few words That the French King and the Duke of Britain were the two persons to whom he was most obliged of all men and that he should think himself very happy if things should go so between them as he should not be able to acquit himself in gratitude towards them both and that there was no means for him as a Christian King and a common Friend to them to satisfie all Obligations both to God and man but to offer himself for a Mediator of an Accord and Peace between them by which course he doubted not but their King's Estate and Honour both would be preserved with more Safety and less Envy than by a War and that he would spare no cost or pains no if it were To go on Pilgrimage for so good an effect And concluded that in this great Affair which he took so much to heart he would express himself more fully by an Ambassage which he would speedily dispatch unto the French King for that purpose And in this sort the French Ambassadors were dismissed the King avoiding to understand any thing touching the re-annexing of Britain as the Ambassadors had avoided to mention it save that he gave a little touch of it in the word Envy And so it was that the King was neither so shallow nor so ill advertised as not to perceive the intention of the French for the investing himself of Britain But first he was utterly unwilling howsoever he gave out to enter into War with France A Fame of a War he liked well but not an Atchievement for the one he thought would make him Richer and the other Poorer and he was possessed with many secret fears touching his own People which he was therefore loth to arm and put Weapons into their hands Yet notwithstanding as a prudent and couragious Prince he was not so averse from a War but that he was resolved to choose it rather than to have Britain carried by France being so great and opulent a Dutchy and situate 〈◊〉 opportunely to annoy England either for Coast or Trade But the King's hopes were that partly by negligence commonly imputed to the French especially in the Court of a young King and partly by the native power of Britain it self which was not small but chiefly in respect of the great Party that the Duke of Orleance had in the Kingdom of France and thereby means to stir up Civil troubles to divert the French King from the Enterprize of Britain And lastly in regard of the Power of Maximilian who was Cotrival to the French King in that pursuit the Enterprize would either bow to a Peace or break in it self In all which the King measured and valued things amiss as afterwards appeared He sent therefore forth with to the French King Christopher Urswick his Chaplain a person by him much trusted and employed choosing him the rather because he was a Church-man as best sorting with an Embassy of Pacification and giving him also a Commission That if the French King consented to Treat he should thence repair to the Duke of Britain and ripen the Treaty on both parts Urswick made declaration to the French King much to the purpose of the King's answer to the French Ambassadors here instilling also tenderly some overture of receiving to grace the Duke of Orleance and some tasted of Conditions of Accord But the French King on the other side proceeded not sincerely but with a great deal of art and dissimulation in this Treaty having for his end to gain time and so put off the English Succours under hope of Peace till he had got good footing in Britain by force of Arms. Wherefore he answered the Ambassador That he would put himself into the King's hands and make him Arbiter of the Peace and willingly consent that the Ambassador should straightways pass into Britain to signifie this his 〈◊〉 and to know the Duke's mind likewise well fore-seeing that the Duke of 〈◊〉 by whom the Duke of Britain was wholly led taking himself to be upon terms irreconcilable with him would admit of no Treaty of Peace Whereby he should in one both generally abroad veil over his Ambition and win the reputation of just and moderate proceedings and should withal endear himself in the 〈◊〉 of the King of England as one that had committed all to his Will Nay and which was yet more fine make faith in him That although he went on with the War yet it should be but with his Sword in his hand to bend the stiffness of the other party to accept of Peace and so the King should take no umbrage of his arming and prosecution but the Treaty to be kept on foot to the very last instant till he were Master of the Field Which grounds being by the French King wisely laid all things fell out as he expected For when the English Ambassador came to the Court of Britain the Duke was then scarcely perfect 〈◊〉 his memory and all things were directed by the Duke of Orleance who gave audience to the Chaplain Urswick and upon his Ambassage delivered made answer in somewhat high terms That the Duke of Britain having been an Host and a kind of Parent or Foster-father to the King in his tenderness of age and weakness of fortune did look for at this time from King Henry the renowned King of England rather brave Troops for for his Succours than a vain Treaty of Peace And if the King could forget the good Offices of the Duke done unto him 〈◊〉 yet he knew well he would in his Wisdom consider of the future how much it imported his own Safety and Reputation both in Foreign parts and with his own People not to suffer Britain the old Confederates of England to be swallowed up by France and so many good Ports and strong Towns upon the Coast be in the command of so potent a Neighbour-King and so ancient an Enemy And therefore humbly desired the King to think of this business as his own and therewith brake off and denyed any further Conference for Treaty Urswick returned first to the French King and related to him what had passed Who finding things to sort to his desire took hold of them and said That the Ambassador might perceive now that which he for his part partly imagined before That considering in what hands the Duke of Britain was there would be no Peace but by a mixt Treaty of force and perswasion And therefore he would go on with the one and desired the King not to desist from the other But for his own part he did faithfully promise to be still in the King's power to rule him in the matter of Peace This was accordingly represented unto the King-by Urswick at his return and in such a fashion as if the Treaty were in no sort desperate but rather stayd for a better hour till the Hammer had wrought and beat the Party of Britain more pliant Whereupon there passed continually Pacquets and Dispatches between the two Kings
Henry Wyat and such other Cattiffs and Villains of Birth which by subtil Inventions and Pilling of the People have been the principal Finders Occasioners and Counsellors of the Mis-rule and Mischief now reigning in England We remembring these Premisses with the great and execrable Offences daily committed and done by Our foresaid great Enemy and his Adherents in breaking the Liberties and Franchises of Our Mother the Holy Church upon pretences of Wicked and Heathenish Policy to the high displeasure of Almighty God besides the manifold Treasons abominable Murthers Man-slaughters Robberies Extortions the daily Pilling of the People by Disms Taxes Tallages Benevolences and other unlawful Impositions and grievous Exactions with many other heinous Effects to the likely destruction and desolation of the whole Realm shall by God's grace and the help and assistante of the great Lords of Our Blood with the counsel of other sad Persons see that the Commodities of Our Realm be employed to the most advantage of the same the intercourse of Merchandise betwixt Realm and Realm to be ministred and handled as shall more be to the Common-weal and prosperity of Our Subjects and all such Disms Taxes Tallages Benevolences unlawful Impositions and grievous Exactions as be above rehearsed to be fore-done and laid apart and never from henceforth to be called upon but in such cases as Our Noble Progenitors Kings of England have of old time been accustomed to have the ayd succour and help of their Subjects and true Liege-men And further We do out of Our Grace and Clemency hereby as well publish and promise to all our Subjects Remission and free Pardon of all By-past Offences whatsoever against Our Person or Estate in adhering to Our said Enemy by whom We know well they have been mis-led if they shall within time convenient submit themselves unto Us. And for such as shall come with the foremost to assist Our Righteous Quarrel We shall make them so far partakers of Our Princely Favour and Bounty as shall be highly for the Comfort of them and theirs both during their life and after their death As also We shall by all means which God shall put into Our hands demean Our selves to give Royal contentment to all Degrees and Estates of Our People maintaining the Liberties of Holy Church in their Entire preserving the Honours Priviledges and Prebeminences of Our Nobles from contempt or disparagement according to the dignity of their Blood We shall also unyoak Our People from all heavy Burthens and Endurances and confirm Our Cities Boroughs and Towns in their Charters and Freedoms with enlargement where it shall be deserved and in all points give Our Subjects cause to think that the blessed and debonair Government of Our Noble Father King Edward in his last times is in Us revived And for as much as the putting to death or taking alive of Our said Mortal Enemy may be a mean to stay much effusion of Blood which otherwise may ensue if by Compulsion or fair Promises he shall draw after him any number of Our Subjects to resist Us whith We desire to avoid though We be certainly informed that Our said Enemy is purposed and prepared to flie the Land having already made over great masses of the Treasure of Our Crown the better to support him in Forein Parts We do hereby declare That whosoever shall take or distress Our said Enemy though the Party be of never so mean a Condition he shall be by Us rewarded with a Thousand Pound in Money forthwith to be laid down to him and an Hundred Marks by the year of Inheritance besides that he may otherwise merit both toward God and all good People for the destruction of such a Tyrant Lastly We do all men to wit and herein We take also God to witness That whereas God hath moved the Heart of Our dearest Cousin the King of Scotland to aid Us in Person in this Our righteous Quarrel it is altogether without any Pact or Promise or so much as demand of any thing that may prejudice Our Crown or Subjects But contrariwise with promise on Our said Cousin's part that whensoever he shall find Us in sufficient strength to get the upper hand of Our Enemy which we hope will be very suddenly he will forthwith peaceably return into his own Kingdom contenting himself only with the glory of so Honourable an Enterprize and Our true and faithful Love and Amity Which We shall ever by the Grace of Almighty God so order as shall be to the great comfort of both Kingdoms BUT Perkin's Proclamation did little edifie with the people of England neither was he the better welcom for the company he came in Wherefore the King of Scotland seeing none came in to Perkin nor none stirred any where in his favour turned his Enterprize into a Rode and wasted and destroyed the Countrey of Northumberland with fire and sword But hearing that there were Forces coming against him and not willing that they should find his men heavy and laden with booty he returned into Scotland with great Spoils deferring further prosecution till another time It is said that Perkin acting the part of a Prince handsomly when he saw the Scottish fell to waste the Countrey came to the the King in a passionate manner making great lamentation and desired That that might not be the manner of making the War for that no Crown was so dear to his mind as that he desired to purchase it with the blood and ruine of his Countrey Whereunto the King answered half in sport that he doubted much he was careful for that that was none of his and that he should be too good a Steward for his Enemy to save the Countrey to his use By this time being the Eleventh year of the King the Interruption of Trade between the English and the Plemmish began to pinch the Merchants of both Nations very sore Which moved them by all means they could devise to affect and dispose their Savereigns respectively to open the Intercourse again Wherein time favoured them For the Arch-Duke and his Council began to see that Perkin would prove but a Runnagate and Citizen of the World and that it was the part of Children to fall out about Babies And the King on his part after the Attempts upon Kent and Northumberland began to have the business of Perkin in less estimation so as he did not put it to accompt in any Consultation of State But that that moved him most was that being a King that loved Wealth and Treasure he could not endure to have Trade sick nor any Obstruction to continue in the Gate-vein which disperseth that blood And yet he kept State so far as first to be sought unto Wherein the Merchant-Adventurers likewise being a strong Company at that time and well under-set with rich men and good order did hold out bravely taking off the Commodities of the Kingdom though they lay dead upon their hands for want of Vent At the last Commissioners met
THE HISTORY OF THE REIGNS OF HENRY the SEVENTH HENRY the EIGHTH EDWARD the SIXTH AND QUEEN MARY The First Written by the Right Honourable FRANCIS Lord VERULAM Viscount St. ALBAN The other Three by the Right Honourable AND Right Reverend Father in God FRANCIS GODWYN Lord Bishop of HEREFORD LONDON Printed by W. G. for R. Scot T. Basset J. Wright R. Chiswell and J. Edwyn M. D C. LXXVI To the most Illustrious and most Excellent PRINCE CHARLES Prince of Wales Duke of Cornwall Earl of Chester c. It may Please Your Highness IN part of my acknowledgment to Your Highness I have endeavoured to do Honour to the Memory of the last King of England that was Ancestour to the King your Father and Your self and was that King to whom both Unions may in a sort refer That of the Roses being in him Consummate and that of the Kingdoms by him begun Besides his times deserve it For he was a Wise Man and an Excellent King and yet the times were rough and full of Mutations and rare Accidents And it is with Times as it is with Ways Some are more Vp-hill and Down-hill and some are more Flat and Plain and the One is better for the Liver and the Other for the Writer I have not flattered him but took him to life as well as I could sitting so far off and having no better light It is true Your Highness hath a Living Pattern Incomparable of the King Your Father But it is not amiss for You also to see one of these Ancient Pieces GOD preserve Your Highness Your Highness most humble and devoted Servant FRANCIS St. Alban AN INDEX ALPHABETICAL Directing to the most Observable Passages in the ensuing HISTORY A. AN Accident in it self trivial great in effect Pag. 108 Advice desired from the Parliament 33 35 56 Aemulation of the English to the French with the reasons of it 36 Affability of the King to the City of London 113 Affection of King Henry to the King of Spain 61 Affection of the King to his Children 136 Aid desired by the Duke of Britain 33 Aid sent to Britain 37 Aiders of Rebels punished 23 Alms-deeds of the King 131 Ambassadors to the Pope 24 into Scotland 25 Ambassadors from the French King 26 Ambassadors in danger in France 31 Ambassadors into France 54 Ambition exorbitant in Sir William Stanley 78 Answer of the Archduke to the King's Ambassadors 74 Appeach of Sir William Stanley 76 Arms of King Henry still victorious 133 Arrows of the 〈◊〉 the length of them 96 Articles between the King and the Archduke 91 Arthur Prince married to the Lady Katherine 116 Arthur Prince dies at Ludlow 117 Aton Castle in Scotland taken by the Earl of Surrey 98 Attainted persons in Parliament excepted against 8 Attaindor and corruption of Blood reacheth not to the Crown ibid. 15 Avarice of King Henry 134 Audley General of the Corhish Rebels 93 B. BAnishment of 〈◊〉 our of the Kingdom 74 Battel at Bosworth-field 1 at Stokefield 〈◊〉 at St. Albans in Britain 87 at Bannocksbourn in Scotland 〈◊〉 at Black-heath 〈◊〉 Behaviour of King Henry towards 〈◊〉 Children 117 Benevolence to the King for his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Benevolence who the first Author ibid Benevolence 〈◊〉 by Act of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Benevolence revived by Act of 〈◊〉 ibid A Benevolence 〈◊〉 to the King 23 Birth of Henry the 〈◊〉 35 Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the King 〈◊〉 Blood not unrevenged 112 122 Britain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 37 Three causes of the 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 ibid. Britain united 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Marriage 〈◊〉 Brakenbury 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 murder King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Broughton Sir 〈◊〉 joyned with the Rebels 11 A Bull procured from the Pope by the King for what causes 24 Bulloign besieged by King Henry 63 C. CArdinal Morton dieth 113 Capell Sir William fined 80 131 Cap of Maintenace from the Pope 101 Ceremony of Marriage new in these parts 48 Chancery power and description of that Court 38 Clifford Sir Robert flies to Perkin 70 revolts to the King 72 Clergy priviledges abridged 39 Christendom enlarged 61 Columbus Christopher and Bartholomeus invite the King to a discovery of the West Indies 107 Confiscation aimed at by the King 76 Conference between King Henry and the King of Castile by casualty landing at Weymouth 128 Conquest the Title unpleasing to the People declined by William the Conqu 3 and by the King 5 〈◊〉 for Perkin 70 Contraction of Prince Henry and the Lady Katherine 118 Conditional speech doth not qualifie words of Treason 77 Commissioners into Ireland 79 Commissioners about Trading 91 Coronation of King Henry 7 Coronation of the Queen 24 Counsel the benefit of good 25 Counsel of what sort the French King used 32 Counsel of mean men what and how different from that of Nobles ibid. Lord Cordes envy to England 48 Cottagers but housed Beggars 44 Counterfeits Lambert proclaimed in Ireland 15 Crowned at Dublin 19 taken at Battell 22 put into the King's Kitchin ibid. made the King's Faulconer ibid. Duke of York counterfeit See Perkin Wilford another counterfeit Earl of Warwick 111 Courage of the English when 37 Court what Pleas belong to every Court 38 Court of Star-chamber confirmed ibid. Creations 6 Crown confirmed to King Henry by Parliament 7 Cursing of the King's Enemies at Paul's Cross a custom of those times 72 122 D. DAm a Town in Flanders taken by a slight 59 Lord Daubeny 96 Devices at Prince Arthur's Marriage 117 Device of the King to divert Envy 64 Decay of Trade doth punish Merchants 90 Decay of People how it comes to pass 44 Declaration by Perkin to the Scottish King 85 Desires intemperate of Sir William Stanley 78 Dighton a murderer of King Edward's two Children 71 Dilemma a pleasant one of Bishop Morton 58 Diligence of the King to heap Treasures 120 Displacing of no Counsellors nor Servants in all King Henry's Reign save of one 138 Dissimulation of the French King 29 30 49 Dissimulation of King Henry in pretending War 56 A Doubt long kept open and diversly determined according to the diversity of the times 117 Dowry of Lady Katherine how much 116 Dowry of Lady Margaret into Scotland how much 119 Drapery maintained how 45 Dudley one of the King's Herse-leeches 119 Duke of York counterfeit See Perkin E. EArl of Suffolk flies into Flanders 121 returns 129 Earl of Northumberland slain by the People in collecting the Subsidy somewhat harshly 40 Earl of Warwick executed 111 Earl of Warwick counterfeit 13 110 Earl of Surrey enters Scotland 98 Edmund a third Son born to King Henry but died 109 Edward the Fifth murdered 85 Envy towards the King unquenchable the cause of it 111 Envy of the Lord Cordes to England 48 Enterview between the King and the King of Castile 128 Emblem 94 Empson one of the King's Horse-leeches 119 Errours of the French King in his business for the Kingdom of Naples 82 Errours of King Henry occasioning his many troubles 128 〈◊〉 service 92 Espials in
the Rebels camp 21 Espousals of James King of Scotland and Lady Margaret 118 Exchanges unlawful prohibited 40 Exceter besieged by Perkin 102 the Loyalty of the Town 103 the Town rewarded with the King 's own Sword 105 Execution of Humphrey Stafford 12 John a Chamber and his fellow-Rebels at York 41 Sir James Tyrril murderer of King Edward's two Sons 71 of divers others 75 Sir William Stanley 77 Rebels 79 Perkin's company 81 Audley and Cornish Rebels 96 another counterfeit Earl of Warw. 110 Perkin Warbeck 111 the Mayor of Cork and his Son ibid. Earl of Warwick ibid. F. FAme ill affected 97 Fame entertained by divers the reasons of it 70 Fame neglected by Empson and Dudley 119 Fear not safe to the King 79 Fines 43 Without Fines Statute to sell Land 58 Flammock a Lawyer a Rebel 92 Flemings banished 75 Flight of King Henry out of Britain into France wherefore 34 Forfeitures and Confiscations furnish the King's wants 9 17 Forfeitures aimed at 45 76 Forfeitures upon Penal Laws taken by the King which was the blot of his times 80 Fortune various 16 22 Forwardness inconsiderate 96 Fox made Privy Counsellor 10 made Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal ib. his providence 98 Free-fishing of the Dutch 129 Title to France renewed by the King in Parliament 56 Frion joyns with Perkin 68 First-fruits 10 In forma Pauperis a Law enacted for it 84 G. GAbato Sebastian makes a Voyage for Discovery 107 Gordon Lady Katherine wife to Perkin 87 Granado vindicated from the Moors 60 Guard Yoomen first instituted 7 Gifts of the French King to King Henry's Counsellors and Souldiers 64 Gratitude of the Pope's Lègate to King Henry 42 H. HAllowed Sword from the Pope 101 Hatred of the People to the King with the main reason of it 12 Hearty Acclamations of the People to the King 〈◊〉 King Henry his Description 133 c. his Piety 1 60 he hath three Titles to the Kingdom 2 Hereticks provided against a rare thing in those times 115 Hern a Counsellor to Perkin 101 Hialas otherwise Elias to England how 98 Holy War 114 Hopes of gain by War 64 Hostages redeemed by the King 10 Houses of Husbandry to be maintained to prevent the decay of People 45 Histories defects in them what 46 I. IAmes the Third King of Scotland his distress and death 42 Idols vex God and King Henry 105 John Egremond Leader of the Rebels 41 Inclosures their manifest inconveniencies and how remedied 44 Ingratitude of Women punished 85 Innovation desired 12 Incense of the People what 118 Instructions of Lady Margaret to 〈◊〉 66 Intercursus Magnus 91 Intercursus Malus ibid. 129 Invectives of Maximilian against the French King 〈◊〉 Invectives against the King and Council 79 Improvidence of King Henry to prevent his troubles 12 14 Improvidence of the French 82 Jointure of Lady Katherine how much 117 Jointure of Lady Margaret in Scotland how much 119 Joseph a Rebel 92 Ireland favoureth York Title 15 Ireland receiveth Simon the Priest of Oxford with his counterfeit ibid. Irish adhere to Perkin 68 Jubile at Rome 114 Juno i. e. the Lady Margaret so called by the King's friends 65 K. KAtherine Gordon Perkin's Wife royally entertained by K. Hen. 104 Kent loyal to the King 81 94 The King the publick Steward 36 Kings their miseries 50 King of Rakehels Perkin so called by King Henry 103 The King's Skreen who 92 King of France Protector of King Henry in his trouble 133 Kingdom of France restored to its integrity 25 King of France buys his Peace of King Henry 64 King of Scots enters England 87 again 98 Knights of the Bath 95 Knights of Rhodes 〈◊〉 King Henry Protector of the Order 115 L. LAncaster Title condemned by Parliament 3 Lancaster House in possession of the Crown for three Descents together 〈◊〉 Lambert Simnel See Counterfeit 13 Laws enacted in Parliament 38 Divers Laws enacted 123 Law charitable enacted 84 A good Law enacted ibid. A Law of a strange 〈◊〉 83 A Law against carrying away of Women by violence the reasons of it 39 Law of Poynings 79 Laws Penal put in execution 80 A Legate from the Pope 42 preferred to be Bishop in England by King Henry ibid. his gratitude to King Henry ibid. Lenity of the King abused 101 Letters from the King out of France to the Mayor of London 64 A Libel 55 Libels the causes of them 79 Libels the females of Sedition ibid. Libels the Authors executed ibid. A Loan from the City to the King repaid 46 London entred by King Henry in a close Chariot wherefore 5 London in a tumult because of the Rebels 95 London purchase Confirmation of their Liberties 124 M. MAlecontents their effects 40 Margaret of Burgundy the fountain of all the mischief to K. Henry 18 she entertains the Rebels 41 69 she a Juno to the King 65 she instructs Perkin 66 Lady Margaret desired in Marriage by the Scottish King 108 Manufacture forein how to be kept out 36 123 Marriage of King Henry with Lady Elizabeth 10 of the French King with the Duchess of Britain 55 of Prince Arthur 116 Mart translated to Calice the reasons of it 74 Maintenance prohibited by Law 38 Merchants of England received at Antwerp with procession and great joy 91 A memorable Memorandum of the King 121 Military power of the Kingdom advanced how 44 Mills of Empson and Dudley what and the gains they brought in 124 Mitigations 120 Money bastard employments thereof repressed 36 Money left at the King's death how much 132 Morton made Privy Counsellor 10 made Archbishop of Canterbury ib. his Speech to the Parliament 32 Morton's Fork 58 Morton author of the Union of the two Roses 114 Moors expelled Granado 61 Murmuring 14 Murmurs of the People against the King 70 Murther and Manslaughter a Law concerning it in amendment of the common Law 39 Murther of King Edward the Fifth 85 Murther of a Commissioner for the Subsidy 93 N. NAvigation of the Kingdom how advanced 45 Neighbour over-potent dangerous 34 Bad News the effect thereof in Souldiers 63 Nobility neglected in Council the ill effects of it 32 Nobility few of them put to death in King Henry's time 134 North the King's journey thither for what reasons 11 O. OAth of Allegiance taken 9 Oath enforced upon Maximilian by his Subjects 46 Oath kept ibid. Obedience neglected what follows 42 First Occasion of a happy Union 109 Obsequies for the French King performed in England ibid. Obsequies to Tyrants what 1 An Ominous answer of the King 119 An Ominous Prognostick 129 Opinions divers what was to be done with Perkin 105 Orator from the Pope met at London-Bridge by the Mayor 101 Order of the Garter sent to Alphonso 64 Ostentation of Religion by the King of Spain 60 Over-merit prejudicial to Sir William Stanley 73 Outlawries how punished 120 Oxford Earl fined for breach of the Law 121 P. PAcificator King Henry between the French King and Duke of Britain 32 Pardon
proclaimed by the King 9 11 16 A Parliament called speedily 7 A Parliament called for two reasons 33 another 122 Parliaments advice desired by the King 33 35 56 Passions contrary in King Henry joy and sorrow with the reasons of both 36 Peace pretended by the French King 29 Peace to be desired but with two conditions 33 Peace concluded between England and France 64 People how brought to decay the redress of it by the King 44 Pensions given by the King of France 64 A Personation somewhat strange 65 A great Plague 12 Edward Plantagenet Son and Heir of George Duke of Clarence 4 Edward Plantagenet shewed to the People 17 Plantagenet's Race ended 195 Perkin Warbeck History of him 65 his Parentage 68 God son to K. Edward the Fourth ibid. his crafty behaviour 65 69 favoured by the French King 68 by him discarded 69 favoured by the Scottish King 85 he yieldeth and is brought to the Court 106 set in the Stocks 109 executed at Tyburn 111 A Pleasant passage of Prince Arthur 118 Policy to prevent War 26 A point of Policy to defend the Duchy of Britain against the French 29 34 Policy of State 26 Pope sows seeds of War 54 Pope Ambassador to him 24 Poynings Law in Ireland 79 Priest of Oxford Simon 13 Pretence of the French King 28 29 Prerogative how made use of 133 Price of Cloth limited 45 Prisoners Edward Plantagenet 4 Prince of Orange and Duke of Orleance 37 Maximilian by his Subjects 46 Priviledges of Clergy abridged 39 Priviledges of Sanctuary qualified in three points 24 Proclamation of Perkin what effect 90 Protection for being in the King's service limited 58 Proverb 104 Providence for the future 43 Q. QUeen Dowager 13 enclosed in the Monastery of Bermondsey 16 her variety of Fortune ibid. Queens Colledge founded in Cambridge 17 Q. Elizabeth Crowned after two years 24 Queen Elizabeth's death 119 R. REbellion of Lord Lovel and Staffords 11 Rebellion in Yorkshire 41 Rebellion how to be prevented 35 Rebellion how frequent in King Henry's time 42 Rebellion of the Cornishmen 92 Rebels but half-couraged men 96 Religion abused to serve Policy 122 Remorse of the King for oppression of his People 131 Restitution to be made by the King 's Will 132 Return of the King from France 64 Retribution of King Henry for Treasure received of his Subjects 43 Revenge divine 1 Revenge of Blood 122 Reward proposed by Perkin 111 Richard the Third a Tyrant 1 Richard slain at Bosworth-field ibid. this 〈◊〉 Burial ibid. murder of his two Nephews 2 jealous to maintain his Honour and Reputation ibid. hopes to win the People by making Laws ibid. this Virtues overswayed by his Vices 2 yet favoured in Yorkshire 40 Riches of King Henry at his death 132 Riches of Sir William Stanley 76 Richmond built upon what occasion 106 Riot and Retainers suppressed by Act of Parliament 123 Rome ever respected by King Henry 42 A Rumour false procuring much hatred to the King 12 Rumour false enquired after to be punished 23 Rumour that the Duke of York was alive first of the King 's own nourishing 37 S. SAnctuary at Colneham could not protect Traytors 12 Sanctuary-priviledges qualified by a Bull from the Pope in three points 24 Saturday observed and fancied by King Henry 5 96 Saying of the King when he heard of Rebels 41 Scottish men voyded out of England 58 Service of 〈◊〉 92 Simon the Priest 13 Skreens to the King who 92 A Sleight ingenious and taking good effect in War 〈◊〉 Sluce besieged and taken ibid. Soothsayers Prediction mistaken 〈◊〉 Speeches 32 49 53 Speech of the King to Parliament 55 Speech of Perkin 85 Speech conditional doth not qualifie 〈◊〉 of Treason 77 Speeches bitter against the King 64 Sparks of Rebellion neglected dangerous 〈◊〉 Spies from the King 72 Sprites of what kind vexed K. Henry 65 Stanley Sir William crowns King Henry in the field 〈◊〉 motives of his falling from the King 77 is appeached of Treason 70 is confined examined and consesseth 〈◊〉 is beheaded 77 Reasons which aliènated the King's affections 78 Star-Chamber Court confirmed in certain cases 38 Star-Camber Court described what Causes belong to it ibid. Statute of Non-claim 43 Steward publick the King 36 Strength of the Cornishmen 96 Spoils of Bosworth-field 78 Spoils as water spilt on the ground 97 Subsidy denied by the inhabitants of Yorkshire and Durham the reason wherefore 40 Subsidies denied by the Cornishmen 92 Subsidy Commissioner killed 93 Subsidy how much 91 Swart Martin 19 Sweating Sickness 6 the manner of the cure of it ibid. Sweating Sickness the interpretation the People made of it 23 T. ATale pleasant concerning the King 137 Terrour among the King's Servants and Subjects 67 Tyrrell Sir James a murderer of King Edward's two Sons 71 Tyrell executed 122 Thanks of the King to the Parliament 32 Thanksgiving to God for the Victory 1 23 24 61 Three Titles to the Kingdom meet in King Henry 2 Title to France stirred 54 by the King himself 55 Treasure to be kept in the Kingdom 45 Treasure raised by the King how 23 31 120 Treasure inordinately affected by the King 121 Treasure how increased 124 Treasure left at the King's death how much 132 Trade the increase thereof considered 36 Trade in decay pincheth 90 Traytors taken out of Sanctuary 12 Tower the King's lodging wherefore 75 A Triplicity dangerous 94 Triumph at the Marriage of the Lady Elizabeth to King Henry 10 Truce with Scotland 25 Tyrants the Obsequies of the People to them 1 V. VIctory wisely husbanded by the French 37 Victory at Black-heath 96 Union of England and Scotland its first original 98 Voyage of King Henry into France 63 Voyage for Discovery 107 Urswick Ambassador 65 Usury 40 W. VVAlsingham Lady vowed to by King Henry 20 Wards wronged 120 War between the French King and the Duke of Britain 30 War the fame thereof advantagious to King Henry 31 War gainful to the King 91 War pretended to get money 57 War of France ended by a Peace where at the Souldiers murmur 64 White Rose of England 69 104 Wilford counterfeit Earl of Warwick 110 A Wives affection 129 Woodvile voluntarily goes to aid the Duke of Britain 31 Woodvile slain at St. Albans in Britain 62 Wolsey employed by the King 130 Women carried away by violence a Law enacted against it the reasons 39 Womens ingratitude punished by Law 84 Y. YEomen of the Guard first instituted 7 Yeomanry how maintained 44 York House and Title favoured by the People 3 12 York Title and Line depressed by King Henry 4 10 York Title favoured in Ireland 15 Yorkshire and Durham deny to pay the Subsidy 49 THE HISTORY Of the Reign of KING HENRY The SEVENTH AFter that Richard the Third of that Name King in Fact only but Tyrant both in Title and Regiment and so commonly termed and reputed in all times since was by the Divine Revenge favouring the Design of an Exil'd man overthrown and slain at
refrain the Business for that he knew the pretended Plantagenet to be but an Idol But contrariwise he was more glad it should be the false Plantagenet than the true because the false being sure to fall away of himself and the true to be made sure of by the King it might open and pave a fair and prepared way to his own Title With this Resolution he sayled secretly into Flanders where was a little before arrived the Lord Lovel leaving a correspondence here in England with Sir Thomas Broughton a man of great Power and Dependencies in Lancashire For before this time when the pretended Plantagenet was first received in Ireland secret Messengers had been also sent to the Lady Margaret advertising her what was passed in Ireland imploring Succours in an Enterprize as they said so pious and just and that God had so miraculously prospered the beginning thereof and making offer that all things should be guided by her will and direction as the Sovereign Patroness and Protectress of the Enterprize Margaret was second Sister to King Edward the Fourth and had been second Wife to Charles sirnamed the Hardy Duke of Burgundy by whom having no Children of her own she did with singular care and tenderness intend the Education of Philip and Margaret Grand-children to her former Husband which won her great Love and Authority among the Dutch This Princess having the Spirit of a Man and Malice of a Woman abounding in Treasure by the greatness of her Dower and her provident Government and being childless and without any nearer Care made it her Design and Enterprize to see the Majesty Royal of England once again re-placed in her House and had set up King Henry as a Mark at whose Overthrow all her Actions should aim and shoot in-so-much as all the Counsels of his succeeding Troubles came chiefly out of that Quiver And she bare such a mortal Hatred to the House of Lancaster and personally to the King as she was no ways mollified by the Conjunction of the Houses in her Neeces Marriage but rather hated her Neece as the means of the King's ascent to the Crown and assurance therein Wherefore with great violence of affection she embraced this Overture And upon Counsel taken with the Earl of Lincoln and the Lord Lovel and some other of the Party it was resolved with all speed the two Lords assisted with a Regiment of two thousand Almains being choice and veterane Bands under the Command of Martin Swart a valiant and experimented Captain should pass over into Ireland to the new King Hoping that when the Action should have the face of a received and setled Regality with such a second Person as the Earl of Lincoln and the Conjunction and Reputation of Forein Succors the Fame of it would embolden and prepare all the Party of the Confederates and Male-contents within the Realm of England to give them Assistance when they should come over there And for the Person of the Counterfeit it was agreed that if all things succeeded well he should be put down and the true Plantagenet received Wherein nevertheless the Earl of Lincoln had his particular hopes After they were come into Ireland and that the Party took courage by seeing themselves together in a Body they grew very confident of success conceiving and discoursing amongst themselves that they went in upon far better Cards to overthrow King Henry than King Henry had to overthrow King Richard And that if there were not a Sword drawn against them in Ireland it was a sign the Swords in England would be soon sheathed or beaten down And first for a Bravery upon this accession of Power they Crowned their new King in the in the Cathedral Church of Dublin who formerly had been but Proclaimed only and then sate in Council what should further be done At which Council though it were propounded by some that it were the best way to Establish themselves first in Ireland and to make that the Seat of the War and to draw King Henry thither in Person by whose absence they thought there would be great Alterations and Commotions in England yet because the Kingdom there was poor and they should not be able to keep their Army together nor pay their German Soldiers and for that also the sway of the Irish-men and generally of the Men-of-War which as in such cases of popular Tumults is usual did in effect govern their Leaders was eager and in affection to make their Fortunes upon England It was concluded with all possible speed to transport their Forces into England The King in the mean time who at the first when he heard what was done in Ireland though it troubled him yet thought he should be well enough able to scatter the Irish as a Flight of Birds and rattle away this Swarm of Bees with their King when he heard afterwards that the Earl of Lincoln was embarqued in the Action and that the Lady Margaret was declared for it he apprehended the danger in a true Degree as it was and saw plainly that his Kingdom must again be put to the Stake and that he must fight for it And first he did conceive before he understood of the Earl of Lincoln's sayling into Ireland out of Flanders that he should be assailed both upon the East-parts of the Kingdom of England by some impression from Flanders and upon the Northwest out of Ireland And therefore having ordered Musters to be made in both Parts and having provisionally designed two Generals Jasper Earl of Bedford and John Earl of Oxford meaning himself also to go in person where the Affairs should most require it and nevertheless not expecting any actual Invasion at that time the Winter being far on he took his journey himself towards Suffolk and Norfolk for the confirming of those parts And being come to St. Edmonds-bury he understood that Thomas Marquess Dorset who had been one of the Pledges in France was hastning towards him to purge himself of some Accusations which had been made against him But the King though he kept an Ear for him yet was the time so doubtful that he sent the Earl of Oxford to meet him and forthwith to carry him to the Tower with a fair Message nevertheless that he should bear that disgrace with patience for that the King meant not his hurt but only to preserve him from doing hurt either to the King's service or to himself and that the King should always be able when he had cleared himself to make him reparation From St. Edmonds-bury he went to Norwich where he kept his Christmas And from thence he went in a manner of Pilgrimage to Walsingham where he visited our Ladies Church famous for Miracles and made his Prayers and Vows for help and deliverance And from thence he returned by Cambridge to London Not long after the Rebels with their King under the Leading of the Earl of Lincoln the Earl of Kildare the Lord Lovel and Colonel Swart landed at Fouldrey in
not a little inflamed with an ambition to re-purchase and re-annex that Dutchy Which his ambition was a wise and well-weighed Ambition not like unto the ambitions of his succeeding Enterprizes of Italy For at that time being newly come to the Crown he was somewhat guided by his Father's Counsels Counsels not Counsellors for his Father was his own Counsel and had few able men about him And that King he knew well had ever distasted the Designs of Italy and in particular had an Eye upon Britain There were many circumstances that did feed the Ambition of Charles with pregnant and apparent hopes of Success The Duke of Britain old and entred into a Lethargy and served with Mercenary Counsellors Father of two only Daughters the one sick and not likely to continue King Charles himself in the flower of his age and the Subjects of France at that time well trained for War both for Leaders and Soldiers men of service being not yet worn out since the Wars of Lewis against Burgundy He found himself also in Peace with all his Neighbour-Princes As for those that might oppose to his Enterprize Maximilian King of the Romans his Rival in the same desires as well for the Dutchy as the Daughter feeble in means and King Henry of England as well somewhat obnoxious to him for his favours and benefits as busied in his particular troubles at home There was also a fair and specious occasion offered him to hide his Ambition and to justifie his Warring upon Britain for that the Duke had received and succoured Lewis Duke of Orleance and other of the French Nobility which had taken Arms against their King Wherefore King Charles being resolved upon that War knew well he could not receive any opposition so potent as if King Henry should either upon Policy of State in preventing the growing Greatness of France or upon gratitude unto the Duke of Britain for his former favours in the time of his distress espouse that Quarrel and declare himself in ayd of the Duke Therefore he no sooner heard that King Henry was setled by his Victory but forth with he sent Ambassadors unto him to pray his assistance or at the least that he would stand neutral Which Ambassadors found the King at Leicester and delivered their Embassy to this effect They first imparted unto the King the success that their Master had had a little before against Maximilian in recovery of certain Towns from him which was done in a kind of privacy and inwardness towards the King and if the French King did not esteem him for an outward or formal Confederate but as one that had part in his Affections and Fortunes and with whom he took pleasure to communicate his Business After this Compliment and some gratulation for the King's Victory they fell to their Errand declaring to the King that their Master was enforced to enter into a just and necessary War with the Duke of Britain for that he had received and succoured those that were Traytors and declared Enemies unto his Person and State That they were no mean distressed and calamitous persons that fled to him for refuge but of so great quality as it was apparent that they came not thither to protect their own fortune but to infest and invade his the Head of them being the Duke of Orleance the first Prince of the Blood and the second Person of France That therefore rightly to understand it it was rather on their Master's part a Defensive War than an Offensive as that that could not be omitted or forborn if he tendred the conservation of his own Estate and that it was not the first Blow that made the War Invasive for that no wise Prince would stay for but the first Provocation or at least the first Preparation Nay that this War was rather a suppression of Rebels than a War with a just Enemy where the Case is That his Subjects Traytors are received by the Duke of Britain his Homager That King Henry knew well what went upon it in example if Neighbour Princes should patronize and comfort Rebels against the Law of Nations and of Leagues Nevertheless that their Master was not ignorant that the King had been beholding to the Duke of Britain in his adversity as on the other side they knew he would not forget also the readiness of their King in ayding him when the Duke of Britain or his mercenary Counsellors failed him and would have betrayed him And that there was a great difference between the courtesies received from their Master and the Duke of Britain for that the Dukes might have ends of Utility and Bargain whereas their Masters could not have proceeded but out of entire Affection For that if it had been measured by a politick line it had been better for his affairs that a Tyrant should have reigned in England troubled and hated than such a Prince whose virtues could not fail to make him great and potent whensoever he was come to be Master of his affairs But howsoever it stood for the point of Obligation which the King might owe to the Duke of Britain yet their Master was well assured it would not divert King Henry of England from doing that that was just nor ever embarque him in so ill-grounded a Quarrel Therefore since this War which their Master was now to make was but to deliver himself from imminent dangers their King hoped the King would shew the like affection to the conservation of their Master's Estate as their Master had when time was shewed to the King's acquisition of his Kingdom At the least that according to the inclination which the King had ever professed of Peace he would look on and stand Neutral for that their Master could not with reason press him to undertake part in the War being so newly setled and recovered from intestine Seditions But touching the Mystery of re-annexing of the Dutchy of Britain to the Crown of France either by War or by Marriage with the Daughter of Britain the Ambassadors bare aloof from it as from a Rock knowing that it made most against them And therefore by all means declined any mention thereof but contrariwise interlaced in their conference with the King the assured purpose of their Master to match with the Daughter of Maximilian And entertained the King also with some wandring Discourses of their King's purpose to recover by Arms his right to the Kingdom of Naples by an expedition in Person All to remove the King from all-jealousie of any Design in these hither Parts upon Britain otherwise than for quenching of the Fire which he feared might be kindled in his own Estate The King after advice taken with his Council made answer to the Ambassadors And first returned their Compliment shewing he was right glad of the French King's reception of those Towns from Maximilian Then he familiarly related some particular passages of his own Adventures and Victory passed As to the business of Britain the King answered in
the King remits himself to your grave and mature Advice whereupon he purposeth to rely This was the effect of the Lord Chancellor's Speech touching the Cause of Britain For the King had commanded him to carry it so as to affect the Parliament towards the Business but without engaging the King in any express Declaration The Chancellor went on FOR that which may concern the Government at home the King hath commanded me to say unto you That he thinketh there was never any King for the small time that he hath reigned had greater and juster cause of the two contrary Passions of Joy and Sorrow than his Grace hath Joy in respect of the rare and visible Favours of Almighty GOD in girting the Imperial Sword upon his side and assisting the same his Sword against all his Enemies and likewise in blessing him with so many good and loving Servants and Subjects which have never failed to give him faithful Counsel ready Obedience and couragious Defence Sorrow for that it both not pleased God to suffer him to sheath his Sword as he greatly desired otherwise than for Administration of Justice but that he hath been forced to draw it so oft to cut off Trayterous and disloyal Subjects whom it seems God hath left a few amongst many good as the Canaanites among the People of Israel to be thorns in their sides to tempt and try them though the end hath been always God's Name be blessed therefore that the Destruction hath faln upon their own Heads Wherefore his Grace saith That he seeth that it is not the Blood spelt in the Field that will save the Blood in the City not the Marshal's Sword that will set this Kingdom in perfect Peace But that the true way is to stop the Seeds of Sedition and Rebellion in their beginnings and for that purpose to devise confirm and quicken good and wholsom Laws against Riots and unlawful Assemblies of People and all Combinations and Confederacies of them by Liveries Tokens and other Badges of Factious dependance that the Peace of the Land may by these Ordinances as by Bars of Iron be soundly bound in and strengthned and all Force both in Court Countrey and private Houses be supprest The care hereof which so much concern eth your selves and which the nature of the Times doth instantly calls for his Grace commends to your Wisdoms And because it is the King's desire that this Peace wherein he hopeth to govern and maintain you do not bear only'unto you Leaves for you to sit under the shade of them in Safety but also should bear you fruit of Riches Wealth and Plenty Therefore his Grace prays you to take into consideration matter of Trade as also the Manufactures of the Kingdom and to repress the bastard and barren Employment of Moneys to Usury and unlawful Exchanges that they may be as their natural use is turned upon Commerce and lawful and Royal Trading And likewise that Our People be set on work in Arts and Handy-crafts that the Realm may subsist more of it self that Idleness be avoided and the draining out of our Treasure for Foreign Manufactures stopped But you are not to rest here only but to provide further that whatsoever Merchandize shall be brought in from beyond the Seas may be employed upon the Commodities of this Land whereby the Kingdoms stock of Treasure may be sure to be kept from being diminished by any over-trading of the Foreiner And lastly because the King is well assured that you would not have him poor that wishes you rich he doubteth not but that you will have care as well to maintain his Revenues of Customs and all other Natures as also to supply him with your loving Ayds if the case shall so require The rather for that you know the King is a good Husband and but a Steward in effect for the Publick and that what comes from you is but as Moisture drawn from the Earth which gathers into a Cloud and falls back upon the Earth again And you know well how the Kingdoms about you grow more and more in Greatness and the Times are stirring and therefore not fit to find the King with an empty Purse More I have not to say to you and wish that what hath been said had been better exprest But that your Wisdoms and good Affections will supply GOD bless your Doings IT was no hard matter to dispose and affect the Parliament in this Business as well in respect of the Emulation between the Nations and the Envy at the late growth of the French Monarchy as in regard of the Danger to suffer the French to make their approaches upon England by obtaining so goodly a Maritim Province full of Sea-Towns and Havens that might do mischief to the English either by Invasion or by interruption of Traffick The Parliament was also moved with the point of Oppression for although the French seemed to speak Reason yet Arguments are ever with multitudes too weak for Suspitions Wherefore they did advise the King roundly to embrace the Britons Quarrel and to send them speedy Ayds and with much alacrity and forwardness granted to the King a great rate of Subsidy in contemplation of these Ayds But the King both to keep a decency towards the French King to whom he 〈◊〉 himself to be obliged and indeed desirous rather to shew War than to make it sent new solemn Ambassadors to intimate unto him the Decree of his Estates and to iterate his motion that the French would desist from Hostilitiy or if War must follow to desire him to take it in good part if at the motion of his People who were sensible of the cause of the Britons as the ancient Friends and Confederates he did send them Succours with protestation nevertheless that to save all Treaties and Laws of Friendship he had limited his Force to proceed in ayd of the Britons but in no wise to war upon the French otherwise than as they maintained the possession of Britain But before this formal Ambassage arrived the Party of the Duke had received a great blow and grew to manifest declination For near the Town of Saint Alban in Britain a Battel had been given where the Britons were overthrown and the Duke of Orleance and the Prince of Orange taken Prisoners there being slain on the Britons part six thousand men and amongst them the Lord Woodvile and almost all his Souldiers valiantly fighting And of the French part one thousand two hundred with their Leader James Galeot a great Commander When the news of this Battel came over into England it was time for the King who now had no subterfuge to continue further Treaty and saw before his Eyes that Britain went so speedily for lost contrary to his hopes knowing also that with his People and Foreiners both he sustained no small Envy and disreputation for his former delays to dispatch with all possible speed his Succour into Britain which he did under the Conduct of Robert Lord Brook
or Foot And to make good Infantry it requireth men bred not in a servile or indigent fashion but in some free and plentiful manner Therefore if a State run most to Noble-men and Gentlemen and that the Husband-men and Plough-men be but as their Work-folks and Labourers or else meer Cottagers which are but Housed-Beggars you may have a good Cavalry but never good stable Bands of Foot like to Coppice-Woods that if you leave in them Staddles too thick they will run to Bushes and Bryars and have little clean Underwood And this is to be seen in France and Italy and some other parts abroad where in effect all is Nobless or Pesantry I speak of people out of Towns and no middle people and therefore no good Forces of Foot In so much as they are enforced to employ Mercenary Bands of Switzers and the like for their Battuilions of Foot Whereby also it comes to pass that those Nations have much People and few Soldiers Whereas the King saw that contrariwise it would follow that England though much less in Territory yet should have infinitely more Soldiers of their native Forces than those other Nations have Thus did the King secretly sow Hidra's teeth whereupon according to the Poets fiction should rise up Armed men for the service of the Kingdom The King also having care to make his Realm potent as well by Sea as by Land for the better maintenance of the Navy Ordained That Wines and Woads from the parts of Gascoign and Languedock should not be brought but in English Bottoms Bowing the ancient Policy of this Estate from consideration of Plenty to consideration of Power For that almost all the ancient Statutes incite by all means Merchant-strangers to bring in all sorts of Commodities having for end cheapness and not looking to the point of State concerning the Naval-power The King also made a Statute in that Parliament Monitory and Minatory towards Justices of Peace that they should duly execute their Office inviting complaints against them first to their Fellow Justices then to the Justices of Assize then to the King or Chancellor and that a Proclamation which he had published of that Tenor should be read in open Sessions four times a year to keep them awake Meaning also to have his Laws executed and thereby to reap either Obedience or Forfeitures wherein towards his latter times he did decline too much to the left hand he did ordain remedy against the practice that was grown in use to stop and damp Informations upon Penal Laws by procuring Informations by collusion to be put in by the Confederates of the Delinquents to be faintly prosecuted and let fall at pleasure and pleading them in Bar of the Informations which were prosecuted with effect He made also Laws for the correction of the Mint and counterfeiting of Forein Coyn currant And that no payment in Gold should be made to any Merchant-stranger the better to keep Treasure within the Realm for that Gold was the metal that lay in least room He made also Statutes for the maintenance of Drapery and the keeping of Wools within the Realm and not only so but for stinting and limiting the prices of Cloth one for the finer and another for the courser sort Which I note both because it was a rare thing to set prices by Statute especially upon our Home-Commodities and because of the wise Model of the Act not prescribing Prices but stinting them not to exceed a rate that the Clothier might drape accordingly as he might afford Divers other good Statutes were made that Parliament but these were the principal And here I do desire those into whose hands this Work shall fall that they do take in good part my long insisting upon the Laws that were made in this King's Reign whereof I have these reasons Both because it was the preheminent virtue and merit of this King to whose memory I do honour and because it hath some correspondence to my Person but chiefly because in my judgement it is some defect even in the best Writers of History 〈◊〉 that they do not often enough summarily deliver and set down the most memorable Laws that passed in the times whereof they write being indeed the principal Acts of Peace For although they may be had in Original Books of Law themselves yet that informeth not the judgement of Kings and Counsellors and Persons of Estate so well as to see them described and entred in the Table and Pourtrait of the Times About the same time the King had a Loan from the City of Four thousand pounds which was double to that they lent before and was duely and orderly payd back at the day as the former likewise had been the King ever choosing rather to borrow too soon than to pay too late and so keeping up his Credit Neither had the King yet cast off his cares and hopes touching Britain but thought to master the occasion by Policy though his Arms had been unfortunate and to bereave the French King of the fruit of his Victory The summ of his design was to encourage Maximilian to go on with his suit for the Marriage of Ann the Heir of Britain and to ayd him to the consummation thereof But the affairs of Maximilian were at that time in great trouble and combustion by a Rebellion of his Subjects in Flanders especially those of Bruges and Gaunt whereof the Town of Bruges at such time as Maximilian was there in person had suddenly armed in tumult and slain some of his principal Officers and taken himself prisoner and held him in durance till they had enforced him and some of his Counsellors to take a solemn Oath to pardon all their offences and never to question and revenge the same in time to come Nevertheless Frederick the Emperor would not suffer this reproach and indignity offered to his Son to pass but made sharp Wars upon Flanders to reclaim and chastise the Rebels But the Lord Ravenstein a principal person about Maximilian and one that had taken the Oath of Abolition with his Master pretending the Religion thereof but indeed upon private ambition and as it was thought instigated and corrupted from France forsook the Emperor and Maximilian his Lord and made himself an Head of the popular Party and seized upon the Towns of Ipre and Sluce with both the Castles and forthwith sent to the Lord Cordes Governour of Picardy under the French King to desire ayd and to move him that he on the behalf of the French King would be Protector of the united Towns and by force of Arms reduce the rest The Lord Cordes was ready to embrace the occasion which was partly of his own setting and sent forthwith greater Forces than it had been possible for him to raise on the sudden if he had not looked for such a summons before in ayd of the Lord Ravenstein and the Flemmings with instructions to invest the Towns between France and Bruges The French Forces besieged a little Town
handling of that service and gave them all thanks and in private promised Reward to some particulars Upon the sixteenth of November this being the Eleventh year of the King was holden the Serjeants-Feast at Ely-Place there being nine Serjeants of that Call The King to honour the Feast was present with his Queen at the Dinner being a Prince that was ever ready to grace and countenance the Professors of the Law having a little of that That as he governed his Subjects by his Laws so he governed his Laws by his Lawyers This year also the King entred into League with the Italian Potentates for the defence of Italy against France For King Charles had conquered the Realm of Naples and lost it again in a kind of Felicity of a Dream He passed the whole length of Italy without resistance so that it was true which Pope Alexander was wont to say That the French-men came into Italy with 〈◊〉 in their hands to mark up their lodgings rather than with Swords to fight He likewise entred and won in effect the whole Kingdom of Naples it self without striking stroke But presently thereupon he did commit and multiply so many Errours as was too great a task for the best fortune to overcome He gave no contentment to the Barons of Naples of the Faction of the Angeovines but scattered his rewards according to the mercenary appetites of some about him He put all Italy upon their Guard by the seizing and holding of Ostia and the protecting of the Liberty of Pisa which made all men suspect that his purposes looked further than his Title of Naples He fell too soon at difference with Ludovico Sfortia who was the man that carried the Keys which brought him in and shut him out He neglected to extinguish some reliques of the War And lastly in regard of his easie passage through Italy without resistance he entred into an over-much despising of the Arms of the Italians whereby he left the Realm of Naples at his departure so much the less provided So that not long after his return the whole Kingdom revolted to Ferdinando the younger and the French were quite driven out Nevertheless Charles did make both great threats and great preparations to re-enter Italy once again Wherefore at the instance of divers of the States of Italy and especially of Pope Alexander there was a League concluded between the said Pope Maximilian King of Romans Henry King of England Ferdinando and Isabella King and Queen of Spain for so they are constantly placed in the Original Treaty throughout Augustissimo Barbadico Duke of Venice and Ludovico Sfortia Duke of Millan for the common defence of their Estates Wherein though Ferdinando of Naples was not named as principal yet no doubt the Kingdom of Naples was tacitly included as a Fee of the Church There dyed also this year Cecile Duchess of York Mother to King Edward the Fourth at her Castle of Barkbamstead being of extreme years and who had lived to see three Princes of her body crowned and four murthered She was buried at Foderingham by her Husband This year also the King called his Parliament where many Laws were made of a more private and vulgar nature than ought to detain the Reader of an History And it may be justly suspected by the proceedings following that as the King did excell in good Common-wealth Laws so nevertheless he had in secret a design to make use of them as well for collecting of Treasure as for correcting of Manners and so meaning thereby to harrow his People did accumulate them the rather The principal Law that was made this Parliament was a Law of a strange nature rather just than legal and more magnanimous than provident This Law did ordain That no person that did assist in Arms or otherwise the King for the time being should after be impeached therefore or attainted either by the course of the Law or by Act of Parliament But if any such Act of Attainder did happen to be made it should be void and of none effect For that it was agreeable to reason of Estate that the Subject should not enquire of the justness of the King's Title or Quarrel and it was agreeable to good Conscience that whatsoever the fortune of the War were the Subject should not suffer for his Obedience The spirit of this Law was wonderful Pious and Noble being like in matter of War unto the spirit of David in matter of Plague who said If I have sinned strike me but what have these sheep done Neither wanted this Law parts of prudent and deep fore-sight For it did the better take away occasion for the People to busie themselves to pry into the King's Title for that howsoever it fell their safety was already provided for Besides it could not but greatly draw unto him the love and hearts of the People because he seemed more careful for them than for himself But yet nevertheless it did take off from his Party that great Tye and Spur of necessity to fight and go Victors out of the field considering their lives and fortunes were put in safety and protected whether they stood to it or ran away But the force and obligation of this Law was in it self Illusory as to the latter part of it by a precedent Act of Parliament to bind or frustrate a future For a supreme and absolute Power cannot conclude it self neither can that which is in nature revocable be made fixed no more than if a man should appoint or declare by his Will that if he made any Latter Will it should be void And for the Case of the Act of Parliament there is a notable President of it in King Henry the Eighth's time Who doubting he might dye in the minority of his Son procured an Act to pass That no Statute made during the minority of the King should bind him or his Successors except it were confirmed by the King under his great Seal at his full age But the first Act that passed in King Edward the Sixth his time was an Act of Repeal of that former Act at which time nevertheless the King was Minor But things that do not bind may satisfie for the time There was also made a shoaring or under-propping Act for the Benevolence to make the summs which any person had agreed to pay and nevertheless were not brought in to be leviable by course of Law Which Act did not only bring in the Arears but did indeed countenance the whole business and was pretended to be made at the desire of those that had been forward to pay This Parliament also was made that good Law which gave the Attaint upon a false Verdict between Party and Party which before was a kind of Evangile irremediable It extends not to causes Capital as well because they are for the most part at the King's Suit as because in them if they be followed in Course of Indictment there passeth a double Jury the Indictors and the Tryers and so
not Twelve Men but Four and twenty But it seemeth that was not the only reason for this reason holdeth not in the Appeal But the great reason was lest it should tend to the discouragement of Jurors in Cases of Life and Death if they should be subject to Suit and Penalty where the favour of Life maketh against them It extendeth not also to any Suit where the Demand is under the value of forty Pounds for that in such Cases of petty value it would not quit the Charge to go about again There was another Law made against a branch of Ingratitude in Women who having been advanced by their Husbands or their Husbands Ancestors should alien and thereby seek to defeat the Heirs or those in Remainder of the Lands whereunto they had been so advanced The remedy was by giving power to the next to enter for a forfeiture There was also enacted that Charitable Law for the admission of poor Suitors In Forma Pauperis without Fee to Counsellor Attorney or Clerk whereby poor men became rather able to vex than unable to sue There were divers other good Laws made that Parliament as we said before but we still observe our manner in selecting out those that are not of a Vulgar nature The King this while though he sate in Parliament as in full Place and seemed to account of the designs of Perkin who was now returned into Flanders but as a May-game yet having the composition of a wise-King Stout without and Apprehensive within had given order for the watching of Beacons upon the Coasts and erecting more where they stood too thin and had a careful eye where this wandering Cloud would break But Perkin advised to keep his fire which hitherto burned as it were upon green wood alive with continual blowing Sailed again into Ireland whence he had formerly departed rather upon the hopes France than upon any unreadiness or discouragement he found in that People But in the space of time between the King's Diligence and Poynings Commission had so setled things there as there was nothing left for Perkin but the blustring affection of wild and naked people Wherefore he was advised by his Council to seek ayd of the King of Scotland a Prince young and valorous and in good terms with his Nobles and People and ill affected to King Henry At this time also both Maximilian and Charles of France began to bear no good will to the King The one being displeased with the King's Prohibition of Commerce with Flanders the other holding the King for suspect in regard of his late entry into League with the Italians Wherefore besides the open Ayds of the Duchess of Burgandy which did with Sails and Oars put on and advance Perkin's designs there wanted not some secret Tides from Maximilian and Charles which did further his fortunes In so much as they both by their secret Letters and Messages recommended him to the King of Scotland Perkin therefore coming into Scotland upon those hopes with a well appointed company was by the King of Scots being formerly well prepared honourably welcomed and soon after his arrival admitted to his Presence in a solemn manner For the King received him in State in his Chamber of Presence accompanied with divers of his Nobles And Perkin well attended as well with those that the King had sent before him as with his own Train entred the room where the King was and coming near to the King and bowing a little to embrace him he retired some paces back and with a loud voice that all that were present might hear him made his Declaration in this manner HIgh and Mighty King your Grace and these your Nobles here present may be pleased benignly to bow your Ears to hear the Tragedy of a young Man that by right ought to hold in his hand the Ball of a Kingdom but by Fortune is made Himself a Ball tossed from Misery to Misery and from Place to Place You see here before you the Spectacle of a Plantagenet who hath been carried from the Nursery to the Sanctuary from the Sanctuary to the direful Prison from the Prison to the hand of the cruel Tormentor and from that hand to the wide-Wilderness as I may truly call it for so the World hath been to me So that he that is born to a great Kingdom hath not ground to set his foot upon more than this where he now standeth by your Princely Favour Edward the Fourth late King of England as your Grace cannot but have heard left two Sons Edward and Richard Duke of York both very young Edward the eldest succeeded their Father in the Crown by the name of King Edward the Fifth But Richard Duke of Gloceffer their unnatural Uncle first thirsting after the Kingdom through Ambition and afterwards thirsting for their Blood out of desire to secure himself employed an Instrument of his confident to him as he thought to murther them both But this Man that was employed to execate that execrable Tragedy having cruelly slain King Edward the eldest of the two was moved partly by Remorse and partly by some other mean to save Richard his Brother making a Report nevertheless to the Tyrant that he had performed his Commandment for both Brethren This Report was accordingly believed and published generally So that the World hath been possessed of an Opinion that they both were barbarously made away though ever Truth hath some sparks that flie abroad until it appear in due time as this hath had But Almighty God that stopped the mouth of the Lion and saved little Joas from the Tyranny of Athaliah when she massacred the King's Children and did save Isaac when the hand was stretched forth to sacrifice him preserved the second Brother For I my self that stand here in your presence am that very Richard Duke of York Brother of that infortunate Prince King Edward the Fifth now the most rightful surviving Heir-male to that Victorious and most Noble Edward of that name the Fourth late King of England For the manner of my Escape it is fit it should pass in silence or at least in a more secret Relation for that it may concern some alive and the memory of some that are dead Let it suffice to think that I had then a Mother living a Queen and one that expected daily such a Commandment from the Tyrant for the murthering of her Children Thus in my tender age escaping by God's mercy out of London I was secretly conveyed over Sea Where after a time the Party that had me in Charge upon what new Fears change of Mind or Practice God knoweth suddenly forsook me Whereby I was forced to wander abroad to seek mean Conditions for the sustaining of my Life Wherefore distracted between several Passions the one of fear to be known lest the Tyrant should have a new Attempt upon me the other of Grief and Disdain to be unknown and to live in that base and servile manner that I did I resolved with
my self to expect the Tyrant's death and then to put my self into my Sisters hands who was next Heir to the Crown But in this season it happened one Henry Tidder Son to Edmond Tidder Earl of Richmond to come from France and enter into the Realm and by subtil and foul means to obtain the Crown of the same which to me rightfully appertained So that it was but a change from Tyrant to Tyrant This Henry my extreme and mortal Enemy so soon as he had knowledge of my being alive imagined and wrought all the subtil ways and means he could to procure my final Destruction For my mortal Enemy hath not only falsly surmised me to be a feigned Person giving me Nick-names so abusing the World but also to deferr and put me from entry into England hath offered large summs of Money to corrupt the Princes and their Ministers with whom I have been retained and made importune Labours to certain Servants about my Person to murther or Poyson me and others to forsake and leave my righteous Quarrel and to depart from my Service as Sir Robert Clifford and others So that every man of Reason may well perceive that Henry calling himself King of England needed not to have bestowed such great summs of Treasure nor so to have busied himself with importune and incessant Labour and Industry to compass my Death and Ruine if I had been such a feigned Person But the truth of my Cause being so manifest moved the most Christian King Charles and the Lady Duchess Dowager of Burgundy my most dear Aunt not only to acknowledge the truth thereof but lovingly to assist me But it seemeth that God above for the good of this whole Island and the knitting of these two Kingdoms of England and Scotland in a strait Concord and Amity by so great an Obligation had reserved the placing of me in the Imperial Throne of England for the Arms and Succours of your Grace Neither is it the first time that a King of Scotland hath supported them that were bereft and spoiled of the Kingdom of England as of late in fresh memory it was done in the Person of Henry the Sixth Wherefore for that your Grace hath given clear signs that you are in no Noble quality inferiour to your Royal Ancestors I so distressed a Prince was hereby moved to come and put my self into your Royal Hands desiring your Assistance to recover my Kingdom of England promising faithfully to bear my self towards your Grace no otherwise than if I were your own Natural Brother and will upon the Recovery of mine Inheritance gratefully do you all the Pleasure that is in my utmost Power AFter Perkin had told his Tale King James answered bravely and wisely That whatsoever he were he should not repent him of putting himself into his hand And from that time forth though there wanted not some about him that would have perswaded him that all was but an Illusion yet notwithstanding either taken by Perkin's amiable and alluring behaviour or inclining to the recommendation of the great Princes abroad or willing to take an occasion of a War against King Henry he entertained him in all things as became the person of Richard Duke of York embraced his Quarrel and the more to put it out of doubt that he took him to be a great Prince and not a Representation only he gave consent that this Duke should take to Wife the Lady Catherine Gordon Daughter to Earl Huntley being a near Kinswoman to the King himself and a young Virgin of excellent beauty and virtue Not long after the King of Scots in person with Perkin in his company entred with a great Army though it consisted chiefly of Borderers being raised somewhat suddenly into Northumberland And Perkin for a Perfume before him as he went caused to be published a Proclamation of this tenour following in the name of Richard Duke of York true Inheritor of the Crown of England IT hath pleased God who putteth down the Mighty from their Seat and exalteth the Humble and suffereth not the hopes of the Just to perish in the end to give Us means at the length to shew Our Selves armed unto Our Lieges and People of England But far be it from Us to intend their hurt and damage or to make War upon them otherwise than to deliver Our Self and them from Tyranny and Oppression For Our mortal Enemy Henry Tidder a false 〈◊〉 of the Crown of England which tolls by Natural and Lineal Right appertaineth knowing in his own Heart Our undoubted Right We being the very Richard Duke of York younger Son and now surviving Heir-male of the Noble and Victorious Edward the Fourth late King of England hath not only deprived Us of Our Kingdom but likewise by all foul and wicked means sought to betray Us and bereave Us of Our Life Yet if his Tyranny only extended it self to Our Person although Our Royal Blood teacheth Us to be sensible of Injuries it should be less to Our Grief But this Tidder who boasteth himself to have overthrown a Tyrant hath ever since his first entrance into his Usurped Reign put little in practice but Tyranny and the feats thereof For King Richard Our unnatural Uncle although desire of Rule did blind him yet in his other actions like a true Plantagenet was Noble and loved the Honour of the Realm and the Contentment and Comfort of his Nobles and People But this Our Mortal Enemy agreeable to the meanness of his Birth hath trod under foot the Honour of this Nation selling Our hest Confederates for Money and making Merchandize of the Blood Estates and Fortunes of Our Peers and Subjects by feigned wars and dishonourable Peace only to enrich his Coffers Nor unlike hath been his hateful Mis-government and evil Deportments at home First he hath to fortifie his false Quarrel caused divers Nobles of this Our Realm whom he held Suspect and stood in dread of to be cruelly murthred as Our Cousin Sir William Stanley Lord Chamberlain Sir Simon Mountfort Sir Robert Ratcliff William Dawbeney Humphrey Stafford and many others besides such as have dearly bought their Lives with intolerable Ransoms Some of which Nobles are now in the Sanctuary Also he hath long kept and yet keepeth in Prison Our right entirely beloved Cousin Edward Son and Heir to Our Uncle Duke of Clarence and others with-bolding from them their rightful Inheritance to the intent they should never be of might and power to aid and assist Us at Our need after the duty of their Liegeances He also married by compulsion certain of Our Sisters and also the Sister of Our said Cousin the Earl of Warwick and divers other Ladies of the Royal Blood unto certain of his Kinsmen and Friends of simple and low Degree and putting apart all well-disposed Nobles he hath none in favour and trust about his Person but Bishop Fox Smith Bray Lovel Oliver King David Owen Risley Turbervile Tiler Cholmley Empson James Hobart John Cut Garth
scarce gain belief Wherefore I am well content that Truth which maugre her enemies will at length be every where victorions shall prevail with me I have done to my power Politely eloquently politickly I could not write Truly and fide Atticâ as they say I could If I have done amiss in ought it is not out of malice but errour which the gentle Reader will I hope pardon This I earnestly intreat withal beseeching the All-good and All-mighty God that this my labour directed to no other end than to his glory and the good of his Church may attain its due and by me desired success Farewel ANNALS OF ENGLAND From the Year 1508 to the Year 1558. BOOK I. King HENRY the Eighth ANNO DOM. 1509. REG. 1. AFter the death of Henry the Seventh his only Son Henry Prince of Wales undertook the Government of this Kingdom He had then attained to the Age of Eighteen years and was richly adorned with Endowments both of Body and Mind For of Stature he was tall of a beautiful Aspect and of Form through all his age truly beseeming a King He was witty docil and naturally propense to Letters until Pleasures to which the Liberty of Sovereignty easily prompteth did somewhat unseasonably withdraw him from his Studies to these you may add a Great Spirit aspiring to the glory both of Fortitude and Munificence This towardliness was so seconded by the happy care of his Tutors that if the end of his Reign had been answerable to the beginning Henry the Eighth might deservedly have been ranked amongst the greatest of our Kings For if you consider his first Twenty years you shall not easily find any one that either more happily managed Affairs abroad or Governed more wisely at home of that bare greater sway among his Neighbour Princes This I think ought chiefly to be ascribed to the providence of his wise Father and his Grand-mother then still alive For they took care that he should have wise and virtuous Over-seers in his youth by whose assistance having once passed the hazards thereof he happily avoided those Rocks whereon so many daily suffer wrack But these either dying or being so broken with age that they could be no longer employed in affairs of State and he himself being now come to those years that commonly cast aside Modesty Modeslty I say the Guardian of that great Virtue then making use of no Counsellor but his Will he fell into those Vices which notwithstanding the glory of his former Reign branded him deeply with the foul stains of Luxury and Cruelty But remitting those things to their proper places those Worthies appointed his Counsellors were William Warham Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellour of England Richard Fox Bishop of Winchester Thomas Ruthal Bishop of Durham Thomas Howard Earl of Surrey Lord Treasurer of England George Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury Lord Steward of the King's Houshold Charles Somerset Lord Chamberlain Knights Sir Thomas Lovel Sir Henry Wyat Sir Edward Poynings These men the Solemnity of the dead King's Funeral being duly and magnificently performed erected him a Tomb all of Brass accounted one of the stateliest Monuments of Europe which one would hardly conceive by the Bill of Accompts For it is reported that it cost but a Thousand Pounds The Monument is to be seen at Westminster the usual place of our Kings Interrments in that admirable Chappel dedicated to St. Stephen by this King heretofore built from the ground a testimony of his religious Piety I have read that this Chappel was raised to that height for the summ of Fourteen thousand Pounds and no more and that he at the same time built a Ship of an unusual burthen called from him The great Henry which by that time it was rigged cost little less than that stately Chappel But now O Henry what is become of that Ship of thine that other Work besides the reward of Heaven will perpetually proclaim thy pious Munificence Hence learn O Kings that the true Trophies of Glory are not to be placed in Armories and Arsenals but and those more durable in Pious Works Seek first seek the Kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof and without doubt all other things shall be added unto you But to go on in my proposed course although Henry the Eighth began his Reign the two and twentieth of April 1509 his Coronation was deferred to the four and twentieth of June In the mean time his Council thought it would prove a profitable policy for the King to marry Katherine the Widow of Prince Arthur his deceased Brother and Daughter to Ferdinando King of Castile for otherwise that huge mass of Money assigned for her Jointure must yearly be transported out of the Kingdom Neither was there at first any other doubt made of this Match than whether it were approved by the Ecclesiastical Constitutions for as much as the Scripture said some forbad any man to marry his Brother's Wife But this rub was easily removed by the omnipotence of the Pope's Bull in so much that presently upon the Dispensation of Pope Julius on the third of June under a malignant Constellation the Nuptials of these Princes were solemnized and they both Crowned the four and twentieth of June next following being St. John Baptist's day At these Solemnities there wanted neither pomp nor acclamations of the Estates of the Realm But to shew that of Solomon to be true The end of Mirth is Heaviness five days had not yet run their course since the Coronation when Margaret Countess of Richmond the King's Grand-mother made an exchange of this life with death She was a very godly and virtuous Lady and one who for her benefits to the Estate deserved with all honour to be commended to the perpetual memory of Posterity But her ever-living Works will so far set forth her praise that the pains of any Writer will prove altogether needless Yet notwithstanding omitting other things it will savour somewhat of Ingratitude if I should not recount what she hath conferred upon our Universities She founded two Colledges at Cambridge one dedicated to our Saviour CHRIST and the other to St. John the Evangelist and endowed them both with such large Revenues that at this time besides Officers and Servants there are about two hundred Students maintained in them She also left Lands to both Universities out of the Rents whereof two Doctors publick Professors of Divinity to this day do receive their Annual Stipends She lies interred near her Son in a fair Tomb of Touch-stone whereon lies her Image of gilded Brass ANNO DOM. 1510. REG. 2. H Enry the Seventh Father to this our Eighth some few years before his death had caused an inquisition to be made throughout the Kingdom of the breach of the Penal Statutes saying That Laws were to no purpose unless the fear of Punishment did force men to observe them But the Inquisition proceeding so rigorously that even the least faults were punished
had fortified themselves as well as the shortness of time would permit them and the Peasants thereabouts bring all their goods into the City as to a place of safeguard The City was of no great circuit yet at the beginning of the Siege it contained fourscore thousand People by reason whereof Victuals began quickly to fail them and they could no way hope for relief The French King was far off they had no Garrison the Citizens bad Soldiers two great Princes had begirt the Town with fifty thousand men but they had an Enemy within called Famine more cruel and insupportable than both So having for some few days held out the Siege the nine and Twentieth of September their lives being granted them they yield and to save themselves from spoil pay a hundred thousand Crowns The King makes them swear Fealty to him and appoints Sir Edward Poynings a Knight of the Garter their Governour Next he gives order for store of Warlike provision puts in a small Garrison and builds a Cittadel for the confirmation of his Conquest Neither amongst these Politick affairs did he neglect those of the Church For the Bishop being proscribed he conferrs the See with all the revenues upon Thomas Wolsey of whose first rising and immoderate Power we shall have much occasion to speak hereafter All things being thus ordered because Winter came on apace he began to bethink himself of returning with his Army into England This thought so far pleased him that having been absent scarce four Months he took Ship and about the end of October came home triumphing in the Glory of a double Conquest By the way he was entertained with the news of another Victory the Lord Howard Earl of Surrey having under his Fortune slain the King of Scots The King of France being encumbred with many Wars had conjured James the Fourth King of Scots By the ancient Laws of Amity and the late League made between them that He would not forsake him entangled in so many difficulties If He regarded not his Friend's case yet he should at least look to Himself sor whom it would not be safe to suffer a bordering Nation always at enmity with Him by such additions to arise to that height of power The King of England busied with a forein War was now absent and with Him the flower of the English Chivalry He should therefore forthwith take Arms and try to recover Berwick an especial Town of the Scottish Dominions but for many years with-held by the English He would easily be victorious if He would but make use of this occasion so happily offered It could not be but this War would be for His Honour and profitable to His Friend if not to Himself He should thereby also make known to His Enemies that the Scottish Arms were not to be contemned whose former Victories a long and to them hurtful Peace had obscured and buried in oblivion among the English As for the charges of it He need not be troubled for that he would afford Him fifty thousand Crowns towards the providing of Munition and Ordnance These Reasons so prevailed with the young King covetous of glory that notwithstanding he had lately made a League with our King whose Sister he had married and her vehement dissuasions he proclaimed War against Henry which proved fatal to him bloody to his and the cause of many ensuing calamities So having raised a great Army he breaks into our Marches and besiegeth Norham-Castle belonging to the Bishop of Durham the which having held out six days was at last yielded unto him Thence he removes his Camp to Berwick wasting all the Countrey as he marcht with Fire and Sword The news whereof are brought unto them to whom the government of the Kingdom was committed in the absence of the King and a levy being made through all the North parts of the Kingdom Alnewike is appointed the rendezvous where all the Troops should meet at a set day that thence they might set forward against the Enemy under the conduct of the Lord Thomas Howard Earl of Surrey Among the first to his Father's great joy comes the Earl's Son Thomas Lord Admiral leading a veteran Troop of five thousand men of tryed valour and haughty in regard of their former Naval Victories obtained under the command of this young Lord. After him came the Lords Dacres Clifford Scrope Latimer Canyers Lumley and Ogle besides Sir Nicholas Appleyard Master of the Ordnance Sir W. Percie Sir William Sidney Sir William Bulmer Sir John Stanley Sir William Molineux Sir Thomas Strangwayes Sir Richard Tempest and many other Knights These sitting in Council thought it best to send an Herald to the King to expostulate with him concerning the outrages committed to complain that He had without all right or reason spoiled the Countrey of a Prince not only Ailied unto him but also his Confederate and therefore to certifie him that they were ready by Battel to revenge the breach of League if so be he durst await their coming but a few days in a ground that might be fitting for the meeting of both Armies The King makes answer by writing wherein He retorts the violation of the League calling God to witness that King Henry had first by his many injuries shown evident signs of an alienated mind For the English he pretended robbed all along the Marches of Scotland without restitution or punishment Andrew Barton a stout and bonest man had been unjusty slain by the King's command and one Heron who had murthered Robert Car a Scottish Noble-man vaunted himself openly in England the King taking no notice of so heinous a fact Of these things he had often complained by his Ambassadors but without effect There was therefore no other way for him but to betake himself to Arms for the common defence of himself and his Kingdom against the King's injustice As for the meeting he signified that he accepted of it and appointed both time and place for the Battel Neither party failed the prefixed day The Scot seeks to animate his men by taking away all hope of safeguard by flight commanding them I know not how wisely but the event shewed how unhappily for them to forsake their Horses forasmuch as they were to trust to their Hands not to their Horses heels and by his own example shewing what he would have done he alights and prepares himself to fight on foot The rest doing the like the whole Army encountred us on foot to whom after a long and bloody fight the fortune of the Victory inclined The Scots had two and twenty pieces of great Ordnance which stood them in no stead For our men climbing up a Hill where the Enemy sate hovering over us the shot passed over our heads Our chief strength were our Archers who so incessantly played upon four Wings of Scots for the King divided his Army into five Battalions that were but lightly armed that they forced them to flie and leave their fellows who
consecrated by the Archbishop but he on whom the King by his Congé D'eslire or other his Letters had conferred that Dignity And whereas many complained that now all commerce with Rome was forbidden all means were taken away of mitigating the rigour of the Ecclesiastical Laws of Dispensation Papal authority is granted to the Archbishop of Canterbury the King reserving to himself the power of dispensing in causes of greater moment And that all Appeals formerly wont to be made from the Archbishop to the Pope should now be from the Archbishop to the King who by Delegates should determine all such Suits and Controversies Furthermore the King's Marriage with the Lady Catharine is again pronounced incestuous the Succession to the Crown established on the King's Issue begotten on Queen Ann. And all above the age of sixteen years throughout the Kingdom are to be bound by Oath to the observance of this Law Whosoever refused to take this Oath should suffer loss of all their goods and perpetual imprisonment Throughout all the Realm there were found but two who durst refractorily oppose this Law viz. Fisher Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More the late Lord Chancellor men who were indeed very learned but most obstinate sticklers in the behalf of the Church of Rome who being not to be drawn by any perswasions to be conformable to the Law were committed to prison from whence after a years durance they were not freed but by the loss of their lives But the King fearing that it might be thought That he took these courses rather out of a contempt of Religion than in regard of the tyranny of the Court of Rome to free himself from all suspition either of favouring Luther or any authors of new Opinions began to persecute that sort of men whom the Vulgar called Hereticks and condemned to the cruelty of that merciless Element Fire not only certain Dutch Anabaptists but many Professors of the Truth and amongst others that learned and godly young man John Frith who with one Hewet and others on the two and twentieth of July constantly endured the torments of their martyrdom The five and twentieth of September died Clement the Seventh Pope in whose place succeeded Alexander Farnese by the name of Paulus the Third who to begin his time with some memorable Act having called a Consistory pronounced Henry to be fallen from the Title and Dignity of a King and to be deposed reiterating withal the thunder of Excommunication with which bugbear his predecessor Clement had sought to affright him But this peradventure happened in the ensuing year after the death of Fisher and More A Parliament is again called in November wherein according to the Decree of the late Synod the King was declared Supreme Head of the Church of England and the punishment of all crimes which formerly pertained to the Ecclesiastical Courts is made proper to him So the Kingdom is vindicated from the usurpation of the Pope who before shared in it and the King now first began to reign entirely Also all Annats or First-fruits formerly paid to the Pope are granted to the King And Wales the seat of the remainder of the true antient Britans hitherto differing from us compounded of Normans and Saxons as well in the form of their Government as in Language is by the authority of this Parliament to the great good of both but especially that Nation united and incorporated to England Edward the First was the first who subdued this Countrey yet could he not prevail over their minds whom the desire of recovering their lost liberty animated to many Rebellions By reason whereof and our suspitions being for two hundred years oppressed either with the miseries of Servitude or War they never tasted the sweet fruits of a true and solid Peace But Henry the Seventh by blood in regard of his Father and birth a Welchman coming to the Crown as if they had recovered their liberty whereto they so long aspired they obeyed him as their lawful Prince So the English being freed of their former jealousies permitted them to partake of their Priviledges since common to both Nations the good whereof equally redounded to both I could wish the like Union with Scotland That as we all live in one Island professing one Faith and speaking for the most part one Language under the government of one and the same Prince so we may become one Nation all equally acknowledging our selves Britans and so recover our true Countrey Britain lost as it were so many hundreds of years by our divisions of it into England Scotland and Wales ANNO DOM. 1535. REG. 27. THe Coronation of the new Queen and other passages of entertainment had exhausted the Treasury The Pope and the Emperour were both enemies to Henry watchfully attending all opportunities to do him mischief Neither in regard that so many sided with the Pope were all things safe at home The King was therefore forced to a course seemingly rash and full of dangerous consequences but very necessary for the time He resolves to demolish all the Monasteries throughout England He is content the Nobility should share with him in the spoil so enriching and strengthening himself by their necessary revolt from the Popish faction To this end they that were thought more especially in maintaining the Pope's authority to withstand the King's proceedings were condemned of high Treason and they that refused to acknowledge the King under Christ Supreme Head of the Church of England are hanged For this cause on the third of May were executed John Houghton Prior of the Charterhouse in London Augustine Webster Prior of Bevaley and Thomas Lawrence Prior of Exham and with them Richard Reignalds a Monk and Doctor of Divinity and John Hales Vicar of Thistlehurst On the eighteenth of June Exmew Middlemore and Nudigate all Charterhouse-Monks suffered for the same cause And four days after John Fisher Bishop of Rochester a man much reverenced by the People for his holy life and great learning was publickly beheaded and his Head set over London Bridge Our Histories hardly afford a president of the execution of such a man But the Pope was the occasion of his death who to ease the burthen of his now a years imprisonment by the addition of a new Title had on the one and twentieth of May created him Cardinal The news whereof hastened him to a Scaffold The sixth of July Sir Thomas More for the same stiffness in opinion with Bishop Fisher suffered the like death This was that More so famous for his Eutopia and many other Works both in English and Latin As for his conversation the most censorious fault him in nothing but his too too jesting I will not say scoffing wit to which he gave more liberty than did beseem the gravity of his person not tempering himself in the midst of his calamity no not at the very instant of death After his condemnation he denied to give
of Ten years had been brought up in a Court where infinite Eyes had been upon him For King Edward touched with remorse of his Brother the Duke of Clarence's Death would not indeed restore his Son of whom we speak to be Duke of Clarence but yet created him Earl of Warwick reviving his Honour on the Mothers side and used him honorably during his time though Richard the Third afterwards confined him So that it cannot be but that some great Person that knew particularly and familiarly Edward Plantagenet had a hand in the business from whom the Priest might take his aim That which is most probable out of the precedent and subsequent Acts is that it was the Queen Dowager from whom this Action had the principal source and motion For certain it is she was a busie negotiating Woman and in her withdrawing-Chamber had the fortunate Conspiracy for the King against King Richard the Third been hatched which the King knew and remembred perhaps but too well and was at this time extremely discontent with the King thinking her Daughter as the King handled the matter not advanced but depressed and none could hold the Book so well to prompt and instruct this Stage-play as she could Nevertheless it was not her meaning nor no more was it the meaning of any of the better and sager sort that favoured the Enterprize and knew the Secret that this disguised Idol should possess the Crown but at his peril to make way to the Overthrow of the King and that done they had their several Hopes and Ways That which doth chiefly fortifie this Conjecture is that as soon as the matter brake forth in any strength it was one of the King 's first Acts to cloister the Queen Dowager in the Nunnery of Bermonsey and to take away all her Lands and Estate and this by close Council without any Legal proceeding upon far-fetcht Pretences That she had delivered her two Daughters out of Sanctuary to King Richard contrary to promise Which Proceeding being even at that time taxed for rigorous and undue both in-matter and manner makes it very probable there was some greater matter against her which the King upon reason of Policy and to avoid Envy would not publish It is likewise no small Argument that there was some Secret in it and some suppressing of Examinations for that the Priest Simon himself after he was taken was never brought to Execution no not so much as to publick Tryal as many Clergy-men were upon less Treasons but was only shut up close in a Dungeon Add to this that after the Earl of Lincoln a principal Person of the House of York was slain in Stoke-field the King opened himself to some of his Council that he was sorry for the Earl's Death because by him he said he might have known the bottom of his Danger But to return to the Narration it self Simon did first instruct his Scholar for the part of Richard Duke of York second Son to King Edward the Fourth and this was at such time as it was voyced that the King purposed to put to Death Edward Plantagenet Prisoner in the Tower whereat there was great murmur But hearing soon after a general bruit that Plantagenet had escaped out of the Tower and thereby finding him so much beloved amongst the People and such rejoycing at his Escape the cunning Priest changed his Copy and chose now Plantagenet to be the Subject his Pupil should personate because he was more in the present speech and Votes of the People and it pieced better and followed more close and handsomly upon the bruit of Plantagenet's Escape But yet doubting that there would be too near looking and too much Perspective into his Disguise if he should shew it here in England he thought good after the manner of Scenes in Stage-Plays and Masques to shew it a-far-off and therefore sailed with his Scholar into Ireland where the Affection to the House of York was most in height The King had been a little Improvident in matters of Ireland and had not removed Officers and Chancellors and put in their places or at least intermingled persons of whom he stood assured as he should have done since he knew the strong Bent of that Countrey towards the House of York and that it was a ticklish and unsetled State more easie to receive distempers and mutations than England was But trusting to the reputation of his Victories and Successes in England he thought he should have time enough to extend his Cares afterwards to that second Kingdom Wherefore through this neglect upon the coming of Simon with his pretended Plantagenet into Ireland all things were prepared for Revolt and Sedition almost as if they had been set and plotted before-hand Simon' s first Address was to the Lord Thomas Fitz-Gerard Earl of Kildare and Deputy of Ireland before whose Eyes he did cast such a Mist by his own insinuation and by the carriage of his Youth that expressed a natural Princely Behaviour as joyned perhaps with some inward Vapours of Ambition and Affection in the Earl's own mind left him fully possessed that it was the true Plantagenet The Earl presently communicated the matter with some of the Nobles and others there at the first secretly But finding them of like Affection to himself he suffered it of purpose to vent and pass abroad because they thought it not safe to resolve till they had a tast of the Peoples Inclination But if the Great ones were in forwardness the People were in fury entertaining this Airy Body or Phantasm with incredible affection partly out of their great devotion to the House of York partly out of a proud humour in the Nation to give a King to the Realm of England Neither did the Party in this heat of affection much trouble themselves with the Attaindor of George Duke of Clarence having newly learned by the King's example that Attaindors do not interrupt the conveying of Title to the Crown And as for the Daughters of King Edward the Fourth they thought King Richard had said enough for them and took them to be but as of the King's Party because they were in his power and at his disposing So that with marvellous consent and applause this Counterfeit Plantagenet was brought with great Solemnity to the Castle of Dublin and there saluted served and honoured as King the Boy becoming it well and doing nothing that did bewray the baseness of his condition And within few days after he was proclaimed King in Dublin by the Name of King Edward the Sixth there being not a Sword drawn in King Henry his Quarrel The King was much moved with this unexpected Accident when it came to his Ears both because it strook upon that String which ever he most 〈◊〉 as also because it was stirred in such a Place where he could not with safety transfer his own Person to suppress it For partly through natural Valour and partly through an universal Suspition not knowing whom to trust
But now my Lords Ambassadors I am to propound unto you somewhat on the King's part The King your Master hath taught our King what to say and demand You say my Lord Prior that your King is resolved to recover his right to Naples wrongfully detained from him And that if he should not thus do he could not acquit his Honour nor answer it to his People Think my Lords that the King our Master saith the same thing over again to you touching Normandy Guien Anjou yea and the Kingdom of France it self I cannot express it better than in your own words If therefore the French King shall consent that the King our Master's Title to France at least Tribute for the same be handled in the Treaty the King is content to go on with the rest otherwise he refuseth to Treat THE Ambassadors being somewhat abashed with this demand answered in some heat That they doubted not but the King their Sovereign's Sword would be able to maintain his Scepter And they assured themselves he neither could nor would yield to any diminution of the Crown of France either in Territory or Regality But howsoever they were too great matters for them to speak of having no Commission It was replied that the King looked for no other answer from them but would forthwith send his own Ambassadors to the French King There was a question also asked at the table Whether the French King would agree to have the disposing of the Marriage of Britain with an exception and exclusion that he should not marry her himself To which the Ambassadors answered That it was so far out of their King's thoughts as they had received no Instruction touching the same Thus were the Ambassadors dismissed all save the Prior and were followed immediately by Thomas Earl of Ormond and Thomas Goldenston Prior of Christ-Church in Canterbury who were presently sent over into France In the mean space Lionel Bishop of Concordia was sent as Nuntio from Pope Alexander the sixth to both Kings to move a Peace between them For Pope Alexander finding himself pent and lockt up by a League and Association of the principal States of Italy that he could not make his way for the advancement of his own House which he immoderately thirsted after was desirous to trouble the waters in Italy that he might fish the better casting the Net not out of St. Peter's but out of Borgia's Bark And doubting lest the fear from England might stay the French King's voyage into Italy dispatched this Bishop to compose all matters between the two Kings if he could Who first repaired to the French King and finding him well inclined as he conceived took on his Journey towards England and found the English Ambassadors at Calice on their way towards the French King After some conference with them he was in honourable manner transported over into England where he had audience of the King But notwithstanding he had a good ominous name to have made a Peace nothing followed For in the mean time the purpose of the French King to marry the Duchess could be no longer dissembled Wherefore the English Ambassadors finding how things went took their leave and returned And the Prior also was warned from hence to depart out of England Who when he turned his back more like a Pedant than an Ambassador dispersed a bitter Libel in Latin Verse against the King unto which the King though he had nothing of a Pedant yet was content to cause an answer to be made in like Verse and that as speaking in his own person but in a stile of scorn and sport About this time also was born the King's second Son Henry who afterward relgned And soon after followed the solemnization of the Marriage between Charles and Ann Duchess of Britain with whom he received the Duchy of Britain as her Dowry the Daughter of Maximilian being a little before sent home Which when it came to the ears of Maximilian who would never believe it till it was done being ever the Principal in deceiving himself though in this the French King did very handsomly second it and tumbling it over and over in his thoughts that he should at one blow with such a double scorn be defeated both of the Marriage of his Daughter and his own upon both which he had fixed high imaginations he lost all patience and casting off the Respects fit to be continued between great Kings even when their blood is hottest and most risen fell to bitter Invectives against the person and actions of the French King And by how much he was the less able to do talking so much the more spake all the Injuries he could devise of Charles saying That he was the most Perfidious man upon the earth and that he had made a Marriage compounded between an Advoutry and a Rape which was done he said by the just judgment of God to the end that the Nullity thereof being so apparent to all the World the Race of so unworthy a person might not reign in France And forthwith he sent Ambassadors as well to the King of England as to the King of Spain to incite them to War and to treat a League offensive against France promising to concur with great Forces of his own Hereupon the King of England going nevertheless his own way called a Parliament it being the seventh year of his Reign and the first day of opening thereof sitting under his Cloth of Estate spake himself unto his Lords and Commons in this manner MY Lords and you the Commons When I purposed to make a War in Britain by my Lieutenant I made declaration thereof to you by my Chancellor But now that I mean to make a War upon France in Person I will declare it to you my Self That War was to defend another man's right but this is to recever our own and that ended by Accident but we hope this shall end in Victory The French King troubles the Christian World That which he hath is not his own and yet he seeketh more He hath invested himself of Britain he maintaineth the Rebels in Flanders and he threatneth Italy For Our Selves he hath proceeded from Dissimulation to Neglect and from Neglect to Contumely He hath assailed our Confederates he denieth our Tribute in a word he seeks War So did not his Father but sought Peace at our hands and so perhaps will be when good Counsel or Time shall make him see as much as his Father did Mean-while let us make his Ambition our Advantage and let us not stand upon a few Crowns of Tribute or Acknowledgement but by the favour of Almighty GOD try Our Right for the Crown of France it self remembring that there hath been a French King Prisoner in England and a King of England Crowned in France Our Confederates are not diminished Burgundy is in a mightier Hand than ever and never more provoked Britain cannot help us but it may hurt them New Acquests are more Burthen than Strength
The Male-contents of his own Kingdom have not been Base Popular nor Titulary Impostors but of an higher nature The King of Spain doubt ye not will 〈◊〉 with us not knowing where the French King's Ambition will stay Our Holy Father the Pope likes no Tramontanes in Italy But howsoever it be this matter of Confederates is rather to be thought on than reckoned on For God forbid but England should be able to get Reason of France without a Second At the Battels of Cressy Poictiers Agent-Court we were of Our selves France hath much People and few Soldiers They have no stable Bands of Foot some good Horse they have but these are Forces which are least fit for a Defensive War where the Actions are in the Assailant's choice It was our Discords only that lost France and by the Power of GOD it is the good Peace which we now enjoy that will recover it GOD hath hitherto blessed my Sword I have in this time that I have Reigned weeded out my bad Subjects and tryed my good My People and I know one another which breeds Confidence And if there should be any bad Blood left in the Kingdom an Honourable Forein War will vent it or purifie it In this great Business let me have your Advice and Ayd If any of you were to make his Son Knight you might have ayd of your Tenants by Law This concerns the Knighthood and Spurs of the Kingdom whereof I am Father and bound not only to seek to maintain it but to advance it But for matter of Treasure let it not be taken from the Poorest sort but from those to whom the Benefit of the War may redound France is no Wilderness and I that profess good husbandry hope to make the War after the Beginnings to pay it self Go together in GOD's Name and lose no time for I have called this Parliament wholly for this Cause THus spake the King But for all this though he shewed great forwardness for a War not only to his Parliament and Court but to his Privy Council likewise except the two Bishops and a few more yet nevertheless in his secret intentions he had no purpose to go through with any War upon France But the truth was that he did but traffick with that War to make his Return in money He knew well that France was now entire and at unity with it self and never so mighty many years before He saw by the tast that he had of his Forces sent into Britain that the French knew well enough how to make War with the English by not putting things to the hazard of a Battel but wearing them by long Sieges of Towns and strong fortified Encampings James the Third of Scotland his true Friend and Confederate gone and James the Fourth that had succeeded wholly at the devotion of France and ill affected towards him As for the Conjunctions of Ferdinando of Spain and Maximilian he could make no foundation upon them for the one had Power and not Will and the other had Will and not Power Besides that Ferdinando had but newly taken breath from the War with the Moors and merchanded at this time with France for the restoring of the Counties of Russignon and Perpignian oppignorated to the French Neither was he out of fear of the Discontents and ill blood within the Realm which having used always to repress and appease in person he was loth they should find him at a distance beyond Sea and engaged in War Finding therefore the Inconveniences and Difficulties in the prosecution of a War he cast with himself how to compass two things The one how by the declaration and inchoation of a War to make his Profit the other how to come off from the War with saving of his Honour For Profit it was to be made two ways upon his Subjects for the War and upon his Enemies for the Peace like a good Merchant that maketh his gain both upon the Commodities Exported and Imported back again For the point of Honour wherein he might suffer for giving over the War he considered well that as he could not trust upon the ayds of Ferdinando and Maximilian for supports of War so the impuissance of the one and the double proceeding of the other lay fair for him for occasions to accept of Peace These things he did wisely fore-see and did as artificially conduct whereby all things fell into his lap as he desired For as for the Parliament it presently took fire being affectionate of old to the War of France and desirous afresh to repair the dishonour they thought the King sustained by the loss of Britain Therefore they advised the King with great alacrity to undertake the War of France And although the Parliament consisted of the first and second Nobility together with principal Citizens and Townsmen yet worthily and justly respecting more the People whose Deputies they were than their own private Persons and finding by the Lord Chancellor's Speech the King's inclination that way they consented that Commissioners should go forth for the gathering and levying of a Benevolence from the more able sort This Tax called Benevolence was devised by Edward the Fourth for which he sustained much Envy It was abolished by Richard the Third by Act of Parliament to ingratiate himself with the people and it was now revived by the King but with consent of Parliament for so it was not in the time of King Edward the Fourth But by this way he raised exceeding great summs Insomuch as the City of London in those days contributed nine thousand pounds and better and that chiefly levied upon the wealthier sort There is a Tradition of a Dilemma that Bishop Morton the Chancellor used to raise up the Benevolence to higher Rates and some called it his Fork and some his Crotch. For he had couched an Article in the Instructions to the Commissioners who were to levy the Benevolence That if they met with any that were sparing they should tell them That they must needs have because they laid up and if they were spenders they must needs have because it was seen in their port and manner of living So neither kind came amiss This Parliament was meerly a Parliament of War for it was in substance but a Declaration of War against France and Scotland with some Statutes conducing thereunto As the severe punishing of Mortpayes and keeping back of Soldiers Wages in Captains The like severity for the departure of Soldiers without licence Strengthning of the Common Law in favour of Protections for those that were in the King's service And the setting the gate open and wide for men to Sell or Mortgage their Lands without Fines for Alienation to furnish themselves with Money for the War And lastly the avoiding of all Scottish-men out of England There was also a Statute for the dispersing of the Standard of the Exchequer throughout England thereby to size Weights and Measures and two or three more of less importance After the Parliament
was broken up which lasted not long the King went on with his Preparations for the War of France yet neglected not in the mean time the affairs of Maximilian for the quieting of Flanders and restoring him to his Authority amongst his Subjects For at that time the Lord of Ravenstein being not only a Subject rebelled but a Servant revolted and so much the more malicious and violent by the ayd of Bruges and Ghent had taken the Town and both the Castles of Sluyce as we said before And having by the commodity of the Haven gotten together certain Ships and Barques fell to a kind of Pyratical trade robbing and spoyling and taking Prisoners the Ships and Vessels of all Nations that passed alongst that Coast towards the Mart of Antwerp or into any part of Brabant Zealand or Friesland being ever will victualled from Picardy besides the commodity of Victuals from Sluyce and the Countrey adjacent and the avails of his own Prizes The French assisted him still under-hand and he likewise as all men do that have been of both sides thought himself not safe except he depended upon a third Person There was a small Town some two miles from Bruges towards the Sea called Dam which was a Fort and Approch to Bruges and had a relation also to Sluyce This Town the King of the Romans had attempted often not for any worth of the Town in it self but because it might choak Bruges and cut it off from the Sea and ever failed But therewith the Duke of Saxony came down into Flanders taking upon him the person of an Umpire to compose things between Maximilian and his Subjects but being indeed fast and assured to Maximilian Upon this Pretext of Neutrality and Treaty he repaired to Bruges desiring the States of Bruges to enter peaceably into their Town with a Retinue of some number of men of Arms fit for his Estate being somewhat the more as he said the better to guard him in a Countrey that was up in Arms and bearing them in hand that he was to communicate with them of divers matters of great importance for their good Which having obtained of them he sent his Carriages and Harbingers before him to provide his Lodging So that his Men of War entred the City in good Array but in peaceable manner and he followed They that went before enquired still for Inns and Lodgings as if they would have rested there all night and so went on till they came to the Gate that leadeth directly towards Dam and they of Bruges only gazed upon them and gave them passage The Captains and inhabitants of Dam also suspected no harm from any that passed through Bruges and discovering Forces a-far-off supposed they had been some Succours that were come from their Friends knowing some Dangers towards them And so perceiving nothing but well till it was too late suffered them to enter their Town By which kind of Sleight rather than Stratagem the Town of Dam was taken and the Town of Bruges shrewdly blockt up whereby they took great discouragement The Duke of Saxony having won the Town of Dam sent immediately to the King to let him know that it was Sluyce chiefly and the Lord Ravenstein that kept the Rebellion of Flanders in life And that if it pleased the King to besiege it by Sea he also would besiege it by Land and so cut out the Core of those Wars The King willing to uphold the Authority of Maximilian the better to hold France in awe and being likewise sued unto by his Merchants for that the Seas were much infested by the Barques of the Lord Ravenstein sent straightways Sir Edward Poynings a valiant man and of good service with twelve Ships well furnished with Soldiers and Artillery to clear the Seas and to besiege Sluyce on that part The Englishmen did not only coop up the Lord Ravenstein that he stirred not and likewise hold in strait Siege the Maritim part of the Town but also assailed one of the Castles and renewed the assault so for twenty days space issuing still out of their Ships at the Ebb as they made great slaughter of them of the Castle who continually fought with them to repulse them though of the English part also were slain a Brother of the Earl of Oxford's and some fifty more But the Siege still continuing more and more strait and both the Castles which were the principal strength of the Town being distressed the one by the Duke of Saxony and the other by the English and a Bridge of boats which the Lord Ravenstein had made between both Castles whereby Succours and Relief might pass from the one to the other being on a night set on fire by the English he despairing to hold the Town yielded at the last the Castle to the English and the Town to the Duke of Saxony by composition Which done the Duke of Saxony and Sir Edward Poynings treated with them of Bruges to submit themselves to Maximilian their Lord which after some time they did paying in some good part the Charge of the War whereby the Almains and foreln Succours were dismissed The example of Bruges other of the Revolted Towns followed so that Maximilian grew to be out of danger but as his manner was to handle matters never out of necessity And Sir Edward Poynings after he had continued at Sluyce some good while till all things were setled returned unto the King being then before Bulloign Somewhat about this time came Letters from Ferdinando and Isabella King and Queen of Spain signifying the final Conquest of Granada from the Moors which action in it self so worthy King Ferdinando whose manner was never to lose any virtue for the shewing had expressed and displayed in his Letters at large with all the particularities and Religious Puncto's and Ceremonies that were observed in the reception of that City and Kingdom Shewing amongst other things That the King would not by any means in person enter the City until he had first aloof seen the Cross set up upon the greater Tower of Granada whereby it became Christian ground That likewise before he would enter he did Homage to God above pronouncing by an Herald from the height of that Tower that he did acknowledge to have recovered that Kingdom by the help of God Almighty and the glorious Virgin and the virtuous Apostle St. James and the holy Father Innocent the Eighth together with the ayds and services of his Prelates Nobles and Commons That yet he stirred not from his Camp till he had seen a little Army of Martyrs to the number of seven hundred and more Christians that had lived in bonds and servitude as Slaves to the Moors pass before his Eyes singing a Psalm for their redemption and that he had given Tribute unto God by alms and relief extended to them all for his admission into the City These things were in the Letters with many more Ceremonies of a kind of Holy Ostentation The King ever willing to
of Days for payment of Moneys and some other Particulars of the Frontiers And it was indeed but a wooing Ambassage with good respects to entertain the King in good affection but nothing was done or handled to the derogation of the King 's late Treaty with the Italians But during the time that the Cornish-men were in their march towards London the King of Scotland well advertised of all that passed and knowing himself sure of War from England whensoever those Stirs were appeased neglected not his opportunity But thinking the King had his hands full entred the Frontiers of England again with an Army and besieged the Castle of Norham in Person with part of his Forces sending the rest to forrage the Countrey But Fox Bishop of Duresm a wise man and one that could see through the Present to the Future doubting as much before had caused his Castle of Norham to be strongly fortified and furnished with all kind of Munition And had manned it likewise with a very great number of tall Soldiers more than for the proportion of the Castle reckoning rather upon a sharp Assault than a long Siege And for the Countrey likewise he had caused the people withdraw their Cattel and Goods into Fact Places that were not of easie approach and sent in post to the Earl of Surrey who was not far off in Yorkshire to come in diligence to the Succour So as the Scottish King both failed of doing good upon the Castle and his men had but a catching Harvest of their Spoils And when he understood that the Earl of Surrey was coming on with great Forces he returned back into Scotland The Earl finding the Castle freed and the Enemy retired pursued with all 〈◊〉 into Scotland hoping to have overtaken the Scottish King and to have given him Battel But not attaining him in time sate down before the Castle of Aton one of the strongest places then esteemed between Berwick and Edenburgh which in a small time he took And soon after the Scottish King retiring further into his Countrey and the weather being extraordinary foul and stormy the Earl returned into England So that the Expeditions on both parts were in effect but a Castle taken and a Castle distressed not answerable to the puissance of the Forces nor to the heat of the Quarrel nor to the greatness of the Expectation Amongst these Troubles both Civil and External came into England from Spain Peter Hialas some call him Elias surely he was the fore runner of the good Hap that we enjoy at this day For his Ambassage set the Truce between England and Scotland the Truce drew on the Peace the Peace the Marriage and the Marriage the Union of the Kingdoms a man of great Wisdom and as those times were not unlearned sent from Ferdinando and Isabella Kings of Spain unto the King to treat a Marriage between Catherine their second Daughter and Prince Arthur This Treaty was by him set in a very good way and almost brought to perfection But it so fell out by the way that upon some Conference which he had with the King touching this business the King who had a great dexterity in getting suddenly into the bosom of Ambassadors of forein Princes if he liked the men Insomuch as he would many times communicate with them of his own affairs yea and employ them in his service fell into speech and discourse incidently concerning the ending the Debates and differences with Scotland For the King naturally did not love the barren Wars with Scotland though he made his profit of the Noise of them And he wanted not in the Council of Scotland those that would advise their King to meet him at the half-way and to give over the War with England pretending to be good Patriots but indeed favouring the affairs of the King Only his heart was too great to begin with Scotland for the motion of Peace On the other side he had met with an Allie of Ferdinando of Arragon as fit for his turn as could be For after that King Ferdinando had upon assured confidence of the Marriage to succeed taken upon him the person of a Fraternal Allie to the King he would not let in a Spanish gravity to counsel the King in his own affairs And the King on his part not being wanting to himself but making use of every man's humours made his advantage of this in such things as he thought either not decent or not pleasant to proceed from himself putting them off as done by the Counsel of Ferdinando Wherefore he was content that Hialas as in a matter moved and advised from Hialas himself should go into Scotland to treat of a Concord between the two Kings Hialas took it upon him and coming to the Scottish King after he had with much Art brought King James to hearken to the more safe and quiet Counsels wrote unto the King that he hoped that Peace would with no great difficulty cement and close if he would send some wise and temperate Counsellor of his own that might treat of the Conditions Whereupon the King directed Bishop Fox who at that time was at his Castle of Norham to confer with Hialas and they both to treat with some Commissioners deputed from the Scottish King The Commissioners on both sides met But after much dispute upon the Articles and Conditions of Peace propounded upon either part they could not conclude a Peace The chief Impediments thereof was the demand of the King to have Perkin delivered into his hands as a reproach to all Kings and a person not protected by the Law of Nations The King of Scotland on the other side peremptorily denied so to do saying That he for his part was no competent Judge of Perkin's Title But that he had received him as a Suppliant protected him as a person fled for Refuge espoused him with his Kinswoman and aided him with his Arms upon the belief that he was a Prince And therefore that he could not now with his Honour so unrip and in a sort put a Lye upon all that he had said and done before as to deliver him up to his Enemies The Bishop likewise who had certain proud instructions from the King at the least in the Front though there were a pliant clause at the Foot that remitted all to the Bishop's discretion and required him by no means to break off in ill terms after that he had failed to obtain the delivery of Perkin did move a second point of his Instructions which was that the Scottish King would give the King an Enterview in Person at Newcastle But this being reported to the Scottish King his answer was That he meant to treat a Peace and not to go a begging for it The Bishop also according to another Article of his Instructions demanded Restitution of the Spoils taken by the Scottish or Damages for the same But the Scottish Commissioners answered That that was but as Water spilt upon the ground which could not be
regard of his youth and Noble Disposition much lamented his loss and the King 's inexorable rigour ANNO DOM. 1542. REG. 34. BY this time Henry began to find the conveniency of his change having married one as fruitful in evil as his former Wives were in good who could not contain her self within the sacred limits of a Royal marriage bed but must be supplied with more vigorous and active bodies than was that of the now growing aged and unwieldy King Alas what is this momentary pleasure that for it we dare hazard a treble life of Fame of Body of Soul Heaven may be merciful but Fame will censure and the enraged Lion is implacable such did this Queen find him who procured not only her to be condemned by Act of Parliament begun the sixteenth of January and with her the Lady Jane Wife to the Viscount Rochfort behold the thrift of the Divine Justice which made her an Instrument of the punishment of her own and others wickedness who by her calumnies had betrayed her own Husband and his Sister the late beheaded Queen Ann but two others also long since executed Francis Derham and Thomas Calpepper in their double condemnation scarce sufficiently punished Derham had been too familiar with her in her virgin time and having after attained to some publick Offices in Ireland was by her now Queen sent for and entertained as a houshold Servant in which time whether he revived his former familiarity is not manifest But Culpepper was so plainly convict of many secret meetings with the Queen by the means of the Lady Rochfort that the Adultery was questionless For which the Queen and the Viscountess Rochfort were both beheaded within the Tower on the twelfth of February Derham had been hanged and Culpepper beheaded at Tyburn the tenth of the preceding December Hitherto our Kings had stiled themselves Lords of Ireland a Title with that rebellious Nation not deemed so sacred and dreadful as to force obedience The Estates therefore of Ireland assembled in Parliament Enacted him King of Ireland according to which Decree he was on the three and twentieth of January publickly Proclaimed About the same time Arthur Viscount Lisle natural Son of Edward the Fourth out of a surfeit of sudden Joy deceased Two of his Servants had been executed the preceding year for having conspired to betray Calais to the French and the Viscount as being conscious committed to the Tower But upon manifestation of his innocence the King sent unto him Sir Thomas Wriothsley Principal Secretary of Estate by whom he signified the great content he received in the Viscount's approved fidelity the effects whereof he should find in his present liberty and that degree of favour that a faithful and beloved Uncle deserved The Viscount receiving such unexpected news imbellished with rich promises and Royal tokens the King having sent him a Diamond of great value of assured favour being not sufficiently capable of so great joy free from all symptoms of any other disease the ensuing night expired After whose decease Sir John Dudley was created Viscount Lisle claiming that Honour as hereditary in the right of his Mother the Lady Elizabeth Sister and Heir to the Lord Edward Grey Viscount Lisle Wife to the late deceased Lord Arthur but formerly married to Edmund Dudley one of the Barons of the Exchequer beheaded the first year of this King's reign Which I the rather remember for that this man afterwards memorable for his power and dignities might have proved more happy in his Issue than his greatness had not his own ambition betrayed some of these fair sprouts to the blast of unseasonable hopes and nature denying any at least lawful Issue to the rest the name and almost remembrance of this great Family hath ceased Of which hereafter Scotland had been long peaceable yet had it often administred motives of discontent and jealousie James the Fifth King of Scots Nephew to Henry by his Sister having long lived a Bachelor Henry treated with him concerning a Marriage with his then only Child the Lady Mary a Match which probably would have united these neighbour Kingdoms But God had reserved this Union for a more happy time The antient League between France and Scotland had always made the Scots affected to the French and James prefer the alliance with France before that of England where the Dowry was no less than the hopes of a Kingdom So he marrieth with Magdalen a Daughter of France who not long surviving he again matcheth there with Mary of Guise Widow to the Duke of Longueville Henry had yet a desire to see his Nephew to which end he desired an interview at York or some other oportune place James would not condescend to this who could not withstanding undertake a long and dangerous voyage into France without invitation These were the first seeds of discord which after bladed to the Scots destruction There having been for two years neither certain Peace nor a just War yet incursions from each side Forces are assigned to the Duke of Norfolk to repress the insolency of the Scots and secure the Marches The Scot upon news of our being in Arms sends to expostulate with the Duke of Norfolk concerning the motives of this War and withal dispatcheth the Lord Gordon with some small Forces to defend the Frontiers The Herald is detained until our Army came to Berwick that he might not give intelligence of our strength And in October the Duke entring Scotland continued there ransacking the Countrey without any opposition of the Enemy until the middle of November By which time King James having levied a great Army resolved on a Battel the Nobility perswading the contrary especially unwilling that he should any way hazard his Person the loss of his Father in the like manner being yet fresh in memory and Scotland too sensible of the calamities that ensued it The King proving obstinate they detain him by force desirous rather to hazard his displeasure than his life This tenderness of him in the language of rage and indignation he terms cowardise and treachery threatning to set on the Enemy assisted with his Family only The Lord Maxwell seeking to allay him promised with ten thousand only to invade England and with far less than the English Forces to divert the War The King seems to consent But offended with the rest of the Nobility he gives the Lord Oliver Saintclare a private Commission not to be opened until they were ready to give the onset wherein he makes him General of the Army Having in England discovered five hundred English Horse led by Sir Thomas Wharton and Sir William Musgrave the Lord Saintclare commanded his Commission publickly to be read the recital whereof so distasted the Lord Maxwell and the whole Army that all things were in a confusion and they ready to disband The opportunity of an adjoyning Hill gave us a full prospect into their Army and invited us to make use of
of a Battel entertaining him with skirmishes relieves the besieged and without any more ado under the covert of the night retreats Let us now conclude the year at home And to begin with the Church In February the people by Proclamation is licensed to eat White Meats in Lent but under a great penalty enjoyned to abstain from Flesh. The third of June Morogh O Brien a Nobleman of Ireland descended from the Kings of Limrick submitted himself to the King and was shortly after made Earl of Twomond which Honour his posterity at this day enjoyeth having given ample proof of their Loyalty to succeeding Princes The twelfth of July the King married his sixth Wife the Lady Catharin Parr Widow to the Lord Latimer and Sister of William Parr lately created Earl of Essex in the right of his Wife sole Daughter and heir to the late Earl Henry Bourchier At what time another of the same name Uncle to the Queen and the Earl was created Lord Parr and Chamberlain to the Queen The eight and twentieth of July for the Profession of their Faith were Anthony Parsons Robert Testwood and Henry Filmer Burned at London Marbeck was also condemned but afterward pardoned ANNO DOM. 1544. REG. 36. THe Lord Thomas Audley Chancellour of England deceasing the last of April the Lord Wriothsley chief Secretary of Estate is designed his Successour And the Earl of Hertford made Lieutenant of the North is sent thither with an Army to repress the incursions of the Scots The Viscount Lisle Admiral of England with a Navy of two hundred Sail entred the Forth of Scotland landed ten thousand men forced the rich Town of Leith and then marched toward Edenburg the Metropolis of the Kingdom The Regent was there with the Cardinal at whose dispose he now wholly was and many other Nobles guarded with six thousand Horse and a great number of Foot who upon sight of an invading Army betook themselves to flight and left the City void of defendants The Provost craving parley offered to yield the City upon condition of departure with Bag and Baggage and saving the Town from Fire But the breach of League and insolencies of the Inhabitants of Leith and Edenburg had inspired us with Revenge so that no Conditions were to be admitted but what the Victor should impose This drives the Provost to a desperate resolution of defence The English give a furious Assault enter at the Canigate put the Inhabitants to the sword pillage and fire it The like calamity felt the Countrey round about fire and sword cruelly feeding upon Villages Castles and Noblemens Houses Leith had hitherto been reprieved from the like misery but at our return to the Navy it is made its own Funeral pile and the Peer of the Haven utterly consumed New employments call home our Admiral Henry resolves once more to transport his Arms into France there to join with the Earls of Reux and Bures Imperial Commanders It was agreed between the Emperour and the King that the one should invade Champaigne the other Picardy and having united their Forces which should amount to fourscore thousand Foot and eighteen thousand Horse to march directly to Paris thereby either to force the French to fight with disadvantage or to suffer the ruin of his Countrey Henry lands at Calais and finds Picardy unfurnished of men Francis having withdrawn his Forces towards Champaigne to oppose them against the Emperour He therefore sends the Duke of Norfolk with the Earls of Reux and Bures to besiege Montrueil The Marshal of Biez seeing which way we turned the point of our Army being commanded by his King to have an especial care of that Territory puts himself into Montrueil and left the Lord of Vervein his Son-in-Law a man of small experience to command in Bouloign This opportunity invites Henry to encamp before Boloign a Town near to Calais and many ways commodious He causeth the Duke of Norfolk now in danger to be surprised by the French Army to arise from before Montrueil and omitting his intended Voyage to Paris frustrated by the Emperour's Peace with the French to enter into which Henry was invited by the Cardinal Bellay Raymond President of Rouen and Aubespine Secretary of Estate sent of purpose he investeth Boloign The Duke of Suffolk had first encamped upon a Hill on the East of Boloign from whence he after made his approaches into the Valley and the King encamping on the North shut up the Town on all sides The first assault is given on the Suburbs or Base Town which the French under the covert of a made smoak had forsaken They pretend it to have been purposely fired as unprofitable and the fire quenched by our industry Next the Tower of the Ordre called by us the Old-man defended by twenty Souldiers is yielded and the Town continually battered in four places whereof the most forcible was the Battery from the Hill on the East side which beat down the Steeple of our Ladies Church rent the houses and scoured the streets of the Town The breach made by the Cannon being not sufficient they fall to mining which happily succeeding they blow up a great part of the Wall We give a furious assault and are repulsed with loss yet did this assault carry the Town that brave Captain Philip Corse being slain in it whose valour alone had hitherto preserved it Vervein upon the loss of this man at his wits end sounds the intention of the King and yields him the Town upon composition That the Souldiers and Citizens might depart with their Baggage and that all the Artillery Munition and Victuals whereof there was great store should remain to the King The Inhabitants refuse this bad composition and the Mayor with the Townsmen offer to keep the Town Which had they accordingly undertaken Boloign in all probability had continued French For the Capitulation was no sooner concluded Hostages not yet given but a horrible Tempest of Wind and Rain overthrows our Tents and the soil being fat and slippery we should not have had any means to mount to an assault Moreover the Daulphin was on march with great Forces for their succour whose approach would have forced Henry to have changed his design But Vervein professing that he would keep touch even with his Enemy continued constant in his promise for which he soon lost his Head on a Scaffold at Paris The four and twentieth of September the City was delivered to the Duke of Suffolk and the French departed to the number of threescore and seven Horse a thousand five hundred threescore and three able Foot and a thousand nine hundred twenty and seven Women and Children many of the infirmer sort not able to depart staying behind The next day the King entred triumphantly and caused our Ladies Church to be demolished and in place thereof a Fortification to be raised and having ordered his affairs to his mind making the Viscount Lisle Governour set sail for Dover where he
dispositions had bred a mutual affection to awake him for that having Elected him they were purposely come an accustomed ceremony to Adore him and dissolve the Conclave Priulo having signified to him with testimonies of excessive joy the intent of these Cardinals was gently blamed by him and they dismissed with this answer That a matter of so great consequence carrying with it so great a burthen that it would deterr an 〈◊〉 man from the acceptation of it was not to be tumultuously but upon mature deliberation orderly to be transacted as for the season it was utterly unfit for asmuch as God was the God of Light and not of Darkness they should therefore do well to deferr it until the next day and if then their resolutions proved the same he would submit himself to their pleasures The Italian Cardinals conceiving these delays to proceed out of stupidity began to contemn him and changing their determinations a little after pitched upon Cardinal Montanus whom they created Pope by the name of Julius the Third ANNO DOM. 1550. REG. 4. THe Duke of Somerset having now for three months continued a prisoner and not convicted of any crime which might touch his life it being not thought fitting that so great a man lately Protector of the King's Person and Realm should for a small offence be condemned to perpetual imprisonment is under-hand dealt with to submit himself with acknowledgement that he had deserved this or whatsoever greater punishment the King should be pleased to inflict on him and withal to implore the favour of his Majesty's Royal Clemency To this he easily condescended and was on the sixth of February set a liberty but not restored to the dignity of Protector only contenting himself with the rank of a Privy Counsellor But it being conceived that revenge might draw the Duke to new practices by mediation of Friends he is reconciled to the Earl of Warwick and that this atonement might be the more firm and sincere the Duke's Daughter is on the third of June married to the Viscount Lisle the Earl of Warwick's Son the King gracing the Nuptials with his presence Thuanus I know not upon what grounds writeth That the Earl by a kind of counterfeit shew that he was desirous of the restitution of the Romish Religion had setled himself in the good opinion of the vulgar who had not yet learned to renew themselves by casting off the old skin but reverenced Superstition for its reputed Antiquity and that his dissimulation being discovered fearing lest he should be forsaken of them whom he had with false hopes deluded the consideration thereof and of the Duke 's mild and free disposition would endear his Adversary to them to prevent this danger he contrived this alliance with the Duke and procured his liberty In the mean of these passages on the nineteenth of January the Lord Russel Lord Privy Seal was created Earl of Bedford William Lord Saint-John Earl of Wiltshire and Sir William Paget Lord Paget The Earl of Bedford and the Lord Paget were within three days after with Sir William Peters and Sir John Mason dispatched into France for the Treaty of a Peace with the Deputies appointed by the French who were Montmorency Governour of Picardy Gasper Coligny Lord of Chastillon afterward Admiral of France Andrew Gillar Mortair and William Boucherelle The Lord Paget not long before had been sent to the Emperour to signifie how we were distressed on the one side by the Scots and on the other by the French and miserably rent at home by intestine dissentions that our necessities required speedy succours or would force us to condescend to an inconvenient Peace with France But perceiving nothing was to be obtained of him we strook hands with the French upon these conditions That Boloigne and all the Forts in Boloignois should be surrendred to the French together with the Artillery and other military provision That in lieu thereof the King of France should pay unto Edward four hundred thousand Crowns by equal portions at two payments That the English should restore to the Scots Lauder and Douglas and if the Queen of Scots should desire it should rase their Fortifications in Haymon and at Roxburgh The Emperour was on both sides comprehended in the League and the Queen of Scots by the French The two Kings presented each other with their Military Orders and as one writeth it was on both parts agreed on that Edward should marry one of the Daughters of France For the ratification of the Articles on the eighth of April Hostages were given By Us The Duke of Suffolk The Earl of Hertford Son to the Duke of Somerset The Earl of Arundel The Earl of Derby The Earl of Bath By the French John of Bourbon Duke of Anguien Glaud of Lorain Marquis of Mayenne Francis Son to the Constable Montmorency Lewis of Tremoville Francis of Vendosme Vidame of Chartres Claud d'Annebalt This Peace between us and France was on the third of March solemnly Proclaimed in London and on the five and twentieth of April Bouloigne being accordingly furrendred to the French our Hostages were returned On the thirtieth of July died the Lord Wriothsley Knight of the Garter late Lord Chancellour of England and Earl of Southampton He had about the beginning of this King's Reign delivered up the Seal the Custody whereof was committed to the Lord Rich. But having been about half a year past removed as was also the Earl of Arundel but for what cause is uncertain from the Council Table he at length whether out of Grief or some other cause fell sick and died He was Father to Henry the second Earl and Grandfather to Henry the third Earl of Southampton not long since deceased who having tasted of both fortunes did heretofore as generously behave himself in adversity as he did since moderately in prosperity whereto by the Clemency of our late Sovereign he was restored ANNO DOM. 1551. REG. 5. MEntion hath formerly been made concerning the Sweating Sickness a disease to which England hath given a name as well in regard of its original as of the known disposition of our Bodies to admit of this virulent contagion England had been formerly afflicted with it but never so mortally as this present year Shrewsbury was now the first place acquainted with this Pestilence there it began in April and thence diffusing it self over the most part of the Kingdom at length it vanished away in the North about the beginning of October The fury of it 〈◊〉 such as if it would never end but by its proper cruelty when it should not have left subjects whereon to feed The dead whom it swept away were numberless In London only eight hundred was scarce a seven-nights stint It made its first entry into this Island in the Reign of Henry the Seventh 〈◊〉 1486 and from hence it took its progress into other Nations The Infected flowed away and within the space of twenty four hours when this
lest it might prove an occasion of Sedition and Civil Tumults The Archbishop Cranmer did for a while refuse to subscribe to it not deeming it any way agreeable to equity that the right of lawful Succession should upon any pretences be violated But the King urging him and making Religion a motive which was otherwise likely to suffer after a long disceptation he was at length drawn to assent But these delays of his were so little regarded by Queen Mary that under her scarce any man was sooner marked out for destruction Some few days after these passages on the sixth of July in the sixteenth year of his age King Edward at Greenwich surrendred his Soul to God having under his Tutors reigned six years five months and nineteen days and even in that tender age given great proof of his Virtue a Prince of great Devotion Constancy of Mind Love of the Truth and incredibly Studious Virtues which with Royal Greatness seldom concur Some three hours before his Death not thinking any one had been present to over-hear him he thus commended himself to God O Lord God free me I beseech thee out of this miserable and calamitous life and receive me among the number of thine Elect if so be it be thy pleasure although not mine but thy Will be done To thee O Lord do I commend my Spirit Thou knowest O Lord how happy I shall be may I live with thee in Heaven yet would I might live and be well for thine Elects sake that I might faithfully serve thee O Lord God bless thy People and save thine Inheritance O Lord God save thy People of England defend this Kingdom from Popery and preserve thy true Religion in it that I and my People may bless thy most Holy Name for thy Son Jesus Christ. Then opening his Eyes which he had hitherto closed and seeing Doctor Owen the Physician from whose report we have this Prayer sitting by Are you there quoth he I had not thought you had been so near who answered I heard you speak but could not collect your words Indeed replied the King I was making my Prayer to God A little after he suddenly cryed out I faint Lord have mercy upon me and receive my Soul which words he had scarce spoken ere he departed Much might be spoken in praise of this Prince but regardful of my intended brevity I will only give you a tast of him out of Cardan who about a year before travelling through England toward Scotland was admitted to his presence The conference between them he thus describeth Aderant illi speaking of the King Gratiae Linguas enim multas callebat Puer c. He was stored with Graces for being yet a Child he spake many Languages his native English Latin French and as I hear was also skilled in the Greek Italian Spanish and peradventure some others He wanted neither the rudiments of Logick the principles of Philosophy nor Musick He was full of Humanity the relish of Morality of Gravity befitting Royalty of hopes great as himself A Child of so great Wit and such Expectation could not be born without a kind of Miracle in Nature I write not this Rhetorically with the excess of an Hyperbole for to speak all the truth were to speak far more Being yet but in his fifteenth year he spake Latin as readily and politely as I could What faith he is the subject of your Books De Rerum Varietate I had dedicated them to his Majesty Card. In the first Chapter I shew the long hidden and vainly sought after causes of Comets King And what is the cause Card. The concourse and meeting of the lights of the erratick Stars King But being the Planets are moved with several motions how comes it to pass that the Comet doth not either presently dissolve and scatter or move with their motion Card. It moves indeed but with a far swifter motion than the Planets by reason of the diversity of the aspect as we see in Crystal and the Sun when a Rainbow rebound upon a Wall for a little change makes a great difference of the place King But how can that be done without a subject for the Wall is the subject to the Rainbow Card. As in the Galaxia or Milky-way and in the reflection of lights when many Candles lighted are set near one another they do produce a certain lucid and bright mean You may know the Lion by his paw as they say For his ingenuous nature and sweet conditions he was great in the expectation of all either good or learned men He began to favour Learning before he could know it and knew it before he knew what use to make of it O how true is that saying Immodicis brevis est aetas rara senectus Immoderate growths short liv'd are aged seld He could give you only a tast of his Virtue not an example When occasion required a Majestick gravity you should see him act an old man in his affability and mildness he shewed his age He plaid on the Lute accustomed himself to publick affairs was liberally disposed c. So much Cardan His Corps was on the ninth of August with no very great pomp interred at Westminster near to his Grandfather Henry the Seventh And here had I with this King's death concluded this Second Part had not the consideration of a memorable Enterprize of this King 's occurred To Sebastian Cabota a Portugueze for his admirable skill in Cosmography and the Art of Navigation he allowed an Annuity of an hundred sixty six Pounds Edward by this Cabota's perswasion on the twelfth of May set forth three Ships under Sir Hugh Willoughby for the discovery of unknown Regions in the North parts of the World The main hope of this Voyage was that way to open a shorter passage to those vast Countries of the East Cathay and China Near upon the Coast of Norway these Ships were so severed by Tempest that they never met again One of these great Ships terrified with the greatness of irresistable dangers quickly returned home Sir Hugh Willoughby arrived at last at a Countrey under the Latitude of seventy four degrees not inhabited hitherto to us unknown and was forced to winter there where he and all his Company were frozen to death The Ship was afterward found by some the like English Adventurers and in his Desk a writing relating the Adventures of each day his Will also by which it appeared that he lived until January Richard Chanceller with the third Ship making a more prosperous Voyage after many dangers and incertainties arrived at last among the Russes and Muscovites To these parts some few years after he made a second Voyage but in his return suffered wreck on the Scottish Coast where seeking to save the Muscovite Ambassador he himself was drowned Howsoever he were unfortunate he opened a rich Vein of Traffick to succeeding times whereby we have an exact discovery of that Countrey and of the
of mind to accept of and retain this Benefit which God by his Vicar's Legate did proffer them For now nothing else remained but that he being present with those Keys which should open the Gates of the Church they should also abrogate those Laws which lately Enacted to the prejudice of the Church had rended them from the rest of its Body Having spoken a great deal to this purpose and ransacked Antiquity for examples of our Forefathers devotion to the See of Rome his grave delivery excellent language and methodical contexture of his speech wrought so effectually in the minds of those who were addicted to Popery that they thought not themselves until this day capable of Salvation But many of the lower House who deemed it a rare felicity to have shaken off the yoak of Rome eagerly withstood the readmittance of it But by the endeavours of the King and Queen all things were at last composed to the Cardinal 's liking The Authority which the Popes heretofore usurped in this Realm is restored the Title of Supreme Head of the Church is abrogated and a Petition drawn by the whole Court of Parliament for the Absolution of the People and Clergy of England from Schism and Heresie is by the Bishop of Winchester presented to the Legate who they all kneeling by the Authority committed unto him absolved them This being done they went to the Chappel in Procession singing Te Deum and the next Sunday the Bishop of Winchester in his Sermon at Pauls Cross made a large relation of what had passed These things being thus setled the Queen intends an honorable Embassy to Rome whereof she had at her first coming to the Crown made promise For having resolved to replant the Religion of Rome she had privily written to Pool requiring his advice therein The Pope was therefore pleased to send into England Giovanni Francisco Commendono his Chamberlain afterward Cardinal for the more perfect notice of the estate of the Realm To him the Queen after much private conference did under her Hand promise Obedience to the See of Rome desiring withal that the Kingdom might be absolved from the Interdict for the obtaining whereof she would by a solemn Embassy petition his Holiness as soon as the Estate was setled So now about the end of this year the Bishop of Ely Sir Anthony Brown and Edward Carne Doctor of Law are by the Kings sent to proffer their Obedience to the See of Rome But these costs and pains were fruitless For before they came to Rome the Pope was dead In the mean time the Queen considering all her actions hitherto to have passed with full applause began to treat with the Nobility to condescend that if not the Royal at least the Matrimonial Crown of our Queens might be imposed on Philip. But it being a matter without precedent and that might perchance to an ambitious Prince give some colour for claim to the Kingdom they proved averse and she content to surcease The next care was of restitution of Church-Lands But Henry had so divided them and that among the Nobility that nothing could be done therein Only it was decreed that the First-Fruits and Tenths granted to the King by the Clergy Anno 1534 should be remitted which Decree upon consideration of the Treasuries poverty and of the many Pensions granted by Henry to the ejected Religious Persons was quickly revoked About the same time an absurd I might say ridiculous accident happened by the Queens own credulity and the flattery of fawning Courtiers By reason of a Disease which Physicians term a Mole her Belly began to swell and some other reasons giving her cause to conjecture that she was with Child she not entertaining the advice of any Physicians but of Midwives and old Women believing what she desired should be affirmed that she felt the stirring of the Embryo in her womb To those that are affected with this malady that fleshy and inform substance which is termed Mola doth seem sometimes to move but that slowly and with the general motion of the whole Belly By this and other symptoms Physicians would quickly have discovered her Disease which unless very maturely prevented is commonly incurable So that in process of time her Liver being over-cooled she fell into a Dropsie which as Fuchsius and other Physicians write doth usually happen But these flattering hopes betrayed her to the laughter of the World and to her Grave For on the seven and twentieth of November the Lords of the Council sent some Mandates to the Bishop of London to disperse certain forms of Prayers wherein after Thanks given to God for his Mercies to this Kingdom by giving hopes of an Heir to the Crown and infusing life into the Embryo they should pray for the preservation of the Queen and the Infant and her happy delivery and cause Te Deum to be sung every where Then by Parliament many things were Enacted concerning the Education of the Babe and much clutter was otherwise kept about preparations for the Child's Swadling-clouts Cradle and other things requisite at the Delivery until in June in the ensuing year it was manifested that all was little better than a Dream This year were many Barons created On the eleventh of March William Howard was created Lord Howard of Effingham he was Father to Charles Lord Admiral and late Earl of Nottingham on the fifth of April John Williams Lord Williams of Tame on the seventh of April Edward North Baron of Chartlege on the eighth of April John Bruges Lord Chandois on the fourteenth of May Gerard Fitz-Gerard of whom before Earl of Kildare and on the second of September Anthony Brown Viscount Mountague And in September deceased Thomas Duke of Norfolk ANNO DOM. 1555. REG. MARIAE 2 3 PHILIPPI 1 2. ON the eighteenth of January the Lord Chancellour coming to the Tower with six other Lords of the Council set many brave Prisoners at liberty viz. the Archbishop of York Sir John Rogers Sir James Croft Sir Nicholas Throckmorton Sir Nicholas Arnold Sir George Harper Sir William Sentlow Sir Gawin Carew Sir Andrew Dudley the Duke of Northumberland's Brother William Gibs Cutbert Vaughan Harington Tremaine and others The Archbishop having married a Wife was deprived and Nicholas Heath sometimes Bishop of Worcester but deprived by King Edward and Hooper being ejected and condemned to the Fire lately restored by Queen Mary was substituted in his place Rogers and Croft were afterward Privy Counsellors to Queen Elizabeth under whom they many years flourished in great Authority Throckmorton a subtil man was thought to have been the plotter of Wyat's Rebellion his Head was therefore especially aimed at But being indicted and ten whole hours spent in sifting him he by such witty answers voided the accusation of his Adversary that the Jurors found him Not guilty for which they were afterward soundly fined About the beginning of April the Marquess of Exceter and a little after the Lady Elizabeth were