History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. III

Rowland Lee, Lord Warden of the Welsh Marches.

Transitional condition of the Welsh people.

False attempts at independence on the Border.

But the most detailed accounts of the lawlessness which had spread in the wilder districts of the country are to be found in the reports of the remarkable Rowland Lee, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, Lord Warden of the Welsh Marches, the last survivor of the old martial prelates, fitter for harness than for bishops’ robes, for a court of justice than a court of theology; more at home at the head of his troopers, chasing cattle-stealers in the gorges of Llangollen, than hunting heretics to the stake, or chasing formulas in the arduous defiles of controversy. Three volumes are extant of Rowland Lee’s letters.488 They relate almost wholly to the details of his administration on either side of the frontier line from Chester to the mouth of the Wye. The Welsh counties were but freshly organized under the English system. The Welsh customs had but just been superseded by the English common law. The race whose ancient hardihood the castles of Conway, Carnarvon, and Beaumaris remain to commemorate, whom only those stern towers, with their sterner garrisons, could awe into subjection, maintained a shadow of their independence in a wild lawlessness of character. But the sense of subjection had been soothed by the proud consciousness that they had bestowed a dynasty upon England; that a blood descendant of Cadwallader was seated on the throne of the Edwards. They had ceased to maintain, like the Irish, a feeling of national hostility. They were suffering now from the intermediate disorders which intervene when a smaller race is merging in a stronger and a larger; when traditional customs are falling into desuetude, and the laws designed to take their place have not yet grown actively into operation. Many of the Welsh gentlemen lived peacefully by honest industry; others, especially along the Border, preferred the character of Highland chieftains, and from their mountain fastnesses levied black rent on the English counties. Surrounded with the sentiment of pseudo-heroism, they revelled in the conceit of imaginary freedom; and with their bards and pedigrees, and traditions of Glendower and Prince Llewellyn, they disguised from themselves and others the plain prose truth, that they were but thieves and rogues.

These were the men whom Rowland Lee was sent to tame into civility, – these, and their English neighbours, who, from close proximity and from acquired habits of retaliation for their own injuries, had caught the infection of a similar spirit.

Council of the Welsh Marches.

Cheshire juries return verdicts.

Necessity for a discipline and for a suspension of the common law.

From his many letters I must content myself with taking such extracts as bear most immediately on the working of the criminal law, and illustrate the extreme difficulty of punishing even the worst villanies. To strengthen the bishop’s hands, a Council of the Marches had been established in 1534, with powers similar to those which were given subsequently to the Council of York.

In August, 1537, Lee wrote to Cromwell, “These shall be to advertise you that where of late I sent unto your lordship a bill of such murders and manslaughters as were done in Cheshire which would not be found until this council set the same forward for condign punishment of the offenders, and although at the late assizes a great number of bills both for murders and riots were put into the great inquest, and good evidence given upon the same – yet, contrary to their duties to our sovereign lord and their oath, neglecting the course and ministration of justice, they have found murders to be manslaughters, and riots to be misbehaviours. The council could do no less but see the same redressed. We have called the said inquest before us, and committed them to ward for their lightness in the premises. And for as much as I think that suit will be made unto your lordship of my straitness and hard dealing herein, if your lordship will have that country in as good order and stay as we have set other parts, there must be punishment done, or else they will continue in their boldness as they have used heretofore. If your lordship will that I shall deal remissively herein, upon the advertisement of your lordship’s mind by your letters, I shall gladly follow the same. Or else, if your lordship do mind reformation of the premises, write unto me a sharp letter to see justice ministered, and to punish such as shall be thought offenders according to this council’s discretion for their misbehaviours by fines, strait imprisonment, and otherwise. For if we should do nothing but as the common law will, these things so far out of order will never be redressed.”

Four gentlemen of the best blood in Shropshire are hanged.

The bishop’s advice was approved. One caution only was impressed upon him by Cromwell – that “indifferent justice must be ministered to poor and rich according to their demerits;” and gentlemen who were concerned in riots and robberies were not to be spared on account of their position. The bishop obeyed the admonition, which was probably little needed; soon after, at a quarter sessions, in the presence of the Earl of Worcester, Lord Ferrars, and many gentlemen of the shire, “four of the best blood in the county of Shropshire” were reported to have been hanged.

Carrying his discipline south, the bishop by-and-bye wrote from Hereford: —

A nest of thieves is rooted out in Gloucestershire.

“By diligent search and pains we have tried out the greatest nest of thieves that was heard of this many years. They have confessed to the robbing of eighteen churches, besides other felonies, already. This nest was rooted in Gloucestershire at a place called Merkyll, and had recourse to a blind inn, to an old man, who, with his two sons, being arrant thieves, were the receitors. Of this affinity were a great number, of whom we have ten or twelve principals and accessories, and do make out daily for more where we can hear they be. Daily the outlaws submit themselves, or be taken. If he be taken he playeth his pageant. If he come and submit himself, I take him to God’s mercy and the king’s grace upon his fine.”

Effect of the sharp hand.

One thief taketh another, and one cow keepeth another.

Once more, after mentioning the capture of two outlaws, whom he intended to despatch, and of a third, who had been killed, in attempting to escape, brought in dead across a horse, and hanged on a market-day at Ludlow, the warden summed up, as a general result of his administration, “What shall we say further? All the thieves in Wales quake for fear; and at this day we assure you there is but one thief of name, of the sort of outlaws, and we trust to have him shortly; so that now ye may boldly affirm that Wales is redact to that state that one thief taketh another, and one cow keepeth another.”489

The bishop’s work was rough; but it was good of its kind, and was carried out in the manner which, in the long run, was most merciful – merciful to honest subjects, who were no longer the prey of marauders – merciful to those whom the impunity of these heroes of the Border might have tempted to imitate their example – merciful to the offenders themselves, who were saved by the gallows from adding to the list of their crimes.

Laxity of the magistrates in the south-west of England.

But although order could be enforced where an active resolute man had been chosen to supersede the inefficiency of the local authorities, in other parts of England, in Hampshire, Wiltshire, Somersetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall especially, there was no slight necessity still remaining for discipline of a similar kind; the magistrates had been exhorted again and again in royal proclamations to discharge their duties more efficiently; but the ordinary routine of life was deranged by the religious convulsions; the mainspring of the social system was out of place, and the parts could no longer work in harmony. The expedient would have to be attempted which had succeeded elsewhere; but, before resorting to it, Henry would try once more the effect of an address, and a circular was issued in the ensuing terms: —

The king issues an address to them.

Once again he charges them on their allegiance to do their duty.

“The king to the justices of the peace. Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well,490 and cannot a little marvel to hear that, notwithstanding our sundry advertisements lately made unto you for the doing of your duties in such offices as in our commonwealth are committed unto you, many things be nevertheless directed at will and pleasure, than either upon any just contemplation of justice, or with any regard to the good monitions which heretofore we have set forth for the advancement of the same. Minding, therefore, yet once again, before we shall correct the lewdness of the offenders with any extremity of law, to give a more general admonition, to the intent no man shall have colour by excuse of ignorance, we have thought meet to write these our letters unto you, and by the same to desire and pray you, and yet, nevertheless, to charge and command you, upon your duties or allegiance, that for the repairing of all things negligently passed, and for the avoiding of all such damages as may for lack thereof happen unto you, you shall have special care and study to the due and just observation of the points following: —

The privy maintainers of the Papistical faction shall be tried out and punished.

“First, where we have with our great study, travail, and labour expelled the usurped power of Rome, with all the branches and dependings upon the same, our pleasure is that you shall have a principal regard that the privy maintainers of that Papistical faction may be tried out and brought to justice. For by sundry arguments it is manifest unto us that there wanteth not a number that in that matter retain their old fond fantasies and superstitions, muttering in corners, as they dare, to the maintenance and upholding of them, what countenance soever they do shew outwards for avoiding of danger of the law. These kind of men we would have tried out, as the most cankered and venomous worms that be in our commonwealth, both for that they be apparent enemies to God, and manifest traitors to us and to our whole realm, workers of all mischief and sedition within the same.

The sturdy vagabonds shall be punished,

“Secondly, you shall have special regard that all sturdy vagabonds and valiant beggars may be punished according to the statute made for that purpose. Your default in the execution whereof, proceeding upon an inconsiderate pity to one evil person, without respect to the great multitude that live in honest and lawful sort, hath bred no small inconvenience in our commonwealth. And you shall also have special regard that no man be suffered to use any unlawful games; but that every man may be encouraged to use the longbow, as the law requireth.

And even justice shall be administered between poor and rich.

He requires them to obey, or his next advice will be of another sort.

“Furthermore, our pleasure and most dread commandment is that, all respects set apart, you shall bend yourselves to the advancement of even justice between party and party, both that our good subjects may have the benefit of our laws sincerely administered unto them, and that evil doers may be punished, as the same doth prescribe and limit. To which points, if you shall upon this monition and advertisement give such diligent regard as you may satisfy your duty in the same, leaving and eschewing from henceforth all disguised corruption, we shall be content the more easily to put in oblivion all your former remissness and negligence. But if, on the other part, we shall perceive that this kind of gentle proceeding can work no kind of good effect in you, or any of you, whom we put in trust under us, assure yourselves that the next advice shall be of so sharp a sort as shall bring with it a just punishment of those that shall be found offenders in this behalf: requiring you, therefore, not only for your own part to wax each a new man, if you shall in your own conscience perceive that you have not done your duty as appertained, but also to exhort others of your sort and condition, whom you shall perceive to digress from the true execution of their offices, rather to reconcile and compose themselves than upon any affection, respect, or displeasure to do any such thing as will hereafter minister unto them further repentance, and will not percase, when it should light on their necks, lightly be redubbed. Wherein you shall shew yourselves men of good instruction, and deserve our right hearty thanks accordingly.”

Issue of special commissions.

Ten felons hanged at Kidderminster.

Divers and many suffer in the south.

Menace, as usual, was but partially effectual. At length, in the midst of the general stir and excitement of the spring and summer of 1539, while the loyal portion of the country was still under arms, and the government felt strong enough for the work, we trace the progress of special commissions through the counties where the irregularities had been the greatest, partly to sift to the bottom the history of the Marquis of Exeter’s conspiracy, partly to administer discipline to gangs of rogues and vagabonds. Sir Thomas Blunt and Sir Robert Neville went to Worcester and Kidderminster. At the latter place ten felons were hanged.491 Sir Thomas Willoughby, with Lord Russell and others, was sent into the south and west, where, “for wilful murders, heinous robberies, and other offences,” Willoughby wrote to Cromwell, that “divers and many felons suffered.” In Somersetshire four men were hanged for rape and burglary. In Cornwall, Kendall and Quintrell were hanged, with confederates who had acted under them as recruiting agents for Lord Exeter. Other details are wanting; but a general tone of vigour runs through the reports, and the gentlemen had so far taken warning from the last proclamation, that the commissioners were able to conclude: “I assure you, my lord, in every of these same shires there hath been a great appearance of gentlemen and men of worship who have endeavoured themselves, with much diligence in executing the king’s precepts and commandments.”492 Sir Thomas Wriothesley, who either accompanied the commission, or was in Hampshire independently of it, took advantage of a quarter sessions in that county to stimulate these symptoms of improvement a little further.

Sir Thomas Wriothesley gives advice at a quarter sessions in Hampshire.

Three abbots fall under suspicion.

The Abbots of Colchester and Reading.

The Abbot of Glastonbury.

Layton and Pollard are commissioned to examine the charges against the Abbot of Glastonbury.

The abbot’s rooms are searched.

He is sent to the Tower.

The abbey plate and jewels had disappeared.

General tendency in the monks to plunder.

The king, he told the magistrates, desired most of all things that indifferent justice should be ministered to the poor and the rich, which, he regretted to say, was imperfectly done. Those in authority too much used their powers, “that men should follow the bent of their bows,” a thing which “did not need to be followed.” The chief cause of all the evils of the time was “the dark setting forth of God’s Word,” “the humming and harking of the priests who ought to read it, and the slanders given to those that did plainly and truly set it forth.” At any rate, the fact was as he described it to be; and they would find, he added, significantly, that, if they gave further occasion for complaint, “God had given them a prince that had force and strength to rule the highest of them.”493 For the present no further notice was taken of their conduct. There is no evidence that any magistrates were deprived or punished. The work which they had neglected was done for them by others, and they were left again to themselves with a clearer field.494 One noticeable victim, however, fell in this year. There were three, indeed, with equal claims to interest; but one, through caprice of fame, has been especially remembered. The great abbots, with but few exceptions, had given cause for suspicion during the late disturbances; that is to say, they had grown to advanced age as faithful subjects of the Papacy; they were too old to begin life again with a new allegiance. Information had transpired – I do not know the precise nature of it – to persuade Cromwell that the Abbots of Reading, Colchester, and Glastonbury were entangled in some treasonable enterprise or correspondence.495 The charges against the Abbot of Reading I have been unable to find. The Abbot of Colchester had refused to surrender his house, and concealed or made away with the abbey plate, and had used expressions of most unambiguous anxiety for the success of the rebellions, and of disappointment at their failure.496 They were both executed. On the first visitation of the monasteries, Whiting, Abbot of Glastonbury, received a favourable character from the visitors. He had taken the oaths to the king without objection, or none is mentioned. He had acquiesced generally, in his place in the House of Lords, in Cromwell’s legislation, he had been present at one reading at least of the concluding statute against the Pope’s authority;497 and there is no evidence that he distinguished himself in any way as a champion of the falling faith. In the last parliament he had been absent on plea of ill health; but he appointed no proxy, nor sought apparently to use on either side his legitimate influence. Cromwell’s distrust was awakened by some unknown reason; but both to him and to those who had spoken previously in his favour, it seemed, according to their standard of appreciation, sufficiently grounded. Perhaps some discontented monk had sent up secret informations.498 An order went out for an inquiry into his conduct, which was to be executed by three of the visitors, Layton, Pollard, and Moyle. On the 16th of September they were at Reading: on the 22d they had arrived at Glastonbury. The abbot was absent at a country house a mile and a half distant. They followed him, informed him of the cause of their coming, and asked him a few questions. His answers were “nothing to the purpose;” that is to say, he confessed nothing to the visitors’ purpose. He was taken back to the abbey; his private apartments were searched, and a book of arguments was found there against the king’s divorce, pardons, copies of bulls, and a Life of Thomas à Becket, – nothing particularly criminal, though all indicating the abbot’s tendencies. The visitors considered their discoveries “a great matter.” The abbot was again questioned; and this time his answers appeared to them “cankered and traitorous.” He was placed in charge of a guard, and sent to London to the Tower, to be examine by Cromwell himself. The occasion of his absence was taken for the dissolution of the house; and, as the first preliminary, an inventory was made of the plate, the furniture, and the money in the treasury. Glastonbury was one of the wealthiest of the religious houses. A less experienced person than Layton would have felt some surprise when he found that neither plate, jewels, nor ornaments were forthcoming sufficient for an ordinary parish church. But deceptions of this kind were too familiar to a man who had examined half the religious houses in England. He knew immediately that the abbey treasure was either in concealment or had been secretly made away with. Foreseeing the impending destruction of this establishment, the monks had been everywhere making use of their opportunities of plunder. The altar plate, in some few instances, may have been secreted from a sentiment of piety – from a desire to preserve from sacrilege vessels consecrated to holy uses. But plunder was the rule; piety was the exception. A confession of the Abbot of Barlings contains a frank avowal of the principles on which the fraternities generally acted. This good abbot called his convent into the chapter-house, and by his own acknowledgment, addressed them thus: —

Address of the Abbot of Barlings.

“Brethren, ye hear how other religious men be intreated, and how they have but forty shillings a piece given them and are let go. But they that have played the wise men amongst them have provided aforehand for themselves, and sold away divers things wherewith they may help themselves hereafter. And ye hear also this rumour that goeth abroad that the greater abbeys shall down also. Wherefore, by your advice, this shall be my counsel, that we do take such plate as we have, and certain of the best vestments and copes and set them aside, and sell them if need be, and so divide the money coming thereof when the house is suppressed. And I promise you of my faith and conscience ye shall have your part, and of every penny that I have during my life; and thereupon,” he concluded, “the brethren agreed thereunto.”499

Appropriation or concealment of plate regarded as felony.

Discovery of the Glastonbury plate which had been concealed by the abbot.

The motive, if good, could not excuse the fact.

Evidence of treason found against the abbot,

Which need not be called in question.

The quarrel with the Papacy exasperated by the persecution of English residents in Spain.

A less severe government than that of Henry VIII. would have refused to tolerate conduct of this kind. Those who decline to recognise the authority of an act of parliament over the property of corporate bodies, cannot pretend that a right of ownership was vested in persons whose tenure, at its best and surest, was limited by their lives.500 For members of religious houses to make away their plate was justly construed to be felony; and the law, which was necessarily general, could not recognise exceptions on the ground of piety of motive, when such an exception would but have furnished a screen behind which indiscriminate pillage might have been carried on with impunity. The visitors had been warned to be careful, and practice had made them skilful in means of detection. On the first day of the investigation at Glastonbury, “a fair chalice of gold” came to light, “with divers other parcels of plate;” all of which the abbot had concealed, committing perjury in doing so, on their previous visitation.501 The next day brought out more; and the day after, more again. Gold and silver in vessels, ornaments, and money were discovered “mured up in walls, vaults, and other secret places,” some hidden by the abbot, some by the convent. Two monks who were treasurers, with the lay clerks of the vestry, were found to have been “arrant thieves.” At length as much treasure of various sorts was recovered as would have begun a new abbey.502 The visitors did not trouble themselves to speculate on the abbot’s intentions. There is nothing to show that in collusion with the brethren he was not repeating the behaviour of the Abbot of Barlings; or, like so many of the northern abbots, he might have been hoarding a fund to subsidize insurrection, preserving the treasures of the temple to maintain the temple’s defenders; or he might have acted in a simple spirit of piety. His motives were of no moment. The fact of the concealment was patent. The letter communicating these discoveries to the government was written on the 28th of September. Another followed on the 2d of October, stating that, since the despatch of the last, the visitors “had come to the knowledge of divers sundry treasons committed and done by the Abbot of Glastonbury, the certainty whereof would appear in a Book of Depositions,” which they forwarded with the accusers’ names attached to their statements, “very haut and rank treason.”503 I have not discovered this “Book of Depositions;” but those who desire to elevate the Abbot of Glastonbury to the rank of the martyr, confess, in doing so, their belief that he was more faithful to the Church than to the State, that he was guilty of regarding the old ways as better than the new, and they need not care to question that he may have acted on his convictions, or at least have uttered them in words. After the recent experience of the Pilgrimage of Grace, an ascertained disposition of disloyalty was enough to ensure a conviction; and the Pope by his latest conduct had embittered the quarrel to the utmost. He had failed to excite a holy war against England, but three English merchants had been burnt by the Inquisition in Spain.504 Five more had been imprisoned and one had been tortured only for declaring that they considered Henry VIII. to be a Christian. Their properties had been confiscated, they had borne faggots and candles in a procession as sanbenitos,505 and Paul had issued a promise of indulgence to all pious Catholics who would kill an English heretic.506