 CHAPTER XXIII England under Edward IV King Edward IV was not quite twenty-one years of age when he took that unquiet seat upon the throne of England. The Lancaster Party, the Red Roses, were then assembling in great numbers near York, and it was necessary to give them battle instantly. But the stout Earl of Warwick, leading for the young king, and the young king himself closely following him, and the English people crowding round the royal standard, the white and the red roses met on a wild March day when the snow was falling heavily at Tauton, and there such a furious battle raged between them that the total loss amounted to forty thousand men, all Englishmen fighting upon English ground against one another. The young king gained the day, took down the heads of his father and brother from the walls of York, and put up the heads of some of the most famous noblemen engaged in the battle on the other side. Then he went to London and was crowned with great splendour. A new parliament met. No fewer than one hundred and fifty of the principal noblemen and gentlemen on the Lancaster side were declared traitors, and the king, who had very little humanity, though he was handsome in person and agreeable in manners, resolved to do all he could to pluck up the red rose, root, and branch. Queen Margaret, however, was still active for her young son. She obtained help from Scotland and from Normandy, and took several important English castles. But Warwick soon retook them. The queen lost all her treasure on board ship in a great storm, and both she and her son suffered great misfortunes. Once in the winter weather, as they were riding through a forest, they were attacked and plundered by a party of robbers, and when they had escaped from these men and were passing alone and on foot through a thick dark part of the wood, they came, all at once, upon another robber. So the queen, with a stout heart, took the little prince by the hand, and, going straight up to that robber, said to him, My friend, this is the young son of your lawful king. I confide him to your care. The robber was surprised, but took the boy in his arms, and faithfully restored him and his mother to their friends. In the end the queen's soldiers, being beaten and dispersed, she went abroad again, and kept quiet for the present. Now all this time the deposed King Henry was concealed by a Welsh knight who kept him close in his castle. But next year the Lancaster Party, recovering their spirits, raised a large body of men and called him out of his retirement to put him at their head. They were joined by some powerful noblemen who had sworn fidelity to the new king, but who were ready, as usual, to break their oaths whenever they thought there was anything to be got by it. One of the worst things in the history of the War of the Red and White Roses is the ease with which these noblemen, who should have set an example of honor to the people, left either side as they took slight offense or were disappointed in their greedy expectations and joined the other. Well. Warwick's brother soon beat the Lancasterians and the false noblemen being taken were beheaded without a moment's loss of time. The deposed King had a narrow escape. Three of his servants were taken, and one of them bore his cap of estate, which was set with pearls and embroidered with two golden crowns. However, the head to which the cap belonged got safely into Lancashire and lay pretty quietly there, the people in the secret being very true, for more than a year. At length, an old monk gave such intelligence as led to Henry's being taken while he was sitting at dinner in a place called Waddington Hall. He was immediately sent to London and met at Islington by the Earl of Warwick by whose directions he was put upon a horse, with his legs tied under it, and paraded three times round the pillory. Then he was carried off to the tower, where they treated him well enough. The White Rose, being so triumphant, the young King abandoned himself entirely to pleasure and let a jovial life. His thorns were springing up under his bed of roses as he soon found out. Four, having been privately married to Elizabeth Woodville, a young widow lady, very beautiful and very captivating, and at last resolving to make his secret known, and to declare her his queen, he gave some offense to the Earl of Warwick, who was usually called the kingmaker because of his power and influence and because of his having lent such great help to placing Edward on the throne. This offense was not lessened by the jealousy with which the Neville family, the Earl of Warwick's, regarded the promotion of the Woodville family, for the young queen was so bent on providing for her relations that she made her father an Earl and a great officer of state, married her five sisters to young noblemen of the highest rank, and provided for her younger brother, a young man of twenty, by marrying him to an immensely rich old duchess of eighty. The Earl of Warwick took all this pretty graciously for a man of his proud temper until the question arose to whom the king's sister Margaret should be married. The Earl of Warwick said, to one of the French king's sons, and was allowed to go over to the French king to make friendly proposals for that purpose and to hold all manner of friendly interviews with him. But while he was so engaged, the Woodville party married the young lady to the Duke of Burgundy. Upon this he came back in great rage and scorn and shut himself up discontented in his castle of Middelham. A reconciliation, though not a very sincere one, was patched up between the Earl of Warwick and the king and lasted until the Earl married his daughter against the king's wishes to the Duke of Clarence. While the marriage was being celebrated at Calais, the people in the north of England where the influence of the Neville family was strongest broke out into rebellion. Their complaint was that England was oppressed and plundered by the Woodville family whom they demanded to have removed from power. As they were joined by great numbers of people and as they openly declared that they were supported by the Earl of Warwick, the king did not know what to do. At last, as he wrote to the Earl beseeching his aid, he and his new son-in-law came over to England and began to arrange the business by shutting the king up in Middelham Castle in the safekeeping of the Archbishop of York. So England was not only in the strained position of having two kings at once, but they were both prisoners at the same time. Even as yet, however, the king-maker was so far true to the king that he dispersed a new rising of the Lancastrians, took their leader prisoner and brought him to the king who ordered him to be immediately executed. He presently allowed the king to return to London and their innumerable pledges of forgiveness and friendship were exchanged between them and between the Neville's and the Woodville's, the king's eldest daughter was promised in marriage to the heir of the Neville family and more friendly oaths were sworn and more friendly promises made than this book would hold. They lasted about three months. At the end of that time, the Archbishop of York made a feast for the king, the Earl of Warwick, and the Duke of Clarence at his house, the Moor in Hertfordshire. The king was washing his hands before supper when someone whispered him that a body of a hundred men were lying in ambush outside the house. Whether this were true or untrue, the king took fright, mounted his horse, and rode through the dark night to Windsor Castle. Another reconciliation was patched up between him and the king-maker, but it was a short one, and it was the last. A new rising took place in Lickenshire, and the king marched to repress it. Having done so, he proclaimed that both the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence were traitors, who had secretly assisted it and who had been prepared publicly to join it on the following day. In these dangerous circumstances they both took ship and sailed away to the French court. And here a meeting took place between the Earl of Warwick and his old enemy, the Dowager, Queen Margaret, through whom his father had had his head struck off and to whom he had been a bitter foe. But now, when he said that he had done with the ungrateful and perfidious Edward of York, and that henceforth he devoted himself to the restoration of the House of Lancaster, either in the person of her husband or of her little son, she embraced him as if he had ever been her dearest friend. She did more than that. She married her son to his second daughter, the Lady Anne. However agreeable this marriage was to the new friends, it was very disagreeable to the Duke of Clarence, who perceived that his father-in-law, the king-maker, would never make him king now. So being but a weak-minded young traitor, possessed of very little worth or sense, he readily listened to an artful court lady sent over for the purpose, and promised to turn traitor once more and go over to his brother, King Edward, when a fitting opportunity should come. The Earl of Warwick, knowing nothing of this, soon redeemed his promise to the Dowager Queen Margaret by invading England and landing at Plymouth, where he instantly proclaimed King Henry and summoned all Englishmen between the ages of sixteen and sixty to join his banner. Then with his army increasing as he marched along, he went northward and came so near King Edward, who was in that part of the country, that Edward had to ride hard for it to the coast of Norfolk, and thence to get away in such ships as he could find to Holland. Thereupon the triumphant king-maker and his false son-in-law, the Duke of Clarence, went to London, took the old king out of the tower, and walked him in a great procession to St. Paul's Cathedral with the crown upon his head. This did not improve the temper of the Duke of Clarence, who saw himself farther off from being king than ever, but he kept his secret and said nothing. The Neville family were restored to all their honors and glories, and the Woodvilles and the rest were disgraced. The king-maker, less sanguinary than the king, shed no blood except that of the Earl of Worcester, who had been so cruel to the people as to have gained the title of the Butcher. Him they caught hidden in a tree, and him they tried and executed. No other death stained the king-maker's triumph. To dispute this triumph, back came King Edward again next year, landing at Ravensburg, coming on to York, causing all his men to cry, Long live King Henry! and swearing on the altar, without a blush, that he came to lay no claim to the crown. Now was the time for the Duke of Clarence, who ordered his men to assume the white rose and declare for his brother. The Marquis of Montague, though the Earl of Warwick's brother, also declined to fight against King Edward, he went on successfully to London where the Archbishop of York led him into the city and where the people made great demonstrations in his favor. For this they had four reasons. Firstly, there were great numbers of the king's adherents hiding in the city and ready to break out. Secondly, the king owed them a great deal of money which they could never hope to get if he were unsuccessful. Thirdly, there was a young prince to inherit the crown, and fourthly, the king was gay and handsome and more popular than a better man might have been with the city ladies. After a stay of only two days with these worthy supporters, the king marched out to Barnet Common to give the Earl of Warwick battle. And now it was to be seen for the last time whether the king or the king-maker was to carry the day. While the battle was yet pending, the faint hearted Duke of Clarence began to repent and sent over secret messages to his father-in-law offering his services in mediation with the king. But the Earl of Warwick disdainfully rejected them and replied that Clarence was false and perjured and that he would settle the quarrel by sword. The battle began at four o'clock in the morning and lasted until ten, and during the greater part of the time it was fought in a thick mist, absurdly supposed to be raised by a magician. The loss of life was very great, for the hatred was strong on both sides. The king-maker was defeated and the king triumphed. Both the Earl of Warwick and his brother were slain, and their bodies lay in St. Paul's for some days as a spectacle to the people. Great spirit was not broken even by this great blow. Within five days she was in arms again and raised her standard in bath, whence she set off with her army to try and join Lord Pembroke, who had a force in Wales. But the king, coming up with her outside the town of Tuxbury and ordering his brother, the Duke of Gloucester, who was a brave soldier, to attack her men, she sustained an entire defeat and was taken prisoner together with her son, now only eighteen years of age. The conduct of the king to this poor youth was worthy of his cruel character. He ordered him to be led into his tent. And what, said he, brought you to England? I came to England, replied the prisoner, with the spirit which a man of spirit might have admired in a captive, to recover my father's kingdom which descended to him as his right, and from him descends to me as mine. The king, drawing off his iron gauntlet, struck him with it in the face, and the Duke of Clarence and some other lords who were there drew their noble swords and killed him. His mother survived him a prisoner for five years. After her ransom by the king of France she survived for six years more. Within three weeks of this murder Henry died one of those convenient sudden deaths which were so common in the tower, in plainer words, he was murdered by the king's order. Having no particular excitement on his hands after this great defeat of the Lancaster Party, and being perhaps desirous to get rid of some of his fat, for he was now getting too corpulent to be handsome, the king thought of making war on France. As he wanted more money for this than the parliament could give him, though they were usually ready enough for war, he invented a new way of raising it, by sending for the principal citizens of London and telling them, with a grave face, that he was very much in want of cash and would take it very kind in them if they would lend him some. It being impossible for them safely to refuse, they complied, and the monies thus forced from them were called, no doubt to the great amusement of the king and the court, as if they were free gifts, benevolences. What with grants from parliament and what with benevolences, the king raised an army and passed over to Calais. As nobody wanted war, however, the French king made proposals of peace which were accepted, and a truce was concluded for seven long years. The proceedings between the kings of France and England on this occasion were very friendly, very splendid, and very distrustful. They finished with a meeting between the two kings on a temporary bridge over the River Somme, where they embraced through two holes in a strong wooden grating like a lion's cage, and made several bows and fine speeches to one another. It was time now that the Duke of Clarence should be punished for his treacheries, and fate had his punishment in store. He was, probably, not trusted by the king, for who could trust him, who knew him, and he had certainly a powerful opponent in his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who, being avaricious and ambitious, wanted to marry that widowed daughter of the Earl of Warwick's who had been espoused to the deceased young prince at Calais. Clarence, whom wanted all the family wealth for himself, secreted this lady, whom Richard found disguised as a servant in the city of London, and whom he married. Arbitrators appointed by the king then divided the property between the brothers. This led to ill will and mistrust between them. Clarence's wife dying, and he wishing to make another marriage, which was obnoxious to the king, his ruin was hurried by that means, too. At first the court struck at his retainers and dependents, and accused some of them of magic and witchcraft, and similar nonsense. Successful against this small game, it then mounted to the Duke himself, who was impeached by his brother the king in person on a variety of such charges. He was found guilty, and is sentenced to be publicly executed. He never was publicly executed, but he met his death somehow in the tower and, no doubt, through some agency of the king or his brother Gloucester, or both. It was supposed at the time that he was told to choose the manner of his death, and that he chose to be drowned in a butt of mom's e'wine. I hope the story may be true, for it would have been a becoming death for such a miserable creature. The king survived him some five years. He died in the forty-second year of his life and the twenty-third of his reign. He had a very good capacity and some good points, but he was selfish, careless, sensual, and cruel. He was a favorite with the people for his showy manners, and the people were a good example to him in the constancy of their attachment. He was penitent on his deathbed for his benevolences and other extortions, and ordered restitution to be made to the people who had suffered from them. He also called about his bed the enriched members of the Woodville family, and the proud lords whose honors were of older date, and endeavored to reconcile them for the sake of the peaceful succession of his son and the tranquillity of England. CHAPTER XXIV The late king's eldest son, the Prince of Wales, called Edward after him, was only thirteen years of age at his father's death. He was at Ludlow Castle with his uncle, the Earl of Rivers. The prince's brother, the Duke of York, only eleven years of age, was in London with his mother. The boldest, most crafty, and most adreded nobleman in England at that time was their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and everybody wondered how the two poor boys would fare with such an uncle for a friend or a foe. The queen their mother, being exceedingly uneasy about this, was anxious that instructions should be sent to Lord Rivers to raise an army to escort the young king safely to London. But Lord Hastings, who was of the court-party opposed to the Woodvilles, and who disliked the thought of giving them that power, argued against the proposal, and obliged the queen to be satisfied with an escort of two thousand horse. The Duke of Gloucester did nothing at first to justify suspicion. He came from Scotland, where he was commanding an army, to York, and was there, the first to swear allegiance to his nephew. He then wrote a condoling letter to the queen mother, and set off to be present at the coronation in London. Now the young king, journeying towards London, too, with Lord Rivers and Lord Gray, came to Stony Stratford, as his uncle came to Northampton, about ten miles distant, and when those two lords heard that the Duke of Gloucester was so near, they proposed to the young king that they should go back and greet him in his name. The boy being very willing that they should do so, they wrote off and were received with great friendliness, and asked by the Duke of Gloucester to stay and dine with him. In the evening, while they were married together, up came the Duke of Buckingham, with three hundred horsemen, and next morning the two lords and the two dukes, and the three hundred horsemen, rode away together to rejoin the king. Just as they were entering Stony Stratford, the Duke of Gloucester, checking his horse, suddenly turned on the two lords, charged them with alienating from him the affections of his sweet nephew, and caused them to be arrested by the three hundred horsemen, and taken back. Then he and the Duke of Buckingham went straight to the king, to whom they had now in their power, to whom they made a show of kneeling down, and offering great love and submission, and then they ordered his attendants to disperse, and took him alone with them, to Northampton. A few days afterwards they conducted him to London, and lodged him in the bishop's palace, but he did not remain there long, for the Duke of Buckingham, with a tender face, made a speech expressing how anxious he was for the royal boy's safety, and how much safer he would be in the tower, until his coronation, than he could be anywhere else. So to the tower he was taken, very carefully, and the Duke of Gloucester was named Protector of the State. Although Gloucester had proceeded thus far with a very smooth countenance, and although he was a clever man, fair of speech, and not ill-looking, in spite of one of his shoulders being something higher than the other, and although he had come into the city riding bare-headed at the king's side, and looking very fond of him. He had made the king's mother more uneasy yet, and when the royal boy was taken to the tower, she became so alarmed that she took sanctuary in Westminster with her five daughters. Nor did she do this without reason, for the Duke of Gloucester, finding that the lords who were opposed to the Woodville family were faithful to the young king nevertheless, quickly resolved to strike a blow for himself. Accordingly, while those lords met in council at the tower, he and those who were in his interest met in separate council at his own residence, Crosby Palace, in Bishop Gate Street. Being at last quite prepared, he one day appeared unexpectedly at the council in the tower, and appeared to be very jocular and merry. He was particularly gay with the bishop of Eli, praising the strawberries that grew in his garden on Holburn Hill, and asking him to have some gathered that he might eat them at dinner. The bishop, quite proud of the honour, sent one of his men to fetch some, and the Duke, still very jocular and gay, went out, and the council all said what a very agreeable Duke he was, in a little time however, he came back quite altered, not at all jocular, frowning and fierce, and suddenly said, What do those persons deserve who have compassed my destruction, I being the king's lawful as well as natural protector? To this strange question Lord Hastings replied that they deserved death whosoever they were. Then, said the Duke, I tell you that they are that sorceress my brother's wife, meaning the queen, and that other sorceress, Jane Shore, who by witchcraft have withered my body, and caused my arm to shrink, as I now show you. He then pulled up his sleeve and showed them his arm, which was shrunken, it is true, but which had been so, as they all very well knew, from the hour of his birth. Jane Shore, being then the lover of Lord Hastings, as she had formerly been of the late King, that Lord knew that he himself was attacked, so he said, in some confusion, Certainly my Lord, if they have done this, they be worthy of punishment. If, said the Duke of Gloucester, do you talk to me of ifs? I tell you that they have so done, and I will make it good upon thy body, thou traitor. With that he struck the table a great blow with his fist. This was a signal to some of his people outside to cry, treason! They immediately did so, and there was a rush into the chamber of so many armed men, that it was filled in a moment. First, said the Duke of Gloucester to Lord Hastings, I arrest the traitor, and let him, he added, to the armed men who took him, have a priest at once, for by St. Paul I will not dine until I have seen his head off. Lord Hastings was hurried to the green by the Tower Chapel, and there beheaded, on a log of wood that happened to be lying on the ground. Then the Duke dined with a good appetite, and after dinner summoning the principal citizens to attend him, told them that Lord Hastings and the rest had designed to murder both himself and the Duke of Buckingham who stood by his side if he had not providentially discovered their design. He requested them to be so obliging as to inform their fellow citizens of the truth of what he said, and issued a proclamation, ordered, and neatly copied out beforehand, to the same effect. On the same day that the Duke did these things in the Tower, Sir Richard Ratcliffe, the boldest and most undaunted of his men, went down to Pontefract, arrested Lord Rivers, Lord Gray, and two other gentlemen, and publicly executed them on the scaffold, without any trial for having intended the Duke's death. Three days afterwards the Duke, not to lose time, went down the river to Westminster in his barge, attended by divers, bishops, lords, and soldiers, and demanded that the Queen should deliver her second son, the Duke of York, into his safekeeping. The Queen, being obliged to comply, resigned the child after she had wept over him, and Richard of Gloucester placed him with his brother in the Tower. Then he seized Jane Shore, and because she had been the lover of the late King, confiscated her property, and got her sentenced to do public penance in the streets, by walking in a scanty dress, with bare feet, and carrying a lighted candle to St. Paul's Cathedral, through the most crowded part of the city. Having now all things ready for his own advancement, he caused a friar to preach a sermon at the cross, which stood in front of St. Paul's Cathedral, in which he dwelt upon the profligate manors of the late King, and upon the late shame of Jane Shore, and hinted that the princes were not his children. Whereas good people, said the friar, whose name was Shaw, my Lord the Protector, the noble Duke of Gloucester, that sweet prince, the pattern of all the noblest virtues, is the perfect image and express likeness of his father. There had been a little plot between the Duke and the friar, that the Duke should appear in the crowd at this moment, when it was expected that the people would cry, Long live King Richard! But either through the friar saying the words too soon, or through the Duke's coming too late, the Duke and the words did not come together, and the people only laughed, and the friar sneaked off, ashamed. The Duke of Buckingham was a better hand at such business than the friar, so he went to the Guildhall the next day, and addressed the citizens in the Lord Protector's behalf. A few dirty men who had been hired and stationed there for the purpose, crying when he had done, God save King Richard! He made them a great bow, and thanked them with all his heart. Next day, to make an end of it, he went with the mayor and some lords, and citizens to Baird Castle by the river, where Richard then was, and read an address, humbly in treating him to accept the crown of England. Richard who looked down upon them out of a window, and pretended to be in great uneasiness and alarm, assured them there was nothing he desired less, and that his deep affection for his nephews forbade him to think of it. To this the Duke of Buckingham replied, with pretended warmth, that the free people of England would never submit to his nephew's rule, and that if Richard, who was the lawful heir, refused the crown, why then they must find someone else to wear it? The Duke of Gloucester returned, that since he used that strong language it became his painful duty to think no more of himself, and to accept the crown. Upon that the people cheered and dispersed, and the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Buckingham passed a pleasant evening, talking over the play they had just acted with so much success, and every word of which they had prepared together. CHAPTER XXV England under Richard the Third King Richard the Third was up betimes in the morning, and went to Westminster Hall. In the hall was a marble seat, upon which he sat himself down between two great noblemen, and told the people that he began the new reign in that place, because the first duty of a sovereign was to administer the laws equally to all, and to maintain justice. He then mounted his horse and rode back to the city, where he was received by the clergy and the crowd as if he really had a right to the throne, and really were a just man. The clergy and the crowd must have been rather ashamed of themselves in secret, I think, for being such poor spirited knaves. The new king and his queen were soon crowned with a great deal of show and noise which the people liked very much, and then the king set forth on a royal progress through his dominions. He was crowned a second time at York in order that the people might have show and noise enough, and wherever he went was received with shouts of rejoicing from a good many people of strong lungs who were paid to strain their throats in crying, God save King Richard! The plan was so successful that I am told it has been imitated since by other usurpers and other progresses through other dominions. While he was on this journey King Richard stayed a week at Warwick, and from Warwick he sent instructions home for one of the wickedest murders that ever was done, the murder of the two young princes, his nephews, who were shut up in the Tower of London. Sir Robert Brackenberry was at that time Governor of the Tower. To him by the hands of a messenger named John Green did King Richard send a letter ordering him by some means to put the two young princes to death. But Sir Robert, I hope because he had children of his own and loved them, sent John Green back again riding and spurring along the dusty roads with the answer that he could not do so horrible a piece of work. The King, having frowningly considered a little, called to him Sir James Tyrell, his master of the horse, and to him give authority to take command of the Tower whenever he would for twenty-four hours and to keep all the keys of the Tower during that space of time. Tyrell, well-knowing what was wanted, looked about him for two hardened Ruffians and chose John Dighton, one of his own grooms, and Miles Forrest, who was a murderer by trade. Having secured these two assistants he went, upon a day in August, to the Tower, showed his authority from the King, took the command for four and twenty hours, and obtained possession of the keys. And when the black night came he went creeping, creeping, like a guilty villain as he was, up the dark stone-winding stairs, and along the dark stone passages, until he came to the door of the room where the two young princes, having said their prayers, lay fast asleep, clasped in each other's arms. And while he watched and listened at the door, he sent in those evil demons John Dighton and Miles Forrest, who smothered the two princes with the bed and pillows, and carried their bodies down the stairs, and buried them under a great heap of stones at the staircase foot. And when the day came he gave up the command of the Tower and restored the keys, and hurried away without once looking behind him, and Sir Robert Brackenberry went with fear and sadness to the princes' room, and found the princes gone for ever. You know, through all this history, how true it is that traders are never true, and you will not be surprised to learn that the Duke of Buckingham soon turned against King Richard, and joined a great conspiracy that was formed to dethrone him, and to place the crown upon its rightful owner's head. Richard had meant to keep the murder secret, but when he heard through his spies that this conspiracy existed, and that many lords and gentlemen drank in secret to the house of the two young princes in the Tower, he made it known that they were dead. The conspirators, though thwarted for a moment, soon resolved to set up for the crown against the murderous Richard, Henry Earl of Richmond, grandson of Catherine, that widow of Henry V, who married Owen Tudor. And as Henry was of the House of Lancaster, they proposed that he should marry the Princess Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the late King, now the heiress of the House of York, and thus by uniting the rival families put an end to the fatal wars of the red and white roses. All being settled, a time was appointed for Henry to come over from Brittany, and for a great rising against Richard to take place in several parts of England at the same hour. On a certain day therefore, in October, the revolt took place, but unsuccessfully. Richard was prepared, Henry was driven back at sea by a storm, his followers in England were dispersed, and the Duke of Buckingham was taken, and at once beheaded in the marketplace at Salisbury. The time of his success was a good time, Richard thought, for summoning a Parliament and getting some money. So a Parliament was called, and it flattered and fawned upon him as much as he could possibly desire, and declared him to be the rightful King of England, and his only son Edward, then eleven years of age, the next heir to the throne. Richard knew full well that let the Parliament say what it would, the Princess Elizabeth was remembered by people as the heiress of the House of York, and having accurate information besides of its being designed by the conspirators to marry her to Henry of Richmond, he felt that it would much strengthen him and weaken them to be beforehand with them and marry her to his son. With this view he went to the sanctuary at Westminster, where the late King's widow and her daughter still were, and besought them to come to court, where, he swore by anything and everything, they should be safely and honourably entertained. They came accordingly, but had scarcely been at court a month when his son died suddenly, or was poisoned, and his plan was crushed to pieces. In this extremity King Richard always active thought, I must make another plan, and he made the plan of marrying the Princess Elizabeth himself, although she was his niece. There was one difficulty in the way, his wife, the Queen Anne, was alive. But he knew, remembering his nephews, how to remove that obstacle, and he made love to the Princess Elizabeth, telling her he felt perfectly confident that the Queen would die in February. The Princess was not a very scrupulous young lady, for instead of rejecting the murderer of her brothers with scorn and hatred, she openly declared she loved him dearly. And when February came and the Queen did not die, she expressed her impatient opinion that she was too long about it. However, King Richard was not so far out in his prediction, but that she died in March, he took good care of that, and then this precious pair hoped to be married. But they were disappointed, for the idea of such a marriage was so unpopular in the country that the King's chief councillors, Ratcliffe and Catesby, would by no means undertake to propose it, and the King was even obliged to declare in public that he had never thought of such a thing. He was by this time dreaded and hated by all classes of his subjects. His nobles deserted every day to Henry's side. He dared not call another Parliament, lest his crimes should be denounced there. And for want of money he was obliged to get benevolences from the citizens, which exasperated them all against him. It was said, too, that being stricken by his conscience, he dreamed frightful dreams, and started up in the night time, wild with terror and remorse. Active to the last, through all this, he issued vigorous proclamations against Henry of Richmond and all his followers when he heard that they were coming against him with a fleet from France, and took the field as fierce and savage as a wild boar, the animal represented on his shield. Henry of Richmond landed with six thousand men at Milford Haven, and came on against King Richard, then encamped at Leicester, with an army twice as great, through North Wales. On Bosworth Field the two armies met, and Richard, looking along Henry's ranks, and seeing them crowded with the English nobles who had abandoned him, turned pale when he beheld the powerful Lord Stanley and his son, whom he had tried hard to retain among them. But he was as brave as he was wicked, and plunged into the thickest of the fight. He was riding hither and thither, laying about him in all directions, when he observed the Earl of Northumberland, one of his few great allies, to stand inactive, and the main body of his troops, to hesitate. At the same moment his desperate glance caught Henry of Richmond among a little group of his knights. Riding hard at him and crying, "'Treezen!' he killed his standard-bearer, fiercely unhorsed another gentleman, and aimed a powerful stroke at Henry himself to cut him down. But Sir William Stanley parried it as it fell, and before Richard could raise his arm again he was borne down in oppressive numbers, unhorsed, and killed. Lord Stanley picked up the crown, all bruised and trampled, and stained with blood, and put it upon Richmond's head, amid loud and rejoicing cries of a long live King Henry. That night a horse was led up to the church of the Grey Friars at Leicester, a cross whose back was tied, like some worthless sack, a naked body brought there for burial. It was the body of the last of the Plantagenet line. King Richard III usurper and murderer, slain at the battle of Bosworth Field, in the thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of two years. CHAPTER XXVI of a child's history of England King Henry VII did not turn out to be as fine a fellow as the nobility and people hoped in the first joy of their deliverance from Richard III. He was cold, crafty and calculating, and would do almost anything for money. He possessed considerable ability, but his chief merit appears to have been that he was not cruel when there was nothing to be got by it. The new King had promised the nobles, who had espoused his cause, that he would marry the Princess Elizabeth. The first thing he did was to direct her to be removed from the castle of Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire, where Richard had placed her and restored to the care of her mother in London. The young Earl of Warwick, Edward Plantagenet, son and heir of the Duke of Clarence, had been kept a prisoner in the same old Yorkshire castle with her. This boy, who was now fifteen, the new King placed in the Tower for safety. Then he came to London in great state, and gratified the people with a fine procession, on which kind of show he often very much relied for keeping them in good humour. The sports and feasts which took place were followed by a terrible fever, called the Sweating Sickness, of which great numbers of people died. Lord Mayers and Alderman, are thought to have suffered most from it, whether because they were in the habit of over-eating themselves, or because they were very jealous of preserving filth and nuisances in the city, as they have been since, I don't know. The King's coronation was postponed on account of the general ill-health, and he afterwards deferred his marriage as if he were not very anxious that it should take place, and even, after that, deferred the Queen's coronation, so long that he gave offence to the York party. However, he set these things right in the end, by hanging some men and seizing on the rich possessions of others, by granting more popular pardons to the followers of the late King than could at first be got from him, and, by employing about his court, some very scrupulous persons who had been employed in the previous reign. As this reign was principally remarkable for two very curious impostors which have become famous in history, we will make those two stories its principal feature. There was a priest at Oxford of the name of Simons, who had for a pupil a handsome boy named Lambert Simnall, the son of a baker, partly to gratify his own ambitious ends, and partly to carry out the designs of a secret party formed against the King. This priest declared that his pupil, the boy, was no other than the young Earl of Warwick, who, as everybody might have known, was safely locked up in the Tower of London. The priest and the boy went over to Ireland, and at Dublin enlisted in the cause all ranks of the people who seemed to have been generous enough, but exceedingly irrational. The Earl of Kildare, the governor of Ireland, declared that he believed the boy to be what the priest represented, and the boy, who had been tutored by the priest, told them such things of his childhood, and gave them so many descriptions of the royal family that they were perpetually shouting and hurrying, and drinking his health, and making all kinds of noisy and thirsty demonstrations to express their belief in him. Nor was this feeling confined to Ireland alone, for the Earl of Lincoln, whom the late usurper had named as his successor, went over to the young pretender, and after holding a secret correspondence with the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy, the sister of Edward IV, who detested the present king and all his race, sailed to Dublin with two thousand German soldiers of her providing. In this promising state of the boy's fortunes, he was crowned there, with a crown taken off the head of a statue of the Virgin Mary, and was then, according to the Irish custom of those days, carried home on the shoulders of a big chieftain, possessing a great deal more strength and sense. Father Simon's, you may be sure, was mighty busy at the coronation. Ten days afterwards, the Germans and the Irish and the priests and the boy, and the Earl of Lincoln, all landed in Lancashire to invade England. The king, who had good intelligence of their movements, set up his standard at Nottingham, where vast numbers resorted to him every day, while the Earl of Lincoln could gain but very few. With his small force he tried to make for the town of Newark, but the king's army, getting between him and that place, he had no choice but to risk a battle at stoke. It soon ended in the complete destruction of the pretender's forces, one half of whom were killed, among them the Earl himself. The priest and the baker's boy were taken prisoners. The priest, after confessing the trick, was shut up in prison, where he afterwards died. Suddenly, perhaps, the boy was taken into the king's kitchen, and made a turn spit. He was afterwards raised to the station of one of the king's falconers, and so ended this strange imposition. There seems reason to suspect that the Dowager Queen, always a restless and busy woman, had had some share in tutoring the baker's son. The king was very angry with her, whether or no. He seized upon her property and shut her up in a convent at Bermondsey. One might suppose that the end of this story would have put the Irish people on their guard. But they were quite ready to receive a second imposter, as they had received the first. And that same troublesome Duchess of Burgundy soon gave them the opportunity. All of a sudden, they appeared at Cork in a vessel arriving from Portugal, a young man of excellent abilities, a very handsome appearance, and most winning manners, who declared himself to be Richard Duke of York, the second son of King Edward IV. Oh, said some, even of those ready Irish believers, but surely that young prince was murdered by his uncle in the tower. It is supposed so, said the engaging young man, and my brother was killed in that gloomy prison. But I escaped. It doesn't matter how at present, and have been wondering about the world for seven long years. This explanation being quite satisfactory to numbers of the Irish people, they began again to shout and to hurrah, and to drink his health, and to make the noisy and thirsty demonstrations all over again. And the big chieftain in Dublin began to look out for another coronation, and another young king to be carried home on his back. Now King Henry being then on bad terms with France, the French king, Charles VIII, saw that by pretending to believe in the handsome young man, he could trouble his enemies sorely, so he invited him over to the French court, and appointed him a bodyguard, and treated him in all respects as if he really were the Duke of York. Peace, however, being soon concluded between the two kings, the pretended Duke was turned adrift, and wandered for protection to the Duchess of Burgundy. She, after feigning to inquire into the reality of his claims, declared him to be the very picture of a dear departed brother, gave him a bodyguard at a court of 30 albediers, and called him by the sounding name of the White Rose of England. The leading members of the White Rose Party in England sent over an agent named Sir Robert Clifford to ascertain whether the White Rose's claims were good. The king also sent over his agents to inquire into the Rose's history. The White Roses declared the young man to be really the Duke of York. The king declared him to be Perkin Warbeck, the son of a merchant of the city of Ternay, who had acquired his knowledge of England, its language and manners, from the English merchants who traded in Flanders. It was also stated by the royal agents that he had been in the service of Lady Brompton, the wife of an exiled English nobleman, and that the Duchess of Burgundy had caused him to be trained and taught expressly for this deception. The king then required the Archduke Philip, who was the sovereign of Burgundy, to banish this new pretender, or to deliver him up. But as the Archduke replied that he could not control the Duchess in her own land, the king in revenge took the market of English cloth away from Antwerp and prevented all commercial intercourse between the two countries. He also, by arts and bribes, prevailed on Sir Robert Clifford to betray his employers, and he, denouncing several famous English noblemen as being secretly the friends of Perkin Warbeck, the king had three of the foremost executed at once, whether he pardoned the remainder because they were poor, I do not know. But it is only too probable that he refused to pardon one famous nobleman against whom the same Clifford soon afterwards informed separately because he was rich. This was no other than Sir William Stanley, who had saved the king's life at the battle of Bosworth Field. It is very doubtful whether his treason amounted to much more than his having said that if he were sure the young man were the Duke of York, he would not take arms against him. Whatever he had done, he admitted like an honorable spirit, and he lost his head for it, and the covetous king gained all his wealth. Perkin Warbeck kept quiet for three years, but as the Flemings began to complain heavily of the loss of their trade by the stoppage of the Antwerp market on this account, and as it was not unlikely that they might even go so far as to take his life or give him up, he found it necessary to do something. Accordingly he made a desperate sally and landed with only a few hundred men on the coast of deal. But he was soon glad to get back to the place from whence he came, for the country people rose against his followers, killed a great many and took a hundred and fifty prisoners who were all driven to London, tied together with ropes like a team of cattle. Every one of them was hanged on some part or other of the seashore in order that if any more men should come over with Perkin Warbeck they might see the bodies as a warning before they landed. Then the wary king, by making a treaty of commerce with the Flemings, drove Perkin Warbeck out of that country, and by completely gaining over the Irish to his side deprived him of that asylum too. He wandered away to Scotland and told his story at that court. King James IV of Scotland, who was no friend to King Henry, and had no reason to be, for King Henry had bribed his scotched lords to betray him more than once, but had never succeeded in his plots, gave him a great reception and called him his cousin, and gave him in marriage the Lady Catherine Gordon, a beautiful and charming creature related to the royal house of Stuart. Alarmed by the successful reappearance of the pretender, the king still undermined and bought and bribed and kept his doings and Perkin Warbeck's story in the dark. When he might, one would imagine, have rendered the matter clear to all England. But for all this bribing of the scotched lords to the scotched king's court, he could not procure the pretender to be delivered up to him. James, though not very particular in many respects, would not betray him, and the ever busy Duchess of Burgundy so provided him with arms and good soldiers and with money besides that he had soon a little army of fifteen hundred men of various nations. With these, and aided by the Scottish king in person, he crossed the border into England and made a proclamation to the people in which he called the king Henry Tudor, offered large rewards to anyone who should take or distress him, and announced himself as King Richard IV, come to receive the homage of his faithful subjects. His faithful subjects, however, cared nothing for him, and hated his faithful troops, who, being of different nations, quarreled also among themselves. Worse than this, if worse were possible, they began to plunder the country, upon which the white rose said that he would rather lose his rights than gain them through the miseries of the English people. The Scottish king made a jest of his scruples, but they and their whole force went back again without fighting a battle. The worst consequence of this attempt was that a rising took place among the people of Cornwall, who considered themselves too heavily taxed to meet the charges of the expected war. Stimulated by Flammock, a lawyer, and Joseph a blacksmith, and joined by Lord Oggly and some other country gentlemen, they marched on all the way to Detford Bridge, where they fought a battle with the king's army. They were defeated, though the Cornish men fought with great bravery, and the Lord was beheaded, and the lawyer and the blacksmith were hanged drawn and quartered. The rest were pardoned, the king believed every man to be as avaricious as himself, and thought that money could settle anything, allowed them to make bargains for their liberty with the soldiers who had taken them. Perkin Warbeck doomed to wander up and down, and never to find rest anywhere, a sad fate, almost a sufficient punishment for an impostor, which he seems in time to have half believed himself. Lost his Scottish refuge through a truth being made between the two kings, and found himself once more without a country before him in which he could lay his head. But James, always honourable and true to him, alike when he melted down his plate, and even the great gold chain he had been used to wear, to pay soldiers in his cause, and now, when that cause was lost and hopeless, did not conclude the treaty until he had safely departed out of the Scottish dominions. He and his beautiful wife, who was faithful to him under all reserves, and left her state and home to follow his poor fortunes, were put aboard a ship with everything necessary for their comfort and protection, and sailed for Ireland. But the Irish people had had enough of counterfeit earls of warwick and dukes of York for one while, and would give the white rose no aid, so the white rose, encircled by thorns indeed, resolved to go with this beautiful wife to Cornwall as a forlorn resource, and see what might be made of the Cornish men, who had risen so valiantly a little while before, and who had fought so bravely at Depford Bridge. To Whitson Bay, in Cornwall accordingly, came Perkin Warbeck and his wife, and the lovely lady he shut up for safety in the castle of St. Michael's Mount, and then marched into Devonshire at the head of 3,000 Cornishmen. These were increased to 6,000 by the time of his arrival in Exeter, but there the people made a stout resistance, and he went on to Taunton, where he came in sight of the King's army. The stout Cornish men, although they were few in number and badly armed, were so bold that they never thought of retreating, but bravely looked forward to a battle on the morrow, unhappily for them. The man who was possessed of so many engaging qualities, and who attracted so many people to his side, when he had nothing else with which to tempt them, was not as brave as they. In the night, when the two armies lay opposite to each other, he mounted a swift horse and fled. When morning dawned, the poor confiding Cornishmen, discovering that they had no leader, surrendered to the King's power. Some of them were hanged, and the rest were pardoned, and went miserably home. Before the King pursued, Perkin Warbeck to the sanctuary of Bulio, in the new forest, where it was soon known that he had taken refuge, he sent a body of horsemen to St. Michael's Mount to seize his wife. She was soon taken and brought as a captive before the King, but she was so beautiful and so good, and so devoted to the man in whom she believed, that the King regarded her with compassion, treated her with great respect, and placed her at court near the Queen's person. And many years after Perkin Warbeck was no more, and when his strange story had become like a nursery tale, she was called the White Rose by the people in remembrance of her beauty. The sanctuary of Bulio was soon surrounded by the King's men, and the King, pursuing his usual dark, artful ways, sent pretended friends to Perkin Warbeck to persuade him to come out and surrender himself. This he soon did, the King having taken a good look at the man of whom he had heard so much, from behind a screen, directed him to be well-mounted and to ride behind him at a little distance, guarded, but not bound in any way. So they entered London with the King's favourite show, a procession, and some of the people hooted as the pretender rode slowly through the streets to the tower, but the greater part were quiet and very curious to see him. From the tower he was taken to the palace at Westminster, and there lodged like a gentleman, though closely watched. He was examined every now and then as to his imposture, but the King was so secret in all he did, that even then he gave it a consequence which it cannot be supposed to have in itself deserved. At last Perkin Warbeck ran away and took refuge in another sanctuary near Richmond in Surrey. From this he was again persuaded to deliver himself up, and being conveyed to London he stood in the stocks for a whole day, outside Westminster hall, and there read a paper purporting to be his full confession and relating his story as the King's agents had originally described it. He was then shut up in the tower again in the company of the Earl of Warbeck, who had now been there for fourteen years, ever since his removal out of Yorkshire, except when the King had had him at court and had shown him to the people to prove the imposture of the baker's boy. It is but too probable when we consider the crafty character of Henry VII that these two were brought together for a cruel purpose. A plot was soon discovered between them and the keepers to murder the governor, get possession of the keys, and proclaim Perkin Warbeck as King Richard IV, that there was some such plot is likely, that they were tempted into it is at least as likely that the unfortunate Earl of Warbeck last male of the Plantagenet line was too unused to the world and too ignorant and simple to know much about it, whatever it was, is perfectly certain, and that it was the King's interest to get rid of him is no less so. He was beheaded on Tower Hill and Perkin Warbeck was hanged at Tibern. Such was the end of the pretended Duke of York, whose shadowy history was made more shadowy and ever will be by the mystery and craft of the King. If he had turned his great natural advantages through a more honest account, he might have lived a happy and respected life, even in those days. But he died upon a gallows at Tibern, leaving the Scottish lady who had loved him so well, kindly protected at the Queen's Court. After some time, she forgot her old loves and troubles, as many people do with time's merciful assistance and married a Welsh gentleman. Her second husband, Sir Matthew Craddock, more honest and more happy than her first, lies beside her in a tomb in the Old Church of Swansea. The ill blood between France and England and this rain arose out of the continued plotting of the Duchess of Burgundy and disputes respecting the affairs of Brittany. The King feigned to be very patriotic, indignant and warlike, but he always contrived so as never to make war in reality and always to make money his taxation of the people on pretense of war with France involved at one time a very dangerous insurrection headed by Sir John Egremont and a common man called John Ashambra. But it was subdued by the royal forces under the command of the Earl of Surrey. The knighted John escaped to the Duchess of Burgundy, who was ever ready to receive anyone who gave the King trouble and the plain John was hanged at York in the midst of a number of his men, but on a much higher gibbet, as being a greater traitor, hung high or hung low, however, hanging is much the same to the person hung. Within a year after her marriage the Queen had given birth to a son who was called Prince Arthur in remembrance of the old British prince of romance and story and who, when all these events had happened, being then in his 15th year was married to Catherine, the daughter of the Spanish monarch with great rejoicings and bright prospects. But in a very few months he sickened and died. As soon as the King had recovered from his grief, he thought it a pity that the fortune of the Spanish Princess amounting to 200,000 crowns should go out of the family and therefore ranged that the young widow should marry his second son Henry then 12 years of age when he too should be 15. There were objections to this marriage in the part of the clergy but as the infallible Pope was gained over and, as he must be right, that settled the business for the time. The King's eldest daughter was provided for and a long course of disturbance was considered to be set at rest by her being married to the Scottish King. And now the Queen died. When the King had got over that grief too his mind once more reverted to his darling money for consolation and he thought of marrying the Dowager Queen of Naples who was immensely rich but, as it turned out, not to be practicable to gain the money however practicable it might have been to gain the lady he gave up the idea. He was not so fond of her but that he soon proposed to marry the Dowager Duchess of Savoy and soon afterwards the widow of the King of Castile who was raving mad but he made a money bargain instead and married neither. The Duchess of Burgundy among the other discontented people to whom she had given refuge had sheltered Edmund de la Pol younger brother of that Earl of Lincoln who was killed at Stoke now Earl of Suffolk. The King had prevailed upon him to return to the marriage of Prince Arthur but he soon afterwards went away and then the King, suspecting in conspiracy resorted to his favourite plan of sending him from treacherous friends and buying of those scoundrels the secrets they disclosed or invented. Some arrests and executions took place in consequence in the end the King on a promise of not taking his life obtained possession of the person of Edmund de la Pol and shut him up in the tower. This was his last enemy. If he had lived much longer he would have made many more among the people by the grinding exaction to which he constantly exposed them and by the tyrannical acts of his two prime favourites in all money-raising matters Edmund Dudley and Richard Emson. But death, the enemy who is not to be bought off or deceived and on whom no money and no treachery has any effect presented himself at this juncture and ended the King's reign. He died of the gout on the 22nd of April 1,509 and in the 53rd year of his age after reigning 24 years he was buried in the beautiful chapel of Westminster Abbey which he had himself founded and which still bears his name. It was in this reign that the great Christopher Columbus on behalf of Spain discovered what was then called the New World. Great wonder, interest and hope of wealth being awakened in England thereby the King and the merchants of London and Bristol fitted out an English expedition for further discoveries in the New World and entrusted it to Sebastian Cabot of Bristol the son of a Venetian pilot there. He was very successful in his voyage and gained high reputation both for himself and England. End of Chapter 26 Chapter 27 of a Child's History of England This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens Chapter 27 England under Henry VIII called Bluff King Hal and Burley King Harry Part I We now come to King Henry VIII whom it has been too much the fashion to call Bluff King Hal and Burley King Harry and other fine names but whom I shall take the liberty to call plainly one of the most detestable villains that ever drew breath. You will be able to judge long before we come to the end of his life whether he deserves the character. He was just 18 years of age when he came to the throne. People said he was handsome then but I don't believe it. He was a big, burly, noisy, small-eyed, large-faced, double chin, swinish-looking fellow in later life as we know from the likenesses of him painted by the famous Hans Holbein and it is not easy to believe that so bad a character can ever have been veiled under a pre-possessing appearance. He was anxious to make himself popular and the people who had long disliked the late King were very willing to believe that he deserved to be so. He was extremely fond of show and display and so were they. Therefore there was great rejoicing when he married the Princess Catherine and when they were both crowned. And the King fought at tournaments and always came off victorious for the courtiers took care of that and there was a general outcry that he was a wonderful man. Emsen, Dudley and their supporters were accused of a variety of crimes they had never committed instead of the offenses of which they really had been guilty and they were pilloried and set upon horses with their face to the tails and knocked about and beheaded to the satisfaction of the people and to the enrichment of the King. The Pope, so indefatagable in getting the world into trouble had mixed himself up in a war on the continent of Europe occasioned by the reigning princes of little quarreling states in Italy having at various times married into other royal families and so led to their claiming a share in those petty governments. The King, who discovered that he was very fond of the Pope sent a herald to the King of France to say that he must not make war upon that holy personage because he was the father of all Christians. As the French King did not mind this relationship in the least and also refused to admit a claim King Henry made to certain lands in France war was declared between the two countries. Not to perplex this story with an account of the tricks and designs of all the sovereigns who were engaged in it it is enough to say that England made a blundering alliance with Spain and got stupidly taken in by that country which made its own terms with France when it could and left England in the lurch. Sir Edward Howard, a bold admiral, son of the Earl of Surrey distinguished himself by his bravery against the French in this business but unfortunately he was more brave than wise for skimming into the French harbor of Brest with only a few rowboats he attempted, in revenge for the defeat and death of Sir Thomas Canevit another bold English admiral to take some French ships well defended with batteries of cannon the upshot was that he was left on board of one of them in consequence of it shooting away from his own little boat with not more than about a dozen men and was thrown into the sea and drowned though not until he had taken from his Brest his gold chain and gold whistle which were the signs of his office and had cast them into the sea to prevent their being made a boast of by the enemy after this defeat which was a great one for Sir Edward Howard was a man of valor and fame the King took it into his head to invade France in person first executing that dangerous Earl of Suffolk whom his father had left in the tower and appointing Queen Catherine to the charge of his kingdom in his absence he sailed to Calais where he was joined by Maximilian, Emperor of Germany who pretended to be his soldier and who took pay in his service with a good deal of nonsense of that sort flattering enough to the vanity of a vain blusterer the King might be successful enough in sham fights but his idea of real battles chiefly consisted of pitching silk intensive bright colors that were ignomiously blown down by the wind and in making a vast display of gaudy flags and golden curtains Fortune however, favored him better than he deserved for after much waste of time in tent-pitching, flag-flying gold-curtaining and other such masquerading he gave the French battle at a place called Guangate where they took such an unaccountable panic and fled with such swiftness that it was ever afterwards called by the English the Battle of Spurs instead of following up his advantage the King finding that he had had enough of real fighting came home again the Scottish King though nearly related to Henry by marriage had taken part against him in this war the Earl of Surrey as the English general advanced to meet him when he came out of his own dominions and crossed the River Tweed the two armies came up with one another when the Scottish King had also crossed the River Till and was encamped upon the last of the Cheviot Hills called the Hill of Flodden along the plain below it the English when the hour of battle came advanced the Scottish army which had been drawn up in five great bodies then came steadily down in perfect silence so they in their turn advanced to meet the English army which came on in one long line and they attacked it with the body of spearmen under Lord Home at first they had the best of it but the English recovered themselves so bravely and fought with such valor that when the Scottish King had almost made his way up to the Royal Standard he was slain and the whole Scottish power routed ten thousand Scottish men lay dead that day on Flodden field and among them numbers of the nobility and gentry for a long time afterwards the Scottish peasantry used to believe that their king had not really been killed in this battle because no Englishman had found an iron belt that he wore about his body as a penance for having been an unnatural and undutiful son but whatever became of his belt the English had his sword and dagger and the ring from his finger and his body too covered with wounds there was no doubt of it for it was seen and recognized by English gentlemen who had known the Scottish King well when King Henry was making ready to renew the war in France the French King was contemplating peace his queen dying at this time he proposed though he was upwards of fifty years old to marry King Henry's sister the Princess Mary who besides being only sixteen was betrothed to the Duke of Suffolk as the inclinations of young princesses were not much considered in such matters the marriage was concluded and the poor girl was escorted to France where she was immediately left as the French King's bride with only one of all her English attendants that one was a pretty young girl named Anne Boleynne niece of the Earl of Surrey who had been made Duke of Norfolk after the victory of Flawden Field Anne Boleynne's is a name to be remembered as you will presently find and now the French King who was very proud of his young wife was preparing for many years of happiness and she was looking forward I daresay to many years of misery when he died within three months and left her a young widow the new French monarch Francis the first seeing how important it was to his interest that she should take for her second husband no one but an Englishman advised her first lover the Duke of Suffolk when King Henry sent him over to France to fetch her home to marry her the princess being herself so fond of that Duke as to tell him that he must either do so then or forever lose her they were wedded and Henry afterwards forgave them in making interest with the King the Duke of Suffolk had addressed his most powerful favorite and adviser Thomas Woolsey a name very famous in history for its rise and downfall Woolsey was the son of a respectable baker at Ipswich in Suffolk and received so excellent an education that he became a tutor to the family of the Marquis of Dorset who afterwards got him appointed one of the late King's chaplains on the accession of Henry the eighth he was promoted and taken into great favor he was now Archbishop of York the Pope had made him a cardinal besides and whoever wanted influence in England or favor with the King whether he were a foreign monarch or an English nobleman was obliged to make a friend of the great cardinal Woolsey he was a gay man who could dance and jest and sing and drink and those were the roads to so much or rather so little of a heart as King Henry had he was wonderfully fond of pomp and glitter and so is the King he knew a good deal of the church learning of that time much of which consisted in finding artful excuses and pretenses for almost any wrong thing and in arguing that black was white or any other color this kind of learning pleased the King too for many such reasons the cardinal was high in estimation with the King and being a man of far greater ability knew as well how to manage him as a clever keeper may know how to manage a wolf or a tiger or any other cruel and uncertain beast that may turn upon him and tear him any day never had there been in England such a state as my Lord Cardinal kept his wealth was enormous equal it was reckoned to the riches of the crown his palaces were splendid as the Kings and his retinue was eight hundred strong he held his court dressed out from top to toe in flaming scarlet and his very shoes were golden set with precious stones his followers rode on blood horses while he with a wonderful affectation of humility in the midst of this great splendor ambled on a mule with a red velvet saddle and bridal and golden stirrups through the influence of this stately priest a grand meeting was arranged to take place between the French and English Kings in France but on a ground belonging to England a prodigious show of friendship and rejoicing was to be made on the occasion and heralds were sent to proclaim with brazen trumpets through all the principal cities of Europe that on a certain day the kings of France and England as companions and brothers in arms each attended by 18 followers would hold a tournament against all knights who might choose to come Charles the new emperor of Germany the old one being dead wanted to prevent two cordial an alliance between these sovereigns and came over to England before the king could repair to the place of meeting and besides making an agreeable impression upon him secured Woolsey's interest by promising that his influence should make him pope when the next vacancy occurred on the day when the emperor left England the king and all the court went over to Calais and thence to the place of meeting between Ardras and Gizna commonly called the field of the cloth of gold here all manner of expense and prodigality was lavished on the decorations of the show many of the knights and gentlemen being so superbly dressed that it was said they carried their whole estates upon their shoulders there were sham castles temporary chapels fountains running wine great sellers full of wine free as water to all comers silk tents gold lace and foil guilt lions and such things without end and in the midst of all the rich cardinal outshone and out glittered all the noblemen and gentlemen assembled after a treaty made between the two kings with as much solemnity as if they had intended to keep it the lists nine hundred feet long and three hundred and twenty broad were opened for the tournament the queens of France and England looking on with a great array of lords and ladies then for ten days the two sovereigns fought five combatants every day and always beat their polite adversaries though they do write that the king of England being thrown in a wrestle one day by the king of France lost his kingly temper with his brother-in-arms and wanted to make a quarrel of it then there is a great story belonging to this field of the cloth of gold showing how the English were distrustful of the French and the French of the English until Francis wrote alone one morning to Henry's tent and going in before he was out of bed told him in joke that he was his prisoner and how Henry jumped out of bed and embraced Francis and how Francis helped Henry to dress and warmed his linen for him and how Henry gave Francis a splendid jeweled collar and how Francis gave Henry in return a costly bracelet all this in a great deal more was so written about and sung about and talked about at that time and indeed since that time too that the world has had good cause to be sick of it forever of course nothing came of all these fine doings but a speedy renewal of the war between England and France in which the two royal companions and brothers-in-arms longed very earnestly to damage one another but before it broke out again the Duke of Buckingham was shamefully executed on Tower Hill on the evidence of a discharged servant really for nothing except the folly of having believed in a friar of the name of Hopkins who had pretended to be a prophet and who had mumbled and jumbled out some nonsense about the Duke's son being destined to be very great in the land it was believed that the unfortunate Duke had given offense to the great cardinal by expressing his mind freely about the expense and absurdity of the whole business of the field of the cloth of gold at any rate he was beheaded as I have said for nothing and the people who saw it done were very angry and cried out that it was the work of the butcher's son the new war was a short one though the Earl of Surrey invaded France again and did some injury to that country it ended in another treaty of peace between the two kingdoms and in the discovery that the emperor of Germany was not such a good friend to England in reality as he pretended to be neither did he keep his promise to Woolsey to make him pope though the king urged him two popes died in pretty quick succession but the foreign priests were too much for the cardinal and kept him out of the post so the cardinal and king together found out that the emperor of Germany was not a man to keep faith with broke off a projected marriage between the king's daughter Mary princess of Wales and that sovereign and began to consider whether it might not be well to marry the young lady either to Francis himself or to his eldest son there now arose at Wittenberg in Germany the great leader of the mighty change in England which is called the reformation and which set the people free from their slavery to the priests this man was a learned doctor named Martin Luther who knew all about them for he had been a priest and even a monk himself the preaching and writing of Wickliffe had said a number of men thinking on this subject and Luther finding one day to his great surprise that there really was a book called the New Testament which the priest did not allow to be read and which contained truths that they suppressed began to be very vigorous against the whole body from the pope downward it happened while he was only yet beginning his vast work of awakening the nation that an impudent fellow called Tetzel a friar of very bad character came into his neighborhood selling what were called indulgences by wholesale to raise money for beautifying the great cathedral of St. Peter's at Rome whoever bought an indulgence of the pope was supposed to buy himself off from the punishment of heaven for his offenses Luther told the people that these indulgences were worthless bits of paper before God and that Tetzel and his masters were a crew of imposters in selling them the king and the cardinal were mightily indignant at this presumption and the king with the help of Sir Thomas Moore a wise man whom he afterwards repaid by striking off his head even wrote a book about it with which the pope was so well pleased that he gave the king the title of defender of the faith the king and the cardinal also issued flaming warnings to the people not to read Luther's books on pain of excommunication but they did read them for all that and the rumor of what was in them spread far and wide when this great change was thus going on the king began to show himself in his truest and worst colors and Bolin the pretty little girl who had gone abroad to France with his sister was by this time grown up to be very beautiful and was one of the ladies in attendance on Queen Catherine now Queen Catherine was no longer young or handsome and it is likely that she was not particularly good tempered having been always rather melancholy and having been made more so by the deaths of four of her children when they were very young so the king fell in love with the fair and Bolin and said to himself how can I be best rid of my own troublesome wife whom I am tired of and Mary Ann you recall that Queen Catherine had been the wife of Henry's brother what does the king do after thinking it over but calls his favorite priests about him and says oh his mind is in such a dreadful state and he is so frightfully uneasy because he is afraid it was not lawful for him to marry the queen not one of those priests had the courage to hint that it was rather curious he had never thought of that before and that his mind seemed to have been in a tolerably jolly condition during a great many years in which he had certainly not fretted himself then but they all said that was very true and it was a serious business and perhaps the best way to make it right would be for his majesty to be divorced the king replied yes he thought that would be the best way certainly so they all went to work if I were to relate to you the intrigues and plots that took place in the endeavor to get this divorce you would think the history of England the most tiresome book in the world so I shall say no more than that after a vast deal of negotiation and evasion the pope issued a commission to Cardinal Woolsey and to Cardinal Campeggio whom he sent over from Italy for the purpose to try the whole case in England it is supposed and I think with reason that Woolsey was the queen's enemy because she had reproved him for his proud and gorgeous manner of life but he did not at first know that the king wanted to marry Ambulin and when he did know it he even went down on his knees in the endeavor to dissuade him the Cardinals opened their court in the convent of the black friars near to where the bridge of that name in London now stands and the king and queen that they might be near it took up their lodgings at the adjoining palace of Bridewell of which nothing now remains but a bad prison on the opening of the court when the king and queen were called on to appear that poor ill used lady with a dignity and firmness and yet with the womanly affection worthy to be always admired went and kneeled at the king's feet and said she had come a stranger to his dominions that she had been a good and true wife to him for twenty years and that she could acknowledge no power in those Cardinals to try whether she should be considered his wife after all that time or should be put away with that she got up and left the court and would never afterwards come back to it the king pretended to be very much overcome and said oh my lords and gentlemen what a good woman she was to be sure and how delighted he would be to live with her into death but for that terrible uneasiness in his mind which was quite wearing him away so the case went on and there was nothing but talk for two months then Cardinal Campeggio who on behalf of the pope wanted nothing so much as delay adjourned it for two more months and before that time was elapsed the pope himself adjourned it indefinitely by requiring the king and queen to come to Rome and have it tried there but by good luck for the king word was brought to him by some of his people that they had happened to meet at supper Thomas Cranmer a learned doctor of Cambridge who had proposed to urge the pope on by referring the case to all the learned doctors and bishops here and there and everywhere and getting their opinions that the king's marriage was unlawful the king who was now in a hurry to marry Anne Boleyn thought this such a good idea that he sent for Cranmer post-haste and said to Lord Rochefort Anne Boleyn's father take this learned doctor down to your country house and there let him have a good room for a study and no end of books out of which to prove that I may marry your daughter Lord Rochefort not at all reluctant made the learned doctor as comfortable as he could and the learned doctor went to work to prove his case all this time the king and Anne Boleyn were writing letters to one another almost daily full of impatience to have the case settled and Anne Boleyn was showing herself as I think very worthy of the fate which afterwards befell her it was bad for Cardinal Woolsey that he had left Cranmer to render this help it was worse for him that he had tried to dissuade the king from marrying Anne Boleyn such a servant as he to such a master as Henry would probably have fallen in any case but between the hatred of the party of the queen that was and the hatred of the party of the queen that was to be he fell suddenly and heavily going down one day to the court of Chancery where he now presided he was waited upon by the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk who told him that they brought an order to him to resign that office and to withdraw quietly to a house that he had at Escher in Surrey the Cardinal refusing they wrote off to the king and next day came back with a letter from him on reading which the Cardinal submitted an inventory was made out of all the riches in his palace at York Place now Whitehall and he went sorrowfully up the river in his barge to Putney an abject man he was in spite of his pride for being overtaken writing out of that place towards Escher by one of the king's chamberlands who brought him a kind message and a ring he alighted from his mule took off his cap and kneeled down in the dirt his poor fool whom in his prosperous days he had always kept in his palace to entertain him cut a far better figure than he for when the Cardinal said to the chamberland that he had nothing to send to his lord the king as a present but that gesture who was the most excellent one it took six strong yeoman to remove the faithful fool from his master the once proud Cardinal was soon further disgraced and wrote the most abject letters to his vile sovereign who humbled him one day and encouraged him the next according to his humor until he was at last ordered to go and reside in his diocese of York he said he was too poor but I don't know how he made out for he took a hundred and sixty servants with him and seventy two cartloads of furniture food and wine he remained in that part of the country for the best part of a year and showed himself so improved by his misfortunes and was so mild and so conciliating that he won all hearts and indeed even in his proud days he had done some magnificent things for learning in education at last he was arrested for high treason and coming slowly on his journey towards London God as far as Lester arriving at Lester Abbey after dark and very ill he said when the monks came out of the gate with lighted torches to receive him that he had come to lay his bones among them he had indeed for he was taken to a bed from which he never rose again his last words were had I but served God as diligently as I have served the king he would not have given me over in my gray hairs how be it this is my just rewards for my pains and diligence not regarding my service to God but only my duty to my prince the news of his death was quickly carried to the king who was amusing himself with archery in the garden of the magnificent palace at Hampton court which that very Woolsey had presented to him the greatest emotion on his royal mind displayed at the loss of a servant so faithful and so ruined was a particular desire to lay hold of fifteen hundred pounds which the cardinal was reported to have hidden somewhere the opinions concerning the divorce of the learned doctors and bishops and others being at last collected and being generally in the king's favor were forwarded to the pope with an entreaty that he would now grant it the unfortunate pope who was a timid man was half distracted between his fear of his authority being set aside in England if he did not do as he was asked and his dread of offending the emperor of Germany who was queen Catherine's nephew in this state of mind he still evaded and did nothing then Thomas Cromwell who had been one of Woolsey's faithful attendants and had remained so even in his decline advised the king to take the matter into his own hands and make himself the head of the whole church thus the king by various artful means began to do but he recompense the clergy by allowing them to burn as many people as they pleased for holding Luther's opinions you must understand that Sir Thomas Moore the wise man who had helped the king with his book had been made chancellor in Woolsey's place but as he was truly attached to the church as it was even in its abuses he in this state of things resigned being now quite resolved to get rid of queen Catherine and to marry Anne Boleyn without more ado the king made Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury and directed queen Catherine to leave the court she obeyed but replied that wherever she went she was queen of England still and would remain so to the last the king then married Anne Boleyn privately and the new Archbishop of Canterbury within half a year declared his marriage with queen Catherine Void and crowned Anne Boleyn queen she might have known that no good could ever come from such wrong and that the corpulent brute who had been so faithless and so cruel to his first wife could be more faithless and more cruel to his second she might have known that even when he was in love with her he had been a mean and selfish coward running away like a frightened cur from her society and her house when a dangerous sickness broke out in it and when she might easily have taken it and died as several of the household did but Anne Boleyn arrived at all this knowledge too late and bought it at a dear price her bad marriage with a worse man came to its natural end its natural end was not as we shall too soon see a natural death for her end of chapter twenty seven