Chapter V: Introduction: The Paston Family (3)

[Sidenote: Cade’s Rebellion.] Hence arose Jack Cade’s rebellion, a movement which we must not permit ourselves to look upon as a vulgar outbreak of the rabble. Whole districts of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex rose in arms, clamouring for redress of grievances; and it is certain that the insurgents met with a large amount of sympathy, even from those who did not actually take part with them.[69-1] As their leader, they selected a man who called himself Mortimer, and who, besides some experience in war, was evidently possessed of no small talent for generalship. It afterwards turned out that his real name was Cade, that he was a native of Ireland, and that he had been living a year before in the household of Sir Thomas Dacre in Sussex, when he was obliged to abjure the kingdom for killing a woman who was with child. He then betook himself to France and served in the French war against England. What induced him to return does not appear, unless we may suppose, which is not unlikely, that some misdemeanour when in the service of France made the French soil fully as dangerous to him as the English. In England he seems to have assumed the name of Aylmer, and passed himself off as a physician. He married a squire’s daughter, and dressed in scarlet; and when the rebellion broke out in Kent he called himself John Mortimer, a cousin of the Duke of York.

[Footnote 69-1: The late Mr. Durrant Cooper, in an interesting
paper read before a meeting of the Kent Archæological Society,
examined the long list of names given on the _Patent Roll_ of 28
Henry VI., and proved from them that the insurrection was by no
means of a very plebeian or disorderly character. ‘In several
hundreds,’ he says, ‘the constables duly, and as if legally,
summoned the men; and many parishes, particularly Marden,
Penshurst, Hawkhurst, Northfleet, Boughton-Malherbe, Smarden, and
Pluckley, furnished as many men as could be found in our day fit
for arms.’]

The first disturbances took place at Whitsuntide in the latter end of May. In the second week of June[70-1] a considerable army from the counties of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex encamped upon Blackheath. The king, who, on receiving news of the rising, had dissolved the parliament then sitting at Leicester, arrived in London on Saturday the 13th, and took up his quarters at the priory of St. John’s, near Smithfield. He had with him 20,000 men under arms, but for some reason or other did not set out against the rebels till the following Thursday, the 18th.[70-1] They, meanwhile, had withdrawn in the night-time,[70-2] and the king and his host occupied their position on Blackheath. The royal forces, however, proceeded no further. Only a detachment, under Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother William, was sent to pursue the insurgents. An encounter took place at Sevenoaks on the 18th,[70-3] in which both the Staffords were killed. Their defeat spread dismay and disaffection in the royal camp. The noblemen who had accompanied the king to Blackheath could no longer keep their men together, the latter protesting that unless justice were done on certain traitors who had misled the king, they would go over to the Captain of Kent. To satisfy them, Lord Say was arrested and sent to the Tower; but even with this concession the king did not dare presume upon their loyalty. He withdrew to Greenwich, and the whole of his army dispersed. The king himself returned to London by water, and made preparations during the next two or three days to remove to Kenilworth. The mayor and commons of the city went to him to beseech him to remain, offering to live and die with him, and pay half a year’s cost of his household. But all was to no purpose. The king had not even the manliness of Richard II. at Smithfield, and he took his departure to Kenilworth.[71-1]

[Footnote 70-1: These dates were given differently in previous
issues of this Introduction. For a rectification of the chronology
of the rebellion I am indebted to Kriehn’s _English Rising_ in
1450, pp. 125 and following.]

[Footnote 70-2: According to No. 119 of our collection this
retreat would appear to have been on the 22nd June, but that date
is certainly an error.]

[Footnote 70-3: The 18th June is given as the date of Sir Humphrey
Stafford’s death in _Inquis. post mortem_, 28 Henry VI. No. 7.]

[Footnote 71-1: W. Worc.--_Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_
(edited by me for the Camden Soc.), 67.--Chronicle in MS. Cott.
Vitell. A. xvi.]

The city, thus deserted by its sovereign, knew not for a time what to do. A party within the Common Council itself ventured to open negotiations with the insurgents, and Alderman Cooke passed to and fro under the safe-conduct of the Captain.[71-2] To many it may have seemed doubtful loyalty to support the government of Lord Say and his friends against an oppressed population. On the 1st day of July[71-3] the insurgents entered Southwark. On the 2nd a Common Council was called by the Lord Mayor to provide means for resisting their entry into the city; but the majority voted for their free admission, and Alderman Robert Horne, who was the leading speaker against them, was committed to prison for his boldness. [Sidenote: The rebels enter London.] That same afternoon the so-called Mortimer and his followers passed over London Bridge into the city. The Captain, after passing the drawbridge, hewed the ropes asunder with his sword. His first proceedings were marked by order and discipline. He issued proclamations in the king’s name against robbery and forced requisitions, but he rode through the different streets as if to place the capital under military government; and when he came to London Stone, he struck it with his sword, saying, ‘Now is Mortimer lord of this city.’ Finally, he gave instructions to the Lord Mayor about the order to be kept within his jurisdiction, and returned for the night to his quarters in Southwark. On the following morning, Friday the 3rd, he again entered the city, when he caused Lord Say to be sent for from the Tower. That no resistance was made to this demand by Lord Scales, who had the keeping of the fortress, may seem strange. But there was a reason for it which most of the chroniclers do not tell us. The king had been obliged to listen to the grievances of his ‘Commons’ and to withdraw his protection from his favourites. He had granted a commission ‘to certain lords and to the mayor and divers justices, to inquire of all persons that were traitors, extortioners, or oppressors of the king’s people.’[72-1] Lord Say was accordingly formally arraigned at a regular sessions at the Guildhall. But when the unfortunate nobleman claimed the constitutional privilege of being tried by his peers, the pretence of law was finally laid aside. A company of the insurgents took him from the officers and hurried him off to the Standard in Cheap, where, before he was half shriven, his head was cut off and stuck upon a long pole. A son-in-law of his named Crowmer, who was then very unpopular as sheriff of Kent, met with a similar fate. He was beheaded in Cade’s presence at Mile End. Barbarity now followed violence. The lifeless heads of Say and Crowmer were carried through the streets, and made to kiss each other. At the same time one Bailey was beheaded at Whitechapel on a charge of necromancy, the real cause of his death being, as it was reported, that he was an old acquaintance of Cade’s who might have revealed something of his past history.

[Footnote 71-2: Holinshed, iii. 632.]

[Footnote 71-3: I leave this part of the story as it was
originally written, though here, too, the chronology seems to
require rectification, especially from sources since published,
for which the reader may consult Kriehn’s work, p. 129.]

[Footnote 72-1: MS. Vitellius A. xvi. fol. 107, quoted by Kriehn,
p. 92.]

It may have been the expectation of inevitable exposure that induced Cade now to relax discipline, and set an example of spoliation himself. He entered and pillaged the house of Philip Malpas, an alderman known as a friend of the Court, and therefore unpopular in the city. Next day he dined at a house in the parish of St. Margaret Pattens, and then robbed his host. At each of these acts of robbery the rabble were sharers of the spoil. But, of course, such proceedings completely alienated all who had anything to lose, and the mayor and aldermen began to devise measures for expelling Cade and his followers from the city. For this end they negotiated with Lord Scales and Matthew Gough, who had then the keeping of the Tower.

For three days successively Cade had entered the city with his men, and retired in the evening to Southwark. But on Sunday, the 5th of July, he for some reason remained in Southwark all day. In the evening the mayor and citizens, with a force under Matthew Gough, came and occupied London Bridge to prevent the Kentish men again entering the city. [Sidenote: Battle on London Bridge.] The Captain called his men to arms, and attacked the citizens with such impetuosity, that he drove them back from the Southwark end of the bridge to the drawbridge in the centre. This the insurgents set on fire, after inflicting great losses on the citizens, many of whom were slain or drowned in defending it. Matthew Gough himself was among those who perished. Still, the fight was obstinately contested, the advantage being for the moment now with one party and now with the other. It continued all through the night till nine on the following morning; when at last the Kentish men began to give way, and a truce was made for a certain number of hours.

[[Sidenote: Battle on London Bridge.
_final . missing_]]

A favourable opportunity now presented itself for mediation. Although the king had retired to Kenilworth, he had left behind him in London some leading members of his council, among whom were Cardinal Kemp, Archbishop of York,[73-1] then Lord Chancellor, and Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester. The former had taken refuge in the Tower, under the protection of Lord Scales; and he called to him the latter, who lay concealed at Holywell.[73-2] A conference was arranged between them and the insurgents, and both the Cardinal and Bishop Waynflete[73-3] with some others crossed the river and met with Cade in St. Margaret’s Church in Southwark. In the end matters were satisfactorily arranged, and the bishop produced two general pardons prepared by the Chancellor, the first for the Captain himself, and the second for his followers. The offer was embraced with eagerness. The men were by this time disgusted with their leader, and alarmed at the result of their own acts. By thousands they accepted the amnesty and began to return homewards. But Cade, who knew that his pardon would avail him little when the history of his past life came to be investigated, wisely made friends to himself after the fashion of the Unjust Steward. He broke open the gaols of the King’s Bench and Marshalsea, and formed a new company out of the liberated prisoners.[74-1] He then despatched to Rochester a barge laden with the goods he had taken from Malpas and others in London, and prepared to go thither himself by land. He and his new following appear to have been still in Southwark on the 8th of July, but to have passed through Dartford to Rochester on the 9th, where they continued still in arms against the king on the 10th and 11th.[74-2] An attempt they made upon the castle of Queenborough was resisted by Sir Roger Chamberlain, to whom a reward was given in the following year in acknowledgment of his services.[74-3] Meanwhile a proclamation was issued offering a reward of a thousand marks for Cade’s apprehension, and ten marks for that of any of his followers; ‘for,’ says a contemporary chronicler, ‘it was openly known that his name was not Mortimer; his name was John Cade; and therefore his charter stood in no strength.’[74-4]

[Footnote 73-1: Inaccurately called Archbishop of Canterbury by
Fabyan and others. He was not translated to Canterbury till 1452.]

[Footnote 73-2: Hall’s _Chronicle_. Holy Well was a mineral spring
to the north of London, much frequented before the Reformation,
when it was stopped up as being considered a place of
superstitious resort. A century afterwards it was discovered anew
by a Mr. Sadler, from whom the locality is named to this day
Sadler’s Wells.]

[Footnote 73-3: Some doubt seems to be thrown on Hall’s statement
that both prelates crossed the river, as earlier writers say the
Chancellor _sent_ pardons under the Great Seal. William Worcester,
moreover, makes no mention of the cardinal, but says that the
Bishop of Winchester and others of the king’s council spoke with
the Captain of Kent. But the ‘Short English Chronicle’ in the
_Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_, edited by me for the Camden
Society in 1880 (p. 68), does exactly the reverse, and omitting
all reference to the Bishop of Winchester, says: ‘And forthewithe
went the Chaunseler to the Capteyne and sessed him and gave him a
chartur and his men an other.’]

[Footnote 74-1: Hall’s _Chronicle_.]

[Footnote 74-2: See _Act of Attainder_, 29 Hen. VI. _Rolls of
Parl._ vi. 224.]

[Footnote 74-3: Devon’s _Issue Rolls_, 471. Davies’ _English
Chron._ 67.]

[Footnote 74-4: _Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_, 68.]

The feeble remains of the rebellion were already quarrelling about the booty Cade had conveyed out of London. Their leader now took horse and escaped in disguise towards the woody country about Lewes. He was pursued by Alexander Iden, a gentleman who had just been appointed sheriff of Kent in place of the murdered Crowmer. [Sidenote: Capture and death of Cade.] Iden overtook him in a garden at Heathfield, and made him prisoner, not without a scuffle, in which Cade was mortally wounded, so that on being conveyed to London he died on the way. It only remained to use his carcass as a terror to evil-doers. His head was cut off and placed upon London Bridge, with the face looking towards Kent. His body was drawn through the streets of London, then quartered, and the quarters sent to four different places very widely apart,--one of them to Blackheath, one to Norwich, one to Salisbury, and one to Gloucester.[75-1]

[Footnote 75-1: W. Worc. Fabyan. Davies’ _English Chronicle_
(Camden Soc.), 67. Ellis’ _Letters_, 2nd Series i. 115.]

If the dispersion of traitors’ limbs for exhibition in many places could have effectually repressed disloyalty, the whole realm ought now to have been at rest. The quarters of another Kentish rebel, who, under the name of Bluebeard, had raised disturbances in the preceding February, were at that moment undergoing public exhibition in London, Norwich, and the Cinque Ports. Those of two others were about this time despatched by the sheriffs of London to Chichester, Rochester, Portsmouth, Colchester, Stamford, Coventry, Newbury, and Winchester. The heads of all these wretches were set upon London Bridge, which in the course of this miserable year bore no less than twenty-three such horrid ornaments.[75-2]

[Footnote 75-2: Ellis, _ib._ MS. Vitell. A. xvi.]

[Sidenote: Further disturbances.] But with all this, sedition was not put down, even in the county of Kent; for I find by the evidence of authentic records that a new rising took place in August at Feversham, under one William Parminter, who, undeterred by the fate of Cade, gathered about him 400 men, and called himself _the second_ Captain of Kent. This affair is quite unnoticed by historians, and all I know of it is derived from a pardon to one of those engaged in it.[75-3] But even Parminter was not the last ‘Captain of Kent’ that made his appearance this year; for the very same title was immediately afterwards assumed by one John Smyth, for whose capture a reward of £40 was ordered to be paid to the Duke of Somerset on the 3rd of October.[75-4] And the chroniclers, though they do not mention these disturbances, tell us that such things were general over all the kingdom. In Wiltshire, at the time that Cade was at Blackheath, William Ayscough, Bishop of Salisbury, had one day said mass at Edington, when he was dragged from the altar by a band of his own tenants and murdered in his alb and stole at the top of a neighbouring hill. He was the second bishop who had been murdered that year by the populace. Another insurrection in the same county in August is mentioned in a letter of James Gresham’s, the number of the insurgents being reported at nine or ten thousand men.[76-1] These instances may suffice as evidence of the widespread troubles of the time.

[Footnote 75-3: _See_ document in Appendix to this Introduction;
also Devon’s _Issue Rolls_, p. 472. It would seem as if the entry
there dated 5th August ought to have been 5th September, as
Parminter does not seem to have been taken even on the last day of
August.]

[Footnote 75-4: Nicolas’s _Proceedings of the Privy Council_, vi.
101.]

[Footnote 76-1: _See_ No. 131.]

[Sidenote: Sir John Fastolf.] Of the degree of private suffering and misery inflicted in particular cases by these commotions we have a lively picture in Letter 126. At the time when Cade and his followers were encamped upon Blackheath, Sir John Fastolf, a noted warrior of the time, of whom we shall have much to say hereafter, was residing at his house in Southwark. He was a man who had not succeeded in standing well with his contemporaries, and the fact may have contributed not a little to the sensitiveness of a naturally irascible character. In one engagement with the French[76-2] he was actually accused of cowardice, a charge which he seems afterwards satisfactorily to have disproved. For some years, however, he had given up soldiering and returned to his native country, where he served the king in a different manner as a member of his Privy Council. But in this capacity too he was unpopular. His advice should have been valuable at least in reference to the affairs of France; but it does not seem to have been taken. The warnings and counsels which he gave with reference to the maintenance of the English conquests in France he caused his secretary, William Worcester, to put in writing for his justification; but though his admonitions were neglected by those to whom they were addressed, popular rumour held him partly accountable for the loss of Normandy. Of this opinion some evidence was given in the course of Cade’s insurrection.

[Footnote 76-2: The Battle of Patay.]

As a member of the King’s Council Fastolf thought it right to send a messenger to ascertain what were the demands of the insurgents. [Sidenote: John Payn and the rebels.] He therefore commanded one John Payn, who was in his service, to take a man with him and two of the best horses of his stable, and ride to Blackheath. When he arrived there, Cade ordered him to be taken prisoner. To save his master’s horses from being stolen, Payn gave them to the attendant, who galloped away with them as fast as he could, while he himself was brought before the Captain. Cade then asked him what he had come for, and why he had caused his fellow to run away with the horses. He answered that he had come to join some brothers of his wife, and other companions who were among the insurgents. On this some one called out to the Captain that he was a man of Sir John Fastolf’s, and that the two horses were Sir John’s. The Captain raised a cry of ‘Treason!’ and sent him through the camp with a herald of the Duke of Exeter before him, in the duke’s coat-of-arms. At four quarters of the field the herald proclaimed with an _Oyez_ that Payn had been sent as a spy upon them by the greatest traitor in England or France, namely, by one Sir John Fastolf, who had diminished all the garrisons of Normandy, Le Mans, and Maine, and thereby caused the loss of all the king’s inheritance beyond sea. It was added that Sir John had garrisoned his place with the old soldiers of Normandy, to oppose the Commons when they came to Southwark; and, as the emissary of such a traitor, Payn was informed that he should lose his head.

He was brought to the Captain’s tent, where an axe and block were produced. But fortunately he had friends among the host; and Robert Poynings, Cade’s swordbearer and carver, who afterwards married John Paston’s sister Elizabeth, declared plainly that there should die a hundred or two others if Payn were put to death. He was therefore allowed to live on taking an oath that he would go to Southwark and arm himself, and return to join the Commons. He accordingly carried to Fastolf a statement of their demands, advising him at the same time to put away his old soldiers and withdraw himself into the Tower. The old warrior felt that the advice was prudent; he left but two of his servants in the place, and but for Payn the insurgents would have burned it to the ground. The faithful dependant, however, had to pay the full penalty of his master’s unpopularity. He seems to have entertained the rioters for some time at his own cost. Afterwards the Captain took from him some valuable clothes and armour, and sent men to ransack his chamber of bonds, money, and other stores. The insurgents also robbed his house in Kent, and threatened to hang his wife and children. Finally, on the night of the battle on London Bridge, Cade thrust him into the thickest of the combat, where he continued six hours unable to extricate himself, and was dangerously wounded.

To have passed through all this was surely a severe enough trial; yet after that commotion he had further trouble to endure. He was impeached by the Bishop of Rochester, and thrown into the Marshalsea by command of the queen. He was also threatened to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, in order that he might accuse his master Fastolf of treason; but in the end his friends succeeded in procuring for him a charter of pardon. To earn this, however, as we find from the document itself, he had to appear before the king in person, during a progress which he made in Kent the year after the rebellion, and, amid a crowd of other supplicants whose bodies were stripped naked down to their legs, humbly to beg for mercy.[78-1]

[Footnote 78-1: _See_ Appendix to Introduction.]

_The Dukes of York and Somerset_

[Sidenote: The Duke of York.] Cade’s rebellion was attributed by the Court to the machinations of the Duke of York. The disturbances that had prevailed for some months previously seem to have been partly associated with his name. When Adam de Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester, was murdered in the beginning of the year, the malcontents talked of inviting York over from Ireland to redress the wrongs of the people. The exclusion of York and other lords of royal blood from the king’s councils was also made an express ground of complaint by the Kentish insurgents. The repetition of his name in the mouths of the disaffected was anything but grateful to the party then in power. It was construed as being in itself an evidence of his disloyalty. But the popular complaints as to his treatment were both just and reasonable, for it was a matter that concerned the public weal. The rank, wealth, and lineage of the Duke of York, his connection with the blood-royal, his large possessions, and finally his well-proved ability both as a general and an administrator--all marked him out as one who ought to have been invited to take a leading part in the government of the realm; but a faction about the king had taken care to keep him as much as possible at a distance from the Court. Moreover, it had maligned and aspersed him in his absence, so that it would have been positively insecure for himself to allow the charges to accumulate. A time had clearly come when it was no longer his duty to obey the orders of others. His enemies were becoming more and more unpopular every day, and the only hope of improving the administration of affairs depended upon his taking the initiative.

[Sidenote: Comes over from Ireland.] He accordingly determined to avail himself of the privilege due to his rank, and lay his requests at the foot of the throne. A little before Michaelmas he came over from Ireland, collected 4000 of his retainers upon the Welsh Marches, and with them proceeded to London. His coming, although unsolicited by the king and without leave asked, was nevertheless not altogether unexpected. Attempts were made to stop his landing at Beaumaris, and bodies of men lay in wait for him in various places to interrupt his progress. For this, however, he could not have been unprepared. He knew well the hatred entertained towards him at the Court, for he had experienced pretty much the same thing years before in going to Ireland, as now in coming from it. Although he was sent to that country in the king’s service, and as the king’s lieutenant, there were persons commissioned to apprehend him at several points in his journey thither; and now on his return similar efforts were made to prevent his advance to London. As regards himself they were altogether fruitless; but it is not improbable that they succeeded in deterring many of his followers from joining him. William Tresham, the Speaker of the last Parliament, having received a summons from the duke to meet him, was waylaid and murdered in Northamptonshire by a body of the retainers of Lord Grey of Ruthin. For two months the murderers went at large. The sheriff of the county durst not arrest them, and it was only on the meeting of Parliament that a special act was passed for their punishment.[80-1]

[Footnote 80-1: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 211-12.]

York, however, pursued his way, in spite of all opposition, to the royal presence, and great was the dismay of those then about the king. According to an act passed against him nine years later, his approach was not unaccompanied by violence. He and his followers, it is said, came in warlike array to Westminster Palace, and ‘beat down the spears and walls’ in the king’s chamber. If so, we should infer that his access to the king was opposed even at the last moment. But the opposition was ineffectual, and the reception he met with from Henry himself did not indicate that the king at all resented his conduct.

It must have been on his first interview with Henry that he presented a petition and received a reply from him, which are printed in Holinshed as follows:--

_Richard, Duke of York: his letter to King Henry_[80-2]

Please it your Highness to conceive that since my departing out of
this your realm by your commandment, and being in your service in
your land of Ireland, I have been informed that divers language hath
been said of me to your most excellent estate which should sound to
my dishonour and reproach and charge of my person; howbeit that I
have been, and ever will be, your true liegeman and servant, and if
there be any man that will or dare say the contrary or charge me
otherwise, I beseech your rightwiseness to call him before your high
presence, and I will declare me for my discharge as a true knight
ought to do. And if I do not, as I doubt not but I shall, I beseech
you to punish me as the poorest man of your land. And if he be found
untrue in his suggestion and information, I beseech you of your
highness that he be punished after his desert in example of all
other.

Please it your Excellency to know that as well before my departing
out of this your realm for to go into your land of Ireland in your
full noble service, as since, certain persons have lain in wait for
to hearken upon me, as Sir John Talbot, knight, at the castle of
Holt, Sir Thomas Stanley, knight, in Cheshire, Pulford at Chester,
Elton at Worcester, Brooke at Gloucester, and Richard, groom of your
chamber, at Beaumaris; which had in charge, as I am informed, to
take me, and put me into your castle of Conway, and to strike off
the head of Sir William Oldhall, knight, and to have put in prison
Sir William Devereux, knight, and Sir Edmund Malso (Mulso), knight,
withouten enlarging until the time that your Highness had appointed
their deliverance.

Item, at such time as I was purposed for to have arrived at your
haven of Beaumaris, for to have come to your noble presence to
declare me your true man and subject, as my duty is, my landing was
stopped and forebarred by Henry Norris, Thomas Norris, William
Buckley, William Grust, and Bartholomew Bould, your officers in
North Wales, that I should not land there, nor have victuals nor
refreshing for me and my fellowship, as I have written to your
Excellency here before; so far forth, that Henry Norris, deputy to
the chamberlain of North Wales, said unto me that he had in
commandment that I should in no wise have landing, refreshing, nor
lodging, for men nor horse, nor other thing that might turn to my
worship or ease; putting the blame upon Sir William Say, usher of
your chamber, saying and affirming that I am against your intent and
[held] as a traitor, as I am informed. And, moreover, certain
letters were made and delivered unto Chester, Shrewsbury, and to
other places, for to let mine entry into the same.

Item, above all wrongs and injuries above said, done unto me of
malice without any cause, I being in your land of Ireland in your
honourable service, certain commissions were made and directed unto
divers persons, which for the execution of the same sat in certain
places, and the juries impanelled and charged. Unto the which juries
certain persons laboured instantly to have me indicted of treason,
to the intent for to have undone me and mine issue, and corrupted my
blood, as it is openly published. Beseeching your Majesty royal of
your righteousness to do examine these matters, and thereupon to do
such justice in this behalf as the cause requireth; for mine intent
is fully to pursue to your Highness for the conclusion of these
matters.

[Footnote 80-2: The whole of this correspondence is attributed by
Holinshed and Stow to the year 1452; but it appears to me clearly
to belong to the year 1450, when the Duke had just returned from
Ireland. See _Chronicle of London_, 136; though internal evidence
alone will, I think, satisfy the careful student.]

_The Answer of King Henry to the Duke of York_

Cousin, we have seen the bill that ye took us late, and also
understand the good humble obedience that ye in yourself show unto
us, as well in word as in deed; wherefore our intent is the more
hastily to ease you of such things as were in your said bill.
Howbeit that at our more leisure we might answer you to your said
bill, yet we let you wit that, for the causes aforesaid, we will
declare you now our intent in these matters. Sith it is that a long
time among the people hath been upon you many strange language, and
in especial anon after your [qu. their?][82-1] disordinate and
unlawful slaying of the bishop of Chichester,[82-2] divers and many
of the untrue shipmen and other said, in their manner, words against
our estate, making menace to our own person by your sayings, that ye
should be fetched with many thousands, and ye should take upon you
that which ye neither ought, nor, as we doubt not, ye will not
attempt; so far forth that it was said to our person by divers, and
especially, we remember, of one Wasnes which had like words unto us.
And also there were divers of such false people that went on and had
like language in divers of our towns of our land, which by our
subjects were taken and duly executed. Wherefore we sent to divers
of our courts and places to hearken and to take heed if any such
manner coming were, and if there had been, for to resist it; but
coming into our land our true subject as ye did, our intent was not
that ye, nor less of estate of our subjects, nor none of your
servants should not have been letted nor warned, but in goodly wise
received; howbeit that peradventure your sudden coming, without
certain warning, caused our servants to do as they did, considering
the causes abovesaid. And as to the indictment that ye spoke of, we
think verily and hold for certain, that there was none such. And if
ye may truly prove that any person was thereabouts, the matter shall
be demeaned as the case shall require, so that he shall know it is
to our great displeasure. Upon this, for the easing of your heart in
all such matters, we declare, repute and admit you as our true and
faithful subject, and as our faithful cousin.

[Footnote 82-1: I have no doubt this is a misreading of the
contracted form ‘y{r}’ which was intended for ‘their.’ To accuse
York of the murder of the Bishop of Chichester, and apparently as
a principal, not an accessory in that murder, when he was at the
time in Ireland, would have been absurd. Besides, the tenor of the
whole of this reply is to exculpate York of all charges.]

[Footnote 82-2: Misprinted ‘Chester’ in Holinshed.]

So far, York had gained his object. The charges against him were repudiated by the highest authority in the kingdom. But it was impossible that the matter could rest there. His own interests and those of the public alike compelled him to demand a full inquiry into the machinations of his adversaries, and when admitted to freer intercourse with Henry he was able to support this request by most inconvenient arguments. Town and country now listened with eagerness for news of a long looked-for crisis, while, as it seemed, the old _régime_ was being quietly laid aside at Westminster. [Sidenote: A change of government.] ‘Sir, and it please,’ writes one newsmonger, William Wayte, the clerk of Justice Yelverton, ‘Sir, and it please, I was in my lord of York’s house, and I heard much thing more than my master writeth unto you of. I heard much thing in Fleet Street. But, sir, my lord was with the king, and he visaged so the matter that all the king’s household was and is afraid right sore. And my said lord hath put a bill to the king and desired much thing which is much after the Commons’ desire; and all is upon justice, and to put all those that be indicted under arrest without surety or mainprise, and to be tried by law as law will; insomuch that on Monday Sir William Oldhall was with the king at Westminster more than two hours, and had of the king good cheer.’[83-1]

[Footnote 83-1: _See_ No. 142.]

Sir William Oldhall, a friend and companion-in-arms of the Duke of York in France, had been summoned to the king’s councils more than once before.[83-2] But the last occasion was eleven years before this, at a time when it was doubtless felt to be necessary to obtain the sanction beforehand of all parties in the State to the proposed negotiations for peace at Calais. From that day till now we do not hear of him, and we may presume that he was not invited to Court. By the Duke of York’s letter just quoted, it would seem that courtiers had planned to have him beheaded. But now the old exclusiveness was defeated. Men whose patriotism and generalship, it was believed, would have averted the loss of France, were at length allowed free access to their sovereign; while men who were believed to have culpably misdirected the king, and by their favouritism and partiality to have perverted the course of justice throughout the kingdom, stood in fear of a strict inquiry being made into their misdeeds. For such was the sole purport of the ‘bill,’ or petition presented by the Duke of York as mentioned by William Wayte, the exact text of which will be seen in No. 143. The king’s answer to this is preserved in Holinshed as follows:--

[Footnote 83-2: Nicolas’s _Proceedings of the Privy Council_, iv.
212, v. 108.]

_The Answer of King Henry to the Duke of York_

Cousin, as touching your bill last put up to us, we understand well
that ye, of good heart, counsel and advertise us to the setting up
of justice and to the speedy punishing of some persons indicted or
noised, offering your service to be ready at commandment in the
same; sith it is, that for many causes moving us to have determined
in our soul to stablish a sad and substantial Council, giving them
more ample authority and power than ever we did before this, in the
which we have appointed you to be one. But sith it is not
accustomed, sure, nor expedient, to take a conclusion and conduct by
advice or counsel of one person by himself, for the conservation (?)
it is observed that the greatest and the best, the rich and the
poor, in liberty, virtue and effect of their[84-1] voices be equal;
we have therefore determined within ourself to send for our
Chancellor of England and for other Lords of our Council, yea and
all other, together within short time, ripely to common of these and
other our great matters. In the which communication such
conclusions, by the grace of God, shall be taken, as shall sound to
His pleasure, the weal of us and our land, as well in these matters
as in any other.

[Footnote 84-1: Misprinted ‘your’ in Holinshed.]

[Sidenote: Politics in Norfolk.] The time was favourable to men like John Paston, who had been wronged by a powerful neighbour such as Lord Molynes, and had been hitherto denied redress. There seemed also a hope of destroying, once for all, the influence of Tuddenham and Heydon in the county of Norfolk. It was proposed that on the Duke of York visiting Norfolk, which he intended to do, the mayor and aldermen of Norwich should ride to meet him, and that complaints should be preferred against the party of Tuddenham and Heydon in the name of the whole city. ‘And let that be done,’ adds William Wayte, ‘in the most lamentable wise; for, Sir, but if (_i.e._ unless) my Lord hear some foul tales of them, and some hideous noise and cry, by my faith they are else like to come to grace.’ Owing to the influence of the Duke of York, a new Parliament was summoned to meet in November, and John Paston was urged by some friends to get himself returned as a member. But it was still more strongly recommended that the Earl of Oxford should meet the duke, apparently with the view of arranging the list of candidates--a responsibility which the earl, for his part, seems to have declined. The Duke of Norfolk met with the Duke of York at Bury St. Edmunds, and these two dukes settled that matter between them. The Earl of Oxford modestly contented himself with reporting their decision, and advising that their wishes should be carried into effect.[85-1]

[Footnote 85-1: Nos. 142, 145, 148, and 149. The influence of a
powerful nobleman on the elections was evidently quite a matter of
course. What use York made of it, or attempted to make of it,
cannot so easily be determined. Of the two candidates proposed by
him for the county of Norfolk, only one was returned, the name of
Sir Miles Stapleton being substituted for that of Sir William
Chamberlain (_see_ vol. ii. p. 185 note 1). It appears from two of
the above cited letters that Stapleton was a favourite candidate
with the Pastons and their friends, and that he was urged to wait
on the Duke of York on his coming to Norwich.]

The Parliament met on the 6th November, and Sir William Oldhall was chosen Speaker. About the same time a commission of _Oyer and Terminer_ which had been issued as early as the first of August,[85-2] began its labours at Norwich, and the Earl of Oxford stayed away from Parliament to attend it. Mr. Justice Yelverton was sent down from Westminster to sit on that tribunal along with him. There seemed hope at last of redress being had for the wrongs and violence that had prevailed in the county of Norfolk; but the course of justice was not yet an easy one. Great pressure had been put upon the king, even at the last moment, that Yelverton should be countermanded, and Lord Molynes had spoken of his own dispute with Paston in the king’s presence in a manner that made the friends of the latter wish he had been then at Westminster to see after his own interests. The Lords of the Council, however, determined that Yelverton should keep his day for going into Norfolk. When he arrived there, he had occasion to report that there were many persons ill-disposed towards Tuddenham and Heydon, but that it was most important they should be encouraged by a good sheriff and under-sheriff being appointed, else there would be a total miscarriage of justice. For the annual election of sheriffs had been delayed this year, apparently owing to the state of parties. Until the Duke of York arrived in London for the Parliament, his friends would not allow them to be nominated; and the state of suspense and anxiety occasioned by this delay is clearly shown in the letters written during November.[86-1]

[Footnote 85-2: _See_ No. 119.]

[Footnote 86-1: Nos. 151, 153, 154, 155, 156.]

The truth is, the Duke of York had not yet succeeded in establishing the government upon anything like a firm or satisfactory basis. In times like our own there is little difficulty in determining the responsibility of ministers; but in the rough judgment of the ‘Commons’ of those days an error in policy was nothing short of treason. Whoever took upon him to guide the king’s counsels knew very well the danger of the task; and York (if I understand his character aright) was anxious, until he was driven desperate, never to assume more authority than he was distinctly warranted in doing. He could not but remember that his father had suffered death for conspiring to depose Henry V., and that his own high birth and descent from Edward III. caused his acts to be all the more jealously watched by those who sought to estrange him from his sovereign. He therefore made it by no means his aim to establish for himself a marked ascendency. He rather sought to show his moderation. I find, indeed, that at this particular period he not only removed two members of the Council, Lord Dudley and the Abbot of St. Peter’s at Gloucester, but sent them prisoners to his own castle of Ludlow.[86-2] This, however, he could hardly have done without permission from the king, as it was the express object of his petition above referred to, that persons accused of misconducting themselves in high places should be committed for trial; and judging from the terms of the king’s answer, I should say that it must have been done by the authority of the new Council, which Henry therein declared it to be his intention to constitute.

[Footnote 86-2: Stow’s _Chronicle_, p. 392.]

This new Council was probably what we should call in these days a coalition ministry. [Sidenote: The Duke of Somerset.] York’s great rival, the Duke of Somerset, had come over from Normandy a little before York himself came over from Ireland. On the 11th of September, while Cardinal Kemp, who was then Lord Chancellor, was sitting at Rochester on a commission of _Oyer and Terminer_ to try the Kentish rebels,[87-1] he affixed the Great Seal to a patent appointing Somerset Constable of England.[87-2] In that capacity, as we have already seen, the duke arrested one of the new Kentish leaders that started up after Cade’s rebellion had been quelled. There is no doubt that he stood high in the king’s confidence, and that he was particularly acceptable to Queen Margaret. He was, nevertheless, one of the most unpopular men in England, on account of his surrender of Caen and total loss of Normandy in the preceding year; and as the Parliament was now called, among other reasons, expressly to provide for the defence of the kingdom, and for speedy succours being sent to preserve the king’s other dominions in France,[87-3] it was impossible that his conduct should not be inquired into. The short sitting of Parliament before Christmas was greatly occupied by controversy between York and Somerset.[87-4] On the 1st of December the latter was placed under arrest. His lodgings at the Black Friars were broken into and pillaged by the populace, and he himself was nearly killed, but was rescued from their violence by a barge of his brother-in-law the Earl of Devon. Next day the Dukes of York and Norfolk caused proclamation to be made through the city that no man should commit robbery on pain of death, and a man was actually beheaded in Cheap for disobeying this order. As a further demonstration against lawlessness, the king and his lords, on Thursday the 3rd December, rode through the city in armour, either side of the way being kept by a line of armed citizens throughout the route of the procession. It was the most brilliant display of the kind the Londoners of that day had ever seen.[88-1]

[Footnote 87-1: _See_ vol. ii. pp. 161-2.] [[Letter 131]]

[Footnote 87-2: Rymer, xi. 276.]

[Footnote 87-3: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 210.]

[Footnote 87-4: W. Worc.]

[Footnote 88-1: MS. Cott. Vitell. A. xvi. Stow in his _Chronicle_
dates this procession a day later.]

The Duke of Somerset did not long remain in prison. Very soon after Christmas the king made him captain of Calais, and gave him the entire control of the royal household.[88-2] The Court was evidently bent on the restoration of the old order of things, so far as it dared to do so. The chief obstacle to this undoubtedly was the Parliament, which was, on the whole, so favourable to the Duke of York, that one member, Young of Bristol, had even ventured to move that he should be declared heir to the crown.[88-3] Parliament, however, could be prorogued; and, as Young found shortly afterwards, its members could be committed to the Tower. The speech of the Lord Chancellor on the meeting of Parliament had declared that it was summoned for three important causes: first, to provide for the defence of the kingdom, and especially the safeguard of the sea; secondly, for the speedy relief of the king’s subjects in the south of France, and aid against the French; thirdly, for pacifying the king’s subjects at home, and punishing the disturbances which had lately been so frequent. But practically nothing was done about any of these matters before Christmas. An act was passed for the more speedy levying of a subsidy granted in the last Parliament, and also an act of attainder against the murderers of William Tresham. The Lord Chancellor then, in the king’s name and in his presence, prorogued the Parliament till the 20th of January, declaring that the matters touching the defence of the kingdom were too great and difficult to be adequately discussed at that time. The same excuse, however, was again used for further prorogations until the 5th of May; and meanwhile fears began to be entertained in the country that all that had been done hitherto for a more impartial administration of justice was about to be upset.[88-4]

[Footnote 88-2: W. Worc.]

[Footnote 88-3: _The Chronicle of London_ (p. 137) says that ‘all
the Commons’ agreed to this proposition, and stood out for some
time against the Lords on the subject.]

[Footnote 88-4: _Rolls of Parl._ v. 210-14.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1451.] During the whole course of the succeeding year matters were in a very unsettled condition. At the very opening of the year we hear complaints that the sheriff, Jermyn, had not shown himself impartial, but was endeavouring to suppress complaints against certain persons at the coming sessions at Lynn. It was feared the king would pardon Tuddenham and Heydon the payment of their dues to the Exchequer for Suffolk; and if they did, payment of taxes would be generally refused, as Blake, the Bishop of Swaffham, having gone up to London, informed the Lord Chancellor himself. From London, too, men wrote in a manner that was anything but encouraging. The government was getting paralysed alike by debt and by indecision. ‘As for tidings here,’ writes John Bocking, ‘I certify you all is nought, or will be nought. The king borroweth his expenses for Christmas. The King of Arragon, the Duke of Milan, the Duke of Austria, the Duke of Burgundy, would be assistant to us to make a conquest, and nothing is answered nor agreed in manner save abiding the great deliberation that at the last shall spill all together.’ Chief-Justice Fortescue had been for a week expecting every night to be assaulted.[89-1] The only symptom of vigour at headquarters was the despatch of a commission of _Oyer and Terminer_ into Kent, for the trial of those who had raised disturbances during the preceding summer. As for the county of Norfolk, the only hope lay in a strong clamour being raised against oppressors. Sir John Fastolf showed himself anxious about the prosecution of certain indictments against Heydon, and his servant Bocking, and Wayte, the servant of Judge Yelverton, urged that strong representations should be made to Lord Scales against showing any favour to that unpopular lawyer.[89-2]

[Footnote 89-1: In earlier issues of this Introduction was added:
‘probably for no other reason than his high impartiality.’ Mr.
Plummer, I find, who knows him better, has not the same opinion of
Fortescue’s impartiality as a politician, but considers that he
was in danger just because he was so strong a Lancastrian. _See_
Introduction to _The Governance of England_, p. 50.]

[Footnote 89-2: Nos. 167, 169-174.]

[Sidenote: Tuddenham and Heydon.] By and by it was seen what good reason the friends of justice had for their apprehensions. It had been arranged that Tuddenham and Heydon should be indicted at a sitting of the commission of _Oyer and Terminer_ at Norwich in the ensuing spring. Rumours, however, began to prevail in Norwich that they who had promoted this commission in the county of Norfolk--the Earl of Oxford and Justice Yelverton, as well as John Paston and John Damme--were to be indicted in Kent by way of revenge. John Damme had before this caused Heydon to be indicted of treason for taking down one of those hideous memorials of a savage justice--the quarter of a man exposed in public. The man was doubtless a political victim belonging to Heydon’s own party; but Heydon was now looking to recover his influence, and he contrived to get the charge of treason retorted against Damme. Symptoms were observed in Norwich that the unpopular party were becoming bolder again. ‘Heydon’s men,’ wrote James Gloys to John Paston, ‘brought his own horse and his saddle through Aylesham on Monday, and they came in at the Bishop’s Gates at Norwich, and came over Tombland and into the Abbey; and sithen they said they should go to London for Heydon. Item, some say that Heydon should be made a knight, and much other language there is which causeth men to be afeard, weening that he should have a rule again.’[90-1]

[Footnote 90-1: Nos. 179 and 180.]