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A29737 A chronicle of the Kings of England, from the time of the Romans goverment [sic] unto the raigne of our soveraigne lord, King Charles containing all passages of state or church, with all other observations proper for a chronicle / faithfully collected out of authours ancient and moderne, & digested into a new method ; by Sr. R. Baker, Knight. Baker, Richard, Sir, 1568-1645. 1643 (1643) Wing B501; ESTC R4846 871,115 630

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chose Sir Thomas Moore who at first disabling himselfe at last made two Petitions to the King one for himselfe that if he should be sent by the Commons to the King on a Message and mistake their inten● he might then with the Kings pleasure resort again to the Commons to know their meaning The other for the House of Commons that if in communication and reasoning any man should speake more largely then of duty he ought to do yet all such offences should be pardoned and that to be entred of Record Which Petitions were granted and then the Parliament began where at first a Subsidie was demanded but as there was much adoe in the House of Commons about it so there was no lesse amongst the Clergey in the Convocation House for Richard Bishop of VVinchester and Iohn Bishop of Rochester were much against it but most of all one Rowland Philips Vicar of Croyden and a Canon of Pauls but the Cardinall taking him aside dealt so with him that he took him off so as he came no more to the House● and then the Bel-weather as one saith giving over his hold the rest soon yelded and so was granted the half of all their spiritual yeerly Revenues to be paid in five yeers following The Clergey being thus brought on on the nine twentieth of April the Cardinall came into the House of Commons to work them also and there shewing the great charges the King was necessarily to be at in his present Wars demanded the sum of eight hundred thousand pounds to be raised of the fifth part of every mans Goods and Lands which was four shillings of every pound This demand was enforced the day after by the Speaker Sir Thomas Moore but the Burgesses were all against it shewing that it was not possible to have it gathered in money for that men of Lands had not the fifth part thereof in Coyne And further alleadged that there be not many parishes in England one with another able to spare a hundred Marks except Cities and Townes and seeing there were not above thirteen thousand Parishes in the Kingdome at this day there are but 9285. how could such a summe be raised Hereupon certai●e of the House were sent to move the Cardinall to be a meanes to the King to accept of a lesser summe but the Cardinall answered he would rather have his tongue plucked out of his mouth with a paire of Pinsors then make to the King any such motion Whereupon the Cardinall came again in●o the House and desired that he might reason with them that were against the demand to which it was answered that the order of that house was to heare and not to reason except amongst themselves When the Cardinall was gone the Commons after long debating the m●tter at last agreed of two shillings in the pound from twenty pounds upward and from forty shillings to twenty pounds of every twenty shillings twelve pence and under forty shillings of every head of sixteene yeeres and upwards foure pence to be paid in two yeeres when this was told to the Cardinall he was much offended so that to please him the Gentlemen of fifty pound Land and upward by the motion of Sir Iohn Hussey a Knight of Lincolneshire were charged with twelve pence more in the pound to be paid in three yeeres The Cardinall to move them to it bore them in hand that the Lords had agreed to foure shillings of the pound which was untrue for the Lords had granted nothing but stayed to see what the Commons would doe whereof when the King heard he reproved the Cardinall for it saying withall that ere it were long he would looke to things himselfe without any Substitute Which speech of the Kings though it da●ted the Cardinall for a while yet he soone recovered his Spirits and now as peremptory afterwards as he had been before After this the Parliament was prorogued till the tenth of Iune during with prorogation the Common people said to the Burgesses we heare say you will grant foure shillings of the pound we advise you ●o doe so that you may goe home with many like threatnings At this time the Cardinall by his power Legant me dissolved the Convocation at Pauls convoked by the Archbishop of Canterbury calling him and all the Clergy to his Convocation at Westminster which was never seene before in England saith Hall The one and thirtieth of Iuly the Parliament was adjourned to Westminster and there continuing till the thirteenth of August was that day at nine of the clock at night dissolved About this time the Bishop of Durham died and the King gave that Bishoprick to the Cardinall who resigned the Bishoprick of Bath to Doctor Iohn Clerke Master of the Rolles and Sir Henry Marney that was Vice-chamberlain was made Lord Privy Seale and shortly after was created Lord Marney also during this Parliament Sir Arthur Plantagenet bastard sonne to King Edward the fourth at Bridewell was created Vicount Lisle in right of his wife who was wise before to Edmund Dudley Beheaded The fifteenth of Iune in the fifteenth yeere of the Kings Reigne Christian King of Denmarke with his Queene driven out of his own Country came into England and was lodged at Bath place who after he had been feasted by the King and by the Citty of London and received great guifts of both returned again into Flanders where he remained as a banished man some yeers after King Henry sent Doctor Henry Standish Bishop of Saint Assaph and Sir Iohn Baker Knight into Denmarke to perswade the people to receive him againe into his Kingdome but they could not prevaile he was so much hated for his cruelty About this time the Earle of Kildare having recovered againe the favour of the Cardinall was sent Deputy into Ireland as he had bin before where he reduced the wilde Irish to indifferent conformity All this while had England warres both with the French and with the Scots In Scotland the Marquesse of Dorset threw downe the Castles of Wederborne of Nesgate of Blackater of Mackwals and burnt to the number of seven and thirty Villages yet never came to skirmish In France the Lord Sands Treasurer of Callice with twelve hundred men went before Bulloigne where he skirmished with the Enemie and after taking divers Churches and Castles in the Enemies Countre● returned backe to Callice with the losse onely of a dozen men King Henry being advertised that the Duke of Albanie was providing of Forces in France with which to returne into Scotland sent forth his Vice-admirall Sir William Fitz-williams with divers great Shippes to intercept him but when he could not meet with him he then landed in the Haven of Trepor● where with seaven hundred men hee beat six thousand French that sought to impeach his landing took their Bulworks and much Ordnance in them● burned the suburbs of the town of Treport and all in five houres and then returned All this while King Henry had but played with the French
goods both of the Clergy and Laity It may be reckoned amongst his Taxations that when the Monkes of Canterbury had displeased him about the election of their Arch-bishop he seised upon all their goods and converted them to his owne use and presently after this upon the like displeasure he deputes many Bishopricks Abbeys and Priories into the hands of Lay-men and confiscates all their Revenues To these may be added that he tooke eleven thousand Markes of Silver of the King of Scots for granting him Peace Adde to these also great summes of money exacted and gathered from the Iewes among whom there was one that would not be ransomed till the King caused every day one of his great teeth to be pulled out by the space of seven dayes and then he was content to give the King tenne thousand Markes of Silver that no more might be pulled out Adde to these that at his returne out of Ireland he summoned all the Prelates of the kingdome to appeare before him of whom he extorted for their redemption the summe of an hundred thousand pounds Sterling Adde lastly to these that at his returne out of Wales he exacts of every knight that attended him not in that expedition two Markes Of his Lawes and Ordinances HE was the first that appointed the Formes of Civill Government in London and other Cities endowing them also with their greatest Franchises The first that caused Sterling money to be here Coyned The first that ordained the Honourable Ceremonies in Creation of Earles The first that setled the Rates and Measures for Wine Bread Cloath and such other necessaries of Commerce● The first that planted English Lawes and Officers in Ireland The first that enlarged the Royall stile with Lord of Ireland and both annexed that kingdome and fastned Wales to the Crowne of England Affaires of the Church in his time AFter the death of Hubert Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Monkes of th●● Covent secretly in the night Elected one Reginold their sub-prior to succeed him and caused him to goe to Rome for confirmation but afterward doubting how the King would take it being done without his knowledge they crave leave of the King to chuse a fit man the King is content to allow them the Election but requires himselfe to have the Nomination and thereupon commends unto ●hem Iohn Grey Bishop of Norwich whom he specially favoured and accordingly the Monkes Elect him But the matter being afterward referred to the Pope which of these two Elections should stand good after many Allegations of both sides the Pope to shew himselfe indifferent to both disallowes them both and nominates a third man one Stephen Lancthon Cardinall of Saint Chrysogone an Englishman borne and a man of great learning The Monkes admit him but the King opposeth it and now as it were a Prize began to be played between the two Swords the Spirituall and the Temporall but he that used the Spirituall Sword proved so much the better Fencer that he disarmed the other and tooke away his temporall Sword from him It is true in the first Venue the King gave the Pope as good as he brought for as the Pope threatned the King to excommunicate him and to interdict the kingdome So the King threatned the Pope to nullifie his Authority and to banish Clergy men out of the Realme In the second Venue as the Pope acted as much as he had threatned for he interdicted the ●ingdome So the King performed as much as he had spoken for he drove the Monkes ou● of their Cloyster yet at last when Pand●lphus the Popes Legat came into England and made appeare to the King in what great d●ngers he stood First● of the King of France by Invasion and then of his owne Subjects by Rebellion for both which there was no other helpe but Reconcilement with the Pope he so touched him to the quicke that he made him leave his great words and fall to asking forgivenesse So as taking off the Crowne from his head he laid it downe at Pand●lphus fe●te to be disposed of as the Pope should please And Pandulphus stucke not to ●●ke up his Crowne and to keepe it three or foure dayes in his hands before he restored it and did not then neither but upon condition that he ●nd his Successours sho●ld hold the kingdome of the See of Rome at the annuall tribute of ● thousand Markes And all those three or foure dayes in which Pandulphus kept the Crowne it might be truely said the kingdome was without a King And upon this no doubt it was that Peter an Her●●te in a Propheticall Rapture had given out some time before that by Asc●●sion day there should be no King of England Which though in some sort it was true yet in some sort it was not true and it was in the Prerogative of the King to make his owne interpretation And so it cost the poore Hermite and his Sonne their lives and they remaine as a pillar of Salt to make men take heed of Ludere cum Sanctis and of playing the Critickes in matters of State But by this meanes the kingdome was released of the Interdiction which had continued sixe yeares three moneths and foureteene dayes During all which time there was no publique Exercise of Religion no Churches open no Ecclesiasticall Sacraments administred● but onely to them that were in danger of death and baptisme to children all that dyed were buryed like dogges in ditches and corners but onely such as had purchased or procured licence from the Pope In this Kings Raigne Saint Dominicke continued his Preaching ten yeares together against the Albigenses Also in his time Saint Francis renounced the world and when a Priest to whom he offered it would not take his money he cast it away● and entred into a Vow of perpetuall Poverty Also in this Kings time was held the L●teran Councell under Pope Innocent the Third in which was established the Popes power over Princes and in matters of Faith Auricular confession and Transubstantiation Of his Irreligion I Need not relate a Speech of his though very unchristian that having beene a little before reconciled to the Pope and then taking an overthrow in France in great anger he cryed out that nothing had prospered with him since the time he was reconciled to God and the Pope Nor another speech of his which though spoken merrily was in good earnest very irreligious that being on a time a hunting at the opening of a fat Bucke he said See how this Deere hath prospered and how fat he is and yet I dare sweare he never heard Masse It is sufficient to relate one act of his if it be true which some write that being in some distresse he ●ent Thomas Hardington and Ralph Fits Nichols knights in Embassage to Mir●●m●malim King of Africke and M●r●cco with offer of his kingdome to him upon condition he would come and aide him and that if he prevailed he would himselfe become a Mahometan● and renounce the
persons under the Conduct of Captaine Nels●n After which was sent another supply of threescore and ten persons and in the yeare 1609. a third supply came of five hundred persons under a Patent granted to Sir Thomas West Lord de la Ware but conducted thither by Sir Thomas Gates Gates Sir George Sommers and others In the yeare 1611. was a fourth supply of three hundred men under the conduct of Sir Thomas Gates In the yeare 2612. two other supplies were sent of forty men in each and now was the Lotterie spoken of before granted by the King for further supplies of this Plantation After this Master Samuel Argall being appoynted Governour in in the yeare 16●8 the Lord De la Ware came thither with a supply of two hundred people but in his stay there dyed After this in the yeare 1620. were sent thither eleven Ships with twelve hundred and sixteene persons and now they founded themselves into Corporations In the yeare 1621. Sir Francis Wiat was sent thither Governour with thirteene hundred men women and children and now they founded Schooles and Courts of Iustice and the Plantation was extended a hundred and forty miles up on the River of both sides But now when the English were secure and thought of nothing but peace the Savages came suddenly upon them and slew them three hundr●d and seven and forty men women and children For r●pairing of which losse the City of London sent presently over a supply of a hundred men This massacre happened by reason they had built their Plantations remote from one another in above thirty severall places which made them now upon consultation to reduce them all to five or six places whereby they may better assist each other since which time they have alwayes lived in good security And thu● much for Virginia Next was the Plantation of the Island called Barmudas so called of a Spanish ship called Bermudas which was there cast away carrying Hogs to the West Indies that swam a shoare and there increased The first Englishman that entred this Isle was one Henry May in the yeare 1591 but in the yeare 1610 Sir George S●mers was sent thither who dying there in memory of his Name the Isles have ever since been called Somers Isles In the yeare 1612. One Mr. Moore landed there with 60 persons and then builded the chiefe Town there called S. Georges together with 8 to 9 Forts The same yeare a supply of 30 more persons was sent thither and the yeare after 60 more under one Mr. Bartlet with a shew to survey the land but with a purpose indeed to get from thence a great lump of Amber-greece and no lesse than 80 po●●d weight that had been found taken up in the Island some yeares before and was there still reteined A while after this came a Ship called the Blessing with a hundred passengers and two dayes after came the Star with a 180 more and within 14 dayes after that again came thither the Margaret and two Frigates with 130 passengers So as now they began to divide the Coun●●y into Tribes and the Tribes into shares In the yeare 1616 Captain Da●●el Tuckard was sent from Virginia to be Governour there and now it began indeed to be a Plantation for now they began to build them houses and now was sent from thence into England a Ship fraighted with 30000 weight of Tobacco valued there but at 2 s. 6 d. the pound though sold here oftentimes for V●rinos at great rates In the yeare 1619● Captain Nathaniel Butler was sent Governour with new supplies in whose time they build them a Church held Assizes for Criminall Causes twice a yeare and began to have Parliaments as in England and now in the Ship called the Magazin came diverse Gentlemen of good fashion with their wives and families so as now their number was no fewer then fifteen hundred people Dispersed twenty miles in length In the yeare 1622 came Governou● M. Iohn Bernard bringing with him a supply of a 140 persons but he and his wife dying presently upon their comming M. Iohn Harrison in the yeare 1623 was chosen Governour These Isles of Bermudas are in 32 degrees of Northern latitude So as they are distant from Virginia at least 500 leagues and from Egland above three thousand three hundred This Country is of a most healthfull Ayre abounding with all sorts of Fowles Birds and Fish and where great pieces of Amber-gr●ce are oftentimes found which is valued there at no lesse than three pounds an ounce And thus much concerning the state of Bermudas till the yeare 1624. Next comes the Plantation of New England concerning which we must first know that King Iames in the yeare 1606 granted two Letters Patents for Plantations in Virginia one to the City of London another to the City of Bristow Exceter and Plimmouth with power to plant Colonies any where between the Degrees of 38 and 44 provided there should be at least a 100 miles distance between the two Colonies So as the first Colony was from the City of London and is that which is called Virginia The Second Colony was from Bristow and the other Towns and is that which is now called New England and is scituate between the Degrees of 41 and 45 the very meane betwixt the North Pole and the Line And now to speak a little of the Country there are on the Sea Coast 25 excellent good Harbours in some whereof there is Anchorage for 500 sayle of Ships of any burthen The Earth as fruitful and the Ayre as healthfull as any part of the World abounding with all sorts of Grain Fowles and Fish Many of such kinds as a●e to us unknown yet excellent meat Many Voyages had been made for the perfect discovery of the Countrey Many Attempts for setling a Plantation there Many Miscariages and Disasters in making the attempts but all at last came to this that in the yeare 1624 which is the limit of ou● Narration there was a Plantation setled though but a small one but a few yeares after by the sending forth of new supplyes encreased to so many thousands that if God continue to prosper it as he hath begun the New England in a few ages may prove as populous as the Old and the King of England likely to have as many and greater Crowns in the Indies than he had in His Realmes of Great Brittaine and Ireland But seeing of these and all other English Plantations in the Indies whereof there are many large discourses written by divers Authors It should be more than supperfluous to speake more of them in this place It is sufficient to have shewed that King Iames had the honour to have them setled in His time and under the Influence of His peaceable Government Of the Earles and Barons made by King JAMES IN former Kings Raignes the making of Earles and Barons was but rare and therefore they are fitly set down at the severall times of their making but in King
it is that after this Agreement betweene King Stephen and Duke Henry they continued in mutuall love and concord as long after as they lived But what became of Maude the Empresse at this time For that she was alive and lived many yeares after this agreement betweene King Stephen and her Sonne Henry all Writers agree and to say that she consented to the Agreement without any provision made for her selfe is to make her too much a Woman a very weake vessell and to say there might be provision made though it be not Recorded is to make all Writers defective in a great excesse And besides being so stirring a woman as she was that upon a suddaine she should be so quiet as not to deserve to have one word spoken of her in all the long time she lived after being no lesse then twelve or thirteene yeares is as strange as the rest And if she placed her contentment so wholly in her Sonne that in regard of him she regarded not her selfe at all It deserves at least the Encomium of such a motherly love as is very unusuall and not alwayes safe Whatsoever it was I must be faine to leave it as a Gordian knot which no Writer helpes me to unty Of his Taxations and wayes for raising of money OF Taxations in his time there is no mention made for Taxations indeed are properly drawne from a body of State when it is entire where the State all this Kings time was altogether in Fractions But what he wanted in Taxations he supplyed with Confiscations which by reason of the many revoltings of men of all sorts could not chuse but fill his Coffers every Rebellion being in nature of a Purchase to him for whatsoever became of the Persons their Lands and Goods were sure to be his And if it happened at any time that Confiscations came in but slowly he had then devises to hasten their pace for upon light suggestions not so much oftentimes as just suspitions he would call men into question and seise upon their good as in the case particularly of Ralph Bishop of Salisbury and it may not be unpleasing to heare from what beginning this Bishop grew to such a height of greatnesse which was thus In the time of King William Rufus he was a poore Priest serving a Cure in a village neare to Ca●n in Normandy when the Kings younger Brother Henry chanced to passe that way and to make some stay in the said Village who being desirous to heare a Masse this Roger being Curate was the man to say it which he dispatched with such celerity that the Souldiers who commonly love not long Masses commended him for it telling their Lord that there could not a fitter Priest be found for men of warre then he Whereupon Henry appointed him to follow him and when he came to be King preferred him to many great places and at last to be Chancellour of England and Bishop of Salisbury You have heard his rising now heare his fall When King Stephen came to the Crowne he held this man in as great account as his Predecessour King Henry had done and perhaps in greater For being a great begger of Suites the King would say of him If this man will never give over asking neither shall I ever give over giving Yet this great Prelate fell first through Pride into Envy and then through Envy into Ruine For King Stephen having given liberty to build Castles this man did so f●rre exceed all others in magnificence for he builded the Castles of Salisbury the Vyes Sherburne Mamesbury and Newarke to which there were no Structures comparable in the kingdome that the Lords out of envy put it into the Kings head that these Castles of his were built thus magnificently for entertainment of Ma●de the Empresse which so possessed the King or he would be thought to be so possessed that taking this for a just cause he seised them all into his hands and forty thousand Markes besides which he had in money and not co●tented with this he tooke the like course also with Alexander Bishop of Lincolne onely because he was his Nephew and of his neare kindred Another way he had for gaining of money For in the first yeare of his Raigne having given liberty to hunt in his Forests be afterward at Oxford caused many to be impleaded for using that liberty a tricke which perhaps he learned from hunting First to give men leave to doe a thing and then to Fine them for having done it But this is the priviledge of Princes that their leave must be interpreted by him that gives it and not by him that takes it Lawes and Ordinances in his time HE gave licence to the City of Norwich to have Coroners and Bayliffes before which time they had onely a Sergeant for the King to keepe Courts and after this in the 37. yeare of King Henry the third they had license to inclose the Towne with Ditches Affaires of the Church in his time VPon the Kings seising into his hands the Bishop of Salisburies Castles and Goods complaint was made and a Synod called by the Bishop of Winchester the Popes Legate to right the Bishop where the King was cited to appeare who sending to know the cause Answer was made that it was to answer for his imprisoning of Bishops and depriving them of their Goods which being a Christian King he ought not to doe The King replies by his Lawyer Alveric de Ver that he had not arrested the Bishop of Salisbury as a Bishop but as his Servant that was to make him accompt of his imployment To this the Bishop answereth that he was never Servant or Accomptant to the King and many Allegations and Probations were urged to and fro but in conclusion the Synod brake up and nothing was done The Bishops durst not Excommunicate the King without the Popes privity so in the end they fell from Authority to Submission and in the Kings Chamber fell downe at his Feet beseeching him he would pity the Church and not suffer dissention to be betweene the Kingdome and the Priest-hood And this was no small magnanimity in the King that he was able to pull downe the high stomachs of the Prelates in that time In the eighth yeare of his Raigne a Synod was held in London by Henry Bishop of Winchester where it was decreed that whosoever should lay violent hands upon any Clergy man should not be absolved but by the Pope himselfe and from this time forward Clergy men were exempt from the secular power In the tenth yeare of his Raigne by the soliciting of Saint Bernard many tooke upon them the Crosse for a supply to the Holy Land amongst whom some English Lords also Workes of piety done by him or by others in his time HE Founded the Abbeys of Cogshall in Essex of Furneys in Lancashire of Hurguilers and Feversham in Kent at Heigham in Kent a House of blacke Nunnes also an house for Nunnes at Carew His Queene
with Philip now after the decease of Lewis King of France who willing to make use of their assistance before the streame of filiall awfulnesse should returne into the naturall Channell takes them along with him and besiegeth the City of Ments in which King Henry at that time was himselfe in person who apprehending the danger and then resenting the mischiefe of falling into his enemies hands gets him secretly out of the City leaving it to defend it selfe till he should returne with greater forces but hearing afterward that the Towne was taken he fell into so great a distraction of minde that it made him break out into these blasphemous words I shall never hereafter love God any more that hath suffered a City so deare unto me to be taken from me but he quickly recollected himselfe and repented him that he had spoken the words Indeed Ments was the City in which he was borne that to have this City taken from him was as much as to have his Birth-right taken from him and to say the truth after he had lost this City he scarce seemed to be alive not onely because he shortly after died but because the state of Majesty which had all his life accompanied him after this forsooke him for now he was faine to begge peace of his enemies who often before had begged it of him now he was glad to yeeld to conditions which no force before could have wrested from him It is memorable and worth observing that when these two Kings had meeting betweene Turwyn and Arras for reconcilement of differences there suddenly happened a Thunderbolt to light just betweene them with so terrible a cracke that it forced them for that time to breake off their conference and afterward at another meeting the like accident of Thunder happened againe which so amazed King Henry that he had fallen off his horse if he had not beene supported by those about him which could be nothing but drops let fall of the Divine anger and manifest presages of his future dysasters And thus this great Princes troubles which beganne in little ones and were continued in great ones ended at last in so great a trouble that it ended his life and left him an example of desolation notwithstanding all his greatnesse forsaken of his friends forsaken of his wife forsaken of his children and if he were not himselfe when he blasphemed for the losse of Ments forsaken of himselfe which might be exemplar in this King if it were not the common Epilogue of all greatnesse Of his Acquest of Ireland RObert Fits-stephen was the first of all Englishmen after the Conquest that entred Ireland the first day of May in the yeare 1170. with 390. men and there took Werford in the behalfe of Deruntius sonne of Marcherdach called Mac Murg King of Leymster In September following Richard Earle of Chepstow surnamed Strong-bow sayled into Ireland with twelve hundred men where he tooke Waterford and Dublin and married Eeve the daughter of Deruntius as he was promised From these beginnings King Henry being then at rest from all Hostile Armes both at home and abroad takes into his consideration the Kingdome of Ireland as a Kingdome which oftentimes afforded assistance to the French and therefore purposing with himselfe by all meanes to subdue it he provides a mighty Army and in the Winter season saileth thither taking Shipping at Pembroke and landing neare to Waterford where entring into consultation what course was fittest to be taken in the enterprise suddenly of their owne accord the Princes of the Countrey came in and submitted themselves unto him onely R●d●rick King of Connacht stood out who being the greatest thought to make himselfe the onely King of that Nation but King Henry forbearing him for the present who kept himselfe in his fastnesses of Bogges and Woods and was not to be followed in the Winter season takes his journey to Dublin the chiefe City of the Countrey and there calling the Princes and Bishops of the Nation together requires their consent to have him and his heires to be their King which they affirming they could not doe without the Popes authority to whom at their first conversion to the Christian Religion they had submitted themselves the King sent presently to Adrian the then Pope an English man requiring his assent which upon divers good considerations he granted and hereupon the King built him a stately Palace in the City of Dublin and having thus without bloud possest himselfe of the Kingdome the Spring following he returnes joyfully into England About foure yeares after Rodorick also sends his Chancellour to King Henry to offer his submission with a tribute to be paid of every tenne beasts one sufficient After this in the one and thirtieth yeare of his Raigne he sent his sonne Iohn to be the Governour there His Taxations and wayes for raising of money TAxations in his time was chiefely once when he tooke Escuage of Englishmen towards his warres in France which amounted to 12400. pounds but confiscations were many because many Rebellions and every Rebellion was as good as a Mine Also vacancies of Bishopricks and Abbeys kept in his hands sometimes many at once no time without some He resumed also all Lands which had either beene sold or given from the Crowne by his Predecessours but a principall cause that made him plentifull in money was his Parcimony as when he was injoyned for a Penance to build three Abbeys he performed it by changing Secular Priests into Regular Chanons onely to spare cost And it was not the least cause of alienating his sonnes from him that he allowed them not maintenance answerable to their calling And it could be nothing but Parcimony while he lived which brought it to passe that when he died there were found in his Coffers nine hundred thousand pounds besides Plate and Jewels Lawes and Ordinances in his time IN the beginning of his Raign he refined and reformed the Lawes of the Realm making them more tolerable more profitable to his people then they were before In the one and twentieth year of his Raign he divided his whole kingdom into six several Circuits appointing in every Circuit three Judges who twice every year should ride together to heare and determine Causes between man and man as it is at this day though altered in the number of the Judges and in the Shires of Circuit In this Kings dayes the number of Jewes all England over was great yet wheresoever they dwelt they might not bury any of their dead any where but in London which being a great inconvenience to bring dead bodies oftentimes from farre remote places the King gave them liberty of buriall in the severall places where they lived It was in this Kings dayes also ordained that Clergy-men offending in hunting the Kings Deere should be punishable by the Civill Magistrate according to the Lawes of the Land which order was afterward taken with them for any offence whatsoever they committed Though it be
and sword in one dayes labour takes it and had made great slaughter in it if King Richard had not beene moved to compassion with the Messanians teares but chiefely with King Tancreds offers both to pay his sister Iane her Dower and to marry his daughter to King Richards Nephew Arthur Duke of Britaine and to give a good part of the Portion in hand But King Philip was not well pleased with these conditions yet he breakes not out into open dissention till more fuell was afterward cast upon the fire of his anger In the Spring King Philip sayles with his Army to Ptolemais otherwise called Acon which the Christians had long besieged and with them he joynes while King Richard taking his sister Iane and Berengaria the young daughter of the King of Navarre with him in 190. Ships and 50. Galleys puts to Sea for the Holy Land but is by tempest cast upon the Coast of Cyprus where the Ilanders seeking to hinder his landing he sets upon them with his forces and invading the Iland easily subdues and brings it under his subjection and the King of the Cou●trey being taken prisoner and intreating King Richard not to put him in bonds of Iron King Richard gives him his word and keeps it but puts him in bonds of Silver In this Iland he solemnizeth his marriage with Berengaria and then leaving Richard de Canvile and Robert de Turnham his Lieutenants in Cyprus he passeth on to Ptolemais which City was defended by Saladine and had beene besieged now two yeares when the enemy seeing and fearing the encrease of the Christian forces propounds conditions upon which accepted they deliver it up in August the yeare 1192. At the taking of this Towne there fell out an accident seeming an honour to King Richard for the present but proving a disgrace at least a great trouble and charge to him afterward For Leopold Duke of Austria had first set up his Colours upon the wall which King Richard caused to be throwne downe and his owne to be set up but this was no place to stand a quarrelling it came not to the reckoning till some time after When Ptolemais was taken Saladine fearing the Christians further proceeding dismantles all the best Townes that were neare it as Porphyria Caesarea Ascalon Gaza but of Ioppa King Richard takes a care and placeth in it a Colony of Christians For Ioppa is a City of Palestine that was built before the Floud and hath belonging to it a Haven of great convenience And now the King of France though valiant enough himselfe yet thinking his owne great acts to be obscured by greater of King Richards he beganne besides his old hating him now to envie him For indeed emulation when it is in Vertue makes the stronger knot of love and affection but when it is in Glory it makes a separation and turnes into the passion of envie and malice and so did it with King Philip who pretending the aire of the Countrey did not agree with his body but was indeed because the aire of King Richards Glory did not agree with his minde obtained King Richards consent to returne home swearing first solemnly not to molest his Territories in his absence But this fell out for the present enterprise most uns●asonably For the departure of the King of France though it diminished not much the strength for he left Od● Duke of Burgundy in his place yet it diminished much the shew of assistance and indeed Saladine who was at this time in termes of surrendring Ierusalem when he saw the King of Franc● departed as knowing there must needs be a conclusion where there was a beginning doubted not but the rest would follow soone after and thereupon st●ied his hands and grew more confident then he was before At this time Guy of Lu●ignan was possest of the City of Tyre and with it of the right of the Kingdome of Ierusalem with him King Richard makes an exchange that G●y should have the Iland of Cyprus which King Richard had wonne and King Richard should have the kingdome of Ierusalem to which Guy had a right and upon this Title the Kings of England were stiled Kings of Ierusalem a long time after as likewise the posterity of the said Guy hath by this exchange held the kingdome of Cyprus to this day Now was King Richard more hot upon taking Ierusalem then ever before and had cert●●nely taken it but that by ill counsell diverted because the Winter drew on and indeed by the drawing backe of Odo Duke of Burgundie who envied that King Richard should have the honour of taking it he removed for that season to Askalon after which time the Enemy growing stronger and the Christians weaker all opportunity of taking it was utterly lost and they could never come to the like againe And shortly after King Richard was advertised of the King of France his invading Normandy contrary to his oath at his departure which forced King Richard much to his griefe to conclude a peace with Saladine and that upon conditions not very honourable for the Christians and himselfe presently to retu●ne home and so sending his wife Berengaria and his sister Iane with a great part of his Army into Sicilie and from thence into England he passeth himselfe with some few in his company by the way of Thrace and was by tempest brought into Dalma●iae from whence being to passe through Germany and particularly through Duke Leopolds Countrey of Austria he remembring the old grudge changed his apparell and travelling sometimes afoote and sometimes on horsebacke he used all meanes possible to keepe himselfe from being knowne but destiny is not to be avoyded for as soone as he came to Vienna partly by his tongue and partly by his expenses it was presently found he was an Englishman and withall some great man and by and by a rumour was spread that it was Richard King of England who finding himselfe to be discovered and no meanes possible to escape he puts off his disguise putting on his Princely apparell and avowes himselfe which Duke Leopold understanding sent presently to have him apprehended but King Richard refusing to yeeld himselfe to any but to the Duke himselfe the Duke himselfe came and led hi● to his owne Palace honourably enough but yet strongly guarded whereof as soone as Henry the Emperour heard he sent with great instance to Duke Leopold to send King Richard over to him under pretence of safer custody but with a purpose indeed to be a sharer in his Ransome And the Duke though well knowing his meaning yet knowing withall that it was not safe for him to deny the Emperour he sent him over to him who soone after put him into a prison he had called Trivallis into which no man was ever knowne to be put that escaped with life though done perhaps to him but in terrorem to draw the better Ransome from him That with which King Richard was charged beside the wrong done to Leopold in
Nunnery of Marran neare to Linne Friers Minors first arrived at Dover nine in number whereof five remained at Canterbury and there builded the first Covent of Friers Minors that ever was in England the other foure came to London who encreasing in number had a place assigned them in Saint Nicholas Shambles which Iohn Iwyn Mercer of London appropriated to the use of the said Friers and became himselfe a Lay brother Also in this Kings time the new worke of Saint Pauls Church in London was begunne If it were piety in the Iew who falling into a Privie upon a Saterday would not be taken out that day because it was the Iewes Sabbath It was as much piety in the Earle of Glocester that would not suffer him to be taken out the next day because it was the Christian Sabbath and when the third day he was taken out dead whose piety was the greater A strange accident upon an act of piety is related in this Kings time which if true is a Miracle if not true is yet a Legend and not unworthy to be read that in a time of dearth one man in a certaine Parish who allowed poore people to relieve themselves with taking Corne upon his ground had at Harvest a plentifull crop where others that denied them had their Corne all blasted and nothing worth In this Kings time also Hugh Balsamus Bishop of Ely founded Saint Peters Colledge in Cambridge Hubert de Burgh Earle of Kent was buried in the Church of the Friers Preachers in London to which Church he gave his Palace at Westminster which afterward the Arch-bishop of Yorke bought and made it his Inne since commonly called Yorke place now White-Hall Casualties happening in his time AT one time there fell no Raine in England from the first of March to the Assumption of our Lady and at another time there fell so much Raine that Holland and Holdernes in Lincolneshire were over-flowed and drowned In the seventeenth yeare of his Raign were seene five Suns at one time together after which followed so great a Dearth that people were constrained to eate horse flesh and barkes of Trees and in London twenty thousand were starved for want of foode Also in his time the Church of Saint Mildred in Canterbury and a great part of the City was burnt Also the Towne of New-Castle upon Tine was burnt Bridge and all And though it may seeme no fit place to tell it yet here or no where it must be told that in this Kings time there was sent by the King of France the first Elephant that ever was seene in England Of his Wife and Children HE marryed Eleanor the second of the five Daughters of Raymond Earle of Provence who lived his Wife thirty seven yeares his Widow nineteene dyed a Nun at Aimesbury and was buryed in her Monastery By her he had sixe Sonnes and three Daughters of his Sonnes the foure youngest dyed young and were buryed three of them at Westminster and the fourth in the New Temple by Fleetstreet His eldest Sonne Edward surnamed Longshanke of his tall and slender body succeeded him in the kingdome His second Sonne Edmund surnamed Crouch-backe of bowing in his backe as some say but more likely of wearing the signe of the Crosse anciently called a Crouch upon his backe which was usually worne of such as had vowed voyages to Hierusalem as he had done He was invested Titular King of Sicilie and Apulia and created Earle of Lancaster on whose person originally the great contention of Lancaster and Yorke was Founded He had two Wives the first was Avelin Daughter and Heire of William Earle of Albemarle by whom he left no issue The second was Queene Blanch Daughter of Robert Earle of Artois Brother of Saint Lewis King of France Widow of Henry of Champaigne King of Navarre by her he had issue three Sonnes and one Daughter His eldest Sonne Thomas who after his Father was Earle of Lancaster and having marryed Alice Daughter and Heire of Henry Lacie Earle of Lincolne was beheaded at Pomfret without issue His second sonne Henry Lord of Monmouth who after his Brothers death was Earle of Lancaster and Father of Henry the first Duke of Lancaster his third Sonne Iohn who dyed unmarryed His Daughter Mary marryed to Henry Lord Percy Mother of Henry the first Earle of Northumberland This Edmund dyed at Bay in Gascoyne in the yeare 1296. when he had lived fifty yeares whose body halfe a yeare after his death was brought over into England and entombed at Westminster Of King Henries three Daughter the eldest Margaret was marryed to Alexander the third King of Scotland by whom she had issue two Sonnes Alexander and David who dyed both before their Father without issue and one Daughter Margar●t Queene of Norway Wife of King Erike and Mother of Margaret the Heire of Scotland and Norway that dyed unmarryed The second Daughter of King Henry was Beatrice borne at Burdeaux marryed to Iohn the first Duke of Britaine and had issue by him Arthur Duke of Britaine Iohn Earle of Richmont Peter and Blanch marryed to Philip Sonne of Robert Earle of Artois Eleanor a Nunne at Aimesbury and Mary marryed to Guy Earle of S. Paul● she deceased in Britaine and was buryed at London in the Quire of the Gray Fryers within Newgate The third Daughter of King Henry named Katherine dyed young and lies buryed at Westminster in the space betweene the Chappels of King Edward and Saint Benet Of his Personage and Conditions HE was of stature but meane yet of a well compacted body and very strong one of his eyelids hanging downe and almost covering the blacke of his Eye For his inward endowments it may be said he was wiser for a man then for a Prince for he knew better how to governe his life then his Subjects He was rather Pious then Devout as taking more pleasure in hearing Masses then Sermons as he said to the King of France He had rather see his Friend once then heare from him often His minde seemed not to stand firme upon its Basis for every sudden accident put him into passion He was neither constant in his love nor in his hate for he never had so great a Favorite whom he cast not into disgrace nor so great an Enemy whom he received not into favour An example of both which qualities was seene in his carriage towards Hubert de Burgh who was for a time his greatest Favourite yet cast out afterward in miserable disgrace and then no man held in greater ha●red yet received afterward into grace againe And it is memorable to heare with what crimes this Hubert was charged at his Arraignment and ●pecially one That to disswade a great Lady from marriage with the King he had said the King was a squint-eyed Foole and a kinde of Leper deceitfull perju●ed more faint-hearted then a Woman and utterly unfit for any Noble Ladies company For which and other crimes laid to his charge in the Kings Bench where
of Acton Burnell In the foureteenth yeare of his Raigne were made the Statutes called Additamenta Glocestriae He ordained such men to be Sheriffes in every County as were of the same County where they were to be Sheriffes He ordained that Iewes should weare a Cognisance upon their upper Garment whereby to be knowne and restrained their excessive taking of Usury In his time was also Enacted the Statute of Mortmaine In his twelfth yeare in the Quindenes of Saint Michael the Justices Itinerants beganne to goe their generall Circuits In his time new pleces of money were coyned and halfe pence of Silver came to be in use which were before of base metall In his time three men for rescuing a prisoner arrested by an Officer had their right hands cut off by the wrists In his time all Iewes were banished out of the Realme This King by Proclamation prohibited the burning of Sea-coale in London and the Suburbs for avoiding the noysome smoake In his eleventh yeare the Bakers of London were first drawne upon Hurdles by Henry Waleys Major and Corne was then first sold by weight In this Kings time the title of Baron which had before beene promiscuous to men of estate was first confined to such onely as by the King were called to have voice in Parliament Affaires of the Church in his time IN his time at a Synod holden at Reading by the Arch-bishop of C●nterbury it was ordained according to the Constitutions of the Generall Councell that no Ecclesiasticall person should have more then one Benefice to which belonged the Cure of soules and that every person promoted to any Ecclesiasticall Living should take the Order of Priesthood within one yeare after In his time lived and died Pope Boniface the 8. of whom his Predecessour had Prophesied Ascendes ut Vulpes Regnabis ut Leo Morieris ut Canis Workes of Piety done by him or by others in his time THis King Founded the Abbey of the Vale Royall in Cheshire of the Cisteaux Order In his time Iohn Baylioll King of Scots builded Baylioll Colledge in Oxford also in his time Walter Marton Lord Chancellour of England and after Bishop of Rochester Founded Marton Colledge in Oxford who was drowned passing over the water at Rochester being at that time no Bridge there as now there is In his time was finished the new worke of the Church of Westminster which had b●ene threescore and sixe yeares in building In his time was laid the Foundation of the Black-Friers besides Ludgate and of Baynards Castle also in his time his second wife Queene Margaret beganne to build the Quire of the Gray-Friers in London In his time was begunne to be made the great Conduit in London standing against the Church called Acres in Cheape In his time Henry Walleys Major of London caused the Tonne upon Cornhill to be a Prison for night-walkers and also builded a house called the Stocks for a Market of fish and flesh in the midst of the City In this Kings time Edmund Earle of Leycester the Kings brother Founded the Minories a Nunnery without Aldgate This King builded the Castle of Flint in Wales and the Castle of Beaumaris in the I le of Anglesey and the Castle of Carnarvan by Snowdon Also in this Kings time Iohn Peckham Arch-bishop of Canterbury Founded a Colledge of Canons at Wingham in Kent Casualties happening in his time IN the second yeare of this Kings Raigne there happened the greatest rot of Sheepe in England that ever was knowne which continued five and twenty years and came as was thought by one infected Sheepe of incredible greatnesse brought out of Spaine by a French Merchant into Northumberland In the fifteenth yeare of this Kings Raigne Wheate was sold for tenne Groats a Quarter where the next yeare after there was so great a Dearth that it was sold for eighteene pence the Bushell In the seventeenth yeare of his Raigne there fell so much raine that Wheate was raised from three pence the Bushell to sixteene pence and so encreased yearely till at last it was sold for twenty shillings the Quarter And this yeare the City of Carlile and the Abbey with all the houses belonging to the Friers Minors was consumed with fire In his one and twentieth yeare a great part of the Towne of Cambridge with the Church of our Lady was also burnt In the seven and twentieth yeare of his Raigne his Palace at Westminster and the Monastery adjoyning were consumed with fire The Monastery of Glocester also was burnt to the ground In this yeare also an Act of Common Counsell by consent of the King was made concerning victuals a fat Cocke to be sold for three halfe pence two Pullets for three halfe pence a fat Capon for two pence halfe penny a Goose foure pence a Mallard three halfe pence a Partridge three halfe pence a Pheasant foure pence a Hearon sixe pence a Plover one penny a Swanne three shillings ● Crane twelve pence two-Woodcocks three halfe pence a fat Lambe from Christmas to Shrovetide sixteene pence and all the yeare after for foure pence Of his Wives and Children HE had two Wives his first was Eleanor daughter to Ferdinand the third King of Spaine and was married to him at B●res in Spaine who having lived with him sixe and thirty years in a journey with him towards Scotland at Herdeby in Lincolneshire she died in whose memory and as Monuments of her vertue and his affection King Edward caused Crosses with her Statue to be erected in all chiefe places where her Corps in carrying to Westminster rested as at Stamford Dunstable Saint Albons Waltham Cheapside and lastly at the place called Charing Crosse she was buried in Westminster at the feete of King Henry the third under a faire Marble Tombe adorned with her Portraiture of Copper guilt By this wife King Edward had foure sonnes and nine daughters his eldest sonne Iohn his second Henry his third Alphonsus died all young in their Fathers time his fourth sonne Edward called of Carnarva● because borne there succeeded him in the kingdome Of his daughters the eldest named Eleanor was first married by Proxie to Alphonsus King of Arragon but he dying before the marriage solemni●ed she was afterward married at Bristow to Henry Earle of Barry in France by whom she had issue sons and daughters Ioane the second daughter of King Edward and Queene Eleanor borne at Acon in the Holy Land was married to Gylbert Clare called the Red Earle of Glocester and Hereford by whom she had issue sonnes and daughters She survived her husband and was re-married to the Lord Ralph Monthermere Father to Margaret the mother of Thomas Montacute Earle of Salisbury from whom the now Vicount Montacu●e is descended Margaret the third daughter of King Edward and Queene Eleanor was married to Iohn Duke of Brabant Berenger and Alice their fourth and fifth daughters dying young and unmarried Mary their sixth daughter at tenne yeares of her age was made a Nunne in the Monastery
well he performed the third charge of his Fathers Will for subduing of Scotland It was now the sixth yeare after the death of his Father King Edward and Robert Bruce now gotten to be King of Scotland had stayed all this while to see how this new King Edward would prove and when he found by the courses he held that he was like to prove a good easie Enemy he thereupon tooke heart and began to stirre and in a very short time had brought almost all Scotland under his obedience and finding no opposition he entred the English Borders tooke and burnt Townes that now King Edward unlesse he would sit still and suffer Bruce to come and pull his Crown from his head he could not chuse but doe something to stop his proceeding Hereupon he prepares an Army but like himselfe fitter for a Court then for a Campe Many men and great Bravery but readie● to take spoiles then to make spoile and accordingly they sped For going to raise the siege at Str●veling defended for King Edward by the valiant knight Philip Mowbray the Kings Army consisting of a hundred thousand was defeated and overthrowne by the Scots Army consisting of scarce thirty thousand So true is that saying of an ancient Souldier There is more hope of an Army where the General is a Lion though the Souldiers be but Sheepe then of an Army where the Generall is a Sheepe though the Souldiers be Lions But indeed the Scots besides Valour used Policy For having in their owne Army none but Foot no Horse at all they had made Trenches in the Ground three foot deepe covering them with Twigges and Hurdles where the English Horsemen were to passe who Floundring in those Trenches were killed no lesse by their owne Fellowes then by the Enemy In this Battell called of Bannocks borough were slaine the Lord Mawle the Lord Clifford the Lord Tiptoft the Lord William Marshall Sir Giles Doctor Argenton and seven hundred Knights and Squires specially Gylbert Earle of Glocester who had shewed much Valour that day and whom the Scots would willingly have kept for ransome if they had knowne him but he had forgotten to put on his Coate of Armes whereby to be knowne The slaughter of common Souldiers was certainely great though perhaps not so great as Hector Boetius speakes of who saith they were fifty thousand There were taken Prisoners Humfrey de Bohun Earle of Hereford Iohn Seagrave Iohn Claveringham William Latimer and Sir Roger Northbrooke bearer of the Kings shield the King himselfe with the Bishops the Earles of Hartford and Pembroke and Hugh Spenser saved themselves by flight Humfrey de Bohun Earle of Hereford was afterward released in exchange for Bruces Wife who had beene long kept a Prisoner in England After this many English fell away to the Scots and all the North parts from Carlile to Yorke came under their Subjection and the English grew so faint-hearted and into such contempt that three Scots durst venture upon a hundred English when a hundred English durst scarce encounter with three Scots And what can be thought the cause of this great dysaster to this King but the want of his Fathers blessing for not performing the charge he gave him dying which is commonly accompanyed with the want of a higher blessing without which a Vacat is set upon the labours of men that makes them all frustrate But Bruce not satisfied with his Acquests in England sends his Brother Edward into Ireland also who so farre prevailed that many Irish came in unto him and in the end Crowned him King of a great part of that Island and so continued the space of three yeares till the Primat of Armagh and the Lord Brinningham Justiciar of Ireland gathering Forces together opposed him and in a Battaile taking him Prisoner at Dundalke cut off his head with the slaughter of many thousands of the Scots besides With which the Scots are so incensed that they invade againe the English Borders forraging as farre as Yorke whereupon a Parliament is assembled at London wherein an ayde is granted of Armed men to goe against them London sets forth two hundred Canterbury forty Saint Albons ten and so proportionably for all Cities and Boroughs whereby a great Army was levyed which comming to Yorke through mutiny emulation and other impediments was soone dissolved and returned backe without effecting any thing Not long after the Towne of Berwicke was betrayed to the Scots through the treason of Peter Spalding the Governour and other Englishmen whom the King of Scots to make them an Example caused to be hanged for being Traitors to their Country King Edward hearing of the surrendring of Berwicke raiseth an Army and beleaguers it but the Scots to divert his Forces enter upon England by other wayes and were like to have surprised the person of the Queene lying then neare ●orke The siege of B●rwicke is notwithstanding eagerly continued and the King in great possibility to have regained the Towne had not the Earle of Lancaster with his foll●wers withdrawne himselfe upon discontent hearing the King say he would give the keeping thereof to Hugh Spen●●r the younger who was now grown a speciall favourite of the Kings and theref●r● not to be en●ured by the Earle In the mean 〈◊〉 the Scots wonne the Castles of 〈…〉 and Mid●ord so as they possessed the greater part of all North●mberland burning all before them 〈◊〉 they came to ●●●pon which Towne they spoyled● and carrying there three dayes they received ● thousand Markes to save the Towne from burning as they had done the Townes of Nor●hallerton Bor●ugh-bridg● and others In their returning backe they 〈◊〉 Knaresborough and Shipton in C●●ven and all other afore them carrying into ●●land a marvellous number of Cattell besides prisoners men and women● The● ●●●●shire men thus grievously endammaged gather together to the number of ten thousand and at the Towne of Mitton tenne miles from Yorke encounter the Sco●● where they lost three thousand of their men and were defeated● which b●ttell because of the many Spirituall men that were in it was called the white battell Whereof when the King heard● he left the siege of Be●wicke to follow the Scots but they returned another way The yeare following King Edward once againe with a great Army entred Scotland but the Scots having destroyed all afore the King oppressed with famine was forced to re●urne● whom the Scots followed and in a place of the Forest of Blackmore se● upon him that he hardly escaped where were taken Iohn Earle of Britaine and the Lord of Sil●ac● the French Kings Embassadour and many others After this King Edward finding the Scots either too strong or too wily for him made a Truce with them for two yeares some say for thirteene And this was the successe of this unfortunate King in his warres with Scotland Of his tr●●bles at home BUt his troubles abroad were not so grievous as those at home or rather they were those at home that made his
Leader then the 〈◊〉 besides there fell at the instant such a showre of raine as dissolved their 〈◊〉 and made their Bowes of little use and at the breaking up of the showre the 〈…〉 full in the face of the French dazling their sight and on the backe of the 〈◊〉 as if all made for them K. Edward who had gotten to a Windmill beholding 〈◊〉 a Sentinell the countenance of the Enemy and discovering the disturbance 〈◊〉 by the change of place instantly sends to charge that part without giving 〈…〉 to re-accommodate themselves whereupon the discontented Gen●●ese 〈◊〉 which the Co●nt de Alanson perceiving he comes on with the horse and 〈…〉 ●age cries out On on Let us make way upon the bellies of these Genoueses 〈…〉 but hinder us and instantly pricks on with a full careere through the midst 〈…〉 followed by the Earles of Lorraine and Savoy and never staies till he came 〈◊〉 the English battell where the Prince was the fight grew hot and doubtfull 〈…〉 as the Commanders about the Prince send to King Edward to come up with his power to aide him The King askes the messengers whether his son were 〈…〉 hurt who answering no but that he was like to be over-laid Well then 〈◊〉 ●he King returne and tell them who sent you that so long as my sonne is a 〈…〉 they send no more to me what ever happen for I will that the honour of this 〈…〉 his And so being left to try for themselves they wrought it out with the 〈◊〉 ● the rather by reason the French King having his horse slaine under him and 〈◊〉 danger to be trodden to death had he not been recovered by the Lord Beau 〈…〉 ●●●s to the great discouragement of his people withdrawne out of the field 〈◊〉 no●●ce being once taken by the English the day was soone after theirs and 〈…〉 victory they ever had yet against the French and so bloudy as there is 〈…〉 made of any one prisoner taken in the battell but all ●laine out-right ●nely ●ome few troopes that held together saved themselves by retiring to places neare adjoyning The French King himselfe with ● small company got to Bray in the night and approaching the walls and the Gu●rd asking him who goes there he answered the Fortune of Fr●●c● By ●i● voyce ●e was knowne and thereupon received into the Towne with the teares and lamenta●ions of his people The number of the slaine are certified to be thirty thousand the chiefe whereof were Charles de Al●ns●n Iohn Duke of 〈◊〉 ●alph Earle of Lorraine L●wis Earle of Fl●●●ers I●ques Da●lphin de 〈◊〉 So●●e to I●b●rt who after gave Daulphin to the Crowne of France the Earl●● of S●●c●rre H●r●court and many other Earles Barons and Gentlemen to the number of fiftee●● hundred This memorable Victory happened upon the S●turday after Bart●●l●●●● day in the yeare 1346. The next day earely in the morning being Sunday he s●n● out 300. Lances and 2000. Archers● to discover what was becom● of t●● 〈◊〉 who found great Troopes comming from Abbe●●l● Saint 〈…〉 a●d B●●uvoyes ignorant of what had happened 〈◊〉 by the Arch-Bishop of R●●● and the Priour of France whom they likewise defeated and slew s●ven thousand But this was not all th● Victories that fell to King Edward that yeare there was another of no lesse importance gotten in Engl●●d by the Queene and hi● peopl● at home against the Scots who being set on by the French to divert the wa●●● there● entred upon this kingdome wit●●hreesco●e thousand men as our Writers report assuring himselfe of successe in regard as he supposed ● the ma●●e stre●gth thereof was now gone into France but ●e found it otherwise● For the Lords of the North as Gylbert de Umfrevile the Earl● of Ang●●● Henry Perc● Ralph Nevile William D●y●co●●t with the Arch-bishop of Yorke the Bishop of Dur●am and others of the Clergy gathered so great Forces and so well ordered them by the animation of the Queene who was there in person as fighting a great Battaile at Nevils Crosse in the Bishopricke of Durha● they utterly defea●ed this great Army tooke David their King Prisoner with the Earles of Fif● Menteth Murry Sutherland the Lord Dowglas the Arch-bishop of Saint Andrewes and others and put to the sword fifteene thousand Sc●ts This Victory also fell upon a Saturday sixe weekes after that of Cressy He that tooke King David Prisoner wa● one Iohn C●pl●nd an Esquire of Northumberland whom King Edward rewarded with five hundred pounds land a yeare and made him a Banner●t And as if all concurred to make this yeare Triumphant the Aides sent to the Countesse of Montford in Britaine led by Thomas Dagworth a Valiant knight overthrew and tooke Prisoner Charles de Blois Pretender to that Dutchy and with him Mounsi●ur la Vall the Lords Rochford Bea●●anoyre Loi●c●ue with many other Barons Knights and Esquires Where were slaine the Lord De la Vall Father to him that was taken Viscount Rohan Mounsieur de Chastea● Bryan de ●alestroit de Quintin de Dyrev●ll besides many other knights and Esquires to the number of seven hundred And now King Edward without medling with the great Cities of Amiens and Abbevile marcheth on directly and sits downe before Callice a Town of more importance for England and the Gate to all the rest Wherein Iohn d● Vienne Marshall of France and the Lord de Andregh●n a great man in his time commanded All that Winter King Edward lay without any molestation by the French King who was busied at home in his owne State about raising of money wherewith supplyed at last he raiseth an Army and approacheth Callice but findes no way open to come to relieve it The King of England was both Master of the Haven and possest all other wayes that were passable and the Flemings his friends had besieged Aire to oppose whom Iohn Duke of Normandy is sent for out of Guyenne who departing leaves Henry of Lancaster Earle of Derby Master of the Field and ●e having an Army consisting of twelve hundred men at Armes two thousand Archers and three thousand other Foot takes in most of the Townes of Xaintoigne and Poict●● and in the end besieged and sacked P●ityer● and then returnes to B●rdea●x with more ●illage then his people could well beare Thus the 〈◊〉 prosper every ●●here and the French suffer During this siege of Calli●e ●n 〈◊〉 some t●in●● King Edw●●● first used Gunnes the Fleming● send to King 〈◊〉 to make a marriage betweene his Daughter Isabell and their Lord the 〈…〉 to which the King consented but the Duke of Br●●●nt gets 〈…〉 of 〈◊〉 ●o make the match for a Daughter of his● The Flemings presse 〈◊〉 Lord with t●e match of England but he absolutely refuse●h it saying● h● 〈◊〉 never marry a Daughter of him that had killed his Father though he would 〈…〉 ●●lf● his kingdome This answer so incensed the Flemi●gs that they 〈…〉 Lord in Prison till with long durance he at last consented and
number of Fifty thousand by the setting on of one Iohn Wraw a lewd Priest and these fell to destroying the houses of Lawyers speciallly and Sir Iohn Cavendish L. Chiefe Justice of England they beheaded and set his head upon the Pillory in St. Edmundsbury The like commotion of the Commons was at the same time also in Cambridgeshire in the Isle of Ely and in Norfolke under the guiding of one Iohn Littester a Dyer and to countenance their proceeding the more they had a purpose to have brought William Vfford Earle of Suffolke into their fellowship but he advertised of their intention suddenly rose from supp●r and got him away but many other Lords and Knights they compelled to be sworne to them and to ride with them as the Lord Scales the Lord Morley Sir Iohn Brewi● Sir Stephen Hales Sr. Robert Salle who not enduring their insolencies had his braines dasht out by a Country Clowne that was his Bondman The rest terrified by this example were glad to carry themselves submissively to their Chieftaine Iohn Lit●ester who named himselfe King of the Commons and counted it a preferment for any to serve him at his Table in taking the assay of his meates and drinkes with kneeling humbly before him as he sate at meat And now these fellowes upon a c●nsultation send two choycemen namely the L. Morle● and Sir Iohn Brewi● with three of their chiefe Commons to the King for their Charter of Manumission and Enfranchising who being on their way at Itchingham not farre from New market they met with Henry Spenser Bishop of Norwich and he examining them if there were any of the Rebels in their company and hearing that thr●e of the chiefe were there present he presently caused their heads to be struck off and then pursuing on towards Northwalsham in Norfolke where the Commons stayed for Answer from the King by that time he came thither where he had at first but eight Launces and a small number of Archers in his company his number was so increased that it came to be a compleat Army with which he set upon the Rebels discomfited them and tooke Iohn Littester and their other Chieftains whom he caused all to be executed and by this meanes the Country was quieted After this the Major of London●ate ●ate in Judgment upon Offenders where many were found culpable and lost their heads amongst other Iack Straw Iohn Kirkeby Alane Tredder and Iohn Sterl●ng who gloried that he was the man had slaine the Archbishop Also Sir Robert Tresilian Chiefe Justice was appointed to sit in Judgement against the Offenders before whom above fifteen hundred were found guilty and in sundry places put to death amongst others Iohn Ball Priest their Incendiary of whom it is not impertinent to relate a letter he wrote to the Rebell-rabble of Essex by which we may see how fit an Oratour he was for such an Auditory and what strength of perswasion there was in Non-sence Iohn Sheepe St. Mary Priest of Yorke and now of Colchester greeteth well Iohn Namelesse and Iohn the Miller and Iohn Carter and biddeth them that they beware of guile in Borough and stand together in Gods name and biddeth Piers Plowman goe to his work and chastise well Hob the robber and take with you Iohn Trewman and all his fellowes and no moe Iohn the miller ye ground small small small the Kings Sonne of Heaven shall pay for all Beware or ye be woe Know your friend from your foe Have enough and say Ho and doe well and better Flee sinne and seeke peace and hold you therein and so biddeth Iohn Trewman and all his fellowes Neither is it impertinent to declare the Confession of Iack Straw at his execution When we were assembled said he upon Blackheath and had sent to the K. to c●me to us our purpose was to have slaine all Knights and Gentlemen that should be about him and as for the King we would have kept him amongst us to the end the people might more boldly have repaired to us and when we had gotten power enough we would have slaine all Noblemen and specially the Knights of the Rhodes and lastly we would have killed the King and all men of possessions with Bishops Monkes Parsons of Churches onely Friers Mendicants we would have spared for administration of the Sacraments Then we would have devised Laws according to which the people should have lived for we would have created Kings as Wat Tyler in Kent and other in other Countries and the same evening that Wat Tyler was killed we were determined to set fire in foure corners of the City and to have divided the spoyle amongst us and this was our purpose as God may helpe me now at my last end For his service done in this seditious businesse the King knighted the Major William Walworth and gave him a hundred pounds a yeere in Fee also he knighted five Aldermen his brethren girding them abou● the waste with the girdle of knighthood which was the manner of Graduating in those dayes And to doe the City it selfe honour he granted there should be a Dagger added to the Armes of the City for till this time the City bore onely the Crosse without the Dagger And now all parts being quiet the King by Proclamation revoked and made void his former Charters of Infranchising the Bondmen of the Realme and that they should stand in the same condition they were before In the time of this sedition the Duke of Lancaster had been sent into Scotland to keep the Scots quiet who so carried the matter that before the Scots heard of the Sedition a Truce was concluded for two or three yeeres But the Duke comming back to Berwick was denied by the Captaine Sir Matthew Redman to enter the Towne because of a Commandement given him by the Earle of Northumberland L. Warden of the Marches not to suffer any person to enter the same which the King indeed had appointed to be done forgetting the Duke of Lancaster that was then in Scotland but howsoever this bred such a spleen in the Duke against the Earle that at his comming home he laid many things to the Earles charge and the Earle as stoutly answered his objections and so farre it proceeded that both of them came to the Parliament which was then beginning with great numbers of Armed men and themselves in Armour to the great terrour of the people but the King wisely taking the matter into his owne hands made them friends At which time the Lady Anne Sister to the Emperour Wincesl●us and affianced wife to the King was come to Callis whereupon the Parliament was Prorogued the Lady was brought to London joyned in mariage to the King and Crowned Queene at Westminster by the Archbishop of Canterbury with great solemnity After the Mariage the Parliament began againe in which William Vfford Earle of Suffolke being chosen by the Knights of the Shires to deliver in behalfe of the Commonwealth certaine matters concerning the same
was begun to be built Also in his time Sir Robert Knolls made the Stone bridge of Rochester in Kent and founded in the Town of Pomfret a Colledge and an Hospitall he also re-edified the body of the White-Friers Church in Fleetstreet where he was afterward buried Which Church was first founded by the Ancestours of the Lord Grey of Codnor In the eighth yeare of his Reigne Richard Whittington Major of London erected a house or Church in London to be a house of Prayer and named it after his own name Whittington Colledge with lodgings and weekly allowance for divers poore people He also builded the Gate of London called Newgate in the yeare 1420 which was before a most loathsome prison He builded also more than halfe of St. Bartholmews Hospitall in West-Smithfield and the beautifull Library in the Gray Friars in London● now called Christs Hospitall He also builded a great part of the east end of Guildhall and a Chappell adjoyning to it with a Library of stone for the custodie of the Records of the Citie But he that exceeded all at this time in works of Piety was William Wickham Bishop of Winchester his first worke was the building of a Chappell at Tychfield where his Father Mother and Sister Perr●t was buried Next he founded at Southwick in Hampshire neere the Towne of Wickham the place of his birth as a supplement to the Priorie of Sout●wicke a Chauntry with allowance for five Priests for ever He bestowed twenty thousand marks in repairing the houses belonging to the Bishopricke he discharged out ●f Prison in all places of his Diocesse all such poore prisoners as lay in execution for debt under twenty pounds he amended all the high-wayes from Winchester to London on both sides the River After all this on ●he fifth of March 1379 he began to lay the foundation of that magnificent Structure in Oxford called New-Colledge and in person layd the first stone thereof in which place before there stood Naetius-Colledge built by Alver at N●tius intreaty and for the affinity of the name came to be called New-Colledge In the yeare 1387 on the 26 of March he likewise in person layd the first stone of the like foundation in Winchester and dedica●●● the same as that other in Oxford to the memory of the Virgin Mary The Grocer● in London purchased their Hall in Cu●●yhope Lane for 320 marks and then layd th● foundation thereof on the tenth of May. King Henry founded the Colledge of F●●ringhey in Northampto●shire to which King He●ry the fifth gave land of the Priories of Monkes Aliens by him suppressed Iohn Gower the famous Poet new builded a great part of St. Mary Overyes Church in South●●rke where he lyes buried In the second yeare of this king a new market in the Poultry called the Stocks was builded for the free sale of Forreign Fishmongers and Butchers In his twelveth yeare the Guildhall of London was begun to be new Edified and of a little Cottage made a goodly house as now it is Casualties happening in his time IN his third yeare in the Moneth of March appeared a Blazing-starre first betwixt the East and the North and then sending forth fiery beams towards the North foreshewing perhaps the effusion of bloud that followed after in Wales and Northumberland In the same yeare at Danbury in Essex the Devill appeared in likenesse of a Gray-Frier who entring the Church put the people in great fear and the same houre with a tempest of Whirlewinde and Thunder the top of the steeple was broken down and halfe the Chancell scattered abroad In his seventh ye●re such abundance of water brake suddenly over the Banks in Kent that it drowned Cattell without number Also this yeare the Town of Reystone in Hartfordshire was burnt In his ninth yeare was so sharpe a winter and such abundanc● of snow continuing December Ianuary February and March that almost all small Birds died through hunger Of his Wives and Children HE had two Wives the first was Mary one of the Daughters and heirs of H●mphrey de Bo●un Earle of Hereford Essex and Northampton she died before he c●me to the Crowne in the yeare 1394. His second Wife was Ioane Daughter to Charles the first king of Navarre she being the widdow of Iohn de Montford surnamed Strea●y or the Conquerour Duke of Brittaine who dyed without any issue by king Henry at Havering in Essex the yeare 1437 in the fifteenth yeare of king Henry the sixth and lyeth buried by her husband at Canterbury He had foure Sons and two Daughters Of his Sons Henry his eldest was Prince of Wales and after his Father king of England His second Son was Thomas Duke of Clarence and Steward of England who was slaine at Beaufort in Anjo● and dyed without issue His third Son was Iohn Duke of Bedford he married first with Anne Daughter to Iohn Duke of Burgundie and secondly with Iacoba Daughter of Peter of Luxenbourgh Earle of St. Paul but dyed also without issue His fourth Son was Humphry by his brother king Henry the fifth created Duke of Gloucester and was generally called the good Duke he had two Wives but dyed without issue in the yeare 1446 and was buried at St. Albans though the vulgar opinion be that he lyes buried in St. Pauls Church Of king Henry the fourths Daughters Blanch the elder was married to Lewis Barbatus Palatine of the Rhene and Prince Elector Philippe his younger Daughter was married to Iohn king of Denmarke and Norway Of his Personage and Conditions COncerning his Body he was of a middle stature slender limbes but well proportioned Concerning his Minde of a serious and solid disposition and one that stood more upon his own legges than any of his Predecessors had done in cases of difficulty not refusing but not needing the advice of others which might confirme but not better his own He was neither merry nor sad but both best pleas'd when he was opposed because this was like to doe him good by sharpening his invention most angry when he was flattered because this was sure to doe him hurt by dulling his judgement No man ever more loved nor lesse doted upon a wife than he a good husband but not uxorious that if there be reines to that Passion we may know he had them It may be thought he affected the Crown not so much out of Ambition as out of Compassion because the oppre●sions of his Country he could not so well helpe being a Subject as a King for otherwise we may truly say he was a loser by the Crowne being not so great for a King as he was before for a Subject The Crowne rather was a gainer by him which hath ever since been the richer for his wearing it We may thinke he was either weary of his life or longing for death for why else would he take upon him the Crusado having been told by a skilfu●l Southsayer that he should dye in Ierusalem but it seemes he did not believe
●●●●ved by famine he so dyed In the meane time Sir Iohn Oldcastle wrote his Beliefe and presented it himselfe to the King which the King would in no wise receive but suffered him in his presence and Privy chamber to be summoned who appearing before the Archbishop after divers examinations he was condemned of Heresie and committed to the Tower of London from whence shortly after he escaped and got into Wales The king by his Proclamation promised a thousand Marks to any that should bring him in but so much was his doctrine generally favoured that the kings offer was not much regarded but he continued foure yeares after undiscovered At last he was taken in the borders of Wales within a Lordship belonging to the Lord Powes who brought him to London before the Duke of Bedford Regent of the Realme where in the end he was condemned and finally was drawn from the Tower to S. Giles field and there hanged in a chaine by the middle and after consumed with fire the gallowes and all At the time of his first conviction foure yeares before it was rumour'd that twenty thousand men in armes were assembled in S. Giles field whereupon the king at midnight himselfe in person went thither where he found many indeed who upon examination confessed that they came to meet their Captaine Sir Iohn Oldcastle but without any intent against the king yet was Sir Roger Acto● and eight and twenty others of them apprehended and executed in Smithfield and all the Prisons in and about London were filled with them In his third yeare the order of Church service throughout England was changed from the use of Pauls to the use of S●lisbury to the great disliking of many in those dayes In his fourth yeare a Councell was holden at Constance whither he sent Ambassadors the Earle of Warwick the Bishops of Salisbury Bath and Hereford the Abbot of Westminster and the Prior of Worcester In which Councell it was decreed that England should have the title of the English Nation and should be accounted one of the five principall Nations in ranke before Spaine which often before had been moved but never granted till then And herein were all Wickliffs positions condemned also Iohn Husse and Hierome of Prague notwithstanding the Emperours safe-conduct were both of them burned In this Councell the Schisme of Anti-popes which had continued the space of nine and twenty yeares was reformed ●e●edict the 13. had been elected by the Spaniard Gregory the 1● by the French Iohn the 24. by the Italians And now in this Councell begun in February 1414 and continued above three yea●es wherein were assembled besides the Emperour the Pope and the Palsgrave of R●●ime foure Patriarks twenty seven Cardinals seven and forty Archbishops one hundred and threescore Bishop● Princes and Barons with their attendants above thirty thousand The foresaid elected Popes were all put down or else resigned and in the place as legitimate Pope was elected Otho Lolo●na by the name of Marti● the fifth In this yeare also fell out an Accident which shews the strict observance of Ecclesiasticall censures in those dayes The wives of the Lord Strange and Sir Iohn Trussell of War●ington in Cheshire striving for place at a Sermon in S. Dunst●●s Church in the East their husbands being present fell themselves to striving in their wives behalf● and great part-taking there was on both sides some slaine and many wounded The delinquents were committed to the Counter the Church suspended and upon examination the Lord Strange being found guilty was by the Archbishop of Canterbury adjudged to this Penance which was accordingly performed The Parson of S. Dunst●●s went before after whom followed all the Lords servants in their shirts after them went the Lord himselfe bare-headed with a waxe taper in his hand then followed the Lady bare-footed and then last came the Archdeacon Reynold R●●●ood in which order they went from Pauls where the sentence was given to S. Dunst●●s Church where at the rehallowing thereof the Lady filled all the Vessels with water and according to the sentence offered to the Altaran ornament of the value of ten pounds and the Lord a Pixe of silver of five pounds A Penance no doubt which the Lord and the Lady would have redemed with a great deale of money if the discipline of the Church had in those dayes allowed it but it seemes the commutation of Penance was not as yet come in use In his ninth yeare in a Parliament at Leicester a hundred and ten Priories alient were suppressed because they spoke ill of his Conquests in France and their possessions were given to the King but by him and King Henry the sixth were afterward given to other Monasteries and Colledges o● learned men Works of Piety by him or others in his time THis King re-edified his Royall Manour which was then called Sheene now Richmond and founded two Monasteries not farre from it the one of Carthusians which he named Bethelem the other of Religious men and women of the Order of S. Bridget which he named Syon He also founded the Brotherhood of Saint Giles without Cripplegate in London In the second yeare of his Reigne Mooregate neere to Colemanstreet was first made by Thomas Fawkener Major of London who caused also the ditches of the City to be cleansed and a common Privy that was on the Moore without the wall to be taken downe and another to be made within the City upon Wallbrooke into the which brooke he caused the water of the City to be turned by grates of iron in divers places In his sixth yeare William of Sevenoak Major of London founded in the Town of Sevenoak a Free schoole and thirteen Almshouses This man was found at Sevenoak in Kent anew-borne infant of unknown Parents but by charitable people was Christned and brought up bound prentise in London and came at last to be Major of the City Also Robert Chic●ely Major of London gave liberally to the Almshouses founded by his brother Henry Chiche●●y Archbishop of Canterbury at Higham-Ferrers in Northamptonshire where they were born But Henry Chicheley the Archbishop founded two Colledges in Oxford one called Bernard Colledge renewed by Sir Thomas White and named S. Iohns Colledge the other called All-Soules which continueth at this day as he left it Also Iohn Kempe Archbishop of Canterbur● converted the Parish-Church of Wye in Kent where he was borne into a Colledge of Secular Priests Casualties happening in his time IN the fift yeere of his Reigne a great part of the City of Norwich was burnt with all the house of the Friers Preachers and two fryers of that Order In his third yeere on the feast of the Purification seaven Dolphins came up the River of Th●mes whereof foure were taken Of his Wife and issue HE married Catherine the daughter of king Charles the sixth of France who was his Queene two yeeres and about three moneths married at Troyes in Champaigne the third day of June 1420. and afterward
a terrour into the besiegers that they stood like men amazed of whom six hundred were slaine two hundred drowned in the ditches fifty taken prisoners with eighteen Standards and the Constable was glad to quit the place and give over the Siege At the same time also the Earle of Warwick and the L. Scales with seven thousand besieged Ponterson many weekes together but Pov●sion waxing scant the Lord Scales with three thousand men went a forraging into the Enemies Country and in his returne with plenty of provision was encountred with six thousand French of whom he slew many hundreds tooke above a thousand prisoners and then returned safe into the Campe. About this time also Sir Iohn Falstaffe besieged the strong Towne of Gravile which after twelve dayes offered to render it selfe by a day if it were not relieved The offer was taken and Pledges delivered but before the day came they within ●he Towne had victualled and manned the place and thereupon neglecting their Pledges refused to render the Castle according to agreement whereupon the Pledges were brought before the sight of them within the Castle and there openly put to death And now a conspiracy of the Clergie and Magistrates in Maunts so prevailed that the Marshals of France with five hundred men about midnight came to the Town-walls where the Guard of the English by those that seemed their friends were suddenly massac●ed and setting open the Gates made way for the Enemy to enter whereupon the Alarum given the Earle of Suffolk with the surviving English withdrew to the Castle wherein they were sharply assayled by the French who yet had more minde to ransack houses and to make good cheere whereof the Lord T●lbot having intelligence by Captaine Goffe whom he had sent to discover the state of the French he secretly gave notice to the Earle of Suffolk who thereupon sallied forth of the Castle at a time when the Lord T●lbot was ready with his Troopes and on both sides crying St. George a T●lbot they fell upon the carelesse French who lost foure hundred of their best men the rest were all taken the Town re-gained and the Conspiratours thirty Citizens twenty Priests and fifteen Friers condemned and put to execution Whilst these things went on prosperously in France a great disaster fell out in England for the right Noble Thomas Beauford sonne of Iohn of G●u●t and Katherine Swi●ford Duke of Exeter and Guardian of the King makes king Henry his heire and at East-Greenwich in Kent ended his life whose place was presently supplyed by the Earle of Warwick and the Earles place in France by the Earle of Salisbury who thereupon with five thousand men came to Orlea●ce and besieged the City and won from the French the great fort But here happened another great disaster for from an high tower in this fort the Besiegers observed the passages of the Townsmen when the Noble Earle of Salisbury intending to informe himselfe of the state of the Towne unfortunately looking out at a window of the fort with Sir Th●●●● G●rgrave a great shot from the Town striking the barres of the window the splinters thereof were driven into his head and face of which wounds within eight dayes he died This was now a second weakning to the English party but in his place the Earle of Suffolk succeeded to whom the Regent sendeth Sir Iohn Fals●●●●● with fresh supplies whom the Lord de la Brets nine thousand strong endeavours to intercept but Sir Iohn resolving to abide the charge placeth his cariages behind the horse next and the foot before lining his bowes with bill-men and pitching stakes behind the Archers who having discharged their first volley retired behind the stakes on which the French forgetting their former defeats by that course ran and goared their horses by which their Vaward being disordered the Battaile made a stand which Sir Iohn perceiving cryeth out St. George They●●ie at which words they fled indeed and lost two thousand five hundred of their men with the Lords de la Brets and William Steward eleven hundred were taken Prisoners with whom and a rich booty they came to the Campe before Orleance Hereof the besieged having notice they offered to submit themselves to the Duke of Burg●igne who was contented to receive them so as the Regent would consent But the Regent consented not and therefore in the meane time the besieged made meanes to the Duke of Al●●so● who furnished the Towne with fresh Forces and Provision which put such spirits into the Citizens that they made a sally out slew six hundred English and adventured upon the Bastile where the Lord T●lbot commanded who repelled them with great slaughter of their men but yet the next day the Earle of Suffolk gave over his siege and dispersed his Army into their Garrisons And now the wheele of Fortune began to turn to the French against the English which once set a going was not easie to be stayed And first the Duke of Al●●so● tooke by assault the Towne of Iargeux and in it the Earle of Suffolk and one of his brothers and slew Sir Alexander Pole another of his brothers and many other Prisoners in cold blood by reason of a contention amongst the French to whom the Prisoners should belong Presently upon this ●nother great blow was given the English for the Lords Talbot Scale● and Hungerford going to fo●tifie the Town of S. Meu● were encountred by the said Duke of Al●●son and Arthur of Britaine with three and twenty thousand men with whom the English Lords interchanged some blowes but oppressed with multitude were all three taken prisoners all sore wounded twelve hundred of their company slaine and the rest hardly escaping to Me●● where they fortified themselves the best they could against future assaults These were great blowes given to the English fortune in France Salisbury slaine and now Talbot taken prisoner which though they made her a little to totter yet there must be greater blowes given before she will fall And indeed these disasters were seconded by the perfidous surrender of many Townes and strong Holds to the French king who now encouraged by these successes marcheth into Champaigne where by composition he tooke Troyes the chiefe City of that Province Chalto●s rebelleth and enforceth their Captaine to yield it up by whose example the Citizens of Rhemes doe the like where the French king is anew Proclaimed and with accustomed ceremonies Anointed and Crowned whereupon many Townes submit themselves to him and revolt from the English Upon this the Duke of Bedford to make the French know that all the English strength consisted not in onely Salisbury and Talbot with ten thousand English besides Normans marched out of Pa●is and sent letters of defiance to the French king affirming that deceitfully and by unjust meanes he had stolne many Cities and places of importance belonging to the Crown of England which he was come to justifie by battell if he would appoint a time and place To which the
was one great branch of assistance lopt off from the English which had been a great meanes before to make it flourish and it was not so much that the assista●ce was taken from the English as that it was added to the French for after this the Duke of Burgoig●e brought more assistance to the new king of France than ever he had done before to the King of England By which we may see when the Divine Providence hath a worke to effect what slight occasions it oftentimes takes to effect the worke Great blowes had been given before in France to the English fortune by the enemie but now a blow was given to it by Destiny which made the Enemyes blowes the more incurable for now the wise valiant faithfull Regent of France Duke of ●●●ford Anjou and Alans●n Earle of Mayne Harcourt Drieux Richmond and Carlile and Viscount Be●mont upon the fourteenth of September 1435 ended his life at P●ris which was in a manner the ending the life of the English fortune in France all former blowes had beene upon inferior members but this was a blow upon the head and therefore mortall and indeed the English fortune in France never 〈◊〉 li●●ed up its head but very weakely He was buried in our Ladies Church at 〈◊〉 whereat the Nobility of Normandy much repined who would have had thei● owne Territory honored with his Sepulchre yet see the levity of these men who a few years after in the Reigne of Lewis the Son of Charles would have had his Monument to have beene demolished as being dishonorable such an Arch enemie to France should be Interred in the Metropolitan Citie of that Province But 〈◊〉 answered God forbid I should give way to so dishonorable an act to disquiet his dead bones who living would have disquieted us all and it savours of too much basenesse to insult upon a dead Lyon But yet in these disasters there might have beene some reparation by a good Succe●●or had not Envy and Ambition bred disturbance the Duke of Somerset desired the Succession but the Duke of Yorke obtained it which bred such an envy in the Duke of Somerset towards him that he laboured nothing so much as to crosse his designes and was a means to hinder the Duke of Yorkes going to his charge so long th●● the P●risians had time to thinke of freeing themselves from the English servi●●de and thereupon the Citie after it had remained seventeen yeares in the posses●●●● o● the English yeilds to the Constable and upon composition expels all the English and which was worse many other Towns followed this example of Paris for what Town would not willingly do as Paris did the epitome as it were of all France and which they stick not to call Le Monde de Paris as though there were upon earth no o●h●r world but Paris Even the Normans who had alwaies been most firm to the English y●● had run the ●ame course if the Lord Talbot had not kept them in awe with the ●laughter of five thousand of them that way inclined And now after thes● great losses we must be content to play smaller game cast at Castles and Forts and some small Towns like the strugling of dying men doing acts of life till there be no more life remaining And this was now our case in France The new Regent with eight thousand Souldiers arrived at Harfl●w and from thence marcheth to 〈◊〉 where he wonne the reputation of justice and uprightnesse notwithstanding all the calumniations of the Duke of Somerset when the revolted Duke of 〈◊〉 pretending title to the Town of Callis approacheth it with an Army of forty thousand men takes the poore ●●stile of Oy● and slaughters and hangs many of the ●●fendants The ●●xards besieged the Castle of St. Mark● tooke it and demolished it● from thence they begirt Callis with a ●iege but were repelled Then the Duke of B●rgoig●e sent the Lord Croy to besiege the Castle of Guysnes● but were repelled th●r● also In the meane time Pembroke the Herald brought a defiance to the Duke of ●urgoigne from the Duke of Glocester the Protector that he would give him battell if he would abide it to whom the Duke of Burgoigne answered he should be 〈◊〉 to finde him where he now was Whereupon he calleth a Councell and whilst they are debating what is best to be done the Calliciens make a sallye take the Ba●●●●● which they had builded by force and slew eight score of the Burgoig●ians which so terrified them that they upbraid the Duke of Burgoigne and make both him ●nd the Lord Croy to quit their quarters and in such haste to be gone that they left ●●reat part of their best Ordnance and all their Provision for the reliefe and helpe of the besieged and it seemes they had reason so to do for the next day being the s●ven and twentieth of Iuly the Duke of Glocester landed at Callis with five and twenty thousand good fighting men who finding the enemy recolled forraged all the Countrey thereabout and for the space of sixe weekes ●arrowed all th● parts of Fl●●ders Arthol● and Hainault and then returning by St. Omers Arde and G●●s●es arrived at Callis And now we must look a little home for the D. of Yorke returning into● E●gl●n● findes the Castle of Roksborough be●ieged by the King of Scots with thirty th●usand men but he hearing of the Earle of Northumberlands app●o●ch and the Dukes returne incontinently fled And now againe to France where the Towne of H●rflew was sold to the French but the Duke of Somerset and the Lord Talbot besetting it both by sea and land though the Earle of Ewe and the Bastard of Orleance and Bourbon wi●h foure thousand men came to relieve it yet upon composition it was surrendred And here we may have leave to speake of a private matter for about this time the Dutchesse of Bedford married Sir Richard Woodvile a gallant young Gentleman but of small meanes which though it offended her friends yet it seems offended not God who made her mother of many children by him and amongst the rest of the Lady Elizabeth afterwards married to King Edward the fourth Also about this time Iames King of Scots who before had beene eighteene years Prisoner in England and afterward released with a wife of a noble house a great Dowre and many honorable Presents yet proved ungratefull was murthered in his bed-chamber by night whose murtherers being found out were cruelly tortured And now againe to France when the Duke of Burgoigne could neither by force nor policie take C●llice he attempted a ridiculous practise to cut a ditch that should drow● both the Town and Country but after much labour and expence his designe like a vapour vanished into ayre The Lord Talbot besieged Tankervile and after foure moneths siege hath it rendred to him In revenge whereof the French King in his owne person layes siege to Monstreau which whil'st the Duke of Yorke was providing to rescue he was
the Dutchesse of Bedford and the Lady Scole● to intercede for h●m to the Queen and to excuse his not using force considering how dangerous it might be in these doubtfull times to stirre their fury that would not easily be a●layed It was well advised to send women to intreate a woman for by this means they prevailed that some of the Lords of the Counsell with a guard of foure hundred good souldiers were appointed to goe for London to enquire and certifie of these things when suddenly news was brought that the Earle of March with a great Ar●y was marching towards them for the Earle of VVarwicke having gathered together his scattered troops and joyned with the Earle of March they hasted towards Lo●don and were joyfully received upon the eight and twentieth day of February and upon Sunday the second of March the Earle of Warwick mustred all his army in S. Iohn's field and having cast them into a ring read unto them the agreement of the last P●●liament and then demanded whether they would have King Henry to raign still who all cryed no no then he asked them whether they would have the Earle of March eldest sonne of the Duke of Yorke by that Parliament proclaimed King to raigne over them who with a great clamor cryed yea yea● Then went there certaine Captaines and others of the Citty to the Earle of March at Baynards Castle to acquaint him with w●at was passed who at first seemed to excuse himselfe a● unable to exec●●e so grea● a charge but animated by the Archbishop of Canterbury the Bishops of London and Exeter and the Earle of VVarwick he at last consented to take it upon him and thereupon the next morning he wept in Procession at Pauls and offered there and after Te Deum sung he was in great state conveyed to VVestminster and there in the great Hall seated in the Kings seat with the Scepter of St. Edw●●d in his hand and then again the people of whom there was a great concourse were aloud demanded if they would acknowledge him to be their King to which with great willingnesse they all cried yea yea Then taking homage of divers Noblemen there present he was with Procession and great solemnity conveyed to the Abbey and placed in the Qui●e as King whil'st Te Deum was singing That done he offered at St. Ed●ards Shrine and then returned by water to Pauls and was lodged in the Bishops Pallace and upon the fou●th of March he was generally Proclaimed King by the name of Edward the Fo●r●h And here in the course of all Writers ends the Reigne of King He●ry the Sixth that it may be truly sayd never any came to be King so soone ●fter his birth nor left to be King so long before his death for he came to be King at eight mon●ths old and he left to be King living twelve years after There was indeed in that space of time a certaine Vicissitude sometimes a King and sometimes no King the passages wher of must be related in the following Kings Reigne Of hi● Taxatio●s IN the first yeare of his Reigne a Parliament was holden at London where the Queen Mother with the young king in her lap came and sate amongst the Lords and there was then granted a Subsidie of five Nobles upon every sacke of wooll that should passe out of the Land for three years but if carried out by Merchant strangers then to pay three and forty shillings for every sacke In the third year of his Reigne a Parliament was holden at Westminster wherein was granted a Subsidie of twelve pence in the pound of all Merchandize comming in or passing out of the Realme and three shillings of a Tonne of Wine for the terme of three years In his sixth year in a Parliament at Wes●●inster was granted a Subsidie of every Tonne of Wine three shillings● and of other Merchandize except Wooll Fell and Cloth twelve pence in the pound Also of every Parish through the Realme except Cities and Boroughes the Benefice being in value ten Markes Tenne of th●t Parish shall pay sixe shillings eight pence and of every Benefice of the value of ten pounds ten Parishioners should pay thirteen shillings foure pe●ce and so rateably of every Benefice from the lowest to the highest And for the Inhabitants of Cities and Boroughes every man being worth twenty shillings above his housholdstuffe and the apparell of him and his wife should pay foure pence and so after that rate to the richest Of L●wes and Ordi●ances in his time IN this kings time the Lord Major of Lond●● first began to go by water ●o Lo●do● where before they used to go by land Also in this Kings Reigne the Art of Printing wa● first found at Mog●●ce in Germa●y by a knight called Iohn Cuttenberghe● and brought into England by William Caxton of Lo●don Mercer who first practised the same in the Abbey at Westminster in the yeare 1471. In the 23 yeare of his Reigne in a Parliament then holden it was Enacted that when Wheat was so●d for six shillings eight pence the quarter Rye for fo●●e shillings and Barley for three shillings It should be lawfull for any man to carry the sayd kindes of Corn into the parts beyond the Sea without license so it were not to the kings enemies or Rebel● which Act was afterward confirmed by king Edward the Fourth Affa●●es of the Church in his time A Great Schisme was in the Church in this kings time by reason of Anti-popes for remedy whereof a Councell is called at Co●sta●ce to which the Emperors of Constanti●ople and Trabiz●nd send their Amba●●adors In this Councell Ioh● the three and twentieth is convented condemned deposed and imprisoned Gr●gory the twelveth and Benedict the thirteenth are deprived and Otho Colonn● by the name of Martin the fifth is chosen Pope During these confusions in the Westerne Church the Christians in the Easterne Church are utterly ruinated The Emperor smothered to death in a prease of people and the great City of Constantinople wonne by the Turke made ever since the seate of his Empire In the six● and thirtieth yeare of this king Reynold Peacocke Bishop of Chichester who had laboured many yeares in Translating the holy Scripture into English was accused and convicted for holding and publishing certaine opinions at that time held Hereticall which at last openly at Pauls Crosse he revoked That he had held there was no necessity to believe that Christ descended into Hell also no necessity to believe in the communion of Saints or that the Universall Church cannot erre in matters of Faith or that it is necessary to believe and hold whatsoever a Generall Councell shall determine Also that he had held that spirituall persons ought to have no Temporall Possessions and that personall Tythes were not due by Gods Law these Points he openly renounced but was notwithstanding deprived of his Bishopricke only a certaine Pension was assigned him to live on in an Abbey where soone after he dyed
great to enter the Bay he caused certaine Boa●es to be manned forth thinking thereby to toule out the French but when this neither would draw them to come abroad he then called a Councell where it was determined that first they should assayle Prior Iohn and his Gallies lying in Blankesable Bay and after set upon the rest of the French Flee●e in the Haven of Brest and it was further appointed that the Lord Ferrers Sir Stephen Bull and others should go on land with a convenient number to assault the Bulworkes which the French had there made while the Admi●all with Row B●rges and little Gallies entred into the Bay that so the Frenchmen might at once be assailed both by sea and land But though this were determined by the Councell of Warre ●et the Lord Admirall had a trick by himselfe for by the advise of a Spanish Knight called Sir Alphonso Charunt affirming that he might enter the Bay with little danger he called to him William Fi●s-VVilliams VVilliam Cooke Iohn Colley and Sir VVolston Browne as his most trusty friends making them privy to his intent which was to take on him the whole enterprize with their assistance only and so confident he was of successe that he wrote to the King to come thither in person to have the honour of the enterprize himselfe but it seemes the King had better Fates at least went not and thereupon on Saint Marks day the Admirall put himselfe in a small row B●rge and appointing three other small row Ships and his own Ship-boat to attend him and therewith on a sudden rowed into the Ba● where Pryor Iohn had moored up his Gallies just to the ground which Gallies with the Bulworks on the land shot most cruelly yet the Admirall went on and comming to the Gallies drove out the French-men The Bay was shallow and the other ships by reason the Tide was spent could not enter which the French-men perceiving they entred the Gallies againe with Morris Pikes and began a new fight whereupon the Admirall attempting to returne back into his row B●rge which by violence of the Tide was driven downe the streame with a Pike was throwne over boord and drowned the just issue of his head-strong enterprize the forenamed Alphonso was also there slaine upon which sorrowfull accident the Lord Ferrers with the rest returned into England After whose departure Pryor Iohn came forth with his Gallies and coasting over the borders of Sussex burnt certaine poore Cottages● but the King made suddenly a new Admirall the Lord Thomas Howard eldest Brother to him that was drowned sonne and heire of the Earle of Surrey who so skowrd the seas that the French were no more to be seen on any coast of England King Henry had hitherto performed Acts of Armes though in Jest yet with great magnificence he will not performe them with lesse being now in earnest and especially to deale with so potent aa adversary and therefore when it was concluded by Parliament that he should make a Warre in France himselfe in p●rson he sent before to prepare the way for him George Talbot Earle of Sh●ewsbury high Steward of his Houshold accompanied with the Lord Thomas Stanley Earle of Derby the Lord Dowckeroy Pryor of Saint Iohns Sir Robert Ratcliffe Lord Fitswater the Lord Hastings the Lord Cobham Sir Riceap Thomas Sir Thomas Blunt Sir Richad Sacheverell Sir Iohn Digby Sir Iohn Askew Sir Lewis Bagot Sir Thomas Cornwall and others to the number of eight thousand who arrived at Callice about the middle of May after him in the end of May followed Sir Charles Somerset Lord Herbert Lord Chamberline accompanied with the Lord Percy Earle of Northumberland the Lord Gray Earle of Kent the Lord Stafford Earle of Wiltshire the Lord Dudley the Lord Delaware Sir Edward Hussey Sir Edward Dimmock Sir David Owen with others to the number of six thousand These Generalls joyning together issued out of Callice and on the two and twentieth day of Iune sate downe before the strong Towne of Terwin which City was strongly fortified and in it was Governour the Lord Poultreny who had with him six hundred Horsemen and five and twenty hundred Almans besides the Inhabitants Here at the very first happened two disasters to the English one that the Baron Carew was slaine with a shot from the Towne the other that Sir Nicholas Va●x and Sir Edward Belknappe coming from Guys●es with four and twenty Carts of Provision were set upon by the Duke of Vendosme Lieutenant of Picardie and many of the English slaine and the Provision taken In this state was the English Campe at Terwin when King Henry the last day of Iune came himselfe to Callice and on the one and twentieth of Iuly took the field having in his Army of fighting men not above nine thousand but with Pyoners and others that attended the Cariages eleven thousand and three hundred men His foreward was led by Charles Brandon Viscount Lisle his maine Battaile by himselfe and Sir Henry Guildford carried his Standard and in this order he marched forward to the siege of Terwin entring upon the French ground the five and twentieth of Iuly On the morrow after by negligence of the Carters that mistook the way a great Gunne called the Iohn Evangelist was overthrowne in a deep Pond of water aud could not at that time be recovered but a few dayes after the Master Carpenter taking with him a hundred labourers went and weyed it up but having carted it ready to bring away was set upon by eight hundred French and the most of his company slaine the Gunne was taken by the French and carried to Bulloyne In the French Army were to the number of eleaven thousand footmen and four thousand Horse whereof were Captaines the Lord De la Palyce the Lord De Priennes the Duke De Longuevyle the Earle of Saint Paul the Lord of Floringes the Lord of Clermont and Richard De la Poole an English man sonne to Iohn Duke of Suffolke The Armies were come within two miles one of another and some light skirmishes passed between them specially one on a day called the dry Wednesday for the day was wonderfull hot and the King with his Army stood in order of battaile from six a clock in the morning till three in the afternoone after this the King removed towards Terwyn and as the Army marched another of the Kings Bombards of Iron called the Redde Gunne was overthrowne in a lane and there left which the French understanding went with a great power to fetch it away as they had done the other but the Lord Berners Captaine of the English Pyoners prevented them and though set upon by the French to the number of nine or ten thousand yet by the valour of the Earle of Essex and Sir Riceap Thomas with the bold adventures of Sir William Tyler and Sir Iohn Sharpe they recovered it and brought it safe to the Campe. On the fourth of August K. Henry came before the city
of Terwyn where he strongly fortified his Tents with Ord●ance and other Warlike defences In which meane time the Captaine of Bulloigne knowing that many of the Garison of Callice were gone with the King thought to take advantage of ●heir absence and do some great exploit upon Callice and therupon with a thousand men came to New●ha● Bridge and killing the watchmen tooke it but afterward some of his company going to fetch Booties and coming so neere the walls of Callice that they were descried about sixscore Coopers and other Artificers issued forth and driving them back recovered againe Newnham Bridge and took divers of them prisoners especially when the gate of Callice called Bulloign gate was opened that Colepepper the under Marshal with two hundred Archers issued forth and joyned with them The French prisoners were brought to Callice and there sold in open Market amongst others a Cooper of the Town of Callice bought a prisoner that dwelt in Bulloigne and had of the prisoner for his ra●some a hundred Crowns when the mony was paid the French man prayed the Cooper to see him safe delivered and to conduct him out of danger the Cooper was content and went himselfe alone with the French man till he came beyond the Cawsey and there would have departed but the French man perceiving that the Cooper was aged and that no rescue was nigh● by force tooke the Cooper prisoner ●●d caried him to Bulloigne making him pay two hundred Crownes before h● was delivered Whilst King Henry lay thus at the siege of Terwyn on the eleventh of Au●●●● the Emperour Maximilian was come to Ayre which King Henry understanding went and met him between Ayre and the Campe where with great complements they saluted each other but their complements were broken off by ●●e extreame foule weather which happened that day the morrow after the Emperour Maximilian came from Ayre to the Kings Campe wearing a Crosse of Saint George as the Kings Souldier and receiving wages of him for service an honour never done to any King of England before and yet was no disparagement to the Emperour for he was royally received and lodged in a Tent of cloath of gold that as no Emperour before had ever been souldier to a King so no souldier before was ever lodged in such a Tent. At this time the City of Terwyn being in some distresse for want of victualls the French King appointed all his horsemen to the number of eight thousand to see victualls by any means convoyed into it the charge of which Convoy was committed to Monsieur De Priennes but King Henry by advise of the Emperour Maximilian had made Bridges to passe his men over the river to the other side of the Towne where was easiest accesse in such sort that when the French Convoy came with their victualls and thought to have entred the Towne they found the English Army there ready to resist them whereupon a fierce battell was fought between them but in conclusion the French were put to flight and fled so fast that from thence it was called the battell of Spurres for that they used more their spurres in running away then theit Launces in fighting In this battell the Duke of Longuevyle the Lord of Clermont Captaine Bayard and others to the number of twelve score were taken prisoners and all brought to the Kings presence with six Standards that were likewise taken After the battell the King made Sir Iohn Pechye Banneret and Iohn Carre Knight who had both of them done great service in this encounter King Henry having obtained this victory against the French horsemen and hindred the Towne of Terwyn from reliefe of victualls and withall plying his battery more fiercely then before made the Townsmen soone fall to desire composition and upon condition that the souldiers might depart with Horse and Armour they yeelded up the Towne into the Kings hands This was done on the eighteenth of August and the Earle of Shrewsbury entred the Towne the same night and set up the Banner of Saint George in the highest place of it in signe of victory and swore all the Townsmen to be true subjects to the King of England The four and twen●eth of August the King himselfe entred the Towne and dined in the Bishops Palace where it was resolved that the Walls and Fortifications of Terwyn should be raced and the Towne burnt all but the Cathedrall Church and the Pallace all the Ordnance was sent to Ayre to be kept there to the Kings use After this it was concluded that the King should lay siege to the City of Tourney whereupon he set forward in three battells the Eeale of Shrewsbury led the Vangard the King and the Emperour the Battaile and the Lord Chamberlaine the Re●eward In this order the Kings Army marched forwards towards Tourney by the way he went and visited the yong Prince of Castile and the Lady Margaret Governesse of the Prince in the Towne of Lisle where with all Mag●ificence or rather indeed Reverence he was entertained and after he had staied there three dayes he took his leave and being gone a mile and somewhat more out of the towne he asked where his Campe lay and no man there could tell the way and guide they had none the night was so darke and mystie by chance at last they met with a victualler comming from the Camp who was their guide and conducted them to it By which we may see to what distresse a great Prince may be brought by a little over-sight On the one and twentieth day of September the King removed his Campe towards Tourney and being come within three miles of the towne he sent Garter king of Armes to summon the towne but they though they had but few men of warre amongst them yet stood upon their guard whereupon the King begin it on all sides and made such firce batteries upon it that though it were written on the gates of the towne graven in stone Iamais tu ne as perdu ton Pucellege thou hast never lost thy Maidenhead yet now they were glad to loose it and in conclusion they sent a trumpet to require a Parley and then sued for mercy and yeelded it up and paid ten thousand pounds sterling besides for redemption of their liberties and then Master Thomas VVoolsey the Kings Almoner calling before him all the Citizens yong and old swore them to the King of England the number of whom was fourescore thousand This done the King entred into Tourney and calling into his presence Edward Guildford VVilliam Fitzwilliams Iohn Dansie VVilliam Tyler Iohn Sharpe VVilliam Hussey Iohn Savage Christopher Garnysh and some other valiant Gentlemen he gave to them the order of knighthood and then remembring the great entertainment the Prince of Castile and the Lady Margaret had given him at Lisle he would not be behinde them in such courtesie and thereupon in●ited them solemnly to his citie of Tourney whom at their coming he brought into the towne in great
of Christ was not Really present in the Sacrament after Consecration 2. That the sacrament might not truly ●e Administred under one Kind 3. That Priests entred into Holy Orders might marry 4. That vowes of Chastity entred into upon mature deliberation were not to be kept 5. That private Masses were not to be used 6. That Auricular Confession was not necessary in the Church T●is yeere also the Religion of St. Iohns in England commonly called the Order of Knights of the Rhodes was dissolved and on Assension day Sir William Weston Knight Prior of St. Iohns departed this life for thought as was reported after he heard of the dissolution of his Order for the King took all the lands that belonged to that Order into his owne hands in his six and thirtieth ●eere the Letany or Praecession was set forth in English with commandement by the King to be generally used in Parish Churches Workes of Piety done by him or others in his time UPon the suppressing of Abbeys King Henry instituted six new Bishopricks ●nd six Cathedrall Churches endowing them with convenient mainte●ance he also gave competent Pensions during their lives to such Riligious Persons as were turned out of their Cloysters he also insti●uted in both the Universities Professors of the Hebrew and Greek tongues of Divinity Civil-law and Physick allowing to each of them forty pound a yeer he also founded a Colledge at Cambridge he gave at his death a thousand markes to the poor and to twelve poore Knights of Windsore each of them twelve pence a day for ever and every yeere a long gowne of white cloath in the fifth yeer of this Kings reigne George Monor Major of London re-edified the decayed steeple of the Church of Waltham-stow in Essex adding thereunto a side Isle with a Chappel where he lieth buried on the North side of the Church-yard there he founded a faire Alms-house for a Priest and thirteen poor men and women giving them a weekly maintenance he also for the commodity of Travelours made a cawsey of timber over the marshes from Waltham-stow to Lock-bridg towards London In this Kings eighth yeer Richard Foxe Bishop of Winchester founded Corpus Christi Colledge in Oxford minding to have made it a house for Monkes but Hugh Oldham Bishop of Exceter perswaded him to make it rather a Colledge for Schollars and joyned with him in it contributing great sums of money towards it contenting himselfe with the name onely of a Benefactour In his seventh ye●r King Henry builded the town of Greenwich In this Kings time Cardinall Woolsey Founded two Colledges one at Oxford another at Ipswich to his Colledge at Oxford he had given foure thousand pounds Land a yeere but his Lands being all confiscate to the King the King tooke the Lands but yet gave to the Colledge a competent maintenance for a Deane eight Prebends and a hundred Fellowes which Colledge is now called Christ-Church and accounts King Henry for their Founder His Colledge at Ipswich was demolished This Cardinall also built Hampton-Court the chiefest at this day of all the Kings houses and built or enlarged White-hall called then Yorke-Place King Henry in his foure and twentieth yeer built his Mansio● House of Saint Iames where also he made a faire Parke This place before had ●eene an Hospitall of Sisters with whom the King compounded giving them Pensions during their lives In his thirtieth yeere Nicholas Gibson Gro●er then Sheriffe of London builded ● Free-School at Ratcliffe nere London with maintenance for a Master and an Usher ●e also builded an Alms-house there for fourteen poor and aged people In his one and thirtieth yeer Thomas Huntlow the then Sheriff of London gave certain tenements to the Haberdashers for finding of ten Almes-men of the same company In his six and thirtieth yeer Sir Iohn All●n who had been twice Major ● London and of the Kings Counsaile gave at his death to the Citty of London a rich Coller of Gold to be worn by the Major which Collor was first wor●e by S●r William Laxton on Saint Edwards day at the Election of the new Major who gave to every Ward in London twenty pounds to be distributed amongst poore Housholders besides to sixscore persons whereof threescore men to every one a gowne of broad-cloth and a black cap and threescore women to every one a gowne of the like cloath ●nd a white Kerchiffe In his eight and thirtieth yeer King Henry gave to the Citty of London for reliefe of poore people Saint Barthalomews Spittle the Church of the Gray-Friers and two Parish Churches the one at Saint Nicholas in the ●hambles the other Saint Ewins in Newgate-Marke● all to be made one Parish Church of the Gray-Fryers and in Lands he gave for the maintenance of the same five hundred markes a yeere for ever and this Church to be named Christ-Church founded by King Henry the eighth Casualties in his time IN his ninth yeere happened a Swea●ing-sicknesse whereof infinite multitudes in many parts of England dyed specially in London and was so violent that in three and sometimes two houres it tooke away mens lives and spared neither rich nor poore for in the Kings Court the Lord Clinton the Lord Gray of Wilton and many Knights Gentlemen and Officers dyed of it It began in Iuly and continued to the midst of December In his thirteenth yeere was a great mortality in London and other places of the Realme and many men of Honour and Worship dyed amongst others Doctor Fitz-Iames Bishop of London in whose place Doctor Tunstall succeeded In his nineteenth yeere by extremity of raine in seed-time there followed a great dearth of Corne which would have caused great calamity but that it was relieved in London by Merchants of the Styliard out of Germany and a thousand quarters supplied out of the Kings owne provision In his twentieth yeere in the end of May began in London another Sweating-sicknesse which afterwards infected all places of the Realme by reason whereof the Tearme was adjourned and the Cicuit of the Assizes also many dyed in the Court as Sir Fra●cis Poynts Sir William Compton Knights and William Carew Esquire of the Kings Privie-Chamber the King himselfe for a space removed almost every day till he came to Tittinhanger a place of the Abbot of Saint Albones where he with the Queene and a small number remained till the sicknesse was past In his thirtieth yeere the manner of casting Pipes of Lead for conveyance of water under-ground without using of soder was first invented by Robert Brocke Clerke one of the Kings Chaplaines a profitable invention for by this two men and a boy will doe more in one day then could have beene done before by many men in many dayes Robert Cooper Goldsmith was the first that made the Instruments and put this Invention in practice In a Rebellion in the North in this Kings time when the Duke of Nor●olke was sent with an Army against the Rebels and that a day o● battaile
and with it the Towne also had beene taken but that Sir Anthony Ager with the losse of his owne life and his eldest sonnes valiantly defended it and for that time repelled the French but their numbers increased so fast upon the Towne that the Lord Wentworth the Deputy seeing no other way of safty demanded Parlee where a composition was made that the Towne should presently be yeelded to the French King the lives of the Inhabitants onely saved with safe conduct to passe away saving the Lord Deputy with fifty other such as the Duke should name And here to be quit with the English for their hard usage at Saint Quintins the Duke caused Proclamation to be made that all and every person of the Towne should bring their money jewels and plate to the value of a groat and lay it downe upon the high Altar of the Church by which meanes an inestimable sum of treasure was there offered enough ●o enrich an Army which had before enriched a Towne and now to make it appeare how unable the Towne was to hold out against so great an Army It is said there were in it but onely five hundred souldiers of ordinary and scarce two hundred more of able fighting men but of other people men women and children foure thousand and two hundred all which were suffered to depart saving the Lord We●tworth the Deputy Sir Ralph Chamberlaine Captaine of the Castle Iohn Hu●●ston Captaine of Ricebruke Nicholas Alex●nder Captain of New●hambridge Edward Grimston the Controlour Iohn Rogers the Surveyour with others to the number of fifty who were al caried prisoners into France And thus Callice which had bin in possession of the English above two hundred yeers was won from the English in eight dayes which King Edward the third had not won from the French in lesse then a yeer The Lord Wentworth was suspected and in Queen Elizabeths time arraigned for betraying it was acquitted by his Peeres Callice thus won the Duke with his Army marched to Guysnes five miles distant whereof was Captaine the Lord Gray of Wilton who held out the siedge and batteries five or six dayes with so great valour and resolution that he appeared in nothing inferiour to the Enemy but in multitude yet a● last overlaid with their numbers and importunde by his souldiers much again●● his owne will he made composition that the Towne and Castle should be wholly rendered himselfe and all Officers remaine prisoners all other to depart with their Armour and Baggage The Lord Gray afterward ransomed for foure and twenty thousand crownes And now the Duke of Guise considering that Guysnes would be too costly a Castle to be kept and too dangerous a neighbour to Callice if it should be recovered raced it with the Bulwarkes and Fortifications to the ground Guysnes thus won there remained nothing within the English pale but the little Castle of Hammes whereof was Captaine the Lord Edward Dudley who considering that though it were naturally strongly scituate as being invironed with Fens and Marshes yet it had but little helpe● by Art of Fortifications and being assured that the Duke of Guyse would speedily come upon him he secretly in the night with all his garrison departed into Flanders so as the Castle was not won but taken by the Duke of Guyse and with the losse of this Castle the English lost all their footing in Terra firma and the Kings of England all the reality of their Title in France having nothing left but nudum nomen Presently after this the French King caused the mariage between his eldest sonne Francis the Dolphin and Mary Steward sole heire of Iames the fift King of Scotland to be solemnized whereupon great wars insued soon after between England and Scotland Queen Mary being infinitely troubled in minde for the losse of Callice sent presently forth her Admirall the Lord Clinton with a Fleet of more then a hundred sayle to recover at lest reparation in honour by doing some exploit upon France who not finding opportunity to set upon Brest as he was appointed fell upon the towne of Conquest which he tooke and bur●t and also divers Villages thereabouts and then returned In which meane time many great conflicts having been between King Phillip and the King of France at last by mediation of the Dutchesse of Lorraigne a treaty of Peace is agreed on where all things seemed to be well accorded but onely that King Phillip by all meanes required restitution of Callice to which by no means the French would assent but whilst they stood upon these termes it happened that first the Emperour Charles King Phillips father dyed and shortly after Queene Mary and the day after her Cardinall Poole and shortly after Sir Iohn Baker of Sissingherst in Kent who had been a Privie Councellour to Henry the eight Edward the sixth a●d Queen Mary And so our Story hath no further relation to either War or Peace between the two Kings of France and Spaine Of her Taxations SHEE began with a rare Example for in the first yeer of her Reign wa● pardoned by Proclamation the Subsidie of foure shillings the pound of Land and two shillings the pound of goods granted in the last Parliament of King Edward the sixth In her second yeer in a Parliament then holden was granted to the King and Queen a Subsidie of the Layitie from five pounds to ten pounds of eight pence in the pound from ten pounds to twenty pounds of twelve pence in the pound and from twenty pounds upwards sixteen pence in the pound all Strangers double and the Clergie six shillings in the pound If this were all then upon the matter in all her time there came to new charge upon her people for one Subsidie r●mit●ed and one received made but even In her last yeer she borrowed twenty thousand pounds of the City of London and paid twelve pounds a yeer interest for every ●undred pou●d Lawes and Ordinances in her time IN her first yeere on the fourth of September were proclaimed certaine new Coynes of gold and silver a Soveraigne of gold of thirty shillings the halfe Soveraigne fifteene shillings an Angell often shillings the halfe Angell five shillings Of silver the groat the halfe groat and penny all these Coynes to be currant as before In her second yeer Proclamation was made forbidding the shooting in Hand-guns and bearing of weapons The yeer in which she was married to King Phillip a straight charge was to all Victuallers Taverners and Alehouse-keepers that they should sell no Meat nor Drinke nor any kinde of Victuals to any Serving-man whatsoever unlesse he brought a testimoniall to shew whole servant he was Also in a Parliament holden this yeere amongst other Acts the Statute Ex Officio and other Lawes made for the punishment of Heresies were revived but chiefly the Popes Bull of Dispensation of Abbey Land was there confirmed In her second yeere on Michaelmas Eeven the Prisoners that lay in the Counter in Bredstreet were removed
to a new Counter made in Woodstreet of the Citie Purchase and building the which removing was confirmed by the Common Councell of the City Affaires of the Church in her time IN the first yeere of this Queenes reigne all Bishops which had beene deprived in the time of King Edward the sixth were restored to their Bishopriks and the new removed also all Benefized men that were married or would not forsake their opinion were put out of their Livings and other of a contrary opinion put in their roomes Also this yeere on the seven and tweetieth of August the Service begun to be sung in Latine in Pauls Church Also this yeere the Popes authority was by Act of Parliament restored in England and the Masse commanded in all Churches to be used In her second yeer the Realme is Absolved and reconciled to the Church of Rome by Cardinall Poole and first Fruits and Tenths are restored to the Clergy but this was soone revoked the Councell finding the necessity of it for the Queenes support In her fourth yeere Monasteries were begun to be reedified of which number were that of Westminster that of Sheene and Sion that of the Black-fryers and the Fryers of Greenwich Of the number of those that dyed for Religion in her time there are recorded five Bishops one and twenty Divines and of all sorts of men and women two hundred threescore and seventeene Workes of Pietie done by her or others in her time THis Queen restored a great part of Abbey-lands that were in her possession and if she had lived longer very likely she would have restored more In her first yeer Sir Thomas White then Major erected a Colledge in Oxford now called Saint Iohns Colledge before Bernard Colledge he also erected Schooles at Bristow and Reading and gave two thousand pounds to the City of Bristow to purchase Lands the profits whereof to be imployed for the benefit of young Clothiers for ten yeeres and after that to be imployed in like manner to the benefit of two and twenty other shires and Cities In her third yeere dyed Sir Iohn Gresham late Major of London who founded a free School at Holt in Nor●olke and gave to every Ward in London ten pounds to be distributed to the poore also to Maids marriages two hundred pounds Cutbert Tunstall Bishop of Du●ham erected a goodly Library in Cambridge storing it with many excellent both Printed and written Bookes he also bestowed much upon building at Durham at Alnewicke and at Tunbridge Casualties happening in her time IN her first yeere on the seven and twentieth of August the goodliest Ship in England called The Great Harrye being of the burthen of a thousand tun was burnt at Woolwich by negligence of the Mariners In her second yeer on the fifteenth of February appeared in the skie a Rainbow reversed the bowe turned downward and the two ends standing upward also two Sunnes shined at one time a good distance asunder which were taken for ill signes This yeere also in the moneth of August at a place in Suffolke by the Sea side all of hard stone and pibble lying betweene the Townes of Oxford and Alborough where never grasse grew not any earth was ever seene there chanced suddenly to spring up without any tillage or sowing so great abundance of Peason that the Poore gathered above an hundred quarters yet there remained some ripe and some blossoming as many as were before In her fourth yeer hot burning Agues and other strange diseases tooke away much people so as between the twentieth of October and the last of December there dyed seven Aldermen namely Henry Heardson Sir Richard Dob●s la●e Major Sir William Laxton late Major Sir Henry Hobblesterne late Majors Sir Iohn Champneys late Major Sir Iohn Aleph late Sheriffe and Sir Iohn Gresham late Major In her fourth yeer before Harvest Wheat was sold for foure Markes the quarter Mault at foure and forty shillings the quarter and Pease at six and forty shillings eight pence where after harvest Wheat was sold for five shillings the quarter Malt at six shillings eight pence Rye at three shillings foure pence the quarter In the Countrey Wheat was sold for foure shillings the quarter Mault at foure shillings eight pence and in some places a bushell of Rye for a pound of Candles which was foure pence In her fift yeer within a mile of Nottingham so mervailous a tempest of thunder happened that it beat down all the Houses and Churches in two Towns thereabouts cast the Bels to the outside of the Church-yard and some webs of Lead foure hundred foot into the field writhen as if it had been leather the rive● of Trent running between the two Townes the water with the mud in the bottome was carried a quarter of a mile and cast against trees with the violence whereof the trees were pulled up by the the roots and cast twelve score off also a childe was taken forth of a mans hand and carried two speares length high and then let fall two h●ndred foot off of which fall it dyed five or six men thereabouts were slaine and neither flesh nor skin perished also there fell some Hale-stones that were fifteen inches about This yeer also in Harvest-time was great mortality and specially of Priests so as many Churches were unserved and much corne was lost in the field for want of Workmen whereupon ensued a great scarcity so that corne was sold for fourteen shillings a quarter and Wood sold in London for thirteen shillings a thousand of Billets and Coles ten pence a sacke Also this yeer on the last of September fell so great store rain that Westminster Hall was full of water and Boats were rowed over Westminster-bridge into Kings-street Of her Personage and Conditions OF her Personage we can make no particular description only we may say she was none of the most amiable but yet without deformity but of her Conditions we may say she was not without deformity and yet was very amiable If we account her Religion a deformity yet her constancy and devotion in it we must needs count a beauty if it were a deformity to promise the Suffolke men not to alter the Religion w●ich King Edward had established yet it was certainly a Pious dissem●ling Cretizare cum C●etensibus and equivocation will some say was there a vertue where she deceived them into truth and did them good against their wils And as for her sister Elizabeth if she did not love her it was but a quality hereditary in her for their Mothers did not love one another before and indeed not without some cause in both for as those upbraided each others marriage so these each others birth We shall not doe her right if we deny her to be of a mercifull disposition seeing oftentimes she pittied the person where she shed the blood she could have found in her heart to have spared the Lady Ianes life if Ragion di●stato had not beene against it● and she did
colour of honour but indeed that they might be intrapped and they and together with them the Protestant Religion at one blow if not clean cutt off yet receive● deadly wound For the marriage being celebrated there presently followed that cruell Massacre at Paris and the terrible slaughter of the Protestants throughout all the Cities of France but to set a shew of equity upon the fact Edicts and Proclamations were presently set forth that the Protestants had plotted a wicked conspiracy against the King the Queen Mother the Brethren the King of Navarre and the Princes of the blood Royall and to keep the thing in memory Coyne was presently stamped upon the one side whereof was the Kings picture with this Inscription Virtus in Rebelles on the other side Pietas excitavit justitiam But the King of France notwithstanding all the shew hee made of Piety escaped not the Divine revenge for before the yeer came about hee fell sick of a bloody Flixe and afterwards with long and grievous torments ended his life A little before this Mota Fenell Embassador to the King of France being in England by vertue of an order from the Queen Mother of France propoundeth to Queen Elizabeth at Kenelworth two dayes before the Massacre in that Kingdome the marriage of her youngest sonne Francis Duke of Alenson for the Queen Mother had been told by some cunning men that all her sons should be Kings and she knew no way for it but this B●t Queen Elizabeth by rea●on of the disparity of age modestly excused her self For he was scarce ●eventeen yeers old and she was now past eight and thirty yet she promised to consider of it and Alenson did not leave to prosecute the ●●it At t●is time Thomas Percy Earl of North●mberland who first Rebelled and afterwards fled into Scotland was for a sum of money delivered by the Earl of Morton to the Lord Hunsdon Governour of Barwick and a while af●er was beheaded ●t York And now as these two great Personages the Duke of Norfolk● and the Earl of Northumberland were taken away by a violent death so three other great Personages were at this time t●ken away by a naturall death First W●ll●am Paulet who from a private man came by degree to be Marquesse of Winchester lived to the age of within three yeers of a hundred and could reckon a hundred and three of his children and his childrens issue after he had held the p●ace of Lord Treasurer of England above twenty yeers in whose roome succeeded Sir W●lliam Cecill Lord Burleigh then dyed Edmund Earle of Darby famous as well for his hospitality and good house-keeping as for his skill in Surgery and Bone-setting then dyed Sir William Peter who being descended from an honest stock at Exceter in Devonshire was Privy Counsellor and Secretary to King Henry the Eight Ki●g Edward the Sixth Queen Mary Queen Elizabeth who plant●d himself in Essex where he purchased grea● possessions whose son Iohn was by King Iames made Baron of Writle in that Country And now Q●een Elizabeth having formerly borrowed money o● her Subjects she thankfully repayd it which wonne her no lesse love then if she had given it and more love she gained also at this time by two Proclamations by one of which she commanded Noble men to observe the Law of keeping Ret●iners by the other she restrained Informers who under colour of spying out Crown Land concealed by private perso●s sacralegio●sly seized upon the Lands of Parish-Churches and Alms-Houses piously endowed by the Queens Ancestors And more Love and Honour also she gained at this time by two acts of Justice the one that she satisfied the English Merchants out of the goods which were det●ined belonging to the Dutch and restored the rest to the Duke D' Alva and make a full transaction with the Merchants of Geneva for the mon●y intercepted the other that she freed England at this time of the debts which her Father and her Brother had run into in forraign part● and were increased by yeerly interest and caused the obligations of the City of London which had so often been renued to be given in to the great rejoycing of the Citizens The Spanish affairs growing now very turbulent in the Netherlands Flushing lost the towns of Holland revolted and the Spanish Navy vanquished by the Zelanders Duke D'Alva against his will began to shew more kindnesse towards the English so as in the month of Ianuary the trade which in Anno 1568. had been forbidden was now allowed again between the Dutch and the English for two yeer● but those two yeers expired the English removed their trading to the confederates State● The last yeer in the month of November a daughter was born to the French King to whom he requested Queen Elizabeth to be God-mother who the●eupon sent William Somerset Earl of Worcester into France with a Font of massy Gold to stand as her Deputy at the Christning Hereupon and for that the Queen promised to observe the League strictly the French King and the Queen mother began to affect her more and more and the Duke D'Alenson wrote sundry love-letters to her the French King and His Mother interceding for the mariage with all earnestnesse It is true the Queen conceived divers reasons why it was fit for her to marry but the Courtiers for their own ends disswaded her as much from it at last the Queen Mother of France was wonderfull importunate that her sonne Alenson might have leave to come and see her● whereunto being wearyed with continuall Letters and Messages she gave her consent but upon condition that hee should not take it for any disgrace to him if hee returned without obtaining his suit But as soon as Queen Elizabeth had notice that his brother Henry was elected King of Poland and that the King of France was very sick shee gave intimation to Alenson by Edward Horsey Governour of the Isle of Wight that hee should not make too much haste into England but should first procure a peace by some meanes or other in France and declare by some notable Argument his good will towards the Protestants thereby to be the more welcome Ghest into England Hereupon a peace was concluded in France and in certain places the Protestants were allowed to exercise their Religion and then again the French King and the Queen Mother used all their endeavour to have the marriage go forward for they were very desirous th●t Alenson who was of a crooked and perverse disposition and prone to raise tumults might bee removed out of France and withall they requested of Queen Elizabeth that if the Duke of Angiou took his voyage into Poland by Sea hee might have publike caution to sail through the British Ocean To this last request she not only consented with all alacrity but also made offer of a Fleet to conduct him thither In the mean while Alenson fell sick of the Meazles which his mother signified to Queen Elizabeth by Count Rhets excusing him
into the Town their own Army sickly Victualls and Powder failing and that which most of all Sir Francis Drake not bringing the great Ordnance as he promised they departed from the Suburbs of Lisbon towards Cascais a little Town at the mouth of the River Tagus which Town Drake had taken this meane while who excused his not coming to Lisbon by reason of the Flat● he must have passed and the Castle of Saint Julian Fortified with fifty pieces of great Ordnance Neer this place they found threescore Hulke● of the Hause towns of Germany laden with corne and all manner of Munition which they took as good prize towards their charges in regard the Queen had forbidden them to carry Victualls or Munition to the Spaniard From hence they set sayle toward Virgo a forlorne Town by the Sea-side and pillaging all along that Quarter returned for England having lost in the Voyage of Souldiers and Marriners about six thousand yet not so much by the Enemy as by eating of strange fruites and distemper of the Climate It concerns the state of England to look at this time into the state of France for while those things were in doing between Spain and England the Popish Princes of France under pretext of defending the Catholike Religion entred into a combination which they called The holy League The purpose whereof was to root out the Protestants and to divert the Right of Succession to the Crown of France For they bound themselves to each other by oath to suffer no person but a Catholike to be King of France which was directly to exclude the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde if the present King without issue male should fail The head of this League was the Duke of Guise who having given some overthrows to the German Forces that came into France in aid of the Protestants was immeasurably extolled by the Clergie and others and grew to such a height of reputation that entring into Paris he made the King glad to leave the City and in an Assembly at Bloys to make him great Master of the French Cavalery and to consent by Edict to the cutting off the Protestants So as the King standing now in fear of him used means at last even in the very Court to have him murthered and soon after the Cardinall his brother to be strangled Hereupon so great a confusion followed that the people every where disobeyed the Magistrates and spoiled the Kings very Pallace at Paris Some Cities affected a Democr●cie others an Aristocracie but few liked of a Monarchy The Confederates in the mean while made a new Seal usurped the Royall Authority seized into their hands the best fortified places intercept the Kings Revenues call in Spanish Souldiers and in all places denounce war and violence against the King And the King in this case being forced to flye to the Protestant● for succour they then most wickedly by one Iames Clement a Monk made him away The King being ready to dye Declareth the King of Navarre to be his lawfull successor but the Confederates would exclude him as an open Heretick and yet whom to make choice of they cannot well agree some would have the Duke of Lorraine as being descended from the ancient Kings of France some th● Duke of Savoy as borne of the French Kings daughter a Prince Po●e●t and Couragious others would have the Duke of Guises brother that wa● murthered● others the King of Spain but the greatest part gave thei● voices for the C●rdinall of Bourbon who was one degree neerer al●yed to the slain King then the King of Navarre his Nephew He therefore was presently proclaimed King of France with the Title of Charls the Tenth but he being a Priest the King of Navarre also was at the same time proclaimed King of France who abode at Diepe a Sea Town of Normandy and doubted not to drive the Cardinall easily out of France The King of Navarre being thus raised in Dignity but weake in means implored Aid of the Queen of England offering to make a League Offensive and Defensive the Queen out of a pious respect to a King of her own Religion sent him presently two and twenty thousand pound sterling in Gold such a summe of Gold as he professed he had never seen at one time before and withall supplyed him with four thousand Souldiers under the command of Peregrine Lord Willoughby for Colonells she appointed Sir Thomas Wilford who was made Marsh●ll of the Field Iohn Boro●ghs Si● William Drury and Sir Thomas Baskervyle and gave them a months pay in hand Hereupon the Confederates whom the King had vanquished ● little before at Arques beyond all expectation began to quaile and the day before the Arrivall of the English they vanished away with this addition of Forces the King marcheth to Paris and being ready to enter the Citie causeth a retreat to be ●ounded as loath to have spoile made of a Citie which he hoped shortly should be his own Afterwards by the assistance of the English he wonne many Towns and then having marched at least five hundred miles on foot he gave them leave after a long winters service to returne into England In which Voyage of men of note dyed Captain Hunnings but of a naturall death also Stubbs he whose right hand was cutt off for writing the book against the Queens marriage and Sir William Drury slain by Master Boro●ghs in a single Combat where the quarrell was that he being but a Knight would take place of Boroughs that was the younger son of a Baron contrary to the Lawes of the English Gentry About this time Iames King of Scots with Queen Elizabeths good liking Espoused Anne the daughter of Frederick the second King of Denmarke by his Deputy but she afterward sayling for Scotland was by tempest cast upon Norway and there through continuall stormes forced to stay so as the King in the winter season set sayle thither that the marri●ge according to his vow might be accomplished within the yeer some were of opinion that those stormes were caused by witch-craft and was confirmed indeed by some witches taken in Scotland who confessed they had raised those stormes to keep the Queen from landing in Scotland and that the Earl of Bothwell had asked Counsell of them concerning the Kings end who was thereupon cast into prison but in a short time breaking loose occasioned new stirs in Scotland This yeer many Noble personages dyed Frances Countesse of Sussex sister to Sir Henry Sidney Sir Walter Mildway Chancellour and Vice-Treasurer of the Exchequer William Somerset Earl of Worcester so numerous in his off-spring that he could reckon more children of both Sexes then all the Earls of England Also Iohn Lord Sturton Henry Lord Compton and at Bruxels the Lord Paget At this time the Queen who was alwayes frugall strained one point of Frugality more then ever she had done before for upon the information of one Caermarden though Burleigh Leicester and Walsingham were
the like whereof had not been known in former Ages should not be drawn into Example In her fortieth yeer in a Parliament at Westminster were granted her by the Clergy three entire Subsidies and by the Laity as many with six fifteenths and Tenths In her two and fortieth yeer to furnish her self with money towards the Irish War she delegated certain Commissioners to confirm the Crown Lands to the possessors that held any of controverted Titles and to take money for the Confirmation thereby to take away the troubles by concealers who at this time were very busie Of her LAVVS and ORDINANCES IN a Parliament holden in her first yeer an Act was made That every person should go to Divine Service upon Sundayes and Holy-dayes or else pay twelve pence to the poor Also it was enacted That Bishops should not let the Lands of the Church longer then for one and twenty yeers or three Lives except to the Queen or her Successors In her third yeer Proclamation was made That the Teston coyned for twelve pence and in the Raign of King Edward embased to six pence should not be currant but for four pence the Groat but for two pence and the piece of two pence but for a penny And not long after all the said base Moneyes were called in and fine Sterling money was allowed for them after the Rate For Ireland also she coyned Sterling money where nine pence in England went for twelve pence there The Queen was the first that brought certain Counties to deliver Provision at a certain rate that so they might be freed from the Purveyors Also the first that granted allowance to Judges for their Circuit In her sixth yeer in a Parliament then holden it was made Treason to refuse taking the Oath of Supremacy yet with this limitation That by it the blood should not be dishonoured nor goods confiscate nor the Oath to be required of any Baron of the Kingdom Also this yeer by a Common Councell in London It was enacted That all such Citizens as from thenceforth should be constrained to sell their houshold-stuff Leases of houses or such like should first cause the same to be cried thorow the City by a man with a Bell and then to be sold by the common Outcryer appointed for that purpose and he to receive one farthing upon the shilling for his pains In her three and twentieth yeer she represseth by Proclamation excesse in apparell Gold Chayns and Clokes which men wore down to their heels The length of Swords was limitted to three Foot and Daggers to twelve Inches besides the Hilts. Buildings likewise in the Suburbs were restrained In-mates forbidden and expresse charge set forth That no dwelling house should be new built within three miles of any of the City Gates under pain of imprisonment and losse of the materialls In her time was set on foot by Sir Thomas Smith the Law made for the serving of Colledges with provision to the great benefit of those Scholasticall Societies In her two and fortieth yeer she setteth forth Proclamations against the Transportation of Gold or Silver wrought or unwrought according to the former Acts of Parliament in that case provided This yeer also she founded the Company of the East India Merchants and allowed them ample Priviledges In her three and fourtieth yeer all Monopolies are called in by Proclamation In her four and twentieth yeer severe Laws are made against Papists some inflicting death some fine and imprisonment In her eight and twentieth yeer a Proclamation was set forth prohibiting to sow Wo●d within eight miles of any of the Queens Houses and four miles off any Cities or Towns Corporate AFFAIRS of the CHURCH in her time ON Sunday the first of Ianuary next after the Queens coming to the Crown by vertue of her Proclamation the English Letany was read accordingly as was used in her Graces Chappell in all Churches thorow the City of London and likewise the Epistle and Gospel of the day begun to be read at Masse-time in the English To●gue Also in a Parliament holden in her first yeer the first Fruits and Tenths were restored to the Crown and the Supreme Government over the State Ecclesiasticall and the book of Common-Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments in the English Tongue was restored and by degrees the Protestant Religion was established The Bishops that refused the Oath of Supremacy were all removed and Protestant Bishops placed in their room It was enacted also That all persons should go to Divine Service upon Sundayes and Holy-dayes and a Fine of twelve pence imposed upon every one that should be absent and the same to be given to the poor In her fourth yeer the Queen was solicited by Pope Pius to send her Orators to the Councell of Trent which she refused as not acknowledging it a lawfull Councell In a Parliament holden in her eighth yeer it was enacted and by a generall consent declared That the Election of the Arch-bishops and Bishops in England together with their Consecration Confirmation and Investiture which some persons slanderously called in question was lawfull and Canonicall and that they were rightly and according to the Acts and Statutes of the Kingdom chosen and consecrated In her eleventh yeer there arose in England two contrary factions in Religion on the one side Thomas Harding Nicholas Sanders and other Divines that had fled out of England began to exercise the Episcopall Jurisdiction upon the Queens Subjects which they had derived from the Sea of Rome On the other side Colman Burton Hallingham Benson and other making profession of the pure Religion would allow of nothing but what was directly taken out of the Scriptures openly condemning the received Discipline of the Church of England together with the Church Liturgy and the very Calling of Bishops as savouri●g too much of the Romish Religion protesting in the Pulpi●s That it was an impious thing to hold any thing common with the Church of Rome and used all diligence to have the Church of England reformed in every point according to the Rule of the Church of Geneva These although the Queen commanded to be committed to prison yet it is incredible how upon a sudden their followers encreased known by the envious name of Puritans This sect so mightily encreased that in her sixteenth yeer the Queen and Kingdom was extremely troubled with some of the Clergy who breathing out nothing but Evangelicall parity cryed down the Ecclesiasticall Form of Government as a thing polluted with Romane dr●ggs and setting forth Books likewise Intituled The Admonition to the Parliament and the Defence of the Admonition they refused to resort to the Divine Service publikely in use and framed to themselves other Rites Whereupon the Queen to suppresse them whom by no means she liked commanded every where the severity of the Law touching the Uniformity of Common-Prayer to be put in execution and those books upon pain of Imprisonment to be delivered into the hands of the Bishops or some
Kings time also Sir Mermaduke Darrell being Lord of Fulmer a Town in Buckingham shire where was an old ruinous Church standing a mile distant from the Towne pulled downe that old Church and at his owne charge builded a faire new one in the Towne and furnished it with a Font a Pulpit and all Ornaments necessarie Also Thomas Watson of Halstead in the County of Kent Esquire new builded a faire Chappell on the North side of the parish Church of Halstead of Free-stone from the ground and gave to the Church foure new Bells and two Pulpits In his time also Doctor Aylmer Bishop of London and Elizabeth Countesse Doweger of Shrewesburie gave certaine summes of money towards the better maintenance of Sermons hereafter at Pauls Crosse As likewise Thomas Russell Draper gave ten pounds a yeare for ever to be given to unbeneficed Ministers that should preach there and to the same use George Bishop Stationer of London gave ten pounds a yeare more In this Kings time also the Citizens of London new builded Algate where pulling downe the old Gate they found many ancient R●ma● Coynes On the fi●●een●h of Iune 1614. dyed Henrie Earle of Northampton who built from the ground a house neare Charing-Crosse and dying was buried in the an●ient Chapp●ll of Dov●r Castle who in his life time founded three faire Hospit●lls and endowed them with large maintenance for ever one at Rysing in Norfolke for twelve poore women and a Governesse a second at Clun in Shr●p-shire for twelve poore men and a Governour● The third at Greenwich in ●ent for a Governour and twenty poore Almes-men In this Kings time also Master Robert Dowes of London Merchant Tayler give a competant maintenance for ever unto Sepulchers parish for the tolling of the great Bell and for finding some Devine to come to the prison of New-ga●e the mid-night before Execution and there to ring a hand Bell and put the prisoners in mind of their approaching death with a Christian remembrance and exhortation and the next morning to toll the great Bell from sixe a Clock till ten and then to ring it out when the Execution should be past He also established a free singing Schoole in Christs Hospitall for the better education of the poore children there● besides many other good deeds of Almes About the same time Robert Peake of London Gold-smith gave to Sepulchers Church a Communion Table of two yards long and three quarters and a halfe broad richly guilded over and at every corner imbost with pla●es of silver In this Kings foureteenth yeare William Iones of London Merchant gave about eight thousand pounds to found a Free-Schoole in Wal●s where he was born with Almes-houses and Pensioner● in London and a hundred pounds a yeare for ever to a learned Preacher in London ord●yning all things to bee ordered by the Company of Haberdashers whereof himselfe was free This yeare also the old ruinous gate called Aldersgat● was q●ite taken downe and new builded from the foundation to●wa●ds the b●●●●ing whereof William Par●et Merchant Taylor of London gave a thousand pounds In this Kings time also was erected a building neare to Chels●y● with a purpose to be a Colledge for Devines to study the Controversies of Religion but upon the second thoughts the Cage indeed stands finished but 〈◊〉 Birds have ever yet beene brought to sing in it and perhaps never will If any other deeds of Almes or publike benefit were done in this Kings time as perhaps there were many the Reader may be pleased both here and in other Kings Reignes● to adde them as hee meets with them for partly to this end I have digested this Chronicle into such severall Heads and Chapters Of Casualties happening in his time IN his first yeare on the seven and twentieth of April thirteen persons were slaine by mis-fortune with Gun-powder at the Gun-powder Mill in ●●driffe and much other hurt done in divers places This yeare also the plague in London was so great that from the three and twentieth of December 1602. to the two and twen●ieth of December following there dyed in London and the Liberties eight and th●rty thousand two hundred and foure and forty whereof the Plague thirty thousand five hundred threescore and eighteen of them in one week three thousand fourescore and tenne where the next yeare after though the City were encreased with great number of strangers yet there dyed that yeare of all diseases within London and the Liberties but onely foure thousand two hundred threescore and three persons In the second yeare of his raigne a strange accident happened to the terrour of all bloudy murtherers which was this one Anne Waters enticed by a lover of hers consented to have her husband strangled and then buried him secretly under the dung-hill in a Cow-house whereupon the man being missing by his neighbours and the wife making shew of wondring what was become of him It pleased God that one of the inhabitants of the Towne dreamed one night that his neighbour Waters was strangled and buried under the dung-hill in a Cow-house and upon declaring his dreame search being made by the Constable the dead body was found as he had dreamed and thereupon the wife was apprehended and upon examination confessing the fact was burned And now what hope can murtherers have of being concealed when they are subject to be discovered by any mans dreame The nineteenth of Ianuarie in his third yeare a great Porpus was taken at Westham in a small Creek a mile and a halfe within the Land and within few dayes after a Whale came up within eight miles of London whose body was seen divers times above water and judged to exceed the length of the largest ship in the River but when shee tasted the fresh water and scented the Land she returned into the Sea In his fourth yeare being the yeare 1607. a mighty west wind brought in the sea into the River of Severne with such violence that in some places of Somerset-shire and Glocester-shire the waters in divers Towns and Villages grew higher than the tops of their houses so as notwithstanding all courses that could be taken there were drowned in Somerset-shire 80. Persons and damages done to the value of twenty thousand pounds At Coventrie also the seventh of April so suddaine a flood came into the Suburbs and City that in one houre it rose in some places above 3 yards in height to the great damage and hurt of many and that which is much strange as it suddenly came so it suddenly abated so as in foure houres and a halfe it both came and went away In his 6. year being 1608. a frost began in Decem. which continued till April following with such violence that not onely the Thames was so frozen that Carts loden were driven over as on dry land but many fowles and Birds perished as also much herbage in gardens especially Artichoaks and Rosemarie were destroyed This year also the 11. of April a Malt-house in the Town of
St. Edmonds berry being by chance set on fire continued burning till it had consumed 160. houses but by the Kings bountifulnesse giving 500. loads of timber and the City of Londons reliefe the Towne was forthwith new builded in a fairer manner than it was before In the yeare 1613● on the seventeenth of April in the parish of St●ndish in Lancashire a mayden child was borne having foure legges foure armes two bellies joyned to one back one head with two faces the one before the other behind like the picture of Ianus This year also on the 26. of Iune in the parish of Christs-Church in Hampshire on Iohn Hitchel a Carpenter lying in bed with his wife a yong child by them was himself the child both burned to death with a suddain lightning no fire appearing outwardly upon him and yet lay burning for the space of almost three dayes till he was quite consumed to ashes This yeare also on the seventh of August the Towne of Dorchister was quite consumed with fire begun on the house of a Tallow Chandler destroying all the houses except a few neare the Church and all their wares and goods to the value of two hundred thousand pounds yet not any man or woman perished About the same time also the Play-house called the Globe upon the Banks side neare London was quite consumed with fire by discharging a Piece of Ordnance and yet no man hurt and about foure years after a new built Play-house neare Golding-lane called the Fortune was by negligence of a Candle cleane burnt to the ground In the year 1614. the Town of St●atford upon Avon was burned and left the water should be behind in doing of mischiefe so great Iundations were at this time in Norfolke and Lincoln-shire that the sea entred twelve miles into the land In the yeare 1612 on the 18. of Novemb. a Blazing star bgan to be seene in the South-east about five a clock in the morning the flame or streame whereof enclined towards the west This comet in the opinion of D. B●mbridge the great Mathematician of Oxford was as far above the Moon as the Moon is above the earth what i● portended is onely known to God but the sequell of it was that infinite slaughters and devastations followed upon it both in Germany and other Countries In the year 1622 on Friday the 24. of October a Roman Catholike Priest preached in the after-noon at Hunsdon house in the Black Friers in London in an upper chamber where there were assembled above 300 men and women when about the middle of the Sermon a great part of the Floore brake and fell down with such violence that it brake down the next floor● under it in the fall whereof were slain the Preacher and almost 100● of his Auditors besides as many more hurt In this Kings time course paper commonly called white brown paper was first made in Engl. specially in Surry about Winsor Of his Wife and Children HE married Anne the daughter of Frederick the second King of Denmarke whose marriage was there solemnized in the yeare 1589. By whom he had borne in Scotland two Sons Henrie who dyed before him and Charles who succeeded him in the Crown and one daughter named Elizabeth married to Frederick the fi●th of that name Count Palatine of the Rheine by whom she had many children both Sons and Daughters King Iames had also by his wife Queen Anne two other daughters borne in England the Lady Marie and the Lady Sophia who both dyed young● the Lady Marie at about three yeares old the Lady Sophia the next day after she was borne and were both of them buried with great solemnity in the Chappell Royall at Westminster Of his Personage and Conditions HE was of stature somewhat higher than ordinary of a wel compacted body of an Ambourne haire of a full and pleasing vi●age● in his latter dayes enclining to be fat and bu●ley● of bodily exercises he tooke most delight in hunting● which yet some thought hee used rather as a retiring himselfe from the importunity of Sta●e affaires than for any great pleasure hee took in it It is said he had such a fashion in riding that it could not so properly bee said he rid as that his horse carried him for hee made but little use of his Bridle and would say a horse never stumbled but when hee was reined Hee was of an admirable pregnancie of wit and that pregnancy much improved by continuall study from his child-hood by which he had gotten such a promptnesse in expressing his mind that his extemporall speeches were little inferiour to his premeditated writings Many no doubt had read as much and perhaps more than he but scarce ever any concocted his reading into judgement as he did by which hee became so judicious that though hee could not Prophesie yet he could presage and his Conjectures were little lesse than Oracles In all the Liberall Sciences hee was we may say a Master of Arts but in Divinity a Doctor as he made appeare in the Conference at Hampton Court and is seene still by the learned Writings he hath le●t behind him And as for that part of the Politicks which concernes Monarchie Regere Imperio populos which himselfe used to call King Craft in this he excelled Hee knew how to take the inclinations of the people at their first bound and never suffer them to rise higher than hee could well reach them nor to grow stronger than he could either alter or divert them He would be sure to keep his Subjects in a temper of contentment which if he could not doe by preventives he would by lenitives He was so wise that hee could dissemble without seeming a Dissembler be free in opening his mind and yet keep counsaile He was as a provident Pilot that in a calme would provide for a storme and you should never finde him committing the fault of Non p●taram He was both Marti Mercurio but not tam morti quam Mercurio as being of his temper who said Cedant Arma Toga and indeed seeing peace is the end of both It were not wisedome to seeke it by Armes if it may be had by the Gowne as it is in the Aphorisme Consili● omnia experiri prius quam Armis sapientem Decet That which was bountie in him being a King would have beene frugality if he had beene a private person there being of both one radicall reason Of all the Morrall vertues he was eminent for chastity in which the Poet seemes to include all vertu● where he saith Nulli fas casto sceleratum in sistere limen By nulli casto meaning no vertuous person it was a manifest argument of his being an excellent Prince that comming next to the admirable Queen Elizabeth which was in a manner to compare them together yet there appeared no inequallity that it might not untruely be said King Iames was but the continuation of Queen Elizabeth the same vertue though different sexes and now to
Humiers Roy C●wn● ●●●court No●ll Bonciqualt to the number in all of fifteen hundred On the English part were slaine Edward Duke of York and the Earle of Suffolk and not full six hundred in all but saith C●xt●n not above six and twenty in all and Paulu● Aemilius saith besides the two Lords onely two Knights and but ten private souldiers in all a Miracle rather then a Victory But not onely K. Henry was the death of the French Lords before-named in the field with his sword but of another great Prince at home with his Victory for Lewis the Dolphin eldest sonne of Ch●rles the sixth king of France presently upon it without any other cause apparent fell sick and dyed Yet king He●ry to make his enemies the better contented with their overthrow and to take away the envy of his Victory at his returne into England with his Prisoners which was on the sixt of November following he presently gave straight order that no Ballad or Song should be made or sung more then of Thanksgiving to God for his happy Victory and safe Returne but without words of either disgracing the Fre●ch or extolling the English At his entrance into London the City presented him with a thousand pounds and two Basons of Gold worth five hundred pounds more The bodies of the Duke of Yorke and the Earle of Suffolke were brought into England and the Dukes buried at Fodringhey in Northamptonshire the Earles at New-Elm● in Oxfordshire About this time the Emperour Sigismond Cosin-german to king Henry having been first in France came accompanid with the Archbishop of Rhemes Ambassador from the French king into England for whom there were thirty great ships sent from the King to waft him over but approaching to land at Dover the Duke of Glocester with a company of Gentlemen having their swords drawn s●ept up to the knees in water saying to him That if he came as the Kings friend he should be welcome but if as claiming any jurisdiction they would resist him whereupon the Emperour renounceth all Imperiall Authority and is thereupon admitted to land and received with as much honour as could be done him and afterward together with Albert D●ke of Holland who was lately likewise arrived at Winchester is elected Companion of the Order of the Garter and sa●e in their Cells at the solemnity of the Feast A principall cause of the Emperors comming was to mediate a Peace between England and France wherein he had brought king Henry to a good degree of inclination till newes came of the besieging of Harflew by the French and of the Earle of Armi●iacks setting upon the Duke of Exceter being Governour there and then he presently grew so averse from Peace that he would hearken no more to any Treaty of it Not that he misliked they should treat of Peace with their swords in their hands as all wise men would doe but that to treat of Peace and in the time of the Treaty to do● acts of Hostility was an affront to all honesty and not to be tolerated with any patience And now the Earle of Arminiack having set downe before the Towne the Vice-Admirall of France brought up the whole Navy of the French with intent whilst the Earle should assaile it by land to have entred the Towne by the waters side but of this purpose the valour and diligence of the Duke of Exce●er prevented them A●●oone as king Henry had intelligence hereof he would presently have gone himself but being disswaded by the Emperor he sent his brother the Duke of Bedford with the Earles of March Oxford Huntington Warwick Arundell Salisbury De●●●shire and divers others with two hundred Saile to the rescue of Harflew who upon the Feast of the Assumption of our Lady came to the mouth of the River Seyne whereupon Norbo● the French Admirall set forward and got the mouth of the Haven and here began a Fight which was resolutely maintained on both sides untill the English having sunke five hundred Vessels one and other of the French and taken three great Carricks of Genoua wonne the harbour and at last though with some opposition made by their Gallies relieved Har●lew and made the Earle of Arminiack glad to raise his Siege Upon the news hereof the Emperor desisted from mediating any further for Peace with France and entring into a League defensive and offensive with king Henry wherein onely the Pope was excepted on the 19 of October he departed towards Germany whom king Henry accompanied to Callis whither the Duke of Burgundy came to confirme the League concluded on before by the Earle of Warwick and him concerning Flanders and Arthois only In the meane time the French had hyred divers Carracks and other great ships of the Geno●aes and Italians which joyning with the french-fleete lay at the mouth of the River of Seyne under the command of Iaques Bastard of Bourbon to hinder all succors from comming to Har●lew but Iohn Earle of Huntington sonne to the Duke of Exeter beheaded at Cicester being sent to s●oure the coasts encountred with him and after a long fight tooke him Prisoner and three of his great Carricks with all the money for the halfe yeers pay of the fleete and sinking three other of his Carricks and dispersing the rest cleered the mouth of the River and then returned to the king at Southampton And now upon the twenty third of July in the ●ourth yeere of his Reigne the king himselfe with the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester the Earles of Huntington Warwick Devo●shire Salisbury Suffolke and Somerset the Lords Rosse Willoughby Fits-hugh Clynton Scroope Matrevers Bourch●er Ferrers of Groby Ferrers of Chartley Fa●hope Grey of Codnor Sir Gilbert Vmphrevile Sir Gylbert Talbot and an Army consisting of twenty five thousand five hundred twenty eight fighting men besides a thousand Artificers and Pyoners tooke shipping at Portsmouth and upon the first of August landed in Normandy neere to the Castle of Tonque which hee presently besieged and upon the ninth of August had it yeelded to him at which time the Earle of Salisbury tooke the Castle of Albervilliers which the king gave him to him and his heires being the first land given by the king in France At the winning of Tonque the king made eight and twenty Knights and from thence marched with his Army to Caen where to prevent the Citizens from sallying out he cast up a Mount and then making many assaults but finding them to doe little good he caused his Pyoners to undermine the walls which being done upon the fourth of September he offered the Besieged their lives if they would submit which they refusing he thereupon made a shew of a generall assault whilst many of his men entred the City under the foundation of whom the Duke of Clarence with his Company was the first and they comming upon the backs of those that defended the walls easily overcame them and then the whole Army entred without resistance The next day the King caused
all the principall men of the Towne to come before him at their Senate house where some of them for their stubborne refusing the grace he had offered them were adjudged to death and the rest fined the spoyl of the Town was distributed amongst the souldiers The Captaine of the Castle stood out a while but being advertised that the king had sworne to shew no mercy if he did not surrender he gave twelve Hostages that if it were not relieved before the twentieth of September he would then give it up which not comming he performed and so the king had possession both of C●en and the Castle And now Charles the new Dolphin being but seventeene yeeres of age and bare of money had got into his possession all the jewels plate and money of the Queen his mother which so incensed her against him that to doe him a spight she placed the Duke of Burgundy in chiefe authority about the king who by reason of his infirmity was u●able himselfe to manage the State and the Duke having now the sword in his hands meant first ●o represse the growing boldnesse of the Dolphyn and afterward to repell the common Enemy and the Dolphyn likewise envying the Dukes advancement above him meant first to take down his swelling greatnes and afterward to fall upon the forreigne adversary and thus while private respects were preferred before publique whilest the Duke and the Dolphyn had their first intentions against one another not looking afte● king Henry but in the second place after their owne turnes served an easie way was left for king Henries proceedings and hee went on at his pleasure with small opposition Hee sent the Duke of Clarence who tooke in the City of Bayeux as likewise the Duke of Glo●cester the City of Lyse●x whilst himselfe remayning still at Caen put out of the city the natives that were impotent or yong infants to the number of fifteen hundred in their places put English people and finding a great masse of money and plate deposited by the Citizens in the Castle ●e caused the same upon proofe to bee respectively delivered to the right owners● upon condition they would acknowledge him for their Soveraigne which moderate and just dealing wonne him more hearts then the force of his Armes had wonne him knees specially with the Normans who are easier to bee drawn with gentlenesse and love then forced by violence and compulsion From hence the king marched the first of October to Corfye Castle which within three dayes yeelded The fourth of October he came to Argenton which not relieved by a day agreed upon was likewise surrendred The Towne of Al●nson endured eight daies siege but in the end did as other their neighbour Townes had done From Alanson the Earle of S●lisbury was sent to Faleys to view the strength thereof whom the king presently followed where the besieged concluded if it were not relieved before the second of January then to yeelde up the Towne No reliefe comming the Towne was yeelded up and soone after upon the like termes the Castle From hence the king returned to Caen to put in execution a Proclamation he had formerly made That if the inhabitants of Normandy that were fled returned not by a day assigned hee would then grant their Lands to his souldiers and thereupon he gave to the duke of Clarence during life the Vicounties of A●ge Or●er and Pon●i●● with all the Lands of those that were not returned according to the Proclamation All the Lent the king lay at Bayeux whilest his Navy still kept the Seas and daily tooke many French ships but upon the sixteenth of July such a Tempest took them that they were driven to fall in with Southampton and yet with all their diligence could not so save themselves but that two Ballingers and two great Carricks laden with merchandize were in the very Haven drowned In the meane time the Earle of VVarwick and the Lord Talbot besieged the strong Castle of D●mfront The Duke of Cl●rence tooke Court●n and Burney and many other being taken as Cha●bois Bechelouyn H●rcourt Fantgernon Cre●en●r Anvyll●ers B●gles in all of them he placed Captaines and Garrisons and particularly in Fres●y Sir Robert Brent lately made Viscount The Duke of Glo●cester also with the Earle of March and the Lord of Codnor tooke in all the Isle of Co●st●●ti●e except Chereburg and then returned to the king but was sent back to take in that City also which after some time when no reliefe came was together with the Castle likewise surrendred although by this time the Duke of Burg●●di● and the Dolphyn by mediation of the Pope were reconciled and began to joyne thei● Forces to make resistance And now the Duke of Exeter the kings Uncle with a supply of fifteene thousand men out of England came to the king who presently took in the City of Eureux and the Earle of Ryme the strong Cast●e of Mill●y le Vesco The next thing attempted was the siege of Ro●● a Citie strongly fortified both with walls and di●ches and to which there was no convenient passage but by the Citie of Lovie● to this Citie therefore he first layes ●iege which when no reliefe came within a time agreed on was surrendred and yet there was another impediment to be removed a stone-bridge which hindred the approach to Roan being exceeding strongly guarded For this King Henry devised floats of wicke● covered with be●sts hides by which the Duke of Cl●rence with his quarter passed the River ●nd then laid siege to the Towne on ●hat side and for the other side he had other devises made with hogsheads and pipes fastned to ●irrepoles and Barges with which he passed his men over at pleasure and in the meane time he caused divers of his Souldiers that could swimme to make shew of passing the River three miles off another way with which the French-men being deluded drew all their forces thither ●nd by this meanes the Fort being left unfurnished of sufficient guard was presently forced to surrender and the Souldiers were taken to the Kings grace The bridge being thus gained the Duke of Exeter was sent and with him Windsor the Herald to summon the Citizens to surrender the Towne who not only gave proud answers but also made a sallye forth though with the losse of thirty of their men Upon this obstinacie of theirs the King presently orders his siege his own quarter was the Ch●rteux the Duke of Clar●nce at St. Gervays the Duke of Exeter at Port St. Dennis and every great Commander had his quarter assigned so as the Citie was begirt round and a great chaine of iron set upon piles and a strong wooden bridge for passage from one Campe to the other was made over the River At this time the Earle of Kilmayne with sixteen hundred Irish came to the King and had their quarter assigned them who behaved themselves with great valour The Kings Cosen Germane the King of Portugall sent likewise a Navie of
Stanley to come presently to his presence which if he refused to doe he swore by Christs Passion that he would strike off his sonnes head before he dined whereto the Lord Stanley answered That if he did so he had more sonnes alive and he might doe his pleasure but to come to him he was not then determined Which answer when king Richard heard he commanded the Lord Strange immediately to be beheaded but being at the very time when both Armies were in sight of each other his Lords perswaded him it was now time to fight and not to put to Execution and so the Lord Strang● escaped Of his Taxations WEE must not looke for Taxations in kinde in this kings reigne for he drew from his Subjects not money so much as blood and the money he drew was most by blood which drew on confiscation whereof let never any Prince make a president for where Taxations properly doe but Tondere the●e did Deglu●ere Yet in his second yeere he called a Parliament wherein besides the great confiscations of those that were then attainted he imposed upon the people a great Tax which what it was is not Recorded Of his Lawes and Ordinances HAving gotten the Crowne by Pestilent courses he sought to Establish i● by wholsome Laws for in no Kings reigne were better Laws made then in the reign of this man Amongst other of his Laws It was enacted that from thence forth the Commonalty of the Realme should in no wise be charged by any imposition called a Benevolence nor any such like charge and that such exactions called a Benevolence before this time taken shall be taken for no example to make any such like charge hereafter but shall be damned and annulled for ever Many other good Laws were by him made that we may say he took the wayes of being a good King if he had come to be King by wayes that had been good Affaires of the Church in his time IN his time the troubles of the Temporalty kept the Clergie at quiet and though there were complayning in the streets there was none in the Church Only ●hores wife might complaine why shee should doe Penance for offending lightly against onely the seventh Commandement and king Richard doe none for offending heavily against all the ten but that perhaps he had gotten some good fellow to be his Confessour Workes of Piety done by him AS bad as this King was yet some good workes he did he founded a Colledge at Middleham beyond Yorke and a Collegiate Chauntry in London neere unto the Tower called our Lady of Barking He endowed the Queens Colledge in Cam●●●●ge with five hundred Marks of yeerly revenue and disforested the great field of Whitchwood which king Edward his brother had inclosed for Deere Of Casualties happening in his time IN his second year at the time when the Duke of Buckingham meant to passe with his Army over Severn so great an inundation was of wa●er that men were drowned in their beds houses were overturned children were carried about the fields swimming in Cradles beasts were drowned on hills which rage of water conti●●ed ten dayes and is to this day in the Countries thereabout called the great water or the Duke of Buckingham● water Of his wife and issue HEE marryed Anne the second Daughter of Richard Nevill the great Earle of Warwicke being the widdow of Edward Prince of Wales the Sonne of king He●●y the sixth she lived his Wife to the last yeer of his reigne and then to make way for another was brought to her end and layd a● rest in the Abbey of Westminster by her he had onely one Sonne born at Middleham neer Richmond in the County of Yorke at foure yeers old created Earle of Salisbury by his Uncle king Edward the fourth at ten yeers old created Prince of Wales by his Father king Richard but dyed soon after Of his Personage and Conditions THere never was in any man a greater uniformity of Body and Minde then was in him both of them equally deformed Of Body he was but low crooke-backt hook-shouldred splay-footed and goggle-eyed his face little and round his complexion swarsie his left arm from his birth dry and withered born a monster in nature with all his teeth with haire on his head and nailes on his fingers and toes And just such were the qua●●ties of his minde One quality he had in ordinary which was to look faw●●ngly when he plotted sternly when he executed Those vices which in other men are Passions in him were Habits and his cruelty was not upon occasion but naturall If at any time he shewed any virtue it was but pretence the truth of his minde was onely lying and falsehood He was full of courage and yet not valiant valour consisting not only in doing but as well in suffering which he could not abide He was politick and yet not wise Policie looking but to the middle wisdome to the end which he did and did not And it was not so much ambition that made him desire the Crown as cruelty that it might be in his power to kill at his pleasure and to say the truth he was scarce of the number of men who consist of flesh and blood being nothing but blood One Miracle wee may say hee did which was that he made the truth of History to exceed the fiction of Poetry being a greater Harpy than those that were feigned He would faine have been accounted a good King but for his life he could not be a good Man and it is an impossible thing to be one without the other He left no is●ue behinde him and it had been pitty he should at least in his own Image One such Monster was enough for many Ages Of his Death and Buriall BEing slaine in the Battell at Bosworth as before is related his body was left naked and des●oyled to the very skin not so much as a c●out left about him to cover his privy parts and taken up was trussed behinde a Pursuivant at Armes one Bla●ch Senglyer or White-boare his head and armes hanging on one side of the horse and his leggs on the other and all besprinkled with mire and dirt he was brought to the Gray-Friers Church within the Towne of Leicester and there for some time lay a miserable spectacle and afterward with small Funerall-pompe was there interred But after this King He●ry the Seventh caused a Tombe to be made and set up over the place where he was buried with a picture of Alablaster representing his person which at the suppression of that Monastery was utterly defaced Since when his Grave overgrowne with nettles and weeds is not to be found onely the Stone-chest wherein his Corps lay is now made a drinking-trough for horses at a common Inne in Leicester and reteineth the onely memory of this Monarchs greatnes But his body as is reported was caried out of the City and contemptuously bestowed under the end of Bow-bridge which giveth passage over a branch of
Stowre upon the West side of the Towne Upon this bridge the like report runneth stood a stone of some heigth against which king Richard as hee passed ●owards Bosworth by chance strook his spurre and against the same stone as he was brought back hanging by the horse side his head was dashed and broken as a Wise-woman forsooth had fore-told who before his going to battell being asked of his successe said that where his spurre strooke his head should be broken But these are but Repo●●● He had lived seven and thirty yeeres Reigned two and two moneths Of men of Note in his time OF men of Note for wickednesse and villany enough have been mentioned i● the body of the Story and for men of Valour and Learning they will fitte● be placed in a better Kings Reigne THE REIGNE OF KING HENRY THE SEVENTH HENRY Earle of Richmond borne in Pembrooke-Castle sonne to Edmund Earle of Richmond by his wife Margaret sole daughter of Iohn Duke of Somerset which Iohn was sonne of Iohn Earle of Somerset sonne of Iohn of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster by his third wife Katherine Swinford and by this descent Heire of the House of Lancaster having wonne the Battell at Bosworth against King Richard is by publick acclamations saluted King of England on the 22 day of August in the yeere 1485. and this was his first Title And now to take away a Root of danger before his departure from Leicester he sent Sir Robert Willoug●by to the Castle of Sheriffehaton in the County of Yorke for Edward Plantage●et Earle of Warwick sonne and heire to George Duke of Clarence being then of the age of fifteen yeeres whom King Richard had there kept a prisoner all his time who was thence conveyed to London and shut up in the Tower to be kept in safe custodie In the same Castle also King Richard had left residing the Lady Elizabeth eldest daughter to King Edward the Fourth and her now King Henry appoints honorably attended to be brought up to London and to be delivered to the Queene her mother This done he tooke his journey towards London where at his approaching neere the City Thomas Hill the Major Thomas Brittaine and Richard Chester Sheriffs with other principall Citizens met him at Shore-ditch and in great state brought him to the Cathedrall Church of St. Paul where he offered three Standards in the one was the Image of St. George in another was a red fiery Dragon beaten upon white and greene Sarcenet in the third was painted a dun Cow upon yellow Tarterne After Prayers said he departed to the Bishops Palace and there sojourned a season And in the time of his stay here he advised with his Councell and appointed a day for solemnizing his mariage with the Lady Elizabeth before which time notwithstanding he went by water to Westminster and was there with great solemnity Anointed and Crowned King of England by the whole consent as well of the Commons as of the Nobility by the name of Henry the Seventh on the thirtieth day of October in the yeere 1485 and this was his second Title And even this was revealed to Cadwalloder last King of the Britaines seven ●u●dred ninety and seven yeeres past That his off-spring should Raigne and b●a●e Dominion in this Realme againe On the seventeenth day of November following he called his High Court of Parliament where at the first sitting two scruples appea●ed One concerning t●e Burgesses for that many had been returned Burgesses and knights of Shires who by a Parliament in king Richards time stood Attainted still and it was thought incong●uous for men to make Law●● who were themselves out-lawed For remedy whereof an Act was presently passed for their restoring and then they were admitted to sit in the House The other concerning the King himselfe who had been Attainted by king Richard but for this It was resolv●d by all the Judges in the Ch●quer Chamber that the possession of the Crowne takes away all defects yet for Honours sake all Records of hi● Attainder were taken off the File And so these scruples thus removed the Parliament b●ga● wherein were Attainted first Richard late Duke of Glocester calling himselfe Richard the Third Then his Assistants at the Battell of Bosworth Iohn late Duke of Norfolk Thomas Earle of Surrey Francis Viscount Lovell Walter Devereux late Lord Ferrers Iohn Lord Zouch Rober● Harington Richard Cha●leto●● Richar● Rat●liffe● William Ber●ley of Weley Robert Middleton Iames Haringto●●●obert Br●c●enb●●y T●omas Pilkington Wal●er Ho●ton William Catesby Roger W●ke William Sapco●e Humfry Stafford William Clerke of Wenlock Geoffry St. Germaine Richard Watkins Herauld at Armes Richard Revell Thomas Pul●er Iohn Welsh Iohn Ken●all l●te Secretary to the late king Richard Iohn Buck Andrew Rat and William Brampton of Burford But notwithstanding this Attainder divers of the persons aforesaid were afterwards not only by King Hen●y pardoned but restored also to their lands and livings As likewise he caused Proclamation to be made that whosoever would submit themselves and take Oath to be true subjects should have their Pardon whereupon many came out of Sanctuaries and other places who submitting themselves were received to mercy And now King Henry con●idering that ●aena Praemio Respublica contine●uy after Punishing for Offence● he proceeds to Rewarding for Service and first Iasper Earle of Pembrooke his Unkle he created Duke of Bedford Thomas Lord Stanley he created Earle of Darb● the Lord Chendow of Britaine his speciall friend he made Earle of Bathe Sir Giles Dauben●y was made Lord Dawbeney Sir Robert Willoughby was made Lord Brooke and Edward Stafford eldest sonne to Henry late Duke of Buckingham he restored to his Dignity and Possessions Besides in this Parliament an Act was made for se●●ing the Crowne upon the person of king Henry and the heires of his Body successively for ever And then with all speed he sent and redeemed the Marquesse Dorset and Sir Iohn Bourchier whom he had left Hostages in France for money and called home Morton Bishop of Ely and Richard Fox making Morton Archbishop of Canterbury and Fox Lord Keeper of the Privy S●ole and Bishop of Winchester Besides these he made also of his Privy Counsell Iasper Duke of Bedford Iohn Earle of Oxford Thomas Stanley Earle of Darby Iohn Bishop of Ely Sir William Stanley Lord Chamberlaine of his Houshold Sir Robert Willoughby Lord Brooke Lord Steward of his Houshold Giles Lord Dawbeny Iohn Lord Dyn●●m after made Lord Treasurer of England Sir Reginold Bray Sir Iohn Cheyny Sir Richard Guildford Sir Richard Tunstall Sir Richard Edgecombe Sir Thomas Lovell Sir Edmund P●ynings Sir Iohn Risley with some other These things thus done as well in performance of his Oath as to make his Crown sit the surer on his head on the eighteenth day of Ianuary he proceeded to the solemnizing his marriage with the Lady Elizabeth which gave him a third title And indeed this conjunction made a wreath of three so indissoluble that no age since hath
board and carryed away a great deale of Gold but the Vessell and Ordnance was wreck to the Governour of Calice Drake and Fencz in the mean while perceiving the Spanish Fleet to gather togethea again before Graveling set upon them with great violence to whom str●ightwayes Fenton Southwell Beeston Crosse and Riman joyne themselves and soon after the Admirall himself Sir Thomas Howard and the Lord Sheffield the Galleon called Saint Matthew was sorely battered by Seymor and Winter driven toward Ostend and set upon again by the Zelanders and at last was taken by the Flushingers And now the Spanish Navy having want of many nec●ssaries and no hope of the Prince of Parma's coming they resolved to returne Northward for Spain in which passage they lost both many Ships and men the English Navy still following them close till they were faine to give them over for want of Powder Whilest these things passed at Sea the Queen ●n Person came to Tilbury to view the Army and Campe there where she shewed such undaunted Courage and Resolution that it wonderfully animated the spirits of them all And thus this Navy which was three whole Yeers in preparing in the space of a month was often beaten and at length put to flight many of their men being slain more then halfe of their Ships taken and sunk of the English not above a hundred at the most missing nor so much as a Ship but Cocks little Vessell and Sayling about all Brittaine by Scotland the Orkeneys and Ireland they returned into Spain with as much dishonour as they came out with boasting for indeed Mendoza in France by a Book in Print Triumphed before the Victory For the happy successe of this Action Queen Elizabeth appointed prayers and thanksgiving over all the Churches of England and she as it were in triumph came in Person attended with a great Troop of the Nobility into the City and went into the Cathedrall Church of Saint Paul where the Banners taken from the Enemy was placed in view and there in most humble manner gave thanks to Almighty God And ●hat which increased the publike joy was the newes which Sir Robert Sidney brought out of Scotland That the King had over-past all injuries was lovingly affected towards the English and desired to imbrace sincere and perfect amitie with the Queen For as for the King of Spain he wittily told the Embassadour that he expected no other courtesie from him but such as Polyphemus promised Ulisses that he should be the last whom he would devoure And now dyed the great Earl of Leicester the fourth day of September at his Mannor of Killingworth of a violent Feaver I may well say the great Earl considering the many great Honours he enjoyed which are extant in the Story yet one honour greater then any he had before he effected even then when he was ready to go out of the world and that was● To be Vice-gerent in the high Government of England and Ireland for which the Patent was already drawne and had been sealed but that Burleigh and Hatton shewed the Queen how dangerous a thing it might prove for so great Authority to reside in one Subject He was while he lived in so great favour with the Queen that some thought and himselfe not the least that she meant to marry him yet when he dyed his goods were sold at an Outcry to make payment of the debts he owed her About this time Philip Earl of Arundell who three yeers before had been cast in prison was now cited in Westminster Hall to the judgement of his Peers and Henry Earl of Derby was made High Steward of England for the time The matters layd to his charge were these That he had contracted friendship with Cardinall Allen Parsons the Jesuite and other Traytours exciting divers both abroad and at home to restore the Romish Religion promising his assistance thereunto and for that reason had a purpose to depart the Kingdom That he was privy to the Bull in which Pope Sixtus Quintus had deposed the Queen and given England to the Spaniard that being imprisoned in the Tower he caused Masse to be said for the prosperous successe of the Spanish Fleet and for that purpose had framed peculiar prayers for his own private use Being demanded whether he were guilty of these things turning himself to the Judges he asked them these questions First whether it were lawfull to heap up so many crimes together in one Bill of Indictment They answered that it was Then whether Arguments taken from presumptions were of force They answered that it was lawfull for him to interpose exceptions if he saw cause Then again if he might be Arraigned for those things which were Capitall by the Law made the thirteenth yeer of the Queen after that the time expressed in the Act was expired They promised they would proceed against him by no Law but the old Statute of Treason made in the Raigne of King Edward the Third But now again asked if he were guilty or not● He pleaded not guilty whereupon Puckening the Queens Sergeant at Law Popham Atturney Generall Shuttleworth Sergeant at Law and Egerton the Queens Sollicitour in their turnes urged and proved the crimes objected some whereof he denyed some he extenuated but in conclusion was by his Peers found guilty and condemned yet the Queen spared his life and was content with thus much done in terror to the Papists It was now the yeer 1589. And the two and thirtieth of Queen Eliza●eths Raign when to be in some sort revenged of the Spaniards for their invasion she gave leave to Sir Iohn Norris and Sir Francis Drake to under●ake an Expedition at their own private charges requiring nothing of her but a few Ships of War who took along with them Anthony the bastard laying clayme to the Kingdom of Portingall and of Souldidrs to the number of eleven thousand of Sea-men about fifteen hundred setting Sayle from Plimmouth the fifth day of Aprill they arrived at the Groyne in Ga●acia whereof with great valour they took first the Lower town and afterward the Higher and from thence sayling toward Portingall they met Robert Earl of Essex who without the Queens leave had put to Sea After two dayes they arrive at Penycha a Town of Portingall which they took and left the Castle to Don-Antonio and from thence they march by land towards Lisbon threescore miles off The Foot Companies led by Norris whom Drake promised to follow with the Fleet. Being come to the West Suburbs of Lisbon they found no body there but a few poor disarmed Portugalls who cryed out God save King Antonio The day following the Spaniards made a sayle out in which Skirmish Bret Caresley and Carre stout Commanders were slain yet did the Earl of Essex drive the Spaniards to the very gates of the Citie And now having tarryed here two dayes and seeing no signe of the Portingalls revolting which Don-Anthonio had assured them would be finding fresh supplies come