pjusroajuKiu^Hsziit'sicociarE- k' ' \ I i •xait^xj-jUi :Hmi.wj';.'X'r-v.Tr*.-. rr/f-fT»»,v /2^c,cej j^' /3ua/^^^-^^^ i-ey, Hens. THE BELL TOWER. TOWER OF LONDON. BY WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON g^opular BMtion With an Introduction by the Rev. W. J. LOFTIE, B.A., F.S.A. Author of '■'TJii Authorised Guide to the Tourr," etc. etc. INCLUDING SIXTEEN COLOURED PLATES AND A PLAN In Two Volumes.— Vol. I. CASSELL AND COMPANY, Limited LONDON, PAIilS. NEW YORK &• MELBOURNE IQOI [all rights reserved] TO QUEEN VICTORIA THESE STUDIES IN HER AIAJESTY'S TOWER WERE ■ DEDICATED BY EXPRESS PERMISSION. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAP. INTRODUCTION TO THE POPULAR EDITION I. THE PILE .... IL INNER WARD AND OUTER WARD III. THE WHARF IV. RIVER RIGHTS . V. THE WHITE TOWER . VI. CHARLES OF ORLEANS VI L UNCLE GLOUCESTER . VIIL PRISON RULES. IX. BEAUCHAMP TOWER . X. THE GOOD LORD COBHAM XL KING AND CARDINAL XII. THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE XIII. MADGE CHEYNE XIV. HEIRS TO THE CROWN XV. THE NINE DAVS' QUEEN . XVI. DETHRONED . XVII. THE MEN OF KENT . XVIII. COURTNEY XIX. NO CROSS, NO CROWN XX. CRANMER, LATIMER, RIDLEY XXI. WHITE ROSES . XXri. PRINCESS MARGARET XXIII. PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT . XXIV. MONSIEUR CHARLES PAGE V I 8 13 21 26 34 39 47 53 58 68 74 85 96 104 116 125 135 141 148 152 159 169 177 XXVI CONTENTS, CHAP. PAGE XXV. BISHOP OF ROSS . . . . 186 XXVI. MURDER OF NORTHUMBERLAND 192 XXVII. PHILIP THE CONFESSOR 198 XXVIIL MASS IN THE TOWER . 207 XXIX. SIR WALTER RALEIGH . 216 XXX. THE ARABELLA PLOT 224 XXXI. raleigh's walk . 231 XXXII. THE VILLAIN WAAD 236 XXXIII. THE GARDEN HOUSE 241 XXXIV, THE BRICK TOWER 246 XXXV. THE ANGLO-SPANISH PLOT 253 XXXVI. FACTIONS AT COURT 260 XXXVII. LORD GREY OF WILTON 266 ICXXVIIL OLD ENGLISH CATHOLICS 272 XXXIX. THE ENGLISH JESUITS . 277 XL. WHITE WEBBS 282 XLI. THE PRIESTS' PLOT 289 XLII. WILTON COURT . 297 XLIII. LAST OF A NOBLE LINE . 305 XLIV. POWDER-PLOT ROOM . 309 XLV. GUV FAWKES 316 XLVI. ORIGIN OF THE PLOT . . 322 XLVII. VINEGAR HOUSE . ' 331 XLVIII. CONSPIRACY AT LARGE . • 339 XLIX. THE JESUITS MOVE . 346 L. IN LONDON . . 350 LI. NOVEMBER, 1605 • . 359 LII. HUNTED DOWN . 365 LIII. IN THE TOWER . 373 LIV. SEARCH FOR GARNET . . 381 LV. END OF THE ENGLISH JESUIT S . 390 LVI. THE CATHOLIC LORDS . . 399 LVII. HARRY PERCY 406 LVIII. THE WIZARD EARL • 4" LIX. A REAL ARABELLA PLOT . 417 CONTENTS. XXVll CHAP. LX. WII.LIAAf ?:EYM0UR . LXI. THE ESCAPF. LXII. PURSUIT . LXIII. DEAD IN 1HE TOWER LXIV. LADV FRANCES HOWARD LXV. ROBERT CARR . LXVI. POWDER POISONING . LXVII. THE END . PAGE 424 437 442 449 455 463 471 LIST OF PLATES IN VOL. I. 48 THE BELL TOWER Frontispiece PLAN OF THE TOWER AND TOWER LIBERTIES IN 1 597 To face p. I PLACE OF EXECUTION IN FRONT OF ST. PETER's CHAPEL view of the tower (with the tower bridge) from tower hill. .... the ceremony of locking up the towek chapel of st. john in the white tower traitors' gate beauchamp tower, from the bell towek bye-ward tower ?> 112 >5 172 242 306 )) 368 J) 432 INTRODUCTION TO THE POPULAR EDITION. The author of this work on what we have so long thought of as Her Majesty's Tower deserves well of the present generation. His memory should be honoured by all to whom historical truth is sacred. The actual scene of a great event impresses its meaning and its relative importance more powerfully on the mind than any amount of eloquence or poetry or topographical description. It is largely due to the exertions made more than thirty years ago by Hep- worth Dixon that a visit to the Tower is within the reach of every one in London ; and, moreover, that an intelligible recollection may be carried away. Not only is the number of visitors enormously increased, but it is possible that, year by year, many who came only "to see the lions" go away having learnt some- thing, and, at least, having been afforded an opportunity of realising how heavy was the price which our vi INTRODUCTION.. ancestors paid for the liberty we enjoy. Very early in a life wholly made up of toil, Hepworth Dixon resolved to expound, to all who would listen, the petrified history preserved in these old walls ; and, in addition, to persuade the authorities to reform the abuses of arrangement which tended more and more everyday to render a visit useless. In 1869, when the first edition of this book was published, the ordinary round was apparently designed to puzzle any one who wanted to know too much. It was difficult to brinqf away a distinct idea as to the general plan of the buildings, and still more to understand the exact position of the various apartments of the Keep. The rural sightseer, a man perhaps with a clear eye for a hunting country, was at fault here. The soldier, conversant with all manner of strategical devices, was completely deceived. The citizen, to whom the most complicated system of lanes and alleys could cause no delay, lost his clue in the White Tower, for Gundulf himself, who built it, could not have recognised the crypt of the chapel in Queen Elizabeth's Armoury, or the Council Chamber of the Conqueror among trophies of flint locks and stacks of musket barrels. Another thing by which much doubt was caused INTR OD UCTION vll was a spirit of falsification which seized upon the minds of those responsible for the preservation of the Tower. To this we must attribute the rebuilding, to an imaginary desi!:;n, of the courtyard front of the Beauchamp Tower ; and still more the assembly in one of all the inscriptions left by prisoners on the walls of the various chambers. These carvincrs, so significant, so touching, where they were made, lost their own meaninijf and lessened the value of those already in the room to v/hich they were transferred. At this time, too, or soon after, the Wakefield Tower, the only relic, with the Keep itself, of Norman work, received its great Northumbrian windows, and every vestige of the long residence and death of Henry VT. was obliterated. Then, too, the few ruins left of the palace in which Anne Boleyn spent her last days, and of the hall in which she was tried and condemned, having been removed, the historic Lieutenant's Lodgings were renamed, and helped to mystify the visitor as "The Oueen's House." Even the old church of the parish or precinct, St. Peter ad Vinciila^ did not escape, and was newly labelled the Chapel Royal, while the true royal chapel, St. John, in the White Tower, was handed over to a dissenting con- viii INTRODUCTION'. grcgatlon. Some of these anomalies have been put right ; but too many remain, for it is always difficult to rectify the errors of even a moderate "restora- tion." I do not include among them the new guard rooms, which have taken the place of a stucco building on the site of the Norman Coldharbour Tower. The new red brick is handsome, is no imitation or falsification, and will, quite soon enough, assume the dingy hue of its surroundings. A correspondence in the daily papers was begun and carried on very soon after the publication of " Her Majesty's Tower." Hepworth Dixon was joined, and his efforts were recognised, by many well-wishers of all classes. He continued them at intervals until a general assent on the part of most people concerned was obtained as to certain points. It was agreed that the facilities of admission should be increased. When, as at Westminster Abbey, a free day in every week v;as granted, it was taken as a boon by thousands to whom even the smallest payments were prohibitory ; and Dixon himself, having, by Mr. Disraeli's help, obtained leave, took parties of working men over the scenes of the events described in this book. INTRODUCTION. ix Another complaint had reference to the guides. Some were considered deficient in education or information, or both. Time and a different arrangement, by which the Beefeaters no longer take charge of parties, but are stationed where they can answer questions, have remedied this grievance, which is further met by the labels attached to every building and every object of importance. This labelling emphasized a third cause of complaint. Many of the chambers had been wrongly named, many of the objects had been wrongly described by the warders, and, most important of all, many learned visitors cast doubts, often with reason, on the names assigned to certain things exhibited as authentic. Finally, Mr. Dixon and those who thought with him objected to the arrangement of the round prescribed to the sightseer. This routine was of considerable antiquity, and must have been setded while there was a possibility that prisoners and visitors might be brought face to face. While much of the Tower was occupied as Ordnance stores, much also, including the chapel, as a Record Office ; and while the Mint occupied the quarters still called Mint Street and Irish Mint Street, it is manifest that the strictest * X INTRODUCTION. reo-ulations had to be laid down and enforced ; out by 1879 large reforms had been carried out. There were no prisoners. The Records had departed to Fetter Lane. The Mint had migrated to Tower Hill. But, so far, little attempt had been made to render the Tower more of an educational institution and less of a mere raree show. In December of that year William Hepworth Dixon died, at the age of fifty- eight, but the improvement he had lived long enough to see went steadily on. It may be interesting to trace the stages by which the Tower as a show came to be proverbial. That it should be shown at all is in itself a fact worth men- tioning, and probably grew out of the existence, in one of the buildings of the outer ward, of a menagerie for the maintenance and exhibition of the royal col- lection of exotic animals. The Lions' Tower was close to the entrance of the precincts at the Conning Tower, a wooden outwork on the site of the present gate. A narrow passage, by no means direct, led from the Conning Tower, first to the Lions' Tower and then to the arched gateway in St. Martin's, or the Middle Tower. It was thus possible to "see the lions " without even reaching: the drawbridg^e which IN TROD UCTION. xi led into the outer ward. In quiet times, no doubt, visitors were admitted within the Curtain Wall. It was in the space between the Curtain and the ramparts of the Inner Ward that the Royal Mints were situated, and many officials and workmen must have constantly passed and repassed the drawbridge on a busy day before 1810, at which date the Mint and its workshops were transferred to Tower Hill. Along the same narrow road, past St. Thomas's Tower and the Traitors' Gate on the right, past the Garden Tower, which since the death in it of Northumberland in 1585 (i. 195) has been known as the Bloody Tower, on the left, passengers of all kinds must for ages have gone in and out to the storehouses which gradually occupied all the space once covered by the buildings and garden of the palace. As time went on other objects attracted visitors. The buildings — barbarous, gloomy and "gothique" — did not interest any one, but the jewels, largely re- newed and added to at the public expense, supple- mented by munificent gifts, were shown to properly accredited visitors from the time of the coronation of Charles II. The royal collections of armour from Greenwich and other palaces, which had been dis- xii INTRODUCTION, persed by the Commonwealth, were assembled here about the same time, and were visited and admired by many foreign princes and ambassadors. They were shown in the building which then abutted on the White Tower, and the complete suits in an armoury close by, built for them by Wren. In the reign of William and Mary the Small Armoury, a large build- ing on the site of the Waterloo Barracks, was opened by the king and queen in great state, and the stores were much admired by crowds of visitors, having been arranged in "a wilderness of arms" by Harris, a gun- smith, who also decorated some rooms at Hampton Court with his crowns, pyramids, globes and columns of the Corinthian order, all *' composed of pistols," blunderbusses, flint locks, sabres and other weapons. These wonders, together with the crown imperial, the golden salt and the font, and many diamonds, rubies, and other jewels, at that time in the Brick Tower at the north - eastern corner of the Inner Ward, vied with the menaorerie to make "seelne the lions " a very pleasant, if perhaps a rather expensive entertainment. No doubt, as it became better known and as it was less often interrupted by periods during which the Tower was in a state of siege, the showmen INTRODUCTION. xiii did not disparage the interest of the collections. We have an excellent and probably accurate account of what it had pfrown into about the time of the accession of George III. in Dodsley's " London and its Environs." He tells us much about the wild beasts, the lionesses and their cubs ; " three most beautiful tygers"; an eagle, "a noble bird that has been kept here above ninety years " ; a leopard of "a shining yellow, finely interspersed with bright spots," and, above all, "an horned owl, which is a very surprising bird," and is described at great length. The charge for seeing the animals was sixpence. The rest of the Tower was apparently only shown by special arrange- ment. The Mint, we are told, " comprehends near one-third of the Tower." The White Tower is next described. It consists of "three very lofty stories, under which are spacious and commodious vaults, chiefly filled with saltpetre." There were evidently but few chambers open to the visitor, and the chapel is not mentioned. Small arms for the sea service, "closets and presses, all filled with warlike engines and instruments of death"; and in "a litde room called Julius Caesar's chapel are deposited some xiv INTRODUCTION. records." In the south-west angle was the Spanish Armoury, containing "the spoils of what was vainly called the In\nncible Armada," including a banner with a crucifix upon it, which was specially blessed by the Pope, who, we read, had coma to the water side for the purpose. An inlaid German wooden saddle,, of the sixteenth century, decorated with the labours of Hercules, in ivory, still in the collection, is described as the Spanish general's shield, and the date is misread as 1379. The New, or Small Armoury, already mentioned, is next visited, and after a survey of the great guns, the Horse Armoury is reached. As I have said already, Sir Christopher Wren built the gallery for this collection, and we still see it just to the south of the officers' quarters, a little to the east of the White Tower. We need not follow Dodsley through the long detail of what was to be seen in this plain but picturesque building, now diverted to other uses. The armour was almost all wrongly attributed, but many of the attributions sur- vived until 1843, or longer ; nor were they all corrected until the whole of the ancient armour was taken in hand by Viscount Dillon, P.S.i^., half a century later IN TROD UCTION. xv s\:\\\, when some very old legends were swept away. With one more quotation, then, we may dismiss Dodsley. Among the objects in the Spanish Armoury he saw "the ax with which Queen Anne Bullen, the mother of Queen Elizabeth, was beheaded, on the 19th of May, 1536. The Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth's favourite, was also beheaded with the same ax." This strange tale was much enhanced in interest by the subsequent discovery, in a wood cellar under the Devereux Tower, of a block, which, if it was a heading and not a mere faggot-cutter's block, as is more probable, may have been that made in tlie Tower and lent to the Sheriff of Middlesex for the decapitation of an unwieldy convict, Lord Lovat. It was shown with the axe in, and long after, 1843. I well remember at my first visit to the Tower in that year having been privileged to lay my head where Anne Boleyn had laid hers. The wai-der forgot to mention that the hapless queen was beheaded with a sword by a French headsman sent specially from Calais, and that no block was required. The arrangements for showing the Tower were, on the whole, as described by Dodsley, simple and xvl INTRODUCTION. straightforward. The decorative arts, as practised by the gunsmith Harris, had not been applied to the chambers of the White Tower, and the Horse Armoury was still in the building prepared for it by Wren. A change had taken place by 1829. The so-called Spanish Armoury was transferred to the crypt under the chapel of St. John, and it was re- named from a figfure of Queen Elizabeth on horseback which stood at one end. The jewels were still in the Martin or Brick Tower, but the Horse Armoury, removed from Wren's building, was placed in a long shed or gallery designed, we are told, by Mr. Wright, the clerk of the works, in 1826. This gallery was built against the south wall of the White Tower, and from its eastern end a staircase led up to an old window, throuf'-h which the visitor was admitted to Queen Elizabeth's Armoury, in which also the (sup- posed) heading axe and block already mentioned were shown. The menagerie had dwindled to a few small animals, such as monkeys and parrots, with an elephant and a boa constrictor, and the lions had become extinct. In 1834 the last survivors were sent to the Zoological Gardens, then recently founded in the Ref^ent's Park. The small arms still remained INTRODUCTION. xvli In the orreat storehouse. The records were still in St John's Chapel. The moat was drained and the slopes were planted in 1843. \ It is not possible to date all the changes and improvements which were one by one carried out before 1879, or to distinguish them from others which have taken place since. I chanced to make notes of two visits paid about that time, namely, in 1S74 and again in 18S0, the last a few months only after Plepworth Dixon's death. An improvement was to be seen almost everywhere, slow but progressive. The labelling of the figures in the Armoury had been greatly improved, especially in 18S0. Much that had deceived Sir Samuel Meyrick in 1826 had been corrected by Hewitt, whose catalogue was printed in 1859. Planche had assisted in both arran vL."'^^^'^---!^-^.'- "C:'--' . ■ -^--<-gv-v.::r->- J".- — -"^^■:^^7^J^^yg^=^^::=r^ j~- . JaA ~ /s^ ii-J-ii=L3iS=>J ^\r'-- PLAN OF THE TOWER A^ ti tlie Year ijpy by Guijelmus Haiward nnd J.Cascoyne. ■S-^^Ji — ^ DtfpM'^ tA/tv 1^ ; ■T^^'rv ^w^. -.^- ^,,. \l-:.tM fe tAf U:iUt>f 'l.;iJ,-ft fv.//i ,/.\',m ^V T-n-tr rwAe u it,>i/i^ ■V; ,/jf f/'J/.'.f '/ . .. , i-inr,nn,f .r,> Jlrxti-J^f /-nttuf ,\',',il/4 ,' ti- ■' «->^^,/,.,;..,.,,.V„„.„„y.„, ''^- yA T/.r MMUT-wrn ''R.yfie //lyr nvr'^ E Vm/mTm-cr. G . lifnyitr Tt'ttvr, I . M'frlin 7^'i.vr M .(■.•/ Zwvr. N riu/y.m-r. 1' . ///<• Zv/r» itfvrryTica d'lf. R. J'At L.I iilAttin 'Ihn-er, l.r/.flSMi/T.n-ef, V. S^ I'/tifnmj s Tiin'fr. "K.foA/Airf.mr. 2l Ai". nrih'fiAii^n:,^ p.,/r.,.,/uj/u,iir,aj KO.Dirfiii/ll^/i'ii/i/.rf/Mrp/ifKur^ari/m bS..nrl''Mti:/,irrl,',illrj'n of Henrv the Eio^hth ; the Tuileries in that of Elizabeth. In the time of our Civil War Versailles was yc: a swamp. The Escorial belongs to the seventeenth century ; Sans Souci to the eighteenth. The Serail of Jerusalem is a Turkish edifice. The palaces of Athens, of Cairo, of Tehran, are all of modern date. Neither can the prisons which remain in fact as well as in history and drama — with the one exception of St. Angelo in Rome — compare against the Tower. The Bastile is gone ; the Bargeilo has become a mus- eum ; the Pionibi are removed from the Doge's roof. Vincennes, Spandau, Spilberg, Magdeburg, are all modern in comparison with a jail from which Ralpli Elambard escaped so long ago as the year iioo, the date of the first Crusade. Standing on Tower Hill, looking down on the dark lines of wall — picking out keep and turret, bastion and ballium, chapel and belfry — the jewel-house, the armoury, the mounts, the casemates, the open leads — > 4 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. the Bye-ward gate, the Belfry, the Bloody tower — the whole edifice seems alive with story; the story of a nation's highest splendour, its deepest misery, and its darkest shame. The soil beneath your feet is richer in blood than many a great battle-field ; for out upon this sod has been poured, from generation to generation, a stream of the noblest life \\\ our land. Should you have come to this spot alone, in the early day, when the Tower is noisy with martial doings, you may haply catch, in the hum which rises from the ditch and issues from the wall below you — broken by roll of drum, by blast of bugle, by tramp of soldiers — some echoes, as it were, of a far-off time : some hints of a May-day revel ; of a state execution ; of a royal entry. You may catch some sound which recalls the thrum of a queen's vir- ginal, the cry of a victim on the rack, the laughter of a bridal feast. For all these sights and sounds — the dance of love and the dance of death — are part of that gay and traoic memory which clinch's around the Tower. From the reign of Stephen down to that of Henry of Ivichmond, Caesar's tower (the great Norman keep, now called the White tower) was a main part of the royal palace ; and for that large interval of time, the story of the White tower is in some sort that of our English society as well as of our English kings. Here were Icept the royal wardrobe and the royal jewels; and hither came with their goodly wares, the tiremen, the goldsmiths, the chasers and embroiderers, from Flanders, Italy, and Almaigne. Close by were the Mint, the lions' dens, the old archery-grounds, the Court of King's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, the Queen's gardens, the royal banqueting-hali ; so that art and trade, science and manners, literature and law, sport and politics, find themselves equally at home. Two great architects designed the main parts of the Tower: Gundulf the Weeper and Henry the Builder ; one a poor Norman monk, the other a great Eno-lish VmZ' • THE PILE. 5 Gundulf, a Benedictine friar, Iiad, for that age, seen a great deal of the world ; for he had not only lived in Rouen and Caen, but had travelled in the East. Familiar with the olories of Saracenic art, no less than with the Norman simplicities of Bee, St. Ouen, and St. Etienne ; a pupil of Lanfranc, a friend of Anselm ; he had been employed in the monastery of Bee to marshal, with the eye of an artist, all the pictorial ceremonies of his church. But he was chiefly known in that convent as a weeper. No monk at Bee could cry so often and so much as Gundulf. He could weep with those who wept ; nay, he could v;eep with those who sported ; for his tears welled forth from what seemed to be an unfailinsr source. As the price of his exile from Bee, Gundulf received the crosier of Rochester, in which city he rebuilt the cathedral, and perhaps designed the castle, since the great keep on the Medway has a sister's likeness to the great keep on the Thames. His works in London were — the White tov^^er, the first St. Peter's church, and the old barbican, afterwards knovvu as the Hall tower, and now used as the Jewel house. The cost of these works was great ; the discontent caused by them was sore. Ralph, Bishop of Durham, the able and rapacious minister who had to raise the money, was hated and reviled by the Commons with peculiar bitterness of heart and phrase. He was called Flambard, or Firebrand. He v/as represented as a devouring lion. Still the great edifice grew up ; and Gundulf, who lived to the age of fourscore, saw his great keep completed from basement to battle- ment. Henry the Third, a prince of epical fancies, as Corffe, Conway, Beaumaris, and many other fine poems in stone attest, not only spent much of his time in the Tower, but much of his money in adding to its strength and beauty. Adam de Lamburn was his master mason ; but Henry was his own chief clerk of 6 HER MAJESTY'S TOIVER. the works. The Water gate, the embanked wharf, the Cradle tower, the Lantern, which he made his bedroom and private closet, the Galleyman tower, and the first wall, appear to have been his gifts. But the prince who did so much for Westminster Abbey, not content with giving stone and piles to the home in which he dwelt, enriched the chambers with frescoes and sculpture, the chapels with carving and glass ; making St. John's chapel in the White tower splendid Avith saints, St. Peter's church on the Tower Green musical with bells. In the Hall tower, from which a passage led through the Great hall into the King's bedroom in the Lantern, he built a tiny chapel for his private use — a chapel which served for the devotion of his successors until Henry the Sixth was stabbed to death before the cross. Sparing neither skill nor gold to make the great fortress worthy of his art, he sent to Purbeck for marble, and to Caen for stone. The dabs of lime, the spawls of flint, the layers of brick, which deface the walls and towers in too many places, are of either earlier or later times. The marble shafts, the noble groins, the delicate traceries, are Henry's work. Traitor's gate, one of the noblest arches in the world, was built by him ; in short, nearly all that is purest in art is traceable to his reign. Edward the First may be added, at a distance, to the list of builders. In his reign the original church of St. Peter fell into ruin ; the wrecks were carted away, and the present edifice was built. The bill of costs for clearing the ground is still extant in Fetter Lane. Twelve men, who were paid twopence a day wages, were employed on the work for twenty days. The cost of pulling down the old chapel was forty-six shillings and eightpence ; that of digging foundations for the new chapel forty shillings. That chapel has suffered from wardens and lieutenants; yet the shell is of very hne Norman work. THE PILE. 7 From the days of Henry the Builder down to those of Henry of Richmond, the Tower, as the strongest place in the south of England, was by turns the magnificent home and the miserable jail of all our princes. Here Richard the Second held his court, and gave up his crown. Here Henry the Sixth was murdered. Here the Duke of Clarence was drowned in wine. Here King Edward and the Duke of York were slain by command of Richard. Here Margaret of Salisbury was hacked into pieces on the block. Henry of Richmond kept his royal state in the Tower, receiving his ambassadors, countingf his anfjels, making presents to his bride, Elizabeth of York. Among other gifts to that lady on her nuptial day was a Royal Book of verse, composed by a prisoner in the keep. CHAPTER II. INNER WARD AND OUTER WARD. . .^HE Tower was divided into two main parts; '^■^ an Inner Ward and an Outer Ward ; the first part being bounded by the old wall, crowned by twelve mural towers ; the second part being bounded by the soil which fringed the slopes leading down into the ditch. A man who would read aright the many curious passages in our history of which the State Prison is the scene, must bear this fact of the two wards constantly in his mind. The Inner Ward, planned and partly built by the Monk of Bee, was the original fortress ; of which the defending ditch lay under the ballium wall. It con- tained the keep, the royal galleries and rooms, the Mint, the Jewel house, the Wardrobe, the Queen's garden, St. Peter's church, the open green, the Con- stable's tower, the Brick tower, in which the Master of the Ordnance lived, the Great hall, quarters for the archers and bowmen, and, in later days, the Lieu- tenant's house. This ward was flanked and covered by twelve strong works, built on the wall, and forming part of it ; the Beauchamp tower, the Belfry, the Garden tower (now famous as the Bloody tower), the Hall tower, the Lantern, the Salt tower, the Broad Arrow tower, the Constable tower, the Martin tower, the Brick tower, the Flint tower, the Bowyer tower, and the Develin tower ; all of which may be con- INNER AND OUTER WARDS, 9 sldcrecl, more or less, as defensive works ; even the Lantern, which had a vault for prisoners on the ground, a royal bed-chamber on the main lloor, a guard-roorn for archers and slingers in the upper story, and a round turret over these for the burning lights. Only one gateway pierced the wall ; a narrow and embattled outlet near the Water gate, passing under the strong block house, now the Bloody tower, into Water Lane. The road springs upward by the main guard ; a rise of one in ten ; so as to give the men inside a vast advantage in a push of pikes. This Inner Ward was the royal quarter. The Outer Ward, which owed its plan and most of its execution to Henry the Third, lay between the ballium and the outer scarp of the ditch, with a pro- tected passage into the Thames. It contained some lanes and streets below the wall, and works which overlooked the wharf. In this ward stood the Middle tower, the Bye-ward tower, the Water gate, the Cradle tower, the Well tower, the Galleyman tower, the Iron Gate tower. Brass Mount, Legge Mount, and the covered v/ays. Into it opened the Hall tower, after- wards called the Record tower, now known as the Jev/el house. Close by the Hall tower stood the Great Hall, the doors of which opened into this outer court. Spanning the ditch, towards the Thames, stood the Water gate, a fine structure, built by Henry the Builder, which folk called St. Thomas's tov/er, after our Saxon saint. Under this building sprang the wide arch, throu2:h which the tides flowed in and out from the river and the ditch ; the water-way known as Traitor's f>-atc. This Outer Ward was the folk's quarter. To the Inner Ward, common folk had no right of access, and they were rarely allowed to enjoy as a privilege that which they could not claim as a right. This Inner Ward was the King's castle, his palace, his garrison, his wardrobe, his treasury. Here, under lo HER MAyE STY'S TOWER. charge of a trusty officer, he kept the royal jewels, secreted from every eye, except on a coronation day. Here rose his keep, with the dungeons in which he coukl chain his foes. Here stood his private chapel, and not far from it his private block. No man ever dreamt of contesting the King's right to do what he pleased in this quarter ; and thus, an execution within these lines was regarded by the world outside as little better than a private murder. Into the Outer Ward, the Commons had always claimed a right of entry, and something more than a right of entry ; that is to say, free access, guarded by possession of the outer gates and towers. This right of entry was enforced on stated occasions, with an observance which is highly comic. Baron and citizen — that is to say, alderman and commoner — met in Barking Church, on Tower Hill, whence they sent six sage men of their body into the Tower to ask leave for a deputation of citizens to see the king, and free access for all people to the courts of law. These six sage persons were to beg that the king, according to custom, would forbid his guards either to close the gates or to keep watch over them, while the citizens were coming and going ; it being wrong in itself and against their freedom, they alleged, for any one to keep guard over the gates and doors of the Tower, save such of their own people as they should appoint to that duty. On this request being granted by the king, the six messengers would return to their fellows in Barking Church, report what they had done, and send the citizen guard to their posts. Then would the Commons elect from their body three men of mature age, moderate opinions, and cautious speech, to act as presenters. The rules by which they acted were rather strict. The sheriffs and beadles were to be decently clothed and shod, since it was laid down that no man should come before the kino^ either in dirty rags or without his shoes. Their followers were INNER AND OUTER WARDS. ii to be trim and spruce ; their capes and cloaks laid aside ; their coats and overcoats put on. No man was to go with them into the presence who had sore eyes ; no man was to join them who had weak legs. Mayor, alderman, sheriff, crier, every one going into the Tower on public duty, was to have his hair cut short and his face newly shaved. The object of these rules was to guard the right of access to the courts of justice ; the Court of King's Bench, and the Court of Common Pleas. Where were these courts of justice held ? No writer on the Tower has sought to fmd the true localities of these great tribunals. Yet the sites are clearly enough described in our ancient writs, hundreds of which may be found in Fetter Lane. One court stood in the royal quarter, another court stood in the folk's quarter. The King's Bench was held in a room which the writs describe as the Lesser Hall, lying under the east turret of the keep. The Common Pleas were held in a place which the writs describe as the Great hall by the river ; a hall now gone, but of which the identification is quite as sure. It stood by the Mall tower, to which it lent a name, and into which it led. A view of the Tower in the Royal Book of verse, shows that this Great Hall was a Gothic edifice, in the style of Henry the Third. Many a dark scene in the history of our public liberties and our private manners grows suddenly luminous when we bear these facts in mind ; that the Tower consisted of two parts — an inner court and an outer court ; that the Court of Kincr's Bench was held iu the royal quarter, the Court of Common Pleas in the folk's quarter ; that the people had free access to the outer court, and only to the outer court. The Hall tower, in which Henry the Third had built a chapel for his private use, being an outer work, with doors and windows opening on the rampart and 12 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. Water Lane, could not be used as a prison for men of a dangerous class. A feeble prince, like licnry the Sixth, who shrank from state and power, may have enjoyed a mild detention in the hall now sparkling with the crown jewels ; for he was softly kept ; and this tower was in his day a part of the royal palace. Old traditions make this room his casfe : the scene of his pious meditations; and of his deliberate murder by the Duke of Gloucester. After Henry's death, if not before, this tower was used as a paper office ; for which purpose, as a hall adjoining the Court of Common Pleas, and opening into the folk's quarter, it was well adapted. Hence it came to be known as the Record tower. On the wall above Water Lane, stood the two signal towers, the Belfry and the Lantern ; each sur- mounted by a turret ; of use to vessels coming up the Thames, On the first swung a bell ; on the second burned a lieht. «... <.^V yW^iOJ). CHAPTER III. THE WHARF. <^|fgURNING through a sally-port in the Bye-ward xM te?j gate, you cross the south arm of the ditch, and wLf^a come out on the Wharf; a strip of strand in front of the fortress, won from the river, and kept in its place by masonry and piles. This wharf, the work of Henry the Builder, is one of the wonders of liis reign ; for the whole strip of earth had to be seized from the Thames, and covered from the daily ravage of its tides. At this bend of the river the scour is hard, the roll enormous. Piles had to be driven into the mud and silt; rubble had to be thrown in between these piles; and then the whole mass united with fronts and bars of stone. All Adam de Lamburn's skill was taxed to resist the weight of water, yet keep the sluices open by which he fed the ditch. Most of all was this the case when the King began to build a new barbican athwart the sluice. This w-ork, of which the proper name was for many ages the Water gate, commands the only outlet from the Tower into the Thames ; spanning the ditch and sweeping the wharf, both to the left and right. So soon as the wharf was taken from the river- bed, this work became essential to the defensive line. London folk felt none of the King's pride in the construction of this irreat wharf and barbican. In fact, these works were in the last degree unpopular, and on nev/s of any mishap occurring to them the 14 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER, commons went almost mad with joy. Once they sent to the King a formal complaint against these works. Henry assured his people that the wharf and Water gate would not harm their city. Still the citizens felt sore. Then, on St. George's night (1240), while the people were at prayer, the Water gate and wall fell down, no man knew why. No doubt the tides were high that spring, and the soft silt of the river gave way beneath the wash. Anyhow they fell. Henry, too great a builder to despair, began again ; this time with a better plan ; yet on the self-same night of the ensuing year his barbican crashed down into the river, one mass of stones. A monk of St. Alban's, who tells the tale, asserts that a priest who was passing near the fortress saw the spirit of an archbishop, dressed in his robes, holding a cross, and attended by the spirit of a clerk, gazing sternly on these new works. As the priest came up, the figure spake to the masons, "Why build ye these?" As he spoke, he struck the walls sharply with the holy cross, on which they reeled and sank into the river, leaving a wreath of smoke behind. The priest was too much scared to accost the more potent spirit ; but he turned to the humble clerk, and asked him the archbishops name. ** St. Thomas the Martvr," said the shade. The priest, growing bolder, asked him why the m.artyr had done this deed? "St. Thomas," said the spirit, " by birth a citizen, mislikes these works, because they are raised in scorn, and against the public right. For this cause he has thrown them down beyond the tyrant's power to restore them." But the shade was not stroncr enoucfh to scare the King. Twelve thousand marks had been spent on that heap of ruins ; yet the barbican being necessary to his wharf, the builder, on the morrow of his second mishap, was again at work, clearing away the rubbish, driving in the piles, and laying in a deeper bed the foundation stones. This time hij Avork vvas done so well that tha THE WHARF. 15 walls of his gateway have never shrunk, and are as firm to-day as the earth on which they stand. The ghost informed the priest that the two most popular saints in our calendar, the Confessor and the Martyr, had undertaken to make war upon these walls. "Had they been built," said the shade, "for the defence of London, and in order to hnd food for masons and joiners, they might have been borne; but they are built against the poor citizens ; and if St. Thomas had not destroyed them, the Confessor would have swept them away." The names of these popular saints still cling to the Water gate. One of the rooms, fitted up as an oratory, and having a piscina still perfect, is called the Con- fessor's Chapel ; and the barbican itself, instead of bearing its official name of Water gate, is only known as St. Thomas's tower. The whole wharf, twelve hundred feet in length, lay open to the Thames, except a patch of ground at the lower end, near the Iron gate, leading towards the hospital of St. Catharine the Virgin, where a few sheds and magazines were built at an early date. Except these sheds, the wharf was clear. When cannon came into use, they were laid along the ground, as well as trained on the walls and the mural towers. Three accents marked, as it were, the river front — the Queen's stair, the Water way, and the Galleyman stair. The Queen's stair, the landing-place of royal princes, and of such great persons as came to the Tower on state affairs, lay beneath the Bye-ward gate and the Belfry, having a passage into the fortress by a bridge and postern, through the Bye-ward tower into Water Lane. The Water way M-as that cutting through the bank which passed under St. Thomas's tower to the flight of steps in Water Lane ; the entrance popularly known as Traitor's gate. The Galleyman stair lay under the Cradle tower, by which there was a private entrance into the royal quarter. i6 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER, This stair was not much used, except when the services of Traitor's gate were out of order. Then prisoners, who could not enter by the approach of honour, were landed at the Galleyman stair. Lying open to the river and to the streets, the wharf was a promenade, a place of traffic and of re- creation, to which folk resorted on high days and fair days. Men who loved sights were pretty sure to fmd something worth seeing at either the Queen's stair or Traitor's gate. All personages coming to the Tower in honour, were landed at the Queen's stair ; all per- sonages coming in disgrace were pushed through the Traitor's gate. Now, a royal barge, with a queen on board, was going forth in her bravery of gold and pennons; now a lieutenant's boat, returning with a culprit in the stern, a headsman standing at his side, holdincf in his hand the fatal axe. Standing on the bank, now busy with a new life, these pictures of an old time start into being like a mystic writing on the wall. Two of these scenes come back with warm rich colouring to the inner eye. Now : — it is London in the reign of that Henry the Builder, who loved to adorn the fortress in which he dwelt. Whose barge is moored at yon stair, with the royal arms ? What men are those with tabard and clarion ? Who is that proud and beautiful woman, her fair face fired with rage, who steps into her galley, but whose foot appears to scorn the plank on which it treads ? She is the Queen ; wife of the great builder ; Elinor of Provence, called by her minstrels Elinor la Belle. A poetess, a friend of singers, a lover of music, she is said to have brought song and art into the Enoflish court from her native land. The first of our laureates came in her train. She has flushed the palace with jest and joust, with tinkle of citherns, with clang of horns. But the Oueen has faults, for which her gracious talent and her peerless beauty fail to atone. Her greed is high, her anger ruthless. Her court is THE V/IIARF. 17 filled with an outcry of merchants who have been mulcted of queen-geld, a wrangle of friars who have been robbed by her kith and kin, a roar of tiremen and jewellers clamorous for their debts, a murmur of knights and barons protesting against her loans, a clatter of poor Jews objecting to be spoileck Despite her gifts of birth and wit, Elinor la Belle is the most unpopular princess in the w^orld. She has been living at the Tower, which her husband loves ; but she feels that her palace is a kind of jail ; she wishes to get away, and she has sent for her barge and watermen, hoping to escape from her people and to breathe the free air of her Windsor home. Will the commons let her go ? Proudly her barge puts off. The tabards bend and the clarions blare. But the commons, who wait her coming on London Bridge, dispute her passage and drive her back v/ith curses, crying, " Drown the witch ! Drown the v;itch ! " Unable to pass the bridge, Elinor has to turn her keel, and, Vvith passionate rage in her heart, to fmd her way back. Her son, the young and fiery Edvv^ard, never forgets this insult to his mother ; by-and-by he will seek revenge for it on Lewes held ; and by mad pursuit of his revenge, he will lose the great fight and imperil his father's crow^n. Again : — it is London in the reign of Bluff King Hal — the husband of two fair wives. The river is alive with boats ; the air is white with smoke ; the sun overhead is burning with golden May. Thousands on thousands of spectators dot the banks ; for to-day a bride is coming home to the King, the beaut)' of whose iace sets old men's fancies and young men's eyes agog. On the wharf, near the Queen's stair, stands a burly figure ; tall beyond common men ; broad in chest and strong in limb ; dressed in a doublet of gold and crimson, a cap and plume, shoes with rosettes and diamonds, a danger by his side, a George upon his breast. It is the King, surrounded by dukes and carls, awaiting the 2 i8 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. arrival of a barge, in the midst of blaring trumpets and exploding sakers. A procession sweeps along ; stealing up from Greenwich, with plashing oars and merry strains ; fifty great boats, with a host of wherries on their flanks ; a vessel firing guns in front, and a long arrear of craft behind. From the first barge lands the Lord Mayor ; from the second trips the bride ; from the rest stream out the picturesque City Companies. Cannons roar, and bells fling out a welcome to the Queen ; for this is not simply a great day in the- story of one lovely woman, but a great day in the story of English life. Now is the morning time of a new era ; for on this bright May — •' The gospel light first shines from Boleyn's eyes," and men go mad with hope of things which are yet to come. The King catches that fair young bride in his arms, kisses her soft -cheek, and bears her in, through the Bye-ward tower. The picture fades from view, and presently reappears. Is it the same ? The Oueen — the stair — the barofe — the crowd of men — all these are here. Yet the picture is not the same. No burly Henry stands by the stair; no guns disturb the sky ; no blast of trumpets greets the royal barge ; no train of aldermen and masters waits upon the Queen. The lovely face looks older by a dozen years ; yet scarcely three have passed since that fair form was clasped in the King's arms, kissed, and carried by the bridge. This time she is a prisoner, charged with having done such things as pen cannot write ; things which would be treason, not to her lord only, but to her womanhood, and to the King of kings. When she alights on the Queen's stair, she turns to Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower, and asks, " Must I go into a dungeon ? " *' No, madam," says the Constable ; " you will lie in the same room which you occupied before." She falls on her knees?. THE WHARF. 19 "It is too good for me," she cries; and then weeps for a long time, lying on the cold stones, with all the people standing by in tears. She begs to have the sacrament in her own room, that she may pray with a pure heart ; saying she is free from sin, and that she is, and has always been, the King's true wedded wife. " Shall I die without justice } " she inquires. *' ]\Iadam," says Kingston, "the poorest suijject would have justice." The lady only laughs a feeble laugh. Other, and not less tragic scenes drew crowds to the Water-way from the Thames. Beneath this arch has moved a long procession of our proudest peers, our fairest women, our bravest soldiers, our wittiest poets — Buckingham and Strafford ; Lady Jane Grey, the Princess Elizabeth; William Wallace, David Bruce ; Surrey, Raleigh — names in which the splendour, poetry, and sentiment of our national story are embalmed. JNIost of them left it, high in rank and rich in life, to return, by the same dark passage, in a few brief hours, poorer than the beggars who stood shivering on the bank ; in the eyes of the law, and in the words of their fellows, already dead. From this gateway went the barge of that Duke of Buckingham, the rival of Wolsey, the last per- manent Hi;rh Constable of Enjrland. Buckingham had not dreamed that an offence so sught as his could bring into the dust so proud a head ; for his offence was nothing ; some silly words which he had bandied lightly in the Rose, a City tavern, about the young king's journey into France. He could not see that his head was struck because it moved so high ; nay, his proud boast that if his enemies sent him to the Tower, ten thousand friends would storm the walls to set him free, was perhaps the occasion of his fall. When sentence of death was given, he marched back to his barge, where Sir Thomas Lovel, then Constable, stood ready to hand him to the seat of honour. " Nay," said the Duke to Lovel, " not so now 20 HER MA JES TV 'S TO WER. When I came to Westminster I v/as Lord High Constable and Duke of Buckingham ; now I am but poor Edward Stafford." Landed at the Temple stair, he was marched along Fleet Street, through St. Paul's Churchyard, and by way of Cheap to the Tower;*" the axe borne before him all the way ; Sir William Sandys holding him by the right arm, Sir Nicholas Vaux by the left. A band of Augustine friars stood f praying round the block ; and when his head had fallen into the dust they bore his remains to St. Austin's Church. On these steps, too, beneath this Water-gate, Elizabeth, then a fair voun<7 ' Hastincrs at the board ; Gloucester in rusty armour on the wall. ]\Ien picture him as drowning Ins brother Clarence in the butt of wine ; as murdering his nephews. King Edward and the Duke of York. The localities of his crimes, and of the crimes imputed to him, are shewn. He stabbed King Henry in the Hall tower, now the Jewel house. He accused Lord Hastings in the Council chamber, and struck off his head on the terrace below the keep. He drowned his brother in the Bowyer tower. He addressed the citizens from the terrace now known as Raleigh's walk. Brackcnbury was kneeling in St. John's chapel, when he received the King's order to kill the princes. The boys were lodged by him in the rooms over the entrance gate, then known as the Garden tower. They were interred in the passage, at the foot of a 40 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER, private stair. The bones of these royal youths were afterwards dug out from behind a stair in the keep. That the princes were murdered in the Tower there ouoht to be no doubt. Two of the greatest men in Enghsh story vouch it ; not in the general feature only, but in the minor details of the crime. Sir Thomas More (the true author, as I think, of the book which bears his name) wrote at the time^ — about the year 15 13 — while he was acting as judge of the sheriffs' court, and while two of the four actors in the business Avere still alive. Lord Bacon, who knew the place and the story well ; \A\o probably heard the Tov/er authorities, when they read a welcome to King James, describe the Bloody tower as the scene of that royal murder ; seems to have felt no doubt on the point. What More and Bacon wrote, received clinching proof in the discovery which was afterwards made of the children's bones. Yet the story of this murder has been doubted ; not in detail only, but in block. In the hrst place, political passion led to reports that the princes were not dead ; and when these political reports fell away with time, they left behind them a bodiless spirit in the shape of historic doubt. Partisans of Lambert Symnell and Perkin Warbeck were bound to say the two princes had not been killed by Tyrrel in the manner commonly supposed, and that one of them had not been killed at all. Duchess Marguerite (King Edward's sister) received young Warbeck as her nephew ; the Irish nobles owned him for their prince ; while a powerful English party, hating the victor of Bosworth field, were secretly disposed to push his claim. To all these partisans of the House of York, that story of a midnight murder was a fatal bar. From that day to our own some ghost of a doubt has always fluttered round the tale. Bayley denies that if the crime were done at all it could have been UNCLE GLOUCESTER. 41 done in the Gate house. But his reasons for rejecting a tradition which certainly goes back to the time of the alleged murder are very weak. He thinks it unlikely that Gloucester would confine the ro3^al youths in so obscure a place. He thinks it absurd to call a room bloody because two boys had been smothered in it. Pie finds, in a survey made in the reign of Henry the Eighth, that this pile was called the Garden tower, not the Bloody tower, as he thinks it ought to have been styled if the legend of the crime had then been considered true. On what slight grounds historic doubt may rest! Richard's scruples about putting his nephews into a dull lodorio'T after he liad resolved to kill them, may be dismissed with a smile. Yet, fact being fact, it must be added that the rooms over the gate were a part of the royal palace, communicating with the King's bedroom in the Lantern, through the private chapel and the Great hall. Nothinir about the Gate house then su^ested dismal thouo:hts. It was the Garden tower, called from a garden into which it opened. It Vv^as lighted on both sides, so that the windows commanded viev/s of the inner and outer wards, as well as of the wharf, the river, and the bridge. It had a separate entrance to the pleasant promenade on the wall. King Henry the Sixth had lived in the adjoining room. As to the fact of calling a place bloody on account of two boys having been smothered in it, a word may be said. Old writers do not say that both the boys were smothered ; indeed, the very first narrative of this murder (that of John Rastall, brother-in-law of More) states that the ruffians smothered one of the boys with a pillow and cut the other boy's throat with a knife. As to the change of name, the answer is brief Garden tower was an official name ; the survey made by Henry the Eighth was an official work. It is only after many ages that in a public document you can expect 42 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. to see an official name replaced by a popular name. The Bloody tower is not the only one which has changed its name in deference to public whim. The official name of the new Jewel house was once the Hall tower, that of the Lantern was once the New tower. Beauchamp tower is known as Cobham tower, Martin tower as Jewel tower, Brick tower as Burbage tower, and Water gate as St. Thomas' tower. Edward the Fifth and his brother, Richard, Duke of York, one twelve years old, the other eight, were living in the palace, under charge of Sir John Brackenbury, then Lieutenant of the Tower ; the young king having been deprived of his royal power without being deposed from his royal rank. Gloucester ruled the kingdom as Protector. The queen-mother, Elizabeth Woodville, who had seen her second boy torn from her arms, Vv^ith wild foreboding of his fate, lived in sanctuary with the Abbot of Westminster, occupying the Jerusalem chamber and that adjoining room which is now used by the Westminster boys as a dining-room. The fair Saxon lady, whose pink and white flesh and shower of golden hair had won for her the wandering heart of Edward the Fourth, could hear the mallets of joiners in the abbey, could see the waggons of vintners and cooks bringing wine and meat to the great hall, by command of Gloucester, for the coronation of her eldegt son. But the royal widow knew in her heart that the festival day would never dawn. Her brother, who should have held the Tower for Edward, forsook his post to join her in sanctuary under the abbot's roof, where he felt that, come what might, his head would be safe. Gloucester took charge of the fortress in his nephew's name. Working in the dark, with shrugs and hints, he began to sound the great earls and barons as to how far they would go with him ; and to throw out bruits of a secret marriage having taken place between his brother, the late king, UNCLE GLOUCESTER. 43 and Elinor Talbot ; by which reports the legitimacy of his nephews would be brought into doubt before Holy Church. Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath, and Lord High Chancellor, is said to have helped the Duke, by saying that he had married the King to Elinor ; a fact which he had concealed during Edward's reign, because his royal master had afterwards made the still more fascinating Elizabeth Woodville the public partner of his throne. Some earls and knights took up the prelate's tale ; a few from fear of the Duke, others because they may have thought it true. Edward the Fourth, though light of love, had not been manly in protecting the frail ones whom his passions had brought to shame. Shore's wife was not the only woman whom he had loved and ruined. He was said to have left many a son in Cheapside. Men wdio rejected the tale of Perkin Warbeck being the actual Duke of York, could not help thinking, from his face and fifjure, that he must have been Kinof Edward's natural son. Such would seem to have been Bacon's view. A mock marriage was not, indeed, beyond Edward's flight ; and the Bishop of Bath and Wells may have aided him in some such frolic. That Edward had been guilty of entering into a clandestine marriage, and of keeping it secret, to the peril of his crown, is a story not to be received. But men who could not see with Gloucester's eyes, soon found that the Duke had a swift and ugly way of freeing himself from lukewarm friends. Lord Hastinors felt it first. Pushing: forward the vouncr king's coronation, Richard called a council, in which some of the men who knew his soul had scats. They met in the Council chamber, where Lord 1 lasiings, instead of playing into the Duke's hands, spoke up stoutly for the King ; on which Gloucester, who had been listening in a passage, rushed into the Council room, tore up his sleeve, showed a withered arm, which he accused Hastings of having caused by im- 44 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER, pious arts, and asked his councillors what should be done. Words were useless. At a sign from Glou- cester, bands of soldiers rushed from the corridor, tore Hastings from the table, dragged him downstairs, and, finding the block on the green out of order, threw him across a beam of wood and hacked off his head. Then came, stroke on stroke, the crowning of Richard and the murder of his inconvenient kin. Richard left London for the north while the crime was beiney done. His instruments had been chosen and his orders ofiven. But the course of murder never quite runs smooth. Brackenbury was at his prayers, when the King's meaning was made known to him in a few sharp words. Finding him on his knees, the royal message was not likely to find him in the mood. He refused his task. The Kin?- had ridden so far as Warwick Castle when he heard that Sir John declined his office ; and thouo;h it was midnic^ht when the rider came in, he slipt from his couch, passed into the guard-room, where Sir James Tyrrell, his master of the horse, lay sleeping on a pallet-bed, and gave a few sure words of instruction to that trusty knight. Tyrrell rode back to London, bearing a royal order that Brackenbury should, for one night only, give up his command, with the keys and passwords. The month was August ; the days were hot ; and Tyrrell was much oppressed in soul ; for murder is not an easy thing at best, and the errand on wdiich he was riding to the Tower was one of the foulest ever known. But he feared the new king even more than he feared the devil and all his fires. Two trusty knaves were at his side ; John Dighton and Miles Forrest ; fellows on whose strong arms and callous hearts he could count for any deed which the King might bid them do. These men he took down to the Gate house, where the princes lay ; and after getting the keys and passes from Brackenbury, he closed the Tower gates, and sent the two ruffians up into the princes' room. UNCLE GLOUCESTER, 45 In a few seconds the deed was done. Stealing' downstairs, the murderers called their master, who stood watching near the gate, to come up and see that the boys were dead. Tyrrell crept up, by the private door ; and, after giving a few orders to his agents, and calling the Tower priest to their help, he rode away from the scene and from London ; bearinsf the dread news to his master, who was still i^oino; north tov/ards York. ° " The two murderers, helped, as it v/ould seem, by tlie priest, got the bodies downstairs into the gateway; dug a hole near the Vv'all, and threw in the dead, and covered them over Vv'ith earth and stones. But the new kine, wnose cnmes made him superstitious, sent orders that the priest should bestow his nephews in some more decent place. The priest obeyed ; but no one knev/ (unless it were the King) where he now laid them ; and as he died soon after, the secret of their sepulchre passed from the knowledge of living men. After the battle of Bosworth and the fall of Richard, the new king had no reason to conceal that rrave, and after the rising of Perkin Warbeck it became a press- ing duty for him to fmd it and make it known. He could not. Forrest was dead ; the priest was dead. Tyrrell and Dighton, though living, and eager to con- fess their crime, coverinof themselves v/ith a roval pardon, could not help King Henry to prove, by the very best evidence — their bones — that the princes were not alive. Richard had sent orders for the priest to remove them ; that was all they knew ; and every apprentice boy in London knew as much. The fi^ict of a first burial, and then a second burial, is stated in the writings ascribed to More, and is mentioned in Shake- speare's play : — •'The chai)lain of the Tower hath buridl them, Dut where, to say the truth, I do not know." As the priest would be likely to inter the princes in 46 HER MAJES 'I Y'S TO WER, consecrated ground, search was made, not only in the open graveyard near St. Peter's, but within the church. To find these rehcs would have been to render a signal service to King Henry. No effort was spared; but fate was against the search ; and as the bodies could not be found, the most cunning princes of Europe affected to believe that Perkin Warbeck the Pretender was King Edward's son. Two hundred years after the deed was done, the mystery was cleared. In the reign of Charles the Second, when the keep (no longer used as a royal palace) was being filled with state papers, some work- men, in making a new staircase into the royal chapel, found under the old stone steps, hidden close away, and covered with earth, the bones of two boys, which answered in every way to those which had been sought so long. Deep public wonder was excited ; full inquiry into all the facts was made ; and a report being sent to Charles that these bones were those of the murdered princes, the King gave orders for their removal to a royal sepulchre in Westminster Abbey. The bones thus found now lie in the great chapel built by Henry the Seventh, side by side with some of the most eminent of Eno-lish kines. w^^ CHAPTER VIII. PRISON RULES. " Lei the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come before Thee." ^^^^.HAT, in those days, were the rule and order '^^^ of our first state prison ? The rule was simple, the order strict. In ancient times the government lay with the Constable, who had his official residence on the eastern wall, in Constable tower. This officer was paid in fees ; twenty pounds on the committal of a duke, twenty marks on that of an earl, ten pounds on that of a baron, five pounds on that of a knight. A poor man had no right in the Tower at all ; the officers sometimes complain that such and such a fellow could not afford to be a prisoner, and ought to be sent away. When a man was committed, the council seized his goods for the king's use, and th(i Treasury had to pay the Constable for his board and fire. So early as the reign of Richard the Second, the fees were fixed : — for a duke at five marks a week, for an earl at forty shillings, for a baron at twenty shillings, for a knight at ten shillings. A duke's chaplains were allowed six shillings and eightpence a week ; his gentlemen the same ; his yeomen three shillings and fourpence. All other servants were allowed three shillings and fourpence ; all other yeomen one shilling and eightpence. These fees were raised as gold declined in value. In the reign of Edward the Sixth, 48 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. the Duchess of Somerset, with two gentlewomen and three male servants, cost the Treasury eight pounds a week. In Mary's reign, Lady Jane Grey was allowed eighty shillings a week for diet, with thirteen shillings and fourpence for wood, coal, and candle. Her two gentlewomen cost twenty shillings a week, and her three male servants the same sum. A bishop was treated like a baron. Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, was allowed fifty-three shillings a week for food, with six shillings and eightpence for fire and lieht. Tvv'o servants waited on him, who cost the country ten shillings a week. The prisoners were cheated by their keepers, most of all in the comforts of fire and candle. The Constable, always a man of high rank, appointed a Lieutenant, to v/hom he allowed a stipend of twenty pounds a year, with such small savings as could be made in furniture and food. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, the Lieutenant, who had now become the actual prison warder, had a new liouse built for his accommo- dation, in a courtly quarter of the prison, under the Belfry; which house was afterwards known as the Lieu- tenant's lodgings. Close by his house, on either side, stood two smaller houses for his officers ; that to the east, in the garden, became famous in after-times as the prison of Latimer and Raleigh; that to the north, on the green, became famous as the prison of Lady Jane Grey. In time, the Lieutenant arid his officers came to look on the state allowance for a prisoner's mainten- ance as a perquisite. They expected an offender to pay heavy fees, and to find himself in furniture and diet. Raleigh paid for his food ^208 a year ; equal to a thousand pounds in the present time. Bare w^alls, an oaken floor, a grated window, an iron-bound door, were all provided by his country. Chairs, arras, tables, books, plate, fire and victuals, he had to buy for him- self, at his own cost, through porters, serving-men, and cheats who lived upon his purse. When he had _1 < X o CO cc UJ UJ CL in U- o h- z O CC u. O D fr S U UJ )>» u. O if UJ u < -I CL *« f PRISON RULES. 49 bought these articles, they were not his own, except for their immediate use. The rule was, that as a man brought nothing in, he could take nothing out. Whether he died in prison, or left it with a pardon, his goods of every kind were seized for his keeper's use. How a prisoner fared in his cell may be seen by two examples taken from a heap of records. The case of Sir ^lenry Wyat, of Allington Castle, Kent, father of the wit and poet, takes us back to the latter days of the Red and White Roses. Wyat, a Lancastrian in politics, spent not little of his time under watch and ward. The Wyat papers say — " He was imprisoned often ; once in a cold and narrow tower, where he had neither bed to lie on, nor clothes suffi- cient to warm him, nor meat for his mouth. He had starved there had not God, who sent a crow to feed His prophet, sent this His and his country's martyr a cat both to feed and v/arm him. It was his own relation unto them from whom I had it. A cat came one day down into the dungeon unto him, and as it were offered herself unto him. He was glad of her, laid her in his bosom to warm him, and, by making much of her, '^on her love. After this she would come every day unto him divers times, and when she could get one bring him a pigeon. He complained to his keeper of his cold and short fare. The answer was, * he durst not better it.' ' But,' said Sir Henry, ' if I can provide any, will you promise to dress it for me ?' 'I may well enough,' said he, the keeper, ' you are safe for that matter ; ' and being urged again, pro- mised him, and kept his promise, and dressed for him, from time to time, such pigeons as his accator the cat provided for him. Sir Henry Wyat in his prosperity for this would ever make much of cats, as other men will of their spaniels or hounds ; and perhaps you shall not find his picture anywhere but, like Sir Chris- topher Hatton with his dog, with a cat beside him." 50 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. One picture of the old knight, with his faithful cat, pigeon in paw, is preserved in the National Portrait Gallery. Wyat was put to the torture, a thing un- known to our law, but well enough known to our judges. Racks, boots, barnacles, thumbscrews, were occasionally used. The barnacles was an instrument fastened to the upper lips of horses to keep them still while they were being bled ; and Richard the Third was fond of putting this curb on his enemies. One day, after putting it on Wyat, the King exclaimed in a fit of admiration, "Wyat, why art thou such a fool? Thou servest for moonshine in water. Thy master," meaning Henry of Richmond, " is a beggarly fugitive ; forsake him and become mine. Cannot I reward thee ? And I swear unto thee I will." To all this the prisoner replied : " If I had first chosen you for my master, thus faithful would I have been to you, if you should have needed it. But the Earl, poor and un- happy though he be, is my master, and no discourage- ment, no allurement, shall ever drive me from him, by God's grace." When the wars of the Roses came to an end, Sir Henry found that he had served for something better than moonshine in water ; being made a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, a knight banneret, Master of the Jewel house. Treasurer of the King's chamber, and a Privy Councillor ; rich enough to buy Allington Castle, one of the noblest piles in Kent ; where Lady Wyat, his wife, put the Abbot of Bexley in the stocks for taking liberties with one of her maids ; where Sir Henry lived to see his son. Sir Thomas, renowned as a wit, a poet, and a servant of the Queen. The case of Thomas Howard, third Duke of Nor- folk, gives us glimpses of the prison seventy years later, in the reign of Edward the Sixth. Norfolk was not only the first of English nobles, but the uncle of two queens, and nearly related to the King in blood. He had served his country in the PRISON RULES. 51 council chamber and at foreign courts ; in the fleet and on the field of battle ; nay, he had so far won King" Henry's confidence as to be named one of his executors during the minority of his son. He was an early reformer, and in the wild risin<^ called the Pilgrimaq^e of Grace he had smitten the Catholics hip and thigh. Yet, when Henry was on his death-bed, rivals and enemies whispered m his ear that Norfolk's eldest son. Lord Surrey, the poet of whose genius we are all so proud, was looking for the hand of Mary, and quartering the arms of Edward the Confessor on his shield. The dying man was alarmed for the public peace. Father and son, seized in the King's name, were lodged, unknown to each other, in the Tower. Surrey, not being a peer of the realm, was tried at Guildhall by a common jury, before whom he pleaded his right to wear the Confessor's arms ; a right of usage which he said was sanctioned by the heralds ; but the court pronounced this assumption of the king's arms treason, and the brilliant young noble laid his head upon the block. The Peers passed a bill of attainder airainst the old warrior ; a warrant for his execution was sio^ned ; but in the nioht, while the headsmen were sharpening their axe and setting up the block, the King expired. Somerset, the Duke's rival, feared to carry out the warrant ; yet Norfolk was kept in prison until King Edward died ; and in this interval of quiet endurance there is one letter from him extant, in which he humbly begs to have some books sent to him from a house in Lambeth, saying, very pathetically, that unless he has a book to engage his mind, he cannot keep himself awake, but is always dozing, and yet never able to sleep, nor has he ever done so for a dozen years ! Only one servant was allowed to wait upon him ; a rare restriction in the case of men of his exalted rank. The Duchess of Somerset had two ladies and three male servants to attend her. Sir Edward Warner, the Lieutenant, 52 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. made the usual charges for a duke, ;i^2 2, i8s. 8d. a month ; charges which should have covered diet, light, and lire. Yet Norfolk has to beof his srood masters for leave to walk by day in the outer chamber of his cell, for the sake of his health, which suffers very much from his close confinement. They can still, he says, lock him up in his narrow cage at night. He craves to be allowed some sheets, to keep him warm in bed. Such were the comforts of a prison, to the first peer in the realm, at a period when the laws did not pre- tend to be equal for the great and the obscure. A man of quality had one great advantage ; he could not be stretched on the rack and hung by the cord. Cases occur of a baron in one cell urorino- his follower in another, never to confess, but to stand out like a man ; and the poor commoner replying that it is easy for a lord to stand out, since he is only examined by word of mouth ; not so easy for a poor wretch, who, unpro- tected by his quality,, has to answer with his thumb under a screw and his limbs on the wheel. CHAPTER IX. BEAUCHAMP TOWER, TS-^. ^EFORE the days of Henry of Agincourt, the 'j/t^ rr-^ keep had ceased to be a common prison, and MM^ that function had been transferred to the large and central work on the western wall. This work became known by the names of Beauchamp tower and Cobham tower ; names which take us back to Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and Sir John Oldcastle, the Good Lord Cobham. This tower consists of three floors ; mainly of three large rooms, and a winding stair ; a room on the green, which was used by keepers and servants ; a middle room, used as a prison, for what may be called the second class of great offenders ; an uppermost room for the servants of great lords and for prisoners of inferior rank. The tenant to whom these chambers owe their first renown and lasting name, was a popular idol, Thomas de Beauchamp, son of that Earl of Warwick, who had swept through the lines of Crecy and Poictiers, Beau- champ was of milder tastes and more popular manners than his sire ; a friend of the "food Duke of Glouces- ter, Thomas of Woodstock ; a builder, a gardener, a student ; a man who found more happiness in his park and his oratory than in courts and camps. When the Plouse of Commons met to appoint a governor to the young king, Richard of Bordeaux, they fixed on Beau- 54 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. champ as the man best gifted for so great a charge. It was a thankless office. Richard proved to be a boy at once proud and base ; fond of pomp and show ; attached to low persons and degrading pleasures. For the King's own good, Gloucester and Beauchamp put their strength together, and, being joined by Arundel, Mortimer, and other great barons, marched on London, seized the rapacious Simon Burley, and, after an open trial, put this unpopular minion of the King to death. All honest men rejoiced in Burley's fall ; but Richard was roused to anger ; and for many years he nursed a bitter heart, masked by a smiling face, against the men who had done him this true service. In fact, the arrest of Burley was not their sole offence. They wished to keep him in the open path of law ; while he and his flatterers were bent on rulinof in a fashion of their own. Hence they acquired the name of " sound advisers" to the court. For some years, Richard had to wait and grow; but when he came of age, he took the reins into his hands, dismissing his wise governor from his council, and banishing him into the midland shires. Beauchamp repaired to Warwick Castle, where he found sweet employment for his genius, in building towers, in strengthening walls, in planting trees. Some of his noble work remains in evidence of his taste and skill ; among other things, Guy's tower, on the north- east corner of the castle, and the nave of St. Mary's Church in the town. But even in the country, men so popular as the Duke of Gloucester and the Earl of Warwick were not to be endured by a prince who dreamt of seizing all the powers of the realm into his puny hands. At length his occasion came, and he struck his blow. Arundel was the first to fall ; Beauchamp followed next ; but they only fell when the liberties of England were destroyed, when parliaments were swept away, and the King, with the advice of eight lords and three BEAUCHAMP TOWER. 55 commoners only, assumed the power of making all future laws for the government of his realm. It was a vast usurpation, and the men who became its victims were regarded as martyrs in a sacred cause. The barons seized by the King were taken by per- fidious arts. Lord Arundel was carried by his brother, the Lord Primate, to the King's closet, whence he was hurried to the Isle of Wight. Beauchamp was caught as he was leaving the royal table. The weak prince, who piqued himself on his guile, invited the great and popular Earl to dine with him, and on his arrival treated him with distinguished favour, sitting at the same board, and calling him his very good lord. A stranger who stood by would have supposed Beau- champ higher in grace than ever ; but the King's ser- vants knew their master ; and were not surprised, on quitting the banquet, to find him a prisoner in the marshal's hands. In a few days, Beauchamp was given in charge to Ralph Lord Nevill, of Raby, Con- stable of the Tower, by whom he was lodged in the apartment to which he has bequeathed his name. Thomas of Woodstock, known as the Good Duke of Gloucester, was taken next, at his castle of Plasley, near Dunmow, by an ingenious wile. Richard set out from London, dressed as for a royal hunt ; rode on to Havering Park, where dinner had been prepared for him ; and after eating a merry meal, got on his horse, and went on to Plasley, the Duke's residence, with a few gentlemen only in his train. It was hve o'clock of a summer afternoon when they clattered into the open court ; the Duke, who had just supped, led down the Duchess and his children to the courtyard to give hi is nephew welcome. Richard went into the house, and sat at table ; but after a few minutes, he cried, " F'air uncle, cause you some five or six horses to be brought, and let us away to London, where we need your counsels." Uncle and nephew descended into the yard, leapt to their horses, and rode away ; the 56 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. King keepino- in front, at a sharp trot, until they came upon an ambush of armed men, who seized the Duke's bridle and held him fast. Gloucester shouted to his nephew to come back ; but the King rode forward, taking no heed of the Duke's cries, until he reached the Tower and threw himself on his couch. The Duke, brought up to London by his guards, was thrust on board a ship, carried over to Calais, and lodged in the castle of that town, from which he was never to escape with life. Arundel was tried, condemned, and executed. Mor- timer escaped from his pursuers into the wilds of Ulster, where he dwelt in safety v/ith the Irish kernes. From his cell on the west wall, Beauchamp was carried by Lord Nevill and his javelin men to the House of Peers, where John of Gaunt informed him that he stood accused by Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Rutland, of having, in times long past, committed divers crimes and offences against his lord the king. Beauchamp replied, that for these alleged offences he had received a pardon under the Great Seal. Of course this plea was final. But Sir John Clopton, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, declared that this pardon under the Great Seal would not serve his turn, since the King, for good and wise reasons, had, on the prayer of his faithful Parliament, repealed that instrument as void and of no effect. Seeing that the ancient law and franchise of the realm were set at naught, the Earl could do nothing else than put his cause in the hands of God and his Peers. Rutland made the charge against him in two main parts. In the first part, he accused Beauchamp of hiorh treason in havincf raised an armed force aoainst the King's authority and crown ; in the second part, in having arrested, tried, and executed Sir Simon Burley, without the King's consent, to the great scandal of his royal justice. Beauchamp knew they would condemn him ; though he may have doubted BEAUCHAMF 'TOWER. 57 whether they would dare to defy the City by sending him to the block. He pleaded guilty to the charge. In a version of his trial, which was published by the court, he is said to have confessed his faults with many tears ; urging that he felt the Vv'ickedness of what he had done, and that his only hope was in the King's grace and mercy. Gaunt pronounced the same sen- tence as on Arundel ; that he should be hanged, drawn, and quartered ; that his name should be erased froni the roll of Peers ; that all his castles, manors, and estates, should revert to the Crown. With the vv-eight of this sentence on his head, he was taken back to the Tower, where Lord Nevill replaced him in his cell until his majesty's pleasure should be further known. Richard, covered with the odium of his uncle's murder, could not bring his pen to sign the warrant for Beauchamp's death. The Earl had a great follow- ing, and his prison was a centre of public emotion, like that of Raleigh in a later reign. To get rid of these sympathies, he was sent away to the Isle of Man, a prisoner for life ; but that small islet in the Irish Sea was found to be no safe jail for so great a man ; and before the year ran out he was brought back to London and lodp-ed once more under Nevill's eye. Here he remained for two years longer ; when the star ot Henry of Bolinp;broke rising in the west, he was set at liberty, purged in honour, and restored to his rank and fortune. His ashes lie at Warwick, in the noble church which he had built in the days of his happy exile from the court. CHAPTER X. THE GOOD LORD CODHAM, ^^^LDCASTLE died a martyr." i ^^^i\ So runs the epilogue to Shakespeare's Second ^^^ Part of King Henry the Fourth. " Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man !" In the first draft of Shakespeare's play the mighty piece of flesh, now known to all men as Sir John Ealstaff, was presented to a Blackfriars' audience under the name of Sir John Oldcastle. Why was such a name adopted for our great buffoon ? Why, after having been adopted, was it changed ? Why, above all, is Oldcastle first presented by the poet as a buffoon, and afterwards proclaimed a martyr ? These questions hang on a story which unfolds itself in the Beauchamp tower. Sir John Oldcastle lived, when his young friend, Harry of Monmouth, was a roguish lad, at Couling Castle, close by Gad's Hill, on the great Kent road. Besides being a good soldier, a sage councillor, and a courteous gentleman, Oldcastle was a pupil of Wycliffe, a receiver of what was called the New Lifjht. A con- temner of monks and friars, he was a friend of the reip-nino: kiner, and of the graceless prince. He had fought with equal credit in the French wars and in the Welsh wars ; but his fame was not confined to the court and camp. Rumour linked his name with some of the pranks of madcap Hal. We know that THE GOOD LORD COB II AM. 59 he lived near Gad's Hill, that he built a new bridge at Rochester, and founded in that city a house for the maintenance of three poor clerks ; but we know nothing to suggest the pranks on Gad's Hill, or the orgies in Eastcheap. A high, swift sort of man ; full of fight, keen of tongue, kind to the poor, impatient with the proud ; a man of tough English fibre, and of old Eng- lish spirit ; such was the young knight who \vedded Joan, heiress of the old line of Cobham, in whose right he held Couling Castle; sitting in the House of Peers as Lord Cobham ; a name by which he was not less widely known and dearly loved than by his own. Poor and pious people everywhere called him the " Good Lord Cobham." Between this popular layman and his neighbour, Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, bad feeling had grown up. Oldcastle hated monks ; and Arundel was a patron of monks. Oldcastle loved the frank old English ways, while Arundel was fired with the new Spanish rage for converting souls. Oldcastle stood out for free inquiry ; Arundel was the chief author of our atrocious act for burning heretics. Bent on crushing the Lollard preachers, Arundel found his neighbour of Couling Castle in the way ; for Sir John not only went to hear these Lollards preach, but lodged them in his house, and defended them by his power. Nay, Sir John had set his face against the new policy, introduced by Arundel, of burnino- men alive. This burniuQ- of men alive was a new thine in the land ; and although it had then been made lawful, it was known to be a foreign device, not justified from the Word of God. Sir John, a man quick of temper and shrewd of tongue, let those prelates and friars who had got the law passed know what he thought of them. Arundel drew up a charge against Sir John, on the score of his opposition to Holy Church, which, backed by some priests and monks, he laid before the King. 6o HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. Henry, who did not want to quarrel with his friend, replied that he would himself speak with Sir John, and show him the error of his way. Nothing came of this pause. Henry talked to Sir John ; but Oldcastle was a learned clerk, which Henry was not ; and, after much writing and talking on the point, the King, at once puzzled and vexed over a coil which his wit could not smooth, left the swordsman and the gownsman to fight their fio^ht. Arundel cited Oldcastle to appear at Canterbury and purge his fame. Oldcastle replied by manning the walls and strenorthenincr the crates of Coulingf Castle ; since the Lord Primate, a baron of the realm, no less than a prince of the Church, was likely enough, on his second citation, to send archers and pikemen to enforce his will. But the crafty Primate took a surer way. He caused John Butler, one of the King's servants, to go with his own man to Couling, where he was challenged by the guard, and refused admission within the gates. Butler had no business there ; but the fact of his being sent away was adroitly presented to the King as an act of disloyalty on the part of Sir John. Quick in temper, Henry gave orders to arrest his friend, who was seized by a royal messenger, and given in keeping to Sir Robert Morley, then Lieuten- ant of the Tower. Sir Robert lodged the King's old friend in the Earl of Warwick's chamber; then the most stately and commodious prison in his charge ; the Lieutenant's house not being erected until the reign of Henry the Eighth. In this chamber, which people began at once to call Cobham tower (a name wdiich clings to it still), he was visited by his enemies, the monks and friars, who put him through his catechism, and got logically cud- gelled for their pains. But Arundel felt that he had his foe in the toils. A prisoner of the Church had then no friends ; and a man on whom Henry frowned v/as not THE GOOD LORD COB HAM. 6i likely to meet with mercy from a bench of priests. A synod met on his case in St. Paul's, which Arundel adjourned to an obscure Dominican convent on Lud- fjate Hill. When Oldcastle was brouQ^ht to this con- vent by Sir Robert Morley, he found among his judges, over whom the Primate sat in state, the priors of the Augustine and Carmelite friars. In fact, the denouncer of monkish abuses was now to be tried for his life by a board of monks. Oldcastle's answers to his accusers struck the folk who afterwards heard of them like steel on Hint. Wycliffe himself had never put the new lore in a finer light. He declared that the Bible was his rule of faith ; that every man had a right to the sacred guide ; that the bread and wine were typical, but not actual, body and blood of Christ. " What! " cried one of the judges ; " this is flat heresy." "St. Paul, the Apostle," answered Sir John, " was as wise as you be now and more godly learned : and he wrote to the Corinthians, * The bread which we brake, is it not the communion of the body of Christ ? ' " He threw out his opinions freely. " By our Lady," cried the Primate, "there shall be no such preaching within my diocese and jurisdiction — if I may know it." The synod, acting on the new Spanish law, condemned Sir John to be burnt with fire until he died. When that sentence of the court was read, and the culprit was asked what he had to say, he stood up, and spake these memorable words : " Ye judge the body, which is but a wretched thing, yet am I certain and sure that ye can do no harm to my soul. He who created that, will of His own mercy and promise save it. As to these articles I will stand to them, even to the very death — by the grace of my eternal God." Morley led him back from the Dominican convent to the Beauchamp tower, followed by the cries and tears of a whole city, in which his words were repeated 62 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. from mouth to mouth. A paper in which he wrote down the points of his behef was read in every gate- way, as Sir John Oldcastle's creed. In his fresh con- finement, under sentence of death by fire, he heard from friends of the good cause, that reports were being spread abroad of his having changed his mind since his condemnation. To meet these slanders, and to edify the pious, he sent out from Beauchamp tower a paper in the following words : " Forasmuch as Sir John Oldcastle, knight and Lord Cobham, is untruly convicted and imprisoned, falsely reported, and slandered among the common people by his adversaries, that he should otherwise both feel and speak of the sacraments of the Church, and espe- cially of the blessed sacraments of the altar, than was written in the confession of his belief, which was indicted and taken to the clergy, and so set up in divers open places in the city of London, known be it here to all the world that he never since varied in any point." The paper was posted by his friends on church- doors, on blank walls, and on the city gates. But this Cfood service was not all that could be done for him. Four weeks after his sentence had been read at Paul's Cross, William Fisher, dealer in skins, and a band of resolute citizens came down to the fortress on a dark October night, the vigil of St. Simon and St. Jude, forced their way into Beauchamp tower, drew out the popular hero, got away from the gates without being pursued, and carried him in safety to his town house in Smithfield. Henry took no active steps against the escaped heretic, who remained for nearly three months in his tow^n house, safe in the armed city against all that could be done by monks and friars. But Arundel was not a man to slacken his grip on an enemy's throat. Of himself he could do nothing against a peer so strong in popular support. Only the King could cope v/ith THE GOOD LORD COB HAM. 63 Cobham. Now, Henry would never stir against a brave soldier, at the suit of a turbulent priest, unless some danger should appear to threaten his crown and life. Then, indeed, the Primate knew that his passion would be fierce and his movement swift. How could an appearance of danger be brought about ? No man then living had enjoyed a longer experience than Arundel in popular tumults, in civil war, in the deposi- tion of kings. He knew the art of goading the com- mons into discontent, and turning their discontent to his own account. Even the great place which he held in the Church had been won as a gambler wins his stake, by a lucky chance. The Lollards helped him. Either prompted by cunning spies, or moved by reckless counsellors, the men who shared the new light resolved on making a grand display of strength. They spoke of holding a meeting in St. Giles's Fields ; they said their General, as they called Sir John, would appear amongst them ; and they promised to muster at his call a hundred thousand strong. Such a meeting of the commons, in a field near London, was not to Henry's mind, and his Christmas revels in the country were troubled by the spectre of this coming Lollard day. Arundel seized his chance. The King was away at Eltham, keeping the festival of his faith, when the Lord Primate sent him word that an army of fanatics was about to encamp in front of Newgate ; that these pestilent fellows meant to pull down kings and bishops, and set up a devil's commonwealth, with the heretic, Sir John Oldcastle, as regent of his realm. Henry flushed into rage ; yet even in his fury he acted like a master of events. No one read alarm upon his brow. The palace revels were kept up ; but on Twelfth Night coming, his horse was brought to the door, and he rode away towards London. If the captain who had smitten Burgundy were in the field, with a hundred thousand commoners at his back, the task before him 64 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. mijrht be rough and sharp. So he called his barons to his side, shut up the City gates, stuck a white cross on his banner, such as knights put on who were going to die for Holy Church, sallied from the city before it was yet dawn, marched into St. Giles's Fields, and oc- cupied all the lanes. The Lollards were completely caught. As the bands came in from the country, they were seized and brought before the King. "What seek ye ? " was the sharp question. " We go to meet our General," said the foremost, scarcely knowing to whom he spake. ** Who is your General ? " " Who is our General ! Who should he be save the Good Lord Cobham ? " Oldcastle was proclaimed ; a thousand marks set on his head ; and privilege offered to the city that should yield him bound to the King. All these rewards were cried in vain. Leaving his house in Smithfield, he roamed about the country ; now in Wales, anon near London, afterwards in Kent ; in every place hearing of the thousand marks, and of the privilege to be won by his arrest ; finding, in every shire, men and women eager to brave ruin and death in his defence. As a man cast out from the Church, it was a mortal sin to feed and shelter him. Every monk whom he met was a spy ; every priest whom he saw was a judge ; yet for more than four years he defied the united powers of Church and Crown ; sheltered from pursuit by poor folk whom he had taught, and by whom he was madly loved. Once he was near beingf taken. Lodorlnof in a farm- house near St. Albans, on a manor belonging to the abbey, he was seen by some of the abbot's men, who quickly ran to inform their lord, and came back to the farm with a force to arrest him in his bed. Oldcastle was got away ; but his books were seized ; and some of his stout defenders, who were taken by the abbot's men, were hung as a warning to the rest. On the books being opened they were found to be THE GOOD LORD COB HAM. 65 religious works; but the abbot of St. Albans was shocked to see that the heads of all the saints had been either torn out or defaced. William Fisher, the dealer in skins, who had con- ducted Oldcastle's rescue from the Tower, was seized in his house, and tried at Newgate before Nicholas Wotton, and three other judges, on a charge of break- ing into the Tower, and carrying off the King's prisoner, Fisher, found guilty by a picked jury, was sentenced by Wotton to be hung at Tyburn, to have his neck chopped through, to have his head spiked, and exposed on London BridQfe. After a chase of more than four years, the friars, who could not persuade the commons to betray Sir John, were base enough to buy him from a Welsh fellow named Powis ; a wretch of some local weight, who had won the friendship of Oldcastle by adopting his views about the monkish order and the Bread and Wine. The friars Vv^ho got hold of Powis plied him with money to betray his master, until his virtue finally gave way, and he consented to act the part of Judas, on receipt of such wages as Judas got. He came upon Oldcastle by surprise, accosted him as a friend, and took him prisoner by a desperate fight. Wounded and weak, Sir John was brought to the Tower ; and, the Kinof bein^- absent in France, the clergy gave themselves no trouble about a second trial ; but, taking the old sentence of death to be sulli- cient, they sent him to the gallows and the stake ; to the first as a traitor against his King ; to the second as an apostate from his Church. He was burnt in St. Giles's F'ields, on the spot where King Henry had caught and hung the poor Lollard bands. Such is the story of a gallant warrior, a pious gentleman, and a faithful knight. Now, what is there in such a man to suggest the idea of Falstaft" — a braggart, a coward, a lecher, a thief? Shakespeare was not the first to put this insult on 66 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. Sir John. When the young poet came to London, he found the play-writers using the name of Oldcastle as synonymous with braggart, buffoon, and clown. As Fuller says, Sir John Oldcastle was the make-sport in old plays for a coward. Finding the name current (just as a comic writer finds Pantaloon — a degradation of one of the noblest Italian names — on our modern stage) Shakespeare adopted It in his play. This false Sir John was the creation of those monks and friars against whom the true Sir John had fought his manly tight. Those friars composed our early plays ; those friars conducted our early dumb shows ; in many of which the first great heretic ever burned in England was a figure. Those friars would naturally C^Ift their assailant with the ugliest vices — for how could an enemy of friars be gallant, young, and pious ? In this degraded form, the name of Oldcastle was handed down from fair to fair, from inn-yard to inn-yard, until it took immortal shape on Shakespeare's stage. Now comes a personal query, the significance of which will not be overlooked by men who wish to learn what they can of Shakespeare's life. Why, after giving to the Oldcastle tradition that immortal shape, did Shakespeare change the name of his buffoon to Falstaff, and separate himself for ever from the party of abuse ? The point is very curious. Some motive of unusual strength must have come into play before such a course could have been taken by the poet. It is not the change of a name, but of a state of mind. For Shake- speare is not content with striking out the name of Oldcastle and writlncr down that of Falstaff He does more — much more — something beyond example in his works — He makes a confession of his faith. In his own person, as poet and as man, he proclaims from the sta'i'e — • Oldcastle died a Martyr I THE GOOD LORD COBHAM. 67 That was a sentiment which Raleioh mioht have held, which Cartwright would have expressed. It was the thought for which Weever was then struggling in his *' Poetical Life of Sir John Oldcastle ; " for which James, the friend of Jonson, if not of Shakespeare, was compiling his '* Defence of the noble knight and martyr, Sir John Oldcastle." The occurrence of such a proclamation suggests that, between the first production of " Henry the Fourth" and the date of his printed quarto, Shakespeare changed his way of looking at the old heroes of English thought. In the year 1600, a play was printed hi London with the title, " The First Part of the True and Hon- ourable History of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, the Good Lord Cobham," The title-page bore Shake- speare's name. " Sir John Oldcastle" is now regarded by every one as a play from other pens ; in fact, it is known to have been written by three of Shakespeare's fellow-playwrights ; but many good critics think the poet may have written some of the lines and edited the work. This drama was a protest against the wrong which had been done to Oldcastle on the stage by Shakespeare. The [)rologuc said : — " It is no pampered glutton we present, Nor aged counsellor to youthful sni ; But one whose virtue shone above the rest, A valiant martyr and a virtuous peer." These lines are thought to be Shakespeare's own. They are in his vein, and they repeat the declaration which he had already made. Oldcastle dild a Martyr ! The man who wrote that confession in the days of Archbishop Whitgift was a Puritan in faith. CHAPTER XI. KING AND CARDINAL, jHEN the Wars of the Roses came to an end, the royal stronghold ceased to be a general prison, and opened its gates to few save men of the highest class. Down to the Tudor times, offenders of rank had been lodged in the Banquet- ing hall, while those of inferior state had been flung into Little Ease. But poetry and art were touching men's souls into softness, and a rival in politics was no longer regarded as a wretch unworthy to live in the light of heaven. Under the Belfry, in the south-west corner of the royal ward, King Henry the Eighth built a Lieuten- ant's house ; a house of many chambers ; opening into the lower and upper rooms of the Belfry; and having a free passage, on one side into the Garden tower, on the other side into the Beauchamp tower. This house was flanked by two smaller buildings ; warders' houses, one under the west wall, another under the south wall. The latter, standing in the Lieutenant's garden, was called, the Garden house. None of these places were built as prisons; and none were used as such under Henry the Eighth, except the Belfry and the Beauchamp tower. A bare stone vault, pierced for archers and balisters, who from this high post could sweep the outer works with shaft and bolt : such is that upper chamber of the KING AND CARDINAL. 69 Belfry, which is known in old records as the Strong Room. Two points about this room, beyond the fact of its amazing strength, soon catch the eye. In the first place, it has no stairs ; no entrance from below ; no passage into the outer world, except through the Lieu- tenant's house ; in the second place, it is provided with a private closet, called in old English a "homely place." The man who made the Strong Room famous, not by his age, his eminence, and his sufferings only, but by his gaiety, his humour, and his stoutness of spirit, was John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Cardinal in Rome. Cardinal Fisher's story takes one back to an age when England was becoming what Spain has always been, — a country governed in a high degree, not by the nobler spirits of her church, but by ignorant monks and superstitious nuns. The oftence by which Fisher fell was the half smiling, half earnest siding which he took with Elizabeth Barton, the Maid of Kent ; a crazy young girl, subject to fits and ravings, who lifted up her voice against the divorce of Catharine and the marriage of Queen Anne. The Maid sent her pro- phecies and visions to both Wolsey and the King. Henry was only moved to mirth. "Why," said he, in effect, to Cromwell, " these are rhymes, and very bad rhymes ; this is no angel's work ; but such as a silly woman might do of her own poor wit." Afterwards he read her rhymes in a darker spirit ; but this change of humour was wrought in his mind by the Maid herself. The Spanish party in the Church, prone to accept irregular aid from Heaven, soon saw the use which might be made of this crazy girl. Placing her in a convent, they gave her five monks of Christ Church, of whom Father Bocking was the chief, to be her guides and secretaries. Under their eyes, the Nun made startling progress in divine lore ; speaking words which priests and prelates who wished them to be true, re- ceived with a tliankful heart. Wolsey was puzzled by 70 HER MA JES TV'S TO IVER. the Maid ; but Wolsey was then trying^ to play two games. Fisher wept with joy ; but Fisher agreed with what Father Bocking was making his Nun put forth. Many of her sayings were darlc enough ; but when need arose for plainness, she could be curt as a Hebrew seer. She declared that Heaven was against the divorce. She called on the Kincj to abandon his ofreat design. She admonished him, as he loved his soul, to put Anne away and take Catharine back. These words from the Maid of Kent were scattered throufjh the land ; copies being sent from Christ Church through the province of Canterbury, and the mendicant friars employed to report them in every village ale-house, and in every convent-yard from the Med way to the Tweed. One day, under Father Docking's lead, the poor Nun overshot her mark, and brought down ruin on her master and herself. In true Spanish style, she sent a message to the King, not only denouncing his divorce, but declaring that if he put Catharine away, he would die in seven months, when his daughter Mary, though degraded to the rank of bastard, would ascend his throne. Such a threat was no theme for mirth. Henry swept the whole brood of darkness — Nun, priest, friar, doctor — into the Tower, on their way to Tyburn. The poor girl confessed with her last breath that she was a simple woman, who had only done what the fathers told her to do for the love of God and the service of Holy Church. A room over Cold-harbour gateway, in which the poor Maid was lodged, was for many years known as the Nun's bower. Fisher, it is not denied, played fast and loose with the Maid of Kent ; as in recent days we have seen great prelates coquet with nuns, apparently not more worthy of their trust. He hoped that good would come of her delusions; most of all, he fancied that the King, KING AND CARDINAL. 71 having waited six long years for Anne, might be frightened into waiting a few years more, after which it would be easier for him to change his mind. In some such hope the prelate took the Maid's part, encouraging her visions, stirring up public curiosity about her, implying that her speeches came from God. When charged with aiding and abetting treason, he replied that he had given his ear to the impostor only on fair ofrounds, seeing: cause for the favour he had shown to her in facts which had come to hmi on good report. With biting malice, Cromwell told him that the outward facts had not weighed with him one jot. *' My lord," said Cromwell, not in these words, but to this purport, " you liked the stuff she uttered, and you pretended to believe it true because you wished it true." Of the treason of Father Bocking and the Holy Maid, no man can feel a doubt ; for theirs was a simple act ; imagining and compassing the King's death in a way which brought them under judgment of the law. Fisher's crime was far less clear ; and many men re- gard him, not without grounds, as having been made a martyr to his faith. The Cardinal's hat took off the Bishop's head. Cardinal Fisher, eighty years old, was seized as a plotter, tried for his olTencc, thrust into a barge, and pulled down the Thames. When his boat slipped under the archway of the Water-gate, he toddled on shore, and turning to the crowd of guards and oarsmen about him, said, " As they have left me nothing else to give you, I bestow on you my hearty thanks." Some of the rough fellows smiled, though they must have felt that hearty thanks from a good old man who was about to die could do them no harm. Lodged in the Strong Room he suffered much from chill and damp. The Belfry not only stood above the ditch, but lay open to the east wind and to the river log. Fisher told Cromwell, in piteous letters, that he was 72 HER' MAJESrrS TO WER, left without clothing to keep his body warm. Yet the fine old prelate never lost either his stoutness of heart or his quick sense of humour. One day, when it was bruited about the Tower that he was to suffer death, his cook brought up no dinner to the Strong Room. " How is this ? " asked the prelate, when he saw the man. — "Sir," said the cook, "it was commonly talked of in the town that you should die, and therefore I thought it vain to dress anything for you." — "Well," said the bishop, " for all that report thou seest me still alive ; therefore, whatever news thou shalt hear of me, make ready my dinner, and if thou see me dead when thou comest, eat it thyself." Henry and Cromv/ell would have spared his life, had they seen their way. But Fisher v/ould not help them ; neither would his friends help them. First and last, he was a member of the Italian Church, and no thought for his country could for one moment move him to desert the cause of that Church. Even while he was lying in the Strong Room of the Belfry he sent secret messages to the monks at Sion, hostile to Queen Anne. He kept up a warm correspondence with Rome, and Paul the Third chose that unhappy time to send him, against the express command of Henry, a cardinal's hat. On hearing of this hat being on the way from Rome, the King exclaimed, "'Fore God, then, he shall wear it on his shoulders." The death-warrant reached the Tower at midnight, and the Lieutenant, Sir Edmund Walsingham, went into the Belfry at five o'clock, to let the Cardinal know his fate. " You bring me no great news," said Fisher ; " I have long looked for this message. At what hour must I die?" — "At nine," said Walsingham. — "And what is the hour now .^ " — " Five," answered the Lieu- tenant. It was June, and of course broad daylight, even in the Strong Room, at five o'clock. — "Well, then, by your patience, let me sleep an hour or two ; for I have slept very little." Walsingham left the KING AND CARDINAL. 73 Cardinal, who slept until seven, when he rose and put on his finest suit. On his servant v/ondering why he dressed so bravely, the old man answered, " Dost thou not mark, man, that this is our marriage day ?" Taking a New Testament in his hands, he walked from the Strong Room, through Walsingham's house and the Bye-ward gate to Tower Hill ; a vast crowd pressing round him, some of v/hom could see his lips moving in prayer, and hear the words issuing from his mouth. As he gazed on the closed Gospel in his hand, he prayed the Lord that he might fmd in it some special strength in that mortal hour ; and as he prayed for this strength, he paused in his walk, opened the sacred volume, and read the passage on which his eye first fell — ** This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." Comforted by these words, he went lightly on, mounting up the steep hill, repeating, " This is life eternal," until he came to the scaffold, where he spoke a few words to the people, and laid his white head upon the block. ■^^ n^ WMJwmm^mmi CHAPTER XII. THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE. ;N the hot war which the new learninq- had to wage ai;ainst the ancient Church — a war of life and death ^ — -a war which, under new names, and with a new line of battle, carried forward the great feud of the Red rose against the White ; the Beauchamp tower was choked for many reiens with those who on either side went down in that pitiless fight. Some of these men wrote records of their passage on these walls ; not men of the first rank always ; not the prime leaders in bloody fields, but mostly their companions in defeat — men who in happier days would have pricked their names into the stones of the Colos- seum and the Great Pyramid. Much true history is graven on these walls ; for even though the tablets may have been wrought by men of the second rank, the chiefs, no doubt, stood by while the artists toiled. The inner eye may catch in yon deep recess, by the window-sill, the figure of some spent hero, scarred from either Flodden Field or Nevill's Cross, standing apart from his fellows, dumb with pride, and gazing with scorn and pity on such work. One of the early groups contains the names of three men who fell into trouble through that wild passage in our contest with the Italian Church called the Pil- o^rimacre of Grace. THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE. 75 Cut into the wall as with a sword we read : SARO: FIDELI : INGORAM PERCY 1537. The author of this record was Sir Ingram Percy, third son of Algernon, fifth Earl of Northumberland ; a younger brother of Henry the Unthrifty, once a lover of Anne Boleyn ; and of Sir Thomas Percy, the dashing knight who bore the banner of St. Cuthbert on the Don. Also cut into the wall we read : WILLIAM". BELMALAR. And in another place : RAVLEF BULMAR 1537. Sir William and Sir Ralph Bulmer (the name was spelt in a dozen ways) were Border chiefs. The head of their house was that stout Sir William, a cousin to Lord Dacre of the North, who had served on the Duke of Richmond's council, and held the Lord Warden's commission as Lieutenant of the Eastern March. Stout Sir William Bulmer had two sons, John and William ; men who followed the profession of arms, as that profession was understood in the Border lands. The old knight had given his boys a start in life, by getting them knighted, and put in a way to earn their bread. Sir John, the elder, had been sent to the Irish Pale ; Sir William, the younger, had got the command of Norham Casde, a fortress on the great north road. The King's favour had descended to the son and to the son's son. Sir Ralph, a son of Sir John, was made an officer on the Border, with a company of fifty mounted men. Elsewhere on the wall we read : ADAM : SEDBAR ABBAS: JOREVALU 1637. 76 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. Adam Sedburo;h v/as the last rei!:T:nino; Abbot of the great Yorkshire monastery of Jervaulx (pronounced Gerviss) in the north riding ; a monastery which was famous for its beauty even in the shire of Bolton and Fountains, and which is still gratefully remembered in the county for having beaten the whole world in tv/o great Yorkshire arts — the breeding of horses and the makinof of cheese. These men bore a part in the Pilgrimage of Grace. The names of Robert Aske, Lord Darcy, and Sir Robert Constable, are not found on these walls ; neither are those of William Thirske, Abbot of Fountains, Sir Thomas Percy, Sir John Bulmer, and Madge Cheyne, the wild fanatic who is sometimes described as Sir John's paramour, sometimes as his wife. All these personages were brought into the Tower ; but they passed through it and left no sign. The Pilcjrimao^e of Grace was a risincr in the rude northern shires against the reforming King, Council, and House of Commons, in favour of the Spanish princess and the Roman Church ; a movement set on foot by idle speeches from Lord Darcy of Darcy, Lord Dacre of the North, and other great barons; but which Dassed out of their cautious hands into those A. of ignorant clods, and hardly less ignorant country squires ; men who stood by their priests and friars, and who, had their strength been equal to their will, would have thrown down their country at the feet of Spain. The divorce of Oueen Catharine and the bull of Paul the Third had produced among the lower ranks in these northern shires a ferment for which the men of Kent and Essex were unprepared. In the home counties, opinion was with the King. In London, and in all the provinces lying near London, the creed and the cause of Spain had fallen at a word — had fallen at once, and for ever ; the decrees which v/ere to frame a true English order in the family and in the Church, having been issued by the commons long THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE. ri before they were put into legal phrase by Parliament and King. Not so in the north. The partition of England into two church provinces was in the reiq;;! of Henry the Eighth but echo to an actual fact. The Trent was like the Tweed ; a border line between counties jealous of each other ; counties apt to fall out, and when they fell out, to fight. The two provinces had a different custom, in some things a different law. York was a great capital ; Yorkshiremen spoke with contempt of the city on the Thames ; and most men living beyond the Trent thought shame of the King for not holding his Court and Parliament in York. Yet, in every point of culture and civility, the northern shires were a century behind those of the south and west. All that made England great, all that was helping to make her free, was found in that reign, not on the H umber and the Tyne, but on the Severn and the Thames. The thinkers who were moulding her mind, the poets who were fixing her speech, the politicians who were shaping her laws, were men of the southern race. Belovv^ the Trent, the peasant was better clothed, the gentlemen vcere better served, the parson was better read, than their fellows above that stream ; and any fight for svv-ay between north and south was in fact a conflict of the brooding dark- ness ag-ainst the (rrowins: lifjht. Those silent changes in the state of public thought which made the first great acts of the reforming council — the separation from Spain and Rome, the re-estab- lishment of an English Church, the suppression of monks and friars, — so welcome in the south, had no true counterpart in the shires beyond the Trent. In these counties there was hardly any public thought to change. Men had forgotten the old English Qiurch. They saw few travellers and read no books. They roamed throuQ-h their native dales from youth to age ; loud of oath, and fierce in fight ; proud of their doo-s, their horses, and their wives ; ready for either a 78 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. bout of sticks or a bout of ale ; but chained to one place, at feud with the world, dependent on the wan- dering friars, with never a thought in their great strong heads. Coarse in manner and rude in speech, they were not so shocked as southerners by the immoralities of their spiritual guides. They owed a good deal to monks, and they had much to learn from priests. In an age when few men could read and cipher, it was a benefit to the grazier to have a learned man call at his house, who could cast up his tallies and see that he got his own. The friars who dwelt in these dales were perhaps of better and stouter stuff. Certainly the cloisters of Jervaulx had no such evil reputation as the cloisters of St. Augustine. When a Yorkshire man mentioned Jervaulx, he spoke proudly of the fine horses and the good cheese to be found in that abbey. When a Kentish man mentioned St. Augustine's, he spoke bitterly of the insolent Abbot and his dissolute monks. While the laity of Kent were rejoicing over the ruin of St. Augustine's, the friars of Jervaulx were regarded by the laity of York as the peasant's best friends. Hence, when Darcy of Darcy, and Dacre of the North, gave tongue on the changes being made In London, the common folk took up the tale with a clatter of hoofs and pikes which echoed through the land. Some old political feeling mingled with the fray. York was still sore on account of Bosworth Field. In the last struggle of the Red and the White Roses, she had orone down in her armour, while the victors on that field had been her masters ever since. She burned to avenge that shame. King Henry, it is true, united in his person the claims of both Lancaster and York ; and but for his change of belief and the bull of Pope Paul, no man, however hot for blows, would have dreamed of questioning his right to reign. But he was quarrelling with the Pope. He THE FJLGRhMAGE OF GRACE. 79 was tampering with their laws. He was separating them from the universal Church. Under such con- ditions, it was right to tell him, in no doubtful terms, that his safety lay in harking back, in taking his old wife, in keeping to the ancient lines. If he refused good counsel, the heavens might fall upon his head and leave them free. Should he fight and fail, the settlement made after Bosworth Field could be reversed. Then a Lancastrian prince had taken a White Rose to wife ; now a Yorkist prince might marry a Red one. A prince of the line of Edward the Fourth would not be far to seek. There was Courtney, there was Pole ; either of whom, by marry- ing Queen Catharine's daughter, the Princess Mary, would unite the rival houses in a second bond. With either of these princes on the throne, Yorkshire would be satisfied, and religion would be saved. When the royal decree for putting down monastic houses reached Yorkshire, mobs rose upon the King's commissioners ; hooting them from the towns, tearing up their proclamations, and in more than one town clubbing them to death. In place of standing by the law, the gentry looked on in silence. Show of autho- rity was gone. The magistrates fled ; the citizens snatched up pike and bill ; and the barons, whose foolish chatter had roused this storm, retired to their fortified houses, on pretence of guarding those strong- holds for the King. Northumberland lay at Wressil, Darcy at Pomfret. All the Border was in uproar, and no man knew what he ought to do. Then the monks came out and made their irame. Fathers sallied forth from the abbeys of F^ountains, Jervaulx, Hexham, and Lannercost, calling on the people to rise up in defence of the King and Holy Church. They laid the blame of all evil at Cromwell's door. Cromwell, they said, was putting down convent and abbey in order that he might levy a tax for the King on marriages, births, and deaths. Cromwell was a devil, and the hrst 8o HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. demand of the saints must be Cromwell's head. This rising must be a Pilgrimage of Grace. The stout Yorkshire lads must march on London ; deliver their King from his evil councillors; restore Queen Catharine to his bed and board ; hang Cromwell like a dog ; revive the religious houses ; and see that their father the Pope got his own again. These friars supported their appeals with prophetic tales. The Prior of Maldon told the story of one ancient man, who had said the Church would suffer dole for three years ; of another ancient man, who had said the King would be forced to fly from his realm, and on his coming back from beyond sea would be glad to reign over two-thirds of his former land. These dreamers were going back to the Heptarchy, without going back to the free Saxon Church. The friars prepared an oath, which they put to every man they met ; a pledge to stand by the King and Holy Church. Vast crowds were taking up the cross, and sticking on their breasts the pilgrim's sign ; a scroll displaying the five wounds of Christ. But as yet the Catholic host Vv^as without a general ; the great barons would not descend from their castles into the streets ; and the mob, after yelling through twenty courtyards, "A chief! a chief!" began to seize on leaders by force and chance. These louts believed that if they could catch a man and put him to the oath, he would become their own for weal and woe ; bound by a compact from which he could never break. More than once, it was proposed in their camp to make a dash into Norfolk, carry off the Duke, Anne Boleyn's uncle, and put him to the oath. One Robert Aske, a gentleman of middle age, was riding home to London from a hunting-party at his cousin Ellerkar's place in Yorkshire, when he was seized by a band of pilgrims near Appleby, put to the oath, and saluted Captain of the host! The choice seemed droll enough. Aske was a London lawyer, who THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE. 8i knew nothing about war, and had never seen a camp. Yet here he was, on a Yorkshire wold, with a general's staff, in the midst of a swarm of men ; some of them mounted, most of them armed, all of them hot with passion ; clamouring to be led on London in defence of the King and Holy Church. Aske, thus suddenly armed with power for either good or evil, looked around him. A man of the north, he felt with the louts and churls who had thrust the sword into his hand ; but he knew, as a northern man, that for any rising of these commons to have a chance, it must be led by the ancient lords of the soil ; by the Percies of Alnwick, by the Darcys of Darcy ; not by an unknown commoner like himself. These captains he made up his mind to seek. New men were coming daily into camp ; Bulmers, Danbys, Tempests, Monck- tons, Gowers ; and the great barons, even those who held the King's commission, were supposed to share in the general hope. Why was not Percy in the camp ? Henry Percy, sixth Earl of Northumberland, was the man of highest rank and power then living beyond the Trent. In the antiquity of his line, in the fame of his fathers, in the extent of his possessions, he stood without a rival. Lord of Alnwick, Wressil, Leckinfield, and other strong places, he kept the state and exercised the power of a prince ; having his privy council, his lords and grooms of the chamber, his chamberlains, treasurers, purse-bearers, some of which offices were hereditary in gentle houses ; together with his dean of the chapel, his singers, his scribes, and no less than ten officiating priests. He was the King's deputy in the north ; Warden of the East March and the Middle March ; the fountain of all authority in the Border lands. If any man could be made prince of a new kingdom of the north, Percy was that man. Like his neighbours, Percy had been slow to follow the great changes then going on in London. As yet, 6 S2 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER, the names of Catholic and Protestant had not been heard in Yorkshire. Those who were now in arms for King and Holy Church, had risen in favour of what they thought old ways and things ; not knowing that their countrymen in the south had risen in favour of still older ways and things. The Earl took much the .same view as his tenants. But Henry was unthrifty ; a weak and ailing man, who had never got over his love for Anne Boleyn ; and v/ho was mourning in his great house at Wressil, on the Derwent, her starless fate. When Aske and a body of riders dashed into tiie court- yard of Wressil, shouting, "A Percy, a Percy I" the King's Warden of the Marches slipped into bed, and sent out word that he was sick. The Pils^rims would not take this answer. They wanted a Percy in their camp ; Earl Henry if it might be ; so that folk could say they were marching under the King's flag, with law and justice on their side. Aske sent fresh messages into the sick-room ; either the Earl or his brothers, Sir Thomas and Sir Ingram, he said, must join the camp. Now these young knights were only too quick to obey his call. Henry made a feeble protest ; and after they were gone, he revoked the commissions which they held under him as ofiicers in the East and Middle Marches. Catharine, their mother, widow of the fifth Earl, detained them with tears over what she felt would be their doom. She came of a house which had known the Tower and the block too well ; her uncle beinof that Duke of Somerset who was executed by Edward the Fourth ; her great-grandsire, that Earl of Warwick who had given his name to Beauchamp tower ; but her sons, though they paused for a moment at her warning cries, soon leapt to horse, and clad in Hashing steel and ilaunting plume rode forward into camp, where th;t Pilgrims received them with up- roarious joy. That shining steel and that dazzling plume were afterwards cited as evidence that they had joined the Pilgrims by deliberate choice ; and THE PILGRIMAGE OE GRACE. Zx o his fine attire caused one of the Pcrcies to lose his head. Some tliirtv thousand Pilijriins of Grace beean their march towards London, where they meant to hang Lord Cromwell, and give the Pope his own. York, alter short parley with the Captain, opened her gates. On entering the chief northern stronghold, Aske, now master of the country beyond H umber, announced that all monks and nuns who had been driven from their houses should be restored, and that the King's tenants, to whom abbey lands and build- ings had been let, should be expelled. Few of the King's tenants waited for his bands to oust them ; but leaving, for a time, the fields which they had ploughed, and the granaries which they had stored, they lied for safety beyond the Trent. Aske advanced on Pomfret Castle, the surrender of which by Lord Darcy gave him the command of Barnsdale up to the gates of Doncaster. Darcy, captured at Pomfret, was put to the oath, and hailed a leader; as were also Sir Thomas Percy, Sir Ingram Percy, Sir John Bulmer, and many more ; though the rank of Captain still remained with Aske. At Doncaster brid^je the Pilgrrims came to a halt ; the Duke cf Norfolk, a great soldier and an able councillor, the hero of Flodden Field and Wissant Bay, having been sent up north by the King, to seize and hold that passage of the Don. Aske was extremely strong in horse. Sir Thomas Percy, glittering in steel, and bearing St. Cuthbert's banner, was followed by five thousand mounted men. The Borders sent as many more. In all, twelve thousand horsemen waited the signal to advance. The Duke, though his force was weaker in numbers, kept a firm front to the north ; waiting for his reserves to come in ; nego- tiating with the chiefs ; sending heralds through the towns ; tempting Darcy to his side ; and operating everywhere for time. 84 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. Before his reserves had come up, the campaign was over. The Duke had beaten the lawyer in a game of words, ending in a treaty of peace, which the two parties were left free to understand in a different sense. The Captain thought he had gained his point ; the Duke felt sure that he had gained his point. In the meantime, the northern men, on laying down their arms, received a king's pardon, and rode off to their several homes. In a few days, the rebels were scattered to the four winds, never to meet again in strength ; while the King's forces kept the field, as lawful guardians of the public peace. The York- shiremen fancied the King had agreed to govern in their own spirit ; to hold a Parliament in York ; to receive complaints from his disloyal subjects ; to restore the religious houses ; to put away Cromwell ; and to give back all that he had taken from the Pope. Thus ended, in delusion and in doubt, the Pil- grimage of Grace. The ruin caused by that rising in the north was yet to come. CHAPTER XIII. MADGE CHEYNE. ^"^HEN the three Bulmer knights, Sir John, Sir William, and Sir Ralph, rode into the Pilgrim camp, they brought with them a wild creature, who was sometimes called the wife, oftentimes called the paramour, of Sir John. Her name was Margaret Cheyne, but in the rough Border speech she was only known as Madge. She talked of herself as Lady Bulmer, and in loose Border fashion she may have gone through some rite which made her believe she was a lawful spouse. But in the legal process taken against her afterwards in London, she was described with the coarse accuracy of an indict- ment as Margaret Cheyne ; all claim to the rank of Lady Bulmer being set aside. Sir John had a second wife, either living or dead, in Ann Bigod of Musgrove, who was the mother of his son Sir Ralph. In those times, the Border laws as to man and wife were vague and feeble ; good enough for trolls and callants ; not of much force when applied to women of spirit and men of wit. Madge was a woman of very high spirit ; and Sir John, though he could not be called a man of wit, was one who lived by that coarse substitute for wit — his sword. Neither of the twain could boast a very clean record in the past. Mad blood ran through the lady's veins. She was a love- child of that Edward, Duke of Buckingham who had S6 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. left the Tower as Lord High Constable of England, to come back poor Edward Stafford. Sir John had not only missed his chance of fame, but covered him- self with the obloquy which a soldier would rather die than bear. Lord Surrey, the Lord Lieutenant, had broken him and dispersed his troop. The Border 1; night came back to his eyrie in the Cleveland hills, a place on the slope of Eston Nab, called Wilton Castle, remote from roads and men, and suiting in its savage beauty of marsh and fell, the soreness of his spirit. He was still further tried by the loss of his old and lucrative command on the Tweed. But the news which year by year came down from London to Sir John and his partner Madge, news brought into the Yorkshire dales by wandering friars, was not of a kind to vex his soul ; for they told him of thinsfs beinpr wronQf at court, of doubt and strife in the council, of messages going and coming between King and Pope, of prophecies uttered by the jNIaid of Kent ; and all these signs of trouble in the south had given promise of fresh employment to the Border-man. William, third Lord Dacre of the North, his cousin, was sore in spirit like himself, owing the court a grudge, not only on religious, but on personal grounds. From Lord Dacre, Sir John took up the tale of sedi- tion, and when the Pilgrimage of Grace began, he was one of the first crentlemen in the dales to march. But hate had more to do with his resolve than love ; for the Duke, who was coming up north against the Pilgrims, was the very man who had broken him as a soldier and branded him as a coward. Eager to try a lance with Norfolk, Bulmer rode into camp, attended by his son, his brother, and his faithful Madge. Nov/, Madge, who was a devout woman, if not an honest wife, brought with her into the Pilgrim camp, not only her high blood and bickering tongue, but P'ather Stanhousc, her family priest. Madge, like Sir John, had her grudge against the Duke. Norfolk MADGE CHEYNE. Z7 \vas her kinsman ; she said her brother-in-law, since he was married to her sister, the Lady Ehzabeth Stafford ; and many others besides Madge Cheyne thoui^ht he might have done more to save the Duke, her father, from Wolsey's mahce. Madge thought herself equal to her enemy, since her father was a duke, like Norfolk, and her father's daughter was Norfolk's wife. All that lay between them was, in her opinion, a phrase, and a ring. But the day was now come for vengeance. Many other females put on the pilgrim's badge, but no woman in the crowd disputed the foremost place assumed by Madge, The woman was equal to all demands upon her. If any hard thing was to be said, she was prompt with the cruel word. If any bad deed was to be suggested, she was quick with the fatal hint. She roamed through the Pilgrim camp, crying out for blood. She wanted Cromwell's blood. She wanted Norfolk's blood. At first, the death of these two noblemen would ha,ve slaked her thirst; but as days went on and difhculties rose in her path, she cried out for other and humbler lives. When the Pilgrims went home from Doncaster, and the leaders were invited to lay their complaints before the King, Madge spurned the offer, preferring the soli- tudes of Eston Nab before the gaieties of a faithless court. Aske rode up to London, where he saw the King, and almost fell a victim to his courtly grace. Sir John sent up his son. Sir Ralph, to feel the ground, meaning to join him in London if all seemed well at court. But Mado-e would neither o-o nor allow Sir John to go. " Ride to London ! " she exclaimed, " she would never ride to London until Cromwell and the Duke were hung." At Wilton Castle slie had her confessor, P^ather Stanhouse, a man of like grit with herself; a wild and passionate fellow, who tramped through the dales and towns, taunting the gentry with the shame of living as pardoned rebels, telling them that Norfolk was now master cf every man's land and 88 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. life, callinf^ upon them to stand by the Spanish princess and by Holy Church. Father Stanhou.se was only one of many priests who raised their parable against what they called the decep- tion of Doncaster. From Fountains, Jervaulx, and Hexham, bands of friars came forth ; men who had been turned out of their stalls ; and these men spread themselves through the country, preaching against Cromwell and Norfolk ; whispering in too willing ears that the pardon was a snare, that the King was for- sworn, that no parliament would be held in York, that no petition from the commons would be received, that the whole north would be lost when the King had thrown his garrisons into Newcastle, Scarborough, and Hull, towns on the coast which could be victualled and supported from the sea. Under such preachers of sedition the dalesmen were prepared for some new Pilorimape of Grace. The new movement preached by these monks was to differ from the first in this grand point — it was to be a movement of the commons. The knights and squires had played their game ; they had been beaten and must stand aside. Some voices called them traitors ; others branded them as cowards. What was the upshot of their parley with the Duke ? A pardon, which was not a pardon but a sentence. Nothing had been gained. The Pilgrims had been checked at the bridge, only because Darcy was afraid to march, and Aske was ignorant of war. That day was lost ; but the north was still strong in numbers and stout in faith. Of the sixty thousand brave lads who had sv/orn the Pilgrim's oath, not a hundred had gone over to the King. All that was now wanting to success was a movement of the commons. Adam Sedburgh, Abbot of Jervaulx, and William Thirske, Abbot of Fountains, lent the v/eight of their names and offices to these appeals. Hardly less ominous than the tone adopted by the MADGE CHEYNE, 89 commons and the friars was the attitude taken by the defeated gentry. Knight and squire, after marching proudly to the Don, could not be made to see that the treaty had left them in the position of pardoned rebels ; of men who had forfeited their ancient standing and their ancient rights. They found their neighbours in no easy mood ; and many a squire who had been hard and high in his former state was taught to feel how weak even rich and big men may become when they cease to have law and power upon their side. No two gentlemen north of the Trent had more rebuffs to bear than Sir Thomas and Sir Ingram Percy. When they set out on the Pilgrimage of Grace, Earl Henry, their brother, as Warden of the East and Middle Marches, had recalled their com- missions of lieutenancy in the Border lands ; giving them to Robert Lord Ogle, and Sir Raynold Carnaby, gentlemen of the county who stood well affected to the Kine. Osrle, a kinsman of the Earl, was made his lieutenant in the Eastern March ; Carnaby, a gentle- man of his bed-chamber, was made his lieutenant in the Middle March. But this transfer of the Border power was one of those changes which Sir Thomas and Sir Ingram could not accept. When the confer- ence on the bridge broke up. Sir Thomas rode back to his house at Pridhow, and called to his side the men of Hexham and Tynedale ; while Sir Ingram rode to Alnwick Castle, whence he summoned the local gentry to meet him at Rothbury. To these acts of the pardoned rebels, Lord Ogle and Sir Raymond Carnaby objected in their capacity of lieutenants to the King's warden, whose commission they held ; on which Sir Thomas and Sir Ingram Percy railed in all places ao^ainst these officers — most of all asfalnst Sir Ravnold, whom they treated as a mere lacquey in their brother's house. Sir Thomas sent a gang of dalesmen into vSIr Raynold's lands — fellows who laid waste his farms, entered his house, and stole his plate. At the same 90 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. time, in defiance of the Border lieutenants, Sir Ingram Percy began swearing the gentry of Ahiwick and Kothbury to stand by each other, shoulder to shoulder, for the honour of God and the good of Holy Church. Poor folk were at their wits' end. No man could tell on which side lay the law ; for, while Carnaby asserted in a meek voice that lie, lieutenant of the Middle March, was the only man to speak in the King's name, Sir Thomas Percy declared that he, and he only, was the warden's true representative in those parts. The loud voice and the haughty bearinof won the dav. Most men believed Sir Thomas must be right ; and Carnaby, who could do nothing save complain to the sick warden, had to hide himself in Chillingham Castle from the attacks of his turbu- lent foe. Men were in these cross humours when news came down from Sir Ralph Bulmer, warning his father to look well to himself, as things were going all wrong at Court. Madge leapt to her feet. "If only one man will stir," she screamed, " the whole country will be up." P^ather Stanhouse supported her. " Now," cried the priest, " is the time to rise — now or never." Norfolk was on his way to the north ; some said with a great army to waste the land ; others said with a free pardon in his pocket, and the writs for a new Parliament to be held in York. Which was the true report ^. Abbot Adam, of Jervaulx, sent his man Simon Jaxon, into Lincolnshire, on pretence of collect- ing rents from the abbey farms ; but with instructions to observe the state of things ; to see whether men were standing for King or Pope; to lie about Newark until the Duke should come ; and then bring news of the King's army, whether his company was large or small. Lord Ogle, as lieutenant of the East March, called a court of the Border, by proclamation, at Morpeth ; but Ogle proved to be as feeble in presence of these MADGE CHEYNE, 91 rough Percies as poor Carnaby himself. Sir Thomas sent forth a counter-proclamation, declaring that Lord Ogle had no right to hold a Border court, and calling on his friends and tenants to meet him in Morpeth and resist the attempt by force. Sir Ingram put himself in harness ; called on his men, and rode from Alnwick Castle into Morpeth on the appointed day. Ogle now fell back — afraid, as he said, in excuse, of blood being shed, until the King should send him orders what to do. Sir Ingram had some show of law on his side, which his brother Sir Thomas had not ; a lucky fact for him when the transactions in which they were now engaged came under the eyes of twelve impartial men. Sir Ingram had persuaded the Abbot of Alnwick, a man devoted to his Church, to ride over to Wressil, in Yorkshire, and get from the sick Earl a commission for Ingram to act as a deputy- warden in the Eastern March. The Abbot rode to Wressil and saw the Earl, to whom he told a lying story of Sir Ingram being now a true liefjeman to the Kinor • one who could do his grace high service in the unsettled Borders, if he could only have a writing to that effect under his brother's hand. Henry, who heard this tale with pleasure, gave the Abbot such papers as he desired, naming his brother deputy and sheriff ; though he made it a con- dition that Sir Ingram should serve for that year with- out pay, since the King had been already put to the full amount of his Border charge. Sir Ingram sent no answer, as to whether he would act on these terms or not ; but he kept the papers, which bore the warden's signature and seal, in order that he might silence any man who should challenge him for preventing Lord Ogle's court. When news was brought from Newark by Simon Jaxon, that Norfolk was coming with a strong army, the whole Border began to throb with life ; church bells were rung, and a fire was lighted on Hston Nab. Some rioters seized on Beverley, a town in which tlie 92 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER, Percy tenantry were strong. Sir Francis Bigod raised the banner of Holy Church. *' Now is the time," cried Madge to her sluggish lover ; " now is the time ; Bigod is in the field ; up, up and join them." Bigod was the brother of Buhner's wife. But the country was too much cowed for this revolt to grow, and an attempt which was made on Hull not only failed but com- promised Aske. The spirit of the first Pilgrimage could not be revived ; for no one could now be de- ceived by the cry of King and Holy Church ; and every man who took up arms was well aware that he was putting a halter round his neck. Henry the Unthrifty rose from his sick-bed and went to York, hoping to save his brothers and to serve his King. There Sir Ingram joined him, in the mad belief that the dying man could be persuaded to throw in his lot with the commons who were dreaming of a second Pilgrimage of Grace. Henry was sad and stern ; Ingram hot and silly. " Cromwell," cried the young knight, "should be hanged as high as men could see ; " and when his brother turned on him in pity, the madman added, " Yes ; and be I present, as I wish to God I may be, I will thrust my sword into his belly." The Earl, too weak to arrest his brother on the spot, as he should have done, if only to keep him out of harm, revoked the warrant which he had given him as deputy and sheriff; so that Ingram had no longer a shadow of authority for what he was about to do. But the withdrawal of his warrant was not yet known beyond the gates of York, and he made it his first affair to prevent the news from going north. Of course, his brother would write to Lord Ogle and his other deputies ; and he laid a plan for intercepting his brother's letters. Some of his men were planted in the King's highway, along which the messenger would have to ride ; and when the carrier came up they seized his bridle, tumbled him from his seat, rifled his sack, and opened the letters which they found. It was MADGE CHEYNE. 93 a daring crime, for the warden was the King's deputy, and his servant, travelHng on pubHc duty, was regarded by the law as the King's own man. To stop him by force, and break open his sealed despatches, was an offence for which the penalty was death. The criminals were baffled. Either the man had no letters for Lord Ogle, or he suspected foul play, and put them out of sight. Much of the Border was now up ; the oath was again put to men at the sword-point ; and every one v/ho refused to swear it had to fly into some place of safety until calmer times. Carnaby and his friends shut themselves up in Chillingham Castle ; a very strong place on the Till, which Sir Ingram tried to reduce, but with no success for the want of heavy euns. These euns he made an effort to obtain from the King's magazine of arms in Berwick ; by repre- senting that he held a legal commission, and needed artillery for the King's service. The falsehood of his assertions was found out in time. Sir John Bulmer was not the last to declare himself, though his slowness to appear in the field drove Madge to despair. He wished to see the commons in force before he moved. "If the commons will not rise," cried Madge, " let us begone ; let us flee away into another land." Sir John took counsel with his priests. The clergy who heard the confessions of their flocks must surely know the state of men's minds ; and the cause being that of Holy Church, he had some right to know from those who held all secrets in their keeping, what the churls were about to do. So he sent Stanhousc to Father Frank, a popular priest, and Robert Hugill to the Vicar of Kirkby, to ask, whether the dalesmen would rise against the King or no. " If they will not rise," said Madge, " let us take ship for Scodand." When Norfolk crossed the Ouse, the commotion began to droop. One day after mass in the chapel of Alnwick Casde, Sir Ingram said to his brother : " I am 94 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. afraid the King and commons will agree." " Nay," replied Sir Thomas, " that will not be so ; for the commons have promised me never to agree without my knowledge." Ingram felt sore. " Tut," cried his elder, " they will never agree, without a pardon for all offences done ; therefore let us do what we think, and tliat whilst we may.'" But their little hour was gone. While they were talking in the chapel, the officers of justice were on their track ; not a pike was lifted by the commons in their defence ; and the splendid young knights were soon on their way to the Tower. One wild scheme came into the crazy pates on Eston Nab. Sir John and Madge proposed to descend from their hold into the towns ; to raise the men of Guis- borough, among whom the monks had much sway ; and try a dashing blow at the ducal camp. If they could seize the Duke, and carry him by force to Wilton Castle, they fancied that something good might come of such a deed. They could either sell him to the King, or send him to the devil. But while they were dreaming of this bold attempt, the officers were at hand, and in a few hours Sir John and Madge were also marching south. William Thirske and Adam Sedburgh, abbots of Fountains and Jervaulx, were also on the road. The procession of Pilgrims was long and doleful ; but the foremost offenders were only too soon at Tyburn tree. Darcy, Aske, Bigod, Constable, were quickly put away. Sir Thomas Percy and Sir John Bulmer pleaded guilty. Madge did the same. They were all con- demned to die. The bill against Sir Ralph was dropped. Adam, abbot of Jervaulx, pleaded not guilty. He had not willingly joined the rebels. He could not deny that he had fed them from the abbey larder, and that he had given them money ; but the meat was given in charity, and the money for services in tending MADGE ClIEYNE. 95 tlie abbey sheep. Neither could he deny being out with the Pilorinis ; but he explained to his judges, that when the rebels knocked at the abbey gate and called upon him to come forth, he slipped away by a back door and hid himself for three days and nights in Witton Fell ; but being tracked by scouts, he was brouglit into the camp by force. A jury brought hini in guilty, and he was hung at Tyburn, in company with Sir Thomas Percy, Sir John Bulmer, and William Thirske. Sir Ralph Bulmer was pardoned in the following year, and restored in blood by Edward the Sixth, when he went back to Eston Nab, a wiser and a poorer man. .Sir Ingram Percy, like Sir John Bulmer, had lived with a woman in the lawless Border way. When he died, in the year of his pardon, he left a daughter by this paramour, for whom he made special provision i,i his will. Two centuries after they were dead and gone, the story of this lawless love, and this illegiti- mate child, came to occupy public attention for many years. Sir Ingram was the ancestor from whom Percy the Trunkmaker derived his claims. Mad^^e Chevne met the most terrible fate of all. The wild daucrhter of Buckinorham was sentenced to die by fire ; and being carried in a cart to Smithfield, she was placed in the centre of a pile of faggots, and on the very spot where so many poor Lollards had been burnt, her passionate life was licked up by the flames. CHAPTER XIV. HEIRS TO THE CROWN. iIXTEEN years after the Pilgrims of Grace had been hung and burnt alive for standing by the old faith, men and women were being hung at Tyburn and burnt at Smithfield for standing by the new. A queen had risen who could not walk in her father's way ; she was a Spanish, not an English, queen ; and the men who had done her father's will were now being paid for that service to her house with a pile of faggots and a length of rope. A roll of drama now unfolds itself in the Good Lord Cobham's chamber ; the romance of three Queens, the epoch of English thought ; the opening scene of which drama was a contest for the crown. On what may be called the opening day of this new reign, the Beauchamp tower and some adjoining rooms and vaults, never until that day used as prisons, re- ceived into their embrace a family group ; for one of whom, a fair and innocent girl, the world has never ceased to feel that sad and tender passion which a father nurses for the child whom he has loved and lost. That family group consisted of John Dudley, the proud Duke of Northumberland, Lord President of the Council; John, Earl of Warwick, a youth of twenty- three ; Lord Ambrose Dudley, a younger son ; Lord Robert, a boy of twenty, but already the husband of Amy Robsart; Lord Guilford, and Lord Henry, still HEIRS TO THE CROWN. 97 in their teens ; and that young wife of Guilford Dudley, who is known as the Nine Days' Queen. These noble folk were scattered through the Tower ; Duke John in the Gate house, then called the Garden tower ; Lord Ambrose and his youngest brother, Lord Henry, in the Nun's bower ; Queen Jane in the deputy- lieutenant's house ; Lord Robert in the lower tier, Lord Guilford in the middle tier of Beauchamp tower. John, Earl of Warwick, a laborious carver, left the work of his knife in many places on these walls. Some of his pieces are light and jesting ; all " The sadder that they make us smile." On the north side of the chamber, just above the name of Adam Sedbar, abbot of Jervaulx, stand these four letters : JANE On the same side of this room, but on the inner jamb of the recess, this name occurs a second time. These things are not her doing. Lady Jane never lodged in this chamber ; and after her nine days' reign was over, she never assumed the style of queen. They are the work of her partner in greatness — Lord Guil- ford ; a youth who was always whining to be king. From this family group of prisoners, two men and one woman were taken to the block ; an old warrior, a young bridegroom, and a lovely bride. All three made a good end of life ; though neither the stout soldier, nor the gallant youth, adorned the stake with so much patient beauty as that girl of seventeen summers, who had come to the end of her nine days' reign. The crime which sent her to the block was her royal blood ; and her story is a part of that great con- tention for the crown which brought so many princes of her family to the Tower. When Edward the Sixth died, the keenest wit in pngland could not tell iji whom the right to succeed 98 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. him lay. Law was thought to be on one side, right on the other side. ParHament had been asked to settle, unsettle, and resettle the order in which the throne should go, so often, that every point of law and of fact had become confused, except that which seemed to lie in the power of nature and of habit. Every man said the sceptre ougJit to descend upon the true heir. But who was that true heir ? Those who had the best claims by blood appeared to have very poor claims by law. As King Edward left no issue, his crown fell back ; first, upon his father's heirs ; next, upon his grand- father's heirs ; then upon the heirs of Edward the Fourth ; afterwards, upon the heirs of George Plan- tagenet, Duke of Clarence ; finally, upon the heirs eeneral of Edward the Third. These lines were re- presented by claimants more or less able to make good their right. The front rank consisted of not less than eight pre- tenders ; all of whom were women ! Of these eight women, not one had a clear title ; two of them being aliens, while six were blemished in their birth. Here, then, was a situation for the opening drama : — eight females fighting for a crown which had never yet been worn on a female brow ! I. Princess Mary. II. Princess Elizabeth. The two sisters of Edward the Sixth had been set aside by Acts of Council, Acts of Parliament, Acts of the Church, and so far as state decrees could put the King's sisters out of court, they were out of court. Their mothers had been cast away on the ground that they had never been lawful wives ; their birth had been assailed ; their titles had been quashed ; their rank had been reduced ; their rights, as king's children, had been extinguished. These public acts had never been repealed. In his old age, their father had in some sort owned his daughters ; but the act in which this show of justice had been done was of doubtful HEIRS TO THE CROWN. 99 force, since the previous statutes which defined their bastardy were left untouched. Indeed, his act for regulating the succession had only named them, in so far as they were his children. They were not restored in blood ; they were not declared to have been lawfully born ; they Avere not adopted into the regal line, except as additional heirs, and with the risk of being excluded by a fmal will. Whether they had been excluded, or not, could only be known to the King's executors, who were supposed to have been sworn to secrecy during King Edward's life. III. Mary Queen of Scots. IV. Princess Margaret. After the luckless sisters of King Edward, the crown would pass to the heirs of Henry the Seventh. Now, Henry the Seventh had left behind him two daughters — the Princess Margaret and the Princess Mary, both of whom had issue living when he died. Margaret, the elder sister, had been married to James the Fourth, King of Scots, to whom she had borne a son, afterwards James the Fifth, father of Mary, the Queen of Scots. This Queen Mary, born on a foreign soil, was excluded from her natural place in the order of succession by the Alien Act. But her mother. Queen Margaret, had left a second child. That field of Plodden, which put James the P'ifth on his father's throne, made his mother, Queen Margaret, a widow — young enough for love, and ready enough to fall into dangerous ways. A very handsome fellow, Archibald Douglas, sixth Earl of Angus, caught her eye. He had a wife and daucrhter livincr ; but the Scottish queen (true sister of Bluff Harry) cared little for law when her passions were on fire ; and in less than twelve months after the great disaster of Flodden Field, she took to herself the handsome and wedded thane. They used each other ill. Margaret was shrewd of tongue ; Angus fickle in the point of love. One child was born of this godless union ; little Princess loo HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. Margaret, born within the Border, to save her English rights. For a dozen years, Queen Margaret led a wretched life ; she quarrelled with her husband ; she left his house ; she went back to live with him ; she found him faithless to her ; she left him once again. The court was vexed with her troubles ; scandalised by his amours. At length the Queen procured a divorce from Rome, by which her marriage was de- clared null and void, on the ground that Angus had a wife alive when he took the Queen. This decree would have made poor little Margaret illegitimate ; but a brief was brought from Rome to the effect that, since the mother had gone through the form of marriage in good faith, the child, though born in adultery, should be considered as lawful heiress of Archibald and Queen Margaret, just as though they had been actually man and wife ! Rome could do much in those days ; but Rome herself could not pre- vent rivals from laughing at a declaration which made a tavern jest of both law and fact. V. Princess Frances. VI. Lady Jane. Mary, the younger child of Henry the Seventh, had been married to Louis the Twelfth, King of France (son of Duke Charles the Poet), who died, as it were, in his honeymoon. Within a few months of the King's demise, Queen Mary had been secretly united to her first lover, Charles Brandon, afterwards created Duke of Suffolk. By this second husband the Queen had issue two princesses — Frances and Elinor — to the first of 'whom her eventual rio-hts descended, thoup-h not without legal flaw ; since, at the time of the Queen's marriage with Brandon, that nobleman had a wife alive. Frances, elder daughter of Brandon and the Queen, had in turn been given to Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, a "man of high birth, and of austere life; but weak in character, short in vision, apt to go wrong when the reason for his going wrong seemed good ; HEIRS TO THE CROIVN. loi a man of order and ideas, without will of his own, and with very little sense; a man not born to mate v/ith princes and fight for crowns. Here, again, that demon doubt was in the royal house ; for Grey had a wife alive when he wedded Frances, in Lady Catharine Fitz-Alan, sister of Henry, seventeenth Earl of Arundel ; a woman whom he had wedded in his early youth, and from whom he parted in view of the more brilliant bride. By his separation from Lady Catharine, Grey provoked the undying enmity of Lord Arundel, once his brother-in-law and dearest friend ; an enmity which lived through a score of years, which fed itself in secret, never dying out, until the hour in which Arundel stood on Tower Hill Q-loating^ over his old friend's headless trunk. Created Duke of Suffolk on account of his royal spouse. Grey imagined he could forget the wrongs which he had done to Lady Catharine — the insult he had cast upon her house. Three daughters blessed his union ; Lady Jane, Lady Catharine, and Lady Mary ; all of whom, as well as their mother Frances, were alive when King Edward died. The princess was a lady of meek temper and austere life ; humble, affectionate; with little desire to shine in courts. Such pretensions as belonged to her blood she passed on to her children : first of all, to Lady Jane. VH. Catharine Pole. The Poles, or De la Poles, went back to Princess Margaret, daughter of George, Duke of Clarence. This lady, who had been married to Sir Richard Pole, left four sons — Henry Lord Montagu, Sir Geoffrey Pole, Arthur Pole, and Reginald Pole. Reginald was the able and restless intricfuer known as Cardinal Pole. Lord IMontagu had been caught in some plot, of which his brother, the cardinal, was the secret mover, and sent to the block, leaving an only child, Catharine, who had now become the wife of Francis Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, to represent his mother's line. 102 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. VIII. The Infanta Isabel. A more remote, and perhaps a more menacing claim was that of the Infanta Doiia Isabel Clara of Spain — a lady who traced her line through the kings of Portugal to Princess Philippa and John of Gaunt. Besides these ladies, there lay in the Tower, in some forgotten cell, a male pretender in Edward Courtney, a youth whom nobody had seen since he was a child of twelve. He had no friends in power, and nobody fretted about his right ; yet he was a grandson of Princess Catharine, youngest daughter of Edward the Fourth, and thus he represented the cause of York. All these claimants had their partisans ; though the main interest gathered around the Princess Mary and the Lady Jane. Duke John, President of King Edward's Council, thought the legal right either lay with Lady Jane, or could be given to her by force. Jane was young, beautiful, accomplished, popular; and if she came to her own, he, John Dudley, who had heard his father hooted through the streets, and seen him butchered like a dog, might live to hail a grandson on the throne. This bold, bad man had four sons living ; all young and of handsome presence ; fellows who could draw, and dance, and play the lute, as well as they could ride, and joust, and run the ring. Three of these youths were already sealed away ; but Guilford, a boy of seventeen, was free; and when the Duke perceived that the King would die, and leave no heirs, he began to scheme for marrying Lord Guilford to Lady Jane. Mary was unpopular in London. Let Edward now die, while every rein of the government lay in Dudley's grasp, Jane might become queen in her mother's right, without much cavil from Mary's friends. Such an event would be hailed as a triumph of England over Spain. The old schemer had not much trouble with Grey and his wife. These feeble folk were only too glad to put themselves and their child into the Duke's strong HEIRS TO THE CROJVN. 103 hands. To them, the Duke was not only the greatest man in England, but one of the greatest men in Europe. As a soldier he had no equal; as a statesman he was thought far-seeing and safe; as a patriot he was held in hio^h esteem. Most men believed him honest in his faith ; some went so far as to call him saint. Ridley, Rogers, Knox, and all their followers prayed for him as the soundest pillar of the reforming Church. Much of this high character had once belonged to the Duke of right, but the lust of power had crept into his blood and poisoned the springs of his religious life. Lady Jane, a soft and grave, though very lovely girl, who had been pinched and bobbed into learning by her parents, raised few obstacles to their scheme for her union. She had no liking for the Dudleys ; she had a little secret of her own ; but on hearing that the King, as well as both her parents, wished her to marry Guilford, she took her wedding with this youth like a lesson in Greek, or any other trial ; bowed her sweet head, and went with him, a child like herself, to church. On Whit-Sunday the youth and maiden were united In holy wedlock at Durham House in the Strand, in the presence of many people ; the bride being dowered with Stanfleld Hall in Norfolk ; a house which even then had an ominous fame ; but the bride and groom were both so young, that when the rite was over. Lady Jane begged as an act of grace, that she migrht cfo home with her mother to Suffolk House, in Southwark, until she and her husband were of riper age. Her wish was law ; but that riper age was not to come for either Guilford or Lady Jane. Six weeks after this parting of youth and maiden at the altar In Durham House, the King was dead, the throne was empty, and the hour for which Duke John had schemed was come. Now was to be found, through rough and ready tests, that " true heir to the crown " which Acts of Parliament were powerless to unmake. CHAPTER XV. (£:s3< THE N/A^E D^y5' QUEEN. ^^||ING EDWARD died on the summer night of ^M0 Thursday, July 6, at Greenwich Palace, so '^ calmly, that the fact could be kept a secret all that night and all next day, while Dudley matured his plans. The council were of his advice, the fleet and army at his back. On the City he could count for passive assent; but passive assent was not enough. On Saturday morning he sent for Sir Thomas White, Lord Mayor, six aldermen, and a score of the richest merchants from Lombard Street, to whom he showed the King's body, and papers which he called the King's letters-patent, fixing the order of succession to the crown. These papers, which gave the sceptre to Lady Jane, Dudley got the Lord Mayor and citizens to sign. The Londoners were told to keep the King's death and the contents of these letters-patent secret, until the lords should make them known. Dudley's plan was, that Edward's death should not be noised abroad until Mary had been lodged in the Tower, and Jane Vv^as ready to announce herself as Queen. When Edward was dying, Mary had been called to his bedside by the council, and she had come so near to Greenwich as the royal lodge of Hunsdon, twenty-five miles distant. So soon as the King was dead. Lord Robert was sent off by Dudley with a party of mounted guards to bring her in. Once in the Tower, the un- THE NINE DA YS' QUEEN. 105 popular princess would have found few knights to strike in her behalf. Dudley himself rode down to Sion, near Isleworth, his house on the Thames, to which Lady Jane had repaired. When Dudley summoned the Princess Mary to Greenwich he sent his wife to Suffolk House for Lady Jane. Frances, her mother, refused to give her up ; Jane herself preferred to stay in Southwark ; on which the Duchess of Northumberland fetched her son, who begged Lady Jane, on her duty as a wife, to depart with him. Not liking to begin her married life by an act of disobedience, Lady Jane went with the Duchess and her son to Chelsea. There they locked her up till Sunday, on which day Lady Sydney, her husband's sister, brought her a request from Dudley to repair at once to Sion, and await his coming, with a message of highest moment from the King. She was not aware that Edward had been dead three clays ! The two ladies took boat at Chelsea. When Lady Jane arrived at Sion, the house was empty, but the great lords soon came dashing in ; the Duke himself, President of the Council ; William Parr, Marquis of Northampton, Grand Chamberlain, and brother of Queen Catharine Parr ; Francis Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, husband of Catharine Pole ; William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, husband of Anne Parr, the Queen's sister ; Henry Fitz-Alan, the smiling and deadly Earl of Arundel ; accompanied by the Duchess of Northumberland and the Marchioness of North- ampton. Arundel and Pembroke fell on their knees, and were the first to kiss Lady Jane's hand as queen. By help of these men and women the first and fatal part of Dudley's work was done. Jane fainted when they told her she was queen. She had loved King Edward with a sister's love ; read with him, played with him, shared his secrets and his hopes ; and when she heard that he was dead she swooned and sank upon her face. They told her she was queen by io6 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. Edward's will, according to the Acts which vested the succession in the King. Pembroke and Arundel, who were famous soldiers, swore by their souls they would shed their blood and give their lives to maintain her rights. Then Lady Jane stood up before the lords, saying she had never dreamt of such greatness being thrust upon her, but that if she was called to reign, she prayed for grace to act as might be best for God's glory and His people's good. The next day, being Sunday, she remained at Sion, surrounded by her husband's family ; the Duke giving orders of many kinds, instructing heralds, sending out proclamations, writing to the lords and sheriffs, and acting generally as protector. That night, the inter- regnum was to end, the new reig^n to becjin. First Day. — On a bright July morning, Queen Jane embarked in the royal barge at Sion, and followed by a cloud of galleys, bright with bunting, gay with music, riotous with cannon, dropped down the river, making holiday along the banks, passing the great Abbey, calling for an hour at Whitehall Palace, and for another hour at Durham House, and shooting through the arches of London Bridae. She landed at the Queen's stair about three o'clock, under the roar of saluting guns, and was conducted, through crowds of kneeling citizens, to her regal lodgings by the two Dukes, the Marquises of Winchester and Northampton, Arundel, Pembroke, Paget, Westmoreland, Warwick ; all the great noblemen who had made her Queen. Her mother, Frances, bore her train ; and her husband, Guilford, walked by her side, cap in hand, and bowing when she deigned to speak. The Lieutenant, Sir John Brydges, and his deputy, Thomas Brydges, received her majesty on their knees. At five o'clock she was proclaimed in the City, when the King's death was announced and his final testament made known. But the day was not to end in peace ; for after supper was over, and the Queen had gone to her rooms, THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN. 107 the Marquis of Winchester, lord treasurer, brought up the private jewels, which he desired her to wear, and the royal crown, which he wished her to try on. Jane looked at the shining toy, and put it from her, saying-, " It will do." Winchester told her another crown would have to be made. Another crown ! For whom must another crown be made ? For the Lord Guilford, said the Marquis, since he was to be crowned with her as king. Crowned as king ! Surprised and hurt by what the treasurer had let fall, she sat in silent pain, until Guilford came into her room, when she broke into a fit of honest wrath. The crown, she said, was not a plaything for boys and girls. She could not make him king. A duke she had power to make, but only Parliament could make a man king. Guilford began to cry, and left the room. In a few minutes he came back with his mother, still whimpering that he wanted to be king, and would not be a duke. The Queen was firm ; and after hot speech between the old lady and the young girl, the Duchess took her boy away, declaring that she would not leave him with an unorrateful wife. o Second Day. — Bad news came in from the eastern shires. When Lord Robert had got to Hunsdon his prize was lost ; no man could tell him how or why ; but the lodge was empty, and the Princess gone. Mary had been well served; for while Dudley was drawing a curtain round the bed, the false Arundel and the honest Throckmorton were both intent on letting her know that King Edward was no more. Sir Nicholas rode to London, told his three brothers the dread news, and took counsel with them as to what should be done. The four men, sitting in a dark room, whispering in hot words that summer night, v/ere but the types of four millions of English subjects. They were loyal men, stout of heart, and true in faith ; men who feared that Mary might be led astray through her confessors and her Spanish friends ; but who io8 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. chose to risk that evil rather than confront the perils of a civil war ; a war which seemed hkely, if once begun, to prove longer and fiercer than the strife of the Red against the White Rose ; seeing that the weaker party could always count on the support of Spain and Rome. Their first thought was to do right. Mary was the true heir to her brothers crown, and they could not stand aloof when powerful and unscru- pulous men seemed bent on driving her from her father's realm. As Sir Nicholas put the case in his doggrel rhyme : — " And though I liked not the religion, Which all her life Queen Mary had profest, Yet in my mind that wicked motion, Right heir for to displace I did detest." After lonor debate the four brothers agreed to mount their horses, to leave London by different roads, to spur v/ith all speed for the royal lodge, to inform the Princess of her brother's death, and warn her to lly from Hunsdon before the arrival of Lord Robert's company of horse. Arundel's man confirmed the news. A night ride saved the Princess, who sent out letters to the shires and cities, calling out her people, and then rode swiftly through the Suffolk flats towards Kenning Hall, a strong castle on the river Waveney, where she proclaimed herself Queen. Missing his prize at Hunsdon, Lord Robert was ordered to gallop hard upon such track as he might find ; and, to aid his search, Lord Warwick was sent out with a second company of horse. These young men had their father's orders how to act, and there is reason to suspect his orders would have justified them in putting Mary to death. Of course, she could be called a suicide, and three or four frightened servants might have been got to swear they had seen her either mix the drug or plunge the knife into her heart. Dudley, who already contemplated sending Bishop THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN. 109 Gardiner, Edward Courtney, and the Duke of Norfolk, to the block, was of opinion that the throne would be all the more stable if it were red with blood. Third Day. — On Wednesday morning, while the lords were sitting with Queen Jane in council, news came to the Tower that Mary was at Kenning Hall ; that John Bouchier, Earl of Bath, was with her ; that Henry Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, was on his way to join her ; and that sons of Lord Wharton, and Lord Mordaunt, with many gentlemen of note, were up in arms. Kenning Hall belonged to the Howards, whose tenants and followers hated Dudley and all his tribe ; partly for the wrongs which his party had done the Duke ; still more for the ruthless manner in which he had scourged their country in pursuit of Kett. The Queen was safer than she knew among these Norfolk men, who not only flocked to her banners the moment they were raised, but threatened to put every man's land under fire who should dispute her claim. Knights and squires kept pouring in, hot with the summer sun, and grey with the summer dust ; and the curfew rang that Wednesday night on what promised to be strife between the English commons and the English nobles ; squire and yeoman striking for Queen Mary, while duke and earl were striking for Queen Jane. The council sitting in the White tower now felt that the time had gone by for such feeble warriors as Lord Warwick and Lord Robert to do their work ; and the question rose, as to which of the great lords would go forth in arms against the rival queen ? If Norfolk had been free, and of the council, he would have been the man to send. Not a pike in East Anglia would have been raised against the Lord of Framlinoham and Norwich, the hero of Flodden, the suppressor of the Pilgrimage of Grace. But Dudley had kept the Duke a prisoner, and the Duke's tenantry no HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. were now armint^ in Mary's name. Some one else must go. The council fixed on Grey ; an unwise choice, if fighting- was to come, since Grey had never yet led an army in the field. Jane would not consent. She begged the lords to make a second choice. She needed her father's counsels ; she prayed them, tears in her eyes, not to send him from her side. Arundel turned his serpentine eyes on Dudley. He was the soldier of their party ; he had led an army into Norfolk; he had quickened men's minds with a lively terror ; and he knew the county as a general ought to know his ground. These facts were urged upon him by the lords, who seemed to think his presence in the shire would be enough to drive the Princess Mary into France. "Well," said the Duke, " since you think it good, I and mine will go, not doubting of your fidelity to the Queen's majesty, whom I leave in your hands." From the Council chamber in the White tower they passed through the chapel into the Queen's apart- ments, where Jane thanked the Duke for leaving her father by her side, and, wishing him a speedy return, bade him grood-nig-ht. Fourth Day. — Early on Thursday morning, men, horses, guns, and carts began to block up the Strand in front of Durham House, the Duke's residence near Charing Cross. Dudley called for his suit of steel, and tried it on. He sent for cannon from the Tower, with waggons of powder and shot and many field- pieces. After breakfast, he begged the council to prepare his commission, as the Queen's Lieutenant, forthwith, and to send on his instructions by mounted messenger to Newmarket, as soon as they could be drawn up. To the peers who came to Durham House to dine with him and see him off, he made a speech ; in which he told them, that he was cfoino^ forth in the common cause ; that he left the Queen in their hands ; that he felt no doubt of their faithfulness ; thg-t they THE NINE DA YS' O UEEN. 1 1 1 were all engaged in God's work ; that any man who faltered in the cause would come to grief. At this moment dinner was brought in, on which Dudley concluded in a few words, " I have not spoken to you," he said, " in this sort upon any distrust of your truth, but have put you in remembrance . . . and this I pray you, wish me no worse God-speed than ye would have yourselves." To which one of the lords replied, "If you mistrust any of us in this matter, your grace is much deceived." The Duke made answer, " I pray God it be so ; let us go to dinner." Then they sat down. After dinner, Dudley rode down to the Tower and took his leave of the Queen. As he came back from his audience into the Council chamber, he met T.ord Arundel, who prayed that God would be with his grace, saying he was sorry it was not his luck to be going into the field with him, as he wished no better end than to fieht in his cause and die at his feet. A page, named Thomas Lovel was with the Duke. " Fare- well, gentle Thomas," said Arundel to the boy, " fare- well, with all my heart." The lords came down the spiral stairs, and stood upon the green for a last greeting of their fellows ; the Duke of Northumberland first, then the Marquis of Northampton, Lord Grey of Wilton and many more ; after which final greeting they took boat on the wharf, and went back to their houses in the Strand. Fifth Day. — On Friday morning the Duke rode proudly forth, with his first train of guns, a body of six hundred men, and a magnificent staff. If great names and offices could have criven the victory to Queen Jane, she might have slept in peace. Besides the Lord General, Dudley himself, went the Lord Admiral, Edward Lord Clinton ; the Marquis of Northampton ; the Earls of Warwick, Huntingdon, and Westmoreland ; Lord Grey oi A\'ilton. Lord /Ambrose Dudley, Lord Robert Dudley, with most of 112 ■ HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. the men whose steel had been tried in actual war. But they were Generals without troops ; Admirals without ships ; Lords without following. Clinton and Huntingdon were enemies in disguise. As they pranced along Shoreditch, the Duke observed with a soldier's eye that the crowd which flocked to see the martial array go past, in all its bravery of steel and plume, looked sad and curious, and turning to Lord Grey, who was riding at his side, remarked, " The people press to see us, but no man cries, * God speed you ! Yet Mary feared to wait their coming at Kenning Hall ; a place too near the capital, too far from any port ; so she leapt to horse, and, with a long train of riders, dashed across country towards Framlingham Castle, the Duke of Norfolk's stronghold on the Ore ; riding so hard that she made no less than forty miles in a single day. Once that day she was in peril, for in part of her road she fell foul of the companies led by Warwick and Lord Robert. But on the first shout of the onset, Jane's troops went over to her side, and Dudley's sons escaped becoming Mary's prisoners only by the fleetness of their steeds. Later in the day, a messenger from Bucks brought word to the Council in the Tower that Lord Windsor, Sir Edward Hastings, and other gentlemen, were raising men in that county in Queen Mary's name. Sixth Day. — On Saturday a train of waggons left the Tower, with arms, supplies, and cannon for the Duke, who found himself in presence of a thousand troubles on which he had never counted. The com- mons gave him no help ; for no one liked him ; and as he advanced into East Anglia he found himself in the midst of active foes. When he heard bad news from the front, he halted. Mary was now at Fram- lingham Castle, surrounded by a guard, which was strong in number, if not in discipline and arms. She had been proclaimed in the market-place of Norwich, r I J J o O UJ o Q q: CQ o H UJ X H X CC UJ o H Ul X U- O Ul CO THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN. 113 from which city a band of gentlemen had ridden to her court. Worst of all, some ships which Clinton had sent from London to the Norfolk coast, on the pre- tence of arresting Mary's flight, should she try to leave the country, had gone over to the Queen, and supplied her with guns and stores. From other shires, the news was equally dark and fitful. Bucks and Beds were stirring ; Lord Derby was up in Cheshire ; and the midland counties were about to march. Dudley, who knew his business as a soldier, saw that these changes must be met ; and sending in hot haste to London for fresh troops, he pushed on for Cam- bridge, which he reached that night. Seventh Day. — The summer Sunday dawned on a country wasting with a passionate pain. In every city, the crowd was for Mary, while the higher class of thinkers and reformers was for Jane. Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, walked down to Paul's Cross, and preached an eloquent sermon against the Scarlet Woman ; while John Knox was thundering forth his prophetic warnings at Amersham in Bucks. From a thousand pulpits England was that day warned that a house divided against itself must fall. In the palace of the Tower, a cry of defection rose, but the garrison was too prompt in action for the evil spirit to get abroad. About seven o'clock, the gates were suddenly locked, and the keys carried up to the Oueen's room. The guards were told that a seal was missing ; but in fact, the missing seal was the Lord High Treasurer. Pembroke and Winchester had tried to leave the Tower privately ; Pembroke had been watched and taken ; iDut Winchester had got away. The first thought of every man was that he had carried off his money; and some archers of the guard were sent after him to his house, with orders to arrest and bring him back. They seized him in his bed, and delivered him at the Tower wicket to Sir John Brydges, the Lieutenant, as the clocks were chiming twelve. 8 1 1 4 HER MA JES TV'S TO WEK. Eighth Day. — Monday brought fresh sorrow to Queen Jane. Her house was divided against itself: the Duke, her father, had no confidence in the Duke, her father-in-law ; the Duchess of Northumberland was quarrelling with the Duchess of Suffolk ; and the foolish Guilford was going about whimpering that he wanted to be king. Her council was also divided against itself. Dudley was absent ; Pembroke and Winchester were little more than prisoners ; Paget and Arundel were false ; Bedford was suspected ; and Cranmer, if true to Jane, was acting as a councillor with the faint heart of a man who feared that he v/as doing wrong. Her country was divided, too, but in no equal parts. Jane was popular, yet the people were mainly on Mary's side ; and no thunders of Ridley and Knox could make common folk understand that a woman ought to lose her civil rights because she held certain opinions about the Keys and the Bread and Wine. As yet there had never been a prince on the throne of hostile creed ; and the people had yet to read in the light of Smithfield fires the sad lesson of a country divided in its body and its head. The commons felt for Mary, and they fancied she could do no harm. Single and sickly, she was not likely either to leave a son or even to live long. Her sister, — strong and beautiful as a pard, was English in blood, and English in thought. What the Spanish weakness of Mary might put crooked, the English strength of her sister could set straight. They would rather bear with Mary's monks for a time — a very short time — than start on a new contention of Lan- caster and York. Wise men mioht forecast the future in another way ; but in days of turmoil, wise men do not shoulder pikes and brandish broadswords ; and while the thinkers were weighincf arguments for and against the two queens, a hundred thousand men, moved by their hot blood only, were bearing Queen Mary to her father's throne. THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN. 115 Ninth Day. — On Tuesday morning- the game was seen to be up. The Queen's Council were nearly of one mind. Cranmer and Grey were true ; but of the noble crowd who elbowed them at the table, every other man was false. Most of them, Winchester, Arundel, Pembroke, Paget, Shrewsbury, had made their peace, and kept their places in the Council only to betray the girl whom they had forced to ascend the throne. The army was as rotten as the Council. When Dudley marched on Bury, his soldiers mutinied on the road, and forced him to fall back on Cambridge, which was already filling with Queen Mary's friends. In fact, when he took up his quarters in King's Col- lege, he was a prisoner, though suffered to sleep with- out the appearance of a guard. Next day, the Council left Queen Jane in the Tower alone ; Queen Mary was proclaimed in Cheap and in St. Paul's Churchyard. The nine days' reign was over. When the archers came to the Tower gates, demand- ing admission in Queen Mary's name, Grey gave up the keys, and rushed into his daughter's room. The Summer Queen was sitting in a chair of state, beneath a royal canopy. "Come down, my child," said the miserable Duke ; " this is no place for you." Jane thought so too ; and quitted her throne without a sigh. %^ CHAPTER XVI. DETHRONED. PEMBROKE had been the first to salute Oueen Jane : he was now the first to proclaim Queen Mary. Pembroke was a bold man, a good soldier, a rich baron, able to put twenty thou- sand pikes in the field. Dudley excepted, no one had higher motives for supporting Jane than Pembroke ; since his eldest son, William Lord Herbert, had been united to Lady Catharine Grey, Jane's sister and heiress. But he saw how the tide was flowing ; and he was more concerned to save his head from the axe, than to enjoy the prospect of a matrimonial crown for his son. The Council left the Tower, the gates of v/hich were now open to them, for Baynard's Castle — not the great hold which John had ravaged, but a palace built on the site by Henry the Eighth — to which they called Sir Thomas White, Lord Mayor, with some of the City merchants, in whose presence Arundel announced that Mary was the true queen and Jane a mere usurper of the crown ; on which Pembroke drev/ his sword, and flashing the steel in their faces cried — " This weapon shall make Mary Queen." Sir Thomas and the citizens were hurried off from Baynard's Castle to Cheapside, where Pembroke read the proclamation of Queen Mary, threw his cap into the air, and flung a handful of coins among the crowd. Paget and Arundel leapt to horse, and rode at night towards Framlinghami DErFIRVNED, it; Castle, where they were joyfully received by the Oueen, who heard from them the minutest details of the work which they had done for her in London. Paget was detained by the Queen as her adviser, while Arundel set out for Cambridge to arrest the Duke. Dudley was sore in mind. He saw that his scheme had failed, and knew that his blood was forfeit to the law. When news came to him by a private hand, that Jane had been abandoned in the Tower, and Mary proclaimed Queen in Cheapside, he called for a herald, and going into the market-place with Northampton and Warwick, he read the proclamation and threw up his cap. But his loyalty was too late. Roger Slegge, the Mayor of Cambridge, followed him to King's College, and took him prisoner in Queen Mary's name. One chance of escape was thrown into his way. Late in the evening letters arrived in Cambridge from the Council that every man should go to his own place. The object was to get the Duke's force disbanded and dispersed. Dudley drew Slegge's attention to these orders. " You do me wrong," he said, " to withdraw my liberty. See you not the Council's letters, that all men should go away as they list ? " Slegge was puzzled, and withdrew his men. If Dudley had sprung to horse, and ridden off that moment, he might have found a boat, and escaped beyond sea. He let the moment slip. Warwick drew on his boots, called for his horse, and got himself ready to ride away ; but the Duke hung on, as though he were hoping, like a des- perate gambler, for some sudden change in the game. Late in the ni^ht, he heard that Arundel was cominof to his rooms ; then his heart sank within him ; and going forth to meet him in the outer chamber, he knelt at the Earl's feet, and prayed him to be good to him for the love of God. Arundel was cold. "Consider," said the Duke, " I have done nothing but by consent of you and the v/hole Council." 1 1 3 HER MA J E STY'S TO WER. •' My lord," said Arundel, " I am sent hither by the Queen, and in her name I arrest you." "And I obey," replied the broken Dudley; "and I beseech you, my lord of Arundel, use mercy towards me, knowing the case as it is." " My lord," quoth the Earl, " you should have sought for mercy sooner ; I must do according to my com- mandment." They were still in the outer room of his lodging in King's College, now filled with knights and gentlemen, to whom Arundel gave the Duke in charge, and then withdrew. For two hours, Dudley chafed and stamped about that room, in the midst of strange and angry men, without the comfort of his page and servant to attend him. When he wished to go into his bedroom, the guards prevented him. Then he looked out of his window, and, seeing Arundel go by, he called — "My lord, my lord of Arundel, a word with you." "What would you have, my lord ? " " I beseech your lordship," cried the Duke, " for the love of God, let me have Coxe, one of my chamber, to wait upon me." " You shall have Tom, your boy," said the bitter Earl. "Alas, my lord," whined the Duke, " what stead can a boy do me ? I pray you, let me have Coxe." Arundel turned away ; but in going, he sent orders for Tom and Coxe to have access to their master. Warwick was taken in his boots, and along with Lord Robert Dudley, the Marquis of Northampton, Sir Thomas Palmer, and Sir Henry Gates, was broueht to the Tower, of which Arundel was now made Constable. All the prison rooms being full, they had to be crowded by Sir John Brydges into chambers never up to that day used as prisons — such as the Garden tower, the Garden house, the deputy's house, and the Develin tower. The Duke was lodged in the Garden tower ; Sir Thomas Palmer in the Garden house ; the Marquis of Northampton in the Develin DETHRONED. 119 tower, behind St. Peter's church. Jane was in the house ol Thomas Brydges, brother and deputy of Sir John. Warwick and his brother Guilford were lodged in the middle room of Beauchamp tower ; where they began to carve their misery on the walls. Lord War- wick made a puzzle of the family names, so subtle that no wit of man has yet been able to guess his secret. Two bears and a ragged staff, with his own name under them, stand in a frame of emblems ; Roses, Acorns, Geraniums, Honeysuckles ; which some folk fancy from the initial letters, may mean Robert, Ambrose, Guilford, and Henry ; an explanation much too easy to be the true one. The rose may mean Ambrose ; the oak, no doubt, is Robert. A sprig of oak, Lord Robert's own device, appears on another side of the room. Guilford could not foreet that his wife was Queen ; and solaced his captivity by carving the name of Jane. Lord Robert was lodged in the lov/er room, on the ground-floor, while the Earl of Warwick and " King" Guilford, as men of higher note, were lodged in the upper room. During this period of separation, Lord Robert dug into the stone : ROBERT DVDLEY a name which may still be read near the door ; cut into the wall by Amy Robsart's lord. After his trial, perhaps after Guilford's death, he was promoted to the upper room ; on the wall of which he also left his mark, in the shape of an oak branch with the letters R. D. Jane was left alone with her gentlewomen, Elizabeth Tylney and Mistress Ellen, in the upper room of deputy Brydges' house ; where she spent her days in reading the Greek Testament, and in irrievinof for her sire, whose love for her had brousfht his venerable head within reach of the fatal axe. Of herself she 120 HER MAJESTY' S'TOWER. hardly thought, and of Guilford only as a starless boy, whose fate \vas married for a moment to her own. She had no such love for him, as she felt for her parents and her sisters. She had known him a few days only ; she had married him as an act of obedience; she had never lived with him as a wife. She was little more than a child in years ; but in six such summer weeks as she had now gone through, the characters of men are ripened fast. We know the Dudleys ; and what was there in them for a girl like Jane to love ? Mary was now the Queen ; and her triumph was understood as the victory of Spain. Renard, the crafty agent of her cousin, Charles the Fifth, became her chief adviser. Arundel, Pembroke, Paget, were consulted by the Queen, but the actual power was in Renard's hands. The blood to be shed was poured out, not on an English, but on a Spanish scale. The Duke, the Marquis, and Lord Warwick, were brought to Westminster Hall for trial, where the ao;ed Norfolk, white with years and sorrows, now freed from bonds, and restored in blood, presided as Lord High Steward, and pronounced the sentence of death on his cruel foe. Dudley, who could not deny that he had been in arms against Queen Mary, pleaded his com- mission under the. Great Seal, and protested against the lords who had signed that commission judging him to death. Every one felt that he had made a point ; but the peers were not open to legal points ; and when he had made his protest, Norfolk declared that he must die. Warwick and Northampton were also condemned to death. Warwick displayed a manly pride. Asked by Norfolk what he had to say in excuse of his treason, he answered that he stood by his father, that he accepted his doom, and had nothing to ask save that his debts might be paid out of his lost estates. Next day, Sir Andrew Dudley, the Duke's brother, Sir John Gates, Sir Thomas Palmer, and Sir Henry DETHRONED, 121 Gates, were tried. They pleaded guilty ; all except Palmer. " Can you deny that you were there ? " asked the judge. " No," answered Sir Thomas. " Then you are culpable," returned the judge. "If that be so," said Palmer, " I confess the same." They were all con- demned. Monday, August 21, being named as the day on which the Duke must die, the guards were drawn up, the block was got ready, and the headsman waited with his axe. But the Duke made a feint, which put off the evil hour. He felt sore of mind on account of his change of faith ; he had a great desire to hear mass, as in his boyish time ; he begged to receive his Maker from the hands of a priest. Here was a change ! To gain a few hours of life, the proud enemy of Rome was willing to become her slave. Arundel, who had never ceased to be a Catholic, snapped at the Duke's hint ; sent for the Tower priest, and bade him prepare the altar in St. Peter's church. He also sent into Cheapside for twelve or fourteen merchants — Hartop, Newse, Baskerville, and others — to appear in the Queen's chapel by nine o'clock. This was to be a morning of sweet revenge. When all v/as ready, and the people seated, Sir John Gage, the old Con- stable, went to the Garden tower for the Duke ; while Sir John Brydges, the lieutenant, went to Develin tower for the Marquis ; and Thomas Brydges, the lieutenant's deputy, went to the Garden house for Sir Thomas Palmer. The Duke and Palmer had to pass under Lady Jane's window ; and this young girl, who saw them go by, between the guards, heard with pain and shame, that to save their lives for a few hours these heroes of twenty battle-fields were going to hear mass. V^Hien they were placed in the church, the priest began ; saying his office in the usual way, w^ith Pax^ and blessing, and elevation of the host. On the wafer being offered to him, the Duke turned round to the people and said : " My masters, I let you all to under- 122 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER, stand that I do most faithfully believe this is the right and true way." Then he knelt before the priest and took the wafer into his mouth. Those who had been fetched to see Dudley's act of humiliation, went away from St. Peter's church saying to each other, "Wist ye, friend, that it is forty-four years this day, since his father was put to death .'* " Warwick, on hearing that his father had been to mass, sent for a priest and reconciled himself with Rome. Mary would probably have spared their lives ; but Renard would not listen to her plea of mercy. Next day, the Duke, Sir John Gates, and Sir Thomas Palmer, were marched to Tower hill. At the block they declared themselves good Catholics ; Dudley, most of all, appealing to the Bishop of Winchester, Nicholas Heath, who stood by him near the rail. They were buried in the Tower chapel ; Dudley be- neath the altar, the two knights at the west end. Seven days after their execution, a citizen was din- ing with Thomas Brydges, in the Tower, when the Lady Jane chanced to come downstairs, from the upper room in which she lived, and seeing the good folk at table, said she would sit and dine with them. Her youth, her modesty, her tenderness took the stranger's eye, yet not so strongly as her piety and steadfastness took his heart. "I pray you," asked Lady Jane, "have they mass in London?" "Yea, sooth," he answered, "in some places." " It may be so," sighed Jane ; " it Is not so strange as the sudden conversion of the late Duke. For who would have thought he would have so done ? " " Perchance, he thereby hoped to have had his pardon." " Pardon ! " she flashed out ; " pardon ! Woe worth him ! He hath brought me and our stock in miserable calamity by his exceeding ambition. Hoped for life by his turning ! Though other men be of that opinion, DETHRONED. 12-, o I am not. What man is there Hving, I pray you, that would hope for Hfe in that case : — beini^ in the held against the Queen in person ? Who was judge that he should hope for pardon ? " These good people, hred by her holy wrath, looked at the girl in love and wonder. " What will you more ? " she cried. " Like as his life was wicked, so was his end. I pray God, that neither I nor friend of mine, die so." And then with kindlinof fervour she exclaimed : " Should I, who am young and in myfewers (teens), forsake my faith for the love of life ? Nay, God for- bid. Much more he should not, whose fatal course, though he had lived his years, could not have long continued. But life is sweet. . . . God be merciful to us ! He sayeth, Whoso denieth Him before men, He will not know him in His Father's kingdom." When she rose from table, she thanked Brydges and the stranger for their company, and then retired with her gentlewoman to the Upper room. Early in September the Tower received a new file of tenants ; old rivals and enemies of Cardinal Fisher ; three of the most eminent prelates in the English church : Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury ; Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London; Hugh Latimer, once Bishop of Worcester. Latimer had been here before. On the Q^reen he met Rutter, one of the warders, to whom he cried, in that cheery voice which every one liked to hear, " What, my old friend, how do you ? I am come to be your neighbour again." Latimer was lodged in the Garden house, which the apostate Palmer had now left. Cranmer was placed in that Garden tower, which was supposed to have broken Dudley's pride. The kinsmen and councillors of Lady Jane had nearly all conformed to the new Queen's faith. War- wick, Lord Ambrose, and Lord Robert, had given way. Huntingdon and Northampton heard mass daily 124 ^ER MAJESTY'S TOVvER. in St. Peter's church. Some favour was extended to all Jane's captives; Lady Warwick being allowed to see her husband in Beauchamp tower, and Lady Ambrose Dudley to visit her lord in the Nun's bower. Ambrose had license to walk on the leads over Cold- harbour, and Guilford the same liberty on Beauchamp tower. A priest was sent to Lady Jane, and confident hopes were expressed by those who knew nothing of her high nature, that she would follow the example of her masculine friends. Time and peace were wanted for such a work ; but time and peace were not to be found during Mary's reign. The experiment of converting Jane to the faith in which Dudley died, was rudely disturbed by events in Kent. CHAPTER XVII. THE MEN OF KENT. [HE crypt of St. John's chapel in the White tower was the chief prison lodging- of the masqueraders known in our annals as the Men of Kent. On the jambs of a doorway leading to a cell in the solid wall, stand two rows of melancholy records. HE THAT INDURETH TO THE ENDE SHALL BE 8AVID. R. RUDSTON. DAR. KENT. AN°. 1553. is the memorial of Robert Rudston, a young gentleman of Dartford, a picturesque town on the Old Kent Road. BE FAITHFUL UNTO THE DETH AND I WILL GIVE THEE A CROV/NE OF LIFE. T- FANE. 1554. is the record left by Thomas Fane (properly Thomas Vane) a brother of Henry Fane of Hadlow, who was his fellow-prisoner in the crypt. This Henry was the grandfather of Sir Henry Vane the Elder. T. CULFEPER OF AIL8F0RD. KENT. is the inscription of Thomas Culpeper of Aylesford, a Crown manor which the Wyats of Allington Castle held by grant from the King. These three inscriptions are plain enough, while others are defaced by time and damp. On one of the 126 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. jambs some part of a tablet can still be read in a good light, bearing the name of Sir Thomas Wyat. One man of Kent was separated from his fellows in the crypt. In the slant of a window in Beauchamp tower a rude carving on a shield shows the name of THOMAS COBHAM 1555. This Thomas Cobham, whose proper name was Thomas Brooke, was the youngest son of George, Lord Cobham, of Couling Castle, a cousin of Sir Thomas Wyat, Captain of the insurgent host. Why was Thomas Brooke separated from his fellows ? The frolic known as the Kentish rising was a political, not a dynastic threat. Wyat, a son of Sir Thomas of the Songs and Sonnets, a grandson of Sir Henry of the Cat, and of that stout Lady Wyat who had put the Abbot of Bexley in the stocks — is known as Sir Thomas of the Waster ; his waster being a great cudgel, made of a brand, a piece of iron, and a length of thong, which the young gallant carried under his cloak, in the hope of laying it on the back of John Fitzwilliam, a wretch who had sent him word that it would be well to get rid of Queen Mary by either foul means or fair means. The Mercutio of the rising was a loyal man. In youth, he had been gay and fractious; first in his father's house, where he lived in an atmosphere of wit and song; afterwards in France, where he served, not without credit, in the Wars against Charles the Fifth. The death of Edward the Sixth found him living at Allington Castle ; a married man, with youngsters at his knee ; fond of his hawks, his horses, and his dogs ; but when Dudley put Queen Jane on the throne, Wyat went out into the field against him. Had Dudley triumphed, Wyat would have been hung as a rebel against Queen Jane; yet when the woman THE MEN OF KENT. 127 for whom he had risked his neck hinted her hope of contracting a Spanish marriage, the flighty passions of his youth rushed back into his veins. Had he not fought against the Spaniards at Landrecy ? Was he to put his neck under the feet of a Spanish prince ? Never, cried the thoughtless spark. Talking to his neighbours by the Yule logs, he found them no less eager than himself to oppose the projected match. Between the dinner and the dance, they put their heads together; and on the morrow these Twelfth Night revellers were a band of plotters moving into camp. Wyat was chosen Captain ; just as the day before he mioht have been voted Lord of Misrule. They fancied that a scuffle and riot would serve their turn ; checking the plans of Renard, and forcing the Queen to dismiss her project of a Spanish match. They meant no harm to Mary ; they hoped to do her good ; nay, they expected her to stand aside, and let the English faction and the Spanish faction fight it out. Among the first to throw in their lot with Wyat were Robert Rudston, Thomas Culpeper, Henry and Thomas Fane, gentlemen of family and estate, who were quickly followed by Sir Harry Isely, Sir George Harper, Cuthbert Vaughan, and many more. Wyat strove to persuade George, Lord Cobham of Couling, to join them ; but Cobham, a rich and timid man, sent his son Thomas into Wyat's camp, while he wrote to the Queen's council a full account of what was beinof done. These Brookes were Catholics, deeply attached to the Catholic Queen. The rioters, who soon became an army, rang the church-bells in every town, seized Rochester Castle, and mounted guard on the Medway bridge. Norfolk was now sent down to disperse the mob ; but the aged warrior, pale from his cell, was no longer the man of Flodden and of Doncaster Bridge ; and when the levies which he led into Kent heard that the Kentish 1 2 8 HER MA JES TV '5 TO WER. men were up in arms, not against their Queen, but only against the Spanish match, they deserted their general, threw down their flag, and shouting " A Wyat! a Wyat!" went over to his side. "So many as will come and tarry with us shall be welcome," cried the gay leader, as he rode through the deserters' ranks ; " and as many as will depart, good leave have they." A few fell back ; men of the Queen's guard, who returned to London in wretched plight ; their bows broken, their scabbards empty, their coats turned inside out. When these scarecrows passed through the gateway of London Bridge, on their way back to the Tower, the citizens of Cheap, who thought the Queen must surely give way about the match, ran mad with joy. Renard was now alarmed ; and he wished the Queen to leave London ; but Mary never had a moment's fear. She had spies in Allington and Rochester, in Wyat's house and in his camp ; spies who reported to her council everything that was either done or likely to be done. In place of yielding the match, Mary mounted her horse, rode into the city, harangued the citizens in Guildhall, declared her purpose to proceed, proclaimed Wyat a rebel, and bade the well-wishers to his cause go join him, offering them a free passage through the gates of London Bridge into Kent. On the day of her proclamation, W^yat was in Dart- ford, the next day in Greenwich. The game was now close. Early on Candlemas-day a gentleman came dashing up the Kent Road, accompanied by a drummer; and being stopped by the picket near St. George's Church, he said he had a messacre for the Queen's general, the Earl of Pembroke. With a band round his eyes and a drummer by his side, he was led on foot through the City to Coldharbour, Lord Pembroke's residence, where he remained in secret parley until the afternoon, when he- was brought out again with the band round his eyes and the drummer by his side, and led back to St. George's Church. No one but THE MEN OF KENT. 129 the Or.een's council knew his name. When he was gone from Coldharbour, Pembroke rode out, attended by Lord William Howard, the Queen's stout deputy of Calais, followed by fifty men ; passed over London Bridge ; and went up the High Street, Southwark, as far as St. George's Church. Everything was quiet. They put a number of Lord William's men in the Tabard and other taverns much used by the men of Kent, and then rode back to court. On her side, Mary offered a pardon to such of her good subjects as would lay down their arms at once, with the four exceptions of Wyat, Rudston, Harper, and Isely, and a reward for any man who would take Wyat, of a hundred pounds a year to himself and his heirs for ever. Next day rebel flags were seen from the Belfry and the keep ; the Kentish men marching lightly towards the bridge, two thousand strong, with many good pieces in their train. No attempt was made to stop them. The Queen's troops, posted near St. George's Church, fell back to the bridge, the chains of which were cut and the gates made safe. The men left by Lord William in the taverns, went over to the rebels, and Southwark was surrendered to Wyat without a blow. Sir John Brydges said they ought to go out from the Tower and fight ; but Pembroke, who knew his own business, refused to stir. Panic ran through the city, in which the shops were closed, the church-bells runir, and the ijates secured against surprise. Pembroke sent Lord William to the bridge for a parley. " Wyat, Wyat ! " cried Lord William from the gate. " What would ye with the Captain ? " asked a Kentish man. " I would speak with him," quoth Lord William. "The Captain is not here," said the other; "but if ye will anything to him, I will show it." " Marry, then," returned Lord William; "know of him what he meaneth by this invasion, and whether he continue in his purpose t " 9 I30 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. In less than an hour the Kentish man came back to the bridge with a purse in his hand, which he threw over the gate, saying, " There, in that ye will find the Captain's answer." Wyat required on behalf of the Kentish men no less than that the Queen should give up her project of a Spanish match, and that she should yield to him the Tower as a pledge of her good faith. There must have been peals of laughter in the supper- rooms of the Tower that niofht. Mary's spirit seemed to rise as the peril pressed around her. She raised on the keep a flag, which the diarists describe as a banner of defiance, and gave orders that the morning and evening guns should be fired off as they were fired in times of peace on the change of guard ; nay, she affected a sudden tender- ness for people who are seldom much cared for by princes in time of war. Poynings, one of her gunners, came to tell her he could beat down some houses across the river, and bury many of the rebels in the crash. " Nay," said the Queen, like a queen, " that were great pity ; for many poor men and householders will be undone and killed." Charity on her side seemed to beget chivalry on the other. A fanatic, named William Thomas, a man of good parts, whom the times had driven mad, made a proposal for taking off the Queen, as the simplest way to get rid of the Spanish match. This proposal was made known by John Fitzwilliam, one of Norfolk's men, not to Wyat, who would have pinked the rascal on the spot, but through third and fourth parties, by whom it came at length to the Cap- tain's ears. Wyat then cut his Waster, a thick stick, through which he burnt a hole and fastened a length • • • 1 of thong. With this waster in hand, he sought a whole day for the rascal who talked of laying hands on his Queen. Failing to find Fitzwilliam, Wyat gave the cudgel to a servant, and bade him seek the fellow out, saying, " Bob him well, for the knave is a spy, and therefore be bold to beat him." THE MEN OF KENT. 131 In this lightsome and generous spirit he acted from first to last. When he heard that the Queen had pro- mised a hundred pounds a year for ever to any man who should take him, he wrote his name in big letters on a scroll and gaily stuck it in his cap. A flight of romantic pity led to his ruin. One of Sir John Brydges' men was passing down the river in his barge, when a waterman whom he knew, a poor fellow from Tower stairs, called to him from the bank to take him on board. Now, passage from one side of the Thames to the other was forbidden, and when the Kentish crunners saw the Tower baro;-e takino;- a man on board against the agreement, they fired a volley into her, and the waterman fell dead. Brydges, maddened by what he thought an insult to his barge, opened fire from the keep, the Devil's tower, and the Water gate, not only against the wooden houses on Horselydown, but against the steeples of St. Mary's Church and St. Olave's Church. The poor people whose sheds were rattling into pieces, ran to Wyat ; the men in rage, the women in tears ; and begged him to save them from destruction. '* Sir," they cried in terror, " we shall be utterly undone for your sake : our houses, which are our living, will be thrown down, our children will be slain, this borough will be desolated : for the love of God, take pity on us ! " Wyat is said to have paused for a long time. What they asked of him was to give up all the advantages of his position, in order to save the Queen's subjects from the violence of her lieutenant. A soldier would have packed them home with an oath ; a statesman would have sent them to the Queen. But the light-hearted Captain could not stand a woman's tears. " I pray you, my friends," he said, " content yourselves a little. I will ease you of this mischief. God forbid that ye, nay, the least child here, should be hurt in my behalf." Wyat had only one choice ; either to fall back on Rochester, confess his failure, and wait for some luckier 132 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. moment; or, by a forced and fatiguing march to Kingr- ston, get across the Thames higher up, and marcii on the capital by the northern bank. He chose the more dashing plan. Paying every one his due, so that no man lost a penny by his bands, he marched his forces through the marshes of Lambeth and Wandsworth, towards the old Saxon town, which he reached the same night ; to find the bridge broken down, the boats all moored on the Middlesex side, and the passage secured by two hundred of the Queen's troops. What was he to do ? He could not pause ; neither could he fall back. Southwark was occupied in his rear. What was in front, he could not tell ; but come what would he must now push forward. Two of his guns were trailed to the bridge, and the soldiers swept away. Three or four Medway swimmers sprang into the flood, swam across the stream under fire, unfastened the boats, and paddled them over to the Kingston bank. Into these frail craft a few of the Kentish men leapt — only a few, and these had to leave their horses and artillery behind. Yet Wyat could not wait. On foot, half armed, and panting with fatigue, some broken companies pressed on through that dark February night. Before day they were at Brentford — hungry, worn, and sleepless, with a royal army in their front. The Queen was in high spirits ; for these masquers who were falling into her nets, might be used to involve in treason personages whom she wished to strike and could not reach. Drums were beaten in the streets at four o'clock, and London was astir that winter night from West- minster to the Tower. A thousand preparations had been made, and every point of the City, from Islington ward to St. James's Fields, was bristling with pikes and guns. Renard urged the Queen to keep out of peril. The citizens were known to be with Wyat ; but the chief men were being watched, while common THE MEN OF KENT. 133 folk were deceived with lies and overawed with force. From the Tower to Charing-cross the series of posi- tions were strongly manned. Lord William Howard, a stout soldier, was at Ludgate with his guards ; Lord Chidiock Pawlett, son of the Lord Treasurer, held Fleet street and the bridge with three hundred men ; Sir John Gage, the Lord Chamberlain, was at Charing- cross with a thousand pikes ; Pembroke, the Queen's general, was at Whitehall, under the Palace window, with his line of battle fronting St. James's park. If these men were true, all would be well ; but Renard was fearful lest they should play their mistress false. Faint in limb, but high in spirit, the Kentish men pushed on from Brentford to Hyde Park corner. Some of their great pieces, which had been lugged across the river, came up, and, being planted on Con- stitution-hill, opened fire on Pembroke's lines. With a few brave words to his men, Wyat, and his cousin Cobham, pressed forward on foot down the old lane by St. James's Church, marched along the front of Pem- broke's horse, who sat motionless in their seats, until they arrived at Charing-cross. There they met Sir John Gage, who fired upon them and fell back. Wyat pushed up the Strand, his object being to reach the Tower. In Fleet street he met Lord Chidiock and the Queen's troops, who suffered him to pass. The rout went on, and the Lord of Misrule seemed cominir to the Tower. But he found himself in a trap on Ludgate Hill, where the deputy of Calais plucked from his temples the paper crown. With a loud clatter the Kentish men came up to Ludgate. "A Wyat! a Wyat!" they cried to the guards. Lord William stood upon the gate, and to his questions they replied — " Here is Wyat, to whom the Queen hath granted our requests." *' Avaunt thee, traitor," cried Lord Williams ; " thou shalt not come in here." Wyat had no guns to force the gate. Dying witii hunorer and fatic^uc, he sat on a stone near the 134 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER, Belle Sauvage for awhile ; then, jumping to his feet, he marched his men back over the Fleet bridge, as far as Temple Bar, where the Queen's troops were now drawn up. A fight began, which lasted a few minutes only ; for William Harvey, the herald, in his coat-of- arms, coming forward, said to Wyat — "Sir, you were best to yield ; the day is gone against you. Perchance the Queen will be merciful, the rather if ye stint the flow of blood." Wyat turned to his men, who said they would fight it out ; but on seeing that the play was over, he gave up his sword. Sir Maurice Berkeley took him up behind on his horse, and carried him in triumph to Whitehall. At five o'clock, Wyat was at the Tower gates a prisoner. Taking him through the wicket, Sir John Brydges, flourishing his blade in his hand, cried, " Oh, thou villain and traitor, if it was not that the law must pass upon thee, I would stick thee through with my dagger." The Captain was very quiet. "It is no mastery now," said Wyat, in scorn, and passed into his cell. He wore a coat of mail, with rich sleeves ; a velvet cassock, covered with yellow lace ; high boots and spurs ; and a velvet hat, adorned with very fine lace. The sword and dirk were gone. Cobham, Rudston, and the two Fanes were brought into the Tower ; and a few days later, Thomas Culpeper, Sir Henry Isely, and many more, including Edward Courtney, the White Rose of York. CHAPTER XVIIL COURTNEY. DWARD COURTNEY, the White Rose of York, was born to a captive's fate. From the af^e of twelve, when he was first removed from his father's house to the Tower, until he died in Padua at the age of twenty-nine, he had only twenty months of freedom. Courtney's father, Henry, Earl of Devon and Marquis of Exeter, was born too near the purple for his peace ; being a son of Princess Catharine, daughter of Edward the Fourth. These Courtneys had been a splendid race ; robbers, crusaders, paladins ; bearing the arms of Boulogne, and tracing their lineage to the blood royal of France. Some members of this great house had been Counts of Edessa, Kings of Jerusalem, Emperors of the East. One had married into the house of Capet, another into that of Plantagenet ; but the Courtneys had never yet made a royal and imperial match without bringing down the skies upon their house. They dated their decline in FVance from the day when they gave one of their daughters to a son of Louis the Fat. Peter of Courtney's union with Yolande of Constantinople, though it brought the purple to three princes of the house, put an end to their greatness in the East. When William Courtney, eisfhteenth Earl of Devon, took the Princess Catharine to wife, he provided for all who were to follow him a 136 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. dark inheritance — the Tower, the headsman's axe, and the poisoned bowl. Wilham had passed seven years of his married Hfe a prisoner in the Tower. Henry, Princess Catharine's son, had been executed, alonpr with his cousin. Lord Montagu, for his share in the plot of Cardinal Pole. Edward, his boy, then twelve years old, was left a prisoner in the Tower. When the great party of York, which had been stunned, but not killed, at Bosworth, began to raise its head once more, it had found in Henry Courtney, Earl of Devon, Marquis of Exeter, grandson of Edward the Fourth, young, dashing, handsome, one of those men who cannot help being made a rallying sign. Exeter was a Catholic, a friend of Reginald Pole. In secret he was called the White Rose of York ; nay, it is prob- able — as Henry the Eighth alleged — that he had dreamt of one day wearing a royal crown. Indeed, his claims were strong ; for he stood next in order of succession to the King and his sisters ; and thus he had come to be regarded as a natural chief by all those partisans of the ancient church who could not travel so fast and far as the new primate and the new queen. These partisans were neither few in number nor obscure in rank. A majority of the people were unlettered peasants, and a majority of the great barons were known to be on the Catholic side. The burghers and scholars, with a majority of the freeholders, were on the Reformers' side. In any trial by battle, the issue of a conflict between the two opinions might have been doubtful, and the presence of such chiefs as Henry Courtney and Reginald Pole had made a resort to arms seem easy, and almost lawful, in the eyes of turbulent men. Such a kinsman could only be left in peace, by such a king as Henry the Eighth, on one engage- ment, and that engagement Exeter either would not or could not take. He must have kept aloof from public affairs. But, far from hiding his light in his COURTNEV. 137 own house, Exeter had assumed in London the bear- ing of a prince, while in his own counties of Devon and Cornwall he had set himself high above the law. Henry grew angry, not without cause ; and on the eve of a movement which threatened to become a general rising in the west, Exeter and his son Edward, a boy of twelve, had been seized and thrown into the Tower ; whence a short trial and a shorter shrift had conducted the luckless son of Princess Catharine to the block. The boy was spared. Shorn of his honours and estates, Courtney underwent the fate which, in those rude times, was known as being forgotten in the Tower. For fifteen years the grandson of Princess Catharine remained a captive. While he was still a boy, he ran about the garden and the Lieutenant's house. As he grew in years, in beauty, and intelligence, his high blood was put into the scale against him ; his freedom was abridged ; and the pale pretender to the name of White Rose was lodged for safety in the strong room of the Belfry ; where his chief amusement was to watch the gunners fire their pieces, to count the ships going up and down the Thames, to pace the stones on Prisoners' Walk. He was treated as a man of no high mark ; having only a common servant at 6s. a week to wait on him ; being dieted and lodged at 26s. 8d. a week ; while young men of his quality, such as Guilford and Ambrose Dudley, were dieted at 53s. 4d. a week, and allowed two servants each. Not until the two reforming kings, Henry and Edward, had passed away, and his Catholic kins- woman. Princess Mary, succeeded to the throne, was Courtney freed from his confinement in the strong room. The twenty months of freedom which he was now to enjoy were months of very high favour and very warm hope. It seemed likely that the child on whose 138 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. early life fortune had shed her darkest clouds would be called to wear a matrimonial crown. On the new Queen riding down to the Tower, in front of a proud cavalcade of nobles and prelates, she found at the postern of her citadel a row of kneeling figures. Halting the procession, she got down from her palfrey, and clasped them in her arms. For among these kneeling figures, who had been suffered to come forth from their cells, many were dear to her heart and servants to her cause ; the aged Duke of Norfolk, the Primate Gardiner, the Duchess of Somerset, the young Lord Courtney. Mary stooped to these applicants for her grace, and kissed them one by one. " These are my prisoners," she exclaimed, as she carried them from the outer gates into the royal gallery. The scene was a stage device ; but the effect on the popular mind was great. Courtney, for example, had been free for three months ; yet he had come down to the gates that day, to receive the royal kiss, and to play his part in a striking act. A very wild dream now filled the young man's soul with hope. He was popular in the city and in the court, not only on account of his royal blood and his personal beauty, but more on account of the tenderness felt for a youth who had done no wrong, and suffered much pain. The world had been very hard to him ; and a generous people wished to make amends for the bitterness of his early life. Pale with long vigils, his beauty had that soft and melancholy cast which takes captive the eyes of women. When he came out of the Belfry, at the age of twenty-six, he found himself high in favour. He was, in fact, the man whom nearly all true lovers of their country wished to see married to their Queen. Mary herself, though she was nearly old enough to have been his mother, was not blind to her cousin's claims, and she more than once thought seriously of the proposal ere she fixed her mind for good and evil COURTNEY. 139 on the Prince of Spain. During her day of doubt she poured favours enough on Courtney to turn his head. She made him Earl of Devon, Parhament restored the Marquisate of Exeter to his house, and in dress, habit, and hospitahty, he was encouraged to adopt a style beyond that of a private person. He gave himself the airs of a prince. He smiled on the Yorkist barons, and allowed his flatterers to call him the true White Rose. Even after Mary had engaged herself to Philip, he fancied the foreign project of alliance would pass away, and that the Queen would accept no husband but himself. To the amusement of men knowing better, he talked of his approaching nuptials, and ordered a magnificent suit of bridal clothes. His fortunes fell when Mary got a promise from Renard that she should wed the Spanish Prince. She was asked by Renard to make many sacrifices ; one of which was the pale and foolish youth who had lived so many years in the Belfry. Mary, left to herself, would have done the boy no harm ; but Renard told her that when Courtney ceased to be her lover, he could not help becoming her rival. He stood too near. At first, the Queen could see no peril to her throne in the pretensions of such a youth ; but Renard, who knew better than Mary what men were saying in the Cheap- side taverns and St. Paul's Churchyard, began to whisper in her ear that after her marriage with Philip the young Lord Courtney would be a dangerous man, if not on his own account, yet on account of her sister, for whom there was a powerful party in her realm. He spoke the truth. So soon as Mary's contract with the Prince of Spain was made known in London, people began to busy their minds about a second union. They married Courtney to Elizabeth. Mary, they said, would have no son ; at thirty-nine she was too old ; the crown must come to her younger sister ; and since Courtney was set up by many as the White Rose, it would be well to end all feuds and heal all soies I40 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. between White and Red by wedding the Lancastrian princess to the Yorkist peer. All this tattle was repeated day by day to the Queen. Mary felt that her people were avenging her Spanish match, by proposing to themselves an English match. It was hardly necessary for Renard to hint that a marriage of Elizabeth and Courtney would be danger- ous to her throne. Yet he urged it in her ear from day to day. Nothing, he told Mary, could make her mistress of her kingdom, and secure to her the lover she had chosen, but the ruin of these two pretenders to her crown and state. Unlike her Spanish councillor, Mary had touches of human pity. If she feared to act against her sister, then a young girl of twenty, bright with her first beauty, witty and debonair, she still more disliked to crush with her strong hand the poor boy whom she had loved and kissed. The youth soon helped her to decide. Fancying himself neglected by the Queen, he fell into bad ways ; carousing in City taverns, keeping loose company, running after strange faces, hanging on the skirts of men known to be engaged in plots. The austere lady grew angry and ashamed. Courtney repented, and was half forgiven. It is not clear, whether, in some of his pranks, he was not acting a part. Some think he became one of Renard's spies. When Wyat marched on Charing-cross, his conduct was suspicious, if it were nothing worse ; and his arrest, along with the crowd of rioters, may have been a blind on Renard's part to conceal the deeper infamy of his course. CHAPTER XIX. NO CROSS, NO CROWN. iN the day of her triumph, as Mary sat brooding ^Pl01 ^^ ^^^ closet, listenhig fitfully to Renard, she ^^^ consented to give up her cousin, if not her sister, to the minister of Charles the Fifth. Jane had been sentenced by the court and reprieved by time. Seven months had passed since her nine days' reign was over; the author of her offence had paid the penalties of his crime ; and in the recent stir no man had even breathed her name. Her youth, her inno- cence, her beauty, had won all hearts to her; even those of Father Feckenham the Oueen's confessor, and Sir John Brydges the Queen's lieutenant. But Renard called for blood ; and Mary was little more than a scribe in Renard's hands. That day, on the eve of which Queen Mary sat in her closet with her Spanish councillor, was Ash Wednesday ; and Mary, on consenting that her cousin should not live forty hours longer, called to her pre- sence Father Feckenham, whom she had just made Dean of St. Paul's and Abbot of Westminster; and bade him go to the deputy's house in the Tower, with news that Lady Jane must die, and see what could be done to save her soul. Father Feckenham, though a coarse man, was not a bad man. As a divine, he was learned and ingenious ; one in whose power of dealing with backsliders the Queen had a boundless faith. 142 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER, That he failed \vith Lady Jane, that he got angry with her, that his speeches to her made him hateful in the eyes of men, were more his misfortunes than they were his faults. A good deal must be allowed to a man who honestly thinks he has power to bind and to loose, in his dealing with those who in his opinion are trifling with the fate of immortal souls. Feckenham, who brought down his message of death to the Tower, was startled to see that girl re- ceive his news with a sad and welcome smile. It seemed to him out of nature, almost out of grace. He spoke to her of her soul ; of the sins of men ; of the need for repentance ; but he found her calm and happy, at peace with the world, and at one with God. He talked to her first of faith, of liberty, of holiness ; then of the sacraments, the Scriptures, and the uni- versal Church. She knew all these thinofs better than himself ; and she held a language about them far beyond his reach. With a sweet patience, she put an end to the debate by saying that since she had only a few hours now to live she needed them all for prayer. The Dean was moved, as men of his order are seldom moved. Convert this girl in a day ! Worn as he was in church affairs, he knew that no skill of his would be able, in one winter day, to avail him against one who combined a scholar's learninp- with a woman's wit. If her soul was to be saved — and the Father was anxious to save her soul — that order for her execution on Friday morning must be stayed. With a sweet voice pulsing in his ear, he rowed back to Whitehall, and told the vindictive Queen, with the bold energy of a priest, that her orders for that execution on Friday must be withdrawn. With much ado, the Oueen eave way ; but she feared the anger of Feckenham even more than that of Renard ; and the puzzled Father went back to the Tower, to resume his task. Jane was kind but cold. She had no use for him and his NO CROSS, NO CROWN, 143 precepts in her final hour on earth. His goin!^ to court about her sentence gave her pain. She did not want to die ; at seventeen no one wants to die ; but she did not hke the Queen to add one day to her hfe, under the hope that she would act as Dudley and Warwick had done, in giving up their faith. That was a sacrifice she could never make. When Fecken- ham told her the warrants for Friday were recalled, she merely said she was willing to die, if the Queen, her cousin, was minded to put the law in force against her. For the rest, she only wanted to be left alone. "You are not to die to-morrow," he persisted. " You are much deceived," said Jane, " if you think I have any desire of longer life." When Feckenham returned to the Oueen with a report of his second interview, Mary became wild with rage. She bade her secretaries draw up warrants for her death. She sent for Grey, who was a prisoner in the country. There were ways of adding bitterness to death, and Mary studied and employed them all. She could separate the husband from his wife in their last moments ; she could march Guilford under Lady Jane's window, as he went by to execution ; she could drive the cart with his dead body past her door ; she could prepare a scaffold on the open green, under Lady Jane's eyes ; she could bring up Grey to see his daughter slain ; she could refuse to let her have a minister of her own faith to pray with her ; she could send her Jesuits and confessors to disturb the soleni- nity of her final night on earth. All these things she could do, and she did ; and all these things must have been of Mary's will. Renard required that Jane should be put away ; that sacrifice was wanting to confirm the conquest made by Spain ; but Renard could have no motive for adding to the bitterness of her death. The priests sent down by Mary to the Tower were Lady Jane's worst tormentors. They would not be 144 HER MAJESTY'S'TOWER. denied ; they pushed past her women ; and when they got into her chamber, they would not go away. The long reports which have been printed of their contention with her, may not be exact ; but they have that rough kind of likeness to the truth which a com- mon rumour bears to an actual fact. When Feckenham was tired out with argument, he is said to have ex- claimed, " Madam, I am sorry for you ; I am assured we shall not meet again." To which Jane is said to have answered, "It is most true, sir ; we shall never meet again, unless God should turn your heart ; " not a word of which " happy retort," we may be sure, ever passed the lips of Lady Jane. The tussle on the Bread and Wine was no doubt sharp, for that was the dogma most in dispute. " Do you deny that Christ is present in the bread and wine ?" " The broken bread," said Jane, ** reminds me of the Saviour broken for my sins, the wine reminds me of the blood shed on the cross." She meant to say that Christ was ministerially, but not bodily, present in the bread and wine. " But did He not say," put in the Father, "Take, eat, this is My body?" "Yes," she answered, "just as He said, I am the vine." It was a figure, not a fact. Feckenham at length retired, and Jane withdrew into the upper chamber, to compose her mind ; to write a farewell to her father, and to wait on God in prayer. She was not aware that her father had been arrested, still less that he was on his way to the Tower. The tender note which she addressed to him ended in these words : " Thus, good father, I have opened unto you the state wherein I stand : my death at hand ; to you, perhaps, it may seem woeful ; yet to me there is nothing can be more welcome than from this rule of misery to aspire to that heavenly throne with Christ my Saviour, in whose steadfast faith (if it may be law- ful for the daughter so to write to the father) the Lord NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 145 continufi to keep you, so at the last we may meet in heaven." When it was known in the Tower that warrants were out, and that Jane woukl die on Monday morninqf, every one became eager to get some token from her, to catch a last word from her lips, a final glance from her eye. To Thomas Brydges, the deputy, in whose house she had lived nearly eight months, she gave a small book of devotions, bound in vellum, containing two scraps of her writing, and a few words by Lord Guilford ; one of her notes being addressed to Brydgcts himself, in words which must have gone to his soul : *' Call upon God to incline your heart to His laws, to quicken you in His way, and not to take the word of truth utterly out of your mouth." On Sunday, Guilford sent to ask her for a final interview ; but this sad parting she declined, as useless now, fit for stage heroes only, which they were not. She bade him be of good cheer ; and seeing how weak he had been, it is only right to say that the poor boy took his fate quietly, like a man. Sunday morning she spent in prayer and reading ; her book, a copy of the Greek Testament; in which she observed a blank leaf at the end, and taking up her pen, wrote some last words to her darling sister. Lady Catharine Grey, sad heiress of all her rights and miseries : " I have sent you, good sister Kate, a book of which, although it be not outv/ardly rimmed with gold, yet inwardly it is more worth than precious stones. It is the book, dear sister, of the law of the Lord ; His testament and last will, which He bequeathed to us wretches, which shall lead you to eternal joy." Closing the sacred book, she gave it to Elizabeth Tylney, her gentlewoman, praying her to carry it after she was dead to Lady Catharine, as the last and best token of her love. She then composed herself to prayer. Early next day, before it was yet light, the carpenters 10 146 HER MAJESTY'S TOIVEH'. were heard beneath her window, fitting up the block on which she was to die. When she looked out upon the green, she saw the archers and lancers drawn up, and Guilford being led away from the Lieutenant's door. She now sat down and waited for her summons to depart. An hour went slowly by ; and then her quick ear caught the rumble of a cart on the stones. She knew that this cart contained poor Guilford's body, and she rose to greet the corse as it passed by. Her women, who were all in tears, endeavoured to prevent her going to the window, from which she could not help seeing the block and headsman waiting for her turn ; but she gently forced them aside, looked out on the cart, and made the dead youth her last adieu. Brydges and Feckenham now came for her. Her two gentlewomen could lir.rdly walk for weeping ; but Lady Jane, who was dressed in a black gown, came forth, with a prayer-book in her hand, a heavenly smile on her face, a tender light in her grey eyes. She walked modestly across the green, jDassed through the files of troopers, mounted the scaftold, and then turning to the crowd of spectators, softly said : — " Good people, I am come hither to die. The fact against the Queen's highness was unlawful ; but touch- ing the procurement and desire thereof by me, or on my behalf, I wash my hands thereof, in innocency, before God, and in the face of you, good Christian people, this day." She paused, as if to put away from her the world, with which she had now done for ever. Then she added : — " I pray you all, good Christian people, to bear me witness that I die a true Christian woman, and that I look to be saved by no other means than the mercy of God, in the merits of the blood of His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, good people, while I am alive, I pray you to assist me with your prayers." Kneeling down, she said to Feckenham, the only NO CROSS, NO CROWN, 147 divine whom Mary would allow to come near her, " Shall I say this psalm ? " The Abbot faltered, " Yes." On which she repeated, in a clear voice, the noble psalm : " Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness : according to the multitude of Thy mercies do away mine offences." When she had come to the last line, she stood up on her feet, and took off her gloves and kerchief, which she gave to Elizabeth Tylney. The Book of Psalms she gave to Thomas Brydges, the Lieutenant's deputy. Then she untied her gown, and took off her bridal gear. The headsman offered to assist her ; but she put his hands gently aside, and drew a white kerchief round her eves. The veiled figure of the executioner sank at her feet, and be^Qred her forgiveness for what he had now to do. She whispered in his ear a few soft words of pity and pardon ; and then said to him openly, " I pray you despatch me quickly." Kneeling before the block, she felt for it blindly with her open fingers. One who stood by her touched and guided her hand to the place which it sought ; when she laid down her noble head, and saying, " Lord, into Thy hands I com- mend my spirit," passed, with the prayer on her lips, into her everlastingf rest. CHAPTER XX. CRANMER, LATIMER, RIDLEY. g^^^HE fact of Cranmer having been lodged in the Gate house, once known as the Garden tower, now as the Bloody tower, has not been noted by the thousand and one historians of his age. It was recorded at the time by a resident in the Tower whose diary is still extant ; and the fact now tardily recovered from the waste of time, may throw some light on a story which is confessed to be one of the puzzling pages in a great man's life. From the day of his arrest, Cranmer appeared in a new part. He had never been deemed a coward. Even those who loved him least had eiven him credit for the virtues and the passions of a genuine man. As a student and a priest, he had been daring and original in a high degree. He had thought for him- self. He had thwarted and opposed his clerical supe- riors. He had been bold enough to marry, not once, but twice. When every one else hung back in doubt as to the best way of dealing with the great divorce, his learning gave the clue, and his spirit supplied the force, by which Henry was delivered from his matri- monial chains. Since that time he had passed through a thousand of those trials which are said to temper and steel men's minds. He had sent brave knights to the block. He had knelt by the feet of dying queens. He had watched the flames lick up the flesh of martyred CRANMER, LATIMER, RIDLEY. 149 saints. Nothing in his course of life led any one to suspect that he feared to die. Up to the very hour of his arrest in council, his conduct had been stout ; for, knowing how Queen Mary loathed him, he did not falter ; and hearing of her march on London he did not fly. What hindered him from passing into France ! To the friends who urged his flight, he proudly said, It was fit that he should stay, considering the post he held, and show that he was not afraid to own the changes which had been made in the late Kin";'s time. Yet, from the day when he was seized and clapped in the Garden tower, his stomach began to fail. Brave old Latimer lay in the adjoining Garden house ; and in a room which he could see from his window, dwelt the young and innocent Lady Jane. But the soul which animated Latimer and Lady Jane appears to have been scared out of Cranmer in that hour of need. No doubt the hardships of his cell were great ; for tlie winter months were cold ; and though he dined with the Lieutenant, he was probably kept without a fire. Cranmer could not treat his situation as a theme for jokes. How could he tell whether some new Forrest might not break upon his sleep ? He heard that the Queen was thirsting for his blood ; he knew that Renard, a minister to whom the assassin's knife was a familiar thought, was at her side. Yet seeing that the primate felt no hope, it would have been manlier in him to affect no fear. The Queen, knowing how much he had been her enemy and her mother's enemy, was in no mood to forget her wrongs. Indeed, those wrongs were not of a kind which lonely and unhappy women like Mary can forgive ; since they touched the honour of her birth, and the purity of her mother's name. With the dark blood, and the brooding passions of her mother's race, I\Iary had the strength to bear, but not the virtue to forbear. Nor, in such a case as hers, could a woman be expected to see the merit of an act of grace. Not only had this man's crafty brain sug- I50 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. gested the scheme by which Catharine could be put away, but his audacious tongue had summoned that royal lady to his court, and on her failure to obey had given his judgment of divorce against her ; branding her child, now queen, as a bastard ; telling her, as a man of God, that while she had been calling herself Henry's wife, she had been actually wallowing in mortal sin. Could such an offender be forgiven ? Mary told her Spanish adviser that until Cranmer was in the Tower she had never known one joyful day. In the middle of September he was lodged in the Bloody tower. Winter was coming on ; and his health began to droop. In November, he was suffered to leave his cell and walk in the garden below, under Latimer's window. The winter was so cold, that Latimer sent his servant to tell the Lieutenant, with pathetic humour, that unless he took more care he would give him the slip. When Sir John Brydges, fearing lest the prelate meant to escape, ran from his pleasant fireside to the Garden house, the good old man assured him there was no cause for fear. " They mean," he said, " to burn me ; now unless you give me some wood in my chamber I shall die of cold." On the arrest of Wyat and the Kentish men, the London prisons were so choked with inmates that many of the city churches had to be used as jails. One church received four hundred captives. The Tower, especially, overflowed. Little Ease was crammed, and many of the Kentish gentlemen were thrust into the crypt. Some clergymen were sent to Newgate, some to the Fleet. Among other changes of cells and prisoners, Ridley and Latimer were put into Cranmer's room in the Garden tower ; an opportunity of which they had never dreamt, and of which they made the highest use. Thrown together in the Garden tower, they kept up each other's spirits, by holding con- ferences on faith and works, which their friends found means to copy down and print. At Sir John Brydges' CRANMER, LA TIMER, RIDLE Y. 151 table, to which they walked by way of the wall terrace, afterwards known as Raleigh's walk, they met the Queen's confessor, Feckenham, who talked to them of the bread and wine, as he had done with Lady Jane, and strove to entrap them by his crafty words. Above all, they searched the Scriptures in their lonely rooms ; but instead of finding in Holy Writ the evidence in proof of a bodily presence in the bread and wine, they satisfied their souls that mass could never be offered as a sacrifice for sin. Yet Mary's end was gained, in some degree. The cold and misery of the Bloody tower broke Cranmer's spirit, as it had helped in some degree to break Dudley's spirit ; so that the priest who, in Lambeth, had been little less than a hero, became, when he was removed to Oxford, little better than a craven. Mary felt that in Cranmer she could humiliate the Reforma- tion. And she was right. The high deeds of many years have not sufficed to cover the weakness of a day, when the chosen champion of religious freedom set his seal to a recantation and denial of the most cherished sentiments of his life. The only excuse that can be made for Cranmer is, that his flesh was frail, that he was greatly tried, that his denial was drawn from him, as it were, on the rack. When he found the Oueen obdurate, he withdrew his denial, and met his death like a martyr. Peace to his soul ! Latimer and Ridley also passed through fire to their Father's house. CHAPTER XXI. WHITE ROSES. iN the removal of Cranmer to Oxford the Garden tower received Edward Courtney, the hapless White Rose of York. " You here again, my lord ?" said Brydges, as the boat pushed in. " How is this ? " "Truly I cannot tell, unless I should accuse myself; let the world judge." He was placed at once in the Garden tower, to see whether any fact would turn up against him in the Wyat trials. His peril lay in his royal blood; his offence was in Renard's fear ; an offence which, only a few days later, brought Elizabeth herself to the Stronof Room. Renard insisted on these arrests bein^jf made ; arrests,, he said, which were essential to Mary's peace ; arrests, he knew, which were essential to the policy then pursued by Spain. In the dull seclusion of the Tower, Sir Thomas Wyat had become another man to what he had been at Rochester and Southwark. Gardiner, who had become, next after Renard, the Queen's chief councillor, spoke of him with scorn, as *' little Wyat, a bastard of no substance." On his trial, Wyat hinted that there were higher traitors than himself ; and his words were enough to justify Renard in urging the arrest of Elizabeth. Wyat said he had sent a letter to the Princess Elizabeth, praying her to get as far from WHITE ROSES. 153 London as slie could ; and that the Princess had sent him thanks for his goodwill, saying she would act as she found cause. He said he had been in correspond- ence with Lord Courtney, who had told him to pro- ceed in his course. He said he was called the Captain, but that four or five others ranked above him in the camp. Who were these others ? " Elizabeth first, and Courtney next," said Renard. Both were sent to the Tower, in the hope that matter could be drawn from the "litde Bastard" which might warrant a jealous Queen in taking both their lives. For the moment every one turned to Wyat. Sir John Brydges, the Lieutenant, worked upon his love of life and his fear of death ; and, sad to say, the dash- ing young knight, who had once stuck the scroll in his cap, to tempt an assassin's blow, now listened to the Lieutenant's words. Under skilful treatment, he seemed willing to become a tool. He hinted at grave matters. He affected much knowledge. When the council met in the Lieutenant's house, he was brought before them, as one having high secrets in his keeping, which her Majesty ought to know. Before this council he made a charge against Courtney, and raised a suspicion against ElizalDeth, which threw these person- ages into Renard's power. The Queen was so much pleased with Brydges, that she sent him a baron's patent; calling him to the House of Lords as Baron Chandos of Sudeley Castle, the residence of Queen Catharine Parr. But his work was not yet done. To strike at Elizabeth, as Renard meant to strike, was one of those acts of policy which could only be dared on the strongest grounds. But the accusation of a dying man, a partner in the crime, who has ceased to be swayed by hope of life and fear of death, is very strong ground. Chandos had persuaded Wyat to make a charge in private ; he had now to persuade him to 154 I^E^ MAJESTY'S TOWER. repeat that charge in public ; and in presence of the man whom his words would involve in guilt. The second part of his work was not so easy as the first. Wyat had hinted secrets in order to save his life ; but he now began to fear that he had made this sacrifice in vain. In truth, his death was necessary to Renard 's method of proceeding ; since the evidence wanted against Courtney and Elizabeth was that of a dying and impartial man. Yet Chandos thought he had gained his point ; and on the morning fixed for Wyat's execution, he arranged in the Garden tower a most striking scene. On his way to Tower Hill for execution, Wyat was halted at the door of the Garden tower, in which Courtney lay, and conducted by Lord Chandos into the upper room, which he found full of great people : lords of her Majesty's council; Sir John Lyon, Lord Mayor, with David Woodruffe and William Chester, Sheriffs ; gentlemen of the guard, officers and wardens of the Tower ; all eager for the few words which he had been taught to pronounce, and on which the lives of Courtney and Elizabeth might be said to hang. To the chagrin of Lord Chandos, to the joy of Sir John Lyon and the Sheriffs, Wyat declared that he had nothing more to say. When he was placed before Courtney, in the midst of frowning councillors and kneeling sheriffs, he proudly called for the death pro- cession to move on, as he had nothing to allege against either Courtney or Elizabeth. Later in the day, two reports were made by specta- tors of what had taken place in the Garden tower. Chandos told the House of Lords that Wyat had im- plored Lord Courtney to tell the truth ; and he told his story to the peers in such a way as to suggest, that if Courtney had confessed the truth he would have confessed his guilt. The Sheriffs of London told the citizens that Wyat had begged Lord Courtney's pardon for having in his first and false confession brought the IVHITE ROSES. 155 names of Courtney and Elizabeth together in con- nection with his plot. The death procession then moved on. A few minutes later, when the axe was gleaming near his eyes, the rebel told a crowd of people who had come to see him die, that he had never accused either the Princess or the Marquis of a guilty knowledge of his plot ; that he could not truly make that charge, since they had known nothing of his affairs until the rising in Kent had taken place. " You said not so before the council," cried a priest who stood beside him. ** That which I then said, I said ; that which I now say is true," replied the rebel. In a moment more his head was in the dust. No proceeding could be based on such a confession against the Queen's sister and heiress ; but Renard could not think of letting Courtney escape his toils. Courtney was the White Rose ; the White Rose was an English flower ; and the Pomegranate was the only rose for which Renard cared. Though Courtney could not be put on trial, he was carried to Fotherlngay Castle, where he was kept in durance until the mar- riage of Philip and Mary had taken place, when he was put on board ship, and sent abroad. He wandered about Europe, in what was understood as honourable exile, for a couple of years, and then died suddenly at Padua (not without hints of poison), in his twenty-ninth year. He was buried in the splendid church of Sant Antonio, and his ashes were covered with a sumptuous tomb. Elizabeth is said to have looked with a favourinsf eye on Courtney ; but his early death, before she came to her own, put an end to all chance of his ever being called upon to wear a king consort's crown. Dying a bachelor, Courtney's titles of earl and marquis appeared to be gone for ever ; but in an old country like England family titles have a charmed life. Ten generations after the pale young Earl of Devon 156 HER MAyESTV'S TOWER. and Marquis of Exeter died at Padua, a discovery was made which led to a revival of the earldom of Devon in the same old line. The patent granted to Edward Courtney on his release from the Tower by Queen Mary, was worded in a peculiar way ; perhaps by an error of the copying clerk ; for the Earldom of Devon was given to him and to his " male heirs " for ever ; the usual words " of his body " being omitted from the grant. On the ground of his being one of Edward Courtney's "male heirs," Viscount Courtney, a few years before the accession of Queen Victoria, laid a claim before the House of Peers for the earldom of Devon, and as he made out his descent from Hugh, the second earl, a remote ancestor of the youth who lived in the Tower and died at Padua, that House decided that he might take his seat as Earl. On Edward Courtney's death, the honours and perils of the White Rose fell upon Edmund and Arthur De la Pole, the luckless descendants of George, Duke of Clarence ; and Beauchamp tower, the prison in which they pined away, shows many a sad memorial from their hands. In the summer of 1562, when Queen Elizabeth was in the prime of her youth and beauty, an astrologer named Prestal, pretending that he had cast her horo- scope, affirmed that she would die in the following spring, when her crown would devolve by right on Mary, ex-Queen of France, and reigning Queen of Scots. When Edmund and Arthur Pole (nephews of Cardinal Pole) heard of this prophecy, they thought it would beseem them, as members of the royal family, to prepare for the coming-in of Mary by raising a body of troops and throwing them into Wales. Mary was young, and a widow ; and some one whispered to these poor boys that she might marry Edmund, who would then become king, and make his brother Arthur Duke of Clarence. Burghley seized them at the Dolphin Tavern, on Bankside, near the Bear Garden, as they WHITE ROSES. 157 were going to take boat for Flanders. Carried be- fore the Council, they protested that they had never sought their sovereign's life, that they had never dreamt of laying hands upon her crown, that their aim, however wrong, had been confined to bringing in the true heir when her throne was vacant. But their name was against them ; a jury found them guilty of high treason ; and a judge condemned them to die a traitor's death. Edmund was barely twenty, Arthur about thirty, when they were captured at Bankside. Their youth, and perhaps their folly, pleaded for them with the Queen, who had never yet signed a warrant for any political offender's death. She left the two brothers the consolation of each other's society in the Beau- champ tower ; Edmund sleeping in the upper, and Arthur in the lower room. Each has left tracings on the wall ; the sadder, as I think, those of the younger and more innocent boy. In the first year of his imprisonment the young Plantacjenet wrote in the stone : *t> DIO SEMIN IN LACHRIMI3 IN EXULTATIONE METER, /E. 21. E. POOLE 1562. Six years later there is a second Inscription, now illegible, from his hands. Half-way down the winding stair, in a narrow slit through the masonry, he must have sat very often, with the gay life of the river spread out before him, the ships coming up and going down, the horsemen with their swords and plumes, the children playing on the bank, the country folks staring at the lions, and a little farther off the processions on the bridge. From his seat on the stairs he could see the fatal spot near St. Mary's Church, where, tempted by the lying astrologer, he was taking boat for Flanders when seized by Burghlcy's men. Unhappy youth I 158 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. Yet he was less unhappy in the Tower than he might have been elsewhere. He might have been married to Mary ; he might have perished, as his cousin Darnley perished, in some Kirk of Field. Even in the Beauchamp tower he was luckier than many other princes of his race. His great-grandsire, the Duke of Clarence, had been drowned in the Bowyer tower ; his grandmother, Margaret of Salisbury, had been hacked to pieces on Tower green ; his father had been executed on Tower Hill. Compared with most of his race — who inherited the curse of his royal blood — his fate was mild ; since he fell into trouble in that golden time of Elizabeth's reign, when the land was free from any stain of blood. As in the upper room, so on the staircase, he has left two records of his long imprison- ment. In the slit through which he could see the ships, the river and the bridge, the church of St. Mary's and the Garden at Bankside, he has twice inscribed his name. Arthur also left inscriptions on the wall ; inscriptions rich in wisdom and resio-nation. To wit : o I H S A PASSAGE PERILLU3 MAKETH A PORTE PLEASANT A D 1563 ARTHUR POOLE /E SUE 37 A P. The two princes pined and died in the Tower, when their ashes were laid in St. Peter's Church. CHAPTER XXII. PRINCESS MARGARET. [NIL prisoner in the Tower has the rare distinc- tion of beinof an actual ancestress of Oueen Victoria. Outside the stronof room of the Belfry is a small chamber, on the wall of which appear these words : UPON THE TWENTIETH DAY OF JUNE IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED THREESCORE AND FIVE V^TAS TH^ RIGHT HONORABLE COUNTESS OF LENNOX GRACE COMMITTED PRISONER TO THIS LODGING FOR THE MARRIAGE OF HER SON MY LORD HENRY DARNLE AND THE QUEEN OF SCOTLAND HERE 13 THE NAMES THAT DO WAIT VPON HER NOBLE GRACE IN THIS PLACE M. ELIZABETH HOSEY M. JHAN BAILY M. ELIZABETH CHAMBRLEN M. ROBARTE PORTYNGTON EDWARDE GREYNE ANNO DOMINI 1566 On a second stone we read — A3 GOD PRESERVED CHRIST HIS SON IN TROUBLE AND IN THRALL SO WHEN WE CALL UPON THE LORD HE WILL PRESERVE US ALL. The Right Honourable the Countess of Lennox's Grace was the Princess Marq^aret, daughter of Queen Marraret, and Oueen Elizabeth's first cousin of the royal blood, Margaret's career as a princess living at the English court, may be divided into two parts : the first part i6o HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. records her love affairs until her marriaoe with her kinsman, Matthew, Earl of Lennox ; the second part records the intrigues which led her son, Lord Darnley, to the consort-crown of Scotland, and ended with his murder at the Kirk of Field. When Margaret came to London, at the age of fourteen, she lived with her aunt Mary Tudor, Queen of France, who, like her own mother, the Queen of Scots, had married again for love. Thence she went to Beaulieu, the house of her cousin Mary, until the birth of Elizabeth, when the King, her uncle, gave her a regular place at court, as first lady of honour to his infant child. She was then eiijhteen. Like all the ladies of her kin, she was apt to fall in love. While she was yet a girl, some passages between her and Murray had alarmed her friends ; and when she met in the house of Anne Boleyn the young and handsome Lord Thomas Howard, she set the court in a flutter by her open preference for this kinsman of the Queen. Howard was encouraged by Anne to press his suit, and Margaret, in her lightsome mood, was very soon tempted into plighting her troth to the man she loved. That act of devotion cost Lord Thomas Howard his liberty and life. The young lady stood too near the throne for any man to dream of asking her hand, unless with the King's consent to woo and wed. Henry was much perplexed about his crown. His daughter Mary had been tainted in her birth. In no long- time his second dau'jhter was to fall under the same dark stain. He had no son ; and, in the absence of heirs, his crown would go to the children of his elder sister, the Queen of Scots. These children were James the Fifth and this Princess Margaret. James was barred by the Alien Act ; so that Margaret was in fact the King's lawful heir. Had Henry died before his son was born Margaret would have been called to the throne. PRINCESS MARGARET. i6i The settlement in life of such a lady was a state affair of hardly less moment than the marriage of Henry himself. When, therefore, the King heard of a contract having been made by Lord Thomas with the young princess, he gave instant order to have the offender quickly seized and safely lodged. Short work was made with him. A bill of attainder passed ; and Howard, condemned to die for his love, was left to linger out his life in the Tower, where he slowly pined to death — dying, if his noble kinsman, the poet Surrey, may be credited, for the love of his betrothed. The Princess Margaret was sent to the convent at Sion, on the Thames, where she was placed under the special care of the lady abbess, with instructions that she should be allowed to walk in the garden by the river side, though in other things she was still to be considered as the King's prisoner rather than his niece. To this affair of Howard and Princess Margaret we owe the first royal Marriage Act ; which made it treason for any man to marry, unless with the King's consent, given under the great seal, any daughter, sister, aunt, or niece of the reigning prince. By and by the Princess found a fresh adorer irt Charles, a son of Lord William Howard ; but this affair was less grave, since the lovers exchanged kisses only, and no troth was plighted on the lady's side. Yet Henry thought it well to send Cranmer to his niece with a view to dissuade her from playing, as it were, v^ith fire. Then rose the question as to how a Tudor girl could be hindered from falling into love ? Only one way was known ; and by good advice this way was follov/ed by the King. At the age of thirty she was given in wedlock to her kinsman Matthew, fourth Earl of Lennox — a man who not only loved her well, but, as a partisan of England, seemed likely to prevent her feet from straying into dangerous ways. So ended, in a happy marriage, the first stage of Princess Margaret's life. 11 i62 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. To the Earl of Lennox she bore two sons, Henry and Charles, princes of the blood royal, who were recog:nised and educated at the Enofllsh court. Kincf Henry bestowed on his niece that abbey of Jervaulx in which Adam Sedburofh had reared his horses and made his cheese. Unhappily, Margaret and Elizabeth were not good friends, and when Elizabeth came to the throne the Princess fell out of favour. Many things divided them, — some personal, others political. Margaret is said to have done a wrong to the Princess when a girl, which the Queen could not forget, — put some slur upon her title ; a slur which, coming from a woman whose father and mother were described in a papal brief as having never been married at all, the proud girl could not stomach. Margaret was a pretender also ; a pretender backed by a large and turbulent party. She was a Catholic, like her niece the Queen of Scots. Her husband was a Catholic ; and her sons, Henry and Charles, had been secretly brought up in their mother's faith. Thus the Catholic gentry reaped the large benefit of having a race of English princes on their side. Lord Darnley, the elder boy, was from his cradle the hope and boast of an army of fanatics, strong enough to cause the Queen much trouble, since it was reckoned by very shrewd heads to comprise two out of every three country squires rich enough to hold commissions in the peace. While these princes were yet boys, they were left in peace ; but as they grew in years their mother Margaret began to dream of a crown for her elder son. Lennox adopted her ideas. Their hope was to match Lord Darnley with his cousin the Queen of Scots ; a project which they knew that the Queen of England would never brook ; but which they trusted by craft and daring to bring about, even though it should drive her wild with rage. Now, the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, was PRINCESS MARGARET. 163 one of those topics which no Enghsh councillor could ever allow to escape his pillow. Mary stood next in succession to the crown which had been won on Bos- worth Field ; next in blood, if not in actual law ; and the purpose which had been kept in view by the best of Elizabeth's advisers, from the moment when she ceased to think of being succeeded by children of her own, was a union of the English and Scottish crowns on a single head ; an object only to be accomplished by uniting them in a descendant of Henry the Seventh, of the Scottish line. Thus Mary's son would be the very next English King. Mary's choice of a second mate was consequently an affair of English policy, in which the English Queen and council fancied they had a rif:ht to make their voices heard. Elizabeth wished her cousin to marry a man of English views ; if possible, of English blood. Darnley was now known to be a Papist — in her eyes a fatal bar. On hearing a first hint of this design of putting Darnley on the throne as king-consort, to become the father of an English line, Elizabeth threw Lennox into the Tower, and placed her cousin in a country- house at Sheen. The affair struck Burghley as one of the gravest in which his mistress had ever been engaged. A match between Darnley and Mary would unite the Catholic party in England to the Catholic party in Scotland ; a union fatal to the public peace, if not dangerous to Elizabeth's throne. In presence of such a peril, the English council had to march with no timid step. Lennox, lodged in the Tower, was closely watched; denied, as he alleged, both air and exercise ; worse than all, he was not allowed to dine and sup at the Lieutenant's board. Thomas Bishop was employed to rake up charges against him ; and this scoundrel made out a list both long and black. Lennox, if not his wife, could see at no great distance a vision of the axe and block ; and they felt the policy of working by another 1 64 HER MAJESTY'S TO WE II, line. The Earl submitted ; on which Sir Edward Warner, the Lieutenant, invited him to dine and sup with the other prisoners of his rank. The Countess threw herself on the Queen's compassion ; and Eliza- beth, who liked to do her kinsfolk good, when she could serve them without peril, let the penitent Earl rejoin his wife at Sheen. Margaret and Lennox had only yielded to gain time. They had given their word, but they had never thought of holding to the pledge. In fact, they meant to play their game, and win the English crown by either fair means or by foul. If the Queen of England were against them, the Queen of Scots was on their side. Elizabeth was proposing Lord Robert Dudley, the handsomest man in Europe, to her cousin ; offer- ing as the bait of this English match the instant pro- clamation of Mary as her heir. The Queen of Scots, unable to see her duty with English eyes, refused the match. Daniley was a Catholic like herself; a descendant of Henry the Seventh like herself; and though he had none of the personal advantages of Lord Robert, she resolved to take him for her mate. Burghley, deceived by Margaret's penitential airs, imagined that Lennox, who seemed to have given up every thought of the match for his son, might be employed as an English agent in the Scottish court. Lennox wished to go north on his own account ; but he wished to go north as the representative of English credit and English might. Now, Burghley desired to have a man of high rank, in whom he could trust, near the Queen of Scots, until she should have Lord Leicester as a husband by her side. Lennox proffered his service, professing a strong desire to see Leicester married to the Scottish queen. If Lennox had been true to his word, no safer agent for his purpose lay within Burghley's reach. The English had yet to learn that he was not true to his word. Supplied with pistoles to spend, and trinkets to givQ rKJiVCBSS MARGARET, 165 away, Lennox went north, leaving Margaret and her two boys in London. He was armed with letters of acceptance from Burghley, from Leicester, and from the Queen. He bore a confidential note from the Queen of England to the Queen of Scots. His re- ception at Holyrood was kind. The Queen received him in her chamber ; the three Maries smiled upon him ; David Rizzio gave him welcome. He sent the news of his reception by his wife's niece and her court to Leicester and to Elizabeth. His own affairs, too, were prospering ; but some difficult point of Scottish law required that his son, Lord Darnley, should be present when certain deeds were being signed. He begged her Majesty's license for his son to make a short trip into the north, in order that no legal doubts might afterwards arise. Burghley, still believing in the Earl, allowed the young gentleman to start. Lennox became still more intimate with the Queen of Scots. Mary went with her ladies to sup in his room, where she danced, and played dice, and lost a jewel to the Earl. Backed by the whole English party in Mary's court, as well as by Mary herself, Lennox made rapid way in his suit ; and his son had scarcely appeared in the palace of Holyrood, ere he announced to his private friends in Scotland that there was such love between the royal cousins as would end in a match. On this report reaching London, orders were sent by Burghley for the prompt return of Lennox and Darnley into England. Then came the blow which all along Lennox had meant to deal at the English Queen. He refused to obey, cast off his allegiance, and defied her Majesty's power. He and his son were beyond her reach. This revolt in her own family not only vexed but alarmed the Queen, who saw her wise care for her kingdom crossed by the humour of a vain woman and the folly of a petulant boy. She arrested Margaret ; and her younger son, Charles, a child of nine, was 166 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. placed in the charge of Lady Knyvet, while his mother was being escorted to the Tower. Elizabeth hoped that the plot was checked. Know- ing Lord Darnley and the Queen of Scots, she felt that this boy of nineteen was no husband for this widow of twenty-three. Boding evil of every kind from such a match, she set her face against it, even though she could not punish either the reckless boy or the wilful queen. Lennox pressed his suit. Darnley made a friend of Rizzio ; and Mary, in face of the remonstrances of her brother Murray, the best man in her court, gave her hand to the youth who, of all her suitors, was the most objectionable in English eyes. When news of their private marriage, which took place in Rizzio's chamber, reached London, the Queen could not believe it. Then came the public rite ; the revolt of Murray ; and the thousand troubles which followed in their train. More than once the thought of sending an army across the Border came into Eliza- beth's mind, but the Queen controlled her temper, and left the Scottish drama to end in its own dark way. Margaret's confinement in the Tower, though close, was far from being harsh. The best rooms in the Lieutenant's house were given up to her use and that of her attendants, and were furnished anew with arras, tables, stools, and plate. A fire-pan was put into her room ; which was supplied with ewers and drinking cups becoming her estate. Two ladies, a maid, one gentleman, and a yeoman, were received in her train, and lodged at the public cost in the Lieutenant's house. In this state, the daughter of Queen Margaret lay in the Tower. News came to her from her son. She heard of the private marriage in Rizzio's room ; of that scene in the kirk where Knox inveighed against the rule of women and boys ; of the flight of Murray ; of the quarrels of Darnley and Mary ; of the murder of Rizzio ; of the ominous reconciliation of Murray PRINCESS MARGARET. 167 and the Queen ; and of the perilous situation of that son for whom she was enduring her sharp restraint. Few rays of comfort ever reached her cell. Lennox neglected, Darnley forgot her. Of course, she found her situation bad. Her rooms were small, her means were scant. When her cries reached the throne, Elizabeth sent her Lord Treasurer, the Marquis of Winchester, to look into her case and make things straight, if the royal lady would show him the way to do it. Margaret would not help the Marquis. In truth, her case was not one to be met by a few honied words and a few trifling cares. Her misery was that she had married a faithless husband, that she had borne a foolish son, that she was made the pledge of an unpopular cause. Darnley, now king consort beyond the Tweed, offered himself as a chief to every man living south of that river who disliked the Oueen ; and more than once, in his madness, he proposed to cross the Border into England, raise a new Pilgrimage of Grace, and drive her from the realm by force. Thus, the two royal cousins watched the course of events beyond the Tweed, in which they felt an equal passion ; one from her apartments in Whitehall, the other from her chamber in the Tower. One event occurred which might have made them friends ; the birth of a prince. That child would be the next English king. In him, therefore, the two women had a common interest ; the first as her official heir, the second as her natural heir. Elizabeth melted towards the lady in the Tower, whose son and hus- band were rejoicing in their Scottish capital over this auspicious birth ; but the folly of Lennox and Darnley would not suffer her to express her feelings in acts of grace. The daughter of King Henry and the daughter of Queen Margaret were still to sit apart ; watching events beyond the Tweed ; and peering through the distance into that cloud of tragic gloom. i6S HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. Then came the blow which was to end their strife. Darnley was murdered at the Kirk of Field ; the victim of his beautiful and perfidious wife. On this news reaching London, the Queen sent down to her Lieutenant, and set her captive free. All the evil which she had feared was come to pass ; and though she could never love her cousin, she would not add the misery of confinement to the agonies of a breaking heart. After Queen Mary had been driven out of her kingdom, and Murray had been shot, Lennox was appointed Regent. Like Murray, he fell by an assassin's hand. Margaret, who stayed in London, sank into poverty and obscurity ; only broken by fresh troubles in the marriage of her second son, Charles, to Elizabeth Cavendish. She died at last so poor, that her funeral had to be conducted at the Queen's expense ; when she was borne in a state procession to the great Abbey, where she lies among the kings and princes of her race. When the Princess died, her elder son's only child, James Stuart, was a young man ; her younj^er son's only child, Arabella Stuart, was a little girl. The boy, a dull fellow, was to wear the English crown ; the girl, a fair, bright creature, was to be one of that dull boy's captives in the Tower. CHAPTER XXIII. PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT. iIXTEEN months after Darnley's murder In the Kirk of Field, Queen Mary, his wife and cousin, was a fugitive from justice on English soil. She had married his murderer and lost her crown. At this moment of her career, the situation of Mary Stuart seemed lonely enough to subdue the wildest spirit. She had lost, not only her crown, but her reputation and her child. The half-brother who had been her companion in youth, was in arms against her. The thanes who had stood around her throne, had flung her into jail. The parliament of her kingdom had set on her brow the brand of murderess. What was she to live for more ? At twenty-six she had ex- hausted every passion of the soul. She had reigned as Queen since she was six days old. She had been adored by poets, warriors, and musicians. She had married three husbands ; and these three husbands she had lost by death, by murder, and by captivity. She had enjoyed every luxury of earth, and she had suffered every bolt from heaven. At an age when good women are beginning to taste the flavour of life, she was already separated from her partner in crime, and seeking on a foreign soil a refuge from her country, her brother, and her son. Such a fugitive might have been expected to live in I70 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. quiet, to shun the pubHc eye, and to devote her days and nights to making her peace with God. But this was not the view which Mary Stuart and her friends — most of all her clerical friends — were disposed to take of her duty towards the land into which she had come. Granted she was a great sinner ; yet sinners have their rights in the law as well as saints. She was a queen, and queens are not to be punished for offences like the rank and file. David, said her divines, was an adulterer and a murderer; yet his people had not risen against him, and taken away his crown. The commons have no authority to judge their kings. If kings go wrong, the Lord will chastise them with rods of steel. They must be left to God ; but they must be left to God in hope and charity, not in wrath and spite. Even from the Scottish pulpits, in the midst of people to whom the details of her life were known, these doctrines were put forth. "St. David was an adulterer, and so was she," cried Alexander Gordon, Archbishop of Athens and Bishop of Galloway ; " St. David committed murder, and so did she. But what is this to the matter ? " In Gordon's view it was hardly anything at all. From the hour of her stepping on English soil, Mary Stuart began to plot against Elizabeth's peace, and in all her plots she had the personal sanction and service of John Leslie, the able and learned Bishop of Ross, who became her agent, her confessor, and her spy. This bishop was a divine of the Italian and Spanish type ; supple, tolerant, unscrupulous ; a man of courts and of affairs ; easy with fair sinners, facile with the great ; never afraid of lying and deceit ; and bent on serving his Church, even though he should have to do so at the peril of his soul. The plots and counterplots of this crafty woman and her yet more crafty priest, have no examples, except in the Spanish and Italian comedy of intrigue. To any other woman than Mary Stuart, to any PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT. 171 other bishop than John Leslie, the events which had driven the Queen of Scots from Holyrood, and of which her EngHsh cousin, in giving- her shelter from her foes, was bound to take due notice, would have seemed sufficient to cancel her claim on the English crown. She had no rights in London which she had not in Edinburgh ; and the highest court in Scotland had deprived her by solemn acts of all those rights. Found guilty of murder, her very life stood forfeit to the law. In England, too, she was a stranger, excluded from succession by the Alien Act. But all these facts and laws were nothing to the Queen of Scots, and to her spiritual adviser the Bishop of Ross. She had the example of her cousin, Mary Tudor, before her eyes. Mary Tudor had found no favour in the law ; yet law and power united — the letters-patent, the fleet, the army, and the council — had not been able to sustain the nine-days' Queen against the higher force which lay in her rights of blood. Ross pretended that a right of nature is not to be lost by personal offences ; and he cited his favourite case of David on the house-top in Zion, and Uriah in the fore-front of the war at Rabbah. Neither Mary Stuart nor her priest could quite forget the points which, in comparison with Mary Tudor, told most fatally against her claims. Unlike her English cousin, the Queen of Scots was an alien, a murderess, and a fugitive. She had no great friends abroad, and not a single friend at home. But she had weapons, and they knew it, such as Mary Tudor could never boast ; bright eyes, a velvet touch, and a wheedling tongue. The Bishop himself, though he had professionally renounced the devil and all his works, could not escape the charm of Mary's smile. No woman in the world had so much power of making fools of men. Besides her dazzling beauty, she had a wide experience in the ways of love, and knew the arts by which men's senses are enslaved. No poet, warrior, troubadour, had yet 172 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER, been able to resist her wiles ; the best and worst had fallen equally at her feet ; for when her grace and radiance failed of their proud effect, she could throw into the charm by which she drew men to her the lustre of her royal birth and her expected crown. With such advantages of face and birth, how could Mary Stuart want for friends ? Among the English lords who were coming to York with power to judge between her and the Scots, was no man open to the flash of peerless eyes ? If Mary could find a lover on the bench of judges, she might rebuke her brother, the Regent Murray, and weaken the position of her cousin the English Queen. From the lords sent down to York on the Scottish business, she selected as her prey, with the assent of her Catholic counsellor, that stern reformer, Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, the richest noble and strictest Protestant in her cousin's court. It is not likely that she would have gone so far as to marry him ; for he was crabbed in temper, weak in purpose, ugly in figure ; even if the sour but honest Duke could have been persuaded to take her as a wife, while her husband, Bothwell, was yet alive. But short of actual marriage, a clever woman might do much ; and Mary's misfortune was that her brain was only too prompt to suggest the way of doing any bad thing on which she set her heart. Norfolk was not the only conquest which she deigned to make. Thomas Percy — son of Sir Thomas the Pilgrim — a man who, on the fall of Dudley, had been restored by Philip and Mary to the ancient honours of his house, as seventh Earl of Northumber- land, and Warden of the East and Middle Marches — was in cross humour with the Queen. He thought himself ill used. Elizabeth had taken from him the great power of Warden of the Marches, and given this power to William, Lord Grey of Wilton, a man whom Percy regarded as inferior to himself in birth and rank. cc o 1- UJ X H ■D O u o -I u. o > z o UJ o UJ PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT. 173 Percy's confessor found fault with the policy pursued by Burghley ; and Percy had begun to think that the old religion and the old families would never fare well in England until the dynasty was changed. The Queen of Scots had an easy conquest in the Earl. But Percy was one of her minor cards ; to be played or not, as fortune should suggest ; her game was to be made on Norfolk, whom she had drawn to her side in body and soul. " Have a care, my lord, on what pillow you lay your head," said Elizabeth slyly to the Duke. Poor Duke, the only pillow to v/hich Mary Stuart could lead him v.'as the block ! For a time, the cominc^f over of Norfolk and his party to the Queen of Scots gave a lively turn to her affairs ; leading to many wild hopes in the north, and to much correspondence with the courts of Brussels and Madrid. For the conveyance of this dangerous correspondence, Leslie — who had been received by Elizabeth as an ambassador from the Queen of Scots — had to find out trusty agents ; men who were willing to risk their lives for either a purse of money or a bishop's thanks. Where a fanatic could be found, he was naturally preferred. Among the shrewdest of the many agents employed by the Bishop of Ross, in going and coming between London and Brussels, was a young Fleming, known as Monsieur Charles, Vv^ho seems to have been a messenger and spy to Signor Ridolfi, the secret minister of Pius the Fifth. Clever with pen and pencil, speaking four or five languages like a native, a good Catholic, poor, and of no family, attached to Mary Stuart as to a royal saint, professing boundless reverence for his Church, the young Fleming. Charles Bailly, was just the man for conspirators like Ridolfi and the Bishop of Ross, He knew the country and the Continent. In Scotland a Scot, in Italy an Italian, in Flanders a Fleming, in France a Gaul, he could go anywhere, and pass for anything. One day 174 HE:R MAJESTY'S TOWER, he might be a merchant, a second day an artist, a third day a courtier. Cobham, then Lord Warden of the Five Ports, was keen of scent, yet Monsieur Charles crossed and recrossed from Dover without exciting his jealous quest. Not until he and his packet of letters fell under Burghley's scrutiny was the young Fleming caught in the trap, and made to give up the secrets which he knew. Norfolk was led to fancy that he could wed the Queen of Scots, and carry her back to Edinburgh with the help of Spanish gold and English steel. Leslie thought so too. Not that the Duke and Bishop regarded Mary as a royal saint, whom it was a sacred duty to assist in recovering her lost throne. They knew her too well. Howard, while he was offering her his hand, believed in his heart that she had been privy to Darnley's death ; and Leslie, who knew her as only a priest could know her, believed that she had not only taken off her second husband, but her first. But the fact of Mary being a bad woman was of no account to men with purposes like theirs. She was a Queen. In her veins ran the blood of Stuart, Tudor, and Plantagenet. Her children, thought Howard, will wear two crowns ; her advent in London, thought Leslie, will serve the universal Church. The two men thought of Mary as a tool which they could use for purposes of their own. Norfolk persuaded himself that he was not a boy, to be put aside like Darnley ; and the Bishop of Ross repeated to himself that even when David had taken Uriah's wife he had not been wholly cast out from the fold of God. The Duke thought himself a wary man ; young in years, but ripe in knowledge ; with an experience of married life equal at least to that of Mary, since he had buried three duchesses of Norfolk before he was thirty-one years old. The Bishop must have laughed under his cope at the Duke's pretence of being able to control the Ouecn of Scots. PLOT AND CO UNTERPLOT. 1 75 Elizabeth sent for Norfolk. In the gallery at Whitehall she rated him for trying after a match with her cousin, a pretender to her crown, without coming to her for leave. The Duke made light of the affair ; he cared nothing, he said, for the Queen of Scots ; he had nothing to gain by the alliance ; his own estates in E norland beingf worth little less than the whole kingdom of Scotland. Words so haughty must have struck the Queen. The foolish fellow added that when he stood in his own tennis-court in Norwich he felt himself a prince. What wonder that the Queen was cold to him after that memorable day ? Norfolk felt that he was losing favour ; and to make things worse for him he with- drew from court without taking leave ; retiring to Kenning Hall, his great castle on the Waveney, which was linked in every one's memory with the advent of that other Catholic Oueen. But Elizabeth was not Jane. Norfolk was soon arrested and in the Tower ; though not in peril of his life ; until Ross and Mary began to stir up friends in the north, sons of the old Pilgrims of Grace, to make a diversion in his favour by a sudden appeal to arms. Percy, Earl of Northumberland, rose at once. Joined by Charles Nevill, Earl of Westmorland, he donned the Pilgrim's badge, a cross, with the five wounds of Christ ; entered Durham at the head of his armed followers ; declared the Catholic Church restored to her ancient rights ; attended high mass in the Cathedral ; and then marched forward to Clifford Moor, on which he encamped with six thousand horse and four thousand foot. The rebel Earls proposed to advance on York, and raising the country as they went along, push onward for the Don. If they could reach Tutbury, on the Dove, where the Queen of Scots then dwelt, and carry her back to Scotland on their shields, Percy might hope for some sweet reward, and both the Earls could defy Elizabeth's power. But while Percy 176 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER, and Nevill were dreaming, Sussex, Clinton, and Warwick were rushing on their lines with overwhelm- ing power. The rebels retreated across the Border; whence Nevill escaped to Flanders, where the Countess of Northumberland joined him ; while Percy himself, unable to get on board a vessel in the Firth, was seized by Murray, and flung into Lochleven castle, the strong and lonely pile from which Queen Mary had escaped. J^ CHAPTER XXIV. MONSIEUR CHARLES. gj^HE game seemed passing out of Leslie's hands ; but the Bishop of Ross knew far too much of what was passing out of sight to feel discour- aged. His friend Ridolfi, the Papal agent, had drawn up a list of Catholics in the English court on whom the Pope could rely ; and this list, of which Leslie had a copy, included many of the most ancient barons of the realm. What was going on in Rome was to bring a change. A Papal bull was to be launched ; Elizabeth was to be cast down ; all Catholics — half the people of our realm — were to be urged, on peril of their souls, to rise up against her. The Queen dethroned, who was to take her place ? That was Leslie's care. Under the name of " A defence of the honour of Mary, Queen of Scotland," Leslie wrote a book which he sent Monsieur Charles abroad to get printed for him at the Liege press ; a dangerous book to own, since it dealt, in a very bold spirit, with the whole question of Mary's claims to the English crown. In his own mind Leslie had formed a perfect plan ; the first part of which was to get Norfolk freed from the Tower, so as to have all his forces in the front. In this feat he succeeded, at the cost of some lying and much pledging on Norfolk's part. Norfolk being free, 12 178 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. Leslie sent Monsieur Charles to Liege for copies of his book, so as to be ready to act when the Papal bull arrived. Events, he hoped, would take the following course. The world would read his argument on the title, and be convinced. When men were ready for the truth, the Papal bull would arrive. He would then announce that the Queen was deposed, that the Church had cut her off, that the Catholic powers had declared war against her, that the whole country was up in arms. On this the Catholic lords would seize the Tower ; Norfolk would march on Tutbury ; in a few weeks Mary would be crowned in Westminster, the Spanish party would come into power, and the Universal Church would be restored. The plot was a very fine plot on paper ; but Leslie's instruments failed him, and, in truth, he failed himself. A raid of some English troops into the Western Highlands piqued him into a premature publication of the Papal brief. The barons were not ready ; and as the London citizens read the bull and passed on laugh- ing, the great conspiracy ended like a farce, except to Leslie and his agents. Monsieur Charles was leaving Brussels for London with copies of the Bishop's book, and letters from Lady Northumberland, Lord Westmoreland, and other exiles, when the Italian minister, Ridolfi, gave him a packet of three letters addressed to the Bishop of Ross. Landing at Dover, Monsieur Charles was overhauled by the Lord Warden's men ; and the books and letters being found in his bag, he was carried up to London for examination by Lord Cobham himself The books were in English, and the offence of bringing them into England was no trifle ; but the three letters, as Monsieur Charles knew only too well, were far more serious than the books. On his way to Cobham's house in Blackfriars, he contrived to send news of his arrest to the Bishop of Ross. MONSIEUR CHARLES. 179 Monsieur Charles and his bag were examined by- William Brooke, Lord Cobham, and his brother Thomas, once the false friend of Wyat. The letters were in cypher, and two of them were addressed to 30 and 40. The young Fleming said he knew nothing about them ; he was only a messenger ; he could not read the cypher ; nor had he any clue to the numbers. But on closer search of Monsieur Charles's clothes, a key to this cypher was found sewed up in his coat ; by means of which key Lord Cobham and his brother were soon aware what perilous stuff Monsieur Charles had brought to Dover in his bag. Cobham felt that he must carry the books and papers to Burghley ; but his brother Thomas, who was deep in Catholic plots, catching a sign from Monsieur Charles, opposed this course ; urging that the moment these books and papers came into Burghley's hands, their friend, the Duke of Norfolk, would be a dead man. Cobham could not see it, nor could Monsieur Charles explain to him how the Duke was touched. But in fact, as Bailly knew very well, number 30 meant the Duke of Norfolk, number 40 meant Lord Lumley ; and the letters addressed to them by the Pope's agent contained treason enough to bring twenty heads to the block, even under a Queen who had never yet shed one drop of traitor's blood. Cobham got into his boat and pulled for Burghley's house ; but on the way he softened towards his brother's prayer ; the more so, as he thought de- spondingly of much that had passed between Ridolfi and himself For Cobham was one of the barons in Ridolfi's secret list. Yet, what could he do } The bacr had been seized at Dover; Monsieur Charles had been openly brought to town ; the searchers had seen his books and letters ; and not many hours would elapse before Burqhlcy would have reports from his suies. Concealment was vain. Could anything be i8o HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. done under the plea of accident, to save the Bishop and the Duke ? Perplexed in mind, he left the books at Burghley's house, and took back the letters to his own ; where he sealed them up afresh and sent them over to the Bishop of Ross, with a request that the prelate would come down next day to Blackfriars and open the packet in the Lord Warden's presence. Leslie understood his hint. Breaking- the seal, and taking out the dangerous missives, the Bishop slipped away to the Spanish embassy, where he told Don Gerau his bad news, and begged assistance in his trouble. The ambassador saw that the packet must be taken next day to Cobham's house. They knew it would be sent on to Burghley ; and that if Burghley saw those papers, the Bishop would be ruined, the Duke would be executed, and the Queen of Scots overthrown. Could they keep back the papers ? Could they foist a false packet of news on Burghley, yet prevent him from guessing that he was tricked ? Bishop and ambassador thought they could. Burghley would know that letters had been seized ; he would want to read those letters ; he would expect to find treason in them. All might be arranged if Leslie and Gerau were left alone. Locked in a private closet, the Scottish prelate and the Spanish minister spent the long night in forging papers ; concocting a series of cyphered letters, tinned, indeed, with treason to throw Burghley off his guard, but away from the matters which were truly under hand. Some of these papers they wrote in the cypher found in Monsieur Charles's coat. They threw in the Papal bull ; and the packet was then care- fully sealed. Before daylight came, their work was done. The true letters from Ridolfi were now sent on to Norfolk and Lumley ; the forged letters and the brief were taken to Cobham's house in the bag ; and when they were safely delivered, the Bishop ventured with consummate craft, to write a letter to Burghley, com- MONSIEUR CHARLES. i8i plaining that his servant, Ballly, had been arrested, and that some letters, which he was bringing over from Brussels, were detained. Leslie, who took the high tone of an ambassador, begged his lordship to give orders that his servant might be released, and his letters restored. The Bishop felt no scruple in add- ing, that he could not say what these letters con- tained; but could and would say that not one word in them would be used by him except as Burghley should see fit. For a moment Burghley was deceived by these artful lies ; but he was cautious enough to send Monsieur Charles to the Marshalsea, where he would be watched by very sharp eyes. In the Marshalsea, Monsieur Charles found one of the suffering saints : William Herllie, a kinsman of Lady Northumberland ; a man who had fallen with the family fortunes and was now the occupant of a wretched cell. Herllie, who was known to the Bishop of Ross and to the Spanish ambassador, was regarded by his fellow-Catholics as a victim to Burghley's Protestant zeal, since he was often put into irons, locked in a close room, and fed on bread and water. Every one pitied him — every one trusted him. Women who saw him pass by pale and shivering, said he could not live ; and men, who had a firmer hold on life, were anxious to obtain the con- solation of his blessing and the profit of his advice. Yet this suffering saint was in Burghley's pay; and six nights after Bailly's arrival at the Marshalsea, Burghley held in his hands some clue to the Bishop's plot. Leslie had tried to open a direct communication with Monsieur Charles in prison ; but Burghley had taken care that he should fail ; and, on the failure of his first attempts, he tried what could be done through the suffering- saint. Throuorh William Herllie his letters were passed on to Monsieur Charles, and answers from Monsieur Charles were duly received by i82 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. the Bishop of Ross. But the adroit and unscrupulous prelate was not aware that his letters, and the answers to them, passed through Burghley's hands, and were copied by Burghley's clerks. Being in cypher, these letters told Burghley no more than that the Bishop was in clandestine correspondence with the prisoner. More was wanting to justify Leslie's arrest ; and the suffering saint was employed to ^ret a copy of Bailly's cypher. But here the impostor failed ; and Monsieur Charles discovered, through a luckless blunder on the part of Herllie, that the suffering saint, and cousin of Lady Northumberland, was a common cheat and spy- Other and sharper courses were now adopted. Burghley sent for Monsieur Charles, laid the copies of his letters to the Bishop, with the Bishop's replies, before him, and bade him instantly read them out. Bailly pretended that he could not read them — he had lost the cypher, and could not recall the signs. Burghley told him he was lying, and that the rack should make him tell the truth. Monsieur Charles was sent to the Tower, and Sir Owen Hopton lodged him in the good Lord Cobham s room, on the walls of whi'jh he scratched at once this warning : I. H. 8. 1571 Die 10 Aprllls. Wise men ought circumspectly to so what they do, to ezamen 1)efore they speake, to prove before they take In hand, to beware whose companey they use, and abouve al things to whom they truste. Charles Bailly. Yet his own hard lessons had been poorly learnt MONSIEUR CHARLES. 183 During the months of April and May he was often questioned by Sir Owen ; sometimes, though not severely, on the rack ; and as he felt no wish to be a martyr, he complained to the Bishop of Ross ; who, in mortal fear lest he should tell what he knew about Ridolfi's letters and the books printed at Liege, sent him such comfort as he could find ; beds to lie on, food for his table, good advice for his soul. Most of all, Leslie begged Monsieur Charles to get strength in his travail by thinking of what holy men had often suffered for the truth. Burghley got at the poor Fleming's secret, without having to break his bones. There happened to be lying in the Tower in those days, a man whom all his fellow-Catholics regarded as a genuine saint. This man was John Story, Doctor of the Canon Law ; a man who had been bred to con- spiracy, who had renounced his country, who had been naturalised in Spain. Story had been kidnapped in Flanders, brought to London, lodged in the Lollards' tower, tried for his offence, and sentenced to death. Elizabeth's desire to keep her reign free from poli- tical executions, had heretofore saved him from the gallows. This man had formerly been a tenant of Beauchamp tower, on the wall of which he had carved his name : 1670 - terms with the Kincf of Scots, now known to be her heir ; such terms as their fathers had often made with uncrowned kings ; such terms as their sons had afterwards to impose on WiHiam the Third. Lord Grey was one of those who urged that James should be asked for pledges to respect our English rights and to follow our English laws. Sir John Fortescue supported the views of Grey, while Cecil and the two Howards (soon to be known as the Earls of Suffolk and North- ampton) contended that all such things could wait> that subjects must not make conditions, and that the wisest course would be to trust their kinqf. Cecil knew too well in what he placed his trust. For three years past he had employed Lord Henry in a secret correspondence with the Scottish court, from which he had learned enough of James to see his drift and gauge his strength. The Scottish prince, he found, was bent on peace; peace with the Austrian Cardinal, peace with the Spanish court ; peace on every side and on any terms ; even though it might have to be the " King of Hungary's peace." This policy suited Cecil, who felt that in case of war the FA CTIONS AT CO UR T. 261 public power would pass away from clerks and secre- taries into the hands of warriors, such as Raleigh, Nottingham, and Grey. The war party wished to shape the policy of James so as to give him glory abroad and peace at home ; a government that should be a living force, a people who should be content and free. The way to these ends, they said, was to raise the siege of Ostend, to drive the Jesuit missionaries out of London, to unite the English people in defence of public liberty and public law. The peace party wished to leave the question of policy to the King ; well knowing that he spoke of the Dutch as rebels, that he wished the Car- dinal success, and that, in reference to the treaties which bound him to aid his allies, he openly announced his intention not to be tied by the contracts of a woman and a fool. Thus, in the gardens of Whitehall, on the day of the Queen's death, before the King of Scots was yet proclaimed, two parties were in line ; an English party, having an English platform, on which stood Raleigh, Fortescue, and Grey ; a Spanish part}^ having a Spanish platform, on which stood Cecil and his friends. The first party wanted liberty and war, and the cry of their partisans in the streets was, " Down with the Austrian ! Ho for the Dutch ! " The second party wanted peace and place ; they had no public cry, for they had no partisans in the street ; but their purpose was to become the " Friends of Spain." These factions fell into a strife, which raeed until the King arrived at the Tower and made known his will. James wanted money and quiet ; neither of which he could- receive so lonof as the Q-uns were boommg over Dover Straits. Cecil promised him money and quiet in return for place and power ; bless- ings which he persuaded James no other man could give. The King could not know, in that early time, that his Secretary of State would sell his secrets and 262 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. his services for Spanish gold ; and had he known the truth, he might only have chuckled in his sleeve, sworn a coarse oath, and begged some portion of the spoil. Any way, the new King gave his confidence to that smooth and serpentine clerk, so that Cecil, in any war he might have to wage against Grey and Raleigh, would have the crown, the army, and the judges, at his back. The King came in without terms; in fact, these terms were not made until the times of his son and of his son's son. People in the Strand and Cheape, who heard that their young Prince was bent on forsaking the Holy War, could not believe it. How, they cried, betray the Dutch ! How could we betray them and not our- selves ? Was not the war of the Armada burninp- .'* Had not Montjoy just smitten the Spaniards at Kinsale ? Was not Vere at Ostend ? Had we not thousands of troops in the Netherlands ? Were not Flushing, Rammekins, and Briel in our power ? Were we not bound by treaties ? Were we not fighting our enemies on a friendly soil, in lieu of having to fight them on our own .'* Such was the view then taken by every one, except the King's friends and those who wished to be thought his friends. So strong and wide was this popular feeling for the Dutch, that James could not help seeing that to recall his troops from Ostend and Flushing might be fatal to his peace, if not perilous to his crown. The change must be wrought out step by step. Ere such a course could be safely taken, the war must have lost its charm for the public mind, and the fighting generals must have been tarnished by some dubious charge. Could Vere be starved out of Ostend ? Could Raleigh and Grey be compromised with the partisans of war ? The first was easy, the second not so easy. Vere had only to be dropt ; his letters to be left unread, his prayers unnoticed, his supplies unsent. A FA C TIONS A T CO UR T. 263 cold intelligence, working in a chamber at Whitehall, could count the very hours of Vere. One day the height of human daring would be reached. Brave hands would faint through famine, stout hearts would fail in force, the city would fall into the Austrian's power, and James could affect a sorrow which he would not feel. But neither Grey nor Raleigh could be ruined by leaving him alone. If Grey was to be got out of Cecil's way he must be lodged in the Tower. Now Cecil was a perfect master in the art of snaring men into suspicion ; yet he could hardly have succeeded in so short a time in meshing his powerful rivals, had he not been aided in his work by an unexpected group of spies. These spies were the Jesuit missionaries whom Grey and his Puritan friends proposed to harry from the land. For many years past, a few cautious Jesuits, under their Prefect, Garnet, had been hiding in the country, chiefly in the London suburbs and in the midland shires ; but on the Queen's death becoming known abroad, a larger body came over sea from Flanders and Castile, to aid in promoting the peace with Spain. In crossing the Straits, they knew they were breaking the English law, since no member of their Order could then reside on English soil ; but they reckoned, not without cause, on the Secretary of State being purposely blind to their coming over, since their object was to promote the King's most ardent wish. In Cecil these Jesuits met their match. The men who moved the Order were no strangers to him ; some of them were in his pay, still more of them were in his power. A list of the fatliers lay in his desk ; a list giving their true names and their false, with an account of the houses in which they lodged, and of the persons who helped them to come and go. Me knew something of Father Fisher, otherwise Percy, otherwise Fairfax, who lived in Sir Everard Digby's house. He was ac- quainted with Father Oldcornc, the confessor of Mrs. 264 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. Abington of Hendlip Hall. Garnet was his neighbour, and might almost be called his chum. Father Creswell wrote to him from ValladoHd, Father Persons from Rome. By these and other means he held the threads of their purpose in his grasp, and felt that should the day for a tussle with the Order ever come, he would be strong enough to drag them down. The fathers were allowed to land and spread them- selves through the London suburbs and the country districts ; but they were not suffered to come and go unwatched. The Secretary had his agents on the quay of every port and the deck of every ship. The jovial skipper who gave the fathers a passage in his bark, and who seemed to them the pink of good fellows, was his spy. The bland old priest, who wel- comed them on shore and crave them such wise counsels, was in his pay. One band of Jesuits came over in the Golden Li07i, Francis Burnell commander. Fresh from Antwerp, where the Austrian Cardinal and the Spanish Infanta had been proclaimed King and Queen of England, these fathers were hot with zeal, and hnding the skipper a man of their own mind, they were free in talk about the King of Scots. They said the King was doomed, and talked of the speedy destruc- tion of all his house. Before they were put on shore, Captain Burnell had reported their words to one of Cecil's spies in Harwich, who sent a copy of their speeches to Whitehall. The spy who watched the coming and going of these fathers in Harwich was Francis Tilletson, a priest. A part of Cecil's craft in dealing with political rivals lay in the adroit advantage which he took of the bitter feuds then raging in the ancient Church, so as to gain from each party in that Church the means of crushing the other, when a policy of repression happened to* serve his turn. Blood ran so hicrh between sections of the Catholic clergy — between the Secular priests FACTIONS AT COURT. 265 and the Jesuit missionaries — that each was ready to betray the other into his hands. Tilletson was not more eager to denounce the Jesuits in Harwich, than Garnet was to destroy the Seculars in London. Each rejoiced when his rival fell. If Jesuits and Seculars were both opposed in theory to the crown, they opposed it in a different spirit, and sought their ends by a different path. Each had a purpose and a plot ; and the purpose dearest to each was to betray his fellow-priest to the law. From his neighbours of Enfield Chase, Cecil got the clue to a wild, spent plot, in which two members of the Secular priesthood, who had made themselves hateful to the Fathers, were much concerned. The plot had failed, the plotters had dispersed. Some ale had been drunk in Carter Lane ; a gang of rufflers called the Damned Crew had been raised ; and two or three secret conferences had been held between persons of still higher rank ; but the dream was past, and the design would have been shrouded in a spy's report, and laid in the grave of all dead things, had not one of the names which incidentally occurred in the papers been that of Grey. A Priests' Plot — there was a name to strike the public ear! A charge was wanted against Grey, the Puritan peer, the enemy of Philip, the advocate of war. Now, Grey was said to have given two or three private meetings to Sir Griffin Markham, a notorious Papist, and an agent for the priests. What more could men like Cecil and Northampton ask ? CHAPTER XXXVII. LORD GREY OF WILTON. [MONO the young men of high rank who strove in the later years of Gloriana's reign to make a true rehgion of their daily lives, to be at once brave soldiers, faithful citizens, and pious sons, to live in the world, yet also live to God — and the roll of these high and noble men was not a short one — the most eminent for his birth, his genius, and his misery, was Thomas Grey, the sixteenth baron of his line, in whom was to expire, in a cell of that Water- gate which Henry the Third had built, the last male heir of a house which that same Henry the Third had summoned to his side. Grey was nursed under a mother's eye. Until he was ten years old he lived at Whaddon Hall in Bucks, the family seat, where he was taught to read the Word of God, as well as to ride and fence, to leap the barriers, and to run the ring. As he grew in size, the playmate of a tiny sister, Bridget, and of a baby-brother, who was taken from him at an early day, his mother Sibyl saw with pride and love that he was growing rich, not only in the arts which adorn high rank, but in that spiritual grace which she prized in her son above all the accomplishments of earth. At ten he was called a man and sent into the world. The Greys had always been men of war, and a Grey of Wilton Castle could have no other home than a camp. His chair was to LORD GREY OF WILTON. 267 be a saddle, his coat a corslet, his cap a casque of steel. But Lady Grey was anxious that her boy should be a faithful soldier of Jesus Christ, no less than a stout defender of his Oueen ; and she lived to see him all that she hoped he would become. Grey was happy in both his parents. Arthur Grey, his father, that renowned Lord Deputy of Ireland who was the patron of Gascoyne and the friend of Spenser, is known to lovers of great books as Artegal, the Knight of Justice, in the " Faery Queen ;" a princely figure, noble as it is spotless ; not more true to the poetic art than to the human life. In court and camp young Grey was ever at his father's side, often in the thickest of bloody fields. For Arthur's son Held Arthur's spirit. Once, when he was hardly twelve years old, in a sudden fight, some English horsemen giving way before a swarm of kernes, the Lord Deputy, who had seen the waving line, pricked up, the lad at his heels, and shouting " Grey and his heir for the Queen," dashed in among the foe and cut them through. That Irish camp was a terrible school of arms ; for a gang of reckless devils, the sweepings of Italian bagnios and Spanish gaols, had been fiung into Connaught, where they had built a fortress, called the Fort del Oro. Roaming through Galway and parts of Kerry, these o^anors had ravacjed two counties before the Lord Deputy could move against them ; but when Artegal leapt to horse, it was to strike a blow that men should not be able to forget. Never since the Lion of Judah went forth to battle had a sterner spirit ruled a camp than he who led the Encrlish force ac^ainst Del Oro. Grey asked no quarter, and he gave none. The fort was taken and the enemy destroyed. It was in this action under Grey that Raleigh, then a young captain, won his first red laurels in the field. 2 68 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. From this fierce school of war the boy was sent to Oxford. Robert Marston, who wrote a Life of Grey in verse, declares that now Anns entered into league with arts, but the young soldier was too busy with his w^ork to stay over-long at college. Like his father, and like his comrade Raleigh, he vowed his sword to the Good Old Cause ; and while he was yet in his teens he crossed into the Low Countries, to finish his education m. the trench and field. The Dutch received him with open arms ; and in the front of every charge, his country- men saw with pride the trail of his crimson plume. Grey brought into the patriots' camp, not only a soldier's sword, but a statesman's thought ; not only a dauntless eye, but a clear and resolute mind. He knew, not merely how to fight, but how to turn the tide of battle to a righteous end. He sav/ what should be done, and how it should be done. Nursed on the pas« sions which breathe in the " Faery Queen," the legend of his house, he loathed Grantorto with all his soul, and spurned the Idol as he would have spurned the nether fiend. Loving his Queen and country as he loved his mother and his sister Bridget, Grey was with the fore- most in every enterprise by land and sea. He served against the Irish rebels ; he sailed on the Island Voyage ; he fought on Nieuport sands. On his return from camp to court he found the Earl of Essex, his old companion of the Island Voyage, commencing that evil course which was to bring him, in a few mad months, to the Devereux tower and to St. Peter's church. Grey warned his friend, and heard his warning received with gibes. Less vexed than pained by his rebuff, he stood apart in silence, until he saw that Essex was falling away from all his English friends, and taking hold of an Anglo-.Spanish crew ; giving up Bacon and Raleigh for the pupils LORD GREY OF WILTON. 209 of Father Garnet ; for men like Monteagle, Father Wright, and Captain Lea. Then he spake to the Earl once more. But all was vain ; the Earl havino- entered on a course from which neither love nor fear could draw him back. Grey told these faithless peers and tavern-plotters to count him in future as a foe. Lord Southampton, a young fellow like himself, but weak and fitful, heard this warning with open scorn, and put such words on Grey as a soldier could not bear. Grey stopped him and beat him in the public street. This quarrel of the young peers so stirred her court, that the Queen had to send Lord Grey to the Prince of Orange, who was lying in front of Grave, until the storm passed by. The mettle of the young man having now been proved, he was courted by the chiefs of every side. He joined the party of Raleigh, Nottingham, and Cecil, against the Earl of Essex. He went over to Dublin in command of a regiment of horse to watch the plotters, and when Essex swept back to London, Grey was quickly in his front. When the Earl's folly maddened into crime, the pious young soldier was commissioned by the Queen as her General of the Horse. Grey's heart was thrown into these courtly l)roils only so far as they formed a part of that war which his country had to wage against the King of Spain. Not afjainst Essex the courtier, not even acjainst Essex the politician, would he have drawn his sword. The foe whom he smote in the guise of Essex was Gran- torto ; the Earl, who had fought by his side, having gone over to the enemy, making a companion oi Robert Catesby and a counsellor of Father Wright. When the court was purged of factions, Grey turned his eyes once more towards the fields in which his country's battles were being fought on a foreign soil. Most of all, he strained his vision towards Ostend. For in those last days of the Queen, a roar of gun.s 270 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER, was booming above the Straits, which spoke to the heart of England as no other crash of earth's artillery could speak. An Austrian Cardinal, married to the Infanta, Clara Isabel, " heiress of France and England," lay with a mighty host before Ostend, the last rampart of the Reformed religion in Flanders, the lines of which were held by a garrison of Dutch and English troops, commanded by Sir Francis Vere. Lying low in the sands, behind a wall of mud with narrow streets, stone houses, and a place of arms, Ostend was a fishing port and village of barely three thousand souls. The town itself was nothing ; but this speck of coast was strong in the dykes and sand- hills, in the line of sea, and in the thews of a gallant race. The folk were Protestant, eager to be free ; and the people, both in London and the Hague, were conscious that the battle of their freedom was being fought, and might haply be decided, in the trenches of Ostend. The strength of Spain was planted before this vil- lage in the sands, and month after month went by without giving her the prize. Assaults were made with a vigour which has rarely been seen in war, and never except in a religious war. Yet the town stood out. A rash vow, made by the Infanta, had been kept by her, but kept in a fashion to become the bye-word of every land. Looking over the low roofs and simple works, Clara Isabel, on the day of her arrival, swore by her saints that she would enter the place before she changed her chemise ; and that chemise had grown from white to yellow, and from yellow to black, yet Isabel had not entered into the place yet. The Cardinal Archduke's lines were daily creeping closer to the town, and at length a front of batteries built along the coast swept all the outlets to the sea, and cut off succours from the Dutch and English fleets. One day, a whisper ran through the galleries at Whitehall that the port of Ostend was LORD GREY OF WILTON. 271 closed, and that news from the beleaguered city must be got by roundabout and unsafe roads. In this stress of evil, Grey undertook to force the passage with a single ship, and show the troopers in Ostend that they were not cut off. The ship was found and the passage forced. A hundred cannon from the sand-hills opened on his flag, but Grey shot into port, unscathed by the Austrian fire, and landing in the town, amidst the shouts and thanks of the besieged, he brought to the brave defenders not only much needful succour, but the congratulations of his country and his Queen. Grey was not simply a man of war. Like his father, he was a friend of poets ; like his mother, he was a friend of preachers. In his religious views he was a pupil of Reynolds and Cartwright, and the strong party of the Puritans looked upon him as a chief Yet Grey was the reverse of a bigot. Law and policy were as much his study as divinity and soldiership, and he is known to have held some views on the civil power going far beyond the science of his age. Young, noble, rich, illustrious, what gifts might not fortune be supposed to hold in store for such a man ? Some people thought the highest state of all was not too high for one so gifted and so good. Shrewd wits were heard to guess that Grey would wed tlie Lady Arabella Stuart ; in which case he might be called, in his partner's right, to ascend Elizabeth's throne. No one who watched the young General of Her Majesty's horse prancing past Charing Cross, in the closing months of her reign, could have dreamt that his course was already run ; that one short year would find him a prisoner in the Tower; that a flagitious charge, a splendid defence, a theatrical reprieve, a lingering imprisonment, and an early death, were all that remained on earth to that dashing peer, the heir of so many glories, the object of so much love. CHAPTER XXXVIII. OLD ENGLISH CATHOLICS. ^HE plot In which Cecil was to entangle Grey ti^F, was not a conspiracy of worldly and wicked ^^ men so much as a fantastic dream on the part of two dull and excited priests. To see how this plot arose, to understand why the Jesuits betrayed it, and to follow the chain which binds it to the Powder Plot, one should recall to mind the exact relation in which the two chief sections of the Catholic clergy stood towards each other in the opening years of James the First. A few words will suffice. When the great Queen had come to her crown, one body, and only one body, calling themselves Catholic, existed in her realm. During her reign a second body, calling themselves Catholic, sprang into life. The first were the English Catholics, the second were the Roman Catholics ; and in the opening year of James's reign these two sections stood, not simply apart, but in hostile array. To the first party belonged the thousands on thou- sands of families in every shire who had clung, through good and evil, to the ancient rite. These families clung to that rite because it was old and venerable, because it was the rite of their fathers, because it was woven into the texture of their social and moral life. These people never thought of their Church as a thing OLD ENGLISH CATHOLICS. i J o apart from their country. How could tliey have done so? The English Church was just as old as the English name. Their sires had been members of a free Church ; and they could boast, with cause, that in all their efforts after freedom, that Church had borne her part. " The English Church shall be free," was the very first clause set down in the charter won from John. To tell these English families that their creed was a foreign creed, to be kept by them for the benefit of a foreign priest and a foreign king, was to speak to them in an un- known tongue. They reverenced Rome, as the oldest of Latin sees ; but they thought of her as a sister, not as a mistress ; and while they gave to Pope Clement the highest honour, they denied his right to meddle in their courts of law. Submitting to his will in spiritual things, they refused his briefs and declined his autho- rity in worldly things. Even as to Church order, they had ways of their own which were not as the Roman ways. They had their own feasts and vigils, their own policy and method, which an Italian could hardly under- stand and in which he could have no share. Their country was what Rome had once proudly called her, an island of the saints. In one word, the old Eng- lish Church was to these staunch Catholics a national Church. To the second party belonged the new men, fevir in number and fierce in spirit, who had been drawn away by Jesuits from the reformed English Church. They were converts ; converts of a recent date and a ma- lignant type ; accused of having gone over to the enemy, less from religious heat, than from political passion, and even from family pique. The times were apt to such desertions from the Church. Apostasy was a protest ; a form of going into what is now called "opposition." When a man failed at court, like Philip Howard, the ready way to insult his sovereign was to change his creed. When a man quarrelled with his father, like William Parker, the surest way to worry 18 • 2 74 I^ER MAJESTY'S TOWER. that father was to send for a priest. When a man wasted his fortune, like Thomas Percy, the quickest way to escape reproaches from his friends was to be seen attending- mass. From Robert Catesby down to Thomas Winter, the motive for desertion seems in almost every case to have been either personal or political discontent. Each of these parties had their own priests; the first party being led by the Secular clergy, the second party by the Jesuits. The old English priests were for the most part learned, tolerant, timid men, who gave their thoughts to spiritual things, and wished to leave politics to kings and queens. Their duty lay in the care of souls. Their hope was to live in peace, to say their office, to watch their flocks, and leave the results of their patient toil in the hands of God. When the law left them alone — and on the whole they were wisely left alone — they were content. Striving to do good, in the belief that what they taught and wrought were best for their country, they paid scant heed to what was considered the best for Spain. On the other side, the Jesuits were men of the world, with worldly purposes in view. They were the ser- vants of Philip, whom he had sent into England to do his work. That prince, having received them into Spain ; having given them money and power ; having placed the colleges of Seville and Castile in their hands; having espoused their quarrels in Flanders and in Rome, had led them to see that his glory would be their glory, and that in him they would find not only a powerful master but an indulgent friend. The old Catholics, a slow and sober folk, who tried to keep their fingers out of fire, esteemed it no less a sin to kill a king than to kill a pope. The new Catholics, hot in blood and bold of speech, contended that a good cause might justify foul deeds ; and that the highest cause on earth was that which they pro- OLD ENGLISH CA TIL O LLCS. 2 7 5 fessed — the cause of a single empire and a single Church. No outward sign, no Inward motive, separated the English Catholics from their neighbours of the country- side. In all invasions, and in all threatened invasions, they were prompt to march. Loving their native land as other men loved it, they were stung to frenzy by reports that a foreigner meant to profane their soil ; and moving Into line with the first, they struck the foe, not caring to inquire under what flag he fought. The best of the old Catholic peers and gentry were out in the Armada year. The new Catholics were strangers in the land. While Lord Montagu, born a Catholic, was riding down to Tilbury Fort, with his son, his grandson, and his tenants In his wake, all armed to defend their country, Lord Arundel, the son of a Protestant duke, was saying clandestine mass and uttering a traitor's prayer in the Beauchamp tower. English but in name, the Jesuits had taught their lay disciples to accept a foreign purpose and a foreign prince. Spain was to be their country, and they were to seek her glory in a way from which their neighbours would be likely to recoil, not only with aversion, but with scorn. They were to consider their native land as lost to God, their neighbours as the heirs of everlasting death. They were to treat their prince as an outlaw, and to hold his judges as accursed of Heaven. The converts were not suffered to feel proud of their English birth, but rather to bow their heads into the dust for shame. They were to have no part In the common weal. " 1 am become a stranger to my brethren," cried their oracle, Father Persons, " an alien to the sons of my mother." Spain was to be their only country, Philip their only king. These two bodies were of unequal force. The English Catholics were half the population. If they were not more. One-third of the peers, one-half 276 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. the country gentlemen, two-thirds of the hedgers and ditchers, were Cathoh'c. A change of faith is not to be made in a year, not in a hundred years ; in England the change had been a work of time, and the work was still going on. Among the county magistrates every second man was still a Catholic. The Reformed religion had its seat in the great towns ; but even in these great towns the opposite opinions were held in strength. The Roman Catholics were few in number and scattered through distant shires. It is doubtful whether the Jesuits could at any time have rallied a thousand voices to support them against the ancient clergy of their Church. The secret of the influence wielded by Garnet and his helpers lay in the wonder and fear inspired by the great Order to which they belonged. CHAPTER XXXIX. THE ENGLISH JESUITS. ^I^'^HE form in which the English branch of the Society of Jesus presented itself to a states- man's notice was that of an Anglo-Spanish plot, whether he judged them by their per- sonal bearing or by their public acts. In all countries, the members of this Order mixed with the world, which they affected to despise, and studied how to rule. They were great in colleges, greater still in courts. They made tools of women, and dupes of men who were the slaves of women. They affected to know strange secrets, to possess in- definite funds, to govern by inscrutable means. They could change their names, their costumes, their nation- alities, at will. A priest could wear a beard, a monk could deny his shaven crown. They could put on plain stuff, they could sparkle in satin and gold. In making war on the powers of darkness, they had a right to seize all weapons of war, to employ all arts of deception. Doing Heaven's will on earth, they were free from all scruples which might impede their work. But what was dubious in the conduct of Jesuits in other lands was carried to the farthest reach by the English branch. Claudius Aquaviva had no disciples so unruly as his English pupils. All Jesuits were in- clined by habit to .subject the interests of religion to those of politics ; the English brethren made that sub- 278 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. jection unconditional and complete. As men of the world, they took the extremest views of what is per- mitted, classing conspiracy with love and war, in which everything is said to be fair. They justified treachery — they justified rebellion — they justified public murder. In the schools which their patron, Philip of Spain, had caused to be placed under their control, they bound their pupils by an oath to go back when their course was finished to their native land, and strive by fair means and by foul to win it for the Church of Rome and the King of Spain. Inured to danger, these pupils of the Jesuits crossed the sea — prepared in mind for trouble, and wearing in their fancies the martyr's crown. But they were taught to make the best of a good cause, and not to throw away their lives. Pro- vided with masks and money, served by their own agents, fed by their own converts, they were able to preach and teach with but little risk. They had means for landing in the ports, for evading spies, for slipping through the nets of justice. Living in what they called " a strange land," they mapped off the country in shires and hundreds, and on these small charts they marked each lonely beach on which a boat was kept, each country-house in which they had a secret room. A Jesuit's business being to go about the world unseen, he had a dozen garbs, a dozen professions, and a dozen names. He had the jargon of many arts and the patter of many tongues. A confessor of women, he learned from them the secrets which he turned against their lords, and through these secrets he could some- times reach at persons whom he dared not openly address. This permanent conspiracy on the English soil in favour of a foreign prince was offensive not only to the old Catholics, who wished to live in peace, but to politicians like Cecil and Northampton, who meant to become the chiefs of a new Spanish party in the state. For the moment, these politicians were willing to THE ENGLISH JESUITS. 279 use the Jesuits ; but, even while using them, they hoped to compromise and destroy them as a poHtical power. The Jesuits had not been twenty-three years in London ; Persons, the first EngHsh Prefect, had not been thirty years a Jesuit ; so that the men whom they had trained to act in this foreign spirit were none of them yet beyond middle age. Robert Persons and Edmund Campion had come over sea in 1580 ; come over against the wishes of the English Catholics; since they came in defiance of the law, and meaning to be a cause of strife ; " creating disturbances," as Persons had frankly said, " in places where everything till that time was tranquil." Being then at peace, the Catholics wished to remain at peace ; but this smooth state of things, if good for the clergy and their flocks, had been the reverse of good for Philip, who would gladly have seen the Catholics driven mad with misery, in order that his generals might count on finding a partisan under every roof. The Prefect had come over with two sets of instructions, one of which he had kept in reserve. He was to stir up lawless passions, so as to sting the civil power into a severer course ; and he was to put down the native fasts, and sub- stitute those of the Italian Church. When Persons returned to Rome, leaving Father Weston with the rank of Prefect, he could boast of having made converts of Sir Thomas Tresham of Rushton Hall, Sir William Catesby of Lapworth, and their sons Francis and Robert, then boys of a tender age. Campion, who stayed behind to carry on his work, wrote a letter to the Privy Council, in which he said : — " ... Be it known to you that we have made a league ; all the Jesuits in the world, whose succession and multitude must overreach the practices of England ; forbearing the curse that you shall lay upon us; and never to despair of your recovery while we have a man left to enjoy your Tyburns, or to be racked by 2So HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. your torments, or to be consumed within your prisons. Expenses are reckoned ; the enterprise is begun. It is of God ; it cannot be resisted ; so the faith was founded ; so it must be restored." This challenge was answered by a stricter law. Father Weston was locked in the CHnk Prison, in spite of Lady Arundel's tears and gold ; and the luckless Jesuit who defied his country was flung into the Tower, convicted of high treason, and put to death. Robert Southwell and Henry Garnet were sent from Rome hy Persons to fill the dangerous posts. Southwell took up Weston's place in Lady Arundel's household, while Garnet became Prefect of the English mission. Even the poet showed that in his foreign schools he had lost the human and tender sense of home. "We have sung the Canticles in a strange land," he wrote; and that ''strange land" was the country of his birth ! In due time he followed Campion to the Tower, and after three years of waiting, was tried and hung ; leaving his more cautious and un- scrupulous friend, the new Prefect, to continue and complete his task. Philip found no trustier servants than these English priests, who spread themselves not only over England, but over Europe, in order to do his will. They stood by the side of kings, and the ministers and mistresses of kings. Robert Persons was near the Pope ; Joseph Cresswell was in Madrid, the Spanish capital ; Henry Fludd in Lisbon, then the principal Spanish port. William Baldwin followed Spinola's banner on the Rhine. John Jones lived at Douai. Hugh Owen, the most active and most unscrupulous of these fathers, was in the Cardinal's camp. One of Father Owen's closest friends was Sir William Stanley ; one of his nearest followers was Guy Fawkes. A crime of the rarest kind and the darkest dye had covered the name of Sir William Stanley with an odium which has hardly an}'- mate. This knight had THE ENGLISH JESUITS. 281 given up the city of Deventer to the enemy, while commanding an English and native garrison in his sovereio-n's name. The Jesuits owned his work, praising him for doing what he felt to be right, in face of the adverse verdicts of the world. A medal, com- memorative of his treason, was struck in Rome. The rage and shame with which the news of this treachery was received in England cannot be expressed in words. Men said it was the Jesuits' doing ; and when they afterwards spoke of Jesuit morals, they mentioned the betrayal of Deventer as one of those facts from which there is no appeal. A soldier hated and reviled as Stanley was drew all the desperate spirits who left their country to his side, and a regiment of English renegades was formed by him in the Cardinal's camp, v/hich he fondly hoped to have a chance of one day leading against his Queen. Garnet fixed his quarters near London, so as to be within easy reach of his lay supporters, and able to direct the many coadjutors who came over from Spain and Flanders to help in putting England beneath the yoke. The chief of these helpers were Father Fisher, Father Gerard, and Father Greenway, whom he sent into the midland shires, with orders to attach them- selves to ardent women and discontented men. They were to treat the country as a missionary land, to regard their Church as a missionary Church. England being lost to the faith of Christ, their business was to convert it back ; that portion of it which claimed to be Catholic no less than that which avowed itself Re- formed. All were gone astray from Rome, they said, and all must be brou^^ht into the fold, out of which there was no salvation from death and hell. The headquarters of this conspiracy were planted in Enfield Chase. CHAPTER XL. WHITE WEBBS. N the edge of Enfield Chase, about ten miles from Paul's Cross, stood — in the days of James the First — a large and lonely house of the Tudor sort ; a house in a narrow lane, so screened by trees that a few paces off it could be hardly seen. It had many rooms, a big garden, and a high fence. The place was a maze of ins and outs ; with passages by which visitors might come and go ; with traps in the oaken floors and secret chambers in the chimney stacks and the dividing walls. Deep vaults lay below, while a conduit led to the dams and waters of the Lea. This house was called White Webbs, and from its situation and its size it might have been built as a hiding-place for priests and a rendezvous for plots. Like the whole of Enfield Chase, White Webbs belonged to the Crown. Some thirty years before that time the Queen had granted it to Robert Hewick, her Physician in Ordinary ; and this Robert Hewick had afterwards let it to Rowland Watson, Clerk of the Crown, whose wife still held it on a lease. One day — about the time when Essex was beginning to court the foreign Catholics, to consort with Catesby and Tresham, to consult with Father Wright — a man of middle age, thick set, with rather jovial manner, came to see the place. He gave the name of Mese, the address of Berks. He wore a coat of fustian stuff. WHITE WEBBS. 283 and looked like a grazier of the better class. He had a sister, he said, one Mrs. Perkins, a lady of good means, who wanted to hire a house near London, where she could live in quiet, yet see her friends from town. The Queen's Physician saw no reason to suspect his guest, and when the terms were settled between them, Mr. Mese became the tenant of White Webbs. Robert Skinner, who passed for Mrs. Perkins' butler, took possession and prepared the rooms ; putting James Johnson, a servant whom he hired, in charge of this house, while he rode over to Enfield and engaged one Lewis, a carrier, to go with his team to London and fetch in goods. One room was set apart as a chapel ; all the things necessary in perform- ing mass were bought ; and the chambers were fur- nished with books and relics as well as with household stuff. Three months elapsed before Mrs. Perkins came. She was a lady in the prime of life, and seemingly of ample means. Skinner and his wife waited on her ; but she had other servants, both male and female, in her train ; including Will Shepherd, her coachman, and Bess, that coachman's wife. In fact, the lady's establishment was framed on a large and costly scale. She was a Catholic, and her people were also Catholic. Mr. Mese, of Berkshire, followed his sister to White Webbs, and when he came, he brought his man- servant, a cunning fellow, who was known as Little John. By and by, a Mr. Perkins came to White Webbs ; a lean man, with a long face, brown hair, and yellow beard. He had a serving-man with him, called George, whose full name was George Chambers. In what relation Mr. Perkins stood to Mrs. Perkins no one seemed to know. Skinner could have told, no doubt, but Skinner never spoke. He might be taken for her husband, since he came to her very often and stayed with her very long. In fact, although he went 284 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. away on business from time to time, he never failed to come back to White Webbs as to his proper home. Mr. Mese also spent much of his time in the Chase ; many gentlemen riding down from London to see him, some of whom sat up late at night talking business in his room. These strangers put up their horses, had beds prepared for them, and sometimes stayed in the house for two or three days ; on which occasions much venison would be sent for and much claret drank. Once when Mr. Mese went away from White Webbs on business, he came back in a new name. He was now called Mr. Farmer, and the servants were told to speak of him as such. Shortly afterwards, these servants heard him addressed by some of his friends as Father Walley ; and then they knew, if they had not previously suspected, that the homely personage in the fustian coat was a priest. James Johnson, the hired domestic, kept his eyes and ears open ; and after a little waiting he found reason to believe that his mistress was not what she seemed ; was not named Perkins, was neither wife nor widow, but a single woman, the daughter of a peer. But James was clever enough to keep his secret and his place. In no long time a second lady came to White Webbs, and took up her abode there. She gave the name of Mrs. Jennings, and the people about the house were told that her husband was a merchant of the City, a good deal away from home. Mrs. Jen- nings was said to be a sister of " Mrs. Perkins," in which case she would be a sister of " Mr. Mese." That a warm affection bound the lady and gentleman to each other, any one might see. Now and then, a small creature, with a red beard and a bald pate, made his appearance at White Webbs, who called himself Thomas Jennings, and claimed Mr. Mese's sister as his wife. WHITE WEBBS. 285 None of these people were what they seemed. The homely man in fustian stuff was Father Garnet, Prefect of the English mission. The serving-man called Little John, was Nick Owen, a lay Jesuit, of singular skill in devising places for concealment. '* Mr. Perkins," was Father Oldcorne ; and his serving-man, George, was also a lay Jesuit, in attendance on his chief. The two ladies, passing under the names of Mrs. Perkins and Mrs. Jennings, were Ann and Helen, daughters of William, third Lord Vaux of Harrowden. Ann was a single woman, Helen a wedded wife. " Mrs. Perkins " had no other relation to " Mr, Perkins " than that of a penitent to her priest. No ties of blood connected the ladies with " Mr. Mese." Helen was not Mrs. Jennings ; nor was the small creature who called himself Jennings a merchant from the City. The bald pate belonged to Bartholomew Brooksby, a country gentleman of good estate and of little wit, who had given himself body and soul to work out the Prefect's will. He was allowed to pay most of the rent for White Webbs. Lord Vaux, the father of these two ladies, had been a grievous sufferer for conscience-sake. No small part of his life had been spent in jails, and no small part of his fortune had been lost in hnes. For more than two years he had lodged in the Fleet prison, in company with Sir Thomas Tresham, whose sister he married on his first wife's death. He had seen his family broken up, and the honours of his line renounced. For his eldest son, Henry Vaux, had been persuaded by the Jesuits to lay down his name and title, to assume the higher mission of the cross. This heir to a noble name and good estate had thrown away all his worldly advantages to enter a foreign cell and to die a monk. Nor was this all that he had to bear. His second son, George Vaux, now heir to his hon- ours, had almost broken his heart by marrying against his wish, and family strife had embittered his later 286 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. days. Lord Vaux outlived his sons — he quarrelled with his connections — and, when he died, he left the honours of his house to a child not seven years old, the son of a woman whom he could not bear. Ann Vaux and Helen Brooksby were the aunts to this young peer. White Webbs was called a seraglio ; a child was born there, Helen Brooksby's child; and when Sir Edward Coke got the papers into his hands, he made coarse allusion to the paternity of this child. Garnet confessed that he was the christener ; Coke demanded to be told whether he was not the father. The baby was said to have a bald head ; Coke re- quested to know whether it had not a "shaven crown." From these impertinences it is easier to defend the Prefect than from the accusations of Father Floyd. Griffith Floyd, a Jesuit agent, was sent to England by his superiors to inquire into the life which Garnet had been leading at White Webbs, especially as to his love of dainty food, and his alleged familiarities with Mis- tress Ann. He told his masters that he had "found too much." The words are somewhat vague ; they were meant to damage Garnet ; but we must not follow them from what they describe to what they merely hint. No proof exists of an immoral intimacy. If Garnet felt a love for either Ann Vaux or Helen Brooksby beyond what is allowed to a priest for every soul committed to his care, he never put that love into written words. But while he may be acquitted of criminal passion for his fair penitents, he must be held responsible for all the scandals piled upon their names. He led them into a false position, and he kept them in that false position before the world. They were not nuns. They had taken no vows. They lay under no female rule. One of them was a married woman. In living under the same roof with two single men, in passing under false names, in pretending to a near relationship of blood, and in assuming a condition to WHITE WEBBS. 287 which they had no right, they laid themselves open to jests and sneers from which they ought to have been saved by more prudent friends. Garnet had not the grace to act a more manly part. He loved the soft w^ays of these high-born women, and rather than forego the pleasure of their company he was willing to darken and blight their fame. To this lonely house in the royal demesne came other Jesuits besides Oldcorne, other laymen besides Bartholomew Brooksby. Father Fisher, Father Ger- ard, and Father Greenway were often there, coming in a score of varying names and garbs. Besides the lay characters which they assumed, each Jesuit had three or four priestly names, so as to be known to the servants of different houses as different persons. Fisher was called Father Percy in one place, Father Fairfax in a second. Gerard was known as Father Standish, Father Brooke, and Father Lee ; Greenway as Feather Greenwell and Father Tesmond. All these emissaries moved about the country, passing from house to house, saying mass in secret, raking up the fires of discontent, and keeping alive in their scholars the prospect of a change. Lay visitors came to the lonely house. After the death of Essex on Tower Hill, the men who were out with him in the streets, and were after- wards pardoned by the Queen, came over to consult the Jesuits as to what should be done. The first of these lay visitors were Robert Catesby and a com- panion whom he called Tom. Catesby was a young gentleman ; tall, handsome, well bred, with a presence which took the eye ; his blood being gentle, and his bearing that of a prince. Early converted from his Church, early united to a Protestant wife, early left a widower with an infant son, early engaged in treason to his Queen, he had passed through many lives, and was a worn-out sage before he was thirty years old. The companion whom he called Tom, and who ad- 288 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. dressed him in reply as Sir, was a dumpy little fellow of middle age, with person and manner exceedingly imlike those of his handsome friend. They asked for Mr. Mese. The dumpy fellow had just come back from Rome, to which city he had been sent by the Fathers on a secret errand ; and having conversed with Persons at the Englisli college, he could explain to the company at White Webbs the latest views of the political exiles at the Roman court. Other visitors came ; not in crowds, but in twos and threes, so as to pass unnoticed in the Chase. Catesby was strict in his own coming and going ; riding out either alone, or with his dumpy friend. As a rule, the callers gave no names ; they wanted Mr. Mese ; and they were shown by Skinner into Mr. Mese's room. CHAPTER XLI. THE PRIESTS' PLOT. (^'gj^HEmen of his own Church whom Garnet, as chief ^ 'Ml of the Anglo-Spanish party, had most cause ^sSi to fear, were two priests, WilHam Watson and Wilham Clarke, who were loud supporters of the old Catholic party against the new, writers of books on the Jesuits, and warm denouncers of the foreign school. Having taught their flocks the duty of defending the soil, the freedom, and the sovereign of their native land, these priests were scouted by Father Persons as pedants and fools. To this attack Father Watson replied in a book called " Ten Ouodlibetical Cues- tions," from which title he got the droll nick-name of " Ouodlibets," by which he has ever since been known. Of a good family, holding high office in the Church and State — a kinsman of that Thomas Watson who was Queen Mary's Bishop of Lincoln — he regarded the new ideas preached by Persons and Garnet with the contempt of a Catholic of ancient lineage and un- swerving faith. Flow, he asked himself, could these converts understand his Church ? What had they done save vex the people and alarm the Government ? Loathing their creed, he felt no pity for the fate of Campion and Southwell ; and he told the Catholics of Europe, in many a stinging phrase, that the Jesuits who were hung in London, suffered, not because they 19 290 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. were servants of their Church, but because they were traitors to their Queen. This view was the Enghsh view. In that luscious and ornate style which the clergy learned from the poets, Father Watson de- nounced the ambition of King Garnet and the tur- bulence of Emperor Persons, asserting that the angel faces, the flower of England's youth, the beauty of Britain's ocean, should never be appalled, nor the vermilion blush of English virgins, the modesty of married wives, and the matronhood of widows put to shame either by Spanish plots or Spanish force. Per- sons replied to the secular priest in his " Manifesta- tion," a book disfigured by much bad English and much fierce invective, in which the Jesuit, in place of covering the nakedness of his fellow-priests, accused them of living in a state of drunkenness and unclean- ness ; nay, he went so far in vituperation as to charge some of these reverend fathers with dicing, and others with stealing pewter pots. Father Clarke, a man of higher gifts than Watson, answered this " Manifestation " in a " Reply" of some reach and vigour, charging home upon the Jesuits, whom he accused of a design to overthrow all liberty of thought and action, even that of the Pope himself. It would have been well for the old Catholic clergy if Father Clarke had been content with this victory of the pen, but, unfortunately lor many besides himself, he conceived the idea of proving to Pope Clement that the old English clergy were a match for these vaunting Jesuits in political craft, no less than they were in literary power. His friend Watson, one of the few priests of their party who had talked with James while he was yet in Scotland, pledged his word that Catholics would be favoured by the King. For saying so much in public, he was seized by Bancroft, Bishop of London ; though the prelate changed his mind and set his prisoner free. When James came in, and day after day went by, and THE PRIESTS' PLOT 291 gave no sign, the priest began to think he had been duped. On his asking for a fresh audience, the King repHed, " Since all the Protestants are for me, I have no need for the Papists." Father Watson thought the King mistaken in that view, the Catholic hosts being like the summer stars for multitude ; and he said the King must be made aware of a fact which he did not seem to know. Taking Father Clarke into his councils, he found they were of one mind as to the policy of proving, by an open effort, how strong the Catholics were. Two advantages would grow out of such a course : — (i) the King would be frightened into doing right; and (2) the Jesuits, who fancied themselves the only plotters in the world, would be put to open shame. The second of these results would seem to have been regarded by the priests as much more precious than the first. They meant the King no harm, except a little fright, and their project was to be carried out in the blaze of noon. A Catholic host was to be raised in London and the nearer shires ; they were to ride good horses, to show their quality ; they were to go forth and meet their King. They were to break upon him like an army in line of battle, to offer their petition of griev- ances, and, in a frenzy of loyal ardour, to sweep him to the Tower. Surrounded in his palace by a court of Catholic peers, he would be only too Avilling to dis- miss his Secretary, to dissolve his Council, to call new men into office, and openly return to the Church in which he had baen baptized. The English Catholics would form his guard, while the Jesuits would be routed from the country as the enemies of God and man. Such was the dream of these simple priests. But when they came to talk with their sober and con- servative flock, they found that such a display oi numbers could not be made. Here and there some reckless spirit might be tempted by the hope of plunder to join their ranks, but the busy farmers and fearful 292 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. citizens were averse to public action of any sort. They wanted to live in peace. They saw no reason to believe the King was with them. They had much to lose by plots, and were slavishly devoted to the main- tenance of public law. Not yet reading the moral of their failure, the two priests turned elsewhere for aid, and in these new walks their feet began to slide. Dining with Duke Humphrey in St. Paul's, rousing in the taverns of Carter Lane, were hosts of stout fellows, who might be willing to mount a good horse on the chance of getting a fat purse, not to speak of such tempting baits as a place at court. One such fellow was Sir Griffin Markham of Beskwood Park, a knight who had smelt powder in the Low Country camps, but having lost his commission, was now dawdling away his time between the confessional, the tavern, and the stews. For the moment he was much excited against Lord Rutland, the young kinsman of Essex, from whom he had suffered some slight ; and Father Watson, finding him in a sullen mood, sug- gested that the nearest way to his revenge upon that proud young spark was through the chances offered by this plot. Markham snapped at the golden bait ; but this broken hero bargained for substantial favour ; and before he pledged his sword to Watson he stipulated that, on a Catholic ministry being formed by the King, ke \N^s to have the Secretary's place ! The next fellow to be gained was Anthony Copley, a kinsman of Southwell. At fifteen years of age Copley had left England for Rome, where he accepted a bed and platter in the Jesuits' college, with a pension of ten crowns a year from the Pope. From Rome he passed into Flanders, where Father Owen obtained for him a pension of twenty crowns from the Prince of Parma, in whose service he remained, fighting against his Queen, until he sickened of the Jesuits, when he returned to London and procured a pardon from Burghley on expressing his eagerness for instruction THE PRIESTS' PLOT. 293 in a better creed. From that time he had been much abused by Persons, though he had never ceased to be a member of his Church. Hating the men at White Webbs, Copley came into Watson's plans, on the simple promise that those Jesuit intriguers were to be put to open shame. In his first confession Copley boasted that those Jesuits were kept in ignorance of his plot ; Watson thought the same ; but this impression was a great mistake. A dozen members had not been told of their purpose, before Garnet, jealous and amused, had placed an agent at their board to learn their object and betray them to the law. That agent was Brooksby, whom Garnet set to watch the priests, while his wife Helen remained in her false name and false character beneath the Jesuit's roof. The parts in this comedy of intrigue being cast, the comedians met in a tavern behind Paul's Churchyard, to wrangle, over pots of ale, about the strength of parties in the court. High names were mentioned in these pot-house meetings ; the names of Raleigh, Nottingham, Windsor ; but no one spoke of inter- course with these great persons, since no one In the room pretended to know them, except by sight. The scheme for a great display of Catholic strength not only failed, but failed at once ; for not a single lay Catholic of name and weight could be induced to join. The comedy was played out, when Father Watson one day met in the street George Brooke, a man of birth, a brother of Lord Cobham, a brother-in-law of Cecil, having friends among those Puritan and patriotic gentry who were anxious to relieve Ostend. Brooke knew Lord Grey. A disappointed man, ill-used by Cecil, Brooke lay open to the tempter's voice ; and as he listened to P^ather Watson's talk, he fancied that he saw some chance of crossing Cecil by this plan of way- laying and frightening James, if only Grey and some 294 ^i^R MAJESTY'S TOWER. others could be got to help. Father Watson begged him to see what could be done. Calling at Grey's house, on the pretence of mourning with him over the ruin of God's cause in London as well as on the Flemish coast, Brooke hinted that James had been deceived by Cecil as to the facts of public opinion, and asked whether it might not be well for some gentlemen of birth to lay a humble statement of the case before the King ? Grey thought it would be well. James was at Greenwich. Such a statement, Brooke suggested, might be offered to the King as he rode from that place to Windsor Castle ; but offered to him openly, in the light of noon, so that all the world might see how many gentlemen of rank and fortune held their views. For such a purpose, Grey said he could muster a hundred gentlemen of the best blood in England in a single day. Secure so far, Brooke asked whether Grey saw any objection to the old Catholic gentry, who had fought with them a com- mon battle against the Jesuits, offering a petition of their own ? Grey saw none. A few days later, Brooke called on Grey again, bringing with him Markham, as one of those Catholic gentlemen who wished to have their grievances made known. These men had other plans, which they could not explain to Grey. They hoped to change the Government ; in order to change the Government they must seize the King ; and they could only seize the King by fighting with his guard. Alone, they could not venture on such a fight. Could Grey and his friends be tempted into offering them the chances of a fray ? If swords were drawn, no man could tell where the broil might end. In a sudden tumult, every one would strike for himself, and on a cry being raised of " To the Tower !" the whole body of riders might be swept along, in a panic of fear, under the guidance of a few strong spirits who knew their minds. Could Grey be tempted 'i THE PRIESTS' PLOT. 295 Brooke, who seemed as though he had only come for instructions, asked the young general what must be done in case the King's guard set on them ? Grey only smiled ; the guard was not likely to attack a body of gentlemen in holiday attire. Still, urged Brooke, they might draw their swords in error and in panic. Suppose they drew ; must the gentlemen stand on their defence .'* " No," answered Grey at once ; under no alarm could he suffer his friends to draw on the royal escort. Such an answer left the dreamers without a hope ; but Watson, falling deeper into treason every hour, thought otherwise. He saw his way and felt his ground. If Grey would raise his friends and meet the King, that fact should be enough. A new plan could be built upon the old ; for the priest could now speak to his loyal and conservative flock in a voice which they would understand. Fired with his new purpose, he ran to the house of Sir Edward Parham, a strict old Somersetshire Catholic, whose sword was keen as his wit was dull. " Quodlibets " told this gentleman, as a secret, that the new King was more than half converted to their faith ; that many of his councillors heard mass, and that Pope Clement enjoined his children to guard their prince. Guard him from what ? Then Watson whispered in his ear the still more perilous secret that Lord Grey and a ('■ano;- of Puritan wretches were about to waylay their King, to seize his royal person, and to separate him from the devoted servants of his Church. Out of pure affection he offered to Parham a golden chance. If he could silently and swiftly raise his Catholic friends — who would promptly arm in such a cause — he might be able to win such favour and fortune as Ramsay had won in Gowrie House ; for when those Puritan rascals pricked up in the Surrey lane, he could rush upon them, rescue his prince from danger, and carry him to his palace in the Tower, 296 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. All that being promptly done, they could then fall at his Majesty's feet and ask him to do them religious justice. What grace could the King refuse to men who had saved his life ? Parham, burning to become a hero of the court like Ramsay, pledged his help. Yet the plot was hardly now complete. To give Parham his cue there must be some appearance of attack. How could a scuffle be brought about ? Could Grey be induced to admit Markham, Copley, and a few other Catholics in his train ? If so, all would be well ; for a kick of Copley's horse might raise a dust, a snap of Markham's pistol might raise a cry ; the King would be sure to faint, the guards would probably charge, and the Puritan gentry might be trusted to draw their swords. Then, and then only, would be Parham's time. Markham went down with Brooke to Lord Grey's house; but Grey would not listen to his prayer. If the Catholics wished to speak, let them do so, he said, another time, in another place. Sir Griffin hinted that the Catholic gentlemen might go to meet the King, whether Grey approved their course or not. In that case. Grey announced that he should not go at all. The conference then broke up ; and seeing that for the present no good was to be done at court, Grey crossed the sea to Sluys, in the hope of either finding his way into Ostend or doing some better service to the Dutch. This departure of Grey from London killed the comedy and brought the curtain down. James rode in peace from Greenwich to Windsor Castle ; and then the Jesuits, after hearing a full report from Brooksby of what had been said and done by the plotters, sent Father Barneby, a creature whom they made their tool, to the house of Richard Bancroft, Bishop of London, to denounce the plot and to say where Copley might be seized. CHAPTER XLII. WILTON COURT. PLOT in the air — a dream in the cloister — a comedy in the tap-room — a scheme which, dying- in the throes of birth, could have no public history, was no bad stuff for men like Cecil and Northampton to recast and shape. The secrecy and folly were in their favour. Grey had been consulted ; and among the names which had been bandied about in Carter Lane was that of Raleigh. Striking for place and power, the subtle minister and his hoary pander had many motives, personal and political, for pushing their advantage to the last. Wliite Webbs would laugh at the trouble of Watson and Clarke ; the English College in Rome rejoice over the ruin of Copley ; the Cardinal Archduke give thanks for the arrest of Grey. George Brooke was the brother and heir of Cobham ; these two lives were all that stood between WilHam Cecil, now Lord Cranborne, and a vast estate ; and Cran- borne was already promised in marriage to Northamp- ton's niece. They put the case into the hands of Coke. On Copley's first confession, Markham, Watson, Clarke, and Brooke were thrown into the Tower. Parham the dupe, and Brooksby the spy, were lodged in the Gate-house, near Cecil's lodgings in Whitehall. Barneby, the priestly informer, having nothing more to tell, was hidden in the Clink. Not many days elapsed 298 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. before it was rumoured at Paul's Cross that Grey was in close arrest at Sluys, and not many more went by before the young Puritan peer was brought in a war- ship to the Tower. Coke's brief against the prisoners was a work of legal art. Out of Barneby's report and Copley's con- fession he wove an appearance of three plots, which he proposed to call — I. The Spanish Treason. II. The Surprising Treason. III. The Priests' Treason. For the trial of these conspiracies, he proposed to have separate courts, so as to give each trial its due im- portance in the public eye. In the Spanish Treason, he indicted Count Aremberg, the Archduke's minister, together with Raleigh, Cobham, Grey, and Brooke, on a charge of plotting to deprive the King, and to raise his royal cousin, the Lady Arabella Stuart, to his throne. In the Surprising Treason, he indicted Grey and Brooke on a charge of conspiring to waylay and surprise the King as he rode from Greenwich to Wind- sor Castle. In the Priests' Treason, he indicted Mark- ham, Copley, Parham, Watson, Clarke, and Brooke, on a charge of conspiring to change the government by force. Much was withheld from Coke. Nothing was said to him about the peace with Spain ; but enoucrh \vas hinted to tell him that Brooke must die. Hence, the luckless uncle of Cecil's son was included as a principal in every charge. Cecil spoke, though in vague, suspicious phrase, of the whole affair as the Arabella Plot, and his creature Coke tried hard to include Lord Grey in a second charge. It had been often bruited through the town that Grey would marry the Lady Arabella; and if Coke could show that Grey had ever entertained this project, he could lay him open to proceedings under the Royal Marriage Act. Cobham, who was said to have recom- mended such a match, was questioned in the Tower, WILTON COURT, 299 but his examination ended without supplying evidence fit to be adduced in court. While these prisoners lay in the Tower awaiting trial, Don Juan de Taxis, Conde de Villa Medina, arrived. from Spain, Don Juan's master wanted peace. Peace was worth to him more than a hundred thou- sand crowns a year, and this great sum of money his agent was empowered to spend in corrupting James's court. The wealth of two Indies flowed from the Ambassador's bounteous palm. Gems, feathers, per- fumes, rained upon councillors' wives and on women who were thought to be more charming than their wives. In a month, Don Juan was the rage. Every one courted him, every one swore by him. Fine ladies, rustling in the silks of Seville, and pale with the pearls of Margarita, voted him the most perfect gallant they had ever met. The Countess of Suffolk, as Cecil's most confidential friend, was the prime object of Don Juan's courtesies. The great house, then rising at Charing Cross, was said, in reference to these gifts, to be plated with King Philip's gold. Much of Don Juan's money passed into Cecil's pocket ; for the minister knew the worth of peace to Spain, and when he sold his country to a foreigner, his pride compelled him to sell her at a noble rate. Don Juan could not dispute his terms. " Buy others cheap — pay Cecil all he asks," was the substance, though not the form, of Don Juan's daily message from Madrid. Cecil named his price — a king's ransom down in gold, and a yearly pension to be paid for life. Northampton and Suffolk also obtained the most princely sums. When the terms of peace had been settled, Coke received an order from the Council to unmake his plots, and cast his materials into other shapes. The charge against Aremberg must be with- drawn, and the Spanish Treason must disappear. Coke must have been deeply hurt, for the brief which he had drawn was a triumph of legal art. When he 300 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. o b»>gan afresh, he remembered Cecil's phrase of the Arabella Plot, and he cast his confessions into a shape that would support the theory of such a conspiracy. But as neither Copley nor the priests had mentioned this lady's name, he was told even now, at the ninth hour, to drop her name, and to divide the plot into two new parts. When his brief was drawn, the plot con- sisted of the Main and the Bye. Raleigh was in the Main — Grey was in the Bye — Brooke was in both the Main and the Bye. One was a conspiracy to raise Arabella to the throne — the other was a conspiracy to change the government by force. For reasons which can only now be guessed, the name of Grey was dropped at the last moment from the article charging Raleigh and Cobham with the Arabella Treason. Brooksby, not being sent to the Tower, expected to escape a trial ; but unseen influ- ences worked against the spy, who was carried down to Winchester like the rest, leaving his fair young wife at the Jesuits' lodgings at White Webbs. The King rode down to Wilton Court, to be near the scene of trial ; and in the quaint old house where Mary Sidney lived, and under the solemn cedars that her brother loved, gay pages fluttered, and wily courtiers mused ; while the hardier gentlemen of the chamber leaped to horse and dashed into the neighbouring town. Popham and Coke made very short work with the smaller fry of prisoners. A few hours sufficed for them to bully and condemn Brooke, Watson, Copley, Markham, and Clarke. Parham was spared. Brooksby, though pleading that he joined the conspirators only to betray them, was condemned to die. Clarke alone showed genuine courage. Having played his game and lost, his only trouble appeared to be that he, a man of order and of letters, should leave behind him a traitor's name. Raleigh came up next — after Raleigh came up Cob- WILTON COURT. 301 ham — and after Cobham, Grey. Grey was tried by his peers, some of them his personal enemies ; one of them that Lord Southampton whom he had beaten in the pubh'c street. Dudley Carleton says that South- ampton "was mute before his face," but spoke much against him when the lords "retired to consult among themselves." Lord Grey's defence was simple. If the thought of presenting a petition was high treason, he was guilty ; if it were lawful, he was not guilty. To the charge of conspiring with Brooke and Markham to surprise the King, he offered his proud denial and defied the proof. Only thrice had he seen these men, and on the first suggestion of force being used he had peremptorily declined all further talk with them. The peers condemned him to die a traitor's death. When asked if he had anything to urge why sentence of death should not be passed upon him, he answered — " Nothing." The court was awed into deep, pathetic silence. After a pause, he added, "Yet, a word of Tacitus comes into my mind, — Noil eadcm omnibus decora. The house of Wilton have spent many lives in their prince's service. Grey cannot beg his life." Raleigh himself never passed that height ; and the proud refusal of this young soldier of twenty-five to ask a pardon from the King amazed and fascinated James. When Brooke was fallen by the axe, and the two priests v/ere hung and quartered, the King made a fidgety secret as to whether he would go on or pause. Under the green trees and by the limpid streams of Wilton House two parties were contending night and day ; the gentlemen who were fumbling the edge of Don Juan's gold, defending the verdicts passed and clamouring for what they called traitors' blood ; while those who had kept their fingers free were crying out against the sentence as infamous, the witnesses as per- jured, the peers as corrupt. The ladies were on the sideof mercy ; and all the prisoners were willing to a.sk for mercy, excepting Grey. 302 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER. Pembroke sent to London for the Globe comedians, in order that the Teacher of his Age might help to infuse some mirth and tenderness into the royal councils ; and William Shakespeare's troop rode down to Wilton on this gracious errand. One play was given before the court ; and there is reason to believe that play was " Measure for Measure." The play was new ; composed that very fall, as the many allusions to events then passing prove — to the plague, to the war, to the expected peace, to the proclamation, to the revival of obsolete laws, to the razing of a certain class of houses in the suburbs. Such an expression as " Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of Hungary's!" might have been heard in every street that summer ; and the characters of Angelo and the Duke are but highly- coloured and flattering pictures of Cecil and the King. The play may have been written for the Wilton stage. That it was first produced before a courtly audience is clear from the text ; not only from the passage on ladies' masks, but from the many allusions in it to James's easy nature and his great dislike to crowds. It may be safely gathered from the story of this play that the noble lines, — " Not the King's crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, Becomes them with one half so good a grace As mercy does ! " were addressed from the stacre of Wilton House to James. The King, who had no poetry in his soul to be touched by noble phrases, caused the warrants to be drawn out and passed under the Great Seal for the execution of Markham, Cobham, and Grey ; and Tich- borne, governor of the castle, received instructions to prepare a scaffold in Castle yard, and strike off the conspirators' heads on Friday morning before ten o'clock. The Duke of Vienna could hardly have devised a vainer plot. WILTON COURT. 303 Friday morning came, and the party of clemency was in despair. Tlie Wilton lawns were drenched with rain ; the air was chill and raw ; yet thousands of people swarmed from an early hour into the Saxon city, rolling over Castle Hill, choking up the city gates, spotting every balcony and roof with black ; yeomen from the Sussex downs, (jentrv from the o-lebes and parks, pages and courtiers from Wilton House, possibly the Globe comedians, and the Globe poet himself. James was to prove himself that day a greater comedian than any in that famous troop. Sitting in his room at Wilton House, the King called to his side a lad named John Gibbs, then raw from Scotland, barely able to make himself understood in English speech. The lad's face was unknown to Tichborne ; that was the point of the King's joke, the fact out of which was to leap his great surprise. James put a paper into his hand, and bade him ride over to Winchester Castle, where he was to watch the pro- ceedinfjs until the axe was being: raised to strike, when he was to rush into the ring, draw Tichborne aside, and show him the royal mandate. When the lad was gone, the King remembered that in his haste he had forgotten to sign his name. Riders flew after Gibbs, and brouoht him back, and the fault beins: mended, the Scotch lad dashed over the downs to Winchester, where he found the Castle yard crowded with Tich- borne's men. These fellows pushed him back into the crowd, deaf to his cries, impatient of his Scottish twang ; so that while the headsman was getting ready, Gibbs had to hang about the gate, fretting at the pike- men, and hoping that some one would arrive who would know his face and understand his tale. Markham was brought out first to die; and after saying a short prayer, he was bending his neck to the stroke, when a quick cry from the crowd caught the sheriff's ear. Gibbs had found Sir James Hay, who cut a path for him to Tichborne's side. In a moment 304 HER MAJESTY'S TOWER, the seal was broken, and Tichborne learnt, under the King's own hand, that the prisoners were to be put — as it were — to the axe ; but only in sport ; and when they had been frightened to death, were to be told that the King had been graciously pleased to spare their lives. Having read these strange commands, the sheriff told Markham to stand aside. Grey came out next — his footfall firm, his eye elate, his expression proud and gentle ; for he had supped as well and slept as softly as he could have done at Whaddon Hall. A band of youthful nobles, few of them younger — none of them nobler than himself, marched with him from his cell to the Castle yard. Gay in his attire, as though the block to which he was going were a bridal board, his countenance bright with unearthly joy, he passed through the kneeling lines — the only man, perhaps, whose pulse beat calmly in all that quivering throng. Dropping softly at the headsman's feet, he poured out his soul in prayer ; and when he had made his peace with God, he confessed his sins in the face of man, admitting his many offences, but haughtily putting away from him the stain of crime. The rain fell fast ; but the crov^^d stood sadly in the Castle yard. From his prison window Raleigh was looking on. Grey made his sign ; for the pang of death was passed ; and he laid his neck for the lifted steel. Then Tichborne broke upon his peace. An error, said the sheriff, had crept into their proceedings ; Cobham must die first, and Grey must abide, for an hour in the hall. When the ghastly comedy was played out the three prisoners were ranked in the Castle yard face to face ; Tichborne read the King's letter of reprieve ; and the people threw up their caps and cried "Well done!" CHAPTER XLIII. LAST OF A NOBLE LINE. r^ HE prisoners spared at Winchester were brought lit in time to the Tower ; but only the three $J great ones were confined beyond the year. Within a few weel