History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth Volume II Part 16

"Could the king be brought to consent to the marriage, it would be a fair union of two realms, and to annex Britain to the crown of France would be a great honour to our Sovereign; the English party desire nothing better; the pope will be glad of it; the pope fears that, if war break out again, France will draw closer to England on the terms which the King of England desires; and he may thus lose the French tribute as he has lost the English. He therefore will urge the emperor to agree, and the emperor will a.s.sist gladly for the love which he bears to his cousin.

"If the emperor be willing, the King of England can then be informed; and he can be made to feel that, if he will avoid war, he must not refuse his consent. The king, in fact, has no wish to disown the Princess, and he knows well that the marriage with the Dauphin was once agreed on.

"Should he be unwilling, and should his wife's persuasions still have influence with him, he will hesitate before he will defy, for her sake, the King of France and the emperor united. His regard for the queen is less than it was, and diminishes every day. He has a new fancy,[205] as you are aware."

The actual conspiracy, in the form which it had so far a.s.sumed, was rather an appeal to fanaticism than a plot which could have laid hold of the deeper mind of the country; but as an indication of the unrest which was stealing over the minds of men, it a.s.sumed an importance which it would not have received from its intrinsic character.

[Sidenote: The Nun and the five monks brought to trial.]

The guilt of the princ.i.p.al offenders admitted of no doubt. As soon as the commissioners were satisfied that there was nothing further to be discovered, the Nun, with the monks, was brought to trial before the Star Chamber; and conviction followed as a matter of course.[206]

[Sidenote: They make their confessions at St. Paul's.]

The unhappy girl finding herself at this conclusion, after seven years of vanity, in which she had played with popes, and queens, and princesses, and archbishops, now, when the dream was thus rudely broken, in the revulsion of feeling could see nothing in herself but a convicted impostor. We need not refuse to pity her. The misfortunes of her sickness had exposed her to temptations far beyond the strength of an ordinary woman; and the guilt which she pa.s.sionately claimed for herself rested far more truly with the knavery of the Christ Church monks and the incredible folly of Archbishop Warham.[207] But the times were too stern to admit of nice distinctions. No immediate sentence was p.r.o.nounced, but it was thought desirable for the satisfaction of the people that a confession should be made in public by the Nun and her companions. The Sunday following their trial they were placed on a raised platform at Paul's Cross by the side of the pulpit, and when the sermon was over they one by one delivered their "bills" to the preacher, which by him were read to the crowd.[208]

After an acknowledgment of their imposture the prisoners were remanded to the Tower, and their ultimate fate reserved for the consideration of parliament, which was to meet in the middle of January.

[Sidenote: The household of the Princess Mary is broken up.]

[Sidenote: The inquiry is prosecuted further.]

[Sidenote: The Countess of Salisbury.]

The chief offenders being thus disposed of, the council resolved next that peremptory measures should be taken with respect to the Princess Mary.[209] Her establishment was broken up, and she was sent to reside as the Lady Mary in the household of the Princess Elizabeth--a hard but not unwholesome discipline.[210] As soon as this was done, being satisfied that the leading shoot of the conspiracy was broken, and that no immediate danger was now to be feared, they proceeded leisurely to follow the clue of the Nun's confession, and to extend their inquiries.

The Countess of Salisbury was mentioned as one of the persons with whom the woman had been in correspondence. This lady was the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV. Her mother was a Neville, a child of Richard the King-maker, the famous Earl of Warwick, and her only brother had been murdered to secure the shaking throne of Henry VII. Margaret Plantagenet, in recompense for the lost honours of the house, was made Countess of Salisbury in her own right. The t.i.tle descended from her grandfather, who was Earl of Salisbury and Warwick; but the prouder t.i.tle had been dropped as suggestive of dangerous a.s.sociations. The Earldom of Warwick remained in abeyance, and the castle and the estates attached to it were forfeited to the Crown. The countess was married after her brother's death to a Sir Richard Pole, a supporter and relation[211] of the king; and when left a widow she received from Henry VIII. the respectful honour which was due to the most n.o.bly born of his subjects, the only remaining Plantagenet of unblemished descent. In his kindness to her children the king had attempted to obliterate the recollection of her brother's wrongs, and she had been herself selected to preside over the household of the Princess Mary. During the first twenty years of Henry's reign the countess seems to have acknowledged his attentions with loyal regard, and if she had not forgotten her birth and her childhood, she never connected herself with the attempts which during that time were made to revive the feuds of the houses. Richard de la Pole, nephew of Edward IV.,[212] and called while he lived "the White Rose," had more than once endeavoured to excite an insurrection in the eastern counties; but Lady Salisbury was never suspected of holding intercourse with him; she remained aloof from political disputes, and in lofty retirement she was contented to forget her greatness for the sake of the Princess Mary, to whom she and her family were deeply attached. Her relations with the king had thus continued undisturbed until his second marriage. As the representative of the House of York she was the object of the hopes and affections of the remnants of their party, but she had betrayed no disposition to abuse her influence, or to disturb the quiet of the nation for personal ambition of her own.

[Sidenote: Reginald Pole.]

[Sidenote: The Marquis of Exeter.]

[Sidenote: The Nevilles.]

[Sidenote: The strength of the White Rose faction.]

If it be lawful to interpret symptoms in themselves trifling by the light of later events, it would seem as if her att.i.tude now underwent a material change. Her son Reginald had already quarrelled with the king upon the divorce. He was in suspicious connexion with the pope, and having been required to return home upon his allegiance, had refused obedience. His mother, and his mother's attached friend, the Marchioness of Exeter, we now find among those to whom the Nun of Kent communicated her prophecies and her plans. It does not seem that the countess thought at any time of reviving her own pretensions; it does seem that she was ready to build a throne for the Princess Mary out of the ruined supporters of her father's family. The power which she could wield might at any moment become formidable. She had two sons in England, Lord Montague and Sir Geoffrey Pole. Her cousin, the Marquis of Exeter, a grandson himself of Edward IV.,[213] was, with the exception of the Duke of Norfolk, the most powerful n.o.bleman in the realm; and he, to judge by events, was beginning to look coldly on the king.[214] We find her surrounded also by the representatives of her mother's family,--Lord Abergavenny, who had been under suspicion when the Duke of Buckingham was executed, Sir Edward Neville, afterwards executed, Lord Latimer, Sir George and Sir William Neville, all of them were her near connexions, all collateral heirs of the King-maker, inheriting the pride of their birth, and resentfully conscious of their fallen fortunes. The support of a party so composed would have added formidable strength to the preaching friars of the Nun of Kent; and as I cannot doubt that the Nun was endeavouring to press her intrigues in a quarter where disaffection if created would be most dangerous, so the lady who ruled this party with a patriarchal authority had listened to her suggestions; and the repeated interviews with her which, were sought by the Marchioness of Exeter were rendered more than suspicious by the secresy with which these interviews were conducted.[215]

[Sidenote: Examination on suspicion, of Sir William and Sir George Neville.]

These circ.u.mstances explain the arrest, to which I alluded above, of Sir William and Sir George Neville, brothers of Lord Latimer. They were not among "the many n.o.blemen" to whom the commissioners referred; for their confessions remain, and contain no allusion to the Nun; but they were examined at this particular time on general suspicion; and the arrest, under such circ.u.mstances, of two near relatives of Lady Salisbury, indicates clearly an alarm in the council, lest she might be contemplating some serious movements. At any rate, either on her account or on their own, the Nevilles fell under suspicion, and while they had no crimes to reveal, their depositions, especially that of Sir William Neville, furnish singular evidence of the temper of the times.

[Sidenote: Confession of Sir William Neville.]

The confession of the latter begins with an account of the loss of certain silver spoons, for the recovery of which Sir William sent to a wizard who resided in Cirencester. The wizard took the opportunity of telling Sir William's fortune: his wife was to die, and he himself was to marry an heiress, and be made a baron; with other prospective splendours. The wizard concluded, however, with recommending him to pay a visit to another dealer in the dark art more learned than himself, whose name was Jones, at Oxford.

[Sidenote: Jones, the Oxford conjuror.]

"So after that," said Sir William [Midsummer, 1532], "I went to Oxford, intending that my brother George and I should kill a buck with Sir Simon Harcourt, which he had promised me; and there at Oxford, in the said Jones's chamber, I did see certain stillatories, alembics, and other instruments of gla.s.s, and also a sceptre and other things, which he said did appertain to the conjuration of the four kings; and also an image of white metal; and in a box, a serpent's skin, as he said, and divers books and things, whereof one was a book which he said was my Lord Cardinal's, having pictures in it like angels. He told me he could make rings of gold, to obtain favour of great men; and said that my Lord Cardinal had such; and promised my said brother and me, either of us, one of them; and also he showed me a round thing like a ball of crystal.

"He said that if the King's Grace went over to France [the Calais visit of October, 1532], his Grace should marry my Lady Marchioness of Pembroke before that his Highness returned again; and that it would be dangerous to his Grace, and to the most part of the n.o.blemen that should go with him; saying also that he had written to one of the king's council to advise his Highness not to go over, for if he did, it should not be for his Grace's profit."

[Sidenote: The Nevilles to recover the Earldom of Warwick.]

The wizard next pretended that he had seen a vision of a certain room in a tower, in which a spirit had appeared with a coat of arms in his hand, and had "delivered the same to Sir William Neville." The arms being described as those of the Warwick family, Sir William, his brother, and Jones rode down from Oxford to Warwick, where they went over the castle.

The wizard professed to recognise in a turret chamber the room in which he had seen the spirit, and he prophesied that Sir William should recover the earldom, the long-coveted prize of all the Neville family.

[Sidenote: Prophecy that none of Cadwallader's blood should reign more than twenty-four years.]

On their return to Oxford, Jones, continues Sir William, said further, "That there should be a field in the north about a se'nnight before Christmas, in which my Lord my brother [Lord Latimer] should be slain; the realm should be long without a king; and much robbery would be within the realm, specially of abbeys and religious houses, and of rich men, as merchants, graziers, and others; so that, if I would, he at that time would advise me to find the means to enter into the said castle for mine own safeguard, and divers persons would resort unto me. _None of Cadwallader's blood_, he told me, _should reign more than twenty-four years_; and also that Prince Edward [son of Henry VI. and Margaret of Anjou, killed at Tewkesbury] had issue a son which was conveyed over sea; and there had issue a son which was yet alive, either in Saxony or Almayne; and that either he or the King of Scots should reign next after the King's Grace that now is. To all which I answered," Sir William concluded, "that there is nothing which the will of G.o.d is that a man shall obtain, but that he of his goodness will put in his mind the way whereby he shall come by it; and that surely I had no mind to follow any such fas.h.i.+on; and that, also, the late Duke of Buckingham and others had cast themselves away by too much trust in prophecies, and other jeoparding of themselves, and therefore I would in no wise follow any such way. He answered, if I would not, it would be long ere I obtained it. Then I said I believed that well, and if it never came, I trusted to G.o.d to live well enough."[216]

Sir George Neville confirmed generally his brother's story, protesting that they had never intended treason, and that "at no time had he been of counsel" when any treason was thought of.[217]

[Sidenote: The wizard summoned before the Council.]

[Sidenote: He undertakes to make the philosopher's stone, and will jeopard his life upon it.]

The wizard himself was next sent for. The prophecies about the king he denied wholly. He admitted that he had seen an angel in a dream giving Sir William Neville the s.h.i.+eld of the earldom in Warwick Castle, and that he had accompanied the two brothers to Warwick, to examine the tower. Beyond that, he said that he knew nothing either of them or of their intentions. He declared himself a good subject, and he would "jeopard his life" to make the philosopher's stone for the king in twelve months if the king pleased to command him. He desired "no longer s.p.a.ce than twelve months upon silver and twelve and a half upon gold "; to be kept in prison till he had done it; and it would be "better to the King's Grace than a thousand men."[218]

[Sidenote: Evidence in these confessions of the unrest and agitation of the country.]

The result of these examinations does not appear, except it be that the Nevilles were dismissed without punishment; and the story itself may be thought too trifling to have deserved a grave notice. I see in it, however, an ill.u.s.tration very noticeworthy of the temper which was working in the country. The suspicion of treason in the Neville family may not have been confirmed, although we see them casting longing looks on the lost inheritance of Warwick; but their confessions betray the visions of impending change, anarchy, and confusion, which were haunting the popular imagination. A craving after prophecies, a restless eagerness to search into the future by abnormal means, had infected all ranks from the highest to the lowest; and such symptoms, when they appear, are a sure evidence of approaching disorder, for they are an evidence of a present madness which has brought down wisdom to a common level with folly. At such times, the idlest fancy is more potent with the mind than the soundest arguments of reason. The understanding abdicates its functions; and men are given over, as if by magic, to the enchantments of insanity.

Phenomena of this eccentric kind always accompany periods of intellectual change. Most men live and think by habit; and when habit fails them, they are like unskilful sailors who have lost the landmarks of their course, and have no compa.s.s and no celestial charts by which to steer. In the years which preceded the French Revolution, Cagliostro was the companion of princes,--at the dissolution of paganism the practicers of curious arts, the witches and the necromancers, were the sole objects of reverence in the Roman world; and so, before the Reformation, archbishops and cardinals saw an inspired prophetess in a Kentish servant-girl; Oxford heads of colleges sought out heretics with the help of astrology; Anne Boleyn blessed a basin of rings, her royal fingers pouring such virtue into the metal that no disorder could resist it;[219] Wolsey had a magic crystal; and Cromwell, while in Wolsey's household, "did haunt to the company of a wizard."[220] These things were the counterpart of a religion which taught that slips of paper, duly paid for, could secure indemnity for sin. It was well for England that the chief captain at least was proof against the epidemic--no random scandal seems ever to have whispered that such delusions had touched the mind of the king.[221]

[Sidenote: The king incurs the censures of the church.]

While the government were prosecuting these inquiries at home, the law at the Vatican had run its course; November pa.s.sed, and as no submission had arrived, the sentence of the 12th of July came into force, and the king, the queen, and the Archbishop of Canterbury were declared to have incurred the threatened censures.

[Sidenote: Measures of the Council.]

[Sidenote: Renewed suggestion of a Protestant league.]

The privy council met on the 2d of December, and was determined in consequence that copies of the "Act of Appeals," and of the king's "provocation" to a general council, should be fixed without delay on every church-door in England. Protests were at the same time to be drawn up and sent into Flanders, and to the other courts in Europe, "to the intent the falsehood and injustice of the Bishop of Rome might appear to all the world." The defences of the country were to be looked to; and "spies" to be sent into Scotland to see "what they intended there," "and whether they would confeder themselves with any outward princes."

Finally, it was proposed that the attempt to form an alliance with the Lutheran powers should be renewed on a larger scale; that certain discreet and grave persons should be appointed to conclude "some league or amity with the princes of Germany,"--"that is to say, the King of Poland, the King of Hungary,[222] the Duke of Saxony, the Duke of Bavaria, the Duke of Brandenburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, and other potentates."[223] Vaughan's mission had been merely tentative, and had failed. Yet the offer of a league, offensive and defensive, the immediate and avowed object of which was a general council at which the Protestants should be represented, might easily succeed where vague offers of amity had come to nothing. The formation of a Protestant alliance, however, would have been equivalent to a declaration of war against Catholic Europe; and it was a step which could not be taken, consistently with the Treaty of Calais, without first communicating with Francis.

[Sidenote: The King writes to Francis, menacing him with this expedient.]

[Sidenote: December 2.]

[Sidenote: A Protestant alliance highly desirable to put an end to the usurpation of the pope.]

[Sidenote: He will not act, however, without first consulting his good brother.]

Henry, therefore, by the advice of the council, wrote a despatch to Sir John Wallop, the amba.s.sador at Paris, which was to be laid before the French court. He explained the circ.u.mstances in which he was placed, with the suggestion which the council had made to him. He gave a list of the princes with whom he had been desired by his ministers to connect himself,--and the object was nothing less than a coalition of Northern Europe. He recapitulated the injuries which he had received from the pope, who at length was studying "to subvert the rest and peace of the realm "; "yea, and so much as in him was, utterly to destroy the same."

The n.o.bles and council, he said, for their own sake as well as for the sake of the kingdom, had entreated him to put an end, once for all, to the pope's usurpation; and to invite the Protestant princes, for the universal weal of Christendom, to unite in a common alliance. In his present situation he was inclined to act upon this advice. "As concerning his own realm, he had already taken such order with his n.o.bles and subjects, as he would shortly be able to give to the pope such a buffet as he never had heretofore; "but as a German alliance was a matter of great weight and importance, "although," he concluded, "we consider it to be right expedient to set forth the same with all diligence, yet we intend nothing to do therein without making our good brother first privy thereunto. And for this cause and consideration only, you may say that we have at this time addressed these letters unto you, commanding you to declare our said purpose unto our good brother, and to require of him on our behalf his good address and best advice. Of his answer we require you to advertise us with all diligence, for according thereunto we intend to attemper our proceedings. We have lately had advertis.e.m.e.nts how that our said good brother should, by the labour of divers affectionate Papists, be minded to set forth something with his clergy in advancement of the pope and his desires. This we cannot believe that he will do."[224]

[Sidenote: Meaning of this letter. He will join Germany sooner than yield to the pope, but he trusts that Francis will not drive him to it.]