Chapter XXIII: The Exeter Conspiracy (1)

On 12 October 1537, Queen Jane gave birth to a son. Froude enthusiastically describes the public rejoicings: “The crown had an undoubted heir. The succession was sure. The King, who was supposed to be under a curse which refused him male posterity, was relieved from the bane. Providence had borne witness for him and had rewarded his policy. No revolution need be looked for on his death. The Catholics could not hope for their ‘jolly stirring.’—The insurrection was crushed. A prince was born. England was saved.”[1567] No doubt the birth of the prince greatly strengthened the King’s position. But perhaps the rejoicings of the people were not quite so heart-felt nor so universal as appeared outwardly. At least the following story shows that the hidden hatred of the King extended itself to his innocent baby son.

Some months after the birth of the prince a group of idlers were watching the funeral of a child in a London churchyard. For some reason the priest became suspicious, and, opening the shroud, found no child but a waxen image with two pins stuck through it. One of the bystanders went to a friend, a scrivener, said to be skilled in conjuring, and asked what this might mean. “Marry,” said the scrivener, “it was made to waste one. But,” quoth he, “he that made it was not his craft’s master, for he should have put it either in horse-dung or in a dunghill.” “Why, may one kill a man after this sort?” cried the other. “Yea, that may be done well enough,” said the man skilled in magic[1568]. The story of the wax child was rumoured through the country[1569], and it was said that the life so uncannily attacked was that of the baby Prince. On the death of Queen Jane rumours had been blown abroad that both the King and the Prince were dead as well[1570].

Any discussion of the general state of Europe would be out of place here, but a rough sketch of the situation is necessary. Henry was virtually at war with the Pope and though he was at peace with all the other powers he was on bad terms with his nephew James V of Scotland, his relations with the Emperor were strained, and his friendship with Francis far from cordial. His only real allies were the Protestant States of Germany. In these circumstances the Pope was naturally making every effort to obtain an ally who would fight for him against Henry. James would not invade England without French help; and Francis could not afford to have a second war on his hands. The Pope’s scheme was therefore to reconcile Francis and Charles, and then publish his censures on the understanding that they would refuse to continue their treaties with Henry unless he returned to the pale of the Church. If this had not the desired effect they were to forbid all trade whatsoever between their dominions and England. This, as the court of Rome thought, could not fail to end in a complete and bloodless victory. It was a beautiful plan; wiser men in later ages have believed it possible to stop the trade of nations by a word. On account of her isolation both in place and policy, England has often been the intended victim of such interdicts. Once, long afterwards, one was really attempted; there is no reason to believe that the Pope would have been more successful than Napoleon.

The first step was to reconcile Francis and Charles; one bond between them was their common dislike of the King of England. On becoming a widower Henry proposed to use his hand as a prize in the game of international politics. To his intense annoyance he found it was a prize which no one very much coveted. It was in vain he tried to strengthen himself by proposing to the Emperor a marriage with the Dowager Duchess of Milan and hinting to Francis that he was anxious to bestow his hand on a French Princess. He even made overtures for Mary of Guise when she was already betrothed to the King of Scots. In December peace was concluded between Francis and the Emperor; Henry hoped that by a skilful use of all opportunities to inflame their jealousy it might be a short and disturbed one, but for once the Pope decidedly had the advantage. In May 1538, Charles and Francis met at Nice: the Pope joined them there, with Pole among his attendant Cardinals. The two princes agreed on a ten years’ truce and parted the best of friends. They did not pledge themselves to anything with regard to England, though they listened politely to the Pope’s schemes and made no definite refusal. They were firm in their temporary friendship and Henry in vain tried to make Francis distrust his new ally by sending reports that Mary was to be betrothed to Don Luis of Portugal and the Duchy of Milan settled upon them. Moreover he had deeply offended the whole French Court by suggesting that several of the princesses might meet him at Calais and he would choose a bride among them.

If Henry was no nearer his re-marriage in August 1538 than he had been nine months before, neither was the Pope nearer his dream of the submission of England. Charles was preoccupied with the Turks and his own Protestants in Germany, and had no time to look for infidels and heretics in other countries. As to Francis, all his ambitions were fixed on strengthening his position on the continent, nor did he care in the least about the unity of the Faith, for which Charles had some regard. Neither of them would take the risk and expense of invading England without the other’s help; but a joint expedition was out of the question, for Charles would only have undertaken it on behalf of Mary, and Francis only in hopes of establishing James V on the thrones of both kingdoms. The appearance of a legitimate male heir to Henry was equally embarrassing to the rival schemers; and no doubt they determined to wait for a better time. The Prince might die in infancy, as all Katharine’s sons had done, or in youth, like the Duke of Richmond. As to the Pope’s plan of stopping England’s trade, it would mean considerable loss and no particular profit for both, and that matter was tacitly dropped. In spite of the truce and the meeting at Nice, Henry was in little more danger than before, and in much less than he appeared to be. The fate of the Poles was hastened because Henry feared an invasion by the Emperor at the Pope’s instigation—and feared it more than he need have done. But in them he was punishing if not exactly the innocent, at least the helpless. No European monarch had Exeter’s claim to the crown at heart: quite the contrary. If Charles relied on the Pole faction to raise a popular commotion in his favour (as Froude suggests), he was leaning on a very feeble reed[1571].

Meanwhile in England itself the King’s policy was triumphant. The destruction of the shrines, the surrenders of the great monasteries went merrily forward. Our Lady’s images and the bones of St Thomas were burnt in company with numerous “heretics,” who denied orthodox doctrines, and Friar Forest, who denied the King’s Supremacy[1572]. More commonplace executions for treason made a little variety. One of these was a sequel to the Pilgrimage, and the victim was no other than Thomas Miller, Lancaster Herald. He had been zealous for the King if ever man was: he had gone fearlessly to and fro between the rebels and the King’s troops, respected by all; he had turned the course of the Archbishop’s famous sermon at Pontefract; he had been “ungoodly handled” when he carried the King’s pardon to Durham; and all to end in his sharing the Pilgrims’ fate. In the summer of 1538 the following charges were brought against him:—

(1) He encouraged the rebels by kneeling before Robert Aske in Pontefract Castle.

(2) He promised the rebels that Cromwell should be delivered to them and their demands granted.

(3) He discouraged the King’s troops by saying the rebels had ten thousand horsemen, each with twenty angels in his pocket.

(4) He showed the King’s plans to the rebels.

(5) He defamed Cromwell and spread lying rumours against him, which chiefly made the northern men hate him.

(6) He answered, when asked how the northern men could be brought together seeing they had but two flags and no trumpets, drumslades, tabors or other instruments, that “it was marvel, but such was God,” by which he traitorously implied that God could help rebels[1573].

All these accusations, except the first and the last, were based on the unsupported evidence of two of the other heralds, who were his personal enemies, and could not possibly know what he had said while in the rebel host[1574]. Lancaster had knelt to Robert Aske, but from anything rather than disloyal motives; the remark in the last articles might have been made without any treasonable intent; all the rest look much like pure inventions. It was very easy in Tudor times to swear an enemy’s life away; if he had no near kinsfolk, there was nothing to trouble the perjurer afterwards but his own conscience.

Thomas Miller was hanged at York on 1 August, and the judge “devised that Lancaster’s head should be set up by the body of Aske.”[1575] It was not two years since Aske had greeted the herald so proudly in Pontefract Castle Hall. Two others, the vicar of Newark and a monk of Fountains, died for treason at the same time[1576].

At most of the northern assizes at this time one or two priests were executed for preaching against the Supremacy, or kindred offences. John Dobson, who dealt so largely in prophecies[1577], paid a heavy penalty for his string of rhymes, and another priest suffered with him. A third offender was a woman accused of witchcraft[1578]. Her name was Mabel Brigg, and she was a widow and farm-servant in Holderness. She was condemned for keeping the “Black Fast” or “St Trynian’s Fast” against the King and the Duke of Norfolk. It was said that she had once before fasted in the same way “for a man, and he brake his neck or it were all fasted, and so she trusted that they should do that had made all this business, and that was the King and this false Duke.” The witnesses did not agree as to how the fast was kept. It seems to have lasted six weeks, one day in each week being kept a fast day, and each week a day later than the last. This method of fasting was also used when money had been lost, in hopes of bringing about its recovery. It seems possible that Mabel Brigg was really fasting for this end and not for the King’s death, for the evidence is not very satisfactory, and the whole case is complicated by blackmail and private malice[1579].

These stories are told for the sake of such light as they may throw on the state of England during 1538. The outstanding events of the year, especially the universal destruction of the abbeys, are too well known to need any description[1580]. The Protestants, in spite of the burning of heretics, were rapidly increasing. The Papists, still vastly more powerful in numbers, were crushed in spirit. Everyone, from the greatest noble to the poorest commoner, could if he tried make something out of the fall of the monasteries; this fact influenced all classes, but especially the gentlemen, who sold, if not their souls, at least their honour, for a parcel of abbey lands. Only a few of the commons had enough intelligence to see that the King was killing the goose that laid his subjects golden eggs. Even if the worst accusations against the monks were true, if they all lived in idle luxury, careless of their old-time hospitality, spending on themselves the alms due to the poor; still as long as the abbeys remained in their hands they were not wholly lost to the people. The lands were still there; a religious revival might return them to their original uses; wise legislation might convert the abbeys into schools and hospitals. But when all the dedicated wealth of the religious passed through the King’s hands into those of extravagant favourites and grasping landlords, then, indeed, they were lost for ever to the poor of England. Whether the Reformation was good or bad it is useless to consider; that it was inevitable is quite clear; but that it was most grossly mismanaged and caused endless misery and injustice it is surely impossible to deny.

When Cardinal Pole returned to Rome from his first legation he found that the Pope had caused his book, _De Unitate_, to be printed. Characteristically he objected to this decided step, and had the entire edition bought up[1581]. Concluding too much from the King’s anger on reading it, he believed it was a good weapon to hold over Henry’s head. It seems almost pitiful that any man should expect to frighten Henry into better behaviour with a book. After the meeting at Nice, Pole retired to Venice for the summer of 1538. Theobald, an English student in Italy, and also a member of Cromwell’s secret service, sent amusing accounts of his way of life to the English Government[1582]. He got his news from Michael Throgmorton, who may have been unsuspicious, or may have sent through him such reports as he thought would do good in England. Cromwell heard of the Cardinal’s fear of assassination, and the precautions taken against it, which Theobald rather humorously imputed to his evil conscience[1583]. Pole lived quietly in Venice, and it was there that he heard in September of Sir Geoffrey’s arrest.

During 1538 the conduct of the White Rose party was neither better nor worse than before. They were still out of favour, and still grumbled among themselves, but they were becoming more indifferent to the King’s proceedings[1584]. They contented themselves with showing their dislike to the religious changes by dismissing any servants who favoured the new learning, and keeping conservative priests about them. Montague and Exeter assumed a fictitious “strangeness” towards each other on account of the suspicion in which they were held. By the court they were slighted and insulted. In the summer of 1538 Henry made a progress through the south, and stayed near Warblington where the Countess of Salisbury lived, but he passed by and did not come to visit her, although she was his kinswoman, and in the days of Queen Katharine’s power he had loved and venerated her. “Well, let it pass,” said Montague, speaking of this slight, “we shall thank them one day. This world will turn upso-down, and I fear me we shall have no lack but of honest men.” A little while before this Geoffrey had told Montague of the messages he had received from Reginald a year before.

About the same time Cromwell sent his nephew Richard to Exeter to beg him “to be frank in opening certain things.” This seems to mean that the Marquis was offered safety and pardon if he would accuse his friends. He refused[1585]. The King set about finding other witnesses.

The first that presented himself was Gervaise Tyndale, late a schoolmaster at Grantham[1586], a “new-fangled fellow” of “heretic” opinions. Three or four years before, the friars had driven away his pupils. In the spring of 1538 he came to Warblington in bad health and took up his quarters with Richard Eyre, a surgeon, who administered a kind of hospital kept up by the Countess of Salisbury’s bounty. Here he heard all the whispering and gossiping of her household and was filled with the true Protestant horror of her Papist bigotry. She dismissed any servants who favoured the new learning, or as Tyndale said “God’s word”; she openly forbade her tenants to read the New Testament in English and other books which the King had licensed; nothing passed in all the countryside but the Lady presently knew it, for the priests learnt everything in confession and then told her. No wonder this was resented, though people admitted that the Countess used her power kindly; her servants blamed the chaplains rather than their mistress. “There were a company of priests in my lady’s house which did her much harm and kept her from the true knowledge of God’s word.”

Tyndale was discovered to be a heretic and asked to depart. He refused stoutly; “I would not depart neither for lord nor lady till I were better amended.” The Countess then ordered the surgeon to send away all his patients. Tyndale did not leave the neighbourhood until he had picked up a good deal of information. Eyre told him “very secretly” that “there is a knave which dwelleth by, whose name is Hugh Holland, and he beginneth now of late to act the merchant man and the broker, for he goeth over sea and conveys letters to Master Heliar ... and he playeth the knave of the other hand and conveyeth letters to Master Pole the Cardinal, and all the secrets of the realm of England is known to the Bishop of Rome.”

As far as can be made out (for the document we quote is mutilated in parts) Tyndale wished to open a school in the neighbourhood and was opposed by all the priests. In a quarrel with one of them he called him a knave and accused him of “scarcely” being the King’s friend. The constable, standing by “in a great fume,” defended the priest saying, “It was merry in this country before such fellows came, which findeth such faults with our honest priests”; but he was rather frightened by the turn the conversation had taken, and told the whole matter to Sir Geoffrey Pole[1587]. Sir Geoffrey was troubled on finding that Hugh Holland’s voyages were so much talked about. He took Holland and Eyre, who was a gossip and a grumbler but not really ill-disposed to his mistress, and rode to the Lord Privy Seal. He had an explanation with Cromwell about his correspondence with Heliar[1588] “and made such shift that the matter was cloaked.” Heliar’s goods had been seized on the report that he had fled after speaking traitorous words; they were now restored, and no doubt Sir Geoffrey thought the affair settled, probably by a bribe to Cromwell. But the little group of heretics at Warblington were very ill satisfied: they believed that if only they could get word with the Lord Privy Seal they could “so discover the matter that they should no longer blind him in it as they have done.” At length they drew up a long and rambling statement of everything suspicious they had seen or heard in the Countess’ household and despatched it to Cromwell. It is undated but probably belongs to May or June 1538[1589].

The only serious accusation was that Hugh Holland had carried treasonable letters to the Cardinal, and the first result was his arrest. He was taken at Lord Montague’s house at Bockmore and there was a “ruffle” with the King’s officers[1590]. As he was being carried prisoner “with his hands bound behind him and his legs bound under his horse’s belly,” along the London road, he met Sir Geoffrey who asked him where he was “bound to go.” Hugh answered he could not tell, but he bade Sir Geoffrey “keep on his way, for he should not be long after.”[1591] This was the popular story, spread through the country by a certain harper of Havant, and there is something rather balladlike about it, though that is no reason for supposing it untrue.

Sir Geoffrey kept on his way to Bockmore, where he was living at the time, and took counsel with his brother[1592]. He suggested “that the keeping of letters might turn a man’s friends to hurt.” Montague answered, “Nay, they shall hurt no friend of mine, for I have burnt all my letters.”[1593] Sir Geoffrey had not been so prudent, and he at once despatched John Collins, the chaplain, to his house at Lordington[1594]. He gave him a ring as a token to his wife, Dame Constance, and on receiving this she took the priest to her husband’s closet, and there he burnt all the letters he could find[1595].

This burning of letters was afterwards made much of by the Government prosecution, which said that they must have contained treasonable matter. The circumstances were certainly suspicious, but not a single treasonable paper was proved to have existed, though the papers of both brothers were remembered and described by servants and friends. Among Geoffrey’s there was an old letter to Heliar, which may have contained treason, but seems to have been quite harmless[1596]. There was also a bundle of letters from John Stokesley, the Bishop of London, who was a friend of Sir Geoffrey[1597]. He was reported to be one of the few honest bishops[1598], and though heretics might preach at Paul’s cross it was with none of his goodwill[1599]; he may have been the friend Sir Geoffrey feared bringing to harm. There was a copy of a letter from Sir Geoffrey to the Imperial Ambassador; Collins loyally declared that it merely begged favour for Heliar, but of all described this is the most likely to have contained treason. Finally he burnt a letter or letters concerning Latimer; when told of this last, Sir Geoffrey said, “What, you have burnt that also? Those letters were shown before the Council, and my lord of Norfolk told me I might keep those letters well enough.” Collins rode back to Bockmore and told Montague his errand was done. His master asked him how Dame Constance did, and he replied “as a woman in her case might, meaning that she was in heaviness for such news as was of her husband ... and opening of Hugh Holland’s going overseas.”[1600]

Montague had been in the habit of burning all his letters shortly after receiving them; a habit perhaps not common in the days when letters were scarcer than they are now. Among them had been copies of three letters from Reginald Pole to the King, Cromwell, and the Bishop of Durham respectively. These were the letters brought by Michael Throgmorton in 1536[1601]; Starkey must have given Montague the copies; and as both he and his mother had been required to write and reprove Reginald for sending them there seems nothing very strange in that. Montague had showed them to Collins with some triumph; the chaplain said his brother “wrote somewhat roughly to the Lord Privy Seal.” “Marry, I warrant you,” cried Montague, “he uttereth his mind plainly.”[1602] There were two other letters from Reginald to his mother and brother; but they had been written before the quarrel with the King and were about family affairs; in the one to his brother, Reginald advised that his nephew Henry, Montague’s only son, should be brought up at home to live an active life[1603]. Montague had also burnt letters from Exeter and his wife—at least he had received such letters several times during the last three years, and they were not found on his arrest: none of their contents was discovered except the most ordinary enquiries and answers about health[1604]. They may very well have contained nothing else, for they seem to have passed only when one or other of the friends was ill.

After Collins’s return from Lordington, Montague and Sir Geoffrey rode together to London[1605], determined to face the matter out as well as they might. All these things, from Hugh Holland’s arrest onward, happened “between Whitsuntide and Midsummer,” or about “the feast of Corpus Christi” (10 June). They spent many weeks of uncertainty before Sir Geoffrey was committed to the Tower on 29 August[1606].

Some time before Lord Montague had told his brother to disclose nothing if ever he were examined “for if he opened one all must needs come out.”[1607] This was very sound advice. A study of various confessions shows that a prisoner often began by intending to say very little, and ended by blurting out everything he knew, and sometimes even more. At first Sir Geoffrey tried to do his brother’s bidding, but he lacked the strength of body and mind which can carry a man silent through two months in the Tower. His wife was allowed to visit him and she presently told Montague that her husband “was in a frenzy and might utter rash things.” Montague replied, “It forceth not what a madman speaketh.”[1608] On 26 October Sir Geoffrey made his first answers to the interrogatories administered. They did not satisfy the examiners, for he accused hardly anyone but himself. Montague, Exeter, and Delaware, he said, had once disliked the King’s proceedings but of late years their minds had changed. At the end he beseeches the King “that he may have good keeping and cherishing, and thereby somewhat comfort himself, and have better stay of himself,” and he will then tell all he knows even though it touch his own mother or brother[1609].

In the first days of November his friends heard that, knowing his steadfastness gone, he had made one last effort to save their lives and his own honour, and had “almost slain himself.”[1610] He must have made the attempt immediately after the first examination, for it was known in London on 28 October, when John Hussee wrote to Lord Lisle, “Sir Geoffrey Pole was examined in the Tower by my Lord Admiral. They say he was so in despair that he would have murdered himself, and has hurt himself sore. Please keep this secret as yet.”[1611] There is a contemporary account of the matter though it really throws less light on poor Geoffrey’s character than on the religious ideas of the court party. It tells how for a long time the prisoner would reveal nothing though “conscience and God” worked in his mind against “blood and nature,” urging him to tell all. “This motion ran oft in his head, but the devil, continual adversary to God’s honour and man’s wealth, put in his foot, and so tossed this wretched soul, that out of many evils he chose even the worst of all, which was a full purpose to slay himself. The commodities of his death were many, as the devil made them to show: his brother should live still, their family continue in honour, the Lord Marquis should have great cause to love all his blood, which had killed himself to save him; with many such fantasies as desperate men find to help them to their end.... His keeper being absent, a knife at hand upon the table, he riseth out of his bed, and taketh the knife, and with full intent to die, gave himself a stab with the knife upon the breast. The devil lacketh strength, when God has anything to do, and can better begin things than bring them to effect.” The knife was blunt and the wound not mortal. But in great fear of death and hell he began to think it better his friends should lose their heads than he his soul. He sent for the Lieutenant of the Tower and certain of the Privy Council and disclosed everything then and there. Thus the devil’s subtle provision of the knife was turned against himself[1612].

The last part of this account is more or less untrue. Sir Geoffrey did not reveal everything in instant fear of death; he was examined seven times in all at intervals of a day or two[1613]. But of course the examiners made the most of the state of moral collapse likely to follow a weak man’s attempted suicide.

Chance played into their hands. Fitzwilliam, the Lord Admiral, who had lately been created Earl of Southampton, was at Cowdray, his seat in Sussex, during September. On the 17th he was out hawking with Lord Delaware when a poor man came to beg favour of him. His wife, he said, had been committed to Chichester prison by John Gunter, J.P., for saying that Sir Geoffrey Pole would have sent a band of men oversea to the Cardinal if he had not been sent to the Tower. Southampton seized upon the clue like a modern sleuth hound, and brought to light a great deal of country gossip about the Poles, who were the great family of the neighbourhood[1614]. Going abroad to the Emperor’s wars was a recognised career for adventurous young men, as the following story shows. In May 1538, a serving-man of Chichester said: “Master, I can have no living here. I will go beyond sea: for I know one John Stappill hath been there in the Emperor’s wars, and is now come home like a jolly fellow apparelled in scarlet, and a hundred crowns in his purse”; this friend would get the King’s licence for him to go abroad, and also “for half-a-score more of my Lady of Salisbury’s servants.” If they could not get service under the Emperor they would go to Cardinal Pole, “and there we shall be sure to be retained.”[1615] According to popular rumour Sir Geoffrey had intended to despatch this band to his brother in March. It was also whispered that the King and his Council would have burnt my Lady of Salisbury when they were in Sussex if she had been a young woman. The reports were traced to Lawrence Taylor, the harper of Havant, who confessed he had heard of the matter from the surgeon Richard Eyre, the tattler who was at the bottom of all the trouble. After examining him, John Gunter had released Taylor, who went off to a wedding. When Southampton heard this he turned on the unfortunate magistrate, accusing him of negligence and saying he had acted “like an untrue man. He waxed pale and with tears and sobbing besought me (Southampton) to be good to him; he had not seen the importance of the matter at the beginning, but would make amends by his diligent search for the said Lawrence.”[1616] He delivered the harper to Southampton next day[1617], and was so worked upon by his fears that he himself reported to Southampton some private conversations he had had with Sir Geoffrey Pole. Two years afterwards Sir Geoffrey “did sore hurt and wound” John Gunter, because “he had dealt unkindly with him in his trouble by uttering things they had communed of in secret.”[1618]

Primed with so much information, Southampton rode to London to conduct Sir Geoffrey’s examination. He knew quite enough to make it appear that he knew everything; he had only to perform the common lawyer’s trick of making a desperate man believe it is useless to conceal what he knows, that he may save himself by confession but can save no one else by silence. It is easy for a man like Froude, who was a weak sentimentalist and so unable to sympathise with weakness in others, to condemn Sir Geoffrey as a traitor. But the prisoners of those days had to undergo something far worse than the most savage modern cross-examination. To begin with, a man charged with treason was in a hopeless case: no jury would acquit him. His one chance was the King’s mercy, and that could only be gained by accusing others.

A man who does not fear death (Sir Geoffrey had tried to destroy himself) may fear torture. There is nothing to prove that Pole was threatened with the rack, and it seems to have been the custom to spare men of noble birth. Popular rumour said he was so threatened[1619], and Richard Moryson denied it with much elaboration[1620]: both assertions are quite untrustworthy. An openly spoken threat was not needed; a prisoner worn out with two months of close confinement and low living does not need any reminder; the fact that he is in the Tower, helpless before men who wield the powers of life and death and pain is threat enough. We can understand this only too clearly when we read this letter to the King, added in Sir Geoffrey’s hand to his second examination, taken on 2 November[1621]:—

“Sir, I beseech your noble Grace to pardon my wretchedness that I have
not done my bounden duty unto your Grace heretofore as I ought to have
done, but, Sir, grace coming to me to consider your nobleness always
to me, and now especially in my extreme necessity, as I perceive by my
Lord Admiral and Mr Comptroller (_the examiners_), your goodness shall
not be lost on me, but surely as I found your Grace always faithful
unto me, so I refuse all creature living to be faithful to you. Your
humble slave, Geffrey Pole.”

When this letter was written he had as yet accused no one but himself and Hugh Holland of serious offences[1622]. But his confessions became rapidly more and more compromising to his friends[1623]. He told the details of many political conversations with Exeter, with Sir Edward Neville, with Croftes the chancellor of Chichester Cathedral, but chiefly with his own brother. Jerome Ragland, a confidential servant of Montague “who was as it were his right hand,”[1624] made a long confession against his master on 28 (?) October[1625]. Perhaps Sir Geoffrey was confronted with this. The most pitiful record of all is a statement in Sir Geoffrey’s own hand telling of Montague’s words against the King[1626]. It seems to have been written in a frenzy of hysterical rage against the man who had chosen to stay in England when they might have escaped safely across the seas. Everything came out, as Montague had foreseen; and not only through Sir Geoffrey, but, as more and more of the little faction were brought to the Tower, many others made equally long and unwilling confessions.

Montague and Exeter were committed on 4 November. The French Ambassador wrote to the Constable of France, in cypher, the following account of the King’s intentions:—

“En escrivant ceste lettre ce matin, este adverty que le Roy
d’Angleterre fit mettre hier au soir en la Tour de Londres Monsieur le
Marquis d’Exestre ..., qui est apres les enfans du Roy le plus proche
de ceste couronne, et milort de Montagu.... Il y a bien longtemps que
ce Roy m’avoit dict qu’il vooloit exterminer ceste maison de Montagu,
qui est encore de la Rose Blanche, et de la maison de Polle dont est
le Cardinal. Je ne scay encore qu’on veult faire dudit Marquis; par le
premier je vous en advertiray. Il semble qu’il cherche toutes les
occasions qu’on peult penser pour se ruyner et destruyre. Je croy que
peu de seigneurs sont asseures en ce pays; je ne croy pas qu’il n’en
advienne quelque miquemaque. Je vous advertiray en diligence de ce que
j’en entendray.”[1627]

Sir Edward Neville, George Croftes of Chichester, John Collins, and several servants were all arrested shortly after the two lords[1628]. Gertrude, the Lady Marquis of Exeter, followed her husband to the Tower before 21 November[1629], with her little son Edward Courtenay. It is not certain whether Henry Pole, Montague’s heir, went at this time with his father, or later with his grandmother. Of the evidence given in their examinations little need be said; the most important consists of reports of conversations which came within the new treason act, and several of these have been mentioned already. The evidence is singularly full and we probably have more before us than was read at the trials, for there are two copies of many of the papers, and a great many repetitions in successive examinations. The only paper which may possibly be missing is the answer of the Marquis of Exeter to a set of interrogatories[1630]; but as no statement of the Marquis is mentioned in Cromwell’s notes and summaries or in the indictments, he may never have answered, and if he did his evidence must have been unimportant.

There is absolutely no proof of a conspiracy: the White Rose party were working on no sort of plan and had come to no definite agreement among themselves. We have once or twice spoken of their dreams of Cardinal Pole’s marriage with Mary, after an invasion in her favour by the Emperor[1631]. But a careful study of their statements shows that we have put these aims in a much more definite form than they ever did themselves. Even Froude, who finds no difficulty in believing in an organised plot just about to take effect, was puzzled by the fact that their schemes must have included two pretenders to the throne, Mary and Exeter[1632]. The explanation is that they never thought the matter out. They were less a political party than a group of friends, who loved the old Faith, hated Cromwell, and longed for a change of policy. They met and talked treason and sang political songs in the Marquis’s garden at Horsley, and in the woods at Bockmore. They did not trouble themselves about anything so strenuous and intellectual as a plot. The King’s version of the matter, that Exeter meant to seize the Crown and slay the entire royal family, was simply ridiculous, considering that he had no one to help him but Mary’s especial friends[1633].

Montague and the rest were guilty of treason under the new laws but not under the old[1634]. The case against them rested on nothing but words. They had not done anything treasonable with the exception of Sir Geoffrey Pole and Hugh Holland who had sent warning to a traitor beyond the seas. They had not compassed or purposed the King’s death: they had only said they would be glad if he died. They had not levied war against him: they had only wished someone else would. There must have been some feeling against the new treason law, for Henry himself was troubled at putting it into execution and did his very best to make the world believe that the “conspirators” were guilty of more serious offences than those for which they were indicted.

Under the Act of 1534 there was no difficulty in convicting Montague and Sir Edward Neville; quick and careless of tongue, they had both fallen under the law “that if any person ... do maliciously wish, will or desire, by words or writing or by craft, imagine any bodily harm to be done or committed to the King’s most royal person” he is guilty of high treason[1635]. Against both of them Sir Geoffrey was the chief witness; both made short confessions in the Tower, in which there was nothing that could be used against their friends[1636]. “I have lived in prison all these six years,” Montague told his examiners; he thought it better to lie in the Tower than to go abroad in suspicion, and he had never felt free since Reginald had offended the King[1637].

The two priests, Collins and Croftes, both confessed their secret attachment to the Pope[1638]. Croftes had said, “The King is not Supreme Head of the Church of England but the Bishop of Rome is Supreme Head of the Church,” and also “There was none act or thing that ever he did more grieved his conscience than the oath which he took to renounce the bishop of Rome’s authority”; Lord Delaware had persuaded him to receive it after he had determined rather to fly abroad[1639]. Collins said “the King will hang in hell one day for the plucking down of abbeys”; and when talking with Montague of the fall of monasteries: “I fear that within a while they will pull down the parish churches also.”[1640] He had instructed a friend to burn his sermons if he was sent to the Tower[1641]; the burning of papers was in the King’s eyes quite sufficient proof that they contained treason.

It was against Exeter that the Government had most difficulty in making out a case. Neither Montague nor Neville would accuse him, and in none of his conversations with Sir Geoffrey had he spoken against the King. In 1531 he had been banished the court and perhaps put under arrest for a short time, on account of the gossiping of his servants[1642], who had gone about saying “My Lord Marquis would be King and they lords,” and “our master shall wear the garland at the last.”[1643] But if this charge was not thought serious in 1531, there was no reason why it should be seven years later; nevertheless the King’s lawyers thought it worth reviving.

Another charge, this time against the Lady Marquis, was equally out of date. As her gentlewoman confessed, she had gone in disguise to speak with the Nun of Kent, and had afterwards received her at Horsley[1644]. It was not about political hopes she had consulted the Holy Maid; all her babies had died at birth, and she desired the Nun’s prayers for the child she was then expecting[1645]; there was no proof that they had conversed treasonably. If the King knew of the Lady Marquis’s correspondence with Chapuys a really grave charge might have been brought against her[1646]. But the Marquis was not implicated in either of these mysterious expeditions. The straits to which Cromwell was put to make out a rational case against him is shown by this passage in one of the depositions:—

“About three years past when lord Montague began to recover from his
sickness he sent examinate (_his servant Jerome Ragland_) to Horsley
to show the lord Marquis of his recovery: the lord Marquis said he was
glad thereof”;

This is solemnly noted in the margin “Against the Lord Marquis.”[1647]

In the end the Crown lawyers were obliged to be contented with two scraps of conversation—“I trust once to have a fair day upon these knaves which rule about the King, and I trust to see a merry world one day”; and “Knaves rule about the King; I trust to give them a buffet one day.” Also the general declaration “I like well the proceedings of Cardinal Pole, but I like not the proceedings of this realm,”[1648] which is not to be found in the evidence, and was a kind of profession of faith attributed to all the prisoners. To one who is no lawyer these sayings do not appear to bring the Marquis under the Act of 1534. There is no wish or thought expressed against the King’s person; at the worst they are against the King’s ministers and policy, and these are not mentioned in the Act; no doubt by an oversight.

Exeter was to be tried by his peers on 3 December, Montague on 2 December[1649]. On this last date Thomas West, Lord Delaware, was committed to the Tower[1650]. It was whispered that he had dared to refuse to take a place in the jury of peers[1651]. This rumour may have been true, for on 1 December the Council wrote to Henry humbly apologising for not having sent Delaware to the Tower; they had done their best, they assured the King, but as yet they had found nothing sufficient against him. They had commanded him to keep to his house, and to make a full confession[1652]. It may have been merely through Henry’s impatience that he was sent to the Tower next day; or perhaps he had determined after Darcy’s trial to pass no more of the King’s sentences. It would be good to think there was one nobleman in England who was capable of so acting.

Montague was brought to trial on 2 December[1653], indicted of speaking against the King, approving Cardinal Pole’s doings, and dreaming that the King was dead[1654]. He pleaded not guilty and was condemned to death.

Exeter was brought to the bar on the 3rd, and the same judgment was pronounced against him[1655]. There is an account of a strange scene which took place at his trial, given by a contemporary but not by an eye-witness. Exeter, Montague and Neville

“all the time of their arraignment stood stiff, with a casting up of
eyes and hands, as though those things had been never heard of before
that then were laid to their charge. The Marquis of all the rest stuck
hardest, and made as though he had been very clear in many points, yet
in some he staggered, and was very sorry so to do, now challenging the
King’s pardon, now taking benefit of the act, and when all would not
serve he began to charge Geoffrey Pole with frenzy, with folly, and
madness. It is much to be noted what answer Geoffrey made to the
Marquis in this point. Some men, saith Geoffrey (as I hear), lay to my
charge that I should be out of my wit and in a frenzy. Truth it is, I
was out of my wit, and in a great frenzy when I fell with them in
conference to be a traitor, disobedient to God, false to my prince,
and enemy to my native country. I was also out of my wit and stricken
with a sore kind of madness when I chose rather to kill myself than to
charge them with such treasons, as I knew would cost them their lives,
if I did utter them. But Our Lord be thanked, God wrought better with
me than I thought to have done with myself. He hath saved my soul at
the last, the knife went not so far as I would have had it gone: His
goodness it is that I have not slain myself:... His work that I have
declared myself, my brother, the Marquis, with the rest to be
traitors. And where I thought, said Geoffrey, rather to have put my
soul in hazard for the saving of these men, God, I thank Him, so
wrought in me and so changed my mind, that if I had ten brethren, yea,
ten sons, I would rather bring them all to this peril of death than
leave my country, my sovereign lord, and mine own soul in such danger
as they all stood in if I had kept these treasons secret. Let us, let
us die, we be but a few, better we have according to our deserts than
our whole country be brought to ruin....

“Geoffrey hath never been taken for any pleasant or sage talker, his
wit was wont to serve his tongue but so so. I dare say, they that were
the wisest of the King’s most honourable council did much wonder that
day, to hear him tell his tale, and looked for nothing less than that
he should have so handled himself. God is a marvellous God, He can
make both when Him list and whom He will eloquent, wise, pithy; He can
make the tongues of the dumb serve His elect, when His will is. The
Marquis was stiff at the bar, and stood fast in denial of most things
laid to his charge, yet in some he failed and staggered in such sort
that all men might see his countenance to avouch that, that his tongue
could not without much faltering deny.”[1656]

Sir Geoffrey Pole with Sir Edward Neville, George Croftes, John Collins, and Hugh Holland, were brought to trial on 4 December. All pleaded guilty but Neville, who maintained his innocence to the last. All were found guilty[1657].

Exeter, Montague and Sir Edward Neville were beheaded on Tower Hill on 9 December and buried within the Tower. The same day Croftes, Holland and Collins were executed at Tyburn, and “their heads set on London Bridge.”[1658] Sir Geoffrey Pole remained in the Tower[1659]; the state of mind in which he had borne evidence against the others can hardly have outlasted their deaths. On 28 December he again attempted suicide by suffocating himself with a cushion[1660].

Meanwhile the Countess of Salisbury had not been left to mourn her sorrows in quiet. She had been plunged into anxiety by Geoffrey’s arrest in August. About the beginning of November the news of his first attempted suicide found its way to Warblington. “I pray God, madame, he do you no hurt one day,” said her frightened steward. “I trow he is not so unhappy that he will hurt his mother,” she answered, “and yet I care neither for him, nor for any other, for I am true to my Prince.”[1661] It must have been at this time that she wrote to her eldest son:—

“Son Montague I send you heretely goddes blessing and myne. This is the gretist gift that I can send you for to desire god of his helpe wich I perceave is great need to pray for. And as to the case as I ame informed that you stand in myne advise is to refer you to god principally and upon that ground so to ordre you both in word and deed to serve your prince not disobeyeng goddys commandment as far as your power and lief woll serve you for of to doo above all ordre for ... hath brought you upe and maynteyned you ... but his highnes who if you woll ... with your lerning serve to the content ... of his mynd as your bounden duetie is ... that you may so serve his highness ... daylie pray to god ... orelles to take you to his mercy.” It appears that he did not receive it until he was in the Tower[1662].

On 12 November, Southampton and the Bishop of Ely were sent down to Warblington to interrogate the Countess. She had spoken truly of Sir Geoffrey; in all his confessions there is no word that could be twisted into an accusation against her. Nor had the other prisoners laid anything to her charge; she strongly disliked heretics, but no one accused her of speaking against the Royal Supremacy. Nevertheless Southampton had no doubt that he could soon make her commit herself. He was an experienced examiner and had just come from questioning her sons in the Tower. He was much disappointed with his first results. The Countess answered every question in the most straightforward way. She had had, she said, no secret confidences with, nor any letter from, her son Reginald and the Vicar of East Meon. She knew nothing of Holland’s voyage. She had never heard Montague or Sir Geoffrey wish they were abroad or propose to go; she solemnly denied that they ever uttered treasonable words in her presence. She had never burnt letters concerning the King, nor was there any agreement between herself and her sons to conceal anything. This was the substance of Margaret Pole’s confession[1663].

The examiners wrote to Cromwell—“Yesterday, 13 Nov., as we wrote we would do, we travailed with the Lady of Salisbury all day, both before and after noon till almost night; but for all we could do she would confess nothing more than the first day.” On the 14th they went to her again, as they were ordered; first they called all her men-servants before them and arrested one called Standish. “We then entreated her with both sorts, sometimes with douce and mild words, now roughly and asperly, by traitoring her and her sons to the ninth degree, yet will she nothing utter, but maketh herself clear.” They thought such a woman had never been heard of, she was so earnest and precise and “manlike in continuance.” Everything was so “sincere, pure, and upright on her part that we have conceived and needs must deem and think the one of two things in her: that either her sons have not made her privy nor participant of the bottom and pit of their stomachs, or else she is the most arrant traitress that ever lived.”

They seized her goods and told her that it was the King’s pleasure that she should leave her home at once. “She seemeth thereat to be somewhat appalled. And therefore we deem that if it may be so, she will then utter somewhat when she is removed, which we intend shall be tomorrow.” They spoke with the neighbouring gentlemen and bade them “to have vigilant eye to repress any stirring that may arise.”[1664] They examined Thomas Standish, the clerk of the kitchen, but he confessed nothing[1665]; the Protestants who lodged the first information against the Countess had named him as a crafty fellow from whom it would be hard to get information[1666]. Hugh Holland had told him of his visit to the Cardinal, and if the Countess knew of it, it would probably be through him[1667].

On 15 November the Countess was taken from her home to Cowdray, Southampton’s house. It was no wonder that the thought of being left in the keeping of such a man appalled even so brave a lady. Southampton and the Bishop of Ely wrote again to Cromwell on 16 November. They were rather better pleased with themselves. They had got something out of Standish, whose confession is lost, though apparently nothing against his mistress. They despaired of making the Countess accuse herself. “We assure your Lordship we have dealt with such a one as men have not dealt withal to fore us; we may call her rather a strong and constant man than a woman.”