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+Project Gutenberg's The Comic History Of England, by Gilbert Abbott A'Beckett
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Comic History Of England
+
+Author: Gilbert Abbott A'Beckett
+
+Illustrator: John Leech
+
+Release Date: February 9, 2014 [EBook #44860]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger from page scans graciously provided
+by Google Books
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND
+
+By Gilbert Abbott A'Beckett
+
+With Reproductions of the 200 Engravings by JOHN LEECH
+
+And Twenty Page Illustrations
+
+London
+
+George Routledge And Sons, Limited
+
+Broadway, Ludgate Hill Manchester and New York
+
+
+[Illustration: 011]
+
+
+[Illustration: frontispiece]
+
+
+[Illustration: 014]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+In commencing this work, the object of the Author was, as he stated in
+the Prospectus, to blend amusement with instruction, by serving up,
+in as palatable a shape as he could, the facts of English History. He
+pledged himself not to sacrifice the substance to the seasoning; and
+though he has certainly been a little free in the use of his sauce, he
+hopes that he has not produced a mere hash on the present occasion. His
+object has been to furnish something which may be allowed to take its
+place as a standing dish at the library table, and which, though light,
+may not be found devoid of nutriment. That food is certainly not the
+most wholesome which is the heaviest and the least digestible.
+
+Though the original design of this History was only to place facts in
+an amusing light, without a sacrifice of fidelity, it is humbly presumed
+that truth has rather gained than lost by the mode of treatment that
+has been adopted. Persons and tilings, events and characters, have
+been deprived of their false colouring, by the plain and matter-of-fact
+spirit in which they have been approached by the writer of the "Comic
+History of England." He has never scrupled to take the liberty of
+tearing off the masks and fancy dresses of all who have hitherto been
+presented in disguise to the notice of posterity. Motives are treated in
+these pages as unceremoniously as men; and as the human disposition was
+much the same in former times as it is in the present day, it has been
+judged by the rules of common sense, which are alike at every period.
+
+Some, who have been accustomed to look at History as a pageant, may
+think it a desecration to present it in a homely shape, divested of its
+gorgeous accessories. Such persons as these will doubtless feel offended
+at finding the romance of history irreverently demolished, for the sake
+of mere reality. They will-perhaps honestly though erroneously-accuse
+the author of a contempt for what is great and good; but the truth is,
+he has so much real respect for the great and good, that he is desirous
+of preventing the little and bad from continuing to claim admiration
+upon false pretences.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIRST. THE BRITONS--THE ROMANS--INVASION BY JULIUS CAESAR.
+
+
+IT has always been the good fortune of the antiquarian who has busied
+himself upon the subject of our ancestors, that the total darkness
+by which they are overshadowed, renders it impossible to detect the
+blunderings of the antiquarian himself, who has thus been allowed to
+grope about the dim twilight of the past, and entangle himself among its
+cobwebs, without any light being thrown upon his errors.
+
+[Illustration: 028]
+
+But while the antiquarians have experienced no obstruction from others,
+they have managed to come into collision among themselves, and have
+knocked their heads together with considerable violence in the process
+of what they call exploring the dark ages of our early history. We are
+not unwilling to take a walk amid the monuments of antiquity, which we
+should be sorry to run against or tumble over for want of proper light;
+and we shall therefore only venture so far as we can have the assistance
+of the bull's-eye of truth, rejecting altogether the allurements of
+the Will o' the Wisp of mere probability. It is not because former
+historians have gone head oyer heels into the gulf of conjecture, that
+we are to turn a desperate somersault after them. *
+
+     * Some historians tell us that the most conclusive evidence
+     of things that have happened is to be found in the reports
+     of the _Times_. This source of information is, however,
+     closed against us, for the _Times_, unfortunately, had no
+     reporters when these isles were first inhabited.
+
+The best materials for getting at the early history of a country are its
+coins, its architecture, and its manners. The Britons, however, had not
+yet converted the Britannia metal--for which their valour always made
+them conspicuous--into coins, while their architecture, to judge from
+the Druidical remains, was of the wicket style, consisting of two or
+three stones stuck upright in the earth, with another stone laid at
+the top of them; after the fashion with which all lovers of the game
+of cricket are of course familiar. As this is the only architectural
+assistance we are likely to obtain, we decline entering upon the subject
+through such a gate; or, to use an expression analogous to the pastime
+to which we have referred, we refuse to take our innings at such a
+wicket. We need hardly add, that in looking to the manners of our
+ancestors for enlightenment, we look utterly in vain, for there is no
+Druidical Chesterfield to afford us any information upon the etiquette
+of that distant period. There is every reason to believe that our
+forefathers lived in an exceedingly rude state; and it is therefore
+perhaps as well that their manners--or rather their want of
+manners--should be buried in oblivion.
+
+[Illustration: 029]
+
+It was formerly very generally believed that the first population of
+this country descended from AEneas, the performer of the most filial act
+of pick-a-back that ever was known; and that the earliest Britons
+were sprung from his grandson--one Brutus, who, preserving the family
+peculiarity, came into this island on the shoulders of the people. *
+Hollinshed, that greatest of antiquarian _gobemouches_, has not only
+taken in the story we have just told, but has added a few of his own
+ingenious embellishments. He tells us that Brutus fell in with the
+posterity of the giant Albion, who was put to death by Hercules, whose
+buildings at Lambeth are the only existing proofs of his having ever
+resided in this country.
+
+     * The story of Brutus and the Trojans has been told in such
+     a variety of ways, that it is difficult to make either head
+     or tail of it. Geoffrey of Monmouth says that Brutus found
+     Britain deserted, except by a few giants--from which it is
+     to be presumed that Brutus landed at Greenwich about the
+     time of the fair. Perhaps the introduction of troy-weight
+     into our arithmetic may be traced to the immigration of the
+     Trojans, who were very likely to adopt the measures--and why
+     not the weights--with which they had been familiar.
+
+Considering it unprofitable to dwell any longer on those points, about
+which all writers are at loggerheads, we come at once to that upon which
+they are all agreed, which is, that the first inhabitants were a tribe
+of Celtae from the Continent: that, in fact, the earliest Englishmen were
+all Frenchmen; and that, however bitter and galling the fact may be,
+it is to Gaul that we owe our origin. We ought perhaps to mention
+that Caesar thinks our sea-ports were peopled by Belgic invaders, from
+Brussels, thus causing a sprinkling of Brussels sprouts among the native
+productions of England.
+
+The name of our country--Britannia--has also been the subject of
+ingenious speculation among the antiquarians. To sum up all their
+conjectures into one of our own, we think they have succeeded in
+dissolving the word Britannia into Brit, or Brick, and tan, which would
+seem to imply that the natives always behaved like bricks in tanning
+their enemies. The suggestion that the syllable tan, means tin, and that
+Britannia is synonymous with tin land, appears to be rather a modern
+notion, for it is only in later ages that Britannia has become
+emphatically the land of tin, or the country for making money.
+
+The first inhabitants of the island lived by pasture, and not by trade.
+They as yet knew nothing of the till, but supported themselves by
+tillage. Their dress was picturesque rather than elegant. A book of
+truly British fashions would be a great curiosity in the present day,
+and we regret that we have no _Petit Courier des Druides_, or Celtic
+_Belle Assemblee_, to furnish _figurines_ of the costume of the period.
+Skins, however, were much worn, for morning as well as for evening
+dress; and it is probable that even at that early age ingenuity may
+have been exercised to suggest new patterns for cow cloaks and other
+varieties of the then prevailing articles of the wardrobe.
+
+The Druids, who were the priests, exercised great ascendancy over
+the people, and often claimed the spoils of war, together with other
+property, under the plea of offering up the proceeds as a sacrifice to
+the divinities. These treasures, however, were never accounted for; and
+it is now too late for the historians to file, as it were, a bill in
+equity to inquire what has become of them.
+
+Caesar, who might have been so called from his readiness to seize upon
+everything, now turned his eyes and directed his arms upon Britain.
+According to some he was tempted by the expectation of finding pearls,
+which he hoped to get out of the oysters, and he therefore broke in upon
+the natives with considerable energy.
+
+[Illustration: 031]
+
+Whatever Caesar looking for the Pearls for which Britain was formerly
+celebrated, may have been Caesar's motives the fact is pretty well
+ascertained, that at about ten o'clock one fine morning in August--some
+say a quarter past--he reached the British coast with 12,000 infantry,
+packed in eighty vessels. He had left behind him the whole of his
+cavalry--the Roman horse-marines--who were detained by contrary winds
+on the other side of the sea, and though anxious to be in communication
+with their leader, they never could get into the right channel. At about
+three in the afternoon, Caesar having taken an early dinner, began to
+disembark his forces at a spot called to this day the Sandwich Flats,
+from the people having been such flats as to allow the enemy to effect a
+landing. While the Roman soldiers were standing shilly-shallying at the
+side of their vessels, a standard-bearer of the tenth legion, or, as we
+should call him, an ensign in the tenth, jumped into the water, which
+was nearly up to his knees, and addressing a claptrap to his comrades
+as he stood in the sea, completely turned the tide in Caesar's favour.
+After a severe shindy on the shingles, the Britons withdrew, leaving
+the Romans masters of the beach, where Caesar erected a marquee for the
+accommodation of his cohorts. The natives sought and obtained peace,
+which had no sooner been concluded, than the Roman horse-marines were
+seen riding across the Channel. A tempest, however, arising, the horses
+were terrified, and the waves beginning to mount, added so much to the
+confusion, that the Roman cavalry were compelled to back to the point
+they started from. The same storm gave a severe blow to the camp of
+Caesar, on the beach, dashing his galleys and transports against the
+rocks which they were sure to split upon. Daunted by these disasters,
+the invaders, after a few breezes with the Britons, took advantage of
+a favourable gale to return to Gaul, and thus for a time the dispute
+appeared to have blown over.
+
+Caesar's thoughts, however, still continued to run in one, namely, the
+British, Channel. In the spring of the ensuing year, he rigged out 800
+ships, into which he contrived to cram 32,000 men, and with this
+force he was permitted to land a second time by those horrid flats at
+Sandwich. The Britons for some time made an obstinate resistance in
+their chariots, but they ultimately took a fly across the country, and
+retreated with great rapidity. Caesar had scarcely sat down to breakfast
+the next morning when he heard that a tempest had wrecked all his
+vessels. At this intelligence he burst into tears, and scampered off to
+the sea coast, with all his legions in full cry, hurrying after him.
+
+[Illustration: 032]
+
+The news of the disaster turned out to be no exaggeration, for there
+were no penny-a-liners in those days; and, having carried his ships a
+good way inland, where they remained like fish out of water, he set out
+once more in pursuit of the enemy. The Britons had, however, made
+the most of their time, and had found a leader in the person of
+Gassivelaunus, _alias_ Caswallon, a quarrelsome old Gelt, who had so
+frequently thrashed his neighbours, that he was thought the most likely
+person to succeed in thrashing the Romans. This gallant individual was
+successful in a few rough off handed engagements; but when it came
+to the fancy work, where tactics were required, the disciplined Roman
+troops were more than a match for him. His soldiers having been driven
+back to their woods, he drove himself back in his chariot to the
+neighbourhood of Chertsey, where he had a few acres of ground, which he
+called a Kingdom. He then stuck some wooden posts in the middle of the
+Thames, as an impediment to Caesar, who, in the plenitude of his vaulting
+ambition, laid his hands on the posts and vaulted over them.
+
+The army of Cassivelaunus being now disbanded, his establishment was
+reduced to 4000 chariots, which he kept up for the purpose of harassing
+the Romans. As each chariot required at least a pair of horses, his 4000
+vehicles, and the enormous stud they entailed, must have been rather
+more harassing to Cassivelaunus himself than to the enemy.
+
+This extremely extravagant Celt, who had long been the object of the
+jealousy of his neighbours, was now threatened by their treachery. The
+chief of the Trinobantes, who lived in Middlesex, and were perhaps the
+earliest Middlesex magistrates, sent ambassadors to Caesar, promising
+submission. They also showed him the way to the contemptible cluster of
+houses which Cassivelaunus dignified with the name of his capital. It
+was surrounded with a ditch, and a rampart made chiefly of mud, the
+article in which military engineering seemed to have stuck at that early
+period. Cassivelaunus was driven by Caesar from his abode, constructed of
+clay and felled trees, and so precipitate was the flight of the Briton,
+that he had only time to pack up a few necessary articles, leaving
+everything else to fall into the hands of the enemy.
+
+The Roman General, being tired of his British campaign, was glad to
+listen to the overtures of Cassivelaunus; but these overtures consisted
+of promissory notes, which were never realised. The Celt undertook to
+transmit an annual tribute to Caesar, who never got a penny of the money;
+and the hostages he had carried with him to Gaul became a positive
+burden to him, for they were never taken out of pawn by their
+countrymen. It is believed that they were ultimately got rid of at a
+sale of unredeemed pledges, where they were put up in lots of half a
+dozen, and knocked down as slaves to the highest bidder.
+
+[Illustration: 033]
+
+Before quitting the subject of Caesar's invasion, it may be interesting
+to the reader to know something of the weapons with which the early
+Britons attempted to defend themselves. Their swords were made of
+copper, and generally bent with the first blow, which must have greatly
+straitened their aggressive resources, for the swords thus followed
+their own bent, instead of carrying out the intentions of the persons
+using them. This provoking pliancy of the material must often have made
+the soldier as ill-tempered as his own weapon. The Britons carried also
+a dirk, and a spear, the latter of which they threw at the foe, as
+an effectual means of pitching into him. A sort of reaping-hook was
+attached to their chariot wheels, and was often very useful in reaping
+the laurels of victory.
+
+For nearly one hundred years after Caesar's invasion, Britain was
+undisturbed by the Romans, though Caligula, that neck-or-nothing tyrant,
+as his celebrated wish entitles him to be called, once or twice had
+his eye upon it. The island, however, if it attracted the Imperial eye,
+escaped the lash, during the period specified.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SECOND. INVASION BY THE ROMANS UNDER
+CLAUDIUS--CARACTACUS--BOADICEA--AGRICOLA---GALGACUS--SEVERUS--VORTIGERN
+CALLS IN THE SAXONS.
+
+It was not until ninety-seven years after Caesar had seized upon the
+island that it was unceremoniously clawed by the Emperor Claudius. Kent
+and Middlesex fell an easy prey to the Roman power; nor did the brawny
+sons of Canterbury--since so famous for its brawn--succeed in repelling
+the enemy. Aulus Plautius, the Roman general, pursued the Britons under
+that illustrious character, Caractus. He retreated towards Lambeth
+Marsh, and the swampy nature of the ground gave the invaders reason to
+feel that it was somewhat too
+
+     "Far into the bowels of the land
+     They had march'd on without impediment."
+
+Vespasian, the second in command, made a tour in the Isle of Wight, then
+called Vectis, where he boldly took the Bull by the horns, and seized
+upon Cowes with considerable energy. Still, little was done till
+Ostorius Scapula--whose name implies that he was a sharp blade--put his
+shoulder to the wheel, and erected a line of defences--a line in
+which he was so successful that it may have been called his peculiar
+_forte_--to protect the territory that had been acquired.
+
+After a series of successes, Ostorius having suffocated every breath
+of liberty in Suffolk, and hauled the inhabitants of Newcastle over the
+coals, drove the people of Wales before him like so many Welsh rabbits;
+and even the brave Caractacus was obliged to fly as well as he could,
+with the remains of one of the wings of the British army. He was taken
+to Rome with his wife and children, in fetters, but his dignified
+conduct procured his chains to be struck off, and from this moment we
+lose the chain of his history.
+
+Ostorius, who remained in Britain, was so harassed by the natives that
+he was literally worried to death; but in the reign of Nero (a.d. 59),
+Suetonius fell upon Mona, now the Isle of Anglesey, where the howlings,
+cries, and execrations of the people were so awful, that the name of
+Mona was singularly appropriate. Notwithstanding, however, the terrific
+oaths of the natives, they could not succeed in swearing away the lives
+of their aggressors. Suetonius, having made them pay the penalty of so
+much bad language, was called up to London, then a Roman colony; but he
+no sooner arrived in town, than he was obliged to include himself among
+the departures, in consequence of the fury of Boadicea, that greatest
+of viragoes and first of British heroines. She reduced London to ashes,
+which Suetonius did not stay to sift; but he waited the attack of
+Boadicea a little way out of town, and pitched his tent within a modern
+omnibus ride of the great metropolis. His fair antagonist drove after
+him in her chariot, with her two daughters, the Misses Boadicea, at her
+side, and addressed to her army some of those appeals on behalf of "a
+British female in distress," which have since been adopted by British
+dramatists. The valorous old vixen was, however, defeated; and rather
+than swallow the bitter pill which would have poisoned the remainder of
+her days, she took a single dose and terminated her own existence.
+
+Suetonius soon returned with his suite to the Continent, without having
+finished the war; for it was always a characteristic of the Britons,
+that they never would acknowledge they had had enough at the hands of an
+enemy. Some little time afterwards, we find Cerealis engaged in one of
+those attacks upon Britain which might be called serials, from their
+frequent repetition; and subsequently, about the year 75 or 78, Julius
+Frontinus succeeded to the business from which so many before him had
+retired with very little profit.
+
+The general, however, who cemented the power of Rome--or, to speak
+figuratively, introduced the Roman cement among the Bricks or
+Britons--was Julius Agricola, the father-in-law of Tacitus, the
+historian, who has lost no opportunity of puffing most outrageously his
+undoubtedly meritorious relative.
+
+[Illustration: 035]
+
+Agricola certainly did considerable havoc in Britain. He sent the Scotch
+reeling oyer the Grampian Hills, and led the Caledonians a pretty dance.
+
+Portrait of Julius Agricola. He ran UP a kind of rampart between the
+Friths of Clyde and Forth, from which he could come forth at his
+leisure and complete the conquest of Caledonia. In the sixth year of his
+campaign, a.d. 83, he crossed the Frith of Forth, and came opposite to
+Fife, which was played upon by the whole of his band with considerable
+energy. Having wintered in Fife, upon which he levied contributions to
+a pretty tune, he moved forward in the summer of the next year, a.d.
+84, from Glen Devon to the foot of the Grampians. He here encountered
+Galgacus and his host, who made a gallant resistance; but the Scottish
+chief was soon left to reckon without his host, for all his followers
+fled like lightning, and it has been said that their bolting came upon
+him like a thunderbolt.
+
+Agricola having thoroughly beaten the Britons--on the principle,
+perhaps, that there is nothing so impressible as wax--began to think of
+instructing them. He had given them a few lessons in war which they
+were not likely to forget, and he now thought of introducing among
+their chiefs a tincture of polite letters, commencing of course with the
+alphabet. The Britons finding it as easy as A, B, C, began to cultivate
+the rudiments of learning, for there is a spell in letters of which few
+can resist the influence. They assumed the toga, which, on account of
+the comfortable warmth of the material, they very quickly cottoned;
+they plunged into baths, and threw themselves into the capacious lap of
+luxury.
+
+For upwards of thirty years Britain remained tranquil, but in the reign
+of Hadrian, a.d. 120, the Caledonians, whose spirit had been "scotched,
+not killed," became exceedingly turbulent. Hadrian, who felt his
+weakness, went to the wall of Agricola, * which was rebuilt in order to
+protect the territory the Romans had acquired. Some years afterwards the
+power of the empire went into a decline, which caused a consumption
+at home of many of the troops that had been previously kept for the
+protection of foreign possessions. Britain took this opportunity of
+revolting, and in the year 207, the Emperor Severus, though far advanced
+in years and a martyr to the gout, determined to march in person against
+the barbarians. He had no sooner set his foot on English ground than
+his gout caused him to feel the greatest difficulties at every step,
+and having been no less than four years getting to York, he knocked
+up there, a.d. 211, and died in a dreadful hobble. Caracalla, son and
+successor to the late Emperor Severus, executed a surrender of land
+to the Caledonians for the sake of peace, and being desirous of
+administering to the effects of his lamented governor in Rome, left the
+island for ever.
+
+     * The remains of this wall are still in existence, to
+     furnish food for the Archeologians who occasionally feast on
+     the bricks, which have become venerable with the crust of
+     ages. A morning roll among the mounds in the neighbourhood
+     where this famous wall once existed, is considered a most
+     delicate repast to the antiquarian.
+
+[Illustration: 036]
+
+The history of Britain for the next seventy years may be easily written,
+for a blank page would tell all that is known respecting it. In the
+partnership reign of Dioclesian and Maximian, a.d. 288, "the land we
+live in" turns up again, under somewhat unfavourable circumstances, for
+we find its coasts being ravaged about this time by Scandinavian and
+Saxon pirates. Carausius, a sea captain, and either a Belgian or Briton
+by birth, was employed against the pirates, to whom, in the Baltic
+sound, he gave a sound thrashing. Instead, however, of sending the
+plunder home to his employers, he pocketed the proceeds of his own
+victories, and the Emperors, growing jealous of his power, sent
+instructions to have him slain at the earliest convenience. The wily
+sailor, however, fled to Britain, where he planted his standard, and
+where the tar, claiming the natives as his "messmates," induced them
+to join him in the mess he had got into. The Roman eagles were put to
+flight, and both wings of the imperial army exhibited the white feather.
+Peace with Carausius was purchased by conceding to him the government of
+Britain and Boulogne, with the proud title of Emperor.
+
+The assumption of the rank of Emperor of Boulogne seems to us about as
+absurd as usurping the throne of Broadstairs, or putting on the imperial
+purple at Herne Bay; but Carausius having been originally a mere pirate,
+was justly proud of his new dignity. Having swept the seas, he commenced
+scouring the country, and his victories were celebrated by a day's
+chairing, at which he assisted as the principal figure in a procession
+of unexampled pomp and pageantry. The throne, however, is not an easy
+_fauteuil_, and Carausius had scarcely had time to throw himself back
+in an attitude of repose, when he was murdered at Eboracum (York)
+(a.d. 297), by one Alectus, his confidential friend and minister. In
+accordance with the custom of the period, that the murderer should
+succeed his victim, Alectus ruled in Britain until he, in his turn, was
+slain at the instigation of Constantius Chlorus, who became master
+of the island. That individual died at York (a.d. 306), where his son
+Constantine, afterwards called the Great, commenced his reign, which was
+a short and not a particularly merry one, for after experiencing several
+reverses in the North, he quitted the island, which, until his death in
+337, once more enjoyed tranquillity.
+
+Rome, which had so long been mighty, was like a cheese in the same
+condition, rapidly going to decay, and she found it necessary to
+practise what has been termed "the noble art of self-defence," which
+is admitted on all hands to be the first law of Nature. Britain they
+regarded as a province, which it was not their province to look after.
+It was consequently left as pickings for the Picts, * nor did it come
+off scot free from the Scots, who were a tribe of Celtae from Ireland,
+and who consequently must be regarded as a mixed race of Gallo-Hibernian
+Caledonians. They had, in fact, been Irishmen before they had been
+Scotchmen, and Frenchmen previous to either. Such were the translations
+that occurred even at that early period in the greatest drama of
+all--the drama of history.
+
+     * "The Picts," says Dr. Henry, "were so called from Pictich,
+     a plunderer, and not from _picti_, painted." History, in
+     assigning the latter origin to their name, has failed to
+     exhibit them in their true colours.
+
+Britain continued for years suspended like a white hart--a simile
+justified by its constant trepidation and alarm--with which the Romans
+and others might enjoy an occasional game at bob-cherry. Maximus (a.d.
+382) made a successful bite at it, but turning aside in search of the
+fruits of ambition elsewhere, the Scots and Picts again began nibbling
+at the Bigaroon that had been the subject of so much snappishness.
+
+The Britons being shortly afterwards left once more to themselves,
+elected Marcus as their sovereign (a.d. 407); but monarchs in those days
+were set up like the king of skittles, only to be knocked down again.
+Marcus was accordingly bowled out of existence by those who had raised
+him; and one, Gratian, having succeeded to the post of royal ninepin,
+was in four months as dead as the article to which we have chosen to
+compare him. After a few more similar ups and downs, the Romans, about
+the year 420, nearly five centuries after Caesar's first invasion,
+finally cried quits with the Britons by abandoning the island.
+
+In pursuing his labours over the few ensuing years, the author would
+be obliged to grope in the dark; but history is not a game at
+blind-man's-buff, and we will never condescend to make it so. It is
+true, that with the handkerchief of obscurity bandaging our eyes, we
+might turn round in a state of rigmarole, and catch what we can; but
+as it would be mere guesswork by which we could describe the object of
+which we should happen to lay hold, we will not attempt the experiment.
+
+It is unquestionable that Britain was a prey to dissensions at home
+and ravages from abroad, while every kind of faction--except
+satisfaction--was rife within the island.
+
+Such was the misery of the inhabitants, that they published a pamphlet
+called "The Groans of the Britons" (a.d. 441), in which they invited
+AEtius, the Roman consul, to come over and turn out the barbarians,
+between whom and the sea, the islanders were tossed like a shuttlecock
+knocked about by a pair of battledores. AEtius, in consequence of
+previous engagements with Attila and others, was compelled to decline
+the invitation, and the Britons therefore had a series of routs, which
+were unattended by the Roman cohorts.
+
+The southern part of the island was now torn between a Roman faction
+under Aurelius Ambrosius, and a British or "country party," at the head
+of which was Vortigern. The latter is said to have called in the Saxons;
+and it is certain that (a.d. 449) he hailed the two brothers Hengist
+and Horsa, * who were cruising as Saxon pirates in the British Channel.
+These individuals being ready for any desperate job, accepted the
+invitation of Vortigern, to pass some time with him in the Isle of
+Thanet. They were received as guests by the people of Sandwich, who
+would as soon have thought of quarrelling with their bread and butter as
+with the friends of the gallant Vortigern. From this date commences the
+Saxon period of the history of Britain.
+
+     * Horen, means a horse; and the white horse, even now,
+     appears as the ensign of Kent, as it once did on the shield
+     of the Saxons. It is probable that when Horsa came to
+     London, he may have put up somewhere near the present site
+     of the White Horse Cellar. Vide "Palgrave's Rise and
+     Progress of the English Commonwealth."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE THIRD. THE SAXONS--THE HEPTARCHY.
+
+In obedience to custom, the etymologists have been busy with the word
+Saxon, which they have derived from _seax_, a sword, and we are left to
+draw the inference that the Saxons were very sharp blades; a presumption
+that is fully sustained by their fierce and warlike character. Their
+chief weapons were a battleaxe and a hammer, in the use of which they
+were so adroit that they could always hit the right nail upon the head,
+when occasion required. Their shipping had been formerly exceedingly
+crazy, and indeed the crews must have been crazy to have trusted
+themselves in such fragile vessels. The bottoms of the boats were of
+very light timber, and the sides consisted of wicker, so that the fleet
+must have combined the strength of the washing-tub with the elegant
+lightness of the clothes' basket. Like their neighbours the wise men of
+Gotham, or Gotha, who went to sea in a bowl, the Saxons had not scrupled
+to commit themselves to the mercy of the waves, in these unsubstantial
+cockle-shells. The boatbuilders, however, soon took rapid strides, and
+improved their craft by mechanical cunning.
+
+Another fog now comes over the historian, but the gas of sagacity is
+very useful in dispelling the clouds of obscurity. It is said that
+Hengist gave an evening party to Vortigern, who fell in love with
+Bowena, the daughter of his host--a sad flirt, who, throwing herself
+on her knee, presented the wine-cup to the king, wishing him, in a neat
+speech, all health and happiness. Vortigern's head was completely turned
+by the beauty of Miss Bowena Hengist, and the strength of the beverage
+she had so bewitchingly offered him.
+
+[Illustration: 040]
+
+A story is also told of a Saxon _soiree_ having been given by Hengist
+to the Britons, to which the host and his countrymen came, with short
+swords or knives concealed in their hose, and at a given signal drew
+their weapons upon their unsuspecting guests. Many historians have
+doubted this dreadful tale, and it certainly is scarcely credible that
+the Saxons should have been able to conceal in their stockings the short
+swords or carving-knives, which must have been very inconvenient to
+their calves. Stonehenge is the place at which this cruel act of the
+hard-hearted and stony Hengist is reported to have occurred; and as
+antiquarians are always more particular about dates when they are most
+likely to be wrong, the 1st of May has been fixed upon as the very day
+on which this horrible _reunion_ was given. It has been alleged, that
+Vortigern, in order to marry Bowena, settled Kent upon Hengist; but it
+is much more probable that Hengist settled himself upon Kent without the
+intervention of any formality.
+
+It is certain that he became King of the County, to which he affixed
+Middlesex, Essex, and a part of Surrey; so that, as sovereigns went in
+those early days, he could scarcely be called a petty potentate. The
+success of Hengist induced several of his countrymen, after his death,
+to attempt to walk in his shoes; but it has been well and wisely said,
+that in following the footsteps of a great man an equally capacious
+understanding is requisite.
+
+The Saxons who tried this experiment were divided into Saxons proper,
+Angles, and Jutes, who all passed under the common appellation of Angles
+and Saxons. The word Angles was peculiarly appropriate to a people so
+naturally sharp, and the whole science of mathematics can give us no
+angles so acute as those who figured in the early pages of our history.
+
+In the year 447, Ella the Saxon landed in Sussex with his three sons,
+and drove the Britons into a forest one hundred and twenty miles long
+and thirty broad, according to the old writers, but in our opinion just
+about as broad as it was long, for otherwise there could have been no
+room for it in the place where the old writers have planted it. Ella,
+however, succeeded in clutching a very respectable slice, which was
+called the kingdom of South Saxony, which included Surrey, Sussex, and
+the New Forest; while another invading firm, under the title of Cerdic
+and Son, started a small vanquishing business in the West, and by
+conquering Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, founded the kingdom of
+Wessex. Cerdic was considerably harassed by King Arthur of fabulous
+fame, whose valour is reported to have been such, that he fought twelve
+battles with the Saxons, and was three times married. His first and
+third wives were carried away from him, but on the principle that no
+news is good news, the historians tell us that as there are no records
+of his second consort, his alliance with her may perhaps have been a
+happy one. The third and last of his spouses ran off with his nephew
+Mordred, and the enraged monarch having met his ungrateful kinsman in
+battle, they engaged each other with such fury, that, like the Kilkenny
+cats, they slew one another.
+
+About the year 527, Greenwine landed on the Essex flats, which he had no
+trouble in reducing, for he found them already on a very low level.
+In 547, Ida, with a host of Angles, began fishing for dominion off
+Flamborough head, where he effected a landing. He however settled on a
+small wild space between the Tyne and the Tees, a tiny possession, in
+which he was much teased by the beasts of the forest, for the place
+having been abandoned, Nature had established a Zoological Society of
+her own in this locality. The kingdom thus formed was called Bernicia,
+and as the place was full of wild animals, it is not improbable that the
+British Lion may have originally come from the place alluded to.
+
+Ella, another Saxon prince, defeated Lancashire and York, taking the
+name of King of the Deiri, and causing the inhabitants to lick the dust,
+which was the only way they could find of repaying the licking they had
+received from their conqueror. Ethelred, the grandson of Ida, having
+married the daughter of Ella, began to cement the union in the
+old-established way, by robbing his wife's relations of all their
+property. He seized on the kingdom of his brother-in-law, and added it
+to his own, uniting the petty monarchies of Deiri and Bemicia into the
+single sovereignty of Northumberland.
+
+[Illustration: 042]
+
+Such were the several kingdoms which formed the Heptarchy.
+Arithmeticians will probably tell us that seven into one will never go;
+but into one the seven did eventually go by a process that will be shown
+in the ensuing chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FOURTH. THE UNION OF THE HEPTARCHY UNDER EGBERT.
+
+If it be a sound philosophical truth, that two of a trade can never
+agree, we may take it for granted that, _a fortiori_, seven in the same
+business will be perpetually quarrelling. Such was speedily the case
+with the Saxon princes; and it is not improbable that the disturbed
+condition, familiarly known as a state of sixes and sevens, may have
+derived its title from the turmoils of the seven Saxon sovereigns,
+during the existence of the Heptarchy. Nothing can exceed the
+entanglement into which the thread of history was thrown by the battles
+and skirmishes of these princes. The endeavour to lay hold of the thread
+would be as troublesome as the process of looking for a needle, * not
+merely in a bottle of hay, but in the very bosom of a haystack. Let us,
+however, apply the magnet of industry, and test the alleged fidelity
+of the needle to the pole by attempting to implant in the head of the
+reader a few of the points that seem best adapted for striking him.
+
+     * "A needle in a bottle of hay," is an old English phrase,
+     of which we cannot trace the origin. Bottled hay must have
+     been sad dry stuff, but it is possible the wisdom of our
+     ancestors may have induced them to bottle their grass as we
+     in the present day bottle our gooseberries.
+
+We will take a run through the whole country as it was then divided,
+and will borrow from the storehouse of tradition the celebrated pair
+of seven-leagued boots, for the purpose of a scamper through the seven
+kingdoms of the Heptarchy.
+
+We will first drop in upon Kent, whose founder, Hengist, had no worthy
+successor till the time of Ethelbert. This individual acted on the
+principle of give and take, for he was always taking what he could, and
+giving battle. He seated himself by force on the throne of Mercia, into
+which he carried his arms, as if the throne of Kent had not afforded him
+sufficient elbow-room. This, however, he resigned to Webba, the rightful
+heir: but poor Webba (_query_ Webber) was kept like a fly in a spider's
+web, as a tributary prince to the artful Ethelbert. This monarch's reign
+derived, however, its real glory from the introduction of Christianity
+and the destruction of many Saxon superstitions. He kept up a friendly
+correspondence with Gregory, the punster pope, and author of the
+celebrated _jeu de mot_ on the word Angli, in the Roman market-place.*
+
+     * The pun in question is almost too venerable for
+     repetition, but we insert it in a note, as no History of
+     England seems to be complete without it. The pope, on seeing
+     the British children exposed for sale in the market-place at
+     Rome, said they would not be Angles but Angels if they had
+     been Christians. _Non Angli sed Angeli forent si fuissent
+     Christiani._
+
+
+[Illustration: 044]
+
+Ethelbert died in 616, having been not only king of Kent, but
+having filled the office of Bretwalda, a name given to the most
+influential--or, as we should call him, the president or chairman--of
+the sovereigns of the Heptarchy. His son, Eadbald, who succeeded, failed
+in supporting the fame of his father. It would be useless to pursue the
+catalogue of Saxons who continued mounting and dismounting the throne
+of Kent--one being no sooner down than another came on--in rapid
+succession. It was Egbert, king of Wessex, who, in the year 723, had
+the art to seat himself on all the seven thrones at once; an achievement
+which, considering the ordinary fate of one who attempts to preserve his
+balance upon two stools, has fairly earned the admiration of posterity.
+
+Let us now take a skip into Northumberland--formed by Ethelred in the
+manner we have already alluded to, out of the two kingdoms of Deiri and
+Bemicia--which, though not enough for two, constituted for one a very
+respectable sovereignty. The crown of Northumberland seems to have been
+at the disposal of any one who thought it worth his while to go and take
+it; provided he was prepared to meet any little objections of the owner
+by making away with him. In this manner, Osred received his _quietus_
+from Kenred, a kinsman, who was killed in his turn by another of the
+family: and, after a long series of assassinations, the people quietly
+submitted to the yoke of Egbert.
+
+The kingdom of East Anglia presents the same rapid panorama of murders
+which settled the succession to all the Saxon thrones; and Mercia,
+comprising the midland counties, furnishes all the materials for a
+melodrama. Offa, one of its most celebrated kings, had a daughter,
+Elfrida, to whom Ethelbert, the sovereign of the East Angles, had made
+honourable proposals, and had been invited to celebrate his nuptials at
+Hereford. In the midst of the festivities Offa asked Ethelbert into a
+back room, in which the latter had scarcely taken a chair when his head
+was unceremoniously removed from his shoulders by the father of his
+intended.
+
+Offa having extinguished the royal family of East Anglia, by snuffing
+out the chief, took possession of the kingdom. In order to expiate his
+crime he made friends with the pope, and exacted a penny from every
+house possessed of thirty pence, or half-a-crown a year, which he sent
+as a proof of penitence to the Roman pontiff. Though at first intended
+by Offa as an offering, it was afterwards claimed as a tribute, under
+the name of Peter's Pence, which were exacted from the people; and the
+custom may perhaps have originated the dishonourable practice of robbing
+Paul for the purpose of paying Peter.
+
+After the usual amount of slaughter, one Wiglaff mounted the throne,
+which was in a fearfully rickety condition. So unstable was this
+undesirable piece of Saxon upholstery that Wiglaff had no sooner sat
+down upon it than it gave way with a tremendous crash, and fell into the
+hands of Egbert, who was always ready to seize the remaining stock of
+royalty that happened to be left to an unfortunate sovereign on the eve
+of an alarming sacrifice.
+
+The kingdom of Essex can boast of little worthy of narration, and in
+looking through the Venerable Bede, we find a string of names that are
+wholly devoid of interest.
+
+The history of Sussex is still more obscure, and we hasten to Wessex,
+where we find Brihtric, or Beortric, sitting in the regal armchair that
+Egbert had a better right to occupy. The latter fled to the court of
+Offa, king of Mercia, to whom the former sent a message, requesting
+that Egbert's head might be brought back by return, with one of Offa's
+daughters, whom Beortric proposed to marry. The young lady was sent
+as per invoice, for she was rather a burden on the Mercian court; but
+Egbert's head, being still in use, was not duly forwarded.
+
+Feeling that his life was a toss up, and that he might lose by heads
+coming down, Egbert wisely repaired to the court of the Emperor
+Charlemagne. There he acquired many accomplishments, took lessons in
+fencing, and received that celebrated French polish of which it may be
+fairly said in the language of criticism, that "it ought to be found on
+every gentleman's table."
+
+Mrs. Beortric managed to poison her husband by a draft not intended for
+his acceptance, and presented by mistake, which caused a vacancy in the
+throne of Wessex. Egbert having embraced the opportunity, was embraced
+by the people, who received him with open arms, on his arrival from
+France, and hailed him as rightful heir to the Wessexian crown, which he
+had never been able to get out of his head, or on to his head, until the
+present favourable juncture. In a few years he got into hostilities
+with the Mercians, who being, as we are told by the chroniclers, "fat,
+corpulent, and short-winded," soon got the worst of it. The lean and
+active droops of Egbert prevailed over the opposing cohorts, who were at
+once podgy and powerless. As they advanced to the charge, they were met
+by the blows of the enemy, and as "it is an ill wind that blows nobody
+good," so the very ill wind of the Mercians made good for the soldiers
+of Egbert, who were completely victorious.
+
+[Illustration: 046]
+
+Mercia was now subjugated; Kent and Essex were soon subdued; the East
+Angles claimed protection; Northumberland submitted; Sussex had for some
+time been swamped; and Wessex belonged to Egbert by right of succession.
+Thus, about four hundred years after the arrival of the Saxons, the
+Heptarchy was dissolved, in the year 827, after having been in hot water
+for centuries. It was only when the spirit of Egbert was thrown in, that
+the hot water became a strong and wholesome compound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIFTH. THE DANES--ALFRED.
+
+
+[Illustration: 047]
+
+SCARCELY had unanimity begun to prevail in England, when the country was
+invaded by the Danes, whose desperate valour there was no disdaining.
+Some of them, in the year 832, landed on the coast, committed a series
+of ravages, and escaped to their ships without being taken into custody.
+Egbert encountered them on one occasion at Char-mouth, in Dorsetshire,
+but having lost two bishops--who, by the bye, had no business in a
+fight--he was glad to make the best of his way home again.
+
+The Danes, or Northmen, having visited Cornwall, entered into an
+alliance with some of the Briks, or Britons, of the neigh-bourhood,
+and marched into Devonshire; but Egbert, collecting the cream of
+the Devonshire youth, poured it down upon the heads of his enemies.
+According to some historians, Egbert met with considerable resistance,
+and it has even been said that the Devonshire cream experienced a severe
+clouting. It is certainly sufficient to make the milk of human kindness
+curdle in the veins when we read the various recitals of Danish
+ferocity. Egbert, however, was successful at the battle of Hengsdown
+Hill, where many were put to the sword, by the sword being put to them,
+in the most unscrupulous manner. This was the last grand military drama
+in which Egbert represented the hero. He died in 836, after a long
+reign, which had been one continued shower of prosperity.
+
+Ethelwolf, the eldest son of Egbert, now came to the throne, but
+misunderstanding the maxim, _Divide et impera_, he began to divide his
+kingdom, as the best means of ruling it, and gave a slice consisting of
+Kent and its dependencies to his son Athelstane.
+
+The Scandinavian pirates having no longer an opponent like Egbert,
+ravaged Wessex; sailed up the Thames, which, if they could, they would
+have set on fire; gave Canterbury, Rochester, and London a severe dose,
+in the shape of pillage; and got into the heart of Surrey, which lost
+all heart on the approach of the enemy. Ethelwolf, however, taking
+with him his second son Ethelbald, met them at Okely--probably in the
+neighbourhood of Oakley Street--and at a place still retaining the name
+of the New Cut, made a fearful incision into the ranks of the enemy.
+The Danes retired to settle in the isle of Thanet, to repose after
+the settling they had received in Surrey, at the hands of the Saxons.
+Notwithstanding the state of his kingdom, Ethelwolf found time for an
+Italian tour, and taking with him his fourth son, Alfred the Great--then
+Alfred the Little, for he was a child of six--started to Rome, on that
+very vague pretext, a pilgrimage. He spent a large sum of money abroad,
+gave the Pope an annuity for himself, and another to trim the lamps of
+St. Peter and St. Paul, which has given rise to the celebrated _jeu
+de mot_ that, "instead of roaming about and getting rid of his cash
+in trimming foreign lamps, he ought to have remained at home for the
+purpose of trimming his enemies."
+
+On his return through France, he fell in love with Judith, the daughter
+of Charles the Bald, the king of the Franks, who probably gave a good
+fortune to the bride, for Charles being known as the bald, must of
+course have been without any heir apparent. When Ethelwolf arrived at
+home with his new wife, he found his three sons, or as he had been in
+the habit of calling them, "the boys,"--indignant at the marriage of
+their governor. According to some historians and chroniclers, Osburgha,
+his first wife, was not dead, but had been simply "put away" to make
+room for Judith. It certainly was a practice of the kings in the middle
+age, and particularly if they happened to be middle-aged kings, to "put
+away" an old wife; but the real difficulty must have been where on earth
+to put her. If Osburgha consented quietly to be laid upon the shelf, she
+must have differed from her sex in general.
+
+Athelstane being dead, Ethelbald was now the king's eldest son, and had
+made every arrangement for a fight with his own father for the throne,
+when the old gentleman thought it better to divide his crown than run
+the risk of getting it cracked in battle. "Let us not split each other's
+heads, my son," he affectingly exclaimed, "but rather let us split the
+difference." Ethelbald immediately cried halves when he found his
+father disposed to cry quarter, and after a short debate they came to a
+division. The undutiful son got for himself the richest portion of the
+kingdom of Wessex, leaving his unfortunate sire to sigh over the eastern
+part, which was the poorest moiety of the royal property. The ousted
+Ethelwolf did not survive more than two years the change which had made
+him little better than half-a-sove-reign, for he died in 867, and was
+succeeded by his son Ethelbald. This person was, to use an old simile,
+as full of mischief "as an egg is full of meat," and indeed somewhat
+fuller, for we never yet found a piece of beef, mutton, or veal, in the
+whole course of our oval experience. Ethelbald, however, reigned only
+two years, having first married and subsequently divorced his father's
+widow Judith, whose venerable parent Charles the Bald, was happily
+indebted to his baldness for being spared the misery of having his grey
+hairs brought down in sorrow to the grave by the misfortunes of his
+daughter. This young lady, for she was still young in spite of her two
+marriages, her widowhood, and divorce, had retired to a convent near
+Paris, when a gentleman of the name of Baldwin, belonging to an
+old standard family, ran away with her. He was threatened with
+excommunication by the young lady's father, but treating the menaces of
+Charles the Bald as so much balderdash, Mr. Baldwin sent a herald to the
+Pope, who allowed the marriage to be legally solemnised.
+
+We have given a few lines to Judith because, by her last marriage,
+she gave a most illustrious line to us; for her son having married the
+youngest daughter of Alfred the Great, was the ancestor of Maud, the
+wife of William the Conqueror.
+
+Ethelbald was succeeded by Ethelbert, whose reign, though it lasted
+only five years, may be compared to a rain of cats and dogs, for he
+was constantly engaged in quarrelling. The Danes completely sacked and
+ransacked Winchester, causing Ethelbert to exclaim, with a melancholy
+smile, to one of his courtiers, "This is indeed the bitterest cup of
+sack I ever tasted." He died in 866 or 867, and was succeeded by his
+brother Ethelred, who found matters arrived at such a pitch, that he
+fought nine pitched battles with the Danes in less than a twelvemonth.
+He died in the year 871, of severe wounds, and the crown fell from his
+head on to that of his younger brother Alfred. The regal diadem was
+sadly tarnished when it came to the young king, who resolved that it
+should not long continue to lack lacker; and by his glorious deeds
+he soon restored the polish that had been rubbed off by repeated
+leathering. He had scarcely time to sit down upon the throne when he was
+called into the field to fulfil a very particular engagement with the
+Danes at Wilton. They were compelled to stipulate for a safe retreat,
+and went up to London for the winter, where they so harassed Burrhed the
+king of Mercia, in whose dominions London was situated, that the poor
+fellow ran down the steps of his throne, left his sceptre in the regal
+hall, and, repairing to Rome, finished his days in a cloister.
+
+The Danes still continued the awful business of dyeing and scouring,
+for they scoured the country round, and dyed it with the blood of the
+inhabitants. Alfred, finding himself in the most terrible straits,
+conceived the idea of getting out of the straits by means of ships, of
+which he collected a few, and for a time he went on swimmingly.
+
+He taught Britannia her first lesson in ruling the waves, by destroying
+the fleet of Guthrum the Dane, who had promised to make his _exit_ from
+the kingdom on a previous defeat, but by a disgraceful quibble he had,
+instead of making his _exit_, retired to Exeter. From this place he
+now retreated, and took up his quarters at Gloucester, while Alfred, it
+being now about Christmas time, had repaired to spend the holidays at
+Chippenham. It was on Twelfth-night, which the Saxons were celebrating
+no doubt with cake and wine, when a loud knocking was heard at the gate,
+and on some one going to answer the door, Guthrum and his Danes rushed
+in with overwhelming celerity. Alfred, who had been probably favouring
+the company with a song--for he was fond of minstrelsy--made an
+involuntary shake on hearing the news, and ran off, followed by a small
+band, in an allegro movement, which almost amounted to a galop.
+
+[Illustration: 050]
+
+The Saxon monarch finding himself deserted by his coward subjects, and
+without an army, broke up his establishment, dismissed every one of his
+servants, and, exchanging his regal trappings for a bag of old clothes,
+went about the country in various disguises. He had taken refuge as a
+peasant in the hut of a swineherd or pig-driver, whose wife had put some
+cakes on the fire to toast, and had requested Alfred to turn them while
+she was otherwise employed in trying to turn a penny.
+
+His Majesty being bent upon his bow, never thought of the cakes, which
+were burnt up to a cinder, and the old woman, looking as black as the
+cakes themselves, taunted the king with the smallness of the care he
+took, and the largeness of his appetite. "You can eat them fast enough,"
+she exclaimed, "and I think you might have given the cakes a turn." *
+"I acknowledge my fault," replied Alfred, "for you and your husband
+have done me a good turn, and one good turn, I am well aware, deserves
+another."
+
+     * Though all the historians have given this anecdote, they
+     vary in the words attributed to the old woman, and make no
+     allusion to the reply of Alfred. So accomplished a monarch
+     would hardly have found nothing at all to say for himself;
+     and though he did not turn the cakes, he most probably
+     turned the conversation in the manner we have described.
+
+The monarch retired to a swamp, which he called AEthelingay--now
+Athelney--or the Isle of Nobles, and some of his retainers, who stuck to
+their sovereign through thick and thin, joined him in the morasses
+and marshes he had selected for his residence. Alfred did not despair,
+though in the middle of a swamp he had no good ground for hope, until
+he heard that Hubba, the Dane, after making a hubbub in Wales, had
+been killed by a sudden sally in an alley near the mouth of the Tau, in
+Devonshire. Alfred, on this intelligence, left his retreat, and having
+recourse to his old clothes bag, disguised himself as the "Wandering
+Minstrel," in which character he made a very successful appearance at
+the camp of Guthrum. The jokes of Alfred, though they would sound very
+old Joe Millerisms in the present day, were quite new at that remote
+period, and the Danes were constantly in fits; so that the Saxon king
+was preparing, by splitting their sides, to eventually break up the
+ranks of his enemy. He could also sing a capital song, which with his
+comic recitations, conundrums, and charades, rendered him a general
+favourite; and his vocal powers may be said to have been instrumental to
+the accomplishment of his object.
+
+Having returned to his friends, he led them forth against Guthrum, who
+retreated to a fortified position with a handful of men, and Alfred, by
+a close blockade, took care not to let the handful of men slip through
+his fingers.
+
+Guthrum, tired of the raps on the knuckles he had received, threw
+himself on the kind indulgence of a British public, and appeared before
+the Saxon king in the character of an apologist. Alfred's motto was,
+"Forget and Forgive;" but he wisely insisted on the Danes embracing
+Christianity, knowing that if their conversion should be sincere, they
+would never be guilty of any further atrocities. He stood godfather
+himself to Guthrum, who adopted the old family name of Athelstane,
+and all animosities were forgotten in the festivities of a general
+christening. A partition of the kingdom took place, and Alfred gave
+a good share, including all the east side of the island, to his new
+godson. The Danes settled tranquilly in their new possessions, though in
+the very next year (879), a small party sailed up the Thames and landed
+on the shores of Fulham; but finding the hardy sons of that suburban
+coast in a posture of defence, the Northmen took to their heels, or
+rather to their keels, by returning to their vessels. The would-be
+invaders repaired to Ghent to try their luck in the Low Countries, for
+which their ungentle-manly conduct in violating their treaties most
+peculiarly fitted them.
+
+Alfred employed the period of peace in building and in law, both of
+which are generally ruinous, but which were exceedingly profitable
+in his judicious hands. He restored London, over which he placed his
+son-in-law, Ethelred, as Earl Eolderman or Alderman, and he established
+a regular militia all over the country, who, if they resembled the
+militia of modern times, must have kept away the invaders by placing
+them in the position familiarly known as "more frightened than hurt."
+
+In the year 893, however, the Danes under Hasting, having ravaged
+all France, and eaten up every morsel of food they could find in that
+country, were compelled to come over to England in search of a meal.
+A portion of the invaders in two hundred and fifty ships, landed near
+Romney Marsh, at a river called Limine, and there being no one to oppose
+them in Limine, they proceeded to Appledore. Hasting, with eighty sail,
+took Milton; but he was soon routed out, and cutting across the Thames,
+he removed to Banfleet, which was only "over the way;" where he was
+broken in upon by Alderman Ethelred at the head of some London citizens.
+The cockney cohorts seized the wife and two sons of Hasting, who would
+have been killed but for the magnanimity of Alfred, though it has been
+hinted that in sending them back to his foe, the Saxon king calculated
+that as women and children are only in the way when business is going
+forward, their presence might add to the embarrassments of the Danish
+chieftain. That such was really the case, may be gleaned from the fact
+that on a subsequent occasion Hasting and his followers were compelled
+to leave their wives and families behind them in the river Lea, into
+which the Danish fleet had sailed when Alfred ingeniously drew all
+the water off, and left the enemy literally aground. This manouvre was
+accomplished partially by digging three channels from the Lea to the
+Thames, and partially by the removal of the water in buckets, though
+the bucket got very frequently kicked by those engaged in this perilous
+enterprise.
+
+The river Lea would have been sufficiently deep for the purposes of
+Hasting had not Alfred been deeper still, and the fleet, which had been
+the floating capital of the Danes, became a deposit in the banks for the
+benefit of the Saxons. In the spring of 897 Hasting quitted England;
+but several pirates remained; and two ships being taken at the Isle
+of Wight, Alfred, on being asked what should be done with the crews,
+exclaimed, "Oh! they may go and be hanged at Winchester!" The king's
+orders having been taken literally, the marauders were carried to
+Winchester, and hanged accordingly.
+
+Alfred, having tranquillised the country, died in the year 901, after
+a glorious reign of nearly thirty years, and is known to this day as
+Alfred the Great, an epithet which has never yet been earned by one of
+his successors.
+
+The character of this prince seems to have been as near perfection as
+possible. His reputation as a sage has not been injured by time, nor has
+the mist of ages obscured the brightness of his military glory. He was
+a lover of literature, and a constant reader of every magazine of
+knowledge that he could lay his hands upon. An anecdote is told of his
+mother, Osburgha, having bought a book of Saxon poetry, illustrated
+according to the taste of our own times, with numerous drawings. Alfred
+and his brothers were all exclaiming, "Oh give it me!" with infantine
+eagerness, when his parent hit on the expedient of promising that he who
+could read it first should receive it as a present. Alfred, proceeding
+on the modern principle of acquiring "Spanish without a Master," and
+"French comparatively in no time," succeeded in picking up Anglo-Saxon
+in six self-taught lessons. He accordingly won the book, which was, no
+doubt, of a nature well calculated to "repay perusal."
+
+Nor were war and literature the only pursuits in which Alfred indulged;
+but he added the mechanical arts to his other accomplishments. The
+sun-dial was probably known to Alfred; but that acute prince soon saw,
+or, rather, found from not seeing, that a sun-dial in the dark was worse
+than useless. Not content with being always alive to the time of day, he
+became desirous of knowing the time of night, and used to burn candles
+of a certain length with notches in them to mark the hours. * These
+were indeed melting moments, but the wind often blew the candles out,
+or caused them to burn irregularly. Sometimes they would get very long
+wicks, and, if every one had gone to bed, no one being up to snuff,
+might render the long wicks rather dangerous. In this dilemma he asked
+himself what could be done, and his friend Asser, the monk, having
+said half sportively, "Ah! you are on the horns of a dilemma," Alfred
+enthusiastically replied, "I have it; yes; I will turn the horns to my
+own advantage, and make a horn lanthorn." Thus, to make use of a figure
+of a recent writer, Alfred never found himself in a difficulty without,
+somehow or other, making light of it.
+
+     * The practice of telling the time by burning candles was
+     ingenious, but could not have been always convenient. It
+     must have been very awkward when a thief got into one of the
+     candles, thus exposing time to another thief besides
+     procrastination. After Alfred's invention of the lanthorn,
+     it might have been worn as a watch, in the same manner as
+     the modern policeman wears the bull's-eye.
+
+He founded the navy, and, besides being the architect of his own
+fortunes, he studied architecture for the benefit of his subjects,
+for he caused so many houses to be erected, that during his reign the
+country seemed to be let out on one long building lease. He revised the
+laws, and his system of police was so good, that it has been said any
+one might have hung out jewels on the highway without any fear of their
+being stolen. Much, however, depends on the kind of jewellery then in
+use, for some future historian may say of the present generation, that
+such was its honesty, precious stones,--that is to say, precious large
+stones,--might be left in the streets without any one offering to take
+them up and walk away with them.
+
+Alfred gave encouragement not only to native, but to foreign talent, and
+sent out Swithelm, bishop of Sherbum, to India, by what is now called
+the overland journey, and the good bishop was therefore the original
+Indian male--or Saxon Waghom. He brought from India several gems, and
+a quantity of pepper--the gems being generously given by Alfred to his
+friends, and the pepper freely bestowed on his enemies.
+
+He died on the 26th of October, 901, in the fifty-third year of his age,
+and thirtieth of his reign, having fought in person fifty-six times; so
+that his life must have been one continued round of sparring with one or
+other of his enemies. All the chroniclers and historians have agreed
+in pronouncing unqualified praise upon Alfred; and unless puffing had
+reached a perfection, and acquired an effrontery which it has scarcely
+shown in the present day, he must be considered a paragon of perfection
+who never yet had a parallel. It is certain we have had but one Alfred,
+from the Saxon period to the present; but we have now a prospect of
+another, who, let us hope, may evince, at some future time, something
+more than a merely nominal resemblance to him who has been the subject
+of this somewhat lengthy chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SIXTH. FROM KING EDWARD THE ELDER TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST.
+
+
+[Illustration: 054]
+
+ON the death of Alfred, his second son, Edward, took possession of the
+throne, when he was served with a notice of ejectment by his cousin
+Ethelwald. Preparations were made for commencing and defending an action
+at Wimbum, when Ethelwald, intimidated by the strength of his opponent,
+declined to go on with the proceedings, and judgment, as in case of
+a nonsuit, was claimed on Edward's behalf. Subsequently, however,
+Ethelwald moved, apparently with a view to a new trial, towards Bury,
+where some of the Kentish men had ventured; and an action having come
+off, he incurred very heavy damage, which ended in his paying the
+costs of the day with his own existence. Edward derived much aid from
+Ethelfleda, a sister, who acted as a sister, by assisting him in his
+wars against his enemies. This energetic specimen of the British female
+inherited all the spirit of her father, as well as his mantle, which we
+find in looking into our own Mackintosh. * She is called "The Lady of
+Mercia" by the old chroniclers; but as she was always foremost in a
+fight, there seems something slyly satirical in giving the name of lady
+to a person of the most fearfully unladylike propensities. She beat
+the Welsh unmercifully, filling their country with wailings as well as
+covering their backs with wails, and she took prisoner the king's wife,
+with whom it may be presumed she came furiously to the scratch before
+the capture was accomplished. Ethelfleda died in the year 920, and
+her brother in 925, the latter being succeeded by his natural son,
+Athelstane, who had no sooner got the crown on his head, than he found
+several persons preparing to have a snatch at it. He, however, defeated
+all his enemies, and devoted his time to polishing his throne, adding
+lustre to his crown, and giving brightness to his sceptre. It was in
+this reign that England first became an asylum for foreign refugees, to
+whom Athelstane always extended his hospitality. Louis d'Outremer, the
+French king, and several Celtic princes of Armorica or Brittany, played
+at hide-and-seek in London lodgings, while keeping out of the way of
+their rebellious subjects.
+
+     * Sir James Mackintosh's "History of England," Vol. I. chap,
+     ii., p. 49,
+
+It is probable that the part of the metropolis called Little Britain,
+may have derived its name from the princes having established a little
+Brittany of their own in that locality. Athelstane appears also to
+have taken a limited number of pupils into his own palace to board and
+educate, for Harold, the king of Norway, consigned his son Haco to the
+care and tuition of the Saxon monarch.
+
+Athelstane died in the year 940, in his forty-seventh year, and was
+succeeded by Edmund the Atheling, a youth of eighteen, whose taste for
+elegance and splendour obtained for him the name of the Magnificent. He
+gave very large dinner parties to his nobles, and at one of these his
+eye fell upon one Leof, a notorious robber, returned from banishment,
+one of the Saxon swell mob who had been transported, but had escaped;
+and who, from some remissness on the part of the police, had obtained
+admission to the palace. Edmund commanded the proper officer to turn him
+out, but Leof--tempted no doubt by the sideboard of plate--insisted on
+remaining at the banquet. Edmund, who, as the chroniclers tell us, was
+heated by wine, jumped up from his seat, and forgetting the king in the
+constable, seized Leof by his collar and his hair, intending to turn
+him out neck and crop. Leof still refusing to "move on," the impetuous
+Edmund commenced wrestling with the intruder, who, irritated at a sudden
+and severe kick on his shins, drew a dagger from under his cloak, and
+stabbed the sovereign in a vital part. The nobles, who had formed a
+circle round the combatants, and had been encouraging their king with
+shouts of "Bravo, Edmund!"
+
+"Give it him, your majesty!" were so infuriated at the foul play of the
+thief, and his un-English recourse to the knife, that they fell upon him
+at once, and cut him literally to pieces.
+
+[Illustration: 056]
+
+Edred, the brother and successor of Edmund, though not twenty-three
+years of age, was in a wretched state of health when he came to the
+throne. He had lost his teeth, and of course had none to show when
+threatened by his enemies; and he was so weak in the feet, that he
+literally seemed to be without a leg to stand upon. Nevertheless he
+succeeded in vanquishing the Danes, who could not hurt a hair of his
+head; but, as the chroniclers tell us that every bit of his hair had
+fallen off, his security in this respect is easily accounted for. The
+vigour that marked his reign has, however, been attributed to Dunstan,
+the abbot, who now began to figure as a political character.
+
+Edred soon died, and left the kingdom to his little brother Edwy, a lad
+of fifteen, who soon married Elgiva, a young lady of good family,
+and took his wife's mother home to live with them. On the day of his
+coronation he had given a party, and the gentlemen, including Odo,
+Archbishop of Canterbury, and Dunstan, the monk, were still sitting over
+their wine, when Edwy slipped out to join the ladies. Odo and Dunstan,
+who were both six-bottle men, became angry at the absence of their royal
+host, and the latter, at the suggestion of the former, went staggering
+after the king to lug him back to the banquet-room. Edwy was quietly
+seated with his wife and her mother in the boudoir--for it being a
+gentlemen's party, no ladies seem to have been among the guests--and
+the monk, hiccuping out some gross abuse of the queen and her mamma,
+collared the young king, who was dragged back to the wine-table.
+
+Though this outrage may have been half festive, interlarded with
+exclamations of "Come along, old boy," "Don't leave us, old chap," and
+other similar phrases of social familiarity, Edwy never forgave the
+monk, whom he called upon to account for money received in his late
+capacity of treasurer to the royal household. Dunstan being what is
+usually termed a "jolly dog," and a "social companion," was of course
+most irregular in money matters; and finding it quite impossible to make
+out his books, he ran away to avoid the inconvenience of a regular
+settlement.
+
+Dunstan, nevertheless, resolved to pay his royal master off on the
+first opportunity; and a rising having been instigated by his friend and
+pot-companion, Archbishop Odo, Edgar, the brother of Edwy, was declared
+independent sovereign of the whole of the island north of the Thames.
+Dunstan returned from his brief exile; but, in the mean time, Edwy
+had been deprived of his wife, Elgiva, by forcible abduction, at the
+instigation of the odious Odo. The lovely unfortunate had her face
+branded with a hot iron, and the most cruel means were taken to deprive
+her of the beauty which was supposed to be the cause of her ascendancy
+over the heart of her royal husband. Some historians have attributed
+this outrage to the designs of Dunstan, and among the many irons that
+monk was known to have had in the fire, may have been the very irons
+with which this horrible barbarity was perpetrated. Her scars were,
+however, obliterated by some Kalydor known at the time, and probably the
+invention of some knightly Sir Rowland of that early era. She was on the
+point of rejoining Edwy at Gloucester, when she was savagely murdered
+by the enemies of her husband, who did not long survive her, for in the
+following year, 958, he perished either by assassination or a broken
+heart.
+
+Edgar, a mere lad, of whom Dunstan had made a ladder for his own
+ambition, now succeeded to his brother's dignities, if a series of
+nothing but indignities can deserve to be so called. The wily monk had
+now become Archbishop of Canterbury, and encouraged the new king to make
+royal progresses among his subjects, in the course of which he is said
+to have gone up on the river Dee, in an eight-oared cutter, rowed by
+eight crowned sovereigns. In this illustrious water party Kenneth,
+king of Scotland, pulled the stroke oar, their majesties of Cumbria,
+Anglesey, Galloway, Westmere, and the three Welsh sovereigns, making up
+the remainder of the royal crew, over which Edgar himself presided as
+coxswain.
+
+Though the young king gave great satisfaction in his public capacity,
+his private character was exceedingly reprehensible. His inconstancy
+towards the fair got him into sad disgrace, and his friend Dunstan on
+one occasion administered to him a severe reprimand. The monk, however,
+finished by fining him a crown, prohibiting him from putting on, during
+a period of seven years, that very uncomfortable article of the regalia.
+As the head is proverbially uneasy which wears a crown, the sentence
+passed upon the king must have been a boon rather than a punishment.
+
+Among the events connected with the reign of Edgar, his marriage with
+Elfrida must always stand conspicuous. He had heard much of a provincial
+beauty, the daughter of Olgar, or Ordgar, Earl of Devonshire, and the
+king sent his favourite, the Earl of Athelwold, to see this rustic
+_belle_, with a view of ascertaining whether the flower would be worth
+transplanting to the palace of the sovereign. Athelwold, on seeing the
+young lady, fell in love with her himself, from her extreme beauty; but
+wrote up to Edgar, declaring that she might well be called "the mistress
+of the village plain," for her plainness was absolutely painful; and
+indeed he added in a P.S., "She is so disfigured by a squint, as to give
+me the idea of the very squintes-sence of ugliness." Athelwold attributed
+her reputation for beauty to her fortune, and declared that her money
+turned her red hair into golden locks, causing her to be well "worthy
+the attention of Persons about to Marry."
+
+Edgar soon gave his consent to Athelwold's espousing the lady, on the
+ground of her being a good match for him; but she proved more than a
+match for him a short time afterwards. Edgar, at the expiration of the
+honeymoon, proposed to visit his friend, who made excuses as long as
+he could, inasmuch that he was seldom at home, and that he could not
+exactly say when his majesty would be sure of catching him. The king,
+however, good-naturedly promising to be satisfied with pot-luck, fixed a
+day for his visit; ana Athelwold, confessing all to his wife, begged her
+to disguise her charms, by putting on her shabbiest gown, and to behave
+herself in such a manner as to make the king believe he had lost nothing
+in not having married her.
+
+"I should like to see myself appearing as a dowdy before my sovereign,"
+was the lady's feminine reply, and she paid more than usual attention to
+her _toilette_ in order to attract the favourable notice of Edgar. The
+monarch finding himself deceived by Athelwold, asked him to come and
+hunt in a wood, when, without any preliminary beating about the bush,
+and exclaiming, "You made game of me, thus do I make game of you," he
+stabbed the unfortunate earl, and returned home to marry his widow.
+Edgar did not live many years after this ungentlemanly conduct, but died
+at the early age of two-and-thirty. Though he had been favourable to
+priestcraft, and patronised the cunning foxes of the Church, he was an
+enemy to wolves, and offered so much per head for all that were killed,
+until the race was exterminated, and the cry of "Wolf" became synonymous
+with a false alarm of danger.
+
+Edgar was succeeded (a.d. 975) by Edward, his son by his first wife, who
+was not more than fourteen or fifteen years old; and thus, at that age
+before which an individual in the present day is not legally qualified
+to drive a cab, this royal hobbledehoy assumed the reins of government.
+His mother-in-law, Elfrida, endeavoured to grasp them for her own son
+Ethelred, an infant of six, but Dunstan having at that moment the whip
+hand, prevented her from reaching the point she was driving at.
+
+Edward, who acquired the name of the Martyr, was accordingly crowned
+at Kingston, where coronations formerly came off; but he did not long
+survive, for hunting one day near Corfe Castle, he made a morning call
+on his mother-in-law, Elfrida, and requested that a drop of something
+to drink might be brought to him. As Elfrida was offering him the ale
+in front, her porter dropped upon him in the back, and inflicted a stab
+which caused him to set spurs to his horse; but falling off from loss
+of blood, he was drawn--a lifeless bier--for a considerable distance.
+Elfrida has been acquitted by some of having been the instigator of this
+cruel act, but as it is said she whipped her little son Ethelred for
+crying at the news of the death of his half-brother Edward, we can
+scarcely admit that there is any doubt of which we can give her the
+benefit. Both mother and son became so exceedingly unpopular that an
+attempt was made to set up a rival on the throne, to the exclusion of
+Ethelred, and the crown was offered to the late king's natural daughter,
+whose name was Edgitha.
+
+Edgitha, however, having observed that the regal diadem was looked upon
+as a target, at which any one might take the liberty to aim,
+preferred the comfortable hood of the nun--for she was the inmate of
+a monastery--to the jewelled cap of royalty. The crown was accordingly
+placed by Dunstan, at Easter, a.d. 979, on the weak head of Ethelred;
+and it is said that the monk was in such a fit of ill-temper at the
+coronation, that he muttered some frightful maledictions against the
+boy-king, while in the very act of crowning him, The youthful sovereign
+was also indebted to Dunstan for the nickname of the Unready, which was
+probably equivalent to the term "slow coach," that is sometimes used to
+denote a person of sluggish disposition and not very brilliant mental
+faculties.
+
+[Illustration: 059]
+
+Ethelred was wholly incompetent to wear the crown, which was so much
+too heavy for his weak head, that he appeared to be completely bonneted
+under the burden. It sat upon him more like a porter's knot than a regal
+diadem; while the sceptre, instead of being gracefully wielded by a firm
+hand, was to him no better than a huge poker in the fragile fingers of a
+baby.
+
+During the early part of his reign, his mother Elfrida exercised
+considerable influence, but she at length retired from government, and
+took to the building business, erecting and endowing monasteries in
+order to expiate her sins. She became a sort of infatuated female
+Gubitt, and at every fresh qualm of conscience ran up another floor,
+which was, familiarly speaking, the "old story" with persons in her
+unfortunate predicament. The money expended in the erection of religious
+houses was thought to be an eligible investment in those days for
+sinners, who having no solid foundation for their hopes, were glad to
+take any ground to build upon.
+
+The Danes had for some time been tranquil, but their natural
+fearlessness, made them ready for anything, and seeing Ethelred in a
+state of utter unreadiness on the throne, they indulged the hope of
+driving oft the "slow coach" in an early stage of his sovereignty.
+
+It happened that young Sweyn, a scapegrace son of the king of Denmark,
+had been turned out of doors by his father, and having become by the
+injudicious step of his parent a gentleman at large, amused himself by
+occasional attacks upon the kingdom of Ethelred. This sovereign, who,
+instead of being born with a silver spoon in his mouth, appears to have
+been born one entire spoon of the real fiddleheaded pattern, * commenced
+the dangerous practice of paying the foe to leave him alone, which was
+of course holding out the prospect of a premium to all who took the
+trouble to bully him. He paid down L10,000 in silver to the sea-kings,
+on condition of their retiring from his country, which they did until
+they had spent all the money, when they returned, threatening to pay him
+off, or be paid off themselves, an arrangement that Ethelred three times
+mustered the means of carrying into operation.
+
+     * Others think this royal spoon was not fiddle headed, but
+     that he was the earliest specimen of the king's pattern, of
+     his enemy. Emma, who was called the "Flower of Normandy,"
+     consented to transplant herself to England, and became the
+     acknowledged daisy of the British Court.
+
+Young Sweyn had now become king of Denmark, and had made friends with
+Olave, king of Norway, the son of old Olave, a deceased pirate, who had
+made his fortune by sweeping the very profitable crossing from his own
+country to England. These two scamps ravaged the southern coast in 994,
+and Ethelred, the unready king, was obliged to buy them off with ready
+money. In the year 1001, they made another demand of L24,000, which left
+the sovereign not a single dump, except those into which he naturally
+fell at the draining of his treasury.
+
+Ethelred, who, if he was unready for everything else, appears to have
+been always ready for a quarrel, had contrived to fall out with Richard
+the Second, Duke of Normandy, and he was on the point of taking up arms,
+when he laid his hand at the feet of Emma.
+
+We would willingly take an enormous dip of ink, and letting it fall on
+our paper, blot out for ever from our annals the Danish massacre,
+which occurred at about the period to which our history has arrived.
+Unfortunately, however, were we to overturn an entire inkstand, we
+should only add to the blackness of the page, which tells us that
+the Danes were savagely murdered at a time when they were living as
+fellow-subjects among the people.
+
+It was on the feast of St. Brice, soon after his marriage with Emma,
+that the order to commit this sanguinary act was given by Ethelred. It
+is true that the Danish mercenaries had given great provocation by their
+insolence. They had, according to the old chroniclers, * sunk into such
+effeminacy that they washed themselves once a week and combed their
+heads still more frequently. We cannot perhaps accuse the chroniclers of
+being over nice in their objections to the Danish habits of cleanliness,
+but we really are at a loss to see the effeminacy of taking a bath every
+seven days, and preventing the hair from becoming in appearance little
+better than a quantity of hay in a state of unraked roughness. It was
+on the 15th of November, 1002, which happened to be one of their weekly
+washing days, that the Danes were surprised and treated in the barbarous
+manner we have alluded to. The Lady Gunhilda, the sister of Sweyn, and
+the wife of an English earl of Danish extraction, was one of the victims
+of the massacre, and died fighting to the last with that truly feminine
+weapon, the tongue, predicting that her death would be followed by
+the downfall of the English nation. This act of ferocity naturally
+exasperated Sweyn, who resolved on invading England, and he prepared a
+considerable fleet, the vessels belonging to which appear to have been
+got up much in the same style as the civic barges on the Thames, for
+they were gaily gilded, and had all sorts of emblematical devices
+painted over them. Sweyn himself arrived in the _Great Dragon_, a boat
+made in the inconvenient form of that disagreeable animal. Had the
+patron saint of England been at hand to do his duty at that early
+period, the great dragon would have been speedily overcome, but it is
+a familiar observation, that people of this-sort are never to be found
+when they are really wanted.
+
+     * Wallingford, p. 547.
+
+The invaders landed at Exeter, which was governed by a Norman baron,
+a favourite of the queen; but, as frequently happens in the course of
+events as well as on the race-course, the favourite proved deceptive
+when the enemy took the field, and resigned the place to pillage. The
+Danish foe marched into Wiltshire, and in every town they passed through
+they ordered the best of everything for dinner, when, after eating to
+excess of all the delicacies of the season, they had the indelicacy to
+settle their hosts when the bill was brought to them for settlement.
+To prevent even the possibility of old scores being kept against them,
+which they might one day be called upon to pay off, they burned down
+the houses, thus making a bonfire of all the property, including account
+books, papers, and wooden tallies that the establishment might contain.
+The entertainers or land-lords had no sooner presented a bill; than it
+was met by a savage endorsement on their own backs; and, though
+drawing and accepting may be regarded as a very customary, commercial
+transaction, still, when the drawer draws a huge sword the acceptor is
+likely to get by far the worst of it.
+
+[Illustration: 62]
+
+An Anglo-Saxon army was, however, organised at last, to oppose the
+Danes; but Alfric the Mercian--an old traitor, who had on a former
+occasion played the knave against the king--was put at the head of it.
+Ethelred had punished the first treachery of the father by putting out
+the eyes of the son; but this castigation of the "wrong boy," the young
+one instead of the old one, had not proved effectual. His majesty must
+have been as blind as he had rendered the innocent youth, to have again
+entrusted Alfric with command; and the consequences were soon felt, for
+the old impostor pretended to be taken suddenly ill, just as his men
+were going into battle. He called them off at the most important moment;
+and instead of stopping at home by himself, putting his feet in warm
+water, and laying up while the battle was being fought under directions
+which he could just as easily have given from his own room, he shouted
+for help from the whole army; and by sending some for salts, others
+for senna, a cohort here for a pill, and a legion there for a leech, he
+managed to keep the whole of the forces occupied in running about for
+him.
+
+Sweyn in the meantime got clear off with all his booty, and by the time
+that Alfric announced himself to be a little better, and able to go out,
+the enemy had vanished altogether from the neighbourhood.
+
+An appetite for conquest was not however the only appetite which the
+Danes indulged, for their voracity in eating was such that they created
+a panic wherever they showed themselves. They ravaged Norfolk, and
+having reduced it to its last dumpling, they fell upon Yarmouth, whose
+bloaters they speedily exhausted, when they tried Cambridge,
+having probably been attracted thither by the fame of its sausages.
+Subsequently they advanced upon Huntingdonshire and Lincolnshire,
+where they continued as long as they could find a bone to pick with
+the inhabitants. They then crossed the Baltic (a.d. 1004), having been
+obliged to quit England on account of there being literally nothing
+to eat; so that a joint occupation with the natives had become utterly
+impossible. Those only, who from its being the land of their birth, felt
+that they must always have a stake in the country, could possibly have
+mustered the resolution to remain in it. The vengeance of Sweyn being
+unsatisfied, he returned in the year 1006, when he carried fire and
+sword into every part, and it has been said with much felicity of
+expression, that amidst so much sacking the inhabitants had scarcely a
+bed to lie down upon.
+
+[Illustration: 063]
+
+Unable to offer him any effectual check, the Great Council tried what
+could be done with ready money, and L36,000 was the price demanded
+to pay out this formidable "man in possession" from the harassed and
+exhausted country. The sum was collected by an income-tax of about
+twenty shillings in the pound, or even more, if it could be got out of
+the people by either threats or violence. Such as had paid the Danes
+directly to save their homes from destruction were obliged to pay over
+again, like a railway traveller who loses his ticket; and the natives
+seem to have got into a special train of evils, in which every engine of
+persecution was used against them.
+
+[Illustration: 064]
+
+In 1008 new burdens were thrown upon the people, who for every
+nine nides of land were bound to find a man armed with a helmet and
+breastplate. This would seem no very difficult matter, considering that
+two or three such men are found annually at the Lord Mayor's show; but
+in former times they had something more difficult to do than walk in
+a procession. Though two shillings and his beer will, it is believed,
+secure the services of an ancient knight, armed _cap-d-pie_ at an hour's
+notice in our own day, such a person was not to be had so cheap in the
+time of Ethelred. In addition to this infliction, every three hundred
+and ten hides of land were bound to build and equip a ship for the
+defence of the country; but it seems, after all, nothing but fair, that
+the hides should club together to save themselves from tanning. The
+fleet thus raised was, however, soon rendered valueless, in consequence
+of the various commanders having refused to row in the same boat, or
+rather insisting on pulling different ways, to the utter annihilation of
+their master's interest.
+
+Ethelred had selected for his favourite a low fellow of the name of
+Edric, who was exceedingly eloquent, and had not only talked one of
+the king's daughters into accepting his hand, but had even talked
+the monarch himself into sanctioning the unequal marriage. Edric had
+obtained for his brother Brightric a high post in the navy, as commander
+of eight vessels; but the latter got into a quarrel with his nephew,
+Wulfnoth, who was known by the odd appellation of the "Child of the
+South Saxons," or the Sussex lad, as we should take the liberty
+of calling him. The "child" determined on flight; but with a truly
+infantine objection to run alone, he got twenty of the king's ships to
+run along with him. Brightric cruised after him with eighty sail, but
+the tempest rising, and the rudders at the stem refusing to act, he
+was driven on shore by stem necessity. Wulfnoth, who had done a little
+ravaging on his own private account along the southern coast, returned
+to make firewood of the timbers of Brightric, which fortune had so
+cruelly shivered.
+
+Ethelred was completely panic-stricken at the news of this reverse,
+and hurried home as fast as he could to summon a council, but every
+resolution that was passed no one had the resolution to execute. To add
+to the king's embarrassments, "Thurkill's host" came over, com-prising
+the flower of the Scandinavian youth, which planted itself in Kent, and
+caused a sad blow to the country. Various short peaces were purchased by
+the Saxons at so much a piece; but, as Pope Gregory would have had it,
+every arrangement was not a sale, but a sell on the part of Thurkill,
+who continued sending in a fresh account for every fresh transaction.
+Ethelred was now in the very midst of traitors, and it was impossible
+that he should ever be brought round in such a circle. He had not a
+single officer to whom a commission could be safely entrusted. Edric,
+his favourite, having taken offence, joined the enemy in an attack upon
+Canterbury, which had lasted for twenty days, when some one left the
+gate of the city ajar, either by design or accident.
+
+Alphege, the good archbishop, who had defended the place, was instantly
+loaded with chains; and though he felt himself dreadfully fettered,
+he declined to purchase his ransom, for the very best of all reasons,
+namely, that he had not the money to pay for it. The old man, wisely
+making a virtue of necessity, proclaimed his determination not to part
+with a shilling, "and indeed," said he, "I couldn't if I would; for to
+tell you the truth, I haven't got it."
+
+The venerable prelate turning his pockets inside out, proved that he
+was penniless, when they offered to release him if he would persuade
+Ethelred to subscribe handsomely to the Danish rent, as we are fully
+justified in calling it. The archbishop, however, grew exceedingly
+saucy, when they pelted him with the remains of the feast, throwing
+bones, bottles, and bread, in rapid succession at the primate, who
+meekly bowed his head--or perhaps bobbed it up and down--to the
+treatment he experienced. The good old man remained for some time
+unshaken, till a shower of marrow-bones threw him on his knees, and one
+of the ruffians with a coarse pun exclaiming--"Let us make no more bones
+about it, but despatch him at once," brutally realised his own ferocious
+suggestion.
+
+[Illustration: 065]
+
+Thurkill now sent in another account of L48,000 as the price of his
+promised allegiance, which was certainly not worth a week's purchase,
+but Ethelred somehow or other found and paid the money. Sweyn, on
+hearing of this proceeding, pretended to be very angry with Thurkill,
+and fitted out a formidable fleet, with the avowed intention of killing
+with one stone two birds--namely, the Danish crow, and the Saxon pigeon.
+The ships of Sweyn were elaborately carved for show, and consequently
+not very well cut out for service. Nevertheless they were quite strong
+enough to vanquish the dispirited Saxons, who would have been overawed
+at the sight of a Danish oar, and might have been knocked down with a
+feather.
+
+Sweyn landed at York, and leaving his fleet in the care of his son
+Canute, carried fire and sword into the north; but as the inhabitants
+were all favourable to his cause, he had no more occasion to take fire
+into the north, than to carry coals to Newcastle. The king had sought
+refuge in London, which refused to give in until Ethelred sneaked out,
+when the citizens having been threatened, according to Sir Francis
+Palgrave, * with damage to their "eyes and limbs," threw open their
+gates to the conqueror. The unready monarch made for the Isle of Wight,
+but finding apartments dear and living expensive, he packed off his wife
+and children to his brother-in-law, Richard of Normandy, who lived in a
+court at Rouen. The duke made them as comfortable as he could, and the
+lady Emma having fished for an invitation for her husband, at length
+succeeded in getting him asked, to the infinite delight of old
+"Slowcoach," who for once got ready at a very short notice to avail
+himself of the asylum that was offered him. Sweyn was now king of
+England, a.d. 1013, but after a reign of six weeks, entitling him
+to only half a quarter's salary, he died at Gainsborough, very much
+lamented by all who did not know him. The Saxon nobles who had so
+recently sent Ethelred away, now wanted him back again. They despatched
+a message, however, to the effect that, if he would promise to be a good
+king, and never be naughty any more, they would be glad to accept him
+once more as their sovereign. Ethelred turning his son Edmund into a
+postman, forwarded a letter by hand, promising reform, but stipulating
+that there should be no "fraud or treachery," or in other words, no
+humbug on either side. This arrangement, though growing out of mutual
+distrust, and being little better than a provision which each party
+thought necessary in consequence of the dishonesty of both, must be
+regarded as highly important in a constitutional point of view, for it
+is evidently the germ of those great compacts, which have since been
+occasionally concluded between the sovereign and the people.
+
+     * Chap. xiii., p. 310,
+
+
+[Illustration: 067]
+
+Ethelred, on his arrival at home, found that Canute, the son of Sweyn,
+having been declared king by the Danes, had coolly set himself up as
+landlord of the Crown and Sceptro at Greenwich. Ethelred and Canute
+continued for three years like "the Lion and the Unicorn, fighting for
+the Crown," with about equal success, when death overtook "Slowcoach,"
+after a long and inglorious reign. He died on St. George's Day, 1016,
+having been for five-and-thirty years man and boy, on and off the throne
+of England.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. EDMUND IRONSIDES--CANUTE--HAROLD
+HAREFOOT--HARDICANUTE--EDWARD THE CONFESSOR--HAROLD--THE BATTLE OF
+HASTINGS.
+
+On the decease of Ethelred the citizens of London offered the throne
+to his son Edmund, who had got the strange nickname of Ironsides. He
+obtained this appellation from his extreme toughness; for it has been
+said by a contemporary that if you gave him a poke in the ribs they
+rattled like the bars of a gridiron, or the railings round an area.
+There can be no doubt that Edmund had strength on his side, as far as he
+was personally concerned, but Canute, or as some called him, C'nute and
+'Cute, often overreached young Ironsides in cunning.
+
+In one of their battles--the fifth of a series--the Danes were on the
+point of defeat, when Edric, whom Edmund, however hard in the ribs, was
+soft enough in the head to trust after former treachery, raised the cry
+that the young leader had fallen. By some ingenious contrivance, Edrio
+had cut off somebody's head which resembled Edmund in features, and,
+perhaps, improving the likeness with burnt cork or other preparations,
+raised it on a spear in the field, exclaiming "Flee, English! flee,
+English! dead is Edmund." * The whole army became paralysed at the
+sight, and even Ironsides himself was completely put out of countenance,
+for he was unable to tell at the moment whether his head was really upon
+his own shoulders. How Edric could have had the face to practise such
+an imposition may puzzle the reader of the present day; but it was
+exceedingly likely that the trick would be aided by Edmund undergoing,
+as he no doubt would at the moment, a sudden change of countenance.
+
+     * These are the very words, exactly as they have been
+     preserved,--Vide Sir F. Palgrave, chapter xliii. page 308.
+
+
+[Illustration: 068]
+
+Ironsides, though for the moment put to flight, having been as it were
+frightened at his own shadow, found on reflection, in the first piece of
+water he came to, that his head was in its right place, though his heart
+had slightly failed him, and he consequently paused in his retreat,
+and met Canute face to face, on the road to Gloucestershire. Ironsides,
+stepping forward in front of his army, made the cool proposition to
+Canute that instead of risking the lives of so many brave men, they
+should settle the quarrel by single combat. Considering that Edmund had
+not only the advantage of patent-safety sides, which rendered him nearly
+battle-axe proof, but was also about twice the height of his antagonist,
+it is not surprising that Canute declined coming in immediate contact
+with the metallic plates, which would have acted as a powerful battery
+upon the diminutive Dane. Had he accepted the crafty challenge, every
+blow inflicted on Ironsides would have been a severe rap on the knuckles
+to Canute, who might as well have run his head against a brick wall as
+engage in a single combat with a person of such undoubted metal. It
+was, however, agreed that they should divide the realm, and though as
+a general rule it is not advisable to do anything by halves, this
+arrangement was decidedly beneficial to all parties. The armies were
+both delighted at the proposal, and their joy affords proof that their
+discretion formed a great deal more than the better part of their
+valour.
+
+Canute took the north, and Edmund the south, with a nominal superiority
+over the former, so that the crown is said by the chroniclers to have
+belonged to Ironsides. It was certainly better that the ascendency
+should have been given to one of the two, for if their territory
+had been equal the crown must have been divided, and he that had the
+thickest head might have claimed the larger share of the regal diadem.
+Edmund lived only two months after the agreement had been signed, and
+as Canute took the benefit of survivorship, it has been good-naturedly
+suggested that he must have been either the actual or virtual murderer
+of Ironsides. There are only one or two facts which spoil this ingenious
+and amiable theory; the first of which is, that there is no proof of his
+having been killed at all,--an uncertainty that is quite sufficient
+to allow the benefit of the doubt to those who have been named as his
+murderers. Hume has, without hesitation, appointed Oxford as the
+scene of the assassination, and has been kind enough to select two
+chamberlains as the perpetrators of the deed, but we have been unable
+to collect sufficient evidence to go to a jury against the anonymous
+chamberlains, whom we beg leave to dismiss with the comfortable
+assurance that they quit these pages without any stain on their
+characters.
+
+Canute, as the succeeding partner in the late firm of Edmund and Canute,
+found himself, in 1017, all alone in his glory on the British throne.
+His first care was to call a public meeting of "bishops," "duces," and
+"optimates," at which he voted himself into the chair; and he caused it
+to be proposed and seconded that he should be king to the exclusion of
+all the descendants of Ethelred. There can be no doubt that the meeting
+was packed, for every proposition of Canute was received with loud cries
+of "hear," and repeated cheers. Strong resolutions were passed against
+Edwy, the grown-up brother of Edmund Ironsides. Proceedings were
+instantly commenced; he was declared an outlaw, and was soon taken in
+execution in the then usual form.
+
+Edmund and Edwy, the two infant sons of Ironsides, were protected by the
+plea of infancy; but Canute sent them out to dry-nurse to the king of
+the Swedes, with an intimation that if their mouths could be stopped by
+Swedish turnips, or anything else, the arrangement would be satisfactory
+to the English monarch. His Swedish majesty, whether moved by pity or
+actuated by the feeling of "None of my child," sent the babies on to
+Hungary, where they were taken in, but not done for, as Canute had
+desired. The little Edmund died early, but his brother Edward settled
+respectably in life, married a relation of the Emperor of Germany,
+became a family man, and one of his daughters was subsequently a Mrs.
+Malcolm, the lady of Malcolm, king of Scotland.
+
+Edmund and Alfred, the other sons of Ethelred by Emma of Normandy, who
+were still living with their uncle Robert, had a sort of lawyer's letter
+written in their name to Canute, threatening an action of trover for the
+sceptre, unless it were immediately restored.
+
+After offering a moiety--being equal to a composition of ten shillings
+in the pound--he proposed to settle the matter by marrying their mamma,
+who consented to this arrangement; and the claims of the infants were
+never heard of again. Neglected by their mother, they forgot their
+mother tongue--they grew up Normans instead of Saxons, say the old
+chroniclers, which seems to be going a little too far, for a Saxon
+cannot become a Norman by living in Normandy, any more than a man
+becomes a horse by residence in a stable.
+
+After triumphing over his enemies, Canute somewhat altered for the
+better, and became a quiet, gentlemanly, but rather jovial man. He was
+fond of music, patronised vocalists, and occasionally wrote ballads, one
+of which is still preserved. As it was said of a certain performer,
+that he would have been a good actor if he had been possessed of figure,
+voice, action, expression, and intelligence; so we may say of Canute,
+that if he had known anything of sense or syntax, if he had been happy
+at description, or possessed the slightest share of imagination, he
+would have been a very fair poet.
+
+A portion of one of Canute's once popular ballads has been preserved,
+and if the other verses resembled the one that has come down to us,
+there is no reason to regret that the rest is out of print and that
+nobody has kept the manuscript.
+
+The following is the queer quatrain which remains as the sole specimen
+of his majesty's poetical abilities:--
+
+     "Merrily sing the monks within Ely,
+     When C'nute King rowed there by;
+     Row, my knights, row near the land,
+     And hear we these monks sing."
+
+This dismal distich is said to have been suggested by his hearing the
+solemn monastic music of the choir as he rowed near the Minster of Ely;
+but we suspect the song must have been rather of a secular kind, or the
+term merrily would have been exceedingly inappropriate. *
+
+     * Some writers have endeavoured to justify the royal author
+     or vindicate the characters of the monks of Ely, by saying,
+     that in those days "merry" meant "sad." These gentlemen
+     might just as well argue that black meant white--a
+     proposition some people would not hesitate to put forth as a
+     plea for the errors of royalty.
+
+
+[Illustration: 071]
+
+About the year 1017, Edric, the royal favourite, evinced some
+disposition to strike for an advance of salary, when Canute resisting
+the demand, the king and the courtier came to high words. Eric
+of Northumbria, who happened to be sitting in the room with his
+battle-axe,--which was in those days as common a companion as an
+umbrella or a walking-stick in the present age,--got up, on a hint from
+the king, and axed the miserable Edric to death.
+
+Canute, who was also king of the Danes, the Swedes,--whose sovereign was
+his vassal--and of the Northmen, had many turbulent subjects abroad as
+well as at home, but he was in the habit of employing one against the
+other, so that it was utterly immaterial to him which of them were
+slain, so that he got rid of some of them. He kept a strong hand over
+his Danish earls, and even his nephew, "the doughty Haco,"--though why
+he should have been called "doughty," is a matter of much doubt--was
+exiled for disregard of the royal authority.
+
+The Swedes, who were always boiling over, got at last completely mashed
+by Earl Godwin; and the kings of Fife, who, although mere _piccoli_,
+were monarchs of some note, having exerted themselves in a melancholy
+strain for independence, at length fell, for the sake of harmony, into
+the general submission to Canute. Six nations were now reduced into one
+general subordi----nation to the English king, who of course became the
+object of the grossest flattery, and upon one memorable occasion was
+nearly sacrificed to the puffing system of his injudicious friends.
+One day, when in the plenitude of his power, he caused the throne to
+be removed from the throne-room and erected, during low tide, on the
+sea-shore. Having taken his seat, surrounded by his courtiers, he issued
+a proclamation to the ocean, forbidding it to rise, and commanding it
+not, on any account, to leave its bed until his permission for it to
+get up was graciously awarded. The courtiers backed the royal edict,
+and encouraged with the grossest adulation this first great practical
+attempt to prove that Britannia rules the waves. Such a rule, however,
+was soon proved to be nothing better than a rule _nisi_, which it is
+impossible to make absolute when opposed by Neptune's irresistible
+motion of course. Every wave of Canute's sceptre was answered by a wave
+from the sea, and the courtiers, who were already up to their ankles
+in salt water, began to fear that they should soon be pickled in the
+foaming brine.
+
+At length the monarch himself found his footstool disposed to go on
+swimmingly of its own accord, and there was every prospect that the
+whole party would undergo the ceremony of an immediate investiture of
+the bath. The sovereign, who was very lightly shod, soon found that his
+pumps were not capable of getting rid of the water, which was now rising
+very rapidly. Having sat with his feet in the sea for a few minutes,
+and not relishing the slight specimen of hydropathic treatment he had
+endured, he jumped suddenly up, and began to abuse his courtiers for the
+mess into which he had been betrayed by their outrageous flattery.
+
+[Illustration: 072]
+
+One of the attendants who had remained at the back of the others during
+this ridiculous scene, observed drily, that the whole party would have
+been inevitably washed and done for, if Canute had not made a timely
+retreat. The sovereign was so humbled by this incident, that he took off
+his crown upon the spot, made a parcel of it at once, forwarded it to
+Winchester Cathedral, and never wore it again.
+
+Water, as we all know, can subdue the strongest spirit, and though the
+spirit of Canute could bear a great deal of mixing, it is evident that
+the sea had shown him his own weakness. In the year 1030 he went on a
+pilgrimage to Rome, with no other staff than a wooden one in his hand;
+and instead of a valet to follow him, he had a simple wallet at his
+back. From a letter he wrote to his bishops while abroad, it would seem
+that he received presents of "vases of gold and vessels of silver, and
+stuffs, and garments of great price;" so that by the time he got home
+again, his wallet must have been a tolerable burden for the royal back.
+He died at Shaftesbury, in 1035, about three years after his return from
+Rome, and was buried at Winchester; so that he finally laid his head
+where his crown had been already deposited.
+
+On the death of Canute there was the usual difficulty as to what was to
+be done with the British crown; for there were two or three who thought
+the cap fitted themselves, and who consequently claimed the right to
+wear it. There is no doubt that Hardicanute, the only legitimate son of
+the late king, would have tried it on had it not been left by will to
+Harold, while his brother Sweyn was the legatee of Norway. A compromise
+was, however, effected, by which Harold took everything north of the
+Thames, including, of course, the Baker Street and Finsbury districts,
+while Hardicanute, to whom Denmark had been bequeathed, took the
+territories on the south shore, commencing in the Belvidere Road,
+Lambeth, and terminating at the southern extremity of the kingdom. He
+however, left his English dominions to the management of his mother and
+Earl Godwin, while he himself lingered in Denmark; on account of the
+convivial habits of the Scandinavian chiefs; for Hardicanute drank, as
+the phrase goes, "like a fish," though the liquid he imbibed was very
+different from that which the finny tribe are addicted to.
+
+Edward and Alfred, the two sons of Ethelred, had come over to be in the
+way in case of anything turning up on the death of Canute, but Edward
+finding himself rather too much in the way, and fearing an unpleasant
+removal, took a return ticket for himself and party for Normandy.
+Alfred, after vainly attempting to land at Sandwich, happily thought of
+Heme Bay, and though it was in the height of the season, he of course
+found no one there to resist his progress. Having ventured up to
+Guildford on the invitation of Godwin, Alfred and his soldiers found a
+sumptuous repast and comfortable lodgings prepared for them. But Godwin
+had been more downy even than the beds, and the soldiers having been
+seized and imprisoned found wet blankets thrown on their hopes of
+hospitable treatment. Edward himself was cruelly murdered, and Harold,
+who was called Harefoot, from the speed with which he could ran, was now
+able to walk over the course, for there was no opposition to him in the
+race for the stakes of Royalty. He was fond of nothing but hunting, and
+as he could catch a hare by his own velocity he generally had the game
+in his own hands. He died a.d. 1040, after a short reign of four years;
+and though, if he had lived to old age, he might have proved a good
+sovereign in the long-run, he was certainly not happy in the walk of
+life where fortune had placed him.
+
+Hardicanute, a name signifying Canute the Hardy, or the tough, came over
+on the death of Harold; but with all his toughness he evinced or assumed
+some tenderness at the cruel fate of his brother Alfred. He showed his
+sympathy for one by brutality towards another, and subjected Harold's
+memory to the most barbarous indignities.
+
+Godwin, fearing that he might share the obloquy of his former master,
+propitiated Hardicanute by giving him a magnificent toy, consisting of
+a gilt ship, with a crew of eighty men, each having a bracelet of
+pure gold weighing sixteen ounces, and dressed in the most valuable
+habiliments. The new king no doubt melted the gold very speedily
+in drink, to which he was so much addicted, that he actually died
+intoxicated at a party given at Clapham, by one Clapa, from whose name,
+or home, that suburb was called. His majesty was, according to the
+chroniclers, "on his legs," and the waiters had of course left the room,
+when Hardicanute unable to get further than "Gentlemen," staggered into
+his seat, and was carried out--mortally inebriated. *
+
+     * Other historians say in so many words, that "he died
+     drunk." We prefer using the milder expression of "mortally
+     inebriated,"
+
+
+[Illustration: 075]
+
+The throne being now vacant, Edward, the half-brother of the late king,
+who happened to be on the spot, was induced to step up and take a seat,
+though he was the senior of the late sovereign. In those days, however,
+the rules of hereditary descent were not very rigidly followed, for
+it was success that chiefly regulated succession. Edward's cause had,
+however, derived much support from Earl Godwin, the most extraordinary
+teetotum of former times. He had practised the political _chassez
+croisser_ to an extent that even in our own days has seldom been
+surpassed. He had turned his coat so frequently that he had lost all
+consciousness of which was the right side and which the wrong; but he
+always treated that side as the right which happened to be uppermost.
+
+Godwin had, it is said, commenced life as a cowboy, but he soon raised
+himself above the low herd, and eventually succeeded in making his
+daughter Editha the queen of Edward. The king, who had lived much in
+Normandy, and had derived some assistance from Duke William, afterwards
+the Conqueror, had formed many Norman predilections, which created
+jealousy among his Saxon subjects. In 1061, he had received as a visitor
+his brother-in-law, one Eustace, Count of Boulogne, who, on returning
+home with his followers through Dover, insolently demanded gratuitous
+lodgings of one of the inhabitants. The Dover people, who are still
+remarkable for their high charges, and who seldom think of providing
+a cup of tea under two shillings, or a bed for less than half-a-crown,
+resisted the demands of Eustace and his friends, when a fight ensued,
+and the Normans were compelled to make the best of their way out of the
+neighbourhood.
+
+Eustace, still smarting under the blows he had received, ran howling
+to Edward, like a boy who, upon receiving a thrashing, flies to his big
+brother for redress. The king desired Godwin, who was governor of Dover,
+to chastise the place; but the earl positively refused, and insisted
+that the Count of Boulogne could not complain if, when he required to be
+served gratuitously, he had got regularly served out. Edward, irritated
+at this message, prepared for war, and Godwin, who was joined by his
+sons, Sweyn and Harold, had collected a powerful army; but when it came
+to the point, the soldiers on both sides gave evident symptoms of
+a desire to see the matter amicably arranged. As the king's forces
+consisted chiefly of the fryd or militia, there can be little doubt
+where the panic commenced; and Godwin's men, recognising among the foe
+some of their fellow-countrymen trembling from head to foot, immediately
+commenced shaking hands, so that there was an end to all firmness on
+both sides. A truce was consequently concluded, and the disputes of
+the parties referred to the arbitration of the Witenagemote; who doomed
+Sweyn to outlawry, and Godwin and Harold to banishment. Thus the "king's
+darlings," as they had been called, were disposed of, and the pets
+became the object of petty vengeance. Editha, the daughter of Godwin,
+shared in the general disgrace of her family; for the king, her husband,
+"reduced her," say the chroniclers, "to her last groat;" and with this
+miserable fourpence she was consigned to a monastery, where she was
+waited on by one servant of all-work, and controlled by the abbess, who
+was the sister of her royal tyrant.
+
+Edward being now released from the presence of Godwin, began to think
+of seeing his friends, and invited William of Normandy to spend a
+few months at the English court. He came with a numerous retinue, and
+finding most of the high offices in the possession of Normans, he was
+able to feel himself perfectly at home. On the conclusion of his stay he
+departed, with a gift of horses, hounds, and hawks; in fact, a miniature
+menagerie, which had been presented to him by his host, without
+considering the inconvenience occasioned by adding "a happy family" to
+the luggage of the Norman visitor.
+
+Edward was not allowed much leisure, for his guest had no sooner
+departed, than he found himself threatened by Earls Godwin and Harold,
+who sailed up to London, and landed a large army in the Strand. This
+important thoroughfare, which has been in modern times so frequently
+blockaded, was stopped up at that early period by men who were paving
+their way to power; so that paviours of some kind have for ages been a
+nuisance to the neighbourhood.
+
+Edward agreed to a truce, by which Godwin and his sons were restored to
+their rank; but the earl, while dining soon afterwards with Edward at
+Windsor, was, according to some, choked in the voracious endeavour to
+swallow a tremendous mouthful. Thus perished, from an appetite larger
+than his windpipe, one of the most illustrious characters of his age.
+Harold, his son, succeeded him in his titles and estates; but as the
+latter are said to have consisted chiefly of the Goodwin Sands,
+the legatee could not hope to keep his head above water on such an
+inheritance.
+
+Harold commenced his career by worrying Algar, a rival earl, who got
+worried to death (a.d. 1059), and he then turned his attention to the
+father-in-law of his victim, one Griffith, a Welsh sovereign, whose
+army not liking the bother of war, cut off his head and sent it as a
+peace-offering to the opposite leader. This unceremonious manner of
+breaking the neck of a difficulty by decapitating their king, says more
+for the decision than the loyalty of the Welsh people.
+
+[Illustration: 077]
+
+It was not long after this circumstance, that Harold, going out in a
+fishing-boat on the coast of Sussex with one or two bungling mariners,
+got carried out to sea, and was ultimately washed ashore like an old
+blacking-bottle in the territory of Guy, Count of Ponthieu. Having been
+picked up by the count, poor Harold was treated as a waif, and impounded
+until a heavy sum was paid for his ransom. William of Normandy, upon
+hearing that an earl and retinue were pawned in the distinguished name
+of Harold, good-naturedly redeemed them, at a great expense, but made
+the English earl solemnly pledge himself to assist his deliverer in
+obtaining the English crown at the death of Edward. The king expired
+on the 5th of January, 1066, leaving the crown to William, according to
+some, and to Harold, according to others; but as no will was ever found,
+it is probable enough that he agreed to leave the kingdom first to one
+and then to the other, according to which happened to have at the moment
+the ear of the sovereign. *
+
+     * This Edward was generally called the Confessor, but how he
+     got the name we are unable to say with certainty. It has
+     been ingeniously suggested that it was on the _lucus a non
+     lucendo_ principle, and that he was called the Confessor,
+     from his never confessing anything.
+
+Harold, forgetting the circumstance of his awkward predicament in the
+fishing-boat, and ungrateful of William's services, immediately assumed
+the title of king, and got his coronation over the very same evening. It
+is even believed by some that the ceremony was so hastily performed as
+to have been a mere _tete-a-tete_ affair between Stigand, the Archbishop
+of Canterbury, and the new sovereign.
+
+When William received the news of Harold's accession he was having
+a game with a bow and arrows in his hunting-ground near Rouen. His
+trembling knees suddenly took the form of his bow, and his lip began to
+quiver. He threw himself hastily into a skiff, and crossing the Seine,
+never stopped till he reached his palace, where he walked up and down
+the hall several times, occasionally sitting down for a moment in the
+porter's chair, then starting up and resuming his promenade up and
+down the passage. On recovering from his reverie he sent ambassadors
+to demand of Harold the fulfilment of his promise; but that dishonest
+person replied, that he being under duress when he gave his word, it
+could not be considered binding.
+
+[Illustration: 078]
+
+William accordingly called a public meeting of Normans, at which it
+was resolved unanimously, that England should be invaded as speedily
+as possible. A subscription was immediately entered into to defray the
+cost, and volunteers were admitted to join the expedition without the
+formality of a reference. Tag from Maine ana Anjou, Rag from Poitou and
+Bretagne, with Bob-tail from Flanders, came rapidly pouring in; while
+the riff of the Rhine, and the raff of the Alps, formed altogether a mob
+of the most miscellaneous character. Those families who are in the
+habit of boasting that their ancestors came in with the Conqueror,
+would scarcely feel so proud of the fact if they were aware that the
+companions of William comprised nearly all the roguery and vagabondism
+of Europe.
+
+A large fleet having been for some time in readiness at St. Valery, near
+Dieppe, crossed in the autumn of 1066, and on the 28th of September the
+Normans landed without opposition at Pevensey, near Hastings. William,
+who was the last to step on shore, fell flat upon his hands and face,
+which was at first considered by the soldiers as an evil omen; but
+opening his palm, which was covered with mud, he gaily exclaimed, "Thus
+do I lay my hands upon this ground--and be assured that it is a pie you
+shall all have a finger in." This speech, or words to the same effect,
+restored the confidence of the soldiers, and they marched to Hastings,
+where they waited the coming of the enemy.
+
+[Illustration: 081]
+
+Harold, who had come to London, left town by night for the Sussex coast,
+and halted at Battle, where the English forces kept it up for two or
+three days and nights with Bongs and revelry. At length, on Saturday,
+the 14th of October, William gave the word to advance, when a gigantic
+Norman, called Taillefer, who was a minstrel and a juggler, went forward
+to execute a variety of tricks, such as throwing up his sword with one
+hand and catching it with the other; balancing his battle-axe on the
+tip of his chin; standing on his head upon the point of his spear, and
+performing other feats of pantomimic dexterity. He next proceeded to
+sing a popular ballad, and having asked permission to strike the first
+blow, he succeeded in making a tremendous hit; but some one happening to
+return the compliment, he was very soon quieted. The men of London, who
+formed the bodyguard of Harold, made a snug and impenetrable barrier
+with their shields, under which they nestled very cosily. *
+
+     * Some of them, who were buried under their bucklers, may
+     have been inhabitants of Bucklersbury, which may have
+     derived its name from the practice we have described.
+
+From nine in the morning till nine in the afternoon the Normans
+continued watching for the English to emerge from under their shields,
+as a cat waits for a mouse to quit its hiding-place. As the mouse
+refuses to come to the scratch, so the Londoners declined to quit their
+snuggery, until William had the happy idea of ordering his bowmen
+to shoot into the air; and they were thus down upon the foe, with
+considerable effect, by the falling of the arrows. Still the English
+stood firm until William, by a pretended retreat, induced the soldiers
+of Harold to quit their position of safety. Three times were the Saxon
+snails tempted to come out of their shells by this crafty manouvre, but
+their courage was still unshaken, until an arrow, shot at random, hit
+Harold in the left eye, when his dispirited followers fled like winking.
+
+The English king was carried to the foot of the standard, where a few of
+his soldiers formed round him a little party of Protectionists. William
+fought with desperate valour, and was advancing towards the banner, when
+an English billman drew a bill which he made payable at sight on
+the head of the Duke of Normandy. Fortunately the precious metal of
+William's helmet was sufficient to meet the bill, which must otherwise
+have crushed the Norman leader. Harold, whose spirit never deserted
+him, observed with reference to the wound in his eye, that it was a bad
+look-out, but he must make the best of it. At length he fell exhausted,
+when the English having lost their banner, found their energies
+beginning to flag, and William became the Conqueror.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II. THE PERIOD FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE DEATH OF KING JOHN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIRST. WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
+
+
+Before entering on our account of the reign of William the Conqueror, a
+bird's-eye view of the early biography of that illustrious person may
+be acceptable. He was born in 1024, of miscellaneous parents, and was a
+descendant of the illustrious Rollo, who wrested Normandy from Charles
+the Simple, whose simplicity consisted no doubt in his submitting to be
+done out of his possessions. William had been in his early days one of
+those intolerable nuisances, an infant prodigy, and at eight years old
+exhibited that ripeness of judgment and energy of action for which the
+birch is in our opinion the best remedy. He had quelled a disturbance
+in his own court, when very young; but a beadle in our own day can do as
+much as this, for a disturbance in a court is often quelled by that
+very humble officer. His marriage with Matilda, daughter of the Earl of
+Flanders, gave him the benefit of respectable connection, so useful to
+a young man starting in life; and after trying with all his might to
+acquire Maine, his success in obtaining it added to his influence.
+
+Such was the man whom we left in our last chapter on the field of
+Battle, and on our return to him we find him building Battle Abbey in
+memory of his victory. He caused a list or roll to be made of all the
+nobles and gentlemen who came over with him from Normandy, and many
+of them were men of mark, if we are to judge by their signatures. This
+earliest specimen in England of a genuine French roll was preserved for
+some time under the name of the roll of Battle Abbey, but the monks were
+in the habit of making it a medium for advertisement, by allowing
+the insertion of fresh names, to gratify that numerous class who are
+desirous of being thought to have come in with the Conqueror. The
+roll of Battle Abbey was no longer confined to the thorough-bred,
+but degenerated into a paltry puff, made up in the usual way, with
+paste--and scissors.
+
+William, instead of going at once to London, put up for a few days at
+Hastings, expecting the people to come and ask for peace; but though
+he remained at home the greater part of the day, the callers were by no
+means numerous. He accordingly took his departure for Romney, which he
+savagely rummaged. He then went on to Dover, which Holinshed describes
+as the lock and key of all England, but the inhabitants, finding the
+lock and key in hostile hands, sagaciously made a bolt of it.
+
+William's soldiers had no sooner taken possession of Dover than they
+were all seized with severe illness, but whether they availed themselves
+of the celebrated Dover Powders is exceedingly dubious. The Conqueror
+at length went towards London, where the Witan had proclaimed as king
+a poor little boy of the name of Edgar Atheling, the son of Edmund
+Ironsides. William, however, nearly frightened the Witan out of its
+wits by burning Southwark, and a deputation started from town to
+Berkhampstead, to make submission to the Conqueror. Young Edgar made a
+formal renunciation of the throne, which was not his to renounce, and
+indeed, when he sat upon it the child fell so very far short, that for
+him to feel the ground under his feet was utterly impossible.
+
+After these concessions, the day was fixed for William's coronation in
+Westminster Abbey, on the 26th of December, 1066, when the ceremony was
+performed amid enthusiastic cheering which lasted for several minutes.
+
+The Normans outside not being accustomed to Saxon habits, mistook the
+applause for disapprobation, and thinking that their duke was being
+hooted, or perhaps pelted, with "apples, oranges, nuts, and pears," they
+began to avenge the fancied insult by taking it out in violence towards
+the populace. Houses were burnt down in every direction, when the noise
+made without became audible to those within, who rushed forth to join in
+the row, and William, it is said, was left almost alone in the abbey, to
+finish his own coronation. He, however, went through the whole ceremony,
+and even added a few extemporaneous paragraphs to the usual coronation
+affidavit, by the introduction of an oath or two of his own, after the
+interruption of the ceremony.
+
+The Conqueror having taken some extensive premises at Barking, went
+to reside there for a short time, and was visited by several English
+families, among whom that of the warrior Coxo--since abbreviated
+into Cox--was one of the most illustrious. William found considerable
+difficulty in satisfying the rapacity of his followers, who thought
+nothing of asking for a castle, a church, an abbey, or a trifle of
+that kind by way of remuneration for their services. He scattered those
+articles right and left, according to the chroniclers; but it would
+be difficult to say where he got them from, were it not that the
+chroniclers are so skilled in castle-building that they have always a
+stock on hand to devote to the purposes of history.
+
+After six months' residence in England, William, having got his
+half-year's salary as king, was in funds to enable him to take a trip
+to Normandy. He took with him a complete sideboard of English--not
+British--plate, and with the treasures of this country dazzled the eyes
+of his continental friends and subjects. A party of Young England gents
+who accompanied him attracted also, by their long flowing hair, the
+admiration of foreigners.
+
+Odo, William's half-brother, who had been left at home to rule in the
+absence of the king, soon--as the reader may anticipate from the obvious
+pun that must ensue--rendered himself utterly odious. His treatment
+of the conquered people was cruel in the extreme; he filled the cup of
+misery not only to the brim, but degradation was kept continually on
+draft, every new blow being a fresh tap for the victims of tyranny. The
+very smallest beer will, however, ferment at last if kept continually
+bottled up; and though the Entire of England had been for a time
+rendered flat, there was a good deal of genuine British stout at bottom.
+A general effervescence broke out on the departure of William, who had
+acted hitherto as a cork; but Odo evinced a disposition to play the
+screw, by drawing out whatever he could in the absence of his superior.
+
+A general conspiracy seemed to be on the point of breaking out, when
+William, who had allowed letter after letter to remain unanswered which
+had been sent to entreat him to come home, started late one night for
+Dieppe, on his return to England. His first care was to assuage the
+discontent, and he had already learned the acknowledged trick, that the
+shortest way of stopping a British mouth, is by liberally feeding it. He
+accordingly gave a series of Christmas dinners, and he invited several
+Saxon earls, to meet a succession of bovine barons. If the banquets
+were intended as a bait, there is no doubt that the English very readily
+swallowed them. By way of further propitiating the people, he published
+a law in the Saxon tongue, decreeing "that every son should inherit from
+his father," or in other words, should take after him. If, however, he
+was liberal in his invitations to dinner, he took care that the people
+should pay the bill, for he had scarcely finished entertaining them,
+when he began taxing them most oppressively.
+
+William did not acquire the title of Conqueror quite so speedily as has
+been generally imagined, for he was occupied at least seven years in
+running about the country from one place to the other, wiping out,
+by many severe wipes, the remaining traces of insubordination to his
+government. In the year 1068 he besieged Exeter, where Githa, the aged
+mother of Harold, was leading a quiet life, surrounded by a bevy of
+venerable gossips. The Conqueror routed them out, and they repaired to
+Bath, where their taste for tittle-tattle might have been indulged, but
+meeting with rudeness from the celebrated Bath chaps, they hastened to
+Flanders. William now sent for his wife Matilda, whom he had not brought
+over until he could form some idea how long he was likely to remain in
+his new quarters. A cheap coronation was got up for her at Winchester,
+the contract having been taken by Aldred, Archbishop of York, who it is
+believed found all the materials for the ceremony, without extra charge;
+and as the queen was rather short, we may presume that everything was
+cut down to a low figure. A little after this event, Harold's two sons,
+Godwin and Edmund, with a little brother, facetiously called Magnus,
+came over from Ireland, and hovered about the coast of Cornwall, where
+young Magnus, being a minor, perhaps hoped for sympathy. They planted
+their standard, expecting that the inhabitants would fly to it, but
+they only flew at it, to tear it in pieces. Poor Magnus, with infantine
+tenderness, cried like a baby over the insulted bunting. Tired with
+their ill success, the three brothers eventually went over as suppliants
+to Denmark, where the unhappy beggars were received by Sweyn with
+amiable hospitality.
+
+In the ensuing year, William turned Somerset so completely upside down
+that it could not have known whether it stood on its head or its heels;
+and in every shire he took, he built a castle, by way of insuring
+the lives of himself and his followers in the county. According to
+Hollinshed, the greatest indignities were passed upon the conquered
+people. They were compelled even to regulate their beards in a
+particular fashion, from which the youngest shaver was not exempt. They
+were obliged to "round their hair," which probably means that they were
+obliged to keep it curled, and thus even in their _coiffure_ they were
+ruled by a rod of iron. In addition to this, they were forced to
+"frame themselves in the Norman fashion," which must have made them the
+pictures of misery.
+
+[Illustration: 086]
+
+William had, in one of his amiable moods, probably over a bottle of
+wine, promised Edwin, the brother-in-law of Harold, his daughter in
+marriage. When, however, the earl came to claim his fair prize, the
+Conqueror not only withdrew his consent, but insulted the suitor, and
+a scene ensued very similar to the common incident in a farce, when
+a testy old father or guardian flies into a passion with the walking
+gentleman, exclaiming "Hoity-toity!" and calling him a young jackanapes.
+Edwin, irritated at this treatment, collected an army in the north, and
+waited near the river Ouse; but the courage of his soldiers soon oozed
+out when the Conqueror made his appearance. William was victorious; but
+he had much to contend against during the first few years of his reign,
+and an invasion of the Danes, under Osborne, was a very troublesome
+business.
+
+The Normans, having shut themselves up in York, set fire to some of
+the houses outside the city, to check the approach of the foe; but
+the flames catching the minster, a "night wi' Burns" seemed to be
+inevitable. Not wishing to remain to be roasted, they risked the minor
+inconvenience of being basted, and made a very lively sally out of the
+city. They were nearly all killed, and the Danes took possession of
+York; but the place being reduced to ashes, was little better than an
+extensive dust-hole. Osborne and his followers not wishing to winter
+among the cinders, retired to their ships, and William thus had time to
+make further arrangements.
+
+The Conqueror was hunting in the Forest of Dean when he heard of the
+catastrophe, and having his lance in his hand, he swore he would never
+put it down until he had exterminated the enemy. This must have been a
+somewhat inconsiderate vow, for though it may have been chivalrous to
+declare he would never put down his lance until a certain remote event,
+the weapon must have been at times a very inconvenient companion, as he
+did not commence his campaign until the spring; but as his vow came into
+operation immediately, the lance must have been a dead weight in his
+hand during the whole of the winter season. At length he mounted his
+horse, and rode rough-shod over the people of York, after which he took
+Durham, and ultimately repaired to Hexham, to which he administered a
+regular Hexham tanning.
+
+Bobbery, under the less obnoxious name of confiscation, now became very
+general, and William commenced the wholesale subtraction of lands,
+with a view to their division among his Norman followers. The conquered
+English had nearly all their property seized, and those who had but
+little shared the lot of the wealthiest in the spoliation to which all
+were subjected. William de Percy profited largely in purse; and if in
+those days manners made the man, he must have been a made man indeed,
+for he got no less than eighty manors. Several other names will be found
+in Domesday Book, drawn up about fifteen years after the conquest, from
+whicn some of our oldest ancestors may learn full particulars of their
+early ancestors.
+
+The title of Richmond had its origin from a Breton ruffian of the name
+of Allan, who having got a mount near York as his share of the plunder,
+gave it the name of Riche-Mont, or Rich-Mount; and the first Earl of
+Cumberland was a low fellow named Reuouf Meschines, the latter title
+being no doubt derived from _mesquin_, to express something mean and
+pitiful in this individual's character. The boast of having come in with
+the Normans is equivalent to a confession of belonging to a family whose
+founder was a thief, or at least a receiver of stolen articles.
+
+The resistance to the Conqueror was, in many parts of England,
+exceedingly obstinate, and Hereward of Lincoln, commonly called
+"England's Darling," or the Lincoln pet, was one of the most resolute of
+William's enemies. Such was the impetuosity of the pet, that the Normans
+imagined he must be a necromancer: and William, in order to turn
+the superstitions of the people to his own account, engaged a rival
+conjuror, or sorceress, who was placed with much solemnity on the top of
+a wooden tower, among the works that were proceeding for the defence of
+the invader's army. Hereward, however, seizing his opportunity, set
+fire to the wizard's temple, and the unfortunate conjuror being puzzled,
+terminated his career amidst a grand pyrotechnic display, which proved
+for Hereward and his party a blaze of triumph.
+
+The English had established a camp of refuge at Ely, but the hungry
+monks, whose profession it was to fast, were the first, when provisions
+ran short, to grumble at the scarcity. Their vows were evidently
+as empty as themselves, and though they had pledged themselves to
+abstinence, they began eating their own words with horrible voracity.
+They betrayed the isle to the Conqueror; but Hereward refusing to
+submit, plunged, like a true son of the soil, into the swamps and
+marshes, where the Normans would not venture to follow him. Protected
+to a certain extent in the bosom of his mother earth, he carried on a
+vexatious warfare, until William offered terms which took the hero out
+of the mud, and settled him in the estates of his ancestors.
+
+It has been customary with historians to cut the conquest exceedingly
+short, as if _Veni, vidi, vici_, had been the motto of William; and
+that, in fact, the Anglo-Saxons had surrendered at his nod,--overcome by
+the waving of his plume--if he ever wore one; or in other words, knocked
+down with a feather. Such, however, was not the case; for it took seven
+years' apprenticeship to accustom the hardy natives of our isle to the
+subjection of a conqueror.
+
+While William was in Normandy, whither he had been called to protect
+his possessions in Maine--for, as we are told by that mad wag, Matthew
+Paris, he never lost sight of the Main chance,--Philip of France offered
+some assistance to Edgar Atheling. This individual accordingly set sail,
+but the unlucky dog had scarcely got his bark upon the sea, when
+the winds set up a dismal howl, and he was driven ashore near
+Northumberland. Edgar and a few friends escaped to Scotland, and at the
+advice of his brother-in-law, Malcolm sought a reconciliation with the
+Conqueror, who allowed the Atheling his lodging in the palace of Rouen,
+with a pound's worth of silver a day for his maintenance.
+
+The king was soon recalled to England by an insurrection, got up by
+Roger Fitz Osborn, who, together with a large number of persons who were
+all subject to Fitz, determined on resisting the insolent oppression of
+the Conqueror. Young Roger, whose father, William Fitz Osborn, had been
+of great service to the Norman invader, was engaged to Emma de Gael, a
+daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, when the banns were most unreasonably
+forbidden by the sovereign. The young couple, however, determined not to
+be foiled, had made a match of it; and at the wedding feast, which was
+given at Norwich, some violent speeches were made, in the course of
+which William was denounced as a tyrant and a humbug, amid repeated
+shouts of "hear, hear," from the whole of the company.
+
+The grand object of the Norman rebels was to bring round Earl Waltheof,
+and having taken care to heat him with wine, they did succeed in
+bringing him round in a most wonderful manner. He assented to every
+proposition, and his health was drunk with enthusiasm, followed, no
+doubt, by the usual complimentary chorus, attributing to him the festive
+virtues of jollity and good fellowship. The next morning, however,
+after "a consultation with his pillow," according to the Saxon
+chroniclers--from which we are to infer that he and his pillow laid
+their heads together, on the principle of goose to goose--he began to
+think he had acted very foolishly at the party of the previous night,
+and, jumping out of bed, packed off a communication to those with whom
+he had promised to co-operate. After presenting his compliments, he
+"begged to say, that the evening's amusement not having stood the test
+of the morning's reflection, he was under the painful necessity of
+withdrawing any consent he might have given to any enterprise that might
+have been proposed at the meeting of the day preceding."
+
+The conspiracy, which had commenced in drinking, ended, very
+appropriately, in smoke; nearly all who took a part in the Norwich
+wedding were killed, and it has been well said by a modern writer that
+a share in the Norwich Union was not in those days a very profitable
+matter. It was about the year 1077 that William began to be wounded
+by that very sharp incisor--the tooth of filial disobedience. When
+preparing for the conquest of England he had promised, in the event of
+success, to resign Normandy to his son Robert, and had even taken an
+oath--clenched, probably, with the exclamation, "So help me, Bob!"--that
+if Robert assisted in his father's absence the boy should have the
+Duchy.
+
+Having conquered England, the Governor returned, and wanted Normandy
+back again, observing, with coarse quaintness, that he was "not going
+to throw off his clothes till he went to bed," or, in other words,
+insisting that Robert, who had got into his father's shoes, should
+instantly evacuate the paternal high-lows. Robert was brave, but by
+no means foppish in his dress, ana had acquired the nickname of Robert
+Curt-hose or Short-stockings. He probably derived this appellation from
+a habit of wearing socks, and it is not unlikely that he was familiarly
+known as Bob Socks among his friends and acquaintances. Young Socks,
+who had always been irritable, was on one occasion roused to a pitch of
+passion by having the contents of a pitcher pitched upon his head by his
+two brothers, from the balcony of his own lodging. He became mad with
+rage, and, irritated by the water on the brain, he ran upstairs with a
+drawn sword in his hand, when the king, hearing the row among the three
+boys, rushed to the spot, and succeeded in quelling it in a manner not
+very favourable to young Socks, who ran away from home towards Rouen.
+Through the intercession of his mother, he was persuaded to return
+home, and it is probable that "B. S."--the initials of Bob Socks--was
+"entreated to return home to his disconsolate mother, when all would be
+arranged to his satisfaction." Nevertheless, his pocket-money continued
+to be as short as his hose, and his companions declared it to be a shame
+that he never had a shilling to spend in anything. He accordingly went
+to his father, and demanded Normandy, but the monarch refused him,
+reprimanded him for his irregular habits, and recommended him to adopt
+"the society of serious old men,"--the "heavy fathers" of that early
+period. Robert declared irreverently that the old pumps were exceedingly
+dry companions, and reiterated his demand for Normandy. The king
+wrathfully refused, when young Socks announced his determination to take
+his valour to the foreign market, and place it at the service of any one
+who chose to pay him his price for it.
+
+He visited various localities abroad, where he recounted his grievances,
+and borrowed money, making himself a sort of begging-letter impostor,
+and going about as if with a board round his neck, inscribed "Turned out
+of doors," or "Totally destitute." Though he collected a good round sum,
+he spent the whole of it in minstrels, jugglers, and parasites, so that
+he divided his time between the enjoyment of popular songs, conjuring
+tricks, and paid paragraphs, embodying the most outrageous puffs of his
+own character. After leading a vagabond life for some time, he was set
+up by Philip of France, in a castle on the confines of Normandy; but as
+he was only allowed lodging, he had to find his board as he could, by
+plundering his neighbours. One day he had sallied forth in search of
+a victim, when he found himself engaged in single combat with a tall
+gentlemanly man in a mail coat and a vizor, forming a sort of iron veil,
+which covered his countenance. The combatants had been for some time
+banging at each other with savage vehemence, when Robert delivered "one,
+two, three," with such rapid succession on the head of his antagonist,
+that the latter, unable to resist so many plumpers coming at once to the
+pole, retired from the contest.
+
+The stalwart knight being regularly knocked up, was glad to knock under,
+and fell to the earth with a piteous howl, in which Robert recognised
+the _falsetto_ of his own father. Young Socks, who had a good heart,
+burst into tears, and instead of falling on his antagonist to finish him
+as he had designed, he fell upon his own knee to ask forgiveness of his
+parent. William, who would have been settled in one more crack, took
+advantage of his son's assistance, but went away muttering maledictions
+against Young Socks, who subsequently finding the vindictiveness of his
+father's character, declined any further communication with the "old
+gentleman," and never saw him again.
+
+In the reign of William the Church was always disposed to be militant,
+and among the most pugnacious priests was Walcher de Lorraine, the
+Bishop of Durham, who, it is said, often turned his crozier into a
+lance, by having, we presume, a long movable hook at the end of it. He
+divided his time between preaching and plunder, correcting the morals
+of the people one day, and on the next picking their pockets. He was,
+in fact, alternately teaching and thrashing them, as if the only way to
+impress them with religious truth, was to beat it regularly into them.
+
+At length, however, the right reverend robber having become very
+unpopular in his neighbourhood, agreed to attend a public meeting of the
+inhabitants at Gateshead, to offer explanations on the subject of the
+murder of one Liulf, a noble Englishman, and on other miscellaneous
+business. The attendance was far more numerous than select, and the old
+bishop becoming exceedingly nervous, ran away into the church with all
+his retinue. The people declared that if he did not come out they would
+smoke him out, by setting fire to the building; and they had proceeded
+to carry their threats into execution, when, half suffocated with the
+heat, the bishop came to the door with his face muffled up in the skirts
+of his coat, and addressed a few words to the mob in so low a tone, that
+our reporters being at a considerable distance--almost eight centuries
+off--have not succeeded in catching them. The bishop, however, caught it
+at once, for he was slain after a short and rather irregular discussion.
+The words "Slay ye the bishop," were distinctly heard to issue from a
+voice in the crowd, and the speaker,--whoever he was,--having put the
+question, the ayes and the bishop had it.
+
+[Illustration: 091]
+
+William selected one bishop to avenge another, and chose the furious
+Odo, who in spite of cries for mercy, and piteous exclamations of
+"O! don't, Odo!" killed every one that came across his path, without
+judicial forms, or, familiarly speaking, without judge or jury. This
+ambitious butcher looked with a pope's eye at the triple crown of Rome,
+and set out for Italy, with plenty of gold, to carry his election to
+the papal chair by corruption and bribery. The virtues of the cardinals
+might not have proved so strong as the cardinal virtues; but Odo, the
+bishop of Bayeux, had no chance of trying the experiment, for he
+was stopped in his expedition to Rome, at the Isle of Wight, by his
+brother-in-law, the Conqueror. William ordered his arrest; but no one
+volunteering to act as bailiff, the king seized the prelate by the
+robe, and took him into custody. "I am a clerk--a priest," cried Odo,
+endeavouring to get away. "I don't care what you are," exclaimed
+William, retaining his hold upon his prisoner. "The pope alone has
+the right to try me," shrieked the bishop, getting away, and leaving a
+fragment of his robe in the king's hand. "But I've got you, and don't
+mean to part with you again in a hurry," muttered William, after
+darting forward and effecting the recapture of Odo, who was immediately
+committed to a dungeon in Normandy.
+
+The king soon after this incident lost his wife Matilda, and he became,
+after her decease, more cruel, avaricious, and jealous of his old
+companions-in-arms, than ever. One of the worst acts of his reign was
+the making of the New Forest in Hampshire, which he effected by driving
+away the inhabitants without the smallest compensation, from a space of
+nearly ninety miles in circumference. He appointed a bow-bearer, whose
+office still exists as a sinecure, with a salary of forty shillings a
+year, for which the gentleman who holds the appointment swears "to be of
+good behaviour towards the sovereign's wild beasts," and of course,
+in compliance with his oath, would Feel bound to touch his hat to the
+British Lion.
+
+After founding the New Forest, the king enacted the most oppressive
+laws; placing on the killing of a hare such penalties as are enough
+to cause "each particular hair to stand on end," by their extreme
+barbarity.
+
+[Illustration: 093]
+
+Towards the end of the year 1086 William, who had grown exceedingly fat,
+started for France, to negotiate with Philip about some possessions,
+when the latter indulged in some small puns at the expense of the
+corpulency of the Conqueror. By comparing him to a fillet of veal on
+castors, and suggesting his being exhibited at a prize monarch show,
+Philip so irritated William that the latter swore, with fearful oaths,
+to make his weight felt in France; and he kept his word, for falling
+upon Mantes, he succeeded in completely crushing it. Having, however,
+gone out on horseback to see the ruins, the gigantic animal he was
+riding stepped on some hot ashes, which set the brute dancing so
+vigorously that the pummel of the saddle gave the Conqueror a fearful
+pummelling. He was so much shaken by this incident that he resolved
+never to ride the high horse, or indeed any other horse again; and he
+was soon after removed, at his own request, to the monastery of St.
+Gervas, just outside the walls of Rouen. Becoming rapidly worse, his
+heart softened to his enemies, most of whom he pardoned, and he then
+proceeded to make his will, by which he left Normandy to his son Robert,
+and bequeathed the crown of England to be fought for by William and
+Henry, with a significant wish, however, that the former might get it.
+Henry exclaimed emphatically, "What are you going to give me?" and on
+receiving for his answer, "Five thousand pounds weight of silver out of
+my treasury," ungraciously demanded what he should do with such a paltry
+pittance. "Be patient," replied the king; "suffer thy elder brothers
+to precede thee--thy time will comc after theirs;" but Henry, muttering
+"It's all very well to say 'be patient,'" hurried out of the room, drew
+the cash, weighed it carefully, and brought a strong box to put it in. *
+
+     * For further particulars of Henry's conduct, _vide_
+     Orderic, every prospect of the Conqueror being left in the
+     city of Rouen to be buried by the parish, when a few of the
+     clergy began to think of the funeral. The Archbishop ordered
+     that it should take place at St. Stephen's, in Caen, and
+     none of the family being present, the undertaker actually
+     came down upon a poor good-natured old knight, who had put
+     himself rather prominently forward as a sort of provisional
+     committee-man. How the affair was settled we are unable to
+     state, but we have it on the authority of Oderic, that when
+     the Bishop of Evreux had pronounced the panegyric, a man in
+     the crowd jumped up, declaring the Conqueror was an old
+     thief, and that he--the man in the crowd--claimed the ground
+     on which they were then standing. Many of the persons round
+     cheered him in his address, and the bishops, for the sake of
+     decency, paid out the execution from the Conqueror's grave
+     for sixty shillings.
+
+To think of an iron chest at such a moment proved the possession of a
+heart of steel; and William, the elder son, was nearly as bad, for
+he hastened to England to look after the crown before his father had
+expired.
+
+It was on the 9th of September, 1087, that the Conqueror died, and his
+last faint sigh was the signal for a rush to the door, in which priests,
+doctors, and knights joined with furious eagerness. In vain did a
+diminutive bishop ask a stalwart warrior "where he was shoving to?" and
+the expostulations of a prim doctor to the crowd, entreating them to
+keep back, as there was "plenty of time," were utterly disregarded. The
+scene resembled that which may be witnessed occasionally at the pit door
+of the Opera, for the whole of William's attendants were eager to get
+home for the purpose of being early in securing either some place or
+plunder. The inferior servants of the royal robber--like master, like
+man--commenced rifling the king's trunks and drawers of all the cash,
+jewels, and linen. There seemed scarcely more than it deserves, for
+there is no doubt that he was cruel, selfish, and unprincipled. It is,
+however, a curious fact, that what receives blacking from one age gets
+polished by the next: and this may account for the brilliance that has
+been shed in this country over the name of one who introduced the feudal
+system, the Game Laws, and other evils, the escape from which has been
+the work of many centuries. Though a natural son, he was an unnatural
+father, and the result was, that being an indifferent parent, his
+children became also indifferent. He had a violent temper, and was such
+a brutal glutton that he aimed a blow at Fitz-Osborne, his steward, for
+sending to table an under-done crane, when Odo interfered to check
+his master's violence. Of his personal appearance we have an authentic
+record in a statue placed against one of the pillars of the church of
+St. Stephen, at Caen; but as the figure is without a head, we have tried
+in vain to form from it some idea of the Conqueror's countenance. From
+the absence of the face in the statue we can only infer that William
+wore an expression of vacancy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SECOND. WILLIAM RUFUS.
+
+
+[Illustration: 095]
+
+WILLIAM, the son of the Conqueror, had obtained the nick-name of Rufus,
+from his red hair, and these jokes on personal peculiarities afford
+a lamentable proof of the rudeness of our ancestors. Having left his
+father at the point of death, he hastened to England, where he pretended
+to be acting for the king; resorting to what, in puffing phraseology,
+is termed the untradesmanlike artifice of "It's the same concern," and
+doing business for himself in the name of the late sovereign. One of
+his first steps was, of course, towards the treasury, from which he
+drew sixty thousand pounds in gold and silver. Having received from his
+father a letter of introduction to Archbishop Lanfranc, he rushed,
+with the avidity of a man who has got a reference to a new tailor, and
+presenting it to the primate, requested that measures might be taken
+for putting the crown on his head as soon as possible. Lanfranc, having
+secured the place of Prime Minister for himself, issued cards to a few
+prelates and barons, inviting them to a coronation on Sunday, the 26th
+of September, 1087, when the event came off rather quietly.
+
+When Curt-hose--whom the reader will recognise as our old friend
+Socks--first heard of his father's death, he was living on that limited
+but rather elastic income, his wits, at Abbeville, or in some part
+of Germany. He, however, repaired to Rouen, where he was very well
+received; while Henry, the youngest brother, stood like a donkey between
+two bundles of hay, not knowing whether he should have a bite at Britain
+or a nibble at Normandy.
+
+Rufus had, at the commencement of his reign, to contend with a
+conspiracy got up by his uncle Odo, to place Robert on the throne of
+England as well as on that of Normandy; for the great experiment of
+sitting on two stools at once had not then been sufficiently carried out
+to prove the folly of attempting it.
+
+Odo took rapid strides, but as Robert, if he took any stride at all,
+must have attempted one from Rouen to Rochester, he remained in his
+Duchy, leaving his followers to follow their own inclination at
+their own convenience. They had fortified Rochester Castle, but being
+besieged, and a famine threatening, they were glad to find a loop-hole
+for escape, which they effected by capitulating on certain conditions,
+one of which, proposed by Odo, was a stipulation that the band should
+not play as the vanquished party left the Castle. Rufus, feeling that a
+procession without music would go off flatly, refused his assent to this
+proposal, and the band accordingly struck up an appropriate air at each
+incident.
+
+[Illustration: 096]
+
+As Odo left the Castle the "Rogue's March" resounded from tower to tower
+and battlement to battlement, while the people sang snatches of popular
+airs, among which "Go, Naughty Man," and "Down among the Dead Men," were
+perhaps the greatest favourites. Odo was eventually banished, and the
+insurrection was at an end, for Curt-hose had neither the money nor the
+inclination to carry on the war; and, like a defunct railway scheme, the
+plan took its place amongst the list of abandoned projects.
+
+In the year 1088 Lanfranc, the king's adviser, died, and was succeeded
+by a Norman clergyman, named Ralph, who was called also Le Flambard,
+or the Torch, from his being a political incendiary, who had been ever
+ready to light up the flame of discontent at a moment's notice. His
+nominal offices were treasurer and chaplain, but his real duty was to
+raise money for the king, extort for his majesty a large income, and
+help him to live up to it. As a taxgatherer and a _bon vivant_ he was
+unexceptionable; but we regret that we cannot say so much for him as a
+bishop and a gentleman.
+
+This person, however, succeeded only to the political, not to the
+ecclesiastical dignities of Odo; for the king, finding the revenues of
+Canterbury very acceptable, determined on acting as his own archbishop.
+He professed a desire to improve the see by using his own eyes, but his
+real view was to get all he could for the indulgence of his pleasures.
+Ralph le Flambard seems to have possessed the talent of extortion to
+a wonderful degree, and he even set at nought the proverb as to the
+impossibility of making "a silk purse out of a sow's ear;" for he
+certainty extracted immense sums by getting hold of the ear of the
+swinish multitude.
+
+[Illustration: 099]
+
+William Rufus, having been successful against the friends of Robert
+in England, determined (a.d. 1089) on attacking the unfortunate and
+improvident Curt-hose on his own ground in Normandy. Socks had no money
+to carry on the war, for he had not only cleared out his coffers to the
+last farthing, but was up to his neck in promises which he never could
+hope to realise. His bills were flying like waste-paper about every
+Exchange in Europe, and the boldest discounters shook their heads when a
+document with the familiar words "Accepted, R. Curt-hose," was shown
+to them. He applied, therefore, for aid to the king of the French, his
+feudal superior, who sent an army to the confines of Normandy, but sent
+a messenger at the same time to the English king, stating the terms on
+which the army might be bought off and induced to march back again.
+
+Rufus willingly paid the money, and Socks, in a fit of desperation,
+applied to his brother Henry, who had already lent him three thousand
+pounds, taking care, however, to get a third of the duchy by way of
+security for his money. He accordingly came to Rouen, where he put
+down a large sum of money: and what was better still, he put down a
+conspiracy to deliver up the city to the enemy. One Conan, a burgess,
+who was to have handed over the keys, was condemned to imprisonment for
+life; but Henry taking him up to the top of a tower under the pretence
+of showing him the scenery, brutally threw him over. The unhappy captive
+was beginning to expatiate on the softness of the landscape below, when
+Henry, seizing him by the waist, savagely recommended him to test the
+reality of so much apparent softness, by throwing himself on the kind
+indulgence which the verdant landscape appeared to offer him. The
+burgess had no time to reply, before he found himself half-way on his
+down journey.
+
+It is difficult in these days to fancy the brother of the sovereign
+visiting a condemned culprit in his prison, and taking a walk with him
+up to the top of the building, to point out to him the beauties of
+the surrounding prospect. That the royal visitor should suddenly turn
+executioner in the most barbarous manner, is still more unaccountable.
+Henry must surely have received a large quantity of the burgess's sauce
+before he could have been provoked to an act which redounds so much to
+his discredit in the pages of history.
+
+In the year 1091, William and Robert settled their differences, after
+which they began to take advantage of their little brother Henry, whom
+they robbed of everything he possessed, until his suite was reduced to
+one knight, three esquires, and one chaplain. His flight was a series
+of rapid movements, to which this miserable quintette formed a kind
+of running accompaniment; but Henry, in spite of every _contretemps_,
+behaved himself with dignity as the leader and conductor of his little
+band.
+
+Rufus, on his return to England, found it overrun by Malcolm, the Scotch
+king, who, however, made a regular Scotch mull of his enterprise. After
+a peace as hollow as the "hollow beech tree" which the woodpecker keeps
+continually on tap, poor Malcolm was invited to Gloucester, where he
+fell into an ambush--a bush in which he was tom to pieces by the sharp
+thorns of treachery.
+
+Duke Robert having made repeated applications to his brother, William
+Rufus, for the settlement of his claims upon England, at length put the
+matter into the hands of his solicitor, Philip of France; who, after
+soliciting justice for Curt-hose, marched an army into Normandy. Rufus,
+knowing costs to be the only motive of Philip, who, on being handsomely
+paid, would certainly throw his client overboard, determined on raising
+a large sum; which he accomplished by levying twenty thousand men as
+soldiers, and allowing them to buy their discharge at ten shillings
+a head, an arrangement which nearly all of them gladly fell into. The
+proceeds of this transaction being handed over to Philip, that monarch
+shifted his forces from Normandy, leaving Robert to shift for himself;
+so that poor Socks was again driven to the most wretched extremities.
+
+Rufus was now troubled by the Welsh, who had overrun Cheshire, probably
+on account of its cheeses, for the Welsh were attached to their rabbits
+even so early as the eleventh century. The Red King pursued them over
+hill and dale, but they daily obtained advantages over him, and on
+reaching Snowdon he saw that it would be the height of folly to proceed
+further. After a few ups and downs over the mountains, he retreated
+with shame, and found occupation at home, a.d. 1094--5, in quelling a
+conspiracy headed by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, aided by
+Richard de Tunbridge, with a variety of Johns, Williams, and Thomases
+de What-d'ye-call-'em and So-and-So. Some of the conspirators were
+imprisoned, and some hanged; but a few, in anticipation of the fatal
+bolt, ran away for the purpose of avoiding it.
+
+Immediately after these events, Robert, roused by the preaching of
+Peter the Hermit, familiarly known as _Pietro L'Eremita_, determined
+on giving up business as Duke of Normandy and starting as a crusader
+for Palestine. In order to raise money for his travelling expenses, and
+after having vainly entreated discount for his bills, he proposed to
+sell his dukedom to his brother for ten thousand pounds, including the
+good-will of the house of Normandy, the crown, which was not a fixture,
+the throne with its appropriate hangings, the sceptre the sign of
+royalty, and all the palace furniture. The unscrupulous Rufus agreed to
+purchase, but being without a penny of his own, he made a demand on the
+empty pockets of his subjects.
+
+Several bishops and abbots having already sold all the treasures of
+their churches, told the king in plain terms they had nothing more to
+give him, when the sovereign replied, "Have you not, I beseech you,
+coffins of gold and silver full of dead men's bones?" thus insinuating,
+according to Holinshed, "that he would have the money out of their bones
+if they did not pay him otherwise." The bishops and abbots were induced
+to take the hint of the king; and the term "boning" may have had its
+origin from this species of robbery.
+
+Having paid the ten thousand pounds, Rufus went to take possession of
+his new purchase, and met with no resistance except from one Helie, Lord
+of La Fleche, who professed to have a previous mortgage on part of the
+property. Rufus treated him as a mortgagee so far as to pay him off in
+the current coin of the age, though a year or two after (a.d. 1100)
+as the Bed King was hunting in the New Forest, he heard that Helie had
+surprised the town of Mans, and of course astonished the men of Mans
+very unpleasantly.
+
+William turned his horse's head towards the nearest seaport, which
+happened to be Dartmouth, plunged into the first vessel he found
+there, and ordered the sailors to start at once for Normandy. The crew
+suggested that it was a very odd start to think of setting off in a gale
+of wind; but his majesty began to storm with as much violence as the
+elements. He asked--if they ever knew of a king being drowned?--and if
+the adage applies to those who deserve hanging as well as to those who
+are born for that ceremony, Rufus might have relied on exemption from
+a watery terminus. He arrived safely at Harfleur, after one of the
+most boisterous passages in his life, which was one of considerable
+turbulence. The bare news of his arrival sufficed to frighten Helie,
+who first ordered his troops to fall in, and immediately ordered them to
+fall out, for he had no further use for them. Helie took to his heels,
+and William became sole master of Normandy.
+
+We now come to one of the most remarkable incidents in English history,
+and in our desire for accuracy we have grubbed about the records of the
+past with untiring energy. We have blown away the dust of ages with the
+bellows of research, and have, we think, succeeded in investing this
+portion of our annals with a plainness of which the very pike-staff
+itself might be fairly envious.
+
+It was on the 1st of August, in the year 1100, that William was passing
+the night at Malwood Keep, a hunting-lodge in the New Forest. Had there
+been a Court Circular in existence in those days, it would have
+recorded the names of Henry, the king's brother, and a host of
+sporting fashionables who were present, to share the pleasures of their
+sovereign. His majesty was heard at midnight to be talking loudly in his
+sleep, and his light having gone out, he was crying lustily for candles.
+His attendants rushed to his room, and found him kicking and plunging
+under a nightmare, from which he was soon released, when he requested
+them to sit and talk to him. When their jokes were on the point of
+sending him to sleep, their songs kept him awake: and in the morning an
+artisan sent him six arrows as a specimen, with an intimation that there
+would be a large reduction on his taking a whole quiver. The king took
+the half-dozen on trial, keeping four for himself, and giving two to Sir
+Walter Tyrrel, with a complimentary remark that "good weapons are due to
+the sportsman that knows how to make a good use of them."
+
+[Illustration: 100]
+
+During a boisterous _dejeuner d la fourchette_, at which the Red King
+greatly increased his rubicundity by the quantity of wine he consumed,
+a postman arrived with a dream, from the Abbot of St. Peter's, at
+Gloucester, done up in an envelope. "Read it out," exclaimed Rufus,
+after having glanced at its contents; and on its being found to forbode
+a violent death to the king, he ordered a hundred pence to be given to
+the dreamer, which, supposing him to have been taking "forty winks,"
+would have been at the liberal rate of twopence-halfpenny a wink for
+his rather disagreeable doze over the destiny of his sovereign. Rufus
+laughed at the prediction, and repaired to the chase, accompanied by
+Sir Walter Tyrrel, when a hart, in all its heart's simplicity, came and
+stood between the illustrious sportsmen. The extraordinary hilarity of
+the bounding hart attracted the attention of Rufus, who drew his bow,
+but the string broke, and Rufus not having two strings to his bow,
+called out to Tyrrel to shoot at the bald-faced brute for his bare-faced
+impudence. Sir Walter instantly obeyed; but the animal, bobbing down his
+head, allowed the arrow to go through his own branches towards those of
+a huge tree, when the dart, taking a somewhat circuitous route, avoided
+the body of the hart and went home to the heart of the sovereign. Tyrrel
+ran towards his master, and attempted to revive him; but though there
+was plenty of harts-horn in the forest, none could be made available.
+The unfortunate regicide, merely muttering to himself some incoherent
+expressions as to his having "done it now," galloped to the sea coast,
+and tied to France--taking French leave of his country, according to the
+usual custom of malefactors.
+
+[Illustration 101]
+
+The royal remains were picked up soon after by one Mr. Purkess, a
+respectable charcoal-burner, whose descendants still reside upon the
+spot, and who carted Henry off on his own responsibility to Winchester,
+where the king was honoured by a decent funeral. Though there were
+plenty of lookers-on, there were very few mourners; and in a portrait
+of the tomb * which has been preserved, we recognise economy as the most
+prominent feature. Henry, the king's brother, made the usual rush to the
+treasury, where he filled his pockets with all the available assets; and
+the members of the hunting party, finding that the game was up, started
+off as fast as they could in pursuit of their own interests.
+
+     * The tomb still stands in the middle of the choir of
+     Winchester Cathedral.
+
+The character of Rufus is not one which the loyal historian will love
+to dwell upon. The philologist may endeavour to prove the brutal
+licentiousness of the king by deriving from Rufus the word ruffian; but
+the philologist will, however, be as much in error as the antiquarian
+who declared that Rufus, or Roofus, was so called from his being the
+builder of Westminster Hall, of which the roof was the most conspicuous
+ornament. The Red King died a bachelor, at the age of forty-three, after
+a very extravagant life, in the course of which he exhibited strong
+symptoms of the royal complaint--which shows itself in a mania for
+constructing and altering palaces. He would erect new staircases,
+and indulge in the most extravagant flights; but if this had been
+accompanied by a few steps taken in the right direction, Posterity would
+not have judged very harshly what are, after all, the mere whims of
+royalty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE THIRD. HENRY THE FIRST, SURNAMED BEAUCLERC.
+
+
+[Illustration: 103]
+
+ON returning to Henry, we find him at the porter's lodge, imperiously
+demanding the keys of the treasury. While he had just succeeded, by
+alternate bribery and bluster, in obtaining the desired bunch from the
+hesitating janitor, William de Breteuil, the treasurer, came running
+out of breath, and protested, as energetically as the state of his wind
+would allow, against the money being carried away, when Robert, the
+elder brother, had a prior right to it. Henry, having tried a little
+argument, of which he got decidedly the worst, suddenly drew his sword,
+and threatened to perforate the treasurer, or any one else who should
+oppose his progress. A mob of barons having collected round the
+disputants, took part with the new king, in expectation, no doubt,
+of getting a share of the plunder. William de Breteuil was compelled
+therefore to look on at the pocketing of the cash and jewels by Henry
+and his supporters, the treasurer occasionally entering a protest by
+mildly observing "Mind, _I've_ nothing to do with it." Having made
+use of the cash in buying the adherence of some of those mercenary
+weathercocks--from whom it is considered an honour, in these days, to be
+descended--Henry got himself crowned on the 5th of August, in the year
+1100, at Westminster.
+
+Finding his throne rather rickety, he tried a little of the "soft
+sawder" which has always been found serviceable as a cement between the
+sovereign and the people. He mixed up a tolerably useful compound in the
+shape of a charter of liberties, and by laying it on rather thick to the
+Church, he obtained the support of that influential body. He restored
+ancient rights, and promised that when he had to draw money from his
+people he would always draw it as mild as possible.
+
+Henry's next "dodge" was to try the effect of an English marriage,
+and he therefore sent in a sealed tender for the hand of Miss Matilda
+Malcolm, or Maud, the daughter of the king of Scots, as she is commonly
+called in history. She had already refused as many offers as would have
+filled a moderate-sized bonnet-boxy and sent word back that she was
+"o'er young to marry yet," in answer to the application of the English
+sovereign. She was, however, advised that it would be a capital thing
+for the two countries, if she would consent to the match; and as it is
+one of the penalties of royalty to wed for patriotism instead of from
+choice, she was soon persuaded to agree to the union.
+
+Such instances of devotion are, however, only found among royal
+families; for we doubt whether a fair Jemima Jenkins, or a bewitching
+Beatina Brown, would consent to become the wife of young Johnson in an
+adjacent street, for the sake of healing a parochial feud, or curing the
+heartburn of an entire neighbourhood.
+
+The marriage between Maud and Henry was very nearly being prevented by
+a report that the young lady had formerly been a nun; but it was proved
+that her aunt had been in the habit of throwing over her head something
+in the shape of a veil or a pinafore, to prevent the Normans from
+staring at her when she went out walking. Miss Matilda had the candour
+to acknowledge that she always took off the unbecoming covering directly
+she got a little way from home, and it is evident she was not unwilling
+to have a sly peep at the Normans, when her aunt was not watching her.
+Her marriage was celebrated on the 11th of November; but Anselm, the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, who officiated, came out of the Abbey before
+the ceremony, and in order to answer all false reports, stuck an
+enormous poster on the door, intimating that Maud was "No Nun," in
+tremendous capitals.
+
+Henry also obtained some popularity by expelling all the improper
+characters that his brother had patronised; but it does not seem that
+they were replaced by persons of a much more reputable order. Henry,
+however, affecting the estimable qualities of a new broom, began by
+sweeping clean, and scavenged the court of all his brother's minions.
+Ralph le Flambard, the late king's tax-gatherer, was sent to the Tower,
+where he became one of the lions of the place, and by his wit captivated
+the keepers who were charged with his captivity. Henry on being urged to
+get rid of him, happened to say accidentally, "No, no, give the fellow
+sufficient rope and he will hang himself," upon which one of the
+courtiers taking his majesty at his word, sent an enormous quantity of
+stout cord to the prisoner. Flambard having reduced the guards to the
+state in which tipplers wish to be who love their bottles, took the
+rope, and hanging himself by the waist, lowered himself into the moat
+beneath, from which he escaped to Normandy.
+
+Robert Curt-hose, who had turned crusader a year or two before, came
+back (a.d. 1101) with a perfect shrubbery of laurels from Palestine. The
+Normans, delighted at seeing their chief smothered in the evergreens of
+glory, were easily persuaded to join him in an attack upon England. The
+followers of Curt-hose, however, soon began to waver, and after having
+received several terrific stripes, their leader agreed to take 3000
+marks, by way of annuity, as a compromise for all his claims upon
+England. Robert was true to his part of the engagement, but Henry,
+under various pretexts, soon discontinued his payments to Socks, who
+nevertheless lived in a style of great extravagance. He filled his
+court with bad characters, who not only emptied his pockets, but sold or
+pawned his clothes; and he is represented as often lying in bed for
+want of the necessary articles of attire to enable him to get up to
+breakfast. With the crown on his toilet table, and the regal robe
+hanging across the back of a chair--for these insignia of royalty were
+always left to him--he was still without the minor but indispensable
+articles of dress; and he often observed to his minister, "I can't
+very well go about with nothing on but that scanty robe and that hollow
+bauble." We can imagine him being reduced to the necessity of offering
+to pledge his crown, and being met by the depreciatory observation,
+"that the article was second-hand, had been a good deal worn, and seemed
+very much tarnished."
+
+[Illustration: 105]
+
+At length, in the year 1105, Henry, taking advantage of Robert's reduced
+circumstances, made an attack upon Normandy. The troops of Curt-hose
+were ill-paid, ill-clad, ill-conditioned, and ill-tempered. In vain
+did Curt-hose attempt to rally them; for they only rallied him on
+his poverty, and many of them deserted, leaving him to fight his own
+battles. His personal valour served him for a short time; he struck out
+right and left with enormous vigour, but his almost solitary efforts
+became at length absolutely absurd, and he was ultimately "removed in
+custody." He was subsequently committed to Cardiff Castle, where he died,
+in the year 1134, at the advanced age of nearly eighty; and it was said
+by a wag of the day, that Curt-hose had such a facility of running into
+debt that he ran up four scores with Time before the debt of Nature was
+satisfied.
+
+Henry was now master of Normandy, whither he on one occasion took his
+son and heir, William, a lad of eighteen, to receive the homage of the
+barons. This was an idle ceremony, for the barons seldom kept their
+words; and homage, or hummage, was frequently a mere hum on the part
+of those who promised it. The English king was about returning from the
+port of Barfleur, when Thomas Fitz-Stephen, a sailor, originated the
+disgraceful touting system, by thrusting his card into Henry's hands,
+and offering to take the royal party over cheap, in a well-appointed
+vessel. His majesty replied, "I have already taken my own passage in
+another ship, but the prince and his suite have to be conveyed, and
+I shall be happy to hear what you will undertake it for, per head,
+provisions, of course, included." The terms were soon arranged, and the
+dangerous practice of overcrowding having, even at that time, prevailed
+among mercenary speculators, three hundred people were packed into a
+craft which might have comfortably accommodated about twenty. The prince
+and his gay companions insisted on having a party on board the night
+previous to starting, and the crew, as well as the captain, were more
+than half-seas-over before they started from the shore of Normandy.
+Fitz-Stephen was in such a state at the wheel, that it seemed to him
+continually turning round, and the men employed in looking-out thought
+the _Bas de Catte_--a well-known rock--had been doubled, when in fact
+the vessel was driving rapidly on to it. This recklessness soon led to a
+wreck, and the sole survivor was one Berold, a butcher of Rouen, who
+has reported the catastrophe with so much accurate minuteness as to
+have deserved, though he never got it until now, the proud title of the
+father of the penny-a-liners. When Henry heard the news he fainted away,
+and never "smiled as he was wont to smile" from that day to the present.
+Being deprived of his only legitimate son, he became anxious to secure
+the throne to his daughter, the widow Maud, or Matilda, relict of the
+Emperor Henry the Fifth; and on Christmas-day, 1126, the bishops, abbots
+and barons were assembled at Windsor Castle to swear to maintain her
+succession. These parties--the respectable families that "came in with
+the Conqueror"--were all guilty of the grossest perjury; which, a few
+years ago, would have rendered them all liable to the pillory, and would
+in the present day expose them to serious punishment. A quarrel arose
+between Stephen, Earl of Boulogne, the king's legitimate nephew, and
+Robert, Earl of Gloucester, his illegitimate son, as to which was
+entitled to swear first; the real object being to decide which, upon
+breaking their oaths as they both fully intended to do--would take
+precedence as the successor of Henry. After a good deal of desultory
+discussion, a division settled the point in the nephew's favour. Anxious
+to see his daughter settled in life, Henry got her married, rather
+against her will, to Geoffrey, Earl of Anjou; who, from an odd custom
+he had of wearing a piece of broom in his cap, instead of a feather,
+acquired the nickname of Plantagenet. The marriage was celebrated at
+Rouen, and Henry issued a proclamation ordering everybody to be merry.
+Long faces were thus entirely prohibited, there was a penalty on black
+looks, and persons unable to laugh on the right side of their mouths
+were made to laugh upon the other.
+
+Some anxiety was, however, occasioned to Henry by the existence of his
+nephew, William Fitz-Robert, the son of Curt-hose, who had pretensions
+to the throne through Matilda, his grandmother, which of course gave him
+a claim on the friendship of the house of Baldwin, between whom and the
+grandmother there was a close relationship. The apprehensions of Henry
+were aroused by William Fitz-Henry being made Earl of Flanders, but the
+young man was unfortunately killed by receiving a poke from a pike; and
+though the wound was only in the finger, it grew worse from being placed
+in the hands of ignorant practitioners. Finding it did not get better,
+he observed that it was "really very mortifying," and so it was, for
+mortification ensued almost immediately. He died at St. Omer, on the
+27th of July, 1128, in the twenty-sixth year of his age; and if his
+epitaph had been written, it would have run thus:
+
+     "Here lies a young prince, whose life was cut short
+     By medical quacks overturning the sand of it;
+     His finger was wounded, but who could have thought
+     The doctors would make such a very bad hand of it?"
+
+Henry's latter days were employed in listening to the quarrels of his
+his daughter, Matilda, and her husband, who were never out of pickles,
+by reason of their family jars, which were very numerous. The king
+had resided four years abroad, and had been hunting, on the 25th of
+November, for the purpose of chasing sorrow as well as the game, when,
+on his return home, he insisted on eating a lamprey, against the orders
+of his physicians. The king did not agree with the doctors, and the
+lamprey did not agree with the king, who died on the 1st of December,
+1135, at the age of sixty-seven.
+
+Henry's chief merit was his love of learning, which had got him the name
+of Beau-clerc, or the pretty scholar. He loved the society of men of
+letters, and of wild beasts; but the literary lions were, perhaps, his
+greatest favourites. He nevertheless desired that these lions should
+only roar in his praise; for he punished Luke de Barre, a poet, very
+severely for having written some satirical verses, in which the king was
+made a laughing-stock. The poet, according to Orderic, burst from the
+executioners and dashed out his brains, which had been the cause of
+giving offence to his sovereign.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FOURTH. STEPHEN.
+
+If the oaths of the bishops and barons had been worth even the ink
+expended in alluding to them, there might have been some chance
+of Matilda coming quietly to the throne on the death of Henry. The
+Anglo-Normans, however, had as little respect for truth as for property,
+and were even destitute of the humbler virtue of gallantry towards the
+fair, for they began to clamour loudly against the notion of a woman
+reigning over them.
+
+Stephen, the late king's nephew, and Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the
+illegitimate son of Henry, were the two favourites in the race for the
+throne; but the betting was at least ten to one upon the former,
+in consequence of his having married Maud, the daughter and heir of
+Eustace, Count of Boulogne.
+
+On the arrival of Stephen in England, he made at once for the treasury,
+which he cleared completely out, and he devoted the proceeds to
+purchasing the fidelity, or rather the mercenary adherence, of the
+barons, prelates, and people. Having bribed a sufficiently numerous
+party, he procured a decent attendance at his coronation, which took
+place on St. Stephen's day, December 22, 1135, at Westminster. He sent
+a good round sum to the pope, Innocent the Second, whose innocence seems
+to have been chiefly nominal, for he was guilty of accepting a bribe to
+give a testimonial in favour of Stephen's title. As long as the
+money lasted the barons were tolerably faithful; but "no plunder no
+allegiance" was the ordinary motto of the founders of those families
+whose present representatives trace themselves up, or rather bring
+themselves down, to the days of the Conquest.
+
+The Norman nobles complained that their perjury had not had its
+price, and began seizing various castles belonging to Stephen, who,
+by purchasing the services of other mercenaries, got his property back
+again. At length, however, a coalition was effected between Robert, Earl
+of Gloucester, and Matilda, his half-sister, who landed in England on
+the 1st of September, 1139, with a retinue of one hundred and forty
+knights, an empty purse, and very little credit. Several Normans ran to
+meet Matilda on her arrival; but these high-minded founders of our very
+first families, hearing that there was no cash, returned to the side of
+Stephen.
+
+Matilda went on a visit to the Queen Dowager, Adelais, or Alice, at
+Arundel Castle, which was besieged by the king, who, however, respected
+the property on account of its owner, and sent Matilda in safety to join
+her half-brother Robert, at Bristol, whither he had gone with twelve
+followers in search of Bristol board--and lodging. Stephen, having
+exhausted the materials for making the golden links which had hitherto
+bound the Normans to his side, found them rapidly adhering to Matilda,
+whose expectations were not bad, though her present means were limited.
+
+On the 2nd of February, 1141, the king was besieging Lincoln when the
+whole of his cavalry wheeled round to the side of the enemy. Relying on
+his infantry, he put himself at their head, but treachery was on foot as
+well as on horseback. He nevertheless fought desperately, breaking
+his sword and battle-axe over the backs of his foes, till he was left
+fighting with the hilt of one weapon and the handle of the other.
+Having lost the use of his arms, he was surrounded by the enemy, but he
+continued alive and kicking till the last, when he was taken prisoner.
+He was cruelly thrown into a dungeon at Bristol, and in order that his
+muscular activity might be checked, he was loaded with irons. He still
+retained his cheerfulness, and may probably have been the original
+composer of the celebrated "hornpipe in fetters," which is occasionally
+danced by dramatic prisoners.
+
+[Illustration: 109]
+
+Matilda now scraped together all the money she could, to purchase that
+very marketable commodity, the allegiance of the Norman nobles and
+prelates. Among the latter was Stephen's own brother, the Bishop of
+Winchester, who renounced his unfortunate relative, swore fidelity to
+Matilda, cursed all her enemies, and, as the price of all this swearing
+and cursing, received a large amount of church patronage. Not only did
+he crown his new mistress at Winchester, but he crowned his own baseness
+by a slashing speech against his own brother, winding up with a fulsome
+puff for the new queen, whom he hailed as "the sovereign lady of England
+and Normandy." Matilda was by no means successful in handling the
+sceptre, which required a stronger arm and more dexterity than she was
+mistress of. The Londoners, in particular, showed symptoms of revolt,
+and the Bishop of Winchester having got all he could from the queen,
+turned round once more in favour of his brother. This episcopal
+roundabout was the first to set the example, so frequently followed
+in the present day, of blocking up the city; and it is an odd fact that
+paving was his pretext, for he stopped up the London thoroughfares in
+order to pave the way for the return of his brother to power.
+
+[Illustration: 110]
+
+Matilda, who was in town--probably for the season--contrived to make her
+escape by the western suburb, with a small retinue. Some of her knights
+quitted her at the bridge which still retains their name; an earl or two
+followed her as far as Earl's Court; some turned off at Turaham Green;
+but by the time she had reached the little Wick of Chis, her party had
+dwindled down into absolute insignificance. Her brother Robert was taken
+prisoner, and Stephen being also in captivity, the two parties were
+brought to a deadlock for want of leaders. By negotiating a sort of
+Bill of Exchange, Robert was released, and Stephen was paid over, in the
+shape of "value received," to his own party.
+
+The Bishop of Winchester, who appears to have been an exceedingly
+plausible mob orator, now made another speech, in which he showed a
+wonderful amount of face by regularly turning his back upon himself, and
+unsaying all that he had said in favour of Maud, and against his brother
+on a former occasion. He swore and cursed as before, merely altering
+the name of the objects of his oaths and execrations, for he now swore
+allegiance to his brother instead of to Maud, and cursed the former's,
+instead of the latter's enemies.
+
+Stephen was accordingly raised, by the crane of circumstances, from the
+depth of his dungeon, and lifted on to his throne; but he found a new
+rival in the person of Matilda's son, Prince Henry, so that he had now
+a woman and a boy, instead of a mere woman to fight against. Henry, in
+a spirit of calculation far beyond his years, married Eleanor, the
+divorced wife of Louis the Seventh; but it was only for the sake of her
+money, which he expended in getting together an army for an attack upon
+England. The opposing forces met, but having already received their pay,
+they evinced a disposition to shirk their duty, and--like gentlemen of
+the bar, who having got their fees, propose that the matter should be
+referred to arbitration--the soldiers of Stephen and Henry recommended a
+quiet compromise.
+
+Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Stephen, Bishop of Winchester,
+were appointed referees, and it was agreed that Stephen should wear
+the crown with remainder over to Henry. A good deal of homage was
+interchanged, for Henry swore fealty to Stephen, and the son of the
+latter swore ditto to Henry. The king in fact cut off his own tail for
+the benefit of his former enemy, and Henry took a kind of _post obit_
+as a consideration for his not pressing his claims to abbots, also
+exchanged affidavits, and swore in direct opposition to what they had
+sworn before, making altogether a mass of perjury that would have kept
+the Central Criminal Court occupied for half-a-dozen entire sessions.
+Stephen, however, died at Dover, on the 25th of October, 1154, so that
+he did not live long under the new arrangement.
+
+The historian often finds himself awkwardly situated when called upon
+to give a character to a king, and there being a natural objection to
+written characters, the difficulty is greater on that account. It maybe
+said for Stephen, that he was sober and industrious, tolerably
+honest, not addicted to gluttony, or given to drink like many of his
+predecessors, and of course, therefore not so much accustomed to wait
+at table. He had a pleasing manner, and a good address, except while
+confined in prison, when his address was none of the pleasantest. On the
+whole, when we look at him as the paid servant of the public, we think
+him ill adapted for a steward, since England was always in confusion
+while under his care; and as a coachman he was even worse, for he was
+quite unfitted to hold the reins of power.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIFTH. HENRY THE SECOND, SURNAMED PLANTAGENET.
+
+
+[Illustration: 111]
+
+HENRY, who was amusing himself with besieging a castle in Normandy
+when he heard of Stephen's death, soon repaired to England with his
+middle-aged wife, Eleanor. They were crowned on the 19th of December,
+1154; but he had no sooner got the crown on his head, than he went
+to business, and commenced a series of sweeping reforms. Finding the
+coinage reduced to a state of almost unutterable baseness, he issued a
+good supply of new money, and thus gave a fearful smash to the smashers.
+He drove out a quantity of foreign scamps, who had been made earls and
+barons in the reign of Stephen. After having enjoyed the fee-simple
+of castles and estates, they were sent back to take possession of the
+plough in tail, and to till as serfs the earth's surface. Finding the
+royal income very much reduced, Henry restored it by taking back what
+his predecessors had given away; an operation he performed with so much
+impartiality, that he deprived his friends and his foes indiscriminately
+of all their possessions.
+
+[Illustration: 113]
+
+The policy of Henry the Second, on coming to the throne, seems to have
+differed from that of most of his predecessors; for while they had
+usually bought the allegiance of all the knaves and rogues about the
+court, he preferred the less costly process of rendering them perfectly
+powerless. He demolished many of the castles which had been erected by
+the barons, as fences rather than defences, for they were little better
+than receptacles for stolen property. Nor was he less vigorous in his
+measures against the clergy, for, like a skilful chess-player, he felt
+that it is better for the king that the bishops and the castles should
+be got out of the way when they are likely to prove troublesome. So far,
+therefore, from encouraging the exactions of the priesthood, he seems to
+have kept a supply of industrious fleas, for the purpose of putting
+one now and then into the ear of such of the clergy as came to make
+unreasonable requests to him. It is said that, on one occasion, the
+prior and monks of St. Swithin's threw themselves prostrate before the
+king imploring his protection against the Bishop of Winchester, who had
+cut off three meals a day from the ravenous fraternity. Henry perceiving
+that the monks were in tolerable condition, inquired how many meals were
+still left to them. "Only ten!" roared the prior, in recitative, while
+the rest of the party took up the words in dismal chorus.
+
+How they could have contrived to demolish thirteen meals a day is an
+enigma to us; but the fact is a wondrous proof of monkish ingenuity. In
+the days of ignorance all classes were prepared, no doubt, to swallow a
+great deal, but thirteen meals must have required a power of digestion
+and a force of appetite that throw into the shade even the aldermanic
+attainments of a more civilised period. Henry, who took nothing but his
+breakfast, dinner, and tea, was shocked and startled by the awful avowal
+of gluttony on the part of the monks of St. Swithin, whom he placed at
+once on a diet similar to his own, by reducing them to three meals _per
+diem_. It is probable that the monks crammed into three repasts the
+quantity they had consumed in thirteen, and thus eluded the force of the
+royal order.
+
+By a rigorous determination to "stand no nonsense," either with the
+clergy or the nobles, and by ordering the Flemish mercenaries of the
+army to the "right about," Henry seemed to commence his reign under very
+encouraging auspices.
+
+Not content with his successes at home, he sought to increase his
+influence abroad by taking Nantes, and he sent Thomas a Becket to Paris
+to bamboozle the French court, lest his encroachments should excite
+jealousy in that quarter, Thomas a Becket was the son of Mr. Gilbert
+a Becket, a respectable tradesman of the city of London; and as his
+appears to be the first mercantile name on record, we are justified
+in calling him the Father of British Commerce. The chronicles of the
+Times--and we are justified in relying on the united evidence of the
+_Times_ and _Chronicle_--relate that Gilbert a Becket, in the way of
+business, followed the army to Palestine. What his business could have
+been we are unable to guess, but as it took him to the camp, he may
+perhaps have been a dealer in camp stools, or tent bedsteads. Mr.
+Gilbert a Becket unfortunately became a prisoner, and being sold to
+a rich Mussulman, fell in love with a young Mussul girl, his master's
+daughter. The affection was mutual, and the child of the Mussulman
+strained every muscle, or, at all events, every nerve to effect the
+escape of Gilbert a Becket, who, in the hurry of his departure, forgot
+to take the lady away with him. It is not unlikely that he had got
+half-way to London before he missed the faithful girl, and it would
+then have been the height of imprudence to return for the purpose of
+repairing the oversight. His _inamorata_ made the best of her way
+after him, and arriving in London, ran about the streets, exclaiming,
+"Gilbert! Gilbert!" thus acting as her own crier, instead of putting the
+matter into the hands of the regular bellman.
+
+The fact of a young woman continually traversing the great metropolis
+with Gilbert in her mouth, soon reached the ears of Mr. a Becket, who
+found the female in distress and his own Saracen maid to be the same
+individual. One of those frantic recognitions occurred, in which a rapid
+dialogue of "No!" "Yes!" "It can't be!" "It is!" "My long-lost Sara--!"
+"My Gil--!" is spasmodically were through, and the couple having rushed
+into each other's arms, gone soon bound together by that firmest of
+locks familiarly known as wedlock. The fruit of their union was the
+celebrated Thomas, of whose career we are enabled from peculiar sources
+to furnish some interesting particulars.
+
+Gilbert was determined to give his boy Tom a good education, and sent
+him to school at Merton Abbey, where a limited number of young
+gentlemen from three to eight were lodged, boarded, and birched--when
+necessary--at a moderate stipend. Young Tom was removed from Merton to a
+classical and commercial academy in London, which he quitted for Oxford,
+and he was ultimately sent to Paris to undergo the process of French
+polishing. While yet a young man, he got a situation in the office
+of the sheriff, and became, of course, a sheriff's officer; in which
+capacity he arrested, among other things, the attention of Theobald,
+Archbishop of Canterbury. His patron took young a Becket from the _ad
+captandum_ pursuits in which he had been engaged, put him into the
+Church, gave him rapid preferment, and introduced him to the parties at
+the palace, which had, in those days, sufficient accommodation for the
+family and friends of royalty. Mr. a Becket became chancellor of the
+kingdom, though he never held a brief, or had even been called to the
+bar; and he was appointed tutor to the Royal Family, in which office he
+no doubt had the assistance of the Usher of the Black Rod. Of course,
+with his multiplicity of offices and occupations, it may be presumed
+that Mr. a Becket made a very excellent thing of it. His house was a
+palace, he drank nothing but the best wine, employed none but the best
+tailors, and when he went to Paris he took four-and-twenty changes of
+apparel--which may, perhaps, have been after all nothing more than two
+dozen shirts--so that he had a different costume for every hour of the
+day. In his progress through France he was preceded by two hundred and
+fifty boys, or charity children, singing national songs. These were
+followed by his dogs, in couples, who no doubt gave tongue, and made a
+sort of barking accompaniment to the music that went before.
+
+Eight waggons came next, carrying his clothes and his crockery, his
+cooking apparatus, his bed and bedding, and his suite; when after a
+few led horses, some knights with their esquires, and some monkeys _a
+cheval_ with a groom behind, on his knees, came a Becket himself and
+his familiar friends. * His entry into a town was more like that of an
+equestrian troop about to establish a circus than that of the Chancellor
+of England travelling in his master's behalf. He lived on terms of the
+closest intimacy with the king, who made him Archbishop of Canterbury,
+but not until thirteen months after the death of Theobald the First, for
+Henry always kept a good appointment open as long as he could, that he
+might put the revenues into his own pocket.
+
+     * _Vide_ Fitz-Stephen, Secretary and Biographer of Thomas a
+     Becket.
+
+From the time of his promotion to the see of Canterbury, a Becket became
+an altered man. He cut his gay companions, discharged his _chef de
+cuisine_, discontinued his dealings with his West-End tailor, and took
+to a kind of cheap blouse made of the coarsest sackcloth. He abandoned
+his sumptuous mode of living and drank water made unsavoury by herbs,
+victimising himself probably with cups of camomile tea, and copious
+doses of senna. But the most serious change in a Becket's conduct, was
+his altered behaviour to the king, whom he had previously backed in all
+his attacks on the Church revenues. The new archbishop stood up for
+all the privileges of the clergy, and a difference of opinion between
+a Becket and the king, as to the right to try a delinquent clergyman
+in the civil courts, led to the summoning of a council of nobles and
+prelates (a.d. 1164) at Clarendon. Some rules were drawn up, called the
+"Constitutions of Clarendon," which a Becket reluctantly agreed to sign;
+but Pope Alexander having rejected them, the archbishop withdrew his
+name from the list of subscribers.
+
+[Illustration: 115]
+
+Finding the vengeance of the king likely to prove too much for him, a
+Becket quitted the kingdom, and was very hospitably entertained during
+his stay on the Continent.
+
+After an absence of about seven years, he returned in consequence of the
+king of France and others having persuaded Henry to make it up, though
+the reconciliation was never very cordial. Though a Becket was received
+with shouts of approbation by the mob, he was greeted, on his arrival,
+with menacing signs and abusive language from the aristocracy.
+
+There was a strong party against him at court, and one evening, at about
+tea-time, Henry and a few nobles were sitting round the palace fire,
+gossiping over the subject of a Becket's awful insolence. The king burst
+into a furious diatribe, stigmatising the archbishop as a beggar, and
+winding up with the suggestive observation that, "Not one of the cowards
+I nourish at my table--not one will deliver me from this turbulent
+priest." Four knights who were present took the royal hint, and gave
+the archbishop a call at his house in Canterbury, where having seated
+themselves unceremoniously on the floor, they got to high words very
+speedily. The archbishop refused to yield to low abuse, and went in
+the evening to vespers as usual. The feelings of the historian will not
+allow him to dwell much upon the _denouement_ of the drama in which a
+Becket had played the principal character. Suffice it to say, he
+was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by four assassins, of whom
+Fitzurse--the son of a bear--was one, and Mireville, a name suggestive
+of mire and villainy was another. The two remaining butchers were
+Britto, of Saxon descent, a low fellow, familiarly termed the Brick, and
+Tracey, who is not worth the trouble of tracing.
+
+When Henry heard of this dreadful deed, he went without his dinner for
+three days, during which period he shut himself up in his own room, and
+refused to be "at home" to anyone.
+
+By way of diverting his melancholy, he determined on joining in an
+Irish row, and finding the chiefs of the five principalities into which
+Ireland was divided at cross purposes, he espoused the cause of Dermot
+Mc Murrough, who seems to have been what the Milesians would term the
+"biggest blackguard" amongst them. Henry gave him a letter authorising
+him to employ any of the subjects of England that happened to be
+disengaged; and three ruined barons, with damaged reputations, chancing
+to be out of work in the neighbourhood of Bristol, were offered terms
+by Dermot. This precious trio consisted of two brothers, named Robert
+Fitz-Stephen and Maurice Fitz-Gerald, and Richard de Clare, Earl of
+Pembroke, surnamed Strongbow, though, as he was greatly addicted to
+falsehood, Longbow would have been a more appropriate name for him.
+
+After talking the matter over for some time without any arrangement
+being come to, Strongbow cut the matter short by exclaiming, "I'll tell
+you what it is. If I'm to fight for your kingdom, I must have it myself
+when you have done with it. You must make me your heir, and, as a
+security that you will perform your part of the agreement, I must marry
+your daughter." Dermot, though rather taken aback by this proposal,
+invited Strongbow to a quiet chop, over which the latter's terms were
+acceded to; and the ruined baron, feeling that it was "neck or nothing"
+with him, succeeded in making it "neck" by the ardour with which he
+entered into the contest. Though he set to work in the spring of the
+year, his vengeance was truly summary, and in a few months he had
+restored everything to Dermot, who happened conveniently to die, and
+Strongbow came in for all that he had been fighting for.
+
+Henry having become jealous, Strongbow thought it good policy not to
+overshoot the mark, and came to England to offer allegiance. The king at
+first refused to see him, and on calling at Newnham, in Gloucestershire,
+where Henry was staying, he was kept for some time eating humble-pie
+in the passage with the hall-porter. Strongbow having been sufficiently
+bent by this treatment, was at length asked to step up, and it was
+arranged that he should accompany the king to Ireland, surrender his
+possessions, and consent to hold them as the vassal of the English
+sovereign.
+
+On his return to England, Henry, who had four sons, began to find "the
+boys" exceedingly troublesome. Their mother, once the middleaged, but
+now the ancient Eleanor, had grown cross as well as venerable; and being
+exceedingly jealous of her husband, encouraged his own sons to worry
+him. Her jealousy had become a perfect nuisance; and jealousy is
+unfortunately one of those nuisances which never get abated.
+
+A story is told of a certain Fair Rosamond; and, though there is no
+doubt of its being a story from beginning to end, it is impossible to
+pass it over in an English History. Henry, it is alleged, was enamoured
+of a certain Miss Clifford--if she can be called a certain Miss
+Clifford, who was really a very doubtful character. She had been the
+daughter of a baron on the banks of the Wye, when, without a why or
+a wherefore, the king took her away, and transplanted the Flower of
+Hereford, as she well deserved to be called, to the Bower of Woodstock.
+In this Bower he constructed a labyrinth, something like the maze at
+Rosherville; and as there was no man stationed on an elevation in the
+centre to direct the sovereign with a pole which way to go, nor exclaim,
+
+"Right, if you please!"
+
+"Straight on!"
+
+"You're right now, sir!"
+
+"Left!"
+
+"Right again!" etc. etc., his majesty had adopted the plan of dragging
+one of Rosamond's reels of silk along with him when he left the spot, so
+that it formed a guide to him on his way back again.
+
+This tale of the silk is indeed a most precious piece of entanglement;
+but it was perhaps necessary for the winding up of the story. While we
+cannot receive it as part of the thread of history, we accept it as
+a means of accounting for Eleanor having got a clue to the retreat of
+Rosamond.
+
+The queen, hearing of the silk, resolved naturally enough to unravel
+it. She accordingly started for Woodstock one afternoon, and, suspecting
+something wrong, took a large bowl of poison in one hand, and a stout
+dagger in the other. Having found Fair Rosamond, she held the poignard
+to the heart, and the bowl to the lips of that unfortunate young person,
+who, it is said, preferred the black draught to the steel medicine.
+
+[Illustration; 117]
+
+That such a person as Fair Rosamond existed is perfectly true, for she
+was buried at Godstow, near Oxford. The sensitive heart, which is ever
+anxious to inundate the page of sorrow with a regular Niagara of tears,
+is however earnestly requested to turn off the rising supply from the
+main of pity, for it is agreed on all hands that the death of Rosamond
+was perfectly natural. It has been convenient for the ro-mancists to cut
+short her existence by drowning it in the bowl; but truth compels us to
+add, that there is no ground for such a conclusion.
+
+Henry devoted the remainder of his life to quarrelling, first with one
+of his children, then the other, and every now and then with all of
+them. He fully intended to divide his possessions among them; but they
+most unreasonably required to be let into possession before the death
+of the governor. The eldest ran away to France, and Eleanor had actually
+put on male attire, with the intention of abandoning Henry, when,
+unfortunately for him, he was silly enough to have her imprisoned
+for the purpose of stopping her. "Why didn't you let her go?" was
+the frequent exclamation of his intimate friends to the king, and a
+melancholy "Ha! I wish I had," was the only reply he was able to make
+them.
+
+Finding himself threatened on all sides, and when he had exhausted every
+other expedient, he resolved on trying what penitence could do for
+him. His conscience no doubt often reminded him of the murder of poor
+a Becket, to whose shrine the king determined on making a pilgrimage.
+Purchasing some split peas, he put about a pint in each of his
+stockings, and started for Canterbury, where he threw himself madly upon
+a Becket's tomb, sobbing, yelling and shrieking in the most pitiable
+manner. Nor was this enough, for he threw off his robe, and insisted
+on receiving the lash from about eighty ecclesiastics. Though they
+administered the punishment so lightly that the cat caused only a few
+scratches, the peculiar circumstances attending it cause it to stand out
+in history as _par excellence_ "the great flogging case."
+
+The ecclesiastical authorities at Canterbury taking advantage of Henry's
+softened heart, which seems to have been accompanied by a sad softness
+of head, succeeded in extracting from him a promissory note to pay forty
+pounds a year for keeping lights constantly burning on the tomb of a
+Becket. There can be no doubt that the contract for lighting was taken
+cheaply enough by some tradesman of the town, and that the surplus went
+into the clerical coffers. Posterity regards with disgust the effrontery
+of the monks in making--for the sake of a few dips--such an enormous dip
+into the purse of the sovereign.
+
+From this time affairs began to mend; and it would seem that the
+whipping his majesty had suffered had whipped his misfortunes completely
+out of him. If the king had been an old carpet the beating he received
+could not have proved more beneficial than it did, for it seemed to
+revive the brighter colours of his existence. He employed the peace he
+now enjoyed in carrying out some political reforms, divided England into
+six circuits, so that Justice might be brought home to every man's door;
+though, like everything else that is brought home to one's door, it must
+be paid for--sometimes after a little credit, but sometimes on delivery.
+He abolished the criminal tariff, by which it had been allowable for the
+rich to commute their offences, according to a certain scale of charges.
+Family quarrels unfortunately called him away from these wholesome
+pursuits, and his eldest son died of a fever brought on in consequence
+of a disagreement with his younger brother, Richard. Prince Henry
+expired on the 11th of June, 1183, in the twenty-seventh year of his
+age. Such was his remorse, that, according to Roger Hoveden, he insisted
+on his attendants tying a rope to his foot and taking him in tow, until
+they dragged him out of his bed, in order to deposit him on a bed of
+ashes. This particular desire to die in a dusthole was accompanied by a
+request for a reconciliation with his father, who sent a ring as a token
+of forgiveness, with a message that he hoped the invalid might come,
+like the ring, completely round.
+
+On the death of their elder brother, Richard and Geoffrey still
+continued to show fight against their father; who at length got so much
+the worst of it, that he was obliged to make the best of it by coming
+to a compromise. By one of the conditions he was to pardon all the
+insurgent barons, and having called for a list of them, found at the
+bottom of it the name of his favourite son John. This was too much for
+the persecuted parent, who flew into a furious passion, which he vented
+in the customary manner of royalty at that period, by pouring out a
+volley of execrations with frightful fluency. He jumped on to his bed,
+and, falling back upon it, turned round to the wall, exclaiming "Now
+then, let everything go---- as it will." Several ministers, priests,
+bishops, prelates, and barons were in attendance, under pretence of
+receiving his last sigh, but really with the intention of robbing him
+of his last shilling, for they rifled his pockets directly life was
+extinct.
+
+The reign of Henry, though not very comfortable to himself, was
+undoubtedly beneficial to his country. He introduced many improvements
+into the law, and was the first to levy a tax on the goods of nobles as
+well as commoners, for the service of the state. He died at the Castle
+of Chinon, near Saumur, on the 6th of July, 1189, in the fifty-sixth
+year of his age. He left behind him a good name, which those who stole
+his purse were fortunately not able to filch from him. His wife caused
+all the quarrels in his family, showing that a firebrand may grow out of
+a very bad match. Eleanor was indeed a female Lucifer, lighting up
+the flame of discord between parent and children, until death gave her
+husband the benefit of a divorce.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SIXTH. RICHARD THE FIRST, SURNAMED COUR DE LION.
+
+
+[Illustration: 120]
+
+RICHARD having secured the crown began to look after the cash, and
+pounced upon an unhappy old man named Stephen, of Tours, who had acted
+as treasurer to Henry the Second. The new king, not satisfied with
+cashiering the cashier, arrested him and threw him into prison, until
+he had given up not only all the late king's money, but had parted with
+every penny of his own, which was extracted in the shape of costs from
+the unfortunate victim.
+
+Richard, on arriving in England, made for Winchester, where the
+sovereigns were in the habit of keeping their plate and jewels, all of
+which were turned at once into ready money in order to enable him to
+carry on the war, which he was very anxious to do, as a crusader in
+Palestine. It would seem that the treasury was regularly emptied at
+the commencement of every new reign, and filled again as speedily as
+possible by exactions on the people.
+
+The coronation of Richard, which took place on the 3rd of September,
+1189, was disgraced by an attack upon the Jews, who came to offer
+presents, which were eagerly received; but the donors were kicked out of
+Westminster Hall with the most ruthless violence. Nearly all the Jews in
+London were savagely murdered, all their houses were burnt and all their
+property stolen; when Richard issued a proclamation, in which he stated
+that he took them under his gracious protection: an act which would
+have been more gracious if it had come before instead of after the
+extermination of the ill-used Israelites.
+
+How to go to Palestine was, however, the king's sole care; and to raise
+the funds for this trip he sold everything he possessed, as well as a
+great deal that rightfully belonged to others. He put up towns, castles,
+and fortresses to public auction, knocking down not only the property
+itself but those also who offered any remonstrance, or put in any claim
+to the goods he was disposing of. Such was his determination to clear
+off everything without reserve, that he swore he would put up London
+itself if he could find a bidder--an assertion that was very likely to
+put up the citizens.
+
+Some of the castles he sold two or three times over, leaving the
+purchasers to settle among themselves which should be the possessor
+of the property that had been paid for by every one of them. It is
+not unlikely that he caused glowing advertisements to be prepared, of
+"Little Paradises," standing "in their own fortifications;" and that he
+would have described a dead wall with a moat before it as "Elysium on a
+small scale," entrenched behind its own battlements. There can be little
+doubt that he would also have dilated in glowing terms upon the wealth
+of the neighbourhood offering unlimited pillage to an enterprising
+purchaser.
+
+Richard's presence-chamber was, according to Sir Francis Palgrave, a
+regular market-overt, in which prerogatives and bounties were to be
+purchased by any one coming with the money to pay for them. We can fancy
+a table laid out with a number of patents of nobility, labelled with a
+large ticket, announcing, "All these titles at an enormous sacrifice."
+We can imagine a row of velvet robes and coronets hanging up under a
+placard inscribed "Dukedoms at a considerable reduction;" while we can
+contemplate a quantity of knights' helmets lying in the window, marked
+at a very low figure, after the manner of the five thousand straw
+bonnets offered to the public by some dashing haberdasher at the
+commencement of the spring season.
+
+Richard even went so far as to announce the stock of vacant bishoprics
+as "selling off;" and it is not improbable that he may have caused
+tasteful arrangements of mitres and lawn sleeves to be arranged in
+different parts of the presence-chamber, to tempt the ambition of
+ecclesiastical purchasers. He likewise sold his own good-will for
+three thousand marks to his half-brother Geoffrey, who had been elected
+Archbishop of York; and wherever there was a penny to be turned, Richard
+had the knack of turning it.
+
+Having left the regency in the hands of one Hugh Pudsey, the king
+repaired to France to meet Philip, who was to be his companion to
+Palestine. Their united forces amounted to a hundred thousand men;
+but Richard and Philip did not travel together farther than Lyons, and
+indeed it was as well they did not, for they were almost continually
+quarrelling. Numerous adventures befel Richard on his way; but the most
+awkward was his being dunned by the cardinal bishop of Ostia--where he
+had put in to repair--for a debt due to the see of Rome, on account of
+bulls and other papal articles.
+
+Cour de Lion, instead of discharging the bill, abused and ill-treated
+the applicant, and made the best of his way to Naples, before there
+was time for ulterior proceedings. He went thence to Sicily, where his
+quarrel with Philip was renewed, and the latter demanded an explanation
+of Richard's refusal to marry the princess Aliz, the French king's
+sister. Cour de Lion, who had really formed another attachment, excused
+himself by blackening the character of the lady to whom he had been
+engaged, and her chivalrous brother agreed to take two thousand marks
+a year, as a compromise for the breach of promise of marriage which
+Richard had committed. "Such," exclaims Hume--and well he may--"were the
+heroes of this pious enterprise."
+
+The Princess Aliz or Alice, having been regularly thrown overboard by
+the bargain between her own brother ana her late lover, the latter was
+at liberty to follow his inclination by marrying Berengaria, daughter
+of the king of Navarre, with whom he had had a flirtation as early as
+during his residence at Guienne. Taking with him his latest affianced,
+he set sail for Palestine; but his ship being cast ashore at Cyprus, and
+plundered by the natives, he waited to chastise the people, and imprison
+an elderly person named Isaac, who called himself the emperor. He then
+ran off with the old man's only daughter, in addition to the princess of
+Navarre, whom he had the coolness to marry on the very spot from which
+he had seized this new addition to the female part of his establishment.
+The only reparation offered to the father was a set of silver fetters to
+wear instead of the common iron he had at first been thrown into.
+
+Richard at length arrived in Palestine, and was not long in getting to
+work against the forces of Saladin, who, leading forth his battalions,
+mounted on their real Jerusalem ponies, proved exceedingly harassing.
+
+[Illustration: 122]
+
+Among the events of the crusade undertaken for the promotion of
+Christianity, on the side of the Lion Heart, his beheading of five
+thousand Turkish prisoners stands conspicuous. This act of barbarity
+arose out of some misunderstanding on the subject of a truce, and
+Saladin, by way of making matters square, slaughtered about an equal
+number of captive Christians. Such were the heroic defenders of the
+Cross on one side and the Crescent on the other. It is generally a libel
+to compare a human being to a brute, but in giving the title of Lion
+Heart to Richard, the noble beast is the party scandalised.
+
+It is surprising that the British lion has never cited this as one of
+his numerous grievances, for he would certainly have a capital action
+for defamation if he were to sue by his next friend or _in forma
+pauperis_ for this malicious imputation on his noble character.
+
+On the 7th of September, 1191, the two chiefs came to a general
+engagement, near Azotus, about nine miles from Ascalon. Richard's
+prowess was tremendous; but, after himself, the most striking object was
+his battle-axe. This wondrous weapon had been forged in England by the
+very best Smiths, and there were twenty pounds of steel in the head,
+formed into a tremendous nob, which fell with fearful force on the nobs
+of his enemies. His battle-axe divided with him the attention of all
+beholders, and he divided the turbans of the foe with his battle-axe.
+The weapons of the Crusaders were certainly better adapted for havoc
+than those of the Saracens, who seem to have fought with an instrument
+less calculated for milling men than for milling chocolate. The armour
+of the knights was also more effective than that of their adversaries;
+for while the former had their heads comfortably secured in articles
+made on the principle of rushlight shades, with holes for seeing and
+breathing through, the partisans of the Crescent wore little more upon
+their heads than might have been supplied by the folding of a sheet or
+tablecloth into the form of a turban. The result was that Baladin was
+compelled to fly, with a loss of seven thousand men and thirty-two
+emirs, which so diminished his stock of officers that he was almost
+reduced, according to an old chronicler, to his very last emir-gency.
+
+Richard went on to Jaffa, where he was delayed by an artful proposition
+to negotiate until the rainy weather set in; and he had to start off
+during November, in the midst of incessant showers. The Crusaders got
+regularly soaked; and being caught in the middle of the plain of Sharon
+with no place, not even a doorway, they could stand up under, they tried
+to pitch a tent, which was instantly pitched down by the fury of the
+elements. Their arms became perfectly rusty, and their horses, not
+liking the wet, got rusty also. Their provisions were all turned into
+water _souchet_, and indeed the spirit of the Crusaders became weakened
+by excessive dilution in the pelting showers.
+
+The energies of Richard and his companions were of course considerably
+damped; but a positive inundation would scarcely have quenched the fire
+of chivalry. Cour de Lion retreated to Ascalon, the fortifications of
+which he found had been dismantled; but he worked to restore them like
+a common mason, mixing mortar on his shield for want of a hod, and using
+his axe as a substitute for a trowel. All the men of rank followed his
+example, except the Duke of Austria, who declared that he had not been
+brought up to it; upon which Cour de Lion kicked him literally through
+the breach in the fortification he had refused to repair, and turned him
+out of the town with all his vassals.
+
+After a most uncomfortable sojourn in Palestine, Richard opened a
+negotiation with Saladin; and the ardour of both having been rather
+cooled, a truce was concluded. It was to last three years, three months,
+three weeks, and three days, the discussion on the subject occupying
+about three hours, the writing out the agreement three minutes, and the
+signing three seconds.
+
+Taking advantage of the truce, Richard quitted Palestine for England;
+but sending the ladies home in a ship, he started to walk in the
+disguise of a pilgrim by way of Germany. Though his costume was humble
+his expenditure was lavish; and having sent a boy into the market-place
+of Vienna to buy some provisions, the splendid livery of the page, and
+his abundance of cash, excited suspicion as to the rank of his master.
+The secret of the Lion Heart was kept for some time by the faithful
+tiger, but he was at length forced into a confession, and Richard was
+arrested on the 20th of December, 1193, by the very Duke of Austria whom
+he had some time before kicked unceremoniously out of Ascalon.
+
+The Emperor Henry the Sixth claimed the royal captive as a prize, and
+Richard was locked up in a German dungeon with German shutters, and fed
+alternately on German rolls and German sausages, while his enemies were
+doing their worst at home and abroad to deprive him of his sovereignty.
+
+[Illustration: 126]
+
+There is a legend attached to the incident of Richard's captivity:
+which has the slight disadvantage of being altogether fabulous, and
+We therefore insert it--under protest--in the pages of our faithful
+history. The story runs that the Lion Heart, who was fond of music, and
+had a tolerable voice, used to amuse himself and his gaolers by singing
+some of the most popular ballads of the period. It happened that
+Blondel, one of his favourite minstrels, of whom he had probably taken
+lessons in happier hours, was on an ambulatory tour, for professional
+purposes, when he chanced to tune his clarionet and clear his throat,
+with the intention of "striking up" under the walls of Richard's prison.
+At that moment the Lion Heart had just been called upon for a song,
+and his voice issued in a large octavo volume from the window of his
+dungeon. The tones seemed familiar to the minstrel, but when there came
+a tremendous trill on the low G, followed by a succession of roulades
+on A flat, with an abrupt modulation from the minor to the major key,
+Professor Blondel instantly recognised the voice of his royal pupil. The
+wandering minstrel, without waiting for the song to terminate, broke out
+into a magnificent _sol fa_, and the king at once remembering the style
+of his old master, responded by going through some exercises for the
+voice which he had been in the habit of practising. Blondel having
+ascertained the place of his sovereign's confinement, had the prudence
+to "copy the address," and went away, determining to do his utmost for
+the release of Richard. "I wish," thought the professor, as he retired
+from the spot, "that those iron bars were bars of music, for then I
+could show him how they are to be got through; or would that any of the
+keys of which I am master would unlock the door of his prison!" With
+these two melancholy puns, induced by the sadness of his reflections,
+Blondel hastened from the spot, and repaired to England with tidings of
+the missing monarch.
+
+Such is the romantic little story that is told by those greatest of
+story-tellers, the writers of history.
+
+Richard was at length brought up for examination before the Diet of
+Worms; and though several charges were alleged against him, he pleaded
+his own cause with so much address, that he was discharged on payment
+of a fine of one hundred and fifty thousand marks, being about three
+hundred thousand pounds of our money. He at once put down thirteen
+and fourpence in the pound, giving good bills and hostages for the
+remainder; but the amount was soon raised by taxes and voluntary
+contributions from the English people. Churches melted down their plate,
+people born with silver spoons in their mouths came forward with zeal,
+whether the article happened to be a gravy, a table, a dessert, or a
+tea; and the requisite sum was raised to release him from captivity. He
+arrived in England on the 20th of March, 1194, and was enthusiastically
+welcomed home, where he got up another coronation of himself, by way of
+furnishing an outlet for the overflowing loyalty of the people. As if
+desirous of taming it down a little, he made some heavy demands upon
+their pockets; but nothing seemed capable of damping the ardour of the
+nation, which appeared ready to give all it possessed in change for this
+single sovereign.
+
+About the middle of May, 1194, Richard revisited Barfleur, with the
+intention of chastising his brother John--who had shown symptoms of
+usurpation in his absence--and the French king, Philip. John, like a
+coward, flew to his mamma--the venerable Eleanor--requesting her to
+intercede for him. The old lady wrote a curt epistle, consisting of
+the words, "Dear Dick--Forgive Jack. Yours ever, Nell;" and John having
+fallen at the feet of Richard, was contemptuously kicked aside with
+a free pardon. Against the French king, however, several battles were
+fought, with fluctuating success, though Richard's fortunes now and then
+received a fillip which caused Philip to get the worst of it. A truce
+was concluded on the 23rd of July, 1194, but London beginning to rebel,
+cut out fresh work for Lion Heart. The discontented cockneys had for
+their leader one William Fitz-Osbert, commonly called Longbeard, who
+complained of the citizens having been so closely shaved by taxation;
+and Longbeard even dared to beard the sovereign himself, by going to
+the Continent to remonstrate with Richard. The patriot made one of those
+clap-trap speeches (or which mob-orators have in all ages been famous),
+and demanded for the poor that general consideration which really
+amounts to nothing particular. Richard promised that the matter should
+be looked into, but nothing was done--except the people and their
+advocate. In the year 1196 Longbeard originated the practice of forming
+political associations, and got together no less than fifty-two thousand
+members, who swore to stand by him as the advocate and saviour of the
+poor; an oath which ended in heir literally standing by him and seeing
+him savagely butchered by his enemies. He was taking a quiet walk with
+only nine adherents, when he was dodged by a couple of citizens, who had
+been watching him for several days, and who pretended to be enjoying a
+stroll, until they got near enough to enable them to seize the throat
+of Longbeard. This movement instantly raised his choler, and drawing his
+knife, he succeeded in cutting completely away. He sought refuge in the
+church of St. Mary of Arches, which he barricaded for four days, but he
+was at last taken, stabbed, dragged at a horse's tail to the Tower, and
+forwarded by the same conveyance to Smithfield, where he was hanged on
+a gibbet, with the nine unfortunates who had been the companions of
+his promenade. The mob, who had stood by him while he was thus cruelly
+treated, pretended to look upon him as a martyr directly he was dead.
+This, however, seems to have been the result of interested motives, for
+they stole the gibbet, and cut it up into relics, which were sold at
+most exorbitant prices; so that, by making a saint of him, they gave a
+value to the gallows which they purloined. It is possible that they were
+not particular as to the genuineness of the article, so long as there
+was any demand for little bits of Longbeard's gibbet.
+
+Richard was now engaged in almost continual quarrels with Philip, which
+were only suspended by occasional want of money to pay the respective
+barons, who always struck, or rather, refused to strike at all, when
+they could not get their wages. In the year 1198, hostilities were
+renewed with great vigour, and a battle was fought near Gisors, where
+Philip was nearly drowned by the breaking of a bridge, in consequence
+of the enormous weight of the fugitives. In his bulletin, Richard
+insultingly alluded to the quantity of the river the French king had
+been compelled to drink, and hinted, that as he was full of water it was
+quite fair to make a butt of him.
+
+This was Cour de Lion's "positively last appearance" in any combat.
+A truce was concluded, and Richard quitted Normandy for the Limousin,
+where it was said in one of the popular ballads of the day, that the
+point of the arrow was being forged for the death of the tyrant. Many
+dispute the point, and believe the story to be forged; but certain it
+is, that Henry, the father of Richard, had frequently been shot at by
+an arrow, and had had, according to a lame pun of the period, many
+a-n-arrow escape from the hands of his secret enemies. According to the
+usual version of Cour de Lion's death, it seems that he went with an
+armed force to demand of Vidomar, Viscount of Limoges, a treasure, said
+to have been found in the domains of the latter. The viscount claimed
+halves, which Richard refused, and with a loud cry of "All or none,"
+threatened to hang every man of the garrison. The king was surveying
+the walls to ascertain an eligible place for the assault, and had just
+raised his eyes, exclaiming--"Here's a weak point," when the point of an
+arrow came whizzing along and stuck in his left shoulder. Richard making
+some passing allusion to this novel mode of shouldering arms, took
+little notice of the wound, but went on with the assault, and soon
+seized the Castle.
+
+The business of the the day being concluded, he sent for a surgeon, who
+took out the point of the arrow somewhat clumsily, causing Richard to
+remark, in allusion to the bungling manner in which the operation had
+been performed, that it could not be called a very elegant "extract."
+The wound, though slight, became worse from ill-treatment; and the king,
+feeling that there were no hopes of his recovery, would only reply to
+the encouraging remarks of his attendants by pointing mournfully yet
+significantly over his left shoulder.
+
+[Illustration: 129]
+
+It is said that he sent for Bertrand de Gourdon, the youth that
+inflicted the wound, and let him off for letting off the bow; but it
+is impossible to say what truth there is in this anecdote. The MS.
+chronicle of Winchester says that Richard's sister Joan expressed a
+truly female wish to have the prisoner given to her, that she might
+"tear his eyes out," and that she literally put in force this threat
+which so many women are heard to make, but which not one of the sex was
+ever known to execute.
+
+Richard died on Tuesday, the 6th of April, 1199, after a reign of ten
+years, not one of which had been passed in England, for he had led the
+life of a royal vagabond. He died at forty-two, and it is a remarkable
+fact, says one of the chroniclers--whom for the sake of his reputation
+we will not name--that, though Richard lived to be forty-two, forti-tude
+was the only virtue he had ever exhibited. He loved the name of Lion
+Heart, and he certainly deserved a title that indicated his possession
+of brutish qualities. The British lion might, in justice to his own
+character, repudiate all connection with this contemptible Cour de Lion,
+who had at least as much cruelty as courage, and who had murdered many
+more in cold blood when prisoners than he had ever killed on the field
+of battle. His slaughter of the three thousand Saracen captives must be
+regarded as a proof, that, whatever of the lion he might have, had in
+his disposition, he had not much of the heart. This, however, such as it
+was, he never gave to England in his lifetime, and he left it to Rouen
+at his death, being certainly the very smallest and most valueless
+legacy he could possibly have bequeathed.
+
+[Illustration: 130]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. JOHN, SURNAMED SANSTERRE, OR LACKLAND.
+
+
+[Illustration: 131]
+
+JOHN, who was in Normandy when Richard died, made every effort to secure
+that gang of humbugs, the mercenaries, by sending over to offer them
+an increase of salary, with the view of preventing them from taking
+engagements in the cause of his nephew, Arthur, the child of his elder
+brother, Geoffrey. Hubert Walter, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was
+despatched to England, to obtain the services of the barons by the usual
+means; and John himself repaired to Chinon, to ransack the castle where
+Richard had kept his treasures. Having chastised a few citizens for
+supporting Arthur, he repaired to Rouen, where on Sunday, the 25th of
+April, 1199, he was bedizened with the sword and coronal of the duchy.
+The English were not much disposed to favour the claims of John, but
+Archbishop Hubert purchased a few oaths of allegiance from the barons
+and prelates, who for the usual consideration were always ready to swear
+fealty to anyone.
+
+John landed at Shoreham on the 25th of May, and on the 27th he knocked
+at the church door of St. Peter's, Westminster, to claim the crown. He
+seems to have encountered a tolerably numerous congregation, whom he
+endeavoured to convince by pulling out of his pocket an alleged will
+made in his favour by his brother Richard, and some other documents,
+which, backed by a speech from Archbishop Hubert, set everybody shouting
+"Long live the king!"
+
+Poor little Arthur was completely overlooked in this arrangement, for
+he had scarcely anyone to take his part but a noisy scolding mother,
+who bore the name of Constance, probably on account of her shameful
+inconstancy. She had married a third husband while her second was still
+living; and it is even said that she contemplated adding trigamy to
+bigamy, for which purpose she sent her son to be out of the way at
+Paris, with Philip, the French king. The poor child had his interests
+fearfully sacrificed on all sides, for a treaty was agreed upon between
+John and Philip, according to which there would be nothing at all left
+for the unfortunate boy when the two sovereigns had helped themselves to
+their respective shares of the booty.
+
+In the summer of the year 1200, John made a royal progress into France
+where he evinced a familiar and festive humour, which made him a
+favourite with a few of the "jolly dogs," but did not win the respect of
+the more sober classes of the community. He did not at all improve upon
+acquaintance; and he completed his unpopularity by running away with
+Isabella, the wife of the Count of La Marche, whom he married and
+brought to England, in spite of his having already a wife at home,
+and the lady's having also a husband abroad. A second coronation was
+performed in honour of his second marriage; but he seems to have soon
+got tired of his new match, for he marched into Aquitaine without his
+wife, under the pretence that he had business to attend to, but he
+really did no business at all. Little did he anticipate when he started
+_en garcon_ on his tour, that the historian nearly seven centuries
+afterwards would be recording the manner in which he passed his time,
+and proving the hollowness of the excuse for leaving his wife behind him
+when he took his trip to Aquitaine.
+
+[Illustration: 133]
+
+Young Arthur, who was but fifteen years of age, was advised by Philip
+(a.d. 1202) to try his hand in a military expedition. "You know your
+rights," said Philip to the youth, "and would you not be a king?"
+
+"Oh! wouldn't I, just?" was the boy-like reply, and the French king
+counting off two hundred knights, as if they were so many bundles of
+wood, handed them over to the prince, telling him to go and make an
+attack upon some of the provinces. Arthur was recommended to march
+against Mirabeau, the residence of his grandmother, Eleanor, a violent
+old lady who had always been unfavourable to his claims. Arthur took the
+town, but not his grandmother, who, on hearing of the lad's intentions,
+exclaimed, "Hoity toity! would the urchin teach his grandmother to suck
+eggs, I wonder?"
+
+"No, but I would teach my grandmother to sue cumb," was the dignified
+reply of the prince, when the message of his venerable relative was
+brought to him. The sturdy old female, who was rather corpulent, made,
+literally, a stout resistance, having thrown herself into a strong
+tower, which set rather tight upon her, like a corsage, and in this
+position she for some time defied the assaults of the enemy. Encased in
+this substantial breastwork, she awaited the threatened lacing at
+the hands of her grandson, when John came to her rescue. In the night
+between the 31st of July and the 1st of August, he took the town,
+dragged Arthur out of his bed, as well as some two hundred nobles who
+were "hanging out" at the different lodgings in the city. After cruelly
+beating them, he literally loaded them with irons, giving them cuffs
+first, and hand-cuffs immediately afterwards. Twenty-two noblemen were
+thrown into the damp dungeons of Corfe Castle, where they caught severe
+colds, of which they soon died, and they were buried under the walls
+of Corfe without coffins. * Young Arthur's tragical end has been the
+subject of various conjectures. Several historians have tried their
+hands at an interesting version of the young prince's death, but
+Shakspeare has given the most effective, and not the least probable,
+account of the fate of Arthur. The monks of Margan believe that John,
+in a fit of intoxication, slew his nephew; but we have no proof that
+Lackland was often in that disgraceful state, which in these days would
+have rendered him liable to the loss of a crown--in the shape of the
+five-shilling fine for drunkenness.
+
+     * Matthew Paris. It is to be regretted that the statement of
+     a fact sometimes involves the necessity for a pun, as in the
+     present instance. The faithful historian has, however, on
+     such an occasion, no alternative. Fidelity must not be
+     sacrificed even to a desire for solemnity.
+
+Ralph, the abbot of Coggeshall, who agrees with Shakspeare in many
+particulars, says that Arthur had been removed to Rouen, where his uncle
+called for him on the night of the 3rd of April, 1203, in a boat, to
+take a row on the river. It being time for all good little children to
+be in bed and asleep, Arthur was both at the moment of the avuncular
+visit. Boy-like, he made no objection to the absurd and ill-timed
+excursion, for it is a curious fact, that infants are always ready
+to get up at the most unseasonable hours, if anything in the shape of
+pleasure is proposed to them. Arthur was soon in the boat for a row up
+the Seine with his uncle John and Peter de Maulac, Esquire, one of the
+unprincipled "men about town" at that disreputable period.
+
+They had not proceeded far when either John or Mr. de Maulao seized the
+boy, as if he were so much superfluous ballast, and cruelly pitched
+him overboard. Some say that the squire was the sole executioner, while
+others hint that he turned squeamish at the last moment, and left the
+disgraceful business to John; but they doubtless shared the guilt, as
+they were both rowing in the same boat, and were in point of private
+character "much of a muchness." Shak-speare, as everybody knows, makes
+the young prince meet his death more than half-way by leaping on to the
+stones below his prison window, with a hope that they might prove softer
+than the heart of his uncle. It is not improbable that a child so young
+may have been foolish enough to jump to such a conclusion.
+
+The rumour of the murder naturally occasioned the greatest excitement;
+and if we are to believe the immortal bard, five moons came mooning out
+upon the occasion, which may account for the moonstruck condition of the
+populace.
+
+The Britons, amongst whom Arthur had been educated, were furious at the
+murder of their youthful prince, whose eldest sister, Eleanor, was in
+the hands of her uncle John. This lady was called by some, the Pearl of
+Brittany; but if she was really a gem, she must have been an antique,
+for she spent forty years of her life in captivity. The Britons,
+therefore, rallied round a younger heroine, her half-sister, Alice, and
+appointed her father, Guy de Thouars, the regent and general of their
+confederacy. De Thouars was a Guy only in name, for he was extremely
+handsome, and had attracted the attention of the lady Constance,
+whose third and last husband he had become. Guy went as the head of a
+deputation to the French king, who summoned John to a trial; but that
+individual instead of attending the summons, allowed judgment to go by
+default, and was sentenced to a forfeiture of his dominions.
+
+John for some time treated the steps taken against him with contempt,
+and remained at Rouen, until he thought it advisable to go over to
+England, to prepare for his defence by collecting money, for it was
+always by sucking dry the public purse, that tyrants in those days were
+accustomed to look for succour.
+
+It was by his efforts to extract cash from his people that he excited
+among his nobles the discontent which has rendered the discontented
+barons of his reign, _par excellence, the_ discontented barons of
+English history. He continued to mulct them every day, and his reign was
+a long game of forfeits, in which the barons were always the sufferers.
+Still they refused to quit the country for the defence of their tyrant's
+foreign possessions.
+
+By dint of threats and bribery he at last contrived (a.d. 1206) to land
+an army at Rochelle, and a contest was about to commence, when John
+proposed a parley. Without waiting for the answer, he ran away, leaving
+a notice on the door of his tent, stating that he had gone to England,
+and would return immediately, which, in accordance with the modern
+"chamber-practice," was equivalent to an announcement that he had no
+intention of coming back again.
+
+John, who could agree with nobody, now began to quarrel with the pope by
+starting a candidate for the see of Canterbury, in opposition to Stephen
+Langton, the nominee of old Innocent. His holiness desired three English
+bishops to go and remonstrate with the king, who flew into a violent
+passion, and used the coarsest language, winding up with a threat to
+"cut off their noses," which caused the venerable deputation to "cut
+off" themselves with prompt King John threatens to cut off the Noses of
+the Bishops.
+
+The bishops, however, soon recovered from the effects of their
+ill-treatment, and determined by the aid of the people to punish with
+papal bulls the royal bully.
+
+[Illustration: 135]
+
+On Monday, the 23rd of March, 1208, they pronounced an interdict
+against all John's dominions; but, like children setting fire to a
+train of gunpowder and running away, the bishops quitted the kingdom, as
+if afraid of the result of their own boldness. This was soon followed by
+a bull of excommunication against John, but the wary tyrant, by watching
+the ports, prevented the entrance of this bull, which would have made it
+a mere toss up whether he could keep possession of his throne.
+
+John employed the year 1210 in raising money, by stealing it wherever he
+could lay his hands upon it; for, says the chronicler, "as long as there
+was a sum he could bone, he thought it the _summum bonum_ to get hold
+of it." With the cash he had collected he repaired to Ireland, and
+at Dublin was joined by twenty robust chieftains, who might have been
+called the Dublin stout of the thirteenth century. Returning to England
+in three months with an empty pocket, he became alarmed at hearing of a
+conspiracy among his barons. He shut himself up for fifteen days in the
+castle of Nottingham, seeing no one but the servants, and not permitting
+the door to be opened even to take in the milk, lest the cream of the
+British nobility should flow in with it.
+
+At length, in the year 1213, Innocent hurled his last thunderbolt at
+John's head, with the intention of knocking off his crown. The pope
+pronounced the deposition of the English king, and declared the throne
+open to competition, with a hint to Philip of France that he might find
+it an eligible investment. He prepared a fleet of seventeen hundred
+vessels at Boulogne, but some of the vessels must have been little
+bigger than butter-boats if seventeen hundred of them were crammed into
+this insignificant harbour. John, by a desperate effort, got together
+sixty thousand men, but they were by no means staunch, and he was
+as much afraid of his own troops as of those belonging to the enemy.
+Pandulph, the pope's legate, knowing his character, came to Dover, and
+frightened him by fearful pictures of the enemy's strength, while Peter
+the Hermit, * who was rather more plague than prophet, bored the tyrant
+with predictions of his death. John, who was exceedingly superstitious,
+was so worked upon by his fears that he agreed to Pandulph's terms, and
+on the 15th of May, 1213, he signed a sort of cognovit, acknowledging
+himself the vassal of the pope, and agreeing to pay a thousand marks a
+year, in token of which he set his own mark at the end of the document.
+
+     * Some writers have called Peter the Hermit a hare-brained
+     recluse As his head was closely shaved the epithet "hair-
+     brained" seems to have been sadly misapplied.
+
+He next offered Pandulph something for his trouble, but the legate
+raising his leg, trampled the money under his foot. The next day was
+that on which Peter the Hermit had prophesied that John would die, and
+the tyrant remained from morning till night watching the clock with
+intense anxiety. Finding himself alive at bedtime, he grew furious
+against Peter for having caused him so much needless alarm, and the
+Hermit was hanged for the want of foresight he had exhibited. He died,
+exclaiming that the king should have been grateful that the prediction
+had not been fulfilled; "but," added he, as he placed his head through
+the fatal noose, "some folks are never satisfied." The French king was
+exceedingly disgusted at the shabby treatment he had received; but
+Philip expended his rage in a few philippics against Pandulph, who
+merely expressed his regret, and added peremptorily, that England being
+now under the dominion of the pope, must henceforth be let alone. Philip
+alluded to the money he was out of pocket, but the nuncio politely
+observing that he was not happy at questions of account, withdrew while
+repeating his prohibition.
+
+John, who had so lately eaten humble pie, soon began to regard his
+promises as the pie-crust, which he commenced breaking very rapidly.
+Wishing, however, to carry the war into France, he required the services
+of his barons, who were very reluctant to aid him, and he had got as far
+as Jersey, when happening to look behind him, he perceived that he had
+scarcely any followers. He had started with a tolerable number, but they
+turned back sulkily by degrees, without his being aware of it until
+he arrived at Jersey, when he was preparing to turn himself round, and
+perceived that his _suite_ had dwindled down to a few mercenaries, who
+hung on to his skirts merely for the sake of what he had got in his
+pockets. Becoming exceedingly angry, he wheeled suddenly back, and
+vented his spite in burning and ravaging everything that crossed his
+path. He was in a flaming passion, for he set fire to all the buildings
+on the road till he reached Northampton, where Langton overtook him,
+and taxed him with the violation of his oath. "Mind your own business,"
+roared the king, "and leave me to manage mine;" but Langton would not
+take an answer of that kind, and stuck to him all the way to Nottingham,
+where the prelate, according to his own quaint phraseology, "went at
+him again" with more success than formerly. John issued summonses to the
+barons, and Langton hastened to see them in London, where he drew up a
+strong affidavit by which they all swore to be true to each other, and
+to their liberties.
+
+John was still apprehensive of the hostility of the pope, which might
+have been fatal at this juncture, had not Cardinal Nicholas arrived in
+the nick of time, namely, on the 12th of September, 1213, to take
+off the interdict. The court of Rome thus executed a sort of
+_chassez-croisez_, by going over to the side of John, but Langton did
+not desert his old partner, liberty. In the following year the English
+king was defeated at the battle of Bouvines, one of the most tremendous
+affrays recorded in history. Salisbury, surnamed Longsword, was captured
+by that early specimen of the church militant, the Bishop of Beauvais,
+who, because it was contrary to the canons of the Church for him to shed
+blood, fought with a ponderous club, by which he knocked the enemy on
+the head, and acquired the name of the stunning bishop. He banged about
+him in such style, that he might have been eligible for the see of
+Bangor, had his ambition pointed in that direction. John obtained a
+truce; but the discontented barons had already placed a rod in pickle
+for him, and on the 20th day of November, they held a crowded meeting at
+St. Edmund's Bury, which was adjourned until Christmas. At that festive
+season, John found himself eating his roast beef entirely alone, for
+nobody called to wish him joy, or partake his pudding.
+
+[Illustration: 138]
+
+After dining by himself, at Worcester, he started for London, making
+sure of a little-gaiety at boxing-time, in the great metropolis.
+
+Nobody, however, took the slightest notice of him until one day the
+whole of the barons came to him in a body, to pay him a morning visit.
+Surprised at the largeness of the party, he was somewhat cool, but on
+hearing that they had come for liberty, he declared that he would not
+allow any liberty to be taken while he continued king of England. The
+party remained firm with one or two exceptions, when John began to
+shiver as if attacked with ague, and he went on blowing hot and cold
+as long as he could, until pressed by the barons for an answer to their
+petition. He then replied evasively, "Why--yes--no; let me see--ha!
+exactly--stop! Well, I don't know, perhaps so--'pon honour;" and
+ultimately obtained time until Easter, to consider the proposals that
+were made to him. The confederated barons had no sooner got outside the
+street-door than John began to think over the means of circumventing
+them. As they separated on the threshold, to go to their respective
+homes, it was evident from the gestures and countenances of the group
+that there had been a difference of opinion as to the policy of granting
+John the time he had requested. A bishop and two barons, who had turned
+recreants at the interview, and receded from their claims, were of
+course severely bullied by the rest of the confederates, on quitting
+the royal presence. At length the day arrived, in Easter week, when the
+barons were to go for an answer to the little Bill--of Rights--which
+they had left with John at the preceding Christmas. They met at
+Stamford, where they got up a grand military spectacle, including two
+thousand knights and an enormous troop of auxiliaries. The king, who
+was at Oxford, sent off Cardinal Langton, with the Earls of Pembroke and
+Warrenne, as a deputation, who soon returned with a schedule of terrific
+length, containing a catalogue of grievances, which the barons declared
+they would have remedied.
+
+[Illustration: 139]
+
+John flew into one of his usual passions, tearing his long hair, and
+rapidly pacing his chamber with the skirt of his robe thrown over his
+left arm, while, with his right hand, he shook his fist at vacancy. The
+deputation could merely observe calmly, "We have done our part of the
+business: that is what the barons want;" and a roll of parchment was
+instantly allowed to run out to its full length at the foot of the
+enraged sovereign. John took up the document and pretended to inspect
+it with much minuteness, muttering to himself, "No, I don't see it
+down," upon which Langton asked the sovereign what he was looking for.
+"I was searching," sarcastically roared the tyrant, "for the crown,
+which I fully expected to find scheduled as one of the items I am called
+upon to surrender." This led to some desultory conversation, in the
+course of which the king made some evasive offers, which the barons
+would not accept, and the latter, appointing Robert Fitz-Walter as their
+general, at once commenced hostilities.
+
+They first marched upon the castle of Northampton, but when they got
+under the walls they discovered that they had got no battering-rams, and
+after sitting looking at the castle for fifteen days, they marched off
+again. At Bedford, where they went next, the same farce might have been
+enacted, had not the inhabitants opened the gates for them. Here they
+received an invitation from London, and stopping to rest for the night
+at Ware--on account, perhaps, of the accommodation afforded by the Great
+Bed--they arrived on Sunday, the 24th of May, 1215, in the City. Here
+they were joined by the whole nobility of England, while John was
+abandoned by all but seven knights, who remained near his person, the
+seven knights forming a weak protection, to the sovereign. His heart
+at first failed him, but he was a capital actor, and soon assumed a sort
+of easy cheerfulness. He presented his compliments to the barons, and
+assured them he should be most happy to meet them, if they would appoint
+a time and place for an interview. The barons instantly fixed the 19th
+of June at Runny-Mead, when John intimated that he should have much
+pleasure in accepting the polite invitation.
+
+At length the eventful morning arrived, when John cantered quietly down
+from Windsor Castle, attended by eight bishops and a party of about
+twenty gentlemen. These, however, were not his friends, but had been
+lent by the other side, "for the look of the thing," lest the king
+should seem to be wholly without attendants. The barons, who had been
+stopping at Staines, were of course punctual, and had got the pen and
+ink all laid out upon the table, with a Windsor chair brought expressly
+from the town of Windsor for John to sit down upon. It had been expected
+that he would have raised some futile objections to sign; but the crafty
+sovereign, knowing it was a _sine qua non_, made but one plunge into the
+inkstand, and affixed his autograph. It is said that he dropped a dip of
+ink accidentally on the parchment, and that he mentally ejaculated "Ha!
+this affair will be a blot upon my name for ever." The facility with
+which the king attached his signature to Magna Charta--the great charter
+of England's liberties--naturally excited suspicion; for it is a remark
+founded on a long acquaintance with human nature, that the man who never
+means to take up a bill is always foremost in accepting one. Had John
+contemplated adhering to the provisions of the document he would have
+probably discussed the various clauses, but a swindler seldom disputes
+the items of an account, when he has not the remotest intention of
+paying it.
+
+Though Magna Charta has been practically superseded by subsequent
+statutes, it must always be venerated as one of the great foundations
+of our liberties. It established the "beautiful principle" that taxation
+shall only take place by the consent of those taxed--a principle the
+beauty of which has been its chief advantage, for it has proved less an
+article for use than for ornament. The agreeable figure that everyone
+who pays a tax does so with his own full concurrence, and simply because
+he likes it, is a pleasing delusion, which all have not the happiness to
+labour under. It was also provided that "the king should sell, delay,
+or deny justice to none," a condition that can scarcely be considered
+fulfilled when we look at some of the bills of costs that generally
+follow a long suit in that game of chance which has obtained the
+singularly appropriate title of Chancery. It may be perhaps argued, that
+the article delayed and sold is law, whereas Magna Charta alludes
+only to Justice. This, we must admit, establishes a distinction--_not_
+without a difference.
+
+Though John had kept his temper tolerably well at the meeting with the
+barons, he had no sooner got back to Windsor Castle, than he called
+a few foreign adventurers around him, and indulged in a good hearty
+swearing fit against the charter. He grew so frantic, according to the
+chroniclers, that he "gnashed his teeth, rolled his eyes, and gnawed
+sticks and straws," though he could scarcely have done all this without
+sending for the umbrella-stand, and having a good bite at its contents,
+or ordering in a few wisps from the stable.
+
+That John was exceedingly mad with the barons for what they had made him
+do, is perfectly true, but we do not go the length of those who look
+upon a truss of straw as essential to a person labouring under mental
+aberration.
+
+John now went to reside in the Isle of Wight, and tried to captivate the
+fishermen by adopting their manners. There is nothing very captivating
+in the manners of the fishermen of the Isle of Wight at the present day,
+whatever may have been the case formerly; but it is probable that the
+king became popular by a sort of hail-fellow-well-met-ishness, to which
+his dreadful habit of swearing no doubt greatly contributed. Having
+imported a lot of mercenaries from the Continent, he posted off to
+Dover to land the disgraceful cargo, and with them he marched against
+Rochester Castle, which had been seized by William D'Albiney. The
+larder was wretchedly low when D'Albiney first took possession, and
+the garrison was soon reduced to its last mouthful of provisions. This
+consisted of a piece of rind of cheese, which everybody had refused
+in daintier days, when provisions were plentiful. D'Albiney bolted
+the morsel and unbolted the gate nearly at the same moment, when John,
+rushing in, butchered all the supernumeraries and sent the principal
+characters to Corfe Castle.
+
+John, who always grew bold when there was no opposition, committed all
+sorts of atrocities upon places without defence, and the barons shut up
+in Lincoln, held numerous meetings, which terminated in a resolution
+to offer the crown to Louis, the son of Philip of France, provided the
+young gentleman and his papa would come over and fight for it. Louis
+left Calais with six hundred and eighty vessels, but he had a terribly
+bad passage across to Sandwich, where the "flats," as usual, permitted
+the landing of an enemy. John, who had run round to Dover with a
+numerous army, fled before the French landed, and committed arson on
+an extensive scale all over the country. Every night was a "night wi'
+Burns," and the royal incendiary seems to have put himself under the
+especial protection of Blaise, as the only saint with whom the tyrant
+felt the smallest sympathy. John ultimately put up at Bristol, and the
+neighbourhood of Bath seems to have quenched for a time his flaming
+impetuosity.
+
+Louis having besieged Rochester Castle, which seems in those days to
+have been very like a copy of the _Times_ newspaper, which some one
+was always anxious to take directly it was out of hand, marched on to
+London. He arrived there on the 2nd of June, 1216, where he was received
+with that enthusiasm which the hospitable cockneys have ever been ready
+to bestow on foreigners of distinction. Nearly all the few followers
+that had hitherto adhered to John now abandoned him, and he was left
+almost alone with Gualo, the pope's legate, who did all he could to
+revive the drooping spirits of the tyrant. Vainly however did Gualo slap
+the sovereign on the back, inviting him to "cheer up," and ply him with
+cider, his favourite beverage. "Come! drown it in the bowl," was the
+constant cry of Gualo. "Talk not of bowls," was the reply of John; "what
+is life but a game at bowls, in which the king is too frequently knocked
+over?"
+
+Louis, in the meantime, growing arrogant with success, commenced
+insulting, the English and granting their property to his foreign
+followers. The barons began to think they had made a false step with
+reference to their own country by allowing the French prince to put
+his foot in it. This for a moment brightened the prospects of John, who
+started off and went blazing away as far as Lynn, where he had got a
+_depot_ of provisions, and of course a change of linen. Hence he made
+for Wisbeach, and put up at a place called the "Cross Keys," intending
+to cross the Wash, which is a very passable place at low water.
+
+John was nearly across when he heard the tide beginning to roar with
+fearful fury. Knowing that tide and time wait for no man, he felt he
+was tied to time, and hurried to the opposite shore with tremendous
+rapidity. He succeeded in reaching land; but his horses, with his plate,
+linen, and money were not so fortunate, for he had the mortification of
+seeing all his clothes lost in the Wash, and the utter sinking of the
+whole of his capital.
+
+Venting his sorrow in cursory remarks and discursive curses, he went
+on to Swineshead Abbey, where he passed the night in eating peaches
+and pears, and drinking new cider. * The cider of course added to the
+fermentation that was going on in his fevered frame; and even without
+the peaches and pears, the efforts of his physicians might have proved
+fruitless. He went to bed, but could not sleep, for his conscience
+continued to impeach him in a series of frightful dreams, to which the
+peaches no doubt contributed. He nevertheless made an effort to get up
+the next morning, and mounted his horse on the 15th of October; but he
+was too ill to keep his seat, and his attendants, putting him into a
+horse-box, got him as far as Sleaford. Here he passed another shocking
+night, but the next day they again moved him into the horse-box, and
+dragged him to Newark, where he requested that a confessor might be
+sent for. The abbot of Crocton, who was a doctor as well as a divine,
+immediately attended, and this leech was employed in drawing a
+confession from the lips of the tyrant. He named his eldest son, Henry,
+his successor, and dictated a begging-letter to the new pope, imploring
+protection for his small and helpless children. He died on the 18th of
+October, 1216, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the seventeenth
+of one of the most uncomfortable reigns recorded in English history.
+From first to last he seems to have been cut by his subjects, for we
+find him eating his Christmas dinner alone in the very middle of his
+sovereignty, and dragged about the country in a horse-box within a day
+of his death, when such active treatment could not have been beneficial
+to the royal patient in an advanced stage of fever.
+
+     * Matthew Parin, point of accommodation than the humblest
+     gentleman. His case reminds us of an individual, who,
+     finding himself in a sedan with neither top nor bottom to
+     it, came to the conclusion that he might as well have walked
+     but for "the look of the thing." So it may be said of John,
+     that deprived of all the substantial advantages of a throne,
+     he might but "for the name of the thing" have just as well
+     been a private individual.
+
+The character of John has been so fully developed in the account of
+his reign that it is quite unnecessary to sum him up on the present
+occasion. If he harassed the barons, they certainly succeeded in
+returning the compliment; for he seems to have had a most unpleasant
+time of it. He had the title of king, but was often worse off.
+
+[Illustration: 145]
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III. THE PERIOD FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY THE THIRD, TO THE END
+OF THE REIGN OF RICHARD THE SECOND. A.D. 1216--1399.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIRST. HENRY THE THIRD, SURNAMED OF WINCHESTER.
+
+
+[Illustration: 146]
+
+HENRY, the eldest son of John, was a child under ten years of age at
+the time of his father's death, but his brother-in-law, the Earl of
+Pembroke, brought him to Gloucester and got him crowned by Gualo, who
+had always acted as a friend of the family. The coronation, which took
+place on the 28th of October, 1216, was very indifferently got up, for
+the crown had not come from the Wash, where it had been lying in soak
+ever since John's unfortunate expedition across the water from Wisbeach.
+Gualo therefore took a ring from his finger, and put it on the young
+king's head, as a substitute for the missing diadem. The coronation
+party consisted of three earls, three bishops, and four barons, with
+a sprinkling of abbots and priors, comprising altogether a retinue of
+about thirty individuals.
+
+The clergy of Westminster and Canterbury complained bitterly of the
+ceremony having been "scamped," by which their rights had been
+invaded, or, in other words, by which they had been done out of their
+perquisites. The first coronation was therefore treated as a mere
+rehearsal, and a more regular performance afterwards took place, with
+new machinery, dresses, decorations, and all the usual properties.
+
+On the 11th of the following November, Pembroke was appointed _rector
+Regis et Regni_--ruler of the king and kingdom--so that Henry the
+Third was sovereign _de jure_ with a _de facto_ viceroy over him. This
+arrangement was made at a great council held at Bristol, where Magna
+Charta was revised with a view to the publication of a new and improved
+edition.
+
+Louis, on hearing of John's death, puffed himself up with a certainty of
+success, but he only realised the old fable of the French frog and the
+British bull; for, becoming inflated with pride, he was not long in
+bursting like an empty bubble.
+
+As Christmas, 1216, was close at hand, a truce was arranged, to enable
+each party to enjoy the holidays. Louis took advantage of the vacation
+to go to Paris to consult his father Philip, who, like a modern French
+king of the same name, was remarkable for his tact in doing the best
+for his own family. On his return to England, Louis encountered some
+hostility from the hardy mariners of the Cinque Ports--the Deal and
+Dover boatmen of that day--but reaching Sandwich, he got over the flats
+with the usual facility. He however spitefully burned the town to the
+ground, merely because it was one of the Cinque Ports, which had turned
+crusty at his approach, though it was hardly fair of him to mull the
+only port that did not prove too strong for him. Hostilities were
+continued on both sides with varying success, until the Count de la
+Perche, a French general, flushed with a recent triumph at Mount Sorel,
+in Leicester, determined to attack the Castle of Lincoln. He would
+probably have succeeded, but for the resistance of a woman, the widow
+of the late keeper of the castle, who, with the obstinacy of her sex,
+refused to surrender. The Count de la Perche, ashamed of being beaten by
+one of the gentler sex, continued the attack, and refusing to quit the
+town, found himself involved in a series of street rows of the most
+alarming character.
+
+Pembroke having collected a large force, sent part of it into the castle
+by the back garden gate, and the other part into the town, so that poor
+de la Perche found it impossible to move either one way or the other.
+The English literally gave it him right and left till he died; and after
+falling upon the almost defenceless French, they gave the name of "the
+fair of Lincoln" to a battle about as unfair as any recorded in the
+pages of history.
+
+This event, which came off on the 20th of May, 1217, was followed in
+June by a conference which, like Panton Square, led to nothing. Louis
+made one more attempt upon Dover, but he had no means to carry on the
+war, and he was obliged to raise the siege, as he could not raise the
+money. He hastened to London, which he had no sooner entered than
+the English shut the gates and locked him in; while the pope sent a
+tremendous bull down upon him, to add to his annoyances. Louis began to
+feel that he had had quite enough of it, and being anxious for a little
+peace, he proposed one to Pembroke. The terms were soon agreed upon, but
+Louis was detained in town some little time for want of the money to
+pay his debts and his journey home again. The citizens of London forming
+themselves into a loan society, advanced a few pounds to the French
+prince, who deserves some credit for not having taken French leave of
+his creditors. By the terms of the treaty he surrendered all his claims
+upon the English crown, which seems to have been rather a superfluous
+sacrifice, as he had been trying it on for some time, and found that the
+cap never fitted.
+
+As Louis went out of London at the East End, to embark for France,
+Henry, who had been at Kingston, came in at Hyde Park Corner. Pembroke,
+the regent, made him exceedingly popular by advising him to confirm
+Magna Charta, and to add a clause or two for the purpose of freshening
+it up, so that the new edition might repay perusal. Unfortunately for
+the prospects of the kingdom, Pembroke died, in May, 1219, and was
+buried in the Temple Church, where his tomb is still to be seen by
+anyone who can obtain a bencher's order. The regent's authority was
+now divided between Hubert de Burgh and Peter--or, as Rapin christens
+him--William des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester. These two
+individuals, though jealous of each other, agreed in the propriety of
+another coronation, probably on account of the patronage it gave to
+those who happened to be in power; and as the couple in question had
+just taken office, they were anxious to realise some of the profits at
+the earliest opportunity. In the quarrels between these two worthies,
+Des Roches was getting rather the upper hand, when Hubert de Burgh, in
+1223, got the pope to declare that the king, who was only sixteen years
+of age, had attained his majority. Thus, like the dog in the manger,
+Hubert determined that no one else should enjoy a position which he
+himself was unable to profit by. This was an "artful dodge" of the
+cunning Hubert, to get the game into his own hands, for Henry on being
+pronounced "of age," having received a surrender of various castles
+and fortified places from the barons, gave back those which he had
+no occasion for to the wily minister. The barons, finding themselves
+bamboozled, became exceedingly angry with the king and Hubert, but the
+latter went on, alternately hanging and excommunicating, until he had
+settled the obstreperous and quelled the turbulent.
+
+The year 1225 must ever be remarkable for the refusal of Parliament--a
+name that was then coming into use--to grant supplies without asking any
+questions. This had formerly been the usual practice, but when Hubert
+coolly proposed a grant of a fifteenth of all the movable property in
+the kingdom for the use of the king, the Parliament said it was all very
+well, but if the money was given there ought to be something to show for
+it. Henry accordingly gave another ratification of Magna Charta, which
+was a good deal like the old superfluous process of putting butter upon
+bacon, for he had already twice ratified that important document. In
+those days, however, there was no objection to giving the lily an extra
+coat of paint, or treating the refined gold to an additional layer of
+gilding.
+
+In the year 1228, Henry had collected an army at Portsmouth to sail for
+France, but Hubert de Burgh, who seems to have held the place of First
+Lord of the Admiralty as well as his other offices, had not provided a
+sufficient number of vessels. When the troops were about to embark it
+was found impossible to stow them away even with the closest packing.
+Henry flew into a violent passion with Hubert, accusing him of pocketing
+the money he ought to have laid Goode out in ships, and the king had
+drawn his sword, intending to run the minister through, when the Earl of
+Chester ran between them, exclaiming "Hold!" with intense significance.
+
+[Illustration: 149]
+
+This fine dramatic situation told exceedingly well; for Hubert de Burgh
+got off, though the king did not, and the expedition was postponed until
+the year following. He passed over into Normandy, a.d. 1229, but he
+preferred feasting to fighting, and the only advance he made was by
+continually running away, which kept him constantly ahead of the
+enemy. He, however, threw all the blame of the failure on Hubert, whose
+shoulders must have been tolerably broad to have borne all that his
+master chose to cast on to them.
+
+The king returned to England very much out of pocket and completely out
+of spirits. He applied to his old paymaster, the Parliament, but his
+conduct had excited so much disgust, that instead of money, or as it was
+then called, blunt, he got a blunt refusal. His majesty, whose tone
+had hitherto been that of command, now assumed the humble air of the
+mendicant, and he adopted the degraded clap-trap of his being "a
+real case of distress," in order to obtain a subsidy. He declared his
+inability to pay his way, but as his way was never to pay at all, this
+argument availed him very little. He was, however, getting rapidly
+shorter and shorter every day, when fearing that he would perhaps
+compromise the dignity of the crown by pawning it, or sell the regalia
+for the purpose of regaling himself, the Parliament agreed to let him
+have a trifle for current expenses. This consisted of three marks for
+every fief held immediately of the crown, * which was little enough to
+give him an excuse for not paying his debts, and yet sufficient to allow
+him to rush into fresh extravagances. In the year 1232, Henry, having of
+course spent every shilling of his small supply, renewed his application
+to Parliament, alleging that he was desirous of discharging the
+liabilities incurred in his expedition to France, but the barons firmly,
+and not very respectfully, refused any further pecuniary assistance.
+They urged in effect, that they had already been doubly robbed of their
+services and their cash, for they had never been paid for the one, and
+had been almost drained of the other. The nobles, who had derived
+nearly all they possessed from plunder, could not see the justice of the
+principle, that as they had done to others they deserved to be done, and
+they peremptorily refused to comply with the attempted exactions of the
+sovereign.
+
+     * Rapin's _Histoire d'Angleterre_, tome ii., p. 386 of the
+     second edition where he turned in to the priory. The king at
+     first determined to have him out, dead or alive, and a mob
+     of upwards of twenty thousand people, says Rapin, were
+     about to start with the Mayor of London to take the ex-
+     minister into custody. How such a crowd was got together in
+     those days out of the mere superfluous idlers of the city,
+     is not known, ana we are equally in the dark how it happened
+     that this mob continued doing nothing, while the king
+     listened to remonstrances from various quarters against the
+     violence of his measures.
+
+Having failed in his attack on the pockets of his Parliament, Henry
+looked with an envious eye on the comfortably lined coffers of his
+minister. Hubert de Burgh, though he enjoyed the reputation of a trusty
+servant, had taken care to feather his nest, nor did the feathers lie
+very heavily on his conscience, for in those days the greatest weight
+that could be placed upon the mind was always portable. The tonnage of
+Hubert's conscience appears to have been considerable, for though he
+carried a good cargo of peculation, he seems never to have evinced any
+disposition to sink under his burden. Henry became jealous of the good
+fortune of his minister, and resolved, for the purpose of getting his
+savings, to effect his ruin. Presuming Hubert to have been a dishonest
+man, and granting that there is policy in the recommendation to "set
+a thief to catch a thief," the king could not have done better than to
+send for Des Boches, the Bishop of Winchester, to assist in cleaning
+out the favourite. Poor De Burgh was in the first instance charged
+with magic and enchantment; which may be considered equivalent to an
+impeachment of the minister of the present day for phantasmagoria and
+thimble-rig.
+
+In these enlightened times we cannot conceive the Premier being sent to
+the Tower on a suspicion of jack-a-lantern and blind hookey, though it
+was for offences of this class that Hubert was at first arraigned on the
+prosecution of his sovereign. These frivolous charges having fallen to
+the ground, the king called upon him for an account of all the money
+that had passed through his hands; when the minister having kept no
+books and being wholly without vouchers, cut a very pretty figure. As
+he had been in the habit of cutting figures all through his career, this
+result was not to be wondered at. He, however, rummaged among his papers
+and found an old patent, given him by John, absolving him from the
+necessity of rendering any account, but his enemies replied, that this
+was only a receipt in full up to the time of Henry's accession. Hubert
+finding he could not get out of the scrape, determined, if possible,
+to get out of the country; but he proceeded no further on the road
+than Merton, London mobs must have been rather more tractable in the
+thirteenth than in the nineteenth century, for the twenty thousand
+people dispersed when it was understood, after considerable negotiation,
+that their services would not be required. Indeed, according to a more
+recent historian, they had actually started when a king's messenger was
+despatched to call them back again.
+
+Hubert, who had found the priory at Merton exceedingly slow, started off
+to St. Edmund's Bury to see his wife, who resided there. He had got
+as far as Brentwood, and had gone to bed, when he was roused by a loud
+knocking at the door, which caused him to put his head out of the window
+and inquire who or what was wanted. "Is there a person of the name of
+Hubert de Burgh stopping here?" exclaimed the captain of the troop;
+but the wily minister, for the sake of gaining time, pretended to
+misunderstand the question. "Hubert de What?" he exclaimed, as he
+slipped on a portion of his dress; but the soldier repeated the name
+with a tremendous emphasis on the syllable Burgh, which caused a shudder
+in the frame of Hubert. He, however, had the presence of mind to direct
+them to the second door round the corner. Having got them away from
+the front of the cottage by this manouvre, he ran downstairs into
+the street, and made his way to the chapel. Here he was seized by his
+pursuers, who placed him on a horse, and tied his feet together under
+the animal's stomach. Hubert must have had legs of a most extraordinary
+length, or the horse must have been a very genteel figure to have
+permitted this arrangement, which we find recorded in all the histories.
+
+It is possible that the brute upon which De Burgh was secured may have
+been a donkey, in which case the legs of the ex-favourite might have
+been long enough to admit of their being tied in a double knot--and
+perhaps even in a bow--under the animal's stomach. In this uncomfortable
+position he was trotted off to the Tower; but the clergy being incensed
+at the violation of sanctuary, Hubert was remounted in the same style,
+and trotted back again. He was placed in the church as before, but all
+communication with it was cut off, a trench dug round it, and Hubert
+was left without any food but that which is always so plentiful under
+similar circumstances--namely, food for reflection.
+
+After "chewing the bitter cud" until there was nothing left to
+masticate, he intimated from the steeple his desire to surrender. He had
+remained forty days shut up without food, fire, or any other clothing
+but the wrapper in which he had made his escape from his lodgings at
+Brentwood. The once burly De Burgh had, of course, become dreadfully
+thin, and the thread of existence seemed to be inclosed in a mere
+thread-paper. In this state he was taken to the Tower; but he was soon
+released to take his trial before his peers, who would have condemned
+him to death, but the king, looking on the minister as a golden goose,
+merely seized the accumulated eggs, and sent him to prison at the Castle
+of Devizes, until some other means were devised of getting hold of the
+remainder of his property.
+
+Hubert had scarcely been in prison a year, when he took advantage of a
+dark night to drop himself over one of the battlements. He however found
+that one good drop deserved another, for he had fallen into a ditch
+containing a good drop of water, in which he remained absorbed for
+several seconds. Having crawled out, he commenced wringing his hands and
+his clothes, but feeling there was no time to be lost, he made his
+way to a country church, whither he was traced by the drippings of his
+garments, which had left a mark something like that of a water-cart,
+along the path he had taken. Though captured by one party, he was set
+at liberty by another, with whom the king had become very unpopular, and
+Hubert was carried off to Wales, where a sect of discontents, who, had
+they lived in these days, would have been called the Welsh Whigs, had
+long been gathering. Hubert in about a year and a half, obtained a
+return of part of his estates, and was even restored to his honours;
+but the king still kept him as a sort of nest-egg to plunder as occasion
+required. Hubert finally compromised the claims of the sovereign by
+surrendering four castles, in which Hollinshed is disposed to believe
+that Jack Straw's and the Elephant could not have been included.
+
+The Bishop of Winchester, or as he is termed in history, the Poictevin
+bishop, succeeded to power on the downfall of Hubert, and Des Boches
+soon filled the court with foreign adventurers. Two of a trade never
+agree; and the nobility, who had originally been foreign adventurers
+themselves, objected to the importation of any more scamps from abroad,
+on the principle, perhaps, that England had got plenty of that sort
+already. The Poictevin bishop was particularly hostile to the son of
+the late regent, the young Earl of Pembroke, who inherited some of his
+father's virtues, and what was far more interesting to old Des Boches,
+the whole of his father's property. Young P. was in Ireland, where he
+had large estates, which the Poictevin bishop desired the governors of
+that country to confiscate. He promised them a slice, and the governors
+being--as Rapin has it--_avides d'un si bon morceau_--(ravenous for such
+a tit-bit) determined on getting hold of it. Treachery was accordingly
+resorted to, and Pembroke was basely stabbed in the back whilst sitting
+unsuspectingly at his own Pembroke table. This was more than the barons
+could bear; and they told Henry very plainly, through Edmund, the new
+Archbishop of Canterbury, that if Des Roches was not dismissed, the
+sovereign himself would be sent forthwith about his business. The
+Poictevin was ordered off to Winchester, with directions to limit his
+views to his own see; and the patriotic Canterbury, who had of course
+only been anxious for the good of his country, obtained the power from
+which his predecessor had been cleverly ousted.
+
+The Bishop of Winchester was soon afterwards called to Rome by the pope,
+who pretended to require his advice, but really had an eye to his money.
+Des Boches imagined that he was invited for protection, but he was in
+fact wanted for pillage. The Poictevin was glad to escape from English
+_surveillance_, and was quite content to eat his mutton under the pope's
+eye, though he was hardly prepared for the process of picking to which
+he was subjected. The predecessor of Urban * was, however, all urbanity,
+and thus made some amends to Des Boches, who, like the majority of
+mankind, found victimisation a comparatively painless operation when
+performed by the gentle or light-fingered hands of an accomplished
+swindler.
+
+     * According to some authorities Celestine was pope at this
+     period, and Urban did not reach the papal dignity till some
+     time afterwards.
+
+In the year 1236, Henry married Eleanor of Provence, with immense pomp
+and another coronation--a ceremony the frequent repetition of which
+in former times was a proof of the uncertainty of regal power, for the
+crown could not be very firm that so often required re-soldering. The
+king's marriage formed, perhaps, a reasonable excuse for placing an
+extra hod of cement between the monarch's poll and the hollow diadem.
+The marriage festivities were followed by the summoning of a Parliament
+at Merton, where Henry passed a series of statutes that became famous
+under the name of the Statutes of Merton; and where he also pocketed, in
+the shape of-subsidies, a considerable sum of money.
+
+[Illustration: 154]
+
+Eleanor, the new queen, brought with her to England a quantity of needy
+and seedy foreigners, most of whom were immediately promoted. One of her
+uncles, "named Boniface," says Matthew Paris, "from his extraordinary
+quantity of cheek," was raised to the see of Canterbury. She invited
+over from Provence a quantity of _demoiselles a marier_, whom she got
+off by palming them upon rich young nobles, of whom her husband held the
+wardship. The court was turned into a kind of matrimonial bazaar, where
+the wealthy scions of English aristocracy were hooked by the portionless
+but sometimes pretty spinsters of Provence. Nor was this all, for
+Isabella, the queen mother, sent over her four boys, Guy, William,
+Geoffrey, and Aymer, her sons, by the Count de la Marche, to be provided
+for. England was in fact regarded as an enormous common, upon which any
+foreign goose or jackass might be turned out to grass, provided he was
+patronised by a member of the reigning family. Henry, who was the victim
+of his poor relations, soon found himself short of cash, and he was
+obliged to get money in driblets from the Parliament, who never allowed
+him much at a time, and always exacted conditions which were invariably
+broken as soon as the cash was granted.
+
+Henry had been married about a year, when he had the coolness to ask the
+nation for the expenses of his wedding. The barons declared that they
+had never been consulted about the match, and that the king up to the
+last hour of his remaining a single man had acted with great duplicity.
+Finding it useless to command, he resorted to the old plan of humbug,
+and fell back upon his old friend Magna Charta, which he confirmed once
+more, for about the fifth or sixth time, and of course got the money
+he required. This great Bill of Rights was to him a sort of stereotyped
+bill of exchange, upon which he could always raise a sum of money by
+going through the formality of a fresh acceptance.
+
+The history of this reign for the next few years would furnish fitter
+materials for the accountant than the historian, and Henry's career
+would be better told in a balance-sheet than in the form of narrative.
+Had his schedule been regularly filed it would have disclosed a series
+of insolvencies, from which he was only relieved by taking the benefit
+of some act of generosity and credulity on the part of his Parliament.
+At one moment he was so fearfully hard up that he was advised to
+sell all his plate and jewels. * "Who will buy them?" he
+exclaimed;--"though," he added, glancing at his four awkward
+half-brothers, "if anyone would give mo anything for that set of spoons,
+I should be glad to take the offer." He was told that the citizens
+of London would purchase plate to any amount, at which he burst into
+violent invectives against "the clowns," as he termed them, probably
+on account of the presumed capacity of their breeches pockets. He made
+every effort to annoy the citizens, and showed his appreciation of their
+superfluous cash by helping himself to ten thousand pounds of it by open
+violence.
+
+     * Matthew Paris, Mat. West. Chron. Duncl.
+
+In the year 1253, Henry was once more in a fix, and again the Parliament
+had the folly to promise him a supply if he would go through another
+confirmation of Magna Charta. On the 3rd of May he attended a general
+meeting of the nobility at Westminster Hall where he found the
+ecclesiastical dignitaries holding each a burning taper in his hand,
+intending probably that the melting wax should make a deep impression on
+the sovereign. Some are of opinion that this process was illustrative of
+the necessity sometimes said to exist for holding a candle to a certain
+individual. Henry took the usual quantity of oaths, and the priests
+dashed to the ground their tapers, which went out in smoke, and were so
+far typical of the king's promises. On receiving the money he went to
+Guienne, from which he soon came back--as a popular vocalist used to
+say by way of cue to his song--"without sixpence in his pocket, just
+like--Love among the roses."
+
+The pope now brought in a heavy bill of L100,000 for money lent, of
+which Henry declared he had never enjoyed the benefit. The pope merely
+observed, that he was clearing his books and must have the matter
+settled. The king turned upon the clergy, upon whom he drew bills, one
+of which was addressed to the Bishop of Worcester, who declared they
+might take his mitre in execution for the amount, and the Bishop of
+Gloucester said they might serve his the same; but if they did he
+would wear a helmet. Richard, the king's brother, who was very wealthy,
+hearing that the German empire was in the market for sale, made a bold
+bid for it. There was another competitor for the lot in the person
+of Alphonso, king of Castile, but Richard put down L700,000 and was
+declared the purchaser. This liberality was of course at the expense of
+poor England, which was so completely drained of cash that when Henry
+met his Parliament on the 2nd of May, 1258, he found the barons in
+full armour, rattling their swords, as much as to say, that these must
+furnish a substitute for the precious metals.
+
+Henry was alarmed at the menacing aspect of the assembly, but one of
+his foreign half-brothers began vapouring, in a mixed _patois_ of bad
+French, to the bent down, but not yet broken, English. The king himself
+resorted to his old trick of promising, and pledged his word once more
+with his usual success, though it was already pawned over and over again
+for a hundred times its value. The barons, however, were still ready
+to take it in; though they had got by them already an enormous stock of
+similar articles, all unredeemed, and daily losing their interest. The
+leader of the country party was at this time Simon de Montfort, Earl of
+Leicester, a Frenchman, who had married Eleanor, the king's sister.
+He had quarrelled and made it up with Henry once or twice, and the
+following conversation is recorded to have taken place, in 1252, between
+the earl and his sovereign:--
+
+"You are a traitor," said the king.
+
+"You are a liar!" replied the courtier.
+
+After this brief and decisive dialogue Leicester went to France, but his
+royal brother-in-law soon invited him back again.
+
+On the 11th of June, 1258, there met, at Oxford, an assembly to which
+the Royalists gave the name of the Mad Parliament. There was a good deal
+of method in the madness of the members, for they appointed twenty-four
+barons and bishops as a committee of government. There was some insanity
+in the proposition to hold three sessions in a year, but it is doubtful
+whether Dr. Winslow, or any other eminent physician would have found, in
+the statutes passed at the time sufficient to form the foundation of
+a statute of lunacy. Henry seems to have been most in want of Dr.
+Winslow's care, for his majesty was exceedingly mad at the decisive
+measures of the barons, and would have been glad of an asylum where he
+would have been safe from their influence.
+
+The Oxford Parliament, which was certainly an odd compound of good and
+bad, or light and dark--the regular Oxford mixture--passed some measures
+of a very miscellaneous character. The annual election of a new sheriff,
+and the sending to Parliament of four knights, chosen by the freeholders
+in each county, were judicious steps; but in some other respects the
+barons abused their power, and got a good deal of abuse themselves in
+consequence. The queen's relations and the king's half-brothers were
+literally scared out of the kingdom; but only to make way for the
+advancement of the friends and relatives of the Mad Parliament.
+
+Soon after it met, Richard, who had emptied his pockets in Germany,
+wanted to come to England to replenish them. He was met at St. Omer by a
+messenger, stating that there would be no admittance unless he complied
+with the new regulations made by the barons. To this he reluctantly
+consented, and he joined his brother the king, with the full intention
+of organising an opposition, which he found already commenced by the
+Earl of Gloucester, who had grown jealous of Leicester's influence. Even
+at that early period the struggles between the "Ins and the Outs," which
+form the chief business of political life, had already commenced, and
+there was the same sort of shuffling from side to side, and principle to
+principle, which the observer of statesmanship at the present day cannot
+fail to recognise.
+
+There was among all parties a vast protestation of regard for Magna
+Charta, which served the same purpose then as has since been answered
+by the British Constitution and the British lion. Henry, seeing with
+delight the divisions of the barons, got a bull from the pope to serve
+as a piece of india-rubber for his conscience, by rubbing out all the
+oaths he had taken at Oxford.
+
+On the 2nd of February, 1261, he announced his intention of governing
+without the aid of the committee, and immediately went to the Tower,
+of which he took possession. He then dropped in at the Mint, where
+he emptied every till, and even waited, according to some, while a
+shilling, which was in the course of manufacture, got cool in the
+crucible. The Mint authorities were of course exceedingly obsequious,
+and may probably have offered to send him home a batch of new pennies
+that were not quite done, if his majesty desired it. "No, thank you,"
+would have been Henry's reply, "I'll take what you've got;" and so he
+did, for off he marched with the whole of it.
+
+The arbitrary conduct of the barons had somewhat disgusted the people,
+many of whom had discovered that one tyrant was not quite so bad as
+four-and-twenty. London declared for Henry, and Leicester ran away; but
+the vacillating cockneys soon declared for Leicester, which brought him
+back again. The king, who had been at such pains to secure the Tower,
+had the mortification to find it secured him, for he was safely locked
+up in it. Prince Edward, his son, flew to Windsor Castle, and the queen,
+his mother, was going down to the stairs at London Bridge to take a boat
+to follow him. She had shouted "Hi!" to the jack-in-the-water, and was
+stepping into a wherry, when she was recognised by the mob, who called
+after her as a witch, and pelted her with mud and missiles. The Lord
+Mayor, who happened to be passing, gallantly offered her his arm, walked
+with her to St. Paul's, and left her in the care of the doorkeeper. This
+anecdote is circumstantially given by all the chroniclers, among whom we
+need only mention Wykes, West, and Trivet--the correctness of the last
+being so remarkable that "right as a Trivet" is to this day a proverb.
+After a prodigious quantity of quarrelling between Henry and Son on one
+part, and Leicester and Co. on the other, the matters in dispute were
+referred to the arbitration of the French king, Louis the Ninth, who
+made an award in favour of Henry, which the barons of course refused to
+abide by. A civil war broke out with great fury, in which the Jews
+were victimised by both parties, though opposed to neither. They were
+slaughtered by the barons for being attached to the king, and were also
+slaughtered by the king's party for being attached to the barons.
+If they were attached to either it certainly was one of the most
+unfortunate attachments we ever heard of, and the strength of the
+attachment must have been great which could have survived such horrible
+treatment.
+
+On the 14th of May, 1264, the king's party and that of Leicester met in
+battle. His majesty was at Lewes, in a hollow, where he thought himself
+deep enough to have got into a position of safety. The earl was upon
+the Downs, which Wykes calls a "downy move," for the spot was raised and
+commanded a view of the movements of the sovereign.
+
+Leicester commenced the attack, which soon became general. Prince Edward
+charged the London militia, who could have charged pretty well in return
+if they been behind their counters; but they had no idea of selling
+their lives at any price. They accordingly fled in all directions and
+the prince paid them off all he owed them for the manner in which they
+had served his mother. Leicester concentrated his force upon the king to
+whom he gave personally a sound thrashing.
+
+Having cudgelle the king to his heart's content, he took him into
+custody. Prince Edward was seized, but the latter escaped on the
+Thursday in Whitsun week, 1265, and raised a powerful force, with which
+he marched to Evesham against his father's enemies.
+
+Leicester had formed a camp near Kenilworth, and having got the king
+still in his possession, he encased the poor old man in armour, put him
+on a horse, and turned him into the field on the morning of the battle.
+The veteran was soon dismounted, and was on the point of being killed,
+when he roared out "Hollo! stop! I am Henry of Winchester!" His son
+recognising his voice, seized him and literally bundled him into a place
+of safety. "What do you do here?" muttered Edward, somewhat annoyed, but
+the aged Henry could not explain a circumstance which might have played
+old Harry with the cause of the Royalists. Leicester's horse fell
+under him, but the earl bounding to his feet, continued to fight, until
+finding the matter getting serious, he paused to inquire whether the
+Royalists gave quarter. "There is no quarter for traitors," was the only
+reply he received, followed by a poke in the shape of a home-thrust from
+the sword of one of the enemy. Deprived of their leader, Leicester's
+followers had nothing to follow, and the Royalists obtained a victory.
+The king was now restored to power, but there were still a few rebels
+in the forest of Hampshire, one of whom, named Adam Gourdon, came to a
+personal contest with Prince Edward, who got him down, placed his
+foot on his chest, and generously restored him to liberty. Gourdon was
+introduced to the queen the same night as a sort of prize rebel, and
+became a faithful adherent to the royal family.
+
+Henry was now left at home all by himself, his son Edward having gone to
+Palestine. The old man often wrote to request the prince to return, for
+his majesty found himself unequal to the bother of ruling a people still
+disposed to be occasionally turbulent. A sedition had broken out at
+Norwich, which Henry had gone to quell, and he was on his way back to
+London, when he was laid up at St. Edmund's Bury by indisposition. Being
+considered a slight illness, it was at first slighted, but the royal
+patient became worse, and he died on the 16th of November, 1272, at the
+respectable age of sixty-eight, according to one historian, * sixty-four
+according to a second, ** and sixty-six according to a third. *** The
+last seems to be the nearest to the truth, for Henry had been a king
+about fifty-six years, and he was about ten when he came to the throne.
+He was buried at Westminster Abbey, where for nothing on Sundays and for
+twopence on week days, posterity may see his tomb.
+
+     * Macfarlane.
+
+     ** Hume.
+
+     ***Rapin.
+
+The character of Henry the Third was an odd compound, a species of
+physiological grog, a mixture of generous spirit and weak water, the
+latter predominating over the former in a very considerable degree.
+He was exceedingly fond of money, of which he extracted such enormous
+quantities from his subjects, that if the heart and the pocket were
+synonymous, as they have sometimes been called, Henry would have had
+the fullest possession of the hearts of his people. His manner must have
+been rather persuasive; for if the Parliament refused a subsidy at first
+they were always talked over by his majesty, and made to relax their
+purse-strings before the sitting closed. Some gratitude may perhaps be
+due to him on account of his patronage of literature, for he started
+the practice of keeping a poet, in an age when poets found considerable
+difficulty in keeping themselves. The bard alluded to was one Master
+Henry, who received on one occasion a hundred shillings, * and was
+subsequently "ordered ten pounds;" but, considering the unpunctuality
+of the king in money matters, it was doubtful whether the order for ten
+pounds was ever honoured. The persecution of the Jews was among the
+most remarkable features of the career of the king, who used to demand
+enormous sums of them, and threatened to hang them if they refused
+compliance. In this he only followed the example of his father, John,
+who, it is said, demanded ten thousand marks of an unfortunate Jew, one
+of whose teeth was pulled out every day, until he paid the money. It is
+said by Matthew Paris ** that seven were extracted before the cash was
+forthcoming. This was undoubtedly the fact, but it is not generally
+known, that, with the cunning of his race, the Jew contrived to get some
+advantage out of the treatment to which he was subjected. It is said
+that he exclaimed, after the last operation had been performed, "They
+don't know it, but them teeth was all decayed. There's not a shound
+von among the lot, so I've done 'em nicely;" and with this piece of
+consolation, he paid the money.
+
+     * Madox, p. 208.
+
+     ** Page 160.
+
+To his reign has also been attributed the origin of the custom of
+sending deputies to Parliament to represent the commons, a practice that
+we find from looking over the list of the lower house, is liable to be
+in some cases greatly abused. "Take him for all in all," as the poet
+says, "we shall never"--that is to say, we hope we shall never--"look up
+on his like again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SECOND. EDWARD THE FIRST, SURNAMED LONGSHANKS.
+
+
+[Illustration: 160]
+
+EDWARD was the first king who came to the throne like a gentle-man,
+without any of that indecent clutching of the crown and sacking of
+the treasury which had been practised by almost every one of his
+predecessors. Perhaps his absence from England was the chief cause of
+this forbearance; but it is at all events refreshing to meet with a
+sovereign whose accession was not marked by a burglary upon the premises
+where the public treasure happened to be deposited.
+
+On the 20th of November, 1272, four days after his father's death,
+Edward was proclaimed king by the barons at the New Temple. It was
+probably under the shade of the old fig-tree in Fig-Tree Court, that
+they read his titles of King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of
+Aquitaine. Edward had been engaged in the crusades, as one of those
+fighting missionaries who conveyed "sermons in stones" through the
+medium of slings, and knocked unbelief literally upon the head with the
+Christian battle-axe. One day he nearly lost his life, by the hands
+of an assassin, disguised as a postman from the Emir of Jaffa, who,
+feigning a wish to be converted, had opened a correspondence with
+Edward.
+
+The English prince was lying in his _robe-de-chambre_ on a couch, when
+the usual salaam--the emir's postman's knock--was made at the door of
+his apartment. The messenger had brought a letter, of which Edward had
+scarcely broken the wax, when his doom was nearly sealed by a blow from
+a dagger, hidden in the postman's sleeve. The prince parried the attack
+with his arms, which were his only weapons, until, wresting the dirk
+from his assailant's hands, he used it to put a period to the existence
+of the would-be murderer, by a process of punctuation which no
+grammarian has attempted to describe.
+
+Edward's wound was not deep, but his enemies had been deep enough to
+introduce some venom into it. When he heard the fact he gave himself
+up to despair, for he considered that his existence was irretrievably
+poisoned. A romantic story is told of Queen Eleanor having sucked the
+poison from her husband's arm, but it is quite certain that such succour
+was never afforded him, and the anecdote is therefore not worth the
+straw that the operation would have required.
+
+[Illustration: 162]
+
+The prince owed his recovery to the prompt attendance of an English
+surgeon, who happened to be settled at Acre, and to some drugs supplied
+by the Grand Master of the Templars, who opened his heart and his
+chest--of medicine--for the relief of the suffering Edward. There is
+no doubt that Eleanor had sufficient affection for her husband, to have
+prompted her to draw the poison into her mouth had it ever entered her
+head; but the fact appears to be that the remedy was never thought of
+until a century after the infliction of the wound, which was a little
+too late to be of service to the patient, though nothing is ever too
+late to be made use of by the chroniclers. The notion was too good to
+be rejected by these very credulous gentlemen, who are easily induced to
+convert might have been, into has been, when the latter course is better
+adapted for exciting an agreeable interest.
+
+Feeling tolerably secure of the throne, he was in no hurry to take
+possession, but enjoyed an agreeable tour before returning to England.
+He paid a visit to the new pope, his old friend Theobald, though there
+was some difficulty in getting into Theobald's road, for his holiness
+had left Rome for Civita Vecchia. Edward spent some time in Italy, for
+among the many irons he had in the fire were two or three Italian irons,
+which he desired to look after before arriving in his own country.
+He next visited Paris, and instead of coming straight home with the
+diligence that might have been expected, he turned back to Guienne,
+where he was invited by the Count of Chalons to a tournament.
+
+"'Twas in the merry month of May," in the year 1274, "When bees from
+flower to flower did hum," exactly as they do in the present day, that
+the parties met lance to lance, each attended by a host of champions.
+Edward brought one thousand with him, but the Count of Chalons came
+with two thousand, an incident which at once raised a suspicion that
+the chivalrous knight intended foul play towards his royal antagonist.
+A tournament in sport soon became a battle in earnest, and the count
+rushed upon Edward, grasping him by the neck to embrace the opportunity
+of unhorsing him. Nothing, however, could make him resign his seat, and
+the Count of Chalons was soon licking the dust, or rather, the saw-dust
+spread over the arena in which the tournament was given. Edward was so
+angry at the trick which had been played, that he hit his antagonist
+several times while down, and kept hammering at the armour of the count
+like a smith at an anvil. The Count of Chalons roared out lustily for
+mercy, but Edward refusing to grant it, continued to "give it him"
+in another sense for several minutes. At length the count offered to
+surrender his sword, which was igno-miniously rejected by the English
+king, who called up a common foot soldier to take away the dishonoured
+weapon.
+
+[Illustration: 164]
+
+It was not till the year 1274 that Edward thought of returning to
+England, and he sent over to order his coronation dinner on a scale that
+would have done honour to a mayoral banquet. The bill of fare included
+so many heads of cattle, that the shortest way to get through the
+cooking would have been to light a fire under Leadenhall Market, and
+roast the whole of the contents by a single operation. If such a feast
+had really taken place, it was enough to put the times out of joint for
+a twelvemonth afterwards. On the 2nd of August, 1274, Edward arrived at
+Dover, and on the 19th of the same month he was crowned at Westminster
+Abbey, with his wife, Eleanor. This was the wonderful woman who was
+erroneously alleged to have sucked the poison from her husband's arm,
+a feat that has had no parallel in modern times, if we except the
+individual who undertook to swallow liquid lead and arsenic before a
+generous British public, and who, by surviving the operation, gave great
+offence to a portion of the enlightened audience. Edward, on coming to
+England, found plenty of loyalty, but very little cash; and though
+he had no objection to reign in the hearts of his people, he felt
+the necessity of making himself also master of their pockets. A crown
+without money would have been a mere tin kettle, tied to the head,
+instead of the tail, of the unlucky dog who might be compelled to wear
+it.
+
+The king turned his attention to the unfortunate Jews, who seemed to be
+tolerated in England as human bees, employed in collecting the sweets
+of wealth only for the purpose of having it taken away from them. Edward
+literally emptied them out of the kingdom, for the purpose of plundering
+their hives more effectually. He allowed some of them their travelling
+expenses out of England, but even this was more than they required in
+many cases, for the inhabitants of the ports saved the Jews the cost of
+their journey by most inhumanly drowning them.
+
+Edward, however unjust himself, disliked injustice in others; and
+indeed, with the common jealousy of dealers on a very large scale, he
+seemed to desire a monopoly of all the robbery and oppression practised
+within his own dominions. In the year 1289, the judicial bench was
+disgraced by a set of extortioners whose existence we can scarcely
+comprehend in the present age, when a corrupt judge would be as
+difficult to find as the philosopher's stone, or as that desirable but
+impossible boon to the briefless barrister, perpetual motion. The Chief
+Justice of the King's Bench had actually encouraged his own servants
+to commit murder, for the sake of the fees that would accrue upon the
+trial, and, of course, the acquittal of the culprits. The Chief Baron
+of-the Exchequer had kept all the money paid into court upon every
+action that had been tried, and was even discovered going disgraceful
+snacks with the usher in illegal charges upon suitors. As to the
+puisnes, they had been detected in selling their judgments _in banco_ at
+so much a folio, and even hiring pickpockets to rob the leading
+counsel as they went out of court with their fees in their pockets. The
+Chancellor had spent the money of nearly all his wards, and would never
+fix a day for a decree until he was positively forced, when he would
+pronounce a decision unintelligible to all parties. These disgraceful
+proceedings were made a pretext by the king for taking eighty thousand
+marks from the judges, his majesty observing, that if he took from them
+all the marks they possessed, he could not remove the stains from their
+characters. This shallow sophism, though it might have satisfied the
+king himself, was not consolatory to the judges, nor was it calculated
+to reimburse the people for the losses sustained by judicial
+delinquency. It is said that the first clock placed opposite the gate of
+Westminster Hall was purchased with a fine of eight hundred marks upon
+the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and the popular saying "that's
+your time of day" is supposed to have arisen from a sarcasm that used to
+be addressed by the crowd outside to the judicial delinquent.
+
+As a measure of further extortion, Edward became suddenly very
+particular as to the titles by which the nobles held their estates, and
+sent round commissioners to demand the production of the deeds by which
+the barons acquired their property. Earl de Warenne was called upon
+among the rest, and desired that the commissioners might be politely
+shown in to him. "So, gentlemen," he mildly observed, "you wish to see
+the title by which I hold my property."
+
+"Exactly so," was the reply, which was followed by a commonplace
+expression of sorrow at being obliged to trouble him, "It is no trouble
+in the least," rejoined Earl de Warenne, drawing a tremendous sword,
+which he brandished before the eyes of the commissioners, and begged
+their close inspection of the title by which his ancestors had acquired
+his possessions.
+
+[Illustration: 166]
+
+"You see, gentlemen," he continued, "there is no flaw to be detected,
+and if after looking at my title you want a specimen of my deeds, I can
+very speedily give you the satisfaction you require." The historian need
+scarcely add that the commissioners backed out, with an observation,
+"that a mere abstract of the title--a drawing of the sword out of its
+scabbard--was all that could possibly be required." Edward having other
+fish to fry, had hitherto neglected Wales, but that land of mountains
+was a scene of frequent risings, which he now determined to "put down"
+with promptitude and vigour. Llewellyn, the Prince of North Wales, was
+summoned to London to do homage as a tributary to the English crown, but
+his ambition having been fired by some prophecies of the famous Merlin,
+the fiery Welshman sent word that he would not come so far to see
+Edward, which was equivalent to a declaration that he would see him
+further. The English king having resolved to punish so much insolence,
+about Easter, 1277, crossed the Dee--not the sea, as some historians
+have alleged--with a large army and blocked poor Llewellyn up in his own
+principality. His brother David having been made an English baron, and
+married to the daughter of an English earl, was at first devoted to
+the English, but his native breezes fanned the still dormant flame of
+patriotism, and he joined his brother in resisting the foreign enemy.
+Edward occupied Anglesey, but in crossing over to the mainland he found
+himself in the most dreadful straits at the Menai. He lost several
+hundred men, and was obliged to fly for protection to one of his
+castles, but a king in those days could make every Englishman's house
+his castle, by unceremoniously walking into it. Llewellyn was somewhat
+emboldened by partial success, and foolishly advanced to the valley of
+the Wye, without anyone knowing wherefore. Roger, the savage Earl of
+Mortimer, was immediately down upon him, and sacrificed him before he
+had time even to put on his armour, in which he was only half encased
+when he was cruelly set upon by the enemy. He had buckled on his
+greaves, and was in the act of putting on his breast-plate over his head
+when he was decapitated with the usual disregard which was at that
+time continually shown to the heads of families. His brother David kept
+cutting about the country with his sword in his hand for at least six
+months, until he was basely betrayed into the hands of the English. He
+was condemned to die the death of traitors, which included a series
+of barbarities too revolting to mention. This sentence, which formed a
+precedent in the punishment of high treason for many ages, is one of
+the most disgraceful facts of our history. It casts a stigma upon every
+Parliament and every generation of the people in whose time this fearful
+penalty either was or might have been inflicted.
+
+The leek of Wales was now entwined with the rose of England, and Edward
+endeavoured to propitiate his newly acquired subjects by becoming a
+resident in the conquered country. His wife Eleanor gave birth to a son
+in the castle of Caernarvon, and he availed himself of the circumstance
+to introduce the infant as a native production, giving him the title of
+Prince of Wales, which has ever since been held by the eldest son of the
+English sovereign.
+
+[Illustration: 168]
+
+After remaining about a year in Wales, Edward was enabled by the
+tranquillity of the kingdom to take a Continental tour, in the course of
+which he was often appealed to as a mutual friend by sovereigns between
+whom there was any difference. He acted as arbitrator in the celebrated
+cause of Anjou against Aragon; but while settling the affairs of others,
+his own were getting rather embarrassed, and he was compelled in the
+year 1289 to return to England.
+
+Upon reaching home he found that Scotland was in that state of weakness
+which offered an eligible opportunity to a royal plunderer. The king,
+Alexander the Third, had died, leaving a little grandchild of the name
+of Margaret, as his successor. This young lady was the daughter of Eric,
+king of Norway, who wrote over to Edward, requesting he would do what
+he could for her in case of her title being disputed. The English
+sovereign, with a cunning worthy of a certain French old gentleman whom
+we need not name, recommended a marriage with his son as the best mode
+of protecting the royal damsel. The preliminaries were all arranged, and
+Eric had agreed to forward the little Margaret, who was only eight years
+of age, by the first boat from Norway to Britain. The child had been
+shipped and regularly invoiced, when she fell ill, and being put ashore
+at one of the Orkney Islands, she unfortunately died.
+
+On the death of the queen being made known, claimants to the Scottish
+crown started up in all directions, and it was necessary to find the
+heir by hunting among the descendants of David of Huntingdon. John
+Baliol was the grandson of David's eldest daughter, and John's
+grandmother therefore gave Baliol a right to the crown, which was
+disputed by Bruce and Hastings, the sons of the youngest daughters
+of Huntingdon senior, whose only son, Huntingdon junior, died without
+issue. An opening was thus left to the female tranches, and the
+introduction of those charming elements of discord--the ladies--into
+the question of succession, created, of course, all the confusion that
+arose.
+
+Edward, having advanced to Norham, a small town on the English side of
+the Tweed, which, as everyone knows, forms a kind of Tweedish wrapper
+for Scotland, appointed a conference, which took place on the 10th of
+May, 1291, at which he distinctly stated that he intended regulating the
+succession to the Scotch throne. At this meeting Edward himself proposed
+the first resolution, which pledged the assembly to a recognition of the
+right of the English king not only to do what he liked with his own, but
+to do what he liked with Scotland also, which did not belong to him. One
+gentleman, in the body of the assembly, who remains anonymous to this
+day, ventured to suggest by way of amendment, that no answer could be
+made while the throne was vacant, and an adjournment until the next
+morning was agreed upon. No business was, however, done on the morrow,
+but a further postponement till the 2nd of June was eventually
+carried. When that day arrived the attendance was numerous and highly
+respectable, for on the platform we might have observed no less
+than eight competitors for the crown. Robert Bruce, who was there in
+excellent health and spirits, publicly declared his readiness to refer
+his claims to Edward's arbitration, and all the other claimants did
+the same. On the next day, Baliol made his appearance and followed
+the example of the others, and it was agreed that one hundred and
+four commissioners should be appointed to inquire and report to Edward
+previous to his giving his final award. There is little doubt that
+this enormous number of commissioners could only have been intended to
+mystify the case, and to leave Edward at liberty to settle it his own
+way; a suspicion that is still further justified by his having reserved
+the right to add, without any limit or restriction, to the number
+of commissioners, and thus make "confusion worse confounded" should
+occasion require.
+
+The wily Edward, pretending that it was necessary to the performance of
+his duty as arbitrator, got the kingdom, the castles, and other property
+surrendered into his hands on the 11th of June; though the Earl of Angus
+refused to give up Dundee and Forfar without an indemnity, which he
+stoutly stuck up for, and eventually obtained. None of the clergy joined
+in this disgraceful concession but the Bishop of Sodor, who ought to
+have been the very first to effervesce. The king himself went to the
+principal towns in Scotland with the rolls of homage, which were
+allowed to lie for signature, and he sent attorneys, empowered to take
+affidavits, into the various villages.
+
+At length, on the 3rd of August, the commissioners met for the despatch
+of business, and, of course, came to no decision. In the year following
+they tackled the subject again, but it was found that the more they
+talked about it, the more they differed. Edward, by way of complicating
+the affair still further, summoned a Parliament to meet at Berwick on
+the 15th of October, 1292, at which Bruce and Baliol were fully heard,
+when the assembly laid down a general proposition that the lineal
+descendant of the eldest sister, however remote in degree, was
+preferable to the nearer in degree, if descended from a younger sister.
+This decision left everything undecided, and accordingly Edward gave
+judgment that Baliol should be king of Scotland, with the simple proviso
+that Edward should be king of Baliol. The whole affair having been "a
+sell" got up between the English sovereign and the Scottish claimant,
+there was no demur on the part of the latter, who swore fealty, as he
+would have sworn that black was white, had such been the purport of the
+oath that his master required.
+
+Edward took every opportunity of bullying Baliol, and even ordered him
+to come all the way to Westminster to defend an action brought against
+him for money due from Alexander the Third, his greatgrandfather. He was
+also served with process in the paltry suit of self _ats_ Macduff;
+and other writs, to which he was forced to appear in person, were
+continually served upon him. For the smallest pecuniary claim the Scotch
+king was compelled to come to England to plead, until his patience at
+last gave way, and he turned refractory.
+
+Edward was now at war with Philip of France, whom Baliol agreed to serve
+by harassing their mutual enemy. The Scotch king, who was at heart a
+humbug and a coward to the core, became exceedingly insolent, from the
+belief that Edward was somewhat down, and the proper time had arrived
+for hitting him. The English sovereign, who had been harassed at
+first by the Scotch cur, soon brought him howling for mercy, which was
+accorded on condition of his resigning the kingly office, a proposition
+which Baliol basely submitted to. Edward made a triumphal progress
+through Scotland, and taking a fancy to an old stone, upon which the
+kings had sat to be crowned at Scone, caused the very uncomfortable
+coronation chair to be removed to Westminster. * The people of Scotland
+had always considered this block to be the corner-stone of their
+liberties, and its removal seemed to take away the only foundation that
+their hopes of regaining their independence were built upon. As long as
+it was in their country, they believed it would bring them good fortune;
+but they dreaded the reverse if the stone should be removed even so far
+as a stone's throw from the borders of Scotland. Edward having appointed
+the Earl de Warenne governor of the vanquished kingdom, and given away
+all the appointments that were vacant to creatures of his own, returned
+in triumph to England.
+
+     * Hemingford.
+
+In the year 1297 William Wallace, commonly known as the hero of
+Scotland, made his first appearance on the stage of history as a
+supernumerary, carrying a banner, for we find him engaged in unfurling
+the standard of liberty. He was at first merely the captain of a small
+band of outlaws--a sort of first robber--in the great drama in which he
+was soon to sustain a principal character. He was the second son of
+Sir William Wallace, of Ellerslie, and had all the qualities of a
+melodramatic hero, so far at least as we are enabled to judge by a
+description of him written a hundred years after his death with that
+minuteness which the old chroniclers were so fond of adopting when they
+knew that no one had the power of contradicting them. The celebrated
+Bower, who continued the Scotichronicon of Fordun, tells us that Wallace
+was "broad-shouldered, big-boned, and proportionately corpulent," so
+that his shoulders were broad enough to bear the burden he undertook;
+and his being corpulent gave him this advantage over his enemies, that
+if they had fifty thousand lives, he had undoubtedly "stomach for them
+all."
+
+[Illustration: 171]
+
+Mr. Tytler, who will perhaps excuse us for venturing on Tytler's ground,
+informs us in his History of Scotland that "Wallace had an iron frame,"
+so that we have the picture of the man at once before us. For a quarrel
+with an English officer he had been banished from his home, and by
+living in fastnesses he acquired some of those loosenesses which are
+inseparable from a roving character. His followers comprised a few men
+of desperate fortunes and bad reputation, who had turned patriots, as
+gentlemen in difficulties generally do; for it is a remarkable fact,
+that the men who endeavour to discharge a debt to their country are
+those who never think of discharging the debts which they owe to their
+creditors. Success, however, covers a multitude of sins, and Wallace
+with his little band of outlaws, having achieved one or two small
+triumphs, soon found out the fact that the world which sneers at the
+very noblest cause in its early struggles, will always be ready to
+join it in the moment of victory. Wallace having been fortunate in his
+efforts, soon had the co-operation of Sir William Douglas and all his
+vassals; just as Mr. Cobden and the Anti-Corn-Law League, after
+having been denounced as turbulent demagogues, and threatened with
+prosecution, were assisted on the eve of the fulfilment of their object
+by the leaders of the Opposition and the principal members of the
+Government.
+
+Edward, who had been in Flanders during the commencement of the Scotch
+rebellion, now returned to England, and by way of propitiating his
+subjects, he summoned a Parliament, at which Magna Charta was again
+voluntarily confirmed. It is true he made a cunning effort to insert at
+the end of it the words "saving always the rights of our crown," * which
+would have been almost equivalent to striking out all the other clauses
+of the document. The Parliament hotly opposed the crafty suggestion,
+which was accordingly withdrawn, and supplies for carrying on the war
+against the Scotch insurgents were readily granted. In the summer of
+1298, Edward came in person to Scotland at the head of a large army.
+Wallace, instead of waiting for a battle, retired slowly before the
+forces of the English king, clearing off all the provisions on the
+way, and thus aiming a blow at the stomach of the enemy. The invaders
+advanced, but there was nothing to eat; or as Mr. Tyler well expresses
+it, "they found an inhospitable desert" where--he might have added--they
+had occasion for a hospitable dinner. Wallace was now at Falkirk, from
+which he meditated an attack upon the king, but Edward, having been
+apprised of his intention, reflected that it was a game at which two
+could play, and he thought it as well to secure the first innings.
+The English king accordingly, finding the ball at his foot, took it up
+immediately, and at once bowled out the Scottish hero. The battle of
+Falkirk, was fought on the 22nd of July, 1298, and the Scotch loss is
+variously stated at ten, fifteen, and sixty thousand men. In ordinary
+matters it is sometimes safe to believe half that we hear, but it would
+be more judicious to limit one's trust to ten per cent, in the records
+of history.
+
+     * Rapin, vol. iii., p. 72, second edition, quarto, 1727.
+
+The Scotch war had of course been a very expensive business, and Edward
+had been sponging upon his subjects to an alarming extent during its
+continuance. In 1294 he had taken from the clergy half their incomes and
+nearly all their eatables. His purveyors first emptied their granaries,
+then robbed their farm-yards and ultimately pillaged their pantries;
+so that the king having already ransacked their pockets, the "reverend
+fathers," as he insultingly termed them, were in a very pretty
+predicament. Their larders were laid waste, their safes were no longer
+safe, they could not preserve their jam, their corn was instantly
+sacked, and even their joints of meat, from the leg to the loin, were
+walked off or pur-loined by the order of the sovereign. The pope, who
+had been applied to for protection when they were being deprived of
+their cattle, sent over a bull, which proved of very little use, for
+he soon despatched a second, by which the first was recalled in all its
+most important provisions.
+
+The trading classes were not so easily robbed, for when the king began
+to deal with them in his own peculiar fashion, he found them rather
+awkward customers. Some wool had been prepared for shipping by the
+London merchants, when the king's agents came woolgathering to
+the wharfs, and carried it off with a high hand for the use of the
+sovereign. It is true they promised to pay, and ordered the owners to
+put it down to the bill; but the traders determined that they could not
+do business in that manner. They were joined by some of the nobles, and
+among others by Hereford, the constable, and Norfolk, the marshal of
+England, who had a joint audience of his majesty, who threatened to hang
+them if they did not do his bidding. "I will neither do so, nor hang,
+sir king," was Norfolk's reply, in which Hereford acquiesced; so that it
+was evident Edward could neither trample on the marshal, nor any longer
+overrun the constable. Thirty bannerets and fifteen hundred gentlemen
+whom the king had dubbed knights joined the two nobles in their refusal
+to dub up, * and Edward was left almost alone. In this dilemma he
+appealed to the people by the old trick of an effective speech,
+interlarded with those clap-traps which he knew so well how to employ.
+He caused a platform to be erected at the door of Westminster Hall,
+and appeared upon it, supported by his son Edward, the Archbishop of
+Canterbury, and the Earl of Warwick. Like the schoolmaster who never
+administered a flogging without saying it hurt him a great deal more
+than the boy, the king told the people that it was more grievous to him
+to exact taxes from his dear people than it could be to them to bear the
+burden. "I am going," he exclaimed, "to expose myself to all the dangers
+of war for your sakes," and here he pulled out his pocket-handkerchief,
+behind which he winked at the Archbishop of Canterbury, who thrust his
+tongue into his cheek to show the prelate's relish for his master's
+hypocrisy.
+
+     * Heming.
+
+"If I return alive," continued the royal humbug, "I will make you amends
+for the past; but if I fall, here is my dear son (step this way, Ned),
+place him on the throne (hold your head up, stupid), and his gratitude
+(bow, you blockhead) will be the reward of your fidelity." Here he
+fairly swamped his face in tears, while the archbishop turned on a
+couple of fountains, which came gushing through his eyes, and the
+meeting was literally dissolved by the practice of this piece of crying
+injustice towards the people. Not only had he melted the hearts of
+the traders by this manouvre, but he drew streams of coin for the
+liquidation of his debts from their pockets. With the cash thus
+collected he started to join Guy, Earl of Flanders, against Philip le
+Bel, a very pretty sort of fellow, between whom and Edward there was
+a contest for the possession of the daughter of the Guy, the fair
+Philippa. The English king had, as early as 1294, contracted a marriage
+for the Prince of Wales with this young lady, who was only nine when
+the match was agreed upon. The happiness of the Flemish infant of course
+went for nothing in the game of craft and ambition which was being
+played by the intriguing French king, who had no other object but the
+extension of his personal influence. Though he may have been the first,
+he was certainly not the last Philip on the throne of France to force
+the inclinations of royal children on the subject of marriage for his
+own purposes.
+
+Edward the Fourth had expended a large amount of English money in
+purchasing the support of foreign mercenaries, who had no sooner spent
+their wages than they discontinued their services. The English king,
+finding he was likely to get the worst of it, concluded a truce in the
+spring of 1298, and left the unfortunate Guy to fight his own battles.
+
+[Illustration: 174]
+
+Before Edward's return home, the London citizens refused to pay the
+taxes, on the ground of their not having been imposed by the consent of
+Parliament. Many a tax-gatherer lost his time and his temper in going
+from door to door, and was told, tauntingly, to collect himself, when
+he sought to collect money for the royal treasury. The king, who was
+at Ghent, tried the never-failing experiment of another confirmation of
+Magna Charta, with the addition of what he called--in a private letter
+to his son--"a little one in," namely, a confirmation of the Statute _de
+Tallagio non concedendo_, which was an act declaring that no talliage or
+aid should be levied without the consent of the Parliament. This was the
+first occasion upon which the nation was formally invested with the sole
+right of raising the supplies, but the investment, after all, was not
+particularly eligible, as the sole right of raising the supplies
+carries with it the sole duty of finding the money. Not content with his
+confirmation of the charter, Edward, in May, 1298, was called upon
+to ratify, at York, the confirmation itself, and thus spread with
+additional butter the constitutional bacon. This he for some time
+evaded by a series of paltry excuses, in which "head-ache," "previous
+engagement," and "out of town," were pleaded from time to time, until
+the barons, by following him up, got him into a _cul de sac_ from which
+there was no escaping. He consented at last to ratify, but, in the most
+dishonourable manner, he contrived while signing to smuggle in a clause
+at the end, which, by saving the right of the Crown, rendered the whole
+document a wretched nullity. This was a trick he was much addicted
+to, for he had tried the paltry subterfuge on a previous occasion. The
+barons, when they saw the addition, merely shook their heads, murmured
+something about "a do," and returned to their homes; but Edward thought
+he should find no difficulty in coming over the citizens. He accordingly
+called a meeting in St. Paul's Churchyard, when the confirmation was
+read over, amid cheers, and cries of "Hear" at the end of every clause,
+until the last, when the shouts of "Shame!" "No, no!" "It's a dead
+swindle!" and "Don't you wish you may get it?" became truly terrible.
+Edward retained his usual self-possession during the meeting, but
+expressed, in side speeches to his attendants, his fears that the
+citizens were not such fools as he had taken them for. Making a virtue
+of necessity--though, by the way, virtues made out of that material very
+seldom appear to fit, but sit very awkwardly on the wearer--he withdrew
+the offensive clause at a Parliament that was held soon after Easter.
+
+Edward and Philip, finding it convenient to make up their differences,
+threw overboard their respective allies, the French king giving up the
+Scots, and the English sovereign completely sacrificing the poor old
+Guy of Flanders. This earl has got the name of the Unfortunate, but he
+better deserves the title of the soft Guy, the silly Guy, or the Guy
+that, if there happened to be a difficulty within his reach, was sure to
+blunder into it. He had twice been fool enough to accept an invitation
+from Philip, and had twice been detained as a prisoner. We therefore
+have little sympathy with him when we hear of his being deserted by
+Edward; for "the man who" will continually run his head into a noose,
+must expect to find the stringency of the string at some time or
+another.
+
+Peace was made between the French and English kings by means of two
+marriages; but it seems rash to calculate upon matrimony as a source of
+quietude. Edward, who was a widower, married Philip's sister, Margaret,
+and the Prince of Wales was affianced to little Isabella, aged only
+six years, the daughter of the French sovereign. A treaty was concluded
+between the two countries on the 20th of May, 1303, by which Edward
+took Guienne, and gave up Flanders. The unhappy Guy was sent thither to
+negotiate a peace with his own subjects, but, like everything else he
+undertook, the poor old man made a sad mess of it. Returning to Philip
+with the news of his failure, he was committed to prison, which really,
+considering all things, seems to have been the best place for him. He
+was, at all events, out of harm's way, and prevented from doing mischief
+to himself and others by his provoking stupidity. He remained in custody
+till he died, but it was said of him by a contemporary that he was never
+known to "look alive" during the whole of his existence.
+
+Edward, having settled his dispute with France, had time to turn his
+attention to Scotland, which had always been his "great difficulty," as
+Ireland became the "great difficulty" to England at a later period. The
+English king advanced against the Scotch in a sort of hop-scotch style,
+first making for the North, then returning to the South, or going to
+the East, in a zig-zag direction. The Scots soon surrendered, and were
+allowed to go scot-free, with a very few exceptions. Stirling Castle
+proved itself possessed of sterling qualities. It held out against the
+besiegers with determined obstinacy, and Edward himself came to assist
+by throwing stones, which caused the remark to be made that the king had
+been brought to a very pretty pitch through the audacity of the Scotch
+rebels. When the provisions were exhausted, the garrison made an
+unprovisional surrender, and the governor gave out that he gave in, with
+all his companions. Wallace, having been betrayed into Edward's power,
+was cruelly murdered; but within six months of his death, Liberty, like
+a new-born infant, was in arms once more in Scotland. Robert Bruce,
+the grandson of old Bruce, was the new champion of his native land, and
+intrusted his scheme to Comyn. The latter proved treacherous, and Bruce,
+seeing what was Comyn, or rather, what Comyn was, killed him right off
+out of the way, in a convent at Dumfries. Young Bruce having mustered
+a party of about a dozen friends, took an excursion with them to Scone,
+where, in the course of a kind of picnic party, he was crowned on the
+27th of March, 1306, with some solemnity. Edward was at Winchester when
+he heard the news, and, though very far from well, he determined on
+being carried to Scotland. Like John, who had been dragged about the
+country in a horse-box till within a few hours of his death, Edward was
+packed on a litter and conveyed with care to Carlisle, whence he wished
+to be forwarded to Scotland. Making a desperate effort, he mounted his
+horse, and went six miles in four days, a pace which could only have
+been performed by an equestrian prodigy; for the slowest animal, unless
+he were a determined jibber, could scarcely have accomplished a task so
+difficult. * This anything but "rapid act of horsemanship" was the last
+act of Edward's reign, for having got to Burgh upon the Sands, he found
+the sand of his existence had run out, on the 7th of July, 1307. He had
+lived sixty-eight years, and had reigned during half that time; so that
+for him the stream of life had been a sort of half and half--an equal
+mixture--crowned by a frothy, foamy diadem. His remains were, some short
+time afterwards, sent to Westminster, _via_ Waltham, and were buried on
+the 8th of October, with those of his father Henry.
+
+     * It is possible that the horse hired by the king on this
+     occasion may have been accustomed to draw a fly, the owner
+     of which may have been in the habit of charging by the hour.
+
+The character of Edward has been generally praised, but we are compelled
+to tender a bill of exceptions to the report of previous historians.
+He certainly added to his dominions, but if this is a merit, it may
+be claimed for any man who, by fraud or violence, increases his own
+property at the expense of his neighbours. The improvements effected in
+his reign were rather in spite of him than owing to his sense of justice
+or his liberality. He had the talent of talking people out of
+their money, but this quality he has only shared with many equally
+accomplished, but less exalted, swindlers. His attempt to smuggle a
+clause into Magna Charta, before the face of the citizens, was an act
+calculated to ruin him in the City, where putting one's hand to paper
+is a proceeding that must not be trifled with. His treatment of Wallace
+proves him to have been a cruel and vindictive enemy; his abandonment of
+the poor Earl of Flanders shows that he was an insincere and treacherous
+friend: he was constant to his hatreds, and fickle in his likings:
+his animosity had the strength of fire, but in him the milk of human
+kindness was greatly diluted with water. He made some good laws, such as
+the statute of mortmain, which was first passed in his reign, but so far
+from there being any truth in the proverb, _necessitas non habet legem_,
+it is certain that necessity produced nearly every good law that Edward
+gave to his people.
+
+In person, he was a head taller than the ordinary size, with black hair
+that curled naturally, and eyes that matched the hair in colour. *
+His legs were too long in proportion to his body, which gained him the
+nickname of Longshanks, though it would have been more respectful to
+have called him Daddy Long-legs, in allusion to his being the father of
+his people.
+
+He observed the outward decencies of life, but in this he evinced the
+strength of his hypocrisy rather than the extent of his morality. It may
+be worthy of remark, that the title of baron, which had hitherto been
+common to all gentlemen who held lands of the crown, was in this reign
+restricted to those whom the king called to Parliament. ** During the
+monarchy of Edward, Roger Bacon lived and died; but as we have already
+expressed our antipathy to putting butter upon Bacon, we refrain from
+any eulogy upon that illustrious character.
+
+     * Rapin, vol. iii., p. 88.
+
+     ** The last of the Non-Parliamentary barons is the well-
+     known Baron Nathan of Kennington. He still claims a seat
+     among the Piers of Gravesend and Rosherrille.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE THIRD. EDWARD THE SECOND, SURNAMED OF CAERNARVON.
+
+
+[Illustration: 177]
+
+EDWARD the Second was, in common phraseology, a very nice young man when
+he came to the throne, being twenty-three years of age, and tolerably
+good-looking, though he turned out eventually, according to one of the
+chroniclers of the times, "a very ugly customer." His first step on
+coming to the throne was to send for a scamp named Piers Gaveston, a
+Gascon youth who was full of gasconade, and had been sent out of England
+by the late king as an improper character. Young Edward, who had been
+much attached to this early specimen of the gent., recalled Piers
+Gaveston, and made him a nobleman by creating him Duke of Cornwall,
+but never succeeded in making him a gentleman. This step was in direct
+violation of a solemn promise to Edward the First, who had warned his
+son against Gaveston, as a bad young man and by no means a desirable
+acquaintance for an English sovereign. Directly Piers arrived, he
+and his young master began to play all sorts of tricks and, by way
+of change, dismissed the Chancellor, the Treasurer, the Barons of the
+Exchequer, and all the Judges. The whole of the judicial staff of the
+kingdom being thrown out of employ, a panic was created in all the
+courts, and some of their lordships, being unable to meet the demands
+upon them, were compelled to go to prison. Many were stripped of all
+their property by the king, at the instigation of Gaveston, and the
+Chancellor not only lost the seals, but nis watch, and a number of other
+articles of value. Edward and his friend were determined to pay off
+those who had been instrumental to the latter's disgrace, ana among
+others, Langton, the Bishop of Lichfield, was put into solitary
+confinement, no one being allowed to speak to him, so that the
+unfortunate Lichfield found him-self literally sent to Coventry.
+Gaveston, who was a dashing young spark, nearly sent England in a blaze
+by his return, for he was very far from popular. He could dance and
+sing, was passionately fond of bagatelle, and as to wine, when he took
+it into his head he could always drink his bottle.
+
+Edward went over to Boulogne, in January, 1308, to get married to
+Isabella, the daughter of the king of France, and left Gaveston regent
+of the kingdom. His majesty soon got tired of a French watering-place,
+and returned to England for his coronation, which took place on the
+24th of February, at Westminster. All the honours were showered upon
+Gaveston, and instead of giving the perquisites to the proper officers,
+the king handed them over, one by one, to the favourite. "Put that in
+your pocket, Piers, my boy," exclaimed Edward, as he transferred to his
+disreputable friend each article that some officer of state was entitled
+to. The English nobility, as they saw everything passing into the hands
+of the Gascon, could only murmur to each other, "What a shame!"
+
+"That's mine, by rights!" and "Well, I never! Did you ever?" But the
+Bishop of Winchester gave his majesty a dose, by mixing up a pretty
+strong oath and making him swallow every word of it. He undertook of
+course to confirm the Charter, which really becomes quite a bore to the
+historian, who cannot help feeling something of the satiety induced by
+_toujours perdrix_, and he draws the humiliating conclusion that his
+countrymen, having got hold of a good thing, never knew when they had
+had enough of it. Gaveston's conduct became so overbearing, that a
+regular British cry of "Turn him out!" resounded from one end of the
+kingdom to the other. Englishmen seldom do things by halves, and having
+once raised a shout, they did not desist from it, but to the howl of
+"Turn him out," they added a demand for the sovereign to "Throw him
+over!" With this requisition Edward reluctantly complied, and Gaveston
+was expelled from England; but only to be made Governor of Ireland,
+until the king could get the permission of the barons to allow the
+favourite to come back again. This, with their usual imbecility, they
+speedily agreed to, and Piers soon returned to the court, which he
+filled with buffoons and parasites. Any mountebank who could make a
+fool of himself was sure of an engagement at the palace. The king's
+horse-collars were worn out with being grinned through, and the family
+circle of royalty was never without a clown to the ring, under the
+management of Piers Gaveston. The favourite himself became so arrogant
+that he would dress himself up in the royal jewels, * wearing the crown
+instead of his own hat, and turning the sceptre into a walking-stick.
+
+     * _Il joignoit a cela une vanite ridicule, en effectant de
+     porter sur sa personne les joyaux du Roi et dela couronne me
+     me_.--Rapin, vol. iii., p. 94.
+
+
+[Illustration: 179]
+
+Edward, being in want of supplies, called a Parliament in 1309, but the
+Parliament would not come, which caused him to call again; and the more
+he kept on calling the more they kept on not coming, until the month of
+March, 1310, when they came in arms, for they were determined no longer
+to submit to Gaveston's insolence. He had offended their order by giving
+them all sorts of nicknames, which are less remarkable for their wit
+than their coarseness. He called the Earl of Lancaster an old hog, or,
+perhaps, a dreadful bore; to Warwick he gave the name of the Black Dog,
+in reply, perhaps, to an insinuation that he, Gaveston, was a puppy; and
+the Earl of Pembroke was alliteratively alluded to as "Joe the Jew," *
+by the abusive but not very facetious favourite.
+
+In August, 1311, Edward met the barons at Westminster. Their lordships
+would seem to have all got out of bed on the wrong side on the morning
+of the assembly, for their surliness and ill-temper were utterly
+unparalleled. They prepared forty-one articles, to which they insisted
+on having the consent of his majesty. Of course, in the catalogue of
+claims our old friend Magna Charta was not forgotten. This glorious
+instrument of our early liberties, was once more touched up, and a new
+clause introduced, which imparted freshness to the document. It provided
+"that the king should hold a Parliament once a year, or twice if need
+be," as if the barons had been impressed with the idea that "the more
+the merrier" was a sound maxim of politics. The banishment of Gaveston
+was, however, the grand desideratum, and this was at length consented
+to by Edward, who on the 1st of November, 1311, took leave of
+the favourite. His majesty retired to York, but soon began to ask
+himself--"What's this dull town to me?" in the absence of Piers, who,
+in less than two months, was again sharing the dissipations of his
+sovereign. The royal party had gone for a change to Newcastle, when
+the cry of "somebody coming" disturbed the revels of the king and
+his courtiers. This unwelcome "somebody" was no less a personage than
+Edward's cousin, the Earl of Lancaster, who had arrived with a few
+barons for the purpose of, as they said, "giving it" to Gaveston. The
+king and the favourite escaped from Newcastle in a ship--probably a
+collier--but the sovereign was heartless enough to leave his wife behind
+him with the utmost indifference. It was _sauve qui peut_ with the whole
+court, and the queen was lost in the general scamper. The favourite,
+after running as hard as he could, threw himself, quite out of breath,
+into Scarborough Castle, which was strong in everything but eatables,
+for the supply of provisions was perfectly contemptible. Piers Gaveston,
+who had never been accustomed to short commons, went to the window of
+the castle, and calling out to the Earl of Pembroke, who was waiting
+outside, proposed to capitulate. "Can we come to any terms?" cried
+Piers; but the earl would at first hear of nothing short of an
+unconditional surrender.
+
+[Illustration: 181]
+
+After some parleying, Pembroke exclaimed, "I'll tell you what I'll do
+for you. If you choose to place yourself in my hands, I'll promise to
+take you to your own castle at Wallingford."
+
+"You're not joking?" cried Gaveston, as he looked through the rusty bars
+of the fortress. "Honour bright," was the substance of the earl's
+reply, and Piers put himself at once into the hands of Pembroke. It was
+arranged that the king should meet the favourite at Wallingford; but one
+morning, on the road, he was ordered out of bed at an unusually early
+hour, when whom should he see, upon going downstairs, but the grim Earl
+of Warwick! Gaveston began to feel that it was all up with him. Putting
+him on a mule, they conveyed him to Warwick Castle, where a hurried
+council was got up--the Duke of Lancaster in the chair--for his trial.
+He was, of course, condemned, when he threw himself for pardon at the
+feet of Lancaster, who kicked him aside, and all the rest gave him a
+lesson on the Lancastrian system by a similar indignity. A proposition
+was made in the body of the hall to spare his life, but somebody
+exclaimed that "Gaveston had been the cause of all their difficulties,
+and that, when a difficulty came in the way, the best plan was to
+break the neck of it." The stem justice of this remark was instantly
+acknowledged, and amid savage cries of "Bring him along!" they dragged
+the favourite off to Blacklow Hill, where, by removing his head from his
+shoulders, they made what may be called short work of him. Upon hearing
+the news, the king cried for grief and then cried for vengeance. After
+reconciling himself to his loss, he reconciled himself to the barons,
+and the double reconciliation was greatly assisted by the barons
+having given up to him (a.d. 1313) the plate and jewels of the deceased
+favourite.
+
+Edward, on looking round him, found that the "Scots whom Bruce had often
+led" were making considerable progress. The English king at once ordered
+an army to meet him at Berwick, and by a given day one hundred thousand
+men had assembled. Bruce had got scarcely forty thousand, so that the
+chances were more than two to one against him. He took them into a field
+near Bannockburn, and spread them out so as to make the very most of
+them. On Sunday, the 23rd of June, 1314, Edward and his army came
+in sight. After some desultory fighting, the monotony of the day's
+proceedings was relieved by a somewhat curious incident. Bruce, who
+seems to have been rather eccentric in his turn-out, was riding on a
+little bit of a pony, quite under the duty imposed upon it, in front of
+his troops. He wore upon his head a skullcap, over that a steel helmet,
+and over that a crown of gold, while in his hand he carried an enormous
+battle-axe. He and his Shetland were frisking about, when an English
+knight, one Henry de Bohun, or Boone, came galloping down, armed at all
+points, upon a magnificent British dray-horse. Bruce, instead of getting
+out of the way, entered into the unequal combat amid cries of "Go it,
+Bob!" from his own followers. He instantly fell upon and felled to
+the earth the English knight, amid the acclamations of the surrounding
+soldiers. The battle was very vigorously fought on both sides, and
+victory seemed doubtful, when suddenly there appeared on a hill, at the
+back of the Scotch, an immense crowd that looked like a new army.
+The group, in reality, consisted of nothing but a mob of suttlers
+and camp-followers, who had been kept back by Bruce to look like a
+tremendous reserve, and who might be called the heavy scarecrows of the
+Scotch army. The plan succeeded admirably, for although the English did
+not receive a single blow, they were completely panic-struck, which had
+the same effect as the severest beating. They fled in all directions,
+with the Scotch in hot pursuit; and it is said that Edward himself had
+to run for it as far as Dunbar, a distance of sixty miles, with the
+enemy after him.
+
+According to the Scotch historians, the results of this victory were
+truly marvellous, for the number of prisoners alleged to have been taken
+is actually greater than the number of the combatants. The chariots and
+waggons, it is also said, would have extended for many leagues, if drawn
+up into a line; but this is merely one of those lengths which are too
+frequently gone to by the old chroniclers. Though it is impossible that
+the Scotch could have killed fifty thousand, and made double the number
+of prisoners out of one hundred thousand men (unless they manufactured
+fifty thousand additional foes as readily as Vauxhall can put forth its
+fifty thousand additional lamps), it is, nevertheless, certain that on
+this occasion England experienced the severest defeat it had encountered
+since the establishment of the monarchy. Such was the effect created by
+the battle of Bannockburn, that for some time after three Scotchmen were
+considered equivalent to a hundred Englishmen. There is every reason
+to believe that the Scotch were exceedingly vigorous in coming to the
+scratch at that early period.
+
+Encouraged by the success of his brother Robert in Scotland, Edward
+Bruce thought that the crown of Ireland was a little matter that would
+just suit him, and he accordingly passed over to the Green Isle, in the
+hope of finding it green enough to accept him as its sovereign. He
+was, for a time, successful in his project, and was actually crowned
+at Carrickfergus on the 2nd of May, 1316. But after knocking about the
+country, and being knocked about in the country, for a year and a half,
+he got a decisive blow from the English on the 5th of October, 1318,
+at Fagher, near Dundalk. Though he had landed in Ireland with only five
+hundred Scotchmen, he was left dead in the field with two thousand of
+his fellow-countrymen. He had been joined, no doubt, by several after
+his first arrival, but if he had not, it would have been all the same
+to the chroniclers, who would not have scrupled to kill the same
+individuals four times over to make a total sufficiently imposing for
+historical purposes. The historians would have been invaluable to a
+minister of finance, for they could always create an enormous surplus
+out of a vast deficiency.
+
+The Scotch continued their successes until a truce was agreed upon for
+two years, and thus Edward had leisure to look after domestic affairs,
+which had been fearfully neglected. Since the death of Gaveston, the
+royal favourite, there had been just room for one in the not very
+capacious heart of the English sovereign. A certain Hugh Spencer had
+been introduced to the court by the barons, as a sort of page, to act
+as a spy upon the king, and it is a curious fact, that the spencer, or
+jacket, has been the characteristic of the page from that time to the
+present. Hugh Spencer had a shrewd father, who advised his son to care
+no more for the barons, who had got him his place, but to work it to his
+own advantage, and make the most of the perquisites.
+
+Young Hugh, taking the parental hint, determined on booking himself for
+the inside place in Edward's heart, which has been already alluded to as
+vacant. Not only did he succeed in his design, but contrived to take
+up his old father, and carry him along as a sort of outside passenger.
+Riches and promotion were showered on the Spencers, who adopted a coat
+of arms, and made themselves Despencers, by prefixing the syllable
+_de_, which can impart a particle of aristocracy to the most plebeian
+of patronymics. The Despencers had obtained such influence over the king
+that he allowed them to do as they pleased; and as they took all the
+good things to themselves, the nobles--who were getting nothing--began
+to evince considerable anxiety for the public interest.
+
+The Earl of Lancaster, a prince of the blood, felt his order insulted
+by the promotion of the two plebeians, and he one day energetically
+exclaimed, "that Spencers could not have anything in tail, though the
+king might try to fasten it on to them." Lancaster marched upon London,
+and pitched his tent in Holborn, among the hills that abound in that
+locality. He gave out jocularly, that "he had come to baste a couple of
+Spencers, by trimming their jackets," but he was saved the trouble by
+a Parliament, which met armed at Westminster, and passed on the two
+Despencers a sentence of banishment.
+
+They were accordingly exiled in August, but came back in October,
+presenting an instance of a quick return without the smallest profit.
+Lancaster retired to the north, and was met at Boroughbridge by Sir
+Simon Ward and Sir Andrew Barclay, a couple of stout English knights,
+who stopped up the passage. Lancaster endeavoured to swim across the
+river, but the tide had turned against him, and he was taken prisoner.
+The unfortunate earl having been tried, was condemned to an ignominious
+death, and the mob were allowed to pelt him with mud on his way to
+execution,--a privilege of which a generous public took the fullest
+advantage.
+
+Edward had now to encounter opposition from a new quarter, or rather
+from two quarters, for his better half, Isabella, the sister of Charles
+le Bel, was now plotting against him. She left him under the pretence
+of going to settle some business for him in France, and then refused to
+return to him. Some ambassadors volunteered to bring her back, but the
+ambassadors never came back themselves, for they had been in league with
+the queen, and only wanted an opportunity of joining her.
+
+Their conduct brings to mind the anecdote of a scene that once passed
+in the shop of a shoemaker. A stranger had tried on a pair of shoes, and
+another stranger had been trying on a pair of boots at the same moment.
+Suddenly the shoes decamped without payment, when the boots standing
+upon their professed swiftness, offered to go in pursuit of the
+unprincipled shoes; and as neither shoes nor boots were ever seen again
+by the tradesman, it is probable that the "false fleeting perjured
+Clarences" are still being pursued by the immortal Wellingtons. Thus the
+Earl of Kent, the king's own brother, the Earl of Richmond, his cousin,
+and others, who had undertaken to go after the queen to bring her back,
+remained with her, until she returned as an enemy to her own husband.
+Edward was now compelled to run away in his turn from his angry wife;
+and rather than encounter the fury of a domestic storm, he got into
+a ship with young Despencer, to brave the elements. Old Despencer was
+taken and hanged, without the ceremony of a trial.
+
+The Prince of Wales was appointed guardian of the kingdom on account of
+the absence of his father, who had been regularly advertised, but
+had declined to come forward lest he should hear of something to his
+disadvantage. Having been tossed about upon the waves for several days,
+he came ashore on the coast of Wales, and hid himself for some weeks,
+with young Despencer and another, in the mountains of Glamorganshire.
+His two companions were one day startled by a cry of "We've got you!"
+and were instantly seized, upon which, Edward exclaiming, "It's no use:
+you've got the two birds in the hand, and may as well have the one in
+the bush," rolled out of a hedge and gave himself up to his pursuers.
+
+Young Despencer was taken to Hereford, and hanged at once, upon a
+gallows fifty feet high; but why severity was carried to such a height
+is a question we have no means of answering. It has been brutally said
+by an annotator that the culprit had been accustomed to the high ropes
+during his life, and it was therefore determined that they should
+accompany him even to the gibbet.
+
+The king was sent in custody to Kenilworth Castle, and Parliament met on
+the 7th of January, 1327, to consider what should be done with him. His
+deposition was a preliminary step; for it was the custom in those days
+to punish first and try the culprit afterwards. It was determined to
+place his son upon the throne in his stead, and on the 20th of January,
+1327, a deputation went to Kenilworth to receive his abdication, if he
+liked to give it, or take it by force if he should prove refractory.
+The king, seeing Sir William Trussel, the Speaker, at the head of his
+enemies, observed calmly, but sadly, "Alas! the Trussel I depended upon
+for support has joined in dropping me." He renounced the regal dignity,
+and on the 24th of January, Edward the Third was proclaimed king, and
+crowned on the 29th at Westminster.
+
+[Illustration: 186]
+
+This proceeding is on many accounts remarkable, and of the utmost value,
+as settling a point of constitutional practice, which had never before
+been recognised. It established a precedent for dissolving under
+extraordinary circumstances the compact between the king and the people.
+It negatived the alleged "right divine of kings to govern wrong,"
+and proved that it was not always necessary to take violent means for
+ridding a country of a tyrant. It showed that the crown might be removed
+from the head without taking off the head and all, which had been
+hitherto the recognised mode of effecting a transfer of the royal
+diadem.
+
+The unhappy Edward was kept for a time at Kenilworth; but ultimately by
+command of Lord Mortimer, who had entire influence over the queen, the
+deposed king was removed to Berkeley Castle. Here it is believed he was
+most cruelly murdered, though it was given out by his keepers that his
+death was perfectly natural. He died on the 21st of September, 1327,
+in the forty-third year of his age, and the nineteenth of his reign. No
+inquiry took place, and although no coroner's inquest was held, "Wilful
+Murder against some person or persons unknown" is the almost unanimous
+verdict of posterity.
+
+The character of this king has been said to have been chiefly disfigured
+by feebleness of judgment, which prevented him from knowing what was
+good for him. He managed, nevertheless, to find out what was bad for his
+subjects, and he was never at a loss to secure the means of enjoyment
+for himself and his favourites, at the expense of his people.
+
+In the reign of Edward the Second the order of Knights Templars was
+abolished, a circumstance which arose from the king of France being
+short of cash, and casting a longing eye upon the rich possessions of
+the order. In France they were put to the torture to force them into
+confessions of crimes they had never committed; but in England the same
+effect was produced by imprisonment; for instruments of cruelty were
+never recognised by English laws, or encouraged as articles of British
+manufacture. The Archbishop of York finding nothing of the kind in the
+country, wished to send abroad for a pattern, * but it must be spoken
+to the credit of our ancestors, that though, in a pecuniary sense, they
+were famous for applying the screw, the thumb-screw was never popular.
+
+     * _Vide_ Rapin, vol. iii., p. 95, and also a Note in Lingard
+
+Rapin mentions among the great events of this reign, a tremendous
+earthquake, but it can have been no great shakes, for we do not find any
+details of its destructive effects in the old chronicles. It occurred
+on the 14th of November, 1320, to the unspeakable terror of all classes;
+but it did not swallow up half as much as is swallowed up annually on
+the 9th of November at the Mansion House in London.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FOURTH. EDWARD THE THIRD.
+
+The young king did not upon his father's death come to the throne, for
+he had taken his seat upon the imperial cushion eight months before the
+decease of his by no means lamented parent. Mortimer had caused a medal
+to be struck in celebration of the accession of Edward the Third, in
+which he was represented receiving the crown, with the motto, "_Non
+rapit sed recipit_," which we need scarcely translate into "He did not
+snatch it, but got it honestly." * A council of regency was appointed,
+to which Mortimer, with affected modesty, declined to belong, but he
+and the queen did as they pleased with the affairs of government.
+Her majesty got an enormous grant to pay her debts, but knowing the
+extravagant and dishonest character of the woman, we have reason to
+believe that she pocketed the money and never satisfied the demands of
+her creditors. She obtained, also, an allowance of twenty thousand a
+year, which was better than two-thirds of the revenues of the crown; so
+that a paltry six-and-eightpence in the pound was the utmost that young
+Edward could have to live upon. The Earl of Lancaster was appointed
+guardian, and began doing the best for himself, after the approved
+fashion of the period. The attainders against the great Earl of
+Lancaster were of course reversed, and the confiscation of the estates
+of the Despencer, afforded some very pretty pickings to the party that
+was now dominant.
+
+     * It  is a curious fact that Mortimer should bare been in
+     the medal line, a business in which his namesake of the
+     house of Store and Mortimer has since become so illustrious.
+
+Though the king was too young to govern, his admirers persuaded him that
+he was quite old enough to fight, and he was recommended to try his
+hand against Bruce, who was getting old; so that, in the language of
+the ring, the British pet was not very ill matched against the Scottish
+veteran. The Caledonian Slasher, as Bruce might justly have been called,
+had broken the truce agreed upon with Edward the Second, and had sent an
+army into Yorkshire, which plundered as it went every town and village.
+The stealing of sheep and oxen was carried on to such an extent by the
+Scotch troops that their camp resembled Smithfield market, or a prize
+cattle show. Sixty thousand men gathered round the standard of Edward,
+but the foreign and native troops quarrelled with such fury among
+themselves that they had little energy left to be expended on the enemy.
+Fortunately for the English king the vastness of his army made up for
+its want of discipline. Bruce, directly he saw the foe, waited only to
+take their number, and retired with the utmost rapidity, amusing himself
+with the Scotch favourite Burns, by setting fire to all the villages.
+
+The English, instead of following the enemy, waited a night upon the
+road for some provisions expected by the Parcels Delivery, which had
+been delayed by some accident. The Scotch were thus allowed to get
+ahead, and Edward sent a crier through his camp, offering a hundred a
+year with the honour of knighthood, to anyone who would apprise him of
+the place where he should find the opposing army. Thomas of Rokeby, so
+called from his habit of rokeing about, was successful in the search,
+and came galloping into the English camp with a loud cry of Eureka,
+and a demand of "money down," with knighthood on the spot, before
+he divulged his secret. "You're very particular, sir," said Edward,
+flinging him a purse, containing his annuity for the first year, and
+dubbing him a knight by a blow on the head from the flat of the sword,
+administered with unusual vehemence.
+
+[Illustration: 188]
+
+Thomas of Rokeby having pocketed the money, and secured the dignity,
+pointed to a hill three leagues off, observing, "There they are!" an
+observation which caused a general exclamation of "Well, it's very
+funny! To think that they should have been so near us all the while
+and we not aware of it!" The English having made for the spot, sent a
+challenge, inviting the Scotch to meet them in a fair open field, but
+the proposition was declined, with thanks and compliments. The English,
+on the return of the herald, went to sleep, for the presence of the
+herald always had a soporiferous influence. Edward was exceedingly
+severe upon the occasion, and commented upon the herald's news, which
+the king declared was always most unsatisfactory. For three days and
+three nights, the English lay by the side of the river, having been
+thrown by the herald into a state of dreamy inactivity. At length, on
+the fourth day, they woke from their transient trance, when they found
+that the Scotch had once more changed their position. Edward moved
+higher up, keeping opposite to the foe, and the two armies lay facing
+each other for eighteen days and nights, like two great cowardly boys,
+both afraid of "coming on," but each assuming a menacing attitude. There
+is every reason to believe that the herald had mesmerised the whole of
+the English troops, for they allowed the Scotch to go away in the dead
+of the night for want of proper vigilance. The probability, however, is
+that both armies were illustrating the proverb, that "none are so blind
+an those who won't see," and that their aversion to "come on," was
+mutual.
+
+A truce was concluded, and Edward, according to Froissart, returned
+"right pensive" to London; but his "right pensiveness" may have been
+accounted for by the fact that he was on the eve of marriage. His mother
+had, during her visit to the Continent, arranged to wed him to Philippa
+of Hainault, a lady who, to judge from her portrait on her tomb in
+Westminster Abbey, was one of those monsters commonly called a
+"fine woman." This fineness in the female form consists of excessive
+coarseness, which is better adapted to the laundry than the domestic
+circle. She, however, made Edward an excellent better half--or perhaps
+a better two-thirds is a more suitable term to indicate the relative
+proportions of the royal couple. She was brought to London by her uncle
+John, surnamed of Hainault, and, it being Christmas-time, she was
+taken out to enjoy all the amusements of the festive season. Jousts and
+tournaments, balls and dinnerparties, were given in her honour during
+her stay in town; and on the 24th of January, 1328, the nuptial ceremony
+was performed with great solemnity.
+
+Edward being now married, was desirous of avoiding that roving life
+which the constant pursuit of Bruce had rendered necessary. The English
+king thought it better to settle down into the domestic habits of a
+family man, which was impossible as long as he was compelled to be out
+all night, watching the foe and bivouacking with his soldiers. Bruce,
+who had grown old and gouty, was also eager for peace, which was
+concluded on the condition of his little boy, David, aged five, being
+married to Edward's little sister Joanna, aged seven. The English king
+gave up all claim to the sovereignty of Scotland, causing even the
+insignia of Scotch royalty to be carefully packed and forwarded to
+Bruce, who, on opening the parcel, was delighted to find himself in
+possession of the crown and sceptre of his predecessors. He did not,
+however, get quite the best of the bargain, for he undertook to pay
+thirty thousand marks into Edward's court as compensation, in the form
+of liquidated damages, for the mischief that the Scotch invaders had
+committed. Bruce had obtained a sort of letter of licence, allowing
+him to take three years for the payment of the sum agreed upon. A more
+formidable creditor, however, took him in execution, for he was called
+upon to pay the debt of nature within the ensuing twelvemonth. Mortimer,
+who had advised the peace with Scotland, which was by no means popular,
+got himself created Earl of March, for it is the policy of crafty
+politicians to obtain rewards for their most objectionable measures.
+
+It will be remembered that the Earl of Lancaster had been appointed
+guardian of the young king, but no scapegrace in a comedy ever made such
+an undutiful ward as the youthful Edward. He remained with his mother
+and Mortimer, the latter of whom was particularly distasteful to
+Lancaster, who endeavoured to get up a party to oppose the favourite.
+This association was joined by the Earls of Kent and Norfolk, two of the
+king's uncles, as well as by some other gentlemen, who set forth in
+an advertisement the reason of their having combined. The statement of
+grievances was drawn up with the usual tact of red-hot patriots, who
+always put down a few impossibilities in the list of things to be
+achieved, for the impracticability of their objects prevents their trade
+from being suddenly brought to a dead stand-still. There were eight
+articles in the Lancastrian manifesto, which chiefly aimed at Mortimer
+and the queen, who soon persuaded Edward that the real object of the
+advertisers was to deprive him of his crown. "I thought you were the
+parties pointed at," said the young king to his mother and her paramour;
+but the latter merely observing, "My dear fellow, they mean you, as sure
+as my name's Mortimer," soon taught Edward to believe that he was the
+object of the hostility of the rebellious nobles. Preparations were
+being made to chastise them, when Kent and Norfolk abandoned Lancaster,
+who justly complained of having been trifled with. The humiliated
+and humbugged Lancaster was glad to accept a pardon, and pay down
+a considerable sum towards the expenses which had been incurred in
+preparing for his own discomfiture. Mortimer did not forgive the parties
+who had contemplated his overthrow, but formed a determination to get
+hold of them when a good opportunity offered.
+
+He received a number of anonymous letters, informing him that his
+brother, the late king, was alive in Corfe Castle. "Pooh, pooh," said
+Kent to himself, as he perused the first three or four epistles; "I'm not
+quite such a fool as to be taken in upon that point. I'm not going to
+believe my brother is alive, when I happen to have been present as chief
+mourner at his funeral." Every post, however, brought such a pile of
+correspondence upon the subject that he first began to believe that half
+of what he was told might possibly be true; and when credulity admits
+one half of a story, the other half soon forces an entrance. Kent's
+anonymous correspondents, not content with declaring the late king to be
+alive, gave the circumstantiality to their statement which is generally
+resorted to in the absence of truth, and indicated Corfe Castle as the
+place where the second Edward was "hanging out" at that very moment. The
+credulous Kent, being in doubt as to the fate of his brother, wrote at
+once to ask him whether he was really dead or alive, saying to himself,
+as he put the epistle into the post, "There! I've written to him now,
+and so we shall soon settle that question one way or the other."
+
+The party being deceased, the letter came back to the dead-letter
+office, and fell into the clutches of Mortimer. Everything was done to
+humour the delusion of poor Kent, who, having been told that his brother
+was confined in Corfe Castle, sent a confidential messenger to make
+inquiries in the neighbourhood. It is even said that a sort of optical
+illusion, a jack-o'-lantern, or phantasmagoria, or dissolving-view, had
+been resorted to, for the purpose of showing a representation of Edward
+the Second sitting in Corfe Castle at his luncheon, * with a waiter or
+two in attendance, as a mark of respect to the unhappy sovereign.
+
+    * Rapin, tom. iii., p. 152.
+
+The messenger returned with the news to Edmund, who determined to use
+his own eyes, by going to Corfe Castle and judging for himself. When he
+arrived and saw the governor, that wily official pretended to be much
+surprised at the secret having been divulged. He did not deny that
+Edward was at the castle, but merely remarked that the captive could
+not be seen. "At all events, you can give him this letter," said Edmund,
+putting into the governor's hands a _douceur_ and a communication
+directed to the deceased monarch, offering to aid him in his escape from
+captivity.
+
+The governor took the _billet_ to the queen, and Edmund was arrested on
+a charge of endeavouring to raise a deceased individual to the throne.
+Poor Kent was put upon his trial, and his own letter having been
+produced, with witnesses to prove his handwriting, the case against him
+was complete. The whole proceeding was disposed of with the rapidity of
+an undefended cause; speedy execution was asked for and granted, but the
+headsman was nowhere to be found, though persons were sent to look for
+him all over Winchester. A delay of four hours was occasioned, and
+the generous British public began to expect that they should lose the
+spectacle they had assembled to witness, when a convicted felon came
+forward in the handsomest manner, at a moment's notice, to prevent
+disappointment, by undertaking the part of headsman. Thus, at the early
+age of twenty-eight, perished Prince Edmund, on the charge of having
+sought to put a sceptre in the hands of a spectre, and raise a phantom
+to the throne. He left two sons and two daughters, one of whom was a
+beauty whom we will not attempt to paint, for our inkstand is not a
+rouge-pot, and if it were we should be sorry to apply its contents to so
+fair a countenance. She married eventually the eldest son of Edward the
+Third, who became so celebrated as the Black Prince, and who was born
+at about the period (1330) to which our history has arrived. The king
+finding himself a father, determined to be no longer a child in the
+hands of a tyrannical mother, and he longed for some assistance from
+his subjects, to enable him to throw off the maternal yoke as soon as
+possible.
+
+Edward at last opened his mind--a very small recess--to Lord Montacute.
+A Parliament was being held at Nottingham, where Mortimer and the queen
+had lodgings in the castle, while the bishops and barons took apartments
+in the town and suburbs. How to get hold of Mortimer was the great
+difficulty, for Queen Isabella had the keys of the castle brought up
+to her every evening, and placed at her bedside. * Her majesty had gone
+round as usual to see everything safe, and all the candles out; but of
+course, like other sagacious people, who examine minutely the fastenings
+of the doors, she never gave a thought to the cellars. Through one of
+these the governor (who, like all the great officers of that period--the
+founders of our illustrious families--was a sneaking knave, ready to do
+anything for money) admitted Montacute and his followers. They crawled
+along a dark passage, at the end of which they were met by Edward,
+who conducted them up a staircase into a room adjoining his mother's
+chamber. The queen had gone to bed, but Mortimer, the Bishop of Lincoln,
+and one or two others, were sitting--probably over their grog--in an
+apartment close at hand. Their language had all the earnestness that
+might be expected from the time of night, and the manner in which they
+were occupied. They were, in fact, all talking at once, when Montacute
+and party rushed in, knocking down two knights * who sat near the door,
+and seized Mortimer, in spite of the entreaties of Isabella, who ran
+screaming out of bed on hearing the noise and confusion.
+
+     * Homing, Knyght, Holinshed.
+
+The favourite was dragged off to the nearest station-house, and Edward
+issued a proclamation the next morning, announcing his intention to try
+his own hand at government forthwith. A Parliament met at Westminster on
+the 26th of November, 1330, by which Mortimer was tried and condemned,
+though a short time before he enjoyed the command of a large majority.
+The favourite had, however, fallen into disgrace, and the old proverb,
+"Give a dog a bad name and hang him," was literally realised.
+
+After the death of Mortimer, Queen Isabella was shut up in a place
+called the Castle of Risings, on a pension of three thousand a year,
+according to one historian, four thousand according to others, while
+Rapin unceremoniously cuts her down to the paltry pittance of five
+hundred per annum. It is probable that the last named sum is the nearest
+the mark, for all agree in saying that "she lived a miserable monument
+of blighted ambition," and it is obvious that a miserable monument would
+not require an outlay of three or four thousand a year to keep it in
+condition during an existence of rather better than a quarter of a
+century.
+
+Though Edward had agreed to a truce with the Scotch, he did not scruple
+to take a favourable opportunity of breaking it. Though his sister was
+married to little Master David Bruce, the nominal king, Edward did not
+hesitate to turn that young gentleman off the throne, to make way for
+his creature, Edward Baliol. Young David was sent to France, while
+Baliol kept up a kind of semblance of royalty, but his rebellious
+subjects took every opportunity, when the backs of the English were
+turned, to fall upon and baste the bewildered Baliol. Edward was soon
+compelled to leave his vassal to get on as he could, for the entire
+throne of France appeared to be open to the ambition of the English
+sovereign. The French crown seemed to be "open to all parties and
+influenced by none," when Edward of England and Philip of Valois became
+candidates for the vacancy. The former claimed as grandson of Philip
+the Fourth, the latter as grandson of Philip the Third, and each party
+endeavoured to complicate the matter as much as he could by producing
+a number of perplexing and unintelligible pedigrees. Philip claimed
+through his grandfather, who was thought to be a sure card for the
+French king to depend upon; but Edward tried to play something stronger,
+in the shape of what he affectionately called that "fine old trump his
+mother." She, however, was objected to as a female, and the question
+was, to save further trouble, referred to the arbitration of the peers
+and judges of France, and was decided in favour of Edward's opponent.
+The English king declared the French judges were no judges at all, and
+refused to be bound by the award; for it was the royal practice of those
+days to abide by an agreement only so long as might be convenient.
+
+Edward having appointed the Earl of Brabant his agent, coolly demanded,
+through that individual, the French crown. The English seconded their
+sovereign in his preposterous request, and he took advantage of their
+acquiescence to squeeze out of them all he could in the shape of
+subsidies, tallages, and forced loans. He raised money by the most
+disgraceful means, and even pawned the crown with the Archbishop of
+Treves, who after trying the purity of the gold with the usual test,
+unpicking the velvet cap, to examine the setting of the jewels, and
+submitting it to as many indignities as a hat in the hands of an old
+clothesman, consented to lend about one tenth of its value on the
+degraded diadem.
+
+[Illustration:193]
+
+The conversation between the parties, though it has not been
+authentically handed down by the chroniclers, may be very easily
+imagined. It is probable that Edward, forgetting the dignity of the
+king in the meanness of the borrower, may have familiarly asked the
+Archbishop to "make it a trifle more" than the sum at first offered. It
+may be presumed that the greedy ecclesiastic would have objected that
+the crown had been very ill-used; that it got badly treated in the time
+of John, and that even Edward himself had had a good deal of hard wear
+out of it, which had rubbed off very much of its pristine brilliancy.
+But it was not to the comparatively honest expedient of pawning his
+own property that the king had recourse, for replenishing his exhausted
+treasury. When he had got all he could by pledging his own honours, and
+deposited the sceptre and single ball at the sign of the three, he began
+the old royal trick of plundering his people.
+
+From the inhabitants of Cornwall Edward took nearly all their tin, and
+every part of England allowed itself to be fleeced for the purpose of
+affording one man the means of attempting to gratify his ambition at the
+expense of an entire people. The money thus obtained was devoted to the
+payment of foreign mercenaries, so that he robbed his own subjects
+for the double purpose of corruption and usurpation. To enable him
+to oppress the French, he bribed the Germans with money obtained by
+plundering the English.
+
+He sailed on the 15th of July, 1338, with an army rather more select
+than numerous, and landed at Antwerp, where he had secured himself
+a friendly reception by sending emissaries before him to marshal the
+peasantry into enthusiastic groups, and "get up" the spectacle without
+regard to outlay. The burghers were called to numerous rehearsals before
+the appointed day, and on the arrival of the English king they were
+tolerably perfect in the parts assigned to them.
+
+Edward engaged a few foreign potentates--principally small Germans--to
+aid him in his audacious enterprise. Louis of Bavaria, Emperor of
+Germany, came to terms; the Dukes of Brabant and Gueldres did not refuse
+his money; the Archbishop of Cologne consented to add a few pounds to
+his salary; while the Marquis of Juliers, and the Counts of Hainault and
+Namur, jumped at a moderate stipend for their services. Every adventurer
+who was to be had cheap, found instant employment, and James von
+Artaveldt, a brewer of Ghent, the Barclay or Perkins of his time, made
+an arrangement for farming out a few of his stoutest draymen. Philip
+availed himself of a couple of kings in reduced circumstances--those of
+Navarre and Bohemia--besides securing a few dukes who were in want of
+a little cash for current expenses. A rope of sand could scarcely
+have been more fragile than Edward's band of hired followers. Like a
+Christmas-pudding made of plums and other rich ingredients without any
+flour to bind it, his supporters, though comprising a compound of dukes,
+marquises and counts, with even an archbishop and an emperor, was not
+likely to hold together as long as it was deficient in the flower of an
+army, a zealous soldiery. The Flemings and Brabanters having spent his
+money sneaked off with a promise to meet him _next_ year, and 1338 was
+consequently lost in doing nothing. By the middle of September, 1339,
+there was another muster of the mercenaries, with whom Edward started
+for Cambray, but happening to look back when he got to the frontiers of
+France, he saw the Counts of Namur and Hainault disgracefully backing
+out of the expedition. Having in vain hallooed to them, and finding that
+the more he kept on calling the more they persisted in not coming, he
+pushed on as far as St. Quentin, when the rest of his allies struck,
+and declared they would not go another step without an advance of wages.
+Edward, who had spent all his own money and a good deal of somebody
+else's--for he was fearfully in debt--could only say "Very well,
+gentlemen, I'm in your hands," and turn into the town of Ghent, where
+he took lodgings for a limited period. While here he amused himself by
+taking the title of King of France, and he had the French lily quartered
+on his arms; which, as Philip said when he heard of it, was "like the
+fellow's impudence."
+
+Edward had previously endeavoured to draw his adversary into a battle,
+but the latter shirked the contest under various pretexts. Some say that
+he was ready for a terrific combat and was "just going to begin" when he
+received a letter predicting ill luck, from the king of Naples, who
+was looked upon as a sort of Wizard of the South, or royal conjuror.
+No fight took place, and Edward ran across to England in the middle
+of February, 1340, to make a call upon the pockets of his people. The
+Parliament foolishly throwing good money after bad, granted immense
+supplies, for which the king thanked them in the fulness of his heart,
+for the fulness of his pocket. Returning to Flanders, he met the enemy
+at the harbour of Sluys, on the 24th of June, 1340, when a battle
+ensued, in which Edward astonished his own followers by his most
+successful _debut_ in a naval character. He gave orders to the sailors
+as freely as if he had been playing in nautical dramas and dancing naval
+hornpipes from the days of his infancy. So complete was the victory of
+the English that nobody dared inform the French king of the extent of
+his calamity, until the court jester was fool enough to put the news in
+the shape of a conundrum to Philip. The latter was enjoying his glass of
+wine and his nut, when the buffoon in waiting declared that he had a nut
+to crack which would prove somewhat too hard for his royal master. "Were
+it a pistaccio or a Brazil," cried the king, "I would come at the
+kernel of it." When, however, the riddle was put * and the sovereign
+had guessed it, the unhappy fool found it no joke, for he was sorely
+punished for his ill-judged pleasantry.
+
+     * Rapin, vol. iii., p. 178. We have used every possible
+     exertion to obtain a copy of this celebrated riddle, but
+     without having succeeded. The nearest Approach we have made
+     to it is an old conundrum in the fly leaf of the Statutes at
+     Large, which is nearly as follows:--"What was the greatest
+     fillip to the success of Edward!" There is no answer added,
+     but there can be little doubt that some allusion to Philip's
+     loss giving a fillip to Edward is intended.
+
+Edward's success brought round him troops of friends, and finding
+himself strong, he wrote a letter addressed to Philip of Valois,
+offering to tackle him singly in a regular stand-up fight man to man, to
+pit a hundred soldiers against a hundred on the other side, or to pitch
+into each other's armies by a pitched buttle, embracing the entire
+strength of their respective companies. The French king, who was not
+disposed to give battle, which he thought might end in his taking
+a thrashing, evaded the matter, by saying that he had seen a letter
+addressed to Philip of Valois, but as it could not be meant for him,
+he should certainly decline sending an answer. This shabby subterfuge
+succeeded in baffling the English king, who consented to a truce and
+returned to his own country.
+
+[Illustration: 196]
+
+Edward arrived in London late one night in November, without a penny in
+his pocket. He went at once to the Tower, where everybody had gone to
+bed, for he was not expected, and where there were signs of culpable
+negligence. There was no fire in his room, and nothing to eat; which put
+him into such an ill-humour, that he had three of the judges called up
+to be thrown into prison, he turned out the Chancellor, the Treasurer,
+and the Master of the Bolls, besides committing to gaol a number of
+subordinate officers. Those who had been employed in collecting the
+revenue, were the especial objects of his rage, for he expected to
+have received a large sum, and was irritated beyond measure at the
+contemptible amount of available assets. Stratford, the Archbishop of
+Canterbury, on hearing of the king's arrival at the Tower--in what has
+perhaps been since called a "towering passion," from the historical
+fact--observed to his informant, "Oh! indeed. Well, I shall be off out
+of his way," and fled to his official residence. The king sent him a
+summons, which he refused to attend, and threatened with excommunication
+any rascally officer who might attempt to execute the process. Want of
+money soon softened Edward's heart, and Parliament refused a grant until
+there had been another confirmation of Magna Charta, which served the
+double purpose of a blister to draw the people's cash and a plaster to
+heal their wounded liberties.
+
+In the year 1341, little David of Scotland came over with a little
+money and a few troops lent to him by the king of France, and with
+this assistance the Bruce made a tolerably decent appearance in his own
+country. Edward having projects of wholesale robbery abroad, gave up
+Scotland as a piece of retail plunder, that was wholly beneath his
+attention, and concluded a truce with David, who compromised with
+Baliol, by appointing him to keep watch and ward against the Scottish
+borderers. A situation in the police seems to have been a sorry
+compensation for one who had aspired to a throne, but it is probable
+that the pride of Baliol was in some degree consulted by nominating him
+A 1 in his Dew capacity.
+
+[Illustration: 197]
+
+One would have thought that Edward had had enough of Continental
+warfare, and that "look at home" would have been his motto for the
+remainder of his reign, but he was soon induced to join in a squabble
+that had arisen about the crown of Brittany. John the Third, the late
+duke, had lately died, leaving one brother and a niece named Jane,
+who having the misfortune to be lame, had got brutally nicknamed _La
+Boiteuse_, in accordance with the coarse and unfeeling practice of that
+chivalrous period. The contest for the duchy was between this young
+lady, who had married Charles de Blois, the French king's nephew, and
+her uncle John de Montfort, who professed to have a superior claim, and
+who savagely pooh-poohed her pretensions by allusions to her infirmity.
+"Hers is indeed a lame case," he would fiendishly exclaim. "Why, by my
+troth, she hasn't got a leg to stand upon." This argument was the old
+rule of grammar, that the masculine is worthier than the feminine; but
+this arrangement _La Boiteuse_ determined to kick against. Charles de
+Blois, her husband, did homage to his uncle Phil for the duchy--Brittany
+being a fief of France--while John de Montfort propitiated Edward by
+doing homage to him as the lawful sovereign. Philip and Edward thus
+became bottleholders to the two competitors; but through the tardiness
+of the English king in supporting his man, De Montfort was taken
+prisoner. This gentleman had the advantage--or the disadvantage as the
+case may be--of being married to a high-spirited woman. It is fortunate
+for a man wedded to a vixen wife, when the affectionate virago, instead
+of making a victim of him, vents her fury upon his enemies.
+
+Mrs. de Montfort had, according to Froissart, "the courage of a man and
+the heart of a lion." In addition to these fascinating qualities she had
+the tongue of a true woman. She went about with her child in her arms,
+holding forth in a double sense, for she held forth her infant, and was
+continually holding forth on the subject of her husband's wrongs to the
+populace. A pretty woman, who takes to public speaking, is always sure
+of an approving audience; but when she began to give recitations in
+character, by putting a steel casque on her head and a sword in her
+hand, the effect was truly marvellous. She took a provincial tour, with
+the never-failing motto of "Female in Distress" as her watchword; and a
+host of young men engaged themselves as assistants under her banner. She
+threw herself into a place called Hennebon, where she was besieged by
+the French, but she ran up and down the ramparts with all the agility of
+a young tigress. She stood firmly among a shower of arrows, and though
+danger darted across her every now and then--so much that her casque got
+a rapid succession of taps--she merely observed that she had never
+been afraid of a living beau and would certainly not shrink from a bow
+without vitality. Aid was expected from the English, but as it did not
+arrive the Bishop of Leon began to croak most horribly, and proposed to
+capitulate. The bishop had been to the larder, and finding provisions
+running exceedingly low, declared there was nothing left for them but to
+eat humble pie as speedily as possible. He had succeeded in raising an
+_emeute d'estomac_ in the garrison, when the countess, who had begged
+the troops to hold out a little longer, Saw the English fleet from
+the window of her dressing-room. "Here they are!" cried she as she ran
+downstairs; and the whole of the inhabitants were soon watching the
+arrival of the boats with intense interest. Sir Walter Manny commanded
+the squadron, and after a good night's rest and a capital dinner
+the next day, which concluded amid a slight shower from the French
+battering-ram, he declared that he would not run the risk of having any
+more batter pudding from the same quarter. "That ram," he exclaimed,
+"must not again disturb me over my mutton;" and he had no sooner dined
+than he went forth, followed by a few select soldiers, and broke the
+instrument to pieces.
+
+The French, having raised the siege of Hennebon, left Lady de Montfort
+leisure to go over to England for the purpose of getting a present of
+troops that Edward had promised her. She was returning to France with
+her reinforcements when she fell in with a French fleet, and they fell
+out as a natural consequence. De Montfort's wife rushed on deck in a
+coat of mail over her petticoat of female, and fought with tremendous
+vigour.
+
+[Illustration: 199]
+
+One of the foe tauntingly told her the needle was a fitter instrument
+for her than the sword, when she rushed upon him, exclaiming, "I want
+no needle, fellow, to trim your jacket." She cut the thread of
+several existences, and there is no doubt that had the gun cotton been
+discovered in those days, she would have used it for the purpose of
+whipping, basting, hemming in, felling to the earth, and, in a word,
+sewing up her unfortunate antagonists. Darkness having set in upon this
+fearful set out, the battle was cut short, for night dropped her curtain
+in the middle of the act, and brought it to an abrupt conclusion.
+
+Edward now came over to superintend the war in person, and he began by
+looking the danger in the face, which he accomplished by lying several
+weeks opposite the foe--an example that was followed by the other side;
+and thus the two armies continued to take sights at each other during
+the entire winter. At length a truce for three years and eight months
+was agreed upon; but its conditions were not attended to. John de
+Montfort was to have been released from prison, according to the
+agreement; but Philip, by pitiful quibbles, found excuses for keeping
+him in closer custody. At length, the old gentleman escaped in the
+disguise of a pedlar; but he was cruelly hounded by his enemies, and
+with a pack at his back was for some time hunted about, until, by dint
+of the most dogged perseverance, he arrived safely in England. Coming
+to the door of his own house, he set up a faint cry of "Stay-lace,
+boot-lace, shoe-tie," in a disguised voice, which brought the mistress
+of the establishment to the window; but she merely shook her head, to
+indicate that nothing was wanted. Upon this the supposed pedlar threw
+off his hat and wig, and being instantly recognised, was dragged into
+the hall, to the surprise of the various servants, until the words,
+"It's your master come back," furnished a clue to the mystery. His
+wife's joy at meeting her "old man," as she affectionately called him,
+was extreme; but the excitement was too much for the veteran, who went
+bang off, like an exhausted squib, while Lady de Montfort fell in an
+explosion of grief by the side of her husband.
+
+The fortune of war had been oscillating with the regularity of a
+pendulum between England and France, when the Earl of Derby threw
+himself into the scale with tremendous weight, and turned it completely
+in England's favour. In the emphatic language of the day, he was "down
+upon the French like a thunderbolt." Edward went off to Flanders to
+treat with the free cities for their allegiance, and, in fact, ascertain
+the price of those friends of Liberty. Louis the Count, though deprived
+of nearly all his revenue, kept up his independence, and refused to pay
+allegiance or anything else to Edward. The English king tried to effect
+a transfer of the loyalty of the Flemings from Louis, the Count of
+Flanders, to his own son, Edward the Black Prince; and with this view he
+obtained the support of his old friend James von Artaveldt, the brewer,
+whose stout gave him a great ascendency over the actions of the people.
+He addressed to them a good deal of frothy declamation, and endeavoured
+to brew the storm of revolution; but it ended in very small beer,
+amid which Artaveldt himself was eventually washed away through the
+impetuosity of the stream he had himself set in motion. A popular
+insurrection broke out, and the brewer behaved with great gallantry. He
+wore a casque on his head which pointed him out as a butt for the malice
+of his enemies. He was cruelly murdered, and Edward vowed vengeance when
+he heard that the lifeless bier was all that remained of his friend the
+brewer.
+
+[Illustration: 201]
+
+In 1346 the English king landed on the coast of Normandy, with an army
+containing not only the flower of his own troops, but a regular bouquet,
+in which the English rose was blended with the Welsh leek and a sprig
+of the Irish shillalah. He marched towards Paris, and his van had even
+entered the suburbs of that city; but, without attacking the capital,
+he contented himself with a little arson in the small towns in the
+neighbourhood. His antagonist was not inactive, and succeeded in getting
+the English into a corner, from which escape seemed almost impossible.
+It was necessary to cross the Somme; but Philip and the river were
+rather too deep for Edward and his soldiers. Having waited till the
+tide went down, they took a desperate plunge, and the foe having also
+resolved on making a splash, the two armies met in the middle of the
+stream, where they fought with an ardour that was not damped by the
+surrounding element. Edward and his troops found as much difficulty in
+reaching the Bank as if they had made the attempt in an omnibus during
+one of the blockades of Fleet Street. At length they succeeded, and
+after travelling for some distance, they put up in the neighbourhood
+of the village of Cressy. On the 26th of August, 1346, the English
+sovereign took an early supper, and went to bed, having given
+instructions for his boots to be brought to his door by dawn the
+following morning. The whole army slept well, considering it was the
+first night in a strange place; and, having been called by that valuable
+valet, the lark, everyone was up and down by the hour of daybreak.
+
+[Illustration: 202]
+
+Breakfast was scarcely concluded when Edward ordered the army to arms,
+and sent for the herald in the hopes of getting the news; but from this
+quarter he learned nothing. At length he took up his post, and chose
+three leaders, a column being assigned to each of them. The first was
+under the command of his young Bon, Edward the Black Prince, a youth of
+fifteen, who held very high rank in the army, having been included
+in every brevet, notwithstanding the brevity of his service. Two
+experienced captains--the Earls of Warwick and Oxford--were employed
+under him to do the work, so that the boy prince had nothing to do
+but to reap the glory of his position. Heaping laurels under such
+circumstances was a common practice in those days; and the vulgar
+expression "with a hook" may have originated in allusion to the reaping
+of the harvest created by another's merit. It must, however, be stated
+in justice to the Black Prince, that he proved himself quite equal
+to the position in which fortune had placed him. If we examine his
+character, we shall find in it many good points, and it may fairly
+be said that the Black Prince was by no means so black as history has
+painted him. The three divisions took up their position on the hill, and
+the archers stood in front, forming a semicircle or bow, from which they
+could more effectually discharge their arrows. The Battle of Cressy is
+perhaps one of the most interesting in English history; and though part
+of it was fought in a tremendous shower of rain, which has caused some
+frivolous writer of the period to give it the name of Water Cressy, we
+are not induced by this idle and impotent play upon words to lose our
+respect for one of the greatest exploits of our countrymen.
+
+Philip slept at Abbeville on the 25th of August, and rising in a
+terrible ill-humour, set out early in the morning to give battle. He
+started off in such a fit of sulkiness that he did not even give the
+word to "march," and breaking suddenly into a run, his impatience
+carried him far in advance of his army. By the time he came in sight of
+the foe, he was ever so much ahead of his own troops, and was obliged
+to sit down quietly until they had come nearly up to him. By some
+mismanagement, the troops at the back started off quicker than those in
+front, who began to hesitate still more as they approached the enemy;
+and thus, one part of the army beginning to back while those behind
+pressed forward, a state of confusion which can only be described as
+a dreadful squeege was the immediate consequence. "Now then, stupid,"
+resounded from rank to rank, and comrade addressed comrade with the
+words "Where are you shoving to?" The king got hurried head foremost
+almost into the English camp, in spite of the vehement cries of "Keep
+back!" which, however, were no sooner acted upon than the rear ranks
+were seized with a panic, and the soldiery began tumbling over each
+other like those battalions in tin which in youthful days have fallen
+prostrate beneath the power of the peashooter.
+
+Philip, who had never intended to take the honour of a foremost rank,
+was pushed willy-nilly into the front place, like a gentleman who
+happened to be walking down the Haymarket on an opera night, and found
+himself suddenly engulfed in a stream which washed him off his legs,
+and left him high and dry in a stall to which he had been driven by the
+impetuosity of the torrent. Finding himself in the heat of an engagement
+in which he had not intended to be so closely engaged, his French
+majesty called to the Genoese crossbow-men to advance, but they pleaded
+sudden indisposition and fatigue, when Philip's brother deeply offended
+them by exclaiming--"See what we get by employing such scoundrels, who
+fail us in our need!" The Genoese were rather nettled--that is to say,
+somewhat stung--by this remark, and made a rush which was worth no more
+than a rush, for they were really worn out with their morning's walk,
+and felt fitter to be in bed than in battle. Though their arms and legs
+were tired, they still had the full use of their lungs, and began to
+shout out with tremendous vehemence, in the hope of frightening the
+English. This horrible hooting had no effect, and a Scotch veteran,
+by happily exclaiming "Hoot awa!" turned the laugh in favour of the
+English. Upon this, the Genoese gave another fearful yell, when one of
+Edward's soldiers inquired whether the crossbow-men wanted to frighten
+away the birds, and gave them the nickname of the heavy scarecrows. They
+advanced a step, when the English archers sent forth a volley of arrows,
+which fell like a snowstorm upon the Genoese, who, converting their
+shields into umbrellas, tried to take shelter under them. Philip was so
+disgusted with this pusillanimous conduct, that he cried out in a fury,
+"Kill me these scoundrels, for they stop our way without doing any
+good!" And the poor Genoese caught it severely from both sides.
+
+[Illustration: 204]
+
+During the battle, Edward sat on the tip top of a windmill, situated
+on the summit of a lofty hill, where, completely out of harm's way, he
+could watch the progress of the action. While in this elevated position,
+he was asked by a messenger to send a reinforcement to the Prince of
+Wales, who was performing prodigies of valour. "I'm glad to hear it,"
+said the affectionate father; "but," he added, "return to those who sent
+you, and tell them they shall have no help from me. Let the boy win his
+spurs," continued the old humbug, who was too selfish to put himself out
+of the way to assist his son, and would rather have let him perish than
+make any sacrifice to aid him in his arduous struggles.
+
+When these unaided exertions came to a triumphant issue, the father
+endeavoured to gain a reflected glory from the brilliance of his son's
+achievements. It is, however, due to the reputation of the latter to
+assert that the glory was all his own; for his selfish father had taken
+care of himself, while the son fought the battle alone, and won it
+without any assistance that it was in the power of his parent to have
+afforded him.
+
+Poor Philip fought desperately as long as he could, till John of
+Hainault, who had several times advised him to "go home and go to bed,
+for it was of no use," went up to the horse of the French king, seized
+the bridle, and quietly led him off in the direction of the nearest
+green-yard. Seeing it was a bad job, Philip requested to be taken to the
+castle of La Broye, but the gates were shut, and the chatelain, looking
+out of window, inquired who was knocking him up at such an unreasonable
+hour. "Me," cried Philip, in the grammar of the period; but "Who's me?"
+was the only response of the governor. "Why, don't you know me? I'm
+Philip, the fortune of France."
+
+"Pretty fortune, indeed!" muttered the chatelain, as he came downstairs,
+keys and candle in hand, to admit his unfortunate sovereign. The king's
+suite had dwindled down to five barons, * who turned in anywhere for the
+night, on sofas and chairs, while Philip took the spare bed usually kept
+for visitors.
+
+Thus ended the memorable Battle of Cressy, from our account of which we
+must not omit the incident of the king of Bohemia, who, old and blind,
+was perverse enough to tie the bridle of his horse to those of two
+knights, and with them he plunged into the midst of the battle.
+Considering that he could not have seen his way, there is something very
+rash, though perhaps very valiant, in this behaviour. Nor should we
+in our admiration of the bravery of the king of Bohemia, forget to
+sympathise with the two knights, upon whom he must have been a precious
+drag, by tying his horse's bridle to theirs, and making them no doubt
+the victims of a most unfortunate attachment. The king of Bohemia of
+course fell, for the union he had formed was anything but strength,
+and the Prince of Wales picking up his crest--a plume of ostrich
+feathers--adopted it for his own, with the celebrated motto of _Ich
+Dien_. ** The literal meaning of this motto is simply "I serve," but it
+has been very naturally suggested that "I am served out" would have been
+a more appropriate translation of the phrase, as long as it appertained
+to the unfortunate king of Bohemia. Rapin, the French historian, who
+is naturally anxious to make the best case he can for his countrymen,
+attributes their defeat at Cressy to the use of gunpowder by the
+English, who introduced, for the first time in war, a small magazine of
+this startling novelty. Such a _magasin des nouveautes_ of course would
+have taken the French by surprise, and would easily have accounted for
+any little deficiency of valour they might have exhibited. When the
+battle was over, Edward sneaked out of his windmill, where he professed
+to have been "overlooking the reserve," and joined his successful son,
+whom he warmly congratulated on his position.
+
+     * Froissart.
+
+     ** Doubts have been lately cast on this old story. See the
+     _Cabinet Portrait Gallery of British Worthies_, vol. i., p.
+     81,
+
+The night after the battle was of course a gala night with the English,
+who lighted fires, torches, and candles, including probably "fifty
+thousand additional lamps," in celebration of the victory. So excellent,
+however, were the regulations on the occasion, that we have not heard of
+a single instance of disturbance or accident. The day after the battle
+was disgraced by a series of attacks on some French unfortunates, who
+not knowing of the defeat of their king, were coming to his assistance.
+It happened that, as if to make the English quite at home, a regular
+English fog set in, and some French militia, not being able to see their
+way very clearly, mistook a reconnoitring party of the enemy for their
+own countrymen. The French hastened to join their supposed comrades, but
+soon found out their mistake from the cruel treatment they experienced.
+Other stragglers who had missed their way in the mist, were also
+savagely attacked, and when Edward heard the facts, he sent out Lords
+Cobham and Stafford, with three heralds, to recognise the arms, and two
+secretaries to write down the names of those that had fallen. The
+party returned in the evening, with a list of eleven princes, eighty
+bannerets, twelve hundred knights, and thirty thousand commoners. We can
+only say that the herald of those days could not have been such a very
+slow affair as the _Herald_ of these, and the secretaries must have
+written not merely a running but a galloping hand to have in so few
+hours deciphered the arms, and made a list of the names of such an
+enormous number of individuals.
+
+Having remained over Sunday at Cressy, Edward set out on Monday morning
+for Calais, with the intention of besieging it. While he was occupied
+abroad, his enemy, little David Bruce, at the instigation of Philip,
+attempted to disturb England. After a brief campaign, in which the
+Scotch king was joined by the Earls of Monteith and Fife, David Bruce
+was placed in custody. Monteith lost his head for showing his teeth, and
+Fife would have had a stop put to him, but for his relationship to the
+Royal Family, his mother having been niece to the first Edward.
+
+Calais was kept in a state of blockade, for the English king had
+resolved upon hemming in and starving out the inhabitants. John de
+Vienne, who was the governor, finding provisions getting low, turned
+what he called the "useless mouths" out of the place, and among these
+"useless mouths" were a number of women, who must have been rare
+specimens of their sex to have kept their mouths in a state of
+uselessness. The brutal policy of John de Vienne was to continue weeding
+the population as long as he could by turning out the old and helpless,
+the women and the children. Seventeen hundred victims were thrust from
+the town and driven towards the English lines by the Governor of Calais,
+who was reckless of the lives of the citizens so long as the sacrifice
+enabled him to hold out and gain a character for bravery.
+
+It is easy for a military commander to win a reputation for extreme
+heroism if he is utterly regardless of the expense, and chooses to pay
+for it in the blood of those under his control; but it is the duty of
+the historian to audit the accounts and justly strike the balance.
+In looking into the case of John de Vienne we adjudge him guilty of
+fraudulent bankruptcy in his reputation, for he sought to establish
+himself in the good books of public opinion by trading on the lives
+of the citizens of Calais, which were his only capital. If he were now
+before us, we should assume the part of a commissioner, and should say
+to him, "Go, sir. We cannot grant you your protection from the heavy
+responsibilities you incurred when you wasted human life which you were
+bound to preserve as far as you were able. You have violated a sacred
+trust; and we must therefore adjourn your further examination _sine
+die_, for it is quite impossible to grant you your certificate."
+
+As long as John de Vienne could find anything to eat, and could have
+his table tolerably well provided, he held out; but when starvation
+threatened himself as well as the citizens, he asked permission to
+capitulate. Edward, annoyed by the obstinacy of the resistance, refused
+to come to any terms short of an unconditional surrender, but he at
+length consented to spare the town on condition of six burgesses coming
+forth naked in their shirts, with halters round their necks, and without
+anything on their legs, as a proof of their humiliation being utterly
+inexpressible. When John de Vienne was apprised of this resolution,
+he called a meeting in the market-place, and stated the hard condition
+which Edward had imposed, but the governor had not the heroism to
+propose to make one of the party required for the sacrifice. He was
+exceedingly eloquent in urging others to come forward, and was loud in
+his protestations that such an "eligible opportunity," such an "opening
+for spirited young men" would never occur again; but the citizens turned
+a deaf ear to all his arguments. No one seemed inclined to set a noble
+example, but all the inhabitants gave way to a piteous fit of howling,
+until Eustace de St. Pierre, a rich burgess, drying his eyes and mopping
+up his emotion with the cuff of his coat, offered himself as the first
+victim. Five others followed his example, and the six heroes, taking
+off their trousers, prepared to throw themselves into the breach, and
+slipping off their slippers, went barefooted into the presence of the
+conqueror. He eyed the miserable objects with malicious pleasure, and
+according to Froissart, insulted the unhappy burgesses by a series
+of grimaces, like those with which the clown accompanies the ironical
+inquiry of "How are you?" which he always addresses to his intended
+victim in a pantomime. The wretched state of the burgesses shivering
+in their shirts--but not shaking in their shoes, for they were
+barefooted--had a softening influence on all but Edward, who with a
+clownish yell of "I've got you!" desired that the headsman might be sent
+for immediately.
+
+[Illustration: 208]
+
+The queen threw herself on her knees, and representing that she had
+never asked a favour of Edward in her life, entreated him to spare
+the trembling citizens. "Look at them!" exclaimed her majesty, as
+she dragged one forward and turned him round and round to show what a
+miserable object he was. "Look at them! and observe how piteously they
+implore mercy; for though their tongues do not speak, their teeth are
+constantly chattering." Edward looked at his wife, and then at the
+citizens. "I wish," said he to the former, "that you had been----
+somewhere else; but take the miserable beggars and do what you can with
+them." Philippa instantly took the coil of rope from the necks that were
+so nearly on the point of "shuffling off the mortal coil," and told
+them to go and get rigged out in a suit of clothes each, which made
+the oldest of them observe that "the rigger of the queen was much less
+formidable than the rigour of the king, with which they had been so
+lately threatened."
+
+The imbecility to which fear had brought their minds is fearfully
+shadowed forth in this miserable piece of attempted pleasantry, and it
+was perhaps fortunate that Edward did not overhear a pun, the atrocity
+of which he might have been justified in never pardoning. The six
+citizens having received their dressing, in a more agreeable shape then
+they had expected, and having sat down to an excellent dinner, provided
+at the queen's expense, were dismissed with a present of six nobles
+each, that they might not be without money in their pockets. As they
+partook of the meal prepared for them, the wag of the party, whose vapid
+jokes had already endangered the lives of himself and his companions,
+ventured to observe that he should look upon the ordinary as one of
+the most extraordinary events in his life; but as none of the king's
+servants were at hand to overhear the miserable _jeu de mot_, it was
+not followed by the fatal consequences we might otherwise have been
+compelled to chronicle.
+
+On the 3rd of August, 1347, Edward and his queen made their triumphant
+entry into Calais, which was transformed into an English colony; and as
+the residents of that early period were debtors to the generosity of the
+sovereign, the place has become a favourite resort for debtors even to
+the present moment.
+
+Edward having returned to England began to try the squeezability of
+his Parliament, and got up various pretexts for demanding money. He
+pretended to ask advice about carrying on the war with France, but the
+Parliament suspecting his intention declined giving any answer to his
+message. He next had recourse to intimidation, by spreading a report
+that the French contemplated invasion; and though it was little better
+than a cry of "Old Bogey," it had the desired effect. There is no doubt
+that Edward was guilty of obtaining money under false pretences, for he
+and Philip had agreed between themselves for a truce, and yet each taxed
+his subjects under the pretence that war might be imminent.
+
+[Illustration: 211]
+
+About the year 1344, according to some, but in the year 1350, on the
+authority of Stowe, the celebrated Order of the Garter was founded.
+If we may put faith in an old fable, it originated in the Countess of
+Salisbury having danced her stockings down at a court ball; when the
+king seeing her garter dangling at her heels, took hold of it and gave
+it to her, exclaiming, _Honi soit qui mal y pense_, which was a cut
+at some females who pretended to be shocked at the incident. Their
+smothered exclamations of "Well, I'm sure!"
+
+"Upon my word!" and "Well, really I never! Did you ever?" were thus
+playfully rebuked by Edward the Third, who afterwards made the words we
+have quoted the motto of the Order. We need scarcely tell our readers in
+this enlightened age that _Honi soit qui mal y pense_ is equivalent
+to saying that those who see harm in an innocent act, derive from
+themselves all the evil that presents itself.
+
+Edward's old enemy, Philip of France, was now dead, but his son and
+successor, John, continued the truce, or renewed the accommodation bill,
+which was entered into for the purpose of stopping proceedings on
+either side. In state affairs, as in pecuniary matters, these temporary
+arrangements are seldom beneficial, for they cause a frightful
+accumulation of interest, which must some time or other be paid off or
+wiped out at a fearful sacrifice.
+
+The Continental successes of the English king were marred by the trouble
+that Scotland gave to him, and he was often heard to say that "though he
+could make the French poodle--by whom he meant the king of France--do
+as he pleased, he hated the constant barking at his heels of the Scotch
+terrier." He therefore determined on attempting to buy the country out
+and out. So, going over to Roxburgh, he asked Baliol point-blank what
+he would take for the whole concern, exactly as it stood, including the
+throne, the title-deeds of the kingdom, and the crown and sceptre. "Let
+me see. What has it cost me?" said Baliol, evidently contemplating a
+bargain; but Edward interrupting him with "A precious deal more than
+it is worth," somewhat modified the figure that was on the tip of the
+tongue of the Scotch sovereign. "Will fifty thousand marks be too much?"
+observed the vendor, with an anxious look. But Edward's rapid "Oh, good
+morning!" instantly told the wary Scot the shrewdness of his customer.
+"Stop, stop," said Baliol; "I like to do business when I can. What will
+you give? for I'm really tired of the thing, and would be glad to accept
+any reasonable offer." Edward resumed his seat, made a few calculations
+on a scrap of vellum with a pocket-stile, and then, jumping up,
+exclaimed, "I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll give you five
+thousand marks down, and an annuity of L2000 per annum."
+
+The bargain was struck. With the title-deeds laden, Edward joyfully flew
+to his own country, and he had scarcely turned his back when "Adieu!"
+said Baliol; "you are not the first humbug who, coming to cheat,
+have got cheated yourself." The fact was, that the Scotchman, with
+characteristic cunning, got the best of the bargain, for the crown had
+been fearfully ill-used, the sceptre had got all the glitter worn off by
+the hard rubs it had endured, and the throne would cost more to keep in
+substantial repair than twice its value.
+
+Edward having bought up the country, began to exercise the right of
+ownership by setting fire to little bits of it. He marched through the
+Lothians, where he met with loathing on every side, and set
+Haddington as well as Edinburgh in flames, which caused Scotland to be
+prophetically called the Land of Burns by a sage of the period.
+
+While the king was thus engaged at home, his son Edward, the Black
+Prince, so called from the colour of his armour, which he had
+blackleaded to save the trouble of keeping it always bright, was
+occupied in France, where he fought and won the famous battle of
+Poictiers. The truce had, with the customary faithlessness of royalty in
+those days, been broken. Young Edward, having a small force, made a most
+earnest appeal to his army, and said something very insinuating about
+"his sinewy English bowmen."
+
+Before the commencement of the battle, a diplomatist of the name of
+Talleyrand, who seems to have been worthy of his celebrated modern
+successor, rode from camp to camp trying to arrange the affair, and
+making himself very influential with both parties. John was, however,
+so confident in the superiority of his numbers that he declined a
+compromise, except on the most humiliating terms, to the Black Prince,
+who looked blacker than ever when the degrading proposition was made to
+him.
+
+On the 19th of September, 1356, the battle began with a duet played by
+two trumpets--one on each side--but this did not last long, for neither
+party desired to listen to overtures. The French commenced the attack,
+but they came to the point a little too soon, for they actually ran
+upon the arrows of the English bowmen. The Constable of France tried
+to inspire courage into the troops on his side by roaring out
+"Mountjoy! St. Denis!" but a stalwart Briton, telling him to hold his
+noise, felled him to the ground. A strong body of reserve, who carried
+their reserve to downright timidity, fled without striking a blow. They
+had scarcely drawn their swords, and received the word of command to
+"cut away," when they did literally cut away, and having cut refused
+to come again. John of France flourished his battle-axe with ferocious
+courage; but at last he received two tremendous blows in the face which
+brought him to the ground. His son Philip, a lad of sixteen, fought by
+his side, encouraging him with cries of "Give it 'em, father!" which
+aroused the almost exhausted John, and caused him to recover his legs.
+Every kind of verbal insults was offered to him by the enemy, and
+particularly by the Gascons, who indulged in a great deal of their usual
+gasconade. "Stand and surrender!" cried a voice; to which John replied,
+"If I could stand, I would not surrender, but I suppose I must fall into
+your hands." With this he tottered into a circle of English knights,
+by whom he was nearly torn to pieces in the scramble that arose for the
+royal captive. Some among the crowd of his victors endeavoured to induce
+his majesty to place himself under their charge, and one or two began
+to talk to him in bad French, when Sir Denis, a real Frenchman, who had
+been dismissed from the service of his own country and entered that of
+England, addressed the monarch politely in his native tongue. John was
+in the act of offering up his glove to this gentleman as a token of
+surrender, when the royal gauntlet was torn to pieces by the surrounding
+knights, who all wanted to have a finger in it. Everyone was eager
+to claim the French monarch, who seemed on the point of being torn to
+pieces like a hare by a pack of ill-bred hounds. "I took him," exclaimed
+fifty voices at once, when the Earl of Warwick, rushing into the front,
+thundered forth in a stentorian voice, "Can't' you leave the man alone?"
+and drawing John's arm within his own, led off the conquered king to the
+camp of Edward. Warwick took little Philip by the hand, and presented
+father and son to the Black Prince, who received them with much
+courtesy. *
+
+[Illustration: 214]
+
+He invited them both to supper, waited on the French king at table,
+and soothed his grief with probably such kind expressions as "Poor old
+chap!"
+
+"Never mind, old fellow!" and other words of respectful sympathy. The
+Black Prince made them his companions to London, which they entered in
+the character of his prisoners, on the 24th of April, 1357. The pageant
+was very magnificent, the citizens hanging out their plate to do honour
+to the occasion; and the windows were filled with spoons, just as they
+are when a modern Lord Mayor's show is to be seen within the city.
+Edward had now a couple of kings in custody; but in November, 1357, one
+of them, David Bruce, was released, upon drawing a bill for one hundred
+thousand marks on his Scotch subjects. There can be no doubt that the
+latter were regularly sold by their weak-minded monarch, who had become
+the mere creature of the English sovereign. John remained in captivity
+in London, while Edward carried the war into France; but having got
+nearly as far as Paris, he was caught in a shower, which completely
+wet him down, and diluted all the spirit he had, up to that point,
+exhibited. * The wind was terrific; but it was not one of those ill
+winds that blow nobody good, for the blow it inflicted on the courage of
+Edward made good for those he came to fight against. The French justly
+hailed the rain as a welcome visitor, for it completely softened Edward
+by regularly soaking him. On the 8th of May, 1360, peace was concluded,
+and John was set at large on condition of the payment of three million
+crowns of gold, which was rather a heavy sum forgetting one crown
+restored to him. Some hostages were given for the fulfilment of the
+bargain; but poor John found he had undertaken more than he could
+perform, and though he did not exactly stop payment, it was because he
+had never commenced that operation. He was exceedingly particular in
+money matters, and it annoyed him not to be able to fulfil his pecuniary
+arrangements. Some of his bail having bolted, he could bear the
+degradation no longer, and he voluntarily went over to London, where he
+put himself in prison, as a defaulter, though others say it was a love
+affair in England, rather than his honesty as a debtor, which brought
+him up to town. The royal insolvent did not long survive, for he died
+in the month of April, 1364, at the Palace of the Savoy; and it was
+tauntingly said of him by a contemporary buffoon, that the debt of
+nature was the only debt he had ever paid.
+
+     * Froissart, Knyght, Rynier, and Company.
+
+The Black Prince, who had been created Duke of Aquitaine, governed for
+his father in the South of France, but was induced to espouse the cause
+of one Pedro, surnamed the Cruel, who, for his ferocious conduct, had
+been driven from the throne of Castile. Bertrand du Gueselin, a famous
+knight in his day, and Don Enrique, the illegitimate brother of the
+tyrant, had expelled him from his dominions, when the Black Prince,
+tempted by offers of an enormous salary, undertook to restore Pedro to
+his position. Edward fought and conquered, but could not get paid for
+his services; and, as he had undertaken the job by contract, employing
+an army of mercenaries at his own risk, he was harassed to death by
+demands for which he had made himself liable. Captains were continually
+calling to know when he intended to settle that little matter, until he
+got tired of answering that it was not quite convenient just now; and
+he that had never turned his back upon an enemy, ran away as hard as
+he could from the importunity of his creditors. Pedro, abandoned by his
+chief supporter, agreed to a conference with his half brother Enrique;
+but cruelty seems to have been a family failing, for the couple had
+scarcely met when they fell upon each other with the fury of wild
+beasts, and Pedro the Cruel was stabbed by Enrique the Crueller, who
+threw himself at once upon the throne. *
+
+     * Froissart.--Mariana.
+
+Charles of France now thought that the harassed mind and declining
+health of the Black Prince afforded an eligible opportunity of attacking
+him. His Royal Highness resisted as well as he could; but he was so
+exceedingly indisposed that he was carried about on a litter from post
+to post, as if he had been compelled to rest at the corner of every
+street through sheer exhaustion. He marched, or rather was jostled,
+towards Limoges, the capital of the Limousin, which he stormed in two
+places at once; and at the sight of the pair of breaches he had made,
+the women fled in inexpressible terror and confusion. His conduct to
+these poor defenceless creatures was merciless in the extreme; and this
+one incident in the life of the Black Prince is sufficient to give to
+his name all the blackness that is attached to it. Some allowance may,
+however, be perhaps made for the state of his health, which now took him
+to England to recruit--not in a military but in a physical sense--but it
+was too late, for he died at Canterbury, on the 8th of January, 1376, to
+the great regret of his father, who only kept the respect of the people
+through his son's popularity.
+
+Edward the Third had been for some time leading a very disreputable
+life, and had been captivated by one Alice Perrers, to whom he had given
+the jewels of the late queen, and who had the effrontery to wear them
+when abroad in the public thoroughfares. Among other freaks of his
+dotage was a tournament which he gave in Smithfield--the origin, no
+doubt, of the once famous Bartholomew Fair--where Alice Perrers figured
+in a triumphal chariot, as the Lady of the Sun, the king himself
+appearing in the character of the Sun, though it was the general remark
+that, as the couple sat side by side, the Sun looked old enough to be
+the father.
+
+It was towards the close of this reign that Wycliffe, the celebrated
+precursor of Huss, Luther, and Calvin, as well as the curser of popery,
+began preaching against the abuses of the Catholic clergy. His cause was
+espoused by the Duke of Lancaster, who had been in power since the death
+of the Black Prince, and who is said to have taken Wycliffe's part so
+ardently, as to have threatened to drag the Bishop of London by the hair
+of his head out of St. Paul's Cathedral. Considering that the priest was
+all shaven and shorn, it would have been difficult for Lancaster to
+have carried out his threat by tugging out the bishop in the manner
+specified. It is a curious fact that this alleged attack on one of
+the heads of the church was soon followed by a general burden on the
+national poll, in the shape of a poll-tax, which was imposed to provide
+for the renewal of the war, as the truce in existence was on the point
+of expiring.
+
+Edward had now become old and miserable; for having done nothing to gain
+the affection of others, he was abandoned at the close of his life, by
+even the members of his own family. One or two sycophants clung to him,
+in the hope of getting something; but his children had all separate
+interests of their own, for the cold and selfish conduct of their parent
+had driven them quite away from him. He endeavoured to give decency to
+the close of his existence, by a general amnesty for all minor offences;
+but it was now too late to gain him friends, and the wretched old man
+was left alone with Alice Perrers. He died in her arms at his villa at
+Sheen, near Richmond, on the 21st of June, 1377, and she took advantage
+of being by his side at his death, to rob him of a valuable ring, which
+she took from his finger in his last moments, when he was too weak to
+resist the robbery. Were the shade of Edward the Third to present itself
+before us for a testimonial, we should advise the spectre, for its
+respectability's sake, not to ask us for a character.
+
+Much good was done in the reign we have been describing; but this is
+only another illustration of the well-known truth that the prosperity
+of a country does not always depend on the virtues of the sovereign.
+Perhaps the most valuable measure passed by Edward was an act limiting
+to three principal heads the cases of high treason, of which a hundred
+heads, all filled with teeth, might until then have been considered
+symbolical. This wholesome statute had at least the effect of changing
+a Hydra into a Cerberus. The leash of crimes that this Cerberus was
+empowered to hunt down were, conspiring the death of the king, levying
+war against him, or adhering to his enemies. A curious question arose
+some time afterwards under the last of these three divisions, when a
+loyal subject was nearly being condemned for adhering to the king's
+enemies, though it appeared he had adhered only in the sense of sticking
+to them, with a view to punish them.
+
+The conduct of Edward the Third to David Bruce, his brother-in-law, was
+unjust in the extreme; and though the Black Prince made his way by his
+own talents, he does not appear to have owed his advancement to any
+assistance that his father ever afforded him. Some useful alterations
+were made in the law, and the power of the Commons advanced; but the
+taxes were fearfully increased, as if the liberality of the people was
+expected as an equivalent for the liberality of the Government. The
+money collected was not altogether wasted in war, for some of it went
+in the building of Windsor Castle, of which William of Wickham was the
+architect. The first turnpike ever known in England, was started also
+under Edward the Third, between St. Giles's and Temple Bar, where to
+this day the successor of the ancient pikeman rushes forth to levy a
+toll on carts that enter the city. On the same principle, that out of
+evil good often comes, Edward the Third may be regarded as a benefactor
+to his subjects.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIFTH. RICHARD THE SECOND, SURNAMED OF BORDEAUX.
+
+
+[Illustration: 217]
+
+IF little and good were always identical. Richard the Second would have
+been a very good king, for he was a little boy of eleven years of age
+when the crane of circumstances hoisted him on to the throne of his
+grandfather. Young Richard was the only surviving son of Edward the
+Black Prince, and out of compliment to the juvenile monarch, his
+coronation in Westminster Abbey was made as gaudy as possible. No
+expense was spared in dresses and decorations; but the ceremony not
+being over till it was high time all children should be in bed and
+asleep, the boy king was completely exhausted before the spectacle was
+half over. Stimulants were administered to keep the child up; but
+when the heavy crown was placed on his brow, the diadem completely
+overbalanced a head already oscillating from side to side with excessive
+drowsiness. His attendants tumbled him into a litter, and hurried him
+into a private room, where, by dint of the most scarifying restoratives
+held to his nose, he so far recovered as to be enabled to create four
+earls and nine knights, partake of a tremendous supper, dance at a ball,
+and listen to a little minstrelsy. * It was at the coronation of Richard
+the Second that we first find mention in history of a champion rushing
+into Westminster Hall, throwing his gauntlet on the ground, and offering
+to fight any number--one down and another come on--who may dispute
+the title of the sovereign. The gallantry of the challenge is not very
+considerable, for it is a well-understood thing beforehand that the
+police will keep all suspicious characters out of the Hall, and the only
+difficulty required is in backing out of the Hall on horseback; as, if
+a claimant to the throne should actually appear, the champion would no
+doubt back cleverly out of his challenge. Even this trifling merit must,
+however, be assigned to the horse, who is generally a highly-trained
+palfrey from the neighbouring amphitheatre, and is let out, trappings
+and all included, to the Champion of England for the performance in
+which his services are required.
+
+     * We get these facts from Walsingham, who gives an elaborate
+     account of the coronation. Walsingham says, they waltzed
+     till all was blue, which means, until the coerulean dawn
+     began to make its appearance.
+
+[Illustration: 218]
+
+Though Richard was not too young for the position of king, it was not
+to be supposed that a boy of his age could be of any use whatever, and
+twelve permanent councillors were therefore appointed, to do the work of
+government. It was expected that the Duke of Lancaster, _alias_ John
+of Gaunt, would have been appointed regent, but not one of the king's
+uncles was named, and John, looking gaunter * than ever, withdrew in
+stately dudgeon to his Castle of Kenilworth.
+
+     * John of Gaunt was not so called from his gaunt stature, as
+     some suppose, but from Ghent, or Gand (then called Gaunt)
+     where the gent, was born,
+
+The truce with France having expired, without renewal, some attacks were
+made on the English coast, and advantage was taken of the circumstance
+to ask the Parliament for a liberal supply. Every appeal to the
+patriotism of the people was in those days nothing more than an attack
+upon their pockets; and it is not improbable that, by an understanding
+among the various kings of Europe, one of them should be threatened
+with attack if he required a pretext for obtaining a subsidy from his
+subjects.
+
+Notwithstanding the money taken from the public purse for the national
+defence, the work was so utterly neglected by the Government, that John
+Philpot, a shipowner and merchant of London, equipped a small fleet
+of his own, with which he captured several of the enemy's vessels. The
+authorities feeling the act to be a reflection on their own shameful
+dereliction of duty, censured Philpot for his interference; but the
+worthy alderman, by replying--"Why did you leave it to me to do,
+when you ought to have done it yourselves?" effectually silenced all
+remonstrance.
+
+Young Richard, or those who acted for him, continued to make ducks and
+drakes of the money of the English, which was being constantly wasted in
+wanton warfare. The setting up of a duke here, or the taking down of a
+king there, though the English felt no interest whatever in either the
+duke or the king, became a pretext for levying a tax on the people. In
+order that none should escape, so much per head was imposed on every
+one from the highest to the lowest. The tax varied with the rank of the
+person; and while a duke or archbishop was assessed at six 'thirteen
+four (L6 13s. 4d.) a lawyer was mockingly mulcted of six and eightpence.
+Such was the unpopularity of the poll-tax, that a regular pollish
+revolution speedily broke out, which was fomented by the exactions of
+some mercenary speculators to whom the tax had been farmed out by the
+Government. Commissioners were sent into the disturbed districts to
+enforce payment, and one Thomas de Bampton, who sat at Brentwood in
+Essex, with two serjeants-at-arms, was glad to take to his legs, to
+escape the violence of the populace, who sent him flying all the way to
+London, where he rushed with his two attendants into the Common Pleas,
+and asked for justice. Sir Robert Belknape, the chief, was sitting at
+Nisi Prius, when Bampton begged permission to move the court as far as
+Essex. The judge followed by clerks, jurors, and ushers, consenting to
+the motion, went off to Brentwood, where they had no sooner arrived,
+than poor Belknape was seized by the nape of the neck and forced to
+flee, while the clerks and jurors were much more cruelly dealt with.
+
+Leaders were all that the people wanted, when a notorious priest who
+got the name of Jack Straw--from his being a man of that material--put
+himself at the head of the discontents. The throwing up a straw will
+often tell which way the wind blows, and the elevation of Jack certainly
+indicated an approaching hurricane. During the excitement, one of the
+tax-gatherers called upon one Walter the Tyler, of of Dartford, in Kent,
+to demand fourpence, due as Miss Walter's Poll-tax. Mrs. Walter, with
+the vanity of her sex, wishing to make herself out younger than she
+really was, declared that the girl was not of the age liable by law
+to the imposition. The collector made a very rude remark on that very
+tender point, the age of the elder lady, when she screamed out to
+her husband, who was tiling a house in the neighbourhood, to come and
+"punish the impertinent puppy." Walter, who had still his trowel in
+his hand, replied by crying out "Wait till I get at you;" and the
+tax-gatherer insolently calling out "What's that what you say, Wat?" so
+irritated Walter, that he at once emptied a hod of mortar on to the head
+of the collector. The functionary was, of course, dreadfully mortar-fied
+at this incident, but the trowelling he got with the trowel completely
+finished him. Everybody applauded what Wat had done, and he was soon
+appointed captain of the rebels. They released from prison a Methodist
+parson named John Ball, or Bawl, whom they called their chaplain. A
+nucleus having been formed, the mob increased with the rapidity of
+a snowball, picking up the scum of the earth at every turn, until it
+arrived at an alarming magnitude. The Tyler first visited Canterbury,
+where he played some practical jokes upon the monks, and then came to
+Blackheath, where, finding the young king's mother--the widow of the
+Black Prince--he gave the old lady a kiss, and in this operation nearly
+every rebel followed his leader. Such were the liberties taken by the
+mob in their zeal on behalf of liberty, which they often affect
+to pursue by means of the vilest tyranny, cruelty, cowardice, and
+oppression. The insurgents made for London, when Walworth, the mayor,
+endeavoured to oppose their entrance; but his efforts were vain, and
+several parts of the city were burnt and plundered. The Temple was
+destroyed by fire, and the lawyers running about in their black gowns
+amid the flames suggested a very obvious comparison. Newgate and the
+Fleet prisons were broken into, when all the scamps from both places
+at once assumed the character of patriots, and joined the cause of the
+people.
+
+It is astonishing how easily a scamp who is unfit for any honest
+occupation can at once become a friend of the masses. The prisons might
+at any time contribute a fresh supply, when the stock of lovers of
+liberty on hand may seem to be diminishing. Rapine and murder were
+pursued with impunity for some time, the Government leaving matters to
+take their chance; until a formal demand having been made by the mob for
+the heads of the Chancellor and Treasurer, it was thought high time to
+effect a compromise. A proclamation was issued announcing the king's
+intention to be at Mile End by a certain hour, and the people were
+politely requested to meet him there. On his reaching the spot where he
+intended to talk things over with his subjects, he found sixty thousand
+of them assembled; and as they all began talking at once, a little
+confusion arose until the appointment of a regular spokesman. At length
+the demands of sixty thousand tongues were reduced to four heads, and
+to these the king agreed very graciously. The dispute might have ended
+mildly at Mile End, but for the violent proceedings of those who kept
+away from the meeting. These got into the Tower directly Richard's
+back was turned, and the least of their offences was the rudeness they
+manifested towards the widow of the Black Prince, who had either dropt
+in to tea with the Archbishop and Chancellor or was permanently residing
+there. This lady had got the name of the Fair Maid of Kent, a title that
+had many local variations, according to the part of the county in
+which she was spoken of. Sometimes they called her the Dartford Daisy,
+sometimes the Canterbury Belle, sometimes the Greenwich Geranium,
+sometimes the Woolwich Wallflower, and occasionally, even the Heme Bay
+Hollyoak.
+
+The rioters finding her in the Tower, treated the Fair Maid of Kent with
+excessive rudeness, comparing her lips to Kentish cherries, and making
+them the subject of the well-known game which is played by what
+is termed bobbing at the fruit specified. She was, in fact, nearly
+smothered in the Tower with the kisses of the malcontents. Her ladies
+were, of course, dreadfully shocked, and their screams of "Mi!" at the
+treatment of their mistress were truly terrible. When remonstrated with
+on the liberty they were taking, they declared liberty to be the sacred
+object they were bent on furthering. The Fair Maid of Kent was at length
+dragged away by her attendants, who concealed her in a house called the
+royal wardrobe, or perhaps put her into a clothes-cupboard, to keep her
+out of the way of the rioters.
+
+The Mile End charter had been very nicely written out by order of the
+king, but Wat Tyler and his followers refused to have anything to do
+with it. Richard tried another charter with more concessions, but
+this had no effect; and at length he drew up a third, which went still
+further than the two first, for the king, or those who advised him,
+cared not how much was promised to answer a temporary purpose, as
+there was never any difficulty in breaking a pledge that might be found
+inconvenient. Whether or no Wat suspected the worthlessness of charters,
+which might be sworn to one day and treated as waste paper the next,
+he refused to be satisfied with either of the documents offered to his
+approval. Finding written communications utterly useless, Richard rode
+into town, with the intention of seeing what could be done by means of a
+personal interview.
+
+On reaching Smithfield he met Wat Tyler, and drew up opposite the gate
+of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, which was in those days an abbey. The
+incident which then happened has been variously described by different
+pens, but unless we had at our command some of the Smithfield pens that
+happened to be present at the time, we could not vouch for the accuracy
+of any particular statement. Some say that Tyler came up in a bullying
+attitude, and flourished a dagger; others allege that he seized the
+king's bridle, as if he would take out of the royal hands the reins of
+power; a few hint that Wat was intoxicated, either with brief authority
+or something equally short; but all agree that he received his quietus
+at the hands of one of his majesty's attendants.
+
+The merit or responsibility of the death of Wat Tyler has usually been
+assigned to Walworth, Lord Mayor of London, who is said to have
+killed the rebel with his mace; * but it is doubtful whether the civic
+potentate would be carrying his mace about with him during a morning's
+ride.
+
+     * Others say that the mace in the hands of Walworth was not
+     the official mace, but a mace belonging to a billiard marker
+     in the mob. It is pretty certain that, wherever the mace may
+     have come from, the insolence of Tyler furnished the cue.
+
+The fall of the Tyler had a most depressing influence on his followers,
+and Richard, riding up to them, offered his services as their leader.
+"Tyler was a traitor," cried the king: "I will be your captain and your
+guide," when several of the mob consented to transfer themselves, like
+so many tools, from the hands of Wat to those of Richard. Some of the
+rioters sneaked quietly away, while those that remained were paralysed;
+for it was always the characteristic of an English mob, to go on very
+valiantly as long as they had it all their own way, but to turn tail and
+flee on the very first symptom of earnest resistance.
+
+Richard, finding himself once more powerful, instead of tempering
+justice with mercy, threw in a strong seasoning of the most highly
+-spiced cruelty, and commenced a series of executions, in which there
+were nearly fifteen hundred victims to royal vindictiveness. As might
+have been expected from the state of royal honour at the time, he at
+once revoked all the charters to which he had agreed--an act which
+proved that Tyler took a very fair view of the worth of the concessions
+he had rejected. Jack Straw, one of the rioters, after being tauntingly
+told by the authorities that he, Straw, deserved to be thrashed, was
+among the sufferers by the law; and an act was passed by which "riots
+and rumours and other such things" were turned into high treason.
+Considering that rumour has an incalculable number of tongues, which are
+not unfrequently all going at once, there must have been plenty to do
+under the act by which all rumours were converted into high treason.
+
+In the year 1382, Richard was married to Anne of Bohemia, a most
+accomplished Bohemian girl, and the daughter of Charles the Fourth,
+the highly respectable emperor. The king had in the commencement of his
+reign been surrounded by a low set, placed about him by his mother, the
+Princess of Wales, for the purpose of excluding his uncles, who could
+not be expected to mix with ministers and officers whose vulgarity was
+shocking, and whose meanness was quite detestable. One of these fellows,
+John Latimer, a Carmelite friar, and an Irishman, gave Richard a
+parchment containing the particulars of a conspiracy to place the crown
+on the head of his uncle, the Duke of Lancaster. The duke swore that the
+whole story was false; his accuser swore the contrary, and the dispute
+was at length settled by the strangulation of Latimer. Sir John Holland,
+the king's half-brother, was the alleged perpetrator of the savage act;
+and indeed this gentleman subsequently disgraced himself by a homicide
+in the royal camp, for he pounced upon and killed one of the favourites.
+
+"You're no favourite of mine," roared Holland, as he perpetrated the
+ruffianly act; which proves the holland of that day to have been a very
+coarse material.
+
+The Duke of Lancaster having gone abroad to urge a stale, and rather
+hopeless, claim to the throne of Castile, Richard was left in the power
+of his more turbulent uncle, the Duke of Gloucester. This unpleasant
+person at once proposed a permanent Council of Regency, to which the
+king objected, when, with dramatic effect, one of the commons produced
+from under his cloak the statute by which Edward the Second had been
+deposed, and holding it to Richard's head, implied that his consent or
+his life were his only alternatives. Upon this he gave his consent, but
+about two years afterwards, at a council held in May, 1389, he suddenly
+took what is commonly called a new start, and rising up, addressed
+Gloucester with the words, "I say, Uncle, do you know how old I am?"
+
+"Of course I do," replied Gloucester, a little puzzled at the oddness
+of the question; "you are in your twenty-second year; and a fine boy
+you are of your age," continued the crafty duke; "but why so particular
+about dates at the present moment?"
+
+"Because," replied the king, "I've been thinking if I'm not old enough
+to manage my own affairs now, I never shall be."
+
+[Illustration: 223]
+
+An expression of "hoity toity!" came into the countenance of the duke;
+but Richard continued, with much earnestness, that all the young men of
+his age were released from the control of their guardians, and he did
+not see why he should any longer be kept morally in pinafores. With
+this he thanked the council for their past services, which, however, he
+declared he should no longer require. Before there was time to prevent
+him, he had snatched the seals from the archbishop, and seized the
+bunch of keys from the Bishop of Hereford. Everybody was completely
+dumbfounded by this exhibition on the part of a lad who had never before
+been known to do more than stammer out a bashful "Bo!" to some goose he
+may have met with in his youthful wanderings. Gloucester was driven
+from the council, and the whole thing was done before anyone present
+had time--or if he had time he certainly omitted the opportunity--to
+say "Jack Robinson." An affecting reconciliation afterwards took place
+between Gloucester and the king; but we believe the reconciliation
+itself to have been more affected than the parties who were concerned in
+it.
+
+Richard had soon afterwards the misfortune to lose his wife; and in 1394
+he went over to Ireland with a considerable army, but, as it would seem,
+less for the purpose of making war than making holiday. The English king
+never struck a blow, and the Irish did not resist, so that the whole
+affair was a good deal like that portion of the performance of Punch, in
+which one party is continually bobbing down his head, while the other
+is furiously implanting blows on vacancy. Richard entertained the Irish
+with great magnificence, and at one of the banquets said the evening was
+so pleasant he wished he could make several knights of it. Some of the
+guests taking up the idea, persuaded him to make several knights by
+knighting them, which he did with the utmost affability.
+
+Richard did not remain very long a widower, for in October, 1396, he
+married Isabella, the daughter of Charles the Sixth, an infant prodigy,
+for she was scarcely more than seven, though a prodigy, according to
+Froissart, of wit and beauty. Our private opinion--which we do not
+hesitate to make public--is that there must have been some mistake about
+the infant's age, and that the parents and nurses of that period were
+not so particular in proving registers and records of birth as they
+might, could, or should have been. The wit of a child of seven must have
+been fearfully forced to have been so early developed: and in spite of
+the tendency there has always been to exaggerate the merits of royalty,
+we respectfully submit that the _facetiae_ of a child of seven must
+have been of the very smallest description. The king, who had never been
+cordially reconciled to Gloucester, was annoyed by the opposition of
+the latter to the royal marriage, and resolved on striking a blow at his
+uncle as well as at one or two of his chief partisans. Richard's plan
+was to ask people to dinner, and in the middle of one of the courses,
+give a signal to a sheriff's officer, who was concealed under the
+tablecloth, from which he sprang out and arrested the visitor. He served
+the Earls of Warwick and Arundel one after the other in this way, having
+invited them each in turn to a chop, which it was designed that they
+should eventually get through the agency of a hatchet. *
+
+     * This must not be confounded with an old legend, that he
+     asked his friends occasionally to a chop at Hatchett's--the
+     well-known hotel in Piccadilly.
+
+His uncle Gloucester was not to be caught in this way, and declined
+several invitations to a _tete-a-tete_, when Richard, determined to
+accomplish his object, went to Bleshy Castle in Essex, where his uncle
+was residing. "As you won't come to see me, I've come to see you," were
+the king's artful words, when he was naturally invited to partake
+of that _fortune du pot_ which is the ever-ready tribute of English
+hospitality. While Richard was doing the amiable with the Duchess,
+Gloucester, the Duke, was seized by one of the bailiffs in the
+_suite_--disguised, of course, as a gentleman of the household--and
+hurried to the Essex shore, where he was shoved off in a boat, and
+conveyed, almost before he could fetch his breath, to Calais.
+
+It was the practice of Richard to do things by fits and starts; so
+that he accomplished an object very often by getting people to aid him
+without knowing exactly what they were about, in consequence of the
+suddenness with which he claimed their services. A few days after poor
+Gloucester had been "entered outwards" for Calais, the king went to
+Nottingham Castle, where, taking his uncles Lancaster and York by
+surprise, he pulled out a document, requesting them to favour him with
+their autographs. They could not very well refuse a request so strangely
+made, and it eventually turned out that they had put their names to a
+bill of indictment against Gloucester, Warwick and Arundel. A Parliament
+was called to try the traitors, who were condemned, as a matter of
+course; for Richard, walking into the house with six hundred men-at-arms
+and a body-guard of archers, was pretty sure of a large majority.
+Arundel was beheaded, and a writ was issued against Gloucester,
+commanding him to return from Calais, to undergo the same disagreeable
+process.
+
+Fortunately, or unfortunately for the duke, he was dead before the writ
+could be served; but the Parliament, though they could not kill him
+twice over, indulged the satisfaction of declaring him a traitor after
+his decease, by which all his property became forfeited. This proceeding
+was a good deal like robbing the dead; but it was by no means contrary
+to the spirit of the period. Warwick pleaded guilty, and was sentenced
+to perpetual imprisonment in the Isle of Man--a sort of _lucus a non
+lucendo_, which was called the Isle of Man from there being scarcely a
+man to be seen in the place from one week's end to the other.
+
+The peculiar richness of this reign consists in the historical doubts,
+of which it is so full that the chroniclers are thrown into a state of
+pleasing bewilderment. Nobody knows what became of Gloucester while in
+captivity at Calais; and therefore every writer is at liberty to dispose
+of the duke in any manner that may tempt an imagination inclining to
+riot and rampancy. The treatment of his Royal Highness becomes truly
+dreadful in the hands of the various antiquarians and others who have
+undertaken to deal with him. By one set of authorities he is strangled,
+in accordance with the alleged orders of the king: others kill him
+of apoplexy; a few poison him; ten or a dozen drown him; six or seven
+smother him; but all agree in the fact that he was, surreptitiously
+settled. We are the only faithful recorders of the real fact, when we
+state upon our honour that nobody knows the manner of the duke's death,
+which is involved in the dense fogs of dim obscurity. Into these we will
+not venture, lest we lose our own way and mislead the reader who may pay
+us the compliment of committing himself to our guidance.
+
+Richard having got rid of Gloucester, was anxious for the removal of
+Norfolk and Hereford, whom he involved in a quarrel with each other,
+intending that they should realise the legend of the Cats of Kilkenny.
+When, however, they had entered the lists to decide their dispute by
+wager of battle, Richard thought it better to run no risk of either
+of them escaping, and he therefore sentenced both to banishment. Poor
+Norfolk, a pudding-headed fellow, who might have gone by the name of the
+Norfolk Dumpling, was soft enough to die of grief at Venice, on his road
+to Jerusalem, whither he contemplated a pilgrimage. Hereford remained in
+France, having been promised a pardon, but as it did not arrive he took
+French leave to return to England, in 1399, after scarcely more than a
+year's absence. His retinue was so small as to be utterly ridiculous,
+for it consisted of one exiled archbishop, fifteen knights, and a
+small lot of servants, who may be put down as sundries in the little
+catalogue. One fool, however, makes many, and one rebellious earl was
+soon joined by a number of other seditious nobles.
+
+The plan of Hereford was that of the political quack who pretends to
+have a specific for every disease by which the constitution is affected.
+He published a puffing manifesto declaring that he had no other object
+but the redress of grievances, and that the crown was the very last
+thing to which his thoughts were directed. One of his confederates
+to whom Hereford was reading the rough draft of his proposed address,
+suggested that the disclaimer of the crown which it contained, might
+prove inconvenient, when the royal diadem was really obtainable.
+"Don't you see," replied the crafty Hereford with a smile, "I have not
+compromised myself in any way. I have only said it is the last thing to
+which my thoughts are directed, and so indeed it is, for I think of it
+the last thing at night as well as the first thing in the morning." Thus
+with the salve of speciousness, did the wily earl soothe for a time the
+irritations of his not very tender conscience.
+
+The manifesto had its effect, for it is a remarkable fact that they who
+promise more than it is possible to perform, find the greatest favour
+with the populace; for an undertaking to do what cannot be done
+always affords something to look forward to. Expectation is generally
+disappointed by fulfilment, and the most successful impostors are
+consequently those who promise the most impracticable things without
+ever doing anything. The imposition cannot be detected until the
+impossibility of the thing promised is demonstrated; and this does not
+often happen, for the difficulty of proving a negative is on all hands
+admitted. It was therefore a happy idea of Hereford, as a political
+adventurer, to promise a redress of every grievance; and if he could
+have added to his pledge of interference _de omnibus rebus_ an assurance
+of his ultimately applying his panacea to _quodam alia_, there is
+little doubt that he would have been even more successful than he was in
+augmenting the number of his followers.
+
+By the time he reached London he had got sixty thousand men of all sorts
+and sizes about him, for the people in those days were fond of changing
+their leaders, and Hereford was popular as the latest novelty. The
+Duke of York--the king's uncle--moved to the West End, as Henry and his
+forces entered at the East; but Henry of Bolingbroke--alias Hereford,
+who was also the nephew of York--invited the latter to a conference.
+After talking the matter over, the worthy couple agreed to a coalition;
+the conduct of York being very like that of an individual left to guard
+a house, and joining with the thief who came to rob the premises.
+
+[Illustration: 227]
+
+Richard, who was in Ireland, knew nothing of what was passing at home,
+for in consequence of contrary winds, the non-arrival of "our usual
+express" was for three weeks a standing announcement with all the organs
+of intelligence. When he received the news from his "own reporter,"
+he started for Milford Haven, where he was almost overwhelmed with
+disagreeable information from gentlemen who evinced the genius of true
+penny-a-liners in making the very most and the very worst of every
+calamitous incident. Richard's soldiers seeing that their king more
+than ever required their fidelity and aid, immediately, according to the
+usual practice, ran away from him. "They deserted," says the chronicler,
+"almost to a man," and it is to be regretted that we have not the name
+of the "man" who formed the nearly solitary exception to the general
+apostacy. Whoever he may have been, he must have exercised a great deal
+of self-command, for he was, of course, his own officer; he must have
+reviewed himself, as well as gone through the ceremony of putting
+himself on duty and taking himself off at the proper periods. We
+must not, however, take too literally the calculations of the old
+chroniclers, who reduce the number of Richard's adherents to an almost
+solitary soldier, for the truth appears to be that the king mustered
+almost six thousand men out of the twenty thousand he had brought with
+him from Ireland. Flight was therefore his only refuge, and selecting
+from his stock of fancy dresses the disguise of a priest, Richard,
+accompanied by his two half-brothers, Sir Stephen Scroop, the
+Chancellor, and the Bishop of Carlisle, with nine other followers, set
+off for the Castle of Conway. There he met the Earl of Salisbury and
+a hundred men, who had eaten every morsel of food to be found in the
+place, and Richard was occupied in running backwards and forwards from
+Conway to Beaumaris, then on to Carnarvon, then back to Conway again, in
+a wretched race for a dinner.
+
+It is pitiable to find a king of England reduced to the condition
+described in the old nursery ditty. He went to Conway for provisions;
+but
+
+     "When he got there
+     The cupboard was bare;"
+
+and the same result followed his visit to Beaumaris and Carnarvon.
+Notwithstanding the number of bones that his subjects had to pick with
+him, there was not one in the larders of the three castles he visited.
+"And so," in the emphatic words of the nursery rhyme, "the poor dog had
+none." So complete was the desertion of Richard, that the Master of the
+Household, Percy, Earl of Worcester, called all the servants together,
+and broke his wand of office, accompanying the act by exclaiming, "Now
+I'm off to Chester, to join the Duke of Lancaster." This ceremony was
+equivalent to a discharge of all the domestics under him, and the king,
+had he returned to his abode, would have been compelled to "do for
+himself" in consequence of the disbanding of all his menials. The
+members of the establishment, fancying they had an opportunity of
+bettering themselves, did not hesitate to follow the example of their
+chief, and there is no doubt that a long list, headed _Want Places_, was
+at once forwarded to the Duke of Lancaster.
+
+Having ransacked every corner of Conway Castle without finding any
+provisions, Richard had nothing left but an unprovisional surrender. He
+got as far as Flint Castle, which was only three miles from Chester, but
+he found the inhabitants had flinty hearts, and he met with no sympathy.
+Henry of Bolingbroke came to meet him, when Richard, touching his hat,
+bid welcome to his "fair cousin of Lancaster."
+
+"My lord," replied Henry, somewhat sarcastically, "I'm a little before
+my time, but, really, your people complain so bitterly of your not
+having the knack to rule them, that I've come to help you." Richard gave
+a mental "Umph!" but added, "Well, well, be it as you will," for his
+hunger had taken away all his appetite for power. After a repast, unto
+which the king did much more ample justice than he had ever done to
+his subjects, a hackney was sent for, and Richard rode a prisoner to
+Chester.
+
+[Illustration: 229]
+
+No one pitied him as he passed, though the spectacle was a truly
+wretched one. The horse was a miserable hack, while Richard himself was
+hoarse with a hack-ing cough, caught in the various exposures to wind
+and weather he had undergone in his vicissitudes. The dismal _cortege_
+having put up at Litchfield for the king and his horse to have a feed,
+of which both were greatly in want, Richard made a desperate attempt,
+while the waiter was not in the room, to escape out of a window. He had
+run a little way from his guards, but a cry of "Stop thief!" caused him
+to be instantly pursued, and, when taken, he was well shaken for the
+trouble he had occasioned. He was treated with increased severity, and
+on arriving in London was conveyed, amid the hootings of the mob, to the
+Tower.
+
+Parliament had been appointed to meet on the 29th of September, 1399,
+and on that day Richard received in his prison a deputation, to whom he
+handed over the crown and the other insignia of royalty. Not satisfied
+with the delivery of the sceptre as a proof of the king's abdication,
+a wish was expressed to have it in writing, and he signed, as well as
+resigned, without a murmur. His enemies had, in fact, determined on
+his downfall, and they seemed anxious to be prepared at all points for
+dragging the throne from under him. In order to make assurance doubly
+or trebly sure, an act of accusation against him was brought before
+Parliament on the following day, when Richard's conduct was complained
+of in thirty-three, or as some authorities have it, thirty-five *
+separate articles.
+
+     * The Pictorial History of England, which is generally very
+     accurate, mentions thirty-three articles. Rapin sets out
+     substance of thirty-one of the articles, and adds that there
+     were four others.
+
+There is no doubt that Richard had behaved badly enough, but the
+articles, taking the definite and indefinite together, attributed to
+him a great deal more than he had really been guilty of. His punishment
+having taken place before his trial, it was of course necessary, for the
+sake of making matters square, that the offence should be made to meet
+the penalty. Had he been tried first and judged afterwards, a different
+course might have been taken, but as he had already been deposed, it was
+desirable--if only for the look of the thing--that he should be charged
+with something which would have warranted the Parliament in passing upon
+him a sentence of deposition. Upwards of thirty articles were therefore
+drawn up, for the great fact that in laying it on thick some is almost
+sure to stick, was evidently well known to our ancestors: He was charged
+with spending the revenues of the crown improperly, and choosing bad
+ministers, though he might have replied that bad had been the best, and
+that he and Hobson were, with reference to choice, in about the same
+predicament. He was accused, also, of making war upon the Duke of
+Gloucester, as well as on the Earls of Lancaster and Chester, to which
+he might have responded that they began it, and that it was only in his
+own defence he had treated them as enemies. It was alleged against
+him, also, that he had borrowed money and never paid it back again; but
+surely this has always been a somewhat common offence, and one which
+the aristocracy should be the last persons in the world to treat with
+severity. In one article he was charged with not having changed the
+sheriffs often enough, and, as if to allow him no chance of escape,
+another article imputed to him that he had changed the sheriffs too
+frequently. Some of the counts in the indictment were utterly frivolous,
+and the twenty-third stated that he had taken the crown jewels to
+Ireland, as if he could not legally have done what he pleased with his
+own trinket-box.
+
+It must be presumed that Richard allowed judgment to go by default, for
+all the accusations were declared to be proved against him. If he had
+been assisted by a special pleader, he might have beaten his accusers
+hollow on demurrer, for many of the counts in the declaration were, in
+legal phraseology, utterly incapable of holding water. * Notwithstanding
+the weakness of the articles, they were not attacked by any one in
+Parliament except the Bishop of Carlisle, who, in a miserable minority
+of one, formed the entire party of his sovereign. The venerable prelate,
+in a powerful speech, talked of Richard's tyranny, including his
+murder of Gloucester, as mere youthful indiscretion; and described his
+excessive use of the most arbitrary power, as the exuberance of gaiety.
+The bishop's freedom of speech was fatal to his freedom of person; for
+he was instantly ordered into custody by the Duke of Lancaster. No one
+followed on the same side as the prelate, whose removal to prison had
+the effect of checking any tendency to debate, and the articles were,
+of course, agreed to without a division. Sentence of deposition was
+accordingly passed on the king, who had been already deposed, and the
+people of England revoked all the oaths and homage they had sworn to
+their sovereign. Such, indeed, was the determination of his subjects to
+overturn their king, that his deposition was not unlike the practical
+joke of drawing the throne literally from under him. They knew he had
+not a leg to stand upon, and they seemed determined that he should not
+have a seat to sit down upon; for even established forms were overturned
+in order to precipitate his downfall.
+
+     * Mackintosh, who keeps the facts always very dry, seems
+     inclined to our opinion that the indictment would not have
+     held water.
+
+What became of Richard after his having been deposed is a point upon
+which historians have differed; but the favourite belief is that he was
+cut off with an axe by one of his gaolers at Pomfret Castle, where he
+was kept in custody. Some are of opinion that he was starved, and died
+rather from want of a chop than by one having been administered. Mr.
+Tytler believes that the unfortunate exmonarch escaped to Scotland,
+where he resided for twenty years; but the story is doubtful, for even
+in Scotland it is impossible to live upon nothing, which would have been
+the income of Richard after his exclusion from the royal dignity.
+
+When we come to weigh this sovereign in the scale, we can scarcely
+allow him to pass without noticing his deficiency. He seems to have had
+originally a due amount of sterling metal, but the warmth of adulation
+melted away much of the precious ore, as a sovereign is frequently
+diminished in value by sweating. To this deteriorating influence may
+be added that of the clipping process, to which he was subjected by his
+enemies, who were bent on curtailing his power. He had by nature a
+noble and generous disposition, which might have made him an excellent
+monarch. But our business is with what he really was, and not with
+what he might have been. He was alternately cowardly and tyrannical,
+in conformity with the general rule--applicable even to boys at
+school--that it is the most contemptible sneak towards the stronger who
+is towards the weaker the fiercest bully. Wholesome resistance tames him
+down into the sneak again, and in pursuance of this ordinary routine,
+Richard, from an overbearing tyrant, became a crouching poltroon, when
+his enemies got the upper hand of him.
+
+[Illustration: 232]
+
+It was during this reign that the authority of the pope was vigorously
+disputed in England, chiefly at the instigation of John Wickliffe,
+who denied many of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, and protested
+against its supremacy. Its influence was, moreover, weakened by its
+being in some sort "a house divided." Avignon had been for some time the
+papal residence, but the Italian cardinals having persuaded the pontiff
+to return to Rome, the French cardinals set up a sort of opposition
+pope, who continued to live at Avignon. Urban did the honours with
+great urbanity in the Eternal City, while Clement carried on the papal
+business at the old establishment in France, and Europe became divided
+between the Clementines and Urbanists.
+
+These two sects of Christians continued to denounce each other to
+eternal perdition for some years, and their trial of strength seemed to
+consist chiefly in a competition as to which could execrate the other
+with the greatest bitterness. This dissension was no doubt favourable
+to the views of Wickliffe, who, like other great reformers, renounced
+in his old age the liberal doctrines by which he had obtained his early
+popularity.
+
+We have alluded in the course of this chapter to a combat which was
+about to take place between the Earls of Hereford and Norfolk, in
+pursuance of the practice of Wager of Battle, which was in those days
+prevalent. It may seem unjust and ridiculous to the present generation,
+that the strongest arm or stoutest spear should have settled a legal
+difference, but even in our own times it is frequently the longest purse
+which determines the issue of a law-suit. The only difference is that
+litigants formerly knocked about each other's persons, instead of making
+their assaults upon each other's pockets, and the legal phrase, that
+"so-and-so is not worth powder and shot," preserves the allegory of
+a combat, to which an action-at-law may be compared with the utmost
+propriety. There has always been something chivalric in entering upon
+the perilous enterprise of litigation, and we are not surprised that the
+forensic champions of England should have been originally an order of
+Knights Templars. The only military title which is still left to the
+legal corps is that of Sergeant, and the black patch in the centre of
+their heads is perhaps worn in memory of some wound received by an
+early member of their order in the days of Wager of Battle. The sword of
+justice may also be regarded as emblematical of the hard fight that is
+frequently required on the part of those who seek to have justice done
+to them by the laws of their country.
+
+Contemporaneously with the Wager of Battle, there was introduced during
+the reign of Henry the Second a sort of option, by which suitors who
+were averse to single combat might support their rights by the oaths
+of twelve men of the vicinage. Thus it was possible for those who were
+afraid of hard hitting to have recourse to hard swearing, if they could
+get twelve neighbours to take the oath that might have been required.
+These persons were called the Grand Assize, and formed the jurors--a
+word, as everybody knows, derived from the Latin _juro_, to swear--but
+the duty has since been transferred from the jury to the witnesses, who
+not unfrequently swear quite as hard as the most unscrupulous of our
+ancestors.
+
+We have seen that there were very few improvements in the reign of
+Richard the Second; but we think we may justly say of the sovereign,
+that though he did no good to his country, yet, in the well-known words
+of a contemporary writer, "He would if he could, but he couldn't."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SIXTH. ON THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.
+
+
+[Illustration: 234]
+
+BEFORE entering on the fourth book of our history, we may perhaps be
+allowed to pause, for the purpose of taking a retrospective glance at
+the condition, customs, candlesticks, sports, pastimes, pitchers, mugs,
+jugs and manners of the people. It is curious to trace the progress
+of art, from the coarse pipkin of the early Briton to the highly
+respectable tankard * found in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, which
+proves the teeth of the monks to have been decidedly liquorish. We must
+not, however, plunge prematurely into the pot of a more polished
+era: but we must go regularly back to the earthenware of our earliest
+ancestors.
+
+The furniture of the Britons was substantial rather than elegant. A
+round block of wood formed their easiest chair, which, we need hardly
+say, was easier to make than to sit upon. The earth served the purpose
+of a bed, not only for the parsley but for the people; and in winter
+they made fires on the floor, till the Romans, who brought slavery in
+one hand, gave the brasier with the other. Thus did even subjugation
+tend to civilisation, and the very chains of the conqueror contained
+links for the enlightenment of the conquered.
+
+The diet of the Britons was as poor as their apartments, and consisted
+chiefly of wild berries, wild boars, and bisons. We have no record of
+their cookery, and it is doubtful whether they cooked at all, though
+some antiquarians have endeavoured to find evidence of a stew, a roast
+or a curry, and have ended after all in making a mere hash of it.
+In clothes the Britons were by no means straight-laced, though their
+intercourse with the Gauls was of inexpressible advantage to them, for
+it introduced the use of Braccae, or trousers made of fine wool woven in
+stripes or chequers. **
+
+     * The tankard has no name distinctly bitten into it.
+
+     ** It is probable that we get out our own word braces from
+     the Braccae of our forefathers.
+
+Of the domestic habits of the early tenants of our isle very little is
+known, and we regret to say there can be little doubt they might most
+of them have been indicted for polygamy had they lived under our present
+system of laws, for a plurality of wives was in those days nothing
+singular.
+
+Their mode of bringing up children is wrapt in obscurity, but the
+treatment, if we are to believe a story told by Salinus, * was rather
+less tender than vigorous; for the first morsel of food was put into the
+infant's mouth on the point of his father's sword, with the hope that
+the child would turn out as sharp a blade as his parent. The Saxons
+brought very material improvements to the mode of living in our island,
+though we cannot compliment them on the comfort of all their upholstery.
+Their chairs were a good deal like our camp-stools, without the material
+which forms the seat; for the Anglo-Saxons were satisfied to sit in the
+angle formed by the junction of the legs of the article alluded to.
+
+     * Pictorial History of England, vol i., book i., chap. vi.,
+     p. 129.
+
+The drinking-cups in use at this period began to be very elaborate, and
+were made of gold or silver, while glass was a luxury unknown, though
+the Venerable Bede, who had a good deal of glass in his family, mentions
+lamps and vessels of that material. The Anglo-Saxons had beds and
+bolsters; but from illustrations we have seen in the Cotton MS., we
+think that if, as they made their beds, so they were obliged to lie,
+our ancestors could not have slept very pleasantly. Some of the Saxon
+bedsteads were sexagonal boxes, into which it was impossible to get,
+without folding one's self up into the form of an S; and another
+specimen is in the shape of an inverted cocked hat, somewhat smaller
+than the person by whom it is occupied. Nothing but a sort of human
+half-moon could have found accommodation in this semilunar cradle, in
+which to have been "cribbed, cabined, and confined," could not have been
+very agreeable.
+
+Costume could scarcely be considered to have commenced before the
+Anglo-Saxon period, for the Britons persevered in a style of un-dress
+which was barely respectable. It is therefore most refreshing to find
+our countrymen at last with stockings to their feet and shirts to their
+backs, in which improved case they are to be met with in the Anglo-Saxon
+period. The shoe also stands boldly forward at about the same time,
+and shows an indication of that polish which was eventually to take a
+permanent footing. Amid the many irons that civilisation had in the fire
+at this date, are the curling-irons for ladies' hair, which began to
+take a favourable turn during the Anglo-Saxon period. The armour worn
+by the military part of the population was very substantial, consisting
+chiefly of scales, which gave weight to the soldiery, and often turned
+the balance in their favour. This species of defence was, however,
+too expensive for the common men, who generally wore a linen thorax or
+"dickey," with which they offered a bold front to the enemy.
+
+It would be exceedingly difficult to give an accurate account of
+Anglo-Saxon life, for there are no materials in existence out of which
+a statement could be framed; and though some historians do not object
+to have "their own materials made up," we should be ashamed to have
+recourse to this species of literary tailoring. We think it better to
+cut our coat according to our cloth; and we had rather figure in the
+sparest Spencer of fact, than assume the broadest and amplest cloak, if
+it were made of a yarn spun from the dark web of ambiguity. What we say,
+we know, and what we are ignorant of, we know much better than to talk
+about.
+
+[Illustration: 236]
+
+The Anglo-Saxon husbandman was little better than a serf who was paid
+for his labour by the landowner; but the former furnished the base,
+without which there would have been no _locus standi_ for the latter's
+capital. It was customary in those days to encourage the peasantry by
+prizes, which did not consist of a coat for a faithful servitude of
+nearly a life, but a grant of a piece of the land to which the labourer
+had given increased value by his industry.
+
+The proprietors of the soil had not yet learned the wisdom of trying how
+much a brute could be made to eat, and how little a human being could
+exist upon.
+
+With reference to the domestic habits of the period, it has been clearly
+ascertained that people of substance took four meals a day, and as
+they took meat at every one, their substance can be no matter of
+astonishment. The Britons had not been in the habit of dressing their
+food, which is not surprising, for they scarcely dressed themselves;
+but the Anglo-Saxons were not so fond of the raw material. With them the
+pleasures of the table were carried to excess, and drinking went to such
+an extent, that every monk was prohibited from taking any more when his
+eyes were disturbed, and his tongue began to stammer. The misfortune,
+however, was, that as all who were present at a banquet, generally began
+to experience simultaneously a disturbance of the eye and a stammering
+of the tongue, no one noticed it in his neighbour, and the orgies were
+often continued until the stammering ended in silence, and the optical
+derangement finished by the closing of the organs of vision.
+
+The chase was a popular amusement with the Anglo-Saxons, but it does
+not seem to have been pursued with much spirit, if we are to believe an
+illustration from the Cotton MS. * of the practice of boar-hunting. Two
+men and one dog are seen hunting four boars, who are walking leisurely
+two and two, while the hound and the hunters are hanging back, as if
+afraid to follow their prey too closely. In another picture, from the
+Harleian MS., seven men are seen huddled together on horseback, as
+if they had all fainted at the sight of a hawk, who flaps his wings
+insolently in their faces. Nothing indeed can be more pusillanimous
+than the sports of the Anglo-Saxons as shown in the illustrations of
+the period. The only wonder is, that the animals hunted did not turn
+suddenly round and make sport of the sportsmen.
+
+     *  Julius, A. 7.
+
+The condition of the great body of the people was that of agricultural
+labourers, who, it is said, were nearly as valuable to their employers
+or owners as the cattle, and were taken care of accordingly. In this
+respect they had an advantage over the cultivators of the soil in our
+own time, who remain half unfed, while pigs, sheep, and oxen, are made
+too much of by constant cramming.
+
+The Normans added little to the stock of English furniture, for we
+have looked through our statistical tables and find nothing that would
+furnish an extra leaf to our history. It is, however, about this time
+that we find the first instance of a cradle made to rock, an arrangement
+founded on the deepest philosophy; for by the rocking movement the
+infant is prepared for the ups and downs of life he will soon have to
+bear up against.
+
+The reign of John introduces us to the first saltcellar on record,
+though, by the way, the first vinegar cruet is of even earlier date, for
+it is contemporary with the sour-tempered Eleanor, who is reported to
+have played a fearful game at bowls with the unfortunate Rosamond.
+
+When Fashion first came to prevail in dress, Taste had not yet arrived,
+and the effect was truly ridiculous. It does not follow, however, that
+if Fashion and Taste had existed together, they would have managed to
+agree; for although there is often a happy union between the two, they
+very frequently remain at variance for considerable periods. Fashion
+being the stronger, usually obtains the ascendency in the first
+instance; but Taste ultimately prevails over her wayward rival.
+In nothing so much as in shoes, have the freaks of Fashion been
+exemplified. She has often taken the feet in hand, and in a double sense
+subjugated the understanding of her votaries. In the days of Henry the
+First shoes were worn in a long peak, or curling like a ram's horn,
+and stuffed with tow, as if the natural too was not sufficient for
+all reasonable purposes. The rage for long hair was so excessive that
+councils * were held on the subject, and the state of the crops was
+considered with much anxiety. The clergy produced scissors at the end of
+the service to cut the hair of the congregation; and it is said of Serlo
+d'Abon, the Bishop of Seez, that he, on Easter Day, 1105, cut every one
+of the locks off Henry the First's knowledge-box.
+
+     * At Limoges, in 1031, by Pope Gregory the Seventh in 1073,
+     and at Rouen in 1095,
+
+We have hinted at the out-of-door amusements of the people, but those
+pursued within doors may deserve some passing notice. The juggler,
+the buffoon, and the tumbler were greatly in request, and we see in
+these persons the germ of the wizards, the Ramo Samees, the clowns,
+with their "Here we ares," and the various families of India-rubber
+incredibles, Mackintosh marvels, or Kensington untrustables, that have
+since become in turns the idols of an enlightened British public. That
+there is nothing new under the sun, nor in the stars--at least those
+belonging to the drama--is obvious enough to anyone who will examine
+the records of the past, which contain all that are declared to be
+the novelties of the present. Learned monkeys, highly-trained horses,
+and--to go a little further back--terrific combats, or sword dances, in
+which deadly foes go through mortal conflicts in a _pas de deux_, are
+all as old as the hills, the dales, the vales, the mountains, and
+the fountains. Even the reading-easel--for those who wish to read
+easily--which was advertised but yesterday, and patented the other
+day, was a luxury in use as early as the fourteenth century. Even Polka
+jackets, imported from Cracow in Poland, were "very much worn," and, for
+what we know, the Polka itself may have been danced in all its pristine
+purity. In head-dresses we have seen nothing very elegant, for, during
+Richard the Second's reign, a yard or two of cloth, cut into no regular
+pattern, formed a bonnet or hood for a lady, while an arrangement in fur
+very like a muff, constituted the hat of a gentleman.
+
+Out-of-door sports were much in favour during the fourteenth century,
+and the priesthood were so much addicted to the pleasures of the chase,
+that a clergyman was prohibited from keeping a dog for hunting unless he
+had a benefice of at least ten pounds per annum.
+
+[Illustration: 238]
+
+The foxhunting parson is therefore a character as old as the days of
+Richard the Second, in whose reign the Bishop of Ely was remarkable for
+activity in the field, where the right reverend prelate could take a
+difficult fence with the youngest and best of them. He was particularly
+active in hunting the wolf, and he often said jestingly, that the
+interests of his flock prompted him to pursue its most formidable enemy.
+
+We have seen what our ancestors were in their habits, pleasures, and
+pursuits, none of which differed very materially from those that the
+people of the present generation are or have been in the habit of
+following. As the child is father of the man, the infancy of a country
+is the parent of its maturity. Reproduction is, after all, the nearest
+approach we can make to novelty, and though in the drama of life "each
+man in his time plays many parts," there is scarcely one of which he can
+be called the original representative.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV. THE PERIOD FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY THE FOURTH TO THE END OF
+THE REIGN OF RICHARD THE THIRD, A.D. 1399--1485.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIRST. HENRY THE FOURTH, SURNAMED BOLINGBROKE.
+
+
+[Illustration: 240]
+
+THE wily Henry had now got the whip hand of his enemies, and had
+grasped the reins of government. He ascended the throne on the 30th of
+September, 1399, and began to avail himself at once of the patronage at
+his disposal by filling up, as fast as he could, all vacant offices. His
+pretext for this speed was to prevent justice from being delayed, to the
+grievance of his people; and by pretending there was no time to elect a
+new Parliament, he continued the old one, which was in a state of utter
+subservience to his own purposes. At the meeting of the Legislative
+Assembly, which took place on the 6th of October, Thomas Arundel, the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, made "the speech of the day," which was a
+powerful panegyric on the new sovereign. There is no doubt that the
+whole oration was a paid-for puff, of which the primacy was the price,
+for the prelate had been restored by Henry to the archiepiscopacy, out
+of which Richard had hurried him.
+
+The new candidate for the crown gave three reasons for claiming it; but
+when a person gives three reasons for anything, it is probable they
+are all bad, for if one were good the other two would be, of course,
+superfluous. He declared his triple right to be founded, first on
+conquest, which was the right of the ruffian who, having knocked a man
+on the head, steals his purse and runs off with it; secondly, from being
+the heir, which he was not; and thirdly, from the crown having been
+resigned to him, which it certainly had been, when the resigning party
+was under duress, and when his acts were not legally binding. Upon these
+claims he asked the opinion of Parliament, which, having been cleverly
+packed by Arundel and his whippers-in, of course pronounced unanimously
+in Henry's favour. Upon this he vaulted nimbly on to the steps of the
+throne, and, pausing before he took his seat, he cried out in a loud
+voice, "Do you mean what you say?" when the _claqueurs_ raised such a
+round of applause, that, whispering to one of his supporters "It's
+all right," he flung himself on to the regal ottoman. Another round of
+applause from the privileged orders secured the success of the farce,
+and the usual puffing announcements appeared in due course, intimating
+the unanimous approbation of a house crowded to suffocation. This had
+been certainly the case, for the packing was so complete as to stifle
+every breath of free discussion.
+
+A week's adjournment took place, to prepare for the coronation, which
+came off on the 13th of October in a style of splendour which Froissart
+has painted gorgeously with his six-pound brush, and which we will
+attempt to pick out with our own slender camel's-hair. On the Saturday
+before the coronation, forty-six squires, who were to be made knights,
+took each a bath, and had, in fact, a regular good Saturday night's
+wash, so that they might be nice and clean to receive the honour
+designed for them. On Sunday morning, after church, they were knighted
+by the king, who gave them all new coats, a proof that their wardrobes
+could not have been in a very flourishing condition. After dinner, his
+majesty returned to Westminster, bareheaded, with nothing on, according
+to Froissart, * but a pair of gaiters and a German jacket. The streets
+of London were decorated with tapestry as he passed, and there were nine
+fountains in Cheapside running with white and red wine, though we think
+our informant has been drawing rather copiously upon his own imagination
+for the generous liquor. The cavalcade comprised, according to the
+same authority, six thousand horse; but again we are of opinion that
+Froissart must have found some mare's nest from which to supply a stud
+of such wondrous magnitude. The king took a bath on the same night, in
+order, perhaps, to wash out the port wine stains that might have fallen
+upon him while passing the fountains. "Call me early, if you're
+waking," were the king's last words to his valet, and in the morning the
+coronation procession started for the Abbey of Westminster. Henry walked
+under a blue silk canopy supported on silver staves, with golden bells
+at each corner, and carried by four burgesses of Dover, who claimed it
+as their right, for the loyalty of the Dover people was in those days
+inspired only by the hope of a perquisite. The king might have got wet
+through to the skin before they would have held a canopy over him, had
+it not been for the value of the silver staves and golden bells, which
+became their property for the trouble of porterage. On each side were
+the sword of Mercy and the sword of Justice, though these articles must
+have been more for ornament than for use in those days of regal cruelty
+and oppression.
+
+     * Vol. ii, p. 699, edition 1842
+
+Coronation of Henry the Fourth (from the best Authorities):
+
+At nine o'clock the king entered the Abbey, in the middle of which a
+platform, covered with scarlet cloth, had been erected; so that the
+proceedings might be visible from all corners of the Abbey. He seated
+himself on the throne, and was looking remarkably well, being in full
+regal costume, with the exception of the crown, which the Archbishop
+of Canterbury proposed to invest him with. The people, on being asked
+whether the ceremony should be performed, of course shouted "Aye,"
+for they had come to see a coronation and were not likely to
+deprive themselves of the spectacle by becoming, at the last moment,
+hypercritical of the new king's merits. We cannot say we positively know
+there was no "No," but the "Ayes" unquestionably had it; and Henry was
+at once taken off the throne to be stripped to his shirt, which, in
+the middle of the month of October, could not have been very agreeable
+treatment. After saturating him in oil, they put upon his head a bonnet,
+and then proceeded to dress him up as a priest, adding a pair of spurs
+and the sword of justice. While his majesty was in this motley costume,
+the Archbishop of Canterbury, clutching off the bonnet from the royal
+head, placed upon it the crown of Saint Edward.
+
+[Illustration: 242]
+
+Henry was not sorry when these harassing ceremonies were at an end, and
+having left the Abbey to dress, returned to the Hall to dinner. Wine
+continued to play, like ginger-beer, from the fountain; but the jets
+were of the same paltry description as that which throws up about a
+pint a day in the Temple. We confess that we are extremely sceptical in
+reference to all allegations of wine having been laid on in the public
+streets, particularly in those days, when there were neither turncocks
+to turn it on, nor pipes through which to carry it. Even with our
+present admirable system of waterworks, we should be astonished at an
+arrangement that would allow us to draw our wine from the wood in the
+pavement of Cheapside, or take it fresh from the pipe as it rolled with
+all its might through the main of the New River. Whether the liquid
+could be really laid on may be doubtful, but that it would not be
+worth drinking cannot admit of a question. Under the most favourable
+circumstances, our metropolitan fountains could only be made to run
+with that negative stuff to which the name of negus has been most
+appropriately given. Let us, however, resume our account of the
+ceremonial, from which, with our heads full of the wine sprinkled
+gratuitously over the people, we have been led to deviate.
+
+[Illustration: 245]
+
+Dinner was served for the coronation party in excellent style, but
+before it was half over it was varied by an _entree_ of the most
+extraordinary and novel character. It was after the second course that a
+courser came prancing in, with a knight of the name of Dymock mounted on
+the top of the animal. The expression of Henry's astonished countenance
+gave an extra _plat_, in the shape of calf's head surprised, at the top
+of the royal table. The wonder of Henry was somewhat abated when the
+knight put into the royal hand a written offer to fight any knight
+or gentleman who would maintain that the new king was not a lawful
+sovereign. The challenge was read six times over, but nobody came
+forward to accept it; and indeed it was nearly impossible, for care had
+been taken to exclude all persons likely to prove troublesome, as it
+was very desirable on the occasion of a coronation to keep the thing
+respectable. The champion was then presented with "something to drink,"
+in a golden goblet, and pocketed the _poculum_ as a perquisite.
+
+Thus passed off the coronation of Henry the Fourth, which is still
+further remarkable for a story told about the oil used in anointing
+the head of the new monarch. This precious precursor of all the
+multitudinous mixtures to which ingenuity and gullibility have since
+given their heads, was contained in a flask said to have been presented
+by a good hermit to Henry Duke of Lancaster, the grandson of Henry the
+Third, who gave it to somebody else, until it came, unspilt, into the
+possession of Henry of Bolingbroke. We confess we reject the oil, with
+which our critical acidity refuses to coalesce, and we would almost as
+soon believe the assertion that it was a flask of salad oil sent from
+the Holy Land by the famous Saladin.
+
+The day after the ceremony, or as soon after as the disarrangement
+caused by the preparations for the coronation could be set to rights,
+the Parliament resumed its sittings. The terrible turncoatery of the
+last few years gave rise to fearful recriminations in the House of
+Lords, and the terms "liar" and "traitor" flew from every corner of the
+building. At one time, forty gauntlets were thrown on the floor at
+the same moment, as pledges of battle, but there was as little of the
+_fortiter in re_ as of the _suaviter in modo_, and the gloves not
+being picked up became, of course, the perquisites of the Parliamentary
+charwoman. Some wholesome acts were passed during the session, but the
+chief object of the new king was to plant himself firmly on the throne
+of England. A slip from the parent trunk was grafted on to the Dukedom
+of Cornwall, and the Principality of Wales, to both of which Henry's
+eldest son was nominated. No act of settlement of the crown was
+introduced, for his majesty wisely thought, that it would only have
+proclaimed the weakness of his title had he made any attempt to bolster
+it. Had the question of legitimacy been tried, the young Earl of March
+would have turned out to be many steps nearer the throne than Henry,
+who, however, laughed at his claims, and the old saying of "as mad as
+a March hare," was quoted by a parasite, to prove the insanity of
+regarding March as a fit heir to the throne of England. Besides,
+the little fellow was a mere child, and was, of course, a minor
+consideration in a country which had a natural dread of a long regal
+minority. "A boy of eight or nine," said one of the philosophers of the
+day, "cannot sit upon the throne, without bringing the kingdom into a
+state of sixes and sevens." It was, however, to strengthen the presumed
+legitimacy of his family that Henry got his son created Prince of Wales,
+and though the circumstance is said to have weighed but as a feather in
+the scales, the Prince of Wales's feathers must always go for something
+in the balance.
+
+Richard, who was still in custody, was kept continually moving about
+from castle to castle, like a spring van in town or country, until a few
+of the lords devised the plan of murdering Henry and restoring the late
+king, just by way of novelty. A tournament was got up, to which the
+king was politely asked, and the words, "Tilting at two. An answer will
+oblige," might be found in the corner of the invitation card. Henry "had
+much pleasure in accepting" the proposal to join the jousting party, but
+having received an intimation from the Earl of Rutland, his cousin and
+one of the conspirators, his majesty did not attend the _soiree_. The
+intention was to have hustled him and killed him on the spot, but he did
+not come, and the jousting was, of necessity, carried on for some time
+by the traitors at the expense of each other. At length, as the day wore
+on, they began to think it exceedingly odd that Henry had not arrived,
+when suspecting they had been betrayed, they determined to make for
+Windsor, where they knew the king had been passing his Christmas
+holidays. He had, however, received timely warning, and had left for
+London, so that the conspirators were utterly baffled.
+
+On their arrival at Windsor, they hastened to surprise the Castle; but
+the greatest surprise was for themselves, when they heard of the escape
+of their intended victim. Henry had rushed up to town to issue writs
+against every one of the traitors, who ran away in all directions before
+he had time to return to Windsor. Some of them attempted to proclaim
+King Richard in every town they passed through; but they might as well
+have proclaimed Old King Cole, or any other merry old soul, for they
+only got laughed at and slaughtered by the inhabitants. Poor Richard was
+also a sufferer by his injudicious friends, for it was agreed that he
+would become an intolerable nuisance if he should serve as a point for
+the rebels to rally round. It was therefore thought advisable to have
+him abated, and according to the chroniclers of the day, who confess
+they know nothing about it, he was either starved or murdered. The
+condition of Richard's young wife, Isabella, a girl of eleven, the
+daughter of King Charles of France, was exceedingly deplorable. She had
+brought a large fortune to her husband, and upon his death, her father
+wished her to be restored to the bosom, and her money to the pockets,
+of her family. The young lady was promised by an early boat; but Charles
+insisted that she should be allowed to bring her dowry back with her.
+Henry, who had spent at least half of it, declined this proposal, and
+her papa, who had an eye to the cash, would not receive her without,
+so that she really seemed on the point of becoming a shuttlecock tossed
+between two immense battledores in the shape of Dover and Calais. Every
+kind of paltry excuse was set up to avoid payment of the demand, and the
+English pretended to find upon their books an old claim for the ransom
+of the French King, John, who had been taken by Edward the Third, and
+had never been duly settled for. This plea of set-off was overruled
+on demurrer by the French, who kept reiterating their applications for
+Richard's widow and her dowry, with a threat of ulterior proceedings
+if the demand was not speedily complied with. At length Henry agreed to
+restore her like a toad, "with all her precious jewels in her head."
+Her old father received her with the exclamation of "Oh, you duck of
+diamonds," in allusion, no doubt, to the valuable brilliants she carried
+about her; and there is every reason to believe that had her teeth been
+literally pearls, the king would have made copious extracts from the
+choice collection.
+
+Henry now began to consider the best means for making himself popular,
+and after thinking it well over he came to the conclusion that a war
+would be a nice little excitement, of which he might reap the benefit.
+Upon looking about him for an eligible object of attack, Scotland
+seemed to be the most inviting; for Robert, the actual king, was old and
+helpless, while his eldest son David, Earl of Bothsay, was a drunken,
+dissipated, reckless, but rather clever personage. He had quarrelled
+with his uncle the Duke of Albey, who had acted as regent during the
+illness of the king, and who was himself a remorseless ruffian; so that
+the Scotch royal family consisted of a dotard, a drunkard, and a bully.
+Henry, though he wanted a war, wished to get it without paying for it,
+to prevent the odium he might incur by taxing the people. He therefore
+tried the old plan of feudal service, by calling upon all persons
+enjoying fees or pensions to join him in arms at York, under pain of
+forfeiture. The lay lords were ordered to come at their own charge with
+their retainers, but the result afforded a strong proof of the fact that
+a thing is never worth having if it is not worth paying for. Those who
+came in arms were fearfully out at elbows; and amid the owners of fees
+with their retainers, was perhaps some unhappy Templar, with his one fee
+and one retainer, urged by an ordinary motion of course, to appear in
+the great cause of the king _versus_ Bruce, Rothsay and others.
+
+Henry began boldly with a writ of summons directed to Robert, greeting,
+and ordering him to come to Edinburgh to make submission. The Earl
+of Rothsay entered an appearance for his father; a declaration of war
+ensued on Henry's part, when Rothsay, without putting in a plea, took
+issue at once, and threw himself upon the country. Henry, not expecting
+the action to come off so speedily, was but ill prepared, and after
+making a vain attempt at a fight--in the course of which he tried all
+his earls and failed on every count--he retired from the contest.
+He endeavoured, nevertheless, to make the best of it, and observed
+pleasantly to his followers, "Well, gentlemen, I told you we were sure
+to beat, and so we will yet. Come, let us beat a retreat; that is
+better than not beating anything." Thus ended, in a pitiable and
+most humiliating pun, a campaign commenced in pride, confidence, and
+insolence.
+
+While Henry was fooling away his time and resources in the North,
+a little matter in the West was growing into a very formidable
+insurrection. Owen Glendower, esquire, a Welsh gentleman "learned in
+the law," who had held a place in the household of Richard the Second,
+perhaps as standing counsel, became involved in a dispute about some
+property with Lord Grey de Ruthyn. Mr. Glendower petitioned the
+Lords, who rejected his suit, which so irritated him that he instantly
+exchanged the pen for the sword, the forensic gown for the coat of mail,
+and dashing his wig violently on the floor, ordered a helmet to fit the
+head and the box hitherto devoted to peaceful horse-hair.
+
+In the course of his legal studies he had learned something of the art
+of making out a title, and he immediately set to work to prove himself
+the lineal descendant of the native Welsh princes. By drawing upon fact
+for some portions, and his imagination for the remainder, he contrived
+to get up an excellent draft abstract, which he endorsed with the words
+"Principality op Wales. Grey Ruthyn _ats_ self;" and adding the usual
+formula of "Mr. O. Glendower, to settle and advise, 2 _Guas_.; Clerk,
+2s. 6d.;" he placed it among his papers. The Welsh peasants set him
+down as a magician at the least, and the barrister had no difficulty in
+placing himself in a little brief authority over them.
+
+Assisted by his clerk the trusty Thomson, Mr. Owen Glendower armed
+himself for the contest upon which he had determined to enter; and the
+learned gentleman, who had never used any weapon more formidable than a
+file, upon which he had occasionally impaled a declaration, now girded
+on the sword, and prepared to listen to the war-trumpet as the only
+summons to which he would henceforth pay attention. Taking the somewhat
+professional motto of "deeds not words," he sallied forth, as he boldly
+declared, for the purpose of subjecting all his opponents to special
+damage.
+
+[Illustration: 249]
+
+He collected a small band, and made an attack on the property of Grey
+de Buthyn, for which the king had Mr. Glendower's name published in
+the next batch of outlaws. Irritated by this indignity, the learned
+gentleman declared himself sovereign of Wales, observing with much
+quaintness, "One may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, and
+why not for a Welsh rabbit?" Henry at once marched in pursuit, but the
+barrister was cautious enough to avoid an action, and led his antagonist
+all over the Welsh circuit, by which he continually put off the day of
+trial. Henry, who had a variety of other little matters to attend to,
+was compelled to allow the cause of himself _versus_ Glendower to stand
+over to an indefinite period.
+
+Among the businesses getting into arrear at home, was an absurd
+declaration of war by Walleran of Luxemburgh, the Count of Ligny and St.
+Pol, who had married a sister of the deposed Richard, and was suddenly
+seized with a fit of fraterno-legal or brotherly-in-lawly affection,
+and began to talk of avenging his unfortunate relative. In spite of the
+recommendations of his best friends, who all urged him "not to make a
+fool of himself," he insisted on going to sea, where a fate a good deal
+like that of the three wise men of Gotham appeared to threaten him.
+
+Conspiracies now sprung up on every side, and a rumour was spread, that
+Richard was alive in Scotland, and was coming presently to England at
+the head of a large army, to play old Harry with Henry's adherents.
+Never was a cry of "Bogey" more utterly futile than this assertion, for
+Richard was really dead, though it suited a certain party of malcontents
+to resuscitate him for their own purposes. Henry was exceedingly angry
+at the rumour, and every now and then cut off some half-dozen heads,
+as a punishment for running about with a false tale, but there was no
+checking the evil.
+
+At length an army came from Scotland, but Richard was not with it,
+and the Scotch no longer kept up the delusion, but, like the detected
+impostor who confessed "It is a swindle, and now do your worst," they
+acknowledged the hoax they had been previously practising. The Scotch
+proved mischievous, but impotent; and Henry was not far from the truth
+when in one of his remonstrances he remarked, "You are doing yourselves
+no good, nor me either." They were defeated at Nisbet Moor by the
+English, under the command of a disaffected Scot, the old Earl of March,
+who was piqued at his daughter Elizabeth having been jilted by the Earl
+of Bothsay, to whom she had been affianced. The Earl of Bothsay had
+made another, and let us hope, a better match, so that the action
+fought at Nisbet Moor was, as far as the Earl of March was concerned, in
+reality an action for a breach of promise of marriage. Young Bothsay had
+united himself to Miss Mariell Douglas, the daughter of old Douglas who
+had his child the husband--that was for his child the husband--that was
+to have been--of Earl March's daughter that was, but had also
+obtained for himself a grant of the estates of the father of Rothsay's
+ex-intended. Douglas, with ten thousand men at his heels, hurried to
+take possession, and they soon carried sword and fire--but we believe
+it was fire without coals--to Newcastle. Having completely sacked this
+important city--but mark I there were in those days no coals to sack--he
+returned laden with plunder, towards the Tweed, for which way he went,
+was--like Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee--a matter of pure indifference.
+The Duke of Northumberland, aided by his son, the persevering Percy,
+surnamed Hotspur, with the indignant March, had got an army in the rear,
+when Douglas, seeing a good position between the two forces, called
+Homildon Hill, was the first to take possession of it. Harry Percy was
+about to charge up the hill, when the Earl of March, seizing his bridle,
+backed him cleverly into the ranks, and advised him to begin the battle
+with his archers. The advice was taken; they shot up the hill, and
+success was the upshot. Every arrow told with terrific effect upon the
+Scotch, who presented a phalanx of targets, and the stalwart troopers
+became at length so perforated with darts, that they looked like so many
+fillets of veal, skewered through and through by the enemy. Douglas was
+wounded in so many places, that he resembled a porcupine rather than a
+Scottish chief, and he was taken into custody, regularly trussed like a
+chicken prepared for roasting. Among his fellow-prisoners were the Earls
+of Moray and Angus, who had tried daughter that was, but had also in
+vain to escape; but neither did Moray nor Angus reach their own quarters
+in time to escape the grasp of the enemy.
+
+The battle of Homildon Hill, which we have thus faintly described, was
+fought on the 14th of September, 1402, while Henry himself was much
+less profitably occupied in hunting up his learned friend, or rather
+his knowing opponent, Owen Glendower. The lawyer-like cunning of this
+gentleman carried him triumphantly through all his engagements;
+and though good cause might have been shown against it, yet, by his
+cleverness and tact in Wales, he was nearly successful in getting his
+rule made absolute.
+
+Henry's next annoyance was an impertinent letter from a former friend
+and "sworn brother," the Duke of Orleans, uncle of Isabella, the widow
+of the late king, and the acknowledged "female in distress," whom it
+was fashionable for the "recognised heroes" of that day to talk about
+avenging. The letter of the Duke of Orleans was a mixture of ferocity
+and facetiousness; it deplored the inactivity prevailing in the military
+market, and offered to do a little business with Henry, either in
+"lances, battle-axes, swords, or daggers." He sneeringly repudiated
+"bodkins, hooks, points, bearded darts, razors, and needles," as if
+Henry had been in the habit of arming himself with the fittings of
+a work-box or a dressing-case. An answer was returned in the same
+sarcastic strain, and an angry correspondence ensued, in which the
+parties gave each other the lie, offered to meet in single combat, and
+indeed entered into a short but sharp wordy war, which was followed by
+no more serious consequences.
+
+Northumbarland, who had struck for the defence of his country, now
+struck for his wages, which were unsatisfactory, and several other
+patriotic noblemen insisted on more liberal terms for their allegiance.
+Henry having resisted the extortion, gave, of course, great offence to
+his faithful adherents, who veered, at once, clean round to the scale of
+the king's enemies. In those days the principles of great men seemed
+to go upon a pivot, and Northumberland's swivel was evidently in fine
+working order on the occasion to which we have alluded. Scroop, the
+Archbishop of York, who might well have been called the Unscrupulous,
+advised that Henry should be treated as a wrongful heir, and that the
+young Earl of March should be rallied round, as the rightful heir, by
+the dissatisfied nobles. They sent a retaining fee to Owen Glendower,
+and marked upon his brief "With you the Earl of Northumberland and Henry
+Percy," and appointed a consultation at an early period. Earl Douglas
+was released from custody without payment of costs, on condition of his
+leaving the rebels, and O. Glendower, Esquire, married the daughter of
+his prisoner, Mortimer, the young Earl of March's uncle.
+
+The conspirators having consulted, determined to proceed, and though
+Northumberland himself was kept at home by indisposition, Hotspur
+marched to meet Glendower. That learned gentleman, who had probably not
+received his "refresher," did not come, but young Percy, nevertheless,
+sent to Henry a written notice of trial. The king proposed referring
+it to arbitration, but the offer was treated with contempt; and he then
+rejoined that he had no time to waste in writing, but he would, "by dint
+of sword and fierce battle." prove their quarrel was false and feigned,
+"whereupon," as the lawyers have it, "issue was joined." Each army
+consisted of about fourteen thousand men, and on the morning of the 21st
+of July, 1403, both being full of confidence, began sounding their horns
+or blowing their own trumpets. Hotspur and Douglas led the first charge
+with irresistible vigour, and one or two gentlemen who had carried their
+loyalty so far as to wear the royal arms as a dodge, while the king
+fought in plain clothes, paid with their lives the penalty of their
+fidelity. Henry of Monmouth, the young Prince of Wales, got several
+slaps in the face, and once or twice exclaimed, in the Norman-French
+of the period, "Oh, _Mon mouth!_" but he nevertheless continued to the
+last, showing his teeth to the enemy. Douglas and Hotspur were not ably
+supported, and the latter was struck by an arrow shot at random, while
+Douglas, losing command over his head, took to his heels, and becoming
+positively flighty in his flight, fell over a precipice. This was his
+downfall, but not his death, for he was picked up and made prisoner. Old
+Percy, who had been absent from ill-health, but had now got much
+better from his illness, was marching to join the insurgents with a
+considerable force, and had paused on the road to take his medicine,
+when he was met by a messenger, who, glancing at the physic, exclaimed,
+"Ah! my lord, I've got a blacker dose than that for you!" With this, he
+administered two pills in the shape of two separate announcements of the
+deaths of Hotspur and Worcester, the son and brother of the earl, who,
+bidding "Good morning" to his retainers, all of whom he dismissed, shut
+himself up in the castle of Warkworth. The king soon routed him out,
+when Northumberland, like an old sycophant as he was, pretended that
+Hotspur had acted against his advice, for the venerable humbug, though
+eager enough to share in his son's success, was meanly anxious
+to repudiate him in his misfortunes. By this paltry proceeding,
+Northumberland was allowed to get off cheap, and even to win
+commiseration as the victim of the imprudence of his heir, though the
+fact was that the latter had been completely sacrificed to his parent's
+selfishness. In the year 1404, the old cry of "Dick's alive" was
+renewed, and some people even went so far as to say that they had
+recently walked and talked with the deposed King Richard. The rumour ran
+that he was living in Scotland, and one Serle, an old servant, went over
+to recognise his majesty, but found in his place the court jester, who
+bore some resemblance to the unfortunate sovereign. Serle, however,
+determined on playing his cards to the best advantage, and thought it
+a good speculation to play the fool off in place of the king, a trick
+which was for a time successful. The buffoon humoured the joke, which
+was a sorry one for its author, who was executed as a traitor, and
+it might be as well if the same justice were dealt out to similar
+delinquents in the present day, for indifferent jokes are the madness of
+few for the gain of nobody.
+
+Henry was now frightfully embarrassed by the quantity of bills pouring
+in upon him for carrying on the war in Wales, and every day brought him
+a fresh account which he had never expected. Even the musicians made
+a claim, and the king, running his eye down a long list of items,
+including a drum, a ditto, a ditto, a flute half a day, a pandean pipe,
+_et caetera, et caetera_, exclaimed mournfully to his treasurer, "Alas!
+I fear I cannot manage to pay the piper." In fact, the claims on account
+of the war left him no peace, and he proposed taking a quantity of the
+property of the church to settle with his creditors.
+
+This proposition raised a perfect flame amongst the whole body of the
+clergy. The Archbishop of Canterbury instantly took fire, while the
+inferior members of the church were fearfully put out, and cold water
+being thrown on the attempt, it was soon extinguished. Fighting was
+still the business that Henry had on hand, for as fast as one of his
+foes was down, another was ready to come on with fresh vigour. Old
+Northumberland could not keep quiet, but Owen Glendower was perhaps the
+most troublesome of all the king's enemies. The rapidity of the learned
+gentleman's motions kept the other side constantly employed, for he
+never hesitated to change the venue, or resort to a set-off, when he
+wished to baffle his antagonists. At length, lack of funds, and its
+customary concomitant, the loss of friends, compelled him not only
+to stay proceedings, but to keep out of the way to avoid his heavy
+responsibilities. He is supposed to have been engaged for years in a
+protracted game at hide and seek, living at the homes of his daughters
+and friends, but disguised always in a shepherd's plaid, to prevent
+the servants from knowing him. What became of him was never known, and,
+unfortunately for the historian, there were in those days no registrars
+of either births, deaths, or marriages. Some say that Owen Glendower
+ended his days at Mornington, but they might as well say Mornington
+Crescent; and the place of his interment is no less doubtful, for where
+he was buried is now buried in obscurity.
+
+There is a tradition that his tomb is in the Cathedral of Bangor, but
+this story is of little value to anyone except to the Bangor beadle, who
+makes an occasional sixpence by calling the attention of visitors to a
+spot which he, and Common Rumour, between them, have dignified with the
+title of the tomb of Owen Glendower. We all know the character which
+Common Rumour bears for an habitual violation of truth; and we are
+afraid that if she is no better than she should be, the Bangor beadle is
+not so good as he ought to be.
+
+Henry was fortunate in overcoming his enemies, but his treatment of them
+was frequently cruel in the extreme. Poor old Robert, the nominal king
+of Scotland, was driven about from abbey to abbey, but had no sooner got
+comfortably settled in one, than a cry of "Here he is! we've got him!"
+drove him to take refuge in another. At last he hid himself in the
+Isle of Bute, where he is supposed to have remained to the close of his
+existence, and it is certain that he never addressed to the Isle of Bute
+the celebrated apostrophe, "Isle of Beauty, Fare thee well!" His eldest
+son Rothsay was imprisoned in the castle of Falkland (March, 1402), into
+which it is supposed he was pitched with a pitcher, containing about a
+pint of water, and furnished by a crusty gaoler, with a piece of
+crust. Even this miserable diet is said to have been very irregularly
+administered, and was of course insufficient for an able-bodied young
+man like Rothsay. He was treated like a pauper under the new Poor-law,
+and is believed to have died of inanition; for though the chronicles of
+that day attributed his death to starvation, the chronicle of our day
+prefers a genteeler term. The king of Scotland's second son, James, had
+been shipped by his father for France, to be out of the way, when the
+vessel was seized by the crews of some English cruisers.
+
+Robert died of grief at the loss of young James, whom he called his
+precious jewel of a gem, and the little fellow, though a prisoner, was
+lodged and boarded in comfort, allowed masters, and instructed in all
+the usual branches of a sound education.
+
+Constitutional liberty had in previous reigns taken very irregular hops,
+skips, and jumps; but, during the reign of Henry, it began taking rapid
+strides. During the latter part of his life the tranquillity of his own
+country gave him the power to lend out his soldiers to fight the battles
+of others; but it never paid him, for though there was a good deal owing
+to him, he was unable to get the money. His second son, the Duke of
+Clarence, had landed in Normandy with a large army, but finding that
+he could not get a penny to pay his troops, he began to insist on a
+settlement. He was insultingly told that he was not wanted and might
+take his army back again, but he soon brought the people to their senses
+by a little prompt pillage. The matter was arranged, and the Duke
+of Orleans brought all the ready money he could raise as the first
+instalment to the headquarters of the English. It is doubtful whether
+the payments were regularly kept up, but every possible precaution was
+taken that bail or bills could afford.
+
+Henry's reign was now drawing to a close, and he became exceedingly
+sentimental in the latter years of his existence. He had discovered the
+hollowness of the human heart, together with its propensity for wearing
+a mask, and the keen perception of this perpetual fancy-dress ball of
+the finest feelings, rendered him gloomy, solitary, and suspicious. He
+was also in a wretched state of health, for nothing agreed with him, and
+he agreed with nobody. He became jealous of the popularity of his son,
+whom he declared to be everything that was bad, though the after life of
+the young man gave the perfect lie to the paternal libel. Many anecdotes
+are related of the low freaks of Henry and his companions, who seem to
+have been the terror of the police and the people. If we are to believe
+all that is said concerning them, we should look upon the Prince
+of Wales and his associates as the foes to that great engine of
+civilisation the street-door knocker, and the determined enemies to
+enlightenment by the agency of public lamps.
+
+Anecdotes are told of their being brought before the Chief Justice
+Gascoigne, the Denman, Pollock, or Wilde of his day, who took cognizance
+of a case, which would induce either of these learned and upright
+individuals to exclaim to a complainant: "You must not come here, sir;
+we don't sit here to decide upon the merits of street rows," Gascoigne,
+who was a chief justice and a police magistrate all in one--like
+an article of furniture intended for both a bedstead and a chest of
+drawers, but offering the accommodation of neither--Gascoigne committed
+to prison some of the prince's associates. The learned judge, setting
+a precedent that might be followed with advantage in the present day,
+inflicted imprisonment, instead of a fine, on those to whom the latter
+would have been no punishment. The Prince of Wales, on hearing of the
+incarceration of his companions, rushed into court, demanding a _habeas
+corpus_, and drew his sword upon the judge when asked for a case
+in point. Judge Gascoigne ordered the usher to take the prince into
+custody, and the officer of the court having hesitated, young Henry,
+politely exclaiming, "I'm your prisoner, sir," surrendered without
+a murmur. When the king heard the anecdote, he became mawkishly
+sentimental, exclaiming, "Happy the monarch to have such a good judge
+for a justice, and happy the father to have a son so ready to yield to
+legal authority." If the latter is really a subject for congratulation,
+what happiness the police reports of each day ought to afford to
+those parents who have had sons confined in the station-house for
+intoxication, by whom the penalty of five shillings has been paid with
+alacrity. We can fancy the respectable sire of some youth who has
+formed the subject of a case at Bow Street, and who has submitted to
+the decision of the Bench; we can imagine the parent exclaiming, with
+enthusiasm, "Happy the Englishman to have such a magistrate to enforce
+the law, and such a son to yield obedience to its orders." Another
+anecdote is told of the amiable feeling existing between the sovereign
+and his heir, which we insert without vouching for its truth, though it
+is not by any means improbable. The king was ill in bed, and the Prince
+of Wales was sitting up with him in the temporary capacity of nurse. The
+son, however, seemed to be rather waiting for his father's death, than
+hoping for the prolongation of his life, and the king, having gone off
+into a fit, the prince, instead of calling for assistance, or giving any
+aid himself, heartlessly took the opportunity to see how he should look
+in the crown, which always hung on a peg in the royal bed-chamber. Young
+Henry was figuring away before a cheval glass, with the regal bauble on
+his head, and was exclaiming "Just the thing, upon my honour," when
+the elder Henry, happening to recover, sat up in his bed, and saw the
+conduct of his offspring. "Hallo," cried the king, "who gave you leave
+to put that on? I think you might have left it alone till I've done with
+it!"
+
+[Illustration: 256]
+
+The prince muttered some excuse, which was not long needed, for on the
+23rd of March, 1413, Henry the Fourth died, in the forty-seventh year
+of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign. The character of Henry
+the Fourth may be told in a few words, and the fewer the better for
+his reputation, inasmuch as it is impossible to furnish him with that
+passport to posterity with which it would give us pleasure to present
+the whole of our English sovereigns. Other historians have puffed him,
+but the only puffing we can promise him is a regular blowing up. He was
+cautious how he gave offence to his subjects, but this was less out
+of regard to their interests than care for his own. He knew that the
+hostility existing towards him among the nobles, on account of his
+usurpation, could only be counteracted by obtaining the support of the
+people. He therefore refrained from irritating the latter by taxing them
+heavily for his wars, but he never scrupled to help himself to the goods
+of the former whenever his exigencies required. The only difference
+between him and some of his predecessors in the practice of extortion
+and robbery, is in the fact that while others plundered principally the
+people, Henry the Fourth thought it better worth his while to plunder
+the nobles. Some of our predecessors have praised his prudence, which
+was unquestionably great; for never was a king more cunning in his
+attempts to preserve the crown he had unjustly acquired. He was not
+wantonly barbarous in the treatment of his enemies when he got them
+into his power, and, in this respect, his conduct presents an honourable
+contrast to that of the sanguinary monsters who committed the greatest
+crimes to surmount the smallest obstacles. He did not seek to stop the
+merest breath of disaffection by the most monstrous murders, nor to
+rid himself of the annoyance of suspicion by incurring the guilt of
+slaughtering the suspected. His treatment of his predecessor, Richard,
+and one or two others, who are yet unaccounted for, and returned
+"missing" in the balance-sheet of history, must always leave a blot, or,
+rather, a shower of blots, throwing a piebald aspect upon the character
+of Henry. Among the distinguished individuals who shed lustre on a reign
+which derived no brilliance from the sovereign himself, are the poets
+Chaucer and Gower, as well as William Wickham, and Richard Whittington,
+the Lord Mayor of London. We have been at some pains to trace the story
+of the latter, in the hope of being able to find accommodation for his
+cat in the pages of history. We regret to say that our task has ended in
+the melancholy conviction that the cat of Whittington must make one in
+that imaginary family which comprises the puss in boots of the Marquis
+of Carabas, the rats and lizards of Cinderella, and the chickens of
+Mother Carey.
+
+Among the distinctions to which this reign is entitled, we must not
+omit to mention that it was the first in which the practice prevailed of
+burning what were called heretics. Had this circumstance occurred to
+us before we commenced the character of Henry, we think we might have
+spared ourselves the trouble of writing it. The burning of heretics
+ought, of itself, to brand his name with infamy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SECOND. HENRY THE FIFTH, SURNAMED OF MONMOUTH.
+
+Henry the Fifth, on coming to the throne, pursued the policy of
+conciliation; but it so happened that his first act of magnanimity was
+bestowed in a quarter where it could do no good and excite no gratitude.
+The act in question, for which he has been greatly praised, was the
+removal of the body of Richard the Second from an obscure tomb in the
+Friars' Church, at Langley, to a place beside his first wife, the good
+Queen Anne, in the Abbey of Westminster. Had Richard the Second been
+aware of the honour reserved for him after his death, he might probably
+have requested the advance of a small instalment during his lifetime,
+when it would have been of some use to him. The greatest magnificence
+that can be lavished on a tomb will scarcely compensate for an hour's
+confinement within the dreariness of a prison. Had Richard been living,
+there would have been some magnanimity in restoring him to his proper
+position, but giving to his remains the honours due to sovereignty
+was only a confession on the part of Henry that he and his father
+had usurped the crown of one who, being dead, could no longer claim
+retribution for his injuries. It was a mockery to pretend to uphold
+the deposed king by the agency of an upholsterer, and the funeral was
+nothing more than another black job added to the many that had already
+arisen out of the treatment of poor Richard.
+
+The release of the Earl of March from captivity, and the restoration
+of the son of Hotspur to the honours of the Percies, were acts of more
+decided liberality; but, if we are to believe the gossip of the period,
+these two young gentlemen were a pair of spoons, wholly incapable of
+making a stir of any kind. The Earl of March was, it is true, a spoon
+of the king's pattern, for he was a scion of a royal stock, but he
+nevertheless had enough of the fiddle-head about him to make it certain
+that he could be played upon, or let down a peg when occasion required.
+
+From the wildness of Henry's life during his Welsh princedom, it was
+expected that his career as king would have been a series of practical
+jokes upon his officers of state and his subjects in general. He had,
+when a young man, "scrupled not," according to Hume, "to accompany
+his riotous associates in attacking the passengers in the streets and
+highways, and despoiling them of their goods; and he found an amusement
+in the incidents which the tears and regret of these defenceless people
+produced on such occasions." It was feared, therefore, that he would
+have continued to riot in runaway knocks, not only at the doors,
+but upon the heads of the public. Happily, he disappointed these
+expectations, for from the moment of his ascending the throne, he became
+exceedingly well conducted and highly respectable. He did not exactly
+cut his old friends, but told them plainly that they must reform if they
+desired to retain the acquaintance of their sovereign. He stated plainly
+that it would not do for the king of England to be figuring at fancy
+balls, and kicking his heels about at casinos, as in former times, for
+he was now no longer a man about town, but the sovereign of a powerful
+country. Poor Gascoigne, the Chief Justice, had approached the royal
+presence with fear and trembling, fully expecting to be paid off without
+any pension for having committed Henry, when Prince of Wales, but, to
+the surprise of everyone, the king commended the judge for his firmness,
+and advised him, in the words of the song--
+
+     "To do the same thing, were he in the same place,"
+
+should he, the king, be placed to-morrow in another similar position.
+
+In the first year of the new reign a commotion sprung up, which first
+developed itself in a violent fit of seditious bill-sticking. In the
+course of a night, some party succeeded in getting out an "effective
+poster," announcing the readiness of "a hundred thousand men to assert
+their right by force of arms, if needful." What those rights were the
+placards did not state, and probably this would have been the very last
+subject that the hundred thousand men would have proceeded to think
+about. They were supposed to have been instigated by the Lollards, one
+of whom, Sir John Oldcastle, their leader, was sent for by the king to
+have a little talk, in the course of which the wrongs of the Lollards
+might perchance be hit upon. Sir John Oldcastle, who was one of the old
+school, found plenty to say, but he never could find anyone to listen
+patiently to his rigmaroles. Henry the Fifth was obliged to cut the old
+gentleman short by hinting that the statute _de heretico comburendo_ was
+in force, and Sir John, who had been about to fire up, cooled down very
+decidedly on hearing the allusion. Henry, finding nothing could be done
+with Oldcastle, who was as sturdy and obstinate as his name would seem
+to imply, turned him over to Archbishop Arundel. The prelate undertook
+to bring Sir John to his senses, but the junction could not be effected,
+for the objects were really too remote to be easily brought together.
+A writ was issued, but Oldcastle kept the proper officer at bay, and
+assailed him not only with obstructive missiles, but with derisive
+ridicule. At length, a military force was sent out to take the Oldcastle
+by storm, when Sir John unwillingly surrendered. Though taken, he
+refused to be shaken in his obstinate resolves, and he pleaded two whole
+days before his judges, in the hope of wearing them out and inducing
+them to stay the proceedings, rather than subject themselves to
+the fearful blow of his excessive long-windedness. He was, however,
+condemned, but the king granted a respite of fifty days, during which
+the old fellow either contrived or was allowed to escape from the Tower;
+and the probability is, that the gaolers had instructions to wink, in
+the event of his being seen to pass the portals of his prison.
+
+Oldcastle, or Lord Cobham, as he was also called, had no sooner got out
+of prison than he rushed into the flames of sedition, and illustrated by
+his conduct the process of a leap from the frying-pan into the fire.
+He appointed a meeting of his followers at Eltham for the purpose
+of surprising Henry, but the king observing the moves of the knight
+determined if possible to avoid being check-mated. His majesty repaired
+to Westminster, when Cobham, changing his tactics, fixed upon St.
+Giles's Fields as the place of rendezvous. The king thought to himself
+"Now we've got them there we'll keep them there," and shut the gates of
+the city. This was on the feast of the Epiphany, or Twelfth Pay,
+1414, and in the evening the Lord Mayor of London arrested several
+disreputable Twelfth-night characters. On the next day, a little after
+midnight, Henry went forth expecting to find twenty-five thousand men
+assembled in St. Giles's Fields, but he met only eighty Lollards lolling
+about, expecting Sir John Oldcastle. Several of them were hanged on
+the charge of having intended to destroy king, lords, commons, church,
+state, and all the other sundries of which the constitution is composed,
+and to turn England into a federal republic, with Sir John Oldcastle as
+president.
+
+[Illustration: 260]
+
+The idea of eighty enthusiasts meeting in a field near London to slice
+their country into republics, and make a bonfire of the crown, the
+sceptre, the throne, and the other appointments of royalty, is really
+too ridiculous to be entertained, though it is almost funny enough to
+be entertaining. Such, nevertheless, was the alarm the Lollards had
+inspired, that everyone suspected of Lollardism was condemned to forfeit
+his head first and his goods afterwards, though after taking a man in
+execution it was rather superfluous cruelty to take his property by the
+same process. Life, however, was held of so little account in those
+days that there was considered to be no such capital fun as capital
+punishment.
+
+Henry had scarcely worn the English crown for a year, when, in the
+spirit of an old clothesman, who delights in a plurality of hats, he
+thought the crown of France might furnish a graceful supplement to his
+own head-dress. He therefore sent in his claim to the French diadem,
+making out a title in right of Edward the Third's wife, who had no right
+at all, or if she had, it is clear that Henry the Fifth had no right to
+the lady, whose heir was Edward Mortimer. France was in a wretched state
+when Henry put in his claim; for Paris was in one of its revolutionary
+fits, and intrigue was rampant in the royal family. The dauphin, Louis,
+was continually fighting with his mother, and insulting his father,
+while the Duke of Orleans and his cousin the Duke of Burgundy were
+perpetually quarrelling. Each had his partisans, and those belonging
+to the latter were in the habit of declaring that an Orleans
+plum--alluding, of course, to the duke's vast fortune--was preferable
+to an entire dozen of Burgundy. In the meantime Paris was infested by a
+band of assassins, professing to be the friends of liberty, and wearing
+white hoods, which they forced on to everybody's head; and this act was
+no doubt the origin of the expression with reference to the hoodwinking
+of the people.
+
+Before proceeding to arm, Henry proposed a compromise. He demanded two
+millions in cash, and King Charles's daughter, Catharine, in marriage.
+The latter offered the lady in full, but only a moiety of the money.
+This arrangement was scornfully rejected, and Henry held a council on
+the 17th of April, 1415, at which he announced his determination to go
+"over the water to Charley." Having resolved upon what to do, the next
+question was how to do it; and the first difficulty that occurred was
+the refusal of his soldiers to stir a step without an advance of three
+months' wages. He first tried the Parliament, and got a good supply,
+which was further increased by borrowing from or robbing his subjects.
+Even this would not do, and recourse was had to the common but
+disgraceful practice of unpicking the crown, for the purpose of sending
+the jewels to the pawnbroker's. A trusty officer was despatched to
+deposit with one of the king's relatives a brilliant, in the name of
+Bolinbroke. The news of the preparations being made in England, spread
+terror in France, for the distant roaring of the British Lion came
+across the main, with portentous fury. The French King, Charles, was
+utterly useless in the emergency--for he was a wretched imbecile--and
+several artful attempts were made to get rid of his authority. Every now
+and then he was made the subject of a commission of lunacy, as a pretext
+for placing power in the dauphin's hands; and that undutiful son, having
+turned his mother out of doors, seized the contents of the treasury,
+which made him at once master of the capital. At one time, while the
+pusillanimous Charles was lying at Arras, an attempt was made to burn
+him out, by setting fire to his lodgings; but, having all the essential
+qualities of a perfect pump, he does not appear to have been of a
+combustible nature. He certainly was not of a very fiery disposition,
+and his enemies declared that he owed his escape from the flames to his
+being utterly incapable of enlightenment. Such was the king of France,
+and such the feeling entertained towards him by the majority of
+his subjects, when the English sovereign resolved on his aggressive
+enterprise.
+
+Henry left London on the 18th of June, 1415, and proceeded to
+Winchester, where he was met by another offer of a compromise. This
+he refused, and rudely pushing the deputation aside, he pressed on
+to Southampton. Here his fleet awaited him, but receiving news of a
+conspiracy to take his life he, instead of putting off to sea, put
+off his departure. Sir Thomas Grey, the Lord Scroop, and the Earl of
+Cambridge were all in the plot; and the two latter having claimed the
+privilege of being tried by their peers, took very little by their
+motion, for they were condemned by a vote of wondrous unanimity. Having
+heard the heads of the treason, Henry cut off the heads of the traitors,
+and embarked, on the 10th of August, on board his ship the "Trinity."
+The scene on the Southampton pier was animated and brilliant when the
+sovereign placed his foot upon the plank leading to the vessel that was
+to conduct him to the shores of his enemies.
+
+[Illustration: 262]
+
+Gentle breezes were in attendance to waft him on his way, and Neptune,
+who is sometimes ruffled on these occasions, presented an even calmness
+that it was quite delightful to contemplate. An enthusiastic crowd on
+the shore burst forth into occasional cheers, which were succeeded now
+and then by the faint sob of some sentimental trooper, taking leave of
+the fond maid whose heart--and last quarter's wages--he was carrying
+away with him. The civic authorities were, of course, active in
+their demonstrations of loyalty on this occasion; and the Mayor of
+Southampton, in backing to make one of his sycophantic bows, sent one of
+the attendants fairly over the bows of the vessel. With this exception,
+no accident or mischance marked the embarkation of Henry, which seemed
+to proceed under the most favourable auspices.
+
+His fleet consisted of more than a thousand vessels, and some swans
+having come to look at it, he declared this little mark of cygnal
+attention to be a capital omen. We must request the reader to bear
+in mind, that though all the authorities justify us in announcing one
+thousand as the number of the ships constituting Henry's fleet, we
+should not advise anyone to believe the statement, who has not had an
+opportunity of counting the vessels. Either the ships in those days were
+very small, or Southampton harbour has been fearfully contracted by
+the contractors who have since undertaken to widen it. We have been
+accustomed to place implicit faith in the rule of arithmetic, that
+"a thousand into one won't go!" nor do we feel disposed to alter our
+impression in favour of a thousand of Henry's ships being able to go
+into Southampton harbour. We suspect that a hundred would have been
+nearer the mark, for posterity is greatly in the habit of putting on an
+O, and really believing there is nothing in it.
+
+Whatever the numerical strength of Henry's fleet may have been, it is
+certain that he entered the mouth of the Seine, which made no attempt
+to show its teeth, and he landed on the 13th of August, three miles from
+Harfleur, without any resistance. He severely deprecated all excesses
+against the peaceful inhabitants, but he nevertheless besieged the
+fortress of Harfleur with tremendous energy; so that his conduct towards
+the natives was a good deal like that of the individual who knocked
+another downstairs with numerous apologies for being under the painful
+necessity of doing so.
+
+The siege was under the conduct of "Master Giles," the Wellington of the
+period. Master Giles must have been somewhat of a bungler, for he
+was not successful until he had lost nearly all his men, and been
+six-and-thirty days routing out the garrison. Even then the foe
+surrendered through being too ill to fight, rather than from having
+got much the worst of it. Henry's army was also reduced to a pack of
+invalids, and his ships were turned into infirmaries for his soldiers.
+Though the troops were wretchedly indisposed, Henry himself was only
+sick of doing nothing, and he accordingly sent a challenge by a friend
+to the dauphin of France, inviting him to a single combat.
+
+The feelings of Louis were not in correspondence with those of the
+English king, whose invitation to a hostile _tete-d-tete_ was never
+answered. The friend sent by Henry was not by any means the sort of
+person to tempt the representative of Young France to a hostile meeting.
+
+[Illustration: 265]
+
+The bearer of the challenge was, in fact, a walking pattern of what the
+dauphin might expect to become in the event of his engaging in a duel.
+A countenance which looked more like a mug that had been cracked and
+riveted in twenty places, was the letter of recommendation presented by
+Henry's second. As the friend was evidently not a man to take a denial,
+Henry? (Louis) contented himself with scratching off a few hieroglyphics
+on a sheet of paper--to make believe that he was writing a note--and
+hastily seizing an envelope, he sealed and delivered the delusive
+missive. Henry's friend went away satisfied, with the full conviction
+that he was taking back an acceptance of his master's challenge, but
+when the communication came to be opened, the English king was indignant
+at the hoax that had been played upon him.
+
+Finding himself foiled in an attempt to settle his dispute by single
+combat, Henry called over the muster-roll of his troops, which presented
+a frightful number of vacancies since the making up of his last
+army list. He had lost several hands from his first foot, and he was
+compelled to say to his adjutant, "Really, if we go on at this rate
+we shall be compelled to notify that _Nobody_ is promoted _vice_
+_Everybody_, killed, or retired."
+
+His entire force having dwindled down to the mere shadow of its former
+self, he was advised to get home as speedily as possible. "No," he
+replied, "I have no notion of coming all this way for nothing, and I
+shall see a little more of this good land of France before I go back
+again." The army, which was nearly all under the doctor's hands, seemed,
+upon being drawn up in marching order, far fitter to go to bed than
+to go to battle. Every regiment required medical regimen, and when
+the soldiers should have been sitting with their feet in hot water
+and comforters round their throats, they were required, with a callous
+indifference to their state of health, to march towards Calais.
+
+The journey began on the 6th of October, when the French king and the
+dauphin had a large force at Rouen, while the Constable of France was
+in front of the English, with an army consisting of the very pick of
+Picardy. In passing through Normandy Henry met with no opposition, but
+his movements were watched by a large force, which kept continually
+cutting off stragglers, or in military language, clipping the wings of
+his army. Those who lingered in the rear, or, as it were hung out behind
+like a piece of a pocket-handkerchief protruding from the skirts of the
+main body, were cut off with merciless alacrity. The English continued
+to be dreadfully ill, and were proper subjects for the _Hotel des
+Invalides_, but they nevertheless pursued their march with indomitable
+courage. In crossing the river Bresle, beyond Dieppe, they made a
+decided splash; but the garrison of Eu interrupted them in their cold
+bath, though with very little effect, for the French leader was killed
+and his followers were driven back to the ramparts. On reaching the
+Somme the English army found both banks so strongly fortified, that had
+they resorted to the most desperate hazard, or played any other reckless
+game, breaking the banks would have been impossible.
+
+Henry consulted with his friends as to the best means of getting across,
+but nothing was suggested, except to tunnel under the banks and dive
+along the bottom of the stream; but this was objected to for divers
+reasons. Henry kept marching up the left bank of the river, in the hope
+of finding a favourable opportunity to dash across; but every attempt
+terminated in making ducks and drakes of his brave soldiers. Wherever a
+chance appeared to present itself he tried it, but without success, for
+the river had been filled with stakes, though the extent of the stakes
+did not prevent him from carrying on the game as long as possible. At
+length, on reaching Nesle he hit the right nail on the head, for running
+across a temporary bridge near the spot, he found the accommodation
+passable.
+
+The Constable of France, on hearing what had occurred, retired to St.
+Pol, like a poltroon, and sent heralds to Henry, advising him to avoid a
+battle, for the French fully intended to give it him. The constable then
+fell back upon Agincourt, in which direction the English army prepared
+to follow him. On the 24th of October, Henry and his soldiers came in
+sight of the enemy's outposts, and their columns served as advertising
+columns to indicate their position. During the night it is said that
+the English played on their trumpets, so that the whole neighbourhood
+resounded with the noise; but as they were all very tired, and had gone
+to sleep, it is probable that the only music heard by the inhabitants
+emanated from the nasal organs of the slumbering soldiers. By the French
+the night was passed in noise and revelry; but the English were
+chiefly absorbed in repose, or occupied in making their last wills
+and testaments. These were far more suitable employments than the
+performance of those concerted pieces which would only have disconcerted
+the plans of their leaders.
+
+The moon, which on that occasion was up all night, enabled the English
+officers to ascertain the quality of the ground that the French
+occupied. The constable stuck the royal banner into the middle of the
+Calais road, an achievement which the muddy nature of the soil, rendered
+softer by the drizzly rain, prevented from being at all difficult. The
+French took the usual means of counteracting the effect of external wet
+by internal soaking. "Every man," says the chronicler, "dydde drynke
+lyke a fyshe," though the simile does not hold, for we never yet found
+one of the finny tribe who was given to the sort of liquor that the
+French were imbibing before Agincourt. They passed round the cup so
+rapidly that, what with the clayey nature of the soil and the whirl
+of excitement into which their heads were thrown, they found it almost
+impossible to preserve their respective equilibria. They floundered
+about in the most disgraceful manner, and there was "many a slip 'twixt
+the cup and the lip" on that memorable occasion. In addition to the
+excesses of the table, they availed themselves of the resources of the
+multiplication table, by calculating the amount of ransoms they should
+receive for the English king and the great barons, whom they made sure
+of capturing. Thus, in the agreeable but delusive occupation of turning
+their imaginations into poultry-yards, and stocking them with ideal
+chickens that were never destined to be hatched, did the French pass the
+night before the battle. Still, there was a melancholy mixed with the
+mirth in the minds of many, who, in the midst of the general counting
+of the phantom pullets, found sad thoughts to brood over. It so happened
+that there were scarcely any musical instruments among the French, and
+their horses, it was remarked, never once neighed during the night,
+which was thought to be ominous of bad, for if a dismal foreboding
+intruded, there was not even an animal to say "neigh" to it. Some of
+the older and more experienced officers were seized with gloomy
+anticipations, but they were either coughed, laughed, or clamoured down;
+and when the veteran Duke of Berri ventured to allude to Poictiers, on
+which occasion the French had been equally sanguine, he was tauntingly
+nicknamed the Blackberry for his sombre sentiments. To add to the
+discomfort of the troops, there was a deficiency of hay and straw for
+the use of the cavalry. The piece of ground where the horses had been
+taken in to bait was a perfect pool, in which the poor creatures could
+be watered, it is true, but could not enjoy any other refreshment. The
+earth had proved itself indeed a toper, according to the song, and had
+moistened its clay to such a degree that everyone who came in contact
+with it found himself placed on a most uncomfortable footing. However
+resolved the French might have been to make a stand on the day of
+battle, it was impossible for them to make any stand at all on the night
+preceding it.
+
+At early dawn Henry got up in excellent spirits, and declared himself
+ready to answer the communication of the French constable, which he had
+received some time before, advising him to treat or retreat, and which
+had hitherto remained unresponded to. A movement of astonishment was
+evinced by his followers at the announcement of the English king's
+intention to reply to the message he had received, but when he said, "I
+shall trouble him with three lines, which may extend to three columns,"
+and proceeded to divide his army into that form, the gallant soldiers
+understood and cheered his meaning. The archers were placed in front,
+and every one of them had at least four strings to his bow, in the shape
+of a billhook, a hatchet, a hammer, and a long thick stake, in addition
+to his stock of arrows.
+
+Having made these preparations, Henry mounted a little grey pony and
+reviewed his army. He wore his best Sunday helmet of polished steel,
+which had received, expressly for the occasion, an extra leathering, and
+on the top of that he wore a crown of gold richly set with jewels. In
+this headgear he presented such a dazzling spectacle to the enemy, that
+it would have been almost as difficult to take an aim at the sun itself
+as at the blazing and brilliant English leader. As he rode from rank
+to rank, he had an encouraging word for every soldier; and his familiar
+"Ha, Briggs," to one; his cheerful "What, Jones, is that you, my boy?"
+to another; and his invigorating "Up, Smith, and at 'em!" to a third,
+contributed greatly to increase the confidence of his men and strengthen
+their attachment to their general. "As for me," he said, "you'll have
+to pay no ransom for me, as I've fully made up my mind to die or to
+conquer."
+
+[Illustration: 268]
+
+On passing one of the divisions, he heard Walter Hungerford--the
+original proprietor of Hungerford Stairs--regretting there were not more
+of them. "What do we want with more?" exclaimed Henry. "I would not have
+an _extra_ man if you would give him me. If we are to fall, the fewer
+the better, and if we are to conquer, I would not have one pair of
+additional hands to pick a single leaf of our laurels." The French were
+at least six to one of the English, but the former were horridly out of
+condition on the night before the battle. They wore long coats of steel
+down to their knees, which gave them the look of animated meat screens,
+and the armour they carried on their legs served to complete the
+resemblance. "They wore a quantity of harness on the upper part of their
+bodies," says M. Nicolas, but he does not tell us whether the harness
+consisted of horse collars, which by being grinned through would have
+enabled them to advance towards the foe with a smiling aspect. The
+ground was remarkably soft, and the French troops being exceedingly
+heavy, they kept sticking in the mud at every step, while the ensigns,
+who had the additional weight of their flags, got planted in the ground
+like a row of standards. The horses were up to their knees in no time,
+and when they attempted to pull up they found the operation quite
+impossible. Henry had declared he would roll the enemy in the dust, but
+the wet had laid all the dust, and he must have rolled them in the
+mud if he had rolled them in anything. The French are said by a recent
+historian * to have been suffering under a "moral vertigo," but as
+the vertigo had been brought on by drinking on the previous night, the
+morality of the "vertigo" will bear questioning. They had got themselves
+into a field between two woods, where they had no room to "deploy," and
+they were tumbling over each other like a pack of cards, or a regiment
+of tin soldiers. Though they had imbibed a large quantity of wine and
+spirits, the rain, which fell in torrents, only added water to what they
+had drunk, and threw them into what is technically termed a "groggy"
+condition. Henry compared them to so many tumblers of rum-and-water,
+so comical was their appearance as they fell about in a state of soaked
+stupidity. To increase their confusion, the Constable of France was
+unable to keep order, for several young sprigs of French nobility were
+all tendering their advice, and thus there were not only cooks enough to
+spoil the broth, but to make a regular hash of it.
+
+     * Macfarlane. Cabinet History, vol. v., p. 21.
+
+At length, about the hour of noon, Henry gave the word to begin by
+exclaiming "Banners, advance!" and at the same moment Sir Thomas
+Erpingham, a grey old knight, who appears to have been a kind of
+military pantaloon, threw his truncheon into the air with true
+pantomimic activity. "Now, strike!" exclaimed the veteran, as he
+performed this piece of buffoonery, and followed it up with the words
+"Go it!" "At 'em again!" "Serve 'em right!" and "Give it 'em!" The
+French fought bravely, and Messire Clignet, of Brabant, charged with
+twelve hundred horse, exclaiming "Mountjoye, St. Denis!" when down
+he fell, on the soft and slippery ground, like a horse on the wooden
+pavement. Everywhere the French cavalry cut the most eccentric capers;
+and even when there was an opportunity of advancing, the advantage
+seemed to slip from under them, for the ground was as bad as ground
+glass to stand upon. The English archers rushed among the steel-clad
+knights, who were as stiff as so many pokers--though not one of them
+could stir--and they were thus caught in their own steel traps, or
+trappings. The Constable of France was killed, and the flower of the
+French chivalry was nipped in the bud, or, rather, experienced a blow of
+a fatal character.
+
+"This is a very hard case, indeed," roared one of the victims, as he
+pointed to his suit of steel, which rendered him incapable of fighting
+or running away, though he was quite ready for either. But the hardest
+part of all was the softness of the ground, into which the French kept
+sinking so rapidly that they might as well have fought on the Goodwin
+Sands as on the field of Agincourt. The weight of their armour caused
+them to disappear every now and then, like the Light of All Nations, on
+the spot we have just named, and an old French warrior--one of the heavy
+fathers of that day--was seen to subside so completely in the mud, that
+in a few minutes he had left only his hair apparent. The English, who
+were lightly clad, kept up wonderfully under the fatigues of the day,
+and some of them performed prodigies of valour. Henry himself seems to
+have acquitted himself in a Style quite worthy of Shaw, or Pshaw, the
+Life Guardsman. His majesty was charged by a band of eighteen knights,
+whom it is said he overcame, but it is much more likely that finding
+themselves ready to sink into the earth, they were compelled to knock
+under.
+
+Their cause was desperate, it was neck or nothing with many; but as they
+became immersed in the soil by degrees, it was neck first, and nothing
+shortly afterwards. The Duke of Alencon made a momentary effort to be
+vigorous, in spite of his steel petticoats, and gave Henry a blow on the
+head that broke off a bit of the crown which he had been wearing over
+his helmet. This _embarras des chapeaux_, or inconvenient superfluity of
+hats, was a weakness Henry was subject to, and there was no harm in his
+being made to pay for it. The Duke of Alencon had no sooner broken the
+king's crown than he received a fracture in his own, which proved fatal.
+The battle was now over, and the English began to secure prisoners,
+taking from each captive his cap, or hat, but it is to be presumed
+giving a ticket to each, by which all would get back their own helmets.
+Henry having taken it into his head that the battle was going to
+be renewed, ordered the prisoners to be killed; but he afterwards
+apologised for his mistake, though posterity has never been satisfied
+with the excuse he offered. As far as we have been able to learn the
+particulars of this atrocious blunder, it arose in the following manner.
+The priests of the English army--with a sort of instinctive tendency
+to taking care of themselves--were sitting amongst the baggage. Henry,
+hearing a noise among the reverend gentlemen, looked round, and found
+them apparently threatened with an attack from what he thought was
+a hostile force, but which turned out to be a few peasants, who were
+scrambling with the priests for a share of the luggage. This
+attempted appropriation of church property was resisted by a vigorous
+ecclesiastical clamour, which led Henry to believe there had been a
+rally among the foe, and that the priests were giving the signal. Had
+he been aware that they were crying out before they were hurt, there is
+every reason to believe that he would not have issued the mandate which
+has so much compromised his otherwise fair average character. The French
+loss at the battle of Agincourt was quite incredible, but not a bit the
+less historical on that account, for if history were to reject all that
+cannot be believed its dimensions would be fearfully crippled.
+
+[Illustration: 271]
+
+The English, sinking under the weight of their booty, as well as the mud
+on their boots, marched towards Calais. Henry's army was reduced almost
+to a skeleton, but he used to say jocosely, that with that skeleton key
+he would find an opening anywhere. Though rich in conquest, he was
+short of cash, and as England was always the place for getting money,
+he determined on hastening thither. The people received him with
+enthusiasm, and at Dover they rushed into the sea to carry him on shore,
+so that he literally came in on the shoulders of the people. Proud of
+this popular pickaback, he made a speech amid the general waving of
+hats, which was responded to by the gentle waving of the ocean. The
+tide, however, began to rise, when Henry cut short the proceedings of
+the meeting between himself and his subjects by exclaiming, "But on, my
+friends, to the shore, for this is not the place for dry discussion."
+
+On his way up to town each city vied with the other in loyalty.
+Rochester contended with Canterbury, Chatham struggled with Gravesend,
+and Blackheath entered into a single combat with Green-wich; Deptford
+ran itself into debt, which it retains nominally to this day; and
+the Bricklayers presented their arms to Henry as he passed into the
+metropolis. In London he was met by the Lords and Commons, the mayor,
+aldermen, and citizens; but the sweetest music was that made by the wine
+as it poured down the streets, and caught a guttural sound as it turned
+inLo the gutters. Many a bottle of fine old crusted port was mulled by
+being thrown into the thoroughfare, and though it might have been
+good enough to have spoken for itself, it ran itself down through the
+highways with much energy. Nor was this enthusiasm confined to hollow
+words, for all the supplies which the king requested were freely voted
+him. It was only for Henry to ask and have, at this auspicious moment;
+and if, like some children, he had cried for the moon, it is not
+unlikely that his subjects, in the excess of their loyalty, would have
+promised to give it him.
+
+In the spring of the year 1416, London was enlivened by a visit from the
+Emperor Sigismund. He imparted considerable gaiety to the season, and
+his entry into the city gave occasion for a general holiday. His object
+was to endeavour to effect a coalition between the two rival popes, and
+to get the kings of France and England to make it up if possible. He
+was followed by some French ambassadors who marred the harmony of the
+procession by looking daggers at the English nobles. Occasionally they
+proceeded from glances to gibes, which naturally led to pushes, that
+were only prevented from coming to blows by the sudden turning round of
+the emperor whenever he heard a disturbance going on amongst those who
+followed him.
+
+During Sigismund's stay in town, the French besieged Harfleur, which was
+guarded by the Earl of Dorset and a most unhealthy garrison. Toothache,
+elephantiasis, and sciatica, had so reduced the spirit of the English
+force that the Duke of Bedford, the king's brother, was sent to aid
+the Earl of Dorset, and the poor old pump was grateful for this timely
+succour. Bedford having put matters quite straight, returned to England,
+and Henry proposed a run over to Calais with his imperial visitor,
+Sigismund. Here a sort of Congress was held at which Henry made
+himself so popular, that his rights to the French throne were partially
+recognised. France was at this juncture in a very unpromising condition,
+for the royal family did nothing but quarrel and murder one another's
+favourites. Isabella, the queen, lived in hostility with the king, who
+arrested several of his wife's servants, and had one of them, whose name
+was Bois-Bourdon, sewn up in a leather-bag and thrown into the Seine,
+from which the notion of giving a servant the sack, on the occasion of
+his getting his discharge, no doubt takes its origin.
+
+The Dauphin John having died, he was succeeded by his brother Charles,
+a boy of sixteen, who was continually fighting with his own mother, and
+getting a good deal the worst of it. This state of things tempted Henry
+to bring an army into France in August, 1417, when, after the surrender
+of a few smaller places, he took Caen by assault, or rather by a good
+Caen pepper. In the ensuing year he undertook several sieges at once,
+and played with his artillery upon Cherbourg, Damfront, Lonviers, and
+Pont de l'Arohe as easily as the musician who plays simultaneously on
+six different instruments. His next important undertaking was the siege
+of Rouen, before which he sat down, and having looked at it through his
+glass, he made up his mind that starving it out was the only method of
+taking it. The inhabitants held out for some time on their provisions,
+but these being exhausted, they began to devour all sorts of trash,
+that was never intended for culinary purposes. _Soupe au shoe_ became
+a common dish, and though for a brief period they had mutton chop _en
+papillotes_ they were at last reduced to the _papillotes_ without the
+meat, but with their tremendous twists they of course could not be
+expected to make a satisfactory meal off curl-papers. They accordingly
+surrendered, and Henry, on the 16th of January, 1419, entered Rouen,
+where ambassadors from the various factions in France were sent to him.
+He was, however, quite open to all, but decidedly influenced by none,
+and had a polite word for each, but a wink for those in his confidence,
+as he administered the blarney to the various legates. At length it
+was agreed that he should have an interview with the king and queen of
+France and the Duke of Burgundy.
+
+The French sovereign was not presentable when the day came, for
+excessive indulgence in wine had reduced him to a state from which all
+the soda-water in the world could not, at that moment, have recovered
+him. Henry, therefore, met the queen, who was attended by her lovely
+daughter, the Princess Catherine, and her cousin of Burgundy, while the
+English king was supported by his brothers, Clarence and Gloucester. The
+meeting was exceedingly ceremonious, and was conducted a good deal
+in the style of a medley dance, comprising the minuet, the figure
+_Pastorale_ in the first set of quadrilles, and Sir Roger de Coverley.
+At a signal announced by the striking up of some music, Henry advanced
+first, performing as it were the _cavalier seul_, when the Princess
+Catherine and the queen, with the Duke of Burgundy between them, also
+advanced, until all met in the centre. Henry bowed to the queen, and
+took her hand, and then did the same with the Princess Catherine, a
+movement resembling the celebrated _chaine des dames_--and Burgundy
+fell in gracefully with what was going on by an occasional _balancez_ to
+complete the action of the second couple.
+
+This was the first occasion upon which Henry had seen his intended
+bride, and whether in earnest or in sham he appeared to be at once
+struck by her surpassing beauty. He enacted the lover at first sight
+with a vigour that would have secured him a livelihood as a walking
+gentleman, had he lived in our own time, and been dependent for support
+on his theatrical abilities.
+
+[Illustration: 274]
+
+The whole day was spent in formalities, and Henry sat opposite to the
+princess till the close of the interview, looking unutterable, things,
+for she was so far off that it would have been vain to have uttered
+anything. In two days afterwards Henry and the queen paid each other a
+second formal visit; but the English king looked in vain for the young
+lady, who like a true _coquette_, seems to have kept away for the
+purpose of increasing the impatience of her lover. Her mother, with the
+tact of an old matchmaker, tried to get the best possible terms
+from Henry; but with all his affection, he would not stir from his
+resolution, to insist on having the possession of Normandy and a few
+other perquisites as the young lady's dowry.
+
+The French queen pretended to take time to consider his proposal, and
+seven formal interviews were held; but all of them were of so dull,
+stately, and slow a character, that no progress was made at any one
+of them. The fact is, that Henry was being humbugged, and if he had
+suspected as much during the seven first meetings, he was convinced of
+it at that, which should have been the eighth, for on going to keep his
+appointment he found neither the queen, the duke, the princess, nor any
+of the attendants of either of them. All ceremony was at an end, the
+diplomatic _quadrille_ parties were broken up, and Henry, disgusted at
+having been made to dance attendance for nothing at all, became so angry
+that his brain began to reel on its own account, and he set off to his
+own quarters in a _galop_. He ascertained the truth to be, that the
+queen and Burgundy had made it up with the dauphin, whom they had gone
+to join, and the precious trio having sworn eternal friendship to each
+other, added a clause to the affidavit for the purpose of swearing
+eternal hatred to all Englishmen.
+
+Tired of kicking his heels about to no purpose, Henry determined on
+practising some entirely new steps; the first of which was to advance
+upon Pontoise and _chassez_ the inhabitants. He then pushed on towards
+Paris, when Burgundy, fearful of a _rencontre_, retired from St. Denis,
+where he had taken up his position. Henry again offered to treat, but in
+sending in the particulars of his demand he added Pontoise to the list
+of places he should require to be transferred to his possession.
+
+The alliance between the dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy was as hollow
+as the hollow beech tree rendered famous by a series of single knocks
+at the hands, or, rather, at the beak, of the woodpecker. After a little
+negotiation, and a great deal of treachery, Burgundy, in spite of the
+warnings of several of his servants, was induced to visit the dauphin at
+Montereau. The duke went unarmed, on the assurance that he should return
+unharmed, and instead of his helmet he wore a velvet cap, which one
+of his attendants declared was a wonderful proof of soft-headedness.
+Burgundy, on coming into the presence of the heir to the throne
+of France, bent his knee; when the President of Provence whispered
+something in the dauphin's ear, and both began winking fearfully at a
+man with a battle-axe. The man with the battle-axe gave a significant
+nod, and dropped his weapon, as if by mistake, upon Burgundy; when the
+Sire de Navailles, a friend of the duke, pointing to the fearful dent
+the axe had made, exclaimed, "This is not a mere accident." This was
+immediately obvious; for several others rushed upon poor Burgundy,
+who devoted his last breath to exclaiming to the dauphin, "You are an
+ass--ass--" for he died before he could get the word ass--ass--in.
+
+Young Philip, the heir of Jean Sans-peur---or Jack Dreadnought, as we
+should have translated this nickname of the Duke of Burgundy--succeeded
+to his father's estates, as well as becoming residuary legatee of
+the affections of most of his subjects. The dauphin's foul deed was
+execrated on all sides; for though the state of morals was low at the
+period of which we write, there was always a certain love of fair play
+inherent in the human character. The younger Burgundy was in a state of
+effervescence, and though he kept bottled up for a short time, his rage
+soon spirted out with fearful vehemence. He entered into a coalition
+with Henry, who stipulated for the hand of the Princess Catherine in
+possession, with the crown of France in reversion, and a few other
+trifling contingencies. In the year 1420, one day in the month of
+April--probably the first--the imbecile Charles, guided by Queen
+Isabella and the Duke of Burgundy, put his hand to the treaty. The
+unhappy monarch was in his usual state, when a pen having been thrust
+into his grasp, and while somebody held the document, somebody else
+directed the motion of the royal fingers. The treaty thus became
+disfigured by a series of scratches and blots which were declared to be
+the king's signature. An appendix to this document contained a fulsome
+panegyric on the English king, which wound up with a declaration of his
+fitness to succeed to the French crown, because "he had a noble person
+and a pleasing countenance." This shallow argument was intended to lead
+to the conclusion that he would treat his subjects handsomely; or that,
+at all events, should he ever reign over France, his rule would not be
+without some very agreeable features.
+
+In May of the same year--1420--Henry started for Troyes, where the
+young Duke of Burgundy and the French royal family were sojourning.
+The English king was all impatience to see his bride, and he found her
+sitting with her papa and mamma in the church of St. Peter. They had
+intended a little surprise for their illustrious visitor, and everything
+being ready beforehand, he was affianced on the spot to the lovely
+Catherine. They were regularly married. On the 2nd of June, and some
+of the gay young nobles hoped there would be a series of balls, dinner
+parties, and tournaments, in celebration of the wedding: Henry, however,
+declared he would have "no fuss," but that those who wanted to show
+their skill in jousting and tourneying might accompany him to Sens,
+which he purposed besieging on the second day after his marriage. He
+declined participating in the child's play of a tournament when there
+was so much real work to be done, "and as to feasting," he exclaimed,
+"let us give the people of Sens their whack, or, at all events, if we
+are to have a good blow-out, it must be by blowing the enemy out of the
+citadel." He proceeded at once with his beautiful bride from Troyes,
+and soon reaching Sens, he in two days frightened the inhabitants out of
+their Senses. They surrendered, and he then advanced to Montereau, which
+he took by assault--or rather, as one of the merry old chroniclers
+hath it, "which he took, not so much by assault as by a pepper." After
+besieging a few other places in France, Henry, in conjunction with
+Charles, the French king, made a triumphal entry into Paris. The
+inhabitants of that city gave him an enthusiastic reception, for, like
+the populace in every period, they were delighted at anything in the
+shape of change, and paid the utmost respect to those from whom they had
+experienced the greatest injury.
+
+In January, 1421, Henry being very short of cash, determined on going
+home to England, which was even in those days the most liberal paymaster
+to popular favourites. Having with him a good-looking queen, his
+reception in his own country was most gratifying, for the old clap-trap
+about "lovely woman" was inherent from the earliest periods in the
+English character. This fascinating female was crowned at Westminster
+Abbey with tremendous pomp, and the happy couple went "starring it"
+about the country in a royal progress immediately afterwards. Their
+success in the provinces was immense; but their pleasant engagements in
+their own country were soon brought to an end by the announcement that
+France was still in a state of turbulence, requiring the immediate
+presence of Henry in Paris.
+
+Having warmed his subjects' hearts, he struck while the iron was hot,
+and took an aim at their pockets. Parliament was in a capital humour,
+and came out splendidly with pecuniary votes for a new expedition. He
+left the queen at Windsor Castle, where she shortly after gave birth to
+a son; and having landed a large but very miscellaneous army at Calais,
+Henry marched to Paris, to reinforce the Duke of Exeter, who had been
+left there as governor. The English were successful at all points, and
+Queen Catherine having joined her husband, they held their court at the
+Louvre, where they sat in their coronation robes, with their crowns on
+their heads, as naturally as if they had formed a part of "the Royal
+Family at Home" in Madame Tussaud's far-famed collection of wax-work.
+
+In the midst of his victorious career in France, Henry had started off
+to the relief of a town invested by the dauphin--an investment that was
+profitable to nobody. The English king had reached Corbeil, when he
+was taking suddenly ill, and throwing himself on a litter, he declared
+himself to be literally tired out with his exertions. Having been taken
+home to the neighbourhood of Vincennes, and put to bed, he summoned
+his brother, the Duke of Bedford, and some other nobles, to whom he
+recommended amity; but, above all, he advised them to continue the
+alliance with Burgundy, whose habit of sticking to his friends has given
+the name of Burgundy to the well-known pitch plaster. Having appointed
+his brothers Gloucester and Bedford regents, the one for England and the
+other for France, during the minority of his son, he seemed perfectly
+resigned; but his attendants literally roared like a parcel of children,
+so that he was compelled to tell them that crying would do no good to
+anybody. He died on the 31st of August, 1422, aged thirty-four, having
+reigned ten years with some credit to himself, and in full, as far as
+conquest may be desirable, with advantage to his country.
+
+On the death of a king, it had been usual for the attendants to rush
+helter-skelter out of the room, and ransack the house of the deceased
+monarch, while his successor generally made the best of his way down to
+the treasury. Henry the Fifth was an exception to the rule, for he had
+earned so much respect in his lifetime, that at his death there was
+no indecorum, but a desire was manifested to give him the benefit of a
+decent, and indeed a magnificent, funeral. When a king of England had
+died abroad on previous occasions, his remains were seldom thought
+worthy of the expense of carriage to his own country; but in this
+instance no outlay was considered too extravagant to bestow on the
+funeral procession of the sovereign. Hundreds of mutes followed, with
+that mute solemnity which is the origin of their name: and on this
+occasion there were hundreds of knights, all in the deepest mourning.
+Several esquires had their armour black-leaded, and their plumes dyed in
+ink, while the king of Scotland acted as chief mourner, and the widow of
+the deceased sovereign came in at the end of the gloomy retinue. On its
+arrival in England, when it drew near London, fifteen bishops popped on
+their pontifical attire, and ran to meet it; while the abbots, taking
+down their mitres from the hat-pegs in the halls of their houses,
+sallied forth to join the sad procession. The remains of the king were
+carried to Westminster Abbey, and consigned to the tomb with every token
+of esteem, and the reverence it had been customary to show to the rising
+sun alone, was on this occasion extended to the luminary that had just
+set in unusual glory. The queen, desirous of evincing her affection for
+such a prince, caused a silver-gilt statue as large as life to be placed
+on the top of his monument. This piece of extravagance was, however,
+before the invention of British Plate, or that "perfect substitute
+for silver," which is a perfect substitute in everything but value,
+strength, purity, appearance, and durability.
+
+In painting the character of Henry the Fifth, the English historians
+have used the most brilliant colours, while the French writers have
+thrown in some shades of the most Indian-inky blackness. The former
+have been lavish in the use of _couleur de rose_, while the latter
+have selected the very darkest hues, and, indeed, produced a picture
+resembling those dingy profiles which give a hard outline of the
+features, but render it impossible for us to judge of the aspect or
+complexion of the original. It is for us to look at both sides, like the
+apparently inconsistent pendulum, which, by constantly oscillating from
+right to left, becomes the instrument of furnishing a faithful record of
+the time.
+
+Henry the Fifth was devoted to the happiness of his people; but he had
+sometimes an odd way of showing his attachment, by ill-using the few for
+the satisfaction of the many. Thus, he persecuted the Lollards in the
+most cruel manner, out of the purest condescension towards the clergy,
+who had got up a clamour against the sect alluded to. This obliging
+disposition may be carried too far, when it urges the commission of an
+injustice to one party, in order to favour another, and the persecution
+of the Lollards at the call of the clergy was a good deal like an
+acquiescence in a cry of "throw him over" got up in the gallery of a
+theatre, against some unfortunate who may have incurred the momentary
+displeasure of a "generous British audience."
+
+The military exploits of Henry the Fifth have been praised by English
+historians, but the French writers have contrived to show that even
+the battle of Agincourt was nothing more than a mistake, s like the one
+which happened at Waterloo about four centuries afterwards.
+
+"He ought to have been conquered at Agincourt," say the annalists of
+France, but we are quite content that his conduct was not precisely what
+it ought to have been--according to them--on this great occasion.
+
+Some praise, has been given him for his tact in negotiating with the
+Duke of Burgundy and the dauphin at the same time, but we must confess
+that our notions of honour do not permit us to approve the act of
+temporising with two parties for the purpose of joining that which might
+prove to be the strongest. He was brave, beyond a doubt, but he was
+cruel in the treatment of some of the prisoners who fell into his hands,
+and we cannot give him the benefit of the presumption suggested by a
+French historian, that if he hanged a quantity of unfortunate captives,
+he had probably very good reasons of his own for doing so. *
+
+     * Pour les autres qui furent executes dans le meme temps
+     j'en ignore les raisons, mais il est a presumer, &c., &c.--
+     Rapin, tom, iii, p. 504.
+
+Among the other defects attributed to the character of Henry the Fifth
+is a degree of shabbiness towards the people in his employ, whom he is
+said to have paid very inadequately for their services. Considering,
+however, that the liberality of kings is often practised at the expense
+of the people, and that Henry was so crippled in his own means that the
+crown jewels were, on one occasion, pawned, we have no right to blame
+him for refusing to reward his soldiers with what could only have been
+the proceeds of plunder.
+
+In person Henry the Fifth was tall and majestic, but his neck was a
+little too long, which may have given him that supercilious air for
+which some of his biographers have censured him. In his social habits
+he resembled the celebrated Mynheer Von Dunk, of antiintoxication
+notoriety, for Henry "never got drunk," even with success, which is of
+all things the most fatal to temperance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE THIRD. HENRY THE SIXTH, SURNAMED OF WINDSOR.
+
+
+[Illustration: 280]
+
+THE SIXTH was not out of his long frocks when he came to the throne,
+for he had not yet completed the ninth month of his little existence.
+Though he succeeded peacefully to the crown, he was in arms from the
+first hour of his reign; and though he was not born literally with a
+silver spoon in his mouth, he had one there on his accession to the
+throne, for he was being fed at the very moment that the news of
+his father's death was announced in the royal nursery. It is easy
+to conceive the interesting proceedings that took place on its being
+proclaimed that the child, then in the act of having its food, had
+become the king of England. A clean bib was instantly brought, and he
+was apostrophised as a little "Kingsey Pingsey," a "Monarchy Ponarchy,"
+and was addressed by many other of those titles of affectionate loyalty
+which are to be found nowhere but in the nursery dialect. A Parliament
+was summoned to meet in November, 1422, and, the regency being a good
+thing, there commenced a desperate struggle as to who should be allowed
+to have and to hold the baby. The Duke of Gloucester claimed the post
+of nurse, in the absence of his elder brother, the Duke of Bedford. The
+lords named the latter President of the Council, but while he was away
+the former was permitted to act as his deputy, and, what was more to
+Gloucester's purpose, he was allowed to receive the salary of L5333
+per annum. Having got the money and the power, Gloucester was not
+particularly anxious to have the charge of the royal baby, who was
+accordingly handed over to the Earl of Warwick, jointly with Henry
+Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, a half-brother of Henry the Fourth, who
+had also a high seat--convenient, by-the-way, for the infant king--in
+the council.
+
+This Beaufort was the second son of John of Gaunt, and founder of the
+illustrious family of the Beauforts, who derive their original
+nobility from an ancestor who was _beau_ and _fort_--strong as well as
+good-looking. If aristocracy in these days were derivable from the same
+source, the handsome and brawny drayman might take his seat in the House
+of Lords, while ticket-porters, coalheavers, railway navigators, and
+other representatives of the physical force party would constitute an
+extensive peerage, of what dramatic authors, when they write for the
+gallery, are in the habit of apostrophising as "Nature's noblemen." The
+Beauforts, besides the good looks and strength of their founder, had
+collateral claims to muscular eminence. The uncle of the first Beaufort
+was called John of Gaunt, from his gaunt or gigantic stature; and one of
+the family had been, in 1397, created Duke of Somerset, most likely on
+account of the somersets he was able to turn by sheer force of sinew.
+
+We beg pardon for this slight digression, but as there are many who take
+a deep and reverential interest in everything appertaining to rank, it
+may be gratifying to them to know the precise origin of some of our most
+ancient and most aristocratic families.
+
+Let us then resume the thread of our history. Bedford was still in
+France, and, in the month of October, King Charles the Sixth expired
+at Paris. The dauphin was at Auvergne, with a set of six or seven
+seedy followers, who could not muster the means of proclaiming him in
+a respectable manner. They hurried off altogether to a little roadside
+chapel, and having one banner among the whole lot, with the French arms
+upon it, they raised it amid feeble shouts of "Long live the king,"
+aided by a few "hurrahs" from some urchins on the exterior of the
+building. This farce having been performed, and the title given to it
+of "The proclamation of Charles the Seventh," the party repaired to
+luncheon at the king's lodgings. Having come into a little money by the
+death of his father, he went with a few friends to Poictiers, where
+a coronation, upon a limited scale, was performed, at an expense
+exceedingly moderate.
+
+While this contemptible affair was going on in a French province, the
+Duke of Bedford was busy, in Paris, getting up a demonstration in
+favour of the infant Henry. Fealty was sworn towards the British baby
+in various great towns of France; and Bedford, anxious to cement the
+alliance with Burgundy, married the duke's sister, Anne; though it seems
+strange that he should have calculated upon a marriage as a source
+of harmony. He must have had a strong faith in wedded life, to have
+anticipated a good understanding as the effect of that which so
+frequently opens the door to perpetual discord.
+
+While Bedford was making strenuous exertions to promote the ascendency
+of the English in France, the nominal king of that country, Charles the
+Seventh, had given himself up to selfish indulgences. His energies were
+diluted in drink; but a few vigorous men, who were about him, forced
+him occasionally into the field, from which he always sneaked out on the
+first opportunity. He was compelled to engage in two or three actions,
+and was defeated in all, though he had the benefit of about seven
+thousand Scotch, under the command of the Earl of Buchan; and threatened
+to cure his enemies of their hostility by administering a few doses of
+Buchan's domestic medicine. After two or three reverses, Charles thought
+his army strong enough to attempt to relieve the town of Ivry, which, in
+the summer of 1424, was besieged by the Duke of Bedford.
+
+Charles's force consisted of a strange mixture of Scotchmen, Italians,
+and Frenchmen, who were all continually giving way to their national
+prejudices, and quarrelling in broken French, broken Italian, or broken
+Scotch,--which is a dialect something between a sneeze, a snore, and a
+howl, spiced with a dash of gutturalism, and mixed together in a
+whine of surpassing mournfulness. The French declared the Scotch were
+mercenaries, who had an "itching palm;" but the Scotch savagely replied,
+that "they came to the scratch with a true itch for glory."
+
+While the three parties were engaged in a vigorous self-assertion, and
+were loud in praise of their own valour, they caught a glimpse of the
+English force--and, halting in dismay, retreated without drawing a
+sword. The garrison of Ivry, which had been waiting the approach of its
+friends, who were to do such wonders, and had been watching the scene
+with intense anxiety from the battlements, could only murmur out the
+words "pitiful humbugs," and surrender at discretion.
+
+By some lucky chance--or, as other historians have it, by the revolt of
+the inhabitants--Charles and his mongrel army had got possession of the
+town of Vemeuil, which was a very strong position. They had scarcely got
+snugly in, when the Duke of Bedford presented himself before the walls,
+and a council was instantly held, to consider how they should get
+out again. Everybody talked at once, and a mixed jargon of Scotch and
+French, flavoured occasionally with a little Italian sauce, was the only
+result of the deliberation of the gallant army. At length, by common
+consent, they ran away, preferring to fight in an open field, if they
+must fight at all--for there would then be more margin for escape, or
+latitude for bolting, in the event of their getting the worst of it.
+
+So rapid was their desertion of the town, that they left behind them all
+their luggage, which was perhaps a wise precaution, for they were thus
+enabled to run the faster, in case of having to execute a retreat,
+which was one of the military manouvres in which they had had the most
+experience.
+
+The two armies were now in presence of each other, and on both sides the
+feeling was like that of the young lady who "wondered when them figures
+was a-going to move," at an exhibition of wax-work. The Earl of Douglas,
+with Scotch caution, wanted to wait, but the Count of Narbonne, with
+French impetuosity, was for making a beginning, and rushed forward,
+shouting "Mountjoye St. Denis!"--which was synonymous, in those days,
+with "Go it!" in ours. The whole line followed, helter-skelter and
+pell-mell, so that when they got up to the stakes the English had run
+into the ground--to show, perhaps, they had a stake in the country--the
+French were out of breath, out of sorts, and out of order. They were
+miserably panting, but not panting for glory, and the punches in the
+ribs they got from the English, made them roar out like so many paviours
+in full work--as they always are--down Fleet Street. Their temporary
+want of wind was soon changed into permanent breathlessness, and thus,
+in spite of all their boasting, there was a miserable end to their
+puffing.
+
+The battle was very severe, for they had been "at it" for three hours.
+Douglas, it being before the time when "the blood of Douglas could
+protect itself," was slain. Buchan, who had been taunted by his allies
+with being nothing better than a buccaneer, also fell, and the French
+lost a countless number of counts, as well as a host of miscellaneous
+soldiers. The Italians, who had boastingly called themselves the Italian
+cream of the army, turned out to be the merest milksops, and kept as
+much out of harm's way as possible. The Duke of Bedford ordered the
+heads of several prisoners to be cut off, and the Bedford executions
+were so numerous, that the heads-man's axe got the name of "the Bedford
+level."
+
+The battle of Vemeuil had been fought on the 17th of August, 1424, and
+Charles the Seventh seemed on the eve of bankruptcy; both in cash and
+credit. His money was all gone, and his friends had--of course--gone
+after it. Fortune, however, favoured him, at the expense of his enemies,
+for they began to disagree with each other. To say that there was a
+quarrel is equivalent to saying that there was a woman in the case,
+and the woman was--upon this occasion--the celebrated Jacqueline of
+Hainault. This prize specimen of a virago was the daughter of the
+Count of Hainault, and the niece of John the Merciless, from whom she
+inherited all that coarse unwomanly bluster, which, in one of the fair
+sex, is called by courtesy "a proper spirit." She had been married to
+a little bit of a boy of fifteen, her cousin-german and her godson,--an
+urchin commonly known as John Duke of Brabant. Jacqueline, who was
+beautiful and bold, was no match--or, rather, was more than a match--for
+a stripling not half way through his teens at the time of his marriage.
+The puny lad had got into bad company, and was surrounded by a set of
+low favourites. The masculine Jacqueline was not exactly the woman
+to submit tamely to any injury, and taking offence at one of her
+boy-husband's friends, she had him murdered.
+
+This stamped her as that most objectionable of characters, an
+acknowledged heroine, and she became "a woman of strong mind" in all
+the chronicles of the period. Her liliputian husband was persuaded to
+retaliate by dismissing all his wife's ladies-in-waiting, upon which
+Jacqueline became a greater vixen than ever.
+
+After a powerful scene of domestic pantomime, in which she alternately
+tore her hair and that of her husband, she declared her determination
+to leave him. "A thplendid riddanthe," lisped the aggravating boy; upon
+which Jacqueline, making another rush at his hair, and taking a large
+lock of it in her hands--not, however, to be preserved as a pledge of
+affection--she hurried off to Valenciennes, and thence to Calais.
+The runaway next made for England, where she remained on a visit
+with Henry's queen, Catherine, at Windsor Castle. Here she soon began
+flirting with the king's brother, the Duke of Gloucester, and though the
+poor man was not deeply in love with her, he was persuaded to agree to a
+marriage.
+
+Jacqueline being already the wife of another, was compelled to seek a
+dispensation from Pope Martin V., but he looked at the matter with an
+unfavourable eye, when Jacqueline, making a coarse allusion to her own
+eye and a female branch of the Martin family, despatched a messenger to
+the opposition pope, the thirteenth Benedict. Being a Benedict he could
+not consistently oppose a marriage, and he granted the dispensation
+immediately.
+
+Gloucester, who had determined on making his new wife profitable, if
+she could not be pleasant, claimed without delay her possessions in
+Hainault, Holland, and elsewhere, which she had inherited. It was a few
+weeks after the battle of Vemeuil, which we have recently described,
+that Gloucester and his considerably better-half--in quantity if not in
+quality--started off with a large army to take possession of Hainault.
+They soon frightened the inhabitants of the capital, of which they made
+themselves master and mistress, without any previous warning. Philip,
+Duke of Burgundy, the uncle of the boy-Duke of Brabant, was very angry
+at the lad's wife coming to cheat the boy, as it were, out of his
+property. After a good deal of hard struggling to keep his position at
+Hainault, Gloucester came to the determination that his wife was not
+worth the bother she occasioned him, and he accordingly went home,
+leaving her to defend herself as well as she could, when she was
+instantly besieged, given up to the Duke of Burgundy, by the inhabitants
+of Mons, and sent to Ghent in close imprisonment.
+
+Neither bolts nor bars could restrain the impetuosity of this tremendous
+woman, who burst from her prison, ana putting on male attire, which
+became her much better than her own, she escaped into Holland. It was
+not to be expected that a fighting woman would remain very long without
+followers, and the "Hainault Slasher"--as Jacqueline might justly be
+called--soon mustered a strong party in her favour. The novelty of
+going to battle with a woman for a leader told well at first, but as
+the attraction wore off her soldiers dwindled away by degrees, until
+her forces became utterly insignificant. Even her chosen Gloucester
+took advantage of her absence to treat his marriage as a nullity, and
+to unite himself with Miss Eleanor, the daughter of Lord Cobham. The
+desertion of the husband she preferred was in some degree compensated
+by the death of the husband she hated, for the boy-Duke of Brabant lived
+only until April, 1427, and thus, by the abandonment of one, and the
+decease of the other, she became doubly dowagered. Still she continued
+to struggle with the Duke of Burgundy, but she was now advancing in
+years, and her efforts became perfectly old-womanish.
+
+The summer of 1428 was the means of bringing her to her senses, for she
+was severely drubbed by the duke, and finally quelled in a career as
+unbecoming to her age and sex as it was inimical to her interest. She
+agreed to recognise Burgundy as direct heir, at her death, to all she
+possessed, and he made her hand over everything at once, which was a
+capital plan for making sure of his inheritance.
+
+We have, however, devoted to the Hainault vixen more time and space than
+she is perhaps worth, but we have thought it better to dispose of her
+off-hand, to prevent so disagreeable a person from again intruding
+herself on the pages of our history.
+
+From the time the English took possession of Paris, Orleans, like a ripe
+and tempting Orleans plum, had been the object of their desires. The
+French knew the importance of the place, and had concentrated within it
+ammunition, eatables, and stores of every description. Barrels of beef,
+and barrels of gunpowder--hams and jams--wine for the garrison and
+grape for the foe--preserves for themselves and destructives for their
+enemies, were laid up in abundance in the city of Orleans. In addition
+to all these articles, enormous supplies of corn had been poured into
+the place, which contained something superior even to the corn, for it
+held all the flower of the French nobility. Regardless of these
+facts, the Earl of Salisbury began to attack the city, and the English
+commenced an attempt to scale the walls, but having some missiles thrown
+at them from above, those engaged in the scale soon lost their balance.
+Salisbury, nevertheless, persevered by attacking some other point; but
+the garrison determined to pay him off, and having recourse to their
+shells, they shelled out with such effect as to kill the English leader.
+Salisbury was succeeded by the Earl of Suffolk, who employed the winter
+of 1428 in cutting trenches round the city, and throwing up redoubts,
+which rendered him very redoubtable.
+
+Orleans was thus cut off from the chance of further supplies, and the
+awful words, "When that's all gone you'll have no more," began to be
+whispered into the ears of the inhabitants. Charles himself was for
+surrendering, and several mealy-mouthed courtiers, who feared they
+should soon be without a meal for their mouths, seconded the king in his
+pusillanimous project. Others were for holding out instead of giving
+in, and Charles's fortune seemed to be at the lowest ebb, when a letter
+arrived from one of the posts to announce the prospect of an early
+delivery. This early delivery was not, however, to be looked for by the
+mail, but by that illustrious female, Joan of Arc, familiarly known as
+the Maid of Orleans.
+
+Charles, who had little faith in the power of a female to get one out of
+a scrape, and who believed the tendency of the interference of the sex
+to be a good deal the other way, burst out into a fit of immoderate
+laughter at hearing the news that had been brought to him. "Never
+laughed so much in my life," occasionally ejaculated the French king,
+as the tears rolled down his cheeks, in double-distilled drops of the
+extract of merriment. He, nevertheless, granted her permission to
+give him a look-in when she was coming that way; but it was more from
+curiosity, or to have another hearty laugh at the Maid's expense, that
+he consented to an interview. Joan arrived, with her squires and four
+servants; but even this retinue, small as it was, must have been larger
+than her narrow circumstances could have fairly warranted. The two
+squires could have got in the service of two knights a certain sum per
+day, and the four servants, at a time when war was being waged, might
+have obtained better wages than a poor and friendless girl would
+possibly have paid to them. These, or similar reflections, occurred to
+some of the people about the court of Charles, who, considering that
+Joan must be an impostor, advised his majesty to have nothing to do
+with her. At all events, it was deemed as well that her previous history
+should be known; and as the reader may wish for the character of the
+Maid, before permitting her to engage even his attention, we will, at
+once, say what we know concerning her.
+
+Joan was the child of a brace of peasants, in a wild and hilly district
+of Lorraine, on the borders of Champagne, a country of which she
+seems in a great degree to have imbibed the qualities. Living in the
+neighbourhood of the sparkling and effervescing Champagne, her head
+became turned, or, at least, began to be filled with those bold
+aspirations which the _genius loci_ might have had some share in
+engendering. It is undeniable that when a mere child, she delighted
+to roam about for the purpose of drinking at the great fountain of
+inspiration, which Champagne so abundantly supplies, and she would often
+go on until she heard voices--or a sort of singing in her ears--which
+told her she was destined for great achievements. Her birth-place was
+a short distance from the town of Vaucouleurs, at a little hamlet called
+Domremy, into which faction and dissatisfaction had so far forced their
+way, that the children used to pelt the children of the next village
+with mud and stones, on account of their political differences. Joan's
+attachment to her native soil caused her to be among the foremost of
+those who took up earth by handfulls, and threw each other's birthplace
+in each other's faces. Being in the habit of holding horses at
+a watering-house on the Lorraine road, she frequently heard the
+conversation of the waggoners, and, amid their "Gee-wos!" the woes of
+France were sometimes spoken of. Invisible voices now began to tell
+her that she was destined to set everything to rights, and to be her
+country's deliverer.
+
+Though her father called it "all stuff and nonsense," she had talked
+over an old uncle, a cartwright at Vaucouleurs, whom she persuaded
+of her fitness to repair the common weal, and the honest cartwright
+promised to assist her in putting a spoke into it. The brace of peasants
+were annoyed at the very high-flown notions of their offspring, and when
+she talked of going to King Charles, they asked her where the money was
+to come from for the purposes of her journey. Joan immediately had a
+convenient dream, appointing the governor of Vaucouleurs, one Sire de
+Baudricourt, her banker on this occasion.
+
+Under the guidance of her uncle, she visited the Sire, and told him the
+high honour her visions had awarded him, in naming him treasurer to her
+contemplated expedition. The Sire, not at all eager to become a banker
+on such unprofitable terms, refused at first to hear her story, or
+indeed to allow her to open an account, so that the first check she
+received was somewhat discouraging. He suggested that she should be sent
+home to her father with a strong recommendation to him to take a rod and
+whip all the rhodomontade completely out of her. Joan, however, cared
+little for what might be in pickle for herself while she was bent on
+preserving her country. She went constantly to the house of the Sire
+de Baudricourt, but he never allowed her to be let in, for he verily
+believed it would only have been opening the door to imposition.
+
+At length, more out of pity to his hall-porter than from any other
+motive, the Governor agreed to see that troublesome young woman who
+had given no peace to his bell since the first day of her arrival at
+Vaucouleurs. After the interview, Baudricourt came to the conclusion
+that Joan was crazed; but she declared she would walk herself literally
+off her legs, until they were worn down to the stump, if the Sire
+refused to stump up for the expenses of the journey. Some of the people
+beginning to believe the maid's story, she was enabled to get credit in
+Vaucouleurs for a few trappings as well as for a horse, and at the
+same time six donkeys, in the shape of two squires and four servants,
+consented to follow her.
+
+On the 15th of February, 1429, the Maid began her journey, in the course
+of which her companions frequently came to the conclusion that she was
+a humbug, and on arriving at a precipice they often threatened to throw
+her over. At length, all difficulties being surmounted, she arrived at
+Chinon, near Orleans, where Charles was residing. "I won't see her,"
+cried the king, upon hearing she had come; "I am not going to be bored to
+death by a female fanatic. A man who believes himself to be inspired
+is bad enough, but there is not a greater plague on earth than a
+woman-prophet." At length, after being pestered for three days, he
+consented to grant an interview to Joan, who stood unabashed by the
+sneers of the courtiers. Every word that flowed from her lips had the
+effect of curling fluid on the lips of those who listened. Some would
+have coughed her down, others began to crow over her, and the scene was
+a good deal like the House of Commons during the speech of an unpopular
+member, when Charles, who was a good deal struck by the assurance of the
+Maid, took her aside to have a little quiet talk with her.
+
+"Well, my good woman," he observed, "what is all this? Let me know your
+views as briefly as possible." Joan explained that her views
+consisted of magnificent visions, but Charles declared them to be
+mere jack-o'-lanterns of the brain, which were not worth attending to.
+Nevertheless, the earnestness of her manner had its effect, and the king
+sent her to Poictiers, where there was a learned university, and, though
+Joan was rather averse to the fellows, she allowed them to question her.
+Some of them began to assail her with their ponderous learning, but she
+cut them short by acknowledging that she did not know a great A or a
+little a from a bouncing B. She declared herself, however, ready to
+fight, and the learned men, who were not anxious for a contest with
+the Maid in her own style, pronounced a favourable opinion on her
+pretensions. To raise the siege of Orleans, and take the dauphin to be
+crowned at Rheims, were the feats she undertook to perform. As one
+trial would prove the fact, Charles consented to grant it. The soldiers,
+however, refused to follow her until they had seen how she would manage
+a horse, and they consequently all stood round her while she went
+through a few scenes in the circle. One of them, who acted as a kind
+of clown in the ring, put a lance into her hand, which she wielded with
+great dexterity, while she was still in the performance of her rapid act
+of horsemanship.
+
+Joan having passed her examination with success, was invested with the
+rank of a general officer. In spite of her masculine undertaking, there
+was still enough of the woman in her disposition to induce her to be
+very particular in ordering her own armour and accoutrements. She had
+herself measured for an entirely new suit of polished metal, her banner
+was white, picked out with gold, and her horse was as white as milk
+when properly chalked for metropolitan consumption. The Maid looked
+exceedingly well when made up, and people flocked round her with intense
+curiosity; for if even the man in brass at the Lord Mayor's Show will
+attract a mob, a woman regularly blocked in by block tin was a novelty
+that everyone would be sure to run after. Full of enthusiasm, she
+started off to the relief of Orleans, and the garrison, encouraged
+by her approach, sallied out upon the besiegers with unusual vigour,
+exclaiming "The Maid is come!" and the result realised the old saying
+that "where there's a will, there's a way," or in the Latin proverb,
+_possunt_ (they can) _qui_ (who) _videntur_ (seem) _posse_ (to be able).
+
+With the aid of the _posse comitatus_ the object was achieved, and it
+may, perhaps, have happened that the superstitious fears of the English
+had much to do with the result of the battle. They declared that she
+was a witch, and some of them pretended to have seen her looking at them
+with great saucer eyes, which was, in those days, a test of sorcery.
+The sentinels at night got so nervous, that they used to be startled by
+their own shadows in the moon, and would run away, declaring that they
+were pursued by black figures stretched on the ground, from which there
+was no escaping. Others declared the stars were all out of order, and
+that they heard the band of Orion playing, out of tune, at midnight.
+Some declared they had seen a horse galloping along the Milky Way, and
+they inferred that Joan of Arc sent her steed along it at full speed to
+keep up his milky whiteness.
+
+The English army had been completely panic-struck by the successes of
+Joan, which were owing nearly equally to the zeal she inspired in her
+friends and to the superstition of her enemies. She caused a letter to
+be written to the latter, in her name, strongly advising them to "give
+it up," and now she determined to give them a bit of a speech from the
+ramparts of Orleans. Taking her place on the top of a ladder resting
+against a high wall, she advised them to "be off;" "that it was no
+use;" they were "only wasting their time there;" and recommended that,
+if they had business elsewhere, they had better go and attend to it. Sir
+William Gladesdale, an English leader, rose to reply amid cries of
+"Down, down!" "Off, off!" "Hear him!" "Oh, oh!" and the usual
+ejaculations which a difference of opinion in a crowd has always
+elicited. As soon as Sir William could obtain a hearing, he was
+understood to advise the Maid to "go home and take care of her cows;"
+upon which Joan cleverly replied, that if "a calf were an object of care
+as well as a cow, he (Sir William Gladesdale) ought to be placed at once
+in safe keeping." The knight, finding the laugh against him, sat down
+without another word, and Joan became more popular than ever after this
+little incident.
+
+It was part of the plan of the Maid to work upon the imagination of the
+foe, and an amanuensis was employed to write another threatening letter,
+in her name, to the English soldiers. The communication was thrown
+into the midst of them, and Joan, being anxious to know what effect
+it produced, stood on the ramparts to overhear what they said to it.
+"Listeners never hear any good of themselves," and the Maid had the
+mortification of listening to some fearful abuse of herself, which,
+perhaps, served her right, for her behaviour was, to say the least
+of it, exceedingly unladylike. Vanity became one of her most powerful
+incentives, and she took upon herself to disagree with the Governor of
+Orleans, the great captains, and all the military authorities, on points
+of military tactics. Joan was, in fact, a very impracticable person, but
+it was necessary to let her have her way to a considerable extent, on
+account of her immense popularity with the soldiers. She insisted on
+making an attack which was considered very premature, and, while leading
+it in person, she got knocked over into a ditch by a dart, which set her
+off crying very bitterly. A valiant knight picked her up and placed her
+in the rear, consoling her by saying, "There, there I you're not a great
+deal hurt. Come, come--dry your eyes. Don't cry, there's a good girl,"
+and other words of encouragement. Joan, feeling that it would not do for
+a heroine to be found roaring and whimpering at the first scratch she
+received, soon recovered her self-possession, and was soon at the ditch
+again, but on this occasion it was less for the purpose of fighting
+herself than of urging on others to battle.
+
+The English, though they did not know whether Joan was a witch or a
+what, were nevertheless ready to fight her on a fair field, if she would
+give them the opportunity. Her voices had not, however, given her the
+word of command, and she found it advisable to put a poultice on her
+neck, which rendered it necessary that she should keep for some days
+as quiet as possible. Her voices were often exceedingly considerate in
+refraining from advising her to go to battle when she might have got the
+worst of it. In this instance they were accommodating enough to give her
+the opportunity of nursing her neck for at least a limited period. The
+English waited a little time for the Maid, expecting that she would
+prove herself a "maid-of-all-work" by venturing to go single-handed
+into a very difficult place, but, as she did not make the attempt, they
+retired with flying colours. These colours, had they been warranted not
+to run, might never have left Orleans, but on the 8th of May, 1429, the
+siege was raised, and the reputation of the English army considerably
+lowered.
+
+On the strength of this event, Joan went to meet King Charles, who
+received her very affably, and the courtiers proposed inviting her to
+a public dinner. This honour she politely declined, for--like the
+celebrated Drummond--she was "averse to humbug of any description" but
+that which she had made for her own use, and after-dinner speeches were
+matters she held in utter abhorrence. She objected strongly to that
+festive foolery which induces people who never met before to express
+hopes that they may often meet again, and which is the source of
+at least twenty proudest moments of about as many existences. Joan,
+therefore, urged her previous engagements as an excuse for going
+out nowhere, for she felt assured that if she encouraged a spirit of
+jolly-doeism among the troops, they would soon become neglectful of all
+their duties.
+
+Charles, urged by the example of Joan, determined to do a little
+soldiering himself, and had his armour taken out of his box, the rust
+rubbed off, the shoulder-straps lengthened, the leggings let down, the
+breastplate let out, and other alterations made, to adapt it to the
+change in his figure since he had last worn his martial trappings.
+Though he took the field, it was in the capacity of an amateur, for his
+modesty--or some other feeling--kept him constantly in the background,
+and after the battle of Patay, which was fought and won by the French,
+the cries of "Where is Charles? What's become of the king?" were loud
+and general. The Maid found him reposing on his laurels, or, rather,
+under them, for he had concealed himself in a thick hedge of evergreens,
+from which he declined to emerge until his question of "Is it all
+right?" had received from Joan's lips a satisfactory answer. The
+object of her visit was to persuade him to accompany her to Rheims, to
+celebrate his coronation in the cathedral of that city. "It's not a bad
+idea," said Charles, "but premature, I'm afraid, and so at present we
+will not think of it." Joan would, however, take no refusal. On the 15th
+of July, 1429, the French king made his solemn entrance into that city.
+He was crowned two days after, and, though not one of the peers of
+France were present at the ceremony, it went off with quite as much
+spirit as anyone might venture to anticipate.
+
+Philip, the Duke of Burgundy, declined an invitation from the Maid, who
+pointed out to him the folly of fighting against his own king, when,
+if he wanted war, the Turks were always ready to fight or be fought,
+to have their heads cut off, or oblige anyone else by making the thing
+reciprocal. The Duke of Burgundy still kept aloof, but Joan continued
+to be successful without his assistance, and took several towns, chiefly
+from the readiness with which they were given up to her. Many of the
+people looked upon her as something preternatural, and they even fancied
+her white banner was always surrounded by butterflies, though truth
+compels us to state that these fancied butterflies were probably
+harvest-bugs, which, at about the period of the year when the phenomenon
+was supposed to have been seen, were most likely to be fluttering
+blindly and blunderingly about the Maid's standard. Many of the French
+officers, jealous of her success, attempted to malign her character.
+No tiger could have stood up for his respectability more furiously than
+Joan defended her reputation; and, indeed, she made so much fuss,
+to vindicate her fair fame, that we might have suspected her of
+impropriety, had not all the historians agreed in coming to an opposite
+conclusion. It was evident that Joan, having made one or two lucky hits,
+was anxious to back out before she damaged her reputation by failure.
+When asked what she would do if allowed to retire, she declared she
+would return and tend her sheep; nor did the cruel sarcasm of "Oh, yes,
+with a hook!"--which some courtier would throw in--divert her at all
+from her humble purpose. Having the rank of a general, she might perhaps
+have claimed the right to sell out or retire on half-pay, but she was
+anxious to return to her lowing herds, which caused Charles to say that
+for her to go and herd with anything so low, would be indeed ridiculous.
+Her voices, however, began to confuse her, and perhaps to talk more than
+one at a time, as well as to say different things; for on one day she
+would speak of resuming her humble occupations, and on another day would
+make preparations for smashing the English.
+
+Fortune seemed to have deserted the English in France, and Bedford, the
+regent--like others of his countrymen, when they found their numbers
+inferior to those of the foe--had the coolness to propose settling the
+dispute by single combat. This ingenious device is like that of the
+gamester who has but a single pound, which he proposes to stake against
+the pound of him who has a hundred more, with the understanding that if
+the party who makes the proposition shall win, he shall walk off with
+all that belongs to his antagonist. Charles was rude enough, to make no
+reply to this offer, but about the middle of August, 1429, the English
+and French armies found themselves very unexpectedly in sight of each
+other, near Senlis. How they came to such close quarters no one seemed
+to know; but it is agreed on all hands, that both sides would have been
+very glad to get back again. Neither would venture to begin, and Charles
+requested to know what Joan of Arc's voices had to say upon such an
+important occasion. The Maid had unfortunately lost whatever voice she
+might have had, and could find nothing at all to say for herself. The
+king was eager to know whether his army might commence the attack, but
+Joan's voices said not a word, and as their silence was not of the sort
+which Charles considered capable of giving consent, he did not permit
+any assault to be begun by his soldiers. After looking at each other
+during three entire days, each army marched off the field by its
+own road, and nothing had taken place beyond the interchange of an
+occasional "Now then, stupid--what are you staring at?" between the
+advanced guards of either army.
+
+Though our business, as an historian, has taken us a good deal abroad,
+we must now return home, lest, in our absence, the thread of our
+narrative should have got into such a state of entanglement, as to
+cause ourselves and our readers difficulty in the necessary process
+of unravelling it. The 6th of November, 1429, was set apart for the
+coronation of the baby king, at Westminster; and, in a spirit worthy of
+the rising generation of the present day, his infant majesty insisted on
+the abolition of the protectorship. The notion that he could take care
+of himself had got possession of the royal mind; but the sequel of his
+reign afforded bitter proof of the extent of the fallacy. In 1430, he
+embarked for France, but the privy purse was again in such a disgraceful
+state, that the king had not the means of paying for his journey. The
+usual humiliating step was taken of sending the crown to the pawnbroker.
+We may here take occasion to remark, that though we frequently hear of
+the crown being put in pledge, we have no record of its being ever taken
+regularly and honestly out again. There can be little doubt that the
+people were unscrupulously taxed to rescue the regal diadem, which was
+no sooner redeemed than royal extravagance, or necessity, placed it
+again in its humiliating position. Had the same crown been transmitted
+regularly from hand to hand--or, rather, from head to head--it would
+have been perforated through and through by the multiplicity of tickets
+that from time to time have been pinned on to it.
+
+On this occasion, the jewels went to the pawnbroker's, as well as the
+crown, so that the regalia were huddled together as if they had been
+no better than a set of fire-irons. It is surprising, under all the
+circumstances, that the sceptre never figured in the catalogue of a sale
+of unredeemed pledges, and we cannot wonder that some of our sovereigns
+have chosen to rule with a rod of iron, as a cheap and durable, but a
+most disagreeable substitute. In addition to the means already alluded
+to, for filling his purse, the young king hit upon another mode of
+making money. Every one who was worth forty pounds a year, was forced
+to take up the honour of knighthood, and made to pay exorbitant fees
+for the undesired privilege. In this manner, many persons were dubbed
+knights, for the express purpose of making them dub up; and there is
+every reason to believe that the word "dub" has taken its meaning in
+relation to pecuniary affairs, from the arbitrary practice we have
+mentioned. Those illustrious families who trace their genealogy up to
+some knight who flourished in the time of Henry the Sixth, will not,
+perhaps, after this disclosure, be so very proud of their origin.
+We have had in our own day one or two who have been dignified with
+knighthood by mistake, instead of somebody else, but those who had
+greatness thrust upon them only for the sake of the fees, were scarcely
+less contemptible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FOURTH. HENRY THE SIXTH, SURNAMED OF WINDSOR (CONTINUED).
+
+
+[Illustration: 292]
+
+BEDFORD had for some time been struggling in France under the extreme
+disadvantage of shortness of cash, for the council being engaged in
+continual quarrelling at home, had become very irregular in sending
+remittances. He had gone week after week without his own salary, but he
+never grumbled at that until he found his army, from getting short
+of cash, beginning to fail in allegiance. Often, while reviewing the
+troops, if he complained of awkwardness in the evolutions, he would
+hear murmurs of "Why don't you pay us?" and on one occasion an insolent
+fellow, who had been bungling over the easy manouvre of standing at
+ease, cried out, "It's all very well to say 'Stand at ease,' but how
+is a man to stand at when he never receives his salary?" Upon another
+occasion, Bedford had given the word to "Charge!" when a suppressed
+titter ran through the ranks, and, on his demanding an explanation,
+he was told respectfully by one of his aides-de-camp that the troops
+thought it an irresistible joke to call upon them to "charge," when, if
+they charged ever so much, there was no prospect of their demand being
+satisfied. Bedford used to rush regularly every morning to the outpost,
+in the hope of finding a letter containing the means of liquidating some
+of the arrears of pay into which he had fallen with his soldiers. He
+was, however, always doomed to disappointment, for there was either no
+communication for him at all, or an intimation that "next week"--which
+never comes--would bring him the cash he was so eagerly waiting for. His
+repeated visits to the outpost usually ended in a shake of the head from
+the officer on duty, whose "No, sir; there's nothing for you," had in it
+a mixture of compassion and contempt, which are not always incompatible.
+
+Bedford, the regent, having left Paris, Charles thought that, the
+cat being away, the mice might be at play, and that the city would be
+unprepared if an attack should be made upon it. Beauvais and St. Denis
+opened their gates, but the Parisians were not so complaisant, and
+Charles, unwilling to resort to force, tried the effect of flummery. He
+issued proclamations, full of the most brilliant promises to his
+"good and loyal city," but the inhabitants replied by hanging out an
+allegorical banner, representing an individual in the act of offering
+some chaff to an old bird, who was refusing to be caught by it. Stung by
+this sarcasm, Charles determined to make an attack, and on the 12th of
+September he commenced an assault on the Faubourg St. Honore.
+
+Joan threw herself against the wall, but could make no impression upon
+it, and she could only lament that among the French artillery there was
+no mortar to be brought to bear upon the bricks of the city. She then
+resorted to other steps--or, rather, to a ladder--and had reached every
+successive round amid successive rounds of applause from her followers,
+when she was stopped by a wound, which fairly knocked her over. A
+friendly ditch received the disabled Joan, who went into it with a
+splash, which caused all her companions to basely run away, lest they
+should participate in the consequences of her downfall. Drenched and
+disheartened, sobbing, and in a perfect sop, the Maid crawled out of the
+ditch and lay down for a little while; but suddenly rising, and giving
+herself a shake, she made another rush at the battlements. A few better
+spirits, ashamed of seeing the weakest thus a second time going to the
+wall, joined her in her advance, but, meeting with resistance, they
+rolled back like a wave of the sea, almost swamping the Maid, and
+carrying her violently away with them.
+
+[Illustration: 294]
+
+Joan's influence had now begun to decline, for, though a heroine is
+popular as long as she succeeds, a woman who fails in her performance
+of the part is always ridiculous. She had also lost the favour of the
+soldiers by attacking them behind their backs, for she had flogged
+them with the flat of her sword till she broke the blade over their
+shoulders. They openly called her an impostor, a humbug, and a do; so
+that, hurt in her feelings as well as in her neck, wounded alike in
+mind and body, she resolved to quit the army. She even went to the Abbey
+church, and, fixing up a clothes-line, hung her white armour before the
+shrine of St. Denis. Charles supposed the articles had been put there to
+dry after the soaking the Maid had experienced in the ditch, but when he
+heard that Joan, as well as her coat of mail, was on the high ropes,
+he determined to take her down a peg as gently as possible. She was
+persuaded to prolong her stay, or, rather, to renew her engagement; and
+though, even after her military _debut_ at the siege of Orleans, she
+had wished it to be her "positively last appearance on any ramparts,"
+Charles had the satisfaction of announcing that she had in the
+handsomest manner consented to remain in his company. A constant renewal
+of an engagement will dim the attraction of the brightest star, and Joan
+was evidently on the wane as a popular favourite.
+
+In the beginning of 1430 there was a blight cessation of hostilities,
+and Charles remained at Bourges, where he was suffering under a severe
+exhaustion of his means and a general sinking in all his pockets. At
+this juncture, Joan met with a rival in the shape of an opposition
+prophetess, for it is always the fate of merit and success to become the
+subject of base and paltry imitation. Catherine of La Rochelle was
+the name of the female counterfeit who adapted her inspiration to the
+exigencies of the time, and, knowing the king to be short of cash,
+she pretended to have fits of financial foresight. She was, in fact, a
+visionary Chancellor of the Exchequer, running about with an imaginary
+budget, and transforming Charles's real deficiency into an ideal
+surplus. She affected to hear voices and to see visions; but the former
+were rude shouts of I.O.U., and the latter represented to her certain
+hidden treasure, which was hidden so well that it has never been found
+from that time to the present. She had the art of extracting money for
+the king's use from those who had any money to give, and a single speech
+from her mouth was sufficient to fill with coin any soup-plate or saucer
+that might be handed round to the audience. She boasted that she could
+talk every penny out of the purses of her hearers, and whenever she
+appeared, there was a general cry of "Take care of your pockets!"
+
+Joan called her an impostor, and was called "another" in return; but
+it was said by a quaint writer of the period that, whatever the Maid of
+Orleans might have done with the sword, the tongue of Catherine would
+give an antagonist a more complete licking than the most formidable
+weapon. Charles was attracted by the financial fanatic, but, still
+wishing to propitiate Joan, he ennobled her family, and declared that
+her native village of Domremy should for ever be exempt from taxes. It
+thus became one of the greatest rights of this place to forget the whole
+of its duties.
+
+At the opening of the spring, the French king advanced again towards
+Paris with two prophetesses in his suite, but, as two of a trade never
+agree--particularly if they happen to be of the gentler sex--the two
+young ladies were constantly quarrelling. It is probable that the
+presence of Catherine was the cause of putting Joan upon her mettle, for
+she marched to the relief of Compiegne with all her accustomed spirit.
+She had made up her mind to a repetition of the hit she had made at
+Orleans, but Victory did not answer her call or show any disposition to
+wait upon her. Joan fought with valour, but her soldiers had no sooner
+met the foe than they agreed that the chances were against them, and
+that the only way to bring themselves round was to turn immediately
+back, a manouvre which was performed by one simultaneous movement. Joan
+tried to rally them, but they were too far gone, and while she kept her
+face to the enemy, her old disaster befell her, for she backed into one
+of those ditches in which all her military exploits seemed doomed to
+ter-minate. There being no humane member of society, or member of the
+Humane Society, to give her the benefit of a drag from the water in
+which she was immersed, she was soon surrounded by her enemies. Her own
+companions had fled into the city and shut the gates upon her, against
+which she had not the strength to knock, when, mournfully murmuring
+out, "Alas! I am not worth a rap," she surrendered to her opponents. The
+sensation created by the capture of Joan of Arc was actually prodigious.
+The captains ran out of their positions, and the men left their ranks to
+have a peep at her. Duke Philip paid her a visit at her lodgings, in the
+presence of old Monstrelet, who was either so deaf, or so stupid, or so
+thunderstruck, that he could not relate what passed at the interview.
+The ungrateful French made no effort to release the Maid, and, indeed,
+there seemed to be a feeling of satisfaction at having got rid of her.
+Her captors showed a strong disposition to make much of her by turning
+the celebrated prophetess to a profit, and the person to whom she had
+surrendered--the Bastard of Vendome--sold her out and out to John of
+Luxembourgh. Friar Martin pretended to have a lien upon her; but John,
+refusing to have the lot put up again, and resold--in accordance with
+the usual practice in cases of dispute--cleared her off to a strong
+castle of his own in Picardy. Another pretended mortgagee of the Maid
+then started up in the person of the Bishop of Beauvais, who claimed her
+on behalf of the University of Paris. John of Luxembourgh disposed
+of her to his holiness for ten thousand francs, rather than have any
+further trouble.
+
+Poor Joan was committed to prison on the charge of witchcraft, and as
+a kind of preliminary to the proceedings in her own case, a woman who
+believed in the Maid was burned, _pour encourager les autres_ who might
+put faith in her inspiration. The fate of Joan was for some time very
+uncertain; but the learned doctors of the University of Paris, and other
+high authorities, recommended her being burned at once, which would save
+the trouble and expense of a previous trial. The Bishop of Beauvais,
+who had become the proprietor, by purchase, of the illustrious captive,
+recommended the adoption of regular legal proceedings. Priests and
+lawyers and lettered men were summoned from far and near; many of the
+legal gentlemen being specially retained, and all being practised in
+the art of cross-examination, to which Joan was subjected by those who
+conducted the case for the prosecution. Her trial was, throughout,
+a disgraceful exhibition of forensic chicanery, for her opponents
+attempted to puzzle her with hard words, which, in spite of her being
+charged with magic spells, she had not the power of spelling. The
+pleadings were shamefully complicated; but she defended herself with
+spirit, and occasionally confounded the doctors, who were confounded
+knaves, for they tried to take every advantage of her unfortunate
+position. Sixteen days were consumed in taking the evidence, and Joan
+sometimes made a point in her own favour, when the Bishop of Beauvais,
+sinking the dignity of the judge in the temporary office of usher, began
+to call lustily for silence; and, according to the modern practice of
+the officer of the court, making more noise than everyone else by the
+loudness of his vociferations.
+
+The bishop shouted and resorted to other ungentlemanly expedients,
+during the entire day, to damage the cause of Joan, who, nevertheless,
+proceeded as if in the midst of that silence which the usher in
+Westminster Hall is continually disturbing by loudly calling for. It was
+contended, on the part of the prosecution, that there was magic in her
+banner; but Joan, who had served the other side with notice to produce
+the banner, declared there was nothing particular in any part of it.
+The pole belonging to it was as plain as any other pike-staff, and the
+banner itself was formed of a cheap material, which Joan declared was
+all stuff; so that the banner was, of necessity, waived by her enemies.
+Her judges, nevertheless, declared there was sufficient evidence to
+support a charge of heresy, and began to deliberate on the manner of her
+punishment. While some recommended fire, others threw cold water upon
+it, and French, as well as English writers, have laboured to prove, that
+their countrymen, at least, were averse to a proceeding from which
+the term "burning shame" no doubt took the signification it bears at
+present. Having already found her guilty, her persecutors tried their
+utmost to urge her to acknowledge her guilt, for in the absence of
+proof, it was thought advisable to get at least a confession.
+
+At length, on the 24th of May, 1431, the Maid was brought up to hear
+her sentence, and the Bishop of Beauvais, taking out a pile of papers,
+endorsed _re_ Joan of Arc, declared himself ready to deliver his
+judgment. An opportunity was, however, allowed her to stay execution, on
+giving a _cognovit_, or acknowledgment of every charge brought against
+her; and such a document being drawn up, she reluctantly permitted Joan
+of Arc, X, her mark--for she could not write--to be affixed to it. Her
+punishment was commuted to perpetual imprisonment, with "the bread of
+sorrow and the water of affliction," which consisted of a stale loaf and
+a pull at the pump once a day, as her only nourishment.
+
+She found very few crumbs of comfort in her daily crust, and when the
+water was brought to her, she declared it to be very hard, which
+was certainly better than soft for drinking. It was a portion of her
+punishment to resume her female attire, which caused her considerable
+annoyance, and a soldier's dress having been left in her prison, she was
+one morning discovered wearing it. Her jailer, on entering, charged her
+with "trying it on," but added that it was anything but fitting, and
+told her that she would certainly be overhauled when he reported that he
+had seen her in a pair of military overalls.
+
+[Illustration: 297]
+
+The circumstance was instantly turned against her, and the putting on of
+male attire, which she had worn before, was declared to be a revival
+of the old suit, to which she had been liable. Her re-appearance in the
+soldier's dress was looked upon as a proof of uniform opposition to
+the authorities; and her offence was described as "relapsed heresy," or
+double guilt, like the "one cold caught on the top of t'other" by the
+boy who had been suffering under several layers of those disagreeable
+visitors. Judgment was now finally entered up against the ill-used Maid,
+who, on the 30th of May, 1431, was brought in a cart to the market-place
+and burned at Rouen.
+
+We would gladly draw a veil over the fate of poor Joan; but we are
+unwilling to spare those who were accessory to it, from the odium which
+increases whenever the facts are repeated. Cardinal Beaufort and some of
+the bishops who had been instrumental to the murder of the Maid, began
+to whimper when the ceremony commenced, and to find it more than their
+susceptible natures could bear to witness. They had ordered the atrocity
+that was about to take place; but conscience had made them such arrant
+cowards, that they had not the courage to witness the carrying out of
+their own savage suggestions. If persons so hard-hearted as themselves
+could feel so much affected by the sacrifice they had ordered, we may
+imagine what opinion ought to be entertained of them for commanding an
+act of atrocity which they dared not remain to contemplate.
+
+The conduct of Charles in not interfering on Joan's behalf, is even more
+cruel and despicable than that of her avowed enemies. The French
+king finding the Maid of no further use, came practically to a free
+translation of _Non eget arcu_ (there is no want of a Joan of Arc), and
+left her to the fate that awaited her. It would have been nothing but
+policy to have insured her life, which he might easily have done,
+even when she was threatened with burning, and her case became doubly
+hazardous.
+
+The English were very anxious to get up a sensation in France by way
+of diverting the public mind from the fate of the Maid of Orleans. A
+coronation, which is always one of the best cards to play, being good
+for a king or queen at the least, was thought of and resolved upon. The
+affair was intended to eclipse the ceremony of which Charles had been
+the hero and Joan of Arc the heroine. Young Henry, who had been crowned
+already at Westminster, and had therefore rehearsed the part he would
+be called upon to play, was brought over to Paris with all the scenery,
+machinery, dresses and decorations, properties and appointments, that
+had been used before, so that the coronation being in the _repertoire_
+of costly spectacles, the expense of its revival was moderate. The
+performance took place in November, 1431; but though the getting-up was
+very complete, the applause was scanty, and the attendance was by no
+means numerous. Cardinal Beaufort occupied a stall, and there was a
+fair sprinkling of people in the galleries; but' the principal character
+being a spiritless and most unpromising boy of nine, the spectacle
+excited very little interest.
+
+Things remaining in France in a very unsatisfactory state, Charles and
+Philip of Burgundy came to the resolution that it was folly to go
+on cutting one another's throats, and they consequently effected a
+compromise. Philip got the best of the bargain, which was solemnised
+by a great deal of swearing and unswearing; for as the parties had
+previously exchanged oaths of hostility toward each other, it was
+necessary to take the sponge and wipe out former affidavits, as well as
+to supply the blank with new oaths of an opposite character. There was
+a mutual interchange of perjury; and posterity, on looking at the
+respective culpabilities of the two parties, can only come to the
+conclusion, that they were _beaucoup d'un beaucoup_, or much of a
+muchness.
+
+The Duke of Bedford did not live long after this treaty, but died of
+indigestion, and considering that he had eaten an enormous quantity of
+his own words, the result is by no means marvellous. He finished up his
+existence at Rouen, on the 14th of September, 1435, having swallowed a
+parcel of his own oaths, some of which are supposed to have stuck in his
+throat, and caused his dissolution. The English in France soon felt the
+fatal consequences of being without a chief, for the columns of an army,
+like the columns of a journal, are incomplete without a leader. Deprived
+of Bedford, the English soldiers could no longer hold Paris--or, rather,
+Paris could no longer hold them--and they were consequently forced to
+surrender. The Duke of York succeeded to the command in France--if
+he can be said to have succeeded who failed in almost everything. A
+succession of reverses was the only thing approaching to success which
+he experienced; and a supersedeas was soon issued to overturn his
+commission.
+
+Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, did something towards restoring the English
+ascendency in France; but Philip of Burgundy thought he would try his
+hand at a siege, and fixed upon Calais as being the most convenient. The
+Duke of Gloucester, hearing he had a tremendous army assembled in front
+of the town, sent over to Philip an offer to fight him. "Only stop there
+till I get at you," were Gloucester's words; to which Burgundy replied,
+that he should be happy to wait the English duke's convenience. Four
+days, however, before the latter landed, the former was seized with
+a panic--and, taking suddenly to his heels, his thirty thousand men
+scampered wildly after him. Philip, who had set the example, and
+must have been flighty to have commenced such an insane flight, was
+completely run off his legs by the ruck of fugitives in his rear; and
+he was swept into the very heart of Flanders, before he could ascertain
+what his soldiers were driving at. Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, did
+something towards retrieving the failing fortunes of the English; but,
+as both parties were getting into a nervous state--running away through
+sheer panics, crying out before they were hurt, and flying before they
+were pursued--a truce was agreed upon. It was for two years, to expire
+on the 1st of April, 1446,--and there could not have been a more
+appropriate day than that devoted to All Fools, to renew hostilities
+which were injurious to all parties.
+
+Henry, of Windsor, was now twenty-four; but, though a man in years,
+he was still an infant in intellect. He was physically full-grown, but
+mentally a dwarf; and what had been in childhood the gentleness of
+the lamb, became in manhood downright sheepishness. His conversational
+powers would not have allowed him to say "bo to a goose," had it
+been necessary for him to address to that foolish bird that unmeaning
+monosyllable. Even his mother had turned her back upon him, as a noodle
+she could make nothing of, and had married Owen Tudor, Esquire, an
+obscure gentleman of Wales, who boasted, nevertheless, a royal descent,
+or at least maintained that the Tudors were so called from being not
+above Two-doors off from such illustrious lineage. The Queen-mother had
+died, but had left a lot of little Tudors, under the care of O. T., her
+_bourgeois gentilhomme_ of a husband.
+
+Henry being a mere nonentity, it was resolved to try and make something
+of him by finding him a wife of spirit; as if small beer could be turned
+into stout by mixing a quantity of gin with it. Margaret of Anjou was
+selected for the formation of this deleterious compound. She was one
+of those intolerable nuisances--a fine woman, with a great deal of
+decision, which means that she was decidedly disagreeable. Her
+father was a nominal king of Sicily and Jerusalem; but he had no real
+dominions, and only rented, as it were, a brass plate, or had his name
+up over the door of the countries specified. He was as poor as a cup of
+tea after the fifth water, and ruled over about as much land as he could
+cram into a few flower-pots which adorned the window of his lodging. He
+kept a minister who answered the bell and the purpose at the same
+time, and was accustomed to wait at table. His majesty's apartment was
+furnished with a sort of dresser covered with green baize, which formed
+a board of green cloth; and he had several sticks-in-waiting in his
+umbrella stand. His _robe de matin_ was his robe of state; he had a
+green silk privy purse, and an ormolu cabinet. He had a keeper of the
+great seal which hung to his watch; and his bureau comprised a secretary
+for the home department, in which he kept all his washing-bills. He
+dispensed with a master of the horse by keeping no horse of his own, and
+he always had plenty of gentlemen-in-waiting, in the shape of creditors.
+He saved the expense of a paymaster by paying nobody; and though he
+issued Exchequer Bills, they were not only at very long dates, but
+wholly unworthy of anyone's acceptance. He was his own Chancellor of his
+own Exchequer, for he used to declare, with much apparent integrity that
+his government should never be degraded by useless sinecures. "Whenever
+there is nothing to do," he would philosophically exclaim, "I consider
+it my duty to do it." He usually resided in Sicily when he was at home,
+but he kept in his court--at the back of his lodging--a few Jerusalem
+artichokes, to represent the interests of his other kingdom of
+Jerusalem. He used to make a financial statement every now and then, for
+the sake of clearing himself of his debts, which were the subject of
+an annual act of which he alone got the benefit. He used upon these
+occasions to profess a considerable anxiety to rub off as he went on,
+but his goings on and rubbings off were equally to his own advantage,
+and the cost of those who had trusted him. Never was political economy
+carried to such perfection as by the father of Margaret, the king of
+Sicily and Jerusalem.
+
+[Illustration: 303]
+
+It was hopeless to ask for a dower with the daughter of a man who had
+what is vulgarly termed "a sight of money," which means that he could
+have put the whole of his income into his eye without any detriment to
+his vision. Instead of asking anything from a sovereign more fitted to
+be upon the parish than upon the throne, a trifling settlement was made
+upon him, that the king of England might not be said to have married the
+daughter of an absolute monarch and an absolute beggar. Anjou and Maine,
+which had been taken from him by main force, were restored to him, and
+a little money was advanced to him on account of his first quarter's
+revenue, to enable him to cut a respectable figure at his daughter's
+wedding.
+
+Suffolk brought home the bride to England, where she was, of course,
+severely criticised. For many she was too tall, and her height was an
+objection that could not be overlooked very easily. The friends of the
+Duke of Gloucester--known as the good Duke Humphrey--declared he would
+have found a better queen; and Duke Humphrey paid her no attention, for
+he never even asked her to a family dinner, an omission which gave rise
+to a saying * that is still current.
+
+     * Dining with Duke Humphrey is a process that needs no
+     explanation.
+
+The good Duke Humphrey, though he gave no one a dinner, was anxious
+to let everyone have his desert, which made his royal highness very
+unpopular. His enemies began by charging his wife with necromancy,
+because she was in the habit of consulting the dregs of her teacup when
+turned out in her saucer--an act that was stigmatised as sorcery. She
+was also proved to have in her possession a large wax doll, resembling
+the king, which she was in the habit of placing before the fire for the
+purpose, it was said, of sweating her sovereign. This was interpreted
+into a desire to see him waste away, and she was accordingly sentenced
+to perpetual imprisonment. Had she been able to melt the king himself as
+she melted his effigy, she might have been pardoned; but though the wax
+image was soft enough, he only waxed wroth when an appeal in her
+behalf was made to him. Her husband now became personally an object of
+persecution, and was arrested on a charge of treason, on the 11th
+of February, 1447, when he went to take his seat at the opening of
+Parliament. On the 28th of the same month, he was found dead in his bed,
+and of course the conclusion was that he had been murdered, though there
+were no signs of violence. There were various rumours as to the cause
+of Duke Humphrey's death, and despair, dyspepsia, apoplexy, and
+unhappy perplexity, or a broken heart, were equally spoken of as having
+occasioned his dissolution. It is strange that inanition was never
+thought of as a probable mode of accounting for the decease of Duke
+Humphrey, whose stinted diet has given to his dinners an unenviable
+notoriety.
+
+The old rival and uncle of the good Duke Humphrey did not long survive
+his nephew, for the grasping prelate died on the 11th of April, 1447,
+at Winchester, where he had retired to his see, from which he was to the
+last straining his eyes towards the popedom.
+
+Under the ministry of Suffolk the glory of England rapidly declined, and
+its possessions in France were daily diminishing. Parliament began to
+take the matter seriously up, and not a day passed without some awkward
+motion being made to embarrass the Government. At length, in January,
+1450, Suffolk became so exasperated that he challenged his enemies to
+the proof of their accusations, which was equivalent to asking for a
+vote of confidence. The Commons replied by requesting the Lords to send
+him to the Tower, which they declared themselves most happy to do, if
+the Lower House would only send up a specific charge on which he might
+be committed. The Commons acceded with the utmost pleasure to the
+demand, and cooked up an accusation very promptly, for in those days
+such things were kept almost ready made, to be used at the shortest
+notice, for the purpose of knocking the head from off the shoulders of
+a minister. It was laid in the indictment against Suffolk, that he
+had been furnishing a castle with military stores; or, in other words,
+ordering a quantity of gunpowder to be sent in for the purpose of
+assisting France against England. Though the accusation was wretchedly
+vague, it was sufficient foundation for a warrant, upon which Suffolk
+was seized by the scruff of the neck, and hurried to the Tower.
+Fearing that one bill of impeachment might be insufficient, his enemies
+published a series of supplements.
+
+In his defence he noticed only the first set of charges, which accused
+him of a desire to put the crown on the head of his son; a freak that
+Suffolk never had the smallest idea of practising. On the 13th of March,
+1460, he was brought to the bar of the House of Lords, and went down
+upon his knees like a horse--or rather like an ass--on the wooden
+pavement. He denied, ridiculed, and repudiated some of the articles
+in the impeachment, and accused the lords themselves of being his
+accomplices in some others. A proceeding which we can only characterise
+as a general row immediately took place, and the House of Lords became a
+perfect piece of ursine horticulture, or regular bear-garden.
+
+Suffolk, though warmly defended by the court, was furiously attacked by
+the Commons, who declared they would not vote a penny of the supplies
+while the minister remained unpunished. The king, as long as it did not
+affect his pockets, was tolerably staunch towards his friend, but when
+no money came in, and the royal outgoings continued to be large, it was
+found expedient to throw the favourite over. Every fresh bill that was
+placed on the unpaid file at the palace shook the royal resolution; and
+when the eye of the king glanced over his huge accumulation of unsettled
+accounts, he began to think seriously whether it was not too great a
+sacrifice to lose his supplies for the sake of saving Suffolk.
+
+The favourite was gradually getting out of favour, and was sent for by
+the king to a private interview, in the course of which it was intimated
+to the duke that he must be dropped, but that he should be "let down" as
+easily as possible. This private intimation kept Suffolk in a state of
+suspense considerably worse than certainty; for it is a well-established
+fact, given on the authority of those who have tried both, that a bold
+leap into the fire is preferable to a constant grill on the gridiron, or
+a perpetual ferment in the frying-pan.
+
+On the 17th of March Suffolk was again brought up in presence of the
+king, at a sort of judicial "at home," given by hiss majesty. It
+took place, according to some authorities, in the sovereign's private
+apartments; but the chroniclers are mute as to which room--whether
+the two-pair back, the one-pair front, the _salle a manger_, or the
+_salon_--was the scene of the important interview. Suffolk threw himself
+once more at the feet of the king, who, it is to be hoped, had no corns;
+but Henry must have felt hurt at receiving a minister on such a footing.
+Suffolk, still at his master's feet, endeavoured to hit upon Henry's
+tender points, but the sovereign was on this occasion influenced by
+the impression made upon his understanding. He ordered Suffolk into
+banishment for five years, and gave him till the 1st of May to pack up
+for his departure.
+
+[Illustration: 306]
+
+The people were determined not to let the traitor off so easily, and
+no less than two thousand assembled to take his life, which he wisely
+abstained from placing at their disposal. He gave a farewell banquet
+at one of his country seats to his relatives and friends, and, upon his
+health being duly proposed as the toast of the evening, he swore, of
+course, that he was perfectly innocent. Finding it necessary to dodge
+the popular indignation, he started off to Ipswich, when he embarked
+for the Continent.
+
+On the 2nd of May, as he was sailing between Dover and Calais, his
+convoy--consisting of a smack and punt for self and retinue--was hailed
+by a great hulking man-of-war from the hulks, which bore the name of
+_Nicholas_ of the Tower. This was a sad blow to the little smack, which
+would have gladly gone off had it not been most vigorously brought-to
+by the larger vessel. The duke was ordered on board the _Nicholas_, and
+after the ship had stood off and on for three days, it turned out
+that the vessel was only waiting to take in an axe, a block, and an
+executioner. This dismal addition to the freight having at last
+arrived, it was immediately put in requisition, and, as Suffolk was very
+unpopular, nobody took the trouble to inquire what had become of him.
+The only account that could ever be given of him was that he had been
+taken away by the crew of the _Nicholas_, which was a very old ship, and
+the announcement that Suffolk had gone to Old Nick was all that was ever
+said concerning him.
+
+We are soon about to enter upon those Wars of the Roses which planted
+so many thorns in the bosom of fair England. It is strange that out
+of _couleur de rose_ should have emanated some of the most sombre and
+melancholy hues that ever darkened the pages of our history. "Coming
+events cast their shadows before," and the shade in this instance was
+one Cade, familiarly called Jack Cade by various authorities. This
+celebrated individual was a native of Ireland, who had served in
+France in the English army, so that he may be called a kind of
+Anglo-Irish-Frenchman, a combination that reminds us of the celebrated
+poly-politician, who, being desirous of being thought "open to all
+parties," with the vow of being ultimately influenced by one,
+gave himself out as a conservative-whig-radical. Jack Cade was a
+jack-of-all-trades, or, at all events, a jack of two, for he had been
+a doctor first and a soldier afterwards. Some have ironically contended
+that the change from a medical to a military life was only an extension
+of the same business, and that, in resigning the bolus for the bullet,
+the powders for the gunpowder, and the lancet for the sword, he was only
+enlarging the sphere of his practice. With that remarkable deference
+for the aristocracy they pretend to despise, which is only too common
+amongst demagogues, Cade tried to claim relationship even with royalty,
+and, giving himself out as a relation of the Duke of York, he assumed
+the name of Mortimer.
+
+That Cade was a decayed scion of an illustrious stock may be doubted,
+and some, who have not been ashamed of an anachronism for the sake of a
+sneer, have gone so far as to say that the Cades were the earliest cads
+of which there are any records.
+
+It has been well remarked somewhere, by somebody, that the men of Kent,
+though living near the water, were always very inflammable, and the
+Kentish fire is to this day proverbial for its intensity. Cade threw
+himself among these men, who made him their captain, and inarched with
+him to Blackheath, from which he commenced a long correspondence with
+the Londoners. The Government, alarmed at an assembly of fifteen or
+twenty thousand men at a place where large assemblies were unusual, sent
+to enquire the reason of the good men of Kent having quitted their
+homes in such large numbers. Cade, who among his other restless habits,
+appears to have been troubled with a _cacoethes scribendi,_ took
+upon himself to answer for the whole, and embodied their reasons in a
+document called the "Complaint of the Commons of Kent," which was of a
+somewhat discursive character. It commenced by alluding to a report that
+Kent was to be turned into a hunting forest, and remonstrated against
+the people being made game of in such a fearful manner; it then
+proceeded to abuse the Government in general terms, which have since
+been the stereotyped phraseology of nearly all the friends of the
+people; it complained of others fattening on the royal revenue, which
+forced the king to supply the deficiency by robbing his subjects, and
+to take their provisions wholesale as well as retail, without paying
+a penny for them. Allusion was then made to the lowness of the company
+admitted to court, though this seems to have been rather over-nice on
+the part of Jack and his followers. The document then came to the point,
+by intimating that the men of Kent had been subjected to extortion
+and treated with contempt, so that they had been, at the same time,
+overtaxed and under-rated.
+
+When the court received this elaborate catalogue of ills, it was
+intimated to Cade and his companions, that it would take some time to
+prepare the answer; but the authorities thinking that powder and shot
+would answer better than pen and ink, set to work to collect troops and
+ammunition in London. Cade could not resist his propensity to scribble,
+and sent in a second paper, headed "The Requests, by the captain of the
+great assembly in Kent." In his new manifesto Jack required an entire
+re-arrangement of the royal household even down to the minutest domestic
+arrangements; and it was even said, that not a pie came to the king's
+table without Jack wishing to have a finger in it.
+
+The court was now prepared with an answer in the shape of a large army,
+which advanced upon Blackheath, and caused Cade to be taken so regularly
+aback, that he jibbed as far as Sevenoaks. Here he halted, and waited
+the attack of the royal army, a detachment of which came up and went
+down like a pack of cards, though as they had lost all heart there is
+something defective in the comparison. When the main army at Blackheath
+heard the fate of the detachment at Sevenoaks, the soldiers suddenly
+began to object to fighting against their own countrymen. The Court then
+found it time to make concession, and commenced by sending a few of its
+own party to the Tower, in order to propitiate the malcontents. Lord
+Say, an obnoxious minister, who was not merely a say, but a tremendous
+do, was at once locked up with some others who had rendered themselves
+unpopular.
+
+Cade now made himself master of the right bank of the Thames from
+Greenwich to Lambeth, both inclusive, and made the celebrated incision
+into the latter, which retained the name of the New Cut to a very
+distant period. Cade took up his own quarters in Southwark, but went
+into London every morning, where he and his followers behaved very
+quietly for a few days, returning home regularly every evening to their
+lodgings in the Borough. Their first act of violence was to insist
+on the trial of Say, who was not allowed to have his say in his
+own defence, but was hurried off to Cheapside and beheaded. As too
+frequently happens with the promoters of the public good, Cade's
+followers could not keep their hands off private property, and a little
+pillage was perpetrated. Even Jack himself, who sometimes set a good
+example to his followers, was tempted to plunder the house at which
+he usually dined; and the citizens, feeling that as the spoons were
+beginning to go, their turn would probably be next, became indignant
+at the outrage. They consequently refused admission to Cade the next
+morning when he came to transact his city business as usual.
+
+It was next determined by the court to delude the rebels by an offer
+of a pardon; and Cade caught at the bait with a simplicity less
+characteristic of a Jack than of a gudgeon. In two days, however, he
+altered his mind, and refused to lay down his arms or walk off his legs,
+until Government gave a guarantee for the fulfilment of its promises.
+With the customary hatred of each other, which too often prevails among
+the lovers of their country, the patriots commenced quarrelling. Cade
+began to fear that some disinterested friend of freedom would sell him
+for the thousand marks that were offered for his head; and Jack, from
+the idea of being apprehended, was thrown into a constant state of
+apprehension. Sneaking quietly downstairs in the night, he found his way
+to the stable, where he mounted a clever hack, and using what spurs he
+could to the animal's exertion, put him along at a slapping pace towards
+the coast of Sussex. He had not proceeded very far, when turning to look
+back on what he had gone through, he saw at his heels Alexander Iden,
+Esq. Jack had scarcely got out the words, "Is that you, Alick?" when
+a lick from Iden's sword revealed the purpose of his mission. "No, you
+don't!" cried Cade, parrying an attempt to plant a second blow, and
+putting in a slight poke with his battle-axe very efficiently. Were we
+to borrow the graphic style of the sporting chroniclers, in describing
+a fight, we should say that Iden came up smiling, and evidently meaning
+business, which he transacted by enumerating one, two, three, in rapid
+succession on Jack's chest, followed up by four, five, six, on the
+face, and seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, in the stomach. Cade
+endeavoured to rally, but every effort failed; and Alexander Iden, Esq.,
+claimed the thousand marks that had been advertised. The amount was
+large for a head with very little in it; but the tail, consisting of the
+riff-raff led on by Cade, formed the real value of the article.
+
+A dispute now commenced between persons of higher degree; or, rather, it
+is to be suspected that Cade and his men had been used as the tools of
+some more exalted malcontent. It very frequently happens that
+political agitators in an humble rank of life are either cunningly or
+unconsciously playing the game of a political schemer of more exalted
+station; and while they are supposed to be working for the overthrow of
+one tyrant, they are preparing the way for the establishment of another.
+
+The Duke of York was the individual who, endeavouring to profit by the
+recent revolt, left Ireland, of which he had been Lieutenant, and forced
+himself into the king's presence. "Now then, what is it?" cried Henry,
+annoyed at the sudden intrusion; when York replied he had come to
+extract something from the mouth of the sovereign. "A tooth, perchance?"
+ironically remarked the king; but his majesty was informed that a
+promise to summon a Parliament was the utmost that York required. This
+was acceded to, and, when Parliament met, one of the members proposed
+declaring the Duke of York heir apparent to the throne, but the proposer
+was indignantly coughed down, unceremoniously pulled out, and promptly
+committed to the Tower. The duke, discouraged at having a minority of
+one, which imprisonment had reduced to none, in his favour, repaired to
+his castle at Ludlow, where he collected a large army; but, by way of
+proving that he had no evil intentions towards the king, he took, every
+now and then, the oath of allegiance. This periodical perjury had very
+little effect, for York was better known than trusted, and an army was
+sent against him. As the forces went one way to meet him, he came up to
+London by another road, but the gates of the City were slammed in his
+face just as he came up to them. "Well, I'm sure!" was the indignant
+murmur of York, to which, according to an Irish chronicler who came from
+Ireland in the duke's suite, "You can't come in," was the only echo.
+Foiled in this attempt, he went to Kent, expecting Jack Cade's followers
+would rally round him, but beyond some half-dozen seedy scamps,
+belonging to the class excluded from kitchens under the general order of
+"No followers allowed," there were no adherents to York's banner. When
+Henry came up with him at Dartford, both of them, like two little boys
+who have met to fight and don't know how to begin, were anxious to
+negotiate. This was agreed to, and the duke having disbanded his army,
+by which, as the papers say when a theatre closes prematurely, "an
+immense number of persons were thrown out of employ," he went to Henry's
+tent for a personal interview.
+
+[Illustration: 311]
+
+The meeting was very unpleasant, for Somerset happening to be seated
+there, had the bad taste to assail York with a volley of vulgar abuse,
+which the latter repaid with interest. "You're a felon and a traitor,
+sir!" cried Somerset, as York came in, which elicited, by way of reply,
+"You're an old humbug," and other taunts, among which "Who embezzled
+the taxes?" was rather conspicuous. As the duke was about to depart, a
+tipstaff tripped up to him, and, begging his pardon, intimated that he
+was in custody. Somerset would have applied for speedy execution, but
+York compromised the affair by a little more perjury, for he swore
+a good batch--sufficient to last him a whole year--of truth and
+allegiance. He then retired to his castle, where he may have amused
+himself with playing at "Beggar my Neighbour" with his porter, as far
+as we can tell, for his employment while in seclusion at Wigmore is not
+recorded in history.
+
+Henry's utter incapacity to hold the reins, which were literally
+dropping out of his hands, began to give great uneasiness to the
+Parliament. York was wanted back, and Somerset was sent to the Tower,
+for the two rivals were like the two figures in the toy for indicating
+the weather. What brought one out sent the other in, and a storm was the
+signal for the entrance of York, while political sunshine was favourable
+to
+
+Somerset. On the 14th of February, 1454, York opened Parliament as
+commissioner for the king, who was personally visited at Windsor by a
+deputation of peers, desirous of ascertaining his exact condition. They
+found Henry perfectly imbecile, and incapable of understanding a word
+or uttering a syllable. The deputation conceiving it possible that his
+majesty might be merely muddled, retired to give him time to come to,
+but on their return they found him in the same state as before, and
+_ditto_ repeated on a third visit. The deputation, resolving unanimously
+that "this sort of thing would never do," reported the facts to
+Parliament, and Richard, Duke of York, was elected "Protector and
+Defender of the realm of England." In about nine months Henry was
+declared to have recovered his senses, such as they were, and the court
+claimed for him the return of the reins, which had been taken out of
+his hands by reason of his incapacity. York was instantly put down, and
+Somerset again taken up to occupy the box-seat as heretofore.
+
+The ex-protector retired to Ludlow as before, but got together some
+troops, and poor Henry was put, or carried, or propped up, at the head
+of an opposing army. The duke having no fear of a force under such a
+tumble-down leader, met him near the capital, and sent a message, full
+of loyalty, to the king, but insisting on Somerset being sent back by
+return, to be dealt with in the most rigorous manner. An answer was
+returned in the king's name, declaring his determination to perish
+rather than betray his friend; but it was the friend himself who
+assigned to his majesty this very disinterested preference. The
+sovereign was indeed so imbecile that he knew not what he said, and
+understood nothing of what was said for him, so that when he asked if
+he would not rather die in battle than hand Somerset over to the foe, an
+unmeaning grin was the only reply of the royal idiot. A fight of course
+ensued, and York got the best of it. Somerset was among the slain, and
+the poor king, who was as innocent of the use of a sword as a child in
+arms, got a wound in the neck, which sent him howling and reeling away
+till he took refuge in a tan-yard. York found him hiding among the
+hides, and pulling him out with gentleness, conducted him to the Abbey
+of St. Alban's. Every care was taken of the wounded monarch, whose neck
+was duly poulticed, and whose feet were put in hot water, though indeed
+they were seldom out of it.
+
+When Parliament met after this affair, theoretical allegiance was sworn
+to the king and prince, but practical contempt of their position was
+exercised. York was declared protector until Edward, the heir to the
+throne, attained his majority; but Henry was superannuated at once, for
+he was liable, like a hare in the month of March, to fits of insanity.
+He was sometimes sensible enough, but no one could elucidate the date of
+his lucid intervals; and as the sceptre is little better than a red-hot
+poker in a madman's hands, he was very properly deprived of that
+powerful instrument.
+
+Things had been thus arranged, when, on the meeting of Parliament, in
+1456, after the Christmas recess, Henry, to the surprise of everyone,
+rushed in, exclaiming--"I'll trouble you for that crown!" and "Oblige me
+with a catch of that ball!"--alluding to the orb which forms part of the
+regalia. No one disputed his restoration to sanity, and York resigned
+the protectorate, looking unutterable things, as if he had just been
+engaged in a speculation by which he had made a profit of eightpence and
+incurred the loss of a shilling.
+
+The king now endeavoured to effect a reconciliation between the rival
+parties, who affected to make it up, but started at once to their
+respective castles, for the purpose of looking up materials and men for
+the renewal of hostilities. York sent his sword to the grinder's, his
+armour to the tin-plate-worker's, to be let out, pieced, and otherwise
+repaired--while the Lancastrian chiefs were, on their side, resorting
+to similar arrangements. At length they came to a battle, in September,
+1459, and the Yorkists were in the better position, when Sir Andrew
+Trollop--either from blockheadism, or bribery, or both--deserted, with
+all his veterans, to the standard of Henry. York, taking a series of
+hops, skips and jumps over the Welsh mountains, fled into Ireland. He
+ran so fast, that the muscles of his leg were contracted; and it was
+said at the time, that the York hams had as much as they could do to
+keep ahead of the Bath chaps, many of whom were engaged in the battle,
+from having lived not far from the neighbourhood. Warwick escaped to
+Calais, where he was exceedingly popular, and he soon collected forces
+enough to admit of his landing in Kent, where he stuck up his banner
+with the view of collecting a crowd, and then touting for followers. The
+project was successful, and by the time he reached Blackheath he had got
+thirty thousand men at his heels, according to the old chroniclers, who,
+it is only fair to say, have a peculiar multiplication table of their
+own, and who, whatever may be their aptitude at facts, certainly present
+to us some of the very oddest figures.
+
+Warwick's reception was very enthusiastic. The archbishop ran out of
+Canterbury to meet him and shake him by the hand, Lord Cobham clapped
+him amicably on the shoulders, and five bishops, taking off their
+mitres, waved them as he passed in token of welcome. Warwick made at
+once for the midland counties, carrying with him the young heir of York,
+and meeting the Lancastrians at Northampton, a battle was fought which
+ended in the defeat of the latter. Henry was taken prisoner; but his
+wife Margaret of Anjou escaped with her son Edward, and encountered one
+of those adventures which season with a spice of romance the sometimes
+insipid dish of history. The story we are about to relate is offered
+with a caution to our readers, but it is too good to be omitted, and
+we are, moreover, afraid that were we to leave it out for the sake of
+correctness, we should be blamed for the omission. Use is second
+nature in literature as well as in anything else; and the public, being
+accustomed to falsehood, would regard the absence of even the most
+flagrant hoax as a curtailment of the fair proportions of history.
+It is, however, only under protest that we can lend ourselves to the
+gratification of this very morbid appetite, and we therefore advise
+the following story on the authority of _De Moleville_, to be taken
+not merely _cum grano salis_, but with an entire cellar of that very
+wholesome condiment.
+
+The anecdote runs as follows: Margaret fled with her son into the
+recesses of a forest, like one of those which we see on the stage,
+where cut woods, canvas banks, and trees growing downwards from the
+sky-boarders, furnish an umbrageous recess of the most sombre character.
+We fancy we see her advancing to slow music, laying her child on a
+canvas bank, and listening to the rattle of peas accompanied by the
+shaking of sheet iron, which form the rain and thunder of theatrical
+life, when suddenly a whistle is heard, and two figures enter whose
+long black worsted hair, wash-leather gauntlets, drawn broadswords, and
+yellow ochre countenances, bespeak that they are robbers of the worst
+complexion. The queen has, of course, all her jewels blazing about her,
+which the two men proceed to appropriate, and while they are quarrelling
+about the division of her booty, she contrives to escape.
+
+This brings us to another part of the same forest, where the scenery is
+not quite so elaborate, but where Margaret, leading on her infant son,
+stumbles upon a sentimental robber with a drawn sword in his hand, a
+tear of sensibility in his eye, and in his mouth a claptrap. She appeals
+to his generosity in favour of a "female in distress;" he replies with
+some cutting allusions to the "man who--" compares himself to a melon,
+or a cocoa-nut, or anything else with a rough exterior, but with some
+sweetness or milk of human kindness within, and by way of climax, she
+exclaims, "Here, my friend, I commit to your care the safety of the
+king's son."
+
+[Illustration: 314]
+
+The honest fellow--by whom we mean, of course, the professional thief
+and casual cut-throat--goes down upon one knee in a fit of loyalty,
+and according to the scholastic versions of this little incident he is
+"recalled to virtue by the flattering confidence reposed in him." * He
+went also a step further, and at once devoted himself to the service
+of the queen, magnanimously offering to share her fortunes, which
+considering the desperate nature of his own, was a proposition equally
+indicative of self-love and loyalty. Her majesty accepted the offer, and
+embarked for Flanders, of course paying all the expenses of her friend
+the sentimental robber, who became the companion of her flight, and a
+pensioner on her pocket.
+
+     * Sec Pinnock'a edition of Goldsmith's History of England,
+     p. 143 of the thirty-second edition.
+
+Fighting between the adherents of York on one side, and of Lancaster
+on the other, continued with unabated fury, until York having gained a
+victory at Northampton, called a Parliament, and walked straight up to
+the throne. He took hold of the hammer-cloth, as if to mount, and
+looked round as much as to say, "Shall I?" but no "hears," "cheers,"
+or "bravoes," encouraged him to proceed. Another battle was fought soon
+after at Wakefield Bridge, when Richard, Duke of York, was killed, and
+his son Edward succeeded to the title, which was very shortly afterwards
+exchanged for that of king, at a packed meeting of citizens. The
+question was put whether Henry was fit to reign, and the "Noes" had it
+as a matter of course, when a motion that Edward of York should ascend
+the throne, was carried by a large majority.
+
+Thus he who was not yet of age, and who had been recently nothing more
+than Earl March, was in early March, 1461, voted to the sovereignty
+by the acclamation of the people. Rushing into the House of Lords, he
+vaulted in a true spirit of vaulting ambition on to the throne, from
+which he delivered a discourse on hereditary right, making out every
+other right to be wrong, and maintaining his own right to be the only
+genuine article.
+
+Poor Margaret made a futile attempt to rouse the loyalty of the citizens
+of London in a letter which she addressed to them, * but the style is so
+exceedingly vague, that we do not wonder at the document having proved
+ineffectual. As far as it is possible to collect the meaning of the
+epistle to which we have referred, it trounces the Duke of York in a
+style of truly female earnestness. It calls him an "untrue, unsad, and
+unadvised person," who is "of pure malice, disposed to continue in
+his cruelness, to the utterest undoing, if he might," of the fair
+letter-writer and her offspring. Poor Margaret's state of mind may
+have accounted for the tremendous topsy-turviness--to use a familiar
+expression--of her sentences. The bursting heart cannot trammel itself
+by those fetters which grammarians and rhetoricians have forged to
+restrain language within its proper limits. That Margaret of Anjou was
+a woman of business is evident from a copy of one of her wardrobe books
+now, in a state of perfect preservation, in the office of the Duchy of
+Lancaster. This private ledger of the royal lady would be a model for
+the accounts of modern housekeepers.
+
+     * This letter, which is to be found in the Harleian MSS.,
+     No. 543, Fol. 147, is also given in Mary Anne Wood's
+     interesting collection of _Letters of Royal and Illustrious
+     Ladies of Great Britain_. The letter of Margaret of Anjou
+     forms the thirty-eighth in the first volume of the work
+     alluded to.
+
+It comprises a journal of payments even down to the accuracy of pence;
+and her gardener's wages, put down at a hundred shillings a year, may be
+considered a fair criterion of the average scale of her expenditure. She
+laid out little in clothes, though she kept twenty-seven valets as
+well as a number of ladies-in-waiting, and "ten little damsels," whose
+salaries and persons were no doubt equally diminutive. That her economy
+must have been wonderful, is evident from the fact that she did it all
+for seven pounds a day, which she regularly paid to the treasurer of the
+king's household.
+
+It has not often been our lot to begin with a new sovereign until we
+have finished with the old; but in the present instance we must drop
+Henry the Sixth before his death, according to the example set us by his
+ungrateful people. We have, perhaps, lingered too long over the downfall
+of Henry, and we are warned by a sort of mental shout of "Edward the
+Fourth stops the way," that we must drive on with our history.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIFTH. EDWARD THE FOURTH.
+
+
+[Illustration: 316]
+
+EDWARD, like the individual who having got such a thing as a crown about
+him, fully intended keeping it, lost no time in going into the provinces
+to enforce his claims. After killing twenty-eight thousand Lancastrians,
+and threatening a lesson on the Lancastrian system to anyone who might
+continue to oppress him, he returned to town, and was crowned on the
+29th of June, 1461, in the usual style of magnificence.
+
+Poor Henry, the deposed sovereign, was carried about at the head of his
+adherents, to give them something to rally round; but they might just as
+well have had a maypole, or any other inanimate object, for the ex-king
+was utterly imbecile. He could only be compared to a guy in the hands of
+the boys on the 5th of November; and sometimes, when his adherents were
+forced to run for it, they set him down to escape as he could, by which
+he was occasionally on the point of being taken prisoner.
+
+Edward assembled a Parliament, which cut short all objections to the
+line of York by declaring that the three last kings of the line of
+Lancaster were intruders, and the grants they had made were of course
+reversed, in order to raise a fund for laying in a large supply of new
+loyalty.
+
+Poor Henry, to whom peace and quietness were necessary, would have been
+very well satisfied to retire into private life, had not his impetuous
+wife, the tremendous Margaret, dragged him about with her at the head
+of a few proscribed and desperate nobles. Shortness of cash cramped
+the efforts of this impetuous female, who ran over to France, with the
+intention of begging and borrowing from all her relatives. The Duke of
+Brittany gave her a trifle, but Louis the Eleventh pleaded poverty, and
+even produced his books to show that he had not a penny beyond what
+he required for his own necessities. When, however, she talked of
+surrendering Calais, he produced twenty thousand crowns, which he had
+probably put by in an old stocking, and lent her the sum, with a couple
+of thousand men, under Peter de Breze.
+
+With this assistance Margaret burst into the northern counties, and,
+pushing poor Henry before her wherever she went, thrust him through
+the gates of a small series of castles which she had taken by surprise.
+These were soon taken back again, and Margaret, being obliged to fly,
+lost all her borrowed money in a storm at sea, which washed all her
+property in one direction and herself in another. After a few minor
+transactions, the 15th of May, 1464, was rendered famous by the battle
+of Hexham, at which the hiding or tanning of the Lancastrians was so
+complete, that Hexham tan is to this day a leading article of commerce.
+Margaret escaped to her father's court, but poor Henry, after wandering
+about the moors of Lancashire, had found his way to Yorkshire, where he
+had gone out to dine at Waddington Hall, when a treacherous servant, or
+a traitor waiter, delivered him up to his enemies. The unhappy Henry was
+turned into the Tower, which, under all the circumstances, was the best
+place for him.
+
+Edward, now adopting the sentiment of the vocalist, who, wishing to
+introduce a tender song in the character of a hero, modulates into a
+softer feeling by exclaiming, "Farewell, glory; welcome, love," resolved
+on paying those devotions to the fair which a necessity for encountering
+the brave had hitherto rendered impossible. He had intended to marry
+some foreign princess, and Warwick had engaged him to a young lady named
+Bona, daughter of the Duke of Savoy and sister to the Queen of France;
+but the king denied that he had ever given instructions to sue, and
+declined being bound by the act of his solicitor, who had solicited for
+him the hand of the fair princess. The truth was, that his majesty had
+formed other views, or, rather, other views had been formed for him
+by an old match-making mother, who exhibited all those manoeuvring
+qualities which constitute, in the present day, the art of getting a
+daughter off to the best advantage.
+
+[Illustration; 318]
+
+The king, while hunting at Stony Stratford, pursuing a stag, came
+suddenly upon a pretty dear, who literally staggered him. The young
+lady was the widow of Sir Thomas Gray, and the daughter of Jacquetta of
+Luxemburg by her second husband, Sir Richard Woodville, afterwards Earl
+of Rivers. There is not the smallest doubt that Lady Gray and her mamma
+had arranged together this accidental interview. The young lady,
+who seems to have been a finished pupil in the school of flirtation,
+entreated the king to reverse the attainder passed on her late husband,
+to which Edward replied, that "he must be as stonyhearted as Stony
+Stratford itself if he could refuse her anything." This rubbish ripened
+into a real offer of marriage, which was, of course, accepted, and Lady
+Gray was crowned Queen of England in the year following.
+
+Warwick was rather nettled at being, as he said, "made a fool of" by
+his royal master, and grew particularly jealous of the influence of the
+king's wife, who got off her five unmarried sisters upon the heirs of as
+many dukes or earls. He intrigued with the king's brother, the Duke of
+Clarence, and both of them, being denounced as traitors, were obliged to
+go abroad upon an order to travel. They visited France, where King Louis
+not only supplied them with board and lodging, but put Warwick in the
+way of a negotiation with Queen Margaret, which, it was thought, would
+be advantageous to all parties. It was arranged that another push
+should be made to push Henry on to the throne, but, as Warwick never
+did business for nothing, he stipulated for the marriage of his daughter
+with the queen's son, Edward.
+
+Having reduced everything to writing, Warwick took his standard out
+of his portmanteau for the purpose of planting it, and on the 13th of
+September, 1479, he landed at Plymouth with a select but sturdy party of
+malcontents. The people, whose motto was, "Anything for a change," were
+soon persuaded to join in a cry of "Long live King Henry," and he was
+taken out of the Tower for the purpose of being dragged about as a
+puppet to give a sort of legitimacy to Warwick's projects. This nobleman
+had got the name of the king-maker from a knack he had of manufacturing
+the royal article with a rapidity truly astonishing. He could coin a
+sovereign to order with a dispatch that the mint itself might fairly
+be jealous of. He could provide a new king at the shortest notice, like
+those victuallers who profess to have "dinners always ready;" and
+Edward having got into "very low cut," Henry was "just up" as the latest
+novelty from the _cuisine_ of the ingenious Warwick.
+
+When Edward saw what was going on he thought it high time for himself to
+be going off, and, with a few adherents who had not a change of linen in
+their trunks nor a penny in their purses, he got into a ship bound for
+Holland. The king himself had no money to pay his passage, and
+offered the captain, says Comines, "a gown lined with martens," as
+a remuneration for his services. Edward fled to Burgundy, where he
+persuaded the duke to advance a trifle in the way of ships, money, and
+men, with which the ousted monarch landed at Ravenspur. On his first
+arrival the people held back, saying, "Oh, here's the old business over
+again. We've had enough of this," and employing other expressions of
+discouragement. He, however, declared he had no intention of unsettling
+anything or anybody--except his bills, which remained unsettled as a
+matter of course--and was allowed to enter the capital, where he was
+once more proclaimed sovereign. It is an old commercial principle in
+this country, that debt is a sign of prosperity, and Edward's success
+has been attributed to the fact of his owing vast sums to the London
+merchants. They were, of course, interested in the well-being of their
+debtor, and the hypothesis was thus proved to be true, that he who is
+worse off is in a better position than he who is well-to-do, and the man
+whose circumstances are tolerably straight, is not so eligibly situated
+as the individual whose affairs are materially straightened. Edward,
+though not in clover, was obliged to be in the field, for Warwick fell
+upon his rear with alarming vehemence. They fought at Barnet on the 14th
+of April, 1471, in the midst of a mist, when poor Warwick was not
+only lost in the fog, but many of his friends were killed, and Edward
+obtained a decisive victory. The particulars of this battle have never
+been very accurately given, for the fog and the old chroniclers were
+almost equally dense; and between them the affair is involved in much
+obscurity.
+
+[Illustration: 320]
+
+It is easier to quell sixty thousand men than to subdue one troublesome
+woman, and Queen Margaret still gave "a deal of trouble" to the
+conqueror. She, however, ultimately fell into his hands, together with
+her son--one of the "rising generation" of that time--who, on being
+asked by Edward what he meant by entering the realm in arms,
+replied pertly, "I came to preserve my father's crown and my own
+inheritance."--"Did you, indeed, you young jackanapes?" cried Edward,
+"then take that," and he flicked the boy's nose with the thumb of a
+large gauntlet. The child set up a piercing yell, but this was not the
+worst of it, for some attendants, excited by the brutal example of their
+master, gave the lad a blow or two, which finished him.
+
+Edward returned to town, and sent Henry, with his queen, to the Tower,
+from which the latter was ransomed by her relatives; but the former
+having no friends to buy him off or bail him out, remained in custody.
+He died a few weeks after his committal, and his death is attributed to
+the Duke of Gloucester, who from the peculiar conformation of his back,
+had shoulders broad enough to bear all the stray crimes for which no
+other owner may have been forthcoming. Accordingly, every piece of
+iniquity that can be traced to no one in particular, is usually added to
+Gloucester's huge catalogue of delinquencies.
+
+The Lancastrians were now regularly down, and every opportunity was
+taken for hitting them. Some were driven into exile, others were got rid
+of by more decided means, and a few, whose talents were worth saving,
+got purchased at a valuation, more or less fair, by the now Government.
+Sir John Fortescue, the Chief Justice to Henry the Sixth and the
+greatest lawyer of his time, was sold in this disreputable manner; for
+the judges of those days, unlike the pure occupants of the bench in our
+own, were as saleable as railway shares, and had their regular market
+price for anyone by whom such an investment was desired.
+
+The prosperity of the House of York was now only marred by a quarrel
+between the Dukes of Gloucester and Clarence. The latter had married
+Warwick's eldest daughter, and claimed the whole property of his
+father-in-law, of which Gloucester naturally wanted a slice, and he
+struck up to Anne, a younger daughter, in order to derive some claim to
+a share of the family fortune. Clarence, anxious to baffle his
+brother, sent the young lady out to service as a cook, in London, when
+Gloucester--disguised probably as a policeman--found her out, and ran
+away with her.
+
+[Illustration: 321]
+
+He won her by alleging his heart to be incessantly on the beat, and by
+promising her the advantages of a superior station. He lodged her in the
+then rural lane of St. Martin's, and the king ultimately arranged the
+difference between his brothers by assigning a handsome portion to Lady
+Anne, and leaving Clarence to take the rest; while the widowed Countess
+of Warwick, who had brought all the money into the family, was obliged
+to leave it there, without touching it, for she got nothing.
+
+In 1475 Edward began to form ambitious projects with regard to France,
+and sent off to Louis the Eleventh one of those claims for the crown
+which some of the preceding kings of England had been in the habit of
+forwarding. The letter was written in terms of marvellous politeness,
+and Louis having read it, desired the herald who brought it to step
+into the next room, where he was treated with great affability. Louis
+complimented the letter-carrier in the most fulsome manner, recommending
+him to advise his master to withdraw his claim as futile and ridiculous.
+"Bless you, he don't mind me," was the modest reply of the herald;
+but Louis remarked that the words of such a sensible fellow must have
+considerable weight, and slipped three hundred crowns into his pouch,
+with a wink of intense significance. The herald was regularly taken
+aback, and his bewilderment increased when his majesty, observing, "Dear
+me, what a shabby cloak you've got on," ordered three hundred yards of
+crimson velvet to be cut off from the best piece in the royal wardrobe.
+Garter--for such was the herald's rank--promised to do the very best he
+could; for the velvet had softened him down, or smoothed him over, to
+the side of Louis.
+
+Edward nevertheless made extensive preparations to smash the French
+king, and strained every nerve to get the sinews of war, which he did
+by insinuating himself into the favour of his people. He emptied
+their pockets with considerable grace, and was the first to give the
+attractive name of Benevolences to those grants which were mercilessly
+extracted from the Parliament. Edward and Louis, though hating each
+other with the utmost cordiality, thought it prudent to negotiate--the
+former from mercenary motives, and the latter for the sake of peace and
+quiet. An interview was at last agreed upon, to take place at the bridge
+of Picquigny, near Amiens, across which a partition of railings had
+been thrown, to prevent treachery on either side. Louis came first, and
+looked through the bars, when Edward tripped gracefully up to the
+other side, bowing to within a foot of the ground, and paying a few
+commonplace compliments. Louis invited Edward to Paris, they shook hands
+through the bars, and the English king received a sordid bribe through
+the grating, "which," says the incorrigible Comines, "was exceedingly
+grating to the feelings of some of his nobles."
+
+Several cruelties disgraced the latter part of Edward's reign; and one
+of the worst of his enormities was his treatment of Stacey and Burdett,
+two officers of the household of the Duke of Clarence. Stacey was
+accused of having dealings with the devil; but if he had, it was
+only the printer's devil; for Stacey was a priest of the order of
+Whitefriars, and learned in the typographic art, which had recently been
+discovered. No proof unfavourable to Stacey could be produced, but he
+was put to the torture by being made to set up night and day, which made
+him curse the author of his misery. Thomas Burdett, another gentleman
+of Clarence's household, was tried as an accomplice to Stacey, and these
+unfortunate men, having had their heads cut off, "died," according to
+the Chroniclers, "protesting their innocence." Clarence himself was the
+next victim, and on the 16th of January, 1478, he was brought to the bar
+of the House of Lords on a charge of having dealings with conjurors. It
+seems hard, in these days, when tricks of magic are exceedingly
+popular, that a person suspected of conjuring should be pursued with
+the vengeance of the law; and the hardship of the affair is particularly
+great in the case of Clarence, who was never known to make a
+plum-pudding in his hat, or perform any other of the ingenious tricks
+which have gained money and fame for the wizards of the present era. The
+unfortunate duke met all the charges against him with a flat denial, but
+he was found guilty, and sentence of death was passed upon him, on the
+7th of February, 1478. His execution was never publicly carried out, and
+rumour has accordingly been left to run riot among the thousand ways in
+which Clarence might have undergone his capital punishment. The usual
+mode of accounting for his death is by the suggestion, that his brothers
+left the matter to his own choice, and that he preferred drowning in a
+butt of Malmsey wine to any other fatal penalty. The only objection
+to this arrangement appears to be that which occurred to an excellent
+English king of modern times, when he wondered how the apple got into
+the dumpling. However capacious the butt may have been in which Clarence
+desired to be drowned, it is obvious that he never could have entered
+the cask through its only aperture, the bunghole. When we witness the
+marvel of an individual getting into a quart-bottle, we shall begin
+to have faith in the story that Clarence met his death in the manner
+alluded to. If the wine was already in the cask before Clarence was
+immersed, there could have been no admission, even on business, except
+through the bunghole, and it is not likely that the vessel could have
+been empty before the duke took his place for the purpose of undergoing
+a vinous shower-bath.
+
+Edward led for some time a life of luxury, which was now and then
+disturbed by wars with Scotland, though he never thought it worth his
+while to take the field in person, but always got his big brother,
+Richard Duke of Gloucester, to fight for him. Matters nevertheless took
+a fresh turn when the Duke of Albany, brother of James the Third, came
+over and declared he was entitled to the Scotch throne in preference to
+his elder relative. "I mean to swear he is illegitimate," said Albany,
+and he offered to give up Berwick to Edward, on condition of an army
+being lent to depose the reigning sovereign. A marriage with one of the
+English king's daughters was also proposed by Albany, who "thought it
+right to mention that he had two wives already;" but he did not seem
+to anticipate any objection on that account. Albany and Gloucester were
+successful in most of their joint undertakings, but they did not fight
+very frequently, for a treaty was soon concluded. Until this arrangement
+was carried out, Albany made every warlike demonstration, and produced
+a wholesome terror by the exhibition of a tremendous piece of artillery,
+familiarly known to us in these days as a cannon of the period. Its
+chief peculiarity was its aptitude--according to the engravings we have
+seen of it--for carrying cannon-balls considerably larger than the
+mouth of the piece itself, for we have often feasted our eyes upon very
+interesting pictures of a cannon-ball issuing from a cannon not half the
+circumference of the projected missile.
+
+[Illustration: 324]
+
+Whether it is that in those days expanding ammunition was provided,
+which increased in bulk twofold after leaving the cannon's mouth, we
+are unable to say at this period; but the illuminations of the time
+undoubtedly present this striking phenomenon. The dust of ages lies
+unfortunately on many of our facts, and though we might, it is true,
+take up a duster and wipe the dust of ages off, there is a pleasure in
+the imaginative which the actual could never realise.
+
+Edward having been duped by his allies in France, on some matters almost
+of a private character, took the deception so much to heart, that he put
+himself into a violent passion, and died of it with wondrous rapidity.
+Instead of a raging fever, he caught the fever of rage, and died on the
+6th of April, 1483, in the forty-first year of his age, and twenty-first
+of his reign. The assassination of sovereigns was then so common, that
+Edward the Fourth lay in state for some days, to show that he had not
+come to his death by any but fair means, for he was a king that merited
+severe treatment, at least as much as some of his predecessors; and it
+was, therefore, presumed that he might have come in for his share of
+that fatal violence which it was usual to bestow on kings in the early
+and middle periods of our history. In concluding our account of this
+reign, we may, perhaps, be expected to give a character of Edward the
+Fourth; but, _ex nihilo nihil fit_, and upon this principle we are
+unable to furnish a character for one who had lost in the lapse, or
+rather in the lap of time, whatever he may once have possessed of that
+important article.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SIXTH. EDWARD THE FIFTH.
+
+
+[Illustration; 325]
+
+HAD the crown been always adapted to the head on which it devolves, the
+diadem would have been in very reduced circumstances when it descended
+on the baby brow of the fifth Edward. Almost bonneted by a bauble
+considerably too large for his head, and falling over his eyes, it was
+impossible that the boy-king could enjoy otherwise than a very poor
+look-out on his accession to the sovereignty. He had been on a visit to
+his maternal uncle, the Earl of Rivers, at Ludlow Castle, but he was
+now placed under the protection of his paternal uncle, Richard, Duke of
+Gloucester, as a sort of apprentice to learn the business of government.
+Richard, who was at the head of an army in Scotland at his brother's
+death, marched with six hundred men to a _maison de deuil_, where he
+insisted on having ready-made mourning for his followers. The astonished
+tradesman, exclaiming, in the language of one of our modern poets,
+
+     "Five minutes' time is all we ask
+     To execute the mournful task,"
+
+prepared at once the melancholy outfit. Richard led his adherents to
+York, where a funeral service was performed, and the troops, looking
+like so many mutes, completely dumbfounded the populace. Their conduct
+and their clothes combined--for their designs seemed to be as dark and
+mysterious as their habits--obtained for these soldiers the unenviable
+name of the black-guards of the Duke of Gloucester.
+
+Richard's next care was to swear loyalty and fealty to his young
+nephew--which went far towards proving the absence of both; for those
+who wish a little of anything to go a great way, generally make the
+utmost possible display of it. Notwithstanding the continued show of
+attachment evinced by the uncle for the nephew, it soon began to be
+noticed that Richard was a good deal like a snowball, for he picked up
+adherents wherever he moved; and as he went rolling about the country,
+he soon swelled into a formidable size with the band that encircled him.
+He, however, calmed suspicion by declaring that he was only collecting
+supernumeraries for his nephew's coronation. The fact is, that Richard
+was all the time plotting with that discontented fellow Buckingham, the
+well-known malcontent, of whom it has been justly said that he liked
+nothing nor nobody.
+
+Gloucester arrived at Northampton on the 22nd of April, 1483, about the
+same time that Rivers and Gray had "tooled" the baby-king by easy stages
+as far as Stony Stratford. The two lords came to Northampton to salute
+Richard, who asked them to supper at his hotel, when Buckingham dropped
+in and joined the party. The four noblemen passed the evening together
+very pleasantly, for the song, the sentiment, the joke and the jug,
+the pitcher and the pun, were passed about until long after midnight.
+Stretchers for two were in readiness, to take home Gray, who looked
+dreadfully blue, and Rivers, who was half-seas over, while the two
+dukes, who had kept tolerably sober, remained in secret debate, for they
+did
+
+     "Not go home till morning,
+     Till daylight did appear."
+
+On the morrow, the whole party started off, apparently very good
+friends, towards Stony Stratford, to meet the young king, who was
+immediately grasped by his uncle Gloucester.
+
+The royal infant naturally gave a sort of squeak at the too affectionate
+clutch of his uncle, who, pretending to think that Gray and Rivers
+had alienated the boy's affection from himself, ordered them both into
+arrest, when Gloucester and Buckingham fell obsequiously on their knees
+before the child, whom they saluted as their sovereign. Their first care
+was to ascertain who were his favourites, for the purpose of getting rid
+of them. Two of the royal servants, Sir Thomas Vaughan and Sir Richard
+Hawse, were dismissed not only without a month's warning, but, as
+they were sent off to prison at once, "suiting themselves with other
+situations" was utterly impossible. Young Edward was kept as a kind of
+prisoner, and Elizabeth, his mother, when she heard the news, set off
+to Westminster, with her second son and the five young ladies--her
+daughters--after her. The queen-mother had no party in London, and her
+arrival with her quintette of girls created no sensation.
+
+In a few days young Edward entered the city, but more as a captive than
+as a king, and lodgings were immediately taken for him in the Tower,
+where he was to be boarded, and, alas! done for by his loving uncle.
+Gloucester was named protector to the youthful sovereign, and moved
+to No. 1, Crosby Place, Bishopsgate (the number on the door), where,
+instead of behaving himself like a gentleman "living private," he held
+councils, while Hastings, who began to doubt the duke's loyalty, gave a
+series of opposition parties in the Tower. At one of these, Richard, who
+had never received a card of invitation, walked in, and voted himself
+into the chair with the most consummate impudence. In vain did Hastings
+intimate that it was a private room, or that Gloucester must have
+mistaken the house for there he sat, exclaiming, "Oh no, not at all,"
+begging the company to make themselves at home, as he fully meant to
+do. He was particularly facetious to the Bishop of Ely, asking after his
+garden in Holborn, and proposing to the prelate to send for a plate of
+strawberries.
+
+[Illustration: 327]
+
+These were soon brought, and Richard indulged in "potations pottle deep"
+of strawberries and cream, declaring all the while that the fruit was
+capital, and that of all wind instruments there was none he liked to
+have a blow out upon so much as the hautboy. The Protector having
+gone away for a short time, returned in a very ill humour, with his
+countenance looking exceedingly sour, as if the strawberries he had
+eaten had disagreed with him and the cream had curdled. He gave his
+lips several severe bites, and altogether appeared exceedingly snappish.
+Presently he asked what those persons deserved who had compassed or
+imagined his destruction. Hastings observed, "Why, that is so completely
+out of my compass that I can scarcely guess, but I don't mind saying
+off-hand that death is the least punishment they merit." The Protector
+declared his brother's wife--meaning the queen--and Mrs. Shore had
+between them twisted his body, which would, indeed, have been doing him
+a very bad turn; and, pulling up his sleeve, he exhibited his left arm,
+declaring there was something not at all right about it. The council
+agreed that the limb was a good deal damaged, and Hastings added that
+"_if_ Mrs. Shore and the queen had really had a hand in Richard's arm,
+they certainly deserved grievous punishment."
+
+"What!" roared the Protector, "do you answer me with 'ifs'? I tell you
+they have, and no mistake." Whereupon he banged his fist down upon the
+table with tremendous violence, giving himself as well as Hastings a
+frightful rap on the knuckles. Thereupon a door opened, and "men in
+harness came rushing in," according to More, and, being in harness,
+they proceeded to fix the saddle on the right horse immediately. The
+Protector exclaimed "I arrest thee, traitor," and pointed to Hastings,
+who cried out "Eh! What! Oh! Pooh! Stuff! You're joking! Arrest me? What
+have I done? Fiddlestick!" To pursue the elegant description given by
+More, we must add that "another let fly at Stanley," who bobbed down his
+head and crawled under the table.
+
+[Illustration: 328]
+
+The officers, after some trouble, pulled him out by the leg--having
+first drawn off his boot in a futile attempt to secure him--and carried
+him away in custody. Richard then had another turn at Hastings, who was
+in a sort of hysterical humour, at one moment treating the matter as a
+joke, and at another not knowing exactly what to make of it. "You may
+laugh," at length roared Richard, "but I'll tell you what it is, my Lord
+Hastings, I've ordered my dinner to be ready by the time I get home,
+but by St. Paul I'll not touch a mouthful--and I own I'm deuced
+hungry--until I've seen your head."
+
+Hastings replied that such a condition was easily fulfilled, and
+thrusting his head into Richard's face exclaimed "There, my lord, you've
+seen my head, so now go home as soon as you like, and get your dinner."
+The Protector pushing him aside, expressed contempt for the paltry
+quibble, and amended the affidavit by inserting the word "off" after the
+word "head," and exclaiming "I'll see Hastings' head off before I
+touch a bit of dinner." Hastings was seized, and the purveyors for the
+Protector soon brought him the _avant gout_ which he had required as a
+provocative to his appetite. Richard's violence had thus come suddenly
+to a head, and Earl Rivers, with Sir Thomas Vaughan and Sir Richard
+Hawse, were executed on the same day at Pontefract.
+
+A few days after these executions, Richard went to the sanctuary at
+Westminster, arm-in-arm with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and called
+for the little Duke of York, who, they said, would be wanted for the
+coronation. Consent was somewhat unwillingly given, and Richard having
+got the child away, made him a prisoner in the Tower. An affecting
+anecdote is told of the ruse that was resorted to by Gloucester and
+his friend, the archbishop, to entrap their juvenile victim into going
+quietly with them towards the gloomy scene of his destined captivity.
+They lured him on from place to place by pretending that they were
+going to treat him to some wonderful show, and they took all sorts
+of roundabout ways to prevent him from suspecting the point they were
+really driving at. When the poor child was becoming tired of his walk,
+and surrounding objects had lost the attraction of novelty, he began
+crying after his mamma, with that filial force which is peculiar to the
+earliest period of infancy. Gloucester began to fear they should get
+a mob after them, if, as he savagely expressed himself, "the brat
+continued to howl," and the little fellow was promised, for the purpose
+of "stopping his mouth," that he should see his mother immediately.
+After walking him nearly off his little legs through back streets and
+alleys, they brought him out upon Tower Hill, and Richard, no longer
+disguising the fact that he was acting the part of the cruel uncle,
+snatched up in his arms the trembling child, who presently found himself
+in one of the gloomy apartments of the Tower.
+
+Richard's next artifice was to practise the "moral dodge," which seldom
+fails to tell upon an indiscriminating multitude. Jane Shore, who had
+been seduced by the late king, was fixed upon as a mark for plunder and
+persecution by Richard, who first robbed the poor woman of all she had
+and then sent her to prison. He professed to be so shocked at some of
+the incidents of her past life, that, as a moral agent or acting member
+of society for the suppression of vice, he could not allow her to
+escape without some heavy punishment. She was proceeded against in the
+Ecclesiastical Courts, and ordered to walk about London with a lighted
+rushlight in her hand and wearing nothing but a pair of sheets or a
+counterpane. The Hammersmith Ghost and Spring-heeled Jack are the only
+legitimate successors of Jane Shore in this remarkable proceeding,
+and might have cited her case as a precedent for their own unlawful
+practices.
+
+Richard also entered into an arrangement with Doctor Shaw, a
+popular preacher, who was to preach down, or, as it was then called,
+depreachiate the two young princes. The Reverend Doctor then threw a
+doubt on their legitimacy, and declared their late father Edward was
+not a bit like his reputed father, the Duke of York, and pulling out two
+enormous caricatures from under his gown he asked the crowd whether
+any likeness could be traced between them. "Instead of the eyes," he
+exclaimed, "being as like as two peas, these eyes are not even as like
+as two gooseberries!" He then asked his hearers to compare notes by
+comparing the noses of the two portraits he held in his hand; ana,
+pointing to the picture of Richard, Duke of York, he reminded them
+that the bridge of the nose was exactly like that of Richard, Duke of
+Gloucester. "There, my friends," he roared, "there is a bridge that I
+think there is no possibility of getting over!" The allusion created a
+laugh, but no conviction; and the failure was rendered more annoying by
+the Protector not arriving in time, as had been previously arranged,
+to enable Dr. Shaw to point out the striking likeness. By some mistake
+Richard missed the cue for his entrance, and did not come in until the
+comparison had passed, when upon Shaw endeavouring to recur to it,
+the trick was so obvious that the people only stared at each other, or
+passed their right thumbs significantly over their left shoulders. The
+Protector vented his disappointment and anger on the preacher, whom he
+denounced as an old meddler who did not know what he was talking about,
+and Doctor Shaw sneaked off, amid derision, shouts of "Pshaw! Pshaw!"
+and the jeers of the populace.
+
+On the following Tuesday Richard got his friend Buckingham to go down to
+Guildhall to give him a regular good puff, at a meeting of the citizens.
+Buckingham's speech was listened to with a deal of apathy, and there
+were numerous cries of "Cut it short," responded to with a faint shout
+of "Hear him out," and an occasional ejaculation of "Now then, stupid!"
+Buckingham persevered, and at the close of his address somebody threw
+up a bonnet, exclaiming "Long live King Richard!" The bonnet belonged
+evidently to a person of straw, and excited little more than ridicule.
+
+The speech of Buckingham to the citizens assembled in Guildhall, was
+a rare specimen of the eloquence of humbug; and it evidently formed a
+model for the discourses sent forth by auctioneers from the rostrum at
+a later period, The whole system, indeed, pursued by the Duke of
+Buckingham on the memorable occasion of his putting up the claim of
+Richard to the suffrages of the bystanders, was evidently in accordance
+with that by which bad lots are frequently got off at the highest
+prices.
+
+When there was a faint snout of "Long live King Richard," from a
+solitary individual, Buckingham adroitly multiplied the exclamation by
+declaring that he heard it "in two places," though he knew perfectly
+well that a solitary puffer, in his own employ, had been the only one
+who raised a shout for Gloucester. "What shall I say for Richard?" he
+lustily vociferated. "Look at him, gentlemen, before you bid. There's
+nothing spurious about _him_. Come, gentlemen, give me a bidding." At
+this juncture, one of the duke's touters cried out, from the bottom of
+the hall, "I'll bid a crown," and a slight titter arising, Buckingham
+took advantage of the circumstance to assert, that "a crown was bid for
+Richard in several places at once;" whereupon the tyrant was said to
+have been accepted at that price, and the business of the day concluded.
+
+[Illustration: 331]
+
+On the next day a deputation was got up to wait on Richard at his
+lodgings, when he at first declined seeing them. His servant returned
+to say the gentleman particularly wished an interview, and Gloucester
+desired they might be shown up, when Buckingham and a few of the
+deputation were admitted to his presence. They handed him a paper,
+inviting and pressing him to accept the crown; but he observed, with
+assumed modesty, "that if he had it, he really should not know what to
+do with it."
+
+"Clap it on your head, of course," said Buckingham; and, suiting the
+action to the word, he thrust the bauble on the brow of his friend,
+observing, "Upon my honour, he looks well in it, don't he, Shaw?" and he
+turned to the Lord Mayor for approval. Richard, however, shook his head,
+and remarked that "he could not think of it;" when Buckingham, by
+a happy turn, suggested that "they had thought of it for him, and
+therefore, he might as well do it first and think of it afterwards."
+
+"But the little princes," remarked Richard, "whom I love bo much." This
+caused Buckingham to say, in the name of all present, that "they had
+determined not to have the little princes at any price." Upon this,
+Gloucester replied, "that he must meet the wishes of the people, and if
+they must have him, they must, but he, really, had a good deal rather
+not;" when, amid a quantity of significant winking on all sides, an end
+was put to the conference.
+
+This scene was enacted on the 24th of June, 1483, which was the last day
+of the nominal reign of the fifth Edward. It is impossible to give any
+character of this unfortunate king, whose sovereignty was almost limited
+to the walls of his own nursery. He might sometimes have played at
+sitting on a throne and holding a sceptre in his hand, but he never
+exercised the smallest power. He may, upon one or two occasions, have
+been allowed to dissolve Parliament; but it was only in the form of the
+cake so called, which he might, perhaps, be permitted to dissolve by the
+force of suction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. RICHARD THE THIRD.
+
+
+[Illustration: 332]
+
+RICHARD, on coming to the throne, rushed into Westminster Hall, and took
+his seat on a sort of marble slab or mantel-piece, between the great
+Lord Howard and the Duke of Suffolk. The precious trio looked like a set
+of chimney ornaments, of which Richard formed the centre. He declared
+that he commenced his reign in that place, because it had been once a
+judgment-seat, and he was anxious to administer justice to his people.
+Ten days after, on the 6th of July, he was crowned in Westminster Abbey,
+and to prevent any murmurs at his usurpation, he was lavish of gifts,
+promotion and bribery. The Duke of Norfolk, the celebrated jockey
+mentioned by Shakspeare, who had put Richard in training for the throne,
+became Earl Marshal, and his son was created Earl of Surrey, in honour,
+perhaps, of the surreptitious manner in which the crown had been
+obtained for his master Richard. The Archbishop of York and the Bishop
+of Ely were set at liberty, "which caused them to dance with joy,"
+according to one of the chroniclers, though we cannot imagine a pair
+of prelates indulging in Terpsichorean diversions on their release from
+prison.
+
+In the course of the summer, Richard made a royal progress, and was
+enthusiastically received, though it is believed that much of
+the enthusiasm was got up by frequent rehearsals with a set of
+supernumeraries, who were sent on before from town to town, to give
+a reception to the new sovereign. If Richard was expected to arrive
+anywhere at two, the populace would be called at one, to run through--in
+rehearsal--the cheers and gestures of satisfaction that were required to
+give brilliance to the usurper's entry. When he arrived at York, a wish
+was expressed by the inhabitants to see a coronation; and though the
+ceremony had already been performed in London, it was announced that the
+spectacle would be repeated, "by particular desire of several families
+of distinction."
+
+While Richard's starring expedition was most successful in the
+provinces, things in London were by no means looking up, for
+conspiracies were being formed to release the two young princes from the
+Tower. The usurper, not relishing these proceedings, sent a certain John
+Green--whose unsuspecting innocence has made viridity synonymous with
+stupidity ever since--as the bearer of a message, the purport of
+which he was wholly unconscious of. It was addressed to Sir Thomas
+Brackenbury, the governor of the Tower, requesting him to put to death
+the two royal children, by smothering them--in onions, or anything else
+that might be found convenient. Brackenbury refused the commission,
+not so much out of regard to the little princes as from fear on his
+own account, and he sent back the monosyllable "No" as an answer to the
+sovereign. Green, who knew not the purport of the message, returned with
+the curt reply, and upon his reiterating "No" as all he was desired to
+say, Richard angrily desired him "not to show his nose again at court
+for a considerable period." The tyrant was not, however, to be daunted,
+and he called his Master of the Horse, Sir James Tyrrel, whom he desired
+to go and lock every door in the Tower, and put the keys in his pocket.
+One night in August, Tyrrel took with him a fellow named Miles Forrest,
+a professional assassin, and John Dighton, an amateur, a big, broad,
+square, and strong knave, who, notwithstanding his squareness, was
+living on the cross for a long period. The precious trio went together
+to the Tower, and Tyrrel waiting at the door, Miles Forrest entered with
+John Dighton, who jointly smothered the children in the bedclothes.
+
+Dighton and Forrest entered with savage earnestness into this horrible
+transaction, and conducted themselves after the cruel fashion of a clown
+and pantaloon in a pantomime when an infant falls into their formidable
+clutches. Dighton danced on the bed, while Forrest flung himself across
+it with fearful vehemence. Tyrrel, who was standing outside, acted the
+part of an undertaker in this truly black job, and buried the princes at
+the foot of the staircase.
+
+Various accounts have been given of this atrocious deed, and
+antiquarians have quarrelled about the form of the bed the princes used
+to sleep upon. Some declare it was a turn-up, in which the children were
+suddenly inclosed; whilst others affirm that the princes had the thread
+of their existence cut on that useful form of bedstead familiarly
+known as the scissors. Thus, to use the language of the philosopher, a
+feather-bed and pillows were made to bolster up the title of Richard,
+who from his artifice was exceedingly likely to have recourse to such
+a downy expedient. We may be excused for adding from the same high
+authority we have taken the liberty to quote, that this assassination on
+a palliasse was an act that nothing could palliate.
+
+[Illustration: 334]
+
+Richard, by whom the outward decencies of life were very scrupulously
+observed, in order to make up for the inward deficiencies of his mind,
+determined to go into mourning for the young princes and repaired to
+the same _maison de deuil_ which he had honoured with his patronage on
+a former occasion, when requiring the "trapping of woe" for himself and
+his retainers on the death of his dear brother.
+
+Another competitor now appeared for the crown, in the person of Henry
+Tudor, Esquire, commonly called the Earl of Richmond, who came with a
+drawn sword in his hand and a pedigree already drawn up in his pocket.
+He was considered to represent the line of Lancaster by right of his
+mother, who was a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, whose extreme
+tallness proved him to be a worthy scion of the house to which the
+title of Lanky-shire--as it then might have been spelled--was obviously
+appropriate. In order to strengthen Richmond's party and give him a
+spice of Yorkism, a marriage was proposed with Elizabeth, of York, on
+the same principle that beef is sometimes cut with a hammy knife to give
+it a flavour. Richmond was joined by several nobles hitherto favourable
+to Richard, and even Buckingham, who had been indebted to him for wealth
+and office, suddenly turned against him. When Richard heard the news
+he put a price on the heads of all the leaders of the insurrection;
+and Buckingham's head, though a very empty one, was ticketed at a
+considerable figure.
+
+Henry, Earl of Richmond, appeared with a fleet off Devonshire, but
+finding no one on the coast to meet him, he sailed back to St. Malo.
+Buckingham, who ought to have been on the look-out, was blundering
+about the right bank of the Severn, which he was unable to cross in
+consequence of the rains, when his army, finding themselves short
+of rations, declined continuing such a very irrational enterprise.
+Buckingham was left without a man, except his own servant--a fellow
+of the name of Banister--upon whose fidelity he threw himself. He soon
+found that he had been leaning upon a fragile prop, for this Banister
+broke down and betrayed his miserable master. Buckingham was accordingly
+captured, and sneakingly solicited an interview with Richard the Third,
+who, on hearing of his being taken, coolly drew on his glove and roared
+with a stentorian voice, "Off with his head!--so much for Buckingham!"
+
+Richard now came to town, and summoned a Parliament, which was
+exceedingly complaisant; declaring him the lawful sovereign, by birth,
+by election, by coronation, by consecration, and by inheritance. Thus
+the usual attempt was made to make up by quantity for the deficiency as
+to quality in the title of the usurper, and the Princedom of Wales was
+settled on his boy Edward. Attainders were dealt out pretty freely among
+Richard's opponents, who were pronounced traitors in the usual form,
+which was kept to be filled up with the name of the unsuccessful party;
+while oaths of loyalty were always to be had--in blank--for the use of
+that numerous class which followed the crown with the fidelity of
+the needle to the pole,--the pole being the head that happened to be
+wearing--_pro tem_.--the precious bauble.
+
+Richard, being afraid that Richmond would gain strength by the project
+of marriage with Elizabeth of York, determined on marrying the young
+lady himself; an idea which both herself and her intriguing old
+mother most indelicately jumped at. The king being already married,
+difficulties arose, but it was proposed to poison Lady Anne, which,
+as quack medicines had not been yet invented, was a somewhat difficult
+process. There was no specific then in existence for curing every
+disease, or the matter might have been arranged at once; nor had the
+fatal art of punning become known, or Richard might have placed the
+author of the triple _jeu de mot_ in attendance upon the Lady Anne, to
+be, in time, the death of her. The quarrelsome and cat-like disposition
+of this unhappy female may account for the tenacity of life which
+she exhibited; and the young Elizabeth kept continually writing up to
+inquire why the queen took so much time in dying. It was now the middle
+of February, 1484, and Lady Anne was still alive; but her obstinacy was
+soon cured by her husband, and in the course of March she was got rid
+of. Richard immediately opened to his friends and admirers his scheme
+for marrying Elizabeth; but they strongly opposed it, and he then
+pretended that he had never meant anything of the sort, but that the
+minx--for as such he stigmatised the young lady--had for some time
+persisted in setting her cap at him.
+
+[Illustration: 336]
+
+Henry was now preparing to make a descent upon England, when Richard
+did all he could to damage him by proclamations, in which Richmond
+was alluded to as "one Tudor," and his adherents were stigmatised as
+cut-throats and extortioners. Had this been the fact, it was certainly
+a case of pot pitching into kettle; and the usurping saucepan poured
+out its sauce with wondrous prodigality. Numerous were the expedients
+resorted to for the purpose of damaging the cause of Henry Tudor.
+Descriptions of his person were issued, and the people were warned
+against admitting to their confidence the individual of whom a
+caricature representation, or rather mis-representation, was sent
+abroad, to give an unfavourable idea of Richmond's exterior. Among
+other schemes to obtain popularity, Richard affected the character of a
+practical man, and personally attended to the administration of justice
+in a few cases, where, having no interest of his own to serve, he gave
+somewhat fair decisions.
+
+His efforts were now directed to putting the country in a state of
+defence, and he sent his friends to the coast to bear the brunt of the
+first attack, while he smuggled himself up pretty comfortably in the
+middle of a large army in the centre of the kingdom. Several of his
+friends betrayed him, while others sent excuses on the score of ill
+health, and Stanley apologised in a coarse note, declaring he was
+confined to his bed by "a sweating sickness." Richard merely muttered,
+"Oh! indeed, and I suppose he sends me a wet blanket to prove the fact;"
+but he, nevertheless, ordered Stanley to be closely looked after. Henry
+landed at Milford Haven on the 7th of August, 1484, with about five
+thousand men, and on the 21st of the month the two armies met in a
+field near Bosworth. There a battle was fought, of which Shakespeare
+has furnished a series of pictures, which, on the stage, attempts are
+frequently made to realise. The contest, according to this authority,
+appears to have been carried on amid a mysterious flourish of drums and
+trumpets, to which soldiers, on both sides, kept running to and fro,
+without doing any serious mischief. Richmond's people, to the extent
+of about ten, then encountered about an equal number of Richard's
+adherents, and striking together, harmlessly, the tips of some long
+pikes, the two parties became huddled together, and retired in the same
+direction, apparently to talk the matter over and effect a compromise.
+
+The field then seems to have become perfectly clear, when Richard ran
+across it, fearfully out of breath, fencing with a foil at nothing, and
+calling loudly for a horse in exchange for his kingdom, though there
+was not such a thing as a quadruped to be had for love or money. He then
+seems to have shouted lustily for Richmond, and to have asserted that
+he had already killed him five different times, from which it is to be
+inferred that the crafty Henry had no less than half a dozen suits of
+armour all made alike to mislead his antagonist. Richard then rushed
+away, with a hop, skip and jump, after some imaginary foe; and Richmond
+occupied the field; when Richard, happening to come back, they
+stood looking at each other for several seconds. We may account
+for Gloucester's temporary absence by referring to the historical
+authorities, for he had probably chosen the interval in question to make
+Sir John Cheney bite the dust, a most unpleasant process for Sir John,
+who must have ground his teeth horribly with a mouthful of gravel.
+
+The two competitors for the throne then stood upon their guard, and a
+beautiful fencing-match ensued, to which there were no witnesses. A few
+complimentary speeches were exchanged between some of the home thrusts,
+and the combatants occasionally paused to take an artistical view of
+each other's gallant bearing. Business is, however, business in the long
+run, which, in this instance, ended in Richard being run through by the
+victorious Richmond. The soldiers of the latter, who appear to have been
+waiting behind a hedge to watch in whose favour fortune might turn,
+ran forward at the triumph of their master being complete, and formed
+a picture round him, while Stanley, taking the battered crown which
+Richard had worn in battle, placed it--in its smashed state looking
+like a gilt-edged opera hat--on the head of Richmond. The manner in
+which Stanley became possessed of the ill-used bauble is quite in
+accordance with the dramatic colouring that tinges and tinfoils this
+beautiful period of our history. It is said that an old soldier kicked
+against something in an adjacent field, and began actually playing at
+football with the regal diadem. Placing his foot inside the rim, he sent
+it flying into the air, when a ray of sunshine, lighting on one of the
+jewels, revealed to him that it was no ordinary plaything he had got
+hold of. Running with it as fast as he could to Stanley, the honest
+fellow placed it in his lordship's hands, with a cry of "See what I have
+found!" after the manner of the pantaloon under similar circumstances
+in a pantomime. Stanley was about to put it in his pocket, when another
+noble roared out, "Oh, I'll tell!" and a cry of "Somebody coming!" being
+raised, the diadem was ingeniously dropped on to the head of Richmond.
+The crown was fearfully scrunched by the numerous heavy blows its wearer
+had received, and Henry the Seventh, taking it off for a moment to
+push it a little into shape, exclaimed--half mournfully, half
+jocularly--"Well, well, to the punishment of the usurper this indenture
+witnesseth." The Duke of Norfolk--our old friend the jockey--shared his
+master's fate, or rather had a similar fate all to himself, though as he
+received the fatal crack, he expressed a wish that he might be allowed
+to split the difference.
+
+The fierce and interesting battle we are now speaking of was one of
+those short but sharp transactions, which leave their marks no less upon
+posterity than upon the heads and helmets of the warriors engaged in the
+fearful contest. The great importance of the event deserves something
+more than the prosaic narrative in which we have recorded it; and having
+sent our boy to the Pierian spring with a pitcher, for the purpose of
+getting it filled with the source of inspiration, we proceed to attempt
+a poetical account of the Battle of Bos-worth. The celebrated Mr. Thomas
+Babington Macaulay has, we acknowledge, kindled our poetic fire, by his
+"Lays of Ancient Rome;" and our imagination having been once set in a
+blaze it must needs continue to burn, unless, by blowing out our brains,
+we put a suicidal extinguisher on the flame. Philosophy, however,
+teaches us that "_L'ame est un feu qu'il faut nourrir_" (Voltaire) and
+_alere flammam_ is a suggestion so familiar to our youth, that we do not
+scruple to throw an entire scuttle of the coals of encouragement upon
+the incipient flame of our poetic genius. We know that poetry is often
+an idle pursuit, and that he is generally lazy who addicts himself to
+the composition of lays, but the Battle of Bosworth Field is an event
+which fully deserves to have poetical justice done to it. Following
+the example of the illustrious model, whose style we consider it no
+humility, but rather an audacity, to imitate, we will suppose the
+recital to be made some time after the event has occurred, and we
+will imagine some veteran stage manager giving directions for, or
+superintending the rehearsal of, a grand dramatic representation of one
+of the grandest and--if we may be allowed the privilege of a literary
+smasher in coming a word--the dramaticest battles in English history.
+
+
+
+          "Ho! trumpets, sound a note or two!
+          Ho! prompter, clear the stage!
+          A chord, there, in the orchestra:
+          The battle we must wage.
+
+          Your gallant supers marshal out--
+          Yes, I must see them all;
+          The rather lean, the very stout,
+          The under-sized, the tall:
+          The Yorkites in the centre,
+          Lancastrians in the rear,
+          Not yet the staff must enter--
+          The stage, I charge ye, clear
+          Those warriors in the green-room
+          Must have an extra drill;
+          Where's Richard's gilt-tipp'd baton?
+          They charged it in the bill.
+
+          Those ensigns with the banners
+          Must stand the other way,
+          Or else how is it possible
+          The white rose to display?"
+
+          Thus spoke the old stage manager,
+          The day before the night Richard and
+          Richmond on the field Of Bosworth had to fight.
+          And thus the light-heel'd call-boy
+          Upon that day began
+          To read of properties a list--
+          'Twas thus the items ran
+
+          "Four dozen shields of cardboard,
+          With paper newly gilt,
+          Six dozen goodly swords, and one
+          With practicable hilt;
+          The practicable hilt, of course,
+          Must be adroitly plann'd,
+          That when 'tis struck with mod'rate force,
+          'Twill break in Richard's hand.
+          Eight banners--four with roses white,
+          And four with roses red--
+          Six halberds, and a canopy
+          To hang o'er Richard's head;
+          A sofa for the tyrant's tent,
+          An ironing-board at back,
+          Whereon the ghosts may safely stand,
+          Who come his dreams to rack;
+          A lamp suspended in the air
+          By an invis'ble wire,
+          And--for the ghosts to vanish in--
+          Two ounces of blue fire."
+
+
+          Thus spoke the gallant call-boy,
+          The boy of many fights;
+          Who'd seen a battle often fought
+          Fifty successive nights.
+
+          The moment now approaches,
+          The interval is short,
+          Before the fearful battle
+          Of Bosworth must be fought;
+          Now Richmond's gallant soldiers
+          Are waiting at the wing,
+          Expecting soon that destiny
+          Its prompter's bell will ring;
+          Now at the entrance opposite
+          The troops of Richard stand,
+          Two dozen stalwart veterans--
+          A small but gallant band.
+
+          Hark I at the sound of trumpets,
+          They raise a hearty cheer,
+          Their voices have obtained their force
+          From recent draughts of beer.
+          Their leader, the false Richard,
+          Is lying in his tent,
+          But ghosts to fret and worry him
+          Are to his bedside sent.
+
+          Convulsively he kicks and starts,
+          He cannot have repose,
+          A guilty conscience breaks his rest,
+          By tugging at his toes.
+
+          A gentleman in mourning,
+          With visage very black,
+          When the tent curtain draws aside,
+          Is standing at the back;
+          And then a woman--stately,
+          But pale as are the dead--
+          Stood, in the darkness of the night,
+          To scold him in his bed.
+
+          There came they, and there preached they,
+          In most lugubrious way
+          Delivering curtain lectures
+          Until the east was grey;
+          Or rather, till the prompter,
+          Who has the proper cue,
+          Had quite consumed his quantity
+          Of fire, so bright and blue.
+
+          The conscience-stricken Richard
+          Now kicks with greater force,
+          Bears up, and plunges from his couch,
+          Insisting on a horse;
+          When, hearing from the village cock
+          A blithe and early scream,
+          He straightway recollects himself,
+          And finds it all a dream.
+
+          Now, on each side, the leaders
+          Long for the battle's heat,
+          But, by some luckless accident,
+          The armies never meet;
+          We hear them both alternately
+          Talking extremely large,
+          But never find them, hand to hand,
+          Mixed in the deadly charge.
+
+          "March on, my friends!" cries Richmond,
+          "True tigers let us be;
+          Advance your standards, draw your swords--
+          On, friends, and follow me!"
+
+          'Tis true, they follow him indeed,
+          But then, the way they go
+          Is just the way they're not at all
+          Likely to meet the foe.
+          So Richard, with his "soul in arms,"
+          Is "eager for the fray,"
+          But, with a hop, a skip, and jump,
+          Runs off--the other way.
+
+          He's to the stable gone, perchance,
+          Forgetting, in his flurry,
+
+          He has kept waiting all this time
+          His clever cob, White Surrey.
+          The brute is "saddled for the field,"
+          But never gains the spot,
+          For on his way Death knocks him down
+          In one--the common--lot.
+
+
+          [Illustration: 342]
+
+
+          Richard, a momentary pang
+          At the bereavement feels;
+          But, being thrown upon his hands,
+          Starts briskly to his heels.
+
+          And now the angry tyrant
+          Perambulates the field,
+          Calling on each ideal foe
+          To fight him or to yield.
+
+          "What, ho!" he cries, "Young Richmond!
+          But, 'mid the noise of drums,
+          Young Richmond doesn't hear him--
+          At least he never comes.
+
+          Now louder, and still louder,
+          Rise from the darken'd field
+          The braying of the trumpets.
+          The clang of sword and shields
+          But shame upon both armies!
+
+          For, if the truth be known,
+          'Tis not each other's shields they smite--
+          The clang is all their own;
+          For six of Richmond's people
+          Are standing in a row
+          (Behind the scenes), and with their swords
+          They give their shields a blow.
+
+          Wild shouts of "Follow, follow!"
+          Are raised in murmuring strain,
+          To represent the slayer's rage,
+          The anguish of the slain.
+
+          But now, in stem reality,
+          The battle seems to rage;
+          For Catesby comes to tell the world
+          How fiercely they engage.
+
+          He gives a grand description,
+          And says the feud runs high:
+          We won't suppose that such a man
+          Would stoop to tell a lie.
+
+          He says the valiant king "enacts
+          More wonders than a man; "
+          In fact, is doing what he can't,
+          Instead of what he can.
+
+          That all on foot the tyrant fights,
+          Seeks Bichmond, and will follow him
+          Into the very "throat of Death"--
+          No wonder Death should swallow him!
+
+          Now meeting on a sudden,
+          Each going the opposite way,
+          Richard and Richmond both advance,
+          Their valour to display.
+
+          Says Richard, "Now for one of us,
+          Or both, the time is come."
+          Says Bichmond, "Till I've settled this,
+          By Jove, I won't go home."
+
+          One, two, strikes Richard with his foil,
+          When Richmond, getting fierce,
+          Repeats three, four, and on they go,
+          With parry, quatre, and tierce.
+
+          Till suddenly the tyrant
+          Is brought unto a stand;
+          His weapon snaps itself in twain,
+          The hilt is in his hand.
+
+          The gen'rous Richmond turns aside,
+          Till someone at the wing
+          Another weapon to the foe
+          Good-naturedly doth fling.
+
+          Richard advances with a rush;
+          Richmond in turn retires;
+          Their weapons, every time they meet,
+          Flash with electric fires.
+
+          Posterity, that occupies
+          Box, gallery, and pit,
+          Applauds the pair alternately,
+          As each one makes a hit.
+
+          Now "Bravo, Richmond!" is the cry,
+          Till Richard plants a blow
+          With good effect, when to his side
+          Round the spectators go.
+
+          As fickle still as when at first,
+          The nation, undecided,
+          Was 'twixt the Roses White and Red
+          Alternately divided,
+
+          So does the modern audience
+          Incline, with favour strongest,
+          To him who in the contest seems
+          Likely to last the longest.
+
+          Then harsher sounds the trumpet,
+          And deeper rolls the drum,
+          Till both have had enough of it,
+          When Richard must succumb.
+
+          Flatly he falls upon the ground,
+          Declaring, when he's down,
+          He envies Bichmond nothing else,
+          Except the vast renown
+          Which he has certainly acquired
+          By being made to yield
+          Himself, that had been hitherto
+          The master of the field.
+
+          And then the soldiers, who have stood
+          Some distance from the fray,
+          Bush in to take their portion of
+          The glory of the day.
+
+          And men with banners in their hands,
+          At eighteen-pence a night,
+          Some with red roses on the flags,
+          And some with roses white,
+          By shaking them together,
+          The colours gently blend,
+          And the Battle of the Roses
+          Is for ever at an end.
+
+
+[Illustration: 347]
+
+The Battle of Bosworth Field terminated the War of the Roses, or rather
+brought the roses into full blow, and cut off some of the flower of the
+English nobility. Richmond was proclaimed king on the field, as Henry
+the Seventh; and as the soldiers formed themselves into a _tableau_ the
+curtain descended on the tragedy of the War between the Houses of York
+and Lancaster.
+
+Richard had reigned a couple of years and a couple of months when he
+received his _quietus_ on the field of Bosworth. If ever there was a
+king of England whose name was bad enough to hang him, this unfortunate
+dog has a reputation which would suspend him on every lamp-post in
+Christendom. The odium attaching to his policy has been visited on
+his person, and it has been asserted that the latter was not straight
+because the former was crooked. His right shoulder is said by Rouse,
+who hated him, to have been higher than his left; but this apparent
+deformity may have arisen from the party having taken a one-sided view
+of him. His stature was small; but in the case of one who never stood
+very high in the opinion of the public, it was physically impossible
+for the fact to be otherwise. Walpole, in his very ingenious "Historic
+Doubts," has tried to get rid of Richard's high hump, but the operation
+has not been successful, in the opinion of any impartial umpire.
+Imagination, that tyrant which has such a strange method of treating its
+subjects, has had perhaps more to do than Nature in placing an enormous
+burden on Richard's shoulders. His features were decidedly good-looking;
+but on the converse of the principle that "handsome is as handsome
+does," the tyrant Gloucester has been regarded as one of those who "ugly
+was that handsome didn't."
+
+It is a remarkable fact that Richard the Third during his short reign
+received no subsidy from Parliament, though we must not suppose that
+he ruled the kingdom gratuitously; for, on the contrary, his income was
+ample and munificent. He got it in the shape of tonnage and poundage
+upon all sorts of goods, and when money was not to be had he took
+property to the full value of the claim he had upon it. The result was
+that his treasury became a good deal like an old curiosity shop, a
+coal shed, or a dealer's in marine stores, for anything that came in
+Richard's way was perfectly acceptable. The principle of poundage was
+applied to everything, even in quantities less than a pound, and he
+would, even on a few ounces of sugar, sack his share of the saccharine.
+If he required it for his own use he never scrupled to intercept the
+housewife on her way from the butcher's and cut off the chump from the
+end of the chop; nor did he hesitate, when he felt disposed, to lop the
+very lollipop in the hands of the schoolboy. This principle of allowing
+poundage to the king was in the highest degree inconvenient. It rendered
+the meat-safe a misnomer, inasmuch as it was never safe from royal
+rapacity.
+
+It has been said of Richard, that he would have been well qualified to
+reign, had he been legally entitled to the throne; or, in other words,
+that he would have been a good ruler if he had not been a bad sovereign.
+To us this seems to savour of the old anomaly--a distinction without a
+difference. He certainly carried humbug to the highest possible point,
+for he exhibited it upon the throne, which serves as a platform to make
+either vice or virtue--as the case may be--conspicuous.
+
+The trick by which he obtained possession of his nephew, the young King
+Edward, whose liberty was likely to prove a stumbling-block in Richard's
+own path to the throne, is remarkable for its cunning, and for the
+intimate knowledge it displayed of the juvenile character. Proceeding to
+the residence of the baby monarch's mamma, he began asking after "little
+Ned" with apparently the most affectionate interest. He had previously
+provided himself with a lot of sweetstuff as he came along, for it was
+his deep design to intoxicate with brandy-balls the head of the infant
+sovereign. "Where is the little fellow?" inquired Richard, who would
+take no excuse for his nephew not being produced, but declared that
+being in no hurry, he could wait the convenience of the nursery
+authorities. Finding further opposition useless, Elizabeth reluctantly
+ordered the boy to be brought down, when Richard asked him "Whether
+he would like to go with Uncle Dick?" and got favourable answers by
+surreptitiously cramming the child's mouth with lollipops.
+
+[Illustration: 349]
+
+Whenever the little fellow was about to say "He would rather stay with
+his mamma," the Protector called his attention (aside) to a squib or
+brandy-ball, and York consented at last to go with his uncle. "Oh!
+I thought you would," cried the wily duke, as he clutched his little
+nephew up and jogged with him to the Tower. Such was the artful scheme
+by which the tyrant originally got possession of the subsequent victim
+of avuncular cruelty. It has been urged in extenuation of his cruel
+murder of the little princes, that their deaths were a necessary
+sequel to those of Hastings and others; but it would have been a poor
+consolation to the victims had they known that they were only killed by
+way of supplement. We cannot think that any portion of the catalogue
+of Richard's crimes should be printed in colours less black because
+it formed a continuation or an appendix to his atrocities; nor can we
+excuse Part II. of a horribly bad work because Part I. has rendered it
+unavoidable.
+
+It is urged by those writers who have defended him, that the crimes he
+committed were only those necessary to secure the crown; but this is no
+better plea than that of the highwayman who knocks a traveller on the
+head because the blow is necessary to the convenient picking of the
+victim's pockets. Richard's crimes might have been palliated in some
+trifling degree, had they been essential to the recovery of his own
+rights, but the case is different when his sanguinary career was only
+pursued that he might get hold of that which did not belong to him. It
+is true he was ambitious; but if a thief is ambitious of possessing our
+set of six silver tea-spoons, we are not to excuse him because he knocks
+us down and stuns us, as a necessary preliminary to the transfer of the
+property from our own to our assailant's possession. The palliators of
+Richard's atrocities declare that he could do justice in matters where
+his own interest was not concerned; but this fact, by proving that he
+knew better, is in fact an aggravation of the faults he was habitually
+guilty of. It has been insinuated that when he had got all he wanted,
+he might have improved, but that by killing him after he had come to the
+throne, his contemporaries gave him no chance of becoming respectable.
+It must be clear to every reasonable mind that the result, even had it
+been satisfactory, would never have been worth the cost of obtaining it,
+and that in tolerating Richard's pranks, on the chance of his becoming
+eventually a good king, his subjects might well have exclaimed _le jeu
+n'en vaut pas la chandelle_. In the _vexata questio_ of the cause of the
+death of the princes, the guilt has usually been attributed to Richard,
+because he reaped the largest benefit from their decease; but this
+horrible doctrine would imply that a tenant for life is usually murdered
+by the remainder-man, and that the enjoyer of the interest of Bank
+Stock is frequently cut off by the reversioner who is entitled to the
+principal. We admit there is a strong case against Richard upon other
+more reasonable evidence: and thus from the magisterial bench of History
+do we commit him to take his trial, and be impartially judged by the
+whole of his countrymen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. NATIONAL INDUSTRY.
+
+Let us now turn from the turmoil of war, and apply our eye-glass to the
+pursuits of peace; for, having been surfeited for the present with royal
+rapacity, it will be refreshing to take a glance at national industry.
+
+London was at a very early period famous for the abundance of its wool,
+and it has been ingeniously suggested that the great quantity of wool
+may account for a sort of natural shyness or sheepishness among our
+fellow-countrymen.
+
+The Bill of Exchange was a luxury introduced in the beginning of the
+thirteenth century, for the accommodation of our forefathers, who had
+learned the value of a good name, and perhaps occasionally experienced
+the inconveniences of a bad one.
+
+There is nothing very interesting in the history of Commerce until the
+time of Whittington, whose cat, we have already said, was a fabulous
+animal, though it has taken its place by the side of the British Lion
+in our English annals. We are inclined to believe that there is some
+analogy between these two brutes, and that both are meant to be the
+types respectively of our political and commercial prosperity. We have
+sometimes thought that the British Lion, from its plurality of lives,
+ought rather to be called the British Cat, especially from its readiness
+to come to the scratch when the altar or the throne may seem to be in
+jeopardy. Whatever may be the exact nature of the beast, it is certainly
+a very highly-trained and somewhat harmless animal, for any statesman
+may place his head in the British Lion's mouth, and remove it again
+without suffering the slightest injury. The creature will roar loudly
+enough and show an ample expanse of jaw, but it is frequently _vox
+et praterea nihil_ with the noisy brute, whose grumbling is often
+indicative of his extreme emptiness.
+
+Whittington was certainly three times Lord Mayor of London, and we
+find him "doing a bill" for Henry the Fourth to the tune of a thousand
+pounds, and taking the subsidy on wool--out of which the sovereign
+generally fleeced the people--as collateral security.
+
+In the reign of Henry the Fifth considerable advance was made in the art
+of ship-building, though from the pictures of the period it would seem
+that the craft exhibited very little of the workman's cunning. One of
+the ships of war of the fifteenth century, described in the Harleian
+MS., has all the appearance of a raft constructed of a few planks, with
+a sort of sentry-box at one end for the accommodation of the steersman.
+In the larger vessels the entire crew will be found always crowding the
+deck in a dense mass; for the rules against taking more than the number
+were not enforced, and an ancient ship, like a modern carpet bag, was
+never so full but something additional could be always crammed into it.
+
+In this age commerce was so highly respectable that even kings carried
+it on; and the highest ecclesiastics were in business for themselves as
+tradesmen of the humblest character. Matthew Paris tells us of an abbot
+of St. Alban's who did a good deal in the fish line, under the name of
+William of Trumpington.
+
+[Illustration: 352]
+
+His chief transactions were in Yarmouth herrings, and the worthy abbot
+undertook to put upon every breakfast table as good a bloater as money
+could procure, at a very moderate figure. The benevolent dignitary had
+come to the conclusion that the cure of herrings would pay him better
+than the cure of souls, and he accordingly added the former lucrative
+branch to the latter employment, with a pompous declaration that the two
+might be considered analogous. This habit among the churchmen, of making
+all fish that came to their net, was by no means popular and it was said
+in a lampoon of the day, that the (chap. viii.) next thing to be done
+would be the conversion of a prebendal stall into an oyster stall.
+
+Among the other disreputable sources of revenue to which the
+ecclesiastics devoted themselves we must not omit to mention smuggling,
+which they carried on to an alarming extent in wool; for after going
+wool-gathering in all directions, they padded themselves with it and
+stuffed it under their gowns for the purpose of eluding the Customs'
+regulations, to which the article was subjected.
+
+Edward the Fourth was a true tradesman at heart, and, had he been a
+general dealer instead of a king, he would have been quite in his proper
+station. Nature had fitted him for the counter, though Fortune had
+placed him on the throne; but even in his commercial transactions he
+was guilty of acts that were quite unworthy of the high character of the
+British tradesman. The butt of Malmsey in which he caused his brother to
+be drowned was, it is believed, actually sold as a full fruity wine with
+"plenty of body in it," after poor Clarence had been in soak till
+death relieved him from his drenching. Edward the Fourth had also the
+disagreeable habit of enriching himself by money which he borrowed from
+the merchants, and never thought proper to return to them himself;
+but if he paid them at all, he, by laying on taxes, took it out of the
+people. It was also a fraudulent propensity of some of our early kings,
+to depreciate the coin of the realm, and Edward the Third managed to
+squeeze two hundred and seventy pennies, instead of two hundred and
+forty, out of a pound, which enabled him to put the odd half-crown into
+his own pocket. Henry the Fourth carried the sweating process still
+further, by diluting a pound into thirty shillings, a trick he excused
+by alleging the scarcity of money; though the expedient was as bad as
+that of the housewife who, when the strength of the tea was gone, filled
+up the pot with water for the purpose of making more of it. Edward the
+Fourth, considering that his predecessors had not subjected the pound to
+all the compound division of which it was capable, smashed it into four
+hundred pennies, which was certainly proving that he could make a pound
+go as far as anyone.
+
+In speaking of the industry of the people, we may fairly allude to
+what was regarded at the time as a great drag upon it in the shape of a
+fearful increase of attorneys, who in 1455 had grown to such an extent
+in Norfolk and Suffolk, that those places were literally swarming with
+the black fraternity. In the city of Norwich the attorneys were so
+plentiful that the evil began to correct itself, for they commenced
+preying on each other, like the water-lion "Ya-ah! Macker--!"
+water-tiger in the drop of stagnant fluid viewed through the solar
+microscope. They were in the habit of attending markets and fairs where
+they worked people up into bringing and defending actions against each
+other, without the smallest legal ground for proceedings on either side.
+A salutary statute cut down the exuberance of the attorneys by limiting
+their numbers, and six were appointed as a necessary evil for Suffolk;
+six as a standing nuisance in Norfolk; while two were apportioned under
+the head of things that, as they "can't be cured must be endured," to
+the city of Norwich. Such was the state of national industry up to the
+period at which we have arrived in our history.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE NINTH. OF THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.
+
+
+[Illustration: 353]
+
+NOTWITHSTANDING that in a previous book we brought down the fashions and
+furniture of our forefathers to the fourteenth century, in the present
+chapter we shall have the pleasure of laying before our readers some
+considerably later intelligence. We left our ancestors lying upon very
+uncomfortable beds, but the year 1415 introduces us to some luxuries
+in the way of curtains and counterpanes. The Duke of York set forth his
+bedding in his will, which bears the date we have named, ana he seems to
+have died worth some thousands of pounds--of superior goose feathers. At
+a somewhat later period the sheet burst upon the page of history, and a
+blank is supplied by the sudden appearance of the blanket.
+
+It was about the same period that clocks with strings and weights began
+to have a striking influence on the time, and Edward the Fourth used to
+carry one about with him wherever he went, but we do not believe that
+he wore it in a watchpocket, from which, instead of key and seals, there
+hung a couple of weights and a pendulum.
+
+Costume seems to have been curtailed of very little of its exuberant
+absurdity in the reigns of Henry the Fourth and Fifth, though reform was
+carried to extremes, for it cut off the surplus hair from the head, and
+took away at least half a yard from the foot by relieving the shoes
+of their long points, a fashion which had always been remarkable for
+extreme pointlessness.
+
+In the reign of Edward the Fourth there appears to have been a practice
+prevalent of making a shift to go without a shirt, when those who had
+such a thing to their backs were seized with a spirit of self-assertion,
+and began to slash open their sleeves for the purpose of showing
+their possession of that very useful article. The desire to prove the
+plenteousness and perhaps also the _proprete_ of the under linen, led
+to a further ripping up of other parts of the dress, and the fops of the
+day began to outslash each other by opening the seams of their clothes
+in the most unseemly fashion.
+
+Richard the Third and his "cousin of Buckingham" were notorious for
+their love of finery, and the term "buck," which is used at the present
+day, is evidently an abbreviation of Buckingham, Richard, probably,
+invented the Dicky or false front, which gave him the appearance of
+having always a clean breast, though the fact is that he was reduced to
+the expedient of wearing a false front, because the stains of guilt upon
+his bosom were utterly indelible.
+
+The appetite of the fifteenth century seems to have been uncommonly
+good, for we find our ancestors eating four meals a day, beginning with
+breakfast at seven, dinner at ten, supper at four, and a collation taken
+in bed--oh, the cormorants!--between eight and nine in the evening.
+The meal taken in bed may have consisted of a _blanquette de veau_,
+or perhaps now and then a bolster pudding, while the ladies may have
+indulged themselves with a _cotelette en papillotes_. Earl Percy and
+his countess used to absorb between them a gallon of beer and a quart of
+wine, and before being tucked up for the night would tuck in a loaf of
+household bread, with other trifles to follow. A dinner in the days to
+which we are reverting generally lasted three hours, but tumblers and
+dancers were employed to amuse the feasters, so that a kind of caper
+sauce was served out with every dish that came to table.
+
+Nothing in the whole annals of ancient and modern gluttony can exceed
+the dinner said to have been given by George Neville, the brother of
+the King-maker, on his induction to the Archbishopric of York, in
+the fifteenth century. It opened with a hundred and four oxen (_au
+naturel_), six wild bulls (_a la menagere_), three hundred and four
+calves (_en surprise_), with innumerable _entrees_ of pigs, bucks,
+stags, and roes, to an extent that is not only almost but quite
+incredible.
+
+The pictures of the period represent a very inconvenient mode of laying
+the table, for we find a fish served up in a slop-basin, or rather laid
+across the top of that article of china-ware, which was much too small
+to admit the body of the animal. As far as we can discern the intention
+of the artist, we fancy we recognise in one of his pictures of a feast a
+duck lying on its back in a sort of sugar-basin or salt-cellar. This and
+a kind of mustard-pot, with an empty plate and half of a dinner-roll,
+may be said to constitute the entire provision made for a party of
+seven, who are standing up huddled together on one side of the table, in
+an existing representation of a dinner of the period.
+
+The sports of the people were very numerous in the fifteenth century;
+but if we may judge by the pictures we have seen of the games, there was
+more labour than fun in the frolics of our forefathers. The contortions
+into which they seem to have thrown themselves while playing at
+bowls are quite painful to contemplate; and the well-known game of
+quarter-staff consisted of a mutual battering of shins and skulls, with
+a pole about six feet in length and some inches in circumference. Tennis
+was introduced at this early date, and it is therefore erroneous to
+assign its invention to Archbishop Tennison,--a report which has been
+spread by some unprincipled person, whose career of crime commencing in
+a pun has ended in a falsehood.
+
+The professional fool was a highly respectable character in the middle
+ages; and the court jester was a most influential personage, who was
+allowed to criticise all the measures of the ministry. He was a sort of
+supplementary premier; but, in later administrations--the present
+always excepted--the office of fool has merged among the members of the
+Government. It is a curious fact, that, judging from the portraits
+which have been preserved, the fools seem to have been the most
+sensible-looking persons of their own time; and the proverb, that "it
+takes a wise man to make a fool," was, no doubt, continually
+realised. The practical jokes of the jester were sometimes exceedingly
+disagreeable, for they consisted chiefly of blows and buffets,
+administered by a short wand, called a bauble, which he was in the habit
+of carrying. It was all very well when the fool's sallies happened to be
+taken in good part, but a witticism coming _mal-a-propos_, would often
+prove no joke to the joker, who would get soundly thrashed' for his
+impertinence. An ancient writer * describes the functions of a fool
+to have consisted chiefly of "making mouths, dancing about the house,
+leaping over the tables, outskipping men's heads, tripping up his
+companions' heels," and indulging in other similar _facetio_, which,
+though falling under the head of fun for the fool himself, might have
+been death to the victims of his exuberant gaiety. His life must
+have been one unbroken pantomime; though its last scene was seldom so
+brilliant as those bowers of bliss and realms of delight in the island
+of felicity, which owe their existence to the combined ingenuity of the
+painter and the machinist.
+
+     * Lodge, author of the _Wit's Miserie_, 4to, 1599.
+
+The spirit of chivalry had already begun to decline, or rather chivalry
+had lost its spirit altogether, for when it once became diluted it took
+very little time to evaporate. The few real combats that were fought
+referred chiefly to judicial proceedings, in which points of law were
+decided by the points of lances. The combatants probably thought they
+might as well bleed each other as allow themselves to be bled by the
+hands of the lawyers. The tournaments had dwindled down into the most
+contemptible exhibitions, for the spears used were entirely headless,
+and an encounter generally ended in the clashing together of a couple
+of blunted swords or the flourishing in the air of a brace of huge
+choppers, so that as the antagonists kept turning about, they might be
+said to revolve round each others' axes.
+
+Before concluding our chapter on the manners and customs of the
+people at the date to which our history has arrived we may notice some
+regulations for apparel, by which it was ordered, not only that every
+man should cut his coat according to his cloth, but should select his
+cloth according to the means he had of buying it. Apparel was not the
+only thing with which the law interfered, but some Acts were
+passed, fixing the rate of meals to be allowed to servants, and thus
+ameliorating their condition. Articles of dress were subjected to the
+most stringent legislation, and tailors were of necessity guided by
+Parliamentary measures; carters and ploughmen were limited by law to a
+blanket, so that the lightness of the restrictions permitted a looseness
+of attire, which was highly convenient. Persons not of noble rank were
+prohibited from wearing garments of undue brevity; and it was only those
+of the highest standing to whom the shortest dresses were permitted.
+
+It was in the period to which the present chapter refers, that English
+pauperism first became the subject of legislation; and it was an
+acknowledged principle, that the land must provide the poor with food
+and shelter, for civilization had not yet required the suppression of
+destitution by starvation and imprisonment.
+
+We have now brought down our account of the condition of the people,
+from the highest to the lowest, from the king on his throne to the
+pauper on his parish, from the royal robber in the palace to the sturdy
+beggar in the public thoroughfare. We have seen how England was torn
+to pieces by the thorns belonging to the Roses, and how, after fighting
+about the difference between white and red, the union of both taught
+those who had been particular to a shade, the folly of observing so
+much nicety. Future chapters must develop the influence which this union
+produced, and will show the effect of that junction between the damask
+and the cabbage roses, which had only been brought about by dyeing them
+in the blood of so many Englishmen.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK V. FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY THE SEVENTH TO THE END OF THE REIGN
+OF ELIZABETH.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIRST. HENRY THE SEVENTH.
+
+[Illustration: 347]
+
+THOUGH Henry had got the crown upon his head, he did not feel quite
+sure of being able to keep it there, for he knew there was nothing so
+difficult to balance on the top of a human pole as a regal diadem.
+He felt that what had been won by the sword must be sustained by that
+dangerous weapon, though he was not insensible to the fact that edged
+tools are frequently hurtful to the hand that uses them. He became
+jealous of Edward Plan-tagenet, a boy of fifteen, the heir of the Duke
+of York, and grandson of Warwick, the king-maker. This un-happy lad was
+sent to the Tower, lest his superior right might prove mightier than the
+might which Henry had displayed on the field of Bosworth.
+
+The Princess Elizabeth, daughter of the Queen Dowager, who was known by
+the humbler name of Mrs. E. Woodville, was let out of prison, to which
+she had been consigned by Richard the Third, who kept her closely under
+lock and key from the moment when he found it impossible to unite her to
+him in wedlock.
+
+Henry came up to London five days after the battle of Bosworth, and was
+met at Hornsey by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, all dressed in violet,
+which caused the new king to exclaim, "Ha! gentlemen, you wish me to
+take a hint. Your privileges shall be, like yourselves, in-violate!" He
+then proceeded in a close chariot to St. Paul's, where he deposited his
+three standards; and it has been suggested, that the celebrated Standard
+at Cornhill was one of those alluded to. The festivities in London
+were so numerous at the accession, that the city became crowded to
+suffocation, and the "sweating sickness," which will be remembered as
+Stanley's old complaint, broke out among the inhabitants.
+
+[Illustration: 358]
+
+When it had abated Henry began to think about his coronation, and
+he took an early dinner at Lambeth with the Archbishop of
+Canterbury--Thomas Bourchier--to talk the matter over. The king and the
+prelate soon came to terms over their chop for the performance of the
+ceremony, which took place on the 30th of October, 1485, in the usual
+style of elegance. The good archbishop was an old and experienced hand:
+for he had crowned Richard the Third only two years before, and indeed
+the system of the prelate was, to ask no questions that he might hear no
+falsehoods; but he was always ready to perform a coronation for anyone
+who could find his own crown, and pay the fees that were usual.
+
+A Parliament was now summoned, but when the Commons came together,
+it turned out that several of them had been attainted and outlawed in
+previous reigns without the attainders having been since reversed, and
+Henry himself was in the same doubtful predicament. The opinion of the
+judges was required in this disagreeable dilemma, but the intention in
+consulting them was only to get these accommodating interpreters of the
+law to twist it into a shape that would meet existing contingencies.
+With the usual pliability of the judges of those days, the parties whose
+opinion was asked gave it in favour of the strongest side, and Henry's
+having got the crown was declared to have cured all deficiencies of
+title. The Commons were obliged to have bills passed to reverse their
+attainders, but the king, like one of those patent fire-places which
+are advertised to consume their own smoke, was alleged to have cured the
+defects of his own title by the bare fact of his having got possession
+of the royal dignity.
+
+Having settled all matters concerning his claim to the throne, he began
+to think about his intended wife, Elizabeth. "I beg your pardon for
+keeping you waiting," said he to Miss Woodville; "but, really I have
+been detained by other engagements." The young lady, who had sometimes
+feared that her case was one of breach of promise, was glad to disguise
+her real annoyance, and saying that "It did not at all signify," she
+prepared for the much retarded nuptials. They were solemnised on
+the 18th of January, 1486, and they were no sooner over than Henry
+exclaimed, "Now, Madam, recollect I have married you, but have not
+married your family." This uncourteous speech had reference to old Mrs.
+Woodville, who had already written to know what her new son-in-law
+would do for her. "I will not have her in the house," roared Henry, with
+savage earnestness; but he settled a small annuity upon her, which he
+enabled himself to pay by pocketing the whole of her dower.
+
+The queen became anxious for her coronation, as any woman might
+reasonably be; but Henry put her off day after day, by exclaiming,
+"Don't be in a hurry; there's time enough for that nonsense." In
+this heartless manner he succeeded in adjourning the pageant for an
+indefinite period.
+
+Henry's new project was to get up his popularity by a tour in the
+provinces. Happening to put up at Lincoln, he heard that Lord Lovel,
+with Humphrey and Thomas Stafford "had gone with dangerous intentions no
+man knew whither." They had much better have remained where they were;
+for Lord Lovel, after collecting a large body of insurgents, found
+himself quite unable to pay their wages, and at once disbanded them. He
+flew into Flanders; but the two Staffords were taken in the very act of
+concocting an insurrection, for which Humphrey, the elder, was hanged,
+while Thomas, on account of his youth, was pardoned.
+
+Henry arrived on the 26th of April, 1486, at York, where Richard the
+Third, though killed on Bosworth Field, was still living in some of
+the people's memories. The marking-ink, in which the tyrant's name was
+written on their hearts, being by no means indelible, Henry determined
+to sponge it out as quickly as possible. He tried soft soap upon some
+and golden ointment upon others; both of which specifics had so much
+effect that in less than a month the city rang with cries of "Long live
+King Henry!"
+
+On the 20th of September, the Court newsman of the day announced the
+interesting fact that the happiness of the king's domestic circle had
+been increased by the birth of a son; or, rather, the royal circle had
+been turned into a triangle by the arrival of an infant heir, who was
+named Arthur.
+
+We must now request the reader to throw the luggage of his imagination
+on board the boat, and accompany us to Ireland, where, on landing, we
+will introduce him, ideally, to a priest and a boy who have just arrived
+in Dublin. The priest describes his young charge as Edward Plantagenet,
+Earl of Warwick, which will astonish us not a little, inasmuch as our
+friend, the reader, will remember that we left the little fellow not
+long ago a close prisoner in the Tower. How he got out is the question
+which we first ask ourselves, which we answer by intimating, that he did
+not get out at all, but he was only "a boy dressed up" to represent the
+young earl, and he played his part so well that many believed his story
+to be genuine. He had studied the character he represented, and had got
+by heart all the adventures of the young prince, together with a fund
+of anecdote that appeared quite inexhaustible. The juvenile impostor
+scarcely spoke a sentence that did not begin with "When I was a prisoner
+in the Tower," which made everyone believe that he had really been an
+inmate of that gloomy jail; and the trick succeeded to a miracle.
+
+The urchin was proclaimed as Edward the Sixth, King of England and
+France and Lord of Ireland; for such was the credulity of the Hibernians
+that they believed every word of the tale that had been told to them.
+
+[Illustration: 360]
+
+Henry, desirous of exposing the fraud, had the real Plantagenet taken
+out of the Tower, for exhibition in the London streets; but the Irish
+declared that the real thing was a mere imposition, and the mock duke
+the genuine article. They, in fact, illustrated that instructive fable,
+in which an actor, having been applauded for his imitation of a pig, was
+succeeded by a rival who went the whole hog and concealed in the folds
+of his dress a rear brute, whoso squeak was pronounced very far
+less natural than that of the original representative of the porcine
+character.
+
+Henry becoming a little alarmed at these proceedings, began rushing into
+the extremes of levity and severity; now pardoning a host of political
+offenders, and the next day, packing off the Queen Dowager--marked
+"Carriage paid, with care,"--to the monks at Bermondsey. Lambert Simnel,
+for so the impostor was called, held out as long as he could, and even
+got up, by subscription, one coronation during the season; but
+upon Henry's taking measures to chastise him he soon shrunk into
+insignificance. After a battle at Stoke, the pretender and his friend,
+the priest, were taken into custody, when the latter was handed over
+to the church for trial, and the former received a contemptuous pardon,
+including the place of scullion, to wash up the dishes and run for the
+beer in the royal household. He was at once placed in the kitchen, where
+his perquisites, probably in the way of kitchen stuff, enabled him to
+save a little money, and, in order to better himself, he subsequently
+sought and obtained the office of superintendent of the poultry yard,
+under the imposing title of the king's falconer. The priest, his tutor,
+seems to have dropped down one of those gratings of the past which lead
+to the common sewer of obscurity, in which it is quite impossible to
+follow him. We hear of him last looking through the bars of a prison,
+where he was left till called for, and, as nobody ever called, he never
+seems to have emerged from his captivity.
+
+The friends of the house of York now became clamorous at the treatment
+of the Queen Elizabeth, who had been kept in obscurity, and had urged
+"that little matter of the coronation" over and over again upon the
+attention of her selfish husband. "How you bother!" he would sometimes
+exclaim to his unhappy consort, whom he would endeavour to quiet by
+the philosophical inquiry of "What are the odds, so long as you're
+happy?"--a question which, as Elizabeth was not happy, she found some
+difficulty in answering. At length, one morning at breakfast, he said
+sulkily, "Well, I suppose I shall never have any peace till that affair
+comes off;" and the necessary orders for the coronation of the queen
+were immediately given. Henry himself behaved in a very ungentlemanly
+manner during the entire ceremony, for he viewed it from behind a
+screen, * which was afterwards brought into the hall, to enable him to
+sit at his ease out of sight, and take occasional peeps at the dinner.
+He had refused to honour the proceedings with his presence, having
+declared the ceremony to be "slow," and alleged the impossibility of his
+sitting it out after having once suffered the infliction.
+
+It was at about this period of the reign of Henry the Seventh that the
+court of Star Chamber was established; and though it, ultimately, **
+"became odious by the tyrannical exercise of its powers," its intentions
+were originally as honourable as the most scrupulous of its suitors
+could have desired. It was founded in consequence of the inefficiency
+of the ordinary tribunals to do complete justice in criminal matters and
+other offences of an extraordinary and dangerous character, *** and to
+supply a sort of criminal equity--if we may be allowed the term--which
+should reach the offences of great men, whom the inferior judges and
+juries of the ordinary tribunals might have been afraid to visit with
+their merited punishment.
+
+     * The old chroniclers affirm that he looked on "from behind
+     a lattice." A modern authority has it that the king looked
+     on at the dinner from behind a lettuce--spelt lattice--and
+     had a magnificent salad before him during the proceedings.
+
+     ** _Vide_ the valuable work on the Equitable Jurisdiction of
+     the Court of Chancery" comprising its Rise, Progress, and
+     Final Establishment. By George Spence, Esq., Q.C. Vol. i.,
+     p. 350.
+
+     *** Ditto, p. 351.
+
+It has been suggested with some plausibility that the court of Star
+Chamber derived its name from the decorations of the room in which
+it was held, though it is, perhaps, a more ingenious supposition of
+a modern authority that the word "Star" was applied to the court
+in question because within its walls justice was administered in a
+twinkling. It might, with as much reason, be suggested that the name had
+reference to the constellation of legal talent of which the tribunal was
+composed; for those stars of the first magnitude--the Lord Chancellor,
+the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Privy Seal, and the President of the
+Council, were all of them judges of the court.
+
+We must not, however, detain the reader any longer in a dull court
+of law, for we find ourselves served, in imagination, with a writ
+of _Habeas Corpus_, commanding us to bring him up for the purpose of
+inquiring by what right we hold him in the disagreeable duress of dry
+legal detail.
+
+In returning to Henry, we find him offering to act as mediator between
+Charles of France and the Duke of Bretagne, when, like every meddler
+in the disputes of others, he is unable to emerge from the position in
+which he has placed himself without that nasal tweak which is the due
+reward of impertinence. The taxes he was obliged to impose for the
+purpose of interference, undertaken, as he alleged, to curb the ambition
+of the French court, were very exorbitant, and particularly so on
+account of Henry's avarice, which induced him to put about ten per
+cent, of every levy into his own pocket. The people were, of course,
+dissatisfied, and the harshness used in collecting the subsidy irritated
+them so much in the north, that they took their change out of the
+unfortunate Duke of Northumberland, whom they killed, because he had the
+ill-luck to be employed in the invidious office of tax-gatherer.
+
+In 1490 Parliament liberally granted some more money to carry on the war
+with France, but Henry pocketed the cash, and sent some priests to try
+and compromise the matter with the enemy. It was not until four years
+afterwards, in the course of 1494, that he really went to work against
+the French, but he contrived to make it pay him exceedingly well, for he
+not only grabbed the subsidies voted for the purpose, but he converted
+them into so much clear profit, by getting his knights and nobles to
+bear their own expenses out of their own pockets. He kindly gave them
+permission to sell their estates without the ordinary fines, and many a
+gallant fellow sold himself completely up, in the hope of indemnifying
+himself by what he should be able to take from the French in battle.
+
+Henry had, however, completely humbugged his gallant knights and nobles,
+for he never intended them to have the chance of gaining anything in
+France by conquest, and had, in fact, settled the whole matter at a very
+early period. He had made up his mind not to spend more than he could
+help, and had been putting away the subsidies in a couple of huge
+portmanteaus, which served him for coffers. Under the pretence of doing
+something, he passed over with his army to France, and "sat down" before
+Boulogne; but his sitting down proved that he had no intention of making
+any stand, and a truce was very soon agreed upon. Two treaties were
+drawn up, one of which was to be made public, for the purpose of
+misleading the people, and the other was a private transaction between
+the two sovereigns. The first only stipulated for peace, but the second
+secured the sum of L149,000 to be paid by instalments to Henry, who must
+have been under the necessity of ordering another coffer to receive the
+additional wealth that was thus poured in upon him.
+
+New troubles were, however, commencing to disturb the mind of the
+king, who received one morning, at breakfast, a despatch announcing
+the arrival, at the Cove of Cork, of another pretender to the Crown
+of England. "There seems to be no end to these vagabonds," he mentally
+exclaimed, as he read the document announcing that a handsome young
+man had been giving himself out as Richard, Duke of York, second son of
+Edward the Fourth, and legitimate heir to the monarchy. "Pooh, pooh!"
+ejaculated Henry; "the fellow was disposed of in the Tower long ago."
+But on perusing further, he found that the young man had met this
+objection by alleging that he had escaped, and had been for seven years
+a wanderer. It was exceedingly improbable that the royal youth had been
+so long upon the tramp, but his story was not very rigidly criticised
+by Henry's enemies. The wanderer introduced himself to the Duchess of
+Burgundy, who, after some enquiry, pronounced him to be genuine, and
+embraced him as the undoubted son of her dear brother Edward. She gave
+him the poetical name of the White Rose of England, but Henry, knowing
+that "the rose by any other name" would _not_ "smell as sweet" in the
+nostrils of the English, gave out that the "White Rose" was a Jew boy of
+the name of Peterkin or Perkin Warbeck. It was further alleged that the
+lad had been recently a footman in the family of Lady Brompton, with
+whom he had been travelling. Peterkin was materially damaged in public
+opinion by getting the character of a mere "flunkey," and he was afraid
+to do more than hover about the coast without venturing to effect a
+landing. Though Henry had held the pretender up to ridicule, Perkin
+Warbeck's opposition was in reality no joke, and the king bribed a few
+of the party to betray their colleagues. Several were at once informed
+against, among whom were the two Ratcliffes, who denied their guilt in
+the usual Ratcliffe highway; but their repudiation had no effect, for
+one of them was at once beheaded. Sir William Stanley, a very old
+friend of the Richmond family, whose brother, Lord Stanley, had put
+the battered crown on Henry's brow in the field of Bosworth, became an
+object of suspicion; and thinking he should get off by a confession,
+he acknowledged everything he had been guilty of, with a supplement
+containing a catalogue of offences he had never committed. Thus, by
+denying too much for confession and owning enough for condemnation, he
+fell between two stools, one of which was the stool of repentance, and
+lost his head at the moment he fancied he was upon a safe footing.
+
+The party of Perkin Warbeck being discouraged by these events, and the
+people of Flanders having grown tired of the pretender's long visit, he
+felt that "now or never" was the time for his descent on England.
+The White Rose having torn himself away by the force of sheer pluck,
+attempted to transplant himself to the coast of Deal, but he found
+a Kentish knight ready to repel the Rose, and by a cry of "Go it, my
+tulips!" encouraging his followers to resist all oppression.
+
+The White Bose and his companions mournfully took their leaves, and as
+many as could escape returned with press of sail to Flanders. Henry sent
+a vote of thanks to the men of Kent, with a promise of gold, but the
+remittance never came to hand from that day to the present.
+
+Mr. P. Warbeck was now becoming such a nuisance in Flanders, that he was
+told he must really suit himself with another situation immediately. He
+tried Ireland, but the dry announcement of "no such person known" was
+almost the only answer to his overtures. As a last resource, and a proof
+of the desperate nature of his fortune, he actually threw himself upon
+the generosity of the Scotch, which was almost as hopeless as running
+his head against a stone wall; but as it was just possible that Perkin
+Warbeck might be turned to profitable account against England, the
+Scotch opened their hearts--where there is never any admission except
+on business--to the adventurous wanderer. James the Third, king of
+Scotland, chiefly out of spite to Henry, not only received Perkin as
+the genuine Duke of York, but married him to Lady Catherine Gordon, the
+lovely and accomplished daughter of the Earl of Huntley, a relative of
+the royal house of Stuart. An agreement was drawn up between James of
+Scotland, of the one part, and Perkin Warbeck, of the other, by virtue
+of which Perkin was to be pitchforked on to the English throne, and
+was to make over the town of Berwick-on-Tweed--when he got it--as an
+acknowledgment to King James for his valuable services. After some
+little delay, the Scotch crossed the border to enforce Perkin's demand;
+but when that individual arrived in England, he found himself so
+thoroughly snubbed that he sneaked back again.
+
+Notwithstanding the utter failure of this enterprise, which had cost
+Henry not a penny to resist, he sent in a bill as long as his arm for
+the equipment of his army. The people who had not been called upon to
+strike a single blow, and always liked to have, what they called "their
+whack for their money," were enraged at being asked to pay for a battle
+that had never happened. The men of Cornwall were particularly angry at
+having to give any of their tin, and came up to Blackheath, under Lord
+Audley, whose inexperience was so great that he might have furnished
+the original for the sign of the "Green Man," which so long remained the
+distinguishing feature of the neighbourhood. The battle of Blackheath
+was fought on the 22nd of June, 1497, with a good deal of superfluous
+strength on one side, and consummate bad management on the other. On
+the side of the insurgents, one Flammock or Flummock, an attorney, was
+a principal leader, but he would gladly have taken out a summons to stay
+proceedings, had such practice been allowable. It is probable that this
+"gentleman one, &c." had been persuaded by some noble client who had
+an interest in the fight to appear as his attorney in this memorable
+action.
+
+Henry having gained every advantage in his recent transactions was
+desirous of completing his arrangements, by purchasing Warbeck, if
+anyone could be found base enough to sell that unfortunate individual.
+James of Scotland was too honourable for such a shameful bargain, though
+he was greatly embarrassed in assisting Warbeck, for whom he had melted
+down his plate--an act worthy of the most fiddle-headed spoon--besides
+raising money on a gold chain he used to wear, and to which he was so
+attached, that he compared it to
+
+     "Linked sweetness long drawn out,"
+
+as he drew it forth from his pocket to put it into the hands of the
+pawnbroker.
+
+It was now intimated to Perkin Warbeck that he "had better go," for his
+presence had become exceedingly costly and embarrassing. "I've nothing
+more for you, my good man," were the considerate words of James as he
+despatched his guest to seek his fortune elsewhere, attended by a
+few trusty retainers, who stuck to him "through thick and thin," an
+attachment which, as he could hardly pay his own way, must have been
+very embarrassing. His wife's fidelity to him in his ill-fortune was a
+beautiful as well as a gratifying fact, for she had, really, seen
+much better days, and the sacrifices she made in sharing the fate of a
+Pretender "out of luck" was quite undeniable.
+
+Perkin Warbeck made first for Cork in the hope of raising the Irish, but
+as he could not raise the Spanish, the former would have nothing to
+do with him. He next tried Cornwall, and marching inland he soon found
+himself at the head of a party of discontented ragamuffins, who happened
+to be ready for a row, without any ulterior views of a very definite
+character. He called himself Richard the Fourth, and penetrated into
+England as far as Taunton Dean, where Henry's forces had already
+collected.
+
+[Illustration: 365]
+
+Warbeck was admirable in all his preliminary arrangements, and it was
+"quite a picture" to see him reviewing his troops; but picture as he
+was, the idea of fighting put him into such a fright, that he always
+lost his colour. He was first-rate on parade, but quite unequal to the
+business of a battle, and, indeed, to use an illustration founded on
+a fact of our own times, he would have been invaluable in the Astley's
+version of Waterloo, though utterly contemptible in the original
+performance of that tremendous action.
+
+No sooner had Perkin Warbeck ascertained the propinquity of the enemy
+than he recommended that his forces should all go to bed in good time to
+be fresh for action early in the morning. Having first ascertained that
+all were asleep, he stole off to the stable, saddled his horse, and
+having mounted the poor brute, stuck spurs into its side until
+he reached the sanctuary of Beaulieu in the New Forest. When this
+disgraceful desertion of their leader was discovered the rebels set up
+a piteous howl and threw themselves on the mercy of Henry, who ordered
+some to hang, and sent others to starve, by dismissing them without food
+or clothing. Lady Catherine Gordon, alias Mrs. P. Warbeck, who had been
+sojourning for safety at St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall, was brought
+before the king, who, touched by her beauty and her tears, experienced
+in his heart that truly English sentiment which declares, that "the man
+who would basely injure a lovely woman in distress, is unworthy of the
+name of a--a--British officer." He therefore sent her on a visit to the
+queen, who paid every attention to the fallen heroine.
+
+[Illustration: 366]
+
+The next thing to be done was to rout Perkin Warbeck out of the hole
+into which cowardice had driven him. Henry was unwilling to disturb the
+sanctuary, but he sent his agents to parley with Perkin, who, finding
+himself regularly hemmed in, thought it better to come out on the best
+terms he could, and he accordingly emerged on the promise of a pardon.
+Henry was anxious to get a peep at the individual who had caused so much
+trouble, but thought it _infra dig._ to admit the rebel into the royal
+presence. The king, therefore, reverted to his old practice of getting
+behind a screen, an article he must have carried about with him wherever
+he went, that he might, unseen, indulge his curiosity. This paltry
+practice should have obtained for him the name of Peeping Harry, for
+we find him, at more than one period of his reign, skulking behind
+a screen, in the most ignoble manner. Perkin was made to ride up to
+London, behind Henry, at a little distance, and on getting to town he
+was sent on horseback through Cheapside and Cornhill, as a show for the
+citizens. There were the usual demonstrations of popular criticism on
+this occasion, and there is no doubt that amid the gibes and scoffs
+addressed to the captive the significant interrogatory of "Who ran away
+from Taunton Dean?" was not forgotten.
+
+After taking a turn to the Tower and back for the accommodation of the
+inhabitants at the East End, who desired to be gratified with a sight of
+the Pretender, Perkin was lodged in the palace at Westminster, where a
+good deal of liberty seems to have been allowed him. He however chose to
+run away, and being caught again, he was made to stand in the stocks a
+whole day before the door of Westminster Hall, where he was made to read
+a written confession, which was interrupted by an occasional egg in
+his eye, or cabbage leaf over his mouth, for such are the voluntary
+contributions which a British public has always been ready to offer to
+helpless impotence.
+
+[Illustration: 368]
+
+The next day the same ceremony with the same accessories was repeated at
+Cheapside, in order to give the East End an opportunity of enjoying the
+sport which the West End had already revelled in. Perkin Warbeck was
+then committed to the Tower, where he and the unfortunate Earl of
+Warwick became what may be termed fast friends, for they were bound
+tightly together in the same prison. Warbeck, who was in every sense
+of the word an accomplished swindler, succeeded in winning the good
+opinion, not only of his fellow captive but of the keepers of the jail,
+three of whom, it is said, had actually undertaken to murder Sir John
+Digby, the governor, for the sake of getting hold of the keys, and
+releasing the two captives. It was now evident that Warbeck would never
+be quiet, and Henry, feeling him to be a troublesome fellow, determined
+to get rid of him. On the 16th of November, 1499, Warbeck was arraigned
+at Westminster Hall, and being found guilty as a matter of course, was
+executed on the 23rd of the same month at Tyburn, where, cowardly to the
+last, he asked the forgiveness of the king, even on the scaffold.
+
+Walpole, in his "Historic Doubts"--a work that throws everything into
+uncertainty and settles nothing--gives it as his opinion that Perkin
+Warbeck was really the Duke of York; but had Walpole been able to tell
+"a sheep's head from a carrot," he would never have been guilty of
+such a piece of confounding and confounded blundering. We who give no
+encouragement whatever to Historic Doubts are tolerably sure that Perkin
+Warbeck was merely a fashionable swindler, for he had none of that
+personal courage or true dignity which would have redeemed his imposture
+from the character of mere quackery. He contrived to ruin poor Warwick,
+or at all events to hasten his destruction by implicating him in a
+conspiracy, which of his own accord he never would have dreamed of.
+
+When put upon his trial, the hapless earl--who, though only twenty-nine
+years of age, was from long seclusion in a state of second childhood,
+if indeed he had ever got out of his first--confessed with piteous
+simplicity all that had been alleged against him. He was beheaded on
+Tower Hill the 24th * of November, 1499; and it was said that his death
+was the most merciful that could be conceived, for in losing his head
+he was deprived of that which he never knew how to use, and of the
+possession of which he did not at any time seem sensible. Warbeck's
+widow continued to go by the name of the White Rose, when Sir Mathew
+Cradoc, thinking it a pity that she should be "left blooming alone,"
+offered to graft her on his family tree, and the White Rose consented to
+this arrangement.
+
+     * Hume says the 21st. Another authority says the 28th. It is
+     not with a mere wish to "split the difference" that we adopt
+     the medium date of the 24th, but we have good reasons for
+     stating that to be the exact day, and Mr. Charles
+     Macfarlane, in his admirable "Cabinet History of England"
+     has likewise named the 24th of November as the precise time
+     of Warwick's execution.
+
+Henry had long been anxious to marry his daughter Margaret to James of
+Scotland, and he sent a cunning bishop, most appropriately named Fox,
+to act the part of a match-maker. The sly old dog brought the matter so
+cleverly about that the marriage was agreed upon, and this union led to
+the peaceful union of the two countries about a century afterwards.
+The young lady got but a small portion from her stingy father, and her
+husband made a settlement upon her of L2000 a year, but he got her to
+accept a paltry compromise. The meanness of the arrangements may be
+judged of by the ridiculous fact that King James and his young bride
+rode into Edinburgh on the same palfrey.
+
+Henry's eldest son, Arthur Prince of Wales, had been already married
+to Catherine, fourth daughter of Ferdinand of Spain, who promised
+two hundred thousand crowns, half of which he paid down, as a wedding
+portion. The young husband died soon after, and Ferdinand naturally
+asked for his money and his child back again. The English king had
+pocketed the greater part of the cash, which he was not only quite
+unwilling to refund, but he had serious thoughts of proceeding for
+the balance of his daughter-in-law's dowry. He therefore consented
+to affiance her to his second son, Henry, in compliance with the only
+condition upon which Ferdinand agreed to waive his claim to the cash
+already in hand, and he even promised to pay the rest of the portion at
+his "earliest convenience."
+
+Henry himself, or as we may call him for the sake of distinction, the
+"old gentleman," had lately lost his wife, and he went at once into the
+matrimonial market to see whether there was anything upon which it might
+be safe to speculate. He however wanted to conduct his operations with
+such extraordinary profit to himself that nothing seemed to tempt his
+avarice. His ruling passion was for "cash down," and to obtain this
+he fleeced his subjects most unmercifully, though he employed the
+disreputable firm of Empson and Dudley to collect the amount of the
+various extortions he was continually practising. These two men were
+little better than swindlers, though as lawyers they adhered to the
+rules of law, and indeed they kept a rabble always in the house to sit
+as jurymen. They had trials in their own office, and would often ring
+the bell to order up a jury from downstairs, just as anyone in the
+present day would order up his dinner. Dudley got the name of the Leech,
+from his power of drawing, and indeed he would have got the blood out of
+a blood-stone if the opportunity had been afforded him. *
+
+     * Empson has been described by Hume as a man of "mean birth
+     and brutal temper," who of course, did all the bullying of
+     this disreputable firm, while Dudley, who was "better born,
+     better educated, and better bred," acted in the capacity of
+     what may be termed the decoy duck of the concern; or, in
+     other words, the latter snared the game which the former
+     savagely butchered.
+
+Henry had now but one formidable enemy left, in the person of young
+Edmund de la Pole, the nephew of Edward the Fourth, and son and heir to
+the Duke of Suffolk. This turbulent individual renewed the cry in favour
+of the "White Rose," which was said by a wag of the day to be raised on
+a pole, after the fashion of the frozen-out gardeners.
+
+Suffolk soon had the mortification of finding that he had not the
+suffrages of the people, for the rush to the Pole was anything but
+encouraging. "Ye Pole theyreforre," says Comines, "dydde cutte his sty
+eke," and became a penniless fugitive in Flanders. He was ultimately
+surrendered by Philip, the archduke, who had received Suffolk as a
+visitor, but gave him up with a lot of sundries he was transferring to
+Henry, who promised to spare the prisoner's life, and did so, though he
+left word in his will that his successor had better kill the earl, as he
+would otherwise prove troublesome.
+
+In the course of the year 1509, Henry's health became very indifferent,
+and he had repeated attacks of the gout, every one of which put him in
+ill-humour with himself in particular, and the world in general. Every
+fresh twinge was paid with interest upon one or more of his unfortunate
+subjects; and when he got very bad he would be most indiscriminate in
+his cruelty. He fixed upon a poor old alderman named Harris, who died of
+sheer vexation at his ill-treatment before his indictment came on; and
+at this remote period we hope we shall not be accused of injuring the
+feelings of any of the posterity of poor Harris by saying, that he was
+literally harassed to death through the unkindness of his sovereign.
+During his illness Henry would do justice occasionally between man and
+man, but a favourable turn in his malady, a quiet night, or a refreshing
+nap, would bury all his good resolutions in oblivion. At length on the
+night of the 21st of April, 1509, he died at Richmond, leaving behind
+him a will in which he bequeathed to his son and heir the delightful
+task of repairing all his father's errors.
+
+However easy it may be for an executor to pay the pecuniary debts of a
+testator with plenty of assets in hand, the moral responsibilities which
+have been left unsatisfied, are not so soon provided for. It is true
+that a good son frequently makes atonement to society for the mischief
+done by a bad parent; but this, though it strikes a sort of balance with
+the world, does not prevent the father from being still held accountable
+for his deficiencies.
+
+Henry died in the fifty-third year of his age, and had he lived a day
+longer, he would have reigned twenty-three years and eight months, or as
+Cocker has it, in the simplicity of his heart, "had he been alive in
+the year 1700, he would have reigned upwards of two centuries." Our
+business, however, is not with what he might have done, but what he
+actually did, and we therefore record the fact, that he died on the 21st
+of April, 1509, and was buried in the magnificent chapel of Westminster
+Abbey, which he built, and which is called after him to this very day
+and hour that we now write upon. *
+
+     * A quarter to one, A.M., April 13th, 1847.
+
+It is often the most painful part of our labours to give characters of
+some of the sovereigns who pass under our review in the course of
+this history. To those who have only known Henry the Seventh as the
+chivalrous and high-minded prince that fought so gallantly with Richard
+the Third on the field of Bosworth, it will be distressing to hear that
+the Richmond of their dramatic recollections is nothing like a true
+portrait of the actual character. At all events, if he had virtues
+in his youth they were not made to wear, they became sufficiently
+threadbare to be seen be seen through.
+
+Even his ambition seems to have been little more than a medium he had
+adopted for gratifying his avarice, and it is now pretty clear that he
+rather wanted the crown for what it was worth in a pecuniary point of
+view, than for the honourable gratification which power when rightly
+used is capable of conferring on its possessor. Hume tells us that
+"Henry loved peace without fearing war," which is true enough; for
+war afforded him a pretext for raising money, while peace, which he
+generally managed to arrange, gave him an opportunity of pocketing the
+cash he had collected. War, therefore, was never formidable to him, for
+he usually manoeuvred to keep out of it; but he made the rumour of it
+serve as an excuse for taxing his people. He was decidedly clever as
+a practical man, though exceedingly unprincipled, but several salutary
+laws were passed in his reign; one of the best of which was an act
+allowing the poor to sue _in forma pauperis_. Considering how often the
+law reduces its suitors to poverty, it is only fair that those who are
+brought to such a condition should still be allowed to go on, for it
+is like ruining a man and then turning him out of doors to say that the
+courts shall be closed against such as are penniless.
+
+Another important and useful measure of Henry's reign was that by which
+the nobility and gentry could alienate their estates, or cut mouth
+an occupant of the throne of England off the tail, which limited
+everything to the head of a family. This apparently liberal act was
+passed for the benefit of the king himself, who wished his nobles to be
+able to sell everything they had got for the sake of paying the expenses
+of the wars, which otherwise must have been prosecuted partly out of
+Henry's own pocket. He owed more to fortune than to his own merit, and
+even the conspiracies that were got up against him from time to time
+helped to sustain him in his high position, as the shuttlecock is kept
+in a state of elevation by constant blows from the battledore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SECOND. HENRY THE EIGHTH.
+
+
+[Illustration: 372]
+
+HENRY the EIGHTH, only surviving son and successor of Henry the Seventh,
+took to his father's crown and sceptre on the 22nd of April, 1509,
+amid general rejoicing, for he was an exceedingly gentlemanly youth of
+eighteen when he came to the throne, of which his parent had recently
+been but a bearish occupant. If young Harry had never lived to play old
+Harry, his popularity might have survived him, for the people had become
+disgusted with the conduct of his father, and there never was a finer
+chance for a young man than that which offered itself to the new
+sovereign.
+
+Nothing could exceed the grossness of the adulation which was poured out
+upon him at his accession, and the perfection of the art of puffing in
+England may, perhaps, be ascribed to this period of our history. His
+countenance was likened to that of Apollo--a falsehood for which, in his
+features, no apology can be found; his chest was declared to be that
+of Mars, though it was evidently his pa's, for in early youth his
+resemblance to his father was remarkable. Clemency was declared to be
+seated on his ample forehead, equity was pronounced to be balancing
+itself on the bridge of his nose, intelligence was recognised lurking
+in ambush among his bushy hair; and even Erasmus attributes to him the
+acuteness of the needle, with other intellectual qualities of an exalted
+character. *
+
+     * We are indebted to Mr. Tytler, who is generally correct to
+     a tittle, for these interesting particulars.--See his "Life
+     of Henry the Eighth," p. 16 of the 2nd edition.
+
+It is sad to reflect that the philosopher, when he takes the paintbrush
+in hand to dash off the portrait of a king, is apt to become a mere
+parasite, and will not abstain from staining his own character by
+daubing with false colours the canvas of history. Thus, even Erasmus
+used hues his friends would be glad to erase, and has covered over the
+black spots in Henry's character with that pink of perfection which
+makes _couleur de rose_ of everything. It is not to be wondered at, that
+in setting out upon the voyage of government, Henry received "one turn
+a-head"--if we may be allowed a nautical expression--while the engines
+of flattery were at work on all sides of him. It is to be regretted, for
+the sake of himself as well as for the good of his subjects, that truth
+was not at hand to give him that friendly "shove astern" which has saved
+many from precipitating themselves on the rocks that always lie in the
+course of greatness and power.
+
+As if determined to begin as he intended to go on, Henry looked out at
+once for a wife, and, considering how often he was destined to undergo
+the marriage ceremony in the course of his reign, it was as well that he
+should lose no time in commencing the career that lay before him. In
+his first matrimonial adventure he appears to have let others choose for
+him, instead of making a selection for himself, and Catherine of Aragon,
+the widow of his elder brother Arthur, was pointed out to him as an
+eligible _parti_ for nuptial purposes.
+
+This marriage was strongly recommended by the political faculty as a
+saving of expense, for the lady would have been entitled to a large
+pension as widow of Prince Arthur, and her friends in Spain, had she
+been returned upon their hands, would have wanted to know something
+about the 150,000 crowns she had received as a marriage portion. Of
+course, the whole of it was gone, and it was thought that Henry would
+be killing a whole covey of birds with one stone if he would consent to
+take her as his wife, inasmuch as he would thus extinguish her claims to
+a pension, and prevent any awkward questions being asked in Spain as to
+the portion she had brought with her to England. Henry, feeling a sort
+of intuitive consciousness that he should have plenty of opportunities
+to select a wife for himself, agreed to take, as a beginning, the one
+that had been chosen for him by others, and accordingly, on the 3rd of
+June, 1509, the lady, who was eight years older than himself, became his
+wife, at Greenwich. The royal couple were not destined to roll down the
+hill together in after life, whatever they may have done on the day of
+their union, which was doubtless marked by all those sports of which the
+locality was susceptible. Catherine, though a little _passee_,
+looked exceedingly well, for, in order to render her appearance more
+attractive, she was dressed in white, and "all Greenwich," says Lord
+Herbert, "did not, on that day, contain a daintier dish of whitebait
+than the Lady of Aragon." The royal pair were crowned on the 24th
+of June, 1509, being exactly three weeks after marriage, up to which
+period, at least, there was no indication of that Bluebeardism which
+subsequently broke out with so much fury in the royal character.
+
+Henry had on his accession thrown himself into the arms of his
+grandmother, the old Countess of Richmond, upon whose advice he acted in
+the selection of his ministers. The old lady died in the same month in
+which her grandson was married and crowned, at the respectable age of
+sixty-eight; and it is a curious fact that she had been married three
+times, so that in his multiplicity of wives, Henry the Eighth may
+be said to have simply improved upon the example set him by his
+grandmother. *
+
+     * Her friend and counsellor, Jack Fisher, Bishop of
+     Rochester, says of her, that "a reddy witte she had to
+     conceive all thyngs, albeit they were ryghte derke."
+
+
+[Illustration: 374]
+
+The first political act of Henry the Eighth's reign, was to lay
+the heads of Empson and Dudley upon the scaffold. These rapacious
+extortioners had been the tools of his father's avarice, but had
+contrived to feather their own nests tolerably well; and Henry kept them
+in prison for the purpose of getting out of them the wealth they had
+acquired by their rapacity. He detained them in the Tower a whole year
+before he beheaded them, and continued to squeeze out of them everything
+they possessed, for he was one of those who never threw an orange away
+without thoroughly sucking it. Having drained it at length completely
+dry by about the 17th of August, 1510, he, on that day--to pursue the
+allegory of the orange--declined allowing them any quarter, but sent
+them to Tower Hill, where execution was done upon both of them.
+
+Henry finding everything going smoothly in England, fell into the common
+error of those who having every comfort at home must needs look abroad
+for the elements of discord. He entered into a league against Louis
+the Twelfth of France, in favour of Pope Julius the Second and his
+father-in-law, Ferdinand of Aragon; but the latter kept helping himself
+to large slices of territory, and made use of his allies for the purpose
+of furthering his own interests. Henry's troops were therefore compelled
+to play an ignoble part, being cooped up in a French town, while the
+other soldiers overran Navarre, and appropriated everything they could
+lay their hands upon. Amazed at their moderate success upon land they
+attempted to retrieve themselves by a sea-fight, but the ruler was not
+then found by which Britannia subsequently learned to rule the waves,
+and the French fleet escaping into Brest, found shelter in their
+country's bosom.
+
+In 1513, Henry being anxious to obtain ascendency over the seas,
+appointed Sir Edward Howard, one of the sons of the Earl of Surrey,
+to accomplish the grand object. Howard was so exceedingly confident of
+success that he sent a private note requesting the king to come and
+see how beautifully he (Howard) would "spifflicate"--for such was the
+word--the presumptuous enemy. Henry by no means relished the invitation,
+and replied to it by desiring Howard to "mind his own business" as
+admiral. This nettled the naval commander, who, during the engagement,
+jumped into one of the enemy's ships, and could not jump back again;
+while Sir John Wallop, upon whom he had relied, exhibited little of
+that usefulness which his name seems to indicate. Poor Howard was,
+accordingly, killed; and Henry, flattered by his parasites, came to the
+resolution that no good would be done till he himself set out for France
+at the head of an army.
+
+In a few days he arrived off Boulogne, where he instructed the artillery
+to make as much noise as they could with their guns, in order that he
+might intimidate the foe, and encourage himself by the roaring of his
+own cannon. His object was undoubtedly to insinuate to the enemy, "We
+are coming in tremendous force, and so you had better keep out of the
+way for fear of accidents."
+
+Henry, who had various other great guns on board besides his artillery,
+was accompanied by Thomas Wolsey, his almoner, lately risen into favour,
+together with the celebrated Bishop Fox, and a number of courtiers. He
+passed his time very pleasantly at Calais for about three months, when
+he heard that the celebrated Bayard--the _chevalier sans peur et sans
+reproche_--was moving forward. The English king bounded on to his horse
+with the elasticity of indiarubber, and advanced at the head of fifteen
+thousand men--Bishop Fox, with characteristic cunning, keeping in the
+rear, and Wolsey following the Fox at a prudent distance.
+
+Twelve hundred French approached under the cover of a regular English
+fog, which with a most anti-national spirit favoured the enemies of the
+country to which it owed its origin. Bayard would have commenced
+an attack, but he was overruled by some of his companions; and Henry,
+thinking the foe afraid to "come on," sat himself down in a pavilion
+made of silk damask, foolishly believing that the art of the upholsterer
+could uphold the dignity of a sovereign.
+
+[Illustration: 376]
+
+Thus he sat, like the proprietor of a gingerbread stall at a fair, until
+a terrific shower came on, and the silk streamers were streaming with
+wet, and the satin chairs could no longer be sat-in with comfort or
+convenience. The tent was turned literally inside out by the wind, like
+an umbrella in a storm, and Henry was glad to exchange his gaudy booth
+for a substantial wooden caravan, that was speedily knocked together
+for his reception. Though the two armies did not fight they commenced
+operations by mining and countermining, but instead of making
+receptacles for gunpowder, they were only making gutters for the
+rain, which took advantage of every opening. The Count of Angouleme
+(afterwards Francis the First) now arrived at headquarters, and scoured
+the country, which he was the better able to do from the quantity of
+water which had fallen on many parts of it.
+
+Henry now received a visit from the Emperor Maximilian, and the English
+king made the most magnificent preparations for the interview;
+he equipped himself and some of his nobles in gold and silver
+tissue--though it was said the latter wore a tissue of falsehoods, for
+their finery was all sham--and he borrowed every bit of jewellery in his
+camp for his own personal bedizenment. He had a garniture of garnets
+in his hat, and even his watch, a tremendous turnip, had a diamond,
+weighing several carats, on its face, while a magnificent ruby matched
+with the rubicundity of his forehead, over which the gem was gracefully
+disposed. The nobles were sprinkled all over with paste, and looked
+effective enough at the price which Henry had given for their
+embellishment. Maximilian, who was in mourning, presented a dismal
+contrast to all this finery, for he wore nothing but a suit of serge,
+which, however, turned out for more serviceable than the fancy costume
+of Henry and his courtiers. The rain came on so furiously that unless
+the silks were washing silks they must have been fearfully damaged
+by the wet, while the running of the hues one into the other, caused
+Henry's party to come off with--in one sense--flying colours. It was
+at length determined to make an attack upon the French, and the Emperor
+Maximilian having got his old serge doublet trimmed up with a red cross,
+and pinned an artificial flower in his hat, directed the operations
+of the English. The French cavalry began pretty well; but whether
+Maximilian looked so great a guy as to terrify the horses, or through
+any other cause, it is certain that a panic ran through the ranks,
+and they commenced a retreat at full gallop, using their spurs with
+tremendous vehemence.
+
+One of the fugitives, a venerable marshal, broke his baton in beating
+a retreat over the back of his charger; and Bayard, who had refused to
+run, seeing the baton of his comrade broken, exclaimed, "Ha! he has cut
+his stick!" which afterwards became a by-word to describe the act of a
+fugitive. The illustrious _chevalier sans peur et sans reproche_ became
+a prisoner, but thoroughly enjoyed the joke of his countrymen having run
+away, and laughingly called it the battle of the spurs, from the energy
+with which they had plunged their rowels into the flanks of their
+chargers.
+
+A meeting between Bayard, Maximilian, and Henry, has been described very
+graphically in the _Histoire de Bon Chevalier_; * and it appears
+from this authority that the two latter bantered their prisoner in a
+somewhat uncourteous manner. Bayard contended that he had become captive
+by a voluntary surrender; upon which the emperor and the king burst
+out into a fit of rude laughter, as if they would have said, "That's a
+capital joke;" but Bayard protested that he might have got away had he
+chosen to run for it. They only replied to him by saying "Well, well,
+my fine fellow, we've got you, and it matters little whether you
+took yourself into custody or now else you came here; but here you
+unquestionably are, and there's an end of the discussion."
+
+     * Vol. ii., p. 80.
+
+After taking Tournay, where he held a number of tournaments, and which
+was actually sacrificed by the inhabitants for the sake of a bad pun
+*--worse even than the accidental one in the text--Henry returned to
+England, and arrived on the 24th of October, 1513, at Richmond.
+
+Thus ended the expedition to France; but important events had been
+happening at home, for the Earl of Surrey had been chevying the Scotch
+over the Cheviot Hills, and at last fought them at Flodden, where James
+the Fourth unfortunately fell; and the English queen, making a parcel of
+his coat, hat, and gloves, sent them to Henry as a proof of the dressing
+the Scotch had experienced.
+
+It had been intended to resume the war with France, but Louis the
+Twelfth suggested a compromise, by which he married Mary, the sister
+of the English king, and Mary thus had the honour of mollifying the
+asperity of the feelings that the two monarchs had hitherto indulged.
+
+We have already mentioned the name of Wolsey, who accompanied Henry
+abroad in the capacity of almoner; and it is now time that we give some
+particulars of a person who played one of the most important parts in
+the drama of history.
+
+Thomas Wolsey was born at Ipswich, in March, 1471, of humble parents;
+but the popular story of his father having been a butcher is probably
+a fable, to which the fact of his having had a stake in the country has
+perhaps given some likelihood. It is doubtful whether he was brought up
+to the block, though he might have been obliged to give his head to
+it at a later period of his life, when he incurred his master's
+displeasure. It has been said that Wolsey senior could not have been
+a butcher, because he left money to his son by will; but business must
+have been bad indeed if he could not bequeath a couple of legacies of
+thirteen-and-fourpence each, with one of six-and-sevenpence, and
+another of eleven shillings, in addition to a sura of ten marks, which
+constitute altogether the entire amount of cash that was actually
+disposed of by the old gentleman to his wife, his son, and his
+executors, ** If the elder Wolsey was really a butcher, it is certain
+that he had not a sharper blade in his establishment than his son Tom,
+who was sent early to school, and having proceeded to the University of
+Oxford, got on so well as to acquire the name of the Boy Bachelor. He
+soon became a fellow, and was one of the cleverest young fellows in the
+college, where he was intrusted to educate the three sons of the Duke
+of Dorset. In this capacity, by the application of a great deal of
+flattery--or, as some would have termed it, Dorset Butter--while at
+home with the young gentlemen for the Christmas holidays, he got the
+patronage of their noble father, who presented him with the rectory of
+Lymington. Here he is said to have disgraced himself by getting into
+a row at a fair, but we can scarcely believe that the clergyman of the
+parish would have forgotten himself so far as to give his love of gaiety
+full swing, and allow him to carry absurdity to the height which such a
+proceeding seems to indicate. He could not have very far compromised his
+character, or he would not have been employed by Henry the Seventh, on
+delicate and important missions which a parson fresh from "the fun
+of the fair" would never have been allowed to execute. Some of his
+detractors have broadly asserted that Wolsey was inebriated, and fled
+in shame from his cure, but we really believe that he was never at
+any period of his life intoxicated with anything but ambition, which
+undoubtedly is quicker in turning the head than the strongest juice that
+ever dropped from the ripest juniper. Fox, the Bishop of Winchester,
+strongly recommended Wolsey to Henry the Eighth, who, already knowing
+something of the young man, made him King's Almoner; and on taking
+Tournay, in France, hesitated whether he should burn it down, or make
+Wolsey its bishop. The latter of the two evils fell upon the town, which
+was placed under the ambitious churchman's ecclesiastical cognizance.
+He rose rapidly to the sees of Lincoln and York, became Lord High
+Chancellor of England, and, on the 7th of September, 1515, received his
+crowning honour, in the hat of a cardinal.
+
+     * The pun alluded to was couched in these words, which were
+     used by the Citizens:--"_Que Tournay n'avoit jamais tourne
+     ni encore ne tournerait_."
+
+     **  His will was published by Dr. Fiddes, from the Registry,
+     at Norwich.
+
+We must now put Wolsey by for a little bit, though we shall have to
+bring him out again and again, for we must not keep others waiting by
+lingering too long in the accomplished churchman's company. We left the
+Princess Mary just married to Louis the Twelfth, though her heart had
+long been given to Charles Brandon, Viscount Lisle, who retained the
+principal of her affections, though the French king got for a time the
+interest. He however enjoyed it for only two months when he died, and
+Brandon, the remainder-man, became the tenant in possession, by marrying
+Mary after three months' widowhood. Henry was at first very angry with
+the match, but the young couple rushing into his presence like two
+repentant lovers in a farce, and Wolsey interceding with all the air of
+the "smart servant," the king was persuaded to give that cheapest of all
+donations--his blessing.
+
+[Illustration; 380]
+
+Brandon's good sense and modesty went some way in reconciling Henry,
+for Viscount Lisle never presumed upon his connection with the family of
+royalty. He did not talk continually of "My brother-in-law the king," as
+he might have done; but he took the following motto, in which there is
+a strong indication of his "knowing his place," and being determined on
+keeping it.
+
+    Cloth of gold do not despise,
+    Though thou be match'd with cloth of frize;
+    Cloth of frize be not too bold,
+    Though thou be match'd with cloth of gold. *
+
+          * "Granger's Biog. Hist.," vol. iv. p. 82.
+
+Francis the First had succeeded to the French throne and the Archduke
+Charles of Austria had come in for the whole of the Spanish monarchy
+by the death of his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand of Aragon. He was
+a maternal grandfather in a double sense, for he had grown very old
+womanish, and the adjective maternal was by no means inappropriate.
+Francis and Charles became competitors for the empire just vacant by the
+death of Maximilian, and the countenance of Henry was eagerly sought by
+both of the disputants. Henry had formerly hoped to have been himself a
+successful candidate, but finding he had no chance, he wrote to Charles,
+saying he "wished he might get it," which were the genuine sentiments
+no doubt of the English sovereign. The election fell upon Charles,
+and Francis affected to take the consequence as if it had been of no
+consequence at all, though it was clearly otherwise.
+
+The election for the rank and dignity of Emperor was one of the most
+disgracefully corrupt proceedings that was ever witnessed, even in the
+palmiest days of the boroughmongering system in England, some centuries
+afterwards. The candidates were Francis the First of France, Charles
+the Fifth, king of Castile, Henry the Eighth of England, and the Elector
+Frederic of Saxony. The bribery was on a scale of vastness never
+before heard of, and it is said that Charles scattered his--or
+his people's--money among the independent electors with frightful
+prodigality. The electors of Cologne, which was not then in such good
+odour as might have been expected from the pleasant purity of its _Eau_,
+pocketed no less than 200,000 crowns; but the mother of Francis the
+First declared, that "the electors, among them all, had not received
+from the king, her son, more than 100,000 crowns," * so that the loss
+of his election is very easily accounted for. Francis, nevertheless,
+imagined he had secured five electors out of the seven; but those
+worthies, who were dishonestly receiving bribes from both parties at
+once, eventually gave to Charles, who paid them best, the benefit of
+their suffrages. Poor Saxony, expecting in a contest with such powerful
+opponents that he might get "double milled," resigned in favour of
+Charles; and Henry, whose committee had been sitting to conduct his
+election, until it was clear there would be nothing to conduct, threw
+his influence into the same scale.
+
+     * Ellis's Letters, vol. i. p. 155.
+
+On the 28th of June, 1519, the polling commenced, and each elector as
+he came up to give his vote was, no doubt, received with the shouts and
+salutations that are usual on all similar occasions. When the Elector
+of Cologne appeared to plump for Charles, after having quite as
+plumply promised his support to Francis, the jeers of the populace were
+tremendous, and an egg was even thrown for the purpose of egging on
+the crowd to acts of violence. The unprincipled elector looked
+contemptuously on the oval missile, as if he would have said that he
+did not care about submitting to the yolk, after the extensive "shelling
+out" that had already taken place for his benefit.
+
+The countenance of Henry was still the object of both their wishes, and
+Francis asked the English king for an interview, which was arranged to
+take place in France in the ensuing summer. Upon the appointment having
+been made, Charles ran over to England, to be the first to get Henry's
+ear, and seeing Wolsey's influence, did his utmost to win over that wary
+individual. The latter secretly aspired to the papal chair, and it
+may perhaps be said that his origin is proved to have been that of a
+butcher's son, because he began to look at everything with a pope's eye,
+and hoped to eat his mutton in the Vatican. Such frivolous reasoning
+is so unworthy the dignity of history, that we reject it at once, and
+confine ourselves to the simple fact, that the triple crown of Rome was
+always running in or about the head of the ambitious churchman.
+
+[Illustration: frontispiece]
+
+The time now drew near for Henry to meet Francis the First, who,
+thinking to flatter Wolsey, requested that the management of the
+gorgeous scene might be left entirely to the taste of the cardinal.
+Wolsey's reputation as a getter-up of spectacles was exceedingly
+well deserved, for even when at home, he lived in a style of gorgeous
+magnificence. Every apartment in his house at Hampton was a set scene of
+itself, with decorations and properties of the most costly character.
+He kept eight hundred supernumeraries always about him as servants, "of
+whom nine or ten were noblemen, fifteen knights, and forty esquires." *
+Not contented with an ordinary chair, he always sat with a canopy over
+his head, and he allowed no one to approach him except in a kneeling
+attitude. His dress matched his furniture, for he wore a crimson
+satin surtout, with hat and gloves of scarlet, and even his shoes
+were silver-gilt--like a pair of electrotyped high-lows. His liveries
+surpassed even those of the sheriffs of London; and his cook positively
+wore satin or velvet, so that this functionary was dressed more daintily
+and delicately than the most _recherche_ of his own dinners. Wolsey,
+when he appeared in public, carried an orange, stuffed with scents,
+in his hand; for he used to say affectedly that there was always an
+exhalation from a vulgar crowd, which gave him the vapours.
+
+     * Fiddes' "Life of Wolsey," pp, 106,107.
+
+The preparations for the interview between Francis and Henry having been
+entrusted to such a master of all ceremonies as Cardinal Wolsey, could
+not fail to be made on a scale of unprecedented grandeur; and the place
+where the two monarchs met acquired the name of the "Field of the Cloth
+of Gold," from the extreme gorgeousness of the scene in which they
+acted. The arrangements were nearly complete, and Henry had removed to
+Canterbury, for the convenience of the journey to France, when Charles
+of Spain, being jealous of the anticipated meeting, ran over to the
+Kentish coast, to say a few words to the English king before he left for
+the Continent.
+
+Charles was received in a most amicable manner, but happening to see the
+late Queen Dowager of France, then Duchess of Suffolk, who might,
+could, would, or should have been his own wife, he turned so spoony and
+sentimental, that he could take no pleasure in the festivities prepared
+for him. "No, thank you, none for me!" was his almost uniform answer
+to every inquiry whether he would have a little of this, that, or the
+other, that was placed before him. He lost first his spirits, then
+his appetite, and ultimately his time, for he was fit neither for
+negociation nor anything else during his stay in England. Having
+remained four days, he went home with a "worm in the bud" of his
+affections, and as he looked at the sea before him, he was overheard
+muttering that he "should never get over it." His courtiers thought he
+was alluding to the ocean but he was in reality soliloquising on the
+loss of his heart, which he left behind him; but happily this is a sort
+of parcel that can without much difficulty be recovered. On the day he
+re-embarked for Flanders, Henry set sail for France, having only put off
+his putting off out of compliment to his illustrious visitor.
+
+A plot of ground between Guisnes and Ardres was fixed upon as the place
+of meeting, and a temporary palace--of wood, covered with sailcloth--was
+erected there, for the person and the _suite_ of the English sovereign.
+Cunning workmen had painted the sacking at the top to look like square
+stones; but it was sacking, nevertheless, as the inmates found out in
+rainy weather. The walls glittered with jewels, like the gingerbread
+stalls at a fair, and the tables groaned, or rather creaked, under
+massive plate, which proves that the wood must have been rather green
+which had been used in making the furniture. Francis, making up his
+mind not to be outdone, got an enormous mast, and throwing an immense
+rickcloth over the top, stuck it up umbrella-ways in the part of
+the field he intended to occupy. A whirlwind having come on, the old
+rickcloth got inflated with the height of its position, and was soon
+carried away by the puffing it experienced. The whole apparatus took,
+for a moment, the form of a balloon; and the workmen, seeing it was all
+up, ran away just in time to avoid the consequences of a collapse, which
+almost instantly happened. Francis was glad to find more substantial
+lodgings in an old castle near the town of Ardres, where Wolsey speedily
+paid him a morning visit. The cardinal, who had only intended to make a
+short call; remained two days, in which he arranged an additional treaty
+with the French king, who agreed to pay a large sum for the neutrality
+of England in Continental matters, and "as to Scotland," said Francis,
+"you and my mother shall settle that between you!"
+
+"I?" exclaimed Louisa of Savoy, with surprise, "I don't know anything
+about diplomatic affairs!" but the cardinal flattered the old lady that
+she did; and by blandly remarking "he was positive that they should not
+fall out," he persuaded her to join him in the arbitration, for he felt
+pretty sure he should get the best of the bargain.
+
+Business being concluded, Henry took out of his portmanteau a new dress
+of silver damask, ribbed with cloth of gold, and in this splendid suit
+of stripes he went forth to meet his brother Francis. The 7th of June,
+1520, and the valley of Andren, were the time and place of their first
+coming together, when, according to previous arrangement, they saluted
+and embraced on horseback. Had one waited for the other to dismount
+and advance, they might have been standing there to this day, but by a
+clever act of equestrianism, they contrived to go through the form of
+introduction on the backs of two highly-trained steeds, to the great
+admiration of the circle in the midst of which they exhibited. Francis
+spoke first, but confined himself to a commonplace observation on the
+length of the distance he had come, and an allusion to the extent of his
+possessions and power. Henry replied somewhat cleverly, that "the power
+and possessions of Francis were matters quite secondary in importance to
+Francis himself, whom he, Henry, had come a long way to see," and thus
+contempt was adroitly blended with compliment. The royal couple then
+dismounted, and took a turn arm-in-arm, as if in friendly conversation,
+after which they went together into a tent and partook of a very
+sumptuous banquet. Spice and wine were served out in great profusion,
+in a spirit of liberality equivalent to that which dispenses "hot elder,
+with a rusk included, a penny a glass," from many modern refectories.
+There was plenty of a sort of stuff called "_ipocras_," given to the
+people outside; but as we never tasted any "ipocras" and strongly
+suspect that it is a decoction from ipecacuanha, we cannot answer for
+the quality of the article in which the people "outside" were allowed to
+luxuriate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE THIRD. HENRY THE EIGHTH (CONTINUED).
+
+
+[Illustration: 386]
+
+AFTER the banquet, the kings came out of the tent, and Hall, the English
+annalist, got a near view of the French sovereign. Whether Hall had been
+immersed too thoroughly in "ipocras" to allow of his taking a clear view
+of matters in general, or from any other cause, it is certain that the
+picture he gives of Francis the First is very unlike the portrait
+which Titian has left to us. Hall makes the French king "highnosed and
+big-lipped," with "great eyes and long feet," as if Hall saw everything
+double while under the influence of "ipocras;" but Titian, by toning
+down the nose, so as to make its bridge in conformity with the arches
+of the eyebrows, has turned out a not unpleasing portrait of the great
+original.
+
+It had been previously announced that jousts would form part of the
+festivities, and accordingly, on the 11th of June, these entertainments
+began in a very spirited manner. The "braying" of trumpets made an
+appropriate introduction to the sports, ana the overture was echoed
+by braying of a more animated character. Each king fought five battles
+every day, and, of course, came off victoriously in every one; for the
+nobles and gentlemen of those times were most complacent in submitting
+their heads as dummies to aid the amusements of royalty. The season of
+the Field of the Cloth of Gold terminated with a fancy dress ball, in
+which Henry made himself very conspicuous by the character and richness
+of his disguises. The vastness of his wardrobe enabled him to astonish
+everyone by the effectiveness of his "making-up" and two or three of his
+masks were models of quaint ugliness.
+
+At the end of a fortnight of foolery and feasting the two monarchs
+separated, and the memorable meeting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold
+passed from the hands of the costumier, the carpenter, and the cook,
+into those of the historian. Its chief result was to beggar many of the
+French and English nobles who had taken part in it, and gone to expense
+they could not support to outdo each other in magnificence. Thus did
+the Field of the Cloth of Gold prepare the way for a sort of threadbare
+seediness, into which many belonging to both nations were plunged by
+their having done themselves up in an insane attempt to outdo each
+other.
+
+Our account of the great meeting on the Field of the Cloth of Gold would
+not be complete without the following anecdote. Francis rose very early
+one morning, and made his way to the quarters of Henry, who was in bed
+and fast asleep on the arrival of his illustrious visitor. The French
+king shook the English monarch cordially by the whipcord tassel on the
+top of his nightcap, when the latter, springing out of bed, responded to
+the playful summons. "You see," said Francis, "I am up with the lark,"
+to which Henry added, "And I am ready for the bird you have specified."
+The English king then expressed himself much obliged for such a mark of
+attention, and cast over the neck of Francis "a splendid collar,"
+being, no doubt, the "false one" taken off on the night previous. It is
+believed by some that Henry, not knowing the object of the intrusion,
+collared the intruder at once; but the version of the story which we
+have already given appears to be the more probable. Francis, in his
+turn, clasped a bracelet on Henry's arm, or rather, according to
+an ill-natured reading of the affair, one cuffed the other for the
+collaring he had experienced. Henry rang his bell for his valet, but
+Francis would not permit the attendance of any servant, but laid out
+Henry's clean things with his own hand, taking in his shaving water,
+putting out his highlows to be cleaned, and taking them in again. *
+
+     * The minuteness with which these particulars are detailed,
+     may cause a doubt of their veracity, but we refer the reader
+     to Mr. Fraser Tytler's "Life of Henry the Eighth," in p. 123
+     of which the anecdote we have given is fully recorded.
+
+
+[Illustration; 387]
+
+Henry, on his return from the Field of the Cloth of Gold, took
+Gravelines in his way, and gave a look in upon Charles of Castile, who
+saw him home as far as Calais. This far-seeing prince saw that Wolsey
+had it all his own way with the English king, and the emperor took every
+possible opportunity of trying to "come over" the proud prelate. Charles
+promised his "vote and interest" to Wolsey, in the event of any vacancy
+occurring in the papal chair, and gratified his avarice by making him
+bishop of Placentia and Badajos.
+
+Henry, after making a short stay at Calais, returned to Dover, and
+reached London, without a penny in his pocket, for both he and his
+courtiers were completely cleaned out by their recent extravagance.
+On the king's arrival, Buckingham got himself into trouble by his
+impertinent remarks on the expedition to France, and the dreadful waste
+of money that it had occasioned. He particularly pointed his sarcasms
+against Wolsey as the originator of all the expensive fooleries that
+had been committed, and he took every opportunity of gain saying all
+the fooleries that had been committed, and he took every opportunity
+of occasion, Buckingham had been holding a basin for Henry to wash his
+hands, when Wolsey, anxious to have a finger in everything belonging to
+the king, plunged his paws into the same water. The duke, desirous of
+administering a damper to the cardinal, spilt a quantity of the liquid
+over his shoes, when Wolsey becoming angry, threatened to "set upon his
+skirts," which meant in other words, that the cardinal would be down
+upon him.
+
+There is no doubt that Wolsey took every opportunity of damaging
+Buckingham; but the duke himself was obnoxious to the king, and gave
+particular offence by hiring a servant who had been a member of the
+royal household. Buckingham had been leading the life of a country
+gentleman, at what be modestly called his "little place" in
+Gloucestershire, when he received an invitation to Court; and, foolishly
+flattering himself that this little attention was shown to him on
+account of his merits, he unsuspectingly obeyed the summons. When he
+had proceeded some way on his journey, he found he was dodged by three
+disagreeable looking fellows in block tin, who turned out to be members
+of the king's body guard, and who were sure to be at his heels whenever
+he looked round over his own shoulder.
+
+Having put up at Windsor for the night, he had no sooner been shown to
+his bedroom than he saw the same three fellows loitering in the yard of
+the inn he was stopping at. Once or twice, after occasion, Buckingham
+retiring to rest, he looked out of his window and fancied he saw one
+of the three knights crouching in a corner beneath his lattice, and
+he called out to the figure to be off; but the approach of daylight
+revealed to him the outline of an innocent water-butt, which he had
+during the hours of darkness imperatively desired to quit the premises.
+"I know you well," he cried several times to the tub, "and you had
+better go at once;" but his expostulations were of course disregarded in
+the quarter to which he was idly addressing them.
+
+[Illustration; 389]
+
+Declining to stop at Windsor, he determined to breakfast the next
+morning at Egham; but he had no sooner entered the coffee-room than
+he was insulted by one Thomas Ward, a creature of the Court, which
+completely took away the appetite of the duke, of whom it was cruelly
+said that he could eat neither egg nor ham in the hostel at Eg-ham. He
+then rode on to Westminster, where he got into his barge and 'pulled
+down with the tide as far as Greenwich, but stopped at Wolsey's house on
+the way, and sent in his card to the cardinal, who sent out word that he
+was indisposed, and declined seeing his visitor. "Umph," said the duke,
+"I'm sorry to hear that, but I'll step in, and take a glass of wine,
+if you've no objection!" After a good deal of whispering among Wolsey's
+servants, Buckingham was shown into the cellar, where he took a draught
+of wine from the wood; but finding no preparations made for him, he
+changed colour--that is to say, he looked rather blue--and proceeded
+on his journey. As he continued pulling along the river, a four-oared,
+manned by yeomen of the guard, whose captain acted as coxswain, hailed
+Buckingham in his barge, which was instantly boarded by the crew of the
+cutter.
+
+The duke having been towed ashore, was at once arrested, and marched in
+custody down Thames Street, with a mob at his heels, all the way to the
+Tower. There were a few cries of "Shame!" and other demonstrations of
+disapproval, but the sympathy of the bystanders having evaporated in a
+few yells and a mud shower of cabbage leaves, Buckingham was left in the
+hands of his captors. On the 13th of May, 1521, Buckingham was brought
+to trial on the charge of tempting Friar Hopkins to make traitorous
+prophecies. This Hopkins was an old fortune-telling impostor, who had
+predicted all sorts of good luck to poor Buckingham, none of which ever
+fell to his lot; so that he had the double mortification of having been
+cheated out of his cash, for promises that never came true, and being
+punished for them just as much as if they had all been literally
+verified. Buckingham defended himself with great courage; and on being
+convicted as a traitor, he solemnly declared that he was "never none:"
+an indignant mode of exculpation, in which grammar was sacrificed to
+emphasis. He died, very courageously, on the 17th of May, 1521, and the
+barbarous ceremony of his execution created the greatest disgust among
+the populace.
+
+Almost at the very moment that Henry was being guilty of the enormity
+we have described, he was putting himself forward as the champion of
+Religion. He professed the greatest horror of the errors and heresies
+of Luther, whom, in a letter to Louis of Bavaria, he proposed to burn,
+books and all, in an early bonfire. Finding that the great Reformer was
+not to be thus made light of, Henry turned author, and by taking up the
+pen, he, instead of consigning his antagonist to the flames, regularly
+burnt his own fingers. There is no doubt that the royal scribbler had
+been thoroughly well crammed for the task he undertook; and Leo the
+Tenth having read the book, was good-natured enough to say, in the
+language of our old friend the _Evening Paper_, that "it ought to be
+on every gentleman's table." He published a sort of review of it in
+a special bull, and made the remark, that the author might fairly be
+called "The Defender of the Faith," a title which was not only adopted
+by Henry himself, but has been held, to this very day, by all subsequent
+English sovereigns.
+
+Francis and Charles, the respective monarchs of France and Spain, had
+all this time continued their bickering, and they at length agreed to
+ask the arbitration of Henry. He declined interfering personally, but
+sent Wolsey in his stead, and the cardinal arrived at Calais on the 30th
+of July, 1521, with a magnificent retinue. His establishment consisted
+of lords, bishops, doctors, knights, squires, and gentlemen in
+crimson-velvet coats, with gold chains round their necks, which gave
+to the whole party an aspect of exceeding flashiness. Wolsey,
+notwithstanding the number and splendour of his followers, was at a very
+trifling expense, for he billeted the whole party at Bruges upon the
+unfortunate emperor, or rather upon his more unfortunate subjects, who
+were ordered by their sovereign to find everything that was wanted
+and put it all down to him in that doubtful document, the bill, which
+between a potentate and his people seldom meets with settlement. Rations
+of candles, wine, sugar *, were served out every evening to the whole of
+Wolsey's suite, so that all who wanted it had the ingredients of grog,
+while the candles enabled such as were so disposed to make a night of it.
+
+[Illustration: 392]
+
+After spending ten days in the enjoyment of every luxury, at the cost of
+the contending parties, thus showing that he understood how to make the
+very most of his position as an arbitrator, Wolsey suddenly declared
+that he saw no chance of Charles and Francis being reconciled. The wily
+cardinal, having been regularly got hold of by Charles, drew up a treaty
+extremely favourable to the emperor, and even arranged that he should
+marry Henry's daughter Mary, though the young lady had been previously
+betrothed to the son of Francis.
+
+This alteration in the domestic arrangements of the parties concerned
+was simply declared to be "for the good of Christendom," ** and Henry
+agreed to the plan with a nonchalant assurance that he really thought
+it the best thing that could be done, for he did not see "how his said
+affairs might have been better handled." *** Pope Leo the Tenth, who
+was in league with Wolsey, the emperor, and Henry, in their joint
+arrangements for smashing France, agreed to give the dispensation for
+the proposed marriage; but Leo died before the nuptial treaty had been
+ratified.
+
+     * Cavendish.
+
+     ** Galt's "Life of Wolsey," book ii., p. 43.
+
+     ***State Papers.
+
+On the death of Leo the Tenth, Wolsey lost no time in offering himself
+as a candidate for the vacant popedom. Secretary Pace was sent off at a
+slapping pace to Rome, to see the members of the conclave, and solicit
+their votes and interests for the English cardinal. Pace, however, seems
+to have been too slow to be of any use, and Adrian, Cardinal of Tortosa,
+who was put up almost in joke, and certainly to create a diversion
+against Giulio de Medici, one of the other candidates, was returned by
+a large majority. Wolsey's name does not appear to have been even
+mentioned on the occasion, and Pace took no step to further his
+employer's interests.
+
+Francis having been thoroughly disgusted at the treatment he had
+experienced, tried, in the first place, to win Henry back to his cause
+by entreaties, and next by intimidation, in pursuance of which he
+shabbily stopped the pension of the English sovereign. When two kings
+fall out, their subjects are usually the sufferers; and accordingly, the
+English in France and the French in England became the objects of royal
+spitefulness. Francis stopped all the British vessels in his ports, and
+arrested the merchants, while Henry took his revenge by imprisoning
+the French ambassador and making a wholesale seizure of all property
+belonging to Frenchmen. At length, the English monarch became so angry,
+that he sent a challenge by the Clarencieux Herald, offering to fight
+Francis in single combat, that each might have the satisfaction of a
+gentleman; but whether one refused to go out, or the other drew in, we
+are not aware, for we only know that the dispute did not end in a duel.
+
+Doubts have been thrown upon the sincerity of Henry in thus inviting
+Francis to a personal encounter, but there is every reason to believe
+that, in the words of the _Bell's Life_ of the period, "the British Pet
+meant business, though the Gallic Cock, having already won his spurs in
+other quarters, was not disposed to place them in jeopardy." Henry, with
+the customary determination of the English character had, no doubt, put
+himself regularly into training for the event to come off, and it is not
+unlikely that he may have frequently amused himself by a little practice
+on the effigy of his intended antagonist. The skill he thus acquired in
+planting his blows and putting in the necessary punishment at the proper
+points would have been highly serviceable had he ever been allowed to
+meet his man, and it is even said that a bottle of claret was placed in
+the middle of the head of the figure, so that Henry might fully realise
+the result of his sparring exercise. We know not how far we may put
+faith in these ancient records, but we are justified in giving them to
+the reader, who will separate, no doubt, the wholesome corn of fact from
+the chaff of mere tradition.
+
+[Illustration: 393]
+
+In the meantime, Charles came over on a visit to his intended
+father-in-law, and was introduced to his infant bride, who was a
+child in arms, at his first interview. Henry and Charles indulged in
+a succession of gaieties, for which neither possessed the means, and
+Charles even borrowed money of Henry, while the latter made up the
+deficiency by running into debt to a frightful extent with his own
+people.
+
+The king now began to find that he "must have cash," and he at once
+applied to Wolsey to assist him in raising more money. On these
+occasions Henry spoke in the most flattering manner to the cardinal,
+calling him endearingly his "Linsey Wolsey," in a word, "his comforter."
+The prelate readily entered into his master's views, but candidly
+pointed out the difficulties of extracting anything more from the
+London merchants. They had lately advanced L20,000 in a forced loan, and
+it was determined to vary the demand upon them, by substituting direct
+taxation for the empty form of borrowing. Wolsey ordered the mayor, the
+aldermen, and the most substantial citizens of London to attend at his
+chambers, * when he announced to them the fact that the sovereign was
+hard up, and required pecuniary assistance. "What, again!" cried a voice
+which the cardinal pretended not to hear, but proceeded to say that he
+should require a return of the amount of their annual moneys from all
+of them. This proposition was the origin of that income-tax with which
+England has since been burdened; and the lovers of antiquity will feel
+some consolation in the knowledge that they suffer under a grievance
+which is hallowed by its ancient origin. There is to many a great
+comfort in being victimised under venerable institutions, and there are
+individuals who would rather be plundered in conformity with what are
+termed time-honoured principles, than be fairly dealt with upon any new
+system.
+
+While, however, we are talking of the simpletons of the present day,
+the dupes and victims of the period of Henry the Eighth are being kept
+waiting in the presence of Wolsey. "Gentlemen," said the cardinal, "the
+country is in danger, ana the king wants your hearts;" an announcement
+which was received with cheers of assent, until it was followed up by a
+declaration that he must also try the strength of their pockets. Murmurs
+of dissent followed this intimation; but Wolsey went on boldly to say
+that the king would only require one-tenth of what they had, and if they
+could not live on the other nine-tenths, he did not know how they would
+ever be satisfied. "How will his majesty take the contribution?" at
+length exclaimed one of the aldermen. "In money, plate, or jewels,"
+cried the cardinal; "but at any rate the thing must be done, and
+therefore go about it." ** A promise was made that the money should
+be repaid out of the first subsidy, which would have been a sort of
+improvement upon the old practice of borrowing from Peter to pay
+Paul, for it would have been picking Peter's two pockets at once, and
+ransacking one under the pretext of replenishing the other.
+
+     * Supposed to have been over the gateway of Inner Temple
+     Lane, where Henry and Wolsey shared the rooms now occupied
+     by their successors, Honey and Skelton the hairdressers.
+
+     ** Hall, by the salient wit of More, who had a new joke for
+     every new star, and appropriate puns for all the planets. He
+     was the original author of that brilliant but ancient series
+     of pleasantries on the "milky whey," which have since become
+     so universally popular; and to him may perhaps be attributed
+     the venerable but not sufficiently appreciated remark, that
+     the music of the spheres must proceed from the band of
+     Orion.
+
+Henry certainly had the knack of making his people's money go a great
+way, for it went so far when it passed into his hands, that it never
+came back again. The enormous sums he had extorted from the citizens
+soon melted away in dinner parties, pageants, and other expenses, so
+that he was at last, after a lapse of eight years, obliged to summon a
+Parliament. It was opened in person by the king, and the Commons elected
+Sir Thomas More as their speaker.
+
+Sir Thomas More presented one of those rare unions of wisdom and waggery
+which may occasionally be found, and he was often sent for to the palace
+to make jokes for his sovereign. The king would often take him out on
+the leads at night, where after scrambling through the cock-loft, and
+getting out upon the tiles, Sir Thomas and his royal pupil would stand
+for an hour at a time, conversing on the subject of astronomy.
+
+The king and Wolsey congratulated each other on having got Tom More as
+Speaker, for they thought he would act like one of themselves, and
+that he would soon laugh the people out of all the money they might be
+required to furnish. Henry and the cardinal foolishly imagined that the
+man who sometimes made a joke could never be serious; but they found out
+their mistake, for he proved himself an excellent man of business when
+occasion required. Wolsey thought to produce an effect by attending the
+House in person, and making a speech on that most unpromising topic the
+"crisis," though it was not such a threadbare subject in those days
+as in our own, when a "crisis" may almost be looked for as a quarterly
+occurrence. Happily, if we are remarkable for our rapidity in getting
+a "crisis" up, we have also a wonderful knack of putting it down again
+with equal promptitude.
+
+The speech of Wolsey was listened to without reply; for, every member
+of the House considering the cardinal's intrusion a breach of privilege,
+remained mute and motionless. Irritated by their silence, the crafty
+churchman called up one of the members by name, and asked him for a
+speech; but the call might just as well have been for a song, since the
+individual indicated said nothing more than rise up and sit down again.
+Finding it impossible to get a good word, or indeed any word at all from
+the Commons, the cardinal lost his temper, and declared that, having
+come from the king, he should certainly wait for an answer; but Tom
+Moore, the Speaker--who, by-the-by, deserved the title, for he was the
+only one that spoke--began to show his wit by saying that the fact was,
+the Commons were too modest to open their mouths in the presence of so
+great a personage. Wolsey withdrew in dudgeon, and after a few days'
+debate, it was at length agreed to give the money that had been asked,
+but to take five years to pay it in. Though Henry would no doubt have
+been perfectly willing to make a sacrifice for ready money, and allow
+a considerable discount on a cash transaction, his minister tried to
+accelerate the mode of payment without offering any equivalent for a
+restriction of the term of credit.
+
+The autumn of the year 1525 was rendered remarkable by the confusion
+into which the Londoners were thrown, in consequence of the
+almanack-makers and astronomers having tried to give an impetus to their
+trade by throwing into the market a parcel of very alarming prophecies.
+It was predicted that the rains would be so tremendous as to convert the
+whole wealth of the metropolis into floating capital; and the merchants,
+fearing they might not be able to keep their heads above water, ran in
+crowds to the suburbs. Several parted with everything they possessed,
+and their foolish conduct in making their arrangements for being swamped
+formed a precedent, no doubt, for a case of recent occurrence, in which
+an individual of average income, having been led away by a prophecy
+that the world had only two more years to run, invested the whole of his
+property in the largest possible annuity he could procure for two years,
+being under the firm impression that beyond that time neither he nor his
+heirs, executors, or assigns would have the opportunity of enjoying a
+farthing of any surplus. As the world did not keep the appointment that
+had been made for it by the calculator of its final arrangements, he was
+left without a penny when the time he had assigned for its duration
+was up; and thus many had got rid of everything in 1525, under the
+expectation that all their sorrows and possessions would be drowned in
+the inundation that did--not happen.
+
+During the time the panic prevailed, a few of the tradesmen and
+artificers did their best to put it to a profitable account, and a
+turner of the time, who was so clever at his business that he could turn
+a penny out of anything, constructed several thousand pairs of stilts,
+and, placing them in his window labelled "Stilts for the inundation," he
+obtained numerous customers.
+
+Wolsey's attention was suddenly called off from matters at home by a
+fresh vacancy in the popedom, occasioned by the death of Adrian.
+
+The English cardinal immediately despatched a letter to his royal
+master, saying how unfit he was for the pontificate, when Henry,
+instantly taking the hint, and saying to himself, "Oh! ah! exactly!
+I see what Wolsey wants," wrote off strongly to Rome in favour of his
+election. Powerful efforts were made to secure his return and push
+him to the top of the poll, but though he got several votes, he was
+completely beaten by Giulio de Medici, who was elected to the papal
+chair by a very large majority. Wolsey bore his disappointment, to all
+appearances, exceedingly well, but the probability is that he saw the
+policy of keeping on good terms with the new pope, who made the cardinal
+his legate for life, and granted him a bull empowering him to suppress
+a number of monasteries, for the purpose of taking the money they
+possessed to endow his own colleges.
+
+[Illustration: 396]
+
+Henry and Wolsey declared that the cash should be devoted to "putting
+down" that "Monster Luther," as they sometimes called him, or that
+"fellow Luther," as they spoke of him now and then, by way of change,
+though his fellow did not exist at the period when the term was applied
+to him. Among the many irons that Henry now had in the fire was an
+Italian iron, with which he stood a pretty fair chance of burning his
+fingers, for he had interfered in the disputes between Francis the First
+of France and the Emperor Charles, who was at war in Italy. Francis had
+laid himself down on the pavement before Pavia, resolved to leave
+no stone unturned to place a curb on the foe and pave his own way to
+victory. As he lay under the walls, the cream of the Imperial army was
+poured down upon him with a savage violence that causes the blood to
+curdle at the bare recital. Thoroughly soured in his hopes, Francis
+plunged into the very thick of the Imperial cream, and beating around
+him with his sword in all directions, reduced seven men, with his
+own hand, to the inanimate condition of whipped syllabubs. His valour
+availed him little, for he was removed--to adopt the spelling of the
+period--in custardy. He was kept in captivity in Spain, at the
+strong fortress of Pizzichitone, from which he wrote home to his
+mother--probably for the means of replenishing his _sac de nuit_--and
+concluded his note with the memorable words,"_Tout est perdu hors
+l'honneur_," which, for the benefit of that portion of the public who
+may have learnt their "French without a master," and have, consequently,
+never mastered it at all, we translate into "All is lost, excepting
+honour."
+
+Francis being now completely down, Henry and Wolsey proposed to Charles
+that they should combine in making the very most of the helpless
+position of their prostrate enemy. Fortunately for the French king,
+his two opponents were not only deficient in funds, but had begun to
+quarrel; on the old principle, perhaps, that when Poverty stalks in at
+the door, Love hops out at the window. The pay of Charles's forces had
+fallen fearfully into arrear, and they declared they would no longer go
+on fighting on half salaries. It was therefore determined to bring the
+military season to a close; and the grand ballet of action, having
+for its plot the invasion of France--of which Henry had drawn out the
+scheme, and which was to have put forward the strength of a double
+company, comprising a powerful combination of the English and Imperial
+_troupe_--was postponed for an indefinite period.
+
+Henry, who was ready to sell himself to either party, finding Charles
+too poor to purchase him, offered himself without reserve to Francis.
+Terms were soon arranged, by which Henry was to receive by instalments
+two millions of crowns, with a permanent annuity when the chief sum was
+paid off; and Wolsey was also handsomely provided for--at least in the
+shape of promises. While the agreement was most solemnly ratified by
+Francis himself and the chief of the French nobility, the Attorney and
+Solicitor-General of France privately popped a protest on to the file,
+in order that the king, who was particular about his honour, might not
+have his scruples shocked should he subsequently feel disposed to
+break his word and fly off from his agreement. He found considerable
+difficulty in effecting his release without swearing to at least a dozen
+things he never intended to perform, and when the document was brought
+to him, full of concessions to Charles, he affixed his signature with
+the indifference of a man putting his name to a bill, regardless of the
+amount, which he does not mean to liquidate. He had no sooner got out
+of custody, and found himself comfortably seated before his palace fire,
+than Sir Thomas Cheney and Dr. Taylor walked in with a message from
+Henry the Eighth, to congratulate Francis on his delivery. "If you'll
+take my advice," said one of the visitors, at the same time handing his
+card, with
+
+          Dr. Taylor,
+
+          _Jurist._
+
+upon it, to give weight to his words, "you will pay no attention to the
+liabilities you have entered into with regard to the Emperor."
+
+"Indeed, Doctor, I don't mean to trouble myself upon the subject," was
+the king's reply; "and in fact I have kept up a running accompaniment
+of private protests to every obligation I have undertaken." Dr. Taylor
+explained to him that he was on the safe side, for the bonds he had
+given were bad in law, having been executed while the king was under
+duress, and therefore not legally responsible. Thus did the chivalrous
+Francis, who had written so nobly about having lost everything except
+his honour, present an early instance, of which later times have
+furnished so many, of the largest talkers being the smallest doers, or
+perhaps rather the greatest dos in the universe.
+
+We have now to relate a curious personal anecdote of Henry the Eighth,
+which might have caused a considerable abridgment of his reign, much in
+the same way that the want of strength in the bowl in which the three
+wise men of Gotha went to sea, put a premature period to their little
+history. * Henry, in his early manhood, was one day running after a
+hawk, perhaps to put a little salt on its tail in the idle hope of
+catching it. The bird was actively retreating before its royal pursuer,
+and had just quitted a hedge by hopping the twig, when it traversed a
+ditch on the other side, which Henry endeavoured to clear by the aid of
+his leaping-pole. The attempt somehow failed, and the monarch pitching
+on to his head in the soft mud, sunk into it as far as his neck, and
+became planted with his legs in the air for several seconds. Happily
+a footman named Edmund Moody--"You all know Tom Moody" though you may
+never have heard of Edmund--came up at the instant and pulled the king
+up from the ground by the roots--at least by the roots of his hair--with
+wondrous promptitude. Had this accident proved fatal, Henry would have
+been the first instance of a monarch losing his crown by being planted
+instead of supplanted, which had been the fate of some that had preceded
+him.
+
+     * "Three wise men of Gotha
+     Went to sea in a bowl;
+     Had the bowl been stronger
+     My story would have been longer."
+        --Old Nursery Ballad.
+
+     Though the fact is not stated, the inference clearly is,
+     that the "wise men" bowled themselves out of existence by
+     that rash proceeding.
+
+It is now time for us to speak of the commencement of that spirit of
+Bluebeardism which ultimately gave the most glaring colouring to Henry's
+character. He had always been a little flighty and indiscriminate in his
+attentions to the fair sex, but he had hitherto treated Catherine with
+respect, until he met with Anne Boleyn, or Bullen, the daughter of Sir
+Thomas Boleyn, who was descended from a former Lord Mayor of London, but
+by a series of clever match-making--a talent for which was inherited by
+Miss Anne--the family had succeeded in allying itself, by marriage, to
+some of the proudest aristocracy in the land.
+
+One of their earliest "dodges" had been to repair the plebeian word
+Bullen, by omitting the U and substituting an O, which got it to
+Bollen. In the course of time, having been allowed an inch in the way
+of licence, they took an L, or at least one liquid absorbed another, and
+the word now stood Bolen. Subsequently a Y, without a why or wherefore,
+was dropped in, and the Bullens, who had probably acquired their name,
+originally, from having been landlords, or perhaps potboys, at the
+"Bull," had now assumed the comparatively elegant title of Boleyn, which
+has since become so famous in history. Sir Thomas Boleyn, the father
+of Nancy, had long lived about the Court, and had been employed as a
+deliverer of messages, or ticket-porter, for Henry the Eighth, on some
+important occasions. Anne, who was born in the year 1507, had in very
+early life gone out to service as maid--of honour--to the king's sister,
+Mary, who, when going over to be married to Louis the Twelfth, took
+the girl abroad, where she picked up a few accomplishments. On Mary's
+returning home, a widow, Anne Boleyn found another situation with
+Claude, the wife of Francis the First, but after remaining in another
+family or two for a short time in France, she returned to England, where
+we find her, in 1527, engaged as maid of honour to Catherine of Aragon.
+
+Henry having become deeply enamoured of Miss Boleyn, who had shown a
+strong determination to stand no nonsense, was suddenly seized with
+religious scruples as to his marriage with the queen; for he found
+out, seventeen years after the event, that he had done wrong in allying
+himself with his brother's widow. The fact of her being now an oldish
+lady of forty-three added no doubt considerably to the pious horror of
+the king at the step which he had taken. He accordingly began to think
+seriously of a divorce; and when Wolsey was sounded on the subject, the
+cardinal, for reasons of his own, yielded a prompt concurrence. He was
+anxious to pay off Catherine on account of a quarrel he had had with
+her nephew, the emperor; and thus, in the words of the poet of Dumbarton
+Castle,
+
+     "He sought to consummate his fiendish part
+     By breaking a defenceless female's heart."
+
+He was sent as an ambassador to Francis, ostensibly to arrange about the
+marriage of Henry's only daughter Mary, but really, as it is believed,
+to induce the French king to consent that Wolsey should be a sort of
+acting pope during the investment of the castle of St. Angelo, where the
+Spaniards and Germans had made the real pontiff a prisoner.
+
+Poor Clement bore his ill fortune with patience, though, as long as the
+investment of the castle lasted, he used to say it was one of the most
+unprofitable investments in which he had ever been involved, and that
+nothing but the excessive tightness prevented him from selling out, for
+he was quite tired of the security.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FOURTH. HENRY THE EIGHTH (CONTINUED.)
+
+The reign of Henry the Eighth would become tedious were it not for the
+privilege we have assumed in dividing it into chapters; though we shall
+not follow the example of the melodramatists who suppose fifteen years
+to have elapsed between each of their acts, and thus carry on their
+plots by means of the imagination of their audience. It is true that
+many of the events of Henry's reign are dark enough to cause a wish
+that we might be allowed to omit them; but we must not give up to
+squeamishness what we owe to posterity.
+
+We have not yet come to the catalogue of his various female victims,
+and we have yet to describe those matrimonial freaks upon which we
+would gladly have put a ban by forbidding the banns, had we lived three
+centuries in advance of our present existence. We must, however, speak
+the truth; and though we might imitate the author of the play called
+_The Wife of Seven Husbands_, who requested the public to consider
+that a husband had elapsed between each act, we will not call upon our
+readers to imagine that a wife of Henry the Eighth has elapsed between
+each chapter.
+
+We will now resume our narrative, and in the first place look after
+Wolsey, whom we left under orders to proceed to the French dominions;
+and as the cardinal must by this time have commenced the passage across,
+we will take him at once out of his unpleasant position, and land him at
+Boulogne.
+
+Wolsey's reception in France was like that of a royal personage, and had
+all the inconveniences of such a compliment; for the firing of the guns
+at Boulogne frightened his mule, who had not been trained to stand fire,
+and who indulged in a kick-up of the most, extraordinary character.
+
+[Illustration: 401]
+
+This interview with Francis resulted in three treaties, which were
+concluded on the 18th of August, 1527, * by the first of which it
+was agreed that the Princess Mary should marry young Francis, Duke of
+Orleans, instead of old Francis, his father, a point that had hitherto
+been an open question; the second treaty concluded a peace, and the
+third stipulated that nothing done by the pope during his captivity
+should take effect, but that as long as Clement was in durance, which it
+required all his fortitude to endure, Wolsey should have the management
+of ecclesiastical affairs in England. The pope himself good-naturedly
+sent over a bull to confirm the cardinal in his new powers; and "here
+certainly," says Lord Herbert, "began the taste our king took of
+governing, in chief, the clergy." His lordship might have added with
+truth that Wolsey had performed the wonderful physical feat of biting
+off his own nose to be revenged upon the rest of his face, for it is
+certain that the taste Henry had been encouraged to take of power over
+the church soon led him to be discontented with a mere snack, for his
+appetite grew fearfully by what it fed upon. Like the modest dropper-in
+at dinner-time, who sits down to take "just a mouthful," and is led on
+to the consumption of a hearty meal, Henry, who at first simply intended
+to pick a bit from the power of the pope, soon became a cormorant of
+church influence. Henry's thoughts were seriously occupied with the
+design of getting a divorce, and he therefore pretended to be in great
+alarm as to the succession to the throne, in consequence of a "public
+doubt" as to his marriage being lawful and the Princess Mary being
+legitimate.
+
+     * Lord Herbert's "Life of Henry the Eighth," p. 160 of the
+     quarto edition, 1741.
+
+There is no question that the wish was in this instance father to
+the thought, and that, so far from Henry's desiring to silence all
+discussion on the point, he was the first to encourage the criticism of
+his wife's and his daughter's position. Notwithstanding his notorious
+flirtation with Anne Boleyn, which the forward minx decidedly
+encouraged, he pretended to be looking out for an eligible _parti_ in
+the event of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon being officially
+nullified. He had a picture sent over to him of the Duchess of Alanson,
+sister to Francis, and used to pretend that he should probably set his
+cap at that lady; but the picture was a mere blind, or probably in a
+very short time it experienced a worse fate than that of a blind by
+being turned into a fire-board or consigned to a lumber-room.
+
+The love-making of Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn was a mixture of
+mawkishness, childishness, hypocrisy, and scholastic pedantry, tinctured
+with an affectation of religion that was not the least disgusting
+feature of this disgraceful courtship. Henry used to write love-letters
+full of extracts from Thomas Aquinas, complaints of headache, reference
+to pious books, and sickly sentimentalism about "mine own sweet heart,"
+while the good-for-nothing Nancy B. would reply by sending him pretty
+little toys and pretty little words of encouragement. She had made good
+use of her time in Wolsey's absence, for, when the cardinal came back,
+the king, in answer to his own question, "Guess who's the gal of my
+'art?" which his friend gave up, enthusiastically responded, "Anne
+Boleyn."
+
+The already corpulent monarch was stupidly and spoonily love-sick about
+this "artful puss," as Catherine might have called her, and he used to
+leave scraps of paper about the palace scribbled over with charades,
+conundrums, ana anagrams to the object of his admiration. * Wolsey was
+a good deal annoyed by this avowal, but, finding his opposition would
+do no good, he changed his tack and fell in with the sovereign's fancy.
+Henry ordered him to consult Sir Thomas More, who, not at all liking the
+job, referred him politely to St. Jerome and St. Augustine, saying it
+was more in their way than his own, and he felt any interference on
+his part would be irregular and unprofessional. Wolsey next tried the
+bishops, who shook their heads and said, "You had better ask the pope,"
+to whom the king at last determined upon a reference.
+
+     *  One of these has been preserved; it is to the following
+     effect:--"My first is the article indefinite (An); my second
+     is a very useful animal (Bull); my third is the abode of
+     hospitality (Inn); and my whole is the 'gal of my art '--
+     An(n) Buli-Inn (Anne Boleyn)."
+
+The pope, whom we left locked up in the castle of St. Angelo, had been
+obliged to "come out of that" for want of provisions, and had escaped in
+the disguise of a gardener, in which a shovel hat may have been of some
+use to him. He played his cards so well as the one of spades, that,
+with the assistance of one or two true hearts who turned out trumps, he
+reached in safety the town of Orvieto, where he expected reinforcement
+from a French army. Long before the promised aid arrived, he received
+a card inscribed "Dr. Knight," and he had scarcely time to say, "Doctor
+Knight? Who is Doctor Knight? I don't know any Doctor Knight," when
+the king of England's secretary, who bore that name, rushed into the
+presence of the pontiff. The doctor, having briefly explained his object
+in coming, which was to get the pope's consent to Henry's divorce,
+succeeded in extracting the requisite authority from his holiness, who
+was very unwilling, but he could not keep back his bull without finding
+himself on the horns of a worse dilemma. He at all events wished the
+matter to be kept secret for a short time; but a friend of Wolsey
+stepped forward to stipulate that an Italian cardinal should be sent to
+England with Dr. Knight, to prove that the document he took with him
+was genuine. Poor Clement, being afraid to refuse compliance, pointed to
+half-a-dozen cardinals standing in one corner, and hurriedly observed,
+"There, there, Dr. Knight, take any one of those, for the whole six are
+quite at your service." In conformity with this permission, Cardinal
+Campeggio was selected to visit England, and he carried with him in his
+pocket a decree, rendering final any judgment that he and Wolsey might
+agree upon.
+
+On the arrival of Campeggio a public entry into London was proposed:
+but he excused himself on the score of gout, which had laid him by the
+heels, or rather seized him by the great toe, and prevented him from
+coming into the metropolis on the footing that he might have desired.
+After spending a few days with his leg in a sling, he was introduced to
+the king, whom he greatly irritated by advising that the business of the
+divorce should not be proceeded with. Henry began declaring that he had
+been deceived, and that the pope was an old humbug, which caused the
+gouty leg of the legate to tremble in its shoe; and, taking the bull
+from his pocket, he showed that the pontiff meant business, and had
+given full authority for transacting it.
+
+Henry's desire for a divorce got soon rumoured about the city, and
+caused so much dissatisfaction that he called a meeting of the judges,
+lord mayor, common council, and others, at which it was announced
+that his majesty would attend to give explanations, and enter into a
+justification of his conduct. He made an elaborate speech of the most
+artful and hypocritical kind, in which he asserted that his religious
+scruples alone made him agitate the question of a divorce, and that if
+his marriage was valid, nothing would give him greater pleasure than
+to finish his life in the society of the old lady who had been for many
+years the partner of his existence. It is notorious that he had made
+up his mind to desert Catherine for Anne Boleyn; and his speech is
+therefore a disgusting specimen of low cunning, rendered doubly odious by
+the religious cant with which it was accompanied.
+
+The unhappy queen, when visited by Wolsey and Campeggio, exclaimed at
+once, "I know what you have come about." She said she thought it hard
+to have her marriage doubted after nearly twenty years; and spoke
+pathetically of those early days when she was in the habit of going out
+a-Maying with her royal husband.
+
+[Illustration: 404]
+
+"Ah, madam!" replied Wolsey, "if we could have May all the year round,
+it would be pleasant enough; but the spring of the year, as well as the
+spring-time of existence, is not perpetual." Catherine acknowledged she
+was not so young as she had been, and the English cardinal ventured
+to hint, that, even in those Maying days, she had the advantage of
+Henry--at least, if there can be any advantage to a lady who is her
+husband's senior. Finding pathos of no use, she proceeded to argument,
+and endeavoured to show that Henry had almost lost his claim to a
+divorce by mere _laches_, in having so long neglected to apply for one.
+The two cardinals only shook their heads, as if they would say, "I can't
+see much in that;" and she then ventured to take another ground for
+opposing her husband's project. She complained that her husband had
+paid for the licence and dispensation from the pope, but that the
+dispensation might be dispensed with as valueless, if one could
+supersede another at the instigation of the great and powerful against
+the comparatively friendless and impotent. At length, losing all temper
+and patience, she turned to Wolsey, taxing him with having "done it
+all;" when the wily cardinal did nothing but bow and smile in general
+terms, placing his hand upon his heart, muttering out, "Pon honour!"
+
+"Nothing of the sort!" and giving other similar assurances that he had
+in no way instigated the conduct pursued by Henry.
+
+The preliminary meeting to which we have referred was held in the Hall
+of the Black Friars, on the 31st of May, 1529; and an adjournment till
+the 21st of June having taken place, Wolsey and Campeggio were at
+their posts at the appointed hour. Henry and Catherine were both in
+attendance; and the former, when his name was called, gave a terrific
+shout of "Here!" which had a startling effect upon the whole assembly.
+Catherine, though she might be considered upon her trial, was
+accommodated with a seat on the left of the bench, and was attended by
+four friendly bishops, who had come in the amiable capacity of moral
+bottle-holders to this injured woman. When her name was called she
+refused to answer, or to say a word; but the dignity of the queen soon
+gave way to the volubility of the woman, and her tongue started off into
+a gallop of the most touching eloquence. She commenced in the old style
+of appeal, by throwing herself at the king's feet, presuming perhaps,
+that if he had a tender point it might be upon his toes, and she should
+thus make sure of touching it. She then implored his compassion, as a
+woman and a stranger, concluding with a happy alliterative effect by
+declaring herself "a friendless female foreigner."
+
+At the conclusion of a very powerful speech she rose slowly, and when it
+was expected she would return to her seat, she marched deliberately out
+of the hall, to the great amazement of the quartette of bishops by
+whom she had been accompanied. Henry was a little staggered by what had
+occurred; but he nevertheless made a reply, which was partly inaudible
+from the flurry of the king himself, and the consternation into which
+the Court had been thrown by the queen's very telling speech, and highly
+dramatic exit. He was understood to say, that he had a very high respect
+for the distinguished lady who had just addressed them; that she was a
+very good wife; that he had in fact no fault to find; but that really
+his scruples as to the lawfulness of his marriage had made him very
+uncomfortable. He remarked that his conscience was so exceedingly
+delicate that it could not bear the slightest shock; and here indeed he
+seems to have spoken the truth, for his conscience appears to have died
+altogether within a very short time of the occurrence we have mentioned.
+
+Catherine's departure from the Court turned out to be final, for nothing
+could induce her to enter it again; and, being pronounced contumacious,
+the proceedings were carried on in her absence. The two cardinals, out
+of regard to her majesty's interests, requested Dr. Taylor--an aged
+junior in the back rows--to hold a brief for the defendant, and examine
+the witnesses: a proposition at which the learned gentleman jumped, for
+he had previously been occupying his own mind and the official ink in
+sketching the scene before him on the desk, or handing down his name
+to posterity by cutting it out on the bench with a pocket penknife. Dr.
+Taylor, if he had practised little before, had quite enough to do on the
+occasion that brought him into notice, for Lord Herbert, in his "Life
+and Reign of Henry the Eighth," gives a list of thirty-seven witnesses
+for the plaintiff, all of whom our venerable junior had the task of
+cross-examining. Some idea may be formed of the magnitude of this
+achievement, when it is stated that several of the witnesses were
+ladies, and that the evidence of the first of them--namely, Mary,
+Countess of Essex--is summed up in the report as having amounted to
+"little," though conveyed in "general terms."
+
+There is something truly overwhelming in the idea which this slight
+summary conveys; for it is impossible that the imagination can set
+any limits to the "little" a lady can contrive to say when she avails
+herself of "general terms" to give it utterance. Cardinal Campeggio
+evinced a decided reluctance to bring the matter to a decision, though
+Henry's case was undoubtedly well supported by evidence; and old Taylor
+being, professionally speaking, a young hand, was able to do little for
+his absent client. The king at length grew angry at Campeggio's delay,
+and instructed counsel to move for judgment, which was accordingly
+done on the 23rd of July in a somewhat peremptory manner. The Italian
+cardinal refused the motion, and intimated that he would not be bullied
+by any man, "be he king or any other potentate." He then went on to say,
+that "he was an old man, sick, decayed, and daily looking for death:"
+which certainly gave no reason for delay; and a whisper to that effect
+went no doubt round the bar, and was caught up by Henry's counsel, who
+"humbly submitted" that "if the Court expected to be soon defunct, there
+must be the stronger reason for fixing an early day for its decision."
+Cardinal Campeggio got up somewhat angrily, and intimated that the cause
+must be made a "_remanet_;" that in fact it must stand over until next
+term, as he was not disposed to continue his sittings. "Is your lordship
+aware," asked Sampson, K.C., "that you will throw us over the long
+vacation? for we are now only in July, and the next term begins in
+October." The cardinal, who was half-way towards the robing-room, turned
+sharply round to observe that "the Court was virtually up," and that
+"he really wished gentlemen of the bar would observe more regularity in
+their proceedings." Sampson, K.C., had nevertheless got as far as "Will
+your lordship allow us?" in another attempt to be heard, when Campeggio,
+growling out furiously, "I can hear nothing now, Mr. Sampson," retired
+angrily to his private apartment.
+
+     * The King's leading counsel was Richard Sampson, with whom
+     was John Bell,--Lord Herbert's "Life of Henry the Eighth,"
+     p. 205,
+
+
+[Illustration: 408]
+
+The Court never met again, and Campeggio left England a few days
+afterwards, having first taken leave of the king, who kept his temper
+and behaved very decently. He even gave a few presents to the refractory
+cardinal, but, as the latter lay at Dover previous to embarkation, his
+bedroom door was burst open, his trunks were rummaged, and probably all
+his presents were taken away again.
+
+Wolsey, who had been associated in the hearing of the great cause,
+Henry versus Catherine, or the Queen at the suit of the King, fell into
+instant disgrace for the part he had taken, or, rather, for the part he
+had omitted to take, upon this momentous occasion. Miss Anne Boleyn, who
+had calculated on his keeping Campeggio up to the mark in pronouncing
+for the divorce, was especially angry with Wolsey for his apathy. Even
+the courtiers got up a joke upon the supineness of the English cardinal
+by calling him the supine in(h)um, while Campeggio was compared to the
+gerund in _do_, by reason of his active duplicity, through which he
+was declared to have regularly done the English sovereign. Many of the
+nobility attempted to excite the avarice of Henry by hinting to him that
+Wolsey's overthrow would be a good speculation, if only for the sake of
+obtaining the wealth he had managed to accumulate; and from this moment
+the cardinal stood in the precarious position of a turkey that is only
+crammed to await the favourable opportunity for sacrifice.
+
+Soon after the trial of his cause, in which he thought proper to assume
+that he was entitled to a verdict, Henry set off on a tour, accompanied
+by Miss Anne Boleyn, who, in spite of Hume's panegyric on her "virtue
+and modesty," appears to have been what is commonly called a very pretty
+character. Wolsey was not invited to be of the party, but he rode after
+the Court, for he was one of those hangers-on that are not to be
+shaken off very easily. He came up with the king at Grafton, in
+Northamptonshire, and was very kindly received, but the next morning he
+was told distinctly that he was not wanted in the royal suite, and that
+he might go back to London, after which he never saw his master's face
+again. * Henry, being anxious to ruin his late favourite _selon les
+regles_, took the very decisive method of going to law with him. Two
+bills were filed against the cardinal in the King's Bench, but Wolsey,
+nevertheless, proceeded to the Court of Chancery to take his seat, just
+as if nothing had happened. None of the servants of the Court paid him
+any respect, and it is probable that even the mace-bearer, the ushers,
+and other officers omitted the customary ceremonies of preceding him
+with the mace, and crying out, "Pray, silence!" upon his entrance. On
+his expressing his readiness to take motions, he was responded to by one
+general motion towards the door, in which the whole bar joined. Being
+thus left quite alone, he amused himself by giving judgment in some old
+suit which had lasted so long that the parties were all dead, and he
+consoled himself by saying that this accounted for the fact of nobody
+appearing on either side.
+
+     * Cavendish.
+
+The king, hearing of the cardinal's proceedings, gave orders that he
+should be forbidden the Court altogether, and when he went to take his
+seat, as usual, he found the doors closed against him. When he got home
+to York Place, where he resided, he was told that two gentlemen were
+waiting to see him, and, on going upstairs, the Dukes of Suffolk and
+Norfolk requested to have a few words with him. They told him that the
+king intended to come and live at York Place, so that Wolsey must
+"turn out," to which he made no objection; but when they insolently and
+tauntingly demanded the Great Seal, he declared he would not trust it
+in their possession without a written authority. "How do I know what you
+are going to do with it?" cried the cardinal, holding it firmly in his
+grasp, and returning it to the sealskin case in which he was in the
+habit of keeping it. The two dukes, having exhausted their vocabulary
+of abuse, retired for that day, but came back the next morning with an
+order, signed by the king, for the delivery of the Great Seal, which
+Wolsey gave up to them, together with an inventory of the furniture and
+fixtures of the magnificent abode he was about to vacate in favour of
+his sovereign.
+
+[Illustration: 410]
+
+The catalogue exhibited a long list of luxurious appointments, and
+commencing with "a splendid set of curtains of cloth of gold," * went on
+with--a ditto--a ditto--and a ditto, down to the end of the three first
+pages. The neatness and variety of his table-covers cannot be conceived,
+and his magnificent sideboard of gold and silver plate was in those days
+unparalleled. He had got also a thousand pieces of fine Holland; but as
+the chief use of Holland is, we believe, to make blinds, as must regard
+the purchase of this material in so large a quantity, as one of those
+blind bargains which are sometimes the result of excessive opulence.
+Having made over all those articles to the king, Wolsey left his
+sumptuous palace, and jumping into a barge, desired the bargeman to drop
+him down with the tide towards Putney. The river was crowded with boats
+to see him shove off, and he was assailed with the most savage yells
+from the populace. As the bargeman gave Wolsey his hand and pulled him
+on board, the poor cardinal stumbled over a block of Wallsend, when an
+inhuman shout of "That's right, haul him over the coals," arose from one
+unfeeling brute, and was echoed by countless multitudes.
+
+     * Herbert's "Life of Henry the Eighth," and Hume's "History
+     of England."
+
+On reaching Putney, Wolsey gave the word to "pull her in shore," when he
+disembarked, with his fool and one or two others who had agreed to share
+his exile. They had not gone very far when they heard a cry of "Ho! hoi
+hilly hilly hoi" and looking back, they perceived Sir John Norris coming
+full pelt after them. The cardinal was mounted on a mule--hired probably
+at Putney, or picked off the common--and though he endeavoured to put
+the animal along by giving her first her own head, and then the head of
+a thick stick, the rise of a hill brought Wolsey to a dead stand-still.
+Here he was easily overtaken by Sir John Norris, who came, as it
+turned out, with a present of a ring from the king's own finger, and
+a "comfortable message." The abject cardinal went into the most
+humiliating ecstasies, and actually grovelled in the very mud, to show
+his humble sense of the kindness and condescension of his sovereign.
+Thinking that Sir John Norris possibly expected something for his
+trouble in bringing the grateful tidings, Wolsey shook his head
+mournfully, saying, "I have nothing left except the clothes on my
+back--but here, take this"--and he tore from his neck an old piece of
+jewellery. "As for my sovereign," he cried, "I have nothing worthy of
+his acceptance;" when suddenly his eyes lighted upon his faithful fool,
+who had been such a thorough fool as to follow a fallen master. "Ha!"
+exclaimed Wolsey, "I will send to his majesty my jester, who is worth a
+thousand pounds to anybody who has never heard his jokes before; but
+as I am familiar with the entire collection, I have no further use for
+him." The faithful fool was exceedingly reluctant to go, and it took six
+stout yeomen * to drag him away--a fact which, as he was full of wit,
+proves the humour of the period to have been dreadfully ponderous. Some
+of the jests of our own time are heavy enough, but we doubt whether
+it would require half-a-dozen porters to carry a professed wag of the
+present day--including the Durden of his entire stock-in-trade--into the
+presence of royalty. It is not impossible that the obstinate resistance
+of the fool to a transfer from the service of a disgraced subject to
+that of a powerful king, may have been intended as a sample of his style
+of joking; but we can only say that if this was a specimen of his wit,
+the value set upon him by his old master was rather exorbitant.
+
+     * Lord Herbert, 293.
+
+Wolsey now lodged at Esher, where his spirits soon fell--if we may be
+allowed an engineering phrase--to a very dumpy level. Continual sighing
+had fearfully reduced his size, and he fretted so much that a sort of
+fret-work of tears seemed to be always hanging to his eye-lashes.
+His face became wrinkled and pale, as if constant crying had not only
+intersected his countenance with little channels, but had likewise
+washed out all its colour. It is not unlikely that he sometimes
+regretted having parted with his fool, whose dry humour might have
+mitigated the moisture or subdued the soaking which naturally resulted
+from the emptying of so many cups of sorrow over the dismal drooping and
+dripping cardinal. Nothing seemed to rouse him from his despondency, and
+the people about him could never succeed in stirring him up to a fit
+of even temporary gaiety. After dinner they would sometimes ask him to
+partake of a bowl of sack; but at the mere mention of the word sack
+he would burst into tears, and sob out, that the sack he had already
+received had been the cause of all his wretchedness. Upon this he would
+leave the dinner table, and wander forth to enjoy his solitary whine in
+the wood, among the thickly planted solitudes in the neighbourhood of
+Esher. Sometimes he would sit pining for hours under a favourite
+pine, or would go and indulge in a weeping match with one of the most
+lachrymose he could find of weeping willows. All this crying brought on
+a crisis at last, and Wolsey had so damped all his vital energies by the
+incessant showers of tears he let fall, that he fell into a slow fever.
+
+The king now seemed to take some compassion upon his former friend, and
+sent down a medical man to see the prostrate cardinal; though we are
+inclined to attribute this anxiety for his health to a desire to keep
+him alive until the process was complete for depriving him of all his
+property. At all events a Parliament was suddenly summoned, and a Bill
+of impeachment promptly prepared against the fallen and feeble Wolsey.
+
+There were no less than four-and-forty articles in this document, which
+contained, among a variety of other ridiculous accusations, a charge of
+having, when ill with fever, "come whispering daily in the king's
+ear, and blowing upon his most noble grace with breath infective and
+perilous." This would, indeed, have been convicting him out of his own
+mouth; but though the Lords passed the bill, it was thrown out in the
+Commons, through a speech of Thomas Cromwell, who had been secretary to
+the unfortunate cardinal.
+
+Wolsey had always felt that when he did fall, he should fall not only
+as Shakespeare said, "like Lucifer," but like an entire box of lucifers,
+"never to rise again." Directly the cardinal learned that the bill had
+been defeated, his appetite returned, his cheeks resumed their colour,
+the furrows began to fill out, for grief had been at sad work with its
+plough all over his countenance. He had still a good deal of property
+left, but the king began tearing it away by handfuls at a time, until
+Wolsey had nothing left but the bishoprics of York and Winchester.
+Even these were a good deal impoverished by Henry, who made a series
+of snatches at the revenues, and divided the amount among Viscount
+Rochford, the father of Anne Boleyn--who used to say, "I am sure papa
+would like that," whenever there was a good thing to be had--the Duke of
+Norfolk, and a few other lay cormorants. Wolsey was at length completely
+beggared, by treatment that was of such an impoverishing nature as
+really to beggar description. He had nothing left him but a free pardon,
+a little plate--including two table-spoons, which his enemies said were
+more than his desert,--a small van of furniture, comprising, among other
+articles, an arm-chair, in which he was tauntingly told he might
+set himself down comfortably for life, and a little cash for current
+expenses. He was allowed also to move nearer town, and giving up his
+lodgings at Esher he took an apartment at Richmond, where he was not
+permitted to remain very long, for Anne and her party--including several
+knights of the Star and Garter--persuaded Henry to order the cardinal
+off to his own archbishopric.
+
+The fallen prelate thought this forced journey so very hard that he
+tried to soften it by easy stages, and he travelled at the slowest
+possible pace, in the hope of being sent for back again. At every inn he
+entered for refreshment on the road he always left a request in the bar,
+that if anyone should ask for a gentleman of the name of Wolsey, the
+enquirer should be shown straight up, without the delay of an instant.
+Not a knock came to the door of his bedroom but he expected it was a
+messenger from the king; and when he found, in many cases, it was "only
+the boots," his disappointment would vent itself in terms of great
+bitterness. Adopting the customary mode of showing grief in those
+superstitious days, he took to wearing shirts made of horse-hair next
+his shin, but donkey's-hair would certainly have been more appropriate.
+He had, however, become so accustomed to hard rubs, that a little extra
+scarification was scarcely perceptible. On his arrival at York, he
+endeavoured to make himself neighbourly with the people about him, and
+became a sort of gentleman farmer, expressing the utmost interest in
+rural affairs. He made himself an universal favourite, and was the lion
+of every evening party within twelve miles of his residence. He was,
+however, scarcely a figure for these _reunions_, in his horse-hair
+shirt; but he probably concealed the penitential part of his costume by
+wearing a camel's-hair waistcoat immediately over it.
+
+The clergy were always getting up little _fetes_, of which he was the
+hero; and he was invited to the the ceremony of installation in his
+cathedral, which he promised to go through, on condition of the thing
+being done as quietly as possible. It was understood that there should
+be "no fuss," but several of the nobility and gentry sent contributions
+of cold meat and wine, forming themselves in fact into a provisional
+committee, so that the affair partook rather of the character of a
+picnic than of a pageant. Three days before it was to take place Wolsey
+was sitting at dinner, when there came a knock at the door, and it was
+announced that the Earl of Northumberland--his friend and pupil--was
+waiting in the courtyard. "Let him come up and do as we are doing,"
+exclaimed the cardinal. "Dear me, I wish he had been a little earlier;
+but he is just in pudding-time, at any rate." As Northumberland entered
+the room Wolsey seized him by the hand, entreating him to sit down
+and enjoy a social snack--or, in other words, go snacks in the humble
+dinner. Northumberland seemed affected, when Wolsey, continuing his
+meal, observed, "Well, you will not make yourself at home, and I
+can't make you out, so I may as well finish my dinner." At length
+Northumberland, with a tottering foot, a trembling hand, a quivering
+lip, a faltering tongue, and a tearful eye, approached his friend
+Wolsey, and threw himself with a heavy heart--adding at least a pound
+to his weight--upon the old man's bosom. Wolsey had scarcely time to
+exclaim, "Hold up!" when the earl, mournfully tapping the cardinal on
+the shoulder, murmured, in a voice completely macadamised with sobs, "My
+Lord--(oh, oh, oh!)--I arrest you" (here his voice became guttural from
+a perfect gutter of tears) "for high treason." Poor Wolsey remained
+rooted to the spot, but it was soon necessary to transplant him, and he
+was speedily removed in custody. His old weakness again came over him,
+for he began to leak again at both eyes, as if he carried the veritable
+New River Head under the hat of a cardinal. He of course made himself
+ill, and indeed he was frequently warned that if he continued much
+longer in this liquid state, he would liquidate the debt of nature
+altogether. The warning was verified very speedily, for on reaching
+Leicester Abbey, when the monks came to the door with a candle to light
+him to bed, he observed to the abbot, "Father, I am come to lay my bones
+among you." He died on the 29th of November, 1530, in the sixtieth year
+of his age, and was buried in Leicester Abbey.
+
+News of his death was at once dispatched to Henry, who was having
+a little archery practice at Hampton Court on the arrival of the
+messenger. The king continued his sport for some time, until the straw
+man, upon whom he was trying his skill, had become thoroughly trussed
+with arrows, when his majesty turned round with an abrupt "Now then,
+what is it?" to the bearer of the sad intelligence. At the tale
+of Wolsey's death Henry pretended to be much affected, but he soon
+recovered his spirits sufficiently to inquire whether a sum of L1500 had
+not been left by the cardinal. The king expressed a desire to administer
+to his lamented friend's effects, but when the discovery was made, that
+instead of having L1500 to leave, Wolsey had just borrowed and spent
+that amount, his royal master thought it as well to have nothing to do
+with the business. Poor Wolsey had been the unfortunate goose who might
+have continued laying golden eggs for a considerable time had not Henry
+out him prematurely up for the sake of immediate profit.
+
+We cannot part with Wolsey until we have dropped a few inky tears to
+his memory. We have already seen that his talents were considerable, but
+according to one of his biographers * he had a most elastic mind, or in
+other words he could "pull out" amazingly when occasion required.
+
+     * Galt, p. 199, Rogue's European Library.
+
+Some time before Wolsey's death a new ministry had been appointed, in
+which the family and friends of Anne Boleyn got very snug berths; but
+though in those days "any fool" could have a seat in the cabinet, it
+was necessary to have a chancellor of good abilities. The woolsack was
+literally in the market for a few days, until Henry thrust it on to the
+shoulders of Sir Thomas More, who would have declined the profitable
+burden, and who was somewhat averse to the Back of wool, because he
+felt that much of the material was obtained by fleecing the suitors. He,
+however, was persuaded to accept the dignity, or rather to undertake
+the burden, and he was even heard to say--by a gentleman who wishes
+to remain _incog._--that he wished there were porters' knots for moral
+responsibilities as well as for actual weights, since it was exceedingly
+difficult to preserve one's uprightness beneath a load of dignity.
+
+Among the persons recently introduced to Court was Thomas Cranmer, who
+happened to have met Dr. Gardiner, the king's secretary, and Dr. Fox at
+a private dinner table. As the party sat over their wine, the divorce
+of Henry was brought upon the _tapis_, and Cranmer made the sagacious
+observation, that the proper way would be to have it looked into.
+Gardiner and Fox exchanged glances, as much as to say "Shrewd fellow,
+that;" and they both agreed that he was a wonderful man for his
+age--which it will be remembered was the sixteenth century. They
+endeavoured to bring him out, and upon a free circulation of the bottle,
+Cranmer gave it as his opinion that there was "only one course to
+pursue," that "the thing lay in a nutshell," that "it was as clear as
+A, B, C;" a series of sentiments which, though more knowing than
+conclusive, made a deep impression on Fox and Gardiner. "There's a great
+deal in that fellow," said Fox after Cranmer had gone home, and indeed
+there was a good deal in him, no doubt, for scarcely anything had been
+got out of him. The two doctors hastened to the king to inform him of
+the enormous catch they had got in Cranmer, whose winks, innuendos, and
+occasional ejaculations of "I see it all;" "Plain as a pike-staff,"
+etc., etc., had made such a deep impression upon the two doctors. Henry
+was as much taken with their description of Cranmer as they had been
+with the original, and the king exclaimed in a perfect rhapsody, "That
+man has got the right sow by the ear;" * an expression which we are
+sufficiently pig-headed not to appreciate. It was arranged that Cranmer
+should be asked to dine at the palace; and after a good deal of
+desultory conversation, in which "Exactly," "I see it," "No question
+about it," were Cranmer's running fire of _ad captandum_ remarks, Henry
+got so puzzled that he requested the gentleman to put his opinions in
+writing at his earliest convenience.
+
+     * Todd's "Life of Cranmer," Tytller's "Life of Henry the
+     Eighth," etc., etc.
+
+The individual who had thus received instructions to act as pamphleteer
+in ordinary to the king, was sprung from an ancient family in
+Nottinghamshire, but he was destined for higher things than dragging
+out the thread of his existence in Notts, as we shall soon see when we
+proceed to unravel his history. His early education had been somewhat
+neglected, for his father was a sportsman, who took more delight in
+going out to shoot than in teaching the young idea how to follow his
+example. Young Cranmer's master was a severe priest, who ruled his
+pupils with a rod of iron, and thrashed them with a rod of a different
+material. He snapped many a whip over the young whipper-snappers, as he
+was in the habit of calling his youthful charges, who, at all events,
+became hardened by the salutary treatment they experienced.
+
+Cranmer applied himself with diligence to his studies, and in turn took
+pupils of his own at Cambridge, where he happened to meet one day at
+dinner with Fox and Gardiner, who, as we have already seen, introduced
+him to the sovereign. The pamphleteer elect to Henry the Eighth was
+lodged in the house of the Earl of Wiltshire, the father of Anne Boleyn,
+who used to lock the author up in a garret, with a pen and ink and
+something to drink, upon which he received instructions to "fire away"
+in support of the views of his master. Cranmer soon rattled off a
+treatise in which he smashed the pope, demolished every objection to
+Henry's divorce, and proved to the satisfaction of the king that he
+could do as he liked as to contracting a second marriage. "Would you say
+as much to the pope himself?" asked Henry of his literary man. "Ay, that
+I would, as soon as look at him," was the reply; upon which Cranmer was
+taken at his word, and sent off to Rome with old Boleyn, now the Earl of
+Wiltshire. As they entered the papal presence, Clement held out his toe
+to receive the usual homage, but the old earl positively declined to
+perform the humiliating ceremony, and after the pontiff had stood upon
+one leg for a considerable time, he found that he and his visitor
+must meet upon an equal footing. Cranmer, though not allowed a public
+disputation with the pope, took every opportunity of earwigging the
+people about him, and got many of them to admit that the king's marriage
+was illegal, though they would not acknowledge that his holiness had
+no power to give it validity. Though Cranmer's pamphlet had proved
+everything, it had done nothing, and Henry beginning to speak of his
+exertions as "all talk," another tool was required to carry out the
+royal project. This tool came originally from a blacksmith's shop in
+Putney, in the shape of one Thomas Cromwell, of whom it has since been
+said that he was a sharp file, who would cut right through a difficulty,
+while Cranmer was active enough in hammering away at a point, but his
+hitting the right nail upon the head was generally very dubious.
+
+The father of Cromwell did smiths' work in general, but nothing at all
+in particular, for he had amassed a decent fortune. His son was sent as
+a clerk to a factory at Antwerp, where he kept the books; but he soon
+abandoned accounts, in the hope of cutting a figure. He entered the
+army, and was present when Rome was made a bed of ruins, by getting a
+complete sacking. He next entered the counting-house of a merchant of
+Venice, who dealt in Venetian blinds and Venetian carpeting, but young
+Cromwell soon threw up the one and indignantly laid down the other. On
+arriving in London, he commenced the study of the law, and took chambers
+in Inner Temple Lane, which was, even at that early period, the grand
+mart of legal ability. Wolsey, who had lodgings over the gate hard by,*
+was in the habit of meeting Cromwell, who eventually became what is
+professionally termed "the devil" of that ingenious advocate.
+
+     * These lodgings still exist as Honey and Skelton's, the
+     hair-dressers, who have preserved a series of interesting
+     historical documents, among which may be seen Wolsey's first
+     brief, and other curious relics.
+
+On the fall of his senior, Cromwell contrived to keep just far
+enough off to prevent himself from being crushed by the weight of
+the unfortunate cardinal, and offering his services to the king, was
+immediately retained in the great cause of Henry the Eighth versus
+Catherine of Aragon, ex parte Anne Boleyn. By the advice of Cromwell the
+authority of the pope was set at defiance, and in 1532 a law was passed
+prohibiting the payment to him of first-fruits; "which do not mean,"
+says Strype, "the earliest gooseberries, to enable his holiness to play
+at gooseberry fool, but the first profits of a benefice."
+
+Henry at last determined to cut the Gordian knot, by forming another
+tie, and in January, 1533, he solved the question of the divorce
+by marrying Anne Boleyn. The ceremony was performed in a garret at
+Whitehall, in the presence of Norris and Heneage, who were a couple of
+grooms, and of Mrs. Savage, the train-bearer of the bride, whose wedding
+came off much in the style of those clandestine affairs, in which the
+clerk gives the lady away, and the old pew-opener acts in the capacity
+of bridesmaid. Cranmer, who had lately arrived in town for the season,
+found a vacancy in the see of Canterbury, which he consented to fill
+up, without scrupling to take the usual oaths to the pope, though openly
+avowing himself a Protestant. Clement himself not only ratified the
+election of the man he knew was committing perjury, but even consented
+to make a reduction in the fees that were usual on similar occasions.
+
+Thus did these two precious humbugs humbug each other and their
+contemporaries; but the historian will not allow them any longer to
+humbug posterity. Cromwell swore obedience against his conscience, and
+intending to break his oath, but intent on obtaining the dignity which
+he could purchase by perjury, and Clement took a reduced fee, on the
+principle of half a loaf being better than no bread, from a man who, on
+the slightest opposition being offered to him, might have snapped his
+fingers at the papal chair as he did in his heart--if one can snap
+one's fingers in one's heart--at the papal authority. Thus did the great
+champions of Protestantism on one side, and Catholicism on the other,
+agree in a disgraceful arrangement, by which one sold his sacred
+authority for a pecuniary bribe, and the other bartered his conscience
+for a temporary dignity.
+
+It has been said by Cromwell's apologists, that he took his false oaths
+with a mental reservation; but if this excuse were allowed to prevail,
+the conscience would possess a salve as efficacious as that of the quack
+which was warranted to cure every disease from apoplexy to chilblains,
+and prevent the necessity of patients with delicate lungs from
+exporting themselves abroad to avoid the danger of being left for home
+consumption.
+
+The contemplation of so much hypocrisy, in such high quarters, having
+put us so thoroughly out of patience that we are unable to proceed, we
+break off here with the remark, that tergiversation and treachery have
+ever been common among even the highest in rank, and so we fear they
+will continue to be until--ha! ha!--the end of the chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIFTH. HENRY THE EIGHTH (CONCLUDED).
+
+
+[Illustration: 418]
+
+THOUGH Henry the Eighth had already married Anne Boleyn, the little
+affair of the divorce from Catherine had not been quite settled, and,
+as it was just possible that his two wives might clash, he resolved
+to hurry on his legal separation from her, whom we may call, by way of
+distinction, the "old original." Cranmer, who was a very spaniel in
+his sneaking subservience to his royal master, was instantly set on
+to worry, as a cur worries a cat, the unhappy Catherine. A Court was
+immediately constituted, under the presidentship of Cranmer, to decide
+on the legality of her marriage, and the lady was cited to appear; but
+she did not attend, and, though summoned by her judges fifteen times,
+the more they kept on calling the more she kept on not coming. Difficult
+as it is in general to anticipate what a judicial decision will be,
+the judgment in the case of the King _ex parte_ Anne Boleyn _versus_
+Catherine of Aragon might be foreseen very easily. The marriage was, of
+course, pronounced illegal, and Cranmer wrote to Henry on the 12th of
+May, 1533, to say that he had just had the pleasure of pronouncing the
+"old lady" _vere et manifeste contumax_. The Court declared she had
+never been married to Henry, but was the widow of the Prince of Wales,
+to whose title she must in future restrict herself. When the news was
+brought to her, she exclaimed indignantly, "Not married to the king?
+Marry come up, indeed!" and the wretchedness of the pun speaks volumes
+for the misery to which she had been reduced by her enemies.
+
+Henry, wishing to make the work complete, and aware that _finis coronat
+opus_, determined that a coronation should be the finishing touch of his
+recent matrimonial manoeuvring. The ceremony was performed with great
+pomp on the 1st of June, 1533, when, though the regular crown was used,
+the weak head of Anne was too feeble to bear it, and it was replaced
+by a smaller diadem, which had been purposely prepared as a substitute.
+When Clement heard of what had been passing in England, he sent forth a
+bull, expecting that Henry would be immediately cowed by it. The pontiff
+ordered the monarch to take back his original wife, but the latter
+refused to listen to any motion for returns, observing that those who
+are at Rome may do as Rome does, but that he should entirely repudiate
+the papal jurisdiction. A Parliament which was held soon after seconded
+the sovereign's views, and, by way of paying off the pope, he was
+deprived of all fees, rights, and privileges which he had hitherto
+enjoyed as head of the Church of England. The ecclesiastical party in
+England had been subservient to the whim of Henry, and had assisted in
+nullifying its own supremacy over the State by cutting off its own head;
+so that the experiment of amputating one's own nose to be revenged upon
+one's face was somewhat more than realised.
+
+[Illustration: 419]
+
+On the 7th of September, 1533, Anne Boleyn became the mother of a little
+girl, who was named Elizabeth, and the courtiers of the day already
+offered to lay heavy bets on the future greatness of Betsy. The king,
+who had buoyed himself up with the hopes of a boy, was a little angry at
+the unfavourable issue, and he vented his ill-humour in further insults
+towards the unfortunate Catherine. Everyone who continued, either by
+design or accident, to call her queen was thrown into prison, and even
+a slip of the tongue, occasioned by absence of mind, was followed by
+absence of body, for the luckless offender was dragged off to gaol, from
+the bosom or his family.
+
+Henry having lopped off Catherine as a branch of the royal tree, and
+grafted Anne Boleyn on the trunk, began to think about the successional
+crops, in the treatment of which he was assisted by a servile
+Parliament. Little Mary, Catherine's daughter, was rooted out like a
+worthless marigold, and Elizabeth was declared to be the rising flower
+of the royal family. Among the atrocities committed by Parliament on
+account of its miserable subserviency to the will of the king, was
+the bill of attainder of high treason, passed against a female fanatic
+called the Maid of Kent, and some of her accomplices. This person, whose
+name was Elizabeth Barton, and who resided at Aldington in Kent, was
+subject to hysterical fits, as well as to talking like a fool, which in
+those days--as in these--was often mistaken for a symptom of superior
+sagacity. Extremes are said to meet, and the mental imbecility of Miss
+E. Barton was thought by many to border on an amount of wisdom which
+only inspiration could impart, and the semi-natural got credit for
+the possession of supernatural attributes. Some of her idiotic and
+incoherent talk having been heard by her ignorant companions, was
+declared by them to be inspired, because it was something they did not
+understand; and as knavery is always ready to turn to profit the idea
+that folly sets on foot, persons were soon found willing to take the
+Maid of Kent under their patronage for political purposes.
+
+Richard Maister or Masters, the vicar of the place, whom Hume calls "a
+designing fellow" behind his back, whatever the historian might have
+said to the reverend gentleman's face, was the first to take an interest
+in Elizabeth Barton, and introduced her to public notice as a sort of
+mesmeric prodigy; in which capacity she brought out a bundle of Sybiline
+leaves, with the intention, probably, of making a regular business
+of telling fortunes. Anxious for the recommendation of being able to
+announce herself as "Prophetess in Ordinary to the King," Miss Barton
+began predicting all sorts of things with reference to Henry; but
+unfortunately she had not the tact to make his majesty the subject of
+happy auguries. She hoped, perhaps, that if she went to work boldly,
+he would buy her off; for it has sometimes proved a good speculation to
+establish a nuisance in a respectable neighbourhood, which will often
+pay the annoyance to remove itself to some other locality. Miss Burton
+did not, however, manage so well, for instead of getting literally
+bought up, she was destined to be put down very speedily. Making a bold
+bid for royal patronage, she prophesied that if Henry put away Catherine
+he would die a violent death within seven months; and Elizabeth Barton
+thus made sure that if the king declined treating with her for the
+stoppage of her mouth, the ex-queen would at least make her some
+compliment in return for her complimentary prophecy. Henry, who had no
+objection to her dealing out death either wholesale, retail, or even for
+exportation, to some of his popish enemies abroad, could not allow
+such a liberty to be taken with his own name; and accordingly the
+fortuneteller, who professed to hold consultation with the stars, was
+brought up before the Star Chamber. She soon found in the president
+a Great Bear more terrible than the Ursa Major to whom she had been
+accustomed; and perceiving by the rough manner of the assembled stars of
+the Star Chamber that theirs was anything but a Milky Way, she was glad
+to own herself an impostor, for she saw that it would have been useless
+to plead not guilty before judges who, according to her own conviction,
+were resolved on convicting her. She was committed to prison on her own
+confession; and as the seven months within which Henry would have become
+due, according to her prediction of his death, had expired, it was to
+be hoped that he, at least, would have been satisfied without subjecting
+Miss Barton to further punishment. He however seemed to have become
+positively irritated at the falsehood of her prophecy; and because
+he had not died in the proper course, he subjected the maid and six
+accomplices to a bill of attainder of treason, in pursuance of which
+they were all executed on the 21st of April, 1534, at Tyburn.
+
+We will not dwell on the disgusting subject of Henry's cruelties towards
+such excellent men as Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More,
+both of whom fell victims to the ferocity of their royal master. Their
+conscientious refusal to recognise Henry as the head of the Church had
+excited his rage, which increased to the height of savageness when the
+pope offered to send to poor Fisher the hat of a cardinal. The king at
+first attempted to put a prohibition on the importation of all hats; but
+anticipating that the _chapeau_ intended for Fisher might be smuggled
+into England, Henry contented himself with the barbarous joke, that
+the hat would be useless without a head to wear it on. The monarch soon
+carried out his threat, and then turned his fury upon the unfortunate
+Sir Thomas More, who had retired into private life in the hope of
+escaping Henry's tyranny. This, however, was impossible; for though
+conscience must often have whispered "Can't you leave the man alone?"
+some evil genius kept ever and anon murmuring the words, "At him again,"
+into the ears of the despot.
+
+Among the petty persecutions to which More was exposed, was the taking
+away of all writing implements from the good old man, who, deprived of
+pens and ink, took a coal as a substitute. He at length learned to write
+with a piece of Wallsend as rapidly as he could use a pen, and, with a
+coalscuttle for an inkstand, he never wanted the material to keep alive
+the fire of his genius. Considering how famous he was for the use
+of "words that burn," we do not see how he could have found a better
+instrument than a piece of coal for transcribing his sentiments. A
+pretext was soon found for taking the life of this excellent man,
+whose facetious bearing at his own execution shall not mislead us into
+unseemly levity in alluding to it. He made jokes upon the scaffold; but
+we must admit that they are of so sad and melancholy a description, as
+to be scarcely considered inappropriate to his very serious position.
+So much has been said of the wit of More, that we may perhaps be excused
+for hazarding a word or two concerning it. Judging by some of the _bon
+mots_ that have been preserved, they seem to us hardly worth the expense
+of their keep; for as horses are said to have eaten off their own heads,
+so the witticisms of More appear in many instances to have consumed all
+their own point, or, at all events, the rust of ages has a good deal
+dimmed their brilliancy. His wife had but little respect for his
+waggery, and would sometimes ask him "how he could play the fool in a
+close, filthy prison?" and she evidently thought it was carrying a joke
+a little too far, when she found her husband would not "drop it" even in
+the Tower. His allusion to his being obliged to write with coals instead
+of pens, which caused him to say that "he was but a wreck of his former
+self, and had better be scuttled at once," seems to us equally deficient
+in point and dignity. He was executed on the 6th of July, 1535, after a
+quantity of badinage with the headsman, which makes us regret, for the
+sake of More, that any reporters were allowed to be present.
+
+Henry had now come to open war with the Church of Rome, and, under the
+advice of Cromwell, he determined to make a profit as well as a pleasure
+of the recent rupture.
+
+[Illustration: 422]
+
+While the pope let loose his bulls upon the king, the latter turned out
+his bull-dogs, in the shape of emissaries, empowered to pillage the
+rich monasteries in England. Cromwell acted as whipper-in to this cruel
+sport, and hounded on the servile dogs at his command, in pursuit of
+those monastic herds, which had been luxuriating in the rich pastures
+the church had hitherto afforded.
+
+It is true that many impositions on the public were discovered by the
+emissaries of Henry; but one fault does not justify another, and the
+frauds of the monks afforded no excuse for the robbery committed by
+the monarch. We may feel indignant at the showman who exhibits on his
+delusive canvas "more, much more," than his caravan can hold, but we
+have no right to appropriate to ourselves the whole of his stock because
+he has been guilty of trickery. Henry did not pocket the whole of the
+proceeds thus unscrupulously obtained, but gave a few slices to the
+church, by creating half-a-dozen new bishoprics and establishing a
+professorship of two in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and he
+threw them a few crumbs of the good things he had seized, more with the
+hope of stopping the mouths than satisfying the appetites of the hungry
+claimants.
+
+Poor Catherine of Aragon died at Kimbolton on the 8th of January, 1536,
+after writing a letter to the king, which it is said extracted one tear
+from the sovereign's heart--a circumstance which must have raised hopes
+at the time, that the process of extracting blood from a stone might not
+be found impossible.
+
+The year 1536 was marked by a voyage of discovery under the patronage
+of the king, for the purpose of sending some emigrants on a wild-goose
+chase to the north-west coast of America. Thirty of the adventurers
+were gentlemen from the Temple and Chancery Lane, who, thinking anything
+better than nothing, had probably dashed their wigs to the ground, and
+thrown themselves on the mercy of that motion of course which the sea
+was certain to supply them with. It is said, though we know not with how
+much truth, that the learned wanderers being short of provisions, made
+each other their prey--a result to be expected when clients were not
+accessible. It is added that none of the party returned but a learned
+gentleman of the name of Ruts, who was so changed that his father and
+mother did not know him until he pointed to a wart which had not been
+washed away by the water.
+
+Henry continued his hostility to the pope, absurdly declaring that
+he would not be bullied, and in defiance of the papal see caused Anne
+Boleyn, who is said to have exulted over the death of Catherine, to
+drain the cup of sorrow, or rather to lap it up: for she one day found
+Jane Seymour, a maid of honour, sitting on the knee of Henry. It was
+in vain that the monarch and his new favourite endeavoured to laugh the
+matter off as a mere _lapsus_, for Anne declared that the king must have
+begun to nurse a new passion.
+
+[Illustration: 424]
+
+As they who are convicted of a fault themselves are anxious to pick
+holes in the conduct of others, Henry having been proved to see more
+in Seymour than became him as a married man, commenced harbouring
+suspicions against Anne Boleyn. On May-day, 1536, there had been a royal
+party at Greenwich--in fact, a regular fair--when suddenly, in the midst
+of the sports, Henry started up exceedingly indignant at something he
+had witnessed. The queen did the same, and her husband pretended that
+he had seen her either winking at one Norris, a groom, or clown to the
+ring, in which the jousts were going forward, or making signals to Mark
+Smeaton, a musician in the clerical orchestra. Several persons were
+seized at once, and sent to the Tower, including poor Smeaton, the
+member of the band who was accused of acting in concert with men of
+higher note, to whom he was charged with playing second fiddle.
+
+Poor Anne was taken to the Tower, where a number of scandalous old women
+were sent about her to talk her into admissions against herself, and
+to talk her out of anything that they could manage to extract from her
+simplicity. She wrote what may justly be called "a very pretty letter"
+to the king, dated the 6th of May, 1536; but if any answer was received
+it must have come from Echo, who is the general respondent to all
+communications which receive no attention from the parties to whom they
+are directed. On the 12th of the same month Norris, Weston, Brereton,
+and Smeaton were tried and executed, all denying their guilt but
+the musician, who changed his key note a little before he died, and
+modulated off from a _fortissimo_ declaration of innocence to a most
+_pianissimo_ confession. There is every reason to believe that this
+composition of Smeaton was a piece of thorough base, which is only to be
+accounted for on the score of treachery.
+
+On the 15th of May, a building as trumpery as the charge against her
+having been knocked together in the Tower, Anne Boleyn was brought up
+for trial before a court of twenty-six barons, one of whom was her own
+father, while her uncle the Duke of Norfolk sat as president. It would
+be imagined that a jury comprising two relatives would have given a
+positive advantage to Anne; but her uncle being a rogue, and her father
+a fool, the former was too venal, and the latter too timid, to be of
+any use to her. She pleaded her own cause with such earnestness, that
+everyone who heard how she had acquitted herself, thought that her
+judges must have acquitted her. They, however, found her guilty, to the
+intense bewilderment of the Lord Mayor, who had heard her defence, and
+could only go about exclaiming, "Well, I never! did you ever?" for the
+remainder of his existence.
+
+It would seem that there was something in the mere prospect of the axe,
+which imparted its sharpness to the intellects of those upon whose heads
+the instrument was on the point of falling. We have already alluded to
+the _mots_ of More when he was positively moribund, and the quips of the
+queen became very numerous and sparkling as the prospect of the scaffold
+opened out to her. She made a sad joke upon the little span of her own
+neck--in reference, no doubt, to the small span of human existence--and
+paid a compliment to foreign talent by requesting that she might have
+the benefit of the services of that sharp blade that had just come from
+Calais--alluding to the recent arrival of the French executioner.
+
+Henry was on a hunting party in Epping Forest, and was breakfasting
+on Epping sausages, when the execution took place, the announcement of
+which he had ordered should be made to him by the firing of a gun as a
+distant signal. During the _dejeuner_ Henry kept continually exclaiming
+"hush," and entreating "silence," with all the energy of an usher in a
+court of law, until a loud bang boomed over the breakfast-table. Henry
+instantly started up, exclaiming, "Ha, ha! 'tis done!" and ordering the
+dogs to be let slip while his breakfast-cup was still at his lip, he
+resumed his sport with even more than his wonted gaiety. On the very
+next day, he was married to Jane Seymour, there having been a very short
+lapse of time since she was discovered on the lap of Henry.
+
+A Parliament having been speedily assembled, that servile body passed
+every act that Henry desired, and began by cancelling, in one batch, the
+entire issue of his former marriages. The princesses Mary and Elizabeth
+were declared illegitimate, while the condemnation of Anne Boleyn was
+legalised by statute; a measure which was a little tardy, considering
+that she had already lost her head in pursuance, or rather in
+anticipation of the confirmation of her sentence.
+
+The destruction of monasteries was now carried on with a most brutal
+rapacity, and a mixture of barbarism and barbarity that disgusted a
+great portion of the community. Not satisfied with robbing the inmates
+of the monasteries, Henry's myrmidons destroyed the buildings themselves
+with the most wanton violence, and it was remarked that they were never
+contented with emptying a cellar of all its wine, but must always remain
+to take shots at the bottles. This unprovoked and tasteless taste for
+mere mischief roused the discontent of the people in many places, and
+the Lincolnshire fens assumed the offensive with one Mackrel, an odd
+fish, as the leader of the insurgents. This Mackrel soon got himself
+into a sad pickle, for he was executed at a very early period of the
+insurrectionary movement.
+
+[Illustration: 426]
+
+On the 12th of October, 1537, her majesty Queen Seymour gave birth to a
+son, an event which made Henry as happy as a king, or at least as happy
+as such a king, with such a conscience as Henry carried about with him,
+could possibly make himself. He dandled the royal infant in his arms
+with all a parent's pride, and sang snatches of nursery ballads in
+the ear of the baby. The child was called Edward, which Henry fondly
+translated into Teddy Peddy; and three little coronets--the size of
+first caps--were instantly made for the Prince of Wales, the Duke of
+Cornwall, and the Earl of Chester, for such was the _tria juncta in uno_
+formed by the birth of the illustrious little stranger. The queen died
+in twelve days after giving birth to an heir; but this circumstance did
+not seem to affect the spirits of Henry, who perhaps felt that there was
+one more wife out of the way, without the trouble and expense of getting
+rid of her.
+
+[Illustration: 428]
+
+The arbitrary monarch now experienced a good deal of trouble from one
+Pole, whom the tyrant made several attempts to bring to the scaffold.
+This Pole was remarkable for standing erect, and for his firmness, after
+once taking his ground, in keeping his position.
+
+He was the son of Sir Richard Pole and Margaret Countess of Salisbury,
+for the first Pole was a kind of leaping Pole, with a strong tendency
+to raise not only himself, but all those that belonged to him. Reginald,
+for such was the name of the Pole that had stirred up the rage of Henry,
+had received from the pope a cardinal's hat, with the assurance that
+such a Pole ought not to be bare, but deserved the most honourable
+covering. Being himself resident abroad, he was as much out of the
+English tyrant's power as if he had been the old original North Pole,
+of whom we have all heard; but his brothers and relatives at home
+were seized upon, and either executed or burnt like so much firewood.
+Parliament aided the despotism of the king, by passing a suicidal act,
+declaring that a royal proclamation should have the force of law; a
+resolution equivalent to an act of self-destruction; for if the king
+could do everything by himself, there was, of course, no occasion for
+Lords and Commons to help him in the task of government.
+
+Henry having become disembarrassed of no less than three wives, began to
+think so little of the encumbrance of matrimony, that he contemplated
+a fourth engagement. It was indeed natural enough that he should be
+fearless of that which might make bolder men afraid, for he had given
+evidence of a facility in making an escape, and he consequently risked
+little by braving danger. He advertised, as it were, for a wife, in all
+the markets of European royalty, and he continued popping a series of
+questions; but his--to revive a _mot_ (we cannot call it a _bon mot_) of
+the period--was of all pops the most unpopular. "Nobody will have me,
+by Jingo," he would sometimes mutter to himself; and at length the wily
+Cromwell proposed to act as matrimonial agent to his majesty.
+
+The Duchess Dowager of Milan was treated with for her hand, but she
+wrote back to say that if she had a couple of heads, she might listen
+to Henry's proposal, for he would certainly cut off one, and it would be
+awkward not having another head to fall back upon. He next sent an offer
+to the Duchess of Guise, saying that wedlock, coming to him in such a
+Guise, would be the height of happiness; but this lady politely excused
+herself, on the ground of a "previous engagement." Somewhat hurt by
+these repeated rebuffs, he requested Francis the king of France to
+"trot out" his two sisters for Henry to take his choice; but Frank said
+frankly that he would have nothing to do with the humiliating business.
+We have it on the authority of a letter among Cromwell's correspondence,
+that Henry was rather taken with Madame de Montreuil, a French lady,
+who having come from France to Scotland in the suite of Magdalen, first
+queen of James the Fifth of Scotland, was now on her way back again.
+Henry appears to have gone to Dover for the purpose of meeting her
+on the pier or the parade; but he must have found her _passe_ as he
+surveyed her through his glass, for nothing came of their meeting. The
+lady lingered in England to give him every chance, but Henry could
+only shake his head, observing "No! by Jove it won't do;" and Madame de
+Montreuil, pitying his want of taste, was compelled to return to her own
+country.
+
+At length Cromwell came running one morning to Henry, exclaiming, "I
+think I've found something to suit your majesty at last," and placed
+in the king's hand the card of "Anne, second daughter of John Duke of
+Cleves, one of the princes of the Germanic Confederacy." Henry was not
+possibly averse to the match, but was wavering, when Cromwell produced
+a lovely portrait as that of the candidate for the hand of the
+English sovereign. The king examined the picture with the eye of a
+_connoisseur_, and being pleased with the sample, ordered the lot to be
+sent over to him with as little delay as possible. The picture was by
+Holbein, who had utterly concealed the plain fact, and bestowed upon the
+German princess such handsome treatment, that he had imparted the lustre
+of the brilliant to an object which was as inferior to the copy, as
+German paste is worthless by the side of the diamond. Henry hastened,
+on her arrival in England, to compare the original with the picture; and
+having disguised himself, sent forward Sir Anthony Brown to say that
+a gentleman was coming on to see her, with a new year's present. Poor
+Brown was fearfully taken aback at seeing a lady so thoroughly _laide_
+as Anne of Cleves, but gave no opinion to his royal master. * Henry went
+tripping into the apartment with all the ardour of a youthful lover; but
+the first glance was enough, and he shrunk back, muttering to himself,
+that the princess instead of looking like the picture of Holbein,
+reminded him rather of the picture of misery. He nevertheless summoned
+up all his resolution to give her a kiss; but it was clear to all who
+witnessed the scene, that Henry repented a bargain in which he found
+himself mixed up with such a decidedly ugly customer. After a few
+minutes passed in small-talk--the smallness of which limited it to
+twenty words--Henry went away in deep dudgeon, but he made up his mind
+to the marriage, lest he might be involved with any of the German powers
+in an action for a breach of promise.
+
+The evening before the nuptials were solemnised, Henry sat with
+Cromwell, bewailing--probably over some nocturnal grog--the "alarming
+sacrifice," that had become unavoidable. The statesman, who had
+recommended the match, tried hard to soften down some of the most
+repulsive features of Anne; but Henry coarsely described her as "a
+great Flanders mare," and Holbein as a "humbug" for having so grossly
+flattered such a coarse clumsy animal. "By my troth," he exclaimed--for
+his indignation rose as the liquor in his glass became lower--"you got
+me into this scrape and you must get me out of it. I shall expect you to
+find some means of abating for me this frightful nuisance."
+
+Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, the head of the popish party in the
+church, was, of course, an opponent of Cromwell, and took advantage
+of the recent matrimonial mistake, to damage him still further in the
+opinion of his royal master. Gardiner flattered himself that the train
+had been already laid, and that the awfully bad match which Cromwell
+himself had provided, would certainly hasten the explosion that there
+was good reason to anticipate. The wily Bishop of Winchester introduced
+Catherine Howard, the lovely niece of his friend the Duke of Norfolk, to
+the king, who was instantly struck by her beauty, and said warmly, "Ha!
+the man who has discovered this charming Kate knows how to cater for his
+sovereign." *
+
+     * Strype--who certainly deserves a hundred stripes for
+     recording such an atrocity.
+
+Cromwell's doom was now sealed, and the Duke of Norfolk, on the 10th
+of June, 1540, had the luxury of taking into custody his political
+antagonist. A charge of having one day pulled out a dagger, and declared
+he would stick to the cause of the Reformation, even against the king,
+was speedily got up, and, by the 28th of July, he was disposed of, at
+Tower Hill, in the customary manner. While in prison, he wrote a pitiful
+letter to Henry, with the word "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!" reiterated thrice
+as a P.S.; the meanness and tautology of which evinced a poverty in the
+spirit as well as in the letter.
+
+The king had now determined to marry Catherine Howard, but the old
+difficulty--another wife living--stood in the way of the desired
+arrangement. Having consulted his attorney, it was proposed to search
+for some previous marriage contract in which Anne of Cleves had
+been concerned; and as everybody is engaged, on an average, at least
+half-a-dozen times before being married once, there would have appeared
+little difficulty in accomplishing Henry's wishes.
+
+The excessive ugliness of Anne of Cleves, however, placed great
+obstacles in the way, for she had clearly been a drug in the matrimonial
+market, and neither by hook nor by crook could an old offer for her
+be fished up until something of the kind from the young Prince of
+Lorraine--entered into before he was old enough to know better--was
+happily hit upon. A commission was at once issued, the matter tried, and
+of course decided in Henry's favour. By way of strengthening the king's
+case, it was urged by his learned counsel that he had married against
+his will, and therefore ought to be released from his contract. The
+Court, however, held that the establishment of such a principle would be
+almost equivalent to the passing of a general divorce act for half the
+couples in Christendom, and on that point at least the rule for a
+new trial of Henry's luck was refused accordingly. His suit for a
+nullification of his contract with Anne of Cleves succeeded on the other
+point, and both parties were equally gratified by the result which
+set them both at liberty. The lady felt she had much rather lose her
+husband's hand than her own head, and Henry began to think he might be
+wearing out the axe upon his wives before he had half done with it, and
+if he could find any other means for severing the marriage tie he
+much preferred doing so. He offered to make her his sister, with
+three thousand a year, an arrangement with which she expressed herself
+perfectly satisfied. Both parties were permitted to enter into wedlock
+again, if they pleased, and the king of course availed himself of
+the option with his accustomed celerity. The Bill was brought into
+Parliament on the 12th of July, and the 8th of August found Catherine
+Howard already publicly acknowledged as the fifth Mrs. Henry Tudor.
+
+It had now become the boast of Henry that he held the balance with an
+even hand between the Catholics and the Reformers; but his impartiality
+was shown in a manner most inconvenient to both of them. He used to deal
+out what he called equal justice to both, by submitting a few on each
+side of the question to equal cruelty. He would forward three Catholics
+at a time to Smithfield, to be hanged as traitors, and by the same
+hurdle he would send three Lutherans to be burned as heretics.
+
+As we are unwilling to turn our history into a Newgate Calendar, for the
+sake of recording the atrocities of a sanguinary king, we shall, in our
+account of the remainder of this odious reign, preserve the heads, and
+avoid the executions. The murder of the Countess of Salisbury, an old
+woman upwards of seventy, and the mother of Cardinal Pole, stands out
+perhaps from some other sanguinary deeds by its peculiar atrocity. The
+venerable lady, at the last moment, defied the executioner to come on,
+and a combat of the fiercest character took place upon the scaffold.
+
+Henry, who had frequently tried to inoculate his nephew, James the Fifth
+of Scotland, with his own predatory propensities, became at length angry
+that the latter declined turning thief in the name of religion, and
+plundering the church under the pretext of simply reforming it. A
+conference had been agreed upon between the English and the Scotch
+kings; but the latter, at the instigation of Cardinal Beaton, whose
+olfactory nerves had detected a rat, broke his appointment with his
+imperious uncle. This ungentlemanly proceeding gave such offence to
+the English tyrant, that he threatened, with an awful oath, to let
+the weight of old Henry be felt in Scotland; and the expression that
+So-and-So purposes "playing old Harry," no doubt took its rise from the
+incident to whicn we have alluded.
+
+The Duke of Norfolk was sent, as a low fellow of that period hath it,
+"to take the shine out of that Jem," who was completely defeated at
+Solway Moss, through his own troops turning their backs--not upon him,
+as it is said by some, but upon the enemy. James was so overwhelmed
+with shame and despair, that he drew his helmet over his eyes, assumed
+a stoop--a sure sign that he was stupefied--and never raised his head
+again, but fell a victim to that very vulgar malady, a low fever. He
+left his kingdom to his daughter, then only eight days old, who came
+to the throne on the ninth; but as she was not a nine days' wonder, she
+evinced no miraculous aptitude for the task of government.
+
+Henry had in the meantime been made very uncomfortable by the rumours
+that his wife, familiarly known as Miss Kate Howard, had not been acting
+properly. When the king heard the news, he was deeply affected, for he
+was one of those persons who make up, in feeling for themselves, for
+their deficiency of feeling with regard to others. He sat down and had
+a good crocodilian cry, which irrigated his hands to such an extent
+that he was compelled to wring them to get them dry again. Cranmer and
+Norfolk were appointed to examine into the truth of the charges against
+the queen, who, when her guilt was proved beyond doubt, made a virtue
+of necessity--the only virtue of which she could boast--by boldly
+confessing it.
+
+This unfortunate young woman had been promised a pardon on condition of
+her revealing the extent of her transgression; but when she had admitted
+not only a great deal she had done, but had thrown into the bargain a
+great deal she had never done at all, Henry, regardless of his pledge,
+thought that the best way to get rid of an annoyance was to break the
+neck of it. Catherine Howard was accordingly beheaded at the Tower, on
+the 15th of February, 1542, and finding her confession had done her no
+good, she retracted the greater part of it. "It was not to be supposed,"
+says Mullins, "that a person who had shown himself so double as Henry,
+could long remain single," and he accordingly threw himself once more
+upon the matrimonial market. There he was of course no longer at a
+premium, and he was pretty soon at Parr; and it is a strange fact that
+he would have commanded a better price had it been certain that he could
+be had without the _coupon_, which had distinguished the settling days
+of two of the wives of this shocking bad sovereign. Catherine Parr was a
+corpulent old lady, fortified by at least forty summers, but she readily
+listened to the proposals of Henry. Henry entered her at once on his
+share or _chere_ list, and in allusion to her bulk, placed opposite to
+her name the words "commands a very heavy figure." She was the widow of
+Neville, Lord Latimer; but, thought Henry, "What care I, if she has even
+killed her man?--it will not be the first time that I shall have killed
+my woman."
+
+[Illustration: 434]
+
+The English king courted her at once, and made much of her; but to
+have made more of her than there really was, would have been rather
+difficult. He married her on the 10th of July, 1543, and it is a curious
+fact that she outlived him, which we can only attribute to the lady
+partaking the longevity of her namesake old Parr, for there must have
+been a vigorous adhesion to life in any one who could marry and survive
+the wife-exterminating tyrant. For some time she humoured Henry, but
+having a touch of Lutherism, she began meddling with matters of Church
+and State, which embroiled her with a bishop or two, who ran and told
+the king what she had been impudent enough to talk about. "Marry come
+up!" roared Henry, in allusion to his having elevated Catherine Parr
+by marrying her; "so you are a doctor, are you, Kate?" But having had
+a hint that her mixing in politics was not agreeable, she only replied,
+meekly, "No, no, your Kate is no caitiff." This speech had the effect of
+diverting Henry's wrath, almost as much as it will divert posterity
+by its delightful quaintness. Gardiner, who had justified his
+name--allowing of course for the difference of spelling--by sowing the
+seeds of dissension between the king and queen, had arranged with
+the sovereign that her majesty was to be seized next morning by forty
+guards, headed by Chancellor Wriothesley. This person was not a little
+astonished at finding himself called "an arrant knave, a foole, and a
+beastlie foole," * by the king, when he came to execute his mission. He
+was, in fact, dismissed with an entire earful of fleas, of which Henry
+had always an abundance on hand for unwelcome visitors.
+
+     * Lord Herbert.
+
+Henry had now become, literally, the greatest monarch that ever sat upon
+the throne, for he had increased awfully in size, and become irritable
+at the same time, so that the task of getting round him was, in every
+sense, extremely difficult. Had there been a prize monarch show, open to
+the whole world, he must have carried off the palm, for he was too fat
+to lie down, lest no power should be able to get him up again. It was
+true he had been born to greatness, but he also had greatness thrust
+upon him--some say by over-feeding--to such an extent that he was
+obliged to be wheeled about, on account of his very unwieldiness. It
+might haye been supposed that Henry would have begun to soften under
+all these circumstances; but he exhibited no tendency to melt, for he
+continued his cruelties in burning those whom he chose to denounce as
+heretics. It is disgraceful to the ecclesiastical character of the
+age, that the church party that happened to be in power sanctioned the
+cruelties practised towards the party that happened to be out, and it
+was said, at the time, that the fires at Smith-field were always being
+stirred by some high clerical dignitary, who might be considered the
+"holy poker" of the period.
+
+The prospect of a speedy vacancy on the throne created a rush of
+candidates, who commenced literally cutting each others' throats--a
+desperate game, in which the Howards and Hertfords made themselves very
+conspicuous. Young Howard, Earl of Surrey, used to sneer at Hertford,
+who had been recently ennobled, as a "new man," and Hertford would
+retort unfeelingly upon Howard's father, the Duke of Norfolk, by saying
+"it was better to be a new man than an old sinner." The Norfolk family
+got the worst of it, for Norfolk and Suffolk were taken to the Tower on
+the 12th of December, 1546, on the frivolous charge of having quartered
+with their own arms the arms of Edward the Confessor. Had they gone so
+far as to use these arms upon a seal, it ought not to have sealed their
+doom, nor stamped them as traitors; but the frivolousness of the charge
+marks the tyrannical character of the period. Commissioners were sent to
+their country seat at Kuming Hall, to ransack the drawers, pillage the
+plate chest, and send the proceeds to the king; but the people intrusted
+with the job either found or pretended to find scarcely anything. They
+wrote to the king, telling him that the jewels were all either sold or
+in pawn; but as the tickets never came to hand, it is possible that the
+searchers were practising a sort of duplicate rascality. They forwarded
+to the king a box of beads and buttons; but though every bead was glass,
+Henry does not appear to have seen through it. Surrey was tried at
+Guildhall for having quartered the royal arms with his own, and on his
+defence he observed, "By my troth, mine enemies will not allow me any
+quarter whatever." He was found guilty, of course, and beheaded on the
+19th of January, 1547, and his father's execution had been set down
+on the peremptory paper for the 28th of the same month, when the
+proceedings were suddenly stayed just before execution, by the death of
+Henry.
+
+The tyrant, who had been getting physically as well as morally worse and
+worse, clung to life with that desperate tenacity that is a sure sign of
+there being good reason for dreading death in those among whom, after a
+certain age, such a cowardly fear is manifest. He would often impiously
+threaten that "he would outlive all the younger people about him yet;"
+and though his time was evidently not far off, he would not bear to be
+told of his true condition. Instead of repenting of his past life, he
+devoted the wretched remnant of his existence to doing all the mischief
+he could, and venting his malice to the fullest extent that his now
+failing strength would admit of. Nobody dared muster resolution to tell
+the unhappy old brute that he must very speedily die, until Sir Anthony
+Denny, a knight who shared our friend Drummond's * aversion to humbug
+of any description, boldly told old Harry that he was on the point of
+visiting his redoubtable namesake.
+
+     * "Drummond is so averse to humbug of any description."--
+     _Vide_ Tijou.
+
+Finding all chance of escape cut off, he began confessing his sins;
+but it was rather too late, for, had his repentance been sincere, the
+catalogue of his crimes was far too voluminous to allow of his getting
+through one half of it before his dissolution. He had been in the habit
+of adjourning that court of conscience existing in his as well as in
+every man's breast, and he always postponed it _sine die_; but when the
+time to die actually came, or the die was really cast, it was rather
+late to move for a new trial. Henry died on the 29th of January, 1547,
+in the fifty-sixth year of his age, the thirty-eighth of his reign, and
+at least the forty-first of his selfishness, baseness and brutality.
+
+He had been married six times, having divorced two of his wives,
+beheaded two more, and left one a widow. This leaves one more--Jane
+Seymour--still unaccounted for; and indeed her death was the most
+wonderful of all, because it was natural. He left behind him three
+children: but he did not care a pin's head, or even--to name an article
+of smaller importance to him--a wife's head, for any one of them. Such
+a very bad man was sure to be a very bad father, and he had declared two
+of his children illegitimate, for it was the delight of this monster
+to depreciate his own offspring in the eyes of the world as much as
+possible. His religious reforms, however wholesome in their results,
+were brutal in their execution and base in their origin. His insincerity
+may be gathered from the fact that he appointed masses to be said for
+his own soul, though he had burnt many persons for popery; and he seemed
+to think that, by taking up two creeds at once on his death-bed, he
+could make up for the utter irreligion of his last existence. He is said
+to have contributed to the cause of enlightenment, and so perhaps he did
+with all his blackness, as the coal contributes to the gas; and never
+was a bit of Wallsend half so hard, or a tenth part so black, as the
+heart of this despicable sovereign. He never had a friend; but he was
+surrounded by sycophants, whom, one after the other, he atrociously
+sacrificed.
+
+Cranmer being a man of superior mind, exercised an influence over him,
+and was sent for to his death-bed, when he pressed the prelate's hand;
+but whether the pressure arose from cramp or conscience, rheumatism or
+remorse, penitence or "pins and needles," must be considered a question
+to which we will not hazard an answer. We regret that we have been
+unable to adhere to the excellent motto, _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_, in
+this case; but Henry was such a decided _malum in se_, that mischief was
+bred in the bone, and the _nil nisi bonum_ becomes impossible.
+
+Learning certainly advanced in this reign, and Henry himself affected
+authorship; but every literary man, from the highest flyer in the realms
+of fancy to the humblest historian of last night's fire or yesterday's
+police, will be honestly ashamed of his royal fellow-craftsman.
+
+Several colleges and schools were founded in this reign, among the
+principal of which were Christ Church at Oxford, Trinity at Cambridge,
+and St. Paul's in London. Here it was that the lowly Lily, of Lily's
+grammar notoriety, first raised his humble head as the head master of
+the school; and, though there is something lack-a-daisy-cal in Lily's
+style, his grammar was at one time the first round of the ladder by
+which every lad climed the heights of classical instruction.
+
+It may be interesting to the gastronomic reader to be informed that
+salads and turnips now first came into use, with other roots, towards
+which the people had shown until then a rooted antipathy. They swallowed
+spinach without any gammon, and even the carrot, that had formerly stuck
+in their throat as if they feared it would injure the carotid artery,
+was consumed with alacrity; and those who had disdained the most
+delicious of green food, by courageously exclaiming, "Come, _let us_
+try it," are supposed by some--though we disclaim the monstrous idea--to
+have given its name to the lettuce. The cultivation of hops came as if
+with a hop, skip, and jump across from Flanders, and the trade in wool
+was brought, under the fostering patronage of Wolsey, to a state of some
+prosperity.
+
+With the exception of the burning of monasteries and the murder of his
+wives, there was little to render the reign of Henry remarkable, beyond,
+perhaps, the invention of beef-eaters. The word beef-eater is known to
+be a corruption of _buffetier_, and indeed there was corruption, to a
+certain extent, in everything connected with this detestable tyrant. It
+is said they were called _buffetiers_ from attending at the _buffets_,
+or sideboard of plate, but it is far more likely that they got the name
+from the buffeting to which every servant of the royal ruffian must
+have been occasionally liable. The neck was so often in danger, that any
+menial of the malignant monarch might be expected to ruff it in the best
+way he could, and hence the enormous ruffs, which are conspicuous to
+this day, round the chins of the beef-eaters. The looseness of their
+habits may be considered characteristic of the Court to which these
+functionaries were attached, though it has been said by some authorities
+that the beef-eaters were puffed and padded out to an enormous extent,
+in order that the monster Henry might not appear conspicuous.
+
+The reign of Henry was also remarkable for the invention of pins, to
+which somebody had given his own head with intense earnestness. The
+sharpness of the English had not yet reached so fine a point as to have
+led to the discovery of the needle, which was doubtless suggested by the
+pin, to some one who had an eye for improvement. The thimble is a still
+later introduction, the merit of which is considerable; for though at
+the present day every sempstress has the thimble at her finger ends,
+there was a time when no one had thought of this very simple but
+necessary appendage to the ladies' work-table. If the reign of Henry had
+never been devoted to anything more objectionable than the discovery of
+pins and needles we should have had little reason to complain, for a few
+pricks of conscience, no matter whence they emanated, would have done
+him good; but the scissors for cutting the thread of existence formed
+the instruments chiefly in use during this cruel and most disastrous
+reign.
+
+[Illustration: 437]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SIXTH. EDWARD THE SIXTH.
+
+
+[Illustration: 438]
+
+AN enormous weight was taken off the whole country when the late lump of
+obesity was removed from the throne; but shameful to relate, the first
+use the nation made of the power of breathing freely was to give a few
+puffs to the departed tyrant. The chancellor Wriothesley announced the
+king's death to the House of Lords in tears, and there is said to have
+been much weeping; but there are tears of joy as well as of sorrow, and
+the former must have been the quality of the brine in which the memory
+of Henry was preserved for a few days by his people. The lamentations,
+whether sincere or hypocritical, were very soon exchanged for joy at the
+accession of Edward the Sixth, who was only in his tenth year when
+he woke one morning and found the crown of England over his ordinary
+nightcap. To rub his eyes and ask "What's this?" were the work of an
+instant, when, taking off the bauble, drawing aside his curtains, and
+holding the article up to the light, he at once recognised the royal
+diadem.
+
+Young Edward was what we should call a little forward chit had he been
+a common lad, but being a king we must at once accept him as an infant
+prodigy. He had learnt several tongues from Mr. Cheke, and had been a
+pupil of Sir Anthony Cook; but many of such cooks would have spoiled the
+best "broth of a boy," for Sir Anthony was a pedant, "with five learned
+daughters"--being equivalent to a couple of pair of blue stockings, and
+an odd one over.
+
+Henry, in his reluctance to leave to his son what he could no longer
+hold himself, had fettered the monarchy as much as he could by his will,
+which was, however, soon treated with the contempt it merited. He
+had appointed sixteen executors and twelve councillors, but all to
+no purpose; for all power was placed in the hands of the young king's
+uncle, Hertford, who was created Duke of Somerset. The vaulting ambition
+of this man, who turned Somersets over every obstacle that fell in his
+way, rendered his new title very appropriate. He was invested with the
+office of Protector, and he very soon set to work, but, still true to
+the name of Somerset, he went head over heels into a war with Scotland.
+The object of this proceeding was to demand the hand of Mary, Queen of
+Scots, for the child Edward; but the idea of a person coming to make
+love with a fleet of sixty sail and an army of eighteen thousand men,
+was a little _trop fort_ to suit the taste of the Caledonians. They
+placed a ban upon the marriage, which was equivalent to forbidding
+the banns, and suggested, that if the young gentleman wanted to come
+courting, he had better come by himself to pay his addresses. After a
+little negotiation, which ended in nothing, a battle ensued, which is
+famous as the battle of Pinkey, where the combatants pinked each other
+off most cruelly with the points of their swords; and it is added by the
+inveterate Strype--who deserves two thousand stripes, at least, for
+this offence--that "on this field, which was within half a mile of
+Musselburgh, the soldiers on both sides strained every muscle." The
+English archers sent their arrows from their bows with destructive
+effect; and looking, as they did, like so many Cupids in a valentine, it
+must be confessed that that mode of warfare was, at least, appropriate
+to a war undertaken in the cause of Hymen.
+
+[Illustration: 439]
+
+The Scotch were sadly defeated, but they still refused to give up
+their little queen to the young fellow who sought her hand through his
+subjects' arms, and she was accordingly sent to finish her education in
+France; where, though only six years of age, she was betrothed to the
+Dauphin.
+
+Somerset, instead of following up his successes, made the best of his
+way home; for he heard that his own brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, the
+Lord High Admiral, who had been created also Baron Seymour of Sedley,
+was making himself a great deal too agreeable to the royal ladies in
+England. Old Kitty Parr, Henry's widow, was so much taken with Tom
+Seymour's attentions, that she fell at once in his arms, and became his
+wife; but poor Parr soon fell to a discount in the eyes of her husband,
+who had become enamoured of the young Princess Elizabeth. The unhappy
+old Parr swallowed many a bitter pill at this time, until death put an
+end to her annoyances. Admiral Seymour was now free to pay his addresses
+to Elizabeth, but it would seem that he was not more free than welcome,
+for even during the life of her mother-in-law, that young lady had
+afforded him every encouragement.
+
+In order to stop his flirtations, which were now becoming serious, he
+was clapped in the Tower, but his enemies were considerate enough to
+send a bishop to him to preach patience, and as Ely was selected, who
+prosed exceedingly, the preaching was accompanied by a practical lesson
+in patience, with which it is to be hoped that Seymour was sufficiently
+edified. He was accused of treason, and at a council the boy Edward,
+who had no doubt been crammed for the occasion, delivered an elaborate
+judgment, which his parasites puffed as extemporaneous. He regretted
+being obliged to sacrifice his uncle Seymour to the common weal--a weal
+that has brought woe to many, and to which the wheel of fortune bears,
+except in its orthography, a wondrous similarity. Seymour was executed
+on Wednesday, the 20th of March, 1549, and the last use he made of his
+head before it was struck off was to shake it, and observe that "'pon
+his honour, if he had been guilty of any treason against the king it was
+quite unintentional."
+
+The country was about this time agitated by one of those fits of general
+discontent which prevail every now and then among the lower orders of
+society. As usual there was a good deal of reason mixed with a large
+amount of unreasonableness in their complaints, and the customary
+feeling of "not knowing exactly what they really wanted," became
+alarmingly general. Some cried for this, another for that, and another
+for t'other, while an almost universal shout for the privilege of ruling
+themselves was accompanied by a clear manifestation of an utter want of
+self-control on the part of the people. Their self-styled friends were
+of course busy in goading them on to acts of violence, and the
+Protector himself, instead of repressing tumult first, and pardoning it
+afterwards, pursued the opposite course, which only had the effect of
+clearing off old scores, that new might be ran up with fresh alacrity.
+
+One of the most prominent ringleaders in the revolt was a tanner of
+Norfolk, named Robert Ket, of whom it was vulgarly said that such a bob
+was as good as two tanners; "and hence, perhaps," says my Lord Herbert,
+or someone else, "two tanners, or sixpences, came to be called in the
+vernacular equivalent to one bob, or a shilling." Ket had been cruelly
+provoked in having the mob set upon one of his inclosures by a gentleman
+who had suffered from the destruction of one of his own hedges; but the
+tanner retaliated by administering such a leathering to his assailants
+as they would have remembered to this hour had any one of them been left
+alive to indulge in such reminiscences. It was found necessary to
+send over to Scotland for Warwick to go and settle Ket, which was very
+speedily done, for, finding himself unable to keep upon his legs, he
+laid down his arms, after having run for his life, and crept into a barn
+among some corn to avoid an immediate thrashing. He was taken to Norwich
+and lodged in the castle, whence he wrote to a friend, saying, "I shall
+be hanging out for the present at the above address;" and his words were
+soon verified, for he was hanged out on the top of the building a few
+days afterwards.
+
+Poor Somerset was now about to take the most formidable somerset in the
+whole of his career--namely, a fall from the extreme of power to the
+depths of disgrace, chiefly by the rivalry of Warwick. The Protector
+found it high time to think about protecting himself, and tried to
+muster his friends, to many of whom he wrote; but verbal answers of
+"Not at home," "Mr. So-and-So will send," and similar evasive replies
+convinced poor Somerset that there was very little hope for him. In the
+meantime, Warwick and party were meeting daily at Ely Place, Holbom,
+where they were settling, in that very legal neighbourhood, the draft
+of a set of charges against the Protector, who was accused among other
+things of having pulled down a church in the Strand to build Somerset
+House, and having spent in bricks and mortar the money intrusted him
+to keep up the wooden walls of old England, by paying the sailors and
+soldiers their respective salaries. A bill of pains and penalties was
+issued from Ely Place, which is to this day famous for its art in making
+out bills, and twenty-eight charges were brought against Somerset, who
+thought it better to confess every one of them, on a promise that he
+should be leniently dealt with. This leniency consisted in taking away
+almost everything he possessed, which caused him to remonstrate on the
+heaviness of the fine; but, on being told snappishly he might consider
+himself lucky in having got off with his life, he shrunk back in an
+attitude of the utmost humility. He was set at liberty and pardoned,
+but we shall have him at mischief and in trouble again before the end of
+this chapter.
+
+Though a mere child was on the throne, the atrocities committed at
+Smithfield, in the burning of what were called heretics, went on as
+briskly as ever, the fires being stirred by Cranmer and Ridley in the
+most savage manner. Mary, the king's eldest sister, gave considerable
+trouble by insisting on the celebration of mass in her own household;
+and, though told by the council she mustn't, the truly feminine reply
+that "she should see if she shouldn't," and that "she would, though;
+they'd see if she wouldn't," was all that she condescended to say in
+answer to the requisition.
+
+Somerset, since his liberation, had been still hanging about the Court,
+and had apparently become reconciled to Warwick, whose eldest son,
+Lord Lisle, had been married to Lady Ann, one of the daughters of
+the ex-Protector. Nevertheless, on Friday, the 16th of October, 1551,
+Somerset found himself once more in the "lock-up," on a charge of
+treason. He was accused of an intention to run about London crying out
+"Liberty! Liberty!" and, if that had not succeeded, he was to have gone
+to the Isle of Wight to try on the same game in that direction. If that
+had not succeeded there is no knowing what he would have done; but at
+all events, orders were sent to the Tower to set a watch upon the Great
+Seal, because Somerset wanted to run away with it. If he had made off
+with the seal, he might, perhaps, have taken the watch also; but this
+did not occur to the council. His trial took place at Westminster, on
+the 1st of December, 1551, at the sittings after Michaelmas term, when
+he denied everything, and was found guilty of just enough to get a
+judgment--with speedy execution--against him. His politeness was quite
+marvellous, for he thanked the Lords who had tried him, ana he threw
+as much grace as he could into the bow he was compelled to make on
+submitting his head to the axe of the executioner. "This," says Fox, on
+the authority of a nobleman who was present, "came off on Friday,
+the 22nd of January, 1552," and it is a curious fact, that of every
+execution that occurred in his reign the boy king had preserved the
+heads in his private journal.
+
+Warwick, who had got himself promoted to the dukedom of Northumberland,
+seemed desirous of making government a business for the benefit of
+himself and family. He took the motto of "anything for peace and quiet,"
+though he had blamed his predecessor, Somerset, for having done the same
+thing, and he bought off the hostility of France and Scotland by selling
+Boulogne regularly up, placing a carpet on the lighthouse, dividing the
+upper and lower town into lots, declaring that he wanted money down on
+the nail, and to hit the right one on the head he must resort to the
+hammer. He made excellent marriages for his children, and allied his
+son, Guildford Dudley, with the royal family of France by wedding him
+to Lady Jane Grey, a daughter of a son of the old original Mary Tudor of
+France, to whose descendants the English crown would fall in the event
+of a failure of a more direct succession.
+
+The young King Edward, who had not yet passed through the ordinary
+routine of infantile complaints, now took the measles--or, rather, the
+measles took him--and he had scarcely recovered from this complaint when
+the small-pox placed him under indentures which seemed much too strong
+to be cancelled within any reasonable period. He was serving his time to
+this malady, when another latent illness that had hitherto been playing
+at hide-and-seek, set up a cry of "whoop," and his youthful majesty
+was in for the whooping-cough. Northumberland, taking advantage of the
+king's weak state, advised him not to leave the crown to his big and
+bigoted sister Mary. "True," said Edward, "but how about poor little
+Bet?"
+
+"Why, she," replied the Protector, "is very little better." With such
+weak sophistry as this, he persuaded the poor invalid king to draw up a
+settlement of the crown on Lady Jane Grey, and the judges, with all
+the law officers, were summoned to approve the document. Sir Edward
+Montague, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, with Sir Thomas
+Bromley, one of his _puisnes_, came accompanied by the attorney and
+solicitor-generals, to say that the deed was illegal, and that they,
+one and all, would have nothing to do with it. Upon this, Northumberland
+rushed into the room, called Montague a traitor, * banged the door,
+threatened to bang the judges, and offered to fight in his shirt-sleeves
+any one of them.
+
+     * Burnet he had studied the business of the mint; but it may
+     fairly be replied, that merely looking at the process of
+     coining does not make a sovereign. He is said to have known
+     all the harbours in Scotland, England and France, with the
+     amount of water they were capable of containing--and though
+     this may prove the depth of his research, it is no
+     particular mark of his ability. He took notes of everything
+     he heard; but as sovereigns hear a great deal of thorough
+     trash, the collection must have been rather tedious and
+     elaborate than instructive or entertaining.
+
+
+[Illustration: 444]
+
+He declared that if they could not see the deed in its proper light, he
+would pretty soon beat it into them, and he was squaring up to the poor
+_puisne_ with an evident intention for mischief, when the judges offered
+to take the papers home and reconsider them.
+
+The next day, they were again sent for, when, finding Northumberland as
+pugilistic as ever, and hand in glove with the king, the chief justice
+consented to the deed; and the _puisne_, on being approached by
+Northumberland in an attitude of menace, was glad to stammer out, "I
+am of the same opinion," as rapidly as he could give the words their
+utterance. The judges were promised that the deeds should be ratified by
+Parliament, and that they should be pardoned if they had done wrong;
+for otherwise, from the fists of Northumberland to the hands of the
+legislature, might have been analogous to getting out of the frying-pan
+into the fire.
+
+All this row in the palace of an invalid produced the effect that might
+have been expected, for the poor boy died a day or two afterwards. A
+pugilistic encounter between a duke and a judge, was somewhat too much
+of a stimulant for a child in Edward's weak state, and his physicians
+having given him up, he was turned over to the treatment of a female
+quack, who finished him. She did the business on the 6th of July, 1533,
+when he sunk under a complication of evils, among which his medical
+attendant was undoubtedly the greatest. He had lived fifteen years,
+eight months, and twenty-two days, having been upon the throne six years
+and a half; affording a curious instance of a reign in which the part of
+the sovereign was so insignificant that it might just as well have been
+omitted.
+
+This little fellow had been greatly eulogised for his talents, as shown
+in his journal; but on looking at this juvenile production we regret to
+say that we could not go the length of our old friend the evening paper,
+in stating that it is "a very remarkable production." He mentioned
+certain dinners and suppers with evident gusto, and alludes to the
+return of the sweating sickness, but misses the obvious point, that
+he hopes that it will not prove so perverse as to begin sweating
+sovereigns. Some of the historians of his reign allege that if we are
+to judge young Edward by the laws passed in his reign, there is no great
+deal to be said for him. Beggars were declared to be the slaves of those
+who apprehended them, and iron collars were permitted to be put about
+the throats of the latter; but this was too much for the pride of the
+stiff-necked people of England, and the law was repealed, within two or
+three years of its having been enacted.
+
+There is no doubt that he was a most amiable little fellow, as docile
+as a lamb, if indeed his gentleness did not amount to absolute
+sheepishness. His flatterers say that he could speak five languages, and
+had a taste for music and physic, in the latter of which predilections
+we are quite unable to sympathise. We should have said he was a nice
+child but for the peculiarity to which we have just made allusion. As
+a quiet young gentleman at a preparatory school kept by ladies, Master
+Edward Tudor would have done credit no doubt to the establishment in
+which he might have been placed; but we would as soon select a sovereign
+from a seminary at once, and take him from the bread-and-butter to the
+throne, as see the spirt of the monarchy diluted in milk-and-water, and
+the sceptre dwindling down into a king's pattern spoon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. MARY.
+
+Northumberland having got the deed appointing his daughter-in-law the
+Lady Jane Grey to the throne, began to get rather nervous as to the
+effect of making known to the people such a preposterous arrangement. He
+was afraid to advertise the king's death, and walked about the palace at
+Greenwich, biting his nails, thinking what he should do, or shut himself
+up in a small apartment, which, from the colour of its walls, was known
+as the brown study. He subsequently sent for the Lord Mayor of London,
+half a dozen aldermen, and a dozen citizens, to whom he communicated,
+one at a time, but always in a whisper, the decease of the sovereign.
+"Mind you don't tell," was the precautionary observation he made to
+each; and a will was then produced, in which the boy-king had appointed
+Lady Jane Grey his successor. The cockneys expressed their readiness to
+swear allegiance to the lady, if it was "all right;" and Northumberland
+pledged his honour as a peer, that he would make it so. This happened
+on the 1st of July, and two days afterwards Lady Jane was forwarded
+by water to the Tower of London, some of the corporation, who had been
+gained over by her father-in-law, rowing in the same boat with her.
+After her safe arrival, the death of King Edward was publicly announced,
+and Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed amid very slight applause, accompanied
+by murmurs of the name of Mary. Poor Jane was sadly _genee_ by the
+position into which she was thrust, for she was a quiet, unaspiring,
+lovely creature, whose only fault seems to have been that she read Plato
+in the original Greek, * which appears to us the very alpha and omega of
+absurdity.
+
+     * Roger Ascham.
+
+In the meantime, Mary, whose sanguinary disposition, and love for
+cutting off heads in her father's style, fully entitled her to the name
+of the "chip of the old block," was raising friends to resist the
+views of Northumberland. Mary, whose Catholic predilections were known,
+promised those who were favourable to the Reformation, that she would
+make no change in the religion fixed by Edward; and thus, though she was
+understood to have mass celebrated at home, she silenced the scruples of
+the masses. The proclamation of Lady Jane Grey had been contrived at a
+packed meeting of the council, on the 10th of July; but it is said
+that a vintner's lad--or more probably a boy going round with the
+beer--entered a protest--possibly through an open window--to the
+arrangement. A policeman was instantly sent after him, and he was at
+once set in the pillory, where the tops of his ears paid the penalty of
+a juvenile offence, which he would not have committed had he arrived
+at the years of discretion. This little incident, trifling as it was,
+showed that there was a feeling abroad unfavourable to the elevation of
+Jane; for the pot-boy is always an authority on the subject of public
+measures. His opportunities of listening to the discussions of the
+people are great; and though he may hear much frothy declamation, as
+well as witness a vast tendency to half-and-half principles, in the
+course of his experience, he is nevertheless capable of judging, to a
+considerable extent, of the feelings of the multitude.
+
+Northumberland, seeing that opinion was taking a powerful turn in Mary's
+favour, became fearfully perplexed, and hearing that an adverse force
+was being collected, came to the resolution that "somebody" must go and
+oppose the enemy. Who that "somebody" should be, was a very puzzling
+question, for Northumberland did not like the business himself, and was
+afraid to trust anyone else with a matter of so much consequence. At
+length he offered the task to Suffolk, the father of Lady Jane Grey; but
+that young lady began to cry very bitterly at the idea of her poor
+papa, who was "wholly unaccustomed to public fighting," being sent into
+battle. Whether it was an arrangement between father and daughter it
+is impossible to say; but it was well known that Suffolk was not over
+valorous, and even if he did not "cry off," Lady Jane did so for him,
+by keeping up a constant cry until they found her father a substitute.
+Northumberland, perceiving that Suffolk had made up his mind not to go,
+was looking about him for somebody else, when a general interrogatory
+of, "Why don't he go himself?" seemed to suggest itself to the council.
+With a reluctance that indicated the feelings in his mind of "Well, I
+suppose I must," he started off with a small army, which experienced a
+cold reception in its progress, and the silence of the spectators
+giving them the air of mutes, invested with the dolefulness of a funeral
+procession the march of the troops as far as Bury.
+
+Northumberland had no sooner turned his back on the council than they
+turned their backs on him, by proclaiming Mary as Queen of England;
+and on a party being sent to besiege the Tower, Lady Jane Grey, by
+the advice of her own papa, resigned all pretensions to the sovereign
+dignity. Suffolk not only evinced no disposition to defend his
+daughter's claims, but turning his sword into a steel-pen, hastened to
+sign the decrees that were being issued in the name of Mary.
+
+Poor Northumberland, who was waiting for succours which never came, and
+who was accordingly being victimised by the expenses of his soldiers,
+who acted as suckers of a different kind, heard of what had taken place
+in London, and having fallen back upon Cambridge, sent for a herald, or
+town crier, with whom he bargained for the proclamation of Mary, at the
+market-place. It has been atrociously hinted, by an old offender, whose
+family we spare by the suppression of his name, that Northumberland took
+this humiliating course in the hope that Mary would be molli-fied. He
+had scarcely finished the proceeding we have described, when he received
+a sharp letter from the council in London, desiring him to disband his
+army; but looking round, he perceived that it had disbanded itself, for
+all his followers had deserted him. They had, in fact, gone over to the
+other side, with a canting recantation of their opinions, and a whining
+declaration that they never should have thought of taking arms against
+their lawful queen "had not Northumberland made them do it." The unhappy
+duke himself was hanging about the streets of Cambridge the next day,
+not knowing whether to give himself up or "run for it," when the Earl of
+Arundel, coming up and tapping him on the shoulder, observed, "You must
+come along with me--you're my prisoner." Northumberland burst into a
+loud bellow, fell upon his knees, and begged for his life; but Arundel,
+contemptuously desiring an underling to "bring him along," lodged the
+captive in the Tower. Poor Lady Jane, whose representations of the part
+of queen had been limited to ten days, was already locked up, and,
+in fact, the State prison was full to overflowing of her unfortunate
+partisans. Her father, the Duke of Suffolk, obtained his pardon on the
+31st of July, through Mary, who, on the 3rd of August, 1553, made
+her triumphant entry into London, accompanied by her little sister,
+afterwards the great Elizabeth. On the 18th of the same month,
+Northumberland, his eldest son John, Earl of Warwick, and two or three
+others, were brought to trial at Westminster Hall, when they pleaded
+the general issue; but the chief prisoner, finding it useless to throw
+himself upon the country, threw himself on the floor, asking, in the
+most abject terms, for mercy. This prostration was of no avail, for
+sentence of death was speedily passed upon him; the sycophant Suffolk
+(Lady Jane Grey's own father) being one of the judges who presided at
+the trial. The Earl of Warwick behaved with more spirit than his parent,
+and upon hearing that he was to die as a traitor, which would involve
+the confiscation of his property, he coolly requested that his
+unfortunate creditors might not be victimised. "Don't pay me off,
+without paying them off, also," were the chivalrous words of the young
+nobleman. The Marquis of Northampton, when called upon for his defence,
+said that he had been out with the hounds and engaged in field sports
+while the conspiracy was going on, so that he had been quite upon
+another scent; but this availed nothing for the sly old fox, who was
+immediately found guilty. Sir John Gates, as well as Sir Henry
+Gates, both of whom were fearfully unhinged, were also condemned; and
+Northumberland made a long penitential speech from the scaffold when, as
+if caught by the example, Sir John Gates opened out with extraordinary
+eloquence. Poor Gates having been brought to a close by a hint from
+the headsman, the axe and the curtain fell together upon this fearful
+tragedy.
+
+Mary soon began to show her papist predilections, and after making
+Gardiner Chancellor, she proceeded to establish a most rigorous
+censorship of the press, like a person who, having evil designs, is
+anxious to get the watch-dog muzzled as speedily as possible. She
+prohibited all persons from speaking against her, for a time; but
+putting a prohibition on the press is like throwing coals on a volcano,
+which gets smothered for a while, but is sure to burst out with a
+stronger light on account of the attempt to extinguish it.
+
+The fanaticism of Mary is said to have been caused by the wretchedness
+of her early life, during which a brutal father was continually
+threatening to chop off her head or make a nun of her. That unnatural
+parent was one of those monsters to whom it seems marvellous that
+children were ever given at all, for he could never appreciate the
+blessings they were calculated to afford, and he was for ever engaged
+in trying to mar their happiness. The stock from which she came was,
+however, so abominably bad, that there is nothing surprising in her
+cruelty; for when children happen to go wrong, it may be taken as a
+general rule that they get from their birth one half, and from their
+bringing-up the other half, of their iniquity. Mary proved herself a
+worthy descendant of a most unworthy sire, and turned the State prisons
+at once into warehouses for storing up the fuel of future martyrdom.
+Cranmer, Latimer, and others were stored away with this view, while
+the queen herself prepared for a coronation of unusual pageantry at
+Westminster.
+
+The calm and philosophical Anne of Cleves--who will be remembered as
+the queen that Henry refused to have at any price--was a visitor to the
+show, and came to it in the same "fly" with the Princess Elizabeth. The
+latter, as sister to the queen, carried the crown in the procession, and
+was complaining of its weight in a whisper--for she was always flirting
+with somebody--to Noailles, the French Ambassador. "Be patient," replied
+the polite Parisian; "it will be lighter when it is on your head;" and
+an interchange of winks proved that the illusion was understood by the
+future sovereign of England. A parliament was assembled in less than
+a week, and the legislature that had lately been in favour of
+protestantism to the fullest extent, now relapsed into all the forms of
+popery. Both Houses opened with the celebration of mass, and Taylor, the
+Bishop of Lincoln, who objected to such flagrant apostacy, was fairly
+kicked downstairs, like a bill thrown out of the Upper House, where
+tergiversation was the order of the day throughout the session. Another
+bishop, of the name of Harley, the low comedian of the episcopal bench,
+whom Burnet calls a "drie dogge," was also ejected for exhibiting the
+same honourable consistency; but Harley restored the good nature of the
+House by throwing a little humour into his forced exit.
+
+A convocation of the clergy was shortly afterwards held, to get rid of
+the Reformation as far as it had gone, and bring catholicism back again.
+Some of the bishops conformed to the new regulations laid down for them;
+but some few, who happened to be married, found that though shaking
+off an opinion was easy enough, getting rid of a wife was far more
+difficult. The celibacy of the clergy was, of course, insisted upon; but
+Holgate, Archbishop of York, however happy he might have been never to
+have linked himself with Mrs. Holgate at all, soon discovered that a
+divorce from that good lady was not so easily accomplished as talked
+about. Several bishops who had got entangled in the connubial noose,
+were nearly finding it a halter for their necks, inasmuch as they were
+all deprived of their sees, and some even of their lives, for having
+committed the offence of matrimony. An attempt was made to save them, by
+urging that the punishment accompanied the crime, and that it was hard
+to make those suffer who must already have endured a great deal; but the
+plea was not allowed to prevail, and deprivation was inflicted on all as
+an equal punishment. Several of the bishops conformed; and it has been
+said, in extenuation of their weakness, that their insincerity was not
+in changing from Protestant to Catholic, but had consisted in
+their originally veering round against their wills from Catholic to
+Protestant. It matters little whether, in turning from popery to the
+Reformation, they had been robbing Peter to pay Paul, or whether, in
+changing once more, they were guilty of some additional cheat, in order
+to restore what they had taken from Peter; but it is not to be denied,
+that on one occasion or the other they had been guilty of gross
+apostacy.
+
+On the 13th of November, 1553, Cranmer, Lady Jane Grey, her husband Lord
+Guildford Dudley, and his brother Ambrose Dudley, were all condemned to
+die as traitors, by judges many of whom were the very people who had set
+on poor Jane to play the game, in which she had never taken the smallest
+interest. After sentence had been passed, execution was stayed. But
+Cranmer had no sooner been let out upon the charge of treason, than it
+was found on searching the office there was something else against him,
+whereupon he was taken and locked up once more upon an accusation of
+heresy. Lady Jane Grey had the freedom of the Tower presented to her
+in the shape of a permission to walk about the gardens, while Guildford
+Dudley and Ambrose were granted a few moderate indulgences--amounting,
+perhaps, to a set of skittles, a bat, trap and ball, or a couple of
+hockey-sticks.
+
+This moderation was, however, accompanied by other acts of cruelty; and
+poor Judge Hales, who had really done nothing but refuse to change his
+religion, was, though he had stoutly defended the title of the queen,
+thrown into prison. The poor fellow went out of his mind, and though he
+was liberated, he had got so fearfully impressed with the idea of being
+burnt, that he thought to make himself fire-proof by running into the
+water; but it was so deep, and he stayed there so very long, that he
+unfortunately drowned himself.
+
+Mary, who had been disappointed of several husbands--for nobody who saw
+her would think of having her--now resolved to make use of her position
+as Queen of England to draw some unhappy victim into a marriage.
+Comparatively old, exceedingly hard, and totally void of all the milk of
+human kindness, she was naturally very inflammable, and she had already
+fallen in love with young Ned Courtenay, a son of the Marquis of
+Exeter; but the predilection of that young gentleman for her half-sister
+Elizabeth had somewhat cooled the ardour of Mary, who found it was
+useless to set her cap at the young Earl of Devon, which was the title
+she had restored to the courteous Courtenay.
+
+The project of a marriage continued to fill the head of the queen, but
+as it was evident there would be "nobody coming to marry her," and,
+indeed, "nobody coming to woo," unless she looked out pretty sharply
+for herself, she threw aside all scruples of delicacy, and began to
+advertise through the medium of her ambassadors. The Emperor Charles of
+Spain had been affianced to her thirty years ago, and though she
+might once have been accustomed to sing "Charlie's my darling," in
+her youthful days, that prince had, long ago, grown old enough to know
+better than to marry her. He nevertheless thought she might be a good
+match for his son Philip, or rather that the latter might be a match for
+the lady, inasmuch as the Spanish prince was crafty, cruel, and bigoted.
+Mary made a last effort to get a husband of her own choice by sending a
+proposal to Cardinal Pole, who would have nothing to do with her. Thus,
+even her indelicate eagerness to rush to the pole did not secure her
+election, and she was obliged to take Philip "for better, for worse," or
+rather for worse, for want of a better.
+
+When the Commons heard of her intention they respectfully recommended
+her to wed an Englishman, but the idea that it was necessary for Mary to
+"first catch the Englishman" does not seem to have occurred to them.
+She announced her intention of marrying Philip partly out of old
+associations, but the oldness of the association was all on her own
+side, for the gentleman was young in comparison to the lady. It was
+not to be expected that Philip would make what he might justly have
+considered an "alarming sacrifice" without some equivalent, and it was
+agreed that he should have the honour and title of King of England,
+though he was not to interfere in the government. In case Mary survived
+him, he was to settle upon her L60,000 a year, but as he always
+flattered himself that he should, as he said, "see the old girl out," he
+looked upon this arrangement as merely nominal.
+
+The English people had in those days, as they still have in these, an
+objection to Spanish marriages, and one Sir Thomas Wyatt, who had been
+in Spain, gave such a fearful picture of Philip, that the people of
+Kent, learning to regard him as something between "Old Bogie" and
+"Spring-heeled Jack," resolved to oppose his landing. Wyatt collected a
+considerable force at Rochester and marched upon London, when taking the
+first to the left, then the second to the right, they found themselves
+masters of Southwark. He had intended to give battle in Bermondsey, and
+put a cannon at the corner of the street, but it did not go off so well
+as he expected. In the meantime the queen's forces began pouring upon
+him some of the juice of the grape, from the Tower, and intimating to
+his followers that it might affect their heads, he withdrew as far as
+Kingston. His object was to march upon London by the other road, and he
+got about as far as Hammersmith when an accident happened to his largest
+buss, or blunderbuss--as he called his heaviest gun--and he wasted
+several hours in getting it, once more, upon its wheels again. By
+daylight he had got as far as Hyde Park, when he found that the royal
+forces were in the inclosure of St. James's, waiting to receive him, and
+having a large reserve in the hollow that now forms the reservoir.
+
+The battle commenced with a noisy overture, consisting of the firing of
+cannons, loaded only with powder, and doing no harm to anybody. Wyatt's
+followers had dwindled very materially as he came into town; several of
+his soldiers having discovered, at Kew, it was not their "cue to fight,"
+and others experiencing at Turaham Green, sufficient to turn 'em pale,
+and turn 'em back, at the very thought of meeting the enemy. Wyatt was
+nevertheless undaunted, and rushed upon the enemy, who, falling quietly
+back, let him regularly in among the troops, with the full intention of
+never letting him out again. Without looking behind, he charged, at full
+gallop, along Charing Cross, and continuing his furious career up the
+Strand, pulled up, at last, at Ludgate Hill, which he found closed
+against him. Finding no sympathy among the citizens he attempted to
+back out, and had got as far as the Temple, where, strange to say,
+his opponents gave him no law, and the unhappy old Pump, being at last
+caught in Pump Court, surrendered to Sir Maurice Berkeley.
+
+[Illustration: 452]
+
+Poor Wyatt was soon afterwards condemned to death, and executed, as well
+as about four hundred of his followers, but several were brought with
+ropes round their necks before the queen, who permitted them to find in
+the halter a loop-hole for escape, by an humble prayer for pardon.
+
+Mary, exceedingly angry at the attempt to shake her throne, vented her
+animosity on her little sister Elizabeth, who was brought on a litter
+to London, though she was so ill that the journey might have killed her,
+had not youth, a good constitution, and some stout porters carried her
+through the dangerous ordeal. She was accused of having been a party to
+Wyatt's rebellion, and was taken to the Tower, though not without
+giving a good deal of trouble to the proper officer, for she insisted
+on sitting down every now and then upon a stone step in the yard, though
+the rain was falling heavily.
+
+Mary, whose reign may be considered as the original "reign of
+terror"--though the brutality that distinguished it was confined to
+a few, while in the French edition the whole nation thirsted for
+blood--who exercised _en detail_ the cruelties that France subsequently
+practised _en gros_, sentenced to death, in rapid rotation, all who
+did not quite agree with her. The unfortunate Lady Jane Grey and her
+husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, were both executed on the same day, and,
+indeed, the victims were so numerous that we should be inclined to say,
+"for further particulars see small bills," if we thought that any of the
+true bills found against the parties were still extant.
+
+A curious commentary on the value of trial by jury was furnished about
+this time by the extraordinary case of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton--the
+father of Throgmorton Street, and friend of Sir Thomas Wyatt--who, after
+making his defence, obtained, to the surprise of everybody, a verdict
+of acquittal. Sir Thomas Bromley, the chief justice, began to cough
+and "hem!" and "ha!" as if there must be some mistake, and as though
+he would have said, "Gentlemen of the jury, do you know what you are
+doing?" The twelve honest men replied that it was "all right," they
+"knew what they were about," and persisted in their decision, until the
+chief justice, who thought every jury box ought to be a packing-case,
+hinted that the matter was one in which the Crown was interested, and
+that the Crown would stand no nonsense. The jurymen being still firm,
+they were hurried off to prison, and were only released upon paying
+enormous fines--which proved, at least, that the Government set a
+tremendous price upon their honesty.
+
+On the 19th of July, 1554, Philip landed at Southampton on his way to
+fulfil his marriage contract with Mary; but he had taken the precaution
+to send on before him the Count of Egmont, who was intended to be
+mistaken for his master, and thus serve as a sort of pilot engine,
+in case of any collision with the populace. The expedient was very
+necessary, for the pilot engine--we mean Egmont--got some very hard
+knocks from several old buffers with whom he came in contact, and
+Philip, seeing the kind of reception he might expect, came, accompanied
+by a very long train, by way of escort, to his new station. On the 25th
+of the same month he was married to the queen, at Winchester, and
+the pair, whom we must call, by courtesy, "the happy couple," came to
+London, where a series of festivities, including the rapid descent of
+Il Diavolo. Somebody along a rope from the top of St. Paul's, * had been
+prepared in honour of the Royal marriage.
+
+     * A fact. See Stowe.
+
+
+[Illustration: 453]
+
+The object of Philip in marrying Mary had been simply the crown, and his
+conduct, if not his words, very plainly told her so. Her fondness for
+him became quite a bore, particularly when he found that she could not
+get Parliament to agree to the projects he made her propose for his own
+aggrandisement. She had not long been the wife of Philip when an attack
+of dropsy was added to her other interesting points, and her heartless
+husband made her a butt--or, as Strype says, a water-butt--for his
+unfeeling ridicule. In order to obtain a little popularity, Philip
+made his wife release Elizabeth, and Courtenay, Earl of Devon, from the
+Tower, as well as a few other favourites of the public; but the people
+never took to the husband of the queen, while the quarrels between the
+Spanish and the English were perpetual. On New-Year's Day, 1555, there
+was a row among them at Westminster, when a Spanish friar got into the
+Abbey, and pulled away at the alarum with tremendous fury. He frightened
+the city almost into fits, and, for thus trifling with the rope, Philip
+doomed him to the halter, in order to gratify the people, who by no
+means chimed in with this extraordinary freak of bell-ringing.
+
+The year 1555 was signalised by the revival of all the statutes against
+heretics, and the Protestants were kept burning night and day, in the
+neighbourhood of Smithfield. We will not dwell longer than necessary
+upon this disgraceful portion of our national annals. Among many
+distinguished persons who suffered death were Ridley, Latimer, and
+Cranmer, who all exhibited firmness worthy of a better fate, and it
+is said of Cranmer that he put his right hand into the fire first, for
+having, some time before, signed some documents of recantation, in the
+nope of saving his life at the expense of his consistency. In three
+years about three hundred individuals perished at the stake, through
+refusing to put their characters at stake by vacillation in the moment
+of danger.
+
+After the death of Cranmer, Cardinal Pole was installed in the see of
+Canterbury, for Mary's rage against the Protestants was extreme, and she
+hoped that the fires of Smithfield would be kept alive by that exalted
+prelate, though in expecting to stir them up with the long Pole she was
+somewhat disappointed, for the new archbishop was rather moderate than
+otherwise in his ecclesiastical policy.
+
+The queen's object was to control England in the war between France and
+Spain, but Pole, even at the risk of becoming in his turn a scaffold
+Pole, resisted the royal will to the extent of his power. The fact is
+that Philip, who had never married for love, was determined to be as
+plain with his wife as she was plain to him, and told her that unless
+he could make the union profitable, he should make a slipknot of the
+nuptial tie, and get away from it altogether. Alarmed at the prospect of
+being left "a lone woman" on the throne, she sought and found a
+pretext for declaring a war against France by getting up one of those
+confessions which in those days a judicious use of the torture could
+always procure at a few hours' notice.
+
+Some unhappy agitators were detected in a small conspiracy, when the
+fact or falsehood of their having been encouraged by Henry of France
+was, after the intense application of the screw, regularly screwed out
+of them. They were made to fabricate stories to suit the purposes of the
+queen, and indeed their invention was literally put to the rack by
+the cruelties to which they were subjected. War against France was now
+declared, but the revenue was in such a miserable state that Mary was
+obliged to beg, borrow and steal in every direction for the necessary
+funds to commence hostilities. Having at last got together an army
+of ten thousand men, she found that the troops must be fed, and she
+accordingly seized all the corn she could find, threatening at the same
+time to thrash the owners like their own wheat if they had the impudence
+to ask for the value of the stolen property.
+
+The well-known impolicy of interfering in other people's quarrels was
+powerfully illustrated by the fate of the English interposition in the
+dispute between France and Spain, for after a few trifling advantages,
+one of which was the taking of Ham before breakfast by Philip himself,
+England sustained a loss, which was at that time regarded as one of the
+most serious character. Valour, under the guise of the great Duke of
+Guise, wrested Calais from its masters, and restored it to the French,
+whose hearts rebounded with boundless joy at the acquisition of this
+valuable fortress.
+
+The exchequer was reduced to such a beggarly condition by the expenses
+of the late unfortunate war, that the queen, who never called upon her
+Parliament unless she wanted something, was compelled to summon the
+Commons. With their usual squeezability they permitted to flow into the
+public coffers sufficient to keep the royal head above water; and
+one Copley, who ventured a few words by way of remonstrance, was
+pusillanimously committed to that custody from which the old English
+expression of "cowardy cowardy custard" (_query_, custod.) has been
+supposed to derive its origin.
+
+Part of the produce of the recent subsidy was laid out in ships, and
+as the ships came to no good, it was said at the time that this
+appropriation of the money was very like making ducks and drakes of it.
+The fleet, after passing over the bosom of the ocean, came to Brest, but
+the breastworks were so strong, that the British force had not the heart
+to make an attack upon them. Some miscellaneous pillage was perpetrated
+in the neighbourhood by the English who nevertheless came off second
+best; and Philip, who was getting rather tired of the business, was
+willing to treat with a view to a treaty.
+
+While thinking how he should retire from foreign hostilities, he
+received from England tidings that held out the certain prospect of
+domestic peace, for he got the news of the death of his wife Mary.
+Miserable and middle-aged, detested and dropsical, this wretched woman
+was tormented by every kind of reflection, from that presented by the
+mirror of her own mind, to the dismal prospect shadowed forth in her
+own looking-glass. She had lost Calais; but, as the audacious Strype
+has boldly suggested, she might have become callous to that, had she not
+known the fearful fact, that her husband Philip declared he had had his
+fill of double cursedness, and intended to try in Spain what a timely
+return to single blessedness might do for him.
+
+[Illustration: 456]
+
+All these troubles proved, like herself, unbearable, and on the 17th of
+November, 1558, she expired, after a short and yet too long a reign
+of five years, four months, and eleven days. She had reached the
+forty-third year of her age, and must have made the most of her time, in
+one way at least; for no woman of her age had obtained so much odium of
+a durable quality, as she in her comparatively short life had acquired.
+
+If we were to draw a faithful character of this princess, we need do
+nothing more than upset our inkstand over our paper, and cause the
+saturated manuscript to be transferred to our pages in one enormous
+black blot; for we are sure that no printer's type could furnish a type
+of the person whom we have the horribly black job of handing down--or
+rather knocking down--to posterity. Those indefatigable readers who
+are desirous of having the appropriate epithets which Mary's character
+deserves, are requested to take down the dictionary, and having selected
+from it all the adjectives expressive of badness that the language
+contains, place them in a string or a series of strings, before the name
+of Mary.
+
+To look for her virtues would require the aid of one of those solar
+microscopes which give visibility to the merest atom, and the particle,
+if even discovered, might be deposited in the mental eye without its
+being susceptible of anything having entered it. She seems to have
+possessed some sincerity; but this only gave a certain degree of
+vigour to her evil propensities. She was perhaps susceptible of some
+attachments, but so is a boa constrictor, though few would conceive it
+a privilege to be held in the firm embraces of that paragon of tenacity
+towards those with whose fate it happens to twine itself. She had a
+certain vigour of mind, just as a tiger has a certain vigour of spring,
+a parallel the force of which her victims very frequently experienced.
+
+The loss of Calais was, perhaps, one of the most important events of
+Mary's reign! and it is said to have had such an effect upon her, that
+she declared, when she died the word Calais would be found engraved upon
+her heart: though we are quite sure, that if the word had been found
+at all, it would not have presented itself as an engraving, but as a
+lithograph. For two hundred years the town had been in the possession of
+the English, and it was through a miserable economy in cutting down the
+garrison during the winter months, and trying to work the thing at
+a reduced expense, that the whole concern fell into the power of the
+enemy. This paltry system proved, of course, unprofitable in the end;
+for when the Duke of Guise made his attack, those points that required
+two or three stout fellows to defend them, were left to the fatal
+imbecility of "a man and a boy,"--a couple never yet known to heartily
+co-operate. It is the unhappy blunder of a man and a boy being left to
+pull together as unsympathetically as an elephant and an ass, that
+has impeded the progress of so many of our public works; and it was,
+unquestionably, the trial of the "man and boy" system at Calais during
+the winter months, that, in the early part of 1558, caused the loss of
+the city. The English had been in the habit of trusting during the cold
+weather to the snow, and the overflowing of the marshes, to keep out the
+French; but the Duke of Guise was not afraid of getting his feet wet,
+and besides, as he wittily observed, "I can always rely on the strength
+of my pumps to keep the water out." He ultimately made a resolute
+splash, and, though often up to his middle in mud, he drove the English
+clean out of the citadel.
+
+It may be worth while to mention, that Mary's reign was the first in
+which friendly relations with Russia were established, through some
+English traders who found themselves, or rather lost themselves,
+at Archangel, in the course of a wild-goose search for a north-east
+passage. The Czar, after asking them what they were doing there, and
+telling them they had come fearfully out of their way, received them
+very kindly; but it does not seem that any north-east passage, beyond
+the old court which used to lead from Holbora Hill to Clerkenwell, was
+at that time discovered.
+
+Few, if any, salutary laws were passed in her reign, though a bad one
+was repealed, which had ruined the wool trade, by prohibiting any one
+from making wool who had not served seven years' apprenticeship. There
+was of course a great cry and very little wool in consequence of this
+absurd enactment, which was so decidedly impolitic that we can give Mary
+very little credit for having done away with it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. ELIZABETH.
+
+
+[Illustration: 458]
+
+THE death of Mary was concealed for some hours, since it is only bad
+news that will travel very fast; but when the truth did come to be
+generally known, the joy which burst out on all sides took the more
+decent form of exultation at the accession of the new sovereign.
+Elizabeth, Betsy, Bessy, or Bess as she has been indiscriminately
+called, was at Hatfield when her sister died, and she soon moved to
+London, escorted by one of those patriotic mobs which are always ready
+to hoot and halloo for any distance the last new sovereign.
+
+On the 15th of January, 1559, the queen was crowned at Westminster
+Abbey, but during the ceremony she was compelled to remain bare-headed
+for a considerable time, as on account of her suspected Protestant
+predilections, not one of the bishops would invest her with the diadem.
+In vain did she give appealing looks to the entire bench, until at last
+a decided ogle took effect on Oglethorpe, the Bishop of Carlisle, who,
+snatching up the bauble with a shout of "Here goes!" boldly bonneted the
+royal maiden.
+
+On the 25th of the same month a Parliament assembled, when Cecil and Sir
+Nicholas Bacon made their _debuts_ on the treasury benches. Cecil was
+chief secretary, or key of the Cabinet, while Bacon was great seal, with
+instructions to keep continually on the watch in the capacity of Keeper.
+The first act of the Parliament was to restore many of the laws
+of religion existing in Edward's reign, and an attempt was made to
+reinstate such clergymen as had been deprived on account of marriage;
+but Elizabeth, who began to show anti-matrimonial opinions at the very
+beginning of her reign, would not accede to such an arrangement. Early
+in the session the Parliament tried its hand at royal match-making by
+carrying up an address to the queen, recommending her to take a husband;
+but in a somewhat rudish tone she expressed at once her horror at "the
+fellows," and her determination to have nothing to do with them. Her
+sincerity was soon put to the test by a direct offer from Philip,
+her late sister's husband; but a playful "go along with you," and a
+coquettish "a-done, do!" were the utmost words of encouragement he could
+manage no extract from her.
+
+Parliament broke up on the 8th of May, and on the 15th the bishops and
+other churchmen of note were summoned to take the oath of conformity
+to the new statutes. Much to the credit of their consistency they all
+refused, with the exception of one Kitchen, the bishop of Llandaff, a
+low fellow, whose name implies his origin. This Kitchen had acquired the
+rotatory motion of the roasting-jack, as well as a fondness for sops
+in the pan, for he had been twirling round and having a finger in the
+ecclesiastical pie since the year 1545, from which time to that of
+Elizabeth he had, through all changes, stuck to his bishopric. The
+clergy, who had refused to conform to the Protestant religion, were
+on the whole gently dealt with, some being exported to Spain amid the
+luggage of the Spanish ambassador, and a few being quartered upon their
+successors in England. Most of the inferior clergy seemed to have been
+made of Kitchen-stuff, that is to say, they appeared to be composed of
+much the same material as the Bishop Kitchen we have named, and were at
+all events alive to the necessity of keeping the pot boiling, for out of
+9400 persons holding benefices, there were scarcely more than a hundred,
+exclusive of the fifteen bishops, who quitted their preferments rather
+than change their religion.
+
+We must now look at Scotland, of which the celebrated Mary was queen
+when she was suddenly called to France to share the throne which had
+devolved upon her husband, Francis the Second, or rather upon which he
+had devolved by the death of his father, Henry. This somewhat elderly
+gentleman had been playing the fool in a tilting match, which was rather
+_infra dig._ at his time of life, and ended in his receiving a dig in
+the eye from a broken lance, which ultimately closed in death both the
+wounded and its companion optic. In the absence of Mary from Scotland,
+Elizabeth did her utmost to advance the Protestant cause in that
+country, and dealt out some heavy blows through the medium of the
+celebrated Knox against the Catholics. Mary's mamma, who had remained at
+home to keep house as it were in her daughter's absence, did not
+exactly like what was passing, particularly when she found that English
+emissaries were continually passing to and fro, for the purpose of
+bribing the Scotch, whose "itching palm" has always been a national
+characteristic that we decline accounting for. The English were bent
+on getting the French out of Scotland, but the task was as difficult
+as expelling the fleas from a hay mattress in which they have once got
+embedded. After a good deal of desultory fighting, the Queen Regent was
+worried out of her life, and she was no sooner gone, than some of her
+most devoted adherents were off like shots to draw up a treaty with the
+enemy. Peace was proclaimed, and the French Governor of Leith gave the
+besiegers a dinner, at which salted horse was the only animal food,
+for there was not even a saddle of mutton to make the horse go off
+with effect at this truly horsepitable banquet. By the treaty mutual
+indemnities were exchanged, oblivion of the past was determined upon at
+Leith, which on that occasion became a veritable Lethe. Elizabeth had
+two or three flags in Scotland surrendered to her, but religion, which
+was the ostensible cause of the whole dispute, was permitted to stand
+over as an open question.
+
+It was not to be expected that such a capital match as the Queen of
+England would fail to be the subject of several flames, and an old beau,
+in the person of Eric, now the king of Sweden, together with two or
+three other suitors, royal as well as noble, sent in the most tender
+tenders for the hand of Elizabeth. Like a true coquette, she gave
+encouragement to all, and even some seedy adventurers among her own
+subjects were induced to strike up to her.
+
+Mary, who, as great-niece of Henry the Eighth, had in the first instance
+assumed the arms and title of Queen of England, a measure almost as
+futile as if Snooks of Surrey should assume the arms and title of
+Seringapatam, relinquished her nominal pretensions upon the death of her
+husband, which happened on the 5th of December, 1560. Mary had become
+so habituated to the splendid formalities of the French Court, that, on
+returning to Scotland, the substantial barrenness of that bleak country
+completely disgusted her. Tears, it is said, came into her eyes when she
+saw the wretched ponies that were about to convey herself and her ladies
+from the waterside to Holy-rood, while the saddles, made of wood,
+gave her such a series of bumpers at parting, that she declared the
+impression made by her reception would never be forgotten.
+
+Mary, who had been born and bred a Catholic, was, of course, anxious for
+the privilege of following her own religion; but her Scotch subjects,
+who claimed liberty of conscience for themselves, practised upon their
+unfortunate sovereign the most brutal and intolerant tyranny. She
+was insulted on her way to mass, her indulgence in the most harmless
+amusements was savagely condemned, and she was continually exposed to
+the hardest raps from Knox, who undertook the task of converting her.
+This vulgar, but zealous, and no doubt sincere personage endeavoured to
+effect his purpose by coarse abuse, and always spoke of his queen from
+the pulpit as Jezebel. In vain did Mary endeavour to quiet her turbulent
+and libellous assailant by offering him private audiences, but, as if
+nothing short of mob popularity would answer his purpose, he rudely
+declined her invitation, telling her it was her duty to come to him, and
+continued to make the pulpit the medium of the most malignant assaults
+on his sovereign. However honest and upright the intentions of Knox may
+have been, his brutal manner of telling his home truths deprived them
+of much of their influence; and Knox made very few effective hits in the
+course of his noisy and vituperative career as a Presbyterian reformer.
+
+Elizabeth saw with unamiable pleasure that her rival, Mary, was having
+what, very figuratively speaking, may be termed a nice time of it. The
+English queen busily occupied herself in feathering her own nest in
+a variety of ways, and, among other measures, she called in all the
+debased coin; for, as she sometimes said, with a sneer at poor Mary,
+"I have a great objection to light sovereigns." She filled her arsenals
+with arms, and had quite a conservatory of grape at the Tower, while, by
+way of putting the country into a state of defence, she resorted to the
+very odd expedient of reviewing the militia. She improved the arts of
+making gunpowder and casting cannon, so that, as she used to say, "every
+brave brick in my army may have a supply of mortar, with which, in the
+hour of battle, he may cement the interests of my empire."
+
+[Illustration: 461]
+
+The increase of the navy occupied her special care, and she laid the
+foundation of that glorious system which has given immortality to our
+naval hornpipes ana made our enemies dance at the balls given by our
+British seamen. It was to Elizabeth we owe the origin of that
+enthusiasm which induces "honest Jack," as he facetiously calls himself,
+to spend all his wages in a week, and to conclude a rapid series of
+lighthearted freaks as the helplessly inebriated fare of a metropolitan
+cab or the equally inanimate inmate of a London station-house. The
+interior of Elibabeth's Court was a scene of petty rivalries and
+jealousies, for she was surrounded with various suitors, and though she
+gave encouragement to nearly all, the valuable precept, "_Ne sutor ultra
+crepidam_," seems never to have escaped her memory. She would treat them
+with easy familiarity, such as thumping their backs and patting their
+cheeks; but if any of them ventured upon tiring to get on with her at
+the same slapping pace, she would administer a rap of the knuckles that
+at once discouraged them from trying their hands at a renewal of such
+familiarity.
+
+Though not blinded by the adulation of her courtiers, she was very
+nearly becoming so by the small-pox, against which, however, a good
+constitution was happily pitted. On her recovery, the Parliament fearing
+the explosion that might have ensued had she popped off without a
+successor having been named, entreated her either to marry, or appoint
+some lady or gentleman to fill the throne in the event of there being a
+vacancy. With a good deal of that old traditional feeling imputed to
+the anonymous dog in the very indefinite manger, who was unwilling to
+relinquish to others what he was unable personally to enjoy, Elizabeth
+was very reluctant to say who should come after her as queen, but she
+held out a vague prospect that her marriage would not be impossible, in
+the event of any very eligible offer happening to present itself. This
+indirect advertisement of her hand was at once answered by the Duke
+of Wurtemburg, a small German, whose pretensions were contemptuously
+pooh-pooh'd I and indeed every post brought letters from various single
+men of prepossessing appearance, gentlemanly manners, and amiable
+disposition, who were anxious to take this somewhat unusual method of
+placing their hands and hearts at the service of the Queen of England.
+In the very largest field there will generally be one or two favourites,
+and in Elizabeth's good books the names of Robert Dudley, Earl of
+Leicester, and Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, stood so high, that there
+might have been even betting upon both, with a shade or two, perhaps, in
+the former's favour.
+
+Mary of Scotland was less indifferent on the subject of marriage than
+the English queen, and, indeed, the former went so seriously into
+the matrimonial market, as to consult the latter on the subject of
+a judicious selection. Apparently with the intention of throwing the
+matter back, Elizabeth offered her own favourite, Dudley, Earl of
+Leicester, as a husband for Mary; but on the latter, after recovering
+from her surprise, exclaiming, "Well, I don't mind," the virgin Queen of
+England, mentally responding, "Oh! yes! I dare say," backed out of her
+proposition. The Earl of Leicester was one of those good-looking scamps
+who used, in the last century, to go by the name of "pretty fellows,"
+but in our own more enlightened age, would obtain no gentler appellation
+than "pretty scoundrels." The virtuous Elizabeth liked to have him
+about her on account of his good looks, but if the homely proverb, that
+"handsome is as handsome does," had prevailed he would have been thought
+as little ornamental in person, as in mind he was deformed and hideous.
+Notwithstanding the pattern of propriety as which the virgin Queen of
+England has been, by some historians, extolled, she gave encouragement
+to Leicester, whom she knew to be a married man, until, by murdering
+his wife, he removed that slight barrier to the accomplishment of his
+ambitious wishes. He reported that his unfortunate lady had tumbled down
+stairs, but this was a daring flight of a guilty imagination, and
+there is little doubt that while staying in the house of her husband's
+servant, Foster, he forced her either over the balustrade, or got rid of
+her by some other means of equal violence.
+
+Poor Mary, who was really in need of a protector, becoming impatient at
+the delay in choosing her a husband, at length selected one for herself,
+in the person of her cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. This young
+nobleman was a mere lad in age, but a perfect ladder in height, for
+he was very tall, and very thin, so that if he could offer Mary no
+substantial support, he was, at all events, a person she might look
+up to, as may be said, familiarly, "at a stretch," in cases of great
+emergency.
+
+[Illustration: 463]
+
+He was the son of Henry the Eighth's sister's daughter's second husband,
+and was accordingly the next heir but one to the English throne, if
+anyone could be called an heir at all in those days, when might overcame
+right in a manner somewhat unceremonious.
+
+Darnley, though showy in appearance, was in reality a fool, and it might
+be said that instead of having been born with a silver spoon in his
+mouth, he was in himself the embodiment of that auspicious article.
+Though exceedingly tall, he was tremendously shallow, and before he
+had been married two months, he acted with so much insolence, that
+Mary could scarcely get a servant to stay with her. His own father, old
+Lennox, who had got a snug place in the household, packed up his box at
+a moment's notice, declaring he would not stop, and the wretched royal
+spoon found in the glass the only pursuit with which his habits were
+congenial.
+
+Though neglectful of his young and lovely wife, he claimed the bad
+husband's privilege of being jealous of the attentions of others, and
+Signor David Rizzio, the first and only tenor at the Scotch Court, soon
+furnished ground for Darnley's suspicions of Mary's fidelity. Rizzio had
+come over in the suite of the ambassador of Savoy, as a professor of the
+spinette, and a teacher of foreign languages. In his vocal capacity he
+attended evening parties, and having been introduced at Court, his airs
+soon wafted him into the favour of his sovereign. His knowledge of the
+French language caused him to be promoted to the vacant post of French
+secretary to the queen, when an outcry was raised because a Scotchman
+was not appointed to the office, though not a soul among the natives had
+any pretensions to understanding the language in which the services of
+a secretary were required. Many of them maintained that their
+broken Scotch would have been an excellent substitute for Rizzio's
+unintelligible gibberish, and the nobles used to make faces at him,
+shoulder him, or taunt him as a base-born fiddler even in the presence
+of his sovereign.
+
+The ill-used musician, who understood scarcely a word of the insulting
+language that was addressed to him, happening to catch the sound of the
+word fiddle, gallantly declared that he would be found _toujours fidele_
+to the royal lady who had honoured him by her favour. There seems to be
+good reason for doubt whether the scandalous stories concerning Mary and
+her French secretary were true, and as in duty bound we give the benefit
+of the doubt to the accused parties. Poor Rizzio had, however, become
+such an object of hatred to the people about the Court, that one
+evening, as he sat at the side-table taking his supper, as he always
+did when the queen was present, a party of armed men, headed by Darnley
+himself, rushed into the chamber where the Duchess of Argyle and
+Erskine, the Governor of Holyrood, were also present. Rizzio had
+probably been favouring the company with a song or songs, and was
+whetting his whistle, with a view perhaps to farther melody, when he
+was brutally desired to "come out of that" by the ruffian Ruthven, whose
+_gout_ for murder was so excessive that he had left a sick bed to take a
+part in the sanguinary business. To make a long and painful story short,
+Rizzio was savagely butchered as he clung to the skirts of Mary's dress
+in a vain hope to find shelter under petticoat influence. For having
+caused the death of Rizzio, Mary never forgave Darnley, who took to
+drink, in the hope of drowning care; but an evil conscience seems to
+be supplied with corks, which carry it up to the surface of the deepest
+bowl in which an attempt was ever made to get rid of it.
+
+On the 19th of June, 1566, there appeared, among the births of the
+day, the announcement of "Mary, Queen of Scots, of a son and heir, at
+Holyrood." The infant was James the Sixth of Scotland, and subsequently
+the first of England, who was not a Jem remarkable for any particular
+brilliancy. It had previously been arranged that Elizabeth should stand
+godmother to the firstborn of Mary, and intelligence of the interesting
+event was therefore conveyed to the English queen by special express
+through that diligent overland male, the faithful Melville. Elizabeth
+was having a romp after a supper at Greenwich when the news arrived, and
+was in the midst of a furious fandango, when Cecil whispered something
+in her ear which struck her all of a heap, and caused her to leave her
+fandango unfinished. Speedily, however, regaining her composure, she
+gave the ambassador something for himself, and charged him with the
+usual infantine presents for her royal godson.
+
+The question of a successor to Elizabeth now turned up again with
+increased interest since the birth of little James; but Elizabeth,
+becoming irritable and ill-humoured, declared she was looking out for a
+husband, and intended to have an heir of her own, which would put an end
+to all the airs and graces which other people were exhibiting.
+
+When the Commons grew more urgent on the point, she became angry in
+the extreme, for the subject must have been rather a delicate one with
+Elizabeth, who was growing every day a less eligible match, and might
+not perhaps have succeeded in finding a husband equal in point of
+station to an alliance with the Queen of England.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE NINTH. ELIZABETH (CONTINUED).
+
+Mary and her husband were leading the life familiarly known as cat and
+dog; but the cat was in this instance getting rather the best of it.
+She would not allow him to be present at the christening party given in
+honour of their little son, and he was never permitted to hold the baby,
+or enjoy any of those privileges of paternity which are rather honorary
+than agreeable to the individual by whom they are exercised. In ordering
+a dinner or forming a Cabinet his wishes were equally disregarded, and
+if he happened to have objected to a particular dish he was very likely
+to be told there was nothing else in the house; while Murray, Bothwell,
+and Huntley, whom he hated, were appointed to the ministry. It was
+at length determined to get him entirely out of the way; and, as he
+happened to have taken the small-pox, it was agreed that he should sleep
+out, on account of the baby, who, though very soon cowed in his alter
+life, had not undergone the process of vaccination, for the simple
+reason that Dr. Jenner had not invented it. Darnley had consequently
+a bed at a lonely house called the Kirk-a-field, where he was taken in
+only that he might be the more effectually done for by his enemies.
+
+An explosion was heard in the middle of the night, and on the next
+morning the house was found in ruins, with Darnley doubled up under a
+tree at some considerable distance. It was reported that lightning had
+been the cause of the event; but it is not likely that lightning would
+have known how to conduct itself with such precision as to have carried
+Darnley out of a three-pair of stairs window, and lay him down at
+a considerable distance from the house, without breaking a bone, or
+inflicting a bruise of any description whatever. There is every ground
+for suspicion that Bothwell and his colleagues were instrumental to
+Darnley's death; but in order to throw dust--or gold dust--in the public
+eye, they offered a reward of L2,000 for the murderers. This liberality
+was cheap enough, for they knew they could not be called upon to pay any
+reward, they being themselves the parties for whom they advertised.
+A paper war was nevertheless commenced upon the walls, in which the
+murderers were advertised for on one side, and pointed out by name upon
+the other, when fresh rewards were offered, and the bill-stickers warned
+to beware of the libel they were helping to disseminate. At length, such
+a stir was created, that, on the 12th of April, 1567, Bothwell was
+put upon his trial, when by some wilful negligence the counsel for
+the prosecution had no brief, and was of coarse unable to offer any
+evidence. The accused was accordingly acquitted, and the ends of Justice
+were defeated in a manner that sometimes prevails in our own day, by an
+omission to instruct counsel; which seems to be a failing that may at
+least claim the merit of antiquity.
+
+Though Bothwell was not to be executed for his crime, he was destined to
+be married; which, next to the capital penalty, was perhaps the highest
+he could pay, particularly as Mary, who had already seen out a couple of
+husbands and a favourite, was the lady destined for his future partner.
+Bothwell had the audacity to give a supper at a tavern in Edinburgh,
+at the close of the session of Parliament--an entertainment somewhat
+similar to our ministerial whitebait arrangement at Blackwall--when he
+drew from his pocket a recommendation of himself as a fitting husband
+for the Queen of Scotland. Eight bishops, nine earls, and seven lords,
+most of whom were under the influence of toddy, which turned them into
+toadies of Bothwell, affixed their names to the document; and armed
+with this instrument, he, at the head of a thousand horse, effected the
+forcible abduction of Mary on her way from Stirling Castle. An elopement
+on such an extensive scale was something very unusual, even in those
+days of extravagance, and it has been doubted whether it was with
+Mary's own consent that Bothwell ran away with her. It is, however,
+indisputable that after making him Duke of Orkney on the 12th of May,
+she married him on the 15th, and a number of fresh raps from Knox
+followed, as a matter of course, the imprudence she had been guilty of.
+Her subjects took so much offence at this proceeding, that they rose
+against her; and Bothwell, abandoning her to her fate by flying to
+Denmark, left her to settle the matter as she could with her own people.
+A defenceless woman, and a female in distress, was of course impotent
+against an army of raw Scotchmen--whose rawness is so excessive, that
+they can very seldom be done--and Mary was consigned as a prisoner to
+the island of Lochleven. It may be as well to dispose of Bothwell at
+once, before we proceed; and, having traced him to Denmark, we meet
+him picking up a scanty subsistence by doing what we are justified in
+terming pirates' work in general. The badness of business or some other
+cause ultimately turned his head, and we find him subsequently an inmate
+of an asylum for lunatics. Here he took to writing confessions; but
+some of them were so vague, and all of them so contradictory, that,
+recollecting the horrid story-teller Bothwell was known to be, we are at
+a loss to decide how much credit may be attached to his statements. If,
+as a general rule, we may believe half what is said, we shall believe
+nothing that Bothwell has told us; for he has himself contradicted
+one half of his own story, and the other moiety must be struck off in
+pursuance of the principle we have just been adverting to. The fact of
+his death, not having come from his own mouth, may, however, be safely
+relied upon.
+
+While Mary was a prisoner at Lochleven, her subjects took advantage of
+her helplessness to make her sign her own abdication, and settle the
+crown on the head of her baby son, whose first caps had scarcely
+been laid aside when they had to be replaced by the royal diadem. Her
+half-brother, Murray, was appointed regent, and coming over to Scotland
+he was crowned at Stirling, where all who declared themselves sterling
+friends of poor Mary gave in their adherence to the new ruler.
+
+There was staying with the governor of the prison a young hobble-dehoy
+of the name of George Douglas, who, being on a visit to his brother,
+was allowed the privilege of seeing the royal captive. Master George
+Douglas, in natural accordance with the sentimentality peculiar to
+seventeen, fell sheepishly in love with the handsome Mary. She gave some
+encouragement to the gawky youth, but rather with the view of getting
+him to aid her in an escape, than out of any regard to the over
+sensitive stripling. Going to his brother's bedroom in the night, the
+boy took the keys from the basket in which they were deposited, and
+letting Mary out, he handed her to a skiff and took her for a row,
+without thinking of the row his conduct was leading to.
+
+[Illustration: 467]
+
+When she reached the shore she was joined by several friends, and
+marched, as the only lady among six thousand men, in the direction of
+Dumbarton. Murray, however, was instantly on the alert, and meeting
+her near Glasgow, he gave her such a routing, that she was glad to fly
+anywhere she could, to get out of the way of his rough treatment. After
+some little consideration she determined to make for England; and,
+throwing herself and retinue into a fishing-smack, she sailed smack
+for Workington, whence she resolved on walking to Carlisle, against the
+advice of her followers.
+
+Though Elizabeth had expressed some sympathy towards Mary in her
+struggles, the English queen determined that her Scottish sister was
+not a person that could be received at the Court of a virgin--and such
+a virgin--sovereign. The unfortunate woman, who had come over for
+protection as a fugitive, was at once made a prisoner, first at Carlisle
+and then at Bolton, when she was virtually put upon her trial for the
+purpose of ascertaining whether she was good enough to be visited by
+that dragon of virtue, the chaste Elizabeth.
+
+In order to inculpate the Queen of Scots, an old melodramatic incident,
+that then perhaps had the merit of novelty, was resorted to by Murray,
+who produced, towards the closing scene of the trial, a packet of
+letters, by which it was pretended that Mary had furnished proofs of her
+own share in the murder of her husband Darnley. It was not very likely
+that, if guilty, she would have taken the trouble to commit the fact
+to paper, or to leave the letters about; and it only wanted a dagger
+wrapped in rag smeared over with red ochre, to complete the
+melodramatic _denouement_ that Murray seemed anxious to arrive at. These
+"properties," if we may be allowed the expression, had an unfavourable
+effect upon Mary's cause, and a delay having taken place in the
+proceedings, Murray took advantage of it to offer to wash out the red
+ochre from the retributive rag, and throw all the letters in the fire,
+on condition of his being left to do as he pleased with the Scotch
+regency. To this proposition Mary refused to accede, and defied him to
+the proof of his charges, which were believed to be chiefly false; and
+she retaliated upon him by accusing him of having been accessory to the
+death of Darnley. As Elizabeth candidly acknowledged that she believed
+neither, she at first thought of punishing both; but at length Murray
+was furnished with means to return home, while poor Mary was conveyed
+to Tutbury in the county of Stafford, where it does not appear that even
+the old woman of Tutbury was allowed to be sometimes the companion of
+her captivity.
+
+The royal prisoner was now under the supervision of the Earl of
+Shrewsbury, and was permitted, at last, to see a few visitors, several
+of whom were smitten by the charms of one who, though become a little
+passe, was, from the gentleness of her manners, always sure to be
+popular. Norfolk was so much taken with her that he offered her his
+hand, and promised to employ it in handing her on to the throne of
+England. As there was still an obstacle to the marriage, outstanding in
+the name of Bothwell, Mary could only consent, subject to that person's
+approval. The piratical business in Denmark having become slack, he
+was glad to take a small bonus to agree to a divorce, and an alliance
+between Norfolk and Mary, Queen of Scots, was understood, in private
+circles, to be one of the marriages in high life, which the season would
+soon see solemnised. Unfortunately for the parties interested, Mary had
+to send a remittance, in the year 1571, to some friends in Scotland, and
+the post being either irregular or untrustworthy, she had despatched the
+communication by hand, through one Banister, a confidential servant of
+the Duke of Norfolk.
+
+Banister, who was not in the secret, went gaping about with the letter
+in his hand, and, thinking there was something mysterious about it, took
+it to Lord Burleigh, whose significant shakes of the head have earned
+him a note of admiration (!) in the pages of history. Burleigh, taking
+the letter in his hand, and placing his fore-finger on the side of his
+nose, began to wag his head from side to side, like the pendulum of a
+clock, as if he would be up to the time of day, according to his usual
+fashion; when, deliberately holding the letter up to the light, he, in
+the most ungentlemanly manner, perused every word of it.
+
+[Illustration: 469]
+
+He ascertained that Norfolk and Mary were contriving to drive Elizabeth
+from the throne, and the duke was accordingly brought to trial. The
+stupidity of his servants completed his ruin, for his secretary, instead
+of destroying the evidences of his master's guilt, had merely stowed
+them away under the door mats, and stuffed them among the tiles, so that
+the house from top to toe bore testimony to the guilt of its owner. He
+was beheaded in 1752, Elizabeth declaring, as she always did when it was
+too late, that she intended pardoning him, but that somehow or other her
+royal clemency was not forthcoming until it was too late to be of any
+use to its contemplated object.
+
+The queen was urged by many of her admirers to get rid of Mary at once;
+but, as a cat delights to play with a mouse, Elizabeth seemed to take
+pleasure in exercising a feline influence over her unfortunate prisoner.
+The Protestant cause had, about this time, been violently assailed in
+France, and Elizabeth encouraged the departure of English volunteers to
+aid the French Huguenots. Among the British auxiliary legion that went
+forth on this expedition were, of course, a number of adventurers, but
+one of them in particular, was destined to cut a conspicuous figure in
+the history of his country. This was Walter Raleigh, who had been in
+the habit of huzzaing at every royal progress, and keeping up a loyal
+shouting at the side of the carriage of the queen, whenever he met it in
+the public thoroughfares. In her visits to Greenwich, Raleigh was often
+found waiting at the stairs to see her land, and on one occasion the
+queen was about to set her foot in a puddle, when the adventurer, taking
+off his cloak, converted it into a temporary square of carpeting, to
+prevent Elizabeth from making a greater splash than she intended, on her
+arrival at Greenwich. The cloak itself was of no particular value, and
+a little water was more likely to freshen it up than to detract from
+its already faded beauty; but the incident flattered the vanity of the
+queen, and it is said that she never forgot the delicate attention that
+Walter Raleigh had shown to her.
+
+[Illustration: 470]
+
+In the year 1571 a rumour got into circulation that a match was on the
+_tapis_ between Mary and the Duke of Anjou, one of the brothers of
+the French king; and though the report was unfounded, Elizabeth was so
+jealous of anyone marrying anybody but herself, that she, for about the
+twentieth time, threw herself into the European market, as an eligible
+investment for any one who would venture upon a speculation of such a
+very awful character. She sent over Walsingham as her ambassador, to see
+what could be done; but the Duke of Anjou, after sufficient negotiation
+to put an end to any match that might have been contemplated between
+Mary and himself, had the firmness to decline the honour of an alliance
+with Elizabeth. The aged angler next baited a hook for the young Duke
+of Alencon, the boy brother of the Duke of Anjou, but the friends of the
+child stepped in to prevent the sacrifice.
+
+It was not long after the events we have described, that a conspiracy
+to take Mary out of prison, and put Elizabeth out of the world, was by
+accident discovered. One Babington, a man of ardent mind, was implicated
+in this disgraceful affair, which was discovered by the dangerous and
+irregular practice of thrusting letters through chinks in walls,--at a
+time, however, when the post-office arrangements were not so complete as
+to afford the comfort and convenience of a regular letterbox. Mary was
+undeniably implicated in the plot, which was so clumsily carried on that
+fourteen of the parties concerned were executed before she even knew
+that the scheme had been detected. She was taking an airing on a
+palfrey--one of those whose wretched trappings had made her think
+"comparisons are indeed odious," as she thought of her riding excursions
+in her dear France--when a messenger from the queen turned her horse's
+head towards Fotheringay Castle, in Northamptonshire. Commissioners
+were instantly sent down to try her for conspiracy, and on the 25th of
+October, 1586, sentence was pronounced against her in the Star Chamber.
+
+When Elizabeth heard the decision, she affected the utmost reluctance
+to sign the warrant for Mary's execution; and, indeed, this reluctance
+seems to have been somewhat sincere, for she wished the death of her
+rival without any of the odium attaching to a share in an act of so much
+cruelty. The English queen would have preferred that one of her subjects
+should have anticipated the effect of a death-warrant, by taking the
+life of Mary a little in advance; but no one was base or brutal enough
+to further the obvious wishes of the female tyrant. The signing of the
+warrant was performed amid sighs and tears, before Sir Robert Cary,
+Dame Gary, and the little Carys, when some of the children thought they
+recognised tears of sincerity falling from Elizabeth's eyes; but Mother
+Cary's chickens we must not depend upon. After some months of delay and
+duplicity, during which poor Mary was kept in a state of suspense
+more cruel than death itself, the warrant was signed; but Elizabeth
+endeavoured, as far as possible, to throw the blame on her ministers.
+This only aggravates her conduct, for her being ashamed of it, shows she
+was aware of its enormity, and that she did not consider herself to be
+merely performing an act of straightforward duty, though a painful one,
+in consigning to an ignominious death her sister sovereign. Mary was
+executed on the 7th of February, 1587, in the forty-fifth year of her
+age; and it is said that when the executioner held up her head by its
+auburn locks, they came off in his hand, and the grey stubble underneath
+proved too plainly that Mary had lived for many years a secret adherent
+to wig principles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE TENTH. ELIZABETH (CONCLUDED).
+
+
+A few weeks had elapsed after the execution of poor Mary, when an
+ambassador, to palaver over the unfortunate queen's only son, James,
+was sent to Scotland by Elizabeth. When the lad first heard the news he
+began to roar like a calf, and quiver like an arrow. He vowed vengeance,
+in a voice of soprano shrillness, and the homely figure of a storm in a
+slop-basin was faithfully realised.
+
+The ambassador let him have his cry completely out, and then drawing
+himself up with an air of some dignity, observed, "When you have left
+off roaring, and can hear me speak, I will tell you the rights of it."
+
+"Nobody has any right to murder my mamma," was the reply of the boy, who
+again opened the sluices of his grief, and allowed the tears to irrigate
+his face with a couple of meandering rivulets. At length, silence being
+obtained, the ambassador declared that the amputation of Mary's head was
+accidental as far as Elizabeth was concerned; but, "axe-i-dental, you
+mean," was the bitter reply of her sobbing offspring. The messenger,
+nevertheless, persisted that the Queen of England meant nothing by
+signing the death-warrant; that, in fact, she had been "only in fun";
+and as he wound up with the offer of an increased pension to James, the
+heartless brat dried his eyes, with the observation that "What's done
+can't be undone," and pocketed a quarter in advance of his enlarged
+income. That Elizabeth had really been determined upon Mary's death, is
+a point upon which our sagacious readers will require no enlightenment;
+for to them the character of the royal catamountain--we use
+the Johnsonian word, in preference to the old, familiar term of
+catamaran--will be clear, from the gallons of midnight oil which we
+have bestowed upon it. How to get rid of Mary was, in fact, a subject
+of frequent deliberation between the English queen and her
+creatures--pretty creatures they were--among whom Leicester and
+Walsingham stood prominent. Leicester had proposed poison, while
+Elizabeth suggested assassination; but the dagger and bowl, the emblems
+of legitimate tragedy, were both laid aside for the farce of a trial.
+When the sanguinary business was done, the chief actors in it threw the
+blame upon the subordinates, and poor Mr. Secretary Davison was declared
+by Elizabeth to have been the sole cause of the execution of the
+Scottish queen, because he had assisted in executing the deed that
+consigned her to the Scaffold. When Davison was accused of the act, he
+went about exclaiming, "I! Well, that is the coolest!--'Pon my word!
+What next?" But he soon found what was next, for he was committed to
+prison, and fined L10,000, merely to give colour to the accusation.
+When confidentially apprised of the cause of his detention, he went into
+hysterics at the half-ridiculous, half-melancholy, idea of his being
+impounded to give colour to a charge which was altogether false; and "It
+only just cleans me out!--ruins me, by Jove!" was the touching remark
+he made as he paid the entire fine imposed upon him, and quitted the
+prison.
+
+Philip of Spain was now becoming desirous of an attack upon England,
+without having any definite views, beyond a desire for mischief, which
+was inherent in his character. He had got together a very formidable
+fleet, and Elizabeth taking alarm, tried all sorts of plans to check his
+warlike purpose. One of the expedients of her ministers--and it was not
+a bad one--was to throw discredit on a quantity of Philip's bills, in
+the hope of his finding a difficulty in getting them discounted. Sir
+Francis Drake was despatched to Cadiz with a fleet of thirty sail, and
+Elizabeth having on his departure said to him, affectionately, "Go, and
+do your best, Drake--there's a duck," he dashed into Cadiz Bay, knocked
+down four castles, sunk a hundred ships--forecastles included--and going
+home by the Tagus, took a large man-of-war from under the very nose of
+the Marquis of Santa Cruz, and then made him a polite obeisance from the
+bow of the vessel.
+
+Philip did not relax in his preparations for invading England, and he
+got together a very numerous fleet, by hiring vessels wherever he could,
+and sending his emissaries to engage a whole squadron at a time, like
+an individual, who, jumping into the first cab on a stand, desires the
+whole rank to follow him. The Armada--for such it was called--became, of
+course, rather numerous than select; but there is no doubt that if its
+quality was queer, its quantity was most respectable.
+
+The naval service of England had been so shabbily provided for, that
+the British fleet did not exceed thirty-six sail of the line; though
+by-the-by, as the authorities have just told us that Drake took or
+demolished one hundred ships at Cadiz, there seems a slight error in
+figures, which will occasionally happen in the best regulated histories.
+As it was not known where the enemy was to land, the High Admiral, Lord
+Howard of Effingham, was obliged to exclaim--"Now, gentlemen, spread
+yourselves, spread yourselves!" as he ordered Drake, Hawkins, and
+Frobisher to the command of their various detachments. The gallant
+Drake took up his station at Ushant, as if he would have said "You
+shan't!" to any foe who might have come to that point to effect a
+landing. Hawkins cruised near the Scilly Islands to look out, as he
+said, for the silly fellows who should come in his-way; and Lord
+Henry Seymour cruised along the Flanders coast, while other captains
+vigorously scoured the Chops of the Channel. It was expected that the
+Spanish Armada would have come down the Thames, and perhaps amused
+themselves with an excursion to Rosherville, which was strongly
+fortified, as well as all the places on the river. The Boshervillians
+threw themselves into the arms of their resident baron; and the peaceful
+inhabitants of Sheerness prepared to fight, out of sheer necessity.
+Catholics and Protestants vied with each other in eagerness to repel
+the invader from their shores; and the gallant fellows living near the
+Tower, declared in their blunt but expressive language, that "though the
+foe might pass a Gravesend, outlive a Blackwall, or go in safety through
+a Greenwich, he would most assuredly never survive a Wapping!"
+
+The queen herself, having driven down in her tilbury to Tilbury Fort,
+mounted a saddle-horse, and, flushed by her nautical enthusiasm, she
+looked a very horse-marine as she cantered about upon, her steed in the
+presence of her people. The Earls of Essex and Leicester having held
+her rein, she majestically bridled up, and sent forth among the crowd
+a volley of clap-traps, declaring she had come among them, as the song
+says--
+
+     "To conquer, to conqu-e-e-er,
+     To co-o-onquer, or to boldly die-i-i-i-e."
+
+At length it was determined by Philip that the Spanish Armada should set
+out; and, as Strype pleasantly tells us, "a pretty set-out they made of
+it." Poor Santa Cruz, the high admiral, made a most unlucky hit to begin
+with, by falling ill and dying, when his second in command, the Duke of
+Parma, followed his leader's example, with most inconvenient rapidity.
+
+The chief command was given to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, "who was a
+very good man, but a very bad sailor," * and knew so little of maritime
+affairs, that he is reported to have sent to a dealer in marine stores
+for an outfit. At length the _Invincible Armada_ was ready to put to
+sea, and they succeeded in "shoving her off," on the 20th of May, 1588,
+from the Tagus. The seas, which evidently had no notion of being ruled
+by any but Britannia, turned turbulent under the Spanish usurpers, and
+a generalising of the waves made it a toss-up whether Medina Sidonia
+and his fleet would ride out the storm in safety. Four of the ships
+were actually lost, and nearly all the rest dispersed, and when the high
+admiral called upon his subordinate officers to be "calm and collected,"
+he found that the storm had not allowed them to be either the one or the
+other. Having got his forces together again, as well as he could,
+the Spanish admiral made another start towards the English coast, and
+appeared off the Lizard Point, with his fleet drawn up in the form of
+a crescent, being seven miles from horn to horn, and presenting to the
+enemy the horns of a dilemma. The English were on shore at Plymouth,
+playing at bowls on the Hoe, and Drake, who was getting the better of
+the game, declared he would play it out, for there was no hurry, as he
+could beat his companions first, and the Spaniards afterwards. Having,
+at length, taken to their vessels, the British watched the foe as they
+came rolling in their heavy, lumbering ships up the channel. Their
+guns were planted so high up that they shot entirely over the English
+vessels, and into one another, while their unwieldy size rendering
+them unmanageable, several of them being banged to bits by a series of
+frightful collisions. To add to the confusion, one of the vessels took
+fire, and was burnt, by an accident of the cook on board, who, it has
+been ingeniously suggested, was trying to fry some of the celebrated
+chops of the channel, "which," as Mrs. Markham says, in her very
+excellent Abridgment, "you know, my little dears, you have all heard
+talked about."
+
+     * _Vide_ George Cruikshank's renowned etching.
+
+Another large vessel sprung her mast, another sprung a leak, a third
+burst her binnacle, a fourth shivered her timbers, a fifth lost all her
+fore part; and the crew were driven by stern necessity into the stem;
+while on all sides, there prevailed the utmost confusion. Medina Sidonia
+retired to the back yard of one of his ships, where he sat dejected and
+alone, and after a good deal of skirmishing, in which the Spaniards got
+the worst of it at all points of the compass, the duke made the best of
+his way home again. He arrived at Santander about the end of September,
+1588, with the mere skeleton of the force he had started with, and every
+sailor he brought back was in himself a complete wreck of what he had
+been when he quitted his own country. Thus ended the grand design of
+invading England by means of the Spanish Armada, which, to say the
+truth, did more mischief to itself than it sustained at the hands of
+the enemy. Had a public meeting been held at the time to celebrate the
+victory, we are sure that any English patriot might have proposed a vote
+of thanks to the Armada, for the "able and impartial manner in which
+it banged itself almost to pieces, with a total disregard of its own
+interests, and to the incalculable advantage of England."
+
+On the 4th of September, 1588, Leicester, the queen's favourite, died
+on his way to Kenilworth; but Elizabeth never felt the loss, for she had
+already effected a transfer of her affections to Robert Devereux, the
+young Earl of Essex. Her grief at Leicester's death was so slight
+that it did not prevent her from putting an execution into his house,
+sweeping off all he had, under a bill of sale, and submitting it to the
+public hammer in order to repay herself the sums she had advanced to him
+in his lifetime. Essex was a mere boy, and the part of favourite to
+a disagreeable ugly old woman like "our Bessy," was by no means a
+sinecure. He was expected to appear at all times as the light comedian
+of the Court, and was compelled to exercise flattery ana gallantry
+towards a harridan who neither justified the one nor inspired the other.
+He took the earliest opportunity of getting away from her for a short
+time, by going to sea against her express orders; but he would have
+braved anything for a respite from the society of the royal bore, whose
+fondness had become odious to its object, though policy restrained him
+from openly saying so. On his return home, he found himself almost cut
+out of the queen's good graces by Sir Walter Raleigh, whose name we
+have already mentioned as that of a young adventurer. Raleigh was a
+distinguished navigator, which does not mean that he worked on the
+cuttings of a railway; but that he belonged to a very humble line, is
+a point there is not a doubt upon. His reputation rests chiefly on
+the luggage he brought with him after one of his voyages, when some
+potatoes, and a few ounces of tobacco crammed into his _sac de nuit_
+were destined to hand him down to immortality. The most popular
+vegetable the world ever saw, has put Raleigh into everybody's mouth;
+and when we see the cloud rising from the cigar, our imagination may
+trace, in the "smoke that so gracefully curls," the name of one whoso
+renown cannot be whiffed away into the regions of oblivion.
+
+The jealousy of Essex caused Raleigh to be sent into Ireland, where he
+remained for years; and his long sojourn may account for the hold that
+the potato had taken upon the affections of the Irish people.
+
+His rival being thus summarily got rid of, Essex was left to make his
+way with the "virgin queen," who was now verging on old age, and treated
+her young favourite less as a subject than a son; for she had come to
+that time of life when anything she could show in the shape of fondness
+deserved the epithet of motherly. The boy was a fine one of his age,
+being brave and good-looking; but Burleigh and other wise counsellors,
+seeing that Essex made a fool of the queen, or rather, that she made
+a fool of herself by her partiality for him, took a dislike to the
+stripling. On one occasion, old Elizabeth getting kittenish and playful,
+boxed the boy's ears, which tingled with the pain--for her hand had
+become bony from age--when he laid his hand upon his sword, and was
+thrown into disgrace, like a child who had been guilty of naughtiness.
+He was soon recalled, and promising that he would "never do so any
+more," he rapidly resumed his place in the favour of the royal dotard.
+
+The death of Burleigh, on the 4th of August, 1598, for whom the
+hurly-burly of politics had been too much, left the entire field to
+Essex, and he made the most of it, by getting the appointment of Lord
+Lieutenant of Ireland; from which he derived the double advantage of
+advancing his own views and getting away from Elizabeth. He took with
+him a considerable force, which he somehow or other frittered away
+without doing any good whatever: and after losing several of his
+soldiers by marching them completely off their legs, he determined that
+he must have "a truce to such an unpleasant sort of thing," and entered
+at once into a truce with the enemy. Elizabeth, who had calculated upon
+his settling the Irish question at the point of the sword, was disgusted
+at his failure, and desired him not to come home till he had subjected
+his honour to thorough repair, and taken all the stains out of his
+character. As he had no relish for the task imposed upon him, he
+suddenly quitted his post, and hastening to England, arrived at
+the palace covered with mud and dirt, for he had made a regular
+steeple-chase of the latter part of his journey. Without going home to
+change his boots, he rushed into the presence-chamber before the queen
+was up, and, without asking any questions, he pushed his way to her
+dressing room. He found her completely _en deshabille_, and started back
+at finding her hair on a block before her, instead of on her head, for
+she had got her wig in hand, and was trying to turn and twist it into
+a becoming form, by means of powder, pomatum, tongs, combs, and
+curl-papers. Startled by his sudden appearance, she hastened to put
+herself to rights as well as she could, and was angry at the intrusion;
+but as he fell at her feet, she contrived to cover the baldness of her
+head, and then received him more affably. He had no sooner gone than she
+began to reflect upon his presumption in having thus taken her unawares;
+and when he returned, after going home to dress, she would have nothing
+to say to him. He was desired to stay at home, and consider himself
+a prisoner in his own house; but as the old crone had allowed so many
+former familiarities, he was quite unprepared for the game of propriety
+she was now practising. He went home and took to his bed, for it made
+him perfectly sick to witness the sudden prudery of the queen, who
+during his illness sent him a daily basin of broth from her own table.
+She ordered eight eminent physicians to consult on his case; but this
+calling in of a powerful medical force looks very much as if she had
+been disposed to get rid of him, and preferred physic to law for once,
+as a method of destruction. In spite of his eight doctors Essex got
+better, and sent submissive messages, to which Elizabeth turned a deaf
+ear; and Essex, by attributing her deafness to age, irritated her beyond
+expression. He was told that he would find her unbending; when he at
+once replied that he had found her bent nearly double, when he last had
+the honour of seeing her, and he was glad to hear that royalty was once
+more beginning to look up in England, by taking its proper position.
+These remarks irritated Elizabeth beyond expression; and having brought
+him before the privy council, she caused a sentence of banishment to
+be inflicted upon him, which he sarcastically declared was agreeable
+to him, as it would keep from him the sight of Elizabeth, whom he now
+denominated his "old queene." Anxious to try the effect of intimidation
+upon the nervous septuagenarian who now sat upon the throne, he entered
+into a conspiracy with Scotland; but it was soon found out, and,
+rushing with desperate fury into the streets, he tried to raise a mob by
+addressing inflammatory speeches to the populace. The citizens looked
+at him and listened to him, but shaking their heads, passed on, when he
+soon found out that a solo movement unsupported by any concerted piece,
+rendered him truly ridiculous. At length he was hurried off to the
+Tower, and having been tried, he was condemned to die, though he fully
+expected the palsied old creature who held the sceptre in her tremulous
+hand, would, in a love-sick mood, decree his pardon.
+
+It is said that in "happier days," when Essex had been in the habit of
+striking "the light, the light, the light guitar," to the tinlike sound
+of Elizabeth's voice, she had given him a ring, telling him if ever he
+fell into disgrace, the return of that ring would obtain his pardon.
+Elizabeth was from day to day listening to every knock, expecting the
+identical ring, but it never came, and on the 25th of February, 1601,
+he was actually beheaded. Elizabeth never held up her head again; but,
+indeed, as she had long contracted a stoop from debility and old
+age, there is nothing astonishing in the fact we have mentioned. The
+spectacle of an old woman pining in love after a mere boy, was revolting
+enough; but the fact is made doubly disgusting by the recollection
+that she had herself caused the death of the object of her disreputable
+dotage.
+
+Some time after the execution of Essex, the Countess of Nottingham was
+taken ill, and sending for Elizabeth confessed that the favourite had
+given the ring before his death to be delivered to the queen, but that
+it had been kept back for party purposes. The sovereign, who was shaking
+in every limb from ambiguity and agitation, flew at the Countess of
+Nottingham in her bed, seized her by the shoulder, and administered the
+most violent cuffs that a female of seventy is capable of bestowing on
+one who has offended her. "Take that--and that--and that--and that--and
+that!"--was the cry of the queen, as she suited the action to the word
+in every instance. The exertion was too much for the tottering fabric
+of human frailty, who threw herself on the floor when she got to her own
+room, and refusing to go to bed, rolled about for ten days on a pile of
+cushions. Being asked to name her successor, she is said by some to have
+specified James; while others maintain that she said nothing. When she
+was too exhausted to oppose her attendants, they got her into bed, and
+on the 24th of March, 1603, she died in the seventieth year of her age,
+and forty-fifth of her reign.
+
+Many people have a very natural objection to written characters, but we
+feel compelled to give a written character of Queen Elizabeth; and we
+are sorry to remark, that we can say very little that will be thought
+complimentary. In person she was bony, coarse, muscular and masculine.
+Her hair was red, but this she inherited from her father Henry, and thus
+her red hair has been said, by that mountebank, Stiype, to have been
+he-red-hair-tary at that time in the royal family. She endeavoured,
+by the aid of dress, to make up for the unkindness of Nature; and she
+surrounded herself with a quantity of hoops, which, as her figure was
+rather tub-like, may be considered appropriate. She never gave away her
+old clothes, and no less than three thousand dresses were found at her
+death, the bodies of which, it is said, would have covered half London
+at its then size, while the skirts would have covered all the outskirts.
+Her portrait is always drawn with an enormous ruff round her neck, which
+she adopted, it is believed, to hide the roughness of her chin, which
+showed Nature to be her enemy, for it had bearded her frightfully.
+
+She was exceedingly fond of visiting the houses of the nobility; but she
+usually ruined all whom she honoured in this way, by the expense they
+were put to in entertaining her. Lord Leicester, who had her staying
+with him at Kenilworth, for a few days, nearly ruined himself in bears,
+of which he took in a great quantity to bait for the amusement of his
+sovereign.
+
+In disposition, manners and appearance, there was nothing feminine or
+graceful about Elizabeth; but Hume, who seems very fond of her, tells
+us, that in weighing her, one ought to sink the female and think only of
+the sovereign. We cannot, however, understand a person being at the
+same time a good queen and a bad woman, unless the woman happens to be
+somebody beside herself, when she is obviously unfit to be trusted with
+the responsibility of government. Elizabeth had a certain amount of
+talent; "for she had," says Hume, "both temper and capacity;" but
+capacity seems to have belonged rather to the bony bulkiness of her
+unfeminine form, than to the extent of her intellect.
+
+Her private character was exceedingly disreputable; and her amorous
+propensities, which seemed rather to increase with her old age, rendered
+her disgusting to her contemporaries, as well as ridiculous in the eyes
+of posterity. She was constantly in love with some stripling about the
+Court, who, when he became _un peu passe_, was thrown aside for some
+more juvenile admirer.
+
+There can be no doubt that the admirable character of _Mrs. Skewton_,
+if we may be allowed an irreverent allusion to fiction amidst the awful
+solemnities of fact, is to be attributed to the extensive historical
+research of Mr. Dickens, and his intimate acquaintance with the period
+of the reign of Elizabeth. It may be admitted that she governed with
+considerable firmness; but the praise, such as it is, of "coming it
+exceedingly strong," is, after all, a most questionable compliment.
+
+Several of the greatest names in science and literature shed a glory on
+Elizabeth's reign; but the most magnificent sunshine, by falling on
+a mean object, does not make the object itself in reality more
+respectable. Bacon, Shakespeare, Spenser and others, are said to have
+flourished at the time; but we have examined their autographs with
+peculiar care, and have seen no symptoms of flourishing about any one of
+them. To say they all wrote at the period would be true; but to say they
+flourished is an exaggeration to which we will not lend ourselves.
+
+The reign of Elizabeth was, at least, considerably in advance of our own
+time in one respect, for it is remarkable for the passing of a Poor Law
+which, unlike that of the present day, was founded on the principles of
+humanity. This blot, however, will, we trust, be removed in time for a
+sixth--though not quite quickly enough for a second, third, fourth or
+fifth--edition of this work; for the Spirit of the Times has doomed the
+Poor Law to perdition.
+
+Theatres first came into vogue in Elizabeth's reign; and it is a fact at
+which our sober reverence for the Swan of Avon takes considerable alarm,
+that that ever-to-be-lamented bird was in the habit of exercising his
+quills in the neighbourhood of the New Cut, at a concern called the
+Globe, where the prices were only twopence to the pit, and one penny in
+the gallery. The critics sat on the stage, and were furnished with pipes
+and tobacco--a gentle intimation to them to "draw it mild" in their
+notices of the performances. It is possible, that through the fumes
+of the tobacco they got a bird's-eye view of the stage, which was
+favourable to the performance of their critical duties. The audience
+used to read, play at cards, smoke, and drink, before the performance
+began; and perhaps, if the piece happened to be dull, they relieved it
+by some of those pastimes even during its progress.
+
+Smoking, which has since reached such universality that every man
+one meets is a chimney, and every boy a flue, is known to have been
+introduced by Raleigh, who, fearing; that his friends would rally him
+on the propensity, used to indulge it in secret. One day some smoke was
+seen to issue from his apartment, and the people about him, fearing he
+was on fire, inundated him with buckets of water that put him out
+very seriously, and determined him in future not to smoke the pipe of
+privacy. The mode of living was not very luxurious in Elizabeth's reign,
+for a glass of ale and a slice of bread formed the ordinary breakfast,
+while brawn was an article of general consumption; and, as Elizabeth was
+very fond of it, her great brawny arms are easily accounted for.
+
+An attempt has been made to attribute various graces and accomplishments
+to Elizabeth, which, even after attempting to enlarge our credulity, and
+stir up our organ of veneration to its fullest extent, we are unable
+to give her credit for. It is said that she played, sang, and danced
+tolerably well, though her figure seems to give very weighty testimony
+against her probable possession of the last of these accomplishments.
+
+She admired dancing among her courtiers, and she is said to have
+promoted Hatton for his terpsiohorean efforts, she having once seen him
+practising his steps, when she declared that he held himself so well in
+the first position, that she would elevate him to the first positions
+soon as possible. Elizabeth, though profuse in her own indulgences, was
+stingy in the extreme to others, and her accumulation of old clothes
+proves a tenacity of bad habits, and a shabbiness towards her _femme
+de chambre_, that are on a par with the other despicable points in her
+character.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VI. FROM THE PERIOD OF THE ACCESSION OF JAMES THE FIRST TO THE
+RESTORATION OF CHARLES THE SECOND.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIRST. JAMES THE FIRST.
+
+
+[Illustration: 482]
+
+THE moment the queen died, Cecil and the other Lords of the Council
+sneaked out through the back garden gate of the Palace at Richmond at
+three o'clock in the morning on the 24th of March, 1603, and posted for
+Scotland to James, whom they hailed as the brightest Jem that had ever
+adorned the throne. Cecil having long been in correspondence with the
+Scotch king, had only been waiting to see which way the cat jumped, or,
+in other words, for the death of the queen, and she had lived so long
+that he began to think the royal cat had nine lives, whioh delayed her
+final jump much longer than her minister desired..
+
+Before posting to Scotland, the Lords of the Council had stuck up
+several posters about London, proclaiming James the First amid those
+shouts which "the boys" are ever ready to lend to any purpose for which
+a mob has been got together. The Scotch king was of course glad to
+exchange the miserable cane-bottomed throne of his own country for the
+comfortably cushioned seat of English royalty; but he was so wretchedly
+poor that he could not even start for his new kingdom till it had
+yielded him enough to pay his passage thither. He tried hard to get
+possession of the crown jewels for his wife, but the Council would not
+trust him with the precious treasures. On his way to his new dominions
+he was received with that enthusiasm which a British mob has always on
+hand for any new object; but he did not increase in favour upon being
+seen; for if a good countenance is a letter of recommendation, James
+carried in his face a few lines that said very little in his favour. His
+legs were too weak for his body, his eyes too large for their sockets,
+and his tongue was too big for his mouth; so that his knees knocked
+without making a hit, his pupils could not be restrained by the lash,
+while his lingual excrescence caused so many a slip between the cup and
+the lip, that his aspect was awkward and disagreeable.
+
+[Illustration: 484]
+
+During his journey to London he rode on horseback, but he was such a
+bungling equestrian that he was thrown by a sagacious animal intent on
+having his fling at the expense of the sovereign. Besides being ungainly
+in his person, he did not set it off to the best advantage, for he
+was exceedingly dirty; and thus he appeared to be looking black
+at everybody, for his face was encrusted in dust, and though his
+predecessor, Elizabeth, was very objectionable, he could not boast of
+coming to the throne with clean hands. Power was such a new toy to him
+that he could not use it in moderation, and he made knights at the rate
+of fifty a day, which caused Bacon so far to forget himself as to utter
+the silly sarcasm, that there would be a surfeit of Sirs, if James
+proceeded in the manner in which he was beginning.
+
+Conspiracies were soon formed against a monarch so weak, and the
+ambitious. Raleigh, who had been in his youth a mere street adventurer,
+thought he could vault over official posts as easily as he had vaulted,
+over those in the public thoroughfares. His designs being detected, he
+was deprived of some of the offices he possessed, and among others
+his monopoly of licensing taverns, and retailing, wines, for which his
+knowledge of the tobacco business had well fitted him. He plotted with
+Grey, a Puritan, Markham, a Papist, and Cobham, a Nothingarian, to seize
+the person of the king; but the tables were turned upon them by the
+seizure of themselves and their committal to the Tower. Grey, Cobham,
+and Markham were condemned to die; but just as they had laid their
+heads on the block, they were axed if they would rather live, and having
+answered in the affirmative, they were committed to the Tower with
+Raleigh for the remainder of their lives.
+
+The Puritans having complained of ecclesiastical abuses. James ordered
+a meeting at Hampton Court between the bishops and their opponents, to
+talk over their differences. The bishops were allowed the first innings,
+and they continued running on for several hours, when James took the
+matter up on the same side, and the Puritans were not allowed to utter
+a word. After the king had talked himself out of breath, and his hearers
+out of patience, Doctor Reynolds was permitted to take a turn on behalf
+of the Puritans; but he was insulted, interrupted, and regularly coughed
+down before he had spoken twenty words. The king then exclaimed, "Well,
+Doctor, is that all you have to say?" Upon which the Doctor, being
+abashed by the unfairness shown towards him, admitted that he was
+unwilling to proceed. James boasted that he had silenced the Puritans;
+and so he had, but it was by intimidation and bluster alone that he had
+succeeded in doing so.
+
+Encouraged by his triumph over a few trembling sectarians, the king
+called Parliament together, expecting to overcome that body; but he
+found he had to deal with some very awkward customers. They questioned
+his rights, refused his salary, and turned coldly from a proposition
+to unite England with Scotland, which they resisted with a sneering
+assertion that oil and vinegar would never agree. Doubting whether he
+would get much good out of Parliament in the temper in which he found
+it, he abruptly closed the session.
+
+The Catholics, who were subjected to much persecution, became very angry
+under it, and a gentleman of the name of Catesby, who had changed his
+opinions some three or four times, stuck to the last set with such fury,
+that he resolved to assist them at all hazards. His principles had been
+a mere matter of toss up, but he had settled down into a Papist at last;
+and conceiving the idea of destroying King, Lords, and Commons, at
+one blow, he expressed himself on the subject _avec explosion_, as
+the French dramatists have it, to Thomas Winter, a gentleman of
+Worcestershire, who, having been worsted in all his prospects, cottoned
+at once to the scheme. The Catholics had solicited the mediation of the
+King of Spain, and Winter passed over to the Netherlands to hear how
+matters were going on, when he made himself acquainted at Ostend with a
+fellow named Guido Fawkes, who has been equally misinterpreted by "the
+boys" and the historians. It has been usual to describe him as a low
+mercenary who got his name of Fawkes or Forks, from his way of brutally
+demanding everybody to fork out; but however etymology may encourage
+such an interpretation of his name, we must denounce it as a cruel libel
+on his character. * The eagerness of the juvenile mind to adopt any
+malicious absurdity that is proposed to it, has been exhibited in the
+boyish extravagance of making Guido Fawkes a man of straw, though
+there is little doubt that he was a man of substance, and not the mere
+Will-o'-the-Wisp that constitutes his portrait as we see him drawn on
+stone along the paved streets of the metropolis. Guido, whose pretended
+ugliness has made his abbreviated name of Guy synonymous with a
+frightful object, was a gentleman, though a fanatic, and it is not true
+that had Fawkes been invited to dinner, it would have been necessary
+to look after the spoons as well as the Fawkes with unusual vigilance.
+Catesby invited Winter and Guido to his lodgings, where they were met by
+Thomas Percy, a distant relation of the Earl of Northumberland, and by
+John Wright, an obstinate fellow, who would never own himself wrong.
+Grog and cigars--the latter being a novelty recently imported by
+Raleigh--were liberally provided, when Catesby suggested that before
+business could be regularly gone into, an oath of secresy must be
+administered. With a melodramatic desire to give the affidavit all the
+advantages of appropriate scenery, it was suggested that a lone house in
+the fields beyond Clement's Inn should be the spot where the oath should
+be administered.
+
+     * Some monster or punster in human form, declares he was
+     called Fawkes or Forks, because he was ready to con-knive in
+     anything sanguinary. The atrocity of this assertion needs no
+     comment.
+
+In the course of a few days the affidavit had been drawn, perused,
+settled, and engrossed, when the parties met at the place appointed,
+and were all sworn in, with due formality. Catesby, acting as a sort of
+chairman, then proceeded to explain to the meeting his views.
+
+He commenced rather in the shape of innuendos, by hinting that he wished
+the Parliament further, and he thought he knew a mode of despatching all
+the Members at once, by a special train. As his associates did not take
+the hint immediately, he proceeded to expatiate on the expediency of a
+regular blow up, and getting rid of the whole Parliament "slap bang;"
+accompanying his observation by dealing on the deal table a tremendous
+thump, that made a noise resembling the explosion of gunpowder. The
+action seemed to strike a light in in the eyes of all present, and by
+putting this and that together, they perceived that Catesby's intention
+was to act the last scene of the _Miller and his Men_, beneath the walls
+of Parliament. Percy, who was a gentleman pensioner--though he seems
+to have been rather more of the pensioner than the gentleman--had an
+opportunity of banging about the Court, and watching the movements of
+his intended victims. The first care of the conspirators was to take
+a house in the neighbourhood; but no one of the lot, except Percy, had
+sufficient credit to justify his acceptance as a tenant, by any prudent
+landlord. At length they got hold of a dwelling by the water side,
+which was occupied by one Ferris--probably a ferryman--who, for a small
+consideration, vacated the premises in Percy's favour. The back of the
+house abutted--by means of a water-butt--on the Parliamentary party
+wall, and they began picking a hole in the wall as soon as they obtained
+possession. At every move they renewed their oath of secrecy, as if they
+were mutually better known than trusted among themselves, and a secret
+which, even in ordinarily honest hands, is tolerably sure to get wind;
+was very soon known to twenty people at least, through the leakiness of
+one or more of the conspirators.
+
+Emboldened by their success, they took a coal shed on the Lambeth side
+of the river, where one of them, under pretence of going into the potato
+business, accumulated as large a quantity of coals, coke, and wood, as
+he could with the small means upon which he was enabled to speculate.
+The chief scene of their operations was, of course, the house at
+Westminster, where they laid in a large supply of hard boiled eggs; "the
+better," says Strype, "to be enabled to hatch their scheme, and to
+avoid suspicion, by not being compelled to send out for food." The
+wall offering considerable resistance to their projects it was found
+advisable to send for the keeper of the potato shed, over the way, to
+aid in the work, and young Wright, a brother of the same Wright that
+never would admit himself to be wrong, was admitted to a partnership in
+the secret.
+
+Vainly did these ninny-hammers go hammering on at the walls of
+Parliament, which stuck together in a manner very characteristic of
+bricks, and no impression seemed to be made upon them; while the mine
+from Lambeth, by means of which they intended under-mining the British
+Constitution, made scarcely any progress at all. One morning, in the
+midst of their labours, they were startled by a rumbling noise overhead,
+when Guido Fawkes, who acted as sentinel, ran to ascertain the cause of
+the alarming sound. It seemed that one Bright, who carried on the coal
+business in a cellar immediately below the Parliament, was clearing out
+his stock, at "an alarming sacrifice," with the intention of moving his
+business to some more fashionable neighbourhood. Perhaps he was a bad
+tenant, and being on the eve of ejection, removed his coals in revenge
+for having got the sack from his landlord; but, at all events, he had a
+cart into which he was shooting the Wallsend, though he may have had no
+intention of shooting the moon at the expense of his creditors.
+
+Percy, knowing the cellar must be vacant, went to look at it, and
+pronounced it the very thing; though it might, naturally, have excited
+some surprise that one who had hitherto been considered a man of ton
+should become a man of chaldrons and hundredweights by going into the
+coal business, on a scale somewhat limited. A tenancy was nevertheless
+effected, and several barrels of gunpowder were carried into the vault,
+under the pretence that the small-beer and bloater business was about to
+be commenced by the new lessee, in a style of unusual liberality.
+
+Guy Fawkes was despatched to Flanders, to obtain adherents to the
+scheme, but he got no further than to obtain a promise from Owen that he
+would speak to Stanley, which seems to have been merely equivalent to
+an extension of the secret, without any beneficial result to the
+conspirators. On the return of Guido, he found that while he had been
+extending the secret abroad, his colleagues had been blabbing--of course
+confidentially--at home, so that the secret was becoming a good deal
+like an "aside" in a melo-drama, which comes to the ears of every
+one but the person most interested in being made acquainted with its
+purport.
+
+Every arrangement was now made for blowing up the Parliament sky-high,
+when a prorogation, until the 5th of November, was suddenly announced,
+and the conspirators began to fear that the secret, which had
+experienced as many extensions as a railway line, had found its way, by
+some disagreeable deviation, to the ears of the intended victims. The
+expense of the conspiracy had hitherto been borne by Catesby, who paid
+for all the hard-boiled eggs, the rent of the coal-cellar, with the
+wood and the coals that had been had in; for, the rest being soldiers of
+fortune, which means that they were soldiers of no fortune at all, would
+not have got credit for even the bull's-eye lanthorn, which has since
+cut such a conspicuous figure in the history of the period. Catesby had,
+however, spent so much in new-laid eggs and new-laid gunpowder--for he
+had to support a numerous train--that he was obliged to take in fresh
+capital, and Sir Edward Digby, with Francis Tresham, were admitted
+as shareholders in the dangerous secret. Digby put down L1500 on the
+allotment of a slice of the mystery to himself, and Francis Tresham, who
+did not much like the speculation, though he consented to enter into it,
+gave his cheque for L2000, saying that he considered the money thrown
+away as completely as if he had wasted it in horse-chestnuts, Venetian
+grog, or raspberry vinegar. His givings were accompanied by fearful
+misgivings, and he never expected to see the hour when he should have
+the honour of being sent up to posterity on the wings of a barrel of
+gunpowder.
+
+The 5th of November was the day that the conspirators had agreed to
+immortalize, for the benefit of future dealers in squibs, crackers,
+Catharine-wheels, and all the other "wheels within wheels," that are so
+completely in character with this complicated project. They used to take
+blows on the river preliminary to the great blow they had in their eye,
+and a house at Erith was their frequent place of rendezvous. They also
+held consultations at White Webbs--not Webb's the White Bear--near
+Enfield, and here they arranged that Guido Fawkes, after putting matters
+in train, should set fire to it, by a slow burning match, which would
+give him time to escape, though he often said, half jestingly, that to
+find his match would be exceedingly difficult. As the scheme drew near
+its intended execution, the "secret" had become so fearfully divided
+that every one who possessed a share of it had some friend or other he
+wanted to save; and if each had been allowed to withdraw his man, the
+residue of the Parliament would scarcely have been worth the powder and
+shot it had been determined to devote to them. Tresham, for example,
+was seized with a sudden fit of benevolence towards old Lord Monteagle;
+while Kay, the seedy and needy gentleman in charge of the house at
+Lambeth, wanted to save Lord Mordaunt, who had cashed for poor K. an I
+O U, when the money was of great use to him. Catesby, who was not so
+tender-hearted, declared it was all very well, but if they were to go on
+saving and excepting one after the other, there could be no explosion
+at all, unless they could procure some of that celebrated discriminating
+gunpowder, which blows up all the villains, in the last scene of a
+melo-drama, and spares the virtuous characters. He insisted, therefore,
+on the necessity of leaving the result to a toss-up, in which all would
+have an equal chance of winning or losing.
+
+Tresham, who combined the wavering of the weathercock with the
+tremulousness of the tee-to-tum, was still intent on giving a sort of
+general warning to a number of his friends, and when his blabbing was
+objected to, he declared the affair had better be put off, as he could
+find no more money to carry on the conspiracy. Catesby, Winter, and
+Fawkes objected to delay; whereupon it is supposed that Tresham not only
+ratted but let the cat out of the bag in a most unwarrantable manner.
+Lord Monteagle, who had a country box at Hoxton, was giving a _petit
+souper_ to a few friends on the 26th of October, and he was just
+finishing the leg of a Welsh rabbit, when his page presented him a
+letter that had just been left by a tall man who had refused to leave
+his name or wait for an answer. Lord Monteagle, thinking it might be a
+bill, desired one of his guests to read it out, when it proved to be a
+letter written in the characteristic spelling of the period. "I would
+advyse yowe, as yowe tender yower lyf, to devyse some excuse to shift
+of vower attendance at this Parleament," said the anonymous scribbler,
+which threw Monteagle into such alarm that he took the Hoxton 'bus,
+and went off to Whitehall the same evening to see Cecil. The king was
+"hunting the fearful hare at Royston," in the most hare-um scare-um
+style, and it was resolved that nothing could, would, or should be done
+until the return of the sovereign.
+
+Notwithstanding the letter having been delivered as early as the 26th
+of October, nothing seems to have been done to stop the conspiracy,
+for Fawkes went regularly once a day to the cellar, to count the coals,
+snuff the rushlight, and do any other little odd job that the progress
+of the conspiracy might require. Cecil and Suffolk having laid their
+heads together on the subject of the letter, at last fancied they had
+found the solution of the riddle, which for the convenience of the
+student, we will throw into the form of a charade, after an approved
+model.
+
+     My first is a sort of peculiar tea;
+     My second a lawn or a meadow might be;
+     My whole's a conspiracy likely to blow
+     King, Commons, and Lords to a place I don't know.
+
+The "peculiar tea" was gunpowder, the "lawn" or "meadow" was a plot--of
+grass, and the whole was the Gunpowder Plot, which, though it went off
+very badly at the time, caused an explosion from which the country has
+not yet quite recovered. Notwithstanding the solution of the mystery,
+no steps were taken to bring the matter, to an issue, and Fawkes was
+permitted to be at large about town, paying his diurnal visits to the
+cellar without attracting the observation of anyone. Tresham and Winter
+talked the matter over in Lincoln's Inn Fields, or wandered amid the
+then romantic scenery of Whetstone Park, to consult on the scheme and
+its probable completion. The timid Tresham proposed flight, but his
+fellow conspirators, who were not so flighty, resolved on persevering,
+and the intrepid Fawkes kept up a regular Cellarius, * by dancing
+backwards ana forwards about the cellar.
+
+     * We may as well state, for the benefit of that posterity
+     which this work will reach and the Cellarius will not, that
+     the Cellarius is a dance fashionable in the year 1847, when
+     this history was written.
+
+The shilly-shallying of all parties with respect to the gunpowder
+conspiracy is one of the most remarkable features of the period when it
+occurred; for we find the plotters, with detection staring them in the
+face, adhering to their old haunts, while the intended victims though
+made aware of the plot, were as tardy as possible in taking any steps to
+baffle it. Fawkes continued his visits to the cellar just as confidently
+as ever; and one would think that ultimately detection was the object
+he had in view for he lurked about the premises with such obstinate
+perseverance that his escape was impossible. At length Suffolk, the Lord
+Chamberlain, took Monteagle down to the House the day before the opening
+of Parliament, to see that all was right, and they occupied themselves
+for several hours in looking under the seats, unpicking the furniture
+of the throne to see if anyone was concealed inside, and searching
+into every hole and corner where a conspirator was not likely to secrete
+himself. Having taken courage from the fact of there being no signs
+of danger, they determined to go down stairs into the cellar, under
+pretence of stopping up the rat-holes--for even in those early days rats
+found their way into the House--and they had no sooner opened the door
+than they saw in one corner a round substance, which they at first took
+for a beer barrel. They approached it with the intention of giving it
+a friendly tap, when the supposed barrel rose up into the height of a
+water-butt.
+
+[Illustration: 490]
+
+Suffolk instantly got behind Monteagle, who stood trembling with fear,
+when the phantom cask assumed the form of a "tall, desperate fellow,"
+who proved to be Fawkes, and the Chamberlain, affecting a careless
+indifference, demanded his "name, birth, and parentage." Guido handed
+his card, bearing the words G. Fawkes, and announced himself as the
+servant of Mr. Percy, who carried on a trade in coals, coke, and wood,
+if he could, in the immediate neighbourhood. "Indeed," said Suffolk,
+"your master has a tolerably large stock on hand, though I think there
+is something else screened besides the coals, which I see around me."
+Without adding another word, he and Monteagle ran off, and Fawkes
+hastened to acquaint Percy with what had happened.
+
+Poor Guido seems to have formed a most feline and most fatal attachment
+to the place, for nothing could keep him out of the cellar, though he
+knew he was almost certain of being hauled unceremoniously over the
+coals, and he went back at two in the morning to the old spot, with his
+habitual foolhardiness. He had no sooner opened the door than he was
+seized and pinioned, without his opinion being asked, by a party of
+soldiers. He made one desperate effort to make light of the whole
+business, by setting fire to the train, but he had no box of Congreves
+at hand, and he observed, with bitter boldness, in continuation of a pun
+which he had made in happier days, that he had at last found his match
+and lost his Lucifer. Poor Guy Fawkes, having been bound hand and foot,
+was taken on a stretcher to Whitehall, having been previously searched,
+when his pocket was found filled with tinder, touch-wood, and other
+similar rubbish. Behind the door there was a dark lanthorn, or
+bull's-eye, that had cowed the soldiers at first glance, by its glazed
+look, but it seemed less terrible on their walking resolutely up to it.
+Fawkes was taken to the king's bedroom, at Whitehall, and though his
+limbs were bound and helpless, he spoke with a thick, bold, ropy voice
+that terrified all around him. His tones had become quite sepulchral,
+from remaining so long in the vault, and when asked his name, he
+scraped out from his hoarse throat the words "John Johnson," which came
+gratingly--as if through a grating----on the ears of the bystanders. He
+announced himself as John the footman to Mr. Percy, and he threw himself
+into an attitude--which was rather cramped by his pinions--which he
+found anything but the sort of pinions that would enable him to
+soar into the lofty regions of romance to which he had aspired. He
+nevertheless boldly announced his purpose, with the audacity of a stage
+villain; and with that sort of magnanimity which lasts, on an average,
+about five minutes in the guilty breast, he refused to disclose the
+names of his accomplices.
+
+One of the Scotch courtiers, who had a natural feeling of stinginess,
+asked how it was that Fawkes had collected so many barrels of gunpowder,
+when half the quantity would have done. Upon which Fawkes replied, that
+his principal had desired him to purchase enough to blow the Scotch back
+to Scotland. "Hoot, awa, mon!" rejoined the Scot; "but ken ye not that
+ye might have bought half the powder, and put the rest of the siller in
+your pocket?" Fawkes sternly intimated that though he would have blown
+up the Parliament, he would not defraud his principal. "Hoot, mon!"
+cried the Scotchman, who loved his specie under the pretence of loving
+his species, and who, it is probable, belonged to the Chambers; "Hoot,
+mon!" he whined, "dinna ye ken that there are times when you mun just
+throw your preencipal overboard?" *
+
+     * A fact!
+
+On the 6th of November Fawkes was sent to the Tower, with instructions
+to squeeze out of him whatever could be elicited by the screw, which
+was then the usual method of scrutiny. For four days he would confess
+nothing at all; but his accomplices began to betray themselves by their
+own proceedings. Several of them fled; but Tresham exhibited the very
+height of impudence by coming down to the Council and asking if he could
+be of any use in the pursuit of the rebels. Nothing but the effrontery
+of the boots which ran after the stolen shoes, crying "Stop thief," and
+have never returned to this very hour, can be compared with the
+coolness of Tresham in offering to aid in effecting the capture of the
+conspirators.
+
+Catesby and Jack Wright cut right away to Dunchurch, Percy filled his
+purse, and Christopher Wright packed up his kit, to be in readiness for
+making off when occasion required, while Keyes made a precipitate bolt
+out of London the morning after the plot was discovered.
+
+[Illustration: 494]
+
+Rookwood, who had ordered relays of fine horses all along the road, went
+at full gallop through Highgate, and never slackened his pace till
+he reached Turvey, in Bedfordshire, where he came tumbling almost
+topsy-turvy over the inhabitants. Arriving at Ashby, St. Legers, with
+a _legerete_ quite worthy of the race for the St. Leger itself, he had
+already travelled eighty miles in six hours; but he nevertheless pushed
+along on his gallant steed--a magnificent dun--who always ran as if he
+had a commercial dun at his heels, to Dunchurch. Here he found Digby,
+enjoying his _otium cum dig._--with a hunting party round him; but the
+guests guessed what was in the wind, and fearing they might come in
+for the blow, had vanished in the night-time. When Digby sat down
+to breakfast the next day, his circle of friends had dwindled to a
+triangle, consisting of Catesby, Percy, and Rookwood, who, with their
+host, now become almost a host in himself, took speedily to horse, and
+rode a regular steeple-chase to the borders of Staffordshire. Here they
+arrived on the night of the 7th of November, at Holbeach, where they
+took possession of a house; but by this time Sir Richard Walsh, the
+sheriff of Worcester, who had got writs out against them all, was close
+upon them with his officers.
+
+In the morning their landlord, one Littleton, having been let into their
+secret, let himself out of his bedroom window through fear, and Digby
+decamped under pretence of going to buy some eggs to suck for breakfast,
+as well as to look for some succour. Digby had hardly shut the street
+door when its bang was echoed by a bang up stairs, occasioned by
+Catesby, Percy, and Rookwood having endeavoured to dry some gunpowder
+in a frying pan over the fire. Catesby was burnt and blackened, besides
+being blown up for having been the chief cause of the accident; and
+shortly afterwards, to add to their misfortunes, the sheriff, with the
+_posse comitatus_, surrounded the dwelling. The conspirators endeavoured
+to parry with their swords the bullets of their assailants, but this was
+a hopeless job, and keeping up their spirits as well as they could,
+they exclaimed at every shot fired on the side of the king, "Here comes
+another dose of James's powder." Catesby, addressing Thomas Winter,
+roared out, "Now then, stand by me, Tom!" and Winter, suddenly taking
+a spring to his friend's side, they were both shot by one musket. Their
+attendants, not being able to get the bullet out, issued a bullet-in to
+say they were both dead, and the brothers Wright were not long left to
+bewail the fate of their accomplices. Percy, who had persevered to the
+last, got a wound which wound him up, and Rookwood had received such a
+home-thrust in the stomach from a rusty pike, that the pike rust sadly
+disagreed with him. Digby, whose feelings had run away with him, was
+overtaken, caught, and made fast, because he had been too slow, while
+Keyes came to a dead-lock, and the prisoners being all brought to
+London, were lodged in the Tower.
+
+Tresham, who had never left town, but was strutting about with all the
+easy confidence of a man with "nothing out against him," was suddenly
+nabbed, in spite of his remonstrances, conveyed in exclamations of "What
+have I done?"
+
+"La! bless me! there must be some mistake!" and other appeals of an
+ejaculatory but useless character.
+
+Poor Guido Fawkes was examined by Popham, Coke, and Wood, whose names
+may now for the first time be noticed as appropriate to the business
+they were entrusted with. Popham is surely emblematical of the series
+of pops, bangs, and explosions that would have ensued from the Gunpowder
+Plot; while Coke and Wood are obviously symbolical of the combustibles
+required for fuel. In vain did these sagacious persons attempt to get
+anything from Guido, who said "he belonged to the Fawkes and not to
+the spoons, who might perhaps be made to convict themselves by cross
+questioning." Popham popped questions in abundance; Coke tried to coax
+out the truth; and Wood, if he could, would have got at the facts;
+but neither threats nor promises could prevent Fawkes from showing his
+metal.
+
+Posterity, in altering his name to Guy Fox, has happily hit upon an
+appropriately expressed the cunning of his character. He confessed his
+own share in the business readily enough, but resolutely refused to
+betray his associates. "I will not acknowledge that Percy is in the
+plot," he cried; which reminds us of an intimation made by a gentleman
+just arrested, to his surrounding friends, that "he did not wish the
+bailiff pumped upon." A nod is as good as a wink in certain cases;
+and like winking the sheriff's officer was submitted to a course of
+hydropathic treatment. In the same manner the declaration of Fawkes
+that "Percy had nothing to do with it--oh, dear no, nothing at all!"
+was quite enough to put the authorities on the right scent had any such
+guidance been required.
+
+[Illustration: 495]
+
+Poor Fawkes was so fearfully damaged by the torture he had undergone,
+that his handwriting was entirely spoiled; and specimens of his mode
+of signing his name after the torture, contrasted with the copy of his
+autograph before the cruel infliction, present the reverse of the result
+which writing-masters of our day boast of producing by their six lessons
+in penmanship.
+
+Guido Fawkes, however, confessed nothing specifically beyond what the
+Government already knew, but Tresham and Catesby's servant Bates, a
+man remarkable for his _betise_, confessed whatever the authorities
+required. Tresham being seized with a fatal illness in prison, retracted
+his confession, which he declared had been extorted or "extortured"--as
+Strype has it--from him, and he died after placing his recantation in
+the hands of his wife to be given to Cecil. The surviving conspirators
+were brought to trial after some delay, and though they all pleaded not
+guilty, as long as there was a chance of escape, they were no sooner
+convicted beyond all hope than they began boasting of their offence, and
+were all "on the high ropes" when they came to the scaffold. Garnet the
+Jesuit was served up by way of garniture to the horrible banquet that
+the vengeance of the Protestants required. This brilliant character
+shone with increased lustre as the time for his execution approached,
+and however glorious had been his rise, the setting was worthy of Garnet
+in his very brightest moments.
+
+Besides those who were executed for an avowal, or at least, a proved
+participation in the Gunpowder Plot, several persons were punished very
+severely, in the capacity of supplementary victims, who might, or
+might not, have been implicated in the conspiracy. Lords Mordaunt and
+Stourton, two Catholic nobles, were fined, respectively, L10,000 and
+L4000 because they did not happen to be in their places in Parliament,
+to be blown up, had Fawkes succeeded in accomplishing his object.
+The Earl of Northumberland was sent to the Tower for a few years, and
+mulcted of L30,000, because he had made Percy a gentleman pensioner,
+some years before; but no trouble was taken to show how this could
+have rendered him afterwards a rebel, nor how Northumberland could be
+responsible, even if such a result had really arrived. But it was urged
+by the apologists for this severity, that the Gunpowder Treason
+would have been fatal alike to the good and the bad, and that as the
+punishment should correspond with the offence, an indiscriminate dealing
+out of penalties among the guilty and the innocent was quite allowable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SECOND. JAMES THE FIRST (CONTINUED).
+
+
+[Illustration: 497]
+
+THE Parliament that was to have been dissolved in thin air on the 5th
+of November, leaving nothing behind but a report in several volumes of
+smoke, met for the despatch of business on the 21st of January, 1606.
+Laws were passed against the Papists in a most vexatious spirit, and by
+one enactment they were positively prohibited from removing more than
+five miles from home without an order signed by four magistrates. If
+a Catholic had got into a cab, and the horse had run away, without the
+driver being able to pull up within the fifth mile, the fare would have
+been most unfairly sacrificed.
+
+James, who saw the advantage Scotland would derive from an alliance with
+England, began to urge the Union, but the English naturally objected
+to such a very unprofitable match; for Scotland had nothing to lose,
+nothing to give, nothing to lend, and nothing to teach, except the
+art of making bread without flour, joke-books without wit, reputation
+without ability, and a living without anything. James felt that the
+sarcasms on the Scotch were personal to himself, and he told the
+Parliament they ought not to talk on matters they did not understand;
+but it was thought that to restrict them to subjects which they did
+understand would be equivalent to depriving them of liberty of speech on
+nearly every occasion.
+
+James had become somewhat popular on account of the attempt to blow
+him up sky-high with all his ministers, and a rumour of his having been
+assassinated, sent him up a shade or two higher in the affections of his
+people. It is a feature in the character of the English that they always
+take into their favour any one who seems to be an object of persecution;
+and there is no doubt that if in a crowd there is any one desirous
+of rising in public esteem, he has only to ask a friend to give him a
+severe and apparently unmerited blow on the head, in order to render him
+the idol of the surrounding multitude. If there had been no Gunpowder
+Plot, it would have been worth the while of James to have got one up,
+for the express purpose of increasing his popularity. His qualities,
+as shown in his way of life at this time, do not warrant the esteem in
+which he was held; for he divided his time between the pleasures of
+the table, the excitements of the chase, and the blackguardism of the
+cock-pit. When remonstrated with on the lowness of his pursuits, he
+declared that his health required relaxation; and he would declare that
+he would rather see one of his Dorking chickens win his spurs, than
+witness the grandest tournament. These pursuits, which were expensive,
+caused him to do many acts of meanness to obtain the necessary supplies:
+and among other things he went to dine with the Clothworkers as well
+as with the Merchant Tailors, among both of whom the royal hat was sent
+round at the close of the banquet.
+
+At the second of these entertainments his own beaver had just made the
+circuit of the table with considerable effect, when, encouraged by the
+liberality of the company, he shoved on to the social board a cap, in
+the name of his son, Prince Henry. The collection for the child was not
+very ample, for many of the guests objected to being called upon for a
+trifle towards lining the pockets of the young gentleman's new frock,
+more especially when it was obvious that James fully intended to clutch
+the whole of the additional assets.
+
+[Illustration: 498]
+
+Among other disreputable methods he took of procuring money, was the
+institution of the order of Baronets, whose titles he sold at a
+thousand pounds each, without regard to the merit of the purchasers. The
+antiquity of a baronetcy is therefore not much in its favour, and those
+who can trace the possession of such a distinction in their family down
+to the first establishment of the rank, do nothing more than prove the
+possession, either honestly or dishonestly, of a thousand pounds by one
+of his ancestors. Seventy-five families took advantage of this traffic
+in dignities to obtain a sort of spurious nobility, founded on the
+necessities of the sovereign. The only qualifications required of
+candidates wishing to be elected to the order were "cash down," to pay
+the fees, and an ability to trace a descent from at least a grandfather
+on the father's side; so that _semble_, as the lawyers say, the maternal
+ancestors might have been utterly hypothetical and purely anonymous. The
+arms of the baronets have always included those of Ulster, because the
+money they contributed was designed for the relief of that province--a
+proof that Ireland has been a drain upon England for a long series of
+centuries. The emblem of Ulster is a bloody hand, which was only too
+appropriate to the place; and the symbol being called in the language of
+heraldry a hand gules--or gold--in a field argent--or silver--was also
+characteristic of the metallic source from which the baronets derived
+their titles.
+
+Prince Henry, the heir to the throne, had long been looked upon as a
+pleasing contrast to his odious father, and the people were anticipating
+the former's reign with an assurance that the amiable and accomplished
+son would compensate for the infliction they had endured in the
+ignorance, pride, and selfishness of the parent. Death, however, that
+sometimes seizes first on the best, and leaves the worst till the
+last--on the principle of the boy who began by picking all the plums out
+of the pudding--took the youthful prince before appropriating his papa,
+and caused the latter sinfully to exult in being the survivor of his own
+offspring. He forgot the maxim that "Whom the gods love, die young," and
+the remarks he made upon his own comparative longevity proved that he
+at least was one of those whom the gods had not been anxious to adopt at
+the earliest opportunity. The young prince died of a malignant fever,
+on the 5th of November, 1612, and his father, whose harsh
+conduct--especially to Sir Walter Raleigh and other great men--had been
+criticised by his heir, allowed no mourning to take place, but made the
+unnatural and blasphemous boast that "he should outlive all who opposed
+him."
+
+Though having little or no affection for his own children, James
+delighted in having about him some low and sneaking favourite who would
+flatter his ridiculous vanity, and help to cheat him into the belief
+that he was a good and amiable character. As no one of spirit and
+honesty would consent to become the despicable parasite that James
+required, some mean and unprincipled vagabond was of necessity selected
+as the depositary of that confidence which a son, with the feelings of
+a gentleman, could not of course participate. Henry had therefore been
+excluded from that free communication which should exist between child
+and parent in every station, and an uneducated humbug named Robert Carr
+had wormed his way into the heart, or rather into the favour of James,
+who was drawn toward the other by a sympathy with congenial littleness.
+Carr was such a wretched ignoramus as to be unable to speak ten
+consecutive words of grammar, and it flattered the egregious vanity of
+James to be able to impart some of that education of which he had
+just about enough to enable him to show his superiority over his most
+unlettered pupil. Carr played his cards so successfully that he was soon
+not only knighted but created Viscount Rochester; and though his future
+career proved him worthier of the rope, he actually obtained the Garter.
+
+It was to be presumed that this disreputable scapegrace would soon do
+something or other to prove how far James had been right or wrong in
+the selection of a friend, adviser, companion, and favourite. The
+necessities of Carr were so well supplied by sponging on his royal
+patron that it was not necessary for the former to commit any pecuniary
+swindle; but he very rapidly got into a most disgraceful connection with
+the Countess of Essex, a vile person who obtained a divorce from her own
+husband, to enable her to marry Rochester. The latter had a friend named
+Sir Thomas Overbury, who advised him to have nothing to do with the
+profligate woman in question. This so irritated the countess that she
+persuaded her paramour to join her in poisoning the party who had given
+the advice, and after trying the homoeopathic principle for some weeks
+without effect, they at length gave him one tremendous dose which did
+the atrocious business. Carr had received the title of Earl of Somerset
+on his infamous marriage, but the favourite was getting already a little
+out of favour when the affair of the murder happened. James being one
+of those who promptly turned his back on those who were "down in the
+world," and had smiles for those only who were prosperous, began to
+estrange himself from Somerset, and to transfer his worthless friendship
+to George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham.
+
+The king first saw this young scamp at the Theatre Royal, Cambridge,
+where a five-act farce called _Ignoramus_ was being represented by a
+party of distinguished amateurs, with the applause that usually attends
+these interesting performances. Villiers was appointed cupbearer--a
+grade immediately under that of bottle-holder--to the king, and the
+influence of the new favourite was soon felt by the old, who found
+himself arrested one fine morning on the charge of having been concerned
+in Sir Thomas Overbury's murder. The steps taken for the punishment of
+this atrocity were perfectly characteristic of the period. By way of
+a preliminary offering to Justice, some half dozen of the minor and
+subordinate parties to the crime were executed off-hand, while the two
+principal delinquents, Somerset and his countess, having been tardily
+condemned, were immediately afterwards pardoned. The infamous couple
+subsequently received a pension of L4000 a year from the king, who no
+doubt felt that Somerset could show him up, and was just the sort of
+scoundrel to do so unless he could be well paid for his silence. The
+annuity allowed to the ex-favourite must be looked upon as hush-money,
+rendered necessary by the mutual rascalities of the donor and the
+recipient, who, being in each other's power, were under the necessity of
+effecting a compromise. The fall of Somerset was followed by the rise of
+Villiers, who rushed through the entire peerage with railroad rapidity,
+passing the intermediate stations of Viscount, Earl, and Marquis, till
+he reached the terminus as Duke of Buckingham.
+
+Poor Raleigh, who had been thirteen years in the Tower, where he was
+writing the History of the World, began to feel a very natural anxiety
+to get out of his prison, and describe, from ocular demonstration, the
+subject of his gigantic labours. He accordingly spread a report that he
+knew of a gold mine in Guiana where the stuff for making guineas could
+be had only for the trouble of picking it up, and the king was persuaded
+to let him go and try his luck in America. Raleigh had no sooner
+got free than he published a prospectus and got up a company with
+a preliminary deposit sufficient to start him off well on his new
+enterprise. He proved with all the clearness of figures--which the
+reader must not think of confounding with facts--that a hundred per
+cent, must be realised; and the shares in Raleigh's gold mine rose to
+such a height that he was enabled to rig a ship after having rigged the
+market. Plans were published, with great streaks of gamboge painted all
+over, to represent the supposed veins of gold that were waiting only to
+be worked; and through the medium of these veins the British public bled
+very rapidly.
+
+The extent of the mining mania got up by Sir Walter may be imagined when
+we state that he arrived with twelve vessels at Guiana, a portion of
+which had already been taken possession of by Spain; and the English
+speculators declared with disgust, that they had come for the gold,
+and had not expected to meet the Spanish. The town of St. Thomas
+being already in the possession of the latter, was boldly attacked and
+ultimately taken, but instead of finding a mine there were only two
+ingots of gold in the whole place, which Raleigh clutched, exclaiming
+"These are mine," immediately on landing. It was evident to the whole
+party that Raleigh's story of the gold mine was a mere "dodge" to get
+himself released from the Tower; and when they came to look for the
+boasted vein, they found it was literally in vain that they searched for
+the precious metal. A mutiny at once broke out, and as Raleigh deceived
+them in his promise of introducing them to abundance of gold, they made
+him form a very close connection with a large quantity of iron. They in
+fact threw him into fetters, a species of treatment that, had it been
+applied to every projector of a bubble company during the railway mania
+of 1846, would have hung half the aldermen of London in chains, and
+linked society together by a general concatenation of nearly every
+rank as well as every profession. Poor Raleigh arrived safe in Plymouth
+Sound, but he found a proclamation out against him, accusing him of a
+long catalogue of crimes, and inviting all the world to take him into
+custody.
+
+The Spanish ambassador was at the bottom of this affair, for the
+Spaniards had a score of old scores against Sir Walter, who had no
+sooner landed at Plymouth than he was made a prisoner. With considerable
+ingenuity he pretended to be very ill, and even feigned insanity; but
+the latter was a plea that could not so easily be established in the
+time of Raleigh as it has been in our own days, when it has been found a
+convenient and effective excuse for those who, having committed murder,
+escape on the ground of their being given to eccentricity. Raleigh tried
+it on very hard, by talking incoherently, playing the fool, dancing
+fandangos in his prison, sending a potato to his tailor to be measured
+for a new jacket, and feigning other acts of madness, but to the writ
+_de lunatico inquirendo_, there was no other return than _nullum iter_,
+or no go, when the investigation into his state of mind was concluded.
+In order to save the trouble and expense of a fresh conviction, the old
+outstanding judgment was again brought up, and it was determined to kill
+him by a bill of reviver--if such an anomaly could be permitted. He grew
+ponderously facetious as his end drew nigh, and made one or two jokes
+that might have saved him had they been heard in time, for they gave
+evidence of an amount of mental imbecility that should have released
+him from all responsibility on account of his actions. Among other
+lugubrious levities of Raleigh before his death, was the well-known
+but generally-execrated remark in reference to a cup of sack which was
+brought to him: "Ha!" said he, "I shall soon have the sack without
+the cup;" an observation that elicited, as soon as it was known, an
+immediate order for his execution. "That head of Raleigh's must come
+off," cried the king, "for it is evident the poor fellow has lost the
+use of it." On the 29th of October, 1618, poor Raleigh joked his last,
+upon the scaffold, where he stood shivering with cold, when the sheriff
+asked him to step aside for a few minutes and warm himself. "No," said
+Sir Walter, "my wish is to take it cool;" and then looking at the axe,
+he balanced it on the top of his little finger--some say his chin--and
+observed, "This is a great medicine, rather sharp, but it cures all
+diseases." At this the headsman, no doubt irritated by the maddening
+mediocrity of the intended witticism, let fall the fatal blade, and
+Raleigh, with his head cut off, never came to--or rather never came
+one--again.
+
+We ought, perhaps to shed a tear over the fate of this great, though
+unprincipled man; but it is not so easy to turn on the main of sentiment
+to the fountains of pity, after the water has been cut off during more
+than two centuries by Time, in the capacity of turncock. Besides, in
+going through the history of our native land there are so many victims,
+all more or less worthy of a gush of sympathy, that we should literally
+dissolve ourselves in tears before we had got half through our labours,
+if we began giving way to what old King Lear has ungallantly termed a
+woman's weakness.
+
+On the 16th of June, 1621, James, being "hard up," and finding that
+the circulation of the begging-box produced no effect, was compelled to
+summon a Parliament. Some cash to go on with was voted to the king, but
+the Commons then proceeded to investigate some cases of gross corruption
+that had been discovered among the Ministers. The Testes, the Cubieres,
+and other official swindlers of modern France, who, in the midst of
+meanness, deception, and theft, were still blatant about their "honour,"
+might have found, in the England of 1621, a precedent for their
+venal rascality. Sir John Bennet, Judge of the Prerogative Court of
+Canterbury, and Field, Bishop of Llandaff, were convicted of bribery.
+Yelverton, the Attorney-General, was found guilty of having aided in
+an extensive swindle in the Patent Office, and Bacon, the great "moral
+philosopher," was found to have been fleecing the public in the Court of
+Chancery, to such a degree, that he might have stuffed the woolsack over
+and over again from the produce of the shearing to which he submitted
+the flocks of suitors who appealed to him. He would take bribes in open
+court, and he would pretend to consider, that as all men should be equal
+in the eye of the law, the equality could only be achieved by emptying
+the pockets of every party that came into court, as a preliminary to
+giving him a hearing. It has been said by his apologists, that though he
+took bribes, his decisions were just, for he would often give judgment
+against those who had paid him for a decree in their favour. The excuse
+merely proves that he was sufficiently unscrupulous to follow up one
+fraud by another, and to cheat his suitors out of the consideration upon
+which they had parted with their money. Bacon endeavoured to effect a
+compromise with his accusers by a confession of about one per cent, of
+his crimes, but the Peers insisted on making him answerable in full for
+all his delinquencies. He then acknowledged twenty-eight articles, which
+seemed to satisfy the most ravenous of his enemies, who were hungering
+to see his reputation torn to pieces by the million mouths of rumour.
+The great seal was taken away from a man of such a degraded stamp,
+he was flned L40,000--a mere bagatelle out of what he had bagged--was
+declared incapable of holding office or sitting in Parliament, and was
+sent off to the Tower.
+
+[Illustration: 503]
+
+There were thoughts of beheading him, but happily for England, her Bacon
+was saved to devote the remainder of his life to literary compositions,
+which have greatly redeemed his name from obloquy. We must regard the
+character of our Bacon as streaky, for the dark is intermingled with the
+fair in the most wonderful manner. "Bacon was undoubtedly rash, but he
+might have been rasher," says the incorrigible Strype, whose name is
+continually suggestive of the lashing he merited.
+
+The Commons having been instrumental in bringing to light a considerable
+quantity of corruption, seemed determined to continue on the same scent,
+and every one who had a grievance was invited to lay it at once before
+Parliament. The waste-paper baskets of the House were of course soon
+overflowing with popular complaints, for there is scarcely a man,
+woman or child that cannot rake up a grievance of some kind, upon the
+invitation of persons professing to be able and willing to supply a
+remedy. James, fearful that his prerogative would be entrenched
+upon, wrote a letter to the Speaker, advising the Commons not to
+form themselves into an assembly of gossips, to listen to all the
+tittle-tattle that an entire nation of scandal-mongers would be ready to
+collect; but the House would not be diverted from its honest purpose by
+the sneers or threats of the sovereign. A good deal of polite and other
+letter-writing ensued between the king and the Parliament, until the
+latter entered on its journals a protestation, claiming the freedom of
+speech and the right of giving advice as the undoubted "inheritance of
+the subjects of England."
+
+James was furious at what had occurred, and ordering the Journals of the
+Commons to be brought to him, he contemptuously tore out the page; and
+then, sending back the book, advised the House to turn over a new leaf
+as soon as possible. "Tell your master," said Coke, in a whisper that
+nobody heard, "tell him he will do well to take a leaf out of our book,
+but not in the style in which this leaf has been taken." Parliament was
+first prorogued, and then dissolved by the king, who declared it would
+do no good as long as it lasted, and Coke, who was charged with adding
+fuel to the Parliamentary fire, was sent to the Tower with several
+others. On the day of the dissolution James nearly met with his own
+dissolution, for while taking a ride on a spirited horse, who had
+perhaps a certain instinctive sympathy with the popular cause, he was
+thrown into the New River.
+
+[Illustration: 504]
+
+This was on the 6th of January, 1622, when the water was frozen; and
+James had just been saying to himself, "I'm glad I have made the plunge,
+and broken the ice with these turbulent Commons," when he found himself
+plunging and breaking the ice after another fashion. Fortunately his
+boots were buoyant--perhaps they had cork soles--and Sir Richard Young,
+seizing a boat-hook, which he converted for the moment into a boot-hook,
+drew the sovereign by the heels from what he afterwards declared was
+decidedly not his proper element.
+
+Buckingham, as we have already seen, was the sole successor to Somerset
+in the office of royal favourite; but Charles, the Prince of Wales, had
+taken rather an aversion than otherwise to the person whom his father
+patronised. The friends of the latter were generally so disreputable,
+that his son could not go wrong in avoiding them; but Buckingham
+beginning to look upon Charles as the better speculation of the two,
+resolved on making himself as agreeable as possible to the more faithful
+and therefore more promising branch of royalty. The duke being fond
+of scampish adventure, proposed a plan better suited to be made the
+incident of a farce, than to be ranked as an event in history. He
+suggested that Charles and himself should travel to Spain under the
+assumed names of Jack Smith and Tom Smith, in order that the prince
+might introduce himself to the Infanta of Spain, whom it had been
+proposed he should marry. For such a wild-goose scheme to succeed, an
+Infanta of Spain must have been much more accessible in those days than
+in ours; for though Jack Smith and Tom Smith might find their way into
+a public-house parlour, and make love to the landlord's daughter, they
+would assuredly never be allowed to carry their gallantries into any
+European palace, or even to obtain admittance into any respectable
+private family. James, when the scheme was proposed to him, discouraged
+it at first, but being taken by the scapegrace couple in "a jovial
+humour," which means when the trio happened to be disgracefully drunk,
+the consent of the king was given to the farcical enterprise.
+
+Having arrived at Madrid, the two hopeful youths rode up on mules to the
+door of Sir Thomas Digby, the British ambassador, and sent in the names
+of John and Thomas Smith; but Digby, knowing no less than half a hundred
+Smiths, declined seeing the "party" unless a more special description
+was sent up to him. Without waiting for further formality,
+Buckingham--_alias_ Tom Smith--walked with his portmanteau straight into
+the ambassador's presence, after a series of scuffles on the staircase
+and in the passages, accompanied by shouts of "Keep back, fellow!"
+
+"You can't come up!" and other exclamations that had prepared Digby to
+give Tom Smith a reception by no means encouraging. When tne ambassador
+recognised his visitor, his manner completely changed, and his
+politeness knew no bounds, when in Jack Smith, who entered next,
+Digby saw no less a person than the heir to the throne of England. The
+_incognito_ was of course at an end in an instant, and the next day
+Buckingham and the prince were presented to the royal family of Spain,
+though the farce of the disguise was still kept up to a certain extent;
+and the Infanta was sent out in her father's carriage, "sitting in
+the boot," says Howell, "that Charles might get a sight of her." The
+position of a young lady looking from the boot of a carriage could
+not have been very becoming, and she does not seem to have made
+a particularly favourable impression on her intended suitor. He
+nevertheless expressed his readiness to have another look at her, and he
+played the part of lover at Buckingham's instigation, for the purpose of
+getting a variety of presents from the young lady's family.
+
+Her brother Philip was anxious for the match, and did everything to
+encourage it, by giving some valuable article to Charles whenever
+he evinced anything like affection for the young Infanta. One day he
+pretended to be in a particularly tender mood, and at every piece of
+gallantry he displayed Philip gave him something costly to take away
+with him. By a series of smirks, leers, and pretty speeches, he secured
+some original pictures by Titian and Correggio, but when he rushed up to
+the Infanta with amorous playfulness, pinking her in the side with his
+cane, and giving the Spanish version of "Whew, you little baggage!" the
+queen of Spain was so delighted that she emptied her reticule, which was
+full of amber, into the pocket of the Prince, while the word "Halves"
+was whispered in a sepulchral tone into his ear by the crafty and
+avaricious Buckingham.
+
+When they had got all they could out of the Spanish royal family, the
+English prince and his companion made up their minds that the Infanta
+was a failure, and that they had better get home with all possible
+celerity. Buckingham began treating Philip with the most disrespectful
+familiarity, slapping him boisterously on the back, alluding to him
+curtly, but not courteously, as Phil., ana otherwise offending the
+royal dignity. At length Prince Charles and his companion called to take
+leave, when the former played his old part of a devoted lover, beating
+in the crown of his hat, stamping on the floor, and giving the numerous
+signs of devotion that a practice of several weeks under a popular actor
+had made him completely master of. He had no sooner turned his back upon
+Madrid, and commenced moving towards home, than he made up his mind to
+cut the matrimonial connection; and he announced his determination by
+a messenger, who was instructed to say to Philip, that, for the good of
+both parties, and decidedly for the happiness of one, the abandonment of
+the marriage was much to be desired. Philip, upon whom the Infanta was
+a drag he would have been glad to get off his hands, became angry at the
+tampering that had taken place with the young lady's affections; but as
+these were no doubt pretty tough, the damage was not material.
+
+A proxy had been left in the hands of Digby, Earl of Bristol, the
+British Ambassador at Madrid, and the royal family sent nearly every
+day, with their compliments, begging to know when the proxy was to be
+acted upon; but finding at last, that, notwithstanding the proxy, there
+was no approximation to a satisfactory result, a most unpleasant feeling
+was created. Bristol, who was a man of honour, felt very uncomfortable
+at the evasive replies he was compelled to give, and was not sorry
+to return to England; though he had, as he naturally observed, "not
+bargained for the warrant which, in the most unwarrantable manner,
+awaited his arrival, and sent him straight to the Tower." He was soon
+afterwards released, but was not allowed by Buckingham, the favourite,
+to approach the king, and a recommendation to Bristol to go to Bath,
+or to retire to his country seat, was the only reply the ex-ambassador
+could obtain to his solicitations to be allowed to offer explanations to
+his sovereign.
+
+Charles had given the Infanta scarcely time to recover from the jilting
+she had just undergone, when, with a cruel disregard of that young
+person's feelings, he made up to Mademoiselle Henrietta of France, and a
+marriage with the latter was speedily concluded. The dowry, amounting
+to about L100,000, was paid partly down, but the nuptial ceremony was
+performed by proxy; and the English Government wrote over to say that
+there was no hurry about the bride, provided some of the cash was
+transmitted to England as speedily as possible.
+
+With some of the cash thus obtained, and with money squeezed out of the
+people, an expensive engagement was formed with Count Mans-feldt,
+an adventurer from the Low Countries, who undertook to recover the
+Palatinate, if an English army of twelve thousand men were placed under
+him. The troops were put at his disposal, and embarked at Dover; but
+on reaching Calais the governor had no orders to let them pass, and in
+consequence of the loss of the city in Mary's time, the free list, of
+which the English had been in the habit of taking advantage, was of
+course suspended. In vain did Mansfeldt inform the door-keeper that it
+was all right, and insist that the name of Mansfeldt and party should
+have been left with the authorities; for the man resolutely declared he
+had a duty to perform, which prevented him from admitting the earl
+and his followers. While they were waiting outside the bar of Calais,
+several of the troops suffered severely from sea-sickness, and being
+obliged to go round by the back way, they had become so attenuated, that
+instead of being fit for marching into the Palatinate, they were much
+better adapted for marching into Guy's Hospital.
+
+The failure of this expedition was the last event of importance in
+the reign of James, who was fast sinking under gout and tertian ague,
+produced by a long indulgence in rums, gins, brandies, and other
+compounds. He died, at the age of fifty-nine, on the 27th of March,
+1625, having reigned upwards of two-and-twenty years, during which he
+showed himself fully deserving of the title bestowed on him by Sully,
+who said of James the First that he was the "wisest fool in Europe." He
+was learned, it is true, but his acquirements, such as they were,
+became a bore, from his disagreeable habit of thrusting them at most
+inappropriate times upon all who approached him. He was weak, mean, and
+pusillanimous, while his excessive vanity caused him to select for his
+companions those pitiful sycophants who would affect admiration for
+those miserable qualities, which, had he cultivated the friendship of
+honest and intelligent men, he might have been eventually broken of. He
+lost, and indeed he did not desire the society of his children, because
+they could not sympathise with those littlenesses of character which,
+the older they grew, their judgment caused them more and more to despise
+and deplore in their unfortunate parent.
+
+Happily only two out of seven survived to endure that alienation which
+must have been painful while it would have been unavoidable; and they
+were thus spared the humiliation of seeing a father vain, selfish, and
+unrepentant to the last, while their deaths in rapid succession gave
+him happily no uneasiness. For his eldest son he had, as we have
+already seen, prohibited the wearing of mourning, thus giving a proof
+of combined malice and stupidity, since his insults to the dead were of
+course as impotent as they were wicked and infamous. He was suspicious
+in the extreme, and always fancied he was going to be done or done for.
+To guard against the latter contingency he wore a quilted doublet that
+was proof against a stiletto, and under the apprehension of being taken
+advantage of, he obstinately excluded every one from his confidence. The
+result was that he never had a friend, through his constant dread of an
+imaginary enemy. It has been said of him by one of his historians, that
+he was fond of laughing at his own conceits; but the wretch who can even
+smile at a joke of his own must be such a libel upon human nature
+that not even Hume-an(d) Smollett (ha! ha! mark the pun) shall make us
+believe that an individual so abject could ever have existed.
+
+Though the sovereign himself was not calculated to inspire respect,
+there were many events in his reign which rendered it useful if not
+glorious. Sir Hugh Middleton commenced at Amwell that now venerable New
+River, by dabbling in which he swamped himself and secured a stream of
+health and prosperity to those who came after him. The immortal Hicks
+finished his memorable Hall; Lord Napier invented logarithms, to the
+extreme disgust of the school-boys of every generation; and Dr. Harvey
+made the magnificent discovery that the blood is a periodical enjoying
+the most unlimited circulation. Two Dutch navigators contrived to double
+Cape Horn; which the reader must not imagine was twice its present size
+before that operation was performed, for Cape Horn, like any other cape,
+is not larger when doubled. Bill Baffin, an Englishman (you all know
+Bill Baffin) discovered Baffin's Bay in the year 1616, and a patent
+for the fire engine, granted two years afterwards, has been stated as a
+proof that steam power was first known in England in 1618, though upon
+inquiry we are inclined to think there was more of smoke than steam in
+the invention spoken of.
+
+The wealth and extravagance of the nobles, among whom corruption and
+bribery were practised "wholesale, retail, and for exportation," may be
+imagined from the statement, that on the marriage of the French king,
+the horse of the English ambassador wore silver shoes so loosely
+fastened on, that they fell off, and were instantly replaced, for
+distribution among the populace. We can scarcely believe that any
+English horse could have walked in these silver shoes or slippers in the
+time of James, however skilfully they could have substituted sliding for
+walking, since the Wood Demon, coming to London, caused the introduction
+of wooden pavements.
+
+The luxury and display that stand prominently forward among the
+characteristics of the period, were discountenanced by James when
+seen in others, though he would have spared nothing tor the selfish
+gratification of his own extravagance. Bacon, whose tendency to flattery
+justifies the popular analogy between butter and bacon, remarked of the
+king that he would recommend the country gentlemen to remain at their
+seats, by saying to them, "In London you are like ships in a sea, which
+show like nothing; but in your country villages you are like ships in
+a river, which look like great things." * This, after all, was a funny
+idea, but a bad argument; for a ship in a river, like a storm in a
+puddle, is somewhat out of its element. Many would prefer being wrecked
+in the ocean of a busy but tempestuous life, to remaining aground in the
+dismal swamp of rural obscurity. The thing to be desired, is the art of
+keeping a steady course, and steering in the right direction; but it is
+mere pusillanimity to accept a recommendation to shirk the voyage. Among
+the inventions of the reign of James, we must not omit to mention the
+sedan, a contrivance of the lazy and luxurious Buckingham. On its first
+appearance in public, the mob hooted the machine as it passed, declaring
+that their fellow-creatures should not do the service of beasts; but the
+"fellow-creatures," being paid for and liking the job, were the first
+to beat off their friends, the people. The friends of humanity were,
+however, not content till they had broken in the top and knocked out
+the bottom of the machine, leaving Buckingham to walk home in a most
+uncomfortable case, with his head peering out at the top, and his feet
+appearing at the bottom of his novel equipage.
+
+The literary characters who flourished in the reign of James were very
+numerous; and we must, of course, place at the head of them our old
+acquaintance the "Swan of Avon," as some goose has most irreverently
+christened him. Shakespeare adorned the time of James by dying in it,
+as, by living in it, he shed a lustre on that of Elizabeth. One of our
+predecessors * in the gigantic task we have undertaken--and, by the way,
+it is said that Mr. Macaulay, fired by our shining example, is preparing
+himself to follow it by a retirement from public life--one of our
+predecessors, we repeat, has thrown cold water upon the warm admiration
+which is felt for Shakespeare to this day, and which at this very moment
+is urging the whole nation to buy his house at Stratford, though the
+town was burnt, great at first for the possession of this relic, has, we
+confess, a little abated since our research put us in possession of the
+unpleasant fact, that the bard must have been burnt out, notwithstanding
+the assurance of the auctioneer, who acts, of course, on what he
+considers the best policy. Whatever we may think of the house the poet
+left or did not leave behind him, the houses he still draws by the magic
+of his genius are sufficient to refute the argument of the hypercritical
+Hume, that Shakespeare appeared greater than he really was, because
+he happened to be irregular. We are not aware that irregularity and
+grandeur must necessarily seem to be combined, and indeed, irregularity
+in payment, which considerably aggrandises an account, is the only
+instance we can call to mind in which we see some ground for our
+fellow-historian's strange hypothesis, ** down at about the time when
+the poet lived in it. Our own enthusiasm, which was Fletcher, the
+dramatist, and his partner Beaumont, belonged to the reign of James; but
+when the latter died, in 1616, the firm was broken up; and as each had
+been nothing by himself, Fletcher fell into wretched insignificance. His
+name had only been known in connection with that of Beaumont, and if
+he attempted to play the lion afterwards at an evening party, a cool
+inquiry of "Fletcher! Fletcher! who's Fletcher?" was the only sensation
+the announcement of his name elicited. Some say he died of the plague in
+1625, but it is more probable that the plaguy indifference shown towards
+him everywhere, after he lost poor Beaumont, was in reality the death of
+him.
+
+     * Home.
+
+     ** Stratford-upon-Avon was all destroyed by fire in
+     September, 1614, two years before Shakespeare's death.
+
+Honest Jack Stowe, the antiquarian, ought not to be overlooked, though
+time has long since stowed away his works among the lumber of our
+libraries. His Survey of London was his greatest literary labour, and he
+was preparing a new edition in 1605, when he was obliged to "Stow it" by
+an attack of illness that unhappily proved fatal.
+
+Donne, the poet, can hardly be mentioned among the literary dons of the
+age; but Bacon is a luminary that must not be snuffed out in a single
+sentence. It has been said that his wit was far-fetched, but a thing is
+certainly not the less valuable for having been brought from a long way
+off; for if it were so, the diamond would lose much of its value in the
+London market. If Bacon's wit was far fetched, it was not only worth
+the carriage, but it has been found sufficiently valuable to warrant
+its being forwarded on from generation to generation: and it will, we
+suspect, find its way to a still remote posterity, before it arrives at
+the terminus of its journey.
+
+James himself was but a contemptible writer, and would have been
+scarcely worth his five pounds a week in these days, as the London
+correspondent of a country newspaper. His imagination would not have
+been vigorous enough to supply him with the "latest intelligence," which
+must always be in type at least two days before the date on which
+the facts it professes to impart are stated to have happened. As an
+industrious chronicler of early gooseberries, new carrots, gigantic
+cabbages, irruptions of lady-birds, and showers of frogs, he would
+have been useful in his way, or he might have undertaken that branch of
+periodical literature which embraces the interesting recollections--or
+non-recollections rather--of the oldest inhabitant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE THIRD. CHARLES THE FIRST.
+
+On the afternoon of Monday, the 28th of March, 1625, Charles the First
+was proclaimed at Charing Cross, amid a tremendous shower of rain and
+hail, so that the commencement of his reign was hailed in a somewhat
+disagreeable manner. His first care was to turn out the fools and
+buffoons that his father had kept at Court, or rather, as Buckingham
+called it, to get rid of the comic and pantomimic company which had been
+established in the palace. He next determined to send over for his new
+bride, who appeared to have been forgotten in the hurry of business, and
+who was waiting at Paris, "to be left till called for." Buckingham was
+despatched to take charge of the precious cargo; but his behaviour at
+the French Court was so disreputable that he received some very broad
+hints as to the propriety of his speedy return to England. He made love
+to the young Queen Anne of Austria, and flirted with every female member
+of the royal family, to the extreme disgust of Cardinal Richelieu, who
+told him, plainly, that such conduct could not be permitted, at any
+price.
+
+Buckingham took his departure, with the young Henrietta, on the 23rd
+of May; but there must have been pretty goings on, or dreadful standing
+stills, during the journey, for it was the 27th of June before they
+arrived at Dover. Charles, who had naturally begun to wonder what had
+become of his minister and his bride, set off to meet them, and having
+slept at Canterbury on the 27th of June, he reached Dover on the 28th,
+and found his intended, who had "put up" at the Castle.
+
+The first interview was very dramatic, for Charles extended both
+his arms, and Henrietta, taking a hop, a skip, and a jump, tumbled
+gracefully into them. Finding her a little taller than he expected, he
+looked at her feet, when the young Princess coquettishly pulled off her
+shoe, to prove that there was no imposition practised, and that it
+was impossible there could be any deception through the medium of high
+heels, for she and, in reality, a sole above it. The newly married
+couple started for Canterbury at once, and making another day of it to
+Rochester, they came _via_ Gravesend to London, where they arrived in
+the midst of one of those pelting showers which have been graphically
+compared to a _melee_ of cats, dogs, and pitchforks.
+
+Charles being in want of money had assembled a Parliament, which
+opened for business on the 18th of June, and he at once asked for
+some supplies; but as he stammered in his speech, there was a sort of
+hesitation in his demand, which some took for modesty. With real,
+or affected delicacy, he declined mentioning any specific sum, but
+requested his faithful Commons to give what they pleased, and they were
+thus placed in the embarrassing position of a gentleman, who, on asking
+"what's to pay?" finds it left to that dreadfully sliding scale, his
+"own generosity." This dishonest manouvre, for such it usually is,
+succeeds frequently in extracting twice the proper amount from the
+pockets of him whose liberality is thus artfully invoked; but the
+Commons, being apparently "up to the dodge," voted Charles L112,000, to
+meet liabilities to the tune of some L700,000 per annum, for the war,
+to say nothing of his father's debts and other contingencies. Pocketing
+this miserably inadequate contribution, he adjourned the Parliament, on
+account of the Plague, and having met it again at Oxford, in August of
+the same year, he told the Commons, plainly, that he "must have cash,"
+for he was being dunned by the King of Denmark, who held his promissory
+note, and that his private creditors would allow him no peace in his own
+palace. He protested solemnly that he had not the means of paying his
+way for the subsistence of himself and his family, and, throwing a
+quantity of tradesmen's accounts, unsettled, before the Speaker's chair,
+asked, imploringly, if those were the sort of bills that could be got
+rid of by ordering them to be read that day six months, or by their
+being suffered to lie on the table? The Commons shook their heads,
+expressed their regret, buttoned up their pockets, and declared they
+could do nothing. The matter now became serious, for Charles had changed
+his butcher already three or four times, and was having his bread of
+nearly the last of a confiding batch of bakers. "Something must be
+done," he said, with much solemnity, to himself, and he wrote off a
+polite note to the Corporations of Salisbury and Southampton, requesting
+the loan of L3000, which was loyally granted him. Angry at being baffled
+and left insolvent by his Parliament, he declared that he would,
+at least, prove himself solvent in one respect, by dissolving the
+Parliament who had so rudely resisted his demands.
+
+Finding that he had got nothing by begging, and very little by
+borrowing, he was thrown upon the expedient of stealing, as a last
+resort. With the money lent him by some of his subjects he resolved on
+fitting out a fleet, under Cecil, to attack some Spanish ships, which he
+understood were lying at Cadiz, with some valuable cargoes on board. He
+reached the bay, and being kept at bay by the enemy for a short time, he
+at last landed very silently, the leaders exclaiming, "_Piano, Piano_,"
+and took a fort. The troops, finding a quantity of wine in the garrison,
+partook so freely of it that they lost all their ammunition, and spoiled
+several pounds of best canister, by making too free with the juice
+of the grape. Cecil, finding that the longer they remained the more
+intoxicated they got, resolved on re-shipping as many as could be got
+to stand upon their legs, and to return to England. The British sailors
+were, however, in those days, such delicate creatures that half of them
+died of sea-sickness, and a very few of them returned home alive.
+
+Charles, having been foiled in his last hope of recruiting his exhausted
+resources by plunder, resolved to try another Parliament, and a new one
+was manufactured with a view to give every chance to the experiment. He
+endeavoured to weaken the opposition by putting several of its members
+into offices which would prevent them from sitting in the House of
+Commons; but, this artful manouvre having been seen through, only served
+to put the people more on their guard.
+
+The new Parliament was in its principles the _fac simile_ of its
+predecessor, and on the 6th of February, 1626, voted to Charles just
+about one-tenth of what he really wanted, and one-twentieth of what he
+asked. Notwithstanding the smallness of the subsidy, he took it, and
+resolved to pay his creditors something on account, as far as the
+money would go, and trust to the future to enable him to make up the
+deficiency. Having shown a pretty resolute disposition in dealing with
+the king, it is not surprising that the Commons should at length have
+determined to take a turn at the minister. Buckingham had long been
+very obnoxious, and one Dr. Turner--remarkable for his straightforward
+conduct, and his determination not to turn--moved a question, "Whether
+Common Report was a good ground of proceeding?" Though Common Report has
+generally been accounted a common story-teller, she had been tolerably
+right about the Duke of Buckingham, and the resolution to proceed
+against him on the faith of Common Report was at once approved.
+
+On the 8th of May a still more resolute step was taken with reference to
+the "favourite," as this generally detested person was absurdly called,
+by articles of impeachment being preferred against him. The duke and
+his master seemed to treat the matter rather as a joke, and Charles even
+went down to the House of Lords to speak in favour of Buckingham. These
+proceedings were so clearly unconstitutional and irregular, that if the
+British Lion had taken to roaring, and only roared out in time, he
+might have saved many of the disagreeable consequences that unhappily
+followed. Considering how very intrusive this animal has sometimes been
+on occasions when he really was not wanted, it is lamentable to think
+that "the squeak in time," which might have saved nine times nine
+hundred and ninety-nine, was not forthcoming at the exact moment when
+its value would have been extreme.
+
+Notwithstanding the impeachment of Buckingham, he was still loaded with
+fresh honours, and he became Chancellor of the University of Cambridge,
+at which the Commons vainly expressed their disgust. They nevertheless
+continued boldly enough remonstrating against this, and that, and the
+other, until the king regularly shut them up by a dissolution, without
+their having passed a single act.
+
+Charles, sympathising with nature in an utter abhorrence of a vacuum,
+which he found in the royal treasury, devoted all his energies to
+filling it. "Must have cash," was the motto adopted by his majesty; who
+was not particular whether he begged, borrowed, or stole, so that he
+succeeded in replenishing his pockets. He looked up every outstanding
+liability, and routed out a lot of recusants who had fallen into arrear
+with their penalties.
+
+[Illustration: 514]
+
+He borrowed money from the nobility--if it can be called borrowing to go
+up to a person, exclaiming, "Lend me your money," and at the same time
+take it forcibly away from him. But the most tremendous swindle of all
+was the demand of ship-money; a tax he laid upon all seaports, under the
+pretence of their contributing a certain number of ships to the defence
+of the country. He, of course, pocketed the proceeds without supplying
+the ships, so that, if the country had been attacked, there would not
+have been a sail to resist the assailants. Charles and his favourite,
+Buckingham, declared, with disreputable frivolity, that the ship-money
+was appropriately applied; for it was, in fact, floating capital, and
+helped to keep them above water just as much as if it had been devoted
+to the purchase of a navy.
+
+Something having been said during the sitting of Parliament about a
+subsidy, which had never been granted, Charles thought he might as
+well collect it at any rate, though the Commons had declined voting it.
+Promises were held out that it should all be paid back out of the next
+supplies, or, in fact, that though the king helped himself from the
+right-hand pockets of his subjects, he would return the money out
+of their left-hand pockets--some day or another. A great many of the
+people, who objected to this remote reversionary interest, were thrown
+into prison, or sent to serve in the navy, where they became British
+Tars in spite of themselves, and some of them having received a
+classical education, introduced, no doubt, the College Hornpipe into the
+fleet, as an elegant and scholarly pastime.
+
+Even the church was made the medium of extortion, for the popular
+preachers recommended from their pulpits the propriety of cashing up to
+any extent that the sovereign might require. By way of economising at
+home, Charles went one afternoon to the queen's apartments and dismissed
+every one of her tribe of French servants, who were dancing and
+curvetting in the presence of their mistress. This ballet of private
+life was summarily brought to a close by a general _chassez_ of the
+whole crew, who had been dancing attendance on her majesty since her
+marriage, and she was so enraged at their dismissal that she broke the
+windows with her fist, which shows the panes she was at to mark her
+displeasure. The French women howled very piteously, so that, between
+their lamentations in broken English, and the queen's expostulations in
+broken glass, the hubbub was truly terrible. These disturbances fomented
+the ill-feeling between France and England, which Buckingham desired to
+increase, and he actually had the excessive vanity to put himself at
+the head of a fleet, which sailed to Rochelle, where he "carried himself
+nobly," to use the words of the king, but where, in fact, he carried
+himself off as speedily as his legs would allow, for he ran away
+after having made a desperate failure. Charles was now, once more, as
+completely cleaned out as a young scamp in a farce, who arrives
+"without sixpence in his pocket," just like "love among the roses;" and
+Buckingham was the roguish valet who is usually in attendance on the
+eccentric light comedian under the circumstances alluded to. The worthy
+couple discussed the best method of raising the wind, and it was agreed
+that there was nothing left but to try it on again with a Parliament.
+"We shall have writs out against ourselves," said Charles, "if we do not
+get the writs out for summoning the Commons." They met on the 17th of
+March, 1628, and several of the most determined opponents to ship-money
+were found in the new house, which included Bradshaw, the brewer, who
+was ready to brew the storm of revolution, as well as Maurice, a grocer,
+who suited the times to a T with his liberal sentiments. The king made
+a haughty speech, but the Parliament determined to proceed with address,
+and, upon the grand piscatorial principle of throwing a sprat to catch
+a herring, five subsidies were hinted at for the purpose of securing
+concessions of the utmost value to English liberty. The Petition
+of Right was accordingly drawn up, which declared the illegality of
+collecting money except by the authority of Parliament. It next referred
+to our old friend, your old friend, and everybody else's old friend,
+Magna Charta, or Carter, as some people call it--perhaps because a
+broad-wheeled waggon has been frequently driven through it--and this
+document was recited to prove that people could not be imprisoned
+without cause; though, unfortunately for them, they had been imprisoned
+very frequently, in spite of the arrangement that made such a
+circumstance quite impossible. The Petition of Right next alluded to the
+billeting of soldiers on private houses, which had grown into such an
+abuse, that scarcely a family could sit down to tea without half a dozen
+troopers dropping in during the meal, and pocketing the spoons, cribbing
+the cups, or saucily appropriating the saucers, when the entertainment
+was concluded.
+
+The Bill of Rights, having been drawn by the Commons, and endorsed by
+the Lords, was offered to Charles for his acceptance. Without either
+rejecting it or adopting it, he wrote under the petition a few vague
+generalities, which meant nothing at all, and the Commons, retiring to
+their Chamber, vented their indignation in a very spirited manner. Sir
+Robert Phillips uttered several severe Philippics against the sovereign;
+Sir D. Digges followed, with some tremendous digs at the throne,
+declaring it was quite _infra dig_. for the Commons to sit still and
+do nothing; while Mr. Kurton, or, as that miscreant Strype calls him,
+Curtain, * threw off the veil; and even old Coke gave symptoms of having
+caught the revolutionary flame. Selden, whose table-talk is much more
+amusing than his talk at the table of the House of Commons, proposed a
+strong declaration under four heads, and was in the midst of a powerful
+harangue, when Finch, the Speaker, who had got the name of Chaff-Finch,
+from the badinage in which he indulged, ran breathless into the House
+with a message from the king, recommending, as well as his puffing
+and blowing would permit, an adjournment until the next morning.
+Notwithstanding the valour that had been displayed in words, the Commons
+had not yet learned how to act with courage, and they quietly adjourned
+at the suggestion of the sovereign. The next day, however, they met
+again, and having plucked up all their pluck, they continued to demand
+an explicit answer to the Petition of Right, to which the assent of
+Charles was, one fine afternoon in June, 1628, somewhat unexpectedly
+given. Buckingham, who could never keep quiet, resolved to make another
+warlike venture at Rochelle, and had got as far as Portsmouth, where, on
+the 23rd of August, says Howell, "he got out of bed in good-humour, and
+cut a caper or two" in his nightcap and dressing-gown. These capers were
+soon destined to be cut very short, for as the duke was passing to his
+carriage in the course of the day, he received a stab from somebody in
+a crowd of gesticulating Frenchmen, who were all suspected of being the
+assassins, and instead of being taken into custody were, oddly enough,
+kicked down stairs. Buckingham was as dead as the British and Foreign
+Institute, when a number of captains and gentlemen rushed into the
+kitchen of the house, exclaiming--"Where is the villain?"
+
+     * We regret to say, that the motive of Strype in calling
+     this person Curtain, instead of Kurton, is too obvious. A
+     _jeu de mot_ is at the bottom of this baseness. We forbear
+     from saying more, and, according to the accounts of the
+     period, his majesty rolled himself about on his bed in an
+     agony of tears, until nothing but a wet blanket seemed to
+     hang over all his prospects. He nevertheless continued his
+     attention to business, but he never had another favourite
+     like Buckingham, whom his majesty used to apostrophise
+     familiarly as "my Buck," and hence that term of amiability
+     no doubt has its origin. He admitted Laud to be in many
+     respects laudable; and of Wentworth he acknowledged the
+     worth, while Noy, whose maxims contain the maximum of
+     wisdom, was so far appreciated as to get the place of
+     Attorney-General.
+
+"_Ou est le boucher!_" Upon this a gentleman of the name of Felton, who
+had been screening himself in the meat-screen, stood forth, and struck
+an attitude, vociferating "Here I am."
+
+[Illustration; 517]
+
+He then handed over his hat, in the crown of which he had stitched the
+full and true particulars of his own crime, which he requested might be
+read out, while he did the appropriate pantomime to the confession in
+the centre of a group of listeners. Felton gloried in the act he had
+committed, and when put upon his trial there was a good deal of badinage
+between himself and Judge Jones, whom the prisoner politely thanked for
+the announcement that he was to be hanged until he was dead, at Tyburn.
+
+The king was greatly affected on hearing of Buckingham's death.
+
+On the 30th of January, 1629, the Parliament met once more, and Charles
+turning out both his pockets, urged the necessity of supplies. He
+declared that as to his balance at his bankers, it had become like
+"linked sweetness," for it had been "long drawn out," and the public
+treasury had been swept up several times, in the hope of finding an odd
+coin or two; but there was not a shilling to be found, and Charles was
+running up bills in all directions with his tradespeople. The Commons,
+instead of giving him the money to pay his debts, brought against him
+all their own old scores, and there were several stormy discussions, the
+storminess of which may be accounted for by the long-windedness of many
+of the orators.
+
+Among those who took part in these debates, was a clownish-looking
+person of about thirty years of age, with a slovenly coat, and a hat
+so bad that Strype hints it was perhaps without a crown, to mark the
+republican objection to crowns which was entertained by the owner. This
+individual was Mr. Oliver Cromwell, the new member for Huntingdon,
+who brewed beer and political storms until the country itself became
+Cromwell's entire, the Crown his butt, and the Constitution his
+mash-tub.
+
+[Illustration: 518]
+
+Charles finding the Parliament in a very unaccommodating humour, desired
+Sir John Finch, the Speaker, to adjourn the House, but the House refused
+to be adjourned, and when he was about to leave the chair, he found
+himself suddenly knocked back into it, with his arms pinioned, which
+rendered him incapable of putting any motion whatever, for he was quite
+motionless. A few privy councillors rushing in, endeavoured to release
+him, but the opposite party bound him again to the chair, and the trial
+of strength between the two factions ended in a tie--as far as poor
+Finch was concerned--for he remained fastened in the seat of dignity. At
+length the Speaker, who could not dissolve the House, began dissolving
+himself in tears, and the king who had been waiting for him to come and
+tell the news, was so impatient, that messengers were dispatched to know
+what had become of him. Hearing that Finch was caged, or in other words
+locked in, the king could only leave the poor bird to his fate; but he
+despatched a messenger to tell the sergeant to slip out of the House
+quietly with his mace, which would dissolve the sitting. The sergeant
+may perhaps have forgotten the right cue, but he had got the right mace,
+and had walked nearly to the door, when he was stopped and pushed back,
+the key of the House taken from him and placed in the hands of one of
+the members, who promised to keep tight hold of it.
+
+Charles, hearing that the door was bolted, went down, determined to
+force it open; but happily, he found the Commons had bolted instead of
+the door, or at least, they were on the point of doing so. The king,
+nevertheless, ordered several of the ringleaders to be arrested, and he
+intimated pretty plainly to the Commons that he would not trouble them
+again for a very considerable period. He had, in fact, resolved to take
+all matters of Government entirely into his own hands; and though Magna
+Charta, with a few other trifles of the kind, stood in his way, he did
+not scrapie to trample on rights and liberties, which he knew were being
+continually renewed, as occasion required.
+
+On the 10th of March, 1629, the day to which the Commons had
+adjourned themselves, Charles came down to the House of Lords with the
+proclamation of dissolution in his pocket. His majesty began by saying,
+that this was "really a very unpleasant business," that "he had no fault
+to find with the Lords," but "there were some vipers among the Commons";
+whom, according to the unhappy Strype, he expressed his determination
+of "viping out"--observe the paltry evasion of the W for the sake of
+the pun--"with the utmost energy." Thus, by flattering the Lords
+and threatening the Commons, or, to continue the language of Strype,
+"soaping the Upper House, and lathering the Lower," did Charles dissolve
+his Parliament. Several members had already been placed in custody,
+among whom were Eliot, Holies, and Selden, the last of whom was such
+an inveterate table-talker, that his tongue was always getting him into
+scrapes of the most serious character. An information was exhibited
+against them in the Star-Chamber, but they were subsequently offered
+their release, on promising to be of good behaviour, which they refused
+to do, for they felt they would have been good for nothing had they
+entered into such a disgraceful compact. Eliot died in prison, and the
+rest were adjudged to be detained during the pleasure of the king, and
+as he took great pleasure in persecuting his refractory Commons,
+there was every chance that their "durance vile" would be unpleasantly
+durable.
+
+The 29th of May, 1630, was signalised by the birth of Prince Charles,
+and it is said that a bright star shone in the east at midday, which
+some have considered ominous. To us, the appearance of the star by
+daylight, on the birth of this dissolute scapegrace, denotes nothing
+more than a propensity for not going home till morning, or till daylight
+did appear. About the same time that severities were being practised on
+the Commons, one Richard Chambers refused to pay more than legal duty
+on a bale of silk, and the Custom-house officers going at him rather
+fiercely, he declared that "merchants were more screwed in England than
+they were in Turkey." His audience hearing him use the word "screwed,"
+at once nailed him to the expression, and he was fined L2000 for the
+_lapsus lingua_ he had fallen into. Unhappily, political martyrdom was
+not, in those days, so good a trade as it has subsequently become, and
+poor Chambers had neither a subscription opened to pay his fine, nor a
+testimonial to reimburse him for the expense of resistance. A struggle
+for principle was then a struggle indeed, and not an eligible medium
+for advertisements. A Chambers of the present day would have made
+his principles pay him an enormous percentage, and would have made a
+handsome fortune for himself by what he would have termed his exertions
+for the happiness and liberty of the people. Poor Chambers, however--the
+real martyr of 1630--died in a prison at last, after waiting for
+redress from the Long Parliament, which was a little too long in making
+reparation to the victim of oppression, Charles had apparently made up
+his mind to get on as well as he could without any Parliament at all,
+and having bribed some of the cleverest fellows in the kingdom, he
+thought that as one fool proverbially makes many, one or two knaves
+would also be found to fructify. Among the shameless apostates of that
+day were of course many who had been mouthing most energetically on the
+popular side; and Wentworth, who had been originally one of the very
+noisiest of the people's friends, became the meanest and most inveterate
+of the people's enemies. Having brawled for some years against
+aristocracy, his purpose at length peeped out in his acceptance of a
+peerage for himself, and the man who had been continually bullying the
+Court, became its fawning favourite. Digges, who had been, as we have
+already intimated, digging away most energetically at the constituted
+authorities, accepted the post of Master of the Bolls, for he had, as he
+said, made the discovery on which side his bread was buttered.
+
+It would be tedious to the reader, and difficult to ourselves, to give
+a catalogue of the exactions and impositions which were practised by
+Charles between the years 1629, when the Parliament was dissolved, and
+1640, the year marked by the assembly of a new one. He revived, among
+other cruelties, the old practice of making knights of all persons
+possessing forty pounds a year, and either charging ruinous fees for
+imposing the so-called honour, or imposing a heavy fine for declining
+it. Knighthood became such a fearful drug in the market of dignities,
+that it is not surprising it should even up to this day have failed
+to recover its position. The cry of "Dilly, dilly," was never more
+ferociously addressed to the ducks who were invited to "come and be
+killed," than was the command to "come and be knighted," enforced
+against the unwilling victims, who were selected either to pay the
+penalty for declining, or the fees on receiving this unenviable
+distinction.
+
+While guilty of wholesale persecution, Charles did not, however, neglect
+the retail branch, and a Puritan preacher named Leighton--a blind
+fanatic, but, notwithstanding his blindness, no relation we believe to
+Leighton Buzzard--was exposed to the utmost cruelty for writing some _ad
+captandum_ trash against the queen and the bishops; a bombastic little
+work, which neither repaid perusal, nor repaid the printer who brought
+it forward. Poor Leighton was fined for his coarseness, and flogged for
+his flagellation of the authorities, besides being compelled to undergo
+a variety of other barbarisms, the narration of which we would have
+attempted, but we found our very ink turning pale at the bare prospect
+of our doing so. The Puritans now began to emigrate in great numbers to
+America, and they no doubt laid the foundation of that drawl which has
+ever since distinguished the tone of the model republicans.
+
+We now arrive at the tragical story of poor Mr. William Prynne, a
+barrister of Lincoln's Inn, who, in the utter absence of briefs, finding
+himself at a dead stand-still for want of a motion, had started a
+trumpery little work with one Sparkes, a publisher. The volume had
+the unattractive title of "_Histrio Mastric_, the Players' Scourge, or
+Actors' Tragedie," in which he made an attempt to write down the stage
+in particular, and all amusements in general. He denounced all who went
+to the play as irredeemably lost, and he neither exempted the free list,
+the half-price, or those who went in with the orders of the Press, from
+the anathema, which he hurled indiscriminately against the "brilliant
+and crowded audiences" nightly honouring such-and-such an establishment
+with a succession of overflows. The queen not only patronised the drama,
+but sometimes appeared herself as a distinguished amateur, and the whole
+of Prynne's book was taken to apply to her, though she was not even
+mentioned in any part of it. Poor Prynne was declared to be a wolf in
+sheep's clothing, and, considering that he was a barrister who had
+turned author, the alleged mixture of wolfishness and sheepishness may
+be fairly attributed to his character. He was found guilty, of course,
+and upon sentence being passed, the Chief Justice expressed his regret
+that a gentleman, who had handed in on two or three occasions a compute,
+and was a promising junior of twenty years' standing--without ever
+being on his legs--should have brought himself into such an unpleasant
+predicament.
+
+He was condemned to be degraded from the profession, or in fact to be
+dishonoured; to pay a fine of L5000, which was by no means feasible,
+when we consider his fees, and to be kept from the use of pen, ink, and
+paper, which was perhaps the most humane part of the sentence, for
+he was thus prevented from proceeding with his wretched trade of
+authorship. The poor fellow, however, contrived to write humorous
+articles on the soles of his boots; and "Prynne on the Understanding,"
+though it was rubbed out as mere rubbish by the man who cleaned his
+boots, might have taken its place by the side of many more lofty
+productions of the period. His sentence was exceedingly cruel, and
+comprised "branding on the forehead," as if his enemies would have it
+believed "there was nothing inside to hurt," while his nose was savagely
+maltreated, to prevent its being again poked into that which did not
+concern its owner. His ears were cropped under the pretext of their
+being a great deal too long, and indeed Prynne was so altered, as a
+punishment for rushing into print, that his own clerk would not have
+known him again in the abridged edition which the Government reduced him
+to.
+
+We have now to treat of the great civil war; but the magnitude of the
+subject requires us to take breath, which we cannot do unless we break
+off and begin a fresh chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FOURTH. CHARLES THE FIRST (CONTINUED).
+
+
+[Illustration: 522]
+
+THE great civil war was brought on by a series of incidents we will now
+briefly explain; but we must premise that the turncoat Noy had been long
+hunting for precedents to justify Charles in any course of despotism
+that he might resolve upon. It never was very difficult to find
+precedents in the legal records for anything, however cruel, tyrannical,
+or absurd, and Noy was not the man to be over nice in putting upon the
+case in "the books" whatever construction would be most favourable to
+the views of his master. The ingenious Noy took care to discover that
+the supplying of ship-money by sea ports was a custom as old as the
+hills, and giving a large interpretation to the word hills, he assumed
+that land as well as water should supply ships, and that inland places
+as well as those on the coast were consequently liable to the impost.
+He argued that almost every town, however far from the shore, had marine
+interests, for there was always a dealer in marine stores, and in fact
+he urged that a town being unable to float a ship, might nevertheless be
+made to build or at least to pay for one.
+
+In the midst of these ingenious theories and perplexing points of law,
+Noy died, which is no matter of astonishment to us, for the idea of
+looking up such a subject as ship-money, and having "case for opinion"
+continually on his desk, is sufficiently formidable to reconcile with
+it the decease of the barrister to whom the business had been confided.
+London was selected as the first place on which the demand for
+ship-money was made, and an attempt to excite the fears of the citizens,
+by getting up a cry very like that of "Old Bogie" was resorted to.
+A proclamation was issued declaring that a set of "thieves, pirates,
+robbers of the sea, and Turks," were expected by an early boat, though
+a sharp look-out along the offing at Gravesend and Richmond, through one
+of which the pirates must pass, would have convinced the greenest of
+the green that a corsair was not likely to be eating his white-bait
+at Blackwall, nor was England in danger of an invasion by a horde of
+ruffians coming up from the other side of the world at the Chelsea end
+of the metropolis. Several ships were ordered, but the citizens would
+have been quite at sea had they attempted to supply a ship, and a
+composition in money was demanded as an easier method of satisfying
+the wants of the Government. Considerable resistance was made to this
+gigantic swindle, and the celebrated John Hampden immortalised himself
+by the part he took in the struggle. This true patriot had consulted his
+legal advisers on the subject of ship-money, and hearing from them that
+it could not be justly claimed, he determined that he would resist the
+impost at any sacrifice. The matter came on for argument upon demurrer,
+in the Court of Exchequer, on the 6th of November, 1637, and lasted till
+the 18th of December, when their lordships were unable to agree in their
+judgment. The majority, however, ultimately decided against Hampden, but
+two of the judges continuing to differ from the rest, it was felt that
+the imposition was seen through, and that the public would have the
+sanction of at least some of the legal dignitaries for resisting it.
+Wentworth would have whipped Hampden like poor Prynne, but not all the
+black rods, white rods, and rods in pickle the Court could muster, would
+have been sufficient for the flagellation of so great a character.
+
+The dissatisfaction of the people, and the unconstitutional practices of
+the king, were not confined to England, for Scotland, after having
+been taken--or rather having been merged in the English monarchy--was
+destined to be well shaken by political convulsions. The proximate cause
+of the dissatisfaction of the Scotch, who are not a remarkably excitable
+race unless their pockets are threatened, was the introduction of the
+English service into their churches; and when the Dean of Edinburgh
+began to read it on Sunday, the 23rd of July, 1637, he was assailed with
+shouts of the most indecorous character. The populace clapped with their
+hands, kicked with their heels, and bellowed with their lungs till the
+Bishop of Edinburgh, who had ascended the pulpit to entreat that order
+might be preserved, was compelled to bob down his head to avoid a
+three-legged stool that was thrown with savage force by one of the
+assembled multitude.
+
+[Illustration: 524]
+
+The Scotch congregation continued to evince their zeal for their
+religion by throwing sticks, stones, and dirt (of which they had a good
+deal always on their hands) at the unprotected prelate, and cries of
+"stone him!" "at him again!" "give it him!" "throw him over!" "turn him
+out!" resounded through the sacred edifice. The religious ruffians kept
+up their ferocity without intermission wherever the new service was
+commenced, and thus, though they might easily have satisfied their
+consciences by abstaining from attendance at the churches where
+innovation had been introduced, they preferred to intimidate and
+brutally attack the inoffensive ministers. This was another of the
+innumerable instances history has to record of the name of religion
+being desecrated by its being applied to acts utterly at variance with
+every religious principle.
+
+Charles, who in this instance evinced a keen perception of Scotch
+character, resolved to punish the people of Edinburgh in a manner they
+would be sure to feel; and by threatening to remove the council of
+government from that city to Linlithgow, he touched them in what is the
+Scotchman's tenderest point--his pocket. Whether it was from fear of a
+general stoppage to business, and the consequent loss of its profits,
+or from some more exalted cause, the Scotch desisted from physical
+violence, and took a great moral resolution, which is in every way
+respectable. A document, called the Covenant, was drawn up, and its
+sentiments were put forth with the eloquence of enthusiasm from the home
+of John O'Groat--by-the-by, who was this Jack Fourpence, Esq.,
+of whom we have heard so much?--to the hills of Cheviot. The
+Covenanters had exchanged the brickbat and bludgeon style of argument
+for the lighter but more pointed and effective weapon--the pen--though
+they still acted in the most unchristian spirit of intolerance and
+persecution towards those who would not adopt their sentiments.
+
+The Marquis of Hamilton was sent to Scotland with instructions to do all
+he could, and a great deal that he couldn't. He was to apprehend all the
+rebels, if possible; but not being of a very lively apprehension, it was
+not likely he would succeed greatly in this portion of his enterprise.
+He was to overturn the Covenant in six weeks, if he found it convenient
+to do so, or in less if he found it otherwise. In fact, his instructions
+might be summed up into an order to go and make the best of a bad
+job--an attempt which frequently ends in leaving the matter much worse
+than one originally found it.
+
+On his arrival at Holyrood his first effort to persuade the people
+to give up the Covenant was met by an attempt to cram it down his own
+throat, but he refused the proffered dose, and finding himself in a very
+awkward fix, he could only hope to temporise. Charles wrote to him
+to say, "he would rather die than give in," but Hamilton, knowing his
+master would have to die by deputy, and that the deputy would be no
+other than himself, entreated his majesty not to be too open in his
+demonstrations of force against his Scotch subjects. The Covenanters on
+the other hand declared they meant nothing disrespectful to the throne,
+and that their pelting, shouting, bullying, stoning, and protesting,
+were all to be considered as acts performed in the most loyal spirit,
+and without the smallest idea of disobedience to the royal mandate.
+
+Some negotiations ensued between the two parties, and it was resolved
+that a General Assembly should be held in Glasgow forthwith, while a
+proclamation was issued for a Parliament to meet at Edinburgh a few
+months afterwards. Hamilton knew the Assembly would do no good, and
+wrote to the king to say so; but Charles answered, that it would at all
+events gain time, and the Scotch might perhaps, if they met together in
+large numbers, come to the scratch among themselves--a result that was
+exceedingly probable.
+
+The Marquis of Hamilton reached Glasgow on the 17th of November, 1638;
+and the General Assembly commenced on the 21st with a sermon of such
+tremendous length, that the audience were pretty well exhausted by the
+time it was concluded. The Assembly would have then chosen a moderator;
+but Hamilton starting up with a polite "I beg your pardon," told them
+there was a little Commission to read in order to explain by what
+authority he was sitting there. The Commission was exceedingly long, and
+all in Latin, which enabled the officer entrusted with the commission of
+reading the Commission, to extemporise rather extensively, by adding to
+the original Latin a considerable quantity of Dog, which spun out the
+time amazingly. The Assembly then again prepared to choose a moderator,
+when Hamilton starting up, exclaimed--"I'm very sorry to be so
+troublesome, but I must interrupt you again, for I wish you to hear this
+letter from his majesty."
+
+Charles had purposely despatched a most unintelligible scrawl, and
+the functionary employed to read it prolonged the painful operation of
+deciphering it as long as he could, until at length the reading of the
+letter was concluded. The Assembly being again about to proceed to elect
+a moderator, Hamilton once more was upon his legs, with a "Dear
+me, you'll think me very tiresome, but I have really something very
+particular to say;" and off he went into a speech which seemed almost
+interminable, from its excessive wordiness.
+
+As all things must come to a conclusion, if not to an end--Hamilton's
+speech, for example, came to no end at all--the oration of the marquis
+was terminated at last, and for the fourth time the Assembly had begun
+to choose a moderator, when Hamilton interfered with a "Stop! stop!
+stop! Before you go any further, remember that I protest against
+anything you may do that will be prejudicial to the king's prerogative."
+
+At length he was formally asked if he had quite done with his
+interruptions, and having exhausted all his resources, he was
+constrained to admit that he had no further remark to make, when the
+election of a moderator was proceeded with. Alexander Henderson, a
+minister of Fife,--which might well have been called, in the strong
+language of Shakespeare, the "ear-piercing Fife," for it was determined
+to make itself heard,--was chosen to the office, and Hamilton was again
+on his legs to read a protest, but a general cry of "Down! down! Come!
+come! we've had enough of that," prevented the marquis from proceeding
+further in his obstructive policy. The Assembly then chose one Archibald
+Johnston as clerk, and Hamilton, determined to give the Covenanters one
+more lesson on the Hamiltonian system, commenced protesting against
+the last appointment they had made. The marquis was, however, most
+unceremoniously pooh-poohed, and the Assembly adjourned.
+
+On the next day Hamilton began the old game of entering more protests
+against the return of lay elders to the Assembly, but he was treated
+with no more respect than if he had been a lay figure, and was compelled
+to hold his tongue. Being checked in every attempt to enter a protest
+on his own account, he insisted on patronising ana adopting a protest of
+the bishops who denied the jurisdiction of the Assembly, but one of the
+clerks of session thundering out a declaration that they would go on
+with the proceedings, Hamilton started up once more, "begging pardon
+for being so very troublesome, but adding that he really must protest to
+that." Finding his protestations utterly useless, he thought it better
+to protest to the whole thing _en masse_, and he accordingly dissolved
+the General Assembly on the ensuing day. Henderson, the moderator--so
+called, on the _lucus a non lucendo_ principle, from his being no
+moderator at all--declared he was sorry they were going to lose the
+pleasure of Hamilton's company, but the Assembly, being assembled, had
+no intention to disperse. The marquis, who had gone about muttering to
+himself "Oh, you know, this is quite absurd! I'm no use here," made the
+best of his way to England. He urged Charles to take military measures
+against the Scotch, but they were very active in making warlike
+preparations, and had already got up a magazine at Edinburgh--no
+relation to Blackwood or Tait--which was full of pikes, muskets,
+halberts, and other striking but very offensive articles. In the
+meantime the coffers of Charles were standing perfectly empty, nobody in
+the city would take his paper upon any terms, and indeed he could
+accept no bills, for there was no Parliament in existence to draw the
+documents. He called upon the judges, the clergy, and even the humbler
+servants of the crown, to contribute part of their salaries to his
+necessities--a process very like borrowing a portion of the wages of
+one's cook to pay one's butcher.
+
+[Illustration: 527]
+
+The Covenanters had got together a tolerably large number of troops,
+under General Leslie, and Hamilton was sent with five thousand men
+to take Leith, but by the time he got into the waters of Leith(e) his
+soldiers seemed to be oblivious of their duties, for they all deserted
+him.
+
+Charles now thought it high time to go and see about the Scotch business
+himself, and he started, per coach, for York, with the Duke of Lennox
+and the Earl of Holland as inside passengers. He was met at that city
+by the recorder, as the coach drew up to the inn door, and that
+functionary, in a fulsome speech, told him he had built his throne on
+two columns of diamond--the parasite forgetting that the old notion of
+"diamond cut diamond" might unpleasantly suggest itself. At York Charles
+enacted an oath of fidelity from the nobles, which was taken by all but
+Lord Saye and Brook, the former declaring he should be a mere do if he
+consented to say what he did not mean, and the latter intimating that he
+was far too deep a Brook to commit himself in the manner that the king
+required.
+
+On the 29th of April Charles left York and repaired to Durham, where the
+bishop feasted him famously, giving him Durham mustard every day, as a
+condiment to the delicious dishes that were prepared for him. He next
+advanced to Newcastle, where the mayor entertained him sumptuously;
+but while the king went to dinner he heard that many of his troops were
+going to desert, and by the time he got to Berwick he was glad to listen
+to a proposition for a truce, which, after a good deal of trumpeting on
+both sides, was arranged without a blow--except those conveyed through
+the trumpet--on either.
+
+A conference was next agreed upon, between the deputies of the
+Covenanters and the Commissioners of the king; but, just as they were
+commencing business, Charles walked in, saying, "I am told you complain
+that you can't be heard! Now then, fire away, for I am here to hear
+you." Lord Loudon, who was loud without being effective, began to make
+a speech, but the king cut him short, and Loudon, with all his loudness,
+remained inaudible during the rest of the sitting. The parties to the
+negotiation were pretty well matched, for royal roguery had to contend
+with Scotch cunning. "We must give and take," said Charles. "Yes, that's
+all very well, but you want us to do nothing but give, that you may do
+nothing but take," was the keen reply of the Caledonians. The assemblies
+of the Kirk were to be legalised, and an act of oblivion was to be
+passed, which was very unnecessary on the king's side, at least, for
+he was very apt to forget himself. Castles, forts, ammunition, and even
+money, were to be delivered up to the king, but part of the money having
+been spent, the cunning Scotchmen accounted for the deficiency by saying
+to his majesty, "You can't eat your cake and have it--that is very
+well known; and as we have eaten your cake, that you can't have it is a
+natural consequence."
+
+Charles was puzzled, though not quite convinced, by this reasoning; but
+he thought it best to acquiesce for the sake of peace and quietness in
+all the proposed arrangements. The two armies were disbanded on the
+24th of June, and Charles having stopped at Berwick to buy a Tweedish
+wrapper, returned to England. The king was now seized very seriously
+with a fit of his old complaint--the want of money--and he called
+in Laud and Hamilton to consult with Wentworth about a cure for the
+distressing malady. It was agreed, after some hesitation, to try another
+Parliament, and Wentworth suggested that an Irish Parliament might be
+tried first, upon which he was named Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with
+the title of Earl of Strafford, to give him more weight in making the
+experiment. The Irish Parliament promised four subsidies off-hand, and
+two more if required; but an Irish promise to pay, is little better than
+a bill without a stamp, a promissory note without a date, or an I O U
+without a signature.
+
+At length on the 13th of April, 1640, the English Parliament met, and it
+contained many eminent men, among whom Hampden, who sat for the town
+of Buckingham, was one of the most conspicuous. Finch, who had been
+formerly Speaker, was now Lord Keeper, a position he was most anxious to
+keep, and Mr. Serjeant Glanvil was chosen to fill the Speaker's chair,
+upon which he made a long tedious speech that annoyed everyone by its
+premises, as much as it gratified every one by its conclusion. The
+debates very soon assumed a most important air; and Pym--who, from his
+effeminate voice, had got the name of Niminy Pyminy from some parasites
+of the king--held forth with wondrous power, on the subject of national
+grievances. Charles, who hated the word grievance--it is a pity he did
+not abhor and avoid the act--ordered Parliament to attend him next day
+in the Banqueting Hall, not to give them an opportunity of filling
+their mouths, but for the purpose of stopping them. Charles said nothing
+himself, but set Finch at them, who told them that they must first vote
+the supplies, and that then they might luxuriate in their grievances to
+their hearts' content, and having given the king his cash, they would be
+at liberty to look out for their own consolation. The Commons were not
+to be so cajoled, and on the 30th of April resolved themselves into a
+committee of the whole House on the question of ship-money.
+
+The Lords, who were servile to the king, no sooner heard of this than
+they sent down to request a conference, but the Commons, who could get
+no satisfactory answer to the questions "why?" and "what about?" of
+course, on seeing the trap, declined tumbling into it. In vain did
+Charles send down to say he had a large amount to make up, and would
+be glad to know when it would be convenient to let him have "_that_
+subsidy," and even Sir Henry Vane, his treasurer, came--it can't be
+helped, the wretched pun must out--Yes! even Vane presented himself in
+vain to know when the supplies would be ready. The usual mode of getting
+rid of a pertinacious dun was resorted to by saying that an answer
+should be sent; and on the 5th of May, 1640, Charles, having asked the
+Speaker to breakfast, and as some say, made him exceedingly drunk, ran
+down to the House of Lords and dissolved the Parliament.
+
+The state of the money-market was now truly frightful, and the
+emissaries of Charles ran about in all directions crying out "Cash!
+Cash! We must have Cash!"
+
+Bullion was got from the Tower by bullying the people who had charge of
+it, and when no more good money was to be got, a proposition for coining
+four hundred thousand pounds' worth of bad was coolly suggested. "By
+Jove!" said the king, "when we can't snow white, we must snow brown, and
+if we can't snow silver, we must snow copper." Such snow would,
+however, have been equivalent tobits Latin appellation of _nix_, and the
+merchants foreseeing the danger of depreciating the coinage, prevented
+the uttering of base money, which would have been a source of
+unutterable confusion. The swindling resorted to for supplying the
+necessities of the king was something quite unsurpassed even in the
+annals of the most modern of fraudulent bankruptcies. Charles got goods
+on credit at a high price, and sold them for ready from the Tower by
+bullying money at a low one; horses were lugged out of carriages or
+carts, leaving the owners to draw their own vehicles and their own
+conclusions; and indeed the king's emissaries went about like a clown in
+a pantomime, appropriating and pocketing everything they could lay their
+hands upon. "See what I have found!" was a common cry at the snatching
+of a purse or anything else for the use of the king, and the example of
+robbery being set in high quarters, was sure to be followed in low
+with the utmost activity. The London apprentices were invited by a
+posting-bill stuck upon the Royal Exchange to a _soiree_ at Lambeth, for
+the purpose of sacking the palace of the archbishop, but Laud was ready
+with cannon, loaded with grape, and the apprentices muttering that the
+grapes were sour, abandoned their formidable intention.
+
+Hostilities with Scotland having again broken out, Charles had his hands
+quite full, and his pockets quite empty. The disputants on both sides
+were ultimately glad to come to another truce, for they found themselves
+after a great deal of fighting exactly where they were before they
+began, except some of the killed and wounded, who, unfortunately for
+them, were anything but just as they were at the commencement of the
+contest. The Scots were to receive, according to treaty, the sum of L850
+per day for two months, and Charles, wondering where the money was to
+come from, recollected that the Commons had the glorious privilege of
+voting the supplies, together with the glorious privilege of raising the
+money.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIFTH CHARLES THE FIRST (CONCLUDED).
+
+
+Such an unfortunate sovereign as Charles is a melancholy subject to
+dwell upon, but we must not cut him short though his contemporaries
+cruelly served him so. With a melancholy forboding of what was to come,
+the king, on the 3rd of November, 1640, opened the Long Parliament. One
+of its earliest acts was to release from prison our learned friend Mr.
+Prynne, and to give him L5000 damages for his detention. On hearing the
+decision he declared he would live no longer like a Prynne, but like a
+prince; and by way of a beginning he came down one flight of stairs, and
+had "2 pair, Mr. Prynne," instead of "3 pair, Mr. Prynne," marked on the
+door-post of his chambers.
+
+Strafford, who felt that his turn would very soon come, remained out of
+town as long as he could, under the idea that, in conformity with the
+proverb, "Out of sight out of mind," the Commons, if they did not see
+him, would never think of him. Charles, however, wrote to him, telling
+him that "to keep so long out of sight he must, indeed, be out of
+his mind," and insisted on his coming up to town to take his place in
+Parliament. He had scarcely entered the House of Lords before Mr. Pym
+appeared at the bar to impeach Thomas Earl Strafford in the name of all
+the Commons of England. The earl was taken to the Tower; and the chief
+secretary, Windebank, had he not discovered something in the wind,
+which caused him to take to flight, would assuredly have been obliged to
+follow the favourite, or even to come in with him neck and neck, which
+means, in this instance, neck or nothing. Finch, the Lord Keeper, was
+next proceeded against, but, having made one speech in his own defence,
+he availed himself of the natural qualities of the Finch family, by
+taking to flight, or to speak more characteristically, he "hopped
+the twig," and fled to Holland. Several others were threatened with
+Parliamentary vengeance, and Berkeley was actually arrested while
+sitting as a peer in his ermine, which he said had been done because the
+mob had resolved to undermine the Constitution.
+
+On the 19th of January, 1641, Mr. Prideaux brought in a bill to regulate
+the holding of Parliaments. Its object was to provide for their being
+summoned by the Lords in case of the refusal of the king, or by the
+Sheriffs in default of the Lords, or on the failure of King, Lords, and
+Sheriffs, the thing was to be done by the people. There was, by this
+measure, to be a new Parliament once in three years, which was allowing
+rather amply for wear and tear; and though Charles was very reluctant,
+he ultimately gave his consent to the arrangement. Those very ill-used
+gentlemen, the bishops, who are always selected as a mark when the
+spirit of revolution is abroad taking random shots at everything
+venerable, were of course not allowed on this occasion to escape, and
+the Commons voted them most unceremoniously out of Parliament.
+
+The great event of the session, however, was the trial of Lord
+Strafford, who on the morning of Monday, the 22nd of March, boated it,
+or rather barged it, up from the Tower to Westminster. Everything, even
+the tide was against him, and the Earl of Arundel, who was notoriously
+his enemy, acted as High Steward at the trial. The impeachment contained
+twenty-eight articles, every one of them being capital, so that if
+Strafford had possessed twenty heads, it is quite clear that the deep
+revenge of his accusers "had stomach for them all." Strafford's reply
+was written out on two hundred sheets of paper, but a good bold text
+hand must have been employed, for the two hundred sheets, as well as the
+articles of impeachment, were all got through on the first day of the
+trial.
+
+It is rather a strange way of proceeding to take the reply before
+hearing evidence in support of the charge; but such was the practice on
+this momentous occasion. Arundel next called upon the managers of the
+Commons to bring forward their proofs, and Pym began a very roundabout
+address in the fashion of the period. The speech of Pym was a
+reiteration of the charges in the impeachment, served up with
+a _garniture_ of his own eloquence. Strafford declared it was a
+conspiracy, of course, for it is a curious fact that the most flagrant
+criminals have always been--if they are to be believed, which we need
+scarcely say they are not--the victims of a cruel combination against
+injured innocence. Strafford asked for time to plead, but he had not
+taken out a summons in the regular way, and accordingly only half an
+hour was awarded him. He nevertheless made such good use of this short
+time, that he made a capital speech, and concluded with a puzzle almost
+as good as the old original inquiry, with reference to the red
+herring and the sack of coals. * "For if," said he, "the one thousand
+misdemeanors will not make a felony, how will twenty-eight misdemeanors
+make a treason?"
+
+     * Every one knows, or ought to know, the question of the
+     arithmetical enthusiast: "If a red herring costs three-
+     halfpence, what will a sack of coals come to?" Ans.--
+     _Ashes_..
+
+The trial was continued from day to day, and on the 10th of April Pym
+walked knowingly up to the bar with a variety of nods and winks, to
+intimate that he had a matter of vast importance to communicate. The
+assembly having ordered the door to be locked to prevent intrusion--as
+if the housemaid might have wandered in with her broom--there was a
+general cry of "Now then, what is it? Let's have it out without all this
+mystery." Pym hereupon produced a copy of notes taken at a meeting of
+the privy council, in which Strafford was reported to have told the king
+that he was "'absolved and loosed from all rule and government.'" The
+point was considered a strong one; but if Strafford had told Charles he
+was the Emperor of Morocco, and might turn all his subjects into morocco
+slippers by trampling them under his feet, the ministers having merely
+said so would not have made the fact, and he could not have been liable
+for it unless it had really happened. _Verba non acta_ seemed, however,
+to be the motto of his judges, who took the word for the deed in
+numerous instances. Strafford having made the best answer he could to
+this part of the charge, was told by Arundel, that if he had anything
+more to say, the sooner he said it the better, for his judges were very
+anxious to have the pleasure of condemning him. The fact was, that
+the customary sympathy of Englishmen for a poor fellow in a mess, was
+beginning to show itself, and the Commons feared that the trial would
+not "keep" a great deal longer if they did not speedily make an end of
+it. The matter was accordingly hurried on, and on the 21st of April,
+the bill of attainder passed the Commons by a very large majority.
+The numbers were 204 against 59, which of course did not include the
+"tellers," for if it had done so, Hume, Hallam, and the rest of us,
+must have been comprised, for we are all of us the "tellers" of this sad
+story.
+
+When the bill went up to the peers, their lordships were not at all in
+a hurry to despatch it, and the Commons kept sending up messages to know
+"How about that little Bill?" and begging that the Upper House would
+immediately settle it. It was rumoured that Strafford intended to
+escape, but it was rather idle to speculate upon the intentions of a man
+who was utterly unable to accomplish them. He offered a bribe of L22,000
+to Balfour, the Lieutenant of the Tower; but that virtuous individual
+scorned the filthy dross, though some brute, who has no appreciation of
+the great and good, has hinted that Balfour either expected more, or was
+afraid that what was offered would not be forthcoming.
+
+Charles, who was very anxious to make the favourite safe, though the
+odds were terribly against him, sent for the Lords and Commons, whom he
+begged, when drawing up their sentence, to draw it as mild as possible.
+He said he had listened to the evidence, and he really did not see how
+they could commit the earl. But Pym replied, _sotto voce_, that "none
+are so blind as those who won't see;" and Charles could elicit nothing
+satisfactory. At the next sitting of the Parliament a furious mob
+was collected outside, and the Lords naturally expressed their
+disinclination to being bullied into haste on the subject of the bill
+of attainder. Upon this, one Dr. Burgess, who had some weight with the
+people, went out to disperse them, and though he said some sharp things
+which caused that intolerable nuisance--a wag--to cry out, "Come,
+Burgess, none of your sauce!" he succeeded in his object.
+
+The state of nervous agitation in which the whole country was plunged at
+about this period may be conceived by a little anecdote which is told
+on the best authority--that is to say, the best that happens to be
+available. Sir Walter Earl was in the midst of a cock-and-bull story
+about some plot that had been hatching to make a sort of girandola of
+the Parliament, by blowing it up with a splendid display of fireworks,
+in the midst of which the Speaker was to have gone off like a
+Jack-in-the-box, when the members, who were shivering and shaking like
+a grove of aspens, were startled by the following incident:--Two very
+corpulent members happening to stand upon one plank, which was rather
+the worse for wear, caused the floor to crack, and the Commons thought
+it was all up, or rather all down, with them. The utmost confusion
+prevailed, and somebody at once started off to fetch the train-bands,
+who acted as the police of the period. It turned out to be a false
+alarm, or to speak more correctly, a real alarm resting on false
+premises, for the flaw in the floor had been the cause of this not
+altogether groundless terror.
+
+On the 7th of May the Lords passed the bill of attainder against
+Strafford, as well as another bill, abrogating the power of the king to
+dissolve the Parliament. The House was thin, and it may have happened
+that the recent accident with the two fat members in the Commons
+operated as a warning to corpulent peers not to attend till their locus
+_standi_ had been looked to by the carpenter.
+
+It now remained to be seen whether Charles would give his consent to
+the execution of the favourite, and poor Strafford feeling that his life
+hung upon a thread, sent a long yarn, in the shape of a letter, to his
+royal master. The king summoned his privy council to advise him what
+step to take, when honest Jack Juxon, the plain-sailing Bishop of
+London, exclaimed, bluntly, "I'll tell you what it is, your majesty;
+if you've any doubts about his guilt don't you go and sign his bill
+of attainder for all the Bills--no, nor the Bobs, nor the Dicks--in
+Christendom." Others, however, gave him opposite advice, and the scene
+ended by his resolving to give his assent, though he did so with his
+pocket-handkerchief before his eyes, but whether from emotion or a cold
+in his head is still an "open question" with all historians. On the 12th
+of May, 1641, poor Strafford met his doom with such heroic fortitude
+that, though he became shorter by a head in a physical sense, his moral
+stature was considerably heightened in the eyes of posterity.
+
+The death of Strafford was the signal for the abandonment of office by
+several of his friends, who thought it better to live with resignation
+than die with resignation at this very trying juncture. Bills
+were passed for abolishing the Star-Chamber, and the Court of High
+Commission, as well as for preventing the Parliament from being
+dissolved, except by its own consent; so that Charles became like a king
+in a game of skittles, whose downfall was only a question of time and
+circumstance.
+
+Being dreadfully in want of a little loyalty to comfort him, and finding
+very little in England--and that of the weakest kind--the sovereign paid
+a visit to Scotland, where he knew he could have as much as he wanted,
+if he chose to pay for it. His visit to that country was fast coming
+to a close when news reached him of a rebellion in Ireland, where the
+descendants of the early settlers, who were for settling everybody, and
+had taken the name of the "Loras of the Pale," were causing numbers to
+"kick the bucket."
+
+The republican spirit had now broken out in full force; and the more the
+king went on doing what he was asked, the more the Commons went on being
+dissatisfied. At length he determined to try a bit of firmness, and
+walked into the House of Commons one morning to demand the impeachment
+of five members, two of whom were Pym and Hampden. Charles entered the
+assembly quite alone, and walking up to the chair of the Speaker, who
+had risen on the king's arrival, his majesty glided into it. He stated
+that he had come to take the five members into custody; but there
+was something so derogatory in the idea of "every monarch his own
+policeman," that the Commons Were rather disgusted, and greeted him with
+shouts of "Privilege! Privilege!"
+
+Having made up his mind that "this sort of thing would not do," he
+determined to go out of town, and repaired to York, where he was soon
+joined by a party of volunteers more select than numerous. Charles was
+in that state of cashlessness so often ascribed by history to kings,
+who, nominally possessed of a crown, are positively not worth a
+shilling.
+
+He had sold his wife's jewels, and laid out the produce in arms and
+ammunition, which he gave out as far as they would go to his few
+friends; but the distribution was a mournful business. There were
+scarcely swords enough to go round, and the gunpowder was served out
+in little packets like so many doses of salts to the small band of
+royalists. They mustered the money for a manifesto, in which Essex, one
+of his apostate generals, was denounced in very large type; and the
+king having corrected the proof of the poster, ordered one hundred to
+be worked off and stuck up at the earliest opportunity. His majesty
+and suite--which Strype tells us was short and suite--repaired to
+Nottingham, where the cause of the sovereign got a sort of lift by the
+hoisting of the royal standard.
+
+When Charles found it necessary to draw the sword, he felt that he had
+nothing else to draw, for his funds were quite exhausted. Everything
+seemed to go against him, and even the elements themselves were
+unfavourable, for the standard which his friends had found it so
+difficult to hoist, was blown down, and came rattling through a skylight
+on to the heads of the royalists. The civil war had now regularly
+commenced, and the first battle was fought at Edge Hill, in
+Warwickshire, where Prince Rupert--the inventor of mezzotinto
+engraving--left the print of his sword, and several proofs of his
+valour, on the ranks of the king's enemies. After fighting all day the
+two armies put up for the night, and facing each other the next morning,
+they evidently did not like each other's looks, for both parties
+retired. Had the king's troops gone to London, they might have done
+some good; but they loitered about Reading, and by the time they got
+to Turn-ham Green, it was occupied by twenty-four thousand men,
+though where they managed to turn 'em in at Turnham Green is somewhat
+mysterious.*
+
+     * It seems more probable that the twenty-four thousand
+     Parliamentary troops were stationed in London than that so
+     many were crammed into the little suburb specified.
+
+On the 15th of April, the Parliamentarians invested Reading, but the
+king having nothing to invest, could not compete for this eligible
+investment. Essex, who had managed the transaction, did not continue
+long a holder, but fell back to Thame, where a skirmish took place that
+would have been literally a tame affair if the illustrious Hampden had
+not perished in the _melee_.
+
+Essex was one of the worst men possible to be chosen as a leader, for he
+had an unconquerable propensity to gib--which was the only invincibility
+he possessed--and he was consequently falling back whenever he should
+have been going forward. He had gibbed from Reading to Thame, and he now
+gibbed again from Thame to London, where it became a saying among the
+common people, "Oh, that's Essex: I know him by the cut of his jib."
+
+[Illustration: 536]
+
+The civil war continued to rage with varying success until the battle
+of Marston Moor, where the royalists, under Prince Rupert, sustained a
+defeat they never recovered from, and the only use they could make of
+their right and left wing was to fly for safety. After this reverse,
+Charles attempted to get up a treaty called the Treaty of Uxbridge,
+which, after twenty days of wrangling between the Commissioners of the
+Parliament and those sent by the king--the former wanting everything and
+the latter conceding nothing--fell completely to the ground. Cromwell
+had contrived that Sir Thomas, now Lord Fairfax, should be appointed
+General of the Parliamentary Army, so that the responsibility of failure
+should rest upon that individual; while the wily brewer, who knew how to
+take his measures, would have artfully secured the merit of any success
+for himself. The battle of Naseby was the last decisive blow, which, in
+the graphic words of one of our early writers, "put the nasal organ of
+royalty completely out of joint." Charles behaved very gallantly, and
+so did Rupert; but when the former cried out to his cavalry, "One
+charge more and we win the day!" he might just as well have exclaimed,
+"Twopence more, and up goes the donkey!" for his words produced no
+effect. "Thank you, we've had enough of it," seemed to be imprinted on
+every countenance; and after a few more reverses, Charles formed the
+rash deliberation of throwing himself upon the generosity of the Scotch.
+
+He might just as well have thrown himself on the pavement beneath the
+Monument, as the sequel proved; for the Scotch at once set to work to
+see what profit was to be made by the sale of the royal fugitive. After
+a good deal of haggling, they sold the sovereign, who had thrown himself
+upon their generosity, for L400,000; and they no doubt silenced their
+consciences--if they ever had any--by saying, "It's just a matter of
+beesness, ye ken," to any one who remonstrated with them upon their
+mercenary baseness.
+
+The royal prisoner was shut up for some weeks at Holmby Castle, in
+Northamptonshire, but after a few weeks, Cromwell sent one Joyce,
+formerly his tailor, and afterwards a cornet in Fairfax's troop of
+horse, to "smug" the unhappy king and carry him to the army.
+
+The House of Commons became exceedingly jealous of the military
+influence that prevailed, but the people rather sided with the soldiers;
+for the Parliament had, of course, in its great love of liberty, taken
+the liberty to lay on taxes to an extent unprecedented in the annals
+of royal rapacity. It is a fact worth remembering, that the people
+frequently find their friends more costly than their enemies.
+
+In the autumn of 1647, the king was sent to Hampton Court, where he was
+allowed some indulgences, such as going out to spend the day at Sion
+House, where two of his children were remaining as parlour boarders with
+the Duke of Northumberland. Some Puritans having given indications of
+their imagining that they had a spiritual call to do some mischief to
+the king, his majesty resolved not to be at home to such a call if he
+could possibly help it, and leaving Hampton Court with three attendants
+he reached the coast of Hampshire. It was noticed at the time that
+Charles had probably heard of the celebrated Hampshire hogs, and fancied
+therefore that Hampshire must be the best place for him to go to in the
+hope of saving his bacon. He resigned himself to Colonel Hammond,
+the Governor of the Isle of Wight, who placed the royal fugitive in
+Carisbrook Castle; where a bowling-green was arranged and a summerhouse
+built, so that Charles could fancy himself, if he liked, in a suburban
+tea-garden. The king was a capital bowler, and when sorrow came across
+his mind he would try and "drown it in the bowls" which Colonel Hammond
+was so good as to provide him with.
+
+In the September of 1648, another conference was attempted, and Charles
+took a furnished lodging at a private house in Newport, where the
+commissioners came to consult with him. They found him much altered, and
+with his hair so grey as to bespeak the fact that care had been busy in
+peppering his head, which he declared had got into that state during
+his anxious sojourn at Oxford; and this peculiar combination of tints
+retains to this day the title of the Oxford Mixture.
+
+The Parliament would have been glad to diminish the influence of the
+army by a successful negotiation with the king; but while terms were
+being discussed, Cromwell, who never brewed half-and-half, struck a blow
+at both parties. He sent one of his draymen named Pride, who had risen
+from a seat on the shafts of his dray to a colonelcy in the army, to
+blockade the Parliament-house with a body of troops, and let in only
+those members who were favourable to the views of his late employer. We,
+who cannot imagine Barclay or Perkins going the entire in the style of
+their predecessor in trade, nor conceive Meux and Co. meddling with the
+Crown, except to supply it with beer, are of course astonished at the
+insolence of Cromwell. He nevertheless gained his point, for he set the
+Parliament at defiance, and had the king removed to Hurst Castle, in
+Hampshire, which was so dull that Charles could not help remarking that
+coming to Hurst was like going to be buried. He was again removed to
+Windsor, and subsequently to St. James's Palace, where the guards were
+ordered to call him Charles Stuart, in order to show the magnanimity
+of the revenge of such a man as Cromwell. The king was exposed to every
+petty insult that littlemindedness could suggest or coarse brutality
+execute. In this respect the "liberals" of England in 1649 set an
+example which the "liberals" of France followed in the treatment
+of their own fallen and powerless sovereign upwards of a century
+afterwards. The only comfort he enjoyed was the society of poor old Jack
+Juxon, the bishop who had been faithful to him in all his adversity.
+
+It was now determined to bring the king to trial, and on the 20th of
+January the proceedings commenced in Westminster Hall, when upon its
+being declared that Charles was accused in the name of the people,
+a shrill voice exclaimed "Pooh, pooh! not a tenth part of them." The
+ushers looked in vain to see who was disturbing the audience, and
+the soldiers were ordered to fire into the corner whence the voice
+proceeded, until it turned out that Lady Fairfax was the individual by
+whom the proceedings had been interrupted. She was a warm politician,
+and with her husband had espoused the parliamentary cause, but was
+disgusted like him with the brutal use that the "liberals" were making
+of their triumph. Charles demurred to the jurisdiction of his judges for
+three days, but, on the 27th, they found him guilty, and sentenced
+him to be beheaded three days afterwards. The "people," imitating the
+conduct of some of their "friends," insulted the fallen monarch in his
+misfortune, and many a malicious, low-bred ass, tried to get a kick at
+the chained lion. Happily the people in our own days are very superior
+to the people of the time ol Charles, and there is no sympathy among
+the masses with ungenerous persecution, whatever may be the rank of the
+victim.
+
+As Charles quitted the hall after his conviction, a wretched miscreant
+displayed a toad-like venom by spitting in the king's face, which drew
+from the sovereign the true remark, "Poor souls! they would treat their
+generals in the same manner for sixpence." While chronicling an act
+disgraceful to human nature, we must not forget to put down what is on
+the credit side--namely, a blessing instead of an insult from one of the
+guard, who was struck to the ground for giving way to this creditable
+impulse.
+
+We draw a veil over the closing scene, for our history is not a register
+of murders; but whoever reads attentively the details of the sacrifice
+of Charles the First will see the original of one of the darkest scenes
+in the French Revolution.
+
+The death-warrant for the execution of Charles the First was signed
+by fifty-nine of his judges, the list beginning with the name of James
+Bradshaw, and ending with that of Miles Corbet. Few of them rose to much
+distinction, and still fewer have left descendants capable of acquiring
+fame, for there is scarcely a renowned patronymic in the entire
+catalogue. A man in a visor performed the murderous ceremony of striking
+off the king's head; and we cannot be surprised that the executioner was
+ashamed to show his face on such an occasion.
+
+Though the nation had stood by, in the most apathetic manner, while the
+mischief was doing, it was no sooner done than everybody became
+very indignant and very sorrowful. Women went into fits, men took to
+drinking, and some went so far as to commit suicide rather than survive
+their murdered sovereign. This sympathy was all peculiarly English, and,
+in fact, a little too much so; for it is the fault of our countrymen to
+make a great deal too much of the dead and too little of the living.
+
+Frequently the fate of one who, after his decease, has his merits
+recognised by subscription and a monument. Genius not unfrequently asks
+in vain for bread when living, but when dead gets a stone awarded him.
+
+Charles was in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the twenty-fourth of
+his reign, when he was brought to the scaffold. We regret that we cannot
+give a favourable character of this unfortunate person out of place--for
+he certainly was completely out of place on the throne of England. His
+disposition was mixed, like human nature in general; and indeed, what
+is mankind, as the philosopher would ask, but the "mixture as before"
+incessantly repeated? He was dignified, it is true, but so is the
+representative of the "fifth noble" Neglect, or even starvation, is
+freor "tenth senator," in an opera or play, and he was temperate also to
+an extent that might have fitted him for the chair of a teetotal lodge,
+but not for the throne of a vast empire. He was not avaricious, but if
+he spent money freely it was because he freely helped himself to the
+money of other people. He was humane to such an extent, that "he would
+not have hurt a fly;" but it may be said that a fly never did him any
+harm, and hostility therefore, to that imbecile insect, would have been
+at once brutal and undignified. The man who would hurt a fly must indeed
+be very hard up for a victim to his malevolence, and Charles cannot,
+therefore, have much credit given him for his amiability towards that
+humble member of the class of _diptera_. The manners of Charles were not
+much in his favour; "but it would not have mattered much," says the
+incorrigible Strype, "that he was a bit of a bear, had he been otherwise
+bearable."
+
+In a commercial country, like ours, his swindling propensities will
+always tell against him, and his insatiable desire to obtain money,
+under false pretences, was quite unworthy of his exalted station, or,
+indeed, of any station but that where the police are paramount. It is
+true that his subjects would have kept him rather hard up for cash; and
+he often declared that the Long Parliament reduced him repeatedly to
+very short commons. Hume has endeavoured to give Charles the reputation
+of being a man of "probity and honour;" but it must have been the sort
+of honour said to prevail among thieves, for when he could not get money
+by honest means--which he seldom could--he never scrupled to rob for it.
+
+In person, Charles had a sweet but melancholy expression, a sort of
+_agro dolce_, which made his portrait not quite a _Carlo Dolce_ to look
+upon. His features were regular, but he was not vain; and he would often
+say or think "that he should not care about a regular nose or chin, so
+that he could make both ends meet by having a regular salary." He was an
+excellent horseman; but it is one thing to be skilful in the management
+of the bridle, and another to be adroit in holding the reins of power.
+His equestrian accomplishments would have been useful to him had fate
+thrown him into another circle, where his favourite, Buckingham as clown
+to the ring, would also have been in his proper position.
+
+The men of letters of Charles' reign were numerous and illustrious.
+Ford, the dramatist, whose depth it is difficult to fathom; Ben Jonson,
+surnamed the Rare, and as it has been prettily said by somebody, "the
+rarer the better;" with Philip Massinger, belonged to the period. Speed,
+the topographer, commonly called the "slow coach;" Burton, the famous
+anatomist of melancholy, and familiarly known as the sad dog; Spelman,
+whose writings possess no particular spell; Cotton, who has furnished
+a lot of printed stuffs; and a few others, constituted the literary
+illuminators of the age, by their moral and intellectual moulds, dips,
+or rushlights.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SIXTH. THE COMMONWEALTH.
+
+
+The king being now dead, the republican beggars were on horseback, and
+began at a rapid pace the ride whose terminus we need not mention. On
+the 5th of February, 1649, a week after the execution of Charles, the
+Commons had the impudence to vote the House of Peers "both useless and
+dangerous." One of the next steps of the lower House was to vent a sort
+of brutal malignity upon unfeeling objects, and having no longer a king
+to butcher, it was resolved to break up all his statues. The Commons
+thought, no doubt, to pave the way to a republic by macadamising the
+road with the emblems of royalty.
+
+Considerable discussion has been raised upon the question of the right
+of a nation to decapitate its king; and, of course, if the people may
+do as they please with their own, they may do anything. The judgment
+of posterity has very properly pronounced a verdict of "Wilful Murder"
+against the regicides, and we have no wish to disturb this very fair
+decision. It is very unlikely that a similar state of things will ever
+arise again in England; but, if such were to be unhappily the case,
+there are, in these enlightened times, numerous pacific and humane modes
+of meeting the emergency. "Between dethroning a prince and punishing
+him, there is," as Hume well observes, "a wide difference;" and unless
+the professed humanity-mongers should get fearfully ahead--unless
+the universal philanthropists should gain an ascendency over public
+opinion--there is no fear that kings or aristocrats will ever
+be butchered again, for the promotion of "universal love" and
+"brotherhood."
+
+When Charles was no more, the republicans continued to show their paltry
+malevolence by making insulting propositions as to the disposal of his
+family. It was suggested that the Princess Elizabeth should be bound
+apprentice to a button-maker; but the honest artificer to whom the
+proposal was made generously hoped that his buttons might be dashed
+before he became a party to so petty an arrangement. Happily for the
+princess, death, by making a loophole for her escape, saved her from
+being reduced to the necessity of making buttons.
+
+A Committee of Government had been hitherto sitting at Derby House,
+which was now changed into the Executive Council, with Bradshaw as
+president, and Milton, the poet, as his secretary: the latter having
+being employed no doubt on account of his powerful imagination to
+conceive some possible justification for the conduct of the regicides.
+Duke Hamilton, the Earl of Holland and Capel, the last of whom had
+bounded away like a stag, but was seized at the corner of Capel Court,
+were all tried and beheaded.
+
+The usual consequences of the triumph of the "great cause of liberty,"
+as advocated by noisy demagogues, and of the ascendency of the
+_soi-disant_ friends of the people, very soon became evident. It was
+declared treason to deny the supremacy of Parliament, which might
+indeed lay claim to supremacy in oppression, pride, and intolerance. The
+"freedom of the press" was completely stopped; and, in fact, there was
+the customary direct antagonism between principle and practice which too
+frequently marks the conduct of the hater of all tyranny except his
+own, and the ardent friend of his kind, which is a kind that we do not
+greatly admire.
+
+The king's eldest son was proclaimed as Charles the Second, in Scotland
+and Ireland, which caused Cromwell to say, "I must go and see about
+that," and to start at once for Dublin. Having done considerable damage,
+notwithstanding the resistance of some of the Irish youth, who went by
+the name of the Dublin Stout, he left his son-in-law, Ireton, to look
+after Ireland, thinking, perhaps, he would be acceptable from the
+semi-nationality of his name, while he himself returned to England. He
+took up his abode in London, at a place called the Cockpit, where he
+was visited by several persons of consequence; and the new lord of the
+Cockpit enjoyed the Gallic privilege of having a good crow upon his own
+dunghill.
+
+Montrose now made an attempt in Scotland in favour of Charles the
+Second, but being defeated, he fled and sought refuge with a Scotch
+friend, who, of course, sold him for what he would fetch, and made L2000
+by the business transaction. Poor Montrose was hanged at Edinburgh, on a
+gallows thirty feet high, which justifies us in saying that cruelty
+was carried to an immense height, on this deplorable occasion. Charles
+himself now took the field, having landed at the Frith of Cromarty, and
+had collected a tolerably large army under Lesley. Cromwell instantly
+started for Scotland, with a considerable force, and attacked the
+royalists at Dunbar, where he encouraged his own troops by a quantity of
+religious cant, which contrasted strangely with the sanguinary nature
+of his object. After cutting to pieces all that fell in their way, the
+Puritan humbugs set to at psalm-singing with tremendous vehemence.
+This mixture of butchery and bigotry was one of the most disgusting
+characteristics of Cromwell and his ferocious followers. Charles, having
+fled towards the Highlands, intended leaving Scotland: but some people
+there asked him to stop and take a bit of dinner, with the promise of a
+coronation in the evening.
+
+The _reunion_ took place, but it was rather dull, and Charles determined
+to make his way towards England. Cromwell resolved to pursue him, and
+this active friend of religion and humanity, having met a few royalists
+on the road, deliberately "cut them to pieces." On the 3rd of September,
+1651, the Battle of Worcester was fought, with success to the republican
+force; and poor Charles was obliged to escape as well as he could
+by assuming a variety of disguises, though how he got the extensive
+wardrobe his dramatic assumptions entailed a necessity for, is not quite
+obvious. He arrived at Shoreham, near Brighton, in a footman's livery,
+and "the lad with the white cockade," as the old song called him,
+obtained a situation in a coal barge, in which he was carried to France.
+The captain of the collier must have been an odd sort of person, to take
+a footman with him on the voyage, but perhaps the coal-heavers of that
+day were more refined than they are at present.
+
+Cromwell was triumphantly received in London, and the cloven foot
+soon began to peep out from the high-low of the crafty republican. He
+accepted Hampton Court Palace as his residence, and an estate of L4000 a
+year was voted to him, without the purity of his intentions offering any
+obstacle to his receiving it.
+
+The Parliament was now getting into disrepute, and Cromwell thought
+he would take advantage of its loss of popularity, to increase his own
+stock, whereupon the game of "diamond cut diamond" was commenced between
+them. The Parliament had now been sitting for some years, and people
+began to think there might be too much of a good thing, even in an
+assembly of red-hot patriots, that had hanged a king, and sent the
+country into a fit of melancholy, by prohibiting, by law, everything in
+the shape of cheerfulness.
+
+In those days, a joke would lead the perpetrator to the gibbet, and a
+pun was so highly penal--as, perhaps, it ought to be--that a dull dog
+who had dropped one by mistake, was called upon to find heavy securities
+for his good behaviour. The nation was thrown into the dismals by Act of
+Parliament, and England became--to use a simile that would, at the time,
+have sent our heads smack to the block--the very centre of gravity.
+Cromwell, seeing that the Parliament was going down in favour every day,
+resolved to raise himself by giving the finishing blow to it. He sounded
+Whitelock, to whom he put the question, "What if a man should take
+upon himself to be king?" and thus Whitelock got a key to Cromwell's
+intentions. The old man--Silverplate, as some call him,--did not take
+to the notion, and Cromwell was exceedingly cool to him ever afterwards.
+There was a meeting at Oliver's lodgings, on the 20th of April, to
+discuss the best method of getting rid of the Parliament; and Cromwell,
+hearing the Commons were in the act of passing a very obnoxious bill,
+got up from his chair, in a very excited state, and told some soldiers
+to follow him. He swelled his little band with the sentinels on duty,
+whom he called out of their sentry boxes, as he passed, and entered the
+House, attended by Lambert, a file of musketeers, and a few officers.
+He took his seat, and listened to the debate, but when the Speaker was
+going to put the motion, he started up, saying to Harrison--"Now's
+the time; I must--indeed I must!" when Harrison pulled him back by the
+skirts of his coat, saying to him, "Can't you be quiet? Just think what
+you're doing." He then proceeded to address the assembly, but soon got
+dreadfully unparliamentary in his language, and rushing from his seat to
+the floor of the House, got very personal. He next stamped on the floor,
+when his musketeers entered, and, pointing to the Speaker, who was,
+of course, raised above the rest, he cried, "Fetch him down!" when
+the Speaker was seized by the robe and pulled into the midst of the
+assembly. Pointing to Algernon Sydney, Cromwell next cried, "Put him
+out!" and out he went like a farthing rushlight.
+
+Algernon was very young, and exhibited at first a degree of boyish
+obstinacy, mixed with infantine insolence, which caused him to be
+refractory, or--to use a simile in conformity with the image of the
+rushlight--to flare up in the socket. He, for a moment, refused to go;
+which caused Harrison to tap him gently on the shoulder, and say to him,
+in a mild, but resolute tone, "Come, come, young gentleman; if you don't
+go out quietly, we must put you out." The child seemed doubtful whether
+to turn refractory or not, when it suddenly appeared to occur to him
+that it would be useless to resist; and, just as Harrison had his hands
+on the lad's shoulders, to impart to him sufficient momentum to have
+sent him flying through the door, young Algernon made up his mind that
+he would go quietly. Cromwell stood, in fact, like a dog in the midst
+of so many rats; a position he had perhaps learned to assume, from his
+residence at the Cockpit; and he next flew at the mace, exclaiming,
+"Take away that bauble!" The mace was most unceremoniously hurried off,
+when, after a little more abuse against several of his old friends,
+the House was completely cleared, and there was an end to the Long
+Parliament.
+
+[Illustration: 544]
+
+Nothing could exceed the well-bred dogism or utter curishness of the
+Commons on this occasion, for not one of them offered the smallest
+resistance to the violence of Cromwell. When they had all sneaked out,
+he locked and double locked the door, put the keys in his pocket, and
+carried them to his lodgings. He admitted that he had not intended
+to have gone so far when he first entered the House, but the
+mean-spiritedness of the members had urged him on to the course he had
+adopted.
+
+Thinking that he might as well make a day of it, he proposed to Harrison
+and Lambert to walk with him to Derby House, and the three stalked
+into the room where the Council of State was sitting. Cromwell at first
+pretended to listen with attention to what was going on, and gave an
+occasional loud ejaculation of "Hear!" but Bradshaw, who was presiding,
+soon felt that the cheer was ironical. Business was permitted to proceed
+in this way for a few minutes, when the Council felt it was being
+"quizzed," and Bradshaw, giving an incredulous look at Cromwell, the
+latter made no longer a secret of his intention. "Come, come," he cried,
+"there's been enough of this; go home, and get to bed, and don't come
+here again until you've a message from me that you're wanted." The hint
+was immediately taken by Bradshaw, who started up and ran for it--for he
+was afraid of rough treatment--and he presently had close at his heels
+the whole of his colleagues. Thus, within the space of a few hours,
+Cromwell had broken up the Council of State, and dissolved the Long
+Parliament.
+
+Cromwell, having made short work of the Long Parliament, proceeded to
+supply its place by a legislature of his own composition, and the enemy
+of absolute monarchy proved himself an absolute humbug by acts of the
+most arbitrary and designing character. His pretended patriotism had
+in fact been a struggle on his part to decide whether the business of
+despotism should remain in the hands that were "native and to the
+manner born" to it, or whether he should start on his own account as a
+monopolist of tyranny to be practised for his own aggrandisement. The
+new Parliament was a miscellaneous collection of impostors and scamps,
+with a slight mixture of honest men, but these were too few to make the
+thing respectable. Cromwell now began to put on the external semblance
+of religion, with an extravagance of display that gives us every reason
+to doubt his sincerity. As the man of straw frequently covers himself
+with jewellery, a good deal of which may be sham; so Cromwell enveloped
+himself in all the externals of sanctity, which we firmly believe
+penetrated no further than the surface.
+
+[Illustration: 547]
+
+One of the principal members of the new Parliament was a fellow named
+Barbone or Barebone, a leather-seller and currier, who attempted to
+curry favour by an affectation of extreme holiness. The legislative
+assembly subsequently got the name of the Barebones Parliament from the
+person we have named, and the whole pack of humbugs usurped the powers
+of the State by pretending they "had a call" to take upon them the
+duties of government.
+
+It may generally be observed that they who make piety a profession look
+very sharply out for professional profits, and if they are desirous
+of taking what is not justly their own, they soon get up an imaginary
+"call" to urge them to the robbery. Cromwell formally handed over to
+them the supreme authority--which, by-the-by, was not his to give--and
+the first day of their meeting was devoted to praying and preaching,
+with a view to giving the public an idea of their excessive sanctity.
+They soon set to work in their career of mischief, and began by
+abolishing the Court of Chancery, on account of its delays, which was
+like killing a horse because it did not happen to go at full gallop.
+They certainly expedited the suits, and brought them to a conclusion
+about as effectually as one would accelerate a steam-engine by shutting
+up the safety valve, and allowing it to go to smash with the utmost
+possible rapidity. They nominated as judges a new set of lawyers, whose
+qualification was that they were not in the law; and there is no doubt
+the Parliament would have dissolved every institution in the kingdom if
+the members had not dissolved themselves on the 12th of December, 1654,
+at the suggestion of Cromwell.
+
+The old constitutional principle, that "too many cooks spoil the broth,"
+having been rapidly exemplified, it was declared expedient to have "a
+commonwealth in a single person," or, in other words, to have a king
+with a democratic name, which is the invariable result of the policy
+of red-hot republicans. Cromwell was, of course, the unit who had put
+himself down as A1 for the new office, and he succeeded in choosing
+himself or getting himself chosen by the title of _Lord Protector of
+England, Scotland and Ireland_. Thus, though the people had cut off the
+head of a real king, another head grew in in its place, for Government
+is like the hydra, which must have a head, however often the process
+of decapitation may be carried into execution. The brewer had, in fact,
+mashed up the constitution as completely as if he had used one of his
+own mash-tubs for the purpose, and his upstart insolence reached such a
+point, that the now well-known expression, "He doesn't think small beer
+of himself," was first applied in reference to this dealer in ale and
+stout, who, it was clumsily observed, had "gone the entire" in his great
+audacity.
+
+While these things were going on at home, the English fleet had been
+engaged with Von Tromp, or Trump, abroad, and the Dutch sailor behaved
+like the article which his name delicately indicates. The Dutch for some
+time, though they only had this Von Trump, carried off all the honours,
+and sometimes succeeded even by tricks; but at length the distinguished
+Trump was obliged to "shuffle off the mortal coil," and though he would
+gladly have revoked his determination to "cut in" to such a desperate
+game as an engagement with the English, he played it out to the
+last with all his wonted courage. The only remaining Trump, looking
+whistfully round him, fell by a blow from a knave who was in the suit
+and service of the English. When the last breath was blown out of the
+highly respectable Trump, the war between the Dutch and the English was
+at an end, and the Protector had time to follow out his principles
+by protecting himself with the utmost vigilance. One of his chief
+difficulties arose from the eagerness of the various liberal sects
+in religion to oppress each other in the name of brotherly love and
+universal harmony. This difficulty in quieting the demands of each to
+exterminate the others taught him lessons of diplomacy, and Cromwell
+soon became the most accomplished "do" that ever had a place in the
+pages of history. Though he recommended great tolerance in their
+quarrels with each other, they no sooner began to abuse him than he
+threw some of them into prison, reminding us of the celebrated apostle
+of temperance who, in a fit of intoxication, broke the windows of a
+public-house for the purpose of assisting the triumph of the "grand
+principle."
+
+Cromwell, who was a clever man, and, though a brewer, was averse to
+doing things by half-and-half, made some legal appointments that gave
+general satisfaction. He promoted Hale--with whom he was hale fellow
+well met--to the Bench of the Common Pleas, and he was fortunate enough
+to obtain a recognition of his protectorate from the Governments of
+France, Spain and Portugal.
+
+On the 3rd of September, 1654, which was Sunday, Cromwell, as Protector,
+first met his new Parliament, and played the part of a king in all its
+most essential points, even down to the delivery of a speech from the
+throne, remarkable for the badness of its grammar, the antiquity of its
+language, and the utter emptiness of most of its sentences. He abused
+the levellers, for, with the skill of political engineering, he desired
+to level down no lower than the "dumpy level" at which he had arrived;
+and while eulogising liberty of conscience, he admitted it to be a
+capital thing so long as it did not extend to the formation of opinions
+unfavourable to the Protector's own position. He spoke glowingly of the
+beauty of free thoughts, but hinted that, lest these thoughts should
+be more free than welcome, the people had better keep their thoughts to
+themselves as much as possible.
+
+At the close of Cromwell's speech, the Commons sneaked back to their
+House, where they elected Lenthall their Speaker, and appointed the 13th
+of September a day of humiliation, as if there had not been humiliation
+enough for the country in the conduct it had been recently pursuing. The
+Protector soon began to put his despotic principles in force, for his
+position having been debated rather freely, he sent for the members of
+Parliament to the Painted Chamber, and told them very plainly that he
+had made up his mind to stand no impertinence. "You wanted a republic,"
+said he, "and you have got it; so you had better be satisfied." In vain
+did they venture to urge that liberty, equality, and all the rest of it
+had been the purpose they had in view, for he replied that "they were
+all equally bound to show subservience to him, and that as to liberty,
+they were at perfect liberty to do, say, or think anything that would
+not be offensive to him, their master." He followed up this announcement
+by placing a guard at the door of the Parliament, whose duty it was to
+exclaim to each member "You can't go in, sir, until you have signed this
+paper," and on its being produced, it turned out to be an agreement not
+to question in any manner Cromwell's authority. Though this was a piece
+of tyranny and impertinence more disgusting than anything that had been
+attempted by Charles, one hundred and thirty of the members yielded to
+it at once; for it is a curious fact that, though the people will often
+show the susceptibility of the blood-horse at the slightest check of
+the rein when it is held by a royal hand, they will manifest the
+stolid patience of the ass under the most violent treatment from one of
+themselves, who has risen to the position of their master.
+
+On the 14th of September Cromwell's door-keepers played their part so
+well, and barred the entrance so effectually against all but those who
+would sign the paper, that a great many more agreed to do so, and when
+the number of consenting parties was sufficiently respectable to make
+up a fair average House, Cromwell's creatures proceeded to vote that
+subscribing the recognition of the Protector should be a necessary
+preliminary to taking a seat in Parliament.
+
+The Protector having done everything he could for himself, proceeded to
+show his protecting influence--of course--over several of his relatives.
+Fleetwood, who had married his daughter--the widow of Ireton--was sent
+as governor to Ireland, and the Protector's own son afterwards succeeded
+to this high and lucrative office. Not only did he provide snugly for
+his living kindred, but he gave them most inappropriate honours when
+dead, and his mother happening to go off about this time, he
+actually insisted on the "old woman's" being entombed in the Abbey of
+Westminster. What the dowager Mrs. Cromwell had done to deserve this
+distinction, we have yet to learn, and as we have learnt everything
+connected with the subject on which we write, our instruction on this
+point will, we fear, be postponed to a very distant period.
+
+Among the incidents of the Protector's domestic life, there is one
+which we will insert on account of its amusing and perhaps instructive
+character. Cromwell's vanity had so increased with his success, that
+he one day said to himself, "I can drive a whole people; I can drive a
+bargain as well as any man; and, odds, bobs, and buttercups! why should
+I not be able to drive my own carriage?" The cattle having been put to,
+he mounted the box with a jaunty air to enjoy a jaunt, and was tooling
+the cattle down Tooley Street, when, in consequence of the friskiness of
+one of the nags, Cromwell began nagging at his mouth with much violence.
+The horses not being so easily guided and controlled as the Parliament,
+soon turned restive, and ran away; which threw the Protector from
+his seat, and his own poll came into collision with the pole of his
+carriage. To add to the unpleasantness of the situation, a loaded
+pistol, which Cromwell always carried about him, went off, in sympathy,
+no doubt, with the steeds; or, perhaps, the charge could no longer
+contain itself, and exploded with a burst of indignation at the pride of
+its owner, who, however, was not wounded by the accident.
+
+The Protector continued to feather his nest with unabated zeal, and he
+got the Parliament to vote him half a dozen different abodes, including
+three or four in London itself; so that, unless he took breakfast at
+one, at a second, and took "his tea" at a third, he could not have
+occupied the metropolitan residences set apart for him. Multiplicity
+of lodgings appears to have been a _faiblesse_ of the Protector: for,
+notwithstanding these six places of sojourn, there is scarcely a
+suburb that has not a house or apartments to let that, according to a
+landlord's myth, once served for the palace or residence of Cromwell. If
+we may trust to tradition, he once lived at a surgeon's in the Broadway,
+Hammersmith; once in a lane at Brompton; once in Little Upper James
+Street, North; and once in or near Piebald Row on the confines of
+Pimlico. Having got an allotment of plenty of houses, to an extent
+reminding us of the extravagant order of "some more gigs" which an
+anonymous spendthrift once commanded of his coachmaker, Cromwell began
+to think about getting a grant to pay the expenses of his numerous
+establishments.
+
+An allowance of L200,000 a year was settled on himself and his
+successors, which, we find from a document of the period, * was exactly
+one entire sixth of the whole aggregate revenue of the three kingdoms
+put together.
+
+     * Statement of a sub-committee of the Commons.
+
+Thus, though poor Charles had experienced the utmost difficulty in
+getting money granted for the payment of his debts, or even for the
+costs of his living like a king and a gentleman, the usurper Cromwell
+obtained at once the concession of a most liberal salary.
+
+Notwithstanding the subservience the Parliament had in the first
+instance shown, symptoms of refractoriness in that quarter soon became
+visible. The Protector had made up his mind to go on changing it, as he
+would have done a set of domestic servants, until he could thoroughly
+suit himself; and accordingly, on the 22nd of January, 1656, he rang the
+bell, desired the legislature to appear before him, and announced
+that he had no further use for it. The members were desired to find
+themselves situations elsewhere; and though some of them had courage
+enough to hint that they "would be sure to better themselves, for
+they were tired of the quantity of dirty work they had had to do," the
+Parliament evinced, on the whole, a spirit, or rather a want of spirit,
+that was quite contemptible. Some of the malcontents ventured on a
+little revolutionary rising; but the levellers were speedily reduced to
+their old level. Major Wildman, a man rendered wild at the success of
+Cromwell's ambition, and hating the protectorate, had been heard to
+declare that he would "take the linch-pin out of the common-weal," and
+notwithstanding the flaw in the orthography, he was imprisoned on this
+evidence of hostility to the ruling power. At the moment when Wildman
+was arrested, he was sitting alone in his own back-parlour, evincing
+the same sort of enthusiasm that has immortalised the three tailors
+of Tooley Street, and drawing up "a declaration of the free and
+well-affected people of England now in arms against the tyrant Oliver
+Cromwell, Esquire." The major thought he had accomplished something very
+stinging, in adding "Esquire" to Cromwell's name; and he was in the act
+of roaring out, "Hear, hear! Bravo, bravo!" after he had written out the
+title of his tremendous manifesto, when a sudden bursting open of the
+door, and a cry of "You must come along with us," threw the major into a
+state of surprise from which he had not recovered when he found himself
+put for safe keeping in the keep of Chepstowe Castle.
+
+[Illustration: 552]
+
+A few other insurrectionary movements were made, but all of them were of
+a very trifling character. Penruddock, Grove, and Lucas got up a little
+royalist trio, but their movement was soon turned into a dis-concerted
+piece, by a regiment of Cromwell's horse, who rode rough-shod over the
+three conspirators, and they were executed instead of their project.
+
+The Protector was no less imperious towards foreign nations than towards
+his own, and having made some demands upon Spain, to which that country
+refused to accede, he sent Admiral Penn, familiarly termed his Nibs, to
+write his name upon some of the Spanish possessions. Assisted by General
+Venables, Penn, who may be distinguished as a steel-pen, for he carried
+a pointed sword, and never showed a white feather, took the island of
+Jamaica after a contest, in which he found among the inhabitants of
+Jamaica some rum customers. Blake worried the Spaniards in another
+quarter, and the Protector spread so much consternation among some of
+the European governments, that the celebrated Cardinal Mazarin, who
+greatly feared him, began to look so very blue, that a Mazarine blue
+retains to this very day a character for intensity.
+
+Emboldened by his good fortune, Cromwell thought he might venture
+on another Parliament, which met on the 17th of September, 1656,
+the members having undergone at the door an examination as to their
+servility to the Protector's purposes. The first sitting was like the
+first night of any novelty at the pit of Her Majesty's Theatre, and two
+of Cromwell's creatures officiated as check-takers. Every member who
+presented himself at the doors was obliged to produce his credentials,
+and upon this being satisfactorily done, a cry of "Pass one," was raised
+to the officer in charge of the inner barrier. Nearly one hundred new
+members were sent back, after more or less altercation; and the words
+"I can't help it, sir; those are my orders; you must go back, sir,"
+were being continually heard above the din of "Pass one," or "It's all
+right," which confirmed the privilege of admission claimed by many of
+the applicants.
+
+A legislature with only one House soon began to be considered as a
+sort of sow with one ear, and even the ear that remained was closed
+by Cromwell's art against what he used to call in private "the swinish
+multitude." A suggestion was made by several that the House of Lords
+should be restored, and many began to sigh for a return to the old
+constitution, which had been broken up before there had been time to try
+the effect of a new one.
+
+At length an alderman of London, one Sir Christopher Pack, started up,
+without any preliminary notice, and moved that the title of king should
+be offered to the Protector. Pack's proposition set off the entire pack
+of republicans in full cry against him, and they all continued to give
+tongue from the 23rd of February to the 26th of March, 1657, when Pack's
+motion was carried by a large majority. A deputation was appointed to
+request that "his Highness would be pleased to magnify himself with the
+title of king,"--a proposition almost as absurd as an offer to place
+Barclay and Perkins on the throne, or entreat Meux and Co. to write
+Henry IX. over the door of their brewery.
+
+Cromwell gave an evasive reply to the requisition, approving most fully
+of the proposition to restore the House of Lords, but was hanging back
+about the "other little matter," when a declaration from some of his
+former friends and tools, that they had fought against monarchy and
+would do so again if required, completely settled him in his wavering
+refusal of the royal title. He was therefore inaugurated with much pomp
+as Lord Protector--and, indeed, he might well have been satisfied, for
+he had secured everything except the name of royalty. His manner of life
+and his Court were marked by no extravagant show, but he had everything
+very comfortable: and he was accustomed to say to his intimate friends,
+"What do I want with the gilt, for haven't I got the gingerbread?" He
+did not give very large parties at Hampton Court, but used to have a
+"few friends" to tea, and "a little music" in the evening.
+
+[Illustration: 554]
+
+He occasionally attempted a joke, "But this," says Whitelock, "was
+always a very ponderous business." One of his frolics--we start
+instinctively at the idea of Cromwell being frolicsome--was to order a
+drum to beat in the middle of dinner, falling unpleasantly on the drums
+of his guests' ears, and at the signal the Protector's guards were
+allowed to rush into the room, clear the table, pocket the poultry, and,
+on a certain signal from the drum, make off with the drumsticks.
+
+Cromwell had the good taste to delight in the society of clever men, and
+there was always a knife and fork at Hampton Court for Milton, or for
+that marvel of his age, the celebrated Andrew Marvel. Waller, the poet,
+was welcome always; Dryden now and then; John Biddle sometimes; and
+Archbishop Usher, whom Cromwell use to call the only real gentleman
+usher of his day, was constantly kicking his heels under the Protector's
+mahogany.
+
+We have now to record the death of poor Blake, who, having fluttered
+the Canaries in the isles of that name, was returning safe into Plymouth
+Sound, when he died of the scurvy, which, according to a wag of that
+day--happily the wretch is not a wag of this--showed that fortune had in
+store for him but scurvy treatment. Poor Blake had been in early life a
+candidate for an Oxford fellowship, but lost it from the lowness of his
+stature, * for in Blake's time very little fellows were not academically
+recognised. There is no doubt that with his general ability he would
+have taken a very high degree if he had been only big enough. He was
+buried at the Protector's expense, in Henry the Seventh's chapel, for
+Cromwell was a great undertaker, and was very fond of providing his
+friends with splendid funerals.
+
+     * Brodic, Brit. Emp., iv. 317.
+
+While these things were happening at home, the Protector was fortifying
+his position abroad, and had persuaded the French to abandon Charles the
+Second, known to the world in general, and to playgoers in particular,
+as the "merry monarch." This fugitive scamp--of whom more hereafter--was
+mean enough to offer to marry one of the Misses Cromwell, a daughter
+of the usurper, who had the good sense and spirit to turn up his
+puritanical nose at the idea of such a son-in-law. Orrery, whom Charles
+consulted with the vague idea that consulting an orrery was in fact
+consulting the stars, took the message to Cromwell, who replied,
+haughtily, "I am more than a match for Charles, but Charles is less than
+a match for my daughter." The Protector had what he called something
+better in view for his "gal," who, on the 17th of November, was wedded
+to Lord Falconbridge. The ceremony was described in the _Morning Post_
+of the period, which was then called the _Court Gazette_, and a column
+was devoted to an account of the festivities. We see from facts like
+these how ready are the declaimers against aristocracy to adopt the ways
+and even the weaknesses of a class that is ridiculed and abused chiefly
+by those who would, if they could, belong to it.
+
+The ascendency of the puritan Protector was marked by the grossest
+corruption that ever prevailed under the most licentious of regal
+governments. Unlimited bribery of one portion of the people was effected
+by the unlimited robbery of the other, and thus the dupes were made to
+pay the knaves who sold themselves and betrayed their fellow-subjects
+for the sake of Cromwell's aggrandisement.
+
+On the 20th of January, 1658, the Parliament met again, and fraternised
+with a little batch of peers, amounting to sixty in all, whom Cromwell
+had created, and who might, indeed--upon our honour, we don't say so
+for the sake of the pun--be justly called his creatures. Two of the
+Protector's sons, namely, Richard and Henry, were among the batch of
+anything but thoroughbreds, that formed the roll of Oliver's peerage.
+The number, however, included some highly respectable names, among whom
+we may particularly notice Lord Mulgrave, who took the family name of
+Phipps, because in the civil wars he would not at one time have given
+Phippence for his life; Lord John Claypole, whose head was as thick and
+whose brains were as muddy as his title implies; and a few old military
+friends of Cromwell. Colonel Pride, who had been a drayman, was also
+among the new peers; and the drayman of course offered a fair butt to
+the royalists, who threw his dray in his face and assailed him with the
+shafts of ridicule.
+
+Scarcely any of the genuine nobles who had been called to Parliament
+condescended to come, and the Protector made his appearance before a
+house almost as poor as some of those in which the farce of legislation
+is enacted in these days at nearly the close of a very long session.
+Cromwell was really indisposed, or shammed indisposition on account of
+the scantiness of the audience, for, after having said a few words, he
+turned to his Lord Speaker Fiennes, exclaiming, "Fiennes! you know my
+mind pretty well; so just give it them as strongly as you like, for
+I'm too tired to talk to them." Fiennes, taking the hint, proceeded
+to rattle on at very rapid rate, mixing up a quantity of religious
+quotations and a vast deal of vulgar abuse, in the prevailing style of
+the period.
+
+The Commons retired to their chamber in a huff; and four days
+afterwards, receiving a message mentioning the Upper House, refused
+to recognise the peers except as the "other house,"--for the little
+Shakspearean fable of the rose, the odour, and the name, was not at that
+time popular. The Protector, who always sent for the Parliament as he
+would have sent for his tailor, desired that the legislature should be
+shown into the banqueting or dining-room, where he advised them not to
+quarrel, and, producing the public accounts, he impressed upon them that
+things were very bad in the city. He exhorted them not to increase the
+panic by any dissensions among themselves, but he could not persuade
+them to change their note; and he accordingly got out of bed--some say,
+wrong leg first--very early on the 4th of February, when, calling for
+his hot water and his Parliament, he dissolved the latter without a
+moment's warning. The legislative body had enjoyed a short but not very
+merry life of fourteen days, when an end was thus put to its too weak
+existence.
+
+The Protector was now in need of all his protective powers in
+consequence of the dangers that on all sides threatened him. The
+republicans were ready, as they generally are, to draw anything, from a
+sword to a bill; and the army, with its pay in arrear, did nothing but
+grumble. The royalists were being inspirited by the Marquis of Ormond,
+who was "up in town," quite _incog_.; and the levellers were, of course,
+ready to sink to any level, however degraded, in the cause of the first
+leader who was willing and able to purchase them.
+
+Notwithstanding the gathering storm, Cromwell boldly stuck up the sword
+of vengeance by his side, as a sort of lightning conductor to turn aside
+the destruction that threatened him. A pamphlet, called "Killing no
+Murder," put him to the expense of a steel shirt, the collar of
+which, by the way, could have required no starch; and he kept himself
+continually "armed in proof," but we do not know whether he selected
+an author's proof, which might have been truly impregnable armour, for
+getting through an author's proof is frequently quite impossible. He
+carried pistols in his pockets, to be let off when occasion required--a
+provision of which he never gave his enemies the benefit. Poor Dr.
+Hunt was cruelly cut off--or, at least, his head was--which amounted to
+much the same thing; and others were treated with similar severity.
+
+On the Continent the Protector was very successful, and the English
+serving under Turenne, or, as some have called him, Tureen, poured down
+upon Dunkirk, which was overwhelmed and taken. Cromwell, however, lived
+a miserable life at home, being suspicious of every one about him,
+and he never dared sleep more than two consecutive nights in the same
+place--a circumstance that may account for the multiplicity of lodgings
+we have already alluded to. This continual changing of apartments must
+have rendered him very liable to get put into damp sheets, and, as
+hydropathy had not yet been reduced to a system, he caught the ague,
+instead of profiting by the moisture of the bed-clothes. On the 2nd of
+September he grew very bad indeed, and, in the presence of four or five
+of the Council, he named his son Richard to succeed him; but this youth
+was so complete a failure, that to talk of his succeeding was utterly
+ridiculous. Oliver Cromwell died between three and four o'clock in the
+afternoon of the 3rd of September, the day on which he always expected
+good luck, for it was the anniversary of some of his greatest victories.
+Death, however, is an enemy not to be overcome, and, in spite of
+the prestige of success which belonged to the day, the Protector
+was compelled to yield to the universal conqueror. He died in the
+fifty-ninth year of his age; and it is a singular coincidence that
+Nature brewed a tremendous storm--as if in compliment to the brewer--at
+the very moment of his dissolution.
+
+[Illustration: 557]
+
+The character of Cromwell was, as we have already intimated, a species
+of half-and-half, in which the smaller description One, Two, Three, and
+finder of beer appeared to preponderate. He had, like a pot of
+porter, a good head; but to draw a simile from the same refreshing
+fount, he was rather frothy than substantial in his political qualities.
+His speeches had the wonderful peculiarity of meaning nothing, and
+instead of saying a great deal in a few words, he managed to say very
+little in a great many. * Cromwell wrote almost as obscurely as he
+spoke, and could do little more than sign his name, for which he used
+to make the old excuse of the illiterate, that his education had been
+somewhat neglected; and indeed it seemed to have gone very little beyond
+those primitive pothooks intended for the hanging up of future more
+important acquisitions. The Protector's wit was exceedingly coarse, or
+rather particularly fine, for it was scarcely perceptible. It savoured
+much of the Scotch humourist, whose fun might be exceedingly good
+sometimes, if it were not always invisible. His practical jokes wore
+not particularly happy, and his smearing the chairs with sweetmeats
+at Whitehall, to dirty the dresses of the ladies, was a piece of
+facetiousness worthy of an eccentric scavenger, but highly unbecoming to
+the chief magistrate, for the time being, of such a country as England.
+
+     * The following is an extract from one of the Protector's
+     speeches, which even Captain Bunsby, the naval oracle in
+     "Dombey and Son," might be proud of: "I confess. I would
+     say, I hope, I may be understood in this, for indeed I must
+     be tender in what I say to such an audience as this;--I say,
+     I would be understood that in this argument I do not make a
+     parallel between men of a different mind."
+                        --_Original Speech of Oliver Cromwell._
+
+Though Cromwell could scarcely read the characters of caligraphy, he
+could peruse the characters of men with great acuteness. He was well
+acquainted with all the variations of human types, and could easily
+distinguish the capitals from the lower-case. In private life he was
+playful, though in his public capacity he was severe even to cruelty;
+and it has hence been prettily remarked, that, though he was a kitten
+in the bosom of his family, the puss became a tiger in the arena of
+politics. He never turned his back upon any of his children, except at
+leap-frog, in which he would often indulge with his sons, who had little
+of that vaulting ambition for which their parent was conspicuous.
+
+[Illustration: 558]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. RICHARD CROMWELL.
+
+
+[Illustration: 559]
+
+CONSIDERING all things, we have some hesitation in devoting a chapter to
+this contemptible imbecile; but in taking up the thread of the history,
+we promise to wind him off in a very few pages.
+
+The ceremony of proclamation was performed in London and Westminster,
+as well as in every city of the kingdom, and congratulatory addresses
+poured in upon the new Protector, as they would upon Brown, Jones,
+Robin-son, or any other piece of scum that the tide of chance might
+have thrown up to the same position. There was the usual junction of
+condolence on the death of the parent, and joy at the accession of
+the son; but both expressions were equally affected and hypocritical.
+Richard Cromwell was, however, such a mere nonentity, that he could
+not turn to account the advantages of his position: and when the army
+promised to stand by him to a man he had nothing to say beyond "Dear me!
+how very kind of the army!" He had, it is true, been born, as the saying
+is, with a "silver spoon in his mouth," and the qualities of the spoon
+had become incorporated with his being.
+
+The soldiers soon began to discover that the brewer's son knew
+more about barrels of beer than barrels of gunpowder, and that his
+acquaintance with the musket was limited to the butt end of it. A
+petition was got up among the troops requesting him to resign; but he
+replied, that though he was very willing to do anything to oblige, he
+was sure his people did not wish him to relinquish the command of the
+army.
+
+Richard had sent, as usual, for the coffers of the State, which have
+been generally the first object of solicitude to one attaining the
+post of chief magistrate. Some small change was all that the coffers
+contained, and he resolved to call a Parliament in order to replenish
+them. The legislative assembly met on the 27th of January, 1659, but
+was very soon torn by factions of every sort, except satisfaction,
+which there were no symptoms of in any quarter whatever. Fleetwood, the
+brother-in-law of Richard Cromwell, and Desborough, his uncle-in-law,
+who had married his aunt, got up a movement against him among the
+soldiers who resented their want of pay, and avowed their determination
+not to draw their swords until they had drawn their salaries. Finding
+there was nothing to be got out of the Parliament, Richard dissolved it,
+and the old one that Oliver had forcibly ejected had the impudence to
+resume its sittings. The new Protector beginning to think, like his
+father, that self-protection was the first duty he had to perform,
+withdrew to Hampton Court, and sent in his resignation, which was
+accepted immediately.
+
+The Parliament, though very long of date, was very short of cash, and
+coolly proposed selling the three royal palaces to ease the pecuniary
+pressure which the tightness in the city was occasioning. Royalists'
+plots, however, disturbed the plans of the assembly, whose members
+quarrelled fiercely with each other, and were terribly bamboozled by
+Monk, who had a large amount of monkish deception in his character.
+He wrote letters to cajole Parliament, while he was in treaty with the
+king; but the former being very short of cash soon decided, whatever
+doubts he might have entertained as to which was the best investment for
+his allegiance.
+
+It having become tolerably sure that Charles the Second would be sent
+for, there was a sudden rush of competitors for the honour or dishonour,
+as the case may be, of bringing him back to England. Even Fleetwood, the
+brother-in-law of Richard Cromwell and the son-in-law of Oliver, was
+on the point of undertaking the job; but having entered into a sort of
+tacit agreement with Lambert, to give him a share in any job that he
+(Fleetwood) might undertake, the latter could not make up his mind to
+sell himself in the former's absence.
+
+Monk continued to deceive the Parliament with so much success that he
+was invited by that body to come to London, and accept the situation of
+keeper of St. James's Park, a post of honour rather than of active duty;
+for, in those days, "the boys" had not gained such ascendency as to call
+for activity in the metropolitan beadlery. Monk used his new position
+for the purpose of promoting the object for the furtherance of which
+he had in fact sold himself to the king; and his majesty having sent
+a letter to the Parliament, in which the lords had again mustered very
+strong, a favourable answer was returned to it.
+
+Charles was voted a sum of L50,000 to pay his expenses home, and the
+evening was spent in bell-ringing, beer, and bonfires. Royalty rushed up
+to a premium as exorbitant and unhealthy as the discount to which it
+had fallen in the days of the Commonwealth; and on the 8th of May, 1660,
+Charles was proclaimed at the gate of Westminster Hall, amidst loud
+cries of "Hats off!" "Down in front! Long live the king!" and "Where are
+you shoving to?"
+
+Richard Cromwell made himself not the least obstacle to any arrangements
+that might be made for deposing him, and indeed begged the parties
+concerned would not "consider him" in any alterations that circumstances
+might require. His chief anxiety was to get a guarantee against the
+expenses of his father's funeral, for which "poor Richard" feared he
+was legally responsible. He sneaked eventually out of the kingdom, and
+making a call abroad on a foreign prince, who did not know him, was
+told to his face, in the course of a casual conversation, that "Oliver
+Cromwell, though a villain and a traitor, was fit to command, but that
+Richard was a mere poltroon and an idiot." * "What has become of the
+fellow?" added the prince; upon which Richard suddenly withdrew, and the
+conversation ended. He eventually returned to England, and taking the
+name of Clark, died unknown at a little place in Cheshunt.
+
+     * Universal Biography, vol. i., "Life of Richard Cromwell."
+     The Prince of Conte is the individual with whom the
+     conversation was held in which Richard received, unasked,
+     this true but not flattering character.
+
+We may as well finish off the Cromwells at once, while we are about
+them, by mentioning that the last known descendant of the family, who
+died in 1821, was on the roll of attorneys. From the throne of England
+to the stool in a solicitor's office, is undoubtedly a dreadful drop;
+and if Oliver Cromwell could have seen the last of his race making out
+a bill of costs, the Protector would have received a lesson by which he
+might have profited.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. ON THE NATIONAL INDUSTRY AND THE LITERATURE,
+MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND CONDITION OP THE PEOPLE.
+
+That improvement was not stationary during the period we have just been
+describing, will be inferred from the fact that, in 1625, Science called
+a hackney-coach into existence. Though in these days invention would
+seem to be at a stand if it went no further than the point we have
+indicated, still the hackney-carriage was a decided advance on the slow
+coaches of previous centuries. From a print of the period we perceive
+that the newly-invented vehicles resembled in shape something between a
+steam locomotive and a covered railway luggage-van, or in other
+words, exhibited a sort of combination of the 'bus and the boiler. The
+hackney-coachman did not long enjoy a monopoly, for in 1634 Sir Sanders
+Duncomb thrust a pair of poles through an old sentry-box, and calling
+it a sedan, started it as a "turn out" for his own convenience. The
+arrangement seeming to give satisfaction, he obtained a patent for
+fourteen in all, and S. D. advertised the careful removal of ladies and
+gentlemen by means of his new invention.
+
+In the year 1630, London began to exhibit symptoms of outgrowing its
+strength, and fresh buildings within three miles of the gates were
+prohibited. So long as the metropolis extended on all sides alike, there
+could have been nothing to fear, for it would have been as broad as it
+was long, at any rate. It is a curious fact that those persons who had
+money in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did not know what to
+do with it. They had been in the habit of keeping it in the Royal Mint,
+till Charles the First got into the ugly habit of going down to that
+establishment, clearing off the whole of the cash it contained, calling
+it a loan, and never paying it back again. The capitalists next tried
+the experiment of lodging their cash with their clerks and apprentices,
+and unfortunately it soon became current coin of the realm, for the
+clerks and apprentices all ran away with it. "The moneyed men, listening
+at last," says Anderson, "to these admoney-tory lessons, began to place
+their cash in the hands of goldsmiths," but these gentlemen used to pick
+out the heaviest coins and make a profit by the sweating process, so
+that instead of living by the sweat of their own brows, they lived by
+the sweating of other people's money. This was the origin of the
+banking business, which began in, or near, Sweeting's Alley, then called
+Sweating's Alley, from the practices we have mentioned.
+
+Gardening industry made wonderfully rapid strides during this era, for
+the peas were well drilled, the cabbages made to stand at ease in the
+open air, and the turnips to take close order at the commencement of
+the seventeenth century. Cherries soon after came amongst the English
+people, with a degree of cherry bounce that the beauty and delicacy of
+the fruit perhaps warranted. The apple was welcomed with enthusiasm,
+and Samuel Hartlib, a gardener of the day--week, month or year--was so
+affected by the flourishing growth of an apple-tree he had planted, that
+the well-known expression, "Go it, my pippin!" burst from his lips,
+and has taken its place in popularity with the Eureka of the old
+philosopher. The hops also presented themselves as candidates for
+British favour, and were soon at the top of the poll in all directions.
+
+The woollen manufacturers of England acquired importance at a very early
+date; but the secret of dyeing the cloth could never be discovered, and
+every failure only threw a wretched stain upon national ingenuity. At
+length a Dutchman settled himself, in 1643, at Bow, and announced, by a
+notice in his bow-window, his intention to get a living by dyeing upon
+an entirely new principle. Hitherto the English had miserably failed in
+this branch of art, for when they attempted to master the dye and keep
+it under their control, it was always sure to come off with flying
+colours. The Dutchman of Bow had determined to conquer, even in dyeing,
+and he not only succeeded in producing a single shade, but he made such
+hits with his shots, that customers might safely stand the hazard of the
+dye, if they brought their orders to his establishment. He taught the
+art to the English, the fastness of whose colours had been previously
+shown in the extreme rapidity of their running.
+
+In 1622. hemp and flax having been introduced ready dressed into
+this country, the rope manufacture twined itself with the industrial
+institutions of England. There had been always a prejudice against the
+use of coal for domestic purposes; but on its value in manufactures
+being discovered, it acquired a higher character, though its best
+friends were never able to say that coal after all is not so black as
+it had been painted. It was extensively employed in iron manufactories,
+which had greatly advanced; and we have seen an old woodcut of a saw
+which is one of those very "wise saws" that maybe considered equal to
+the best of our "modern instances."
+
+Knowing the danger of playing with edge tools, we forbear to speak of
+them any longer in a sportive strain, and turn to the state of music in
+the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Henry the Eighth himself was a
+composer, if we are to believe Sir John Hawkins, but we suspect that the
+monarch's well-known overtures to the Pope may have misled the
+musical historian. There were several writers of madrigals, a class of
+production whose name has been ingeniously but ignorantly supposed to
+have reference to the mad wriggles into which the music throws itself.
+
+Charles the First was an adept in the pleasing science, and pretended
+to play on the viol, though not without a sad viol-ation of some of
+the rules of harmony. He was, however, fond of melody, which, like
+everything else of a cheerful and agreeable nature, received a sad blow
+from the dull puritanical humbugs who rose into importance at the time
+of the Commonwealth. These psalm-singing sycophants were so fond
+of hearing their own melancholy and monotonous voices, that no
+accompaniments were allowed: and thus, to use the impassioned pun of
+Smith, * "one of the most disgusting specimens of an organised hypocrisy
+that the world ever saw was carried on entirely without the use of
+organs."
+
+The Fine Arts flourished in England under Charles the First, who was a
+scholar, a man of taste, a gentleman, and, in fact, everything but what
+he ought to have been--namely, a good sovereign. He employed Vandyke
+to take off his head, or rather multiply it frequently, as if he felt a
+foreboding of his eventually losing it. He was also the patron of
+Inigo Jones, the architect of several public buildings, and of his own
+fortune.
+
+The drama is a subject so exciting to antiquarian speculation, that we
+are afraid of losing ourselves in the mists of ages by plunging into it.
+We cannot hope to surpass in sagacity some of those ingenious annotators
+of the present day, who have had such a keen eye to Gammer Gurton's
+needle, that they actually trace its existence to so remote a date
+as some few years before the birth of its author. ** We need not
+particularise the various dramatic authors who gave lustre to the
+Elizabethan period, nor shall we fall into the affectation of
+talking about Master Beaumont, Master Fletcher, Master Jonson, Master
+Shakspeare, Master Deekes, and Master Hey wood, as if they had been
+so many precocious young gentlemen or juvenile prodigies of which the
+present age is somewhat prodigal.
+
+     * For further particulars of Smith, see the "London
+     Directory."
+
+     ** See Wright--who, by the way, was generally wrong--in his
+     "Historia Histrionica."
+
+The Long Parliament put down all stage plays, for the miserable mummers
+of whom that assembly was composed were desirous of having all the
+acting to themselves, though they made a very poor burlesque of the
+parts of statesmen and patriots. It has been ingeniously suggested by
+Mr. Collier, in his History of Dramatic Poetry, that the Puritanical
+Parliament suppressed the drama and dramatists less on conscientious
+grounds than from the fear of being made the subject of well-merited
+satire. The same feeling which would urge a legislature of pickpockets
+to abolish the police might have actuated the Republicans in their zeal
+to get rid of that moral watch which a well regulated state will always
+keep over cant and villainy.
+
+[Illustration: 564]
+
+If, however, dramatic performances were scarce during the ascendency of
+Cromwell and the Puritans, the public--had they known how to appreciate
+it--would not have been without food for mirth in the very ludicrous
+exhibitions which the events of the day were perpetually furnishing. The
+career of Cromwell himself might have suggested an amusing spectacle
+to those who are in the habit of turning to the ridiculous side of
+everything. A brewer on the throne, endeavouring to unite republican
+simplicity with royal state, presents to the imagination a figure almost
+as grotesque as that of an elephant on the tight-rope--an idea in
+which there is that rare combination of ponderosity and levity, which
+Cromwell's conduct on the protectorat elbow, or supreme arm-chair, will
+be found to have realised. His unwieldy gambols and great preponderance
+over all below him, were most fatal to that balance of power which can
+never be sustained without an equality of pressure and an equality of
+resistance on all sides.
+
+Our survey of the literature of the seventeenth century would be
+incomplete if we were to omit to notice the 3rd of November, 1640, as
+being the date of the earliest English newspaper. It bore the name of
+the "Diurnal Occurrences; or, Daily Proceedings of Both Houses," but
+though it professed to give daily news, it was only a weekly periodical.
+There arose rapidly a provincial press, but its pretensions were slight,
+and _News from Hull, Truths from York, Warranted Tidings from Ireland_,
+were the names of some of the chief of these country newspapers. Their
+leading articles were not much in the style we are accustomed to at the
+present day; but the ancient order of penny-a-liners seemed to be ever
+agog for these precocious gooseberries, showers of frogs, and fading
+reminiscences of oldest inhabitants, that are still the staple of the
+productions of this humble class of contributors. It is a remarkable
+coincidence that the circulation of the blood and the circulation of
+newspapers should both have belonged to this period of our country's
+history.
+
+Furniture and costume improved wonderfully in this age, and the wealthy
+became less chary of expense in their chairs, while they began to
+sleep on down, or, in other words, to feather their nests with great
+luxuriance. The clothes of the times of the two Charles's were made much
+too large for the wearers, and may be considered characteristic of the
+loose habits of the period. The hair was cut short by the Republican
+party, or Roundheads, in memory of whom the culprits at Clerkenwell and
+other prisons are cropped exceedingly close, though this is not the only
+point of resemblance between the modern rogues and the old regicides.
+
+The condition of the people was not very enviable in the era we have
+described, and it is a remarkable as well as a most instructive fact,
+that commonwealth is usually synonymous with common poverty. Wages were
+invariably low, for a man-servant who could thrash a cornfield and kill
+a hog, received only fifty shillings per annum. Poverty and knavery,
+begging and filching, were at their height under the reign of the
+Puritans; for "Like master, like man" was at all times a proverb that
+could be thoroughly relied upon.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VII. THE PERIOD FROM THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES THE SECOND TO THE
+REVOLUTION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIRST. CHARLES THE SECOND.
+
+[Illustration: 566]
+
+Though we find Charles the Second at the commencement of this chapter
+seated comfortably enough upon the English throne, the question "How
+came he there?"--when we remember the straits and the crookeds through
+which he passed--very naturally suggests itself. There is an anecdote
+connected with his escape from Worcester, which we have not given
+before, because, as it rests chiefly on the authority of the "Merry
+Monarch" himself, the story is very likely to be dubious. Whether fact
+or fiction, we may give it a place in the history of his reign, for if
+the tale is made up, the manufacture is entirely his own, and so far
+may be considered to belong to his annals. We shall therefore follow the
+thread of the king's own narrative, and if the yarn he has spun was of
+a fabricated fabric, it is to Charles and not to us that the imposture
+must be attributed.
+
+On the battle of Worcester being utterly lost, Charles began to think
+of saving himself; but his adherents, who had been thoroughly beaten,
+insisted on sticking to him with rather inconvenient loyalty. Feeling
+that a small party could run away much faster than a large one, he
+resolved to give his too faithful friends the slip; and when night came
+on he succeeded in doing so, leaving his supporters, who would have
+stuck to him till death, to shift for themselves. Charles, with that
+scamp Wilmot, afterwards Rochester, and three or four others, got clean
+off in a very dirty manner. Some advised the king to take shelter among
+the Scotch; but his majesty, having no desire to be regularly sold,
+declined putting himself in the power of a people who at that time
+valued the virtues for exactly what they might bring, and would no doubt
+have received the king with open arms as an eligible investment to be
+speedily realised. He determined, therefore, to proceed towards London,
+and, by the aid of a leathern doublet, grey breeches, and green jerkin,
+he "made up" very effectually as a stage countryman.
+
+Taking with him a real countryman, one Richard Penderell, as a
+companion, Charles went into a wood, from the edge of which he saw a
+troop of horse: but the rain poured down in such torrents that the troop
+retired, instead of taking shelter in the wood, which was certainly
+the wisest course they could have adopted. The anecdote is, however, so
+essentially dramatic, that the soldiers were perfectly in character
+when they went quite in the opposite direction to that they should have
+taken, like those pursuers on the stage who usually overlook the person
+they are in search of, and who, to every one else, is most conspicuously
+visible. Charles's position on this occasion resembled, in a minor
+degree, the situation of the fugitive at the fair, who, pointing to a
+painted blind representing a tree with a hole cut down the centre of
+it, expressed his determination to conceal himself in "yonder thicket."
+Finding accommodation only for his body in the tree's imaginary trunk,
+his legs of course protruded from the "shady grove," when two assassins
+in hot pursuit tumbling over the out-hanging heels of the wretched
+runaway, exclaimed confidentially in the ears of the audience, "By
+'ivins, he 'as eluded us!" Such must have been the good fortune of
+Charles, and the stupid blindness of the troop, when the former sat on
+the forest's edge, and the latter never noted him.
+
+This incident being over, another soon afterwards ensued of an equally
+melodramatic character. Charles and Penderell, after travelling two
+nights on foot, had put up at the house of one of Penderell's brothers;
+but it was not thought safe to remain in it, and his majesty was
+recommended to an oak, whose parent stem would afford friendly shelter,
+while all the junior branches might be thoroughly relied upon. The king
+having supplied himself with bread, cheese, and beer, which could not
+have been table beer, for there was no table to put it on--though there
+were plenty of leaves--made the best of the imperfect accommodation that
+the tree afforded him. He had no sooner settled on his perch, and made
+himself a kind of nest in the boughs, than some soldiers entered on the
+o. p. side, and looked everywhere--except in the right place--for the
+fugitive monarch. His legs, as usual, were visible enough, but the
+troopers possibly mistook them for a pair of stockings hanging up to
+dry, and they were not even struck by the shoes at the end, that
+should have awakened them to the value of the booty. The most infantine
+participators in the game of hide-and-seek, would not have been at
+fault under circumstances of a similar kind; and there can scarcely be a
+doubt, that if any urchin had only raised a suggestive cry of "Hot beans
+and butter!" Charles would have been laid by the heels without a scruple
+on the part of those who were in search of him.
+
+[Illustration: 569]
+
+Leaving his majesty's legs to dangle in the air, and allowing credulity
+to score one for his heels on the cribbage-board of fancy, we proceed
+to contemplate Charles in a more dignified position on the throne of
+England. He arrived at Dover on the 25th of May, with his two little
+brothers, who had grown to men, but were still called "the boys" by
+those who remembered them before their exile from the land of their
+forefathers. Monk received the royal trio, who rode to the hotel in the
+same hackney-coach with the general, forgetting that there had been a
+good deal of truly monkish cunning in the conduct of that individual,
+who being the latest with his service, obtained the favour due to much
+earlier and older royalists.
+
+The principle of "first come, first served!" was in this instance laid
+aside, and the rule of "last come served best" was ungratefully adopted.
+A most unreasonable reaction towards royalty now ensued, and the anxiety
+to deal mercilessly with the regicides ran into a most sanguinary
+extreme, surpassing in fury the most bloodthirsty predilections of the
+fiercest republicans.
+
+Both Houses of Parliament met, and an Act of Indemnity was passed for
+the benefit of the king's enemies; but, like the old story of Hamlet
+without the Prince of Denmark, most of the persons interested in the
+Act were excepted from its provisions. Nineteen of the regicides
+surrendered; and ten more being in custody, formed a batch of
+twenty-nine to be brought to trial. A commission was issued for the
+purpose, and on the 9th of October, 1660, the proceedings began before
+a tribunal of thirty-four, many of whom had been Long Parliament men,
+masked Presbyterians, or miscellaneous scamps, of quite as revolutionary
+a turn as some of the prisoners submitted to their judgment. Sir
+Hardress Waller, who was number one on the list, had prepared a very
+fine speech in his defence; but looking over the document he made up
+his mind that it was rather strong, and could certainly do no good, upon
+which he pleaded guilty. Harrison and Carew, who came next, made each
+a very eloquent and enthusiastic harangue, glorying in their respective
+acts, by which they laid down their lives as an investment for a
+reversionary interest in the good books of posterity.
+
+Henry Marten, "the wit of the House of Commons," made a most dismal
+attempt to laugh the matter off, and to joke the prosecution out of
+court; but his humour, notwithstanding its extreme heaviness, had no
+weight with his judges. He began by demanding the benefit of the Act
+of Oblivion, and in a lame _bon mot_ claimed to be allowed to forget
+himself. He was sharply told he must plead guilty or not guilty, but he
+insisted on the benefit of the Act of Indemnity, saying his name did
+not appear among the exceptions, and that in fact he had never been an
+exceptionable character. Irritated by these dismal jokes--so insulting
+to the understanding of the court--the Solicitor-General ordered the Act
+to be produced, with the name Henry Marten inserted legibly enough,
+when "the droll," with a miserable quibble not even amounting to a pun,
+exclaimed, "My name _is not so_--it is _Harry_ Marten." This unmeaning
+objection being very properly overruled, the "mad wag" endeavoured to
+stand upon his reputation for mad waggery, and urged that being known
+as a wit, he had done nothing with a serious intention. He was, however,
+told that regicide in sport was high treason in earnest, when, after
+some few further attempts at facetiousness, the "witty Harry Marten"
+was found guilty, and retired cutting wretched jokes upon the disgusted
+turnkey.
+
+The court, which, in order to get beforehand with its work, had prepared
+most of its verdicts before the trials commenced, had already determined
+on fixing the act of cutting off the king's head on the shoulders of
+William Hewlett. Everything went to prove that the common hangman had
+performed the sanguinary job for L30, but the commissioners had made up
+their minds, and were unwilling to open the very small parcels for the
+purpose of looking at the charge by the light of the evidence. Hewlett
+was condemned, but people beginning to talk of the glaring injustice
+of the verdict, he was eventually saved from capital punishment. Poor
+Garland was another of the intended victims, and it may well be said
+that Garland by his heroism has made himself a wreath of immortality. He
+would have pleaded guilty to the accusation of having signed the death
+warrant of Charles, but indignantly repudiated the charge of having
+insulted the fallen sovereign. "I was a regicide, it is true," exclaimed
+Garland, "but as for the assertion of my having been base enough to spit
+in the face of the king, I throw it back in the face of my enemies."
+
+Upon this the Solicitor-General called as a witness a low, needy fellow,
+named Clench, who swore not only to the spitting by Garland, but to
+the king having wiped his face immediately afterwards, and from the
+supplementary lie told by Clench to support the first falsehood, the
+term Clencher obviously took its origin. Poor Garland was found guilty,
+of course, but his life was not eventually forfeited. The executions of
+the regicides were very numerous, and conducted in a spirit of barbarous
+brutality, that excited a great deal of disgust at the time among all
+but those who were animated by the desire to retaliate the atrocities
+that the other side had committed. It is in fact, a very common fault
+among philanthropists, and others who rush about with a strong sense of
+great social wrongs, to commit some other wrongs equally great, or even
+greater, upon the persons by whom their virtuous indignation may have
+been excited.
+
+We feel naturally interested in the fate of poor Harry Marten, the
+"funny man" of the Long Parliament. While in prison under sentence of
+death, he was visited by some aristocratic friends, who recommended
+the wit to petition in a jocose strain, but his humour had become
+exceedingly dreary in his dingy dungeon. He contrived, nevertheless,
+to serve up one small pun in a lengthy document begging for mercy;
+and though the Commons did not see the fun of the thing, the Lords
+good-naturedly took it for granted that, coming from a professed wag,
+there must be "something in it," and with a patronising "Ha, hal--very
+clever--amazingly droll!"--the Peers remitted his sentence.
+
+Though Royalty had risen wonderfully in public respect, there was
+nothing in the conduct of the royal family to render it respectable.
+The queen-mother, Henrietta Maria, returned to England with an extensive
+French suite, and ran into debt even over her head and ears, which being
+very long, may enable us to measure the depths of her extravagance. The
+utmost dissoluteness prevailed at Court, and the king's brother, the
+Duke of York, had married--several months later than he should have
+done--Miss Anne Hyde, the daughter of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon.
+This consummate old humbug affected to be much pained at the degradation
+of his prince, through his marriage with Clarendon's own daughter, and
+the chancellor, affecting to doubt the fact, declared, if it were true,
+"The woman should go to the Tower and have her head chopped off!" in
+accordance with an Act of Parliament he would himself draw up for that
+purpose. All this unnatural abuse of his own child, instead of earning
+him the smallest respect, simply rendered him infamous in the minds of
+all but those who believed he was acting a part, and who regarded him,
+therefore, as simply contemptible. He is believed to have been secretly
+engaged in promoting the marriage against which he publicly protested;
+and the recognition of his daughter as Duchess of York, which soon
+afterwards took place, was purchased, it is said, by Clarendon's paying
+the debts of the queen-mother, by, of course, robbing the people.
+
+It is impossible to say much for the magnanimity of the royalist party,
+whose triumph was signalised by continued acts of mingled ferocity and
+littleness. A law was passed attainting Oliver Cromwell, Ireton, and
+Bradshaw, who were dragged from their graves in Westminster Abbey,
+and hanged at Tyburn, on the 30th of January, the day of the death of
+Charles the First--in celebration of his martyrdom. This was certainly
+one way of crying quits with the regicides in the game of butchery, and
+both sides were thus brought to the same degraded level. The royalist
+resurrectionists having commenced the desecration of the dead did not
+relinquish their loathsome pursuit until they had ex-humed, as we
+learn nom Hume, the remains of Cromwell's highly-respectable mother and
+inoffensive daughter, as well as numerous others who had done nothing in
+life to render them in death the objects of enmity.
+
+All parties now began to claim the merit of the Restoration in the hope
+of obtaining a reward, and bills for old arrears of alleged loyalty were
+sent in to the Government. The Scotch were of course not backward in
+looking after the profits due, or supposed to be due, on account of any
+assistance rendered to Charles in his misfortunes; but the king and
+his friends having been sold two or three times over by the crafty
+Caledonians, his majesty thought they had really made their full money
+out of him. When, therefore, the Marquis of Argyle asked permission to
+pay his respects, a friendly reply was despatched to bring him up to
+town; but on his arrival at Whitehall, he had scarcely knocked at the
+door when he found he was regularly let in, for a guard, tapping him on
+the shoulder, walked him off as a traitor. He was sent to be tried by
+his own countrymen; for as some of them would profit by his death, it
+was considered that making them his judges would be a sure method of
+getting rid of him. The result realised the estimate formed of the
+character of the Scotch, who condemned him and hanged him as a matter
+of _beesness_, because there was a small profit to be got out of the
+transaction. Poor Argyle had been the very party who had put the crown
+on the king's head a few years before at Scone; but, "Life," said he,
+on the scaffold, "is a toss up, and it's heads I lose on this melancholy
+occasion."
+
+On the 8th of May, 1661, a new Parliament met, which lasted even longer
+than the long one _par excellence_, and, indeed, the lengths to which
+it went might alone have entitled it to the epithet bestowed on its
+Republican predecessor. The Cavaliers had a very large majority in this
+assembly, and the off-hand manner in which it dealt with the country
+rendered the words cavalier treatment and bad treatment synonymous.
+The royal prerogative was the object of nearly all the acts of this
+assembly; and the rights of monarchy were being continually declared,
+in the same spirit as the artist who wrote "This is a lion," under his
+picture, because there would have been room for doubt in the absence of
+the epigraph. Thus the frequent assertions of the Parliament that the
+king was paramount, and indeed absolute, were tolerably good evidence of
+the fact that the position is not altogether incontrovertible.
+
+After a brief session, in which the Cavaliers helped themselves to
+L60,000, by way of compensation-money, and voted a supply to the
+king, the Parliament adjourned from the 30th of July till the 28th of
+November, by which time Charles and his minister, Clarendon, had got up
+a little mare's nest of a pretended conspiracy, to give a new impetus
+to the prevailing spirit of inconsiderate loyalty. The servile Commons
+called at once for a few supplementary executions, and with this view
+it was resolved to look through the back numbers, or stock remaining on
+hand, of the regicides. Lord Monson, Sir Henry Mild-may, and Sir Robert
+Wallop, were "unearthed" from the obscurity into which they had crept,
+and were dragged on sledges, with ropes round their necks, to Tyburn and
+back again. Poor Wallop's name was cruelly made suggestive of ruffianly
+attacks, which, by turning the first person present--Wallop--into the
+participle in ing, the reader will at once mentally realise.
+
+The subserviency of the Parliament to Charles was absolutely sickening,
+and it is a fact worthy of remark, that the epithet "most religious,"
+applied to the sovereign in portions of the Church service, was bestowed
+originally upon this profane and immoral reprobate. His necessities,
+or rather his extravagances, were supplied lavishly by Parliament, who
+voted him a hearth-tax for every fire-place, or in other words, gave
+him a draft upon every chimney. Notwithstanding the odious domestic
+character of Charles, every match-making old mother of royalty abroad
+endeavoured to get off some daughter by offering her as a wife to the
+heartless libertine. "He put himself up to auction," says a brother
+historian, * and we may add that it is much to be regretted he was not
+knocked down according to his merits. Portugal having bid the
+Princess Catherine, with half a million sterling, and other contingent
+advantages, the bargain was struck, and a ship sent over for herself and
+her dowry.
+
+     * Mr. McFarlane's Pictorial History of England, vol. iii.
+
+The royal marriage had recently taken place, when that unhappy
+weathercock, Sir Harry Vane, was brought to trial for having compassed
+the death of Charles the Second, merely by accepting employment under
+the Republican Government. Relying on the indemnity, Vane had gone to
+live at Hampstead, when he found there was something in the wind which
+gave him an unfavourable turn; but it was too late for him to escape,
+and he was accordingly sent to the Tower.
+
+After the fashion of the period, poor Vane was condemned in the opinion
+of his judges before he was tried, and he was not even allowed to make
+a last dying speech; for the sheriff snatched the document from which he
+was reading, drove away the reporters who were taking notes, and ordered
+the drums to strike up a _rataplan_, which overwhelmed the voice of the
+gallant soldier.
+
+The exuberant loyalty of the people towards Charles received a severe
+check, when, looking round for something to sell, in order to support
+his extravagant habits, he determined to throw Dunkirk into the market.
+Spain, Holland, and France were all in the field as customers for the
+lot, which was eventually made over to the last-named power for a few
+thousands, payable within three years by bills, which were discounted at
+an alarming sacrifice.
+
+Numerous Acts of oppression were passed by Charles, assisted by his most
+servile Parliament; and among them, the Conventicle Act, which forbade
+the Nonconformists from assembling anywhere but in the established
+churches, under the penalty of transportation or long imprisonment.
+Every loft, attic, or barn, where the Dissenters had got together for
+psalm-singing purposes, was searched, and the occupants were dragged
+away to the nearest prison.
+
+The year 1665 was dreadfully signalised by the plague of London, from
+which the king and Court fled to Oxford, as if they were aware that, by
+themselves at all events, the awful visitation was thoroughly merited.
+While, however, the profligate king and his dissolute companions escaped
+the physical consequences of a plague, the abandoned crew carried with
+them wherever they went the malaria of a moral pestilence. During the
+early part of 1666, the fever in the metropolis subsided, and Charles
+with his courtiers came sneaking back to town, where they resumed their
+old habits as the "fast men" of the period.
+
+On the 2nd of September, in the same year, about the middle of the
+night, some smoke issued from a baker's house near London Bridge; but
+the watchman on duty, being asleep, as a matter of course, took no
+notice of the incident. The fire continued its progress unchecked, for
+the people instead of trying to put it out, which they might have done
+at first, pumps as they were, began to speculate on the subject of its
+origin. For some time it was reported that Harry Marten, "the wit of the
+House of Commons," as he was, on the _lucus a non lucendo_ principle,
+called, had set the Thames on fire by some brilliant flashes, and the
+ignition of the river had, it was alleged, communicated itself to London
+Bridge, and thence to the shop of the baker. Others declared the French
+had done the mischief, and instead of arresting the flames, the mob
+began arresting all the foreigners.
+
+The usual casualties contributed to heighten the destructive effect of
+the fire, for the parish engine had, in the hurry of the moment, come
+out in the middle of the night without its hose, and the New River had
+been smoking its pipe or soldering it for the purposes of repair on
+the previous day, and neither of these aids to anti-combus-tion was
+available. Poor Clarendon, the Chancellor, who had got the reputation
+of being a great moral engine, was disturbed in his sleep by some
+mischievous boys, who, with a cry of "Fire! fire!" called upon the great
+moral engine to come and spout away upon the burning city.
+
+The devouring element continued its tremendous supper without
+interruption, and there was, unfortunately, considerable difficulty
+in administering anything to drink to allay the burning heat which was
+rapidly consuming the whole metropolis. The most furious conflagration
+will wear itself out in time, and the fire of London, after giving the
+inhabitants several "Nichts wi' Burns," brought its own progress to a
+conclusion. It is gratifying to be enabled to state that, even in the
+seventeenth century, the English were remarkable for their charity,
+and the calamities that fell upon the metropolis--particularly the
+fire--stirred up the public benevolence to the fullest extent,
+and inspired all classes with a warmth of feeling that was quite
+appropriate.
+
+Charles having got all he could out of the people, for the purposes of
+war, thought he might as well be paid on both sides, and began to think
+of selling peace to his enemies. He entered into negotiations with the
+Dutch, but before they had come to terms, he commenced cutting down the
+expenses by selling the furniture of his fleets to the dealers in marine
+stores, and dismissing his soldiers, in order to put their pay into
+his own pocket. He was properly served for his selfish parsimony by
+De Buyter, the Dutch admiral, who, hearing that Charles was doing
+everything upon a low and paltry scale, dashed at the Medway, surprised
+Sheerness, and sacked not only the place, but several cargoes of coal
+that were lying there. Upon the old English principle of guarding the
+stable door after the furtive removal of the horse, Charles prepared to
+collect a force to guard his country against the injury it had already
+experienced. Twelve thousand men were enrolled; but during the process
+of enrolment, the enemy had got safely off, and when the soldiers were
+assembled, it occurred suddenly to the king that he had no means of
+paying them. As the Parliament seemed quite unwilling to take this
+little responsibility off his hands, the twelve thousand men were
+disbanded, all of them grumbling furiously at having been made fools of
+by the bankrupt monarch. Peace was concluded with De Ruyter just as if
+nothing had happened; and though the English did not obtain all they
+asked, they got the colony of New York, which was destined to give them
+so much trouble at a far distant period.
+
+The people were by no means satisfied with the terms of the treaty, and
+as national ill-humour must always have a victim of some kind, poor old
+Clarendon, the Chancellor, was pounced upon. The Nonconformists hated
+him because he was a high churchman; the high church party hated him
+because he wasn't; while the papists hated him, they didn't exactly know
+why; and the courtiers hated him because they had got a large balance
+of general animosity on hand, which they were determined to expend upon
+somebody. Clarendon, in fact, was the grand centre in which all the
+detestation of the country appeared to meet, or he might be more
+appropriately called the bull's-eye of the target towards which the
+shafts of public malignity were directed. Clarendon had been a faithful
+servant to Charles, but the monarch's stock of gratitude had always been
+very small, and what little he once possessed he had paid away long ago,
+to less worthy objects. He accordingly sent to the Chancellor for the
+Great Seal, but Clarendon, pleading gout for not immediately leaving
+home, promised that when he could get out he would call and leave the
+official emblem at the palace. Charles replied, that as to Clarendon's
+postponing his resignation till he could get out, he must get out
+at once, if he wished to avoid an ejection of a not very agreeable
+character. Urged by this formidable message, he took Whitehall in his
+way during a morning's walk, and having seen the king, made a desperate
+but useless struggle to retain the seal, which he was forced to
+surrender. His misfortunes did not end here, for the Commons impeached
+him; and Clarendon, as if owning the not very soft impeachment,
+absconded to France, where he ended his days in exile.
+
+A change of ministry ensued on the downfall of Clarendon, and a
+Government was formed which gave rise to almost the only constitutional
+pun which we find recorded in history. The cabinet received the name of
+the Cabal, from the five initial letters of the names of the quintette
+to whom public affairs were intrusted. This great national acrostic
+deserves better treatment than it has hitherto received at the hands of
+the historians; and taking down our rhyming dictionary from the cupboard
+in which it had been shelved, we proceed to invest the political _jeu
+d'esprit_ with the dignity of poetry.
+
+     C was a Clifford, the Treasury's chief;
+
+     A was an Arlington, brilliant and brief;
+
+     B was a Buckingham--horrible scamp;
+
+     A was an Ashley, of similar stamp;
+
+     L was a Lauderdale, Buckingham's pal.
+
+     Now take their initials to form a Cabal.
+
+These five individuals looked upon politics as a trade, and principles
+as the necessary capital, which must be tinned over and over again
+in order to realise extraordinary profits. They were all of them
+out-pensioners on the bounty of France, and they soon persuaded Charles
+that it was better to receive a fixed salary from abroad, than trust
+for his supplies to the caprice of a Parliament. The king, therefore,
+intrigued with several States at the same moment, and was taking money
+from two or three different Governments, on the strength of treaties
+with each, some of which he all the while intended to violate. He
+nevertheless did not disdain the money of his own people, and extracted
+a sum of L310,000 from the public pocket, in the shape of a supply from
+Parliament.
+
+The domestic proceedings of the king were always of the most
+disreputable kind, and he had lately taken up with one Mary or Molly
+Davies, a jig dancer, who pretended to come of a very ancient family in
+Moldavia. This wretched little ballet-girl was introduced at Court by
+the king, who was positively ambitious of being thought rather "fast,"
+an epithet which is generally bestowed on loose characters. He had also
+formed an intimacy with Eleanor, or Nell Gwynne, originally a vendor of
+"oranges, apples, nuts, and pears," but subsequently an actress; and
+it was said at the time--which is some excuse perhaps for our saying
+it again--that Eleanor sounded the knell of older favourites. Lady
+Castlemaine, who went by the name of "the lady," was cut by the king in
+favour of the fruit girl and the figurante.
+
+Notwithstanding the rivalry to which "the lady" was exposed,
+her influence over the mind of Charles--if we may be allowed the
+allegory--was still very considerable; and in the year 1670, which was
+very soon after Miss M. Davies had danced herself into the good graces
+of the king, he conferred the title of Duchess of Cleveland on Lady
+Castlemaine. As many of our aristocratic families are fond of tracing
+their origin to its very remotest source, we shall perhaps be thanked
+for assisting some of them in the search to find the root of their
+nobility. We, however, decline the, to us, wholly uninteresting task,
+for we are quite content to take our peerage as it comes, and estimate
+its members for their personal worth, without reference to their
+ancestors. We certainly should not value the vinegar in our cruet any
+the more if we knew it comprised within it a dissolved pearl, nor should
+we treasure a lump of charcoal on account of its supposed relationship
+to some late lamented diamond.
+
+With our accustomed fairness, we on the other hand have no wish to throw
+a degraded and abandoned ancestry into the faces of those who do
+not presume upon birth, but are decently thankful for its worldly
+advantages. It is only when we find rank turning up its nose at all
+inferior stations that we feel delight in seizing the offending snout,
+and driving home the iron ring, to show a connection between the
+proboscis of pride and the humbler materials of humanity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SECOND. CHARLES THE SECOND (CONTINUED).
+
+
+[Illustration: 578]
+
+Charles opened Parliament in person, on the 14th of February, 1670; and,
+in imitation of Louis the Fourteenth, introduced some soldiers into the
+procession, which had hitherto, in England, been limited to the boys,
+the beef-eaters, and the blackguards. The speech from the throne had one
+advantage over those of our own day, for it was perfectly intelligible,
+inasmuch as it told the Commons in very plain terms that Charles "must
+have cash"--a necessity he shared with the bankrupt linendrapers and the
+cheap crockery dealers of a much later era. Taxation was therefore the
+order of the day, and after putting a tax on everything in the shape
+of property or income, it was proposed to attempt the forcing of a
+sanguineous extract from stone, by putting a tax on actors' salaries.
+This, however, was so preposterous an idea that it was not followed
+up; for unless the poor players had been allowed to pay the impost
+in gallery checks leaden damps, and the other rubbish that forms the
+currency of the stage, the taxes received from the dramatic fraternity
+would have given the collectors a sinecure. Though enough money to pay
+off the National Debt is frequently distributed in a single scene by a
+stage philanthropist, or left by an old uncle in the course of "a
+tag" to a farce, there would be little prospect of the business of
+the country being carried on if the supplies were contingent on such
+resources as those which the actors dispose of with the most lavish
+generosity.
+
+The early part of the session was signalised by a frightful example
+that was made of Sir John Coventry, who had ventured upon a joke--an
+undertaking at all times perilous, and frequently entailing upon the
+manufacturer the most alarming consequences. Sir John endeavoured to be
+witty on the subject of a tax, but the joke, which is happily lost in
+the mist of ages, was of so wretched a description that a conspiracy
+was actually formed for the purpose of bringing the perpetrator to
+punishment. The joke had reference to a private matter into which it
+was thought Coventry had no right to poke his nose, and this being the
+offending feature, was severely handled by his assailants, who took
+hold of it as a prominent point, and savagely maltreated it. This was a
+specimen of the practical joking adopted by the "fast men" of the time
+of Charles the Second, but the king was obliged to affect disapprobation
+of such an act, and a law against cutting and maiming was immediately
+passed, to protect all future noses from the fate that had placed
+Coventry's nose in the hands of those with whom he had fallen into bad
+odour.
+
+In the same year the notorious Colonel Blood provided matter for the
+penny-a-liner of his own day, and the historian of ours, by two or three
+crimes of a very audacious character. One of these was to waylay the
+Duke of Ormond as he was returning from a dinner-party in the city, and
+was, from that very circumstance, most unlikely to be in a fit state to
+defend himself. His grace was placed upon a horse, and carried towards
+Tyburn, but his coachman having undertaken to overtake Blood, soon came
+up, to the consternation of the latter, who could not understand what
+the former was driving at. Blood, finding the coachman had the whip
+hand of him, oozed quietly away, but being incapable of keeping out of
+mischief, he was soon detected in an attempt to steal the Crown jewels
+from the Tower. This act of crowning audacity, as the merry monarch
+lugubriously termed it, induced Charles to wish to "regale himself," as
+he said, "with the sight of a fellow who could be bold enough to attempt
+to steal the _regalia_." The monarch, who had a sort of sympathy with
+blackguardism of every description, was mightily taken with Blood, whose
+bluntness made him pass for a very sharp blade, and the ruffian was not
+only allowed to go at large, but received grants of land without the
+smallest ground for such a mark of royal favour.
+
+Charles and his people did not go on together in a spirit of mutual
+confidence, for from a sort of instinctive appreciation of his own
+demerits, he was afraid to trust his subjects, while they reciprocated
+that distrust, from a due sense of the king's worthlessness. He had
+therefore entered into some foreign alliances, of which he was fearful
+they would disapprove, and he had accordingly prorogued the Parliament,
+in the cowardly spirit of a man who, having some bills he cannot meet,
+declines meeting his creditors. Supplies were, however, necessary, and
+these he secured by going down to the Exchequer, which he robbed of
+every farthing deposited there by the merchants, who had been in the
+habit of leaving their loose cash in the hands of the Government, at a
+handsome rate of interest. When remonstrated with on the subject of this
+disgraceful robbery, he defended himself on the _aide-toi_ principle,
+declaring we were always told to help ourselves, and that he had
+accordingly helped himself to all he could lay his hands upon.
+
+Being now in league with France, England waged war upon Holland, but the
+Dutch metal of that country soon displayed itself. The nation found in
+William, Prince of Orange, a leader who did not give exactly the quarter
+implied in his name, but was merciful as far as circumstances would
+permit to all his enemies. He expected sympathy from the English
+Parliament, which Charles was afraid to call until he found himself
+without a penny in his pocket, just like the acknowledged scamp of
+domestic life, as represented in the British Drama. The impossibility of
+proceeding without supplies urged the king to take the dreaded step, and
+the writs for summoning the Commons should have been couched in the old
+popular form, commencing, "Dilly, dilly, come and be killed," for the
+Commons were only called together to be victimised. It is a beautiful
+fact in natural history, that even the donkey will kick when his
+patience is too sorely tried; and the Commons, who had been wretchedly
+subservient during Charles the Second's reign, began at last to show
+symptoms of opposition under the insults they experienced. They were
+angry at the war with Holland, and threatened to impeach Buckingham;
+but Charles, comforting his favourite with the exclamation, "Don't be
+alarmed, my Buck!" took the utmost pains to screen him. A negotiation
+was commenced for a peace with Holland, but this was after all nothing
+better than a Holland blind, for Charles's predilection for a French
+alliance was still perceptible. This occasioned much dissatisfaction,
+and the people, being in the habit of frequenting coffee-houses,
+talked about the matter over their cups, and were very saucy over their
+saucers, which induced Charles to order the closing of all those places
+where temperate refreshment was obtainable. Thousands to whom coffee and
+bread and butter formed a daily, and in many cases an only meal, were
+horrified at this arrangement; while many who, not having a steak in the
+country, got a chop in town, were disgusted beyond measure at the order,
+which extended to taverns as well as to tea and coffee shops. A mandate
+which would have dashed the muffin from the mouth of moderation, and
+turned all the tea into another channel, was certain not to be obeyed,
+and the doors of the marts for Mocha in your own mugs--a term synonymous
+with mouths--continued open as usual.
+
+Urged by the remonstrances and clamour of the people, Charles entered
+into an alliance with William, Prince of Orange, who married the
+Princess Mary, the eldest daughter of James, the young lady being used,
+like so much of the cement distinguished as "Poo-Loo's," for the purpose
+of mending the breakages that had occurred on both sides. William was
+as deep as Charles, and soon began to pooh! pooh! the idea of having
+cemented, _a la_ Poo-Loo, a rupture of such long standing, and he
+positively refused to fall into Charles's projects.
+
+The state of Scotland was not more satisfactory than that of England
+at this time, for the Covenanters were striving vigorously against the
+constituted authorities, both civil and ecclesiastical. Lauderdale, who
+represented the king, enrolled twenty thousand militiamen; but had he
+enrolled, or rolled up in old coats, as many scarecrows, they would have
+been quite as serviceable as the new soldiery.
+
+Charles is informed of a plot against his precious life.
+
+The recent regicide having caused a reaction in favour of royalty, it
+became a common trick with the king's party to get up a report of the
+intended assassination of Charles the Second, whenever the stock of
+popularity was running rather short, and the people seemed to be getting
+dissatisfied with the Government.
+
+[Illustration: 581]
+
+In the absence of real objects of suspicion, there is never any
+difficulty among Englishmen in drawing upon their inventive resources
+for materials to make a panic, whether monetary, political, or
+otherwise; and about the year 1670 rumour was very busy in manufacturing
+all sorts of plots against the life of the sovereign. On the morning of
+the 13th of August, which happened to be one of the dog days, Charles
+was walking with his dogs in the park, when Kirby, the chemist--a highly
+respectable man, but an egregious blockhead--drew to the monarch's side,
+and whispered in the royal ear, "Keep within the company; your enemies
+have a design upon your life, and you may be shot in this very walk."
+Charles, who was a little flurried, desired to know the meaning of this
+warning, when Kirby the chemist offered to produce one Doctor Tongue,
+a weak-minded and credulous old parson, who said he had heard that
+two fellows, named Grove and Pickering, were making arrangements for
+smashing Charles on the very first opportunity. This tongue was so
+exceedingly slippery that he could not be believed; but to keep himself
+out of a pickle, he brought a pile of papers, containing a copious
+account of the alleged conspiracy. He alleged that he had found them
+pushed under his door; but we cannot very easily believe that any
+conspirators would have been so foolish as to go about, dropping
+promiscuously into letter-boxes, or thrusting under street doors, the
+proofs of their designs on the sovereign.
+
+[Illustration: 582]
+
+Upon further inquiry being prosecuted, it turned out that a low
+fellow, named Titus Oates, was at the bottom of this plot, to raise the
+apprehensions of the public. Oates was a man of straw, the son of an
+anabaptist preacher; and our antiquarian recollections have reminded
+us, that from the extraordinary propensity of Oates to deceive by false
+representations, the application of the term "chaff" to stories at
+variance with fact, most likely owes its origin. Happy had it been for
+many in those days, if Oates had been so dealt with, that the chaff had
+been all thrashed out of him. The fellow is described by a writer of the
+period, as "a low man of an ill cut and very short neck," with a mouth
+in the middle of his face; "whereas," says the old biographer, "the nose
+should always form the scenter."
+
+"If you had put a compass between his lips," continues the quaint
+chronicler we quote, "you might have swept his nose, forehead, and chin
+within the same diameter." This places the nasal organ in a high, but
+certainly not a very proud position, bringing it nearly flush with the
+eyes, and making it a sort of inverted comma on the summit of that index
+which the face is said to afford to the human character.
+
+The stories got up by Oates were of the most elaborately absurd
+description, betraying an equal ignorance of grammar, geography, and
+every other branch of information, polite or otherwise. He contradicted
+himself over and over again, but this only rendered his story the more
+marvellous, and as the lower orders of English were always fond of the
+most extravagant fictions, the terrific tales of Oates were not too
+absurd to be swallowed. He became the most successful political novelist
+ever known, and received a pension of L1,200 a year, besides lodgings in
+Whitehall, by way of recognition for his services in contributing to the
+amusement of the people, by frightening them out of their propriety.
+
+The success of Oates induced a number of imitators, each of whom
+contrived to discover a plot to murder the king, with a complete set of
+written documents, to prove the existence of the foul conspiracy. One of
+these speculators on royal and public credulity was a man named William
+Bedloe, a fellow who, having failed as a thief, and been detected as
+a cheat, attempted to repair his fortunes by turning patriot. With the
+usual injudicious energy of mere imitation, he went much further
+than even Oates himself in the audacity of his statements. These two
+miscreants between them sent many innocent people to the scaffold, for
+if Oates only hinted his suspicion of a plot, Bealoe was at hand to
+swear to the persons involved in it. As surely as Oates declared his
+knowledge of some intended assassination, Bedloe would come forward to
+indicate not only the assassins themselves, but to point to the very
+weapons they would have used, when, if it was replied they did not
+belong to the parties against whom the charge was made, he would not
+scruple to swear that the instruments would have been purchased on the
+next day for the deadly purpose. All the rules of evidence were outraged
+without the slightest remorse, and poor Starkie * would have gone stark,
+staring mad, could he have witnessed the flagrant violations of those
+principles which he has expounded with so much ability.
+
+     * Starkie and Phillips are, at this day, the two
+     acknowledged authorities on the Law of Evidence.
+
+The Parliament which sat during these proceedings, was in existence
+for seventeen years, and has gained, or rather has deserved, an undying
+reputation by the passing of the Habeas Corpus Act. This glorious
+statute prohibited the sending of anyone to prison beyond the sea, and
+allowed anyone in jail to insist on being carried before a judge
+to inquire the cause of his detention. A troublesome captive might
+therefore, by pretending never to be satisfied with the explanation of
+the court, keep running perpetually backwards and forwards to ascertain
+the reason of his captivity. The Oates conspiracy had not yet undergone
+the winnowing which the breath of public opinion--universally right,
+in the long run--was sure at one time or another to bestow, when a
+new affair, called the Meal-Tub Plot, burst on the attention of
+the community. A fellow of the name of Dangerfield affected to have
+discovered a new field of danger in an alleged design to set up a new
+form of government. This reprobate had been in the pillory, where it is
+believed the quantity of eggs that met his eye gave him the notion
+of hatching a plot, and he obtained the assistance of one Cellier, a
+midwife, to bring the project into existence. There was something very
+melodramatic in the mode of getting up accusations of treason in the
+days of Dangerfield, for it was only necessary to drop some seditious
+papers in a man's house, or stuff the prospectus of a revolution into
+his pocket, in order to make him responsible for all the consequences
+of a crime he had perhaps never dreamed about. Colonel Mansel was the
+intended victim in the Dangerfield affair; and some excise officers who
+had been sent to his lodgings under the pretence of being ordered to
+search for contraband goods, found the heads of a conspiracy cut and
+dried, crammed in among his bed-clothes. The colonel succeeded in
+showing that he had nothing to do with the transaction, and declared
+that, "as he had made his bed, so was he content to lie upon it." His
+words carried conviction home to the minds of all, and Dangerfield
+was obliged to admit the imposture he had practised; but he confessed
+another conspiracy, the particulars of which were found regularly
+written out and deposited in a meal-tub in the house of Cellier, the
+midwife.
+
+[Illustration: 584]
+
+It is evident from numerous instances, that conspirators in those days
+were very apt to carry their designs no further than committing them to
+paper, and carefully depositing in some place or other the records
+of their crime, so that in case of detection the evidence against
+themselves would be complete and irresistible. Thus had the plotters
+with whom Dangerfield had been acting in concert, put away in a meal-tub
+the evidence of their intended proceedings, for no other purpose which
+we can perceive than the ultimate finding of the documents, and the
+furtherance of the ends of justice in the true poetical fashion. Lady
+Powis was implicated in this affair, and was sent to the Tower; but the
+Grand Jury ignored the bill against her, while Cellier, the midwife, who
+had aided in the miserable abortion, was tried and acquitted at the Old
+Bailey.
+
+The rumour, or the reality of conspiracies against the royal family, did
+not prevent Charles from throwing himself into the pleasures, or rather
+the dissipations for which his Court was remarkable. Though political
+liberty was exceedingly scarce during this reign, he did not discourage
+the taking of liberties in private life, among those who formed the
+society by which he was surrounded. The palace was one continued scene
+of that degrading excitement which passes sometimes by the name
+of gaiety, and nearly every evening was devoted to that sort of
+entertainment which is sought by the snobs and shop-boys of our own day
+in the casinos and masked balls. The "fast" mania, which thrusts at this
+moment the penny cheroot between the lips of infancy, drags the clerk
+from the desk to the dancing rooms, and perhaps urges his felonious hand
+to his master's till, had in the time of Charles the Second corrupted
+the whole nation, from the highest to the lowest, so that even the best
+society--and bad indeed was the best--bore the impress of the
+example that was furnished by the king himself. The palace balls were
+accordingly conducted in a manner that would disgrace the humblest
+of modern hops, and in these days deprive of its licence any place of
+public entertainment where such behaviour would be permitted by the
+conductors of the establishment.
+
+[Illustration: 585]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE THIRD. CHARLES THE SECOND (CONTINUED).
+
+The Duke of York, the king's brother, being an acknowledged Papist, the
+people began to look out for a Protestant successor, and turned their
+eyes upon young Monmouth, a natural son of Charles, who was almost a
+natural in more respects than one, for his mental capacity was more--or
+less--than dubious. He was, indeed, a good-looking idiot, and nothing
+more; but, coming after such a king as Charles, the nation might have
+been satisfied with him; and, to oblige York, the fellow was formally
+declared illegitimate. The prosecution of the Catholics was carried
+on with unabated animosity; and several, among whom was the aged Lord
+Stafford, were put to death, under the pretence of advancing the cause
+of "peace and goodness."
+
+The particulars of the sacrifice of Stafford afford such a faithful
+sample of the mode in which justice was administered in the reign of
+Charles the Second, that, converting ourselves into "our own reporter,"
+we give a brief sketch of the trial. The defendant in the action, which
+was in the nature of an impeachment, was accused of high treason, and
+the three witnesses against him were Oates, Dug-dale, and Turberville,
+three scamps who made a regular business--and a very profitable one--of
+giving false evidence. Oates swore he had seen somebody deliver a
+document signed by somebody else, appointing Stafford paymaster to some
+army, which at some time or other was going to be got together somehow,
+somewhere, for the purpose of doing something against the Government,
+and in favour of the Catholics. Dugdale swore that the accused had
+engaged him, Dugdale, to murder the king at so much a week, with the
+offer of a saintdom in the next year's almanack. Turberville swore ditto
+to Dugdale, and though Stafford was able to disprove their evidence in
+many very important points, the trio of perjurers had gone so boldly to
+work that there was a large balance of accusation remaining over that
+could not be upset, in consequence of the unfortunate impossibility of
+proving a negative.
+
+Stafford succeeded in damaging the credit of the witnesses, but as they
+came forward professedly in the character of hard swearers, who, so as
+they got the prisoners executed, were indifferent about being believed,
+the attack on their reputations affected them very little. The unhappy
+prisoner was so taken aback by the effrontery of his accusers, that
+he hardly gave himself a fair chance in his defence, which consisted
+chiefly of ejaculations expressive of wonder at the excessive impudence
+and audacity of the witnesses. Such exclamations as "Well, I'm sure!
+what next?" though natural enough under the circumstances, did not make
+up, when all put together, a very eloquent speech for the defence,
+and after a trial of six days' duration, the Peers, by a majority of
+twenty-four, found poor Stafford guilty.
+
+Sentence of death was passed upon him, but the more ignominious portion
+of the punishment having been remitted by the king's order, the two
+sheriffs were seized with a most sanguinary fit of system, and objected
+to the omission of hanging and quartering, because, as they said, the
+leaving out of these barbarities would be altogether irregular. In order
+to satisfy the scruples of these very punctilious gentlemen, the Peers
+pronounced them "over nice," and the Commons passed a resolution of
+indemnity, by which the sheriffs were made aware that they would not
+be considered to have "scamped" their work, if they merely cut off
+Stafford's head without proceeding to the more artistical details of
+butchery.
+
+Stafford died nobly, and the fickle populace, who had howled for his
+condemnation, began sighing and grieving at his fate; but as all this
+sympathy was almost in the nature of a _post obit_, it was of little
+or no value to the nobleman on whose behalf it was contributed. The
+executioner himself turned tender-hearted at the last moment, and
+twice raised the fatal axe, but a coarse brute near him on the
+scaffold--perhaps one of the thwarted sheriffs--desired the headsman not
+to make two bites at a cherry, and the blow was forthwith administered.
+
+These excesses of the Parliament caused even the dissolute Charles to
+_try_, the effect of dissolution; but there was no going on for any
+length of time without a House of Commons to vote the supplies; and the
+king, thinking to withdraw the legislature from the influence of London
+mobs, appointed the next to be held at Oxford. This a arrangement gave
+great dissatisfaction to the opposition, and both parties came as
+if prepared for a battle, the speakers on each side being, no doubt,
+abundantly supplied with the leaden ammunition that is customarily used
+for debating purposes. It was during the party bickerings prevailing
+about this time, that the definitions, since so famous--and sometimes so
+infamous--of Whig and Tory, were first hit upon. The former was given
+to the popular party, merely because it had been given to some other
+popular party, in some other place, at some previous time, and the
+latter was given to the courtiers, because some Popish banditti in
+Ireland had been once called Tories; * but why they had been, or why,
+if they had been, the courtiers of Charles the Second's time need
+have been, are points that the reader's ingenuity must serve him to
+elucidate.
+
+     * Somebody, who was of course a nobody, says the word Tory
+     is derived from _Torrco_, to roost, because the Tories were
+     always clever at roasting their antagonists.
+
+The king had usually been civil enough to his Parliaments, but on the
+occasion of the assembly at Oxford he determined to speak his mind, and
+his speech, being a reflection of his mind, was of course very rambling
+and irregular. He complained of the last Parliament having been
+refractory, and expressed a hope that the "present company" would
+know how to behave themselves. He disavowed all idea of acting in an
+arbitrary manner himself, but he was thoroughly determined not to be
+"put upon" by any one else; and so now they knew what he meant, and he
+trusted that no misunderstanding would arise to mar their efforts for
+the public benefit. The Commons listened to all this with a few mental
+"Oh, indeed's!" "Dear me's!" "No! 'Pon your honour's!" and "You don't
+say so's!" but they were not in the least over-awed, and they set to
+work exactly in the old way to choose the same Speaker and adopt the
+same measures as the last Parliament, of which many of them had been
+members.
+
+The new Parliament was of course found by Charles to be no better than
+any of its predecessors, and when it was a week old he jumped into a
+sedan chair, had the crown put under the seat, and the sceptre slung
+across the back, when, in reply to the chairman's inquiry, "Where to,
+your honour?" the sovereign with a dignified voice, directed that he
+might be run down to the place where Parliament was sitting. This was
+the morning of the 28th of March, and Charles, bursting into the
+hall where the Lords had met, dissolved the fifth and the last of his
+Parliaments.
+
+This proceeding, which, in the days of a monarchy's decline, would have
+been exclaimed against as highly unconstitutional, was hailed as a
+piece of vigour at a time when royalty, having been recently maltreated,
+united in its favour the general sympathies. Charles, finding that
+courage was likely to tell, became very liberal of its exercise, and
+began to abuse the opponents of his policy with more than common energy.
+"There is nothing like taking the bull by the horns," Charles would say
+to his intimate friends, "and John Bull especially should be taken by
+the horns, to prevent his making unpleasant use of them."
+
+Shortly after the dissolution, Charles brought out for general perusal
+a justification of the course he had thought proper to pursue; for, like
+many other people in the world, he first took a step, and then began to
+look for the reasons of his having taken it. The opposition brought out
+a reply, written by Messrs. Somers, Sydney, and Jones, but it did not
+sell, and as these gentlemen could not afford to give it away, it had
+very little influence. Charles managed to get a number of addresses
+presented to him, congratulating him on his deliverance from the
+republicans, but the Lord Mayor and Common Council having come down to
+Windsor with an address of a different kind, were told that the king was
+not at home, but they had better go to Hampton Court. On their arriving
+at the latter address there was a great deal of whispering among the
+royal servants, who would give no other information than the words "Yes,
+yes; it's all right!" At length, upon a signal from above, a domestic
+exclaimed, "Now, then, gentlemen, you may walk up;" and on going into a
+room on the first floor, they found the Lord Chancellor sitting there,
+looking as black as thunder. His lordship, putting on a voice to match
+his countenance, began asking them how they dared to come with anything
+like a remonstrance to their sovereign; and the Lord Mayor, with the
+Common Council, slinking timidly out of the room, made the best of their
+way back to the point they had started from.
+
+A few more plots of an insignificant character were got up against the
+Government, but met with no success; and the Bye-House conspiracy, so
+called perhaps from the wry faces the parties put on when they were
+found out, stands out from among the rest, which have been long ago
+buried under their own insignificance. Some have suggested that the
+Bye-House plot was a name invented as a kind of sequel to the notion of
+Oates, and the conspiracy of the Meal-Tub; but the hypothesis is far
+too trifling for us to dwell upon. As it has taken a position of
+some importance in history, we must furnish a few particulars of this
+Bye-House plot, which in the old nursery song, * taking for its theme
+the domestic arrangements of royalty, seems to have had a slight
+foreshadowing.
+
+     * "Sing a song of sixpence,
+     A pocket full of rye."
+
+On the 12th of June, 1683, one Josiah Keyling, who had formerly been a
+red-hot Whig, and was by trade a salter, was seized with the infamous
+idea of applying his skill in business to the affairs of his country,
+which he resolved to put, if he could, into a precious pickle. He went
+to Lord Dartmouth, for the purpose of revealing a conspiracy that had
+been formed to take away the king's life; and he declared one Burton, a
+decayed cheesemonger, Thompson, a carver, who had been trying to carve
+his own fortunes in vain, and Barber, an instrument-maker, as his
+accomplices in the intended act of regicide. They were all to have gone
+down to the house of one Bumbold, a maltster, at a place called the
+Bye, where they were to have taken a chop, and cut off the king and
+his brother on their return from Newmarket. They were to have purchased
+blunderbusses, but, perhaps by some blunder, missing the 'bus, the
+London conspirators never left town, and did not arrive at the "little
+place" of Bumbold the maltster. The disclosures made by Keyling
+included, at first, a few names only; but, as a brother historian *
+has well and playfully suggested, "he subsequently went into a regular
+_crescendo_ movement," and indulged in an _ad libitum_, introducing
+several new accompaniments to the strain he had originally adopted,
+besides adding new circumstances and dragging in new persons into his
+accusation, without the slightest regard to harmony of detail. He at
+length went off into a _largo_ of such wide and unmeasured scope, that
+he included William Lord Russell in the charges made, and his lordship
+was committed to the Tower.
+
+     * Macfarlane's Cabinet History of England, vol. xiii., p.
+     142.
+
+Lord Grey, who was also accused, was rather more fortunate; for, having
+been taken in the first instance to the home of the jailor, he had
+the satisfaction of finding that official reeling about in a state of
+helpless drunkenness. Lord Grey, perceiving that the functionary who
+had charge of him was not in a situation to appreciate any consideration
+that might be shown to him, quietly walked out at the door-way of the
+serjeant's house, and jumping into a boat on the Thames, hailed a
+ship for Holland. Lord Howard of Escrick, another of the alleged
+conspirators, was pulled neck and heels down a chimney, into which
+he had climbed for concealment, in his house at Knights-bridge. His
+character has been blackened almost as much as his dress, by this
+ignoble act, for it is recorded of him that when pulled out from the
+grate, he looked fearfully little. He trembled, sobbed, and wept, or
+in other words, had a regular good cry, and the tears forming channels
+through the soot, rendered his aspect exceedingly ludicrous. He at once
+confessed that he did not come out of the affair with clean hands, but
+he was guilty of the very dirty trick of implicating many of his own
+friends and kindred by his pusillanimous confession.
+
+[Illustration: 591]
+
+Besides other less illustrious victims, Lord Russell was sacrificed;
+and his kinsman Howard, whom we have just had the pleasure of dragging
+before the world from the chimney into which he had slunk, was one of
+the witnesses against the nobleman we have mentioned. Russell behaved
+with great dignity throughout his trial and during its fatal result;
+but the execution was scarcely over, when the town rang with his last
+speech, of whioh some enterprising Catnach of the period had obtained
+the manuscript. It was actually in print before the fated event took
+place; but there is every reason to believe that it was genuine,
+for speculation had not in those days learned to anticipate reports,
+notwithstanding the occurrence of the events described in them having
+been by some accident prevented.
+
+Individuals of lesser note than Russell were condemned to share his
+fate, and among them was one Rouse, who was executed at Tyburn for
+having endeavoured to house the populace. A declaration, containing
+a narrative of the Rye-House plot, was published by the king, who was
+exceedingly fond of performing the office of his own historian. It
+enabled him to "touch up" the events in which he himself was concerned,
+and give them a colouring favourable to himself; but happily for the
+cause of truth, notes were being taken on its behalf, and materials were
+thus collected for such truthful chronicles as those the reader's eye
+now rests upon.
+
+The trial and death of Algernon Sidney, the last of the Commonwealth
+men, took place soon after Russell's execution. Though it is to be hoped
+that few people in these days can be ignorant of the character of this
+remarkable man, yet there may be a section of the British public from
+whom will have burst the cry of "Sidney! Who is Sidney?" directly we
+mentioned him. Sidney then--we state the fact for the benefit of the
+benighted classes--was son of the Earl of Leicester, and had always been
+a republican, and had been named one of the judges on the trial of
+the king; but he was either too lazy or too loyal to take his seat
+amongst-them. He opposed Cromwell's elevation, from which it might have
+been inferred that he would have had no objection to the Restoration;
+but he opposed that, and having nothing else to excite his resistance,
+he opposed himself by refusing to take advantage of a general bill of
+indemnity. He had been obliged to remain out of England, but finding
+that he was seriously opposing his own interest by his absence from
+home, he applied for the king's pardon, which was sent him by an early
+post, and he arrived in England with his protection in his pocket. Party
+spirit was running very high when Sidney returned, and he was not the
+man to do anything with a view to moderation, so that he was soon at
+his old trick of opposing the Government. He began talking largely about
+liberty, and he was really going on in a very improper way, for he fell
+into the common error of patriots, namely, that of spouting commonplace
+claptraps instead of attempting every legal means to bring about a
+reform of the evils that may be in need of remedy.
+
+Sidney now became a marked man, whom the royalists were determined
+to crush, and a pretext was speedily found for bringing him to trial.
+Several witnesses were brought forward to prove the existence of a
+plot; but what plot and what Sidney had to do with it, or whether he
+was concerned in it at all, did not form any part of the subject of the
+evidence. Having established a plot, the next thing to be done was
+to show that Sidney was at the head of it, and the abject Howard--no
+relation to the philanthropist--made his sixth or seventh appearance as
+a royalist witness for the purpose specified. According to law, it was
+necessary to have the testimony of a second person; but there were not
+two Howards in the world, and a supplementary scoundrel to swear away
+Sidney's life was nowhere to be met with.
+
+Some papers found in the house of the accused were examined in lieu of
+a second witness; and though this was a flagrant evasion of the law,
+the proceeding was pronounced by the infamous Jeffreys to be perfectly
+regular. He asserted that written documents were better than living
+witnesses, for the former could not give an evasive reply; but the
+judicial villain forgot that the papers, unless the writing happened to
+be crossed, would not admit of the test of cross-examination like other
+witnesses. Sidney pleaded that his hand-writing had not been proved; and
+that even supposing him to be the author of the documents, he might have
+been "only in fun;" but this was a frivolous excuse, for it is dear that
+if "only in fun" were a good plea, there would be great difficulty
+in getting over it. A verdict of "Guilty" was returned by a jury so
+discreditably packed, that the box in which they sat should have been
+called a packing-case.
+
+Judge Jeffreys "came out" exceedingly on the occasion of Sidney's
+sentence being passed, and insisted on proceeding to the last extremity,
+notwithstanding a mass of irregularities having been pointed out to him.
+Jeffreys would listen to nothing in the prisoner's favour; and upon one
+Mr. Bampfield, a barrister, venturing an opinion as _amicus curia_,
+that unhappy junior was smashed, snubbed, and silenced by the judge, who
+recommended the learned gentleman to confine himself to those points of
+practice upon which his opinion was required. The scene between Sidney
+and Judge Jeffreys degenerated into a mere personal squabble before the
+unhappy affair was concluded, and it ended in Jeffreys telling Sidney to
+keep cool, while the judge himself was boiling over with rage, and
+the prisoner tauntingly requested his "lordship" to feel his--the
+prisoner's--pulse, which the latter declared was more than usually
+temperate. Sidney followed the practice, prevalent at the time, of
+placing a paper in the hands of the sheriff by way of legacy on the
+scaffold; but we have been unable to account for the strange partiality
+felt by persons at the point of death for the individual principally
+concerned in their execution.
+
+Hampden was selected as the next victim to the political persecution so
+much in vogue during Charles's reign, but it was thought more profitable
+to fine this gentleman than to execute him, and he was adjudged to pay
+a penalty of L40,000, which added a large sum to the royal treasury,
+besides saving the executioner's fee and the cost of a scaffold. Judge
+Jeffreyss though balked in this instance of an opportunity for
+gratifying his sanguinary propensities, took his revenge upon some
+inferior prisoners, for it was his practice when one eluded the gallows
+by any chance, to hang two, as a poor compensation for the
+disappointment he had suffered. Professor Holloway, who had been
+concerned in the Rye-House plot, was accordingly condemned to death,
+with Sir Thomas Armstrong, who had had a small and very unprofitable
+share in the plot.
+
+Judge Jeffreys, who figured in these sanguinary transactions, was one
+of the most extraordinary specimens of ruffianism that the world ever
+produced; and if history--like Madame Tussaud--were to get up a Chamber
+of Horrors, Judge Jeffreys would certainly take his place in it by the
+side of Danton, Sawney Bean, Marat, Mrs. Brownrigg, and Robespierre.
+Before he went on circuit he used to say he was going to give the
+provinces "a lick with the rough side of his tongue"--a vulgar threat
+which he carried out to its fullest extent, for he not only used
+his tongue, but his teeth, in the lickings he administered to the
+unfortunate prisoners brought before him for trial. He was not much
+interested in dry points of law, and indeed he endeavoured to moisten
+them as much as he could by drinking copiously before he went into
+court, and he sometimes reeled about so unsteadily as he took his place
+on the bench, that a facetious usher of the period declared Jeffreys
+should be called the Master of the Rolls, for he was always rolling
+about from side to side when he approached the seat of judgment.
+
+The king endeavoured, by courting personal popularity, to avert from
+himself some of the odium that attached to nis creatures and his
+Government. Knowing that the suspicion of his entertaining Popish
+predilections was very much about, he married his niece, the Lady Anne,
+to Prince George of Denmark, a Protestant. No consideration would induce
+him, however, to call another Parliament, and though he was bothered for
+money on all sides, without the power of raising a supply, he preferred,
+as he said, "rubbing on," to the chance of getting some much harder rubs
+from the legislative body, in the event of one having been summoned. He
+greatly preferred doing just as he pleased with other people's money,
+to the annoyance of getting any of his own upon the conditions that a
+Parliament would certainly have attached to the grant of it. His credit
+being almost unlimited, he never wanted for anything that cash could
+procure; and he led a much more independent life by setting Parliament
+at defiance, and having nothing to thank it for, than he could have done
+had he called it together, and taken an annual supply, the amount of
+which would have been in some measure contingent on his good behaviour.
+
+Charles had become as absolute as the last case of a Latin noun, but he
+was not happy, and his gaiety beginning to forsake him, the picture of
+the sad dog was gloomily realised. He fell into a succession of fits of
+the blues, and on Monday, the 2nd of February, 1685, he put his hand to
+his head, turned very pale, and seemed to be in a very shaky condition.
+Dr. King, an eminent physician, with a taste for experimental
+philosophy, was sent for; but his experiments either failed, or were put
+off too long, for Charles fell on the floor as if dead when the doctor
+arrived to prescribe for him. Dr. King resolved on bleeding the royal
+patient, who came to as fast as he had gone off, and in a fit of
+generosity the Council ordered the surgeon L1000, which, in a fit of
+oblivion, was forgotten, and he was never paid anything. Perhaps payment
+may have been disputed, on the ground that the doctor's treatment had
+not been permanently effective, for a bulletin had scarcely been issued
+declaring the king out of danger, when it was found necessary to issue
+another bulletin declaring him in again. The physicians handed him over
+to the ministers of the church, but Charles would not have about him any
+Protestant divine, and the Duchess of Portsmouth then told it as a great
+secret to the French ambassador, that the king, at the bottom of his
+heart, was a Catholic. This information revealed two facts about
+which there might have been considerable doubt, namely, that the king
+possessed some religion, though it was the one which he had been during
+the whole of his reign persecuting and executing others for following;
+and secondly, that he had a heart sufficiently capacious for any moral
+or virtuous principle to lie at the bottom of.
+
+The moment the true character of Charles's faith was known to the French
+ambassador, he used his utmost ingenuity to smuggle a confessor to the
+death-bed of the sovereign. The English bishops, however, stuck to the
+expiring monarch so pertinaciously that no Romish priest could approach,
+until one Huddleston was hunted up, who had formerly been a Popish
+clergyman, but had so terribly neglected his business, that the office
+of confessor was quite strange to him. A wig and gown were put upon him
+to disguise him, and he was taken to a Portuguese monk to be "crammed"
+for the task he had to perform; and having been brought up the
+back staircase to the royal chamber, he got through the duty very
+respectably. Such was the disreputable imposture that was resorted to
+for supplying Charles the Second with the only religious assistance
+or consolation that he received before his dissolution. The Protestant
+bishops, who had been all hurried into the next room, did not know
+exactly what to make of it; but there were various whispers and shrewd
+suspicions current among the churchmen and the courtiers.
+
+Soon after his interview with Huddleston, who was huddled up in a cloak
+to get him out of the palace without being discovered, Charles got a
+little better, and sent for his illegitimate children to give them his
+blessing. A catalogue of these young ladies and gentlemen would occupy
+more space perhaps than they are worth, but it is sufficient perhaps to
+say, that Master Peg and Miss Peg, the king's son and daughter by Mrs.
+Catherine Peg, were absent from the family circle in consequence of
+their having died in their infancy. Master James Walters, the eldest of
+the group of naturals, who had been created Duke of Monmouth, was not
+mentioned by his father in his last illness; but little Charlie
+Lennox, the young Duke of Richmond, and his mother, the Duchess of
+Portsmouth--Mademoiselle Querouaille--were especially recommended to the
+Duke of York's attention. The dying reprobate had the good feeling to
+put in a word for Mrs. Eleanor Gwynne, the actress, ancestress of the
+noble house of St. Alban's; but as he only said, "Do not let poor Nelly
+starve," it does not seem that his views with regard to her were very
+munificent. The bishops, however, were scandalised _selon les regles_
+at even this brief allusion to the "poor player," who had invariably
+refused all titles of honour; but it is said that their holinesses were
+not nearly so much shocked at the mention of the Duchesses of Portland
+and Cleveland, who were morally not a bit better than Nell Gwynne,
+though they had electrotyped their infamy with rank, which formed in
+those days, as we are happy to say it does not in these, the only real
+substitute for virtue.
+
+At six in the morning of the 6th of February, 1685, Charles asked what
+o'clock it was, and requested those about him to open the curtains, that
+he might once more see daylight. Where he was to see it at that time
+of the morning in the darkest period of the year is, like the daylight
+itself, under such circumstances, not very visible. His senses, which
+must have been already wandering, were by ten o'clock quite gone, and
+at half-past eleven he expired without a struggle. He was in the
+fifty-fifth year of his age, and the twenty-fifth of his actual reign,
+though, according to legal documents, he was king for thirty-six years,
+inasmuch as while he was flying about from place to place, and perching
+upon trees to elude discovery, he was supposed, by a loyal fiction, to
+be still sitting on the throne of England.
+
+A report got abroad that Charles had been poisoned, but although this
+deadly operation had been performed on his mind by the evil and corrupt
+councillors into whose hands he fell after the death of Clarendon, there
+is no reason for believing that physical poisoning was the fate of this
+disreputable sovereign.
+
+The characters of the kings and queens it is our duty to pass in review
+give many a pang to our loyal bosom, and we regret to say that our
+heart has been perforated, nay, riddled to an alarming extent, by the
+melancholy riddle which the character of Charles presents to us. We will
+begin with him as a companion--not that we should be very anxious for
+his company; but because it was in the capacity of a companion that he
+presented the most amiable aspect. His manners were engaging; but as his
+engagements were scarcely ever kept, the quality in question was only
+calculated to lead to disappointment among those who had anything to
+do with him. His wit, raillery, and satire are said to have been
+first-rate, but we find none of his _bon-mots_ recorded which would have
+been worth more than two pence a dozen to any regular dealer in
+jokes, though for private distribution they might have been a little
+more-valuable, on account of their royal authorship. For his private
+life he has found apologists in preceding historians * one of whom
+appears to imagine that the disgusting selfishness familiarly termed
+"jolly-dogism" is the highest social virtue of which human nature is
+capable. Charles was, we are told, a good father, but it was to those of
+whom he ought never to have been the father at all; a generous lover
+to those whom he could not make the objects of generosity without the
+grossest injustice to others; and a pleasing companion to those with
+whom he ought to have avoided all companionship. We do not concur
+in that sort of laxity which looks at the domestic ties as so many
+slip-knots that may hang about the wearer as loosely as he may find
+convenient.
+
+     * Hume calls him "an obliging husband."
+
+For his public character, even those who admire him in his private
+relations have not ventured to offer any apology; and his utter
+disregard of the honour, the religion, the liberty, and the material
+interests of the nation over which he ruled cannot be made the subject
+of laudation. It is suggested that a certain reckless gaiety formed some
+excuse for his defects as a sovereign; but monarchy in sport becomes
+tyranny in earnest, when its affairs are conducted by a negligent and
+heartless libertine. His reign was one long hoax as far as religion was
+concerned, for he was a Catholic at heart while pursuing the Papists
+with the most cruel persecution; and though his behaviour towards that
+class would, under any circumstances, have been hateful, it seems doubly
+detestable when we remember that he was himself guilty of holding the
+opinions for which he sent so many to the scaffold.
+
+There can be no doubt that the fate of his father, and the disgust
+occasioned by the tyranny arising out of the ascendency of the rabid
+friends of freedom during the Commonwealth, were mainly instrumental in
+obtaining toleration for the vices and oppressive cruelties of Charles
+the Second. The dissatisfaction caused by the abuse of the royal power
+in the preceding reign must have burst out with more earnestness had it
+been kept bottled up until the accession of the libertine monarch, whose
+supposed sufferings during exile had attracted towards him a large
+share of sympathy. Had he comc to the throne in due course, without the
+intervention of a republic, he would have been swept off by a storm
+of general indignation; but the rebound of public feeling in favour of
+monarchy carried him in triumph to the same position that his father had
+occupied.
+
+It was remarked of Charles the Second, that he never said a foolish
+thing or ever did a wise one; an observation which either he--or some
+one for him--happily turned to account, by observing that his words were
+his own, while his acts where those of his ministry. He has left nothing
+very valuable to posterity, notwithstanding the alleged wit or wisdom
+of his words, for the only persons who have been able to turn him to
+profitable account are the dramatists, who have founded a few farces on
+the career of that sad scamp--the Merry Monarch.
+
+[Illustration: 598]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FOURTH. JAMES THE SECOND.
+
+
+[Illustration: 599]
+
+THOUGH James had not been popular as heir-presumptive to the crown, he
+had no sooner got it on his head than loyal addresses poured in upon
+him from all sides, for the attachment manifested towards the throne on
+these occasions refers rather to the upholstery than to the individual.
+In his capacity of Duke of York, few would have exclaimed, "York, you're
+wanted!" to fill the regal office, but when he had once succeeded to it,
+every one was ready to declare that the diadem became him as if it had
+been expressly made for him.
+
+James and his wife were greatly puzzled about their coronation, for
+they had an objection to the ceremony being performed by a Protestant
+prelate, and unfortunately for them "No other was genuine, own
+conscience--a party, by the way, that is sometimes not very obstinate
+in coming to terms--James and his queen not only-accepted the crown from
+Protestant hands, but got over an awkward oath or two by means of some
+mental quibbles. As the crown was being put upon his head, it tottered
+and almost fell, which caused a bystander to paraphrase the old saying
+about the slip 'twixt cup and lip, exclaiming:
+
+     "There's many a mull
+     'Twixt the crown and the skull,"
+
+an observation that, happily for him who made it, was uttered in a tone
+that was scarcely audible.
+
+A few days after the coronation, Titus Oates was brought to the bar of
+the Queen's Bench to be tried over again, though he was already under
+sentence of perpetual imprisonment. James, however, was desirous
+of feeding his revenge on Oates, who had done his worst against the
+Catholics; and Jeffreys, that judicial flail, was set to work to
+administer to Oates a sound thrashing.
+
+The prisoner assumed a very bold front, and there was a sort of
+desperate restlessness in his manner, which got him the name of Wild
+Oates at the time he was undergoing his trial. He was convicted on two
+indictments, and ordered to pay a thousand marks in respect of each.
+"But," said the inhuman Jeffreys, "we will supply him with marks in
+return, for he shall be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate, and from
+Newgate to Tyburn." He was also granted a life interest, by way of
+annuity, in the pillory, where he was adjudged to stand five days every
+year, as long as he lived, and where voluntary contributions of eggs
+were shelled out in most unwelcome profusion by the populace.
+
+Parliament met on the 22nd of May, 1685, and James delivered a speech
+from the throne, with notes introduced _ad libitum_, and a running
+accompaniment of threats, remarkable for their extreme impudence. This
+effrontery had its effect, for the Commons, having retired to their
+chamber, voted him an income of a million and a quarter for his life,
+with other contingencies which only required asking for. The Court party
+supported him with zeal, and chiefly recommended him as a king that had
+never broken his word, which appears to have placed him in the light
+of a royal phenomenon. In the midst of all this comfortable and
+complimentary confidence between the Parliament and James, news arrived
+that Monmouth had landed in the west, with a tremendous standard, round
+which the mob, who will rush anywhere to see a flag fly, were rapidly
+rallying. Monmouth had only got a force of one hundred men by way of
+nucleus to a larger assemblage, or, in other words, as the tag to which
+the string of rag and bobtail would be most likely to attach itself.
+The rebellion raised by Monmouth was very soon put down, and Monmouth
+himself was found cowering at the bottom of a ditch, in the mud of which
+he must have expired, had it not been for an opponent of his dy-nasty,
+who would not leave him to die in such a very disagreeable manner. Poor
+Monmouth was taken, tried, and condemned; and, not to be out of
+fashion, he gave money to the headsman--thus paying the costs of his own
+execution even upon the scaffold.
+
+James proceeded to punish all whom he believed to be the enemies of his
+Government, with a sanguinary fury worthy of the revolutionary tribunals
+of France during the ascendency of Robespierre. Colonel Kirk, a soldier
+who had become savage by service at Tangier, and who, having once tasted
+blood, never knew when he had had enough of it, was sent to use the
+sword of war upon real or suspected rebels, while Jeffreys hacked about
+him right and left with the sword of justice. The king himself, with
+brutal appreciation of the judge's ferocious career, gave it the name of
+"Jeffreys' campaign," and this disgrace to the ermine inflamed by drink
+the natural fierceness of his character. He hiccuped out sentences of
+death with an idiotic stare of counterfeit solemnity, and he rolled
+about the Bench in such a disgraceful manner, that a junior, who had
+nothing to do in court but make bad jokes, observed that Jeffreys could
+never have acted as a standing counsel, and it was, therefore, lucky
+for him that he had been raised to a post of dignity which he could
+conveniently lean against. This monster in judicial form was elevated to
+the office of Lord Chancellor, with the title of Baron Wem, on the death
+of Lord Keeper North; when, by way of earning his promotion, Jeffreys
+went hanging away at a much more rapid rate than before, and the only
+misfortune was, that there was not sufficient rope for him to hang
+himself, notwithstanding the abundance of that material which was
+supplied to him. Jeffreys added to the trade of a butcher the less
+sanguinary pursuits of bribery and corruption, which enabled him to make
+a certain sum per head of the prisoners, while their heads remained
+upon their shoulders. He and Father Petre, the king's confessor, divided
+L6000 paid by Hampden, who was in gaol, to put aside a capital charge
+of high treason with which he had been threatened; and poor Prideaux, a
+barrister who had talked himself into the Tower by an unfortunate "gift
+of the gab," purchased his impunity for L1500, the probable amount of
+his entire life's professional earnings.
+
+The Marquess of Halifax had sat at the council board for some time with
+Rochester, who, though swearing from morning till night, and drunk from
+night till morning, was the recognised head of the high church party,
+and the great hope of the religious section of the community. Halifax,
+not exactly liking the projects of his royal master, and the character
+of his colleague, turned a little refractory; and being dismissed
+from office, became in the natural order of things the leader of the
+opposition. His hostility told even upon the haughty Jeffreys, who was
+made to perform the unpleasant operation of biting the dust--a fate to
+which those who are always opening their mouths and showing their teeth
+are necessarily reduced when they are brought to a prostrate condition.
+James was so much disgusted and disappointed that he dissolved the
+Parliament, to avoid further discussion, thus as it were turning off
+the gas by which a light was being thrown upon his own real views and
+character.
+
+The undisguised object of James was to Catholicise the whole country by
+dismissing from office all who had the slightest shade of Protestantism
+in their principles; and even Rochester, the head of the high church
+party, having got argumentative and disputatious over his drink, was
+turned out of the council. This ejectment was judicious in the main,
+though the immediate cause for it scarcely warranted the act; but the
+council room had been little better than a public-house parlour during
+the whole time that Rochester had been suffered to sit in it. James next
+drew up a declaration of liberty of conscience, to be read in all
+the churches, but the bishops, with very great spirit, resisted the
+introduction of the obnoxious document. They were consequently summoned
+on a charge of high misdemeanor before the King's Bench, when Jeffreys
+tried to cajole them with such amiable observations as "Now then, what's
+this little affair? There's some mistake, is there not? but we shall
+soon put it all to rights, I dare say;"--a style of conciliation to
+which the bishops did not take as kindly as the king and his creatures
+desired. The people were greatly in favour of the prelates, who were
+cheered on their way to their trial by an enthusiastic mob of juveniles;
+for it is worthy of remark, that the boys are ever in advance of their
+age, as the pioneers of popular opinion.
+
+The jury, having in their own hearts an echo to the general voice,
+acquitted the defendants, after an adjournment and a locking up for
+a night, which had been rendered necessary by the obstinacy of a Mr.
+Arnold, the king's brewer, who supplied the palace with beer, and
+insisted upon putting what he called "nice pints," for the purpose of
+raising difficulties in the minds of his colleagues. A verdict of "Not
+guilty" was however eventually returned, and a round of applause having
+started in the court itself, passed from group to group till it got to
+Temple Bar, where the porters taking it up with terrific force, gave it
+a lift down Fleet Street, and it was thence forwarded by easy stages as
+far as the Tower. London was illuminated in honour of the occasion,
+and the Pope having been hanged in effigy, some wag put "a light in his
+laughing eye," which caused it to twinkle for a few moments, until, like
+the fire of genius, it consumed the frame in which it was deposited.
+
+On the 10th of June, 1688, the queen, Mary d'Este, the second wife of
+James, was declared to have been delivered of a "fine bouncing boy," but
+the people, who would have no Papist heir to the throne, declared the
+alleged "bouncing boy" to be a bounce altogether. There was not over
+nicety in the mode chosen to account for the presence of the child, by
+those who would not believe that it was the son of the king and queen;
+but the most popular story was, that the little fellow had been brought
+in a warming-pan into the royal bedchamber. This was hauling the young
+Pretender rather prematurely over the coals, but as the contents of the
+warming-pan were never regularly sifted, we cannot vouch for the truth
+or falsehood of the account that has been handed down to us. The event,
+whether real or fictitious, was celebrated by a brilliant display of
+fireworks, which proved a sad failure; for the lightning, which
+was exceedingly vivid, completely took the shine out of the _feu
+d'artifice_, and thoroughly "paled," as if with a pail of cold water,
+"their ineffectual fires."
+
+All eyes were now turned upon William, Prince of Orange, who, naturally
+enough, became as proud as a peacock at having so many eyes upon him.
+Having received a very pressing invitation from England, he determined
+to come over and question the legitimacy of the alleged Prince of
+Wales--our young friend of the warming-pan. On Friday, the 16th of
+October, 1688, William of Orange set sail, and stood over for the
+English coast; but old Boreas, who stands as sentinel over the British
+Isles, began railing and blustering in such a boisterous manner, that
+the invading fleet was driven out of its course, and the order on board
+every ship was to "Ease her," "Back her," or "Turn her astarn," to
+prevent a collision that might have proved disagreeable. The fleet,
+however, sailed definitively on the 1st of November, and arriving at
+Torbay on the 4th, he landed there amid the usual kissing of
+hands, grasping of legs, hanging on at the coat tails, and tugging
+affectionately at the cloak skirts, which form the ordinary
+demonstrations of affectionate loyalty towards any new object, who can
+bid tolerably high for it. Nevertheless, the people did not come out
+half so strongly as he could have desired; and, indeed, he complained
+that the warmth of his first reception had soon cooled down to mere
+politeness with the chill off. It is said that he even threatened to
+return, but recollecting that such quick returns would be productive of
+no profit, he abandoned the notion of going home, and said to himself,
+very sensibly, "Well, well! now I am here, I suppose I must make the
+best of it."
+
+James was completely taken aback at the news of what had occurred, and
+tried to get up a little bit of popularity by turning quack doctor and
+running about in all directions to touch people for tne king's evil. It
+was, however, a mere piece of claptrap, or, as some term it, touch
+and go; for directly the people had been touched they were found to go
+without evincing the smallest symptoms of attachment to their doctor and
+master. James had certainly got a considerable number of soldiers; but
+he could not rely upon them for three reasons--first, because they were
+not to be trusted; secondly, because they were not to be depended upon;
+and thirdly, because there was no reliance to be placed upon them. Any
+one of these causes would of itself have been sufficient; but James was
+almost as difficult of conviction as the celebrated angler, who only
+abandoned his fishing expedition upon finding that there were, in the
+first place, no fish; secondly, that he had no fishing-rod; and thirdly,
+that if there were any fish, he did not think they would allow him to
+catch them.
+
+The soldiers soon began to justify James's doubt of their fidelity, by
+rapidly deserting him. Lord Colchester went first, and the example was
+so catching that it ran through all the forces, and when James made up
+his mind to join the army, he made the mortifying discovery that there
+was nothing to join, for all the officers were unattached to the cause
+of the sovereign. The bishops advised him to call a Parliament, and
+the little Prince of Wales was packed off in a parcel, with "This side
+upwards" legibly inscribed on the crown of his hat, to Portsmouth. In
+the midst of his other distresses, the king's nose began to bleed, in
+consequence, it was said, of the repeated blows he had endured from
+the soldiery, who had flown in his face with the utmost disloyalty. He
+consequently made up his mind and his portmanteau to retreat, when, in
+stopping at Andover, he asked his son-in-law, Prince George of Denmark,
+and the young Duke of Ormond, to sup with him. They accepted the
+invitation; but in the morning they were both missing, having run
+off--without paying their bills--to join the Prince of Orange, whom they
+found in quarters. On arriving at Whitehall, James found that even his
+daughter Anne had followed her husband's example and joined the enemy.
+
+As every one else was flying, James began to think that it was high
+time for himself to run for it. The little Prince of Wales, who had been
+forwarded to Portsmouth, was actually declined as a parcel on which the
+carriage had not been paid, and was sent back like a returned letter to
+London. The queen, putting the little fellow under her arm, walked over
+Westminster Bridge, popped into the Gravesend coach, and hailed a yacht,
+which took her and her infant to Calais. James, only waiting to pocket
+the great seal, ran after his wife; but finding the bauble heavy, and
+that the great seal, by making him look conspicuous, would perhaps
+seal his doom, he pitched it into the river. On reaching Lambeth they
+exclaimed, "Hoy, a hoy!" and a hoy was provided in which he took his
+passage; but the vessel putting in at the Isle of Sheppy for ballast,
+the people attacked him with great rudeness, and called him, without
+knowing who he was, a "hatchet-faced Jesuit." This proves he must have
+had a very sharp expression, for with a face like a hatchet, he would
+no doubt have had teeth like a saw, and presented altogether a rather
+formidable aspect. To save himself from outrage he announced himself as
+the king, but this disclosure had only the effect of making them rob
+as well as insult him, for knowing he had money of his own, they were
+determined to get it out of him. He was seized by a mob of fish-women,
+sailors, and smugglers, who turned his pockets inside out, and bullied
+him so severely that he howled out piteously for mercy, and adopted a
+favourite oath of his brother Charles's, when a salmon lighting rather
+heavily on his eye, he exclaimed, "Odds fish!" with considerable
+earnestness. He at length "put up" at the nearest public-house, where he
+wrote a note to Lord Winchilsea. Upon the arrival of this nobleman, the
+king sat down and had a good cry, but Winchilsea sagaciously observed
+to him, "Come, come; it's no use taking on so; you had much better take
+yourself off as speedily as possible."
+
+The moment the flight of James from his palace was known, the city was
+thrown into the utmost excitement, and by way of making each other more
+nervous than need be, the inhabitants set all the bells ringing with
+incessant vehemence. The people might have knocked each other down with
+feathers, so agitated had they become; and in their frenzy they not only
+began burning all the Popish chapels, but looked everywhere for Father
+Petre to make the same use of him that his namesake saltpetre might have
+been turned to on such a very explosive occasion. Father Petre had
+taken himself off to France, but the pope's nuncio, who was in general
+denounced by the mob, disguised himself as a footman, and kept jumping
+up behind a carriage, to look as if he was in service, whenever he
+observed any one apparently watching him with suspicion. Judge Jeffreys
+having been stupidly intoxicated over some sittings in _banco_ at a
+public-house, followed by a trial at bar of some cream gin that had been
+strongly recommended to his lordship for mixing, was unable of course to
+fly--or even to stand--but, disguised as a sailor, he was perambulating
+the streets of Wapping. Having been discovered, he was seized by the
+mob, who, instead of exercising a summary jurisdiction, and hanging him
+at once, as they might have done had they determined to pay him in
+his own coin, turned him over to the Lord Mayor as a preliminary to a
+regular trial.
+
+A provisional Government of the bishops and peers was formed in London,
+and a note despatched to the Prince of Orange, saying, "that the first
+time he came that way, if he would drop in they should be very happy to
+see him." James showed considerable obstinacy before he could be got
+rid of; and he continued exercising, as long as he could, some of
+the smaller functions of royalty. He came back to London, and to
+the surprise of everybody, sat down to dinner as usual at Whitehall,
+forgetting, perhaps, that his father had taken a chop there on
+a previous occasion for having given offence to his people. Four
+battalions of the Dutch Guards were marched into Westminster by way of
+hint, which James for some time refused to take, and he had actually
+gone to bed, when Halifax roused him up by the information that he must
+start off to Ham, as the Prince of Orange was expected at Whitehall the
+first thing in the morning. James observed that the place suggested
+to him was very chilly, and as he could not bear cold Ham, he had much
+rather go to Rochester if it was all the same to Halifax. This was
+agreed to on behalf of the Prince of Orange; and James, taking the
+Gravesend boat, quitted London with a very few followers. There was an
+explosion of cockney sentimentality on this occasion; for the citizens,
+who had been the first to demand his expulsion, began shedding tears in
+teacupfuls when they witnessed the departure of the sovereign. Having
+remained for the night at Gravesend, he started the next morning for
+Rochester, and after a very brief stay, he went in a fishing-smack smack
+across the channel to Ambleteuse, a small town in Picardy. From thence
+he hastened to the Court of Louis the Fourteenth, where James still
+enjoyed the empty title of king, which was not the only empty thing
+he possessed, for his pockets were in the same condition until Louis
+replenished them. He sometimes compared them to a couple of exhausted
+non-receivers, for these were utterly exhausted, and were not in the
+receipt of anything but what he obtained from his brother sovereign's
+munificence. Some historians tell us that James had made a purse, but
+if he had, it is doubtful whether he had any money remaining to stock it
+with after the fishermen, who made all fish that came to their net, had
+encountered him at Torbay, and deprived him of all the loose cash he had
+about him.
+
+William of Orange could not exactly make up his mind what to do upon
+the flight of James; but he very wisely declined to follow the advice of
+some injudicious friends, who recommended him to appear in the character
+of William the Conqueror. He sagaciously observed that imitations were
+always bad, evincing an utter absence of any original merit in the
+imitator, and certain in the end to have their hollowness detected.
+He admitted that the idea of entering England as William the Conqueror
+might have been a very good one at first; but that he should very
+justly be denounced as an impudent humbug if he endeavoured to obtain
+popularity by trading on the reputation of another. Scorning, therefore,
+to be a servile copyist, he determined on striking out a path for
+himself, and tried the "moderately constitutional dodge," which
+succeeded so well, that he is to this day recognised as the hero of what
+is termed the "glorious Revolution." He called together some members
+of Charles the Second's Parliaments, and recommended them, with the
+assistance of the Lord Mayor and forty Common Councilmen, to consider
+what had better be done under the peculiar circumstances of the nation.
+There is something richly ludicrous, according to modern notions, in the
+idea of consulting a Lord Mayor and forty Common Councilmen on a great
+political question; for though we would cheerfully be guided by such
+authorities in the choice of a sirloin of beef or the framing of a bill
+of fare, their views on the cooking up of a constitution would not in
+these days be gravely listened to. The peers and bishops had already
+recommended the summoning of a convention, and the Lord Mayor having
+proposed that the Commons should say "ditto to that," the suggestion was
+forthwith adopted.
+
+The Convention having met, the first question it proceeded to discuss
+was whether James had not, in leaving the kingdom, run away, in fact,
+from his creditors, for every king owes a debt to his people; and
+whether the throne, crown and sceptre might not be seized for the
+benefit of those to whom he was under liabilities. The Commons soon came
+to the resolution that the throne was vacant, a conclusion which we must
+not examine too strictly; for if the principle involved in it were to be
+generally admitted, we should find that a freeholder running away from
+his freehold house to avoid meeting his Christmas bills, would, by
+that act, not only oust himself from his property, but cut off all his
+successors from their right of inheritance. Upon the broad and vulgar
+principle that the Stuarts were a bad lot, the Convention was justified
+perhaps in changing the succession to the throne; but, for our own
+parts, we must confess our disinclination to let in such a plea for
+the wholesale setting aside of a reigning family. As the last of the
+Pretenders is happily defunct, we may venture upon taking the line of
+argument we have adopted, without running the risk of a public meeting
+being called on the appearance of this number, to consider the immediate
+restoration of the Stuarts, a measure which our loyalty to the reigning
+sovereign, who fortunately unites in her own person all claims to the
+crown, would never tolerate. Had it been otherwise, we should not have
+been surprised by the announcement of a league, with the usual staff of
+a chairman, a boy, a brass plate, and a bell, to restore to the house of
+Stuart the crown of England.
+
+To return, however, to William of Orange, whom we left waiting to be
+asked to walk up the steps of the throne; and we have great pleasure
+in taking him by the hand, for the purpose of giving him a lift to that
+exalted station he was now called to occupy. Some were for engaging him
+as regent during the minority of the Prince of Wales; but William flatly
+refused to become a warming-pan for one whose alleged introduction into
+the royal bed-chamber through the medium of a warming-pan, rendered the
+simile at once striking and appropriate. "All or none" was the motto
+adopted by William in his negotiations with the Convention, and it was
+at length resolved to settle the crown on the joint heads of himself and
+the Princess of Orange, with a stipulation that the prince should hold
+the reins of government. A declaration of rights was drawn up, so that
+everything was reduced to writing, and put down in black and white, for
+the purpose of avoiding disputes between the king and the people.
+
+James's reign was now hopelessly at an end, and entirely by his own act;
+for, after he had absconded, it would have been idle for the nation to
+have been satisfied with writing, "Gone away; not known where," over the
+throne of England. A sketch of the character of this king is scarcely
+required from the English historian, who may fairly say, "My former man,
+James, quitted my service, and you had better make inquiries in his last
+place, for I have ceased to have anything to do with him. I can venture
+to say he was sober; but I am not quite sure about his honesty; for
+though in looking over the plate basket where I kept the regalia,
+I found the crown, sceptre, and other articles of that description
+perfectly right, I had missed from time to time a great deal of money,
+which I verily believe that man James had pocketed. I should say that
+the fellow was very weak, and not being strong enough for his place,
+he left his work a great deal to inferior servants, who behaved very
+shamefully. I think the fellow was willing, and it might be said of him,
+that he would if he could, but he couldn't--a state in which the servant
+of a nation is not likely to give much satisfaction to those who require
+his services." Such is the character that may be fairly written of
+James the Second, who, we may as well add, was promoted to a saintdom in
+France, by way of compensation for his forfeiture of the "right divine
+to govern wrong" in England.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIFTH. LITERATURE, SCIENCE, FINE ARTS, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND
+CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.
+
+
+It is now necessary to sink the historian for a time in the reviewer,
+and to take a retrospect of the literature of the period through which
+our narrative has passed. The republic of politics was not favourable to
+the republic of letters, and the Elizabethan dramatists were followed by
+a few playwrights of a very inferior class. The mantle of Shakespeare,
+or even of Beaumont and Fletcher, who had flourished under the monarchy,
+was caught by no worthy object, and it fell upon Shirley, for whom
+it was evidently a great deal too large. Denham and Waller, those
+two commonplace songsters, set up a faint warbling, and Hobbes had
+sufficient fire to burn with philosophic ardour, though his thoughts
+were fettered by his royalist principles. Hobbes, however, was a
+fireside companion to many, though they dared scarcely hang over Hobbes
+in the broad light of day.
+
+Milton had written little till he gave to the world--which is true
+enough, for the world can hardly be said to have bought it--his
+"Paradise Lost," which he brought out in 1667, and though the sale was
+limited, it was sufficiently encouraging to induce him to baffle the
+crowd of imitators by advertising a new poem, to be called "Paradise
+Regained." He feared the sort of impertinent opposition which echoes
+every new work, and which, when an original writer takes it into his
+head to bid anyone "Go where the aspens quiver," "Meet him in the
+willow-glen," or commit some other foolery, will reply by expressing a
+desire to come where the aspens are actually quivering, and to be
+punctual at the willow-glen, for which the invitation is forwarded.
+"Paradise Regained" had the fate of all merely imitative literature, for
+it never acquired, and will never attain, the reputation its prototype
+or predecessor has enjoyed.
+
+The Restoration seemed to act as a restorative to Milton's powers, for
+he published many of his finest things after Charles the Second returned
+to the throne. Cowley was one of the earliest writers who took to
+diluting the works of other people in some stuff of his own; and, taking
+the materials of Donne, he set an example of the modern practice of
+seizing upon another man's original ideas, for the purpose of beating or
+spinning them out into a shape that may, if possible, prevent the real
+authorship from being recognised. There was, however, a great deal
+of true genius among the literary men of the age, through which our
+narrative has just carried us. Spenser, whose tales were only too short,
+would have been sufficient to redeem the period from the imputation of
+mediocrity.
+
+The stage was, during the reign of Charles the Second, in a very
+degraded state; but the cry for the restoration of the drama has been
+kept up so long, that we really do not know what there is to restore,
+if everything has been always bad, except the works of two or three
+writers, whose productions are being so constantly performed that the
+public cannot reasonably complain of not getting enough of them. The
+"palmy days of dramatic literature" are, according to the ordinary
+acceptation of those who use the term, any days but the present, and it
+is not improbable that our own will be looked back upon and lamented
+as the genuine "palmy days" by the generation of grumblers who may come
+after us. If everything is objected to in its turn--and such has been
+the fate of every successive crop of writings for the stage--we of
+course cannot tell with accuracy what it would be considered worth
+while to restore in the judgment of those who are clamorous for the
+restoration of the drama. There is also considerable difference of
+opinion as to how the restoration is to be effected; and we may perhaps
+be excused, therefore, for suggesting that some good strong salts--attic
+salts, of course--are likely to prove the most effectual restoratives to
+a drama in a languishing condition.
+
+There was an immense increase in the family of science at or about the
+period we have been speaking of, and indeed science had so many sons,
+that it would not have been very surprising if the fate of the domestic
+circle of the old lady who lived in a shoe--namely, an abundance of
+broth and a scarcity of bread--had been their inheritance.
+
+The illustrious Boyle might frequently have been left without a roast
+by the number of competitors who were seeking a living round him through
+the exercise of their talents; and amidst his curious experiments on
+air, that of trying to live upon it might, if successful, have been of
+the greatest use to him. He was an enthusiast in the splendid career he
+had long and perseveringly pursued; nor is it going beyond the truth
+to say of him, that he combined ecstatics with hydrostatics, by the
+eagerness and animation with which he threw himself into water, whose
+properties were almost the only property he ever realised. There were
+several other scientific luminaries in this age, and we must not forget
+Hooke, who always had an eye to the capabilities of the microscope, and
+took an enlarged view of everything that fell under his observation. For
+Sydenham, the restorer of true physio, we have not so much veneration;
+but Newton is a name that we cannot pass over so slightingly. This great
+man, to whom science was the apple of his eye, and to whose eye the
+apple had revealed one of the greatest truths ever discovered, lived for
+some time a most retired life, which he passed in tranquil obscurity.
+Such was his position when the fruits of his contemplation came home to
+him in the shape of a golden pippin, which he revolved in his mind as it
+revolved in the air, and the result was the great fact by the perception
+of which his name has been immortalised. Though Newton was a pattern of
+modesty in his intercourse with the external world, he was bold enough
+in his approaches to Dame Nature, and would not allow her to hide her
+face from him, if by any amount of perseverance he could get a peep at
+it. He even had the audacity to go the length of tearing off her veil,
+for the purpose of revealing her beauties; and Nature, instead of
+becoming indignant at this rough treatment, was evidently flattered by
+his attentions, to which she offered every encouragement.
+
+It is a curious fact, that the institution of the Royal Society
+commenced under the auspices of a brother-in-law of Cromwell, one
+Wilkins, a clergyman, who, although so nearly allied to the republican
+leader, had no objection to accept facilities from a regal hand for
+promoting the objects of science, in which he felt a zealous interest.
+This brother-in-law of Cromwell was Bishop of Chester under the
+Restoration, which he liked just as well as the Commonwealth, and
+perhaps better, for his mitre was rather safer under a royal rule than
+it could have been during a republican government.
+
+Charles the Second was without doubt a lover of the sciences to a
+certain extent; but his disgusting depravities left him neither
+money nor time for the advancement of genius and literary merit. His
+contemporary, Louis the Fourteenth, was more liberal of his bounty to
+those whose intellect formed their chief claim to consideration; but
+even this magnificent monarch scarcely devoted to literature, science,
+and art, as much as he often lavished on one worthless courtier. It is,
+however, a matter for humiliation and regret that we have not advanced
+upon the munificence of Charles the Second and Louis the Fourteenth;
+for, notwithstanding all the acknowledgment that talent in these days
+receives by way of personal consideration and respect, a few paltry
+thousands a year form the whole amount that the nation will afford
+to pension its instructors or entertainers, when their powers of
+instruction and entertainment have failed to afford them the means of
+comfortable livelihood.
+
+Of the condition of the people during the period described in the few
+last chapters, we had rather say very little, as we can say nothing
+complimentary. Hypocrisy, during the Commonwealth, and unbridled
+licentiousness at the Restoration, were the characteristic features of
+the two divisions of a period which cast upon the respectability of the
+nation a blot that time has only turned to iron-mould. The fame of a
+nation, like a damask table-cloth, when once stained is never thoroughly
+restored; for, send them both to the wash--immersing the former in tears
+of regret, and the latter in the soapsuds--the stain is still indelibly
+there, beyond the power of pearl-ash or penitence.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VIII. THE PERIOD FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE THE
+THIRD.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIRST. WILLIAM AND MARY.
+
+
+[Illustration: 611]
+
+The crown of England stood for almost two months in the same position
+as Mahomet's tomb, for the diadem no longer rested on the head of James,
+nor had it yet lighted on that of the Prince of Orange. On the 13th of
+February, 1689, both Houses waited on the Prince and Princess of Orange
+with a bill and a request that they would put their names to it. This
+document was a Declaration of Rights, in which it was asserted that
+"elections ought to be free," that "jurors ought to be duly empanelled
+and returned," besides a number of those "oughts" which are highly
+respected at the commencement of a reign, but frequently stand for
+nothing before the end of it. The Prince of Orange was by no means so
+squeezable as his name would seem to imply, for he refused to accept the
+crown unless he could have the power as well as the name of king, and he
+stipulated that his wife should have no share in the government. He
+probably knew the lady's temper pretty well, and felt that neither the
+country nor himself would have had much peace had she been allowed to
+interfere, and indeed it was a saying of one of the ancients, whose name
+we have not been able to learn, that "when a woman rules the roast, a
+quantity of broils may be looked for." He threatened to return to
+Holland if Parliament gave his wife any share of his authority, and the
+once popular but now almost obsolete menace of "If you do I'm a
+Dutchman," * originated no doubt in the intimation of William that he
+would cut his English connections, and return to his Dutch duchy if his
+views were thwarted by his adopted countrymen.
+
+     * The insertion of this rare old saying is rather intended
+     to display our own reading than with any idea of its being
+     absolutely essential to the narrative.
+
+A country in want of a king is naturally prone to accept one upon
+almost any terms; and though England might have been very particular
+in ordinary circumstances about its chief magistrate, there was so much
+unpleasantness in being without a person of the sort, that the nation
+was very anxious to suit itself. William's stipulations were therefore
+listened to, and it was even arranged that Mary, in whose right alone he
+had any claim to the British Crown, should have but a nominal share
+in it. The Commons voted that James had abdicated, or, in other words,
+bolted, and thereby shut himself out; while the Lords resolved that the
+throne was vacant; and thus by two different modes they came to the same
+conclusion, namely, that there was an opening for any one to "step up,"
+if the terms were agreed upon. After some negociation it was arranged
+that William should take the vacant situation, which should be
+considered to some extent a single-handed place, though nominally filled
+by "a man and his wife," it being understood that the former should do
+all the work, and that the latter should make herself generally useless.
+
+It will naturally occur to the curious reader to inquire what has become
+of the fugitive James, and we shall therefore commission our research
+to set out as a policeman in pursuit of him. We first trace him to
+Versailles, where he met with a very friendly reception from Louis the
+Fourteenth, who made him as comfortable as circumstances would admit,
+and lent him a lot of French soldiers to play at an invasion with.
+
+Ireland was then, as it has been always, our weakest point, and it was
+resolved that James should hit us on that unhappy raw, which all our
+attempts to heal have only tended to aggravate. James repaired to Brest,
+where he found himself in the bosom of a ragamuffin crowd of exiles; and
+forming the best of these into a sort of army, he landed with a force of
+about two thousand five hundred at Kinsale. Having taken the English by
+surprise, James's party obtained a bit of a victory at Bantry Bay, for
+the numbers of the former being comparatively few, their commander,
+Admiral Herbert, thought it would be sheer folly not to sheer off, and
+he made for Scilly, which he acknowledged to a friend was exceedingly
+ridiculous. James made the most of the opportunity, and summoned an
+Irish Parliament, which, with true Irish generosity, began voting away
+money at a tremendous rate before it came in, and had bestowed upon
+James L20,000 a month, out of nothing a year, within the few first days
+of their sitting.
+
+The Treasury was of course not in a condition to meet the liberal orders
+that were made upon it, and James had no means of replenishing it,
+except with what he brought over in his pocket from France, and this,
+though it had come some distance, would not go very far, when he began
+to try the experiment. Having a scarcity of gold and silver, he deter-,
+mined to try the effect of brass, which he knew to be in many cases a
+perfect substitute for both the precious metals, and he ordered that
+his brazen coinage should pass for a hundred times its value, which
+has furnished a _monumentum cere perennius_ of his brazen impudence.
+
+His household was poverty-stricken in the extreme, and Black Rod had
+nothing but an old Awkward Mistake, birch as the emblem of his office.
+The Court was, in fact, rendered as bad as the lowest alley by the
+turmoils and turbulence that prevailed in consequence of the shortness
+of cash, and after some little hesitation, James deter-mined to go to
+Londonderry for ammunition to carry on the war; but on his arrival the
+only powder and shot he received came to him in the shape of the firing
+of the garrison. Finding the place--or rather the inhabitants--unwilling
+to surrender, James drew off, and arrived in Dublin, where some of
+the famous Dublin stout in the shape of a few stalwart adherents still
+sustained him in his enterprise.
+
+[Illustration: 613]
+
+William had no doubt a very troublesome part to play, for he was
+surrounded by a discontented set, which must always arise upon a change
+of dynasty, when the good things to be given away form a proportion
+of about one-eighth per cent,--or half a crown in the L100--to the
+expectations of the would-be recipients. When a plan is fixed upon for
+dividing L1000 into fifty thousand equal shares of L100,000 each, there
+will be some probability that the promoters of a revolution will, when
+the revolution is complete, be all equally and perfectly satisfied.
+William was speedily surrounded by a number of adherents to his cause,
+who had stuck to it with the leech-like intention of drawing upon it to
+the fullest possible extent; and his hangers-on were consequently more
+weakening to him than otherwise.
+
+On the 19th of October he opened the second session of his first
+Parliament, and was soon pestered by the pecuniary importunities of
+the Princess Anne of Denmark, who declared that her income was scarcely
+enough to keep her in gloves and Denmark satin slippers; and that she
+must have L70,000 a year settled upon her, quite independent of her
+brother-in-law and her sister. A family quarrel ensued upon this demand,
+and Queen Mary insisted that "Nancy must be mad" to prefer a request
+so shamefully exorbitant. The matter was eventually compromised, by a
+settlement of L50,000 a year on "Sister Anne," who was completely under
+the influence of Churchill, now Earl of Marlborough.
+
+In the beginning of 1690, William dissolved the Parliament; and a new
+one met on the 20th of March; when the king announced his intention of
+going to Ireland, and intimated his necessity for cash to enable him
+to undertake the journey. He requested the assistance of the Commons in
+settling the amount of his revenue, upon which he proposed to borrow a
+considerable sum, thus acting on the dangerous and unprofitable system
+of drawing a salary in advance, and spending to-day what will not come
+to-morrow. He intended, in fact, to eat his pudding first, and to have
+it afterwards, or rather to eat his own, and then come down upon that of
+other people to supply the deficiency. The Commons, instead of checking
+this improvidence, granted him L2,200,000, which was presented to
+William in the shape of an elegant extract from the pockets of his
+people. Money was not all that the new king required, for he was anxious
+to cement his power, and like all those who feel the doubtful character
+of their claims, was continually insisting on their being formally
+recognised. Bills were passed, though not without some difficulty,
+abjuring James and his title to the crown; but some nobles objected to
+take the oaths, and Lord Wharton, who was a very old man, declared he
+was unwilling to go swearing on to the end of his days, that "he had
+taken so many affidavits, he scarcely knew one from the other, and
+he must beg to be excused from any more oath-taking during the brief
+remainder of his existence."
+
+The Parliament having served its purpose, in a pecuniary point of view,
+was prorogued rather early, and William started for Ireland. Previous
+to the king's departure, the queen very reasonably suggested that as he
+could not take the royal authority away with him, it would be a great
+deal like a dog in the manger, if he refused to let her have the
+enjoyment of the sovereign power during his brief absence. With some
+reluctance he consented to the arrangement, observing coarsely, that
+he knew she would make a mess of it, but as he should not be gone very
+long, it did not much signify. With this surly concession, having agreed
+to a temporary transfer of the sceptre into her grasp, he quitted her,
+with the discouraging and discourteous words, "There, take it! and let
+all the world see how right I was in preventing you from having a hand
+in the use of it."
+
+On his arrival at Belfast he began to look about him for James, whose
+army was at length pounced upon on the banks of the Boyne, and a battle
+became unavoidable. William was looking about him, when the enemy
+loading two immense field-pieces, aimed them both at him; but, as
+between two stools, one often goes to the ground, so, between two cannon
+balls, one may occasionally come off without injury. William, when he
+saw the balls bouncing by him, may have thought that he was lucky
+in escaping a ball'd head, but he soon received a real wound on the
+shoulder, which positively tore his coat, and grazed the skin, to the
+utter horror of Lord Coningsby, who stuffed his pocket-handkerchief into
+the sleeve, to staunch the blood that might have been, but, fortunately,
+was not, flowing. William was more frightened than hurt, and his
+officers were more frightened than William, while the enemy were more
+frightened than either, and allayed their trepidation by giving out
+that William was certainly dead, which we need not say was a mere
+penny-a-line report, without the smallest foundation. A poultice soon
+set his shoulder to rights, and at all events enabled him to put it to
+the wheel, which he did, by calling a meeting of the officers at nine in
+the evening. He told them he should cross the river the next day, and he
+gave orders about their dress, observing to them playfully, that as they
+would have to pass through the tide, they had better make themselves as
+tidy as possible. Hearing that the enemy wore cockades, made of white
+paper, he remarked that he would not have his men in such foolscaps, but
+that he desired to see them all with green boughs in their hats; and
+in this very guyish guise the soldiers of William met the adherents of
+James in combat.
+
+The gallant Duke of Schomberg, who was extremely touchy, had been
+somehow or other offended at the Council of War, and had retired in a
+huff to his tent, exclaiming pettishly, "Settle it yourselves how you
+like, for it seems I'm nobody." In vain did some of his comrades call
+after him, "Schomberg, Schomberg! Come back, come back;" for the general
+withdrew within his quarters, and letting down his camp-curtains, sat
+smoking his pipe with interjectional mutterings to himself on that
+fruitful topic to a gentleman in the sulks--"The obstancy of _some_
+people." The order of battle being formed, a copy of it was sent to him,
+when, snatching it from the messenger with a loud "Umph!" he declared
+that he had scarcely made up his mind whether he should obey or light
+his pipe with the document. Having looked at it, however, the old
+soldier gave a whistle of satisfaction as if in an ardent anticipation
+of the work before him; and putting on his armour as coolly as if he had
+been dressing for dinner, he made his way to the spot appointed for the
+coming contest. His reception by his sovereign and his fellow-soldiers
+was cheerful if not cordial; but it was evident by the twinkle of the
+veteran's eye, that Schomberg was "himself again" when he stood in the
+presence of an enemy.
+
+The contending forces having a river between them, found their ardour a
+great deal damped, for it is not easy to be valorous with the water up
+to one's waist, and with every desire on both sides to make a splash,
+the soldiers could only dabble in hostilities without plunging deeply
+into them. William put his nag boldly across the stream, but the English
+had to deplore the loss of the gallant old Duke of Schomberg, who, there
+is too much reason to believe, was killed in mistake by one of his own
+men, though, we must confess, we always look with very great suspicion
+on these so-called accidents. James had taken his station at a most
+respectable distance from danger during the whole of the affray, and he
+no sooner saw that he had lost the day than he determined not to lose
+a minute in making his escape from England. He galloped on horseback to
+Dublin, hastened to Waterford, and embarked for France with a wretched
+retinue. William returned to England, and sent the Duke of Marlborough
+to Ireland, who reduced several places, and by putting the screw upon
+Cork, made it pull out very handsomely.
+
+The bishops now began to feel very uncomfortable about their allegiance,
+and to doubt the validity of its transfer from James to William, though
+the truth seems to be that they had not found the transfer fee so large
+as they had expected. Several were deprived of their temporalities--the
+surest way of bringing them to their senses; but there were numerous
+instances of disinterestedness, in which a blindness to the advantages
+of the see was honourably conspicuous. William troubled himself
+comparatively little about what was going on at home, but was far more
+anxious to carry on with success the league against France; and to
+further this object he repaired to the Continent, where a warfare of a
+rather paltry character was persisted in. The hostilities, though of a
+contemptible kind, were sufficiently costly to render it necessary for
+William to return in the course of a few months, and ask for more money
+from the English Parliament. Large grants were made, but not without a
+great deal of grumbling, for John Bull always pays, though he parts with
+his money very reluctantly, and sometimes takes out half its value in
+surly remonstrances against being compelled to put his hand into
+his pocket. The general discontent was considerably aggravated by a
+necessity for the revival of the odious poll-tax, which was a regular
+rap on the head to all except paupers, children, and servants; for with
+these exceptions everybody--or rather every head--was charged so much a
+quarter for the privilege of remaining on its owner's shoulders.
+
+William continued riding backwards and forwards between England and
+Holland, but he paid the former the compliment of making it his purse on
+every occasion. His majesty was constantly taking abroad with him both
+money and men, the former being invariably spent and the latter severely
+wounded, before the king came home again. Occasionally some impression
+was made on a French fort, but the damage done to the enemy cost more
+than it was worth to the English, whose patience and pockets continued
+to be taxed for the continental freaks of the foreign king they had
+permitted to rule over them. There were some able leaders on the side of
+the British, and among the most conspicuous may be cited Sir Cloudesley
+Shovel, who threw fresh coals on to the fire of enthusiasm that
+occasionally burned up among the English.
+
+It would be wearisome to make a list of the various journeys of William
+to the Continent and back; nor, indeed, would the document amount to
+anything more interesting than a time-table, were we to take the trouble
+of preparing it. His people might with reason have complained that they
+never saw anything of him, unless he wanted something from them, and at
+length on the 12th of November, 1694, when William condescended to meet
+his Parliament and request the favour of L5,000,000 to "carry on the
+war," the opposition led by Mr. Harley, the statesman,--not the low
+comedian--forced upon nis majesty's acceptance a bill for the summoning
+of triennial Parliaments.
+
+The assent he gave to this unpalatable measure has been attributed to
+the anxiety he felt on account of the dangerous illness of his wife,
+which may very naturally have incapacitated him for any serious
+resistance to a demand which Parliament urged with wonderful unanimity
+and energy. Poor Mary was seized with an attack of the small-pox, and
+it is a curious mark of the unfeeling character of the punsters of
+that happily remote age, that her malady was made the subject of a pun,
+which, as it was new at the period of which we are writing, we may be
+allowed for the three thousand and eighty-fourth time to chronicle.
+
+When it was known that her majesty had caught the small-pox, or rather
+that the small-pox had caught her majesty, it was remarked with a
+savageness that loses none of its ferocity from the fact of its being a
+bitter truth, that she was "very much to be pitted." Whether the queen
+ever heard this unfeeling and poverty-stricken joke, the chroniclers do
+not relate, and we cannot answer with certainty for its having been
+the death of her; but, as she actually died, the supposition we have
+suggested is exceedingly feasible. She expired on the 28th of December,
+1694, in the thirty-third year of her age, to the great grief of her
+husband, and the regret of the nation in general; for though she was not
+particularly beloved either by one or the other during her life, there
+was a decent show of sorrow on the part of both at losing her. William
+no doubt felt the bereavement in more ways than one, for he had a
+servant the less to wait upon him, a dependant the less to bully, and a
+subject the less to domineer over. He lamented her less as a partner
+and friend than he missed her as a companion and housekeeper. She was
+certainly a devoted wife, but the devotion of a woman to her husband's
+interests is, after all, only a second selfishness, which, when viewed
+in a proper light, is far more prudent than respectable. Her inveterate
+dislike of her sister, with whom she refused to be reconciled even on
+her death-bed, convinces us that it was not altogether a warmth of heart
+that bound her to her husband; and we therefore set her down as a cold
+unfeeling person who could sacrifice all other ties for the sake of one
+which she believed to be of the most importance to her interests.
+
+We should not, however, be doing justice to the character of Mary if we
+were to omit to state that she was exceedingly skilful in the use of the
+needle, and by working curious devices on chairs or carpets, she in one
+way at least set a pattern to the female portion of the community.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SECOND. WILLIAM THE THIRD.
+
+
+[Illustration: 620]
+
+WILLIAM was now _en garcon_ upon the throne of England; but, to use the
+words of a quaint commentator, "he missed his missus" very grievously.
+When spoken to on business, he for several weeks returned no other
+answer than an intimation that business might experience that fate which
+attends a dramatic production when an audience will not listen to a word
+of it. The Princess Anne, his sister-in-law, sought a reconciliation
+through Somers, the lord-keeper, whose reception was not by any means
+as mild as a summer's day, and who congratulated himself on having
+the royal conscience rather than the royal temper in his keeping. The
+keeper, however, was determined to keep it up, and so importuned William
+to be reconciled to Anne, that his majesty ultimately roared out, "Do as
+you like, but don't bother me, for I'm not fit for business, nor indeed
+for anything." Somers arranged an interview between sister Anne and the
+king, who gave her St. James's Palace as a residence, and a quantity of
+the jewels, which the late queen, whom he called his "duck of diamonds,"
+had left behind her. The Marlboroughs, who had gone quite out of favour
+with the king, but were the right and left hand of Anne, expected to
+have a share of the reconciliation, and an interest in its proceeds.
+
+Early in 1695, a glut of unpaid washing-bills which were floating about
+the neighbourhood of all the barracks, threw a doubt on the honesty, or
+at all events on the prudence, of the soldiery; and it was determined
+by the Government that an inquiry should be made into the causes of this
+paltry irregularity. The disgraceful discovery was instantly arrived at,
+that the soldiers could not pay their scores because the gallant fellows
+had not received their salaries.
+
+Corruption and bribery of the lowest kind in the highest quarters were
+soon brought to light, and it was proved that the secretary of the
+treasury had taken a large percentage on the money he had to pay, as a
+sort of bonus for giving himself the trouble to hand it over. Sir John
+Trevor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, turned out a shocking old
+rogue, and was found to have been in the habit of receiving bribes for
+putting questions from the chair, or for smuggling measures through
+their various stages. He had, in fact, undertaken to get bills done
+for anyone who brought him a tempting _douceur_, and a sum of L1050
+was distinctly traced to the pocket of the venerable knave from the
+promoters of the Orphans' Bill. He was punished by being compelled to
+put from the chair of the House the resolution that he, Sir John Trevor,
+was unworthy of sitting in the House, and deserved to be kicked out of
+it. The "Ayes" decidedly had it, and Sir John Trevor would have had it
+too, if he had not instantly withdrawn, to avoid the unpleasantness of
+forcible ejection. Mr. Hungerford, the chairman of the committee on the
+same bill, was also accused, when, yielding to a loud cry of "Turn
+him out!" mingled with occasional mutterings of "Throw him over!" the
+dis-honourable member sneaked away from the senate. A further series
+of corruptions would certainly have been detected had not William
+determined to avoid further scandal, or at all events further exposure,
+by dissolving the Parliament.
+
+James was constantly urging his friend Louis to invade England, and he
+was at length persuaded to collect a fleet and army on the coast, while
+James himself sent over Sir George Barclay and the Duke of Berwick to
+attempt an insurrection. The idea of a couple of adventurers coming
+over to upset the Government was of itself absurd, and the affair was
+rendered more preposterous by Barclay having taken a lodging in Hatton
+Garden, where a garret formed his place of business for conducting the
+affairs of the conspiracy. A simple notification to "ring the top bell,"
+was all that pointed out this nest of treason to those who took an
+interest in its progress. Even the modern accessories of a boy and
+a board-room, with a provisional committee, a dozen chairs, and a
+dining-table, were wanting to this desperate scheme, and indeed, while
+Barclay was away in order to get his meals--for there was no cooking
+on the premises--a recommendation to put letters through the door,
+and leave messages with the porter at the lodge, formed the entire
+instructions upon which the subordinate conspirators had to act when
+they chanced, in the absence of their chief, to call at the chambers.
+
+Such were the contemptible arrangements of this project for turning the
+thrown upside down, and burying, or at all events, bonnetting, William
+in the ruins of the outraged upholstery. We cannot be surprised that its
+progress was not by any means encouraging, but Barclay had heard of
+a plot to assassinate the king, in which one Sir William Perkins was
+concerned, and thus the since celebrated firm of Barclay and Perkins may
+be considered to have originated in a partnership project for brewing
+the storm of revolution. Barclay thought well of the scheme, and was
+introduced to one Porter; but in those days Barclay and Perkins turned
+up their noses at Porter, "who was a drunkard and a blab," and they
+therefore were unwilling to put any faith in him. Barclay, however,
+resolved to persevere in his regicide scheme, and applied to one Captain
+Fisher, who lived in King Street, Westminster, and was understood to be
+open to an offer as decidedly as if there were written over his door,
+"Murders carefully performed. Assassins' work in general."
+
+[Illustration: 622]
+
+The proposal of Barclay, whatever it may have been, was not sufficiently
+liberal; for Fisher would only undertake to kill one of the royal
+coach-horses between Hyde Park and St. James's, but he declined any
+higher responsibility at the price that was offered. Barclay called
+Fisher a fool, and they never came to terms; but the former resolved to
+make the attempt on William's life, and the romantic Green of Tumham,
+over which the king was about to pass, on a day appointed, was selected
+as the scene of the treasonable experiment. The party of assassins had
+swelled to thirty-five, who planted themselves in ambush behind some
+bushes, when news was brought that the king had changed his mind, and
+would not come to Turnham Green; "Which," says Burnet, "was enough to
+turn 'em pale with anger and disappointment." There being some fear that
+the plot would be discovered, Barclay sneaked off to France, abandoning
+his fellow-conspirators to their fate, and believing that his old
+companion Perkins would be nicely left in the lurch; but by a strange
+coincidence, that personage had entertained a similar notion with regard
+to his associate, and had got away first, so that the recreant couple
+had been equally deep in their cowardice and duplicity.
+
+It appeared that Fisher, who had volunteered the horrible office of
+knacker upon the coach-horse of the king, disclosed to Lord Portland
+the particulars of the plot, and the result was that several more of the
+traitors, finding confession the order of the day, went forward to tell
+not only all they knew, but a great deal more that they had invented for
+the sake of having something to communicate. This glut of confidential
+intelligence was so embarrassing, that the Government did not know what
+to believe or what to doubt; but nevertheless a proclamation was issued,
+offering L1000 and a pardon to any gentleman involved in the scheme, who
+would be fool enough to criminate himself, and villain enough to betray
+his accomplices. There were, of course, several candidates for the cash,
+and disclosures at L1000 each poured in at such a rapid rate, that it
+was difficult to meet the demands made on the treasury, on account of
+the news for which the Government had advertised. To make a long story
+short, several were tried, found guilty, and executed, for having shared
+in the treasonable design against William, and among them was one Keys,
+a trumpeter, who was a mere instrument--like his own trumpet--in the
+hands of any one by whom he could be played upon.
+
+William's popularity increased, on account of the plots that had been
+put into operation against him; for it is a beautiful trait in the
+English character, that the people will become suddenly attracted
+towards any one who seems to be an object of dislike to others.
+Unfortunately, however, this generosity is somewhat inconsistent in its
+nature, for it is usually accompanied by an excess of illiberality in an
+opposite direction, and if a man is a martyr to a spirit of hostility,
+the sympathy evinced for him by the public is joined with a savage
+desire to make martyrs of his enemies. Upon this principle, poor Sir
+John Fenwick was pounced upon for having compassed or imagined the death
+of the king, and though there is every reason to believe that such an
+idea was quite out of the compass of his wildest imagination, he was
+brought to the scaffold.
+
+It is doubtful, notwithstanding the fuss we now make--and, indeed, have
+been making ever since the event--about the glorious Revolution of
+1688, whether we really had anything like full value for the trouble it
+occasioned us. However numerous the blessings we have since derived from
+it, we must contend that it did not pay in the first instance; for as
+long as England derived no other advantage than William for its king,
+the good achieved by the Revolution of 1688 must be considered rather
+more than dubious. He spent his own time and his new country's money
+in sustaining his own title against the attacks made upon it by foreign
+powers, whose interest in supporting the doctrine of the "right divine
+of kings to govern wrong," kept them constantly in a state of active
+sympathy with James, whose misconduct had caused his forfeiture of the
+crown, which would otherwise have been legitimately his beyond the power
+of any one on earth to take it away from him. William was consequently
+at perpetual warfare with some of the continental states; and it was
+only when he got into discredit with his subjects that he seemed to rise
+in favour with some of the absolute monarchs, who then, for the first
+time, appeared disposed to bear with him. Louis of France listened to
+the terms of an arrangement; but he never intended to keep faith with
+William, and was, in fact, intriguing with Spain to defeat the very
+project he pretended to be willing to carry out with the duped majesty
+of England. It was evident that the British public did not look with
+favour upon the individual that had been chosen to enact the part of
+king; and though, like the frogs in the fable, the people had rejoiced
+in being relieved from the devouring stork of absolutism embodied in
+the Stuarts, the Dutch log of which William formed the type was quite as
+distasteful to the nation in general.
+
+It would be most unprofitable to unravel the tangled thread of events
+that made up the complicated but most uninteresting annals of this
+worrying reign, which was distinguished by the multiplicity and the
+pettiness of the disputes between the prince and a portion of his
+people. The loggishness of the sovereign seemed to affect the whole
+nation with the loggerheads; and not only were parties arrayed against
+each other, but on some occasions the Lords and the Commons came into
+very serious collision. The disputes in which William was involved with
+foreign governments were exceedingly costly to his own country, but he
+finally, on the 7th of September, 1701, after having been a party to
+several treaties that had been either violated or "gone off," entered
+into a "second grand alliance" at the Hague, with various powers. By
+this arrangement all the parties were bound to provide men and money,
+which their people of course had to pay; and the emperor, who had made
+himself liable to furnish a contingency, was so excessively hard up,
+that he was compelled to borrow the money upon his quicksilver mines;
+but no silver, however quick, could keep pace with the rapidity with
+which the money was called for and got rid of.
+
+We will now return for a few minutes to James the Second, who was in a
+very bad way at St. Germains, and was understood to have been dying all
+the summer. At length, on Friday, the 2nd of September, he was taken
+very bad indeed with a fainting fit, but got better, until another and
+another still succeeded; and the last fit was stronger than the first.
+On Tuesday, the 13th, Louis came to his bedside to say "How d'ye do?"
+but poor James was unable to answer the polite and obliging inquiry, for
+he was almost without consciousness. Louis kindly endeavoured to comfort
+his last moments by promising to protect his family, and treat the
+nominal Prince of Wales as actual King of England, but this recognition
+was not likely to do much good either to the dead or the living, as the
+only parties who were capable of giving it effect, namely, the English
+people, would have nothing whatever to do with it. Poor James, who was
+dosed with a great deal of medicine, and swallowed no end of James's
+powders, was now beyond the aid of medical skill, and he died on the
+16th of September, 1701, at the age of sixty-seven. An attempt was made
+to pitchfork this very indifferent sovereign into the Roman Calendar as
+a first-rate saint; but there has never been any disposition among the
+English to award him the honours of martyrdom.
+
+William was by no means the thing in his own health, when the news of
+the death of James was brought to him. A report was indeed spread that,
+like a bill at thirty days, he had only a month to run; but this rumour
+was circulated by the friends of Louis the Fourteenth, who fancied that
+if William was once out of the way, the _grand monarque_ might be as
+potent in Europe as the bull of fabled lore was at his ease in the china
+shop. William had been in Holland, where he was really dangerously ill;
+but he contrived to get back to England, where he dissolved Parliament
+in November, 1701, and called a new one together, which met on the 31st
+of December, to see the old year out and the new year in, and for the
+despatch of business. The king made a long and rather an effective
+speech, which had been written expressly for the occasion by Lord
+Somers, and had a great effect in giving an impetus to the waning
+fidelity of the people towards the sovereign of their selection. They
+might, however, have exclaimed with the poet, that they "never loved a
+young--or old--gazelle," without the usual unhappy result; for just as
+they were getting to know William well, and love him--or at least to
+pretend to do so--he was attacked in such a manner as to make him "sure
+to die." He had been a great deal shaken by the severity of the winter;
+but it was hoped he would recover in the spring, which he probably
+might have done, but for an accident that befel him on the road between
+Kensington and Hammersmith. "A-hunting he would go, would go" in that
+savage suburb, whose wildness is remarkable to this day, and his horse
+coming to a block of stone, was unfortunate enough to find it a regular
+stumbling-block. William was thrown with some force, and experienced a
+fracture of the collar-bone, when, having been removed to Hampton Court,
+the medical men began to quarrel about the treatment of his majesty.
+They of course made no bones about setting the collar; but a dispute
+arose about the necessity for bleeding the king, and in the heat of the
+argument, the physicians all pulled at his pulse with such fury, that
+they unset the bone "while intending," says Burnet, "to make a dead
+set at one another." The doctors continuing fractious, the fracture
+got worse, and at length, on the 8th of March, 1702, the royal patient
+expired. He had reigned thirteen years and a half, and was in the
+fifty-second year of his age, when the fatal catastrophe happened.
+
+The character of William will not add much to the reputation of British
+royalty in former days, when sovereigns were so bad that they would
+never have been allowed to pass current in times like these, in which
+there is a disposition to examine closely the weight and quality of the
+metal. He was by no means popular when alive, and bad characters do not,
+like old port, improve by keeping. The state of parties during his reign
+made him the centre in which a great deal of odium met, for he happened
+to form in his own person the embodiment, or rather the representative,
+of certain principles which were regarded with the utmost aversion by
+many.
+
+The most valuable attribute of William, which has handed him down as an
+object of respect and even of enthusiasm in the minds of some, is the
+fact of the question of constitutional monarchy having been settled in
+the affirmative by his elevation to the throne of England. His case is
+certainly valuable as a precedent, but its greatest value consists in
+the probability that its existence will spare the country hereafter
+from the disagreeable necessity of being obliged to follow it. English
+sovereigns have learned the possibility of their being set aside like
+James the Second, and replaced by one who, like William the Third, owed
+his power to the will of the people. Such Revolutions as that of 1688,
+notwithstanding the glorious character that belongs to it, are better as
+beacons for rulers than as precedents for the people, since a change
+of dynasty, however constitutionally effected, must be at all times an
+unpleasant, not to say a deplorable process.
+
+William the Third is entitled to the very highest admiration for
+having succeeded in holding firmly a position from which the slightest
+vacillation would have inevitably shaken him. His early stipulation for
+all the throne or none, and his repudiation of the right of his wife to
+interfere, though domestically harsh, was politically respectable. The
+constitution underwent during his reign some of the most substantial
+and valuable repairs that were ever bestowed upon it, either before or
+since, notwithstanding some very high-sounding nominal advantages that
+the country has in ancient and modern times experienced. It was in
+William's reign that the Commons took the purse-strings of the country
+tightly in hand, and the censorship of the Press was, during the same
+period, permitted to expire. The judges were secured in their places
+during good behaviour; and members of the Privy Council being compelled,
+by the Act of Settlement, to sign the measures they proposed, we
+obtained from William's reign the blessing of a responsible Cabinet. It
+is true that official heads fell more frequently before than since, but
+the great salubrity of the provision to which we allude is shown in the
+fact that it has secured the good conduct of ministers so effectually,
+as to have preserved their heads upon their shoulders. It is a curious
+truth that the National Debt increased marvellously during William's
+reign, and there would seem, therefore, to be some reason for the common
+assertion, that this tremendous liability is a mark of our national
+prosperity. It certainly proves our credit to be good, as a load of debt
+in the case of an individual would make it evident that his tradesmen
+had trusted him; but no one will contend that, on that account, he must
+be considered more prosperous.
+
+It was the great increase of the Government expenses that had caused the
+augmentation of the National Debt, and afforded another illustration of
+the infallible principle, that nothing good can be had without liberally
+paying for. We might get a republic done for us no doubt at a hundredth
+part--or less--of the cost of our present excellent constitutional
+monarchy; but we do not think any reasonable person would feel very
+anxious to try the cheap and nasty experiment.
+
+Some historians who have preceded us, fall into what we consider the
+error of eulogising William as if he had been the author of all the
+good that occurred in his reign, when the fact is that a great deal was
+accomplished, not alone without his agency, but actually in spite of
+him. When he came, or rather when he was called to the throne, the
+nation had profited by experience, and had become equally sensible to
+the dangers of democratic excess and of absolute monarchy. The tyranny
+of the Republic, no less than that of the Stuarts, had pointed out
+the safety of a middle course between the two sorts of despotism; and
+William, as a very middling person in every respect, was well adapted
+for the situation that appeared to be made for him. It was owing to no
+particular merit on his part that his reign was not arbitrary, for he
+sometimes tried his hardest to make it so; but the good sense of
+the nation, sharpened by the troubles it had lately passed through,
+preserved it against further victimisation at the hands of either kings
+or demagogues.
+
+As the first really constitutional sovereign, William is, we repeat,
+entitled to our respect and admiration; but we must not forget that
+the people themselves made the mould to which, we will admit, he was
+exceedingly well adapted, for he was pliable enough to take the right
+impress, and sufficiently firm to give body and substance to the
+nation's _beau ideal_ of a limited monarchy.
+
+THE accession of Anne to the throne of her Anne-cestors, as Hume in
+a most humiliating attempt at humour hath it, was hailed with general
+satisfaction, for it usually happens that a new reign is welcomed on the
+old principle of "anything for a change," and most people expect that
+some good may come out of it. It will be remembered that Anne was
+originally a Miss Hyde, being the child of James by his first wife--the
+daughter of Old Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon; and she had been
+married to the young man known among his familiar friends as "Georgey
+Porgey, Prince of Denmark."
+
+It is a beautiful remark of Thomson, that "the women never can keep
+quiet;" and Anne soon realised this estimate of the female character by
+declaring war against France with the utmost promptitude. The Commons
+voted the supplies necessary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE THIRD. QUEEN ANNE.
+
+
+[Illustration 628]
+
+The Dutch and the Germans perceiving that the King of France had "got no
+friends," felt that the time had arrived for hitting him, and echoed
+the English declaration of war, though their puny voices came upon
+the French monarch's ear like the penny whistle after the full-blown
+ophicleide. Marlborough was appointed _generalissimo_ of the allied
+army, and he certainly proved himself worthy of the confidence reposed
+in him. He made the Low Countries lower than they had ever been before,
+and subsequently throwing himself upon Bavaria, he swept the independent
+elector before him, leaving that unhappy individual to make his election
+between flight and compromise.
+
+On the 12th of August, 1704, Marlborough observed the enemy marking out
+a camp near Blenheim, and merely muttering to himself, "So so, my fine
+fellows; that's what you're after, is it?" he resolved on their
+instant discomforture. He determined to give battle, and on the 13th,
+notwithstanding a swampy country, which greatly tested his determination
+to stick at nothing, he commenced an attack in three columns, each of
+which behaved so gallantly as to have deserved a supplementary column
+to its memory. The contest was exceedingly fierce on both sides; but
+the superior skill of Marlborough rendered the English victorious. The
+general was rewarded by the grant of an estate, upon which was built
+a magnificent mansion called Blenheim, after the place near which the
+battle was fought; and future Dukes of Marlborough have turned many
+an honest, though not a very honourable shilling, by sharing with the
+housekeeper and other servants the gratuities received from the visitors
+to this splendid monument of a country's generosity.
+
+England could not rest satisfied without interfering in the disputes
+of other states, and had lent a helping hand to the Archduke Charles of
+Austria, who was playing a sort of game at bob-cherry with the Spanish
+crown, which hung suspended over his head in a very tempting manner. A
+fleet was sent under Admiral Sir George Booke to convey the archduke to
+Lisbon; and Booke, who was as cunning as an old crow, proceeded towards
+Barcelona, which would have been nuts for him had he succeeded in taking
+it. In this attempt, however, he failed; but putting his vessel astern,
+and altering her gib towards Gibraltar, he made an attack on the
+fortress, which he took with the utmost facility. For this service
+the conqueror was rewarded with an empty vote of thanks, and he had no
+sooner got the copy of the resolution than he put it in his pipe and
+smoked it--according to some; or, as others say, he merely lighted his
+pipe with the valueless document.
+
+Domestic affairs did not progress very pleasantly, and the English began
+to quarrel with the Scotch, who evinced their national propensity to
+come to the scratch in a very annoying manner. The Parliaments of the
+two countries came into decided collision and the English legislature
+having prohibited the importation of Scotch heifers, "there arose," says
+Swindle, "a heffervescence of the most deplorable character." The queen
+proposed that there should be an immediate union of the two Parliaments;
+but the little matter could not be arranged; and as the two negatives
+could hot be induced to make an affirmative, Anne put an end to both by
+a dissolution.
+
+In the summer of 1705, Marlborough, who had been waiting on the banks
+of the Blue Moselle, forced the French lines, and very hard lines they
+proved both to the vanquished and the victors.
+
+We must here be permitted to introduce the beautiful episode of Sir
+Isaac Newton, and turn from the turmoils of war to the peaceful pursuits
+of science. We are sure we shall not be accused of irrelevancy if we
+step aside from the rushing stream of history which, like a cataract, is
+hurrying us rapidly along, and enjoy a few moments of calm reflection on
+the life and merits of the great philosopher.
+
+Isaac Newton was born in 1642, and came as unusually little into the
+world as he went greatly, and indeed gigantically, out of it. His mother
+declared he might have been put into a quart pot at his birth, and
+therefore, had he been always judged by the rule of "measures not men,"
+he would never have attained the elevation he has arrived at. In early
+boyhood he displayed a great mechanical turn, and buying a box of
+carpenter's tools, he got perhaps the first insight into plane geometry,
+and deduced from a few wise saws, a variety of modern instances. He
+was very fond of measuring time, but not by its loss alone, for he
+constructed a wooden clock, and ascertained the position of the sun by
+driving nails into the wall--hitting, no doubt, the right one on the
+head very readily. Having a shrewd suspicion that there was something in
+the wind, he would occupy himself in leaping with it and against it, to
+ascertain its power. These pranks did not elevate him much in his class,
+of which he was generally at the bottom; for the routine of his school
+education did not include trials of strength with old Boreas, and the
+other exciting pursuits in which Master Isaac Newton indulged himself.
+In course of time he was removed to Cambridge, where the works of
+Des-Cartes fell into his hands, and where those ponderous volumes, from
+their soporific effect upon youth, often fall out of the hands they have
+fallen into. Young Newton grasped them with energy, and he soon profited
+amazingly by their contents, which set his own mind at work to add to
+the stock of discovery already in existence. During the great plague in
+1665, he was compelled to leave Cambridge for a rural retirement, though
+the rustication was not of the ordinary kind: and while sitting in an
+orchard, "his custom sometimes of an afternoon," an apple fell upon his
+head with considerable violence.
+
+[Illustration: 631]
+
+Beginning to reason from this "_argumentum ad hominem_," he asked
+himself why every other object did not at once fall to the earth; and
+he even speculated on the possibility of the moon alighting heavily,
+and leaving him in a literally moon-struck condition. It was some time
+before he discovered the laws of gravitation by which the apple had been
+carried to his head; and it is not true, as is commonly believed, that
+he was struck all of a heap with the great truths that he has given
+to posterity. They were published in 1687, at the expense of the Royal
+Society, under the title of the "Principia;" and it is a curious fact,
+that the critics of the day were not altogether pleased with it.
+Some few pronounced it "a work that ought to be on every gentleman's
+sideboard," and our old friend, the evening paper, patronised it as a
+production that might "repay perusal;" * but some very learned, very
+cold, very dull, and very stupid, "gentlemen of the press" "regretted
+that Mr. Newton should have wasted so much time upon a work of such
+a description." They were angry with him for what they considered his
+levity in popularising serious matters, and advised him to keep his
+hands off the moon, which was far too lofty a subject for him to meddle
+with.
+
+     * A curious puzzle has been suggested by a celebrated
+     arithmetician, who has expressed a desire to know how many
+     of the works that the reviewers say will "repay perusal" are
+     likely to "repay the printer."
+
+It has been noticed as a very unaccountable circumstance, that Newton
+never made any important addition to scientific discovery after he had
+completed his forty-fifth year; though he lived to be eighty-four, and
+had therefore got beyond the period at which the poet's apostrophe, "_O
+Vir be-eighty_," might have been addressed to him. He was exceedingly
+fond of tobacco, and it is believed that he felt more at home in his
+astronomical reflections when he could envelop himself in a cloud of
+his own blowing. The old saying, that "There is no smoke without fire,"
+received an apt confirmation from the fact that Newton was scarcely ever
+without a pipe in his mouth during the most brilliant and blazing period
+of his genius.
+
+We now return to Anne, who, _anno_ 1705, went to Cambridge, where she
+knighted Mr. Newton, who was the Mathematical Professor at Trinity
+College. We feel we ought not to pass over in silence a piece of
+wonderful self-denial on the part of a lawyer, which gives to this
+reign a peculiarity that ought to make it stand apart from all that have
+preceded or followed it. There had been formerly an old custom of making
+a present to the Lord Chancellor on New Year's Day, at the cost of
+the practitioners, who usually contributed about L1500, which previous
+keepers of the royal conscience had most unconscientiously pocketed. To
+the great honour of Lord Chancellor Cowper be it spoken, he declined the
+proffered bonus, which appeared to him to resemble somewhat too closely
+a bribe, and thus set an early example of disinterestedness, by which
+the tone of judicial morality was improved, and has at last reached the
+perfection we have at the present day the satisfaction of witnessing.
+
+The subject of the Union between England and Scotland, which had
+from time to time been discussed, was at length taken into serious
+consideration at a place called the Cockpit, from which the reader
+must not infer that it was considered as a sporting event, and that the
+betting men were chiefly interested in promoting it. After a great deal
+of disagreement, the preliminaries were ultimately settled, and on the
+6th of March, 1707, the royal assent was given to the Act of Union.
+There were no less than twenty-five articles, by the majority of
+which the Scotch had been cunning enough to make the best bargain for
+themselves; and they had taken care that if the British Lion got the
+lion's share, they would at least secure the fox's perquisites. The
+Union took effect from the 1st of May, and the queen went in state to
+St. Paul's, to celebrate the event with due solemnity.
+
+The 22nd of October, in the same year, derives a mournful interest from
+the loss of poor Shovel, whose ship got scuttled on the rocks of Scilly,
+and though Shovel himself went at it "poker and tongs" to save the
+vessel, his own and two others were involved in the same* calamity.
+
+On the 28th of October, 1708, the queen lost her husband, Prince George
+of Denmark, who died of asthma at Kensington. His malady of course
+prevented him from having a voice in public affairs; but, if he had had
+one, he would certainly have been afraid of using it. He combined the
+mildness of the moonbeam with the stupidity of the jackass, and not only
+had he been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he had become one
+entire spoon--fiddle-head and all--in his excessive pliability. He was,
+however, one of those spoons that made very little stir, and his removal
+from the busy scene of life left a gap that was scarcely perceptible.
+Within little better than three months, both Houses of Parliament
+addressed the queen, imploring her to marry again, which shows that they
+did not estimate very highly her grief at the loss of her first husband.
+Her majesty's reply contained no specific answer to the petition, but
+intimated her belief that a decided response was not expected by the
+applicants.
+
+On the 5th of November in the same year a political parson, named Dr.
+Sacheverel, began to raise the since famous cry of "Church in danger,"
+which, like that of "Wolf," has been since so frequently and foolishly
+set up, that it stands a chance of being neglected when it really
+may require attention. The object of all the rant in which this noisy
+churchman indulged, was to obtain popularity, flavoured with a spice of
+martyrdom, and his opponents being silly enough to fall into the trap,
+they kept up the ball for him with a vivacity that must have equalled
+his most sanguine desire. Like a shuttlecock, that must drop to the
+ground if its elevation is not secured by frequent blows, Sacheverel
+would have tumbled irredeemably to the earth, if he had not been kept
+aloft by the knocks he experienced. He was ultimately exalted into the
+position of a delinquent standing to take his trial at the bar of
+the House of Lords; and when he was found guilty of having preached a
+sermon, warning the public of danger to the Church, he had reached the
+highest point of glory in the estimation of the large mass of people who
+are under the influence of bigotry and prejudice. He was condemned to
+forbear from preaching for three years; but his sentence not excluding
+him from accepting a good living, one was placed at his disposal
+immediately afterwards. The reverend sufferer for conscience' sake
+eventually got something still better, in the form of the living of St.
+Andrew's, Holbom, where, finding it no longer worth his while to quarrel
+with the Government, he sought a vent for his turbulent disposition
+in repeated rows with his parishioners. His first sermon after his new
+appointment sold forty thousand copies, and a little calculation will
+give some idea of what the reverend gentleman's martyrdom brought him
+in from first to last in the shape of livings, copyrights, and other
+contingencies that arise out of a well-managed popularity.
+
+In the latter end of 1711, some very disreputable disclosures, in which
+the Duke of Marlborough and Mr. Walpole were chiefly involved, were
+brought before the House of Commons. Marlborough, not satisfied with
+his pay, pensions, and other emoluments, had been taking a percentage on
+every transaction in which he had been confidentially concerned; while
+Walpole, in his capacity of Secretary at War, had been playing the same
+game as the illustrious soldier. Marlborough and his wife were in the
+enjoyment of upwards of L60,000 a year, so that there was no excuse for
+them on the score of poverty; and even if they had been in want of cash,
+they might have done what, as we have already hinted, their successors
+have done since, namely, shown Blenheim to the public, and shared
+with their own domestics the daily proceeds. The duke and duchess were
+deprived of their offices, while Mr. Walpole was expelled from the House
+of Commons, amid a chorus of "Serve him right!" from nearly the whole of
+his fellow-countrymen.
+
+Marlborough was further accused by Lord Paulet of having knocked his own
+officers on the head, in order to be enabled to sell their commissions;
+but this would seem to have been a most superfluous piece of atrocity,
+for he might have easily got their heads knocked off in a more regular
+and reputable manner, by exposing them to the blows of the enemy. The
+duke challenged Lord Paulet for having made this assertion; but after an
+interchange of hostile messages, the seconds contrived so to complicate
+the business as to lose sight of the real matter of dispute, and the
+duel was prevented. The reputation of Marlborough was so damaged by what
+had taken place, that he obtained permission of the queen to go abroad,
+and he crossed over to Ostend, in the vague hope that a sea voyage might
+have the same effect it is said to produce on a bottle of Madeira, and
+cause an improvement of his quality.
+
+The disgrace of the British general had been fortunately delayed till
+the period when his services were no longer required, for the treaty of
+Utrecht, which was signed on the 30th of March, 1713, secured the peace
+of Europe. By this celebrated arrangement the Protestant succession in
+England was formally recognised; the crowns of France and Spain were
+split into two, giving those countries one apiece; the harbour of
+Dunkirk was demolished, and other little matters of difference settled
+to the satisfaction of all parties, except the Emperor of Germany, who
+stood aside in a corner by himself, objecting to everything.
+
+Just before the close of the year, while political matters of importance
+were on foot, the gout laid Queen Anne by the heels, at Windsor, and the
+funds suffered in sympathy with the toe of royalty. There was a rapid
+run upon the bank; but the gout abating so far as to enable her majesty
+to bear the weight of a shoe, the pressure was relieved immediately
+and the country stood much as before, which may also be said of the
+sovereign.
+
+[Illustration: 635]
+
+On the 2nd of March, 1714, the queen came down in a sedan to open
+Parliament. Her use of the chair arose from her being very chary of
+her foot, which retained some of the effects of the havoc that gout had
+performed upon it. In the course of her speech she took the opportunity
+of assuring the House that the Protestant succession was not in danger,
+and the House of Commons subsequently assured itself of the same
+fact--as far as words could go--in a resolution that was carried by a
+large majority. These repeated assurances proved more than anything else
+that the Protestant succession was not quite so safe as the queen
+and the Parliament could have desired, and a number of precautionary
+measures directed against the Pretender and the Jacobites furnished
+still stronger proofs that the Government really entertained the fears
+it seemed so very anxious to repudiate.
+
+On the 29th of July, 1714, the queen, who was almost tired out by the
+disputes of her ministers, fell into a lethargy, and the Council, who
+had been quarrelling in the Cockpit, adjourned to Kensington.
+
+At this critical juncture, an individual of the name of Mr. Craggs
+suddenly started on to the canvas of history as a writer of a letter to
+the Elector of Brunswick, apprising him of the perilous condition of
+the queen, and telling him that his succession would be quietly provided
+for. On the 1st of August, poor Anne expired of dropsy, in the fiftieth
+year of her age, the thirteenth of her reign, the third of her gout, and
+the first of her lethargy.
+
+In person, Anne was of the middle size, as far as height was concerned;
+but if we look at her as a piece of measurement goods, and take her by
+her bulk, we shall have to put upon her a very different estimate. It
+cannot be said that she was one of Nature's favourites, though Nature
+had certainly made much of her, and perhaps more than the queen herself
+would have desired. Her hair was dark brown, and her complexion a sort
+of clear mahogany, while her nose standing prominently out from a
+very round face, gave her something the appearance of a perpendicular
+sun-dial. Her voice was as clear as a bell, and her tongue as active as
+the clapper. Her capacity was good, but her acquirements miserably
+few, and her mind therefore presented a resemblance to a fine site
+for building, which had remained uncovered for want of the necessary
+capital. She was very fond of hunting, but she had a very odd way
+of showing her fondness, for she used to follow the hounds in a pony
+chaise, which of course became a vehicle for a good deal of merriment.
+All historians concur in saying that she lived very fast, but whether it
+was in eating or in drinking that her weakness, or rather her strength,
+was shown, the various authorities are not yet agreed upon. She was a
+mother to her people, a master to her husband, a pattern to her own sex,
+and a terror to ours. She was obstinately attached to her own way, and
+it was only the fortunate feebleness of her intellect that prevented
+her from developing herself into that gigantic nuisance, a strong-minded
+woman. Though her own mental powers were not sufficient to throw lustre
+on her reign, it was rendered glorious by numerous men of learning
+and genius who were the contemporaries of her majesty. We have already
+enjoyed a paragraph or two with Newton, and we must not forget Locke,
+who furnished so many keys to the understanding and the difficult arts
+of government.
+
+Considering the fuss that has lately been made about the merit of having
+originated penny and twopenny publications, we ought not to forget that
+the modern claimants to the honour of the idea did but steal it from
+Steele, whose "Tatler," started in 1709, was followed by the "Spectator"
+and the "Guardian." To the more recent projectors of cheap periodicals
+we are quite ready to allow the originality of their assertion, that
+their speculations are not intended for their own profit, but to fulfil
+exclusively the great purpose of benefiting the community. In compliance
+with these large hearted and benevolent intentions, we may, we suppose,
+look with confidence to the day when the produce will be paid over for
+the benefit of the people, whom the existing race of cheap periodical
+proprietors love so very much better than they do themselves, if we are
+to believe their protestations and their prospectuses.
+
+We may at all events say for the reign of Anne, that it was much
+freer than the reign of Victoria from these wondrous professions of
+disinterestedness, which we have been waiting in vain, for the last ten
+years, to see carried into practice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FOURTH. GEORGE THE FIRST.
+
+
+[Illustration: 637]
+
+IT is not without some feeling of humiliation and regret that the
+historian finds England so badly off for a sovereign as to be obliged to
+borrow one from abroad, and her throne in the seventeenth century, like
+her stage of the nineteenth, to be indebted for its support to foreign
+adaptations. The British Lion must have been a poor cub in those
+degenerate days, for there does not seem to have been a roar of
+remonstrance from that indifferent beast when the Elector of Hanover
+quietly took the crown from the royal bandbox, caused it to be altered
+to suit a gentleman's instead of a lady's head, and, using the sceptre
+for a walking stick, coolly stepped into the kingly office.
+
+This somewhat more than middle-aged gentleman was the eldest son
+of Ernest Augustus, first Elector--and anything but an independent
+elector--of Brunswick, and of the Princess Sophia, grand-daughter
+to James the First, through whom he had pretensions to a good title,
+though, oddly enough, the Stuart family being repudiated, the only
+legitimate portion of his claim was that which the country refused to
+recognise. It seemed, however, that England, after its numerous wars
+of succession, which had formed a long succession of wars, was resolved
+upon putting up with anything for peace and quietness--a contented
+disposition of which we have long experienced the blessings, inasmuch as
+it has given us a family of sovereigns under whose constitutional
+sway the country has enjoyed an unexampled degree of prosperity and
+happiness.
+
+George the First was a sober, decent, steady-going person of fifty-four
+when he arrived to undertake the superintendence of England, by the day,
+week, month, or year; and, in fact, to do monarch's work in general. He
+was proclaimed king in London, on the 1st of August, 1714, but was in
+no particular hurry to enter upon his new dignity, for he only arrived,
+_via_ Greenwich, on the 18th of September, and his coronation took place
+on the 20th of October following. He was of course old enough to
+know pretty well what he was about; and though he had attained that
+respectable maturity which, among the feathered tribe, is believed to
+form a protection against capture by chaff, he seems to have acted on
+the impression that younger birds might certainly be caught by the same
+unsatisfactory material. His first plan, therefore, upon his arrival,
+was to go about uttering what he called his "maxim," which he said was
+"never to abandon his friends, to do justice to all the world, and to
+fear no man." This egotistical puff for his own qualities may have been
+politic, but it was by no means dignified, and reminds us more of the
+old self-laudatory naval song, commencing "We tars have a maxim, d'ye
+see," than of any language or sentiment becoming to the mouth and mind
+of a monarch. If the English people had put upon the clap-trap sentiment
+of the Hanoverian its true interpretation, they would have seen that it
+pledged him more to his old subjects than engaged him to his new ones;
+and the result of his reign quite justified the view we are disposed to
+take of the meaning of his "maxim."
+
+Immediately on the death of Anne, the Privy Council had met and deputed
+the Earl of Dorset to go over and apprise George of his accession to
+the Crown, when the earl mixed up the announcement with so many fulsome
+compliments, that flattery took the name of Dorset butter--a figure that
+has remained in force from those days to the present.
+
+One of the best, and perhaps the boldest acts of the Council, was the
+appointment of Mr. Addison--the celebrated contributor to what was
+termed _par excellence_ the P. P. or popular periodical of the day--to
+a post in the Government. The late ministry had been ignominiously
+displaced, and Bolingbroke used to dangle about at the door of the
+Council-room with a bag of papers in his hand, expecting, or at least
+hoping to be called in, while menials were instructed to deride, or, as
+the modern phrase has it, to "chaff" him in the passages. Bolingbroke
+was mean enough to brook even this for the chance of place; but he would
+occasionally turn round and shake his fist, including his bag, in
+a menacing manner at the crew who passed upon him these insults.
+Occasionally they would slap him on the back, exclaiming, "Well, Bolly,
+my boy, you are indeed a regular out-and-outer." Nor can it be doubted
+that, had the air been popular at the period, the Ethiopian melody of
+"Who's dat knocking at de door?" would have been frequently sung or
+whistled in the face of Bolingbroke by the scamps in the waiting-room.
+
+[Illustration: 639]
+
+The king had only just arrived, and had merely gone into his bedroom to
+put on a clean collar--that of the Order of the Garter, if we may hazard
+a shrewd guess--when a party of Whigs rushed in, and began to ear-whig
+him with the utmost industry. In fact, the touting that took place for
+the vacant offices can only be imagined by an individual who has once
+landed at Boulogne, and found him-self torn to pieces by the hirsute
+representatives of some fifty hotels, each anxious to accommodate the
+new arrival. The whole of the Whig party pounced upon George, and thrust
+their pretensions before him with the perseverance of the class of
+Frenchmen, commonly called commissioners, to whom we have alluded.
+As these persons snatch at a traveller's cloak, walking-stick, or
+carpet-bag, the Whig touters almost snatched at gold sticks, official
+portfolios, or anything else they could lay their hands upon. "Allow
+me to take charge of your conscience, sir," roared Lord Cowper; "you'll
+find it very heavy to carry, sir; pray give it to me, sir; I'll take it
+down for you, sir;" and thus the Chancellorship was in a measure seized
+by this determined place-hunter. "You'll lose that privy seal, sir, if
+you don't take care," bellowed the Earl of Wharton; "you had much
+better entrust it to me; there are some very bad characters about just
+now,"--and thus, by a mixture of warning and worry, the privy seal was
+secured for himself by the rapacious nobleman.
+
+Bolingbroke, after hanging about the official passages for a short time
+longer, now listening at the door, now peeping through the keyhole, and
+alternately bullied or bantered by his more fortunate rivals as
+they passed to and fro, resolved on flying to the Continent. Several
+significant exclamations of "You'd better be off!" "Come, come, this
+won't do!" and "We can't have a parcel of idle fellows lurking about the
+Treasury!" convinced him that he had nothing to hope, and everything to
+fear from the new Parliament. He accordingly took from the corner of his
+sitting-room an old official wand, and sobbing out, "Farewell, my once
+cherished stick!" he cut it for ever. The monopoly of all the snug
+places by the Whigs rendered them extremely overbearing, and as
+"Britons never, never, never will be slaves" to the same party for any
+considerable length of time, they became impatient of Whig arrogance,
+and ready for an alterative in the shape of some regular old Tory
+tyranny. The king became unpopular, and his birthday passed over without
+the smallest notice, as if to hint to him that he was not to be borne at
+all, unless he changed his system.
+
+George, instead of conciliating, attempted to crush the disaffected, and
+like a bad equestrian mounted on a restive horse, he began pulling
+at the rein ana tightening the curb, instead of mildly but firmly
+exclaiming, "Wo, wo, boys! steady, boys; steady!" to his now somewhat
+frisky people. The Habeas Corpus Act--the great British Free List--was
+suspended, and the Pretender was used as a pretence to alarm the people,
+and reconcile them to the most arbitrary measures. The Riot Act was
+in this year, 1715, read a third time and passed, but it has this
+peculiarity, which distinguishes it from every other legislative Act,
+that it requires to be read again on every occasion of its being brought
+into requisition.
+
+These measures only added fuel to the fire that was now setting the
+country in a blaze; and even the University of Oxford was threatened
+with assault by Major-General Pepper, who was the first to make the now
+venerable joke about mustard, which, with all our courage, we confess we
+dare not chronicle.*
+
+     * The curious reader is referred to "Joe Miller." Perhaps
+     the edition brought out under the title of "The Family Joe
+     Miller," is the best for the student's purposes.
+
+In the north, the insurrection took a very bold form, and Mr. Forster,
+a gentleman of great ability--a barrister, we believe--joined with the
+Earl of Derwentwater, who was ready with all his retainers, the only
+kind of retainers, by the way, with which his learned colleague was at
+all familiar. Being joined by some gentlemen in blue bonnets, who had
+come from over the border, they proclaimed the Pretender, and would
+have seized upon Newcastle, with the intention of sparing the coals and
+sacking only the city; but the gate had been shut, and the whole party
+was not strong enough to force it open. They retired therefore to
+Hexham, and a literary gentleman among them bewailed their failure as he
+sat in the coffee-room of the inn at Hexham, in doleful hexameters. They
+next retired by way of Lancaster to Preston, whose Pans they hoped would
+prove preserving pans to themselves; but General Wills being sent to
+attack them, proved the fact, that where there are the Wills there are
+always the ways of accomplishing an object.
+
+Mr. Forster, hearing that there was no hope, despatched a trumpeter--a
+gentlemanly young man, who was quite equal to a solo of the kind--to
+negociate a treaty. He could get no other answer than an intimation that
+the rebels might expect to be slaughtered; and, being very much cut
+up by the news, they wisely resolved to surrender. The noblemen and
+officers of the party were sent to London, where they were led through
+the streets bound together and pinioned, which caused one of them to
+wish that his pinions were those of a bird, so that he might be enabled
+to fly away from his captivity. Though the Pretender must have known,
+or might have known, that his pretentions were about as hopeless as they
+could possibly be, he resolved on landing in Scotland, and he positively
+arrived with nothing more than a special train of six gentlemen. He came
+in disguise, and passed through Aberdeen without being known, till he
+came to Feterosse, where he was met by the Earl of Mar and thirty nobles
+of the first quality, though all their quality could not of course make
+up for their lamentable deficiency in quantity. When the Pretender saw
+his friend's beggarly show of adherents, he addressed Mar with great
+levity, telling him he had been "a sad Mar to his hopes," and indulged
+in other poor frivolities. "As I've come, however," he added, "I may
+as well be proclaimed." And the ceremony was gone through with mock
+gravity. He next proceeded to Scone, "for," said he, "we must have a
+coronation, you know." And he behaved altogether in such a manner as to
+lead us to believe that he relished the ludicrous points of his own very
+ridiculous position. Having gone so far in the mockery, he crowned the
+absurdity instead of being crowned himself, by making a speech to
+his grand council, intimating that he had no arms to fight with, no
+ammunition to load the arms with if he possessed any, and no money to
+purchase the ammunition if he felt disposed to try its effects upon his
+enemies. Under these circumstances, he intimated that his presence among
+them should be regarded as a flying visit, just to say "How d'ye do?"
+and "Good-bye"; after which, with the latter salutation on his lips, he
+popped into a boat, and was "off again" for the Continent.
+
+Instead of allowing this miserable rebellion to die a natural death--we
+cannot say that it ended in smoke, for the rebels had no money to
+purchase gunpowder--the Government of the day had the rashness to keep
+the thing alive by prosecuting those who had been concerned in it.
+Half a dozen nobles were seized and put upon their trial, when the
+poor creatures whimpering out an acknowledgment of their guilt, were
+sentenced to death, and two were taken to the scaffold. A third, the
+Lord Nithesdale, had also been condemned; but his mother having come
+to see him in prison, they got up between them a dramatic incident, by
+effecting an exchange of dress; and while the lady remained in gaol like
+a man, the gentleman walked away in female attire.
+
+The prosecutions were not limited to the chiefs of this rebellious
+movement--if that can be called a movement which stuck fast in its very
+first steps--but some of the humblest adherents, or suspected adherents,
+of the Pretender's cause were included in the proceedings taken by the
+Government. Several were hanged, and some hundreds experienced what was
+facetiously termed the "royal mercy," by undergoing transportation for
+life to North America. This unnecessary and injudicious rigour had the
+effect of making the Government so unpopular, that, although according
+to the Triennial Act the Parliament ought to have been dissolved,
+the ministers were afraid of appealing to the country, and formed the
+audacious determination to introduce a Septennial Act, which, by the
+force of perseverance and impudence combined, was positively carried.
+Though George resided personally in England, his heart had never quitted
+Hanover, and he was continually keeping his eye upon the aggrandisement
+of that paltry electorate. For this purpose, he made free use of English
+money; and having intelligence at all times of the small duchies that
+the poverty of their owners occasionally threw into the market, he
+picked up those of Bremen and Verden at a very low figure.
+
+Among the inconveniences occasioned to this country by allowing the
+sceptre to get into foreign hands, was the involving of England in
+foreign quarrels about foreign interests. Spain being in an unpleasant
+predicament, called upon George the First to join a league in her
+favour, and threatened to repudiate his claims to his dismal little
+duchies of Bremen and Verden, if he did not take the step that was
+required of him. As he could not well commit himself thus far, a war was
+commenced against England, and a Spanish expedition under the Duke of
+Ormond was fitted out to make a descent upon Scotland. With that
+happy adroitness in ruling the waves for which Britannia has long been
+celebrated, she caused them to rise as one billow against the hostile
+fleet, which was rapidly dispersed by the ocean's uppishness. Though
+the buoyancy of Britain, assisted by the boisterous energy of the sea,
+defeated the attempts of foreign powers, the internal condition of the
+country was far from satisfactory. King George neither comprehended the
+character nor the language of his new subjects, and a good understanding
+between the prince and the people was therefore impossible. His majesty
+spent as much time and as much money as he could upon the Continent,
+leaving his ministers to propose what measures they pleased, while he
+transmitted by post his consent to them, without knowing, or caring to
+inquire their object.
+
+Perhaps, however, the heaviest blow that England's prosperity ever
+received was the result of one of the most marvellous instances on
+record of a co-operation between knavery and folly. To add to the
+extraordinary character of the infatuation we are about to record, the
+scheme that led to it was not original, and the victims had consequently
+received a warning by which they failed to profit. A Scotchman of the
+name of Law had swindled the whole of France by starting a company
+to pick up fortunes in the Mississippi, which proved one of the most
+gigantic misses ever known; but as one batch of fools will make many, it
+was calculated, shrewdly enough, that the Mississippi hoax, instead of
+putting people on their guard against fraud, would have just the effect
+of preparing them to be taken in by it.
+
+A scrivener named Blunt--a fellow of uncommon sharpness, whose name is
+emblematical of a great partiality for cash--suggested a concern called
+the South Sea Company, which was to purchase all the debts due from
+the Government to all trading corporations, and thus become the sole
+creditor of the State. The National Debt was in fact to be bought up,
+and as there is a pretty clear understanding that the National Debt
+never will, or never can be paid, the advantages of the project must,
+upon the slightest reflection, have appeared at best apocryphal. The
+scrip in this grand concern came out heavy, for the securities were
+flatter than the public, when a bright idea flashed across the mind of
+Blunt for raising the wind and puffing up the shares in the South Sea
+Scheme to the utmost height that could be desired. He spread a report
+through paid paragraphs in the newspapers, that Gibraltar and Minorca
+were about to be exchanged for Peru, and the whole world went mad at the
+peru-sal. The story of this monstrous piece of universal insanity
+would afford a fine subject for an article from the pen of Dr. Forbes
+Winslow; * and indeed had he lived in the eighteenth century, the whole
+population would have been worthy to become the patients of that able
+and experienced master of the science of mental pathology.
+
+     * See the "Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental
+     Pathology." Edited by Forbes Winslow, M.D.
+
+The mental aberration of the public proved itself in the most
+preposterous demand for shares from persons willing to stake not only
+every penny they had, but many pounds which they had not. The proverb
+that "one fool makes many," found a parallel in the fact that one knave
+makes many; for the South Sea schemer called into existence a number of
+imitators, all anxious to profit by the credulity which he had excited.
+One adventurer made his fortune one fine morning by issuing a prospectus
+intimating that he would secure to every one who paid two guineas on
+the instant, an annuity of L100. The preliminary deposits poured in so
+plentifully that he obtained two thousand subscribers in a few hours,
+though the details of the plan were only to be forthcoming at some
+future day. We regret exceedingly our inability to form an opinion on
+the merits of this project, for its originator having been called away
+suddenly on the very night after the first day's subscriptions had been
+paid in, pursued his way to the Continent by the light of the moon,
+and has never yet returned. Charity bids us presume that he died in the
+effort to mature the gigantic idea he had conceived for enriching those
+who had honoured him with their cash and their confidence. A few little
+episodes of this description tended to shake the faith of the public in
+the great parent hoax, and the monster bubble, formed, as it were, by
+the whole of the South Sea concentrated into one tremendous drop, gave
+symptoms of dropping to the ground. Those who witnessed the Railway
+Mania of 1845 can form a conception--though a very inadequate one--of
+the madness that prevailed in the early part of the eighteenth century,
+under the cunning influence of Blunt, who, strange to say, was a living
+illustration of a marvellous misnomer, for this Blunt was the essence of
+sharpness, at a time when obtuseness was the characteristic of all the
+rest of the community.
+
+The amiable weakness which, in 1845, induced the whole population to
+concur in planning railways for every hole and corner of the world, the
+philanthropy which would have whirled the Cherokees through the air at
+sixty miles an hour and twenty per cent, profit, or brought Kamschatka,
+Chelsea, the Catskill Mountains, Knightsbridge, and Niagara, all into a
+group by the aid of trunk-lines or branches connecting the whole of them
+together, the mixture of benevolence and self-interest which suggested
+these noble achievements, cannot bear a comparison with the universality
+of the movement that the South Sea Bubble called forth. Its bursting,
+however, nearly swamped the entire nation, for the bubble had been so
+extensive that scarcely any one escaped its influence, or could keep his
+head above water, when the awful inundation occurred.
+
+Royalty itself had not been exempt from the prevailing madness, and the
+Prince of Wales had been appointed Governor of the Welsh Copper Company,
+which was to have supplied saucepans to the whole civilised world, and
+kept the pot boiling for the inhabitants of every corner of the globe.
+The capital proposed to be raised for all the various bubbles in
+agitation, amounted to L300,000,000, though few of the concerns had even
+the capital of the _soi-disant_ millionaire in the farce, who having
+made promises of boundless liberality, and undertaken to make the
+fortune of the waiting-maid of his _inamorata_, finished with a tender
+of a threepenny piece as an earnest of his future bounty.
+
+It would form a curious chapter in this or any other history, to trace
+the fluctuations in South Sea Stock; but we cannot afford to convert our
+pages into a share list of the eighteenth century. Upon the first fall
+in the stock, attempts were made to preserve it from a further decline,
+first by shutting up the transfer books, and secondly by preposterous
+promises of impossible dividends. The directors kindly guaranteed fifty
+per cent, for twelve years, from and after the ensuing Christmas; and it
+is probable that the old saying, that "Such a thing is coming, and so is
+Christmas" first arose out of the South Sea Bubble, for the stock fell
+from eight hundred to one hundred and fifty, between the 26th of August,
+when the prospect was held out, and the 30th of September, when people
+had got a shrewd suspicion that it would never be realised.
+
+In proportion to the extreme credulity the nation had shown, was the
+savage disappointment it now exhibited. The directors of the South Sea
+Company who had been encouraged in their audacious swindling by the
+blind rapacity of their dupes--who in their haste to devour everything
+they could lay hold of, swallowed every knavish story they were
+told--the directors, who after all had merely speculated on the avarice
+and stupidity of the rest of the world, were assailed with the utmost
+vindictiveness. Their conduct was brought before Parliament; some of
+them were taken into custody, ana all were called upon to explain the
+grounds on which these calculations of profit were made, though the
+stockholders were not required to state what reasons they had for
+believing with their eyes shut, all the evidently fallacious promises
+that had been held out to them. A confiscation of the property of most
+of the directors took place, and an inquiry before Parliament proved
+that several members of the Legislature, and even ministers, had
+received considerable slices of South Sea Stock for their assistance in
+promulgating this monster swindle.
+
+The ruin that had been brought upon all classes of society, was
+aggravated by a necessity for further taxation to carry on the increased
+expense of Home Government, and of the costly foreign relations which
+the country had entered into. It has unfortunately happened that the
+foreign relations of England have been generally very poor relations,
+and they have consequently taken a great deal out of her pockets by
+their necessities, while they have added little to her respectability by
+their position and character. Like poor relations in general, they were
+a dreadful drag, and it was necessary to contribute to their support by
+putting fresh burdens on the British people. Among these was a tax on
+malt, which, being extended to Scotland, caused a general fermentation;
+for the Scotch were always remarkable for their love of whisky, which
+they easily promoted into a love of liberty, when it suited at once
+their pocket and their purpose to assume the attitude of patriots. The
+tax--not the whisky--was, however, crammed down their throats in spite
+of the cry they had succeeded in getting up for untaxed toddy, which
+they, of course, pronounced to be the safeguard of their constitution,
+as everything else becomes in its turn when it seems to be placed
+in jeopardy. The rioters, however, could get no persons of rank or
+influence to join in the great whisky movement, which the masses had
+taken into their heads, and order was restored after a few lives had
+been sacrificed.
+
+On the 2nd of November, 1726, Sophia Dorothea, nominally, but never
+practically, Queen of England, died in the prison at Hanover, to which
+her husband had committed her. This lady had formed an attachment for a
+Count Koningsmark, whom the king, her husband, then Elector of Hanover,
+unceremoniously butchered in an anteroom. As the historians who have
+preceded us call his majesty a strong-minded man, we presume that there
+is something intellectually vigorous in the commission of a murder,
+though we confess we are at a loss to discover the extraordinary fact
+which other writers appear to have recognised. Not very long after the
+death of his wife George repaired--or rather, he went very much out of
+repair, for his health was greatly damaged--to Hanover. He was taken
+very ill on the road, and was seized with apoplexy to the unhappy
+perplexity of his attendants, whom he nevertheless desired to "push
+along and keep moving." They accordingly did so, and the royal carriage
+was hastened, but his majesty was only being driven to extremities, for
+on the 11th of June, 1727, he expired at Osnaburgh, in the sixty-eighth
+year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign.
+
+The particulars of his death have been very circumstantially given, and
+as they are rather characteristic of George the First, we will give
+them with our accustomed brevity. He had been in perfect health on the
+previous evening, and ate a hearty supper of sheep's hearts, including
+a tremendous melon, to which the melancholy result has been attributed.
+Resuming his journey towards Hanover at 3 a.m. he was seized with
+griping pains, but believing that one mischief would correct another, he
+fancied the supper that had disagreed with him would be counteracted in
+its consequences by a dinner, which he began lustily calling for. When
+it was placed before him he could eat nothing--an incapacity so unusual
+with George, or as some called him, Gorge the First, that his attendants
+were seized with alarm and astonishment. Having again entered his
+carriage, he exclaimed in quaint French, "_C'est fait de moi_" which we
+need scarcely intimate means either "I'm done for," or "It's all up
+with me." In the course of the same night his existence coming to an end
+proved the too fatal accuracy of his own conclusion.
+
+George the First had nothing in his character to justify us in keeping
+George the Second waiting to be shown up to the throne, where in the
+ensuing chapter we shall have the pleasure of seeing him. The first
+George was a person of somewhat feeble intellects, exceedingly shy in
+public, but he could "come out" at a private tea-party at home very
+effectively. His tastes were none of the most refined, and he voted all
+letters exceedingly dry but O.D.V.--such was the wretched pun the king
+made on _eau de vie_--which he was very partial to. It might be regarded
+as a redeeming point in the character of his majesty that he was very
+fond of Punch, which he regularly "took in," but this feather in his cap
+must be plucked out, for we find the Punch he patronised was the liquor,
+and not the periodical. Avarice was another of the most prominent
+features of his character, and he actually risked the throne itself
+on several occasions, because he would not spare a few pounds for the
+purchase of that floating loyalty that, in consequence of the venality
+and poverty of the ancient aristocracy, was always to be had at a
+certain price in the market. He had also the shabby trick of never
+carrying any money in his own pocket, so that he was always obliged to
+dip into the pockets of his companions to pay the expenses incurred,
+either at home or abroad, and many of his Court used to get as far away
+as possible from the side of the king when there was anything to pay,
+for he was sure to ask them for a loan on such occasions.
+
+It seems from pretty good authority that he fancied himself to be an
+usurper; but he flattered himself a great deal too much in believing
+that the English nation would have quietly allowed an act of usurpation
+from so unimportant a personage as he would have been, but for the
+position into which he was called by the voice of the people. He
+preferred Hanover to England; "but," says Smith, "there is no accounting
+for tastes," and we will therefore make no effort to unravel the mystery
+of this absurd preference.
+
+The Court of George the First was remarkable for its laxity, though
+there was more external propriety than used to prevail in the days of
+Charles the Second. The latter monarch openly offended against the rules
+of decency; but George the First was just as bad in a quiet way, and
+imported into the aristocracy of England two or three vulgar, low-born,
+German, female favourites, whose successors now boast of their
+illustrious ancestors.
+
+It is a somewhat interesting fact that charity schools were first
+established in the year 1698, when the predecessor of George the First
+was on the throne; and the antiquarian will perhaps tell us whether the
+muffin-cap is of greater antiquity than the muffin. We believe such to
+be the case, for the muffin is of comparatively modern date, and is the
+contemporary of its rival or companion, the crumpet. How the muffin-cap
+came to put the muffin into anybody's head is a question too difficult
+for any but the archaeologist.
+
+[Illustration: 647]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE FIFTH. GEORGE THE SECOND.
+
+While George the First was alive, he and the Prince of Wales were always
+having high words in low Dutch to the discredit of themselves and the
+disgust of the bewildered courtiers. To such a pitch had the animosity
+between father and son been carried, that young Master George, the
+heir apparent to the throne, had been forbidden the palace, and he had
+frequently held long conversations through the fan-light with the hall
+porter, who could only show his face above the door-way, and exclaim,
+"Very sorry, your royal highness, but it's the governor's orders, and I
+can't let you in." Which of these two unnatural relatives may have been
+most to blame we are not in a condition to determine, but the father
+who shuts his doors against a son, and drives him from home, is, _prime
+facie_, a brute, and George the First's conduct to his wife affords
+collateral evidence of his being devoid of feeling towards those who
+were nearly allied to him. It may be generally taken for granted that
+sons are only indifferent towards parents who are bad, and if young
+George failed in respect or affection towards old George, it was because
+old George had done nothing to inspire in young George the sentiments
+which should have been entertained by a son for his father.
+
+Sir Robert Walpole, the minister, had endeavoured to bring the precious
+couple together on friendly terms, but they would often quarrel in his
+presence, and appeal to Sir Robert, until the frequency with which they
+invoked the support of their referee, by loud exclamations of "So
+help me Bob!" turned the phrase into a proverb, which is to this day
+prevalent among the lower and more energetio classes of the community.
+When George the Second came to the throne, he expressed his desire to
+"keep on" Sir Robert Walpole as minister, if the situation continued
+to suit that individual, whose acknowledgment that he was "very
+comfortable." concluded the arrangement for the continuance of the
+existing Government.
+
+Walpole was one of the most dishonest ministers that ever lived, and it
+was his policy to resort to corruption of the grossest kind to ensure
+success; "for," as he would sometimes say, "the manure must not be
+spared, if you wish for an abundant harvest." He accordingly laid it
+on so extravagantly thick, that the expenses of the cultivation of his
+political connections was prodigious, and the national resources were
+frequently dipped into, for the purpose of serving the personal objects
+of the minister. The sinking fund had a tremendous hole made in it,
+where--to steal a figure from the plumber's art--a waste-pipe was
+inserted, and laid on to the pocket of the premier, who, collecting the
+floating capital into a private reservoir of his own, turned it on among
+his creatures with great prodigality. To meet the drain that was going
+on, new taxes were imposed, or in other words, the people were treated
+as if they had been an Artesian well, and were bored to the most
+frightful extent for the sort of currency by which a liquidation of the
+liabilities of the State was to be effected.
+
+The nation, recognising a swindling spirit in its rulers, gave symptoms
+of the imitative mania which invariably causes the vices of the great to
+be copied by the little. Speculations of the wildest and most dishonest
+nature were set on foot among every class, from the highest to the
+lowest, and there is no question that the Rogue's March would have been
+the most appropriate National Anthem for the period. From quiet fraud,
+the country soon fell into downright robbery, and the people got into
+the habit of plundering each other in the thoroughfares, without going
+through the formality--common in our own days of issuing a prospectus,
+and advertising a project. The first advertisement generally came upon
+the victim in the shape of a blow upon the head in the public streets;
+the preliminary deposit was extorted from him in the shape of the first
+article of value that could be easily snatched away, and the calls were
+exacted in rapid succession by a demand upon every one of his pockets.
+There was no hope of protection from the police, for the members of the
+force were too busy in robbing on their own account to bother themselves
+about the robberies that were being committed by others. It was, in
+fact, a case of Every Man his Own Pickpocket; and protection, being
+everybody's business, was soon considered nobody's business, until the
+whole kingdom was exposed to a sort of daily scramble, in the course of
+which Shakespeare's description of Iago's purse, "'Twas mine, 'tis his,"
+was every hour realised. Things were, of course, in a most unsettled
+state, for nobody thought of settling anything--not even a washing
+bill--during the existence of the universal plunder system, and a riot
+every other day was the ordinary average of popular turbulence. Even
+the Scotch grew warm, and becoming conscientiously opposed to the legal
+infliction of death, they attended the execution of a smuggler to make
+a great moral demonstration against capital punishment. In the excess
+of their philanthropic sympathy with the convict, they began pelting the
+authorities, who were on the point of being murdered, when John Porteus,
+the captain of the guard, interfered to save the lives of his comrades.
+Some time afterwards, the philanthropists, to prove their consistent
+abhorrence of the punishment of death, seized upon Porteus, who had
+officiated in keeping the peace at the execution, and hanged him at the
+Salt Market.
+
+In the year 1737 the queen died, and the king sent up a piteous howl,
+though he had ill-used her majesty on many occasions; but it was well
+remarked by a philosopher of the period, that by the sincerity with
+which George the Second wept her dead, he almost teaches us to forget
+the severity with which he wapt her living.
+
+The year 1740 was rendered remarkable by a severe frost, which confined
+Father Thames to his bed with a dreadful cold, until the 17th of
+February, from the 26th of December previous. A fair was held on the
+ice, but amid these rejoicings the watermen were dissatisfied at being
+deprived of their ordinary fare, and the fishermen complained that they
+had been able to net nothing during the frost's continuance.
+
+The disputes of the Continent furnished occupation, as usual, for
+English troops and English money, nor was it long before a difference
+between the Elector of Bavaria and Maria Theresa caused the Earl of
+Stair to be sent to keep his eyes open, with sixteen thousand men, in
+the lady's interest. Stair, after staring at sixty thousand Frenchmen
+face to face for some time, began to think he had a very poor look out,
+though joined by the king himself, and his son, the Duke of Cumberland.
+The whole three of them got beaten like so many old sacks by Marshal
+Saxe at the battle of Fontenoy. Cumberland, who had put his best leg
+forward, got it badly wounded. George rode along the lines--at the back,
+we believe--urging on the soldiers to fight for their king, while Stair
+seems to have been lost sight of, or perhaps to have run away, though we
+must admit that this flight of Stairs must be considered apocryphal.
+
+While these disasters were going on abroad, a correspondence was being
+kept up between the Pretender, James Stuart, and his British friends,
+who promised that if he or his son Charles Edward would effect a landing
+in Scotland, there should be a good supply of horses and carriages;
+but one would imagine his friends were a parcel of jobmasters, by the
+quality of the aid they tendered, and indeed a job was their object,
+for all but the most unprincipled of the party were for abandoning the
+hopeless project.
+
+Though James himself was a bird far too venerable to be attracted by
+Caledonian chaff, his son was sanguine enough to hope that by coming
+over to be met by a few glass coaches and hackney chariots, his cause
+would be aided. He wrote to say when he might be expected, and without
+waiting for an answer, he put to sea in a small frigate. He was joined
+by the _Elizabeth_, a sixty-gun ship, when an English liner, called the
+_Lion_, appeared on the foaming main, and an engagement commenced, which
+rendered it necessary for the _Elizabeth_ to go into Brest harbour for
+refuge. At the end of eighteen days he reached the Hebrides, but the
+prospect was so wretched that the few adherents who met him recommended
+him very strongly to be off again as speedily as possible. Charles
+Edward was, however, obstinate, and on the 11th of August, 1745, he took
+out of his portmanteau and unfurled the banner of the Stuarts in the
+pass of Glenfinnan. Attempts were made to obtain recruits, but they
+poured, or rather dribbled in so slowly, that the whole insurrection
+might have been broken up had it been nipped in the bud; but while Sir
+John Cope, the commander of the king's forces, was capering about the
+hills, and dragging his army of flats across the mountains, the young
+Charles Edward gained time enough to add to the strength of his company.
+Cope not coming up to cope with the rebels, they pushed on to Perth
+and Stirling, but they soon made an acquisition of still more sterling
+value, by taking possession of Edinburgh. Here the young prince, who
+had landed only with seven adherents, found himself at the head of four
+thousand men, most of whom had neither arms nor discipline, but brimming
+over with the froth of enthusiasm, they presented to their chief a
+refreshing aspect.
+
+Sir John Cope, having fumbled his way out of the hills, had got to
+Preston among the pans, where he was seized with a panic, and being set
+upon by the Scotch, was utterly routed. Returning to Edinburgh after
+his success Prince Charles Edward had King James proclaimed in the usual
+form; and the King of France, who had stood aloof while the result was
+doubtful, sent over a small parcel of arms and a few packets of powder,
+by way of encouragement. He promised also that a French army should
+soon follow the arms, for Charles Edward had no soldiers to match
+the matchless matchlocks that had arrived from the French sovereign.
+Trusting to the word of his Gallic majesty, the young Pretender ventured
+to cross the border in a blue bonnet, attended by a large body of
+adherents in the same interesting coiffure, and on the 29th of November,
+1745, he fixed his headquarters at Manchester.
+
+[Illustration: 652]
+
+The alarm excited in London was something utterly indescribable. People
+who lived in the town rushed into the country to be out of the way, and
+the inhabitants of the provinces poured into the metropolis as the best
+place for avoiding danger. The householders took up arms, and formed
+themselves into squares, crescents, lanes, streets, alleys, or anything.
+Some bolted their doors, others bolted themselves, and all gave
+unspeakable symptoms of terror and confusion. A camp was ordered to be
+formed in the suburbs, and after getting a large force together it was
+at first resolved to turn 'em out at Turaham Green, but Finchley was at
+length decided upon as the place of rendezvous.
+
+George, who had been summoned from Germany, came blustering over to
+England, and began immediately to boast, in bad grammar and wretched
+pronunciation, that he would "vite vor his Binglish bossessions," and
+would "meet the Bretender how or where he bleased." His personal
+valour was not put to the test, for Charles Edward, who had expected
+instalments of friends to continue meeting him at every large town, had
+the mortification to find that the more he kept looking for them the
+more they kept on not coming; and eventually, by the unanimous voice
+of his officers, he was compelled to retreat. When he first heard
+their decision, he observed that the messenger must be joking, and
+his features wore a faint smile, but when the porter who brought the
+intelligence shook his head, as much as to say, "It's no joke, your
+honour," the features of the young Pretender fell, and those who
+watched him narrowly for the rest of his life, declare that he was never
+afterwards seen to smile again.
+
+It is impossible to recite the misfortunes of Charles Edward without
+a feeling of grave sympathy at the failure of the many noble qualities
+with which he was endowed. In April, 1746, he advanced to Culloden,
+intending to astonish the English, but he and his followers, like the
+individual named in the song who had resolved to "astonish the Browns,"
+finished by astonishing no one but themselves.
+
+The rebels advanced in two columns; but the soldiers fell asleep, and we
+are not surprised at the fact, for any newspaper reader will admit that
+in the very idea of two columns there is something soporific in the
+extreme. The exhausted troops fell from fatigue; others lost their way;
+and the second column found it impossible to keep up with the first.
+This threw a damp upon the energies of even consternation on the
+boldest; and with a mental ejaculation of "Oh! it's no use," the very
+best of Charles Edward's adherents retired. Notwithstanding the valour
+of a _corps_ consisting of picked men, there arose among them a feeling
+of dissatisfaction at standing unsupported, to be picked out by the
+artillery of the enemy; and though one gallant body withdrew, playing
+on their pipes, the pipes were very soon put out by a smart shower of
+bullets. Such was the upshot of one of the most spirited enterprises
+that ever was undertaken; and its chief, the unfortunate Charles Edward,
+became a pauper fugitive, with scarcely clothes to cover him, and there
+was quite as much necessity as nationality in the bareness of his legs,
+during the period of his wanderings.
+
+One of these fogs which are so accommodating in romance, but very rarely
+present themselves opportunely in history, was obliging enough to make
+its appearance for that night only on an evening of September, 1746,
+and by its kind assistance in doing the heavy business on that occasion,
+Charles Edward was enabled to pass unobserved through an English
+squadron, and cross in a vessel to Morlaix in Brittany. The unfortunate
+Pretender seems to have taken his discomfiture so seriously to heart,
+that from a fine spirited young fellow, he lapsed into all sorts of
+excess, and having taken to drinking, he fell into a constant reel,
+which formed the sole remaining vestige of his once enthusiastic
+nationality. Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, walking about Florence in the year
+1799, tumbled over an intoxicated individual, and raising him from the
+ground, had no sooner carried him towards a light, than he recognised
+the features of the young Pretender.
+
+Matters might possibly have gone on very peaceably with England, for
+there was nothing to fight about at home, but a dispute arose with the
+French about the respective influence of the two nations in some of
+their distant colonies. A contest for the Nabobship between some of the
+native tribes in the Carnatic, became the subject of a desperate quarrel
+between the two great European powers; one of whom supported the claims
+of Anwar ad Dien, the other promoting the pretensions of Chunda
+Sahib, and both caring, in fact, not a button about either. A war was,
+nevertheless, entered upon with intense vehemence, and was carried on
+for some time, with alternating success; but, not having the bulletins
+of the day at hand, and the despatches being equally out of the way,
+we are unable to give the particulars of the various contests. The
+quarrelling, though at a great distance, made at the time sufficient
+noise to be disagreeably audible at home, and preparations were made in
+the two mother countries to send out large forces to thrash the children
+on both sided out of their turbulence.
+
+Though all this bickering had been going on for some time in the
+colonies, war had not been formally declared; but whenever an English or
+a French vessel had a chance of worrying the other, each made the most
+of the opportunity. On one occasion, two French sail of the line
+got treated very unceremoniously, and eventually captured; when the
+Government of Paris began expressing a great deal of surprise and
+indignation, and professing utter ignorance of the fact that the two
+powers were quarrelling. It is absurd to suppose that France was sincere
+in this declaration, for it could not have been understood to be "only
+in fun," that the French and English were knocking each other about
+most unmercifully and energetically in America. The circumstance of the
+capture to which we have referred, caused an immediate understanding
+that both parties were henceforth in earnest; and there was a mutual
+calling-in of their outstanding ambassadors.
+
+George, however, instead of thinking about the colonies, became
+solicitous only about his "little place" at Hanover, and while he
+neglected therefore the American war, which became a series of mishaps,
+he threw his whole strength into the defence of the wretched spot, that
+would not have been "had at a gift" even by the ambitious enemy.
+
+Higher game was, in fact, in view; and the possession of the rock of
+Gibraltar and the island of Minorca by the English having long been
+envied, the French made up their minds to have a dish at one of them.
+Gibraltar was speedily pronounced impracticable, but Minorca seemed to
+be in a state of helplessness that tempted a resolute foe, and Fort
+St. Philip was suddenly invested. No preparations having been made for
+defence, the authorities ran about asking each other anxiously what
+was to be done, for most of the officers of the garrison were absent on
+leave; and General Blakeney, who was on the spot, though a very gallant
+fellow, was old and shaky. His spirit was consequently more effective as
+a fine piece of acting than for the purposes of actual war; and though
+the old fellow, tottering about in his dressing-gown and slippers, might
+have exclaimed "Aye, aye--let 'em come; I'm ready for them," and have
+relapsed with affecting feebleness into the sufferings of a gouty
+twinge, the spectacle, which might have been beautiful on the boards
+of a theatre, was, in the midst of a town threatened with a siege, most
+painfully ridiculous.
+
+Relief was ordered from Gibraltar; but the governor, who was either
+very stupid or did not like the job, pretended to, or really did
+misunderstand the purport of the instructions sent out to him. At home,
+the same want of energy prevailed, for the acting representative of the
+Government picked out a few ill-manned vessels, which he dignified with
+the name of a squadron; and calling to him an admiral, since notorious
+but then unknown, observed to him, "Here, Byng; you had better take this
+force, and go and see what they want at Fort St. Philip." Admiral Byng
+did not at all like the job, and began to hesitate about undertaking
+it; but being told to call at Gibraltar for fresh troops, he plucked up
+sufficient pluck for the enterprise.
+
+On his arrival at Gibraltar, the governor pretended not to know what
+Byng had come about; and when asked for troops, merely exclaimed,
+"Nonsense, nonsense; there's some mistake. I can't part with my
+troops, for I'm as nervous as an old aspen myself, with the very little
+protection that is left to me." Byng became more disheartened than ever
+by the refusal of the expected aid, and went grumbling away, muttering,
+"Well! they'll see; I know how it will end;" and giving vent to other
+ejaculations of a similarly un-seaman like character. He wrote to the
+Lords of the Admiralty, announcing the certainty of his making a mess of
+it; and in speaking of the refusal of troops at Gibraltar, he in vulgar
+but forcible language "gave it the governor." Having made up his mind
+to a failure, it was not very difficult to accomplish the object, and
+having gone to look at Fort St. Philip, he merely played, as it were, a
+game at stare-cap with the sentinel on the look-out, but did not perform
+a single operation with a view to its protection. In due course the
+French fleet hove in sight, and it was expected that a brilliant action
+would have taken place, for both squadrons immediately began manoeuvring
+most beautifully until each had got into the line of battle. A little
+harmless cannonading had commenced by way of overture to the anticipated
+work, when the French slowly retired, and the English slowly following,
+they disappeared together in the most harmless and indeed almost
+friendly manner, to the astonishment of poor old Blakeney, who watched
+them as long as the strength of his glasses would allow of his doing so.
+Nothing could have been more orderly than the retreat on both sides;
+and indeed it has been suggested by an old offender, who very naturally
+refuses to give his name--"That if the affair we have described deserves
+to be called a battle at all, the Battle of Co-runner"--mark the
+deceptive spelling in the last syllable--"would be a good name for it."
+
+The rage of the English, whose boast it had been to rule the waves, and
+never, never, never to be slaves, may be conceived at the arrival of the
+intelligence of Byng's bungle. The Government was the first object
+of the popular fury; but the ministers were adroit enough to turn the
+indignation of the people against the unfortunate admiral. Byng was,
+no doubt, bad enough, though he was not the only guilty party; but his
+fellow-culprits, taking a lesson from the pickpockets, who were the
+first to raise after their accomplice the cry of "Stop thief!" began to
+denounce the nautical delinquent with excessive vehemence. They recalled
+him from his command, ordered him to Greenwich, and instead of allowing
+him to partake in the amusements of the place, they imprisoned him with
+the intimation that "None but the brave deserved the fair." The next
+step was to bring him before a court-martial on a charge of cowardice
+ana disobedience to orders, when, being found guilty, he was condemned
+to be shot, and underwent at Portsmouth, on the 14th of March, 1757,
+this rather redundant punishment. We are anxious to do what we can in
+the way of sympathy for poor Byng, particularly after the little we find
+that can be of any use to him in the pages of preceding historians. They
+seem disposed to join in the cruel shout of "Sarve him right!" which a
+vulgar and unthinking posterity has raised to hoot the memory of this
+unfortunate officer. We are induced to look at him as a gentleman who
+merely was unfit for the profession he had chosen, and as his was not an
+uncommon case, we think it hard to look upon it with uncommon severity.
+It is perhaps an odd coincidence, that an officer more eager for the
+fray than Byng had urged the latter to enter into the action with the
+French, when the dry observation "I'll be shot if I do," was the only
+reply of the admiral. It cannot fail to strike the philosophic observer
+at this distance of time, that Byng, when saying "I'll be shot if I
+do"--that is, if he ever said as much--might have been profitably given
+to understand that he would be shot if he didn't. It has been put forth
+as a consolatory reflection that the naval service in general profited
+by this melancholy execution of poor Byng; but though as a general rule,
+what is desirable for the goose is equally advantageous to the gander,
+we cannot in this instance agree that what was good for the men was at
+the same time good for the admiral.
+
+The treatment of poor Byng presents a very humiliating picture of the
+want of firmness shown by the court-martial that tried, the ministers
+that abandoned, and the king that would not pardon him. Everybody
+affected a strong desire to see him saved, but nobody had the resolution
+to take the responsibility of saving him. His sometimes merciless
+majesty, the mob, formed in reality the executioners of poor Byng, for
+the authorities were all afraid of risking their popularity by being
+instrumental to his pardon. The members of the court-martial, by their
+verdict, expressly implored the Lords of the Admiralty to recommend him
+to the mercy of the crown, but there was a general feeling of "It's no
+business of mine," and to this heartless apathy poor Byng was eventually
+sacrificed. Never was there a better illustration of the hare with many
+friends, though not even a hair-breadth escape was permitted to
+the unfortunate admiral. Never was a gentleman killed under such an
+accumulation of kindness as Byng, and indeed he was, figuratively
+speaking, bowed out of existence with so many complimentary and
+sympathetic expressions, that but for the stubborn reality of the leaden
+bullets he might have fancied that the guns discharged at him were
+intended rather in the nature of a salute than as a capital punishment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SIXTH. GEORGE THE SECOND (CONCLUDED).
+
+Discomfiture still attended the English in America, and though fresh
+troops with fresh leaders were sent off to wipe out the disgrace, they
+only got wiped out themselves in a most unceremonious manner. On the
+continent of Europe, too, poor Britannia was at a sad discount; for
+Austria, Saxony, Sweden and Russia had all thrown themselves into the
+arms of France, for the purpose of counteracting the influence of the
+arms of England. It was only in Indian ink that the creditable part of
+our country's annals belonging to this period should be written, for
+in India alone were any of our achievements entitled to some of those
+epithets we are so fond of bestowing on our own actions. The British
+Lion had, in fact, retired from the Continent to the Himalaya mountains,
+where he remained on the majestic prowl as the protector of British
+interests.
+
+There was a natural jealousy between England and France on the subject
+of their relative influence in that country, whose native princes were
+honoured by the protection of both, and who were always mulcted of a
+slice of their dominions by way of costs, for the expense incurred in
+the alleged support of their interests. If the aggressor of one of the
+Indian rulers happened to succeed, he took at once what he had been
+fighting for; while if a defender of some unhappy rajah or nabob was
+victorious, the native prince was made to pay all the same for the
+protection afforded him.
+
+By this sort of assistance rendered to the Indians, the English and
+French had succeeded in helping themselves to a good share of territory,
+and while the former had already obtained possession of Calcutta
+and Madras, the latter had got at Pondicherry, a very respectable
+establishment under Monsieur Duplex, whose duplicity was, of course,
+remarkable. By espousing the causes of a set of quarrelsome nabobs,
+Soubahdars, and other small fry, who had taken advantage of the death
+of Nizam-ul-Mulk to raise a contest for the throne of the Deccan, the
+English and the French had found plenty of excuses for quarreling, and
+we are compelled to confess that in this part of the world the Gallic
+cock had good reason for crowing over the British bull-dog.
+
+Things might have continued in this unsatisfactory condition, had not
+Captain Clive, a civilian in the Company's service, exchanged a pen
+for a sword--a piece of barter that turned out extremely fortunate for
+English interests. With a small body of troops he took the Citadel of
+Arcot, nabbed the nabob, and prevented Duplex from setting up a creature
+of his own--a disagreeable Indian creature--in that capacity. After this
+achievement, Clive had gone home for his health, and was drinking every
+morning a quantity of Clive's tea, when in 1755 he accepted a colonelcy,
+and returned to the scene of his former glories. Here he was rendered
+very angry by a pirate of the name of Angria, whom however he quickly
+subdued; and he had heard from Madras that a mad-rascal named Suraja
+Dowlar was in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, and was threatening to
+settle the settlement. This news came like a thunder-clap on Clive, who
+determined on giving Dowlar such a dose as he would not easily forget;
+and he commenced by conveying secretly to one of his officers, Meer
+Jaffier--a mere nobody--an offer of the throne. The scheme completely
+succeeded, and Meer Jaffier became the tool, or rather the spade, for
+giving a dig at poor Dowlar, who fell to the ground very speedily.
+
+Matters had now happily taken a favourable turn, and in America Wolfe
+distinguished himself, but unfortunately extinguished himself also at
+the siege of Quebec; for he died at the moment of victory.
+
+Things were mending very perceptibly in all directions, and English
+honour, which had been for some time at an unusual discount, was once
+more looking up, when the king, who had been speculating on the rise,
+was suddenly deprived of all chance of sharing in its advantages. He had
+made his usual hearty breakfast of chocolate, new-laid eggs, devilled
+kidneys, tea-cake, red herrings, and milk from the cow, when, as he was
+preparing to take a walk in Kensington Gardens, he suddenly expired, on
+the 25th of October, 1760. George the Second was in his seventy-seventh
+year, and the thirty-fourth of his reign, during the whole of which he
+had been a Hanoverian at heart, and he had nothing English about him,
+except the money. His manners were rather impatient and overbearing, for
+he had not a courteous style of speaking; and it was said at the time,
+that "no one could accuse him of being mealy-mouthed; for though he
+was not civil spoken, he was temperate in his living, and thus the term
+mealy-mouthed could in no sense be applied to him."
+
+In forming an estimate of the characters of the sovereigns who have come
+before us for review, we have found ourselves fortunate in possessing an
+independent judgment of our own; for if we had been guided by precedent,
+we should have been puzzled to know what to think of the different kings
+and queens, all of whom have had witnesses on both sides, to censure and
+to praise with a want of unanimity that is really wonderful. George the
+Second has furnished a subject for this division of opinion, and his
+eulogist has complimented him rather oddly on his old age, a compliment
+that might as well be paid to an old hat, an ancient pun, a venerable
+bead, or any other article that has arrived at a condition of antiquity.
+The reasons given by his panegyrist for praising him are few and
+insignificant on the whole, though his severer critic founds his
+strictures on a tolerably substantial basis. We learn from this
+authority that George the Second was ignorant, stingy, stupid,
+ill-tempered, and obstinate. His predilection for Hanover has, we think,
+been unjustly censured; for there is nothing very discreditable, after
+all, in a love for one's own birth-place, though it may be what is
+termed a beggarly hole in the strong language of detraction. The native
+of Lambeth has been known to pine with a sort of _mal du pays_ after
+the cherished sheds and shambles of the New Cut, and we have heard the
+plaintive accents of "Home, sweet Home," issuing from the lips of the
+exiled sons and daughters of Houndsditch. If George the Second was still
+faithful in his love for Hanover, in spite of the superior attractions
+of England, we may question his taste, but we must admire his constancy;
+which presents an honourable contrast to young Love's notorious
+desertion of the coal and potato shed, when Poverty, in the shape of a
+man in possession, stepped over the doorway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. ON THE CONSTITUTION, GOVERNMENT AND LAWS, NATIONAL
+INDUSTRY, LITERATURE, SCIENCE, FINE ARTS, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND
+CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.
+
+We feel that the length of the above heading to this, the concluding
+chapter of the volume, will be sufficient to provoke the legal reader
+into making a charge for "perusing title and examining same," but we
+promise to make our clauses as pertinent as the magnet to the loadstone.
+Having already, in the course of preceding chapters, touched upon most
+of the subjects noticed in the abstract of title to which we allude,
+it will be unnecessary to hold the reader very long by the button; but
+perceiving him getting ready to run away, as the curtain falls upon
+George the Second, we cannot help exclaiming, "Stop a minute or two,
+we've got just half a dozen more words to say to you!"
+
+The constitution is the first topic on which we have still to touch, and
+that is a theme which every true patriot loves to dwell upon. We have no
+hesitation in saying that our beloved country must have the constitution
+of a horse, to have gone through one-half the severe trials it has
+experienced. It is apparently peculiar to the soil; for, though the
+prescription for making it up has been given to other nations, and has
+been accurately prepared by some of the ablest political druggists,
+it has never been swallowed abroad, or, if rammed down the throats of
+rulers or people, it does not seem to have agreed very well with either
+one or the other. The British constitution is a thing _sui generis_,
+like the delicious bun of Chelsea, the acknowledged brick of Bath, and
+the recognised toffy of Everton. It is vain for other nations to hope
+that they may have their own materials made up into the pattern they so
+much admire; for the attempt would be quite as abortive, and almost as
+unwise, as the effort to make a genuine Romford stove away from Romford,
+Epsom salts half a mile out of Epsom, Windsor Soap beyond the walls of
+Windsor, and the genuine Brighton rock anywhere in the world but in
+the very heart of Brighton. The British constitution must be like
+home-brewed beer, and even more than that, it must be enjoyed where
+it is brewed; or, in other words--to draw off one more figure from the
+cask--it must be "drunk on the premises." The most eloquent of foreign
+nations cannot come and fetch it, as it were, in their own jugs, however
+they may foam and froth about it in their own mugs when they carry it in
+their mouths by making it the subject of their speeches.
+
+The durability of the British constitution, its fitness for wear and
+tear, has been exemplified in the wonderful manner in which it has
+survived the rubs that from the hands of party it has experienced. This
+reflection naturally brings into our mind the terms Whig and Tory, into
+which politicians were divided, until modern statesmanship introduced
+us to a new class of principles, that may be called, concisely and
+comprehensively, the Conservative-Whig-Radical.
+
+The words Whig and Tory came into use, and into abuse also, about
+the year 1679, and their own origin has been traced with wonderful
+ingenuity, for the derivation has nothing to do with the derivative,
+according to these ingenious speculations; and if we may trust Roger
+North--a little too far north for us, by-the-bye--Tory is allied to
+Tantivy, without the smallest apparent reason for the relationship.
+It would, perhaps, save a great deal of trouble to keep a register of
+philological next-of-kin; and we are sure that if something a little
+nearer than Tantivy could come forward to claim affinity with Tory, the
+noun, verb, or any other part of speech it might chance to be, would
+"hear of something to its advantage." The word Whig seems to be utterly
+without orthographical heirs-at-law, for no attempt has been made to get
+at its pedigree.
+
+National Industry advanced materially during the period we have just
+described, and among other things, the glass, which had been hitherto
+imported chiefly from France, began to be seen through by the English
+manufacturer.
+
+Literature and the Arts flourished in the reigns we have lately gone
+through; and Architecture took very high ground, or indeed any ground it
+could get, for the execution of its projects.
+
+Periodical Literature rose in great brilliancy at about the time we have
+described, and the union of such writers as Steele, Addison, and Swift,
+in one little paper, must have formed a combination that should
+have been kept back until the days of advertising vans and gigantic
+posting-bills, enabling the parties interested to make the most of the
+"concentration of talent," which might have been the cry of every dead
+wall in the metropolis.
+
+The manners and customs of the period were not particularly attractive,
+being, under the two Georges at least, far more German than Germane to
+our English notions of refinement. In dress, there was somewhat of an
+approach to the costume of our own days; and the scarcity of hair on the
+head began to be supplied by that friend of man, the horse, from whom
+the Barrister had since prayed a _tales_ to furnish the wig, which is
+considered essential to his forensic dignity.
+
+The military costume of the time of George the Second is chiefly
+remarkable for the hats worn by the soldiers, which were something in
+appearance between the fool's cap and the bishop's mitre, as we find
+from one of Hogarth's drawings.
+
+The condition of the people was not very enviable in the seventeenth
+or even the eighteenth centuries; and indeed all classes were very
+ill-conditioned; for morality was lax, education was limited, poverty
+was abundant, extravagance was very common, and wealth extremely
+insolent.
+
+Such being the state of the people and the country at this period, we
+cannot be sorry to get out of their company, though it is not without
+some regret that we bid farewell for a time to our History. In the
+course of this work we have rowed in the same galley with Caesar, stood
+up to our ankles in sea-water with Canute, run after the Mussulman's
+daughter with Gilbert a Beckett, wielded a battle-axe with Richard on
+the field of Bosworth, smoked a pipe and eaten a potato with Sir Walter
+Raleigh, danced with Sir Christopher Hatton on Clerkenwell Green, and
+sailed round the bay that bears his name with honest Bill Baffin: all
+these adventures have we enjoyed in imagination, that _beau ideal_ of a
+railway, with nothing to pay and no fear of accidents.
+
+We have at length arrived at a station, where we stop for the purpose
+of refreshment; but we hope to resume our journey, and proceed in the
+ordinary train, touching by the way at all stations, high and low, to
+the terminus we have set our eye upon.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Comic History Of England, by
+Gilbert Abbott A'Beckett
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