the Rebels camp 21 Espousals of James King of Scotland and Lady Margaret 118 Exchanges unlawful prohibited 40 Exceter besieged by Perkin 102 the Loyalty of the Town 103 the Town rewarded with the King 's own Sword 105 Execution of Humphrey Stafford 12 John a Chamber and his fellow-Rebels at York 41 Sir James Tyrril murderer of King Edward's two Sons 71 of divers others 75 Sir William Stanley 77 Rebels 79 Perkin's company 81 Audley and Cornish Rebels 96 another counterfeit Earl of Warw. 110 Perkin Warbeck 111 the Mayor of Cork and his Son ibid. Earl of Warwick ibid. F. FAme ill affected 97 Fame entertained by divers the reasons of it 70 Fame neglected by Empson and Dudley 119 Fear not safe to the King 79 Fines 43 Without Fines Statute to sell Land 58 Flammock a Lawyer a Rebel 92 Flemings banished 75 Flight of King Henry out of Britain into France wherefore 34 Forfeitures and Confiscations furnish the King's wants 9 17 Forfeitures aimed at 45 76 Forfeitures upon Penal Laws taken by the King which was the blot of his times 80 Fortune various 16 22 Forwardness inconsiderate 96 Fox made Privy Counsellor 10 made Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal ib. his providence 98 Free-fishing of the Dutch 129 Title to France renewed by the King in Parliament 56 Frion joyns with Perkin 68 First-fruits 10 In forma Pauperis a Law enacted for it 84 G. GAbato Sebastian makes a Voyage for Discovery 107 Gordon Lady Katherine wife to Perkin 87 Granado vindicated from the Moors 60 Guard Yoomen first instituted 7 Gifts of the French King to King Henry's Counsellors and Souldiers 64 Gratitude of the Pope's Lègate to King Henry 42 H. HAllowed Sword from the Pope 101 Hatred of the People to the King with the main reason of it 12 Hearty Acclamations of the People to the King 〈◊〉 King Henry his Description 133 c. his Piety 1 60 he hath three Titles to the Kingdom 2 Hereticks provided against a rare thing in those times 115 Hern a Counsellor to Perkin 101 Hialas otherwise Elias to England how 98 Holy War 114 Hopes of gain by War 64 Hostages redeemed by the King 10 Houses of Husbandry to be maintained to prevent the decay of People 45 Histories defects in them what 46 I. IAmes the Third King of Scotland his distress and death 42 Idols vex God and King Henry 105 John Egremond Leader of the Rebels 41 Inclosures their manifest inconveniencies and how remedied 44 Ingratitude of Women punished 85 Innovation desired 12 Incense of the People what 118 Instructions of Lady Margaret to 〈◊〉 66 Intercursus Magnus 91 Intercursus Malus ibid. 129 Invectives of Maximilian against the French King 〈◊〉 Invectives against the King and Council 79 Improvidence of King Henry to prevent his troubles 12 14 Improvidence of the French 82 Jointure of Lady Katherine how much 117 Jointure of Lady Margaret in Scotland how much 119 Joseph a Rebel 92 Ireland favoureth York Title 15 Ireland receiveth Simon the Priest of Oxford with his counterfeit ibid. Irish adhere to Perkin 68 Jubile at Rome 114 Juno i. e. the Lady Margaret so called by the King's friends 65 K. KAtherine Gordon Perkin's Wife royally entertained by K. Hen. 104 Kent loyal to the King 81 94 The King the publick Steward 36 Kings their miseries 50 King of Rakehels Perkin so called by King Henry 103 The King's Skreen who 92 King of France Protector of King Henry in his trouble 133 Kingdom of France restored to its integrity 25 King of France buys his Peace of King Henry 64 King of Scots enters England 87 again 98 Knights of the Bath 95 Knights of Rhodes 〈◊〉 King Henry Protector of the Order 115 L. LAncaster Title condemned by Parliament 3 Lancaster House in possession of the Crown for three Descents together 〈◊〉 Lambert Simnel See Counterfeit 13 Laws enacted in Parliament 38 Divers Laws enacted 123 Law charitable enacted 84 A good Law enacted ibid. A Law of a strange 〈◊〉 83 A Law against carrying away of Women by violence the reasons of it 39 Law of Poynings 79 Laws Penal put in execution 80 A Legate from the Pope 42 preferred to be Bishop in England by King Henry ibid. his gratitude to King Henry ibid. Lenity of the King abused 101 Letters from the King out of France to the Mayor of London 64 A Libel 55 Libels the causes of them 79 Libels the females of Sedition ibid. Libels the Authors executed ibid. A Loan from the City to the King repaid 46 London entred by King Henry in a close Chariot wherefore 5 London in a tumult because of the Rebels 95 London purchase Confirmation of their Liberties 124 M. MAlecontents their effects 40 Margaret of Burgundy the fountain of all the mischief to K. Henry 18 she entertains the Rebels 41 69 she a Juno to the King 65 she instructs Perkin 66 Lady Margaret desired in Marriage by the Scottish King 108 Manufacture forein how to be kept out 36 123 Marriage of King Henry with Lady Elizabeth 10 of the French King with the Duchess of Britain 55 of Prince Arthur 116 Mart translated to Calice the reasons of it 74 Maintenance prohibited by Law 38 Merchants of England received at Antwerp with procession and great joy 91 A memorable Memorandum of the King 121 Military power of the Kingdom advanced how 44 Mills of Empson and Dudley what and the gains they brought in 124 Mitigations 120 Money bastard employments thereof repressed 36 Money left at the King's death how much 132 Morton made Privy Counsellor 10 made Archbishop of Canterbury ib. his Speech to the Parliament 32 Morton's Fork 58 Morton author of the Union of the two Roses 114 Moors expelled Granado 61 Murmuring 14 Murmurs of the People against the King 70 Murther and Manslaughter a Law concerning it in amendment of the common Law 39 Murther of King Edward the Fifth 85 Murther of a Commissioner for the Subsidy 93 N. NAvigation of the Kingdom how advanced 45 Neighbour over-potent dangerous 34 Bad News the effect thereof in Souldiers 63 Nobility neglected in Council the ill effects of it 32 Nobility few of them put to death in King Henry's time 134 North the King's journey thither for what reasons 11 O. OAth of Allegiance taken 9 Oath enforced upon Maximilian by his Subjects 46 Oath kept ibid. Obedience neglected what follows 42 First Occasion of a happy Union 109 Obsequies for the French King performed in England ibid. Obsequies to Tyrants what 1 An Ominous answer of the King 119 An Ominous Prognostick 129 Opinions divers what was to be done with Perkin 105 Orator from the Pope met at London-Bridge by the Mayor 101 Order of the Garter sent to Alphonso 64 Ostentation of Religion by the King of Spain 60 Over-merit prejudicial to Sir William Stanley 73 Outlawries how punished 120 Oxford Earl fined for breach of the Law 121 P. PAcificator King Henry between the French King and Duke of Britain 32 Pardon
to the number of eight thousand choise men and well armed who having a fair wind in few hours landed in Britain and joyned themselves forthwith to those Briton Forces that remained after the Defeat and marched straight on to find the Enemy and encamped fast by them The French wisely husbanding the possession of a Victory and well acquainted with the Courage of the English especially when they are fresh kept themselves within their Trenches being strongly lodged and resolved not to give Battel But mean-while to harrass and weary the English they did upon all advantages set upon them with their Light-horse wherein nevertheless they received commonly loss especially by means of the English Archers But upon these Atchievements Francis Duke of Britain deceased an accident that the King might easily have foreseen and ought to have reckoned upon and provided for but that the Point of Reputation when news first came of the Battel lost that somewhat must be done did over-bear the Reason of War After the Duke's decease the principal persons of Britain partly bought partly through faction put all things into confusion so as the English not finding Head or Body with whom to joyn their Forces and being in jealousie of Friends as well as in danger of Enemies and the Winter begun returned home five Months after their landing So the Battel of Saint Alban the death of the Duke and the retire of the English Succours were after some time the causes of the loss of that Duchy which action some accounted as a blemish of the King's Judgement but most but as the misfortune of his times But howsoever the temporary Fruit of the Parliament in their Ayd and Advice given for Britain took not nor prospered not yet the lasting Fruit of Parliament which is good and wholesom Laws did prosper and doth yet continue to this day For according to the Lord Chancellor's admonition there were that Parliament divers excellent Laws ordained concerning the Points which the King recommended First the Authority of the Star-Chamber which before subsisted by the ancient Common-Laws of the Realm was confirmed in certain Cases by Act of Parliament This Court is one of the sagest and noblest Institutions of this Kingdom For in the distribution of Courts of Ordinary Justice besides the High Court of Parliament in which distribution the King's-Bench holdeth the Pleas of the Crown the Common-Place Pleas-Civil the Exchequer-Pleas concerning the King's Revenue and the Chancery the Pretorian power for mitigating the rigour of Law in case of extremity by the conscience of a good man there was nevertheless always reserved a high and preheminent power to the King's Council in Causes that might in example or consequence concern the state of the Common-wealth which if they were Criminal the Council used to sit in the Chamber called the Star-Chamber if Civil in the White-Chamber or White-Hall And as the Chancery had the Pretorian power for Equity so the Star-Chamber had the Censorian power for Offences under the degree of Capital This Court of Star-Chamber is compounded of good Elements for it consisteth of four kinds of Persons Counsellors Peers Prelates and chief Judges It discerneth also principally of four kinds of Causes Forces Frauds Crimes various of Stellionate and the Inchoations or middle acts towards Crimes capital or heinous not actually committed or perpetrated But that which was principally aimed at by this act was Force and the two chief Supports of Force Combination of Multitudes and Maintenance or Headship of Great persons From the general peace of the Countrey the King's care went on to the peace of the King's House and the security of his great Officers and Counsellors But this Law was somewhat of a strange composition and temper That if any of the King's Servants under the degree of a Lord do conspire the death of any of the King's Council or Lord of the Realm it is made Capital This Law was thought to be procured by the Lord Chancellor who being a stern and haughty man and finding he had some mortal Enemies in Court provided for his own safety drowning the envy of it in a general Law by communicating the priviledge with all other Counsellors and Peers and yet not daring to extend it further than to the King's Servants in Check-roll lest it should have been too harsh to the Gentlemen and other Commons of the Kingdom who might have thought their ancient Liberty and the clemency of the Laws of England invaded If the will in any case of Felony should be made the deed And yet the reason which the Act yieldeth that is to say That he that conspireth the death of Counsellors may be thought indirectly and by a mean 〈◊〉 conspire the death of the King himself is indifferent to all Subjects as well as to Servants in Court But it seemeth this sufficed to serve the Lord Chancellor's turn at this time But yet he lived to need a General Law for that he grew afterwards as odious to the Countrey as he was then to the Court. From the peace of the King's House the King's care extended to the peace of Private Houses and Families For there was an excellent Moral Law molded thus The taking and carrying away of Women forcibly and against their will except Female-Wards and Bond-Women was made Capital The Parliament wisely and justly conceiving that the obtaining of Women by force into Possession howsoever afterwards Assent might follow by Allurements was but a Rape drawn forth in length because the first Force drew on all the rest There was made also another Law for Peace in general and repressing of Murthers and Man-slaughters and was in amendment of the Common Laws of the Realm being this That whereas by the Common Law the King's Suit in case of Homicide did expect the Year and the Day allowed to the Parties Suit by way of Appeal and that it was found by experience that the Party was many times compounded with and many times wearied with the Suit so that in the end such Suit was let fall and by that time the matter was in a manner forgotten and thereby Prosecution at the King's Suit by Indictment which is ever best Flagrante crimine neglected it was Ordained That the Suit by Indictment might be taken as well at any time within the Year and the Day as after not prejudicing nevertheless the Parties Suit The King began also then as well in Wisdom as in Justice to pare a little the Priviledge of Clergy ordaining That Clerks convict should be burned in the hand both because they might taste of some corporal Punishment and that they might carry a Brand of Infamy But for this good Acts sake the King himself was after branded by Perkin's Proclamation for an execrable breaker of the Rites of Holy Church Another Law was made for the better Peace of the Countrey by which Law the King's Officers and Farmors were to forfeit their Places and Holds in case of unlawful Retainer or partaking in Routs and
The Male-contents of his own Kingdom have not been Base Popular nor Titulary Impostors but of an higher nature The King of Spain doubt ye not will 〈◊〉 with us not knowing where the French King's Ambition will stay Our Holy Father the Pope likes no Tramontanes in Italy But howsoever it be this matter of Confederates is rather to be thought on than reckoned on For God forbid but England should be able to get Reason of France without a Second At the Battels of Cressy Poictiers Agent-Court we were of Our selves France hath much People and few Soldiers They have no stable Bands of Foot some good Horse they have but these are Forces which are least fit for a Defensive War where the Actions are in the Assailant's choice It was our Discords only that lost France and by the Power of GOD it is the good Peace which we now enjoy that will recover it GOD hath hitherto blessed my Sword I have in this time that I have Reigned weeded out my bad Subjects and tryed my good My People and I know one another which breeds Confidence And if there should be any bad Blood left in the Kingdom an Honourable Forein War will vent it or purifie it In this great Business let me have your Advice and Ayd If any of you were to make his Son Knight you might have ayd of your Tenants by Law This concerns the Knighthood and Spurs of the Kingdom whereof I am Father and bound not only to seek to maintain it but to advance it But for matter of Treasure let it not be taken from the Poorest sort but from those to whom the Benefit of the War may redound France is no Wilderness and I that profess good husbandry hope to make the War after the Beginnings to pay it self Go together in GOD's Name and lose no time for I have called this Parliament wholly for this Cause THus spake the King But for all this though he shewed great forwardness for a War not only to his Parliament and Court but to his Privy Council likewise except the two Bishops and a few more yet nevertheless in his secret intentions he had no purpose to go through with any War upon France But the truth was that he did but traffick with that War to make his Return in money He knew well that France was now entire and at unity with it self and never so mighty many years before He saw by the tast that he had of his Forces sent into Britain that the French knew well enough how to make War with the English by not putting things to the hazard of a Battel but wearing them by long Sieges of Towns and strong fortified Encampings James the Third of Scotland his true Friend and Confederate gone and James the Fourth that had succeeded wholly at the devotion of France and ill affected towards him As for the Conjunctions of Ferdinando of Spain and Maximilian he could make no foundation upon them for the one had Power and not Will and the other had Will and not Power Besides that Ferdinando had but newly taken breath from the War with the Moors and merchanded at this time with France for the restoring of the Counties of Russignon and Perpignian oppignorated to the French Neither was he out of fear of the Discontents and ill blood within the Realm which having used always to repress and appease in person he was loth they should find him at a distance beyond Sea and engaged in War Finding therefore the Inconveniences and Difficulties in the prosecution of a War he cast with himself how to compass two things The one how by the declaration and inchoation of a War to make his Profit the other how to come off from the War with saving of his Honour For Profit it was to be made two ways upon his Subjects for the War and upon his Enemies for the Peace like a good Merchant that maketh his gain both upon the Commodities Exported and Imported back again For the point of Honour wherein he might suffer for giving over the War he considered well that as he could not trust upon the ayds of Ferdinando and Maximilian for supports of War so the impuissance of the one and the double proceeding of the other lay fair for him for occasions to accept of Peace These things he did wisely fore-see and did as artificially conduct whereby all things fell into his lap as he desired For as for the Parliament it presently took fire being affectionate of old to the War of France and desirous afresh to repair the dishonour they thought the King sustained by the loss of Britain Therefore they advised the King with great alacrity to undertake the War of France And although the Parliament consisted of the first and second Nobility together with principal Citizens and Townsmen yet worthily and justly respecting more the People whose Deputies they were than their own private Persons and finding by the Lord Chancellor's Speech the King's inclination that way they consented that Commissioners should go forth for the gathering and levying of a Benevolence from the more able sort This Tax called Benevolence was devised by Edward the Fourth for which he sustained much Envy It was abolished by Richard the Third by Act of Parliament to ingratiate himself with the people and it was now revived by the King but with consent of Parliament for so it was not in the time of King Edward the Fourth But by this way he raised exceeding great summs Insomuch as the City of London in those days contributed nine thousand pounds and better and that chiefly levied upon the wealthier sort There is a Tradition of a Dilemma that Bishop Morton the Chancellor used to raise up the Benevolence to higher Rates and some called it his Fork and some his Crotch. For he had couched an Article in the Instructions to the Commissioners who were to levy the Benevolence That if they met with any that were sparing they should tell them That they must needs have because they laid up and if they were spenders they must needs have because it was seen in their port and manner of living So neither kind came amiss This Parliament was meerly a Parliament of War for it was in substance but a Declaration of War against France and Scotland with some Statutes conducing thereunto As the severe punishing of Mortpayes and keeping back of Soldiers Wages in Captains The like severity for the departure of Soldiers without licence Strengthning of the Common Law in favour of Protections for those that were in the King's service And the setting the gate open and wide for men to Sell or Mortgage their Lands without Fines for Alienation to furnish themselves with Money for the War And lastly the avoiding of all Scottish-men out of England There was also a Statute for the dispersing of the Standard of the Exchequer throughout England thereby to size Weights and Measures and two or three more of less importance After the Parliament was broken up which lasted not long the King went
promise of Pardon and good Conditions of Reward And above the rest to assail sap and work into the constancy of Sir Robert Clifford and to win him if they could being the man that knew most of their secrets and who being won away would most appall and discourage the rest and in a manner break the Knot There is a strange Tradition That the King being lost in a Wood of Suspitions and not knowing whom to trust had both intelligence with the Confessors and Chaplains of divers great men and for the better Credit of his Espials abroad with the contrary side did use to have them cursed at St. Pauls by Name amongst the Bead-Roll of the King's Enemies according to the Custom of those Times These Espials plyed their Charge so roundly as the King had an Anatomy of Perkin alive and was likewise well informed of the particular correspondent Conspirators in England and and many other Mysteries were revealed and Sir Robert Clifford in especial won to be assured to the King and industrious and officious for his service The King therefore receiving a rich Return of his diligence and great satisfaction touching a number of Particulars first divulged and spred abroad the Imposture and jugling of Perkin's Person and Travels with the Circumstances thereof throughout the Realm Not by Proclamation because things were yet in Examination and so might receive the more or the less but by Court-fames which commonly print better than printed Proclamations Then thought he it also time to send an Ambassage unto Archduke Philip into Flanders for the abandoning and dismissing of Perkin Herein he employed Sir Edward Poynings and Sir William Warham Doctor of the Canon Law The Archduke was then young and governed by his Council before whom the Embassadors had audience and Doctor Warham spake in this manner MY Lords the King our Master is very sorry that England and your Countrey here of Flanders having been counted as Man and Wife for so long time now this Countrey of all others should be the Stage where a base Counterfeit should play the part of a King of England not only to his Graces disquiet and dishonour but to the scorn and reproach of all Sovereign Princes To counterfeit the dead Image of a King in his Coyn is an high Offence by all Laws But to counterfeit the living Image of a King in his Person exceedeth all Falsifications except it should be that of a Mahomet or an Antichrist that counterfeit Divine Honour The King hath too great an Opinion of this sage Council to think that any of you is caught with this Fable though way may be given by you to the passion of some the thing in it self is so improbable To set Testimonies aside of the Death of Duke Richard which the King hath upon Record plain and infallible 〈◊〉 because they may be thought to be in the King 's own Power let the thing testifie for it self Sense and Reason no Power can command Is it possible trow you that King Richard should damn his Soul and foul his Name with so 〈◊〉 a Murther and yet not mend his Case Or do you think that Men of Blood that were his Instruments did turn to Pity in the middest of their Execution Whereas in cruel and savage Beasts and Men also the first Draught of Blood doth yet make them more fierce and enraged Do you not know that the Bloody Executioners of Tyrants do go to such Errants with an Halter about their neck So that if they perform not they are sure to die for it And do you think that these men would hazard their own lives for sparing anothers Admit they should have saved him What should they have done with him Turn him into London-Streets that the Watch-men or any Passenger that should light upon him might carry him before a Justice and so all come to light Or should they have kept him by them secretly That surely would have required a great deal of Care Charge and continual Fears But my Lords I labour too much in a clear Business The King is so wise and hath so good Friends abroad as now he knoweth Duke Perkin from his Cradle And because he is a great Prince if you have any good Poet here he can help him with Notes to write his Life and to parallel him with Lambert Simnel now the King's Falconer And therefore to speak plainly to your Lordships it is the strangest thing in the World that the Lady Margaret excuse us if we name her whose Malice to the King is both causlless and endless should now when she is old at the time when other Women give over Child-bearing bring forth two such Monsters being not the Births of nine or ten Months but of many Years And whereas other natural Mothers bring forth Children weak and not able to help themselves she bringeth forth tall Striplings able soon after their coming into the World to bid Battel to mighty Kings My Lords we stay unwillingly upon this Part. We would to God that Lady would once tast the Joys which God Almighty doth serve up unto her in beholding her Niece to Reign in such Honour and with so much Royal Issue which she might be pleased to accompt as her own The Kings Request unto the Archduke and your Lordships might be That according to the example of King Charles who hath already discarded him you would banish this unworthy Fellow out of your Dominions But because the King may justly expect more from an ancient Confederate than from a new reconciled Enemy he maketh his Request unto you to deliver him up into his hands Pirates and Impostures of this sort being fit to be accounted the Common Enemies of Mankind and no ways to be protected by the Law of Nations After some time of deliberation the Ambassadors received this short Answer THat the Archduke for the love of King Henry would in no sort ayd or assist the pretended Duke but in all things conserve the Amity he had with the King But for the Duchess Dowager she was absolute in the Lands of her Dowry and that he could not let her to dispose of her own THE King upon the return of the Ambassadors was nothing satisfied with this Answer For well he knew that a Patrimonial Dowry carried no part of Sovereignty or Command of Forces Besides the Ambassadors told him plainly that they saw the Duchess had a great Party in the Archduke's Council and that howsoever it was carried in a course of connivence yet the Archduke under-hand gave ayd and furtherance to Perkin Wherefore partly out of Courage and partly out of Policy the King forthwith banished all Flemings as well their Persons as their Wares out of his Kingdom commanding his Subjects likewise and by name his Merchants-Adventurers which had a Resiance in Antwerp to return translating the Mart which commonly followed the English Cloth unto Calice and embarred also all further Trade for the future This the King did being sensible in point of
unlawful Assemblies These were the Laws that were made for repressing of Force which those times did chiefly require and were so prudently framed as they are found fit for all succeeding times and so continue to this day There were also made good and politick Laws that Parliament against Usury which is the Bastard-use of Money And against unlawful Chievances and Exchanges which is Bastard-Usury And also for the Security of the King's Customs And for the Employment of the Procedures of Forein Commodities brought in by Merchant-strangers upon the Native-Commodities of the Realm together with some other Laws of less importance But howsoever the Laws made in that Parliament did bear good and wholesom Fruit yet the Subsidy granted at the same time bare a Fruit that proved harsh and bitter All was inned at last into the King's Barn but it was after a Storm For when the Commissioners entred into the Taxation of the Subsidy in Yorkshire and the Bishoprick of Duresm the People upon a sudden grew into great mutiny and said openly that they had endured of late years a thousand miseries and neither could nor would pay the Subsidy This no doubt proceeded not simply of any present necessity but much by reason of the old humour of those Countries where the memory of King Richard was so strong that it lyes like Lees in the bottom of mens hearts and if the Vessel was but stirred it would come up And no doubt it was partly also by the instigation of some factious Malecontents that bare principal stroke amongst them Hereupon the Commissioners being somewhat astonished deferred the matter unto the Earl of Northumberland who was the principal man of Authority in those Parts The Earl forthwith wrote unto the Court signifying to the King plainly enough in what flame he found the people of those Countries and praying the King's direction The King wrote back peremptorily That he would not have one penny abated of that which had been granted to him by Parliament both because it might encourage other Countries to pray the like Release or Mitigation and chiefly because he would never endure that the base Multitude should frustrate the Authority of the Parliament wherein their Votes and Consents were concluded Upon this dispatch from Court the Earl assembled the principal Justices and Free-holders of the Countrey and speaking to them in that imperious Language wherein the King had written to him which needed not save that an harsh business was unfortunately fallen into the hands of a harsh man did not only irritate the People but make them conceive by the stoutness and haughtiness of delivery of the King's Errand that himself was the Author or principal Perswader of that Counsel Whereupon the meaner sort routed together and suddenly assailing the Earl in his house slew him and divers of his servants And rested not there but creating for their Leader Sir John Egremond a factious person and one that had of a long time born an ill Talent towards the King and being animated also by a base Fellow called John A Chamber a very Boutefeu who bare much sway amongst the vulgar and popular entred into open Rebellion and gave out in flat terms that they would go against King Henry and fight with him for the maintenance of their Liberties When the King was advertised of this new Insurrection being almost a Fever that took him every year after his manner little troubled therewith he sent Thomas Earl of Surrey whom he had a little before not only released out of the Tower and pardoned but also received to special favour with a competent Power against the Rebels who fought with the principal Band of them and defeated them and took alive John A Chamber their firebrand As for Sir John Egremond he fled into Flanders to the Lady Margaret of Burgundy whose Palace was the Sanctuary and Receptacle of all Traytors against the King John A Chamber was Executed at York in great state for he was hanged upon a Gibbet raised a Stage higher in the midst of a square Gallows as a Traytor paramount and a number of his men that were his chief Complices were hanged upon the lower Story round about him and the rest were generally pardoned Neither did the King himself omit his custom to be first or second in all his Warlike Exploits making good his Word which was usual with him when he heard of Rebels that He desired but to see them For immediately after he had sent down the Earl of Surrey he marched towards them himself in person And although in his journey he heard news of the Victory yet he went on as far as York to pacifie and settle those Countries And that done returned to London leaving the Earl of Surrey for his Lieutenant in the Northern parts and Sir Richard Tunstal for his principal Commissioner to levy the Subsidy whereof he did not remit a Denier About the same time that the King lost so good a Servant as the Earl of Northumberland he lost likewise a faithful Friend and Allie of James the Third King of Scotland by a miserable disaster For this unfortunate Prince after a long smother of discontent and hatred of many of his Nobility and People breaking forth at times into seditions and alterations of Court was at last distressed by them having taken Arms and surprised the person of Prince James his Son partly by force partly by threats that they would otherwise deliver up the Kingdom to the King of England to shadow their Rebellion and to be the titular and painted Head of those Arms. Whereupon the King finding himself too weak sought unto King Henry as also unto the Pope and the King of France to compose those troubles between him and his Subjects The King accordingly interposed their Mediation in a round and Princely manner Not only by way of request and perswasion but also by way of protestation of menace declaring that they thought it to be the common Cause of all Kings If Subjects should be suffered to give Laws unto their Sovereign and that they would accordingly resent it and revenge it But the Rebels that had shaken off the greater Yoak of Obedience had likewise cast away the lesser Tye of Respect And Fury prevailing above Fear made answer That there was no talking of Peace except the King would resign his Crown Whereupon Treaty of Accord taking no place it came to a Battel at Bannocks-bourn by Strivelin In which Battel the King transported with wrath and just indignation inconsiderately fighting and precipitating the charge before his whole numbers came up to him was notwithstanding the contrary express and straight commandment of the Prince his Son slain in the Pursuit being fled to a Mill situate in the field where the Battel was fought As for the Pope's Embassy which was sent by Adrian de Castello an Italian Legate and perhaps as those times were might have prevailed more it came too late for the Embassy but not for the Ambassador
that knew themselves guilty in the Pale fled to them So that Sir Edward Poynings was enforced to make a Wild-Chase upon the Wild-Irish Where in respect of the Mountains and Fastnesses he did little good Which either out of a suspicious Melancholy upon his bad Success or the better to save his service from Disgrace he would needs impute unto the Comfort that the Rebels should receive under-hand from the Earl of Kildare every light suspition growing upon the Earl in respect of the Kildare that was in the Action of Lambert Simnel and slain at Stoke-field Wherefore he caused the Earl to be apprehended and sent into England where upon Examination he cleared himself so well as he was re-placed in his Government But Poynings the better to make compensation of the Meagerness of his Service in the Wars by acts of Peace called a Parliament where was made that memorable Act which 〈◊〉 this day is called Poynings Law whereby all the Statutes of England were made to be of force in Ireland For before they were not neither are any now in force in Ireland which were made in England since that time which was the tenth year of the King About this time began to be discovered in the King that disposition which afterward nourished and whet-on by bad Counsellors and Ministers proved the Blot of his times which was the course he took to crush Treasure out of his Subjects Purses by Forfeitures upon Penal Laws At this men did startle the more at this time because it appeared plainly to be in the King's Nature and not out of his Necessity he being now in Float for Treasure For that he had newly received the Peace-money from France the Benevolence-money from his Subjects and great Casualties upon the Confiscations of the Lord Chamberlain and divers others The first noted Case of this kind was that of Sir William Capel Alderman of London Who upon sundry Penal Laws was condemned in the summ of seven and twenty hundred Pounds and compounded with the King for sixteen hundred And yet after Empson would have cut another Chop out of him if the King had not died in the instant The Summer following the King to comfort his Mother whom he did always tenderly love and revere and to make Demonstration to the World that the proceedings against Sir William Stanley which was imposed upon him by necessity of State had not in any degree diminished the affection he bare to Thomas his Brother went in Progress to Latham to make merry with his Mother and the Earl and lay there divers days During this Progress Perkin Warbeck finding that time and temporizing which whilest his practices were covert and wrought well in England made for him did now when they were discovered and defeated rather make against him for that when matters once go down the Hill they stay not without a new force resolved to try his adventure in some exploit upon England hoping still upon the affections of the Common People towards the House of York Which body of Common People he thought was not to be practised upon as persons of Quality are But that they only practice upon their affections was to set up a Standard in the field The Place where he should make his Attempt he chose to be the Coast of Kent The King by this time was grown to such an height of Reputation for cunning and Policy that every Accident and Event that went well was laid and imputed to his foresight as if he had set it before As in this particular of Perkin's Design upon Kent For the world would not believe afterwards but the King having secret Intelligence of Perkin's intention for Kent the better to draw it on went of purpose into the North a-far-off laying an open side unto Perkin to make him come to the close and so to trip up his heels having made sure in Kent before-hand But so it was that Perkin had gathered together a Power of all Nations neither in number not in the hardiness and courage of the Persons contemptible but in their nature and fortunes to be feared as well of Friends as Enemies being Bankrupts and many of them Felons and such as lived by Rapine These he put to Sea and arrived upon the Coast of Sandwich and Deal in Kent about July There he cast Anchor and to prove the affections of the People sent some of his men to land making great boast of the Power that was to follow The Kentish-men perceiving that Perkin was not followed by any English of name or account and that his forces consisted but of strangers born and most of them base People and Free-booters fitter to spoil a Coast than to recover a Kingdom resorting unto the principal Gentlemen of the Countrey professed their loyalty to the King and desired to be directed and commanded for the best of the King's service The Gentlemen entring into Consultation directed some forces in good number to shew themselves upon the Coast and some of them to make signs to entice Perkin's Soldiers to land as if they would joyn with them and some others to appear from some other places and to make semblance as if they fled from them the better to encourage them to land But Perkin who by playing the Prince or else taught by Secretary Frion had learned thus much That People under Command do use to consult and after to march in order and Rebels contrariwise run upon an Head together in confusion considering the delay of time and observing their orderly and not tumultuary Arming doubted the worst And therefore the wily Youth would not set one foot out of his Ship till he might see things were sure Wherefore the King's Forces perceiving that they could draw on no more than those that were formerly landed set upon them and cut them in pieces ere they could flie back to their Ships In which Skirmish besides those that fled and were slain there were taken about an hundred and fifty persons Which for that the King thought that to punish a few for example was Gentleman's play but for Rascal-People they were to be cut off every man especially in the beginning of an Enterprize and likewise for that he saw that Perkin's Forces would now consist chiefly of such Rabble and scum of desperate people he therefore hanged them all for the greater terrour They were brought to London all rail'd in Ropes like a Team of Horses in a Cart and were executed some of them at London and Wapping and the rest at divers places upon the Sea-Coast of Kent Sussex and Norfolk for Sea-marks or Light-houses to teach Perkin's People to avoid the Coast. The King being advertised of the landing of the Rebels thought to leave his Progress But being certified the next day that they were partly defeated and partly fled he continued his Progress and sent Sir Richard Guilford into Kent in message Who calling the Countrey together did much commend from the King their fidelity manhood and well
it was a Race often dipped in their own Blood It hath remained since only transplanted into other Names as well of the Imperial-Line as of other Noble Houses But it was neither guilt of Crime nor reason of Estate that could quench the Envy that was upon the King for this Execution So that he thought good to export it out of the Land and to lay it upon his new 〈◊〉 Ferdinando King of Spain For these two Kings understanding one another at half a word so it was that there were Letters shewed out of Spain whereby in the passages concerning the Treaty of the Marriage Ferdinando had written to the King in plain terms that he saw no assurance of his Succession as long as the Earl of Warwick lived and that he was loth to send his Daughter to Troubles and Dangers But hereby as the King did in some part remove the Envy from himself so he did not observe that he did withal bring a kind of Malediction and Infausting upon the Marriage as an ill Prognostick Which in event so far proved true as both Prince Arthur enjoyed a very small time after the Marriage and the Lady Katherine her self a sad and a religious woman long after when King Henry the Eighth his resolution of a Divorce from her was first made known to her used some words That she had not offended but it was a Judgment of God for that her former Marriage was made in blood meaning that of the Earl of Warwick This Fifteenth year of the King there was a great Plague both in London and in divers parts of the Kingdom Wherefore the King after often change of Places whether to avoid the danger of the Sickness or to give occasion of an Enterview with the Arch-Duke or both sayled over with his Queen to Calice Upon his coming thither the Arch-Duke sent an honourable Ambassage unto him as well to welcom him into those parts as to let him know that if it pleased him he would come and do him reverence But it was said withal That the King might be pleased to appoint some place that were out of any Walled Town or Fortress for that he had denied the same upon like occasion to the French King And though he said he made a great difference between the two Kings yet he would be loth to give a President that might make it after to be expected at his hands by another whom he trusted less The King accepted of the Courtesie and admitted of his Excuse and appointed the place to be at St. Peter's Church without Calice But withal he did visit the Arch-Duke with Ambassadors sent from himself which were the Lord Saint-John and the Secretary unto whom the Arch-Duke did the honour as going to Mass at St. Omers to set the Lord Saint-John on his right hand and the Secretary on his left and so to ride between them to Church The day appointed for the Enterview the King went on Horse-back some distance from St. Peter's Church to receive the Arch-Duke And upon their approaching the Arch-Duke made hast to light and offered to hold the King's Stirrop at his alighting which the King would not permit but descending from Horse-back they embraced with great affection and withdrawing into the Church to a place prepared they had long Conference not only upon the Confirmation of former Treaties and the 〈◊〉 of Commerce but upon Cross Marriages to be had between the Duke of York the King 's second Son and the Arch-Duke's Daughter And again between Charles the Arch-Dukes Son and Heir and Mary the King 's second Daughter But these Blossoms of unripe Marriages were but friendly wishes and the Airs of loving Entertainment though one of them came afterwards to Conclusion in Treaty though not in Effect But during the time that the two Princes conversed and commoned together in the Suburbs of Calice the Demonstrations on both sides were passing hearty and affectionate especially on the part of the Arch-Duke Who besides that he was a Prince of an excellent good nature being conscious to himself how drily the King had been used by his Council in the matter of Perkin did strive by all means to recover it in the King's affection And having also his ears continually beaten with the Counsels of his Father and father-in-Father-in-law who in respect of their jealous hatred against the French King did always advise the Arch-Duke to anchor himself upon the Amity of King Henry of England was glad upon this occasion to put in ure and practice their precepts calling the King Patron and Father and Protector these very words the King repeats when he certified of the loving behaviour of the Arch-Duke to the City and what else he could devise to express his love and observance to the King There came also to the King the Governour of Picardy and the Bailiff of Amiens sent from Lewis the French King to do him honour and to give him knowledge of his victory and winning of the Duchy of Millan It seemeth the King was well pleased with the honours he received from those parts while he was at Calice For he did himself certifie all the News and Occurrents of them in every particular from Calice to the Mayor and Aldermen of London which no doubt made no small talk in the City For the King though he could not entertain the good will of the Citizens as Edward the Fourth did yet by affability and other Princely Graces did ever make very much of them and apply himself to them This year also dyed John Morton Archbishop of Canterbury Chancellor of England and Cardinal He was a wise man and an eloquent but in his nature harsh and haughty much accepted by the King but envied by the Nobility and hated of the People Neither was his name left out of Perkin's Proclamation for any good will but they would not bring him in amongst the King's Casting-Counters because he had the Image and Superscription upon him of the Pope in his Honour of Cardinal He wan the King with Secrecy and Diligence but chiefly because he was his old Servant in his less Fortunes And also for that in his affections he was not without an inveterate malice against the House of York under whom he had been in trouble He was willing also to take Envy from the King more than the King was willing to put upon him For the King cared not for Subterfuges but would stand Envy and appear in any thing that was to his mind which made Envy still grow upon him more universal but less daring But in the matter of Exactions time did after shew that the Bishop in feeding the King's humour did rather temper it He had been by Richard the Third committed as in custody to the Duke of Buckingham whom he did secretly incite to revolt from King Richard But after the Duke was engaged and thought the Bishop should have been his chief Pilot in the Tempest the Bishop was gotten into the Cock-boat and fled over
which after death must necessarily undergo eternal and inevitable torments if being admonished of so horrible an Incest We should not endeavour an amendment And for your parts you cannot but foresee how great dangers by reason of this doubt do threaten you and your Posterity Being therefore desirous as the case indeed required to be resolved in this point We first conferred with Our Friends and then with the most learned in the Laws both Divine and Humane who indeed were so far from satisfying Us that they left Us more perplexed ' We therefore had recourse to the Holy Apostolick See to the Decree whereof we think it fitting that Our Self and all others should be obedient To this and no other end We call immortal God to witness have We procured this Venerable Legate As for the Queen Our most beloved Consort whatsoever women may tattle or ill willers mutter in private We do willingly and ingenuously profess that in nobleness of Mind she far transcends the greatness of her Birth So that if We were now at liberty and free for a second choice We take God to witness among all the plenty of the worlds Beauties we would not make choice of any other if lawfully we might than of this Our now Queen one in regard of her mildness wisdom humility sanctity of mind and conversation We are verily perswaded not to be paralleled But when We consider that We are bestowed on the world to other ends than the pursuit of Our own pleasures We have thought it meet rather to undergo the hazard of an uncertain judgment than to commit impiety against God the liberal Giver of all blessings and ingratitude against Our Countrey the weal and safety whereof each one should prefer before his private life or fortunes Thus much have you heard from Our own mouth And we hope that you will hereafter give no heed either to seditious detractions or idle rumours of the people This Oration took according to the divers dispositions of the hearers some lamenting the Kings but many more the Queens case every one doubting and fearful of the event Some few weary of the present estate desired a change even to worse rather than a continuance of the present And by these the course the King had taken not approved by the vulgar as pious and imposed on him by his own and the publick necessity was according to the nature of hopeful flattery most highly applauded ANNO DOM. 1529. REG. 21. AT length about the beginning of April the King residing at Bridewel at the Black Friers in London began the Suit concerning the King's Divorce There was that to be seen the like whereof the Histories of no other Nation afford A most puissant Monarch actually Sovereign and bearing rule in his Realm being cited by the voice of an Apparitor made his appearance personally before the Judges The Ceremonies in a matter so unusual and indeed otherwise of great moment require an accurate and large relation beyond the intended shortness of this History A Chair of State whereto was an ascent of some steps was placed above for the King and by the side of it another but a little lower for the Queen Before the King at the fourth step sate the Legates but so as the one seemed to sit at his right hand the other at the left Next to the Legates stood the Apparitors and other Officers of the Court and among them Gardiner after Bishop of Winchester appointed Register in this business Before the Judges within the limits of the Court sate the Archbishop of Canterbury with all the other Bishops of the Realm At the farther end of each side were the Advocates and Proctors retained for each party For the King Sampson after Bishop of Chichester Bell after Bishop of Worcester Tregonel and Peters Father to the now Lord Peters all Doctors of Law For the Queen Fisher Bishop of Rochester and Standish Bishop of St. Assaph with Ridley Doctor whether of Divinity or Law I know not but one who had the esteem of a very Learned man All things being thus formally ordered the Apparitor willed by the Register to cite the King cryed Henry King of England come into the Court who answered Here I am The Queen being likewise cited Catharine Queen of England come into the Court made no answer but rising from her seat went directly to the King to whom on her knees purposely raising her voice that every one might hear her she is reported to have spoken to this effect Sir I humbly beseech your Majesty so to deal with me at this present that I may neither have cause to complain of Injustice nor that you have debarred me the favour of your wonted Clemency I am here a Woman and a Stranger destitute of Friends and Counsel so that plead for my self I cannot and whom I may else employ I know not My kindred and Friends are far off neither can I safely rely on any here in a matter of so great consequence They that are here retained for me are no other than whom you have been pleased to appoint and are your own Subjects who if they would deal uprightly which few will believe they dare do yet can they not here withstand your determinate will and pleasure But what have wretched I committed that after twenty years spent in peaceable Wedlock and having born you so many Children you should now at length think of putting me away I was I confess the Widow of your Brother if at least she may be accounted a Widow whom her Husband never knew For I take Almighty God to witness and I am perswaded you cannot be ignorant of it that I came to your bed an unspotted Virgin from which time how I have behaved my self I am content to appeal even to them whosoever they are that do wish me least good Certainly whatsoever their Verdict may be you have always found me a most faithful Servant I may better say than Wife having never to my knowledge withstood your pleasure so much as in shew I always loved those whom I thought you favoured without questioning their deserts I so carefully farthered and procured your pleasures that I rather fear I have offended God in too much endeavouring your content than that I have any way failed in the least performance of my duty By this my observance unto you if so be you ever thought it worthy of regard by our common Issue by the memory of my Father whom you sometimes held dear I do humbly beg that you would be pleased to defer the farther hearing of this cause until having sent into Spain I may thence be advised by my Friends in this case what course to take If then in Justice it shall be thought meet to rend me from you a part of whom I have so long been the apprehension whereof doth more terrifie me than death I will even in this continue my long observed course of obedience But as often as I bethink me of
our advantages We charge them furiously the Scots amazedly fly many are slain many taken more plunged in the neighbouring Fens and taken by Scottish Freebooters sold to us Among the Captives were the Earls of Glencarn and Cassels the Lords Saintclare Maxwell Admiral of Scotland Fleming Somerwell Oliphant and 〈◊〉 besides two hundred of the better sort and eight hundred common Souldiers The consideration of this overthrow occasioned as he 〈◊〉 by the froward rashness of his own Subjects and the death of an English Herald slain in Scotland so surcharged him with rage and grief that he fell sick of a Fever and died in the three and thirtieth year of his age and two and thirtieth of his reign leaving his Kingdom to the usually unhappy government of a Woman a Child scarce eight daysold The chief of the Captives being conveyed to the Tower were two days after brought before the King's Council where the Lord Chancellour reprehended their treachery who without due denuntiation of War invaded and spoiled the Territories of their Allies and committed many outrages which might excuse any severe courses which might in justice be taken with them Yet his Majesty out of his natural Clemenoy was pleased to deal with them beyond their deserts by freeing them from the irksomness of a strict imprisonment and disposing of them among the Nobles to be by them entertained until he should otherwise determine of them By this time King James his death had possessed Henry with new hopes of uniting Britain under one Head England had a Prince and Scotland a Queen but both so young that many accidents might dissolve a contract before they came to sufficiency Yet this seeming a course intended by the Divine Providence to extirpate all causes of enmity and discord between these neighbouring Nations a Marriage between these young Princes is proposed With what alacrity and applause the proposition was on both sides entertained we may conceive who have had the happiness to see that effected which they but intended Which being a matter of so sweet a consequence it is to be wondered at that the conspiracy of a few factious spirits should so easily hinder it The hope of it prevailed with the King for the liberty of the Captives conditionally that they should leave Hostages for their return if Peace were not shortly concluded which as also the furtherance of this so wished conjunction they faithfully promised ANNO DOM. 1543. REG. 35. AFter their short Captivity the Scottish Lords having been detained only twelve days at London on New-years-day began their journey towards Scotland and with them Archibald Douglas Earl of Angus whom his son-in-Son-in-Law King James had a little before his death intended to recall Fifteen years had he and his Brother George lived Exiles in England Henry out of his Royal Bounty allowing to the Earl a Pension of a thousand Marks and to his Brother of five hundred The sudden return of these captive Lords caused in most as sudden a joy Only the Cardinal of St. Andrews who had by forgery made himself Regent and his Faction could willingly have brooked their absence They came not as freed from a Captivity but as Ambassadors for Peace by them earnestly perswaded which by the happy conjunction of these Princes might be concluded to perpetuity But the Cardinal with his factious Clergy the Queen Dowager and as many as were affected to the Flower 〈◊〉 interposed themselves for the good of France Yet notwithstanding the Cardinal's fraud being detected he is not only deposed from his Regency and James Hamilton Earl of Arren substituted but also committed to custody whence afterwards making an escape he was the author of more garboils In the mean time the Marriage of the young Queen and other conditions proposed to the Estate of Scotland by Sir Ralph Sadler the King's Ambassador are fully assented unto and Hostages promised for the performance of them But the adverse Faction became so prevalent that the Hostages were not delivered at the day neither did the Captive Nobility render themselves in England Only Gilbert Kenneda Earl of Cassels like another Regulus had rather commit himself to the mercy of his enemies than prostitute his Honour to the foul taint of base infidelity His Brethren had become Pledges for his return the importunity nay violence of his friends could not deter him from redeeming them So to London he came where the bountiful King duly honouring him for his constancy instead of receiving a Ransom gave him one dismissing him and his Brothers fraught with honour and rewards The Scots falling off from their late Agreement the King commandeth stay to be made of all their Ships and confiscateth their goods sends Letters full of threats and just complaints to the Estates at Edenborough Blaming them for arrogantly rejecting his Alliance the want whereof must needs be prejudicial to them neither had they only rejected it but unmindful of former benefits had sown seeds of new War and forced him to Arms. But Letters proving ineffectual Scotland is by the frontier Garrisons invaded in three several places forty Scots making resistance are slain five and fifty Villages burned five hundred and sixty prisoners taken and a booty brought into England of three thousand five hundred head of cattel eight hundred Horses and seven thousand Sheep beside great provision of housholdstuff But this obstinacy of the Scots proceeded not only from themselves France and Scotland were ever combined against England so that to invade one was to draw on a War with both We had been often victorious in France whereof many portions aneiently belonged to Us if we should make any claim to all or part of our Inheritance Scotland would serve either to distract our Forces or to transfer the seat of War nearer home The uniting of England and Scotland would by securing us at home facilitate our Enterprizes upon France These were motives sufficient for Francis notwithstanding the long inviolate amity between him and Henry secretly to cross our designs in Scotland Whereof Henry could not long be sensible and not revenge Wherefore he proclaims open hostility with France as he had already with Scotland and reconciles himself with the Emperour before thought irreconciliable in regard of his Aunts disgrace who professed that all causes of difference between them were buried with her yet is it certain that unto the Pope he accused Henry to have dispatched her by poison But now they are become Confederates and an aid of ten thousand English sent to joyn with the Imperials Landrecy a Town lately taken from the Emperour by the French is the first exercise of our Arms. The Emperour also coming in Person it is invested with forty thousand men is furiously battered and the Souldiers brought to the distress of half a provant loaf of Bread a day and to drink Water Francis being certified of their wants assembles his Forces draws near the Emperour feeding him with hope
Conditions of thè League concluded with the Emperour Rhodes taken by the Turk Christiern King of Denmark The Duke of Bourbon revolts The death of Adrian the Sixth Clement the Seventh succeedeth and Wolsey suffereth the repulse Wolsey persuades the King to a Divorce Richard Pacey Dean of Pauls falleth mad The Battel of Pavy Money demanded and commanded by Proclamation The King falls in love with Ann Bolen A creation of Lords Wolsey 10 build two Colleges demolisheth forty Monasteries Sacriledge punished Luther writes to the King The King's Answer A breach with the Emperour The King endeavours to relieve the French King A League concluded with the French King The French King set at liberty The King of Hungary slain by the Turks Wolsey seeks to be Pope Sede nondum vacante Rome sacked Montmorency Ambassador from France War proclaimed against the Emperour The inconstancy of the Pope Cardinal Campegius 〈◊〉 sens into England The King's Speech concerning his Divorce The Suit of the King's Divorce The Queens speech to the King before the Legates The Queen diparteth Reasons for the Divorce Reasons against the Divorce The Pope's inconstancy Wolsey falls The Iegates repair to the Queen Their conference with her Her answer Cardinal Campegius his Oraition Wolsey discharged of the Great Seal Sir Thomas More Lord Chancellour The Cardinal accused of 〈◊〉 Wolsey's Speech to the Judges Christ-Church in Oxford Wolfey-falls sick Wolsey is confined to York The Cardinal is apprehended His last words He dicth And is buried His greatness His buildings The Peace of Cambray The first occasion of Cranmer's rising Creation of Earls The Bible translated into English An Embassy to the Pope All comnierce with the See of Rome forbidden The Clergy fined The King declared supreme Head of the Church The death of William Warham Archbishop of Canterbury Cranmer though much against his will succeedeth him Sir Thomas More resigns the place of Lord Chancellour An interview between the Kings of England and France Catharina de Medices married to the Duke of Orleans The King marrieth Ann Bolen The birth of Queen Elizabeth Mary Queen of France dieth The Imposture of Elizabeth Barton discovired No Canons to be constituted without the King's assent The King to collate Bishopricks The Archbishop of Canterbury bath Papal authority under the King Fisher and More imprisoned Persecution Pope Clement dieth First-fruits granted to the King Wales united to England The King begins to subvert Religious Houses Certain Priors and Monks executed The Bishop of Rochester beheaded Made Cardinal unseasonably Sir Thomas More beheaded Religious Houses visited The death of Queen Catharine Queen Ann the Visconnt Rochford and others committed The Queen condemned with her Brother and Norris Her Execution Lady Elizabeth difintarited The King marrieth Jane Seymour Death of the Duke of Somerset the King 's natural Son Bourchier Earl of Bath Cromwell's Honour and Dignity The beginning of Reformation The subversion of Religious Houses of less note Commotion in Lincolnshire Insurrection in Yorkshire Scarborough-Castle befieged Rebellion in Ireland Cardinal Pool Rebels executed Cardinal Pool writes against the King The birth of Prince Edward Seymour Earl of Hertford Fitz-William Earl of Southampton Powlet and Russel rise The abuse of Images restrained Becket's Shrine demolished * Uniones The Image of our Lady of Walsingham Frier Forest makes good a 〈◊〉 Saint Augustine's at Canterbury Battel-Abbey and others suppressed The Bible translated The Marquess of Exceter and others beheaded Lambert convented and burned Margaret 〈◊〉 of Salisbury condemned The subversion of Religious Houses Some Abbots executed Glastonbury A catalogue of the Abbots who bad voices among the Peers New Bishopricks erected The Law of the Six Articles Latimer and Schaxton resign their Bishopricks The arrival of certain Princes of Germany in England for the treatise of a Match between the King and Lady Ann of Cleve The King marrieth the Lady Ann of Cleve Cromwell created Earl of Essex and within three months after beheaded Lady Ann of Cleve 〈◊〉 The King marrieth Catharine Howard Protestants and Papists alike persecuted The Prior of Dancaster and six others hanged The Lord Hungerford executed Beginnings of a commotion in Yorkshire Lord Leonard Grey beheaded The Lord Dacres hanged Queen Catharine beheaded Ireland made a Kingdom The Viscount Lisle deceased of a surfert of Joy Sir John Dudley made Viscount Lisle War with Scotland The Scots overthrowes The death of James the Fifth King of Scotland Hopes of a Match between Prince Edword and the Queen of Scots The Scottish Captives set liberty The Earl of Angus return-eth into Scotland The League and Match concluded The Scottish shipping detained War with Scotland War with France A League with Emperour Landrecy besieged but in vain The people licensed to eat White Meats in Lent The King 's sixth Marriage William Parr Earl of Essex Another of the same name made Lord Parr The Lord Chancellour dieth An Expedition into Scotland * Alias Bonlamberg The Earl of Hertford Protector Hing Henry's Funerals The Coronation The death of Francis King of France MusselburghField Reformation in the Church The Scots and French besiege Hadinton The Queen of Scots transported into France Humes Castle and Fastcastle gained by the Enemy Gardiner Bishop of Winchester committed to the Tower Gardiner deprived of his Bishoprick Boner Bishop of London committed also Discord 〈◊〉 the Duke of Somerset and his Brother the Lord Admiral The Lord Admiral beheaded An Insurrection in Norfolk and in Devonshire Some Forts lost in Boloignois * Corruptly Bonlamberg Enmity between the Protector and the Earl of Warwick The Protector committed The death of Paul the Third Pope Cordinal Pool elected Pope The Duke of Somerset set at liberty Peace with the Scots and French The Sweating Sickness The death of the Duke of Suffolk A creation of Dukes and Earls The descent of the Earls of Pembroke 〈◊〉 between the 〈◊〉 Dukes of Somerset and Northumberland revived Certain Bishops deprived Some of the Servants of the Lady Mary committed An Arrian burned An Earthquake The Queen of Scots in England The Earl of Arundel and the Lord Paget committed The Bishop of Ely Lord Chancellor The Duke of Somerset beheaded A Monster The King Sicknoth His Will wherein he disinheriteth his Sisters He dieth His Prayer Cardanus Lib. de Genituris Sir Hugh Willoughby frozen 10 death Commerce with the Muscovite Lady Mary flies into Suffolk Lady Jane proclaimed Queen Northumberland forced to be General * L. qui in provinciâ sect Divus ff de Ris Nupt. L. 4. C. de Incest Nupt. Gloss. ibid. C. cum inter c. ex tenore Extr. qui fil sins legit Northumberland forsaken by his Souldiers The Lords resolve for Queen Mary And to suppress Lady Jane Northumberland proclaims Mary Queen at Cambridge Northumberland and some other Lords taken Queen Mary comes to London Gardiner made Lord Chancellour Diprived Bishops restored King Edward's Funeral The Duke of Northumberland the Earl of Warwick and the Marquis of Northampton condemned The Duke of Northumberland Bheaded Bishops imprisoned Peter Martyr The Archbishop Cranmer Lady Jane Lord Guilford and Lord Ambrose Dudley condemned The Coronation A Disputation in the Convocation-House Popery restored The Queen inclines to marry The Articles of the Queens Marriage with Philip of Spain * Which as I conceive would have 〈◊〉 in the year 1588. Sir Thomas Wyat's Rebellion Sir John Cheeke is taken and dieth Bret with five hundred Londoners revolts to Wiat. The Duke of Suffolk perswades the People to Arms in vain The Queens Oration to the Londoners Wyat is taken The Lady Jane Beheaded The Duke of Suffolk Beheaded Wyat Executed And Lord Thomas Gray A Disputation at Oxford Cranmer Ridley and Latimer Condemned Additions to the former Nuptial Compacts Philip arrivith in England And is married to the Queen Cardinal Pool comes into England Cardinal Pool's Oration to the Parliament The Realm freed from 〈◊〉 The Queen thought to be with Child Lords created Lady Elizabeth and the Marquess of Exceter set at liberty John Rogers Burned and Bishop Hooper Bishop Ferrar many others and Bishop Ridley and Latimer The death of Pope Julius the Third Paul the Fourth succeedeth Gardiner sueth to be Cardinal Gardiner 〈◊〉 Charles the Emperour resigns his Crowns The Archbishop of York Lord Chancellour A Comet A 〈◊〉 Edward Archbishop Cranmer Burned This year eighty four Burned The exhumation of Bucer and Phagius Cardinal Pool consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury An Embassage to Muscovia The Lord Stourton hanged Thomas Stafford endeavouring an Insurrection is taken and Beheaded War against France proclaimed Pool's authority 〈◊〉 abrogated and restored The French overthrown at St. Quintin St. Quintin taken A nocturual Rainbow Calais besieged by the French Calais yielded The Battel of Graveling The French overthrown Conquet taken and burned by the English The Daulphin married to the Queen of Scot. The death of Cardinal Pool The Queen diesh
proclaimed by the King 9 11 16 A Parliament called speedily 7 A Parliament called for two reasons 33 another 122 Parliaments advice desired by the King 33 35 56 Passions contrary in King Henry joy and sorrow with the reasons of both 36 Peace pretended by the French King 29 Peace to be desired but with two conditions 33 Peace concluded between England and France 64 People how brought to decay the redress of it by the King 44 Pensions given by the King of France 64 A Personation somewhat strange 65 A great Plague 12 Edward Plantagenet Son and Heir of George Duke of Clarence 4 Edward Plantagenet shewed to the People 17 Plantagenet's Race ended 195 Perkin Warbeck History of him 65 his Parentage 68 God son to K. Edward the Fourth ibid. his crafty behaviour 65 69 favoured by the French King 68 by him discarded 69 favoured by the Scottish King 85 he yieldeth and is brought to the Court 106 set in the Stocks 109 executed at Tyburn 111 A Pleasant passage of Prince Arthur 118 Policy to prevent War 26 A point of Policy to defend the Duchy of Britain against the French 29 34 Policy of State 26 Pope sows seeds of War 54 Pope Ambassador to him 24 Poynings Law in Ireland 79 Priest of Oxford Simon 13 Pretence of the French King 28 29 Prerogative how made use of 133 Price of Cloth limited 45 Prisoners Edward Plantagenet 4 Prince of Orange and Duke of Orleance 37 Maximilian by his Subjects 46 Priviledges of Clergy abridged 39 Priviledges of Sanctuary qualified in three points 24 Proclamation of Perkin what effect 90 Protection for being in the King's service limited 58 Proverb 104 Providence for the future 43 Q. QUeen Dowager 13 enclosed in the Monastery of Bermondsey 16 her variety of Fortune ibid. Queens Colledge founded in Cambridge 17 Q. Elizabeth Crowned after two years 24 Queen Elizabeth's death 119 R. REbellion of Lord Lovel and Staffords 11 Rebellion in Yorkshire 41 Rebellion how to be prevented 35 Rebellion how frequent in King Henry's time 42 Rebellion of the Cornishmen 92 Rebels but half-couraged men 96 Religion abused to serve Policy 122 Remorse of the King for oppression of his People 131 Restitution to be made by the King 's Will 132 Return of the King from France 64 Retribution of King Henry for Treasure received of his Subjects 43 Revenge divine 1 Revenge of Blood 122 Reward proposed by Perkin 111 Richard the Third a Tyrant 1 Richard slain at Bosworth-field ibid. this 〈◊〉 Burial ibid. murder of his two Nephews 2 jealous to maintain his Honour and Reputation ibid. hopes to win the People by making Laws ibid. this Virtues overswayed by his Vices 2 yet favoured in Yorkshire 40 Riches of King Henry at his death 132 Riches of Sir William Stanley 76 Richmond built upon what occasion 106 Riot and Retainers suppressed by Act of Parliament 123 Rome ever respected by King Henry 42 A Rumour false procuring much hatred to the King 12 Rumour false enquired after to be punished 23 Rumour that the Duke of York was alive first of the King 's own nourishing 37 S. SAnctuary at Colneham could not protect Traytors 12 Sanctuary-priviledges qualified by a Bull from the Pope in three points 24 Saturday observed and fancied by King Henry 5 96 Saying of the King when he heard of Rebels 41 Scottish men voyded out of England 58 Service of 〈◊〉 92 Simon the Priest 13 Skreens to the King who 92 A Sleight ingenious and taking good effect in War 〈◊〉 Sluce besieged and taken ibid. Soothsayers Prediction mistaken 〈◊〉 Speeches 32 49 53 Speech of the King to Parliament 55 Speech of Perkin 85 Speech conditional doth not qualifie 〈◊〉 of Treason 77 Speeches bitter against the King 64 Sparks of Rebellion neglected dangerous 〈◊〉 Spies from the King 72 Sprites of what kind vexed K. Henry 65 Stanley Sir William crowns King Henry in the field 〈◊〉 motives of his falling from the King 77 is appeached of Treason 70 is confined examined and consesseth 〈◊〉 is beheaded 77 Reasons which aliènated the King's affections 78 Star-Chamber Court confirmed in certain cases 38 Star-Camber Court described what Causes belong to it ibid. Statute of Non-claim 43 Steward publick the King 36 Strength of the Cornishmen 96 Spoils of Bosworth-field 78 Spoils as water spilt on the ground 97 Subsidy denied by the inhabitants of Yorkshire and Durham the reason wherefore 40 Subsidies denied by the Cornishmen 92 Subsidy Commissioner killed 93 Subsidy how much 91 Swart Martin 19 Sweating Sickness 6 the manner of the cure of it ibid. Sweating Sickness the interpretation the People made of it 23 T. ATale pleasant concerning the King 137 Terrour among the King's Servants and Subjects 67 Tyrrell Sir James a murderer of King Edward's two Sons 71 Tyrell executed 122 Thanks of the King to the Parliament 32 Thanksgiving to God for the Victory 1 23 24 61 Three Titles to the Kingdom meet in King Henry 2 Title to France stirred 54 by the King himself 55 Treasure to be kept in the Kingdom 45 Treasure raised by the King how 23 31 120 Treasure inordinately affected by the King 121 Treasure how increased 124 Treasure left at the King's death how much 132 Trade the increase thereof considered 36 Trade in decay pincheth 90 Traytors taken out of Sanctuary 12 Tower the King's lodging wherefore 75 A Triplicity dangerous 94 Triumph at the Marriage of the Lady Elizabeth to King Henry 10 Truce with Scotland 25 Tyrants the Obsequies of the People to them 1 V. VIctory wisely husbanded by the French 37 Victory at Black-heath 96 Union of England and Scotland its first original 98 Voyage of King Henry into France 63 Voyage for Discovery 107 Urswick Ambassador 65 Usury 40 W. VVAlsingham Lady vowed to by King Henry 20 Wards wronged 120 War between the French King and the Duke of Britain 30 War the fame thereof advantagious to King Henry 31 War gainful to the King 91 War pretended to get money 57 War of France ended by a Peace where at the Souldiers murmur 64 White Rose of England 69 104 Wilford counterfeit Earl of Warwick 110 A Wives affection 129 Woodvile voluntarily goes to aid the Duke of Britain 31 Woodvile slain at St. Albans in Britain 62 Wolsey employed by the King 130 Women carried away by violence a Law enacted against it the reasons 39 Womens ingratitude punished by Law 84 Y. YEomen of the Guard first instituted 7 Yeomanry how maintained 44 York House and Title favoured by the People 3 12 York Title and Line depressed by King Henry 4 10 York Title favoured in Ireland 15 Yorkshire and Durham deny to pay the Subsidy 49 THE HISTORY Of the Reign of KING HENRY The SEVENTH AFter that Richard the Third of that Name King in Fact only but Tyrant both in Title and Regiment and so commonly termed and reputed in all times since was by the Divine Revenge favouring the Design of an Exil'd man overthrown and slain at
Bosworth-field There succeeded in the Kingdom the Earl of Richmond thence-forth stiled Henry the Seventh The King immediately after the Victory as one that had been bred under a devout Mother and was in his nature a great observer of Religious Forms caused Te Deum Laudamus to be solemnly sung in the presence of the whole Army upon the place and was himself with general Applause and great Cries of Joy in a kind of Militar Election or Recognition saluted King Mean-while the Body of Richard after many Indignities and Reproaches the Dirigies and Obsequies of the common People towards Tyrants was obscurely Buried For though the King of his Nobleness gave charge unto the Fryers of Leicester to see an Honourable Interrment to be given to it yet the Religious people themselves being not free from the Humours of the Vulgar neglected it wherein nevertheless they did not then incurr any mans blame or Censure No man thinking any Ignominy or Contumely unworthy of him that had been the Executioner of King Henry the Sixth that innocent Prince with his own hands the Contriver of the death of the Duke of Clarence his Brother the Murderer of his two Nephews one of them his Lawfull King in the Present and the other in the Future failing of him and vehemently suspected to have been the Impoisoner of his Wife thereby to make vacant his Bed for a Marriage within the Degrees forbidden And although he were a Prince in Militar Virtue approved jealous of the Honour of the English Nation and likewise a good Law-maker for the ease and solace of the common People yet his Cruelties and Parricides in the Opinion of all men weighed down his Virtues and Merits and in the opinion of Wise men even those Virtues themselves were conceived to be rather feigned and affected things to serve his Ambition than 〈◊〉 Qualities ingenrate in his Judgement or Nature And therefore it was noted by men of great Understanding who seeing his after Acts looked back upon his former Proceedings that even in the time of King Edward his Brother he was not without secret Trains and Mines to turn Envy and Hatred upon his Brother's Government as having an Expectation and a kind of Divination that the King by reason of his many Disorders could not be of long Life but was like to leave his Sonnes of tender years and then he knew well how easie a step it was from the place of a Protector and first Prince of the Blood to the Crown And that out of this deep root of Ambition it sprang that as well at the Treaty of Peace that passed between Edward the Fourth and Lewis the Eleventh of France concluded by Enterview of both Kings at Piqueny as upon all other Occasions Richard then Duke of Glocester stood ever upon the side of Honour raising his own Reputation to the disadvantage of the King his Brother and drawing the eyes of all specially of the Nobles and Soldiers upon himself as if the King by his voluptuous Life and mean Marriage were become Effeminate and less sensible of Honour and Reason of State than was fit for a King And as for the Politique and wholesom Laws which were Enacted in his Time they were interpreted to be but the Brocage of an Usurper thereby to wooe and winne the Hearts of the People as being conscious to himself that the true Obligations of Soveraignty in him failed and were wanting But King Henry in the very entrance of his Reign and the instant of time when the Kingdom was cast into his Arms met with a Point of great difficulty and knotty to solve able to trouble and confound the Wisest King in the newness of his Estate and so much the more because it could not endure a Deliberation but must be at once deliberated and determined There were fallen to his Lot and concurrent to his Person three several Titles to the Imperial Crown The first the Title of the Lady Elizabeth with whom by precedent Pact with the Party that brought him in he was to Marry The second the Antient and long disputed Title both by Plea and Arms of the House of Lancaster to which he was Inheritour in his own Person The third the Title of the Sword or Conquest for that he came in by Victory of Battel and that the King in possession was slain in the field The first of these was fairest and most like to give contentment to the People who by Two and twenty Years Reign of King Edward the Fourth had been fully made capable of the clearness of the Title of the White-Rose or House of York and by the milde and plausible Reign of the same King toward his latter time were become affectionate to that Line But then it lay plain before his Eyes that if he relyed upon that Title he could be but a King at Curtesie and have rather a Matrimonial than a Regal Power the Right remaining in his Queen upon whose decease either with Issue or without Issue he was to give place and be removed And though he should obtain by Parliament to be continued yet he knew there was a very great difference between a King that holdeth his Crown by a civil Act of Estates and one that holdeth it Originally by the Law of Nature and Descent of Blood Neither wanted there even at that time secret Rumors and whisperings which afterwards gathered strength and turned to great Troubles that the two young Sons of King Edward the Fourth or one of them which were said to be destroyed in the Tower were not indeed Murthered but conveyed secretly away and were yet living which if it had been true had prevented the Title of the Lady Elizabeth On the other side if he stood upon his own Title of the House of Lancaster inherent in his Person he knew it was a Title condemned by Parliament and generally prejudged in the common Opinion of the Realm and that it tended directly to the Dis-inherison of the Line of York held then the indubiate Heirs of the Crown So that if he should have no Issue by the Lady Elibabeth which should be Descendents of the Double-Line then the Ancient flames of Discord and Intestine Wars upon the Competition of both Houses would again return and revive As for Conquest notwithstanding Sir William Stanly after some Acclamations of the Soldiers in the Field had put a Crown of Ornament which Richard wore in the Battel and was found amongst the Spoils upon King Henry's Head as if there were his chief Title yet he remembred well upon what Conditions and Agreements he was brought in and that to claim as Conqueror was to put as well his own Party as the rest into Terrour and Fear as that which gave him Power of Disannulling of Laws and disposing of Mens Fortunes and Estates and the like points of Absolute Power being in themselves so harsh and odious as that William himself commonly called the Conqueror however he used and exercised the Power of a
was more to the holding of the Parliament which began but seven days after It was a Pestilent-Feaver but as it seemeth not seated in the Veins or Humors for that there followed no Carbuncle no purple or livid Spots or the like the Mass of the Body being not tainted only a malign Vapour flew to the Heart and seised the Vital Spirits which stirred Nature to strive to send it forth by an extreme Sweat And it appeared by Experience that this Disease was rather a Surprize of Nature than obstinate to Remedies if it were in time looked unto For if the Patient were kept in an equal temper both for Clothes Fire and Drink moderately warm with temperate Cordials whereby Natures work were neither irritated by Heat nor turned back by Cold he commonly Recovered But infinite Persons dyed suddenly of it before the manner of the Cure and attendance was known It was conceived not to be an Epidemick Disease but to proceed from a Malignity in the Constitution of the Air gathered by the predispositions of Seasons and the speedy Cessation declared as much On Simon and Jude's Even the King dined with Thomas Bourcchier Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and Cardinal and from Lambeth went by Land over the Bridge to the Tower where the morrow after he made Twelve Knights-Bannerets But for Creations he dispensed them with a sparing Hand For notwithstanding a Field so lately fought and a Coronation so near at hand he only created Three James Earl of Pembrook the King's Uncle was created Duke of Bedford Thomas the Lord Stanley the King's father-in-Father-in-Law Earl of Derby and Edward Courtney Earl of Devon though the King had then nevertheless a purpose in himself to make more in time of Parliament bearing a wise and decent respect to Distribute his Creations some to honour his Coronation and some his Parliament The Coronation followed two days after upon the Thirtyeth day of October in the year of our Lord 1485. At which time Innocent the Eighth was Pope of Rome Frederick the Third Emperour of Almaine and Maximilian his Son newly chosen King of the Romans Charles the Eighth King of France Ferdinando and Isabella Kings of Spain and James the Third King of Scotland with all which Kings and States the King was at that time in good Peace and Amity At which Day also as if the Crown upon his Head had put Perils into his Thoughts he did institute sor the better Security of his Person a Band of Fifty Archers under a Captain to attend him by the name of Yeomen of his Guard and yet that it might be thought to be rather a matter of Dignity after the imitation of that he had known abroad than any matter of Diffidence appropriate to his own Case he made it to be understood for an Ordinance not Temporary but to hold in Succession for ever after The Seventh of November the King held his Parliament at Westmister which he had Summoned immediately after his coming to London His Ends in calling a Parliament and that so speedily were chiefly three First to procure the Crown to be entayled upon himself Next to have the Attaindors of all of his Party which were in no small Number reversed and all Acts of Hostility by them done in his Quarrel remitted and discharged and on the other side to attaint by Parliament the Heads and Principals of his Enemies The Third to calm and quiet the fears of the rest of that Party by a General Pardon not being ignorant in how great danger a King stands from his Subjects when most of his Subjects are conscious in themselves that they stand in his danger Unto these three special Motives of a Parliament was added that he as a prudent and moderate Prince made this Judgement That it was fit for him to hasten to let his People see that he meant to govern by Law howsoever he came in by the Sword and fit also to reclaim them to know him for their King whom they had so lately talked of as an Enemy or Banished man For that which concerned the Entayling of the Crown more than that he was true in his own Will that he would not endure any mention of the Lady Elizabeth no not in the nature of Special-Intail he carried it otherwise with great Wisdom and measure For he did not press to have the Act penned by way of Declaration or Recognition of Right as on the other side he avoided to have it by new Law or Ordinance but chose rather a kind of middle-way by way of Establishment and that under covert and indifferent words That the inheritance of the Crown should rest remain and abide in the King c. which words might equally be applied That the Crown should continue to him but whether as having former Right to it which was doubtful or having it then in Fact and Possession which no man denyed was left fair to Interpretation either way And again for the limitation of the Entail he did not press it to go further than to himself and to the Heirs of his Body not speaking of his right Heirs but leaving that to the Law to decide so as the Entail might seem rather a personal Favour to him and his Children than a total Dis-inherison to the House of York And in this form was the Law drawn and passed Which Statute he procured to be confirmed by the Pope's Bull the year following with mention nevertheless by way of Recital of his other Titles both of Descent and Conquest So as now the wreath of Three was made a wreath of Five for to the three first Titles of the two Houses or Lines and Conquest were added two more the Authorities Parliamentary and Papal The King likewise in the Reversal of the Attaindors of his Partakers and discharging them of all Offences incident to his service and succour had his Will and Acts did pass accordingly In the passage whereof exception was taken to divers Persons in the House of Commons for that they were Attainted and thereby not legal nor habilitate to serve in Parliament being disabled in the highest degree And that it should be a great incongruity to have them to make Laws who themselves were not Inlawed The truth was that divers of those which had in the time of King Richard been strongest and most declared for the King's Party were returned Knights and Burgesses for the Parliament whether by care or recommendation from the State or the voluntary inclination of the People many of which had been by Richard the Third attainted by Outlawries or otherwise The King was somewhat troubled with this For though it had a grave and specious Shew yet it reflected upon his Party But wisely not shewing himself at all moved therewith he would not understand it but as a Case of Law and wished the Judges to be advised thereupon who for that purpose were forthwith Assembled in the Exchequer-Chamber which is the Council-Chamber of the Judges and upon deliberation they gave a grave
and safe Opinion and Advice mixed with Law and Convenience which was That the Knights and Burgesses attainted by the course of Law should forbear to come into the House 'till a Law were passed for the Reversal of their Attaindors It was at that time incidently moved amongst the Judges in their Consultation what should be done for the King himself who likewise was attainted But it was with unanimous consent Resolved That the Crown takes away all defects and stops in Blood and that from the time the King did assume the Crown the Fountain was cleared and all Attaindors and Corruption of Blood discharged But nevertheless for Honours sake it was Ordained by Parliament that all Records wherein there was any memory or mention of the King's Attaindor should be defaced cancelled and taken off the File But on the part of the King's Enemies there were by Parliament attainted the late Duke of Glocester calling himself Richard the Third the Duke of Norfolk the Earl of Surrey Viscount Lovel the Lord Ferrers the Lord Zouch Richard Ratcliff William Catesby and many others of degree and quality In which Bills of Attaindors nevertheless there were contained many just and temperate Clauses Savings and Proviso's well shewing and foretokening the Wisdom Stay and Moderation of the King's Spirit of Government And for the Pardon of the rest that had stood against the King the King upon a second advice thought it not fit it should pass by Parliament the better being matter of Grace to impropriate the Thanks to himself using only the Opportunity of a Parliament time the better to disperse it into the Veins of the Kingdom Therefore during the Parliament he Published his Royal Proclamation offering Pardon and Grace of Restitution to all such as had taken Arms or been participant of any Attempts against him so as they submitted themselves to his Mercy by a Day and took the Oath of Allegiance and Fidelity to him Whereupon many came out of Sanctuary and many more came out of Fear no less guilty than those that had taken Sanctuary As for Money or Treasure the King thought it not seasonable or fit to demand any of his Subjects at this Parliament both because he had received satisfaction from them in matters of so great Importance and because he could not remunerate them with any General Pardon being prevented therein by the Coronation-Pardon passed immediately before but chiefly for that it was in every mans Eye what great Forfeitures and Confiscations he had at that present to help himself Whereby those Casualties of the Crown might in reason spare the Purses of his Subjects especially in a time when he was in Peace with all his Neighbours Some few Laws passed at that Parliament almost for form sake amongst which there was One to reduce Aliens being made Denizens to pay Strangers Customs and another to draw to himself the Seisures and Compositions of Italian Goods for not employment being Points of Profit to his Coffers whereof from the very Beginning he was not forgetful and had been more happy at the Latter End if his early Providence which kept him from all necessity of Exacting upon his People could likewise have attemp'red his nature therein He added during Parliament to his former Creations the Innoblement or Advancement in Nobility of a few others The Lord Chandos of Britain was made Earl of Bath and Sir Giles Dawbeny was made Lord Dawbeny and Sir Robert Willoughby Lord Brook The King did also with great Nobleness and Bounty which Virtues at that time had their turns in his Nature restore Edward Stafford eldest Son to Henry Duke of Buckingham attainted in the time of King Richard not only to his Dignities but to his Fortunes and Possessions which were great to which he was moved also by a kind of Gratitude for that the Duke was the man that moved the first Stone against the Tyranny of King Richard and indeed made the King a Bridge to the Crown upon his own Ruins Thus the Parliament brake up The Parliament being dissolved the King sent forthwith Money to redeem the Marquess Dorset and Sir John Bourchier whom he had left as his Pledges at Paris for Money which he had borrowed when he made his Expedition for England And thereupon he took a fit occasion to send the Lord Treasurer and Master Bray whom he used as Counsellor to the Lord Mayor of London requiring of the City a Prest of six thousand Marks But after many Parlees he could obtain but two thousand Pounds Which nevertheless the King took in good part as men use to do that practise to borrow Money when they have no need About this time the King called unto his Privy-Council John Morton and Richard Fox the one Bishop of Ely the other Bishop of Exceter vigilant men and secret and such as kept watch with him almost upon all men else They had been both versed in his Affairs before he came to the Crown and were partakers of his adverse Fortune This Morton soon after upon the death of Bourchier ' he made Archbishop of Canterbury And for Fox he made him Lord Keeper of his Privy-Seal and afterwards advanced him by Degrees from Exceter to Bath and Wells thence to Durham and last to Winchester For although the King loved to employ and advance Bishops because having rich Bishopricks they carried their Reward upon themselves yet he did use to raise them by steps that he might not lose the profit of the First-fruits which by that course of Gradation was multiplied At last upon the Eighteenth of January was Solemnized the so long expected and so much desired Marriage between the King and the Lady Elizabeth which Day of Marriage was celebrated with greater Triumph and Demonstrations especially on the Peoples part of Joy and Gladness than the days either of his Entry or Coronation which the King rather noted than liked And it is true that all his life time while the Lady Elizabeth lived with him for she dyed before him he shewed himself no very indulgent Husband towards her though she was beautiful gentle and fruitful But his aversion towards the House of York was so predominant in him as it found place not only in his Wars and Councils but in his Chamber and Bed Towards the middle of the Spring the King full of confidence and assurance as a Prince that had been Victorious in Battel and had prevailed with his Parliament in all that he desired and had the Ring of Acclamations fresh in his Ears thought the rest of his Reign should be but Play and the enjoying of a Kingdom Yet as a wise and watchful King he would not neglect any thing for his Safety thinking nevertheless to perform all things now rather as an Exercise than as a Labour So he being truly informed that the Northern parts were not only Affectionate to the House of York but particularly had been Devoted to King Richard the Third thought it would be a Summer well spent to visit
not a little inflamed with an ambition to re-purchase and re-annex that Dutchy Which his ambition was a wise and well-weighed Ambition not like unto the ambitions of his succeeding Enterprizes of Italy For at that time being newly come to the Crown he was somewhat guided by his Father's Counsels Counsels not Counsellors for his Father was his own Counsel and had few able men about him And that King he knew well had ever distasted the Designs of Italy and in particular had an Eye upon Britain There were many circumstances that did feed the Ambition of Charles with pregnant and apparent hopes of Success The Duke of Britain old and entred into a Lethargy and served with Mercenary Counsellors Father of two only Daughters the one sick and not likely to continue King Charles himself in the flower of his age and the Subjects of France at that time well trained for War both for Leaders and Soldiers men of service being not yet worn out since the Wars of Lewis against Burgundy He found himself also in Peace with all his Neighbour-Princes As for those that might oppose to his Enterprize Maximilian King of the Romans his Rival in the same desires as well for the Dutchy as the Daughter feeble in means and King Henry of England as well somewhat obnoxious to him for his favours and benefits as busied in his particular troubles at home There was also a fair and specious occasion offered him to hide his Ambition and to justifie his Warring upon Britain for that the Duke had received and succoured Lewis Duke of Orleance and other of the French Nobility which had taken Arms against their King Wherefore King Charles being resolved upon that War knew well he could not receive any opposition so potent as if King Henry should either upon Policy of State in preventing the growing Greatness of France or upon gratitude unto the Duke of Britain for his former favours in the time of his distress espouse that Quarrel and declare himself in ayd of the Duke Therefore he no sooner heard that King Henry was setled by his Victory but forth with he sent Ambassadors unto him to pray his assistance or at the least that he would stand neutral Which Ambassadors found the King at Leicester and delivered their Embassy to this effect They first imparted unto the King the success that their Master had had a little before against Maximilian in recovery of certain Towns from him which was done in a kind of privacy and inwardness towards the King and if the French King did not esteem him for an outward or formal Confederate but as one that had part in his Affections and Fortunes and with whom he took pleasure to communicate his Business After this Compliment and some gratulation for the King's Victory they fell to their Errand declaring to the King that their Master was enforced to enter into a just and necessary War with the Duke of Britain for that he had received and succoured those that were Traytors and declared Enemies unto his Person and State That they were no mean distressed and calamitous persons that fled to him for refuge but of so great quality as it was apparent that they came not thither to protect their own fortune but to infest and invade his the Head of them being the Duke of Orleance the first Prince of the Blood and the second Person of France That therefore rightly to understand it it was rather on their Master's part a Defensive War than an Offensive as that that could not be omitted or forborn if he tendred the conservation of his own Estate and that it was not the first Blow that made the War Invasive for that no wise Prince would stay for but the first Provocation or at least the first Preparation Nay that this War was rather a suppression of Rebels than a War with a just Enemy where the Case is That his Subjects Traytors are received by the Duke of Britain his Homager That King Henry knew well what went upon it in example if Neighbour Princes should patronize and comfort Rebels against the Law of Nations and of Leagues Nevertheless that their Master was not ignorant that the King had been beholding to the Duke of Britain in his adversity as on the other side they knew he would not forget also the readiness of their King in ayding him when the Duke of Britain or his mercenary Counsellors failed him and would have betrayed him And that there was a great difference between the courtesies received from their Master and the Duke of Britain for that the Dukes might have ends of Utility and Bargain whereas their Masters could not have proceeded but out of entire Affection For that if it had been measured by a politick line it had been better for his affairs that a Tyrant should have reigned in England troubled and hated than such a Prince whose virtues could not fail to make him great and potent whensoever he was come to be Master of his affairs But howsoever it stood for the point of Obligation which the King might owe to the Duke of Britain yet their Master was well assured it would not divert King Henry of England from doing that that was just nor ever embarque him in so ill-grounded a Quarrel Therefore since this War which their Master was now to make was but to deliver himself from imminent dangers their King hoped the King would shew the like affection to the conservation of their Master's Estate as their Master had when time was shewed to the King's acquisition of his Kingdom At the least that according to the inclination which the King had ever professed of Peace he would look on and stand Neutral for that their Master could not with reason press him to undertake part in the War being so newly setled and recovered from intestine Seditions But touching the Mystery of re-annexing of the Dutchy of Britain to the Crown of France either by War or by Marriage with the Daughter of Britain the Ambassadors bare aloof from it as from a Rock knowing that it made most against them And therefore by all means declined any mention thereof but contrariwise interlaced in their conference with the King the assured purpose of their Master to match with the Daughter of Maximilian And entertained the King also with some wandring Discourses of their King's purpose to recover by Arms his right to the Kingdom of Naples by an expedition in Person All to remove the King from all-jealousie of any Design in these hither Parts upon Britain otherwise than for quenching of the Fire which he feared might be kindled in his own Estate The King after advice taken with his Council made answer to the Ambassadors And first returned their Compliment shewing he was right glad of the French King's reception of those Towns from Maximilian Then he familiarly related some particular passages of his own Adventures and Victory passed As to the business of Britain the King answered in
For passing through England and being honourably entertained and received of King Henry who ever applied himself with much respect to the See of Rome he fell into great grace with the King and great familiarity and friendship with Morton the Chancellor In so much as the King taking a liking to him and finding him to his mind preferred him to the Bishoprick of Hereford and afterwards to that of Bath and Wells and employed him in many of his affairs of State that had relation to Rome He was a man of great learning wisdom and dexterity in business of State and having not long after ascended to the degree of Cardinal payd the King large tribute of his gratitude in diligent and judicious advertisement of the occurrents of Italy Nevertheless in the end of his time he was partaker of the conspiracy which Cardinal Alphonso Petrucci and some other Cardinals had plotted against the life of Pope Leo. And this offence in it self so heinous was yet in him aggravated by the motive thereof which was not malice or discontent but an aspiring mind to the Papacy And in this height of impiety there wanted not an intermixture of levity and folly for that as was generally believed he was animated to expect the Papacy by a fatal mockery the Prediction of a Soothsayer which was That one should succeed Pope Leo whose name should be Adrian an aged man of mean birth and of great learning and wisdom By which character and figure he took himself to be described though it were fulfilled of Adrian the Fleming Son of a Dutch Brewer Cardinal of Tortosa and Preceptor unto Charles the Fifth the same that not changing his Christen-name was afterward called Adrian the Sixth But these things happened in the year following which was the fifth of this King But in the end of the fourth year the King had called again his Parliament not as it seemeth for any particular occasion of State But the former Parliament being ended somewhat suddenly in regard of the preparation for Britain the King thought he had not remunerated his People sufficiently with good Laws which evermore was his Retribution for Treasure And finding by the Insurrection in the North there was discontentment abroad in respect of the Subsidy he thought it good to give his Subjects yet further contentment and comfort in that kind Certainly his times for good Commonwealths Laws did 〈◊〉 So as he may justly be celebrated for the best Law-giver to this Nation after King Edward the First For his Laws who so marks them well are deep and not vulgar not made upon the spur of a particular Occasion for the present but out of Providence of the future to make the Estate of his People still more and more happy after the manner of the Legislators in ancient and Heroical times First therefore he made a Law suitable to his own Acts and Times For as himself had in his Person and Marriage made a final Concord in the great Suit and Title for the Crown so by this Law he setled the like Peace and Quiet in the private Possessions of the Subjects Ordaining That Fines thence-forth should be final to conclude all Strangers Rights and that upon Fines levied and solemnly proclaimed the Subject should have his time of Watch for five years after his Title accrued which if he forepassed his Right should be bound for ever after with some exception nevertheless of Minors Married-women and such incompetent Persons This Statute did in effect but restore an ancient Statute of the Realm which was it self also made but in affirmance of the Common-Law The alteration had been by a Statute commonly called the Statute of Non-claim made in the time of Edward the Third And surely this Law was a kind of Prognostick of the good Peace which since his time hath for the most part continued in this Kingdom until this day For Statutes of Non-claim are fit for times of War when mens heads are troubled that they cannot intend their Estate but Statutes that quiet Possessions are fittest for times of Peace to extinguish Suits and Contentions which is one of the Banes of Peace Another Statute was made of singular Policy for the Population apparently and if it be throughly considered for the Soldiery and Militar Forces of the Realm Inclosures at that time began to be more frequent whereby Arable Land which could not be manured without People and Families was turned into Pasture which was easily rid by a few Herds-men and Tenancies for Years Lives and At Will whereupon much of the Yeomandry lived were turned into Demesnes This bred a decay of People and by consequence a decay of Towns Churches Tythes and the like The King likewise knew full well and in no wise forgot that there ensued withal upon this a decay and diminution of Subsidy and Taxes for the more Gentlemen ever the lower Books of Subsidies In remedying of this inconvenience the King's Wisdom was admirable and the Parliaments at that time Inclosures they would not forbid for that had been to forbid the improvement of the Patrimony of the Kingdom nor Tillage they would not compel for that was to strive with Nature and Utility But they took a course to take away depopulating Inclosures and depopulating Pasturage and yet not by that name or by any Imperious express Prohibition but by consequence The Ordinance was That all Houses of Husbandry that were used with twenty Acres of Ground and upwards should be maintained and kept up for ever together with a competent proportion of Land to be used and occupied with them and in no wise to be severed from them as by another Statute made afterwards in his Successors time was more fully declared This upon Forfeiture to be taken not by way of Popular Action but by seisure of the Land it self by the King and Lords of the Fee as to half the Profits till the Houses and Lands were restored By this means the Houses being kept up did of necessity enforce a Dweller and the proportion of Land for Occupation being kept up did of necessity enforce that Dweller not to be a Beggar or Cottager but a man of some substance that might keep Hinds and Servants and set the Plough on goingThis did wonderfully concern the Might and Manner-hood of the Kingdom to have Ferms as it were of a Standard sufficient to maintain an able Body out of Penury and did in effect amortize a great part of the Lands of the Kingdom unto the Hold and Occupation of the Teomanry or Middle people of a condition between Gentlemen and Cottagers or Pesants Now how much this did advance the Militar power of the Kingdom is apparent by the true Principles of War and the examples of other Kingdoms For it hath been held by the general Opinion of men of best Judgement in the Wars howsoever some few have varied and that it may receive some distinction of Case that the principal strength of an Army consisteth in the Infantry
or Foot And to make good Infantry it requireth men bred not in a servile or indigent fashion but in some free and plentiful manner Therefore if a State run most to Noble-men and Gentlemen and that the Husband-men and Plough-men be but as their Work-folks and Labourers or else meer Cottagers which are but Housed-Beggars you may have a good Cavalry but never good stable Bands of Foot like to Coppice-Woods that if you leave in them Staddles too thick they will run to Bushes and Bryars and have little clean Underwood And this is to be seen in France and Italy and some other parts abroad where in effect all is Nobless or Pesantry I speak of people out of Towns and no middle people and therefore no good Forces of Foot In so much as they are enforced to employ Mercenary Bands of Switzers and the like for their Battuilions of Foot Whereby also it comes to pass that those Nations have much People and few Soldiers Whereas the King saw that contrariwise it would follow that England though much less in Territory yet should have infinitely more Soldiers of their native Forces than those other Nations have Thus did the King secretly sow Hidra's teeth whereupon according to the Poets fiction should rise up Armed men for the service of the Kingdom The King also having care to make his Realm potent as well by Sea as by Land for the better maintenance of the Navy Ordained That Wines and Woads from the parts of Gascoign and Languedock should not be brought but in English Bottoms Bowing the ancient Policy of this Estate from consideration of Plenty to consideration of Power For that almost all the ancient Statutes incite by all means Merchant-strangers to bring in all sorts of Commodities having for end cheapness and not looking to the point of State concerning the Naval-power The King also made a Statute in that Parliament Monitory and Minatory towards Justices of Peace that they should duly execute their Office inviting complaints against them first to their Fellow Justices then to the Justices of Assize then to the King or Chancellor and that a Proclamation which he had published of that Tenor should be read in open Sessions four times a year to keep them awake Meaning also to have his Laws executed and thereby to reap either Obedience or Forfeitures wherein towards his latter times he did decline too much to the left hand he did ordain remedy against the practice that was grown in use to stop and damp Informations upon Penal Laws by procuring Informations by collusion to be put in by the Confederates of the Delinquents to be faintly prosecuted and let fall at pleasure and pleading them in Bar of the Informations which were prosecuted with effect He made also Laws for the correction of the Mint and counterfeiting of Forein Coyn currant And that no payment in Gold should be made to any Merchant-stranger the better to keep Treasure within the Realm for that Gold was the metal that lay in least room He made also Statutes for the maintenance of Drapery and the keeping of Wools within the Realm and not only so but for stinting and limiting the prices of Cloth one for the finer and another for the courser sort Which I note both because it was a rare thing to set prices by Statute especially upon our Home-Commodities and because of the wise Model of the Act not prescribing Prices but stinting them not to exceed a rate that the Clothier might drape accordingly as he might afford Divers other good Statutes were made that Parliament but these were the principal And here I do desire those into whose hands this Work shall fall that they do take in good part my long insisting upon the Laws that were made in this King's Reign whereof I have these reasons Both because it was the preheminent virtue and merit of this King to whose memory I do honour and because it hath some correspondence to my Person but chiefly because in my judgement it is some defect even in the best Writers of History 〈◊〉 that they do not often enough summarily deliver and set down the most memorable Laws that passed in the times whereof they write being indeed the principal Acts of Peace For although they may be had in Original Books of Law themselves yet that informeth not the judgement of Kings and Counsellors and Persons of Estate so well as to see them described and entred in the Table and Pourtrait of the Times About the same time the King had a Loan from the City of Four thousand pounds which was double to that they lent before and was duely and orderly payd back at the day as the former likewise had been the King ever choosing rather to borrow too soon than to pay too late and so keeping up his Credit Neither had the King yet cast off his cares and hopes touching Britain but thought to master the occasion by Policy though his Arms had been unfortunate and to bereave the French King of the fruit of his Victory The summ of his design was to encourage Maximilian to go on with his suit for the Marriage of Ann the Heir of Britain and to ayd him to the consummation thereof But the affairs of Maximilian were at that time in great trouble and combustion by a Rebellion of his Subjects in Flanders especially those of Bruges and Gaunt whereof the Town of Bruges at such time as Maximilian was there in person had suddenly armed in tumult and slain some of his principal Officers and taken himself prisoner and held him in durance till they had enforced him and some of his Counsellors to take a solemn Oath to pardon all their offences and never to question and revenge the same in time to come Nevertheless Frederick the Emperor would not suffer this reproach and indignity offered to his Son to pass but made sharp Wars upon Flanders to reclaim and chastise the Rebels But the Lord Ravenstein a principal person about Maximilian and one that had taken the Oath of Abolition with his Master pretending the Religion thereof but indeed upon private ambition and as it was thought instigated and corrupted from France forsook the Emperor and Maximilian his Lord and made himself an Head of the popular Party and seized upon the Towns of Ipre and Sluce with both the Castles and forthwith sent to the Lord Cordes Governour of Picardy under the French King to desire ayd and to move him that he on the behalf of the French King would be Protector of the united Towns and by force of Arms reduce the rest The Lord Cordes was ready to embrace the occasion which was partly of his own setting and sent forthwith greater Forces than it had been possible for him to raise on the sudden if he had not looked for such a summons before in ayd of the Lord Ravenstein and the Flemmings with instructions to invest the Towns between France and Bruges The French Forces besieged a little Town
called Dixmue where part of the Flemish Forces joyned with them While they lay at this siege the King of England upon pretence of the safety of the English Pale about Calice but in truth being loth that Maximilian should become contemptible and thereby be shaken off by the States of Britain about this Marriage sent over the Lord Morley with a thousand men unto the Lord Daubigny then Deputy of Calice with secret instructions to ayd Maximilian and to raise the siege of Dixmue The Lord Daubigny giving it out that all was for the strengthning of the English Marches drew out of the Garrisons of Calice Hammes and Guines to the number of a thousand men more So that with the fresh Succours that came under the Conduct of the Lord Morley they made up to the number of two thousand or better Which Forces joyning with some Companies of Almains put themselves into Dixmue not perceived by the Enemies and passing through the Town with some re-enforcement from the Forces that were in the Town assailed the Enemies Camp negligently guarded as being out of fear where there was a bloody Fight in which the English and their Partakers obtained the Victory and slew to the number of eight thousand men with the loss on the English part of a hundred or thereabouts amongst whom was the Lord Morley They took also their great Ordnance with much rich spoils which they carried to Newport whence the Lord Daubigny returned to Calice leaving the hurt men and some other Voluntaries in Newport But the Lord Cordes being at Ipre with a great power of men thinking to recover the loss and disgrace of the Fight at Dixmue came presently on and sate down before Newport and besieged it and after some days siege he resolved to try the fortune of an Assault Which he did one day and succeeded therein so far that he had taken the principal Tower and Fort in that City and planted upon it the French Banner Whence nevertheless they were presently beaten forth by the English by the help of some fresh Succours of Archers arriving by good fortune at the instant in the Haven of Newport Whereupon the Lord Cordes discouraged and measuring the new Succours which were small by the Success which was great levied his Siege By this means matters grew more exasperate between the two Kings of England and France for that in the War of Flanders the auxiliary Forces of French and English were much blooded one against another Which Blood rankled the more by the vain words of the Lord Cordes that declared himself an open Enemy of the English beyond that that appertained to the present Service making it a common by-word of his That he could be content to lye in Hell seven years so he might win Calice from the English The King having thus upheld the Reputation of Maximilian advised him now to press on his Marriage with Britain to a conclusion Which Maximilian accordingly did and so far forth prevailed both with the young Lady and with the principal persons about her as the Marriage was consummate by Proxy with a Ceremony at that time in these parts new For she was not only publickly contracted but stated as a Bride and solemnly Bedded and after she was laid there came in Maximilian's Ambassador with Letters of Procuration and in the presence of sundry Noble Personages Men and Women put his Leg stript naked to the Knee between the Espousal-Sheets to the end that that Ceremony might be thought to amount to a Consummation and actual Knowledge This done Maximilian whose property was to leave things then when they were almost come to perfection and to end them by imagination like ill Archers that draw not their Arrows up to the Head and who might as easily have Bedded the Lady himself as to have made a Play and Disguise of it thinking now all assured neglected for a time his further proceeding and intended his Wars Mean-while the French King consulting with his Divines and finding that this pretended Consummation was rather an Invention of Court than any ways valid by the Laws of the Church went more really to work and by secret Instruments and cunning Agents as well Matrans about the young Lady as Counsellors first sought to remove the point of Religion and Honour out of the mind of the Lady her self wherein there was a double labour For Maximilian was not only contracted unto the Lady but Maximilian's Daughter was likewise contracted to King Charles So as the Marriage halted upon both feet and was not clear on either side But for the Contract with King Charles the Exception lay plain and fair for that Maximilian's Daughter was under years of Consent and so not bound by Law but a power of Disagreement left to either part But for the Contract made by Maximilian with the Lady her self they were harder driven having nothing to alledge but that it was done without the consent of her Sovereign Lord King Charles whose Ward and Client she was and he to her in place of a Father and therefore it was void and of no force for want of such Consent Which defect they said though it would not evacuate a Marriage after Cohabitation and Actual Consummation yet it was enough to make void a Contract For as for a pretended Consummation they made sport with it and said That it was an argument that Maximilian was a Widdower and a cold Wooer that could content himself to be a Bridegroom by Deputy and would not make a little Journey to put all out of question So that the young Lady wrought upon by these Reasons finely instilled by such as the French King who spared for no Rewards or Promises had made on his side and allured likewise by the present Glory and Greatness of King Charles being also a young King and a Batchelor and loth to make her Countrey the Seat of a long and miserable War secretly yielded to accept of King Charles But during this secret Treaty with the Lady the better to save it from Blasts of Opposition and Interruption King Charles resorting to his wonted Arts and thinking to carry the Marriage as he had carried the Wars by entertaining the King of England in vain belief sent a solemn Ambassage by Francis Lord of Luxemberg Charles Marignian and Robert Gaguein General of the Order of the Bonnes Hommes of the Trinity to treat Peace and League with the King accoupling it with an Article in nature of a Request that the French King might with the King 's good will according unto his right of Seigniory and Tutelage dispose of the Marriage of the young Duchess of Britain as he should think good offering by a Judicial proceeding to make void the Marriage of Maximilian by Proxy Also all this while the better to amuse the World he did continue in his Court and custody the Daughter of Maximilian who formerly had been sent unto him to be bred and educated in France not dismissing or renvoying her
but contrariwise professing and giving out strongly that he meant to proceed with that Match And that for the Duchess of Britain he desired only to preserve his right of Seigniory and to give her in Marriage to some such Allie as might depend upon him When the three Commissioners came to the Court of England they delivered their Ambassage unto the King who remitted them to his Council where some days after they had Audience and made their Proposition by the Prior of the Trinity who though he were third in place yet was held the best Speaker of them to this effect MY Lords the King our Master the greatest and mightiest King that reigned in France since Charles the Great whose Name he beareth hath nevertheless thought it no disparagement to his Greatness at this time to propound a Peace yea and to pray a Peace with the King of England For which purpose he hath sent us his Commissioners instructed and enabled with full and ample power to treat and conclude giving us further in charge to open in some other business the secrets of his own intentions These be indeed the pretious Love-tokens between great Kings to communicate one with another the true state of their Affairs and to pass by nice Points of Honour which ought not to give Law unto Affection This I do assure your Lordships It is not possible for you to imagine the true and cordial Love that the King our Master beareth to your Sovereign except you were near him as we are He useth his Name with so great respect he remembreth their first acquaintance at Paris with so great contentment nay he never speaks of him but that presently he falls into discourse of the miseries of great Kings in that they cannot converse with their Equals but with Servants This affection to your King's Person and Virtues GOD hath put into the Heart of our Master no doubt for the good of Christendom and for purposes yet unknown to us all For other Root it cannot have since it was the same to the earl of Richmond that it is now to the King of England This is therefore the first motive that makes our King to desire Peace and League with your Sovereign Good affection and somewhat that he finds in his own Heart This affection is also armed with reason of Estate For our King doth in all candour and frankness of dealing open himself unto you that having an honourable yea and a Holy purpose to make a Voyage and War in remote parts he considereth that it will be of no small effect in point of Reputation to his Enterprize if it be known abroad that he ulin in good peace with all his Neighbour Princes and specially with the King of England whom for good causes he esteemeth most But now my Lords give me leave to use a few words to remove all scruples and miss-understandings between your Sovereign and ours concerning some late Actions which if they be not cleared may perhaps hinder this Peace To the end that for matters past neither King may conceive unkindness of other nor think the other conceiveth unkindness of him The late Actions are two that of Britain and that of Flanders In both which it is true that the Subjects swords of both Kings have encountred and stricken and the ways and inclinations also of the two Kings in respect of their Confederates and Allies have severed For that of Britain The King your Sovereign knoweth best what hath passed It was a War of necessity on our Masters part And though the Motives of it were sharp and piquant as could be yet did be make that War rather with an Olive-branch than a Laurel-branch in his hand more desiring Peace than Victory Besides from time to time he sent as it were Blank-papers to your King to write the conditions of Peace For though both his Honour and Safety went upon it yet he thought neither of them too precious to put into the King of England's hands Neither doth our King on the other side make any unfriendly interpretation of your King 's sending of Succours to the Duke of Britain for the King knoweth well that many things must be done of Kings for satisfaction of their People and it is not hard to discern what is a King 's own But this matter of Britain is now by the Act of GOD ended and passed and as the King hopesh like the way of a Ship in the Sea without leaving any impression in either of the Kings minds as he is sure for his part it hath not done in his For the Action of Flanders As the former of Britain was a War of Necessity so this was a War of Justice which with a good King is of equal necessity with danger of Estate for else he should leave to be a King The Subjects of Burgundy are Subjects in Chief to the Crown of France and their Duke the Homager and Vassal of France They had wont to be good Subjects howsoever Maximilian hath of late distempered them They fled to the King for Justice and deliverance from Oppression Justice he could not deny Purchase he did not seek This was good for Maximilian if he could have seen it in people mutined to arrest Fury and prevent Despair My Lords it may be this I have said is needless save that the King our Master is tender in any thing that may but glance upon the Friendship of England The amity between the two Kings no doubt stands entire and inviolate And that their Subjects swords have clashed it is nothing unto the publick Peace of the Crowns it being a thing very usual in Auxiliary Forces of the best and straitest Confederates to meet and draw blood in the Field Nay many times there be Ayds of the same Nation on both sides and yet it is not for all that A Kingdom divided in it self It resteth my Lords that I impart unto you a matter that I know your Lordships all will much rejoyce to hear as that which importeth the Christian Common-weal more than any Action that hath hapned of long time The King our Master hath a purpose and determination to make War upon the Kingdom of Naples being now in the possession of a Bastardship of Arragon but appertaining unto his Majesty by clear and undoubted right which if he should not by just Arms seek to recover he could neither acquit his Honour nor answer it to his People But his Noble and Christian thoughts rest not here For his Resolution and Hope is to make the Re-conquest of Naples but as a Bridge to transport his Forces into Grecia and not to spare Blood or Treasure if it were to the impawning of his Crown and dis-peopling of France till either he hath overthrown the Empire of the Ottomans or taken it in his way to Paradise The King knoweth well that this is a design that could not arise in the mind of any King that did not stedfastly look up unto GOD whose quarrel this
put himself into the consort or Choir of all Religious actions and naturally affecting much the King of Spain as far as one King can affect another partly for his virtues and partly for a counterpoise to France upon the receipt of these Letters sent all his Nobles and Prelates that were about the Court together with the Mayor and Aldermen of London in great solemnity to the Church of St. Pauls there to hear a Declaration from the Lord Chancellor now Cardinal When they were assembled the Cardinal standing upon the uppermost step or half-pace before the Chair and all the Nobles Prelates and Governours of the City at the foot of the stairs made a Speech to them letting them know that they were assembled in that Consecrate place to sing unto God a New-song For that said he these many years the Christians have not gained new ground or Territory upon the Infidels nor enlarged and set further the Bounds of the Christian-world But this is now done by the prowess and devotion of Ferdinando and Isabella Kings of Spain who have to their immortal Honour recovered the great and rich Kingdom of Granade and the populous and mighty City of the same name from the Moors having been in possession thereof by the space of seven hundred years and more For which this Assembly and all Christians are to render laud and thanks unto God and to celebrate this noble Act of the King of Spain who in this is not only Victorious but Apostolical in the gaining of new Provinces to the Christian Faith And the rather for that this victory and Conquest is obtained without much effusion of blood Whereby it is to be hoped that there shall be gained not only new Territory but infinite Souls to the Church of Christ whom the Almighty as it seems would have live to be converted Herewithal he did relate some of the most memorable particulars of the War and Victory And after his Speech ended the whole assembly went solemnly in Procession and Te Deum was sung Immediately after the Solemnity the King kept his May-day at his Palace of Shein now Richmond Where to warm the blood of his Nobility and Gallants against the War he kept great Triumphs of Justing and Tourney during all that Month. In which space it so fell out that Sir James Parker and Hugh Vaughan one of the King's Gentlemen-Ushers having had a controversie touching certain Arms that the King at Arms had given Vaughan were appointed to run some Courses one against another And by accident of a faulty Helmet that Parker had on he was stricken into the mouth at the first Course so that his tongue was born unto the hinder part of his head in such sort that he died presently upon the place Which because of the Controversie precedent and the Death that followed was accounted among the Vulgar as a Combat or Tryal of Right The King towards the end of this Summer having put his Forces wherewith he meant to invade France in readiness but so as they were not yet met or mustered together sent Urswick now made his Almoner and Sir John Risley to Maximilian to let him know that he was in Arms ready to pass the Seas into France and did but expect to hear from him when and where he did appoint to joyn with him according to his promise made unto him by Countebal his Ambassador The English Ambassadors having repaired to Maximilian did find his power and promise at a very great distance he being utterly unprovided of Men Money and Arms for any such enterprize For Maximilian having neither Wing to flie on for that his Patrimony of Austria was not in his hands his Father being then living And on the other side his Matrimonial Territories of Flanders being partly in Dowre to his mother-in-Mother-in-law and partly not serviceable in respect of the late Rebellions was thereby destitute of means to enter into War The Ambassadors saw this well but wisely thought fit to advertise the King thereof rather than to return themselves till the King 's further pleasure were known The rather for that Maximilian himself spake as great as ever he did before and entertained them with dilatory Answers so as the formal part of their Ambassage might well warrant and require their further stay The King hereupon who doubted as much before and saw through his business from the beginning wrote back to the Ambassadors commending their discretion in not returning and willing them to keep the state wherein they found Maximilian as a Secret till they heard further from him And mean while went on with his Voyage Royal for France suppressing for a time this Advertisement touching Maximilian's poverty and disability By this time was drawn together a great and puissant Army into the City of London in which were Thomas Marquess Dorset Thomas Earl of Arundel Thomas Earl of Derby George Earl of Shrewsbury Edmond Earl of Suffolk Edward Earl of Devonshire George Earl of Kent the Earl of Essex Thomas Earl of Ormond with a great number of Barons Knights and principal Gentlemen and amongst them Richard Thomas much noted for the brave Troops that he brought out of Wales the Army rising in the whole to the number of five and twenty thousand Foot and sixteen hundred Horse Over which the King constant in his accustomed trust and employment made Jasper Duke of Bedford and John Earl of Oxford Generals under his own person The ninth of September in the eighth year of his Reign he departed from Greenwich towards the Sea all men wondering that he took that season being so near Winter to begin the War and some thereupon gathering it was a sign that the War would not be long Nevertheless the King gave out the contrary thus That he intending not to make a Summer-business of it but a resolute War without term prefixed until he recovered France it skilled not much when he began it especially having Calice at his back where he might winter if the reason of the War so required The sixth of October he embarqued at Sandwich and the same day took land at Calice which was the Rendezvonz where all his Forces were assigned to meet But in this his Journey towards the Sea-side wherein for the cause that we shall now speak of he hovered so much the longer he had received Letters from the Lord Cordes who the hotter he was against the English in time of War had the more credit in a Negotiation of Peace and besides was held a man open and of good faith In which Letters there was made an overture of Peace from the French King with such Conditions as were somewhat to the King's tast but this was carried at the first with wonderful secrecy The King was no sooner come to Calice but the calm winds of Peace began to blow For first the English Ambassadors returned out of Flanders from Maximilian and certified the King that he was not to hope for any ayd from Maximilian for that he was
handling of that service and gave them all thanks and in private promised Reward to some particulars Upon the sixteenth of November this being the Eleventh year of the King was holden the Serjeants-Feast at Ely-Place there being nine Serjeants of that Call The King to honour the Feast was present with his Queen at the Dinner being a Prince that was ever ready to grace and countenance the Professors of the Law having a little of that That as he governed his Subjects by his Laws so he governed his Laws by his Lawyers This year also the King entred into League with the Italian Potentates for the defence of Italy against France For King Charles had conquered the Realm of Naples and lost it again in a kind of Felicity of a Dream He passed the whole length of Italy without resistance so that it was true which Pope Alexander was wont to say That the French-men came into Italy with 〈◊〉 in their hands to mark up their lodgings rather than with Swords to fight He likewise entred and won in effect the whole Kingdom of Naples it self without striking stroke But presently thereupon he did commit and multiply so many Errours as was too great a task for the best fortune to overcome He gave no contentment to the Barons of Naples of the Faction of the Angeovines but scattered his rewards according to the mercenary appetites of some about him He put all Italy upon their Guard by the seizing and holding of Ostia and the protecting of the Liberty of Pisa which made all men suspect that his purposes looked further than his Title of Naples He fell too soon at difference with Ludovico Sfortia who was the man that carried the Keys which brought him in and shut him out He neglected to extinguish some reliques of the War And lastly in regard of his easie passage through Italy without resistance he entred into an over-much despising of the Arms of the Italians whereby he left the Realm of Naples at his departure so much the less provided So that not long after his return the whole Kingdom revolted to Ferdinando the younger and the French were quite driven out Nevertheless Charles did make both great threats and great preparations to re-enter Italy once again Wherefore at the instance of divers of the States of Italy and especially of Pope Alexander there was a League concluded between the said Pope Maximilian King of Romans Henry King of England Ferdinando and Isabella King and Queen of Spain for so they are constantly placed in the Original Treaty throughout Augustissimo Barbadico Duke of Venice and Ludovico Sfortia Duke of Millan for the common defence of their Estates Wherein though Ferdinando of Naples was not named as principal yet no doubt the Kingdom of Naples was tacitly included as a Fee of the Church There dyed also this year Cecile Duchess of York Mother to King Edward the Fourth at her Castle of Barkbamstead being of extreme years and who had lived to see three Princes of her body crowned and four murthered She was buried at Foderingham by her Husband This year also the King called his Parliament where many Laws were made of a more private and vulgar nature than ought to detain the Reader of an History And it may be justly suspected by the proceedings following that as the King did excell in good Common-wealth Laws so nevertheless he had in secret a design to make use of them as well for collecting of Treasure as for correcting of Manners and so meaning thereby to harrow his People did accumulate them the rather The principal Law that was made this Parliament was a Law of a strange nature rather just than legal and more magnanimous than provident This Law did ordain That no person that did assist in Arms or otherwise the King for the time being should after be impeached therefore or attainted either by the course of the Law or by Act of Parliament But if any such Act of Attainder did happen to be made it should be void and of none effect For that it was agreeable to reason of Estate that the Subject should not enquire of the justness of the King's Title or Quarrel and it was agreeable to good Conscience that whatsoever the fortune of the War were the Subject should not suffer for his Obedience The spirit of this Law was wonderful Pious and Noble being like in matter of War unto the spirit of David in matter of Plague who said If I have sinned strike me but what have these sheep done Neither wanted this Law parts of prudent and deep fore-sight For it did the better take away occasion for the People to busie themselves to pry into the King's Title for that howsoever it fell their safety was already provided for Besides it could not but greatly draw unto him the love and hearts of the People because he seemed more careful for them than for himself But yet nevertheless it did take off from his Party that great Tye and Spur of necessity to fight and go Victors out of the field considering their lives and fortunes were put in safety and protected whether they stood to it or ran away But the force and obligation of this Law was in it self Illusory as to the latter part of it by a precedent Act of Parliament to bind or frustrate a future For a supreme and absolute Power cannot conclude it self neither can that which is in nature revocable be made fixed no more than if a man should appoint or declare by his Will that if he made any Latter Will it should be void And for the Case of the Act of Parliament there is a notable President of it in King Henry the Eighth's time Who doubting he might dye in the minority of his Son procured an Act to pass That no Statute made during the minority of the King should bind him or his Successors except it were confirmed by the King under his great Seal at his full age But the first Act that passed in King Edward the Sixth his time was an Act of Repeal of that former Act at which time nevertheless the King was Minor But things that do not bind may satisfie for the time There was also made a shoaring or under-propping Act for the Benevolence to make the summs which any person had agreed to pay and nevertheless were not brought in to be leviable by course of Law Which Act did not only bring in the Arears but did indeed countenance the whole business and was pretended to be made at the desire of those that had been forward to pay This Parliament also was made that good Law which gave the Attaint upon a false Verdict between Party and Party which before was a kind of Evangile irremediable It extends not to causes Capital as well because they are for the most part at the King's Suit as because in them if they be followed in Course of Indictment there passeth a double Jury the Indictors and the Tryers and so
not Twelve Men but Four and twenty But it seemeth that was not the only reason for this reason holdeth not in the Appeal But the great reason was lest it should tend to the discouragement of Jurors in Cases of Life and Death if they should be subject to Suit and Penalty where the favour of Life maketh against them It extendeth not also to any Suit where the Demand is under the value of forty Pounds for that in such Cases of petty value it would not quit the Charge to go about again There was another Law made against a branch of Ingratitude in Women who having been advanced by their Husbands or their Husbands Ancestors should alien and thereby seek to defeat the Heirs or those in Remainder of the Lands whereunto they had been so advanced The remedy was by giving power to the next to enter for a forfeiture There was also enacted that Charitable Law for the admission of poor Suitors In Forma Pauperis without Fee to Counsellor Attorney or Clerk whereby poor men became rather able to vex than unable to sue There were divers other good Laws made that Parliament as we said before but we still observe our manner in selecting out those that are not of a Vulgar nature The King this while though he sate in Parliament as in full Place and seemed to account of the designs of Perkin who was now returned into Flanders but as a May-game yet having the composition of a wise-King Stout without and Apprehensive within had given order for the watching of Beacons upon the Coasts and erecting more where they stood too thin and had a careful eye where this wandering Cloud would break But Perkin advised to keep his fire which hitherto burned as it were upon green wood alive with continual blowing Sailed again into Ireland whence he had formerly departed rather upon the hopes France than upon any unreadiness or discouragement he found in that People But in the space of time between the King's Diligence and Poynings Commission had so setled things there as there was nothing left for Perkin but the blustring affection of wild and naked people Wherefore he was advised by his Council to seek ayd of the King of Scotland a Prince young and valorous and in good terms with his Nobles and People and ill affected to King Henry At this time also both Maximilian and Charles of France began to bear no good will to the King The one being displeased with the King's Prohibition of Commerce with Flanders the other holding the King for suspect in regard of his late entry into League with the Italians Wherefore besides the open Ayds of the Duchess of Burgandy which did with Sails and Oars put on and advance Perkin's designs there wanted not some secret Tides from Maximilian and Charles which did further his fortunes In so much as they both by their secret Letters and Messages recommended him to the King of Scotland Perkin therefore coming into Scotland upon those hopes with a well appointed company was by the King of Scots being formerly well prepared honourably welcomed and soon after his arrival admitted to his Presence in a solemn manner For the King received him in State in his Chamber of Presence accompanied with divers of his Nobles And Perkin well attended as well with those that the King had sent before him as with his own Train entred the room where the King was and coming near to the King and bowing a little to embrace him he retired some paces back and with a loud voice that all that were present might hear him made his Declaration in this manner HIgh and Mighty King your Grace and these your Nobles here present may be pleased benignly to bow your Ears to hear the Tragedy of a young Man that by right ought to hold in his hand the Ball of a Kingdom but by Fortune is made Himself a Ball tossed from Misery to Misery and from Place to Place You see here before you the Spectacle of a Plantagenet who hath been carried from the Nursery to the Sanctuary from the Sanctuary to the direful Prison from the Prison to the hand of the cruel Tormentor and from that hand to the wide-Wilderness as I may truly call it for so the World hath been to me So that he that is born to a great Kingdom hath not ground to set his foot upon more than this where he now standeth by your Princely Favour Edward the Fourth late King of England as your Grace cannot but have heard left two Sons Edward and Richard Duke of York both very young Edward the eldest succeeded their Father in the Crown by the name of King Edward the Fifth But Richard Duke of Gloceffer their unnatural Uncle first thirsting after the Kingdom through Ambition and afterwards thirsting for their Blood out of desire to secure himself employed an Instrument of his confident to him as he thought to murther them both But this Man that was employed to execate that execrable Tragedy having cruelly slain King Edward the eldest of the two was moved partly by Remorse and partly by some other mean to save Richard his Brother making a Report nevertheless to the Tyrant that he had performed his Commandment for both Brethren This Report was accordingly believed and published generally So that the World hath been possessed of an Opinion that they both were barbarously made away though ever Truth hath some sparks that flie abroad until it appear in due time as this hath had But Almighty God that stopped the mouth of the Lion and saved little Joas from the Tyranny of Athaliah when she massacred the King's Children and did save Isaac when the hand was stretched forth to sacrifice him preserved the second Brother For I my self that stand here in your presence am that very Richard Duke of York Brother of that infortunate Prince King Edward the Fifth now the most rightful surviving Heir-male to that Victorious and most Noble Edward of that name the Fourth late King of England For the manner of my Escape it is fit it should pass in silence or at least in a more secret Relation for that it may concern some alive and the memory of some that are dead Let it suffice to think that I had then a Mother living a Queen and one that expected daily such a Commandment from the Tyrant for the murthering of her Children Thus in my tender age escaping by God's mercy out of London I was secretly conveyed over Sea Where after a time the Party that had me in Charge upon what new Fears change of Mind or Practice God knoweth suddenly forsook me Whereby I was forced to wander abroad to seek mean Conditions for the sustaining of my Life Wherefore distracted between several Passions the one of fear to be known lest the Tyrant should have a new Attempt upon me the other of Grief and Disdain to be unknown and to live in that base and servile manner that I did I resolved with
of Days for payment of Moneys and some other Particulars of the Frontiers And it was indeed but a wooing Ambassage with good respects to entertain the King in good affection but nothing was done or handled to the derogation of the King 's late Treaty with the Italians But during the time that the Cornish-men were in their march towards London the King of Scotland well advertised of all that passed and knowing himself sure of War from England whensoever those Stirs were appeased neglected not his opportunity But thinking the King had his hands full entred the Frontiers of England again with an Army and besieged the Castle of Norham in Person with part of his Forces sending the rest to forrage the Countrey But Fox Bishop of Duresm a wise man and one that could see through the Present to the Future doubting as much before had caused his Castle of Norham to be strongly fortified and furnished with all kind of Munition And had manned it likewise with a very great number of tall Soldiers more than for the proportion of the Castle reckoning rather upon a sharp Assault than a long Siege And for the Countrey likewise he had caused the people withdraw their Cattel and Goods into Fact Places that were not of easie approach and sent in post to the Earl of Surrey who was not far off in Yorkshire to come in diligence to the Succour So as the Scottish King both failed of doing good upon the Castle and his men had but a catching Harvest of their Spoils And when he understood that the Earl of Surrey was coming on with great Forces he returned back into Scotland The Earl finding the Castle freed and the Enemy retired pursued with all 〈◊〉 into Scotland hoping to have overtaken the Scottish King and to have given him Battel But not attaining him in time sate down before the Castle of Aton one of the strongest places then esteemed between Berwick and Edenburgh which in a small time he took And soon after the Scottish King retiring further into his Countrey and the weather being extraordinary foul and stormy the Earl returned into England So that the Expeditions on both parts were in effect but a Castle taken and a Castle distressed not answerable to the puissance of the Forces nor to the heat of the Quarrel nor to the greatness of the Expectation Amongst these Troubles both Civil and External came into England from Spain Peter Hialas some call him Elias surely he was the fore runner of the good Hap that we enjoy at this day For his Ambassage set the Truce between England and Scotland the Truce drew on the Peace the Peace the Marriage and the Marriage the Union of the Kingdoms a man of great Wisdom and as those times were not unlearned sent from Ferdinando and Isabella Kings of Spain unto the King to treat a Marriage between Catherine their second Daughter and Prince Arthur This Treaty was by him set in a very good way and almost brought to perfection But it so fell out by the way that upon some Conference which he had with the King touching this business the King who had a great dexterity in getting suddenly into the bosom of Ambassadors of forein Princes if he liked the men Insomuch as he would many times communicate with them of his own affairs yea and employ them in his service fell into speech and discourse incidently concerning the ending the Debates and differences with Scotland For the King naturally did not love the barren Wars with Scotland though he made his profit of the Noise of them And he wanted not in the Council of Scotland those that would advise their King to meet him at the half-way and to give over the War with England pretending to be good Patriots but indeed favouring the affairs of the King Only his heart was too great to begin with Scotland for the motion of Peace On the other side he had met with an Allie of Ferdinando of Arragon as fit for his turn as could be For after that King Ferdinando had upon assured confidence of the Marriage to succeed taken upon him the person of a Fraternal Allie to the King he would not let in a Spanish gravity to counsel the King in his own affairs And the King on his part not being wanting to himself but making use of every man's humours made his advantage of this in such things as he thought either not decent or not pleasant to proceed from himself putting them off as done by the Counsel of Ferdinando Wherefore he was content that Hialas as in a matter moved and advised from Hialas himself should go into Scotland to treat of a Concord between the two Kings Hialas took it upon him and coming to the Scottish King after he had with much Art brought King James to hearken to the more safe and quiet Counsels wrote unto the King that he hoped that Peace would with no great difficulty cement and close if he would send some wise and temperate Counsellor of his own that might treat of the Conditions Whereupon the King directed Bishop Fox who at that time was at his Castle of Norham to confer with Hialas and they both to treat with some Commissioners deputed from the Scottish King The Commissioners on both sides met But after much dispute upon the Articles and Conditions of Peace propounded upon either part they could not conclude a Peace The chief Impediments thereof was the demand of the King to have Perkin delivered into his hands as a reproach to all Kings and a person not protected by the Law of Nations The King of Scotland on the other side peremptorily denied so to do saying That he for his part was no competent Judge of Perkin's Title But that he had received him as a Suppliant protected him as a person fled for Refuge espoused him with his Kinswoman and aided him with his Arms upon the belief that he was a Prince And therefore that he could not now with his Honour so unrip and in a sort put a Lye upon all that he had said and done before as to deliver him up to his Enemies The Bishop likewise who had certain proud instructions from the King at the least in the Front though there were a pliant clause at the Foot that remitted all to the Bishop's discretion and required him by no means to break off in ill terms after that he had failed to obtain the delivery of Perkin did move a second point of his Instructions which was that the Scottish King would give the King an Enterview in Person at Newcastle But this being reported to the Scottish King his answer was That he meant to treat a Peace and not to go a begging for it The Bishop also according to another Article of his Instructions demanded Restitution of the Spoils taken by the Scottish or Damages for the same But the Scottish Commissioners answered That that was but as Water spilt upon the ground which could not be
to hold or imprison began to stir For deceiving his Keepers he took him to his heels and made speed to the Sea-coasts But presently all Corners were laid for him and such diligent pursuit and search made as he was fain to turn back and get him to the house of Bethleem called the Priory of Shyne which had the priviledge of a Sanctuary and put himself into the hands of the Prior of that Monastery The Prior was thought an Holy Man and much reverenced in those days He came to the King and besought the King for Perkin's life only leaving him otherwise to the Kings discretion Many about the King were again more hot than ever to have the King take him forth and hang him But the King that had an high stomach and could not hate any that he despised bid Take him forth and set the Knave in the stocks And so promising the Prior his life he caused him to be brought forth And within two or three days after upon a 〈◊〉 fold set up in the Palace-Court at Westminster he was 〈◊〉 and set in the Stocks for the whole day And the next 〈◊〉 after the like was done by him at the Cross in Cheapside 〈◊〉 in both places he read his Confession of which we made 〈◊〉 before and was from Cheapside conveyed and laid up 〈◊〉 the Tower Notwithstanding all this the King was as 〈◊〉 partly touched before grown to be such a Partner with 〈◊〉 as no body could tell what Actions the one and what 〈◊〉 other owned For it was believed generally that Perkin was betrayed and that this Escape was not without the King's privity who had him all the time of his Flight in a Line and that the King did this to pick a Quarrel to him to put him to death and to be rid of him at once But this is not probable For that the same Instruments who observed him in his Flight might have kept him from getting into Sanctuary But it was ordained that this Winding-Ivy of a Plantagenet should kill the true Tree it self For Perkin after he had been a while in the Tower began to insinuate himself into the favour and kindness of his Keepers Servants to the Lieutenant of the Tower Sir John Digby being four in number Strangways Blewet Astwood and Long-Roger These Varlets with mountains of promises he sought to corrupt to obtain his Escape But knowing well that his own Fortunes were made so contemptible as he could feed no man's Hopes and by Hopes he must work for Rewards he had none he had contrived with himself a vast and tragical Plot which was to draw into his Company Edward Plantagenet Earl of Warwick then Prisoner in the Tower whom the weary life of a long Imprisonment and the often and renewing Fears of being put to Death had softned to take any impression of counsel for his Liberty This young Prince he thought these Servants would look upon though not upon himself And therefore after that by some Message by one or two of them he had tasted of the Earl's consent it was agreed that these four should murder their Master the Lieutenant secretly in the night and make their best of such Money and portable Goods of his as they should find ready at hand and get the Keys of the Tower and presently let forth Perkin and the Earl But this Conspiracy was revealed in time before it could be executed And in this again the Opinion of the King 's great Wisdom did surcharge him with a sinister Fame that Perkin was but his Bait to entrap the Earl of Warwick And in the very instant while this Conspiracy was in working as if that also had been the King's industry it was fatal that there should break forth a counterfeit Earl of Warwick a Cordwainer's Son whose name was Ralph Wilford a young man taught and set on by an Augustin Frier called Patrick They both from the parts of Suffolk came forwards into Kent where they did not only privily and underhand give out that this Wilford was the true Earl of Warwick but also the Frier finding some light Credence in the People took the boldness in the Pulpit to declare as much and to incite the People to come in to his ayd Whereupon they were both presently 〈◊〉 and the young fellow executed and the Frier condemned 〈◊〉 perpetual Imprisonment This also hapning so opportunely to 〈◊〉 the danger to the King's Estate from the Earl of Warwick and thereby to colour the King's severity that followed together 〈◊〉 the madness of the Frier so vainly and desperately to divulge a Treason before it had gotten any manner of strength and the saving of the Frier's life which nevertheless was indeed but the priviledge of his Order and the Pity in the common People which if it run in a strong Stream doth ever cast up Scandal and Envy made it generally rather talked than believed that all was but the King's device But howsoever it were hereupon Perkin that had offended against Grace now the third time was at the last proceeded with and by Commissioners of Oyer and Determiner arraigned at Westminster upon divers Treasons committed and perpetrated after his coming on land within this Kingdom for so the Judges advised for that he was a Poreiner and condemned and a few days after executed at Tyburn Where he did again openly read his Confession and take it upon his Death to be true This was the end of this little Cockatrice of a King that was able to destroy those that did not espy him first It was one of the longest Plays of that kind that hath been in memory and might perhaps have had another end if he had not met with a King both wise stout and fortunate As for Perkin's three Counsellors they had registred themselves Sanctuary-men when their Master did And whether upon Pardon obtained or continuance within the Priviledge they came not to be proceeded with There was executed with Perkin the Mayor of Cork and his Son who had been principal Abettors of his Treasons And soon after were likewise condemned eight other Persons about the TowerConspiracy whereof four were the Lieutenant's men But of those eight but two were executed And immediately after was arraigned before the Earl of Oxford then for the time High-Steward of England the poor Prince the Earl of Warwick not for the Attempt to escape simply for that was not acted And besides the Imprisonment not being for Treason the Escape by Law could not be Treason but for conspiring with Perkin to raise sedition and to destroy the King And the Earl confessing the Indictment had Judgment and was shortly after beheaded on Tower-hill This was also the end not only of this Noble and Commiserable person Edward the Earl of Warwick eldest Son to the Duke of Clarence but likewise of the Line-Male of the Plantagenets which had flourished in great Royalty and Renown from the time of the famous King of England King Henry the Second Howbeit
Attendance of the Earl of Northumberland who with a great Troop of Lords and Ladies of Honour brought her into Scotland to the King her Husband This Marriage had been in Treaty by the space of almost three years from the time that the King of Scotland did first open his mind to Bishop Fox The Summ given in Marriage by the King was ten thousand Pounds And the Joynture and Advancement assured by the King of Scotland was two thousand Pounds a year after King James his Death and one thousand Pounds a year in present for the Ladys Allowance or Maintenance This to be set forth in Lands of the best and most certain Revenue During the Treaty it is reported that the King remitted the matter to his Council And that some of the Table in the Freedom of Counsellors the King being present did put the Case that if God should take the King 's two Sons without Issue that then the Kingdom of England would fall to the King of Scotland which might prejudice the Monarchy of England Whereunto the King himself replied That if that should be Scotland would be but an Accession to England and not England to Scotland for that the greater would draw the less And that it was a safer Union for England than that of France This passed as an Oracle and silenced those that moved the Question The same year was fatal as well for Deaths as Marriages and that with equal temper For the Joys and Feasts of the two Marriages were compensed with the Mournings and Funerals of Prince Arthur of whom we have spoken and of Queen Elizabeth who dyed in Child-bed in the Tower and the Child lived not long after There dyed also that year Sir Reginold Bray who was noted to have had with the King the greatest Freedom of any Counsellor but it was but a Freedom the better to set off Flattery Yet he bare more than his just part of Envy for the Exactions At this time the King's Estate was very prosperous secured by the Amity of Scotland strengthned by that of Spain cherished by that of Burgundy all Domestick Troubles quenched and all Noise of War like a Thunder a-far-off going upon Italy Wherefore Nuture which many times is happily contained and refrained by some Bands of Fortune began to take place in the King carrying as with a strong Tide his Affections and Thoughts unto the gathering and heaping up of Treasure And as Kings do more easily find Instruments for their Will and Humour than for their Service and Honour He had gotten for his purpose or beyond his purpose two Instruments Empson and Dudley whom the people esteemed as his Horse-Leeches and Shearers bold men and careless of Fame and that took Toll of their Master 's Grist Dudley was of a good Family Eloquent and one that could put Hateful Business into good Language But Empson that was the Son of a Sieve-maker triumphed always upon the Deed done putting off all other respects whatsoever These two Persons being Lawyers in Science and Privy Counsellors in Authority as the corruption of the best things is the worst turned Law and Justice into Wormwood and Rapine For first their manner was to cause divers Subjects to be indicted of sundry Crimes and so far forth to proceed in form of Law But when the Bills were found then presently to commit them And nevertheless not to produce them to any reasonable time to their Answer but to suffer them to languish long in Prison and by sundry artificial Devices and Terrours to extort from them great Fines and Ransoms which they termed Compositions and Mitigations Neither did they towards the end observe so much as the Half-face of Justice in proceeding by Indictment but sent forth their Precepts to attach men and convent them before themselves and some others at their private Houses in a Court of Commission and there used to shuffle up a Summary Proceeding by Examination without tryal of Jury assuming to themselves there to deal both in Pleas of the Crown and Controversies Civil Then did they also use to enthral and charge the Subjects Lands with Tenures in Capite by finding False Offices and thereby to work upon them for Wardships Liveries Primier Seisins and Alienations being the fruits of those Tenures refusing upon divers Pretexts and Delays to admit men to traverse those False Offices according to the Law Nay the King's Wards after they had accomplished their full Age could not be suffered to have Livery of their Lands without paying excessive Fines far exceeding all reasonable Rates They did also vex men with Informations of Intrusion upon scarce colourable Titles When men were Out-lawed in Personal Actions they would not permit them to purchase their Charters of Pardon except they paid great and intolerable summs standing upon the strict Point of Law which upon Out-lawries giveth Forfeiture of Goods Nay contrary to all Law and Colour they maintained the King ought to have the half of mens Lands and Rents during the space of full two years for a Pain in Case of Out-lawry They would also ruffle with Jurors and enforce them to find as they would direct and if they did not Convent them Imprison them and Fine them These and many other Courses fitter to be buried than repeated they had of Preying upon the People both like Tame Hawks for their Master and like Wild Hawks for themselves in so much as they grew to great Riches and Substance But their principal working was upon Penal Laws wherein they spared none great nor small nor considered whether the Law were possible or impossible in Use or Obsolete But raked over all old and new Statutes though many of them were made with intention rather of Terrour than of Rigour having ever a Rabble of Promoters Questmongers and leading Jurors at their Command so as they could have any thing found either for Fact or Valuation There remaineth to this day a Report that the King was on a time entertained by the Earl of Oxford that was his principal Servant both for War and Peace nobly and sumptuously at his Castle at Henningham And at the King 's going away the Earl's Servants stood in a seemly manner in their Livery-Coats with Cognisances ranged on both sides and made the King a 〈◊〉 The King called the Earl to him and said My Lord I have heard much of your Hospitality but I see it is greater than the speech These handsom Gentlemen and Yeomen which I see on both sides of me are sure your Menial Servants The Earl smiled and said It may please your Grace that were not for mine ease They are most of them my Retainers they are come to do me service at such a time as this and chiefly to see your Grace The King started a little and said By my faith my Lord I thank you for my good Cheer but I may not endure to have my Laws broken in my sight My Attorney must speak with you And it is part of the Report
that the Earl compounded for no less than fifteen thousand Marks And to shew further the Kings extreme Diligence I do remember to have seen long since a Book of Accompt of Empson's that had the King's hand almost to every Leaf by way of Signing and was in some places Postilled in the Margin with the King's hand likewise where was this Remembrance Item Received of such a one five Marks for the Pardon to be procured and if the Pardon do not pass the Money to be re-paid except the party be some other-ways satisfied And over against this Memorandum of the King 's own hand Otherwise satisfied Which I do the rather mention because it shews in the King a Nearness but yet with a kind of Justness So these little Sands and Grains of Gold and Silver as it seemeth helped not a little to make up the great Heap and Bank But mean while to keep the King awake the Earl of Suffolk having been too gay at Prince Arthur's Marriage and sunk himself deep in Debt had yet once more a mind to be a Knight-Errant and to seek Adventures in Forein parts And taking his Brother with him fled again into Flanders That no doubt which gave him Confidence was the great Murmur of the People against the King's Government And being a Man of a light and rash Spirit he thought every Vapour would be a Tempest Neither wanted he some Party within the Kingdom For the Murmur of People awakes the Discontents of Nobles and again that calleth up commonly some Head of Sedition The King resorting to his wonted and tryed Arts caused Sir Robert Curson Captain of the Castle at Hammes being at that time beyond Sea and therefore less likely to be wrought upon by the King to flie from his Charge and to feign himself a servant of the Earl's This Knight having insinuated himself into the Secrets of the Earl and finding by him upon whom chiefly he had either Hope or Hold advertised the King thereof in great secrecy But nevertheless maintained his own Credit and inward trust with the Earl Upon whose Advertisements the King attached William Courtney Earl of Devonshire his brother-in-Brother-in-Law married to the Lady Katherine Daughter to King Edward the Fourth William de la Pole Brother to the Earl of Suffolk Sir James Tirrel and Sir John Windham and some other meaner Persons and committed them to Custody George Lord Abergaveny and Sir Thomas Green were at the same time apprehended but as upon less Suspition so in a freer Restraint and were soon after delivered The Earl of Devonshire being interessed in the blood of York that was rather Feared than Nocent yet as One that might be the Object of others Plots and Designs remained Prisoner in the Tower during the King's life William de la Pole was also long restrained though not so straitly But for Sir James Tirrel against whom the Blood of the Innocent Princes Edward the Fifth and his Brother did still cry from under the Altar and Sir John Windham and the other meaner ones they were attainted and executed the two Knights beheaded Nevertheless to confirm the Credit of Curson who belike had not yet done all his Feats of Activity there was published at Paul's Cross about the time of the said Executions the Pope's Bull of Excommunication and Curse against the Earl of Suffolk and Sir Robert Curson and some others by name and likewise in general against all the Abettors of the said Earl Wherein it must be confessed that Heaven was made too much to bow to Earth and Religion to Policy But soon after Curson when he saw time returned into England and withal into wonted Favour with the King but worse Fame with the People Upon whose return the Earl was much dismayed and seeing himself destitute of hopes the Lady Margaret also by tract of Time and bad Success being now becom cool in those attempts after some wandering in France and Germany and certain little Projects no better than Squibs of an Exiled man being tired out retired again into the Protection of the Arch-Duke Philip in Flanders who by the death of Isabella was at that time King of Castile in the right of Joan his Wife This year being the Nineteenth of his Reign the King called his Parliament Wherein a man may easily guess how absolute the King took himself to be with his Parliament when Dudley that was so hateful was made Speaker of the House of Commons In this Parliament there were not made any Statutes memorable touching publick Government But those that were had still the Stamp of the King's Wisdom and Policy There was a Statute made for the disannulling of all Patents of Lease or Grant to such as came not upon lawful Summons to serve the King in his Wars against the Enemies or Rebels or that should depart without the King's licence With an exception of certain Persons of the Long-robe Providing nevertheless That they should have the King's Wages from their House till their return home again There had been the like made before for Offices and by this Statute it was extended to Lands But a man may easily see by many Statutes made in this King's time that the King thought it safest to assist Martial Law by Law of Parliament Another Statute was made prohibiting the bringing in of Manufactures of Silk wrought by it self or mixt with any other Thred But it was not of Stuffs of whole piece for that the Realm had of them no Manufacture in use at that time but of Knit-Silk or Texture of Silk as Ribands Laces Cawls Points and Girdles c. which the people of England could then well skill to make This Law pointed at a true Principle That where forein materials are but Superfluities forein Manufactures should be prohibited For that will either banish the Superfluity or gain the Manufacture There was a Law also of Resumption of Patents of Gaols and the Reannexing of them to the Sherifwicks Priviledged Officers being no less an Interruption of Justice than Priviledged Places There was likewise a Law to restrain the by-By-laws or Ordinances of Corporations which many times were against the Prerogative of the King the Common-law of the Realm and the Liberty of the Subject being Fraternities in Evil. It was therefore Provided that they should not be put in Execution without the Allowance of the Chancellor Treasurer and the two Chief-Justices or three of them or of the two Justices of Circuit where the Corporation was Another Law was in effect to bring in the Silver of the Realm to the Mint in making all clipped minished or impaired Coins of Silver not to be currant in payments without giving any Remedy of weight but with an exception only of a reasonable wearing which was as nothing in respect of the incertainty and so upon the matter to set the Mint on work and give way to New Coins of Silver which should be then minted There likewise was a long Statute against Vagabonds wherein two things
may be noted The one the Dislike the Parliament had of Gaoling of them as that which was chargeable pesterous and of no open Example The other that in the Statutes of this King's time for this of the Nineteenth year is not the only Statute of that kind there are ever coupled the punishment of Vagabonds and the forbidding of Dice and Cards and unlawful Games unto Servants and mean people and the putting down and suppressing of Ale-houses as Strings of one Root together and as if the One were unprofitable without the Other As for Riot and Retainers there passed scarce any Parliament in this time without a Law against them the King ever having an Eye to Might and Multitude There was granted also that Parliament a Subsidy both for the Temporalty and the Clergy And yet nevertheless ere the year expired there went out Commissions for a general Benevolence though there were no Wars no Fears The same year the City gave five thousand Marks for Confirmation of their Liberties A thing fitter for the Beginnings of King's Reigns than the latter Ends. Neither was it a small matter that the Mint gained upon the late Statute by the Recoinage of Groats and Half-Groats now Twelve-pences and Sixpences As for Empson and Dudley's Mills they did grind more than ever So that it was a strange thing to see what Golden Showrs poured down upon the King's Treasury at once The last payments of the Marriage-Money from Spain The Subsidy The Benevolence The Recoinage The Redemption of the Cities Liberties The Casualties And this is the more to be marvelled at because the King had then no Occasions at all of Wars or Troubles He had now but one Son and one Daughter unbestowed He was Wise He was of an High Mind He needed not to make Riches his Glory He did excel in so many things else save that certainly Avarice doth ever find in it self matter of Ambition Belike he thought to leave his Son such a Kingdom and such a Mass of Treasure as he might choose his Greatness where he would This year was also kept the Serjeants 〈◊〉 which was the second Call in this Kings Days About this time Isabella Queen of Castile deceased a right Noble Lady and an Honour to her Sex and Times and the Corner-stone of the Greatness of Spain that hath followed This Accident the King took not for News at large but thought it had a great Relation to his own Affairs especially in two points The one for Example the other for Consequence First he conceived that the Case of Ferdinando of Arragon after the death of Queen Isabella was his own Case after the death of his own Queen and the Case of Joan the Heir unto Castile was the Case of his own Son Prince Henry For if both of the Kings had their Kingdoms in the right of their Wives they descended to the Heirs and did not accrew to the Husbands And although his own Case had both Steel and Parchment more than the other that is to say a Conquest in the Field and an Act of Parliament yet notwithstanding that Natural Title of Descent in Blood did in the imagination even of a wise man breed a Doubt that the other two were not safe nor sufficient Wherefore he was wonderful diligent to enquire and observe what became of the King of Arragon in holding and continuing the Kingdom of Castile And whether he did hold it in his own Right or as Administrator to his Daughter and whether he were like to hold it in Fast or to be put out by his Son-in-Law Secondly he did revolve in his mind that the State of Christendom might by this late Accident have a turn For whereas before-time himself with the Conjunction of Arragon and Castile which then was one and the Amity of Maximilian and Philip his Son the Arch-Duke was far too strong a Party for France he began to fear that now the French King who had great Interest in the Affections of Philip the young King of Castile and Philip himself now King of Castile who was in ill terms with his Father-in-Law about the present Government of Castile And thirdly Maximilian Philip's Father who was ever variable and upon whom the surest Aim that could be taken was that he would not be long as he had been last before would all three being potent Princes enter into some strait League and Confederation amongst themselves Whereby though he should not be endangered yet he should be left to the poor Amity of Arragon And whereas he had been heretofore a kind of Arbiter of Europe he should now go less and be over-topped by so great a Conjunction He had also as it seems an inclination to marry and bethought himself of some fit Conditions abroad And amongst others he had heard of the Beauty and virtuous Behaviour of the young Queen of Naples the Widow of Ferdinando the younger being then of Matronal years of seven and twenty By whose Marriage he thought that the Kingdom of Naples having been a Goal for a time between the King of Arragon and the French King and being but newly setled might in some part be deposited in his hands who was so able to keep the Stakes Therefore he sent in Ambassage or Message three confident Persons Francis Marsin James Braybrook and John Stile upon two several Inquisitions rather than Negotiations The One touching the Person and Condition of the young Queen of Naples the Other touching all particulars of Estate that concerned the Fortunes and Intentions of Ferdinando And because they may observe best who themselves are observed least he sent them under Colourable Pretexts giving them Letters of Kindness and Compliment from Katharine the Princess to her Aunt and Niece the Old and Young Queen of Naples and delivering to them also a Book of new Articles of Peace which notwithstanding it had been delivered unto Doctor De Putbla the Leigier Ambassador of Spain here in England to be sent yet for that the King had been long without hearing from Spain he thought good those Messengers when they had been with the two Queens should likewise pass on to the Court of Ferdinando and take a Copy of the Book with them The Instructions touching the Queen of Naples were so curious and exquisite being as Articles whereby to direct a Survey or 〈◊〉 a Particular of her Person for Complexion Favour Feature Stature Health Age Customs Behaviour Conditions and Estate as if the King had been young a man would have judged him to be Amorous but being ancient it ought to be interpreted that sure he was very Chast for that he meant to find all things in one Woman and so to settle his Affections without ranging But in this March he was soon cooled when he heard from his Ambassadors that this young Queen had had a goodly Joynture in the Realm of Naples well answered during the time of her Uncle Frederick yea and during the time of Lewis the French King in
whose Division her Revenue fell but since the time that the Kingdom was in Ferdinando's hands all was assigned to the Army and Garrisons there and she received only a Pension or Exhibition out of his Coffers The other part of the Inquiry had a grave and diligent Return informing the King at full of the present State of King Ferdinando By this Report it appeared to the King that Ferdinando did continue the Government of Castile as Administrator unto his Daughter Joan by the Title of Queen Isabella's Will and partly by the Custom of the Kingdom as he pretended And that all Mandates and Grants were expedited in the name of Joan his Daughter and himself as Administrator without mention of Philip her Husband And that King Ferdinando howsoever he did dismiss himself of the name of King of Castile yet meant to hold the Kingdom without Accompt and in absolute Command It appeareth also that he flattered himself with hopes that King Philip would permit unto him the Goverment of Castile during his life which he had laid his Plot to work him unto both by some Counsellors of his about him which Ferdinando had at his devotion and chiefly by promise that in case Philip gave not way unto it he would marry some young Lady whereby to put him by the Succession of Arragon and Granada in case he should have a Son And lastly by representing unto him that the Government of the Burgundians till Philip were by continuance in Spain made as Natural of Spain would not be endured by the Spaniards But in all those things though wisely laid down and considered Ferdinando failed But that Pluto was better to him than Pallas In the same Report also the Ambassadors being mean men and therefore the more free did strike upon a string which was somewhat dangerous For they declared plainly that the People of Spain both Nobles and Commons were better affected unto the part of Philip so he brought his Wife with him than to Ferdinando and expressed the reason to be because he had imposed upon them many Taxes and Tallages which was the King's own Case between him and his Son There was also in this Report a Declaration of an Overture of of Marriage which Amason the Secretary of Ferdinando had made unto the Ambassadors in great secret between Charles Prince of Castile and Mary the King's second Daughter assuring the King that the Treaty of Marriage then on foot for the said Prince and the Daughter of France would break and that she the said Daughter of France should be married to Angolesme that was the Heir Apparant of France There was a touch also of a speech of Marriage between Ferdinando and Madam De Fois a Lady of the Blood of France which afterwards indeed succeeded But this was reported as learned in France and silenced in Spain The King by the return of this Ambassage which gave great light unto his Affairs was well instructed and prepared how to carry himself between Ferdinando King of Arragon and Philip his son-in-Son-in-law King of Castile resolving with himself to do all that in him lay to keep them at one within themselves But howsoever that succeeded by a moderate Carriage and bearing the Person of a Common-friend to lose neither of their Friendships but yet to run a Course more entire with the King of Arragon but more laboured and officious with the King of Castile But he was much taken with the Overture of Marriage with his Daughter Mary Both because it was the greatest Marriage of Christendom and for that it took hold of both Allies But to corroborate his Alliance with Philip the Winds gave him an Enterview For Philip choosing the Winter-season the better to surprise the King of Arragon set forth with a great Navy out of Planders for Spain in the Month of January the One and Twentieth year of the King's Reign But himself was surprised with a cruel Tempest that scattered his Ships upon the several Coasts of England And the Ship wherein King and Queen were with two other small Barques only torn and in great peril to escape the fury of the weather thrust into Weymouth King Philip himself having not been used as it seems to Sea all wearied and extreme sick would needs land to refresh his Spirits though it was against the Opinion of his Council doubting it might breed Delay his Occasions requiring Celerity The Rumour of the Arrival of a puissant Navy upon the Coast made the Countrey Arm. And Sir Thomas Trenchard with Forces suddenly raised not knowing what the matter might be came to Weymouth Where understanding the Accident he did in all Humbleness and Humanity invite the King and Queen to his House and forthwith dispatched Posts to the Court. Soon after came Sir John Caroe likewise with a great troop of Men well armed using the like Humbleness and Respect towards the King when he knew the Case King Philip doubting that they being but Subjects durst not let him pass away again without the King's Notice and Leave yielded to their Entreaties to stay till they heard from the Court The King as soon as he heard the News commanded presently the Earl of Arundel to go to visit the King of Castile and let him understand That as he was very sorry for his Mishap so he was glad that he had escaped the Danger of the Seas and likewise of the Occasion himself had to do him Honour and desiring him to think himself as in his own Land and that the King made all haste possible to come and embrace him The Earl came to him in great Magnificence with a brave Troop of three hundred Horse and for more State came by Torch-light After he had done the King's Message King Philip seeing how the world went the sooner to get away went upon speed to the King at Windsor and his Queen followed by easie journeys The two Kings at their meeting used all the Caresses and loving Demonstrations that were possible And the King of Castile said presently to the King That he was now punished for that he would not come within his walled Town of Calice when they met last But the King answered That Walls and Seas were nothing where Hearts were open and that he was here no otherwise but to be served After a day or two's refreshing the Kings entred into speech of renewing the Treaty the King saying That though King Philip's Person were the same yet his Fortunes and State were raised In which Case a Renovation of Treaty was used amongst Princes But while these things were in handling the King choosing a fit time and drawing the King of Castile into a Room where they two only were private and laying his hand civilly upon his arm and changing his Countenance a little from a Countenance of Entertainment said to him Sir you have been saved upon my Coast I hope you will not suffer me to wrack upon yours The King of Castile asked him What he meant by that
speech I mean it saith the King by that same Hare-brain wild Fellow my Subject the Earl of Suffolk who is protected in your Countrey and begins to play the Fool when all others are weary of it The King of Castile answered I had thought Sir your Felicity had been above those thoughts But if it trouble you I will banish him The King replied Those Hornets were best in their Nests and worst when they did flie abroad that his desire was to have him delivered to him The King of Castile herewith a little confused and in a study said That can I not do with my honour and less with yours for you will be thought to have used me as a Prisoner The King presently said Then the matter is at an end For I will take that dishonour upon me and so your honour is saved The King of Castile who had the King in great Estimation and besides remembred where he was and knew not what use he might have of the King's Amity for that himself was new in his Estate of Spain and unsetled both with his father-in-Father-in-Law and with his People composing his Countenance said Sir you give Law to me but so will I to you You shall have him but upon your honour you shall not take his life The King embracing him said Agreed Saith the King of Castile Neither shall it dislike you if I send to him in such a fashion as he may partly come with his own good will The King said It was well thought of and if it pleased him he would joyn with him in sending to the Earl a Message to that purpose They both sent severally and mean while they continued Feasting and Pastimes The King being on his part willing to have the Earl sure before the King of Castile went and the King of Castile being as willing to seem to be enforced The King also with many wise and excellent Perswasions did advise the King of Castile to be ruled by the counsel of his father-in-Father-in-Law Ferdinando a Prince so prudent so experienced so fortunate The King of Castile who was in no very good terms with his said father-in-Father-in-Law answered That if his father-in-Father-in-Law would suffer him to govern his Kingdoms he should govern him There were immediately Messengers sent from both Kings to recall the Earl of Suffolk Who upon gentle words used to him was soon charmed and willing enough to return assured of his Life and hoping of his Liberty He was brought through Flanders to Calice and thence landed at Dover and with sufficient Guard delivered and received at the Tower of London Mean while King Henry to draw out the time continued his Feastings and Entertainments and after he had received the King of Castile into the Fraternity of the Garter and for a Reciprocal had his Son the Prince admitted to the Order of the Golden-fleece he accompanied King Philip and his Queen to the City of London where they were entertained with the greatest Magnificence and Triumph that could be upon no greater warning And as soon as the Earl of Suffolk had been conveyed to the Tower which was the serious part the Jollities had an end and the Kings took leave Nevertheless during their being here they in substance concluded that Treaty which the Flemings term Intercursus malus and bears Date at Windsor for that there be some things in it more to the Advantage of the English than of them especially for that the Free-fishing of the Dutch upon the Coasts and Seas of England granted in the Treaty of Undecimo was not by this Treaty confirmed All Articles that confirm former Treaties being precisely and warily limited and confirmed to matter of Commerce only and not otherwise It was observed that the great Tempest which drave Philip into England blew down the Golden Eagle from the Spire of Pauls and in the fall it fell upon a Sign of the Black Eagle which was in Pauls Church-yard in the place where the School-House now standeth and battered it and brake it down Which was a strange stooping of a Hawk upon a Fowl This the People interpreted to be an Ominous Prognostick upon the Imperial House which was by Interpretation also fulfilled upon Philip the Emperor's Son not only in the Present Disaster of the Tempest but in that that followed For Philip arriving into Spain and attaining the Possession of the Kingdom of Castile without resistance insomuch as Ferdinando who had spoke so great before was with difficulty admitted to the speech of his Son-in-Law sickned soon after and deceased Yet after such time as there was an Observation by the wisest of that Court That if he had lived his Father would have gained upon him in that sort as he would have governed his Counsels and Designs if not his Affections By this all Spain returned into the power of Ferdinando in state as it was before the rather in regard of the infirmity of Joan his Daughter who loving her Husband by whom she had many Children dearly well and no less beloved of him howsoever her Father to make Philip ill beloved of the People of Spain gave out that Philip used her not well was unable in strength of mind to bear the Grief of his Decease and fell distracted of her Wits Of which Malady her Father was thought no ways to endeavour the Cure the better to hold his Regal Power in Castile So that as the Felicity of Charles the Eighth was said to be a Dream so the Adversity of Ferdinando was said likewise to be a Dream it passed over so soon About this time the King was desirous to bring into the House of Lancaster Celestial Honour and became Suitor to Pope Julius to Canonize King Henry the Sixt for a Saint the rather in respect of that his famous Prediction of the King 's own Assumption to the Crown Julius referred the matter as the manner is to certain Cardinals to take the verification of his Holy Acts and Miracles But it dyed under the Reference The general Opinion was that Pope Julius was too dear and that the King would not come to his Rates But it is more probable That that Pope who was extremely jealous of the Dignity of the See of Rome and of the Acts thereof knowing that King Henry the Sixt was reputed in the World abroad but for a Simple Man was afraid it would but diminish the Estimation of that kind of Honour if there were not a distance kept between Innocents and Saints The same year likewise there proceeded a Treaty of Marriage between the King and the Lady Margaret Duchess Dowager of Savoy only Daughter to Maximilian and Sister to the King of Castile a Lady wise and of great good Fame This Matter had been in speech between the two Kings at their meeting but was soon after resumed and therein was employed for his first piece the King 's then Chaplain and after the great Prelate Thomas Wolsey It was in the end concluded with great and ample Conditions
for the King but with promise De Futuro only It may be the King was the rather induced unto it for that he heard more and more of the Marriage to go on between his great Friend and Allie Ferdinando of Arragon and Madam De Fois whereby that King began to piece with the French King from whom he had been always before severed So fatal a thing it is for the greatest and straitest Amities of Kings at one time or other to have a little of the Wheel Nay there is a further Tradition in Spain though not with us That the King of Arragon after he knew that the Marriage between Charles the young Prince of Castile and Mary the King 's second Daughter went roundly on which though it was first moved by the King of Arragon yet it was afterwards wholly advanced and brought to perfection by Maximilian and the Friends on that side entred into jealousie that the King did aspire to the Government of Castilia as Administrator during the Minority of his son-in-Son-in-Law as if there should have been a Competition of Three for that Government Ferdinando Grand-father on the Mothers side Maximilian Grand-father on the Father's side and King Henry father-in-Father-in-Law to the young Prince Certainly it is not unlike but the King's Government carrying the young Prince with him would have been perhaps more welcom to the Spaniards than that of the other Two For the Nobility of Castilia that so lately put out the King of Arragon in favour of King Philip and had discovered themselves so far could not but be in a secret Distrust and Distast of that King And as for Maximilian upon Twenty respects he could not have been the Man But this purpose of the King 's seemeth to me considering the King 's safe Courses never found to be enterprizing or adventurous not greatly probable except he should have had a Desire to breathe warmer because he had ill Lungs This Marriage with Margaret was protracted from time to time in respect of the Infirmity of the King who now in the Two and Twentieth year of his Reign began to be troubled with the Gout But the Defluxion taking also into his Breast wasted his Lungs so that thrice in a Year in a kind of Return and especially in the Spring he had great Fitts and Labours of the Tissick Nevertheless he continued to intend Business with as great diligence as before in his Heath Yet so as upon this warning he did likewise now more seriously think of the World to come and of making himself a Saint as well as King Henry the Sixth by Treasure better employed than to be given to Pope Julius For this Year he gave greater Alms than accustomed and discharged all Prisoners about the City that lay for Fees or Debts under forty Shillings He did also make haste with Religious Foundations and in the Year following which was the Three and Twentieth finished that of the Savoy And hearing also of the bitter Cries of his People against the Oppressions of Dudley and Empson and their Complices partly by Devout Persons about him and partly by publick Sermons the Preachers doing their Duty therein he was touched with great Remorse for the same Nevertheless Empson and Dudley though they could not but hear of these Scruples in the King's Conscience yet as if the King's Soul and his Money were in several Offices that the One was not to intermeddle with the Other went on with as great rage as ever For the same Three and Twentieth Year was there a sharp Prosecution against Sir William Capel now the second time and this was for matters of Misgovernment in his Maioralty The great Matter being that in some Payments he had taken knowledge of False Moneys and did not his diligence to examine and beat it out who were the Offendors For this and some other things laid to his Charge he was condemned to pay two thousand Pounds and being a Man of stomach and hardened by his former Troubles refused to pay a Mite and be-like used some untoward Speeches of the Proceedings for which he was sent to the Tower and there remained till the King's Death Knesworth likewise that had been lately Mayor of London and both his Sheriffs were for Abuses in their Offices questioned and imprisoned and delivered upon one thousand four hundred Pounds paid Hawis an Alderman of London was put in Trouble and dyed with Thought and Anguish before his Business came to an end Sir Lawrence Ailmer who had likewise been Mayor of London and his two Sheriffs were put to the Fine of one thousand Pounds And Sir Lawrence for refusing to make payment was committed to Prison where he stay'd till Empson himself was committed in his place It is no marvel if the Faults were so light and the Rates so heavy that the King's Treasure of Store that he left at his death most of it in secret places under his own key and keeping at Richmond amounted as by Tradition it is reported to have done unto the Summ of near eighteen hundred thousand Pounds Sterling a huge Mass of Money even for these times The last Act of State that concluded this King 's Temporal Felicity was the Conclusion of a Glorious Match between his Daughter Mary and Charles Prince of Castile afterwards the great Emperor both being of tender years which Treaty was perfected by Bishop Fox and other his Commissioners at Calice the year before the King's Death In which Alliance it seemeth he himself took so high Contentment as in a Letter which he wrote thereupon to the City of London Commanding all possible Demonstrations of Joy to be made for the same he expresseth himself as if he thought he had built a Wall of Brass about his Kingdom When he had for his sons-in-Sons-in-Law a King of Scotland and a Prince of Castile and Burgundy So as now there was nothing to be added to this great King's Felicity being at the top of all worldly Bliss in regard of the high Marriages of his Children his great Renown throughout Europe and his scarce credible Riches and the perpetual Constancy of his prosperous Successes but an opportune Death to withdraw him from any future blow of Fortune Which certainly in regard of the great Hatred of his People and the Title of his Son being then come to Eighteen years of Age and being a bold Prince and liberal and that gained upon the People by his very Aspect and Presence had not been impossible to have come upon him To crown also the last year of his Reign as well as his first he did an Act of Piety rare and worthy to be taken into Imitation For he granted forth a General Pardon as expecting a second Coronation in a better Kingdom He did also declare in his Will that his mind was that Restitution should be made of those Summs which had been unjustly taken by his Officers And thus this Solomon of England for Solomon also was too heavy upon his People in
Exactions having lived Two and Fifty Years and thereof Reigned Three and Twenty Years and Eight Months being in perfect Memory and in a most Blessed Mind in a great Calm of a Consuming Sickness passed to a better World the Two and Twentieth of April 1508. at his Palace of Richmond which himself had Built THis King to speak of him in Terms equal to his Deserving was one of the best sort of Wonders a Wonder for Wise-men He had parts both in his Virtues and his Fortune not so 〈◊〉 for a Common-place as for Observation Certainly he was Religious both in his Affection and Observance But as he could see clear for those times through Superstition so he would be blinded now and than by Humane Policy He advanced Church-men he was tender in the Priviledge of Sanctuaries though they wrought him much Mischief He built and endowed many Religious Foundations besides his Memorable Hospital of the Savoy And yet was he a great Alms-giver in secret which shewed that his Works in publick were dedicated rather to God's glory than his own He professed always to love and seek Peace and it was his usual Preface in his Treaties That when Christ came into the World Peace was sung and when He went out of the World Peace was bequeathed And this Virtue could not proceed out of Fear or Softness for he was Valiant and Active and therefore no doubt it was truly Christian and Moral Yet he knew the way to Peace was not to seem to be desirous to avoid Wars Therefore would be make Offers and Fames of Wars till he had mended the Conditions of Peace It was also much that one that was so great a Lover of Peace should be so happy in War For his Arms either in Forein or Civil Wars were never Infortunate neither did he know what a Disaster meant The War of his Coming in and the Rebellions of the Earl of Lincoln and the Lord Awdley were ended by Victory The Wars of France and Scotland by Peaces sought at his hands That of Britain by accident of the Duke's death The Insurrection of the Lord Lovel and that of Perkin at Exceter and in Kent by flight of the Rebels before they came to Blows So that his Fortune of Arms was still Inviolate The rather sure for that in the quenching of the Commotions of his Subjects he ever went in Person Sometimes reserving himself to back and second his Lieutenants but ever in Action and yet that was not meerly Forwardness but partly Distrust of others He did much maintain and countenance his Laws which nevertheless was no Impediment to him to work his Will For it was so handled that neither Prerogative nor Profit went to Diminution And yet as he would sometimes strain up his Laws to his Prerogative so would he also let down his Prerogative to his Parliament For Mint and Wars and Martial Discipline things of absolute Power he would nevertheless bring to Parliament Justice was well administred in his time save where the King was Party Save also that the Council-Table intermedled too much with Meum and Tuum For it was a very Court of Justice during his time especially in the Beginning But in that part both of Justice and Policy which is the Durable Part and cut as it were in Brass or Marble which is The making of good Laws he did excell And with his Justice he was also a Merciful Prince as in whose time there were but three of the Nobility that suffered the Earl of Warwick the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Awdley Though the first two were instead of Numbers in the Dislike and Obloquie of the People But there were never so great Rebellions expiated with so little Blood drawn by the hand of Justice as the two Rebellions of Black-heath and Exceter As for the Severity used upon those which were taken in Kent it was but upon a Scum of People His Pardons went ever both before and after his Sword But then he had withal a strange kind of Interchanging of large and inexpected Pardons with severe Executions Which his Wisdom considered could not be imputed to any Inconstancy or Inequality but either to some Reason which we do not now know or to a Principle he had set unto himself That he would vary and try both ways in turn But the less Blood he drew the more he took of Treasure And as some construed it he was the more sparing in the One that he might be the more pressing in the Other for both would have been intolerable Of Nature assuredly he coveted to accumulate Treasure and was a little Poor in admiring Riches The People into whom there is infused for the preservation of Monarchies a natural Desire to discharge their Princes though it be with the 〈◊〉 charge of their Counsellors and Ministers did impute this unto Cardinal Morton and Sir Reginold Bray who as it after appeared as Counsellors of ancient Authority with him did so second his Humours as nevertheless they did temper them Whereas Empson and Dudley that followed being Persons that had no Reputation with him otherwise than by the servile following of his Bent did not give way only as the first did but shape him way to those Extremities for which himself was touched with remorse at his Death and which his Successor renounced and sought to purge This Excess of his had at that time many Glosses and Interpretations Some thought the continual Rebellions wherewith he had been vexed had made him grow to hate his People Some thought it was done to pull down their Stomachs and to keep them low Some for that he would leave his Son a Golden-fleece Some suspected he had some high Design upon Forein parts But those perhaps shall come nearest the truth that fetch not their reasons so far off but rather impute it to Nature Age Peace and a Mind fixed upon no other Ambition or Pursuit Whereunto I should add that having every day Occasion to take notice of the Necessities and Shifts for Money of other great Princes abroad it did the better by Comparison set off to him the Felicity of full Coffers As to his expending of Treasure he never spared Charge which his Affairs required and in his Buildings was Magnificent but his Rewards were very limited So that his Liberality was rather upon his own State and Memory than upon the Deserts of others He was of an High Mind and loved his own Will and his own Way as One that revered himself and would Reign indeed Had he been a Private-man he would have been termed Proud But in a wise Prince it was but keeping of Distance which indeed he did towards all not admitting any near or full Approach neither to his Power or to his Secrets For he was governed by none His Queen notwithstanding she had presented him with divers Children and with a Crown also though he would not acknowledge it could do nothing with him His Mother he reverenced much heard little For any Person
according to the Law which inflicted a pecuniary Mulct they that were touch'd saith Polydor Virgil cryed out that this proceeded out of Covetousness rather than Severity But the wiser sort conceived the King's intent to be partly to curb the fierce mind of the People bred up in faction partly that by these Fines he might not only weaken the rich but also increase his own strength and fortifie himself against civil Attempts whereof he had lately seen some sparkles flie abroad if so be any smothered coal should happen to break out into a flame What-ever the matter was many there were who by accusing others sought the King's favour and enlarged their own Estates amongst whom two were chief the one was called Richard Empson the other Edmund Dudley both Lawyers and both for having served the King's turn lately made Barons of the Exchequer It is said that Empson was born at Torcester in Northampton-shire his Father was a Sievier Dudley though he were well descended yet being not befriended by Fortune long strugled with Adversity But after they had some Months taken pains in these matters both of them arise to that greatness that there were few of the Nobility that would not crouch to them and be ambitious of their favour Therefore it is not so much to be wondred at if they grew exceeding wealthy But this Wealth drew with it an Envy greater than it self which nevertheless did them little hurt during the life of Henry the Seventh but afterwards cast them both down as low as Envy could have wisht The King upon his death-bed commanded in his Will and Testament that restitution should be made to all who had been wronged by the Exchequer Whereupon infinite numbers flocking to the Court and demanding restitution there could not a fitter means be thought of to stop their mouthes than by committing of Empson and Dudley the occasioners thereof to the People as Sacrifices to appease their fury They were therefore arraigned and condemned of high Treason And these things were done presently upon Henry the Eighth his coming to the Crown So their goods being seized upon they for a whole year endured the miseries that usually accompany a Prison and yet were the Commons as eager against them as ever Whence it should first arise I know not but such a report there was that the Queen had begged the poor mens Pardons The Nobility disdaining that such mean fellows had been heretofore so prevalent with their Prince and the Commons being easily incited against them by some as eager enemies to them as themselves cried out that they were cheated of their just revenge and wearying the King with continual petitions for their death he was in a manner forced to satisfie them Whereupon on the seventeenth day of August they were both publickly beheaded Such was the end of Empson and Dudley who abounding with Wealth and flourishing under their Prince's favour while they set light by all things else became a Sacrifice to the giddy multitude And it may serve to teach us to use our power moderately and to take heed how we give offence to that Beast with many heads I mean the People which being angred and having once got the reins rageth like a tumultuous Sea Dudley left behind him a Son named John who as if he had been heir to his Father's fortune being created Duke of Northumberland concluded his powerful life with the like unhappy end leaving much Issue behind him even to our time but yet whereof the heirs male have long since failed ANNO DOM. 1511. REG. 3. THis year on New-years-day the Queen was delivered of a Son Heir-apparant to this Crown but he out-lived not the three and twentieth of the ensuing February to the great grief of the King and Kingdom About the same time there came Ambassadors from Ferdinand King of Arragon who craved of the King his son-in-Son-in-Law fifteen hundred auxiliary Archers He was then in hostility with the Moors inhabiting Africk The King very willingly granted their request and having levied the full number embarqued them for Spain in four Ships of the Navy Royal under the command of Thomas Lord Darcy They were scarce arrived there when news was brought that a Peace being made Ferdinando stood in no farther need of their aid Yet every one was liberally paid the General and those of greatest note that accompanied him were richly rewarded and all being dismissed with many thanks safely returned home In their absence Margaret Duchess of Savoy who was Daughter to the Emperor Maximilian and Governess of the Netherlands under Charles the Infant of Spain prevailed with our King for the like number of Archers she having then Wars with the Duke of Gueldres against whom she meant to employ them These men in the space of five Months did many brave exploits at Brimnost Aske and Venloo under the command of Sir Edward Poynings a brave Souldier and in great favour with his Prince Of them fourteen hundred returned home much commended and well rewarded the fortune of War had cut off one hundred Four Captains in regard of their valour were Knighted by the Infant Charles afterwards Emperor viz. John Norton John Fog John Scot and Thomas Lynd. The King of Scots had then War with the Portugal under pretext whereof one Andrew Barton a famous Pirat took all Ships that coasted either England or Scotland affirming them always to be Portugals of what Nation soever they were or at least fraught with Portugal Merchandise The King sent Edward Howard Lord Admiral of England and his Brother the Lord Thomas Howard eldest Son to the Earl of Surrey with one John Hopton to take this Rover. When they had once found him out after a long and bloody fight they took him alive but mortally wounded with his two Ships and all his companions that survived the fight and brought them to London ANNO DOM. 1512. REG. 4. AS yet Henry had no War with any forein Prince neither did the wiser sort wish that he should have any But he a young King in the heat of one and twenty years was transported with a vehement desire of War which saith the Proverb is sweet to them that never tasted of it Although he had about a year or two before made a League with Lewis the Twelfth of France yet he was easily intreated by Pope Julius to renounce this Confederacy This Pope more like to that Caesar whose Name he bare than Peter from whom he would fain derive his Succession that like another Nero sitting still he might from on high be a Spectator while the whole World was on fire had written Letters to our King wherein he intreated his assistance towards the suppression of the French Who without fear of God or man these were the pretended Causes had not only sacrilegiously laid hold on the Revenues of the Church had caused Cardinal William to usurp the Papacy had upheld Alphonso of Ferara and the Bentivogli in Rebellion against him
sixty paces enter within it the first Squadron taking the way to Mirabell the rest marching toward the King's Army The King thought the Imperials went to Mirabell as making choice of the plain open fields to fight in He was unwilling to leave the besieged at liberty and yet the Plains were advantageous for his Horse He therefore commands his Artillery to be discharged which somewhat endamaged them and though unwilling draws his Forces out of their trenches than which the Imperials desired nothing more and opposed the whole strength of his Army against them But passing before the Cannon hinders their execution They that took the way to Mirabell now turn head and both Armies engage themselves in a cruel fight wherein the King more following Shadows than Substances and the idle rumours of the vulgar than the means of a most certain and glorious Victory is overthrown and taken prisoner losing beside the flower of the French Nobility almost all either taken or slain at one blow the Duchy of Milan the possession whereof had made him Lord of the greatest part of Lombardy Pope Clement who had left the Emperour for the French which he afterward repented often advertised the King that the Imperials were in great distress and want that they continually mutinied for lack of pay that he had taken so sufficient order with the King of England and the rest of the Confederates that they should continue bare enough of money If therefore he would but hold his hand and forbear to fight necessity enforcing the Imperials to disband he should be victorious without bloodshed But he was not capable of so good advice His Forces were great yet short of his account his Captains treacherously abusing him in not furnishing those numbers of Foot for which they received pay and it were equally a dishonour to him either to seem to avoid the Enemy or to lie still so long at a Siege to no purpose The Divine Power having decreed to chastise him permitted him through impatience to run headlong into these errours which so deeply plunged him in those calamities that without God's especial favour had proved fatal to him and his France When I consider this and many other the like chances happening as well in the course of a private man's life as in publick affairs I cannot but wonder at the sottish valour of this Age wherein rather than endure the touch of the least though false aspersion we will run the hazard both of life and fortunes How many brave men do we daily see wonderful ingenious in this kind of folly 〈◊〉 who standing upon I know not what Points of Honour upon the least offence challenge the field and wilfully seek out their own destruction What in God's name is become of the patience of that lingering Fabius who quietly bearing the bitter taunts and mocks of his Souldiers of the People and the Senate yet brought home an easie though late Victory We are certainly too blame with the Dog we catch at the shadow and lose the substance Of our Saviour we shall learn that it is the highest point of Fortitude In patience to possess our Souls And according to Aristotle true Valour is regardless of ill language Mordear approbriis falsis mutemque colores Falsus honor juvat mendax infamia terret Quem nisi mendosum mendacem It is Horace Back-bitten must I needs turn pale for it False honours please and lying slanders fright Whom but the unworthy and vain-glorious wight In the Tent of the captive King the Letters of the Pope and our King concerning their late League with the French being found the Duke of Bourbon now knew the cause why supplies of Money came in so slowly And Prat Leiger here for the Emperour upon notice of it without leave withdrew himself from Court and on the ninth of April secretly departed the land In the mean time Henry little suspecting that these secret compacts were known to the Emperour about the end of March sent Ambassadors to him Cutbert Tonstal Bishop of London and Sir Richard Wingfield Knight of the Garter by whom He did congratulate his late victorious success admonishing him to a close pursuit of his fortunes That if his Imperial Majesty intended with greater forces to oppress the already vanquished in regard of the strict tie of Friendship between them his necessary endeavours should in no sort be wanting What answer the Emperour gave I know not It is very likely he paid the King in his own coin and dissembled with the Dissembler but having courteously entertained our Ambassadors as courteously dismissed them But the King wants money and must now dissemble with his Subjects He pretended War with France and with this key hopes to open his Subjects coffers The expectation of supplies by a Parliament would prove tedious some shorter course must be taken Money is therefore demanded by Proclamation and that no less than according to the sixth part of every man's Moveables Divers great personages appointed Commissioners use all fair means to draw the people to contribute But although they sate in Commission in divers parts of the Kingdom at one and the same time they were so far from prevailing that as if the people had universally conspired it was every where denied and the Commissioners very ill entreated not without further danger of sedition and tumult Hereupon the King calls a Parliament to be held at London wherein he professeth himself to be utterly ignorant of these intolerable courses by such burthenous taxations The King disclaiming it every one seeks to free himself The Cardinal was at last fain to take all upon himself protesting That as a faithful Servant he had no further end in it than the profit of his Lord the King and that he had advised not only with his Majesties Council which they all acknowledged but also with the Learned in the Laws both Divine and Humane whose opinion it was That the King might lawfully take the same course that Pharaoh did who by the ministery of Joseph sequestred a certain portion of every mans private estate for the publick good But the dislike of the people occasioned by this though fruitless project was greater than could be removed by this excuse And yet this project was not altogether fruitless the King 's apparent want affording a sufficient pretext of deferring the War with France until another year Neither was it the King's intent to make use of his advantages over the French who now lay open to all his blows Henry having put away his Wife the Emperour must needs be netled and then the amity of France would stand him in some stead Indeed Catharine was a noble and a virtuous Lady but she had lived so long as to make her Husband weary of her He affected the Daughter of Sir Thomas Bolen Treasurer of his Houshold Her he intends to marry and to be divorced from the other For he did in his soul abhor this incestuous Match
and it stood not with the publick weal that he should live single especially the lawfulness of his Daughters birth being so questionable He married not again for his pleasure but to settle the Kingdom on his lawful Issue The Learned as many as he had conferred with did generally pronounce the first Marriage void yet would he have it lawfully decided that with a safe conscience he might make choice of a second Thus far had Wolsey willingly led him hoping to have drawn him to a Match in France But he was of age to choose for himself and had already elsewhere setled his affections And the more to manifest his love on the eighteenth of June he created his future father-in-Father-in-Law Sir Thomas Bolen Viscount Rochfort At the same time were created Henry Fitz-roy the King 's natural Son by Elizabeth Blount Daughter to Sir John Blount Knight Earl of Nottingham and Duke of Richmond and Somerset Henry Courtney Earl of Devonshire the King 's Cousin-german Marquess of Exceter Henry Brandon eldest Son to the Duke of Suffolk by the King's Sister the Dowager of France Earl of Lincoln Thomas Manners Lord Roos Earl of Rutland Sir Henry Clifford Earl of Cumberland and Robert Ratcliff Lord Fitzwalter Viscount Fitzwalter Cardinal Wolsey this year laid the foundation of two Colleges one at Ipswich the place of his birth another at Oxford dedicated to our Saviour CHRIST by the name of Christ-Church This latter though not half finished yet a magnificent and royal Work a most fruitful Mother of Learned Children doth furnish the Church and Commonwealth with multitudes of able men and amongst others acknowledgeth me such as I am for her Foster-child The other as if the Founder had also been the foundation fell with the Cardinal and being for the most part pulled down is long since converted to private uses The Cardinal 's private estate although it were wonderful great being not sufficient to endow these Colleges with revenues answerable to their foundation the Pope consenting he demolished forty Monasteries of meaner note and conferred the lands belonging to them on these his new Colleges It hath been the observation of some That this business like that proverbial Gold of Tholouse was fatal to those that any way had a hand in it We will hereafter shew what became of the Pope and the Cardinal But of five whom he made use of in the alienation of the Gifts of so many Religious men it afterward happened that two of them challenging the field of each other one was slain and the other hanged for it a third throwing himself headlong into a Well perished wilfully a fourth before that a wealthy man sunk to that low ebb that he after begged his bread and Dr. Allen the fifth a man of especial note being Archbishop of Dublin was murthered in Ireland I could wish that by these and the like examples men would learn to take heed how they lay hands on things consecrated to God If the Divine Justice so severely punished those that converted the abused yet not regarding the abuse but following the sway of their ambitious desires goods of the Church to undoubtedly better uses what can we expect of those that take all occasions to rob and spoil the Church having no other end but only the enriching of themselves Luther had notice of Henry his intended Divorce and that from Christiern the expelled King of Denmark who eagerly solicited him to write friendly unto the King putting Luther in hope that Henry being a courteous Prince might by mild perswasions be induced to embrace the Reformation which Luther had begun And indeed Luther foreseeing the necessary consequences of this Divorce was easily intreated and did write unto the King in this submissive manner He doubted not but he had much offended his Majesty by his late Reply but he did it rather enforced by others than of his own accord He did now write presuming upon the King 's much bruited humanity especially being informed That the King himself was not Author of the Book against him which thing he understood was captiously cavilled at by some Sophisters And having occasion to speak of the Cardinal of York he called him the Caterpillar of England He understood the King did now loath that wicked sort of men and in his mind to favour the Truth Wherefore he craveth pardon of his Majesty beseeching him to remember that we being mortal should not make our enmities immortal If the King would be pleased to impose it he would openly acknowledge his fault and blazon his Royal Virtues in another Book Then he wished him to stop his ears against those standerous tongues that branded him with Heresie for this was the summ of his Doctrine That we must be saved through Faith in Christ who did bear the punishment of our sins in every part and throughout his whole body who dying for us and rising again reigneth with the Father for ever That he taught this to be the Doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles and that out of this position he shewed what Charity was how we ought to behave our selves one towards another that we are to obey Magistrates and to spend our whole life in the profession of the Gospel If this Doctrine contain any Impiety or Errour why do not his Adversaries demonstrate it Why do they condemn him without either lawful hearing or confutation In that he inveigheth against the Pope and his Adherents he doth it not without good reason for asmuch as for their profits sake they teach things contrary to what Christ and the Apostles did that so they may domineer over the Flock and maintain themselves in Gluttony and Idleness That this was the mark at which their thoughts and deeds aimed and that it was so notorious that they themselves could not deny it That if they would reform themselves by changing their idle and filthy course of life maintained by the loss and wrong of others the differences might easily be composed That his Tenets were approved by many Princes and Estates of Germany who did reverently acknowledge this great blessing of God amongst whom he wonderfully desired he might rank his Majesty That the Emperour and some others opposed his proceedings he did not at all wonder for the Prophet David had many Ages since foretold That Kings and Nations should conspire against the Lord and against his Christ and cast away his yoak from them That when he did consider this and the like places of Scripture he did rather wonder that any Prince did favour the doctrine of the Gospel And to conclude he craved a favourable Answer The King made a sharp Reply to Luther's Letter accusing him of base Inconstancy He stands in defence of his Book which he said was in great esteem with many Religious and Learned men That he reviled the Cardinal a Reverend Father was to be regarded as from him from whose impiety neither God nor man could be free That both
Himself and the whole Realm had found the profitable and wholesom effects of the Cardinal's endeavours who should reap this fruit of Luther's railing that whereas he loved him very well before he would now favour him more than ever That among other of the Cardinal 's good deeds this was one that he took especial care that none of Luther's leprosie contagion and heresie should cleave to or take root in this Kingdom Then he upbraided him with his 〈◊〉 marriage with a Nun a crime as heinous and abominable as any At this Answer which the King caused to be printed Luther grieved much blaming his friends that had occasioned it saying That he wrote in that humble manner only to please his Friends and that he now plainly saw how much he was mistaken That he committed the like errour in writing friendly at the request of others to Cardinal Cajetan George Duke of Saxony and Erasmus the fruits whereof were that he made them the more violent That he shewed himself a fool in hoping to find Piety and Zeal in Princes Courts in seeking CHRIST in the Kingdom of Satan in searching for John Baptist among the Cloathed in Purple But being he could not prevail by fair means he would take another course The late mention of Erasmus puts me in mind of a Book written by him either this or the year passed at the entreaty of the King and the Cardinal as he himself in an Epistle confesseth entituled De Libero Arbitrio whereto Luther made a quick Reply writing a Book De Servo Arbitrio ANNO DOM. 1526. REG. 18. MAny reasons might move the Emperour to seek the continuation of a Peace with England The French although they concealed 〈◊〉 their King being not yet at liberty intend to revenge their late overthrow The Turk prepares for Hungary the King whereof Lewis had married Ann the Emperour's Sister Almost all Italy by the Pope's means combined against Charles whose power is now become formidable And Germany it self the Boors having lately been up in arms being scarce pacified doth yet every where threaten new tumults In this case the enmity of Henry must necessarily much impeach his proceedings But many things again urge him on the other side his Aunts disgrace for of this he long since had an inkling the late League concluded under-hand with the French but that which swaied above all was the dislike of his promised match with the King's Daughter That the Queen his Aunt might be reconciled to her Husband there might yet be some hope The League with France especially the French King's case being now so desperate might be as easily broken as it was made But this Match did no way sort to his mind which he had either for love or for some other private respects setled elsewhere Isabella Sister to John King of Portugal was a brave beautiful Lady and had a Dowry of nine hundred thousand Ducats Mary was neither marriagable nor beautiful yet her by agreement must he marry without any other Dowry than those four hundred thousand Crowns which he had borrowed of Henry The Wars had drawn his Treasury dry and his Subjects in Spain being required to relieve their Prince do plainly perhaps not without subornation of some principal persons deny it unless he marry Isabella one in a manner of the same Lineage of the same Language and Nation and of years sufficient to make a Mother By way of service Custom growing to a Law they are to give their King at his Marriage four hundred thousand Ducats if he will in this be pleased to satisfie their request they promise to double the usual summ For these reasons when Henry sent Ambassadors to treat again whether sincerely or no I cannot say concerning the renewing of the League the Marriage of the Lady Mary and of War in France to be maintained at the common charge of both Charles answered but coldly and at last even in the very Nuptial solemnities sends to excuse his Marriage to the King whereunto the undeniable desires of his Subjects had in a manner forced him Some do farther add that concerning that part of the Embassage of War against France our demands were such as if they had been purposely coined by Wolsey to force the Emperour to the priority of an apparent breach For the King demanded no smaller share in the Conquest than Picardy Normandy Guien Gascoign with the title of King of France and that the Emperour partaking both of Peril and Charge should himself serve in Person But Charles wanting money and tired with continual peril if he regard either his safety and ease or his profit must not give his assent especially considering that the captive-King made larger offers and those with Peace than these yea although he became victorious with War the event whereof being always doubtful no man can assure himself of wished success Neither indeed did Henry expect any other issue of his Embassy than a flat refusal For at the same time he deals with the Regent the captive-King's Mother to send over some trusty person with whom he might consult of the main chance which she gladly did dispatching away the Lord of Brion President of Rouen and John Joachim with a large Commission and Instructions by all submissive and fair language to perswade the King to persist in the prosecution of this new League For indeed she much feared lest the consideration of his advantages over the tottering Estate of France might make him flie off again France was already distressed what would it be if the Emperour pressing hard on the one side and Duke of Bourbon a home-bred enemy revolting besides many other occasions the English should infest it on the other side In England these Agents found their entertainments such that they could not but hope well especially making means to the Cardinal who yet swayed the King Wolsey long since disaffected the Emperour but now made his hate apparent Charles before the Battel of Pavy sent no Letters to the Cardinal but entirely written by himself and subscribed Your Son and Cousin CHARLES After this Victory he sent one or two subscribed barely with his Name without the usual solemn form or any signification of favour or respect These were evident tokens of an alienated mind and Wolsey durst view hates with him Neither did he deal otherwise with Henry than as one beneath him being now puffed up with the conceit of that great Victory for the obtaining whereof Henry did bear a part in the charge though indeed not so great as he promised The King's affairs now stood upon those terms that renouncing the strict alliance with the Emperour hitherto by so many ties kept inviolable he must make a party with the French Brion therefore at the Council-Table having audience Deplores his Prince's calamity and the miseries inflicted upon his Countrey by their late overthrow He calleth to mind what Trophies the English erected in France when the Estate of it was most flourishing
withal acknowledging that France being now as it were in the Sun-set of its Fortune occasion was offered of advancing the English Colours farther than ever But it would neither beseem so magnanimous a King nor would it be for the good of England at this time to invade it A generous mind scorneth to insult over one already dejected Neither would the Victory beside the fortune of War want its dangers 〈◊〉 to be communicated with one already become so potent that no 〈◊〉 than the united Forces of all Europe would serve to stop the current of his fortune which must necessarily be done unless we could be content willingly to undergo the miseries of a Spanish servitude He therefore craved of his Majesty that leaving the Emperour who puffed up with his late success contemned his best Friends he would vouchsafe to make a League with the King his Master whom in this so great a time of need if he would be pleased to raise as it were from the ground he should by so great a benefit oblige him to a faithful Friendship which he should upon all occasions be ready to manifest unless for foul Ingratitude he had rather undergo the censure of the Christian World Having delivered thus much in Latin Sir Thomas More afterward Lord Chancellor returned this answer in Latin likewise That the King was well pleased that the French acknowledged he wanted not power to revenge old injuries that having felt his Force they should also tast of his Bounty that he would do the utmost of his endeavour to set their Captive King at liberty Which if he effected he hoped when he had occasion to make use of their King he would not be unmindful of so good a turn freely done in so urgent a season In the mean time he was content to make a perpetual Peace with them As for the Emperour he would consider what to determine of him So a most firm League is concluded with the French the Regent undertaking for her Son and a separation from the Emperour so openly made that the first thing concluded between them was That it should not be lawful for the French King in lieu of his ransom to consign any part of his Kingdom to the Emperour The French were glad of this League who now began to conceive some hope of good being secure of England Indeed it made so great an impression in the heart of Francis that in his care of our affairs for many years together he shewed himself mindful of so great a benefit These things were done in the Winter season A little after Francis having been a year Prisoner in Spain was upon these Conditions at length set at liberty That as soon as be came into France he should consign the Duchy of Burgoigne to the Emperour That he should quit the Sovereignty of Flanders and Arthois That he should renounce all his right pretended to the Duchy of Milan and Kingdom of Naples That he should restore to his honours the Duke of Bourbon and the rest that had revolted with him That he should marry Eleonor the Emperour's Sister Queen of Portugal That he should pay the whole summs of money heretofore due to the King of England his Sister the Queen of France and Cardinal Wolsey The payment whereof the Emperour had undertaken that we might not be endamaged by partaking with him For the performance of these and other things of less moment Francis not only bound himself by Oath but also delivered his two Sons Francis the Daulphin and Henry Duke of Orleans who should remain Hostages in Spain until all things were duly performed Francis as soon as he entred into his Realm ratified all the Articles of the Treaty but that concerning the Duchy of Burgoigne which he pretended he could not alienate without the consent of his Subjects Having therefore assembled the Estates of the Countrey for the debating of this matter upon a sudden in the presence of the Emperour's Ambassadors is publickly proclaimed the League made between the Kings of England and of France the Pope the Venetians Florentines and Suisses called the Holy League for the common liberty of Italy The Ambassadors much amazed and seeing small hopes of the Duchy of Burgoigne for which they came return into Spain and advertise the Emperour that if he will be content with a pecuniary ransom and free the two Princes the King was willing to pay it other Conditions he was like to have none In the mean time Solyman not forgetting to make his profit of these horrible confusions invaded Hungary with a great Army overthrew the Hungarians slew King Lewis the Emperour's brother-in-Brother-in-Law and conquered the greatest part of the Kingdom For the obtaining of this Victory our Rashness was more available to him than his own Forces The Hungarians in comparison of their Enemies were but a handful but having formerly been many times victorious over the Turks they perswaded the young King that he should not obscure the ancient glory of so warlike a Nation that not expecting the aids of Transylvania he should encounter the Enemy even in the open fields where the Turks in regard of their multitudes of Horse might be thought invincible The event shewed the goodness of this counsel The Army consisting of the chief strength and Nobility of the Countrey was overthrown a great slaughter made and the King himself slain with much of the Nobility and chief Prelates of the Realm and among them Tomoraeus Archbishop of Colocza the chief author of this ill advised attempt I cannot omit an odd jest at the same time occasioned by Wolsey his ambition It was but falsly rumoured that Pope Clement was dead The Cardinal had long been sick of the Pope and the King lately of his Wife Wolsey perswades the King there was no speedier way to compass his desires than if he could procure him to be chosen Pope Clement being now dead Stephen Gardiner a stirring man one very learned and that had a working spirit did then at Rome solicit the King's Divorce from Queen Catharine Wherein although using all possible means and that Clement was no friend to the Emperour yet could he not procure the Pope's favour in the King's behalf Nay whether he would not cut off all means of reconciliation with the Emperour if need were or whether being naturally slow he did not usually dispatch any matter of great moment speedily or peradventure whereto the event was agreeable that he perceived it would be for his profit to spin it out at length or which some alledge that he was of opinion that this Marriage was lawfully contracted so that he could not give sentence on either side without either offence to his Conscience or his Friend the Pope could not be drawn to determine either way in this business These delays much vexed the King If matters proceed so slowly under Clement on whom he much presumed what could he expect from another Pope one perhaps wholly at the Emperour's
the wisdom of Our Parents by whose endeavours and consent this Match was ratified I cannot but hope very well of my cause Your Father was for his admirable wisdom accounted a second Solomon neither can Spain throughout the whole Successions of the Kings of so many Kingdoms produce any one who may parallel my Father Ferdinand And what kind of Counsellors must we think these Princes had that all should as it were conspire to hurl Us into the miseries of an incestuous Marriage No question was then made concerning the lawfulness of this Match and yet those times afforded learned men yea and whereof to my harm I have had experimental knowledge in holiness of life and love of the Truth far surpassing the Flatterers of these times Which last words she therefore spake because she had heard that all the Bishops of the Realm had by a common Decree pronounced against the Marriage And indeed such a Decree subscribed and sealed by each of them was afterward in the presence of the King read publickly in the Court Fisher Bishop of Rochester excepting against it who denied that he had assented to it and objected forgery to the Archbishop of Canterbury for putting to it instead of Bishop Fisher's a false Seal and a counterfeit hand The Queen having spoken thus much arising after her due obeisance to the King when every one expected she would have returned to her seat made hast out of the Court Every one amazedly wonders what the Queen intends But before she had gone far the King commanded the Apparitor to call her back again The Apparitor obeying the Gentleman who supported her told her she was called to whom she replied I hear it very well but go you on I cannot hope for justice in this Court let them proceed against me in what manner they will I am resolved not to stay So away she went and would never after be perswaded to make her appearance either personally or by a Proctor After she was gone the King commended her in those terms that might befit a great affection and her excellent virtues Withal protesting how desirous he was to continue in that estate so that neither his Soul nor the Common-wealth might be endangered by it Here Wolsey interrupted him beseeching his Majesty that forasmuch as it was bruited that he had perswaded Him to this Divorce His Majesty would vouchsafe to signifie to the present Assembly how far this report was true The King although that he knew that in this fame lied not yet to secure his Favouritefrom the general hate of the people affirmed the Bishop of Bayeux having first made scruple of it to have first advised him to this course and that the Bishop of Lincoln his Confessor and other Bishops with whom he had conferred did the like These were the Acts of the first day This case was for a month or two held in controversie the King's Advocates alledging that It was not in the Pope's power to ratifie this Marriage which as prohibited by the Law of Nature the Scripture had pronounced unlawful That Catharine had been lawfully married to Prince Arthur the King 's elder Brother and that the Nuptials were publickly solemnized no man could deny and many circumstances did manifest the consummation of the Marriage by a carnal conjunction On the other side the Queens Advocates maintained The Law which forbad the Jews to marry their Brother's Wife to be Judicial and not Moral and therefore abrogated by Christ but so far forth as the Church had retained it it was by the authority of the same Church dispensable especially being they were confident that the forealledged consummation could no way be proved Thus each side pleaded and time passed on The King observes Cardinal Campegius to go more coldly to work than he was wont from whom he before this expected the promised decision But Fortune had since that turned her Wheel The Emperour's affairs prospered in Italy and Clement knew it was not the way to wipe out the remembrance of an old offence by committing a new He found some other pretence to send one Francis Campana into England but his chief errand was to will Campegius to burn the Bull whereby the King's Marriage had before been pronounced void and to return to Rome with speed But the news of the Pope's sickness at the same time made him defer the execution of his Mandate For if Clement should die the Cardinal might with safety gratifie the King who had conferred on him the Bishoprick of Sarisbury and to whom the Cardinal had promised success answerable to his desires And if he should permit the King to be thus illuded he feared he might be accounted not only ingrateful but also treacherous But he shortly understood the Pope was well whose Mandate he must obey and the Bull as if for Heresie must be condemned to the fire In the mean time the King who was deeply in love with Ann Bolen according to the nature of Lovers counting each minute by the hour quickly resented this change and never rested until he knew the whole carriage of the matter Then first fell his wrath like thunder on Wolsey whose Wit had hitherto made all his projects feasible And he could not believe but that it was in his power to effect this also Here I cannot chuse but cry out with the Comedian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jove and ye gods how hard a thing It is to serve a raging King Full twenty years had Wolsey served the King behaving himself so that he grew powerful and wealthy beyond a private fortune and to the rest of the King's Titles had procured the addition of that rich one of a good Prince For as often as I consider how laudably Henry had hitherto ruled and behold the calamities of ensuing times I cannot but accord with them who ascribe the sway which he did bear over all the Princes of Christendom to the excellency of Wolsey his Counsels But Wolsey being taken away to whom shall we impute those effects of Lust Tyranny and Avarice two Wives killed two put away so many and among them many of the greater sort put to death for their Religion only extremity only differing in the manner used by Hanging against Papists by Fire against Hereticks these were the terms of those days and the Church or rather the Common-wealth horribly spoiled and robbed of her Patrimony Certainly had Wolsey sate at the Stern the King had never like a Ship destitute of a Pilot been carried to and fro with such contrary and uncertain motions But inordinate greatness is always a burthen to it self the weight whereof is augmented by the usual attendance of publick envy and hatred the misbegotten Elves of long and powerful happiness Wolsey the King once offended began presently to totter and at his first frown as at the roaring of a Lion before any harder course was taken with him was so dejected that
notwithstanding I cannot now produce that and all my goods as you well know being taken from me Neither indeed if I could would I produce it For to what end should I contend with the King Go therefore and tell his Majesty that I acknowledge all that I have but alas what speak I of what I have who indeed have nothing left me or whatsoever I had to be derived from his Royal Bounty and do think it good reason that he should revoke his gifts if he think me unworthy of them Why then do I not remit my cause to his Majesty's arbitrement at his pleasure to be either condemned or absolved To him then if you will have me acknowledge my fault behold I will make short work with you I confess it The King knows my innocency so that neither my own confession nor the calumnies of of my adversaries can deceive him I am therefore content to confess my self guilty His Majesty from the fountain of his natural Clemency doth often derive the streams of his mercy to the delinquent And I know though I should not desire it He will regard my innocency Upon his confession the penalty of the Law was forthwith inflicted only he was not as the Law requires committed to perpetual imprisonment The furniture of his house of infinite value incredible store of Plate and great Treasure had been already seised to the King's use There remained nothing but the Lands wherewith he intended to endow his Colledge the greatest part whereof were his own purchase the rest were the demesnes of the demolished Monasteries These Lands amounted to above four thousand pounds per annum and were all confiscated But God would not suffer so brave a work to perish The King afterward bestowed on the Colledge in Oxford called Christ-Church revenues for the maintenance of a Dean eight Prebendaries a hundred Students twelve Chaplains and Singing men and four and twenty Alms-men for which this Colledge acknowledgeth Henry the Eighth for its Founder But the King arrogated to himself what was truly to be ascribed to the Cardinal who was now in the case of the poor Mouse whom the Cat intends to devour The King had marked him out for destruction yet permitted him to live but so as that he could never escape and yet never despair of escaping Scarce any day throughout those few months passed wherein he endured not something or other that would have animated a sensless thing with anger neither was the Cardinal composed of patience yet did he never despair His sorrows were always tempered with some mixture of joy For he was often visited from the King but that very secretly and commonly by night often certified of the King's affection towards him in token whereof the Visitants did sometimes from the King present him with a Jewel or some such thing willing him to be of good comfort for that shortly they would assure him he should be raised to his former degree of favour and power Adversity at length prevailing he fell into a disease from the extremity whereof few expected his recovery And the King demanding of one of his Physicians whose patient the Cardinal was what disease Wolsey had the Doctor replied What disease soever he hath if you desire his death you may be secure for I promise you he will not live to see the end of three days more The King striking the table with his hand cryed out I had rather lose twenty thousand Pounds than he should dye Make hast therefore you and as many other Physicians as are about the Court and by all means endeavour his recovery The Physician then certifying him that he was sick more in mind than body the King dispatched away a Gentleman with a Ring which Wolsey had formerly given to him willing him withal to tell the Cardinal that the King's anger was now past who was sorry that he had so long given ear to detraction and that he should shortly find that the King's affection towards him was no less than when he flourished most in the sun-shine of his favour The same comfortable words being again and again ingeminated by divers others sent for that purpose the Cardinal in a few days recovered his former health At Court each one aspired to rise by Wolsey his fall But now jealous lest the King intended a real and sincere reconciliation and fearing revenge from him whom they had injured work all their wits to supplant him At or about London he was too near the Court some trick must be had to send him farther Winchester the Bishoprick whereof he held in Commendam was not far enough off Why then should he not said they being not detained at London as Lord Chancellor betake himself to the government of his Archbishoprick of York So having a thousand Pounds assigned him by the King whose Council thought Marks sufficient about the end of March in the ensuing year he set forward towards York Of all his Livings they leave him only the Archbishoprick of York wherewith to maintain him the revenues whereof might be valued at four thousand Pounds per annum The speech of Seneca concerning Apicius why may I not apply it to the present state of Wolsey How great was his Luxury who deemed the income of four thousand Pounds poverty And now it were requisite that we should proceed to the year 1530. But let us first behold the end of this great Cardinal That Summer he spent at Cawood a Mannor-house belonging to the See of York where by his mildness justice and liberality he did so win the hearts of his Diocesans that he was both admired and loved He seemed to be much delighted with this solitary confinement for that having hitherto been tossed in the Court to and fro as in a tempest he had now escaped not from shipwrack to a Rock but to his desired Haven of repose Yet notwithstanding upon any the least hope of recovering his former power although he professed that converted by an Anchorire of Richmond he had bid adieu to the vanities of the World he could not conceal the greatness of his joy That he failed of his hopes which indeed were none of the least I cannot assent to them who impute it to the importunity of his potent Adversaries For to what end served so many messages full of gracious and reconciliatory promises but ever intermixed with insufferable disgraces the forerunners of a dire Catastrophe Certainly to no other than that he might be wrought one way or other to approve of and give sentence for the King's Divorce at least as Archbishop Cranmer after did But this course not prevailing they intend a second accusation of Treason To this purpose the Earl of Northumberland is sent to apprehend and as he was amazed at this sudden change bring him to his answer to London But by the way he fell sick of a disease which at Leicester-Abbey secured him from all other Being near his end it is reported Sir
not knowing what course to run And this is thought to be the cause of his so extraordinary liberality toward the French The King being then in progress and hunting at Waltham it happened that Stephen Gardiner Principal Secretary of Estate after Bishop of Winton and Fox the King's Almoner after Bishop of Hereford were billeted in the house of a Gentleman named Cressey who had sent his two Sons to be brought up at Cambridge under the tutelage of Thomas Cranmer Doctor in Divinity a man both very learned and virtuous The Plague then spreading it self in Cambridge Cranmer with his two Pupils betook himself to Mr. Cressey their Father his house Where Gardiner and Fox among other table-talk discoursing of the King's Suit concerning his Divorce which had so many years depended in the Court of Rome undecided Cranmer said that he wondred the King required not the opinions of the most famous learned men that were any where to be found of whom the world had many far more learned than the Pope and and followed not their judgments What Cranmer had as it were let fall by chance they report to the King who suddenly apprehending it said that this fellow whosoever he was had hit the nail on the head and withal demanding his name caused Cranmer to be sent for whom he commended for his but too late advice which course if he had taken but five years before he should now have had an hundred thousand Pounds in his Purse which he had unprofitably in this Suit cast away on the Court of Rome he commands Cranmer to write a Tract concerning this Question wherein having drawn together what Reasons he could for the confirmation of his advice he should conclude with his own opinion Cranmer did it very readily and is thereupon with Sir Thomas Bolen lately created Earl of Wiltshire Carne Stokesley and Benet Doctors of Law with others sent on an Embassie to Rome Cranmer's Book is to be presented to his Holiness and they are commanded to challenge the Court of Rome to a Disputation wherein the Contents of that Book should be maintained the Argument whereof was That by the authority of holy Scripture ancient Fathers and Councils it was utterly unlawful for any man to marry his Brother's Widow and that no such marriage could be licensed or authorized by the Pope's Dispensation This being done the King's intent was they should procure the opinions of all the Universities throughout Europe by whom if he found his former Marriage condemned then without farther expecting the approbation of the See of Rome he was resolved to run the hazard of a second To this the amity of the French seeming very conducible the King had by his former liberality sought to oblige him The Ambassadors came to Rome had audience were promised a publick Disputation whereof they were held so long in expectation that perceiving their stay there to be to little purpose they all returned into England except Cranmer who with the same instructions that he had formerly been sent to the Pope was to go to the Emperour whose Court was then in Germany There this good and learned man hitherto no friend to Luther while he defends his own Book and the King's Divorce against the most learned either of Protestants or Papists is thought to have been seasoned with the leaven of that Doctrine for which after he had been twenty years Archbishop of Canterbury he was most cruelly burned While Cranmer thus laboured abroad the King at home deals with Langey the French Ambassador by whose means with the forcible Rhetorick saith one of some English Angels he obtained of the Universities of Paris with the rest throughout France Pavia Padua Bononia and others this Conclusion That the Pope who hath no power over the Positive Law of God could not by his Dispensation ratifie a Marriage contracted between a Brother and a Brother's Widow it being forbidden by the express words of Scripture The eighth of December the King graced three noble and worthy men with new Titles of Honour Thomas Bolen Viscount Rochfort the King 's future Father-in-Law was created Earl of Wiltshire Robert Ratcliff Viscount Fitz-Walter of the noble Family of the Fitz-Walters Earl of Sussex in which honour his Son Thomas his Nephews Thomas first then Henry Brother to Thomas and now Robert the Son of Henry have succeeded him And George Lord Hastings was made Earl of Huntingdon who left it to his Son Francis Father of Henry who deceased without issue and George Grandfather to Henry the now Earl by Francis who died before his Father ANNO DOM. 1530. REG. 22. VV Illiam Tyndal having translated the New Testament into English and procured it to be printed at Antwerp had secretly dispersed many copies thereof thoughout England Whereat the Bishops and Clergy especially those that were most addicted to the Doctrine of Rome stormed exceedingly saying that this Translation was full of errours and that in the Prefaces and elsewhere it contained many things contrary to the Truth The King being angry with the Pope had long since determined to free himself from his usurped power And therefore admonished the murmuring Clergy to correct this Book not to suppress it for it was a most profitable work and very necessary for the discovery of the deceits of the Court of Rome the tyranny whereof was become intolerable to all the Princes of Christendom Whereupon he giveth order to the Bishops and some other learned men to set forth a new Translation which his Subjects might read with safety and profit The hope of prevailing with the Pope by the French King's means had drawn Henry to send on a second Embassage to the Pope the Earl of Wiltshire Doctor Stokesley Elect of London and Edward Lee Wolsey his Successor in York They found the Pope at Bononia with the Emperour but had no other answer to their demands than that his Holiness when he came to Rome would endeavour to do the King justice Till then he could do nothing Fair means not prevailing the King runs another course By publick Proclamation throughout the Kingdom he forbids all commerce between his Subjects and the Bishop of Rome commanding that no man should receive any thing from or send any thing especially money unto him either by exchange or any other means calling him Tyrant the Harpy of the World the common Incendiary and deeming him utterly unworthy of that glorious title which he had vaingloriously usurped Christ's Vicar This in September But the wealth of the Clergy being very great and considering how they had in the Reigns of his Predecessors strongly sided with the Pope the King was somewhat jealous of them To curb them he condemns the whole Clergy throughout the Kingdom in a Praemunire for that without licence from his Majesty they had been obedient to the authority of the Pope in acknowledging Wolsey for his Legate The Clergy of the Province of Canterbury being assembled in Convocation buy their
Deputies who should in the King's behalf follow the Suit An insolent proceeding and injury without example which did concern the French and all other Princes of Christendom For in like cases hapning among Sovereign Princes especially touching the conscience so near it was the usual custom of other Popes to send Judges to the place it being reasonable that the Persons should speak personally and not by their Attorneys and very unreasonable that a Sovereign Prince leaving the rule and government of his Estates should go and plead his cause at Rome Moreover he did complain of the intolerable exactions of the Church of Rome over the Clergy and people of England whereby the yoak before too heavy was now become insupportable neither did he doubt but the same courses were taken in France Germany had begun the way of freedom to the rest of Christendom why should not other Princes follow their example To conclude he did instantly require that they two should send their Ambassadors jointly together to the Pope to summon him to appear at the next general Council there to answer his extortions and by the authority and judgement of the Council to force him to a reformation affirming that there was no Nation in Christendom which did not desire that the insolencies of the Romanists should be repressed To this the French answered that he acknowledged these things to be true but it was not in his power to yield to the King's request yet for the brotherly love which he did bear unto him and the charitable regard of his own Countrey he professed himself ready to undergo all difficulties He wanted not sufficient injuries whereof to complain considering that he having so well deserved of the Apostolick See but more especially of this Pope yet he certainly found that Clement all this notwithstanding was not well affected towards him Clement had very lately suffered his reputation to be violated in his presence and by the Bishop of Verulo had secretly endeavoured to alienate the Suisses his Allies from him France groaned under the burthen of the new and undutiful exactions of the Pope's Officers by means whereof all the treasure was carried out of the Kingdom to the prejudice of his Subjects the Clergy especially who grew poor the Churches were unrepaired and the poor neither cloathed nor fed and if he himself levied any great summ of money the Tributes are longer coming in than usually they were wont But he thought it best before they proceeded to that harsh course to use some milder means whereto there was a fair occasion offered the Pope having by the Cardinal of Grandmont made him a promise of an interview at Nice or Avignon where if he could not obtain reason of him in the behalf of both he would endeavour to prevail by force where he could not by just intreaties In the mean time he desired him to attend the issue of their parley But Francis concealed the true cause of this intended interview for fear lest our Henry not approving it should seek to disswade him from it The French was implacable towards the Emperour against whom to strengthen himself he means to win the Pope by the marriage of his younger Son Henry Duke of Orleans who after reigned with Catharine de Medices Duchess of Urbin the Pope's Niece The Pope could not at first believe this potent Prince intended him so much honour but perceiving the French to be real he most eagerly farthered it appointing time and place for the consummation of it which was after done at Marseilles by Clement himself in the presence of the French King ANNO DOM. 1533. REG. 25. THe King's love brooked no delays Wherefore on the five and twentieth of January privately and in the presence of very few he marrieth the Lady Ann Bolen Shortly after by Act of Parliament the Marriage of the King and the Lady Catharine was declared void and incestuous and a Law enacted wherein all Appeals to Rome were forbidden and that none should stile Catharine other than Princess of Wales and Widow or Dowager of Prince Arthur By virtue and authority of the same Law the Archbishop of Canterbury accompanied with some other Bishops coming to Dunstable six miles from Ampthill where Catharine then resided caused her to be cited before him next under the King chief Judge in all Ecclesiastical causes within the Province of Canterbury to shew what reasons could be alledged why the Marriage not lawfully contracted between the King and her should not be disannulled and pronounced impious incestuous and consequently void To these things by one of her Servants she answered that it beseemed not the Archbishop to thrust his sickle into another's harvest this Cause did yet depend undecided before the Pope Christ's Vicar on earth whose Decree she would obey and other Judge would she acknowledge none Being called fifteen days together and not appearing she is pronounced Contumax and for her contumacy separated from the King's bed and company Whereupon the Lady Ann proclaimed Queen throughout the Kingdom on Easter-eve shewed her self publickly as Queen and was at Whitsontide crowned with as great pomp and solemnity as ever was Queen The particulars I will let pass excepting that prophetical Distich upon one of the Triumphant Arches purposely erected in London where she was to pass Regìna Anna paris Regis de sanguine Natam Et paries populis aurea secla tuis In English Ann thou a Daughter bearest to our King And to thy people golden days shalt bring Wafers also with the same impression were thrown about saith Stow. But I rather believe that this Distich was made after the Queens delivery Whensoever it were he that truly considers the felicity of the four and forty years Reign of this Queens Daughter will think this Oracle could not proceed from any but a Delphian Apollo For the Queen at the time of her Coronation was great with child whereof the seventh of September she was delivered at Greenwich which was that ever famous Queen Elizabeth who after the death of her Brother and Sister so gloriously ruled this Kingdom The Pope was certified of all these passages that his authority in England was abrogated that the late Queen Catharine was put away that Ann Bolen as Queen was taken to the King's bed that the King stiled himself Supreme Head of the Church of England that the Archbishop of Canterbury executed all those Offices which formerly the Pope only did and that not as the Pope's Legate but as Primate of England who under the King claimed chief authority in Ecclesiastical affairs throughout his whole Province Wherewith being netled he seemed to breath nothing but threats and revenge But knowing himself to have been the motive of it and doubtful of the event he was easily perswaded by the French King as yet not to proceed by Excommunication against Henry until he had made trial of some milder course Whereupon Francis by Bellay Bishop of Paris intreats Henry not to withdraw
consecrated by the Archbishop but he on whom the King by his Congé D'eslire or other his Letters had conferred that Dignity And whereas many complained that now all commerce with Rome was forbidden all means were taken away of mitigating the rigour of the Ecclesiastical Laws of Dispensation Papal authority is granted to the Archbishop of Canterbury the King reserving to himself the power of dispensing in causes of greater moment And that all Appeals formerly wont to be made from the Archbishop to the Pope should now be from the Archbishop to the King who by Delegates should determine all such Suits and Controversies Furthermore the King's Marriage with the Lady Catharine is again pronounced incestuous the Succession to the Crown established on the King's Issue begotten on Queen Ann. And all above the age of sixteen years throughout the Kingdom are to be bound by Oath to the observance of this Law Whosoever refused to take this Oath should suffer loss of all their goods and perpetual imprisonment Throughout all the Realm there were found but two who durst refractorily oppose this Law viz. Fisher Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More the late Lord Chancellor men who were indeed very learned but most obstinate sticklers in the behalf of the Church of Rome who being not to be drawn by any perswasions to be conformable to the Law were committed to prison from whence after a years durance they were not freed but by the loss of their lives But the King fearing that it might be thought That he took these courses rather out of a contempt of Religion than in regard of the tyranny of the Court of Rome to free himself from all suspition either of favouring Luther or any authors of new Opinions began to persecute that sort of men whom the Vulgar called Hereticks and condemned to the cruelty of that merciless Element Fire not only certain Dutch Anabaptists but many Professors of the Truth and amongst others that learned and godly young man John Frith who with one Hewet and others on the two and twentieth of July constantly endured the torments of their martyrdom The five and twentieth of September died Clement the Seventh Pope in whose place succeeded Alexander Farnese by the name of Paulus the Third who to begin his time with some memorable Act having called a Consistory pronounced Henry to be fallen from the Title and Dignity of a King and to be deposed reiterating withal the thunder of Excommunication with which bugbear his predecessor Clement had sought to affright him But this peradventure happened in the ensuing year after the death of Fisher and More A Parliament is again called in November wherein according to the Decree of the late Synod the King was declared Supreme Head of the Church of England and the punishment of all crimes which formerly pertained to the Ecclesiastical Courts is made proper to him So the Kingdom is vindicated from the usurpation of the Pope who before shared in it and the King now first began to reign entirely Also all Annats or First-fruits formerly paid to the Pope are granted to the King And Wales the seat of the remainder of the true antient Britans hitherto differing from us compounded of Normans and Saxons as well in the form of their Government as in Language is by the authority of this Parliament to the great good of both but especially that Nation united and incorporated to England Edward the First was the first who subdued this Countrey yet could he not prevail over their minds whom the desire of recovering their lost liberty animated to many Rebellions By reason whereof and our suspitions being for two hundred years oppressed either with the miseries of Servitude or War they never tasted the sweet fruits of a true and solid Peace But Henry the Seventh by blood in regard of his Father and birth a Welchman coming to the Crown as if they had recovered their liberty whereto they so long aspired they obeyed him as their lawful Prince So the English being freed of their former jealousies permitted them to partake of their Priviledges since common to both Nations the good whereof equally redounded to both I could wish the like Union with Scotland That as we all live in one Island professing one Faith and speaking for the most part one Language under the government of one and the same Prince so we may become one Nation all equally acknowledging our selves Britans and so recover our true Countrey Britain lost as it were so many hundreds of years by our divisions of it into England Scotland and Wales ANNO DOM. 1535. REG. 27. THe Coronation of the new Queen and other passages of entertainment had exhausted the Treasury The Pope and the Emperour were both enemies to Henry watchfully attending all opportunities to do him mischief Neither in regard that so many sided with the Pope were all things safe at home The King was therefore forced to a course seemingly rash and full of dangerous consequences but very necessary for the time He resolves to demolish all the Monasteries throughout England He is content the Nobility should share with him in the spoil so enriching and strengthening himself by their necessary revolt from the Popish faction To this end they that were thought more especially in maintaining the Pope's authority to withstand the King's proceedings were condemned of high Treason and they that refused to acknowledge the King under Christ Supreme Head of the Church of England are hanged For this cause on the third of May were executed John Houghton Prior of the Charterhouse in London Augustine Webster Prior of Bevaley and Thomas Lawrence Prior of Exham and with them Richard Reignalds a Monk and Doctor of Divinity and John Hales Vicar of Thistlehurst On the eighteenth of June Exmew Middlemore and Nudigate all Charterhouse-Monks suffered for the same cause And four days after John Fisher Bishop of Rochester a man much reverenced by the People for his holy life and great learning was publickly beheaded and his Head set over London Bridge Our Histories hardly afford a president of the execution of such a man But the Pope was the occasion of his death who to ease the burthen of his now a years imprisonment by the addition of a new Title had on the one and twentieth of May created him Cardinal The news whereof hastened him to a Scaffold The sixth of July Sir Thomas More for the same stiffness in opinion with Bishop Fisher suffered the like death This was that More so famous for his Eutopia and many other Works both in English and Latin As for his conversation the most censorious fault him in nothing but his too too jesting I will not say scoffing wit to which he gave more liberty than did beseem the gravity of his person not tempering himself in the midst of his calamity no not at the very instant of death After his condemnation he denied to give
any thing to the Barber that trimmed him affirming That head about which he had bestowed his pains was the Kings if he could prove it to be his that did bear it he would well reward him To his Keeper demanding his upper garment as his fee he gave his Hat Going up the Scaffold he desired him that went before him To lend him his hand to help him up as for coming down he took no care Laying his head upon the block he put aside his beard which was then very long saying The Executioner was to cut off his head not his heard The executions of so many men caused the Queen to be much maligned as if they had been done by her procurement at least the Papists would have it thought so knowing that it stood her upon and that indeed she endeavoured that the authority of the Pope of Rome should not again take footing in England They desired nothing more than the downfal of this virtuous Lady which shortly after happening they triumphed in the overthrow of Innocence In the mean time they who undertook the subversion of the Monasteries invented an Engin to batter them more forcibly than the former course of torture and punishment They send abroad subtil-headed fellows who warranted by the King's authority should throughout England search into the lives and manners of Religious persons It would amaze one to consider what villanies were discovered among them by the means of Cromwell and others Few were found so guiltless as to dare withstand their proceedings and the licentiousness of the rest divulged made them all so odious to the people that never any exploit so full of hazard and danger was more easily atchieved than was the subversion of our English Monasteries ANNO DOM. 1536. REG. 28. THis year began with the end of the late Queen Catharine whom extremity of grief cast into a disease whereof on the eighth of January she deceased Queen Ann now enjoyed the King without a Rival whose death notwithstanding not improbably happened too soon for her For the King upon May-day at Greenwich beholding the Viscount Rochfort the Queens Brother Henry Norris and others running a-Tilt arising suddenly and to the wonder of all men departing thence to London caused the Viscount Rochfort Norris the Queen her self and some others to be apprehended and committed The Queen being guarded to the Tower by the Duke of Norfolk Audley Lord Keeper Cromwell Secretary of Estate and Kingston Lieutenant of the Tower at the very entrance upon her knees with dire imprecations disavowed the crime whatsoever it were wherewith she was charged beseeching God so to regard her as the justness of her cause required On the fifteenth of May in the Hall of the Tower she was arraigned the Duke of Norfolk sitting high Steward to whom were adjoined twenty six other Peers and among them the Queens Father by whom she was to be tryed The Accusers having given in their evidence and the Witnesses produced she sitting in a Chair whether in regard of any infirmity or out of honour permitted to the Wife of their Sovereign having an excellent quick wit and being a ready speaker did so answer to all objections that had the Peers given in their verdict according to the expectation of the assembly she had been acquitted But they among whom the Duke of Suffelk the King's brother-in-Brother-in-Law was chief one wholly applying himself to the King's humour pronounce her guilty Whereupon the Duke of Norfolk bound to proceed according to the verdict of the Peers condemned her to death either by being Burned in the Green in the Tower or Beheaded as his Majesty in his pleasure should think fit Her Brother George Viscount Rochfort was likewise the same day condemned and shortly after Henry Norris William Brierton and Francis Weston Gentlemen of the King 's Privy Chamber and Mark Smeton a Musician either as partakers or accessory were to run the same fortune The King greatly favoured Norris and is reported to be much grieved that he was to die with the rest Whereupon he offered pardon to him conditionally that he would confess that whereof he was accused But he answered resolutely and as it became the progenitor of so many valiant Heroes That in his conscience he thought her guiltless of the objected crime but whether she were or no he could not accuse her of any thing and that he had rather undergo a thousand deaths than betray the Innocent Upon relation whereof the King cryed out Hang him up then hang him up then Which notwithstanding was not accordingly executed For on the thirteenth of May two days after his condemnation all of them viz. the Viscount Rochfort Norris Brierton and Smeton were Beheaded at Tower-hill Norris left a Son called also Henry whom Queen Elizabeth in contemplation of his Father's deserts created Baron of Ricot This Lord Norris was Father to those great Captains William John Thomas and Edward in our days so famous throughout Christendom for their brave exploits in England France Ireland and the Netherlands On the nineteenth of May the Queen was brought to the place of Execution in the Green within the Tower some of the Nobility and Companies of the City being admitted rather to be witnesses than spectators of her death To whom the Queen having ascended the Scaffold spake in this manner Friends and good Christian people I am here in your presence to suffer death whereto I acknowledge my self adjudged by the Laws how justly I will not say for I intend not an accusation of any one I beseech the Almighty to preserve his Majesty long to reign over you a more gentle or mild Prince never swayed Scepter his bounty and clemency towards me I am sure hath been especial If any one intend an inquisitive survey of my actions I intreat him to judge favourably of me and not rashly to admit of any hard censorious conceit And so I bid the World farewel beseeching you to commend me in your Prayers to God To thee O Lord do I commend my Soul Then kneeling down she incessantly repeated these words Christ have mercy on my soul Lord Jesus receive my soul until the Executioner of Calais at one blow smote off her Head with a Sword Had any one three years before at what time the King so hot in the pursuit of his love preferred the enjoying of this Lady beyond his Friends his Estate his Health Safeguard and his only Daughter prophetically foretold the unhappy fate of this Princess he should have been believed with Cassandra But much more incredible may all wise men think the unheard of crime for which she was condemned viz. That fearing lest her Daughter the Lady Elizabeth born while Catharine survived should be accounted illegitimate in hope of other especially male Issue whereof she despaired by the King now near fifty years old she had lasciviously used the company of certain young Courtiers nay not therewith content had committed Incest with her
was John Paslew Batchelor of Divinity and Abbot of Whalley put to death at Lancaster and with him one Eastgate a Monk of the same place and three days after them another Monk called Haydock was hanged at Whalley The Abbots of Sauley and Woburn with two Monks make the like end at Woburn And a little after one Doctor Macarell another Abbot the Vicar of Louth two other Priests and seven Lay-men All these for as much as I can any way collect were condemned for having been especial furtherers of the late Rebellions But the Chiestains and nobler sort were reserved until June at what time the Lords Darcy and Hussey were beheaded the one at Lincoln the other at London Sir Robert Constable Sir Thomas Percy Sir Francis Bigot Sir Stephen Hamilton and Sir John Bulmer were likewise put to death Margaret Lady to Sir John Bulmer was burned at London William Thurst Abbot of Fountaines Adam Sudbury Abbot of Gervaux the Abbot of Rivers Wold Prior of Birlington George Lumley Nicholas Tempest Esquires and Robert Aske with many others as having been partakers in the late Insurrection did likewise partake in punishment for the same And for a Commotion in Somersetshire in April were threescore condemned whereof only fourteen suffered But lest any one may wonder at these severe and unheard of courses taken against the Clergy I think it not amiss to relate what Sleidan writes of Cardinal Pool who set forth one or two Books which as yet lurking at Rome about this time were spred abroad in Germany and came at length to the King's hands Wherein directing his stile to the King he sharply reprehendeth him for taking upon him the title of Head of the Church which only belonged to the Pope who is Christ's Vicar on earth c. Then he proceeds to the matter of his Divorce alledging That he neither out of terrour of conscience nor fear of God as he pretended but out of lust and blind love had forsaken the Lady Catharine his Wife whom his Brother Prince Arthur a weak young man and but fourteen years old had left a Virgin That it was not lawful for him to marry Ann Bolen whose Sister he had before used as his Concubine And that he himself had confessed to the Emperour and others That he found the Lady Catharine a Maid He also eagerly reproveth him for seeking the Opinions of the Universities concerning his former Marriage and triumphing in his own wickedness when some of them had pronounced it Incestuous and that he might be ashamed to prefer the Daughter of a Whore before one that was legitimate and a most Virtuous Princess Then speaking of the death of the Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More he detests his cruelty He then rips up what tyranny he had exercised over his Subjects of all degrees in what miseries he had plunged this flourishing Realm what dangers he incurred from the Emperour in regard of the injury offered to his Aunt and the overthrow of Religion and that he could not expect any aid either from his own or forein Nations who had deserved so ill of the Christian Commonwealth After this he whets on the Emperour to revenge the dishonour of his Family affirming that Turcism meaning the Protestant Religion had found entertainment in England and Germany And after many bitter reproofs he invites Henry to repentance perswading him That for these evils there was no other remedy but to return to the bosom of the Church in the defence whereof a most glorious example he had made use not only of his Sword but his Pen also Neither did the Cardinal only by Book but by other personal endeavours manifest his spleen against the King being sent Ambassador from the Pope to the French under colour of reconciling him with the Emperour but his chief errant was to combine them both against Henry Whereof he having intelligence did by his Agent earnestly solicit Francis That in regard of their mutual amity he would cause Pool to be apprehended as guilty of high Treason and sent to him where he should undergo the punishment due therefore But because Religion and the Law of Nations had been violated in betraying any especially the Pope's Ambassador the French could not yield to the King's request But to shew that he would administer no cause of offence he refused to admit of his Embassy and commanded him speedily to depart out of his Dominions Hercules stature might be guessed at by the proportion of his and by this one man's endeavours Henry was taught what if need were he was to expect of his Clergy So that he was easily induced as any of them offended to send him to his grave for that a dead Lion biteth not And this course being taken with his professed enemies the fear of the like punishment would secure him of the rest On the twelfth of October the Queen having long suffered the throws of a most difficult travel and such a one wherein either the Mother or the Infant must necessarily perish out of her womb was ripped Prince Edward who after succeeded his Father in the Crown The Queen only surviving two days died on the fourteenth of October and on the twelfth of November was with great pomp buried at Windsor in the middle of the Quire on whose Tomb is inscribed this Epitaph Phoenix Jana jacet nato Phoenice dolendum Saecula Phaenices nulla tulisse duas Here a Phenix lieth whose death To another Phenix gave breath It is to be lamented much The World at once ne'r knew two such On the eighteenth of October the Infant was created Prince of Wales Duke of Cornwal and Earl of Chester and with him his Uncle Edward Seymour Brother to the deceased Queen Lord Beauchamp and Earl of Hertford which Honours only and not those afterwards conferred on him he left to his posterity William Fitz-Williams Lord Admiral was made Earl of Southampton Then also William Powlet and John Russel began their races in the lists of Honour Powlet being made Treasurer and Russel Comptroller of the King's Houshold and both sworn of the Privy Council Neither was here their non ultra the one being afterward raised to Lord Treasurer of England and Marquess of Winchester the other to Earl of Bedford wherein he dying in the year 1554 his Son Francis that pious old man and liberal reliever of the Poor succeeded him who at the very instant of his death lost his Son Francis slain by a Scot Anno 1587. Which Francis was Father to Edward Earl of Bedford and Brother to William by King James created Lord Russel Powlet living to be a very decrepit old man had to his Successor his Nephew by his Son William named also William the sole Marquess of England And to end this year with death as it began Thomas Howard youngest Son to the Duke of Norfolk having been fifteen months imprisoned for affiancing himself without the King's consent to Margaret Daughter to Archibald Douglas
arrived on the first of October But the King 's hasty departure permitted not all things to be sufficiently setled Part of the Artillery Victuals and Munition by the Capitulation left in Boloign were not removed from the Base Town which was fortified only with some small Trenches for the surprisal whereof the Daulphin in the night sends some Troops who before morning enter the place cut all in pieces they meet win the Artillery and Munition and think to have gotten an absolute Victory but being intent to pillage some Ensigns issue from the higher Tower find them in disorder set upon them and rout them Many of the Enemies were slain among whom was Fouquessolles another Son-in-Law of Biez the Victory not being without blood on our side Neither was our Fleet idle in the mean which scouring the Seas brought three hundred Prizes so fraught with Merchandise that the three spacious Churches of the Augustine the Gray and the Black Friers in London whose Monasteries had lately been suppressed were stored with nothing but Hogsheads of Wine The Earl of Lenox lately dispatched out of France for the managing of the affairs of Scotland to the behoof of the French found not entertainment there according to his expectation The Queen Mother and Cardinal as long as they had need of him deluded him with hopes of marrying the Queen Mother and by their secret calumnies rendred them suspected to the French At length finding his safety questionable he flies for refuge into England accompanied with Alexander Son and Heir to the Earl of Glencarn Walter Graham Brother to the Earl of Montross and Sir John Borthwick with others and were honourably received by Henry who most happily repaired the Earl's losses of Revenues in France fallen by the death of Robert Stuart of Aubigny and of his Marriage in Scotland with that most successful Match that beautiful Lady Margaret Niece to the King and Daughter to the Earl of Angus and an annual Pension of seven hundred Marks And once more he resolved to try his fortune in Scotland attended by Sir Rice Mansell and Sir Peter Mewtas Wintor Audley and Brooks with others who with eight Ships set sail from Bristol and hanging over the Coast of Scotland like a Cloud uncertain where to disburthen it self deterred the Scots from enterprising anything upon England in the absence of the King The Church of late had daily felt some change or other And this year in June the Letany set forth in English was commanded to be used in all Churches ANNO DOM. 1545. REG. 37. OUr late Expeditions had without doubt been very chargeable So that I should not wonder that the King began to want supplies if I did not consider the incredible summs raised of the spoils of the late suppressed Religious Houses All which notwithstanding whether it were that God not pleased with this authorized Sacriledge did not enlarge them with his Blessing Which only saith Solomon maketh Rich Or that a great part thereof was otherwise divided either among his Courtiers or for the maintenance of the ejected Religious Persons the Treasury was certainly very bare To which former reasons we may add the six new erected Bishopricks and the like number of Cathedral Churches as also the Stipends conferred on both Universities for the publick Professors of the Hebrew and Greek Tongues Divinity Law and Physick to each whereof he allotted an Annuity of forty Pounds Howsoever it were certain it is that levies being made in Germany for the King the Souldiers disbanded for want of Pay The Parliament had already granted him great Subsidies so that thence he could expect no more Yet Monies must be had Henry therefore resolves on an honest kind of Rapine The Intreaties of Princes little differ from Commands unless perhaps in this that they work more subtilly and render them pliable with whom Commands would not have prevailed which manifestly appeared in the execution of this Project He had twenty years since commanded Money by Proclamation a course so far from taking as was desired that it had like to have been the cause of much mischief But now by some fit Commissioners informing his Subjects of his necessities and desiring the richer sort one by one to contribute towards his support he quickly replenished the Exchequer The Commissioners begin first with the Citizens of London among whom two were more strait laced than the rest viz. Richard Read and William Roch but their parsimony shall cost them dear For Read being an old man and utterly unexpert of Martial Discipline is commanded to serve in person in the Wars of Scotland is taken by the Scots and forced to ransom himself at a high rate Roch as having used some uncivil language before those of his Majestie 's Council who sate Commissioners was for some months punished with straight imprisonment and at length not improbably bought his liberty In the mean time Boloign was a great eye-sore to the French They try to regain it by stratagems and surprisals but in vain They betake themselves to force with the like success The Marshal of Biez Governour of the Boloignois comes with a great Army to the Port a Town two miles from Boloign and begins to build a Fort on this side the River upon the point of the Tower of Ordre but is by the Earl of Hertford forced away and leaves his Castle in the Air. His intent was by this Fort to have kept the Garrison of Boloign within their Walls to have commanded the Haven so to cut off all Succours by sea and from Calais by land Which being done Francis resolved in Person to besiege Guisnes and there to fortifie thereby to famish Boloign and to keep Calais and the land of Oye in subjection But these designs proving fruitless he prepares his Naval forces giving forth that he intended to invade England hoping that this Alarm would have made us have a care of the main and neglect those pieces abroad so that Boloign for lack of aid should easily be reduced The noise of an invasion made Henry arm who having gathered together a sufficient Fleet awaited the Enemy at Portsmouth intent to all occasions Neither did the French only intend an Alarm landing in three several places in England but were every where with loss driven aboard their Ships Two days after they fall down to the Channel that divideth the Isle of Wight from the rest of Britain they seem to threaten Portsmouth where the King then was and seek to draw our Fleet to fight The French beside a sufficient Fleet of other Ships had twenty five Gallies no way probably useful in these tempestuous and rough Seas not brooking this flat kind of shipping but by their bulk and number to terrifie us Yet at this time an unusual calmness of the Sea without wind or current put them in hope of effecting wonders by their Gallies But our Fleet was not to be drawn to fight much less to be forced without apparent danger to the Enemy
him Marquis of Exceter As for Gardiner she not only reseated him in the Bishoprick of Winchester but also on the three and twentieth of August made him Lord Chancellour of England notwithstanding that he had not only Subscribed to the Divorce from Catharine the Queens Mother but had Published Books wherein he had defended King Henry's proceedings On the fifth of August Boner and Tonstall who had been formerly deprived of their Bishopricks the one of London the other of Duresm and shortly after Day of Chichester and Heath of Worcester were enlarged and restored to their Bishopricks the present Incumbents being without due process of Law ejected On the tenth of August were celebrated the Exequies of King Edward Day Bishop of Chichester Preaching executing in English and administring the Sacrament according to the manner and form received in the Reign of Edward For as yet nothing had been determined concerning any change in point of Religion So that when Bourn a Canon of Pauls afterward Bishop of Bath and Wells Preaching at the Cross did inveigh against the Reformation in King Edward's time and did in upbraiding manner argue the Injustice of those times which condemned Bonor to perpetual Imprisonment for matter delivered by him in that place that time four year who was now by a more just Clemency restored to his Liberty and Dignity The People 〈◊〉 to the Protestant Religion could hardly abstain from stoning him and one of them aiming a Poinyard at him missed him very narrowly The affections of the Assembly may by this be conceived that during the Reign of Queen Mary the Author of this bold attempt notwithstanding the diligence of earnest Inquisitors could never be discovered The uproar increasing and divers pressing toward the Pulpit Bourn protected by two Protestant Preachers Bradford and Rogers who were greatly Reverenced by the People and afterward Burned for their Religion was with great difficulty conveyed to the School at Pauls And now at length on the eighteenth of August the Duke of Norfolk sitting as High Steward of England were the Duke of Northumberland his Son the Earl of Warwick and the Marquis of Northampton Arraigned at Westminster where the Duke of Northumberland pleading that he had done nothing but by authority of the Council his Plea being not admitted for sufficient he was condemned of High Treason The Sentence being pronounced he craved the favour of such a Death as was usually executed on Noblemen and not the other He beseeched also that a favourable regard might be had of his Children in respect of their age Thirdly that he might be permitted to confer with some learned Divine for the setling of his Conscience And lastly that her Majesty would be pleased to send unto him four of her Council for the discovery of some things which might concern the Estate The Marquis of Northampton pleaded to his Indictment that after the beginning of these Tumults he had forborn the Execution of any Publick Office and that all that while inteht to Hunting and other sports he did not partake in the Conspiracy But it being manifest that he was party with the Duke of Northumberland Sentence passed on him likewise The Earl of Warwick finding that the Judges in so great a Cause admitted not excuse of Age with great resolution heard his Condemnation pronounced craving only this favour that whereas the Goods of those who were condemned for Treason are totally Confifcated yet her Majesty would be pleased that out of them his Debts might be discharged After this they were all again returned to the Tower The next day Sir Andrew Dadley Sir John Gates who was thought in Northumberland's favour to have projected the Adoption of Lady Jane Sir Henry Gates and Sir Thomas Palmer were likewise condemned On the two and twentieth of the same month the Duke with the rest having two days before received the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper were conducted to the place of Execution Where Northumberland saith that excellent Historiographer thuanas by the perswasion of Nicholas Heath afterward Bishop of York making his own Funeral Oration to the People acknowledged himself guilty and craving pardon for his unseasonable Ambition admonished the Assembly That they should embrace the Religion of their Forefathers rejecting that of later date which had occasioned all the Miseries of the ' fore-passed thirty years And for prevention for the future if they desired to present their Souls unspotted to God and were truly affected to their Countrey they should expel those Trumpets of Sedition the Preachers of the Reformed Religion As for himself whatsoever he might pretend his Conscience was fraught with the Religion of his Fathers and for testimony hereof he appealed to his great Friend the Bishop of Winchester but being blinded with Ambition he had been contented to make wrack of his Conscience by temporizing for which he professed himself sincerely repentant and acknowledged the desert of his death Having spoken thus much he craved the charitable Devotions of the Assembly and commending his Soul to God prepared his Body for the stroke of Ax. This Recantation did variously affect the minds of the multitude who wondred that he should at last Apostatize from that Religion which he had for sixteen years professed and in favour whereof chiefly he perswaded King Edward to endeavour the exclusion of his Sisters from their lawful Succession Some write that being desirous of life he did it craftily out of hope of impunity but that hope being frustrated to have repented it afterwards He was suspected neither were the presumptions small to have administred a Poisonous potion to King Edward but in his Indictment there was no mention of it and that the rather for that the Judges had authority only to inflict Punishment on him for his Conspiracy against the Queen At the same time and place were also Executed Sir John Gates and Sir Thomas Palmer Many Bishops also who were thought to have been too too opinionate in point of Religion were sent for to London and there Imprisoned viz. Hooper of Glocester Farrar of St. Davies who were both crowned with Martyrdom and Coverdale of Exceter who at the request of Christiern the Third King of Denmark was Pardoned But the Clergy of what rank soever who would not forsake their Wives or were invested in Livings whereof any one had been for defence of Popery deprived or that would not by Oath promise the defence of the Romish Religion were generally forced to relinquish their Benefices Peter Martyr was then Professor at Oxford who presently upon the Death of King Edward was confined to his House But after some time his Friends so far prevailed that he might come to London where he betook himself to his Patron the Archbishop of Canterbury But he could not prove a Sanctuary to him The Archbishop himself began now to totter The Queen beside that she was wholly swayed by Gardiner who extremely hated him had resolved to wreak her self
would send him into his Countrey with the honorable Title and Authority of a Legate And now he feigned to himself a double hope of a Kingdom if not Secular at least Ecclesiastical by virtue of his authority Legatine and the dignity of Archbishop of Canterbury Queen Mary had her Education for some years under Margaret Countess of Salisbury the Mother of Pool who was then a Child and that by Queen Catharine's means who intended as it was thought to marry her Daughter the Lady Mary to one of the Countesses Sons thereby to strengthen her Daughters claim to the Crown if it should happen that Henry should decease without other lawful Issue the Countess being Daughter to George Duke of Clarence who was Brother to Edward the Fourth The Cardinal whether for this or some other reasons knowing himself to be in dear esteem with the Queen was confident if not of the Crown by Marriage yet at least of all advantages of her Favour Neither was he therein deceived for Mary having obtained the Crown earnestly sued unto him to restore himself to his Countrey and the Pope not ignorant how much he would advantage the Apostolick See at the Queens request dispatched him with most ample Authority But the Emperour having a Project on foot for his Son was somewhat jealous of the Cardinal and therefore began seriously to treat with Cardinal Dandino the Pope's Legate with him for the conclusion of a Peace between him and the French that so he might give a stop to Pool whose coming into England the Emperour's affairs being not yet setled might peradventure make all fly asunder Dandino to gratifie Charles by Franciseo Commendono sends Letters to Pool advising him not to set forth as yet forasmuch as this Legacy undertaken without the Emperour's consent was displeasing and the English Nation for the most part especially the Londoners did so hate the name of the Pope of Rome that his Legacy would be held in contempt among them A Legate therefore was not to be employed unto them until perswasions had brought them to a better temper Pool having received these Letters in his Cloister thought it fitting to expect his Holiness pleasure The Pope not brooking the increase of the Emperour's greatness by the addition of such Estates and fretting that Dandino had presumed to stay the Cardinal recalled Dandino and conferred on Pool alone the Legacy both into England for the one affair and to the Emperour and the French for the Treaty of a Peace He willingly undertaking it presently set forward from Trent certifying the Emperour and the French of his large Commission The Emperour perceiving that these devices would be no longer availeable sent Don Juan de Mendoza unto him with Letters wherein he plainly discovered his fear that the Cardinal's premature arrival in England might prove an obstacle to his proceedings there which were great and hopeful Wherefore it was his desire that he should either there attend his pleasure or if he would needs go further he might come to Liege and there expect the event of his designs The Cardinal upon receipt of these Letters returns to Dilling not far from Trent certifies his Holiness of the whole carriage of the Business and sends expostulatory Letters to the Emperour shewing therein what an indignity it was to Apostolick See that his Holiness Legat sent upon a Treaty of Peace and to reduce a Kingdom to the obedience of the Church should so disgracefully with contempt to his Holiness and that by the Emperour's command be detained in the midst of Germany in the sight of the Enemies of the Church That great Divine Domingo Soto Ordinary Preacher to the Emperour was then at Dilling By him he perswades the Emperour not to hinder this Legation being it would so much hazard the estate of the Church but especially of the Kingdom of England At length with much ado and that not until the Emperour had intelligence that the Articles concerning his Son's Marriage were agreed on he obtained leave to come to Brussels but on this condition that he should there reside until the Emperour were assured that the Marriage between Philip and Mary were Solemnized So to Brussels he came where having saluted the Emperour who received him very courteously and that time might not pass unprofitably with him he begins to put in execution one part of his Legation which was to draw the Emperor and the King of France to some indifferent terms of Peace The Emperour professing that he would not reject Peace upon any reasonable conditions the Cardinal goes into France to treat with Henry concerning the same thing Who made as fair shews as did the Emperour but their minds exulcerated with inveterate hate made all his pains fruitless Henry at his departure embracing him signified the sorrow he had conceived that he had not sooner occasion to be acquainted with his worth For had he truly know him his endeavours should have been totally for his advancement to the Papacy A little after his return to Brussels came the Lords Paget and Hastings Ambassadors to the Emperour from their Majesties of England who signified their joint-longing to see the Cardinal and therefore desired he might be forthwith dismissed that by virtue of his Authority he might rectifie the Church of England wonderfully out of tune by reason of the Schism wherewith it had been afflicted So in September he had leave to go for England but was by contrary winds detained at Calais until November in which month he at length arrived at Dover His entertainment was most honourable the Kings and Nobles alike striving to manifest their joy And because being in the year 1539 by Parliament declared Enemy to the Estate and by the same Law condemned to die the Estates then assembled in Parliament repealed that Act and restored him to his Blood the Kings themselves coming to the House extraordinarily for the confirmation of the Act before his arrival at London A little after his coming both Houses were sent for to the Court where the Bishop of Winchester Lord Chancellour having in the presence of the Kings and the assembly spoken something concerning the Cardinal's grateful arrival the Cardinal himself began a long Oration in English wherein He acknowledged how much he was bound to the Kings and the Estates of the Realm by whose favour those Laws for his Exile and Proscription were repealed and he once more made a Native of the Land He was bound by the Laws of Gratitude to endeavour the requital of this Benefit whereto an occasion happily offered it self The late Schism had separated them from the Union of the Church and made them exiles from Heaven by the Authority conferred on him by the Pope St. Peter's Successor Christ's Vicar he would bring them back into the Fold of the Church the sole means of attaining their celestial Heritage Wherefore he exhorted them ingenuously to acknowledge the Errours of these later years and to detect them with sincere alacrity
of mind to accept of and retain this Benefit which God by his Vicar's Legate did proffer them For now nothing else remained but that he being present with those Keys which should open the Gates of the Church they should also abrogate those Laws which lately Enacted to the prejudice of the Church had rended them from the rest of its Body Having spoken a great deal to this purpose and ransacked Antiquity for examples of our Forefathers devotion to the See of Rome his grave delivery excellent language and methodical contexture of his speech wrought so effectually in the minds of those who were addicted to Popery that they thought not themselves until this day capable of Salvation But many of the lower House who deemed it a rare felicity to have shaken off the yoak of Rome eagerly withstood the readmittance of it But by the endeavours of the King and Queen all things were at last composed to the Cardinal 's liking The Authority which the Popes heretofore usurped in this Realm is restored the Title of Supreme Head of the Church is abrogated and a Petition drawn by the whole Court of Parliament for the Absolution of the People and Clergy of England from Schism and Heresie is by the Bishop of Winchester presented to the Legate who they all kneeling by the Authority committed unto him absolved them This being done they went to the Chappel in Procession singing Te Deum and the next Sunday the Bishop of Winchester in his Sermon at Pauls Cross made a large relation of what had passed These things being thus setled the Queen intends an honorable Embassy to Rome whereof she had at her first coming to the Crown made promise For having resolved to replant the Religion of Rome she had privily written to Pool requiring his advice therein The Pope was therefore pleased to send into England Giovanni Francisco Commendono his Chamberlain afterward Cardinal for the more perfect notice of the estate of the Realm To him the Queen after much private conference did under her Hand promise Obedience to the See of Rome desiring withal that the Kingdom might be absolved from the Interdict for the obtaining whereof she would by a solemn Embassy petition his Holiness as soon as the Estate was setled So now about the end of this year the Bishop of Ely Sir Anthony Brown and Edward Carne Doctor of Law are by the Kings sent to proffer their Obedience to the See of Rome But these costs and pains were fruitless For before they came to Rome the Pope was dead In the mean time the Queen considering all her actions hitherto to have passed with full applause began to treat with the Nobility to condescend that if not the Royal at least the Matrimonial Crown of our Queens might be imposed on Philip. But it being a matter without precedent and that might perchance to an ambitious Prince give some colour for claim to the Kingdom they proved averse and she content to surcease The next care was of restitution of Church-Lands But Henry had so divided them and that among the Nobility that nothing could be done therein Only it was decreed that the First-Fruits and Tenths granted to the King by the Clergy Anno 1534 should be remitted which Decree upon consideration of the Treasuries poverty and of the many Pensions granted by Henry to the ejected Religious Persons was quickly revoked About the same time an absurd I might say ridiculous accident happened by the Queens own credulity and the flattery of fawning Courtiers By reason of a Disease which Physicians term a Mole her Belly began to swell and some other reasons giving her cause to conjecture that she was with Child she not entertaining the advice of any Physicians but of Midwives and old Women believing what she desired should be affirmed that she felt the stirring of the Embryo in her womb To those that are affected with this malady that fleshy and inform substance which is termed Mola doth seem sometimes to move but that slowly and with the general motion of the whole Belly By this and other symptoms Physicians would quickly have discovered her Disease which unless very maturely prevented is commonly incurable So that in process of time her Liver being over-cooled she fell into a Dropsie which as Fuchsius and other Physicians write doth usually happen But these flattering hopes betrayed her to the laughter of the World and to her Grave For on the seven and twentieth of November the Lords of the Council sent some Mandates to the Bishop of London to disperse certain forms of Prayers wherein after Thanks given to God for his Mercies to this Kingdom by giving hopes of an Heir to the Crown and infusing life into the Embryo they should pray for the preservation of the Queen and the Infant and her happy delivery and cause Te Deum to be sung every where Then by Parliament many things were Enacted concerning the Education of the Babe and much clutter was otherwise kept about preparations for the Child's Swadling-clouts Cradle and other things requisite at the Delivery until in June in the ensuing year it was manifested that all was little better than a Dream This year were many Barons created On the eleventh of March William Howard was created Lord Howard of Effingham he was Father to Charles Lord Admiral and late Earl of Nottingham on the fifth of April John Williams Lord Williams of Tame on the seventh of April Edward North Baron of Chartlege on the eighth of April John Bruges Lord Chandois on the fourteenth of May Gerard Fitz-Gerard of whom before Earl of Kildare and on the second of September Anthony Brown Viscount Mountague And in September deceased Thomas Duke of Norfolk ANNO DOM. 1555. REG. MARIAE 2 3 PHILIPPI 1 2. ON the eighteenth of January the Lord Chancellour coming to the Tower with six other Lords of the Council set many brave Prisoners at liberty viz. the Archbishop of York Sir John Rogers Sir James Croft Sir Nicholas Throckmorton Sir Nicholas Arnold Sir George Harper Sir William Sentlow Sir Gawin Carew Sir Andrew Dudley the Duke of Northumberland's Brother William Gibs Cutbert Vaughan Harington Tremaine and others The Archbishop having married a Wife was deprived and Nicholas Heath sometimes Bishop of Worcester but deprived by King Edward and Hooper being ejected and condemned to the Fire lately restored by Queen Mary was substituted in his place Rogers and Croft were afterward Privy Counsellors to Queen Elizabeth under whom they many years flourished in great Authority Throckmorton a subtil man was thought to have been the plotter of Wyat's Rebellion his Head was therefore especially aimed at But being indicted and ten whole hours spent in sifting him he by such witty answers voided the accusation of his Adversary that the Jurors found him Not guilty for which they were afterward soundly fined About the beginning of April the Marquess of Exceter and a little after the Lady Elizabeth were