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

Instructions to Reginald Pole: Epist. Vol. II. p. 279, &c. Pole’s admiring biographer ventures to say that “he was declared a traitor for causes which do not seem to come within the article of treason.” – Philips’s Life of Reginald Pole, p. 277.

383

News which was sent from Rome unto the Cardinal Bishop of Seville: Rolls House MS.

384

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

385

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

386

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

387

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

388

“At my lord marquis being in Exeter at the time of the rebellion he took direction that all commissions for the second subsidy should stay the levy thereof for a time.” – Sir Piers Edgecombe to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. X.

389

“‘The marquis was the man that should help and do them good’ (men said). See the experience, how all those do prevail that were towards the marquis. Neither assizes, nisi prius, nor bill of indictment put up against them could take effect; and, of the contrary part, how it prevailed for them.” – Sir Thomas Willoughby to Cromwell: MS. Cotton. Titus, B 1, 386.

390

Depositions relating to Lord Delaware: Rolls House MS. first series, 426.

391

Depositions taken before Sir Henry Capel: Ibid. 1286.

392

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

393

Deposition of Geoffrey Pole: Rolls House MS.

394

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

395

Sir William Godolphin to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XIII.

396

Ibid.

397

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

398

Godolphin’s Correspondence: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XIII.

399

Instructions by the King’s Highness to John Becket, Gentleman of his Grace’s Chamber, and John Wroth, of the same: printed in the Archæologia.

400

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

401

Deposition of Alice Paytchet: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XXXIX.

402

Examination of Lord Montague and the Marquis of Exeter: Rolls House MS. first series, 1262.

403

“The Lord Darcy played the fool,” Montague said; “he went about to pluck the council. He should first have begun with the head. But I beshrew him for leaving off so soon.” —Baga de Secretis, pouch xi. bundle 2.

404

“I am sorry the Lord Abergavenny is dead; for if he were alive, he were able to make ten thousand men.” – Sayings of Lord Montague: Ibid.

405

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

406

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

407

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

408

Robert Warren to Lord Fitzwaters: MS. Cotton. Titus, B 1, 143.

409

Burnet’s Collectanea, p. 494, &c.

410

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

411

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

412

Examination of Christopher Chator: Rolls House MS. first series.

413

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

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

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

414

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

415

The history of Lambert’s trial is taken from Foxe, Vol. V.

416

Cromwell to Wyatt: Nott’s Wyatt, p. 326.

417

Cromwell to Wriothesley: State Papers, Vol. VIII. p. 155.

418

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

419

The negotiations for the marriages.

420

Wriothesley to Cromwell: State Papers, Vol. VIII. p. 165.

421

i. e., he was to marry the Princess Mary.

422

Wriothesley to Cromwell: State Papers, Vol. VIII. p. 167.

423

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

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

424

William Ostrich to the worshipful Richard Ebbes, Merchant in London: MS. State Paper Office, first series, Vol. II.

425

Sir Ralph Sadler to Cromwell, from Dover, March 16: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XXXVII.

426

Hollinshed, Stow.

427

Letters of Sir Thomas Cheyne to Cromwell, March and April, 1539: MS. State Paper Office, second series.

428

Cromwell to the King: MS. Cotton. Titus, B 1, 271.

429

Philips’s Life of Pole. Four letters of Cardinal Alexander Farnese to Paul III.: Epist. Reg. Pol. Vol. II. p. 281, &c.

430

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

eis oἰῶnos ὔristos ὐmύnesthai perὶ patrὴs.

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

431

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

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

432

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

433

Royal Proclamation: Rolls House MS. A 1, 10.

434

In “Lusty Juventus” the Devil is introduced, saying, —

“Oh, oh! full well I know the cause

That my estimation doth thus decay:

The old people would believe still in my laws,

But the younger sort lead them a contrary way.

They will not believe, they plainly say,

In old traditions made by men;

But they will live as the Scripture teacheth them.”

Hawkins’s Old Plays, Vol. I. p. 152.

435

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

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

436

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

437

For instance, in Watson’s case he seems to have rebuked the bishop. Ibid.

438

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

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

439

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