History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth Volume III Part 43

[310] Details of the equipments of many of these fortresses lie scattered among the State Papers. The expenses were enormous, but were minutely recorded.

[311] On whatever side we turn in this reign, we find the old and the new in collision. While the harbours, piers, and the fortresses were rising at Dover, an ancient hermit tottered night after night from his cell to a chapel on the cliff, and the tapers on the altar, before which he knelt in his lonely orisons, made a familiar beacon far over the rolling waters. The men of the rising world cared little for the sentiment of the past. The anchorite was told sternly by the workmen that his light was a signal to the king's enemies, and must burn no more; and when it was next seen, three of them waylaid the old man on his road home, threw him down, and beat him cruelly.--_MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. x.x.xIII.

[312] Lord Montague, on the 24th of March, 1537, said, "I dreamed that the king was dead. He is not dead, but he will die one day suddenly, his leg will kill him, and then we shall have jolly stirring."--Trial of Lord Montague: _Baga de Secretis_. The king himself, in explaining to the Duke of Norfolk his reason for postponing his journey to Yorks.h.i.+re in the past summer, said: "To be frank with you, which we desire you in any wise to keep to yourself, being an humour fallen into our legs, and our physicians therefore advising us in no wise to take so far a journey in the heat of the year, whereby the same might put us to further trouble and displeasure, it hath been thought more expedient that we should, upon that respect only, though the grounds before specified had not concurred with it, now change our determination."--_State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 555.

[313] "I a.s.sure your lords.h.i.+p his Grace is very sorry that ye might not be here to make good cheer as we do. He useth himself more like a good fellow among us that be here, than like a king, and, thanked be G.o.d, I never saw him merrier in his life than he is now."--Sir John Russell to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. x.x.xVI.

[314] "Michael Throgmorton gave great charge to William Vaughan to enquire if there had been any communication upon the opinions of the physicians, whether the Queen's Grace were with child with a man child or not."--Hutton to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 703.

[315] _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 570.

[316] Latimer to Cromwell: _State Paper Office_, Vol. I. p. 571.

[317] Hall is made to say she died on the 14th. The mistake was due probably to the printer. He is unlikely himself to have made so large an error.

[318] _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 1.

[319] Sir John Russell to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. x.x.xVI.; _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 573.

[320] Hall, p. 825.

[321] Leland wrote an ode on the occasion, which is not without some beauty:--

Spes erat ampla quidem numerosa prole Joanna Henric.u.m ut faceret regem facunda parentem.

Sed Superis aliter visum est, cruciatus acerbus Distorsit vacuum lethali tormine ventrem.

Frigora crediderim temere contracta fuisse In causa, superat vis morbi: jamque salute Desperata omni, nymphis haec rettulit almis.

Non mihi mors curae est, perituram agnosco creavit Omnipotens--Moriar--terram tibi debeo terra: At pius Elysiis animus spatiabitur hortis.

Deprecor hoc unum. Maturos filius annos Exigat, et tandem regno det jura paterno.

Dixit et aeterna claudebat lumina nube.

Nulla dies pressit graviori clade Britannum.

_Genethliacon Edwardi Principis._

[322] _Rolls House MS._, A 2, 30. I trace the report to within a month of Jane Seymour's death. Sanders therefore must be held acquitted of the charge of having invented it. The circ.u.mstances of the death itself are so clear as to leave no trace of uncertainty. How many of the interesting personal anecdotes of remarkable people, which have gained and which retain the public confidence, are better founded than this?

Prudence, instructed by experience, enters a general caution against all anecdotes particularly striking.

[323] _Rolls House MS._ A 2, 30.

[324] Instructions for the Household of Edward Prince of Wales: _Rolls House MS._

[325] _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 2.

[326] Pole to the Bishop of Liege: _Epist._ Vol. II. p. 41.

[327] Nott's _Wyatt_, p. 312.

[328] Nott's _Wyatt_, p. 319.

[329] Ibid.

[330] Ibid. p. 322.

[331] Mary's submission dates from the fall of Anne Boleyn. It was offered by her on the instant, in three successive letters; two of which are printed in the State Papers, a third is in MS. in the State Paper Office.

[332] "And here Sir Thomas Wyatt shall deliver unto the Emperor the letter written unto him from the said Lady Mary, whereby it shall appear how she doth repent herself, and how she would that he should repent, and take of her the tenour. Whereof it shall like him to consider, it is not to be thought but it will acquit him therein, his Grace, nevertheless, being so good a lord and father to her as he is, and undoubtedly will be."--Instructions to Sir Thomas Wyatt: Nott's _Wyatt_, p. 314.

[333] Cromwell to Wyatt: Nott, p. 321.

[334] State Papers, Vol. VIII., p. 34.

[335] "My lord: this shall be to advertise you that the Imperials and Frenchmen have taken a truce for ten months, which, as we think, be great news, and of great weight and moment. Howbeit, my trust is, the King's Highness knows what is the occasion of this sudden turn, or else it will trouble my brain to think of it."--Sir William Fitzwilliam to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. XI.

[336] Henry VIII. to Wyatt: Nott's _Wyatt_.

[337] Cromwell to Wyatt, November 29, 1537: Nott's _Wyatt_.

[338] Better known as Mary of Guise, mother of Mary Queen of Scots.

[339] Commission of Peter Mewtas to Madame de Longueville: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 10.

[340] Hutton to Sir Thomas Wriothesley: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 9.

[341] Henry VIII. to Sir Thomas Wyatt: Nott's _Wyatt_.

[342] Same to the same: Ibid.

[343] _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 17.

[344] Hutton to Cromwell: Ibid.

[345] A story pa.s.ses current with popular historians, that the d.u.c.h.ess of Milan, when Henry proposed for her, replied that she had but one head; if she had two, one should be at his Majesty's service. The less active imagination of contemporaries was contented with reporting that she had said that the English ministers need not trouble themselves to make the marriage; "they would lose their labours, for she minded not to fix her heart that way." Sir Thomas Wriothesley, who was then resident at Brussels, thought it worth his while to ask her whether these words had really been used by her.

"M. Amba.s.sador," she replied, "I thank G.o.d He hath given me a better stay of myself than to be of so light sort. I a.s.sure you, that neither those words that you have spoken, nor any like to them, have pa.s.sed at any time from my mouth: and so I pray you report for me."

Wriothesley took courage upon this answer, and asked what was her real inclination in the matter.

"At this she blushed exceedingly. 'As for mine inclination,' quoth she, 'what should I say? You know I am at the Emperor's commandment.'--'Yea, madam,' quoth Wriothesley; 'but this matter is of such nature, that there must be a concurrence between his commandment and your consent, or else you may percase repent it when it shall be too late. Your answer is such as may serve both for your modesty and for my satisfaction; and yet, if it were a little plainer, I could be the better contented.' With that she smiled, and again said, 'You know I am the Emperor's poor servant, and must follow his pleasure.'--'Marry,' quoth Wriothesley, 'then I may hope to be among the Englishmen that shall be first acquainted with my new mistress, for the Emperor hath instantly desired it. Oh, madam!' quoth he, 'how happy shall you be if it be your chance to be matched with my master. If G.o.d send you that hap, you shall be matched with the most gentle gentleman that liveth; his nature so benign and pleasant, that I think till this day no man hath heard many angry words pa.s.s his lips. As G.o.d shall help me, if he were no king, I think, and you saw him, you would say, that for his virtue, gentleness, wisdom, experience, goodliness of person, and all other qualities meet to be in a prince, he were worthy before all others to be made a king.'... She smiled, and Wriothesley thought would have laughed out, had not her gravity forbidden it.... She said she knew his Majesty was a good and n.o.ble prince. Her honest countenance, he added, and the few words that she wisely spake, together with that which he knew by her chamberers and servants, made him to think there could be no doubt of her."--_State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 146.

[346] "Mr. Wyatt, now handle this matter in such earnest sort with the Emperor, as the king, who by your fair words hath conceived as certain to find a.s.sured friends.h.i.+p therein, be not deceived. The Frenchmen affirm so constantly and boldly that nothing spoken by the Emperor, either touching the princ.i.p.al contrahents or further alliance, hath any manner of good faith, but such fraud and deceit, that I a.s.sure you, on my faith, it would make any man to suspect his proceeding. Labour, Mr.

Wyatt, to cause the Emperor, if it be possible, to write."--Cromwell to Wyatt: Nott's _Wyatt_, p. 333.

[347] Wyatt's Oration to the Judges: Nott's _Wyatt_.

[348] "I have received three houses since I wrote last to your lords.h.i.+p, the which I think would not a little have moved your lords.h.i.+p, if ye had known the order of them: some sticking fast in windows, naked, going to drabs, so that the pillar was fain to be sawed, to have him out; some being plucked from under drabs' beds; some fighting, so that the knife hath stuck in the bones; with such other pretty business, of the which I have too much."--Richard suffragan Bishop of Dover to Cromwell: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 198.

[349] A finger of St. Andrew was p.a.w.ned at Northampton for 40_l._; "which we intend not," wrote a dry visitor, "to redeem of the price, except we be commanded so to do."--Ibid. p. 172.

[350] Printed in Fuller's _Church History_, Vol. III. p. 394.