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HERE
followed this year, being the second of the Kings’ reign, a strange
accident of state, whereof the relations which we have are so naked,
as they leave it scarce credible; not for the nature of it, (for it
hath fallen out oft,) but for the manner and circumstance of it,
especially in the beginnings. Therefore we shall make our judgment
upon the things themselves, as they give light one to another, and
(as we can) dig truth out of the mine. The King was green in his
estate; and contrary to his own opinion and desert both, was not
without much hatred throughout the realm. The root of all was the
discountenancing of the house of York, which the general body of the
realm still affected. This did alienate the hearts of the subjects
from him daily more and more, especially when they saw that after his
marriage, and after a son born, the King did nevertheless not so much
as proceed to the coronation of the Queen, not vouchsafing her the
honour of a matrimonial crown; for the coronation of her was not till
almost two years after, when danger had taught him what to do. But
muc/h more, when it was spread aborad (whether by error or the
cunning of malcontents) that the King had a purpose to put to death
Edward Plantagenet closely in the Tower; whose case was so nearly
paralleled with that of Edward the Fourth’s children, in respect of
the blood, like age, and the very place of the Tower, as it did
refresh and reflect upon the King a most odious resemblance, as if he
would be another King Richard. And all this time it was still
whispered everywhere, that at least one of the children of Edward the
Fourth was living. Which bruit was cunningly fomented by such as
desired innovation. Neither was the King’s nature and customs greatly
fit to disperse these mists; but contrariwise he had a fashion rather
to create doubts than assurance. Thus was fuel prepared for the
spark: the spark, that afterwards kindled such a fire and combustion,
was at the first contemptible.
2.
There was a subtile priest called Richard Simon, that lived in Oxford,
and had
to his pupil a baker’s son named Lambert Simnell, of
the age of some fifteen years; a comely youth, and well favoured, not
without some extraordinary dignity and grace of aspect. It came into
this priest’s fancy (hearing what men talked, and in hope to raise
himself to some great bishoprick) to cause this lad to counterfeit
and personate the second son of Edward the Fourth, supposed to be
murdered; and afterward (for he changed his intention in the manage)
the Lord Edward Plantagenet, then prisoner in the Tower; and
accordingly to frame him and instruct him in the part he was to play.
This is that which (as was touched before) seemeth scarcely credible;
not that a false person should be assumed to gain a kingdom, for it
hath been seen in ancient and late times; nor that it should come
into the mind of such an abject fellow to enterprise so great a a
matter; for high conceits do sometimes come streaming into the
imaginations of base persons; especially when they are drunk with
news and talk of the people. But here is that which hath no
appearance; that this priest, being utterly unacquainted with the
true person according to whose pattern he should shape his
counterfeit, should think it possible for him to instruct his player,
either in gesture or in fashions, or in recounting past matters of
his life and education, or in fit answers to questions, or the like,
any ways to come near the resemblance of him whom he was to
represent. For this lad was not personate one that had been long
before taken out of his cradle, or conveyed away in his infancy,
known to few; but a youth that till the age almost 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 mother’s side, and used him honourably 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 busy 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
remembered 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.
Neverthless it was not her meaning, nor no more was it the meaning of
any of the better and sager sort that favoured this enterprise 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
fortify 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 Bermondsey, and to take away all her
lands and estate; and this by a close counsel, without any legal
proceeding, upon far-fetched 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 public trial (as
many clergymen 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 counsel, that he was sorry for the
Earl’s death, because by him (he said) he might have known the bottom
of his danger.
3. But to return to the narration itself: 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 voiced 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
rejoicing 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 handsomely 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 masks) to shew it afar off; and therefore
sailed with his scholar into Ireland, where the affection of the
house of York was most in height. The King had been a
little
improvident in the matters of Ireland, and had not removed officers
and counsellors, 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 country towards the house of York, and
that it was a ticklish and unsettled state, more easy 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.
4. 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 beforehand. Simon’s first address was to the Lord Thomas
Fitz-Gerald, 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, joined
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 taste of the people’s 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 honour 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 attainder
of George Duke of Clarence; having newly learned by the King’s
example that attainders 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 a 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.
5. The King was much moved with this unexpected accident, when it
came to his ears, both because it struck upon that string which ever
he most feared, as also because it was stirred in such a place, where
he could not with safety transfer his own person to supress it. For
partly through natural valour and partly through an universal
suspicion (not knowing whom to trust) he was ever ready to wait upon
all his achievements in person. The King therefore first called his
counsel together at the Charter-house at Shine; which counsel was
held with great secrecy, but the open decrees thereof, which
presently came abroad, were three.
6. The first was, that the Queen Dowager, for that she, contrary to
her pact and agreement with those that had concluded with her
concerning the marriage of her daughter Elizabeth with King Henry,
had nevertheless delivered her daughters out of sanctuary into King
Richard’s hands, should be cloistered in the nunnery of Bermondsey,
and forfeit all her lands and goods.
7. The next was, that Edward Plantagenet, then close prisoner in the
Tower, should be, in the most public and notorious manner that could
be devised, shewed unto the people; in part to discharge the King of
the envy of that opinion and bruit, how he had been put to death
privily in the Tower; but chiefly to make the people see the levity
and imposture of the proceedings of Ireland, and that their
Plantagenet was indeed but a puppet or counterfeit.
8. The third was, that there should be again proclaimed a general
pardon to all that would reveal their offences and submit themselves
by a day; and that this pardon should be conceived in so ample and
liberal a manner, as no high-treason (no not against the King’s own
person) should be excepted. Which though it might seem strange, yet
was it not so to a wise King, that knew his greatest dangers were not
from the least treasons, but from the greatest. These resolutions of
the King and his counsel were immediately put in execution. And
first, the Queen Dowager was put into the monastery of Bermondsey,
and all her estate seized into the King’s hands: whereat there was
much wondering; that a weak woman, for the yielding to the menaces
and promises of a tyrant, after such a distance of time (wherein the
King had shown no displeasure nor alteration), but much more after so
happy a marriage between the King and her daughter, blessed with
issue male, should upon a sudden mutability or disclosure of the
King’s mind be so severely handled.
9. This lady was amongst the examples of great variety of fortune.
She had first, from a distressed suitor and desolate widow, been
taken to the marriage bed of a bachelor-King, the goodliest personage
of his time; and even in his reign she had endured a strange eclipse,
by the King’s flight and temporary depriving from the crown. She was
also very happy in that she had by him fair issue, and continued his
nuptial love (helping herself by some obsequious bearing and
dissembling of his pleasures) to the very end. She was much
affectionate to her own kindred, even unto faction; which did stir
great envy in the lords of the King’s side, who counted her blood a
disparagement to be mingled with the King’s. With which lords of the
King’s blood joined also the King’s favourite the Lord Hastings; who,
notwithstanding the King’s great affection to him, was thought at
times, through her malice and spleen, not to be out of danger of
falling. After her husband’s death she was matter of tragedy, having
lived to see her brother beheaded, and her two sons deposed from the
crown, bastarded in their blood, and cruelly murdered. All this while
nevertheless she enjoyed her liberty, state, and fortunes. But
afterwards again, upon the rise of the wheel, when
she had a
King to her son-in-law, and was made grandmother to a grandchild of
the best sex, yet was she (upon dark and unknown reasons, and no less
strange pretences,) precipitated and banished the world into a
nunnery; where it was almost thought dangerous to visit her or see
her; and where not long after she ended her life; but was by the
King’s commandment buried with the King her husband at Windsor. She
was foundress of Queen’s College in Cambridge. For this act the king
sustained great obloquy, which nevertheless (besides the reason of
state) was somewhat sweetened to him by a great confiscation.
10.
About this time also, Edward Plantagenet was upon a Sunday brought
throughout all the principal streets of London, to be seen of the
people. And having passed the view of the streets, was conducted to
Paul’s Church in solemn procession, where great store of people were
assembled. And it was provided also in good fashion, that divers of
the nobility and others of quality (especially of those that the King
most suspected, and knew the person of Plantagenet best) had
communion with the young gentleman by the way, and entertained him
with speech and discourse, which did in effect mar the pageant in
Ireland with the subjects here; at least with so many as out of
error, and not out of malice, might be misled. Nevertheless in
Ireland (where it was too late to go back) it wrought little or no
effect. But contrariwise they turned the imposture upon the King; and
gave out that the King, to defeat the true inheritor, and to mock the
world and blind the eyes of simple men, had tricked up a boy in the
likeness of Edward Plantagenet, and shewed him to the people; not
sparing to profane the ceremony of a procession, the more to
countenance the fable.
The
general pardon likewise near the same time came forth; and the King
therewithal omitted no diligence in giving straight order for the
keeping of the ports; that fugitives, malcontents, or suspected
persons might not pass over into Ireland or Flanders.
11.
Meanwhile the rebels in Ireland had sent privy messengers both into
England and
into Flanders, who in both places had wrought
effects of no small importance. For in England they won to their
party John Earl of Lincoln, son of John De la Pole Duke of Suffolk,
and of Elizabeth King Edward the Fourth’s eldest sister. This Earl
was a man of great wit and courage, and had his thoughts highly
raised by hopes and expectations for a time. For Richard the Third
had a resolution, out of his hatred to both his brethren, King Edward
and the Duke of Clarence, and their lines, (having had his hand in
both their bloods), to disable their issue upon false and incompetent
pretexts, the one of attainder, the other of illegitimation; and to
design this gentleman (in case himself should die without children)
for inheritor of the crown. Neither was this unknown to the King (who
had secretly an eye upon him): but the King having tasted of the envy
of the people for his imprisonment of Edward Plantagenet, was
doubtful to heap up any more distastes of that kind by the
imprisonment of De la Pole also; the rather thinking it policy to
conserve him as a corrival unto the other. The Earl of Lincoln was
induced to participate with the action in Ireland, not lightly upon
the strength of the proceedings there, which was but a bubble; but
upon letters from the Lady Margaret of Burgundy, in whose succours
and declaration for the enterprise there seemed to be a more solid
foundation, both for reputation and forces. Neither did the Earl
refrain the business for that he knew the pretended Plantagenet to be
but an idol. For 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 sailed secretly into Flanders, where was a little
before arrived the Lord Lovell, 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 had passed in
Ireland, imploring succours in an enterprise (as they said) so pious
and just, and that God had so miraculously prospered in 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
enterprise. Margaret was second sister to King Edward the Fourth, and
had been second wife to Charles surnamed 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, grandchildren
to her former husband; which won her great love and authority among
the Dutch. This Princess (having the spirit of a man and the 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 enterprise to see the Majesty Royal of
England once again replaced in her house; and had set up King Henry
as a mark at whose overthrow all her actions should aim and shoot;
insomuch 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 niece’s marriage; but rather
hated her niece, 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 Lovell, and some other of the party, it was
resolved with all speed, the two lords assisted with a regiment of
two thousand Almains [Germans], being choice and veteran
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
settled regality (with such a second person as the Earl of Lincoln,
and the conjunction and reputation of foreign succours), the fame of
it would embolden and prepare all the party of the confederates and
malcontents 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 themselves
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 cathedral church of Dublin, who formerly had
been but proclaimed only; and then sat in counsel what should further
be done. At which counsel, 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 the German soldiers; and for that also the sway of the
Irishmen 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 an 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 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 embarked 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
sailing 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 north-west 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 Marquis of Dorset (who had been one of the pledges in France)
was hasting 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 the 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.
12. From St. Edmond’s-bury he went to Norwich, where kept his
Christmas. And from thence he went (in a manner of pilgrimage) to
Walsingham, where he visited our Lady’s church, famous for miracles,
and made his prayers and vows for his 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 Lovell, and Colonel Swart) landed at Fouldrey in
Lancashire, whither there repaired to them Sir Thomas Broughton, with
some small company of English. The king by that time (knowing now the
storm would not divide but fall in one place) had levied forces in
good number; and in person (taking with him his two designed
generals, the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Oxford) was come on his
way towards them as far as Coventry, whence he sent forth a troop of
light-horsemen for discovery, and to intercept some stragglers of the
enemies, by whom he might the better understand the particulars of
their progress and purposes; which was accordingly done; thought he
King otherways was not without intelligence from espials in the
camp.
13. The rebels took their way towards York without spoiling the
country or any act of hostility, the better to put themselves into
favour of the people and to personate their King (who no doubt out of
a princely feeling was sparing and compassionate towards his
subjects). But their snow-ball did not gather as it went. For the
people came not in to them; neither did any rise or declare
themselves in other parts of the kingdom for them; which was caused
partly by the good taste that the King had given his people of his
government, joined with the reputation of his felicity; and partly
for that it was an odious thing to the people of England to have a
King brought in to them upon the shoulders of Irish and Dutch, of
which their army was in substance compounded. Neither was it a thing
done with any great judgment on the party of the rebels, for them to
take their way towards York; considering that howsoever those parts
had formerly been a nursery of their friends, yet it was there where
the Lord Lovell had so lately disbanded; and where the King’s
presence had a little before qualified discontents. The Earl of
Lincoln, deceived of his hopes of the country’s concourse unto him
(in which case he would have temporised) and seeing the business past
retreat, resolved to make on where the King was, and to give him
battle; and thereupon marched towards Newark, thinking to have
surprised the town. But the King was somewhat before this time come
to Nottingham, where he called a counsel of war, at which was
consulted whether it were best to protract time or speedily set upon
the rebels. In which counsel the King himself (whose continual
vigilance did suck in sometimes causeless suspicions which few else
knew) inclined to the aceclerating a battle. But this was presently
put out of doubt, by the great aids that came in to him in the
instant of this consultation, partly upon missives and partly
voluntaries, from many parts of the kingdom.
14. The principal persons that came then to the King’s
aid were the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Lord Strange,
of the nobility, and of knights and gentlemen to the number of at least three-score and ten persons,
with their companies; making in the whole at the least six thousand
fighting men, besides the forces that were with the King before.
Whereupon the King finding his army so bravely reinforced, and a
great alacrity in all his men to fight, he was confirmed in his
former resolution, and marched speedily, so as he put himself between
the enemies’ camp and Newark; being loth their army should get the
commodity of that town. The Earl, nothing dismayed, came forward that
day unto a little village called Stoke, and there encamped that
night, upon the brow or hanging of a hill. The King the next day
presented him battle upon the plain (the fields there being open and
champion). The Earl courageously came down and joined battle with
him. Concerning which battle the relations which are left unto us are
so naked and negligent (though it be an action of so recent memory)
as they rather declare the success of the day than the manner of the
fight. They say that the King divided his army into three battails,
whereof the vant-gauard only well strengthened with wings came to
fight: that the fight was fierce and obstinate, and lasted three
hours before the victory inclined either way; save that judgment
might be made by that the King’s vant-guard of itself maintained
fight against the whole power of the enemies (the other two battails
remaining out of action) what the success was like to be in the end:
that Martin Swart with his Germans performed bravely, and so did
those few English that were on that side; neither did the Irish fail
in courage or fierceness, but being almost naked men, only armed with
darts and skeins, it was rather an execution than a fight upon them;
insomuch as the furious slaughter of them was a great discouragement
and appalment to the rest; that there died upon the place all the
chieftains; that is, the Earl of Lincoln, the Earl of Kildare,
Francis Lord Lovell, Martin Swart, and Sir Thomas Broughton, all
making good the fight without any ground given. Only of the Lord
Lovell there went a report, that he fled, and swam over Trent on
horseback, but could not recover the further side, by reason of the
steepness of the bank, and so was drowned in the river. But another
report leaves him not there, but that he lived long after in a cave
or vault. The number that was slain in the field, was of the enemies’
part four thousand at the least, and of the King’s part one half of
his vant-guard, besides many hurt, but none of name. There were taken
prisoners amongst others the counterfeit Plantagenet, now Lambert
Symnell again, and the crafty priest his tutor. For Lambert, the King
would not take his life, both out of magnanimity (taking him but as
an image of wax that others had tempered and moulded), and likewise
out of wisdom; thinking that if he suffered death he would be
forgotten too soon; but being kept alive he would be a continual
spectacle, and a kind of remedy against the like inchantments of
people in time to come. For which cause he was taken into service in
his court to a base office in his kitchen; so that (in a kind of mattacina
[mad dance] of human fortune) he turned a
broach [a spit] that had worn a crown; whereas fortune
commonly doth not bring in a comedy or farce after a tragedy. And
afterwards he was preferred to be one of the King’s falconers. As to
the priest, he was committed close prisoner, and heard of no more;
the King loving to seal up his own dangers.
15. After the battle the King went to Lincoln, where he caused
supplications and thanksgivings to be made for his deliverance and
victory. And that his devotions might go round in circle, he sent his
banner to be offered to our Lady of Walsingham, where before he made
his vows.
And
thus delivered of this so strange an engine and new invention
of
fortune, he returned to his former
confidence of mind, thinking now that all his misfortunes had come at
once. But it fell unto him according to the speech of the common
people in the beginning of his reign, that said, it was a token he
should reign in labour, because his reign began with a sickness of
sweat. But howsoever the King thought himself now in the
haven, yet such was his wisdom, as his confidence did seldom darken
his foresight, especially in things near-hand; and therefore,
awakened by so fresh and unexpected dangers, he entered into due
consideration as well how to weed out the partakers of the former
rebellion, as to kill the seeds of the like in time to come: and
withal to take away all shelters and harbours for discontented
persons, where they might hatch and foster rebellions which
afterwards might gather strength and motion.
And
first he did yet again make a progress from Lincoln to the northern
parts, though it were (indeed) rather an itinerary circuit of justice
than a progress. For all along as he went, with much severity and
strict inquisition, partly by martial law and partly by commission,
were punished the adherents and aiders of the late rebels; not all by
death (for the field had drawn much blood) but by fines and ransoms,
which spared life and raised treasure. Amongst other crimes of this
nature, there was a diligent inquiry made of such as had raised and
dispersed a bruit and rumour (a little before the field fought) that
the rebels had the day, and that the King’s army was overthrown, and
the King fled: whereby it was supposed that many succours which
otherwise would have come unto the King were cunningly put off and
kept back: which charge and accusation, though it had some ground,
yet it was industriously embraced and put on by divers, who (having
been in themselves not the best affected to the King’s part, nor
forward to come to his aid) were glad to apprehend this colour to
cover their neglect and coldness under the pretence of such
discouragements. Which cunning nevertheless the King would not
understand, though he lodged it and noted in some particulars, as his
manner was.
16. But for the extirpating of the roots and causes of the like
commotions in time to come, the King began to find where his shoe did
wring him; and that it was the depressing of the house of York that
did rankle and fester the affections of his people. And therefore
being now too wise to disdain perils any longer, and willing to give
some contentment of that kind (at least in ceremony), he resolved at
last to proceed to the coronation of his Queen. And therefore at his
coming to London, where he entered in state, and in a kind of
triumph, and celebrated his victory with two days of devotion (for
the first day he repaired to Paul’s, and had the hymn of Te Deum
sung, and the morrow after he went in procession, and heard the
sermon at the Cross,) the Queen was with great solemnity crowned at
Westminster, the twenty-fifth day of November, in the third year of
his reign, which was about two years after the marriage (like an old
christening that had stayed long for godfathers); which strange and
unusual distance of time made it subject to every man’s note that it
was an act against his stomach, to shew that it was now fair weather
again, and that the imprisonment of Thomas Marquis Dorset was rather
upon suspicion of the time than of the man, he the said Marquis was
set at liberty, without examination or other circumstances.
17. At that time also the King sent and ambassador unto Pope
Innocent, signifying unto him this his marriage; and that now like
another Aeneas he had passed through the floods of his former
troubles and travails and was arrived unto a safe haven; and thanking
his Holiness that he had honoured the celebration of his marriage
with the presence of his ambassador; and offering both his person and
the forces of his kingdom upon all occasions to do him service.
The
ambassador making his oration to the Pope in the presence of the
cardinals, did so magnify the King and Queen, as was enough to glut
the hearers. But then he did again so extol and deify the Pope, as
made all that he had said in praise of his master and mistress seem
temperate and passable. But he was very honourably entertained and
extremely much made on by the Pope, who knowing himself to be lazy
and unprofitable to the Christian world, was wonderful glad to hear
that there were such echoes of him sounding in remote parts. He
obtained also of the Pope a very just and honourable Bull, qualifying
the privileges of sanctuary (wherewith the King had been extremely
galled) in three points.
18.
The first, that if any sanctuary-man did by night or otherwise get out
of sanctuary
privily and commit mischief and trespass, and
then come in again, he should leese [lose] the benefit of
sanctuary for ever after.
The
second, that howsoever the person of the sanctuary-man was protected
from his creditors, yet his goods out of sanctuary should not.
The
third, that if any took sanctuary for case of treason, the King might
appoint him keepers to look to him in sanctuary.
19. The king also, for the better securing of his estate against
mutinous and malcontented subjects (whereof he saw the realm was
full) who might have their refuge into Scotland (which was not under
key as the ports were), for that cause rather than for any doubt of
hostility from those parts, before his coming to London, when he was
at Newcastle, had sent a solemn ambassage unto James the Third, King
of Scotland, to treat and conclude a peace with him. The ambassadors
were, Richard Foxe Bishop of Exeter, and Sir Richard Edgcombe
comptroller of the King’s house, who were honourably received and
entertained there. But the King of Scotland labouring of the same
disease that King Henry did (though more mortal as afterwards
appeared), that is, discontented subjects apt to rise and raise
tumult, although in his own affection he did much desire to make a
peace with the King, yet finding his nobles averse and not daring to
displease them, concluded only a truce for seven years; giving
nevertheless promise in private, that it should be renewed from time
to time during the two Kings’ lives.