-guardsman comes
before the council, and proclaims that Miles Sindercomb is the man who has
made these midnight arrangements. Sindercomb is taken ; is tried ; and
convicted by a jury in the king's bench : the day of execution is fixed ; but he
is found dead in his bed. His sister has conveyed poison to him. When the
house resolved to congratulate the protector on his escape, Mr. Ashe moved
that it be added to the congratulatory address, that his highness would be
pleased to take upon him the government according to the ancient constitution.
Great was the clamor. The matter was dropped. On the 23d of February,
Alderman Pack requested leave to read a paper " tending to the settlement of
the nation," " desiring my lord-protector to assume kingly power, and to call
future parliaments consisting of two houses." Four days after, a hundred
officers, with several of the major-generals, among whom was Cromwell's son-in-
law, Fleetwood, waited upon the protector, to say that they had heard with
great dismay that there was a project in hand to make his highness king — a
hazardous project — a scandal to the people pi God. Cromwell somewhat
resented this interference. Through the whole of March it was debated ; and
it was at last voted, by a majority of sixty-one, to address the protector in
these words : " That your highness will be pleased to assume the name,
style, title, dignity, and office, of king of England, Scotland, and Ireland." It
was an instrument of eighteen articles, — the rejection of one article might
make all the rest impracticable. Cromwell's reply was to the effect that he
asked time for consideration.
Three days after this interview Cromwell requested that a committee
might be appointed to receive his answer. The deputation returns to the
house ; reports the reluctant negative of his highness. On the 8th of April
they declare, in a body, to his highness, that they do so adhere as " the great
council and representative of the three nations," and again desire his assent
thereto. " He put it by again ; but, to my thinking, he was very loth to lay
his fingers off it." The next day, London is in a tumult upon other questions
of monarchy — whether the fifth monarchy — the greatest monarch of all — the
reign of the saints on earth for a thousand years, — be not visibly at hand. A

378 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE COMMONWEALTH. [1653
troop of horse settles the fifth monarchy with small difficulty ; and, without
bloodshed, its lieges are lodged in the Tower. The parliament has to debate
the question of real kingship with his highness, which it does, for many
days, by the voices of a committee of ninety-nine. On the 13th of April,
he speaks at much length ; but he still hesitates. " I am ready to serve,
not as a king, but as a constable." Another conference in another week
The same reluctance to accept ; the same unwillingness to offend by a refusal.
It is a tedious farce, say some. His highness and the committee now go into
discussion of the other articles of the petition and advice, to which the
protector has offered a paper of amendments. The parliament adopts most
of the amendments ; and, at last, again attends my lord-protector in a body,
to receive his final answer upon the great question. There was no mistaking
his meaning now. " I am persuaded to return this answer to you, that
I cannot undertake this government with the title of king." The other parts
of the instrument of government were adopted, the term protector being
substituted for that of king.
The public mind of England is kept sufficiently alive during the early
summer 1657. Then came out the daring pamphlet of " Killing no Murder,"
recommending the duty of putting the tyrant to death. The news came of a
great victory by Blake over the Spanish navy at Santa Cruz. Under the fire
of tremendous batteries the great admiral attacked the Spaniards in their own
harbor, and burnt their entire fleet. Oliver sent Blake a jewel in the name of
the parliament and the protector, with instructions to return home. The
noble sailor died on board his ship within sight of Plymouth. Then, six
thousand English troops land in May near Boulogne, and a fleet is cruising
off that coast — an army and a fleet to co-operate with the French in an attack
upon the Spanish power in the Netherlands. In Westminster Hall there is a
gorgeous assembly on the 26th of June. The coronation chair, with the
famous stone of Scotland, is placed beneath a canopy of state. The protector
stands up under his canopy ; surrounded by his council and foreign ambassa
dors. The speaker invests the protector with the robe of purple, " emblem of
magistracy ; " then with the scepter. Then Cromwell takes this oath : " I do
in the presence and by the name of Almighty God promise and swear, that to
the utmost of my power I will uphold and maintain the true reformed
Protestant Christian religion, in the purity thereof, as it is contained in the
Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, to the uttermost of my power
and understanding ; and encourage the profession and professors of the same ;
and that to the utmost of my power I will endeavor, as chief magistrate of
these three nations, the maintenance and preservation of the peace and safety,
and just rights and privileges, of the people thereof; and shall in all things,
according to my best knowledge and power, govern the people of these three
nations according to law." A prayer was then made ; the heralds proclaimed
Oliver Cromwell protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland ; and the people
shouted " God save the lord-protector." In all but the name, these three
nations were now a kingdom. The second session of parliament is to

1660] THE SECOND HOUSE.— DUNKIRK BESIEGED. 379
assemble in January. There is to be a "second house." Cromwell had
strengthened his interest with the old nobility to some extent. In November,
1657, Lord Falconbridge married his daughter Mary; and Robert Rich,
grandson of the earl of Warwick, married his daughter Frances. But of the
members of the old House of Lords only seven accepted the protector's writ of
summons. He filled up its number of sixty-three with great civil officers
generals, and some eminent country gentlemen and citizens. Only one of
those peers who had accepted the writ took their seats.
The scheme of a second house was not favorable to the disposition of
the commons to uphold the protector's government. Forty members took
their seats as quasi-lords, who would otherwise most probably have been in
the commons, and have given their support to the existing authority. The
members who had been excluded in the first session were competent to sit in
this second session, if they took the oaths. They did take them ; and were
ready for a vigorous opposition. . On the 20th of January the parliament met.
Clearly the new constitution is going very fast to pieces. Cromwell summons
the parliament to the banqueting house, five days after the opening of the
session. He addresses the members in a manly speech. This appeal was in
vain. The discontented are powerful in the commons. No real business
can proceed, while the question of " the other house " is daily debated.
Oliver Protector will bring the matter to an end. The commons are again
summoned by the black rod. And then the protector speaks with an angrier
voice than was his wont. The parliament is dismissed in the morning of the
14th of February. In a day or two he removes suspected officers from the
army. Lambert encouraged the disaffected officers, who desired to set him
up in Cromwell's place. There was to have been a great outbreak on the
1 5th of May. There are malcontents ready for a rising — wild apprentices and
other rash persons, who propose to fire houses, and do a considerable amount
of slaughter. The lieutenant of the Tower comes out with five pieces of
artillery. The ringleaders of this intended insurrection are seized. Fifteen
were arraigned ; among whom were Sir Henry Slingsby, and Dr. Hewit, an
Episcopal divine. These two were condemned and executed. Six of the
insurrectionists were also condemned, of which number three suffered. The
foreign policy of the protectorate was triumphant.
When the English troops landed at Boulogne, the young King Lewis
XIV. came to review them. The English were employed by France in
securing fortresses in the interior, instead of in combined operations against
Gravelines, and Mardike, and Dunkirk, on the coast, as stipulated by treaty.
Cromwell was not a man to be duped. He ordered his ambassador to see
that the treaty was carried out, or send the English troops home. And so
Mardike was besieged, and delivered provisionally to the English general.
The next spring, amid all his home distractions, Cromwell renewed the treaty
of offensive alliance with France, and sent more troops. On the 25th of May
Dunkirk was invested by the allied French and English army. Turenne was
the commander. The town was defended by the marquis of Leyden. Don

380 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE COMMONWEALTH. [1653
John of Austria marched from Brussels with a Spanish force to drive back the
besiegers. Conde was with this army, and also the dukes of York and Glou
cester. The English, commanded by Lockhart, fought for four hours, and
carried the most difficult posts. They were often opposed to their own
countrymen, headed by the duke of York. This battle on the Dunes was a
complete victory. On the 25th of June, Dunkirk surrendered ; and the town
-was placed in the hands of the English. It was a compensation for the loss
of Calais, as the nation thought. In 1648, Cromwell's eldest son was killed
in battle. Lady Claypole died on the 6th of August, her father having been
fourteen days watching by her bedside at Hampton Court. A few months
before, Cromwell had lost his son-in-law, Rich ; and then Rich's grandfather,
the earl of Warwick, the protector's one constant friend among the nobility,
also died. Oliver's stout heart was sorely bowed down by public cares and
private griefs. On the 30th of August, the protector is dying. What is to
come next ? By the instrument of government he is to name his successor.
Thurloe puts the question of succession to the dying man. There is a sealed-
up paper in a certain place at Hampton Court. The paper is not to be found.
On the night of the 2d of September, the question is put again. The answer,
faintly breathed out, was said to be " Richard." The prince and soldier
passed away, in a state of insensibility, on the 3d of September.
On the 4th of September the new protector was solemnly proclaimed ;
and he took the oath contained in the instrument of government. Richard
was weak in all the essential qualities necessary for preserving an authority
as legitimate not recognized by many. If, yielding to the flattering idea of
hereditary succession, his father had really nominated him, that nomination
must have' been against his own previous convictions of his eldest son's
unfitness for government. On the contrary, his son Henry had displayed
very high qualities as lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He had shown firmness with
conciliation ; he had kept the land at peace and in subjection to the laws.
Yet the accession of Richard Cromwell, if it excited no confidence in the
people, produced no distrust. Abroad, the royalists were vexed and surprised
at the calm in England. Within six weeks of his accession, a body of officers,
headed by Fleetwood, presented a petition to Richard for such organic
changes in the military constitution as would have placed all control of the
army out of his hand. He mildly but firmly refused his assent, as contrary
to the "petition and advice " on which the protectorate was founded.
Richard was not only harassed by the ambition of the officers, but had to
encounter the greatest peril of governments, financial difficulties. His father
had left no wealth — contrary to the belief of most persons. Richard was soon
embarrassed, the more so as the pompous funeral of the late protector absorbed
all his immediate resources, and left him greatly in debt.
The council met on the 29th and resolved on calling a parliament.
Many in the service of the government obtained seats. The parliament, met
on the 29th of January. The members of both houses were required to take
the oath to the government. Some few republicans refused, and did not take

1660] THE PARLIAMENT AND RICHARD CROMWELL. 381
their seats. A bill having been proposed " for a recognition of the protector,"
no dislike was exhibited toward Richard Cromwell. After long and violent
debates, the bill for the recognition of the protector was passed. The
commons voted that the parliament should consist of two houses. The
Republicans and the royalists were beaten. The violent sectarian soldiers
disliked Richard's moderation. He was threatened by Desborough that the
army would desert him if he attempted to conciliate the royalists. It was
objected against him that he preferred others beside " the godly." The par
liament and the army were secret antagonists. Their mutual hostility soon
became manifest. Richard indiscreetly consented to the appointment of a
general council of officers. Five hundred assembled at Wallingford House.
A violent test was proposed, which was indeed laid aside, but they came to
resolutions which aimed at separating the command of the army from the
civil power. The parliament soon saw its danger. The House of Commons
then voted that no general council of officers should be held without permis
sion of the protector and the parliament ; and that every officer should sign
an engagement that he would not disturb the free meetings or proceedings of
parliament. Richard was urged to be firm. He went among the officers at
Wallingford House ; and told them that he would see their complaints
righted in parliament, but that he dissolved their council. The council ob
stinately continued to sit. Those officers who were devoted to the protector
urged him to adopt some strong measure. " I have never done anybody any
harm," he exclaimed, " and I never will : I will not have a drop of blood spilt
for the preservation of my greatness, which is a burden to me." Broghill, and
Howard, and other faithful friends, saw that one course alone was possible to
avert military despotism or anarchy — to restore the legitimate king. Richard
himself was solicited so assist in this object ; but he refused to forsake the
cause to which he was committed. His brother-in-law, Fleetwood, his rela
tive, Desborough, deserted him. The few officers who were faithful were
abandoned by their men. Desborough came from St. James's to Whitehall —
from St. James's, where the whole army was ordered to rendezvous, to
Whitehall, where Richard had been deserted by his own guards— and demand
ed that the parliament should be dissolved. Richard at length yielded,
making it a condition that he should not be required to dissolve the house in
person. In the evening a proclamation for dissolving the parliament was
issued, and upon the doors of the House of Commons padlocks were fastened.
The army was supreme, with no master-mind to direct its supremacy.
With the fall of the parliament fell Richard Cromwell. The army became
insubordinate. In this emergency, the officers and the republican leaders of
the commons coalesced ; and it was determined to restore the long parlia
ment. After much difficulty forty-two of the old members were gathered
together ; and that anomalous authority commenced, which was destined
ignominiously to expire under the name of " The Rump." Richard Crom
well soon after left Whitehall. Henry Cromwell took no part in public
affairs. The whole family passed into obscurity — humbled, but not disgraced.

382 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE COMMONWEALTH. [1653
The first step of the parliament was to appoint a committee of safety ; and,
subsequently, a council of State. The council was composed of soldiers
and civilians, in nearly equal proportion. But the theory of parliamentary
supremacy soon reduced itself to the more practical question — which power
should be supreme, the civil or the military ? Fleetwood was to be appointed
commander-in-chief ; " but instead of authorizing the lieutenant-general to
grant commissions to such officers as should be appointed by the parliament,
it was ordered that the said commissions should be subscribed by the speaker,
and received from his hands." The officers submitted, though with an ill-
grace. A general plan of insurrection was at length completed in July.
Charles and his brother James met at Calais, with the intention of proceeding
to England. But the royalists saw that the time for united action was not
yet come. Sir George Booth had, however, appeared in arms in Cheshire, on
the 1st of August. In a few days he was at the head of several thousand
men, and had obtained possession of the citadel of Chester. Large additional
forces were immediately raised by the parliament ; and their command was
entrusted to Lambert. The defeat of Sir George Booth and his party was
complete. Lambert returned to London at a very slow pace. The parlia
ment had voted him a thousand pounds to buy a jewel ; but he came not
to receive their thanks in person. A petition had been presented to the
house from the officers under his command. It was to repeat certain
demands for appointment of general officers. The house now voted against
the prayer of the petition. Other meetings of officers were held, and another
petition was resolved upon. The quarrel became serious. Lambert, Desbor
ough, and other officers were dismissed from their posts ; and Fleetwood was
removed from his command of the army. On the 13th of October, Westmin
ster was surrounded by troops upon whose fidelity the parliament relied.
Lambert boldly marched thither at the head of his regiment. Lambert
addressed the troops, and they quickly went over to him. There was a
conference between the civil and military members of the council of State
which ended in a resolution that the parliament should cease to sit ; and that
the maintenance of public tranquillity should rest with the council of officers.
The committee of safety appointed by the army began to exercise the
functions of administration on the 23d of October. There was one, far distant
from the scene of confusion. George Monk, " the sly fellow " as Cromwell
termed him, was courted by the republican leaders, civil and military. His
army in Scotland was entirely devoted to him. Like its commander, that
army had no great sympathy with the movements of the soldiers in London
But Monk would not stir at the invitation of any party. Charles himself
wrote to Monk. The news of Booth's defeat by Lambert arrived, and Monk
-was saved from a premature declaration against the parliament. Monk imme
diately took his resolution. He wrote letters to declare his intentions to
Lambert and Fleetwood, and to the speaker, Lenthall. In London, the
determination of Monk, produced the greatest alarm among the factions.
Nine members of the old council of State that had been thrust from office by

1660] . THE RUMP PARLIAMENT— GEORGE MONK. 3S3
the army now resolved to make common cause with Monk. The various
leaders, civil and military, were fiercely quarreling. At last it was resolved
to call a new parliament. On the 15th of December a proclamation was
issued, summoning a parliament to meet on the 24th of January. The coun
try was under no law but that of the tyranny of detached bands of soldiers,
roving about at free quarters.
The necessity for some immediate authority beyond that of the council
of officers at length became manifest to the army in London. It was resolved
to restore the expelled parliament. The generals saw that their power was
gone. Fleetwood sent the keys of the House of Commons to Lenthall ; and
on the 26th of December, forty members with the speaker at their head again
entered this house. A contest took place the instant Lenthall had taken the
chair. Twenty-three of the members who had been excluded in 1648,
demanded admittance, as they had previously demanded on the 7th of May.
Lambert was at Newcastle, and Monk at Coldstream. But Fairfax, who
had been in correspondence with Monk, assembled his friends and dependents
and some of Lambert's officers joined him with their men. He entered York
and was welcomed by the cavaliers of that city. Lambert marched to attack
Fairfax, and Monk crossed the Tweed to support him. At Wooler, Monk
received a cold letter from the parliament that had re-commenced its sittings ;
and he learned that Lambert's troops had been ordered to return to their
several quarters. When he reached Newcastle he found Lambert's army
disbanded. He went on to York and saw Fairfax. But he maintained a strict
reserve as to his future plans ; and he struck an officer with his cane who said
that Monk would bring in Charles Stuart. Monk had taken his determination
to march to London— with what ultimate purpose beyond that of asserting
the power of civil government was uncertain. He left many of his troops in
York, and others he sent to Scotland. With four regiments of foot and three
of horse, he went on amid popular acclamations. He was but a servant, he
said, of the parliament, and all great questions must be left to the parliament.
On the 3d of February Monk entered London. For two days the capital
had been in uproar. The regiments that had been ordered to march had
refused to obey. The apprentices were parading the city in formidable
bands, crying out for a "free parliament." On the 2d of February
Pepys saw the Strand full of soldiers ; and " saw the foot face the
horse and beat them back, and stood bawling and calling in the street for
a free parliament and money." The next morning the soldiers were all
quiet. Pepys saw Monk March in : " In his passing through the town he
had many calls to him for a free parliament, but little other welcome." He
was lodged in Whitehall. The destinies of the nation were in the hands of
the cold, sullen, impenetrable George Monk. The lord-mayor, aldermen, and
common council of London had voted that they would pay no taxes but such
as were imposed by a free^ parliament. The council of State sent for Monk,
and proposed that the common council should be forbidden to sit, the
gates of the city broken down, the portcullises wedged up, and the chains

384 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.— THE COMMONWEALTH. [1653
across the street removed. All the material means for resistance were to
be destroyed. Monk said that he would do these things if they would
give the order. On the morning of the 9th Monk and his men were
marching to the neighborhood of Guildhall. The posts and chains were
then attacked, amid the indignation of the people. A deputation of
leading citizens came to him to complain of the force thus used by those
whom they thought their friends. He told them that his orders were to take
down the gates as well as the chains, but that he would request the parlia
ment to suspend the further execution of their commands. The parliament
was indignant ; sent an order to Monk to execute his instructions to the
letter ; ordered that the common council should be dissolved and a new
council elected, with such qualifications as parliament should dictate. The
next morning Monk and his soldiers went to the completion of the work
prescribed to them. The slow man now came to a decisive resolution. He
called a council of his officers, and they agreed upon a letter to parliament
expressing»the public grievances and requiring them to satisfy the nation's
just demands before a certain day. Monk waited on the lord-mayor ;
requested him to summon a meeting of the common council at four o'clock.
Two members deputed by the house arrived to confer with Monk. His
letter, which was of the boldest character, had thrown the parliament into
consternation. He was urged to return to Whitehall. Monk's only reply
was, " All will be well if you attend to the letter, and issue out your writs on
Friday for filling up your house. " Monk went to the common council and told
them what he had done. Guildhall resounded with cries of " God bless your
excellency ! " The soldiers were feasted. The cry went forth throughout
London of " Down with the Rump." Monk, on the 21st of February, sent an
escort of his soldiers to accompany a body of the secluded members to the
House of Commons. When they took their seats the greatest heats were
exhibited, and some of the republicans withdrew from the house. Seventeen
of them went in a body to Monk to demand his reasons for these proceedings.
He protested his zeal to a commonwealth government ; " and they then
pressed him more home by demanding if he would join with them against
Charles Stuart' and his party?" He took off his glove, and putting his hand
within Sir Arthur Haslerig's hand, he said, " I do here protest to you,
in the presence of all these gentlemen, that I will oppose to the utmost the
setting-up of Charles Stuart, a single person or a House of Peers." The mem
bers thus restored by Monk were chiefly of that great Presbyterian body who
had been ejected by the Independents. They immediately became a majority
in parliament, appointed Monk general-in-chief, formed a new council of State,
and superseded sheriffs, justices of the peace, and militia officers, who were
supporters of republican institutions. The covenant was again to be promul
gated, the confession of faith of the assembly of divines to be adopted, the
penal laws against Catholics were to be called into_ full vigor. On the 2d of
March Pepys writes: " Great also is the dispute now in the house, in whose
name the writs shall run for the next parliament, and it is said that Mr.