Chapter XVII (5)

[295] Answers to Questions on the Sacraments by the Bishops: Burnet's _Collectanea_, p. 114.

[296] In one of the ablest and most liberal papers which was drawn up at this time, a paper so liberal indeed as to argue from the etymology of the word presbyter that "lay seniors, or antient men, might to some intents be called priests," I find this passage upon the eucharist: "As concerning the grace of consecration of the body of our Lord in form of bread and wine, we beseech your Grace that it may be prohibited to all men to persuade any manner of person to think that these words of our Master Christ, when He 'took bread and blest it and brake it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, Take, and eat ye, this is my body that shall be betrayed for you,' ought to be understood figuratively. For since He that spake those words is of power to perform them literally, though no man's reason may know how that may be, yet they must believe it. And surely they that believe that God was of power to make all the world of nought, may lightly believe he was of power to make of bread his very body."--_Theological MSS. Rolls House._

[297] Henry VIII. to the Bishops: _Rolls House MS._ A 15.

[298] The Iceland fleet is constantly mentioned in the _Records_. Before the discovery of Newfoundland, Iceland was the great resort of English fishermen. Those who would not venture so long a voyage, fished the coasts of Cork and Kerry. When Skeffington was besieging Dungarvon, in 1535, Devonshire fishing smacks, which were accidentally in the neighbourhood, blockaded the harbour for him. The south of Ireland at the same time was the regular resort of Spaniards with the same object. Sir Anthony St. Leger said that as many as two or three hundred sail might sometimes be seen at once in Valentia harbour.--_State Papers_, Vol. V. p. 443, &c.

[299] _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XXIV.

[300] Ibid. Vol. I. On the other hand the French cut out a Flemish ship from Portsmouth, and another from Southampton.

[301] _Rolls House MS._ A 2, 30.

[302] The inventory of his losses which was sent in by the captain is noticeable, as showing the equipment of a Channel fishing vessel.--One last of herring, worth 4_l._ 13_s._ Three hagbushes, 15_s._ In money, 1_l._ 16_s._ 8_d._ Two long bows, 4_s._ Two bills and a sheaf of arrows, 3_s._ 8_d._ A pair of new boots of leather, 3_s._ 4_d._ Two barrels of double beer, 3_s._ 4_d._ Four mantles of frieze, 12_s._ A bonnet, 1_s._ 2_d._ In bread, candles, and other necessaries, 2_s._ The second time, one hogshead of double beer, 6_s._--_MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XXVIII.

[303] Sir Thomas Cheyne writes to Cromwell: "I have received letters from Dover that the Frenchmen on the sea hath taken worth 2000_l._ of goods since the king being there, and a man-of-war of Dieppe and a pinnace took the king's barge that carries the timber for his Highness's work there, and robbed and spoiled the ship and men of money, victuals, clothes, ropes, and left them not so much as their compass. And another Frenchman took away a pink in Dover roads and carried her away. And on Tuesday last a great fleet of Flemings men-of-war met with my Lord Lisle's ship, laden with wool to Flanders, and one of them took all the victuals and ordnance. Thus the king's subjects be robbed and spoiled every day."--_MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. VI.

[304] Sir William Fitzwilliam to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_.

[305] Sir William Godolphin to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XIII.

[306] _MS. State Paper Office_, Letters to the King and Council, Vol I.

[307] _MS._ ibid.

[308] Cromwell's Memoranda: _MS. Cotton. Titus_, B 1. Many of the plans are in the Cotton Library, executed, some of them, with great rudeness; some finished with the delicacy of monastic illuminations; some, but very few, are good working drawings. It is a mortifying proof of the backwardness of the English in engineering skill, that the king for his works at Dover sent for engineers to Spain.

[309] 32 Henry VIII. cap. 50.

[310] Details of the equipments of many of these fortresses lie scattered among the State Papers. The expenses were enormous, but were minutely recorded.

[311] On whatever side we turn in this reign, we find the old and the new in collision. While the harbours, piers, and the fortresses were rising at Dover, an ancient hermit tottered night after night from his cell to a chapel on the cliff, and the tapers on the altar, before which he knelt in his lonely orisons, made a familiar beacon far over the rolling waters. The men of the rising world cared little for the sentiment of the past. The anchorite was told sternly by the workmen that his light was a signal to the king's enemies, and must burn no more; and when it was next seen, three of them waylaid the old man on his road home, threw him down, and beat him cruelly.--_MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XXXIII.

[312] Lord Montague, on the 24th of March, 1537, said, "I dreamed that the king was dead. He is not dead, but he will die one day suddenly, his leg will kill him, and then we shall have jolly stirring."--Trial of Lord Montague: _Baga de Secretis_. The king himself, in explaining to the Duke of Norfolk his reason for postponing his journey to Yorkshire in the past summer, said: "To be frank with you, which we desire you in any wise to keep to yourself, being an humour fallen into our legs, and our physicians therefore advising us in no wise to take so far a journey in the heat of the year, whereby the same might put us to further trouble and displeasure, it hath been thought more expedient that we should, upon that respect only, though the grounds before specified had not concurred with it, now change our determination."--_State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 555.

[313] "I assure your lordship his Grace is very sorry that ye might not be here to make good cheer as we do. He useth himself more like a good fellow among us that be here, than like a king, and, thanked be God, I never saw him merrier in his life than he is now."--Sir John Russell to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XXXVI.

[314] "Michael Throgmorton gave great charge to William Vaughan to enquire if there had been any communication upon the opinions of the physicians, whether the Queen's Grace were with child with a man child or not."--Hutton to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 703.

[315] _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 570.

[316] Latimer to Cromwell: _State Paper Office_, Vol. I. p. 571.

[317] Hall is made to say she died on the 14th. The mistake was due probably to the printer. He is unlikely himself to have made so large an error.

[318] _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 1.

[319] Sir John Russell to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XXXVI.; _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 573.

[320] Hall, p. 825.

[321] Leland wrote an ode on the occasion, which is not without some beauty:--

Spes erat ampla quidem numerosâ prole Joanna
Henricum ut faceret regem facunda parentem.
Sed Superis aliter visum est, cruciatus acerbus
Distorsit vacuum lethali tormine ventrem.
Frigora crediderim temere contracta fuisse
In causâ, superat vis morbi: jamque salute
Desperatâ omni, nymphis hæc rettulit almis.
Non mihi mors curæ est, perituram agnosco creavit
Omnipotens--Moriar--terram tibi debeo terra:
At pius Elysiis animus spatiabitur hortis.
Deprecor hoc unum. Maturos filius annos
Exigat, et tandem regno det jura paterno.
Dixit et æternâ claudebat lumina nube.
Nulla dies pressit graviori clade Britannum.

_Genethliacon Edwardi Principis._

[322] _Rolls House MS._, A 2, 30. I trace the report to within a month of Jane Seymour's death. Sanders therefore must be held acquitted of the charge of having invented it. The circumstances of the death itself are so clear as to leave no trace of uncertainty. How many of the interesting personal anecdotes of remarkable people, which have gained and which retain the public confidence, are better founded than this? Prudence, instructed by experience, enters a general caution against all anecdotes particularly striking.

[323] _Rolls House MS._ A 2, 30.

[324] Instructions for the Household of Edward Prince of Wales: _Rolls House MS._

[325] _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 2.

[326] Pole to the Bishop of Liège: _Epist._ Vol. II. p. 41.

[327] Nott's _Wyatt_, p. 312.

[328] Nott's _Wyatt_, p. 319.

[329] Ibid.

[330] Ibid. p. 322.

[331] Mary's submission dates from the fall of Anne Boleyn. It was offered by her on the instant, in three successive letters; two of which are printed in the State Papers, a third is in MS. in the State Paper Office.

[332] "And here Sir Thomas Wyatt shall deliver unto the Emperor the letter written unto him from the said Lady Mary, whereby it shall appear how she doth repent herself, and how she would that he should repent, and take of her the tenour. Whereof it shall like him to consider, it is not to be thought but it will acquit him therein, his Grace, nevertheless, being so good a lord and father to her as he is, and undoubtedly will be."--Instructions to Sir Thomas Wyatt: Nott's _Wyatt_, p. 314.

[333] Cromwell to Wyatt: Nott, p. 321.

[334] State Papers, Vol. VIII., p. 34.

[335] "My lord: this shall be to advertise you that the Imperials and Frenchmen have taken a truce for ten months, which, as we think, be great news, and of great weight and moment. Howbeit, my trust is, the King's Highness knows what is the occasion of this sudden turn, or else it will trouble my brain to think of it."--Sir William Fitzwilliam to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XI.

[336] Henry VIII. to Wyatt: Nott's _Wyatt_.

[337] Cromwell to Wyatt, November 29, 1537: Nott's _Wyatt_.

[338] Better known as Mary of Guise, mother of Mary Queen of Scots.

[339] Commission of Peter Mewtas to Madame de Longueville: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 10.

[340] Hutton to Sir Thomas Wriothesley: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 9.

[341] Henry VIII. to Sir Thomas Wyatt: Nott's _Wyatt_.

[342] Same to the same: Ibid.

[343] _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 17.

[344] Hutton to Cromwell: Ibid.

[345] A story passes current with popular historians, that the Duchess of Milan, when Henry proposed for her, replied that she had but one head; if she had two, one should be at his Majesty's service. The less active imagination of contemporaries was contented with reporting that she had said that the English ministers need not trouble themselves to make the marriage; "they would lose their labours, for she minded not to fix her heart that way." Sir Thomas Wriothesley, who was then resident at Brussels, thought it worth his while to ask her whether these words had really been used by her.

"M. Ambassador," she replied, "I thank God He hath given me a better stay of myself than to be of so light sort. I assure you, that neither those words that you have spoken, nor any like to them, have passed at any time from my mouth: and so I pray you report for me."

Wriothesley took courage upon this answer, and asked what was her real inclination in the matter.

"At this she blushed exceedingly. 'As for mine inclination,' quoth she, 'what should I say? You know I am at the Emperor's commandment.'--'Yea, madam,' quoth Wriothesley; 'but this matter is of such nature, that there must be a concurrence between his commandment and your consent, or else you may percase repent it when it shall be too late. Your answer is such as may serve both for your modesty and for my satisfaction; and yet, if it were a little plainer, I could be the better contented.' With that she smiled, and again said, 'You know I am the Emperor's poor servant, and must follow his pleasure.'--'Marry,' quoth Wriothesley, 'then I may hope to be among the Englishmen that shall be first acquainted with my new mistress, for the Emperor hath instantly desired it. Oh, madam!' quoth he, 'how happy shall you be if it be your chance to be matched with my master. If God send you that hap, you shall be matched with the most gentle gentleman that liveth; his nature so benign and pleasant, that I think till this day no man hath heard many angry words pass his lips. As God shall help me, if he were no king, I think, and you saw him, you would say, that for his virtue, gentleness, wisdom, experience, goodliness of person, and all other qualities meet to be in a prince, he were worthy before all others to be made a king.'... She smiled, and Wriothesley thought would have laughed out, had not her gravity forbidden it.... She said she knew his Majesty was a good and noble prince. Her honest countenance, he added, and the few words that she wisely spake, together with that which he knew by her chamberers and servants, made him to think there could be no doubt of her."--_State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 146.

[346] "Mr. Wyatt, now handle this matter in such earnest sort with the Emperor, as the king, who by your fair words hath conceived as certain to find assured friendship therein, be not deceived. The Frenchmen affirm so constantly and boldly that nothing spoken by the Emperor, either touching the principal contrahents or further alliance, hath any manner of good faith, but such fraud and deceit, that I assure you, on my faith, it would make any man to suspect his proceeding. Labour, Mr. Wyatt, to cause the Emperor, if it be possible, to write."--Cromwell to Wyatt: Nott's _Wyatt_, p. 333.

[347] Wyatt's Oration to the Judges: Nott's _Wyatt_.

[348] "I have received three houses since I wrote last to your lordship, the which I think would not a little have moved your lordship, if ye had known the order of them: some sticking fast in windows, naked, going to drabs, so that the pillar was fain to be sawed, to have him out; some being plucked from under drabs' beds; some fighting, so that the knife hath stuck in the bones; with such other pretty business, of the which I have too much."--Richard suffragan Bishop of Dover to Cromwell: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 198.

[349] A finger of St. Andrew was pawned at Northampton for 40_l._; "which we intend not," wrote a dry visitor, "to redeem of the price, except we be commanded so to do."--Ibid. p. 172.

[350] Printed in Fuller's _Church History_, Vol. III. p. 394.

[351] Fuller's _Church History_, Vol. III. p. 398.

[352] "According to your commission, we have viewed a certain supposed relic, called the blood of Hales, which was enclosed within a round beryll, garnished and bound on every side with silver, which we caused to be opened in the presence of a great multitude of people. And the said supposed relic we caused to be taken out of the said beryll, and have viewed the same, being within a little glass, and also tried the same according to our powers, by all means; and by force of the view and other trials, we judge the substance and matters of the said supposed relic to be an unctuous gum, coloured, which, being in the glass, appeared to be a glistening red, resembling partly the colour of blood. And after, we did take out part of the said substance out of the glass, and then it was apparent yellow colour, like amber or base gold, and doth cleave as gum or bird-lime. The matter and feigned relic, with the glass containing the same, we have enclosed in red wax, and consigned it, with our seals."--Hugh Bishop of Worcester, with the other Commissioners, to Cromwell: Latimer's _Remains_, p. 407.

The Abbot of Hales subsequently applied for permission to destroy the case in which the blood had been.

"It doth stand yet in the place where it was, so that I am afraid lest it should minister occasion to any weak person looking thereupon to abuse his conscience therewith; and therefore I beseech for license that I may put it down every stick and stone, so that no manner of token or remembrance of that forged relict shall remain."--Abbot of Hales to Cromwell: _MS. Tanner_ 105.

[353] Barlow to Cromwell: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 183.

[354] Latimer to Cromwell: _Remains_, p. 395.

[355] Geoffrey Chambers to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series.

[356] Ibid.

[357] "Invisit aulam regis, regem ipsum novus hospes. Conglomerant ipsum risu aulico barones duces marchiones comites. Agit ille, minatur oculis, aversatur ore, distorquet nares; mittit deorsum caput, incurvat dorsum, annuit aut renuit. Rex ipse incertum gavisusne magis ob patefactam imposturam an magis doluerit ex animo tot seculis miseræ plebi fuisse impositum."--Hooker to Bullinger: _Original Letters on the Reformation._

[358] "He said that blessed man St. Thomas of Canterbury suffered death for the rights of the Church; for there was a great man--meaning thereby King Harry the Second--which, because St. Thomas of Canterbury would not grant him such things as he asked, contrary to the liberties of the Church, first banished him out of this realm; and at his return he was slain at his own church, for the right of Holy Church, as many holy fathers have suffered now of late: as that holy father the Bishop of Rochester: and he doubteth not but their souls be now in heaven.

"He saith and believeth that he ought to have a double obedience: first, to the King's Highness, by the law of God; and the second to the Bishop of Rome, by his rule and profession.

"He confesseth that he used and practised to induce men in confession to hold and stick to the old fashion of belief, that was used in the realm of long time past."--_Rolls House MS._

[359] "The Bishop of Worcester and I will be to-morrow with your lordship, to know your pleasure concerning Friar Forest. For if we should proceed against him according to the order of the law, there must be articles devised beforehand which must be ministered unto him; and therefore it will be very well done that one draw them against our meeting."--Cranmer to Cromwell: Cranmer's _Works_, Vol. I. p. 239.

[360] _Rolls House MS._ A 1, 7, fol. 213.

[361] Ellis Price to Cromwell: _MS. Cotton. Cleopatra_, E 4.

[362] _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XXXIV.

[363] Latimer to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XLIX. Latimer's _Letters_, p. 391.

[364] Stow's _Chronicle_, p. 575.

[365] Hall, p. 875, followed by Foxe.

[366] _MS. State Paper Office_, unarranged bundle. The command was obeyed so completely, that only a single shrine now remains in England; and the preservation of this was not owing to the forbearance of the government. The shrine of Edward the Confessor, which stands in Westminster Abbey, was destroyed with the rest. But the stones were not taken away. The supposed remains of St. Edward were in some way preserved; and the shrine was reconstructed, and the dust replaced, by Abbot Feckenham, in the first year of Queen Mary.--Oration of Abbot Feckenham in the Parliament House: _MS. Rawlinson, Bodleian Library._

[367] Cranmer to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. I.

[368] "The abuses of Canterbury" are placed by the side of those of Boxley in one of the official statements of the times.--Sir T. Wriothesley to Henry VIII., Nov. 20. 1538: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII.

[369] Madame de Montreuil, though a Frenchwoman and a good Catholic, had caught the infection of the prevailing unbelief in saints and saintly relics. "I showed her St. Thomas's shrine," writes an attendant, "and all such other things worthy of sight, of the which she was not little marvelled of the great riches thereof, saying it to be innumerable, and that if she had not seen it all the men in the world could never have made her to believe it. Thus overlooking and viewing more than an hour as well the shrine as St. Thomas's head, being at both set cushions to kneel, the prior, opening St. Thomas's head, said to her three times, this is St. Thomas's head, and offered her to kiss it, but she neither kneeled nor would kiss it, but (stood), still viewing the riches thereof."--Penison to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 583.

[370] These marks are still distinctly visible.

[371] Burnet's _Collectanea_, p. 494. A story was current on the Continent, and so far believed as to be alluded to in the great bull of Paul the Third, that an apparitor was sent to Canterbury to serve a citation at Becket's tomb, summoning "the late archbishop" to appear and answer to a charge of high treason. Thirty days were allowed him. When these were expired a proctor was charged with his defence. He was tried and condemned--his property, consisting of the offerings at the shrine, was declared forfeited--and he himself was sentenced to be exhumed and burnt. In the fact itself there is nothing absolutely improbable, for the form said to have been observed was one which was usual in the Church, when dead men, as sometimes happened, were prosecuted for heresy; and if I express my belief that the story is without foundation, I do so with diffidence, because negative evidence is generally of no value in the face of respectable positive assertion. All contemporary English authorities, however, are totally silent on a subject which it is hard to believe that they would not at least have mentioned. We hear generally of the destruction of the shrine, but no word of the citation and trial. A long and close correspondence between Cromwell and the Prior of Canterbury covers the period at which the process took place, if it took place at all, and not a letter contains anything which could be construed into an allusion to it.--Letters of the Prior of Canterbury to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series.

So suspicious a silence justifies a close scrutiny of the authorities on the other side. There exist two documents printed in Wilkins's _Concilia_, Vol. III. p. 835, and taken from Pollini's _History of the English Reformation_, which profess to be the actual citation and actual sentence issued on the occasion. If these are genuine, they decide the question; but, unfortunately for their authenticity, the dates of the documents are, respectively, April and May, 1538, and in both of them Henry is styled, among his official titles, Rex Hiberniæ. Now Henry did not assume the title of Rex Hiberniæ till two years later. Dominus Hiberniæ, or Lord of Ireland, is his invariable designation in every authentic document of the year to which these are said to belong. This itself is conclusively discrediting. If further evidence is required, it may be found in the word "Londini," or London, as the date of both citation and sentence. Official papers were never dated from London, but from Westminster, St. James's, Whitehall; or if in London, then from the particular place in London, as the Tower. Both mistakes would have been avoided by an Englishman, but are exceedingly natural in a foreign inventor.

[372] "We be daily instructed by our nobles and council to use short expelition in the determination of our marriage, for to get more increase of issue, to the assurance of our succession; and upon their oft admonition of age coming fast on, and (seeing) that the time flyeth and slippeth marvellously away, we be minded no longer to lose time as we have done, which is of all losses the most irrecuperable."--Henry VIII. to Sir T. Wriothesley: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 116.

"Unless his Highness bore a notable affection to the Emperor, and had a special remembrance of their antient amity, his Majesty could never have endured to have been kept thus long in balance, his years, and the daily suits of his nobles and council well pondered."--Wriothesley to Cromwell: ibid, p. 160.

[373] See the Wriothesley Correspondence: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII.

[374] Wriothesley to Henry VIII., November 20, 1538: Ibid.

[375] Bull of Paul III. against Henry VIII: printed in Burnet's _Collectanea_.

[376] Wriothesley Correspondence: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII.

[377] Wriothesley to Cromwell: Ibid.

[378] Stephen Vaughan to Cromwell, Feb. 21, 1539: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII.

[379] "Of the evils which now menace Christendom those are held most grievous which are threatened by the Sultan. He is thought most powerful to hurt: he must first be met in arms. My words will bear little weight in this matter. I shall be thought to speak in my own quarrel against my personal enemy. But, as God shall judge my heart, I say that, if we look for victory in the East, we must assist first our fellow Christians, whom the adversary afflicts at home. This victory only will ensure the other."--_Apol. ad Car. Quint._

[380] He speaks of Cromwell as "a certain man," a "devil's ambassador," "the devil in the human form". He doubts whether he will defile his pages with his name. As great highwaymen, however, murderers, parricides, and others, are named in history for everlasting ignominy, as even the devils are named in Holy Scripture, so he will name Cromwell.--_Apol. ad Car. Quint._

[381] Ibid.

[382] Instructions to Reginald Pole: _Epist._ Vol. II. p. 279, &c. Pole's admiring biographer ventures to say that "he was declared a traitor for causes which do not seem to come within the article of treason."--Philips's _Life of Reginald Pole_, p. 277.

[383] News which was sent from Rome unto the Cardinal Bishop of Seville: _Rolls House MS._

[384] "There is much secret communication among the king's subjects, and many of them in the shires of Cornwall and Devonshire be in great fear and mistrust what the King's Highness and his council should mean, to give in commandment to the parsons and vicars of every parish, that they should make a book wherein is to be specified the names of as many as be wedded and buried and christened. Their mistrust is, that some charges more than hath been in times past shall grow to them by this occasion of registering."--Sir Piers Edgecombe to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 612.

[385] "George Lascelles shewed me that a priest, which late was one of the friars at Bristol, informed him that harness would yet be occupied, for he did know more than the king's council. For at the last council whereat the Emperor, the French king, and the Bishop of Rome met, they made the King of Scots, by their counsel, _Defensor fidei_, and that the Emperor raised a great army, saying it was to invade the Great Turk, which the said Emperor meaned by our sovereign lord."--John Babington to Cromwell: MS. _State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. III.

[386]

[Sidenote: Renewed agitation among the people.]

I attach specimens from time to time of the "informations" of which the Record Office contains so many. They serve to keep the temper of the country before the mind. The king had lately fallen from his horse and broken one of his ribs. A farmer of Walden was accused of having wished that he had broken his neck, and "had said further that he had a bow and two sheaves of arrows, and he would shoot them all before the king's laws should go forward." An old woman at Aylesham, leaning over a shop-window, was heard muttering a chant, that "there would be no good world till it fell together by the ears, for with clubs and clouted shoon should the deed be done." Sir Thomas Arundel wrote from Cornwall, that "a very aged man" had been brought before him with the reputation of a prophet, who had said that "the priests should rise against the king, and make a field; and the priests should rule the realm three days and three nights, and then the white falcon should come out of the north-west, and kill almost all the priests, and they that should escape should be fain to hide their crowns with the filth of beasts, because they would not be taken for priests."--"A groom of Sir William Paget's was dressing his master's horse one night in the stable in the White Horse in Cambridge," when the ostler came in and began "to enter into communication with him." "The ostler said there is no Pope, but a Bishop of Rome. And the groom said he knew well there was a Pope, and the ostler, moreover, and whosoever held of his part, were strong heretics. Then the ostler answered that the King's Grace held of his part; and the groom said that he was one heretic, and the king was another; and said, moreover, that this business had never been if the king had not married Anne Boleyn. And therewith they multiplied words, and waxed so hot, that the one called the other knave, and so fell together by the ears, and the groom broke the ostler's head with a faggot stick."--Miscellaneous Depositions: _MSS. State Paper Office_, and _Rolls House_.

[387] Her blood was thought even purer than Lord Exeter's. A cloud of doubtful illegitimacy darkened all the children of Edward IV.

[388] "At my lord marquis being in Exeter at the time of the rebellion he took direction that all commissions for the second subsidy should stay the levy thereof for a time."--Sir Piers Edgecombe to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. X.

[389] "'The marquis was the man that should help and do them good' (men said). See the experience, how all those do prevail that were towards the marquis. Neither assizes, nisi prius, nor bill of indictment put up against them could take effect; and, of the contrary part, how it prevailed for them."--Sir Thomas Willoughby to Cromwell: _MS. Cotton. Titus_, B 1, 386.

[390] Depositions relating to Lord Delaware: _Rolls House MS._ first series, 426.

[391] Depositions taken before Sir Henry Capel: Ibid. 1286.

[392] "A man named Howett, one of Exeter's dependents, was heard to say, if the lord marquis had been put to the Tower, at the commandment of the lord privy seal, he should have been fetched out again, though the lord privy seal had said nay to it, and the best in the realm besides; and he the said Howett and his company were fully agreed to have had him out before they had come away."--_Rolls House MS._ first series, 1286.

[393] Deposition of Geoffrey Pole: _Rolls House MS._

[394] Jane Seymour was dead, and the king was not remarried: I am unable to explain the introduction of the words, unless (as was perhaps the case) the application to the painter was in the summer of 1537, and he delayed his information till the following year.

[395] Sir William Godolphin to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XIII.

[396] Ibid.

[397] Wriothesley to Sir Thos. Wyatt: Ellis, second series, Vol. II.

[398] Godolphin's Correspondence: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XIII.

[399] Instructions by the King's Highness to John Becket, Gentleman of his Grace's Chamber, and John Wroth, of the same: printed in the _Archæologia_.

[400] "Kendall and Quyntrell were as arrant traitors as any within the realm, leaning to and favouring the advancement of that traitor Henry, Marquis of Exeter, nor letting nor sparing to speak to a great number of the king's subjects in those parts that the said Henry was heir-apparent, and should be king, and would be king, if the King's Highness proceeded to marry the Lady Anne Boleyn, or else it should cost a thousand men's lives. And for their mischievous intent to take effect, they retained divers and a great number of the king's subjects in those parts, to be to the lord marquis in readiness within an hour's warning."--Sir Thomas Willoughby to Cromwell: _MS. Cotton. Titus_, B 1.

[401] Deposition of Alice Paytchet: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XXXIX.

[402] Examination of Lord Montague and the Marquis of Exeter: _Rolls House MS._ first series, 1262.

[403] "The Lord Darcy played the fool," Montague said; "he went about to pluck the council. He should first have begun with the head. But I beshrew him for leaving off so soon."--_Baga de Secretis_, pouch xi. bundle 2.

[404] "I am sorry the Lord Abergavenny is dead; for if he were alive, he were able to make ten thousand men."--Sayings of Lord Montague: Ibid.

[405] "On Monday, the fourth of this month, the Marquis of Exeter and Lord Montague were committed to the Tower of London, being the King's Majesty so grievously touched by them, that albeit that his Grace hath upon his special favour borne towards them passed over many accusations made against the same of late by their own domestics, thinking with his clemency to conquer their cankeredness, yet his Grace was constrained, for avoiding of such malice as was prepensed, both against his person royal and the surety of my Lord Prince, to use the remedy of committing them to ward. The accusations made against them be of great importance, and duly proved by substantial witnesses. And yet the King's Majesty loveth them so well, and of his great goodness is so loath to proceed against them, that it is doubted what his Highness will do towards them."--Wriothesley to Sir T. Wyatt: Ellis, second series, Vol. II.

[406] Southampton to Cromwell: Ellis, second series, Vol. II. p. 110.

[407] Southampton to Cromwell: Ellis, second series, Vol. II. p. 114.

[408] Robert Warren to Lord Fitzwaters: _MS. Cotton. Titus_, B 1, 143.

[409] Burnet's _Collectanea_, p. 494, &c.

[410] Hall, followed by the chroniclers, says that the executions were on the 9th of January; but he was mistaken. In a MS. in the State Paper Office, dated the 16th of December, 1538, Exeter is described as having suffered on the 9th of the same month. My account of these trials is taken from the records in the _Baga de Secretis_: from the Act of Attainder, 31 Henry VIII. cap. 15, not printed in the Statute Book, but extant on the Roll; and from a number of scattered depositions, questions, and examinations in the Rolls House and in the State Paper Office.

[411] The degrading of Henry Courtenay, late Marquis of Exeter, the 3d day of December, and the same day convicted; and the 9th day of the said month beheaded at Tower Hill; and the 16th day of the same month degraded at Windsor: _MS. State Paper Office_. Unarranged bundle.

[412] Examination of Christopher Chator: _Rolls House MS._ first series.

[413] Gibbon professes himself especially scandalized at the persecution of Servetus by men who themselves had stood in so deep need of toleration. The scandal is scarcely reasonable, for neither Calvin nor any other Reformer of the sixteenth century desired a "liberty of conscience" in its modern sense. The Council of Geneva, the General Assembly at Edinburgh, the Smalcaldic League, the English Parliament, and the Spanish Inquisition held the same opinions on the wickedness of heresy; they differed only in the definition of the crime. The English and Scotch Protestants have been taunted with persecution. When nations can grow to maturity in a single generation, when the child can rise from his first grammar lesson a matured philosopher, individual men may clear themselves by a single effort from mistakes which are embedded in the heart of their age. Let us listen to the Landgrave of Hesse. He will teach us that Henry VIII. was no exceptional persecutor.

The Landgrave has heard that the errors of the Anabaptists are increasing in England. He depicts in warning colours the insurrection at Münster: "If they grow to any multitude," he says, "their acts will surely declare their seditious minds and opinions. Surely this is true, the devil, which is an homicide, carrieth men that are entangled in false opinions to unlawful slaughters and the breach of society.... There are no rulers in Germany," he continues, "whether they be Popish or professors of the doctrines of the Gospel, that do suffer these men, if they come into their hands. All men punish them grievously. We use a just moderation, which God requireth of all good rulers. Whereas any of the sect is apprehended, we call together divers learned men and good preachers, and command them, the errors being confuted by the Word of God, to teach them rightlier, to heal them that be sick, to deliver them that were bound; and by this way many that are astray are come home again. These are not punished with any corporal pains, but are driven openly to forsake their errours. If any do stubbornly defend the ungodly and wicked errours of that sect, yielding nothing to such as can and do teach them truly, these are kept a good space in prison, and sometimes sore punished there; yet in such sort are they handled, that death is long deferred for hope of amendment; and, as long as any hope is, favour is shewed to life. If there be no hope left, then the obstinate are put to death." Warning Henry of the snares of the devil, who labours continually to discredit the truth by grafting upon it heresy, he concludes:--

"Wherefore, if that sect hath done any hurt there in your Grace's realm, we doubt not but your princely wisdom will so temper the matter, that both dangers be avoided, errours be kept down, and yet a difference had between those that are good men, and mislike the abuses of the Bishop of Rome's baggages, and those that be Anabaptists. In many parts of Germany where the Gospel is not preached, cruelty is exercised upon both sorts without discretion. The magistrates which obey the Bishop of Rome (whereas severity is to be used against the Anabaptists) slay good men utterly alien from their opinions. But your Majesty will put a difference great enough between these two sorts, and serve Christ's glory on the one side, and save the innocent blood on the other."--Landgrave of Hesse to Henry VIII., September 25, 1538: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII.

[414] "They have made a wondrous matter and report here of the shrines and of burning of the idol at Canterbury; and, besides that, the King's Highness and council be become sacramentarians by reason of this embassy which the King of Saxony sent late into England."--Theobald to Cromwell, from Padua. October 22, 1538: Ellis, third series, Vol. III.

[415] The history of Lambert's trial is taken from Foxe, Vol. V.

[416] Cromwell to Wyatt: Nott's _Wyatt_, p. 326.

[417] Cromwell to Wriothesley: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 155.

[418] Christopher Mount writes: "This day (March 5) the Earl William a Furstenburg was at dinner with the Duke of Saxe, which asked of him what news. He answered that there is labour made for truce between the Emperor and the Turk. Then said the duke, to what purpose should be all these preparations the Emperor maketh? The earl answered, that other men should care for. Then said the duke, the bruit is here--it should be against the King of England. Then said the earl, the King of England shall need to take heed to himself."--_State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 606.

[419] The negotiations for the marriages.

[420] Wriothesley to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 165.

[421] _i.e._, he was to marry the Princess Mary.

[422] Wriothesley to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 167.

[423] "Within these fourteen days, it shall surely break out what they do purpose to do; as of three ways, one--Gueldres, Denmark, or England; notwithstanding, as I think, England is without danger, because they know well that the King's Grace hath prepared to receive them if they come. There be in Holland 270 good ships prepared; but whither they shall go no man can tell. Preparations of all manner of artillery doth daily go through Antwerp.

"All the spiritualty here be set for to pay an innumerable sum of money. Notwithstanding, they will be very well content with giving the aforesaid money, if all things may be so brought to pass as they hope it shall, and as it is promised them--and that is, that the Pope's quarrel may be avenged upon the King's Grace of England."--March 14, ---- to Cromwell; _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XVI.

[424] William Ostrich to the worshipful Richard Ebbes, Merchant in London: _MS. State Paper Office_, first series, Vol. II.

[425] Sir Ralph Sadler to Cromwell, from Dover, March 16: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XXXVII.

[426] Hollinshed, Stow.

[427] Letters of Sir Thomas Cheyne to Cromwell, March and April, 1539: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series.

[428] Cromwell to the King: _MS. Cotton. Titus_, B 1, 271.

[429] Philips's _Life of Pole_. Four letters of Cardinal Alexander Farnese to Paul III.: _Epist. Reg. Pol._ Vol. II. p. 281, &c.

[430] One of these, for instance, writes to him: "Vale amplissime Pole quem si in meis auguriis aliquid veri est adhuc Regem Angliæ videbimus." His answer may acquit him of vulgar selfishness: "I know not where you found your augury. If you can divine the future, divine only what I am to suffer for my country, or for the Church of God, which is in my country.

eis oἰῶnos ὔristos ὐmύnesthai perὶ patrὴs.

For me, the heavier the load of my affliction for God and the Church, the higher do I mount upon the ladder of felicity."--_Epist. Reg. Pol._ Vol. III. pp. 37-39.

[431] _Epist. Reg. Pol._ Vol. II. p. 191, &c. The disappointment of the Roman ecclesiastics led them so far as to anticipate a complete apostacy on the part of Charles. The fears of Cardinal Contarini make the hopes so often expressed by Henry appear less unreasonable, that Charles might eventually imitate the English example. On the 8th of July, 1539, Contarini writes to Pole:--

"De rebus Germaniæ audio quod molestissime tuli, indictum videlicet esse conventum Norimburgensem ad Kal. Octobris pro rebus Ecclesiæ componendis, ubi sunt conventuri oratores Cæsaris et Regis Christianissimi; sex autem pro parte Lutheranorum et totidem pro partibus Catholicorum, de rebus Fidei disputaturi; et hoc fieri ex decreto superiorum mensium Conventûs Francford; in quo nulla mentio fit, nec de Pontifice, nec de aliquo qui pro sede Apostolicâ interveniret. Vides credo quo ista tendunt. Utinam ego decipiar; sed hoc prorsus judico; etsi præsentibus omnibus conatibus regis Angliæ maxime sit obstandum, tamen non hunc esse qui maxime sedi Apostolicæ possit nocere; ego illum timeo quem Cato ille in Republicâ Romanâ maxime timebat, qui sobrius accedit ad illam evertendam; vel potius illos timeo (nec enim unus est hoc tempore) et nisi istis privatis conventibus cito obviam eatur, ut non brevi major scissura in ecclesiâ cum majori detrimento autoritatis sedis Apostolicæ oriatur, quam multis sæculis fuerit visa, non possum non maxime timere. Scripsit ad me his de rebus primus nuncius ex Hispaniâ; et postea certiora de iisdem ex Reverendissimo et Illustrissimo Farnesio cum huc transiret cognovi cui sententiam meam de toto periculo exposui. Ego certe talem nunc video Ecclesiæ statum, ut si unquam dixi ullâ in causâ cum Isaiâ, mitte me, nunc potius si rogarer dicerem cum Mose, Dominus mitte quem missurus es."--_Epist. Reg. Pol._ Vol. II. p. 158.

[432] Account of the Muster of the Citizens of London in the thirty-first Year of the Reign of King Henry VIII., communicated (for the _Archæologia_), from the Records of the Corporation of London, by Thomas Lott, Esq.

[433] Royal Proclamation: _Rolls House MS._ A 1, 10.

[434] In "Lusty Juventus" the Devil is introduced, saying,--

"Oh, oh! full well I know the cause
That my estimation doth thus decay:
The old people would believe still in my laws,
But the younger sort lead them a contrary way.
They will not believe, they plainly say,
In old traditions made by men;
But they will live as the Scripture teacheth them."

Hawkins's _Old Plays_, Vol. I. p. 152.

[435] "The king intended his loving subjects to use the commodity of the reading of the Bible humbly, meekly, reverently, and obediently; and not that any of them should read the said Bible with high and loud voices in time of the celebration of the mass, and other divine services used in the Church; or that any of his lay subjects should take upon them any common disputation, argument, or exposition of the mysteries therein contained."--Proclamation of the Use of the Bible: Burnet's _Collectanea_, p. 138.

In a speech to the parliament Henry spoke also of the abuse of the Bible: "I am very sorry to know and hear how unreverendly that most precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rhymed, sung, and jangled in every alehouse and tavern. I am even as much sorry that the readers of the same follow it in doing so faintly and coldly."--Hall, p. 866.

[436] The Bishop of Norwich wrote to Cromwell, informing him that he had preached a sermon upon grace and free-will in his cathedral; "the next day," he said, "one Robert Watson very arrogantly and in great fume came to my lodgings for to reason with me in that matter, affirming himself not a little to be offended with mine assertion of free will, saying he would set his foot by mine, affirming to the death that there was no such free will in man. Notwithstanding I had plainly declared it to be of no strength, but only when holpen by the grace of God; by which his ungodly enterprise, perceived and known of many, my estimation and credence concerning the sincere preaching of the truth was like to decay." The bishop went on to say that he had set Watson a day to answer for "his temerarious opinions," and was obliged to call in a number of the neighbouring county magistrates to enable him to hold his court, "on account of the great number which then assembled as Watson's fautors."--The Bishop of Norwich to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, first series, Vol. X.

[437] For instance, in Watson's case he seems to have rebuked the bishop. Ibid.

[438] Very many complaints of parishioners on this matter remain among the _State Papers_. The difficulty is to determine the proportion of offenders (if they may be called such) to the body of the spiritualty. The following petition to Cromwell, as coming from the collective incumbents of a diocese, represents most curiously the perplexity of the clergy in the interval between the alteration of the law and the inhibition of their previous indulgences. The date is probably 1536. The petition was in connexion with the commission of inquiry into the general morality of the religious orders:--

"May it please your mastership, that when of late we, your poor orators the clergy of the diocese of Bangor, were visited by the king's visitors and yours, in the which visitation many of us (to knowledge the truth to your mastership) be detected of incontinency, as it appeareth by the visitors' books, and not unworthy, wherefore we humbly submit ourselves unto your mastership's mercy, heartily desiring of you remission, or at least wise of merciful punishment and correction, and also to invent after your discreet wisdom some lawful and godly way for us your aforesaid orators, that we may maintain and uphold such poor hospitalities as we have done hitherto, most by provision of such women as we have customably kept in our houses. For in case we be compelled to put away such women, according to the injunctions lately given us by the foresaid visitors, then shall we be fain to give up hospitality, to the utter undoing of such servants and families as we daily keep, and to the great loss and harms of the king's subjects, the poor people which were by us relieved to the uttermost of our powers, and we ourselves shall be driven to seek our living at alehouses and taverns, for mansions upon the benefices and vicarages we have none. And as for gentlemen and substantial honest men, for fear of inconvenience, knowing our frailty and accustomed liberty, they will in no wise board us in their houses."--Petition of the Clergy of Bangor to the Right Hon. Thomas Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XXXVI.

[439] This story rests on the evidence of eye-witnesses.--Foxe, Vol. V. p. 251, &c.

[440] The late parliament had become a byword among the Catholics and reactionaries. Pole speaks of the "Conventus malignantium qui omnia illa decreta contra Ecclesiæ unitatem fecit."--_Epist. Reg. Pol._ Vol. II. p. 46.

[441] "For your Grace's parliament I have appointed (for a crown borough) your Grace's servant Mr. Morison, to be one of them. No doubt he shall be able to answer or take up such as should crack on far with literature of learning."--Cromwell to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 603.

[442] Letter to Secretary Cromwell on the Election of the Knights of the Shire for the County of Huntingdon: _Rolls House MS._

[443] Lady Blount to the King's Secretary: Ibid.

[444] The Earl of Southampton to Cromwell: _MS. Cotton. Cleopatra_, E 4.

[445] The two persons whom Cromwell had previously named.

[446] Letters of the Mayor of Canterbury to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. V.

In the first edition this affair is referred to the election of 1539. We are left almost invariably to internal evidence to fix the dates of letters, and finding the second of those written by the Mayor of Canterbury, on this subject, addressed to Cromwell as Lord Privy Seal, I supposed that it must refer to the only election conducted by him after he was raised to that dignity. I have since ascertained that the first letter, the cover of which I did not see, is addressed to Sir Thomas Cromwell, chief secretary, &c. It bears the date of the 20th of May, and though the year is not given, the difference of the two styles fixes it to 1536. The election was conducted while Cromwell was a commoner. He was made a peer and Privy Seal immediately on the meeting of parliament on the 2d of July.

[447] Cromwell to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 693.

[448] "The King's Highness desiring that such a unity might be established in all things touching the doctrine of Christ's religion, as the same so being established might be to the honour of Almighty God, and consequently redound to the commonwealth of this his Highness's most noble realm, hath therefore caused his most High Court of Parliament to be at this time summoned, and also a synod and convocation of all the archbishops, bishops, and other learned men of the clergy of this his realm to be in like manner assembled."--31 Henry VIII. cap. 14.

[449] "Post missarum solemnia, decenter ac devote celebrata, divinoque auxilio humillimi implorato et invocato."--_Lords Journals_, 31 Henry VIII.

[450] _Lords Journals_, 31 Henry VIII.

[451] A Device for extirpating Heresies among the People: _Rolls House MS._

[452] "Nothing has yet been settled respecting the marriage of the clergy, although some persons have very freely preached before the king upon the subject."--John Butler to Conrad Pellican, March 8, 1539: _Original Letters on the Reformation_, second series, p. 624.

[453] Lady Exeter was afterwards pardoned. Lady Salisbury's offences, whatever they were, seem to have been known to the world, even before Lord Southampton's visit of inspection to Warblington. The magistrates of Stockton in Sussex sent up an account of examinations taken on the 13th of September, 1538, in which a woman is charged with having said, "If so be that my Lady of Salisbury had been a young woman as she was an old woman, the King's Grace and his council had burnt her."--_MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XXXIX. The act of attainder has not been printed (31 Henry VIII. cap. 15: _Rolls House MS._); so much of it, therefore, as relates to these ladies is here inserted:--

"And where also Gertrude Courtenay, wife of the Lord Marquis of Exeter, hath traitorously, falsely, and maliciously confederated herself to and with the abominable traitor Nicholas Carew, knowing him to be a traitor and a common enemy to his Highness and the realm of England; and hath not only aided and abetted the said Nicholas Carew in his abominable treasons, but also hath herself committed and perpetrated divers and sundry detestable and abominable treasons to the fearful peril of his Highness's royal person, and the loss and desolation of this realm of England, if God of his goodness had not in due time brought the same treason to knowledge:

"And where also Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, and Hugh Vaughan, late of Bekener, in the county of Monmouth, yeoman, by instigation of the devil, putting apart the dread of Almighty God, their duty of allegiance, and the excellent benefits received of his Highness, have not only traitorously confederated themselves with the false and abominable traitors Henry Pole, Lord Montague, and Reginald Pole, sons to the said countess, knowing them to be false traitors, but also have maliciously aided, abetted, maintained, and comforted them in their said false and abominable treason, to the most fearful peril of his Highness, the commonwealth of this realm, &c., the said marchioness and the said countess be declared attainted, and shall suffer the pains and penalties of high treason." I find no account of Vaughan, or of the countess's connexion with him. He was probably one of the persons employed to carry letters to and from the cardinal.