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| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-23 14:05:34 -0800 |
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- line-height: 1; } - h2.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 135%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - page-break-before: avoid; - line-height: 1; } - h3.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 110%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - line-height: 1; } - h4.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 100%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - line-height: 1; } - hr.pgx { width: 100%; - margin-top: 3em; - margin-bottom: 0em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - height: 4px; - border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ - border-style: solid; - border-color: #000000; - clear: both; } - </style> -</head> -<body> -<h1 class="pgx" title="">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Leaders of the People, by Joseph Clayton</h1> -<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States -and most other parts of the world 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 <a -href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: Leaders of the People</p> -<p> Studies in Democratic History</p> -<p>Author: Joseph Clayton</p> -<p>Release Date: February 1, 2021 [eBook #64437]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEADERS OF THE PEOPLE***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4 class="pgx" title="">E-text prepared by deaurider, Charlie Howard,<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (https://www.pgdp.net)<br /> - from page images generously made available by<br /> - Internet Archive<br /> - (https://archive.org)</h4> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/leadersofpeoples00clayiala - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<div class="body"><div class="transnote"> -<p class="center large bold">Transcriber’s Note</p> -<p>Larger versions of most illustrations may be seen by right-clicking them -and selecting an option to view them separately, or by double-tapping and/or -stretching them.</p> -</div></div> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<div class="body"><p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div id="i_frontis" class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/i_f001.jpg" width="1545" height="1989" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><p><i>John Hampden.</i></p> - -<p><i>From a print by J. Houbraken 1740.</i></p></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="newpage p1 center wspace tpnarrow"> -<h1> -LEADERS OF<br /> -THE PEOPLE</h1> - -<p class="larger p0 b0">STUDIES IN DEMOCRATIC HISTORY</p> - -<p class="larger gesperrt1"><i>By</i> JOSEPH CLAYTON <span class="in2">❦</span> <span class="in2">❦</span></p> - -<p class="b1">WITH A FRONTISPIECE IN PHOTOGRAVURE<br /> -<span class="gesperrt1">AND NUMEROUS OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS</span></p> - -<hr class="thick" /><hr class="thin" /> - -<div class="ptp"> </div> - -<hr class="thin" /><hr class="thick" /> - -<p><span class="larger">NEW YORK: MITCHELL KENNERLEY</span><br /> -TWO EAST TWENTY-NINTH STREET · MCMXI</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="tpnarrow"> -<p class="newpage p4 center vspace"> -<span class="wspace">To the Memory of</span></p> - -<p class="p1 center wspace larger">FREDERICK YORK POWELL</p> - -<p class="p1 center">Regius Professor of Modern History<br /> -at the University of Oxford<br /> -1894–1904</p> - -<p class="p1 center smaller">“I loved him in life and I love him<br /> -none the less in death: for what<br /> -I loved in him is not dead.”</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">i</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak left" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<table id="toc" summary="Contents"> -<tr class="smaller"> - <td> </td> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdc"><i>Page</i></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Preface</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#PREFACE">xi</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">I.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Archbishop Anselm and Norman Autocracy</span>, 1093–1130</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_1">3</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">II.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Thomas of Canterbury, the Defender of the Poor</span>, 1162–1170</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_2">33</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">III.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">William FitzOsbert, the First English Agitator</span>, 1188–1189</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_3">69</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">IV.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Stephen Langton and the Great Charter</span>, 1207–1215</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_4">81</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">V.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Bishop Grosseteste, the Reformer</span>, 1235–1253</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_5">99</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">VI.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Simon of Montfort and the English Parliament</span>, 1258–1265</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_6">117</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">VII.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Wat Tyler and the Peasant Revolt</span>, 1381</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_7">141</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">VIII.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Jack Cade, the Captain of Kent</span>, 1450</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_8">173</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">IX.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Sir Thomas More and Freedom of Conscience</span>, 1529–1535</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_9">193</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">X.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Robert Ket and the Norfolk Rising</span>, 1549</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_10">217</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">XI.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Eliot, Hampden, and Pym and the Supremacy of the Commons</span>, 1626–1643</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_11">245</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">XII.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">John Lilburne and the Levellers</span>, 1647–1653</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_12">277</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">XIII.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Winstanley the Digger</span>, 1649–1650</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_13">293</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">XIV.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Major Cartwright, the Father of Reform</span>, 1776–1820</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_14">307</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdr top">XV.</td> - <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Ernest Jones and Chartism</span>, 1838–1868</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#hdr_15">319</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Conclusion</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CONCLUSION">335</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Index</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#INDEX">339</a></td> -</tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">ix</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak left" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> -</div> - -<table id="loi" summary="List of Illustrations"> -<tr> - <td class="tdl">JOHN HAMPDEN<br /><cite>From the Engraving by Jacob Houbraken</cite></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#i_frontis"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td> -</tr> -<tr class="smaller"> - <td> </td> - <td class="tdr">facing p.</td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl">ARCHBISHOP ANSELM<br /><cite>From an Old French Engraving in the British Museum</cite></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_3">3</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl">THOMAS À BECKET<br /><cite>From an Engraving after Van Eyck</cite></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_33">33</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl">KING RICHARD II.<br /><cite>From the Panel Painting in the Sanctuary in Westminster Abbey</cite></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_141">141</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl">SIR THOMAS MORE<br /><cite>From the Drawing by Hans Holbein</cite></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_193">193</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl">SIR JOHN ELIOT<br /><cite>From a Steel Engraving by William Holl</cite></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_245">245</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl">JOHN PYM<br /><cite>From the Engraving by Jacob Houbraken</cite></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_257">257</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdl">MAJOR CARTWRIGHT<br /><cite>From a Contemporary Drawing</cite></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#ip_307">307</a></td> -</tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">xi</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak left b05" id="PREFACE">PREFACE</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot left p0"> - -<p class="p0 in0 larger">“<i>Let us now praise famous men, and our<br /> -fathers who begat us.</i>”</p></div> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">The</span> names of the seventeen men, here -named “Leaders of the People,” are for -the most part familiar in our mouths as -household words. Those who triumphed, like -Anselm and Stephen Langton; or whose cause -triumphed, like Simon of Montfort, Eliot, Pym and -Hampden, are beyond any loss of fame. Those -who in high place quitted themselves like men and -died game (if the phrase may be permitted), as did -Thomas Becket and Sir Thomas More, have, for all -time, deservedly their reward. The unsuccessful -rebels, FitzOsbert (called Longbeard), Wat Tyler, -Jack Cade and Robert Ket, are hard put to get rid -of the obloquy heaped upon them by contemporary -authority; while the later rebels, equally unsuccessful, -Lilburne, Winstanley, Major Cartwright and -Ernest Jones, relying on the pen rather than the -sword, escaped the hangman, and in so doing -narrowly escaped oblivion. Good Bishop Grosseteste, -living out his long life, thwarted often, but -unmartyred, enjoys the reputation commonly awarded -to conscientious public servants who die in harness.</p> - -<p>On the whole, re-perusing the records of these -seventeen men, who would altogether reverse the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">xii</span> -verdicts of time? The obloquy may be removed -when the work of the rebels is fairly seen, and it -may be judged that they deserved better of the State -than appeared when they troubled its peace. The -rebels of the pen, too, should be worthy of recollection -in this age, for they wrought manfully with the -weapon now at once so powerful and so popular. -The greater men of our series stand out higher as -the distance increases. So far readjusted, the -awards of history may be accepted.</p> - -<p>But with all the differences of character, one common -quality binds these men whose stories are here -retold—a resolute hatred of oppression. And one -common work, successful or unsuccessful, was theirs—to -labour for the liberties of England and the -health of its people. The value of each man’s work -can only be stated approximately: it is difficult to -make full allowance for the vastly different parts our -heroes, statesmen and rebels alike, were called to -play. The great thing is, that whatever the part, -they played it faithfully, as they read it, to the end. -We may admit the degrees of service given: it is -impossible to do otherwise. Some of these Leaders -shone as great orbs of light in their day and -generation, lighting not only England, but all western -Europe—and still their light burns true and clear -across the centuries. Others were but flickering -rush-lights—long extinct now. But none were will-o’-the-wisps, -for all helped to show the road to be -travelled by English men and women seeking free<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">xiii</span>dom, -and moving ever towards democracy. At the -least, we—enjoying an inheritance won at a great -price, and only to be retained on terms no easier—can -keep the memory green of some few valiant servants -of our liberties. What is wanted is a real history of -the growth of the idea of freedom and of popular -liberty in this country; and these rough biographical -sketches may be accepted as a contribution to the -materials for such a book. “Biography is a department -of history, and stands to it as the life-history -of a plant or an animal does to general biology.”</p> - -<p>I have gone back to all the original sources to get -once more at the lives of these “Leaders of the -People,” and to see them as they were seen by their -contemporaries; but I have also done my best to -read what the historians of our own day have written -concerning them, and in mentioning my authorities -I have, in each case, given a list of the modern -books that seem to me valuable.</p> - -<p class="sigright">J. C.</p> - -<p><i>September, 1910.</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_1">Archbishop Anselm and Norman Autocracy<br /> - -<span class="subhead">1093–1109</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: Eadmer—<cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">Historia Novorum</cite> and <cite>Life -of Anselm</cite>; Orderic of St. Evroul; <cite>The English -Chronicle</cite>; Florence of Worcester; William of Malmesbury; -(Rolls Series); Sir Francis Palgrave—<cite>England -and Normandy</cite>; Freeman—<cite>Norman Conquest</cite>, Vol. V., -<cite>Reign of William Rufus</cite>; Dean Church—<cite>St. Anselm</cite>.</p> - -<div id="ip_3" class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/i_p002.jpg" width="1573" height="1905" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><p>ARCHBISHOP ANSELM</p> - -<p>(<cite>From an old French Engraving in the British Museum.</cite>)</p></div></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">ARCHBISHOP ANSELM AND<br />NORMAN AUTOCRACY -<span class="subhead">1093–1109.</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">The</span> first real check to the absolutism of -Norman rule in England was given by -Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury.</p> - -<p>The turbulent ambition of Norman -barons threatened the sovereignity of William the -Conqueror and of his son, the Red King, often -enough, but these outbreaks promised no liberty for -England. The fires of English revolt were stamped -out utterly five years after Senlac, and the great -Conqueror at his death left England crushed; but he -left it under the discipline of religion, and he left it -loyal to the authority of the crown, grateful for -the one protection against the lawless rule of the -barons.</p> - -<p>The English Chronicler, writing as “one who -knew him and once lived at his court,” summed up -the character of the Conqueror’s life and work in -words that have been freely quoted through the -<span class="locked">centuries:—</span></p> - -<p>“King William was wiser and mightier than any -of his forerunners. He built many minsters, and was -gentle to God’s servants, though stern beyond all -measure to those who withstood his will.... So -stark and fierce was he that none dared resist his will. -Earls that did aught against his bidding he put in -bonds, and bishops he set off their bishoprics, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span> -abbots off their abbacies, and thanes he cast into -prison. He spared not his own brother, called Odo, -who was the chief man next to the king, but set him -in prison. So just was he that the good peace he -made in this land cannot be forgotten. For he -made it so that a man might fare alone over his realm -with his bosom full of gold, unhurt; and no man -durst slay another man whatsoever the evil he hath -done him; and if any man harmed a woman he was -punished accordingly. He ruled over England, and -surveyed the land with such skill that there was not -one hide but that he knew who held it, and what -it was worth, and these things he set in a written -book. So mighty was he that he held Normandy -and Brittany, won England and Maine, brought -Scotland and Wales to bow to him, and would, -had he lived two years longer, have won Ireland -by his renown, without need of weapons. Yet -surely in his time men had much travail and very -many sorrows; and poor men he made to toil hard -for the castles he had built. He fell on covetousness, -and the love of gold; and took by right and -by unright many marks of gold and more hundred -pounds of silver of his people, and for little need. -He made great deer-parks, and ordered that whoso -slew hart or hind, him men should blind; and -forbade men to slay deer or boar, and made the -hare go free; he loved the big game as if he were -their father. And the poor men that were oppressed -he recked nought of. All must follow the king’s -will if they would live, or have land, or even a quiet -life.”</p> - -<p>But now, in September, 1087, the great King -William was dead, with his life-work done; and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span> -from the tyranny of a strong and just ruler, England -passed to the despotism of his fearless son, William -the Red, who was “terrible and mighty over his -land and his men and towards all his neighbours;” -in whose reign “all that was loathsome in the eyes -of God and righteous men was of common use; -wherefore he was loathed by well-nigh all his -people, and hateful to God as his end showed.”</p> - -<p>There was much of the later Puritan in William I. -in the steadfastness of purpose, the suppression of -“malignants,” and determination to have justice -done, no less than in the sincerity for Church -reform, and the deep respect for the ordinances -of religion. No king of England worked more -harmoniously with a strong archbishop than -William I. with Lanfranc—save, perhaps, Charles I. -with Laud.</p> - -<p>Then on the death of William I., followed less -than two years later by Lanfranc’s, came the -reaction in Church and State from the efforts after -law, religion, and social decency under the Conqueror’s -rule.</p> - -<p>The Red King had all his father’s sternness and -strength, but was without any of that belief in -justice, that faith in the Sovereign Power of a -Living God, that desire for law and order, and -that grave austerity in morals, which saved the -Conqueror from baseness in his tyranny.</p> - -<p>William II., unmarried, made the wildest and -most brutish profligacy fashionable at court. To -pay for his debaucheries and extravagances he -plundered all who could pay, in especial the Church, -enjoying the revenues of all vacant sees and abbeys, -and declining to fill up the vacancies so that this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span> -enjoyment might remain. After Lanfranc, as the -king’s chief adviser, came Ranulf (nicknamed the -Torch, or Firebrand), a coarse, unscrupulous bully, -with the wit of a criminal lawyer. This man was -made Bishop of Durham, and Justiciar. For him -government meant nothing but the art of getting -money for his royal master, and silencing all -opposition.</p> - -<p>For over three years there was no Archbishop -of Canterbury, and the Red King refused to fill -up the vacancy caused by Lanfranc’s death, preferring -to enjoy the revenues and possessions of -the see; a thing that was shocking to all lovers -of religion, and scandalous to those who cared for -public decency and the good estate of the country.</p> - -<p>Eadmer, a contemporary, describes the condition -of England in those early years of William <span class="locked">II.:—</span></p> - -<p>“The king seized the church at Canterbury, the -mother of all England, Scotland, and Ireland, and -the neighbouring isles; he bade his officers to make -an inventory of all that belonged to it, within and -without; and after he had fixed an allowance for -the support of the monks who served God in that -place, he ordered the remainder to be disposed of -at a rent and brought under his domain. So he -put up the Church of Christ to sale; giving the -power of lordship over it to anyone who, however -hurtful he might be, would bid the highest price. -Every year, in wretched succession, a new rent -was set; for the king would allow no bargain to -remain settled, and whoever promised more ousted -him who was paying less, unless the former tenant, -giving up his original bargain, came up of his own -accord to the offer of the later bidder: and every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span> -day might be seen, besides, the most abandoned -of men on their business of collecting money for -the king, marching about the cloisters of the -monastery, heedless of the religious rule of God’s -servants, and with fierce and savage looks giving -their orders on all sides; uttering threats, lording -it over every one, and showing their power to the -utmost. What scandals and quarrels and irregularities -arose from this I hate to remember. Some -of the monks of the church were dispersed at the -coming of this misfortune, and sent to other houses, -and those who remained suffered many tribulations -and indignities. What shall I say of the church -tenants, ground down by such wasting and misery, -that one might doubt, but that worse followed, -whether escaping with bare life they could have -been more cruelly oppressed. Nor did all this -happen only at Canterbury. The same savage -cruelty raged in all her daughter churches in -England, which, when bishop or abbot died, at -that time fell into widowhood. And this king, -too, was the first who ordered this woeful oppression -against the churches of God; he had inherited -nothing of this sort from his father, but was alone -in keeping the vacant churches in his own hands. -And thus, wherever you looked, there was wretchedness -before your eyes; and this distress lasted for -nearly five years over the Church of Canterbury, -always increasing, always, as time went on, growing -more cruel and evil.”</p> - -<p>There is no word of exaggeration in this pitiful -lament of Eadmer’s. England under William II. -was at the mercy of a Norman whose notion of -absolute monarchy was to bleed the land as a subject<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span> -province. Courageous in battle he was, and skilful -in arms, but utterly heedless of the welfare of the -people he ruled. It was enough for the Red King -if his demands for money were met. There was no -one strong enough to gainsay his will, or stand -before him as the prophets of old stood before the -kings of Israel, until Anselm came to Canterbury. -It is only in the utterances of men like Eadmer we -learn something of the misery of the nation.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">1</a></p> - -<p>The king was with his court at Gloucester at -Christmas, 1092, and Anselm, then abbot of the -famous monastery of Bec in Normandy, was in -England at that time; partly to comfort his friend, -Earl Hugh of Chester, who was sick, and partly to -attend to the English affairs of his monastery.</p> - -<p>Anselm was known as the friend of Lanfranc. -He had been a welcome guest at the court of the -Conqueror and in the cloisters at Canterbury. His -character stood high above all contemporaries in -England or Normandy. Anselm was surely the right -man to be made archbishop, and so put an end to a -state of things which even to the turbulent barons -was discreditable to the country.</p> - -<p>The Red King bade Anselm come to his court, -and received him with great display of honour.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span> -Then came a private interview, and Anselm at once -told the king how men spoke ill of his misrule: -“Openly or secretly things were daily said of him -by nearly all the men of his realm which were not -seemly for the king’s dignity.” They parted, and -Anselm was busy for some time in England. When -the abbot wished to return to Bec William refused -him leave to quit the country.</p> - -<p>At the beginning of Lent, March, 1093, the king -was lying sick at Gloucester. It was believed the -sickness was mortal. Certainly the king thought -himself dying. Anselm was summoned to minister -to him, and on his arrival bade the king “make a -clean confession of all that he knows that he has -done against God, and promise that, should he -recover, he will without pretence amend in all things. -The king at once agreed to this, and with sorrow of -heart engaged to do all that Anselm required, and to -keep justice and mercy all his life long. To this he -pledged his faith, and made his bishops witnesses -between himself and God, sending persons in his -stead to promise his word to God on the altar. An -Edict was written and sealed with the king’s seal -that all prisoners should be set free in all his dominions, -all debts forgiven, all offences heretofore committed -pardoned and forgotten for ever. Further, -good and holy laws were promised to the whole -people, and the sacred upholding of right and such -solemn inquest into wrongdoing as may deter -others.”</p> - -<p>Thus Eadmer.</p> - -<p>Florence of Worcester puts the matter more -briefly. “When the king thought himself about to -die he vowed to God, as his barons advised him, to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span> -amend his life, to sell no more churches nor farm -them out, but to defend them by his kingly -might, and to end all bad laws and to establish just -laws.”</p> - -<p>There was still the vacant archbishopric to be -filled, and the king named Anselm for Canterbury.</p> - -<p>In vain Anselm pleaded that he was an old man—he -was then sixty—and unfit for so great a responsibility, -that he was a monk and had shunned the -business of the world.</p> - -<p>The bishops assembled round the sick king’s bed -would not hear the refusal. Here was religion well -nigh destroyed in England, and evil rampant, and -the Church of God stricken almost to death, and at -such a time was Anselm to prefer his own ease and -quiet to the call to deliver Canterbury from its -bondage? By main force they placed a pastoral -staff within his hands, and while the crowd shouted -“Long live the bishop!” he was “carried rather -than led to a neighbouring church.” The king at -once ordered that Anselm should be invested with -all the temporal rights of the see, as Lanfranc had -held them, and in September, 1093, Anselm was -enthroned at Canterbury, and in December he was -consecrated.</p> - -<p>Anselm warned the bishops and nobles when they -forced the archbishopric upon him that they were -making a mistake. “You have yoked to the plough -a poor weak sheep with a wild bull,” he said. “This -plough is the Church of God, and in England it has -been drawn by two strong oxen, the king and the -Archbishop of Canterbury, one to do justice and -to hold power in the things of this world, the other -to teach and govern in the things eternal. Now<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span> -Lanfranc is dead, and with his untamed companion -you have joined an old and feeble sheep.”</p> - -<p>That the king and the archbishop were unevenly -yoked was manifest on William’s recovery, but it -was no poor sheep with whom Rufus had to deal, -but a man as brave and steadfast as he was gentle -and wise.</p> - -<p>Trouble began at once when William rose from -his sick-bed. Anselm was now enthroned and no -attempt was made to revoke the appointment. But -the king’s promises of public amendment were -broken without hesitation. The pardoned prisoners -were seized, the cancelled debts redemanded and the -proceedings against offenders revived.</p> - -<p>“Then was there so great misery and suffering -through the whole realm that no one can remember -to have seen its like in England. All the evil -which the king had wrought before he was sick -seemed good by the side of the wrong which he did -when he was returned to health.”</p> - -<p>The king wanting money for his expedition -against his brother, Robert of Normandy, tried -to persuade Anselm to allow the Church lands, -bestowed since Lanfranc’s death on vassals of the -crown on tenure of military service, to remain with -their holders. He was answered by steady refusal. -Had Anselm yielded, he would have been a party to -the alienation of lands, that, as part of the property -of the see, he was bound to administer for the -common good; he would have been a party not -only to the spoiling of the Church, but to the -robbery of the poor and needy, whose claims, in -those days, to temporal assistance from Church -estates were not disputed. Any subsequent restitution<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span> -of such lands was impossible, he foresaw, if it -was shown that the archbishop had confirmed what -the king had done.</p> - -<p>Then came the question of a present of money to -the king. Anselm brought five hundred marks, -and, but for his counsellors and men of arms, who -told him the archbishop ought to have given twice -as much, William would have taken the gift gladly -enough. As it was, to show his dissatisfaction, the -money was returned. Anselm went boldly to the -king and warned him that money freely given was -better than a forced tribute. To this frank rebuke -of the extortion practised by the king’s servants, -William answered that he wanted neither his money, -nor his preaching, nor his company. Anselm retired -not altogether displeased at the refusal, for too -many of the clergy bought church offices by these -free gifts after they were instituted. In vain his -friends urged him to seek the king’s favour by -increasing his present, Anselm gave the five hundred -marks to the poor, and shook his head at the idea of -buying the king’s favour.</p> - -<p>But if Anselm declined to walk in the path of -corruption to oblige the king, William was equally -resolute to make the path of righteousness a hard -road for the archbishop.</p> - -<p>In February, 1094, when the Red King was at -Hastings waiting to cross to Normandy, Anselm -appealed to him to sanction a council of bishops, -whose decisions approved by the crown should have -the authority of law. There were two things for -such a council to do: (1) stop the open vice and -profligacy which ravaged the land; (2) find abbots -for the many monasteries then without heads. In<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span> -Anselm’s words, the council was “to restore the Christian -religion which was well-nigh dead in so many.”</p> - -<p>William treated the request with angry contempt, -and when Anselm sent bishops to him asking why -the king refused him friendship, an evasive answer -was returned.</p> - -<p>“Give him money,” said the bishops again to -Anselm, “if you want peace with him. Give him the -five hundred marks, and promise him as much more, -and you will have the royal friendship. This, it -seems to us, is the only way out of the difficulty.”</p> - -<p>But it was not Anselm’s way. He would not even -offer what had been rejected. “Besides, the greater -part of it was spent on the poor.”</p> - -<p>William burst out into wrathful speech when he -was told of this reply. “Never will I hold him as -my father and archbishop, and ever shall I hate him -with bitter hatred. I hated him much yesterday, -and to-day I hate him still more.”</p> - -<p>A year later (March, 1095) at a great council of -bishops and nobles, held at the castle of Rockingham, -the king’s hatred had full vent. From the first -the Archbishop of Canterbury received from the -Pope a <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">pallium</i>, the white woollen stole with four -crosses, which was “the badge of his office and -dignity,”<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">2</a> and Anselm was anxious to journey to -Rome to obtain his pallium from Pope Urban. William -objected to this on the ground that there was -another claimant to the papacy, and that until he -had decided who was the rightful pope no one in -England had a right to do so. In vain Anselm<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span> -pointed out that he, with all Normandy, had acknowledged -Urban before he had become archbishop. -William retorted angrily that Anselm could only -keep his faith to the Apostolic See by breaking his -faith to the king.</p> - -<p>The council of Rockingham met to settle the -question—not the question of the supremacy of -Rome in Western Christendom<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">3</a>—but the question -whether, in England, there was any higher authority -than the crown. William did not pretend to -dispute the papal supremacy in the Church. His -claim was that the king alone must first acknowledge -the pope before any of his subjects could do -so. In reality the king’s one desire was “to take -from Anselm all authority for maintaining the -Christian religion. For as long as any one in all -the land was said to hold any power except through -him, even in the things of God, it seemed to him -that the royal dignity was diminished.” (Eadmer.) -William acknowledged Pope Urban readily enough, -but he would have Archbishop Anselm understand -that the papacy must be acknowledged by permission -of the king of England. That was the -real ground of contention between these two men: -was there any power on earth higher in England -than the English crown? According to William, to -appeal to Rome was to dispute the absolutism of the -crown. Anselm maintained that in all things of -God he must render obedience to the Chief -Shepherd and Prince of the Church, to the Vicar<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span> -of St. Peter; and in matters of earthly dignity he -must render counsel and service to his lord the king.</p> - -<p>The bishops at Rockingham were the king’s -men. Many of them had bought their bishoprics, -all were afraid of the royal displeasure. The stand -made by Anselm, unsupported though he was, did -something to inspire a better courage in the ranks of -the clergy<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">4</a>; but in that Lent of 1095 there was no -sign of support for the archbishop. William only -wanted to break the will of this resolute old man, -the one man in all the kingdom who dared to have -a mind and utterance of his own, and the mitred -creatures of the king supported their lord even to -the point of recommending the forcible deposition -of Anselm from his see, or at least of depriving him -of the staff and ring of office. With one consent -the bishops accepted the king’s suggestion of -renouncing all obedience to Anselm.</p> - -<p>But the barons were not so craven. To the -king’s threat, “No man shall be mine, who will be -his” (Anselm’s), the nobles said bluntly that not -having taken any oath of fealty to the archbishop -they could not abjure it. And Anselm was their -archbishop. “It is his work to govern the Christian -religion in this land, and we who are Christians -cannot deny his guidance while we live here.”</p> - -<p>The three days’ conference at Rockingham ended -in disappointment to the hopes of William of absolute -autocracy, and in general contempt for the prelates -whose abject servility had availed nothing.</p> - -<p>Anselm alone stood higher in the eyes of the men<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span> -of England, and greater was the ill-will of William. -For another two years Anselm held his ground -against the king. The pallium was brought from -Rome by Walter, Bishop of Albano, and placed on -the altar at Canterbury, and Anselm was content -to take it from the altar. William had written in -vain to Pope Urban praying for the deposition of -Anselm, and promising a large annual tribute to -Rome if his prayer was granted. The pope, of -course, declined to do anything of the sort, and -William had to make the best of the situation. He -wanted money for his own purposes, and his barons -were now against him in his quarrel with the archbishop. -For a time William adopted a semblance -of peace with Anselm, but his anger soon blazed -out again. The ground of complaint this time was -that the soldiers whom the archbishop had sent to -the king for his military expedition against Wales -were inadequate—without proper equipment, and -unfit for service. The archbishop was summoned to -appear before the King’s Court to “do the king right.”</p> - -<p>From the time of his acceptance of the archbishopric, -Anselm had been hoping against hope -that the king would support him, as the Conqueror -had supported Lanfranc, in the building up of the -Christian religion in England—this summons to -the King’s Court was the death-blow to all these -hopes. The defendant in the King’s Court was at -the mercy of the king, who could pronounce whatever -judgment he pleased.<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">5</a> Anselm returned no -answer to the summons, but his mind was made up.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span></p> - -<p>“Having knowledge that the king’s word ruled -all judgment in the King’s Court, where nothing was -listened to except what the king willed, it seemed to -Anselm unbecoming that he should contend, as if -disputing, as litigants do, about a matter of words, -and should submit the justice of his cause to the -judgment of a court where neither law, nor equity, -nor reason prevailed. So he held his peace, and -gave no answer to the messenger.” (Eadmer.)</p> - -<p>From the despotism of the Red King Anselm -would turn for justice to the centre of Christendom. -In England he was impotent to stem the evil that -flowed from the savage absolutism of the throne. -All that one man could do to resist the royal -tyranny Anselm had done, and now this summons to -the King’s Court was the final answer to all his -efforts to restrain a lawless king, and to promote the -Christian religion in England. He would not go -through the farce of pleading in the King’s Court, -where judgment was settled by the unbridled caprice -of the king, self-respect forbade the archbishop from -that; he would appeal to the only court on earth -higher than the courts of kings—the court whose -head, in those days, was the head of Christendom.<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">6</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span></p> - -<p>William dropped the summons to the King’s -Court, and for a time refused permission to Anselm -to leave the country. Bishops and barons now -urged Anselm not to persist in his appeal to Rome. -But the archbishop was resolute, and in the autumn -of 1097 the king yielded, and Anselm left the -country.<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">7</a></p> - -<p>The first campaign against despotism in England -was over—the battle was to be renewed when -Henry I. wore the crown.</p> - -<p>At Rome Pope Urban, with all the goodwill in -the world, and with a very real affection and regard -for Anselm, could do nothing against the Red King -except rebuke his envoys, and do honour to the -much-tried archbishop. Anselm himself prevented -the excommunication of William when it was proposed -at the Council of Bari, October, 1098.</p> - -<p>But Pope Urban would not allow Anselm to -resign his archbishopric, and this in spite of all -Anselm’s entreaties.</p> - -<p>In the spring of 1099 came a General Council at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span> -Rome—at which Anselm assisted—a council remarkable -for its decision against allowing clergy to -receive investiture of churches from the hands of -laymen, and by so doing to become the vassals of -temporal lords. Excommunication was declared to -be the penalty for all who gave or received Church -appointments on such conditions.</p> - -<p>It was at the close of this council that an outspoken -Bishop of Lucca called attention to Anselm’s -case. “One sits amongst us in silence and meekness -who has come from the far ends of the earth. -His very silence cries aloud. His humility and -patience, so gentle and so deep, as they rise to God -should set us on fire. This one man has come here, -wronged and afflicted, seeking judgment and justice -of the Apostolic See. And now this is the second -year, and what help has he found?”</p> - -<p>Pope Urban answered that attention should be -given, but nothing further was done.</p> - -<p>Anselm left Rome and went to Lyons, remaining -in France until the death of William in August, -1100. Henry was at once chosen king in his room, -and crowned at Westminster three days after his -brother’s death. Six weeks later, at Henry’s earnest -request—he prayed him “to come back like a father -to his son Henry and the English people”—Anselm -landed at Dover and returned to take up the task -allotted to him on his consecration as archbishop.</p> - -<p>Henry at the outset of his reign promised “God -and all the people” that the old scandals of selling and -farming out the Church lands should be stopped, -and “to put down all unrighteousness that had been -in his brother’s time, and to hold the best laws that -ever stood in any king’s day before him.” That this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span> -charter was of value may be taken from the verdict -on the king by the Chronicler of the time. “Good -man he was and great awe there was of him. No -man durst misdo against another in his day. He -made peace for man and beast. Whoso carried a -burden of gold and silver no man durst do him -wrong.”</p> - -<p>Two evils that pressed very hardly on the mass -of hard-working people, the devastation that attended -the king’s progress through the land<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">8</a>, and the coining -of false money, were at Anselm’s instigation -checked by the king.</p> - -<p>But with all Henry’s desire for the restoration of -religion and law in the land, he was the Conqueror’s -son, and for Anselm the struggle against absolutism -in government was not yet over. Only now the -battle was not with a fierce, untamed despot like the -Red King, but with an autocrat of an even more -formidable type, a stern man of business, in whose -person alone must be found the source of all law -and order, and who would brook no questioning of -the royal will.</p> - -<p>At the beginning of his reign Henry found the -archbishop’s loyalty and good sense invaluable. As -Lanfranc had stood by the Conqueror in a marriage -which was objectionable from the point of view of -Church law, so Anselm stood by his son when he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span> -sought the hand of Edith, daughter of the sainted -Queen Margaret of Scotland. Here the objection -to the marriage was not on the grounds of affinity or -consanguinity, but in the fact that Edith was an -inmate of the convent at Romsey, and, it was alleged, -a professed nun. Edith insisted that she had but -taken refuge in the convent to obtain the protection -of her aunt Christina, the abbess, and she had worn -the habit of a nun as a safeguard against the brutal -passions of the Red King and his courtiers. The -fear of violence at the hands of the Normans had -driven women to take the veil, and Lanfranc had -been known to grant release from vows taken under -such mortal pressure. Anselm was not the man to -exalt the letter of the law above the spirit of liberty. -He was content that a council of the great men in -Church and State should hold an inquiry, and on -their verdict declaring Edith free of her vows, the -archbishop gave his blessing on the marriage.</p> - -<p>The same great qualities of loyalty and good -sense made Anselm stand by the king when the -Norman lords, pricked on by Ranulf the Torch, the -rascally Bishop of Durham (who had escaped from -imprisonment in the Tower by making his gaolers -drunk), and hating Henry for “his English ways,” -proposed to back up Robert of Normandy in his -attempts to seize the crown. According to Eadmer, -but for Anselm’s faithfulness and labours, which -turned the scale when so many were wavering, King -Henry would have lost the sovereignty of the realm -of England at that time.</p> - -<p>But Anselm’s services to the king are of small -account by the side of his services to English liberty, -and Anselm’s resistance to Henry’s demands for an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span> -absolute monarchy was of lasting influence in the -centuries that followed.<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">9</a></p> - -<p>The struggle began when Henry called upon -Anselm for a new declaration of homage to the -crown, and required him to receive the archbishopric -afresh by a new act of investiture. This was a -claim that had never been made before. “It imported -that on the death of the sovereign the archbishop’s -commission expired, that his office was subordinate -and derivative, and the dignity therefore reverted to -the crown.” (Sir F. Palgrave.)</p> - -<p>Anselm met the demand with the answer that -such a course was impossible. Nay, the very ecclesiastical -“customs” which for some time past had given -the appointment of bishops and abbots to the crown, -and had made the bishops “the king’s men” by obliging -them to do homage and to receive investiture of -their office with ring and staff at the royal hands, were -now impossible for Anselm. The Council at the -Lateran, at which Anselm had been present, had -forbidden the bishops of the Church to become the -vassals of the kings of the earth, and Anselm was -not the man to question this decision. He had seen -only too much, under William the Red, of the curse -of royal supremacy in the Church. He had stood up -alone against the iniquities of misrule, just because -the bishops, who should have been pastors and overseers -of a Christian people, were the sworn creatures -of the king. Henceforth it was forbidden by the -authority that rested in the seat of St. Peter at Rome -for a bishop to receive consecration as a king’s vassal.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span></p> - -<p>But if Anselm would be no party to what had -become an intolerable evil, Henry would not give -up the rights his father had exercised without a -contest. He was willing to do his best for the -Church, but it must be in his own way. “Pledging -himself in his own heart and mind not to abate a -jot of his supremacy over the clergy, he would -exercise his authority in Church affairs somewhat -more decently than his father, and a great deal -more than his brother; but that was all.” (Sir F. -Palgrave.)</p> - -<p>Both Henry and Anselm recognized the gravity -of the issue. Were the bishops and abbots to -continue to receive investiture from the king they -were “his men,” and his autocracy was established -over all. Stop the investiture and the bishops were -first and chiefly the servants of the Most High, -acknowledging a sovereignty higher than that -exercised by the princes of this world, and preferring -loyalty to the Church Catholic and its -Father at Rome, to blind obedience to the crown.</p> - -<p>In brief, the question in dispute really was—Was -there, or was there not, any power on earth greater -than the English crown?—a question which no -English king before Henry VIII. answered successfully -in the negative. In contending for the freedom -of the bishops of the Church from vassalage to the -crown, Anselm was contending for the existence of -an authority to which even kings should pay -allegiance. It was not the rights of the clergy -that were at stake, for the terrors of excommunication -did not prevent bishops from receiving -consecration on Henry’s terms, and Anselm stood -alone now, as in the days of the Red King, in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span> -resistance to despotism. It was the feeling and -the knowledge, which Anselm shared with the best -churchmen of his day, that great as the power of -the king must be, it was a bad thing for such power -to exist unchecked, and that it were well for the -world that its mightiest monarchs should know -there was a spiritual dominion given to the successor -of St. Peter, and to his children, a dominion -of divine foundation that claimed obedience even -from kings.</p> - -<p>Anselm put it to the king that the canons of -the Church, and the decrees of a great council -had forbidden the “customs” of investiture which -the king claimed; and he pleaded that he was an -old man, and that unless he could work with the -king on the acceptance of the Church canons, it -was no use his remaining in England, “for he -could not hold communion with those who broke -these laws”: Henry, for his part, was much disturbed. -It was a grave matter to lose the investiture -of churches, and the homage of prelates; it -was a grave matter, too, to let Anselm leave the -country while he himself was hardly established -in the kingdom. “On the one side it seemed -to him that he should be losing, as it were, -half of his kingdom; on the other, he feared lest -Anselm should make his brother Robert King of -England,”—for Robert might easily be brought to -submit to the Apostolic See if he could be made -king on such terms.</p> - -<p>Henry suggested an appeal to the pope on the -question of the right of the crown to “invest” the -bishops, and Anselm, who all along was anxious -for peace—if peace could be obtained without<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span> -acknowledgment of royal absolutism—at once -agreed.</p> - -<p>The pope, of course, could not grant Henry’s -request. To allow the high offices of the Church -to be disposed of at the caprice of kings and princes, -without any recognition of the sacredness of these -offices, to admit that the chief ministers of religion -were first and foremost “the king’s men,” seemed -to Pope Paschal, as it seemed to Anselm, a concession -to evil, and the establishment of a principle -which experience had proved thoroughly vicious -and mischievous.</p> - -<p>Then for nearly three years a correspondence -dragged on between Henry and the pope, neither -wishing for an open rupture, and in the meantime, -Henry, backed by most of the bishops and nobles -in setting at nought the canons which had forbidden -investiture, proposed to go on appointing and investing -new bishops as before.</p> - -<p>Finally, the king appealed to Anselm to go to -Rome “and try what he could do with the pope, -lest the king by losing the rights of his predecessors -should be disgraced.”</p> - -<p>Anselm was now (1103) an old man of seventy, -but he agreed to go; only “he could do nothing -to the prejudice of the liberty of the Church or his -own honour.” What Henry hoped for was that the -pope would grant some personal dispensation in the -matter of the royal “customs,” and he had tried to -persuade Anselm that such dispensation was sure -to be granted. Anselm did not believe the dispensation -possible or desirable, but left the decision -with the acknowledged head of Christendom at -Rome; and though for another three years Henry<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span> -urged his suit, no dispensation could be wrung from -the pope. All that the pope would grant was that -the bishops might do “homage” to the crown for -their temporal rights.</p> - -<p>At last, in April, 1106, Anselm returned to -England. The bishops themselves, who had sided -with the king against him, implored him to return, -so wretched had become the state of religion in -England in his absence. They promised to do his -commands and to fight with him the battle of the -Lord.</p> - -<p>Henry, fresh from the conquest of Normandy, -sent word of his good-will, and of his desire for -the archbishop’s presence. The long drawn-out -battle was over, and the king had to be content with -“homage,” and to resign the claim to investiture.</p> - -<p>“On August 1st (1107) an assembly of bishops, -abbots, and chief men of the realm, was held in -London, in the king’s palace, and for three days -the matter of the investiture of churches was fully -discussed between the king and the bishops in -Anselm’s absence. Then, in the presence of -Anselm and before the whole multitude, the king -granted and decreed that henceforth and for ever -no one should be invested in England with bishopric -or abbey by staff and ring, either by the king or the -hand of any layman; while Anselm allowed that no -one chosen for a bishopric should be refused consecration -for having done homage to the king. -This having been settled, the king, by the counsel -of Anselm and the chief men of the realm, appointed -priests in nearly all those churches in England -which had long been widowed of their pastors.” -(Eadmer.)</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span></p> - -<p>Victory rested with Anselm. The old archbishop -had done his best for the liberty of religion, and by -contending for this liberty he had wrought for -common freedom.<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">10</a> Later ages and struggles were -to bring out more clearly that some measure of -political and social liberty must follow the demand -for freedom in religion. “Religious forces, and -religious forces alone, have had sufficient influence -to ensure practical realisation for political ideas.” -(Figgis, <cite>Studies of Political Thought</cite>.)</p> - -<p>Anselm’s life was nearly over, his work was accomplished, -a philosophical treatise “Concerning the -agreement of Foreknowledge, Predestination and -the Grace of God with Free Will” was written with -difficulty in the last years. Then his appetite failed -him, and all food became loathsome. At last he was -persuaded to take to his bed, and on April 21st, 1109—the -Wednesday of Holy Week—at daybreak -Anselm passed away.</p> - -<p>Anselm’s name has long been enrolled in the -calendar of the saints of the Church Catholic, no less -is it to be cherished by all who love liberty. Well -may it be said of him, “he was ever a close follower -of Truth, and walked in noble companionship with -Pity and Courage.” Anselm’s plain good sense and -charity were conspicuous in his benediction of the -marriage of Henry and Edith, but these great -qualities were earlier displayed when Lanfranc consulted -him as to the claims of the English Archbishop -Ælphege to be canonised as a martyr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span> -Ælphege had been slain by the Danes for refusing -to ransom his life at the expense of his tenants; -and Anselm replied to Lanfranc that he who would -die rather than oppress his tenants dies for justice’ -sake, and he who dies for justice dies a martyr for -Christ.</p> - -<p>His sympathy and humaneness shone out a -thousand times. There is the story Eadmer tells of -an abbot, who came to Anselm at Bec, and deplored -that he could do no good with the boys at his -monastery. “In spite of all we do they are perverse -and incorrigible,” said the abbot, despondently. -“We are always beating them, but they only get -worse: and though we constrain them in every way -we can, it’s all of no use.” “<em>Constrain</em> them!” -answered Anselm. “Tell me, my lord abbot, when -you plant a tree in your garden, do you so tie it up -that it cannot stretch forth its branches? And if -you did so, what sort of tree would it become a few -years hence when you released it? But this is just -what you do with your boys. You cramp them in -with terrors and threats and blows, so that it is quite -impossible for them to grow or enjoy any freedom. -And kept down in this way their temper is spoilt by -evil thoughts of hatred and suspicion against you, -and they put down all you do to ill-nature and dislike. -Why are you so harsh with them? Are they not -human beings of the same nature as yourself? How -would you like to be treated as you treat them?” -The abbot was finally persuaded that he had been -all wrong. “We have wandered,” he said, “from -the way of truth, and the light of discretion hath not -shone on us.”</p> - -<p>There is another story which gives Anselm’s pity<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span> -and feeling of kinship with the whole animal -creation. It was when he was archbishop, and was -riding one day from Windsor to Hayes that a hare -chased by the dogs of some of his company took -refuge under the feet of his horse. Anselm at once -pulled up and forebade the hare to be molested, and -when his escort laughed gleefully at the capture, the -archbishop said: “You may laugh, but it is no -laughing matter for this poor unhappy creature, -which is like the soul of a departing man pursued -by evil spirits. Mortal enemies attack it, and it -flies to us for its life: and while it turns to us -for safety we laugh.” He rode on, and in a loud -voice forbade the dogs to touch the hare; which, -glad to be at liberty, darted off to the fields and -woods.</p> - -<p>That Anselm never wavered in his tenderness for -the weak and oppressed may be learnt from the -great Church Synod held at Westminster in -1102—a council summoned on the strong request -of the archbishop. The slave trade was specially -denounced at this council as a “wicked trade used -hitherto in England, by which men are sold like -brute animals,” and a canon was drawn up to that -effect.</p> - -<p>Anselm’s enduring courage and desire for truth -are conspicuous all his life. He fought single-handed -against both William and Henry, and no -weight of numbers, no world-wise talk from other -prelates could make him budge. If he withstood -the Red King and his court at Rockingham, equally -firm was he in withstanding the Norman barons -who were inclined to break away from their sworn -allegiance to Henry. No Englishman by birth or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span> -blood was Anselm, for he was born at Aosta, and -spent the greater part of his life on the Continent, -but he brought to England the finest gifts of life, -and gave them freely in service to England’s liberty. -He withstood an absolutism that threatened the -total enslavement of the nation, and the witness he -bore to liberty was taken up and renewed in the -centuries that followed. “Anselm was truly a great -man. So good that he was held a saint in his very -lifetime, so meek that even his enemies honoured -him, so wise that he was the foremost thinker of his -day, and the forerunner of the greatest philosophers -of ours.” (F. York Powell.)</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_2">Thomas of Canterbury<br /> - -<span class="subhead">The Defender of the Poor</span> -<span class="subhead">1162–1170</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: Benedict of Peterborough; Garnier; -William FitzStephen; John of Salisbury; Herbert of -Bosham; Alan of Tewkesbury; Edward Grim; Roger -of Pontigny; William of Canterbury; Robert of Cricklade—<cite>Materials -for the History of Thomas Becket</cite>, -7 vols.; <cite>Thomas Saga</cite> (Icelandic), translated by Magnusson; -Giraldus Cambrensis; Gervase of Canterbury; -William of Newburgh; Roger of Hoveden, III.; Ralph -Diceto (Rolls Series); Froude, R. H.—<cite>Remains</cite>, -Vol. 3; <cite>Life of Becket</cite>, by Canon J. C. Robertson; -<cite>Life of St. Thomas Becket</cite>, by John Morris, S.J.; -Stubbs—<cite>Constitutional History</cite>, Vol. I; Freeman—<cite>Historical -Essays</cite>, 1st Series; W. H. Hutton—<cite>English -History by Contemporary Writers</cite>—<cite>St. Thomas -of Canterbury</cite>.</p> - -<div id="ip_33" class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/i_p032.jpg" width="1745" height="2640" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><p>THOMAS A BECKET</p> - -<p>(<cite>From an old Engraving after Van Eyck.</cite>)</p></div></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">THOMAS OF CANTERBURY<br /> -THE DEFENDER OF THE POOR -<span class="subhead">1162–1170</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Fifty</span> years after the death of Anselm the -struggle with absolute monarchy had to -be renewed in England, and again the -Archbishop of Canterbury was the antagonist -of the crown, standing alone for the most part, as -Anselm stood, in his resistance to autocracy.</p> - -<p>The contrast is great between the upbringing and -character of Anselm and of Thomas; but both men -gave valiant service in the cause of liberty in -England, and both are placed in the calendar of -the saints. For Thomas and Anselm alike the -choice was between the favour of the King of -England, the safe broad road of passive obedience, -and the following of the call of conscience on the -craggy way of royal displeasure; and to the everlasting -honour of these two men, and of the religion -they professed, they chose the steep and narrow -path with no faltering step, and followed the gleam, -heedless of this world’s glory, heedless of life itself.</p> - -<p>Thomas was no monk as Anselm was, when the -king nominated him for the archbishopric of Canterbury. -His early life was not spent in the cloister -but in the employment of a wealthy London sheriff, -in the office of Archbishop Theobald, at Lambeth, -and as Chancellor of England.</p> - -<p>The son of gentle parents—his father Gilbert<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span> -sometime sheriff—“London citizens of the middle -class, not usurers nor engaged in business, but living -well on their own income,” according to FitzStephen, -Thomas was the first Englishman to be made archbishop. -His gifts marked him out for high office. -Theobald had sent him abroad to study law at the -great school at Bologna, and at the age of 36 made -him archdeacon of Canterbury, at that time “the -dignity in the Church of England next after the -bishops and abbots, and which brought him an -hundred pounds of silver.” A year later, 1155, the -young newly crowned king, Henry II., on the advice -of old Archbishop Theobald, made Thomas the -Chancellor. Theobald, anxious about the present, -and apprehensive for the future—for the king was -very young, and those about him were known to -be hostile to the freedom of the Church and willing -to treat England as a conquered land—sought to -prevent the evils which seemed to be at hand by -making Thomas a partner of the King’s counsels. -He could say, after ten years’ experience, that -Thomas was high-principled and prudent, wisely -zealous for justice, and whole-hearted for the freedom -of the Church, and he held forth to the king on -the wisdom, the courage and the faithfulness of his -archdeacon, “and the admirable sweetness of his -manners.”</p> - -<p>The appointment was made, nor could anyone -say that it was ill done, or that Theobald in his -recommendation, or Henry II. in his acceptance, of -Thomas for the chancellorship could have done -better for England.</p> - -<p>The chancellor was magnificent, and his dignity -was accounted second from the king. Nobles sent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span> -their children to Thomas to be trained in his service. -The king commended to him his son, the heir to -the throne. Barons and knights did homage to -him. On his embassy to the French king never -had been seen such a retinue of followers, and such -a lavish display of the wealth and grandeur of -England. The proud and mighty he treated with -harshness and violence. Yet it was said, by those -who knew him intimately, that he was lowly in his -own eyes, and gentle and meek to those who were -humble in heart. And in the courts of kings, where -chastity is never commonly extolled, or purity of -life the fashion, Thomas, the chancellor, was known -for his cleanness of living and his unblemished -honour. Many enemies he had, many who hated -him for his power; but never was breath of scandal -uttered against the chancellor’s private life, or -suggestion made that the carnal lusts and appetites -which, unbridled, play havoc with men great and -small, could claim Thomas for their subject.</p> - -<p>He might be reproached by a monk for that he, -being an archdeacon, lived so secular a life, wearing -the dress of a courtier, and charging on the field -with knights in France, but it could not be alleged -that church or realm suffered neglect from the -chancellor. “By divine inspiration and the -counsel of Thomas, the lord king did not long -retain vacant bishoprics and abbacies, so that the -patrimony of the Crucified might be brought into -the treasury, as was afterwards done, but bestowed -them with little delay on honourable persons, and -according to God’s law.” (W. FitzStephen.)</p> - -<p>The close friendship and warm affection of the -king for his chancellor were known to all. When<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span> -the day’s business was done “they would play together -like boys of the same age.” They sat together -in church and hall and rode out together. “Never -in Christian times were there two men more of one -mind or better friends.” It was natural on the -death of Archbishop Theobald, in 1161, that people -should point to Thomas as his successor, though the -chancellor shrank, as Anselm had done, from the -post.</p> - -<p>“I know three poor priests in England any one -of whom I would rather see advanced to the archbishopric -than myself,” he declared earnestly, when -his friend the prior of Leicester (who also remonstrated -with him for his unclerical dress) told him -the rumours of the court. “For as for me, if I was -appointed, I know the king so through and through -that I should be forced either to lose his favour or, -which God forbid, to lay aside the service of God.”</p> - -<p>Thomas uttered the same warning to Henry -when the king proposed the primacy to him. “I -know certainly,” he said, “that if God should so dispose -that this happen, you would soon turn away -your love, and the favour which is now between us -would be changed into bitterest hate. I know that -you would demand many things in Church matters, -for already you have demanded them, which I could -never bear quietly, and the envious would take occasion -to provoke an endless strife between us.”</p> - -<p>But Henry’s mind was made up. Residing -largely in France, he would have Thomas, Archbishop -of Canterbury and Chancellor, to rule England -as his vice-regent. Six years had Thomas been -the king’s friend and chancellor, but the king did -not know at all the real character of his man, or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span> -rather it was inconceivable to the royal mind that -Thomas, whom the king had raised from a mere -nobody, from Archdeacon of Canterbury, an important -ecclesiastic at best, to the chief man in the -realm, should ever dare set himself at variance with -the king’s will. Henry, with his untiring energy, -was earnest enough for good government in Church -and State under an absolute monarchy, and he -counted on greater co-operation with Thomas in -carrying out his plans, were the latter archbishop. -Hitherto, more than once the chancellor had succeeded -in moderating the king’s outbursts of wrath -against some hapless offender, but he had never -shown himself a partisan of the clergy at the expense -of the commonwealth,<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">11</a> and his lack of pride in his -order had even incurred rebuke, so little of the -ecclesiastic did this statesman appear.</p> - -<p>Thomas understood the king better than the king -understood his chancellor. But his protests were in -vain. He was as surely marked for the archbishopric -as Anselm had been. Bishops of the -province approved and the monks of Canterbury -duly voted for the king’s chancellor in common consent, -Gilbert Foliot, the Bishop of Hereford, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span> -afterwards of London, and the archbishop’s enemy -to the end, alone opposing the election.</p> - -<p>“Then the archbishop-elect was by the king’s authority -declared free of all debts to the crown and given -free to the Church of England, and in that freedom -he was received by the Church with the customary -hymns and words of praise.” (Herbert of Bosham.)</p> - -<p>On June 2nd, 1162, the Saturday after Whit -Sunday, Thomas was ordained priest and on the -following day consecrated bishop. (The new archbishop -instituted the festival of Trinity Sunday to -commemorate his consecration, and some 200 years -later the festival was made of general observance in -the Catholic Church.) The king realised the mistake -he had made within a year of the consecration. -The brilliant chancellor was no sooner archbishop -than he turned from all the gaieties of the world, -and while no less a statesman, adopted the life of his -monks—though never himself a monk—at Canterbury. -Henceforth Archbishop Thomas was the -unflinching champion of the poor and them that had -no helper, the resolute defender of the liberties of -the Church against all who would make religion -subject to the autocracy of the king of England.</p> - -<p>Thomas was forty-four years old, in the full -strength of his manhood, when he was made archbishop, -and for eight years he did battle with the -crown, only laying down his charge at the call of -martyrdom.</p> - -<p>The first disappointment to Henry was the resignation -of the chancellor’s seal.<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">12</a> It was clear to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span> -Thomas that he could no longer serve the crown and -do the work of a Christian bishop at the same time, -and he had accepted with full sense of responsibility -the see of Canterbury. There was no room for the -egotism that loves power, the vaulting ambition -that o’erleaps itself, or even the self-deception that -persuades a man holding to high position at sacrifice -of principle that his motive is disinterested, in St. -Thomas of Canterbury. More than once England -was to see in later years men who strove vainly to -serve with equal respect the Christian religion and -the royal will—the service always ended in the -triumph of the latter. Thomas was far too clearly-sighted -to imagine such joint service possible, and -for him, elected and consecrated to the primacy of -the English Church, there was no longer any choice. -As chancellor, keeping his conscience clear, he had -done the best he could for law and order as the -king’s right hand man. As Archbishop of Canterbury -his duty, first and foremost, was to maintain -the Christian religion and defend the cause of the -poor and needy.</p> - -<p>But to Henry the resignation of the chancellorship -was an act of desertion, a declared challenge to -the royal supremacy. Henry II. was no more the -man than his grandfather Henry I. had been to brook -anything that threatened resistance to the king’s -rule.</p> - -<p>Courtiers who hated Thomas were always at hand -to poison the ears of the king by defaming the archbishop, -and this, says William FitzStephen, was the -first cause of the trouble. Another cause was the -hatred of the king for the clergy of England, hatred -provoked by the notoriously disreputable lives of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span> -more than one clerk in holy orders. The battle -between Henry and Thomas began on this matter of -criminous clerks.</p> - -<p>William the Conqueror and Lanfranc recognizing -that the Church, strong and well ordered, made for -national well-being, had set up ecclesiastical courts -wherein all matters affecting church law and discipline -were to be dealt with by the clergy, to the -end that the clergy should not be mixed up in lawsuits -and should be excluded from the lay courts. -Henry II. was not satisfied that criminous clerks -were adequately dealt with in these ecclesiastical -courts, where no penalty involving bloodshed might -be inflicted, and where the savage punishments of -mutilation had no place. Thomas was as anxious as -the king for the Church to be purged of abuses, but -he was resolved not to hand over offenders to the -secular arm. The archbishop was an ardent -reformer. “He plucked up, pulled down, scattered -and rooted out whatever he found amiss in the vineyard -of the Lord,” wrote a contemporary; but he -would shelter his flock as far as he could by the -canon law from the hideous cruelties of the King’s -Courts.<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">13</a> It was not for the protection of the clergy -alone the archbishop was fighting in the councils -summoned by the king at Westminster in 1163, and -at Clarendon in 1164.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span></p> - -<p>“Ecclesiastical privileges were not so exclusively -priestly privileges as we sometimes fancy. They -sheltered not only ordained ministers, but all ecclesiastical -officers of every kind; the Church Courts -also claimed jurisdiction in the causes of widows and -orphans. In short, the privileges for which Thomas -contended transferred a large part of the people, -and that the most helpless part, from the bloody -grasp of the King’s Courts to the milder jurisdiction -of the bishop.” (Freeman, <cite>Historical Essay</cite>, First -Series.)</p> - -<p>Before the climax of the dispute between Henry -and Thomas was reached at Clarendon, the archbishop -had resisted the king in a matter of arbitrary -taxation—“the earliest recorded instance of resistance -to the royal will in a matter of taxation”<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">14</a>—and -had fallen still further in the king’s disfavour.</p> - -<p>Henry was at Woodstock, on July 1st, 1163, with -the archbishop and the great men of the land, and -among other matters a question was raised concerning -the payment of a two shillings land tax on -every hide of land. This was an old tax dating -from Saxon times, which William the Conqueror -had increased. It was paid to the sheriffs, who in -return undertook the defence of the county, and -may be compared with the county rates of our own -day. The king declared this tax should in future be -collected for the crown, and added to the royal -revenue; and no one dared to question this decision -until Archbishop Thomas arose and told the king to -his face that the tax was not to be exacted as -revenue, but was a voluntary offering to be paid to -the sheriffs only “so long as they shall serve us<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span> -fitly and maintain and defend our dependants.” It -was not a tax that could be enforced by law.</p> - -<p>Henry, bursting with anger, swore, “By God’s -Eyes” it should be given as revenue, and enscrolled -as a king’s tax.</p> - -<p>The archbishop replied with quiet determination, -“aware lest by his sufferance a custom should come -in to the hurt of his successors,” that, “by the -reverence of those Eyes,” by which the king had -sworn, not one penny should be paid from his lands, -or from the rights of the Church. The king was -silenced, no answer was forthcoming to the objector, -and the tax was paid as before to the sheriffs. But -“the indignation of the king was not set at rest,” -and in October came the Council of Westminster.</p> - -<p>The king at once demanded that criminous clerks -should not only be punished in the Church Courts -by the sentence of deprivation, but should further -be handed over to the King’s Courts for greater -penalties, alleging that those who were not restrained -from crime by the remembrance of their -holy orders would care little for the loss of such -orders.</p> - -<p>The archbishop replied quietly that this proposed -new discipline was contrary to the religious liberty of -the land, and that he would never agree to it. The -Church was the one sanctuary against the barbarities -of the law, and Thomas to the end would maintain -the security it offered. More important it seemed to -him that clerical offenders should escape the king’s -justice, than that all petty felons who could claim -the protection of the Church should be given over -to mutilation by the king’s officers. The bishops -silently supported the primate in this matter, though<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span> -they told him plainly, “Better the liberties of the -Church perish than that we perish ourselves. Much -must be yielded to the malice of the times.”</p> - -<p>Thomas answered this pitiful plea by admitting -the times were bad. “But,” he added, “are we to -heap sin upon sin? It is when the Church is in -trouble, and not merely when the times are peaceful, -that a bishop must cleave to the right. No greater -merit was there to the bishops of old who gave their -blood for the Church than there is now to those who -die in defence of her liberties.”</p> - -<p>But the bishops were wavering, fearful of defying -the king’s will. And when Henry, defeated for the -moment by the archbishop’s stand, angrily called -upon them to take an oath to observe in future -“the royal customs” of the realm as settled by his -grandfather, Henry I., they all agreed to do so, -adding the clause “saving the rights of their order.” -The king objected, calling for the promise to be -made “absolutely and without qualifications,” until -Thomas reminded him that the fealty the bishops -swore to give the crown “in life and limb and -earthly honour” was sworn “<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">salvo ordine suo</i>,” and -that the “earthly honour” promise, which included -all the royal “customs” of Henry I., was not to be -given by bishops in any other way.</p> - -<p>It was now late at night, and the king broke up -the council in anger, leaving the bishops to retire as -they would.</p> - -<p>Henry was resolved to abolish the Church Courts -and destroy the protection they afforded. He would -have all brought under the severity of his law, in -spite of the archbishop. He knew the bishops were -wavering and were fearful of the royal displeasure.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span> -Thomas Becket, and Thomas Becket alone, was the -obstruction to the king’s schemes, and firm as Becket -might stand, the king would break down his opposition.</p> - -<p>The very day after Westminster the king demanded -the resignation of all the fortresses and -honours Thomas had held under the crown since -he had been made chancellor, and these were -surrendered at once.</p> - -<p>Then Henry tried a personal appeal, and once -more the two met together in a field near Northampton. -Henry began by reminding Thomas of -all he had done for him.</p> - -<p>“Have I not raised you from a mean and lowly -state to height of honour and dignity? How is it -after so many benefits and so many proofs of my -affection, which all have seen, you have forgotten -these things, and are now not only ungrateful, but -my opponent in everything?”</p> - -<p>The archbishop answered: “Far be it from me, -my lord. I am not forgetful of the favours which -God has conferred upon me at your hands. Far be -it from me to be so ungrateful as to resist your will -in anything so long as it is in accord with God’s -will.” St. Thomas, enlarging on the necessity of -obedience to God rather than to men, should the -will of man clash with the will of God, the king at -last interrupted him impatiently with the intimation -that he did not want a sermon just then.</p> - -<p>“Are you not my man, the son of one of my -servants?”</p> - -<p>“In truth,” the archbishop answered, “I am not -sprung from a race of kings. Neither was blessed -Peter, the prince of the apostles, to whom was committed -the leadership of the Church.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span></p> - -<p>“And in truth Peter died for his Lord,” said the -king.</p> - -<p>“I too will die for my Lord when the time comes,” -replied the archbishop.</p> - -<p>“You trust too much to the ladder you have -mounted by,” said the king.</p> - -<p>But the archbishop answered: “I trust in God, -for cursed is the man that putteth his trust in man.” -Then the archbishop went on to remind Henry of -the proofs he had given of his fidelity in the years -when he was chancellor, and warned him that he -would have done well to have taken counsel with his -archbishop concerning spiritual things than with -those who had kindled the flame of envy and vengeance -against one who had done them no wrong.</p> - -<p>The only reply the king gave was to urge that -the Archbishop should drop the words “saving -their order” in promising to obey the royal customs.</p> - -<p>The archbishop refused to yield, and so they -parted.<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">15</a></p> - -<p>At the close of the year the archbishop’s difficulties -had been increased by appeals on all sides to -yield to the king. The bishops were for peace at -any price, and the Pope, Alexander III., threatened -by an anti-pope, and anxious for the good will of the -king of England, sent an abbot to Thomas urging -him to give way, on the ground that Henry only -wanted a formal assent to the “customs” for the -sake of his dignity, and had no intention of doing -anything harmful to the Church.</p> - -<p>Under these circumstances Thomas decided to -yield. He went to the king at Woodstock and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span> -declared that the obnoxious phrase, “saving our -order,” should be omitted from the promise to observe -the “customs.”</p> - -<p>Without delay the king ordered his justiciar, -Richard of Lucy, and his clerk, Jocelin of Balliol, to -draw up a list of the old “customs” and liberties of -his grandfather Henry I., and on the 29th of January, -1164, a great council was held at Clarendon to ratify -the agreement between the bishops and the king.</p> - -<p>Sixteen constitutions or articles were drawn up, -and Thomas, over-persuaded by the prayers of the -bishops and the desire for peace, gave his promise -unconditionally to observe them. But no sooner -had he done so, and the articles were placed before -him in black and white, than he repented.</p> - -<p>The very first article declared that all disputes -about Church patronage were to be tried in the -King’s Court, and was intolerable, because while the -State held it was a question of the rights of property, -the Church view was that the main point was the -care of souls, a spiritual matter for churchmen, not -lawyers, to decide.</p> - -<p>The other articles which Thomas objected to, and -which the pope subsequently refused to ratify, decreed: -(1) That clerks were to be tried in the King’s -Courts for offences of common law. (2) That neither -archbishops, bishops, nor beneficed clerks were to -leave the kingdom without the king’s license. (This, -said St. Thomas, would stop all pilgrimages and -attendance at councils at Rome, and turn England -into a vast prison. “It was right enough to apply -for the king’s leave before the departure, but to bind -one’s-self by an oath not to go without it was against -religion and was evil.”) (3) That no member of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span> -king’s household was to be excommunicated without -the king’s permission. (4) That no appeals should -be taken beyond the archbishop’s court, except to be -brought before the king. (This was a definite -attempt to prohibit appeals to Rome, and Thomas -pointed out that the archbishop on receiving the -pallium swore expressly not to hinder such appeals. -The acceptance of this article left the king absolute -master.)</p> - -<p>The last article, declaring that serfs or sons of -villeins were not to be ordained without the consent -of the lord on whose land they were born, was not -opposed by the pope, and the only contemporary -objection seems to have been raised by Garnier, a -French monk and a biographer of Thomas Becket.<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">16</a></p> - -<p>Thomas had promised obedience to these constitutions, -but he would not put his seal to them. It -seemed to him that it was not only the old “customs” -that had been drawn up, but rather a new -interpretation of these customs. The great Council -of Clarendon was over. Thomas received a copy of -the constitutions and rode off, and the king had to -be content for the time with the promises delivered.</p> - -<p>In abject remorse Thomas wrote to the pope -confessing his assent to the Constitutions of Clarendon, -and for forty days he abstained from celebrating -the mass. The pope, still anxious to prevent any -open rupture between the king and the archbishop, -wrote in reply that “Almighty God watches not the -deed, but considers rather the intention and judges -the will,” and that Thomas was absolved by apostolic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span> -authority. All the same, Pope Alexander III., without -in any way censuring Thomas, throughout the -long struggle with Henry never stands up roundly -for the archbishop.</p> - -<p>Neither Henry nor Thomas could rest satisfied -with Clarendon. The archbishop had compromised -for the sake of peace, but his quick revulsion had -provoked a keener hostility in the king. To Henry -it seemed the time had come to drive Thomas out -of public life by compelling him to resign the see -of Canterbury. With Thomas out of the way -Henry could carry out his plans for a strong -central government, for bringing all under the -pitiless arm of the law. Thomas was the one -man in the kingdom who dared offer resistance, -and if Thomas was no longer archbishop and some -supple creature of the king was in his place, the -royal power would be absolute, for there seemed -no fear of any interference from Pope Alexander III.</p> - -<p>There were plenty of the archbishop’s enemies -among the nobles at the court ready to fan the -king’s anger against Thomas, and by October, 1164, -Henry was ready to crush the primate.</p> - -<p>Another council was summoned to meet at -Northampton, and now Archbishop Thomas was -to learn the full significance of the Constitutions -of Clarendon.</p> - -<p>The first charge against Thomas was that he had -refused justice to John, the Treasurer-Marshal, who -had taken up some land under the see of Canterbury. -John had taken his suit to the King’s Court, -and Thomas was further charged with contempt of -the majesty of the crown for not putting in a -personal appearance at this court. The king now<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span> -pressed for judgment against the archbishop for -this contempt, and the council ordered that he -should be condemned to the loss of all his moveable -property, and 500 pounds of silver was accepted as -an equivalent fine.</p> - -<p>“It seemed to all that, considering the reverence -due to the king and by the obligation of the oath of -homage, which the archbishop had taken, and by -the fealty to the king’s earthly honour which he had -sworn, he was in no way to be excused, because -when summoned by the king he had neither come -himself, nor pleaded infirmity, or the necessary -work of his ecclesiastical office.” (W. FitzStephen).</p> - -<p>It was not easy to get the sentence pronounced -against Thomas. Barons and bishops were willing -enough to stand well with the king, and they agreed -without contradiction to the fine. But the barons -declined to act as judge on a spiritual peer, and -insisted that one of the bishops must do this -business. Henry, Bishop of Winchester, at last, -on the king’s order, pronounced the sentence.</p> - -<p>Thomas protested. “If I were silent at such a -sentence posterity would not be. This is a new -form of sentence, no doubt in accordance with the -new laws of Clarendon. Never has it been heard -before in England that an Archbishop of Canterbury -has been tried in the King’s Court for such a cause. -The dignity of the Church, the authority of his -person, the fact that he is the spiritual father of -the king and of all his subjects, require that he -should be reverenced by all.” For an archbishop -to be judged by his suffragans was, he declared, -for a father to be judged by his sons.</p> - -<p>The bishops implored him to bow to the decree<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span> -of the council, and Thomas yielded, “not being -willing that a mere matter of money should cause -strife between the king and himself.”</p> - -<p>The next day, Friday, October 9th, the king -pressed Thomas more fiercely, calling upon him -to give account for large sums spent during his -chancellorship, and for various revenues of vacant -churches during that period. The total amount -was 30,000 marks.</p> - -<p>In vain the archbishop urged that this demand -was totally unexpected; that he had not been -summoned to Northampton to render such an -account; and that the justiciar, Richard, had -declared that he was free of all claims when he -laid down the chancellorship. The king demanded -sureties, “and from that day barons and knights -kept away from the archbishop’s house—for they -understood the mind of the king.”</p> - -<p>All Saturday Thomas was in consultation with -the bishops, most of whom expressed themselves -strongly on the king’s side. Henry of Winchester -suggested the present of 2,000 marks to the king as -a peace-offering, and this was done. But the king -would not have it. Hilary, of Chichester, said, -addressing the archbishop, “You ought to know -the king better than we do, for you lived with him -in close companionship and friendship when you -were chancellor. Who is there who could be your -surety for all this money? The king has declared, -so it is said, that he and you cannot both remain -in England as king and archbishop. It would be -much safer to resign everything and submit to his -mercy. God forbid lest he arrest you over these -moneys of the chancellorship, or lay hands on you.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span> -One or two less craven urged the archbishop to -stand firm, as his predecessors had done, in the -face of persecution.</p> - -<p>“Oh, that you were no longer archbishop and -were only Thomas,” said Hilary, putting the matter -briefly.</p> - -<p>All Sunday was spent in consultations. On -Monday the archbishop was too ill to attend the -council, but on Tuesday his mind was made up, -and when he entered the council it was with the -full dignity of an archbishop, carrying the cross of -the archbishop in his hand.</p> - -<p>The bishops were in despair. There were all -sorts of rumours in the air. It was known the king -was full of anger, and it was said that the archbishop’s -life was in danger. The bishops implored -him to resign, or else to promise complete submission -to the councils of Clarendon. They said he would -certainly be tried and condemned for high treason -for disobedience to the king, and asked him what -was the use of being archbishop when he had the -king’s hatred.</p> - -<p>Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, declared contemptuously -of Thomas, when someone asked him -why he did not carry the archbishop’s cross for him, -“He always was a fool, and always will be.”</p> - -<p>Thomas had now only one answer to the bishops. -He forbad them to take any part in the proceedings -against him, announced that he had appealed to -“our Mother, the Church of Rome, refuge of all -the oppressed,” to prevent any of them taking part, -and ordered them to excommunicate any who should -dare lay secular hands upon the primate.</p> - -<p>Then, holding his cross, the archbishop took his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span> -usual place in the council-chamber, while the king -sat in an inner room.</p> - -<p>In the face of personal danger all the strength -and courage of Thomas Becket were aroused. He -had yielded at Clarendon for the sake of peace, and -no good had come of it. He had submitted to be -fined rather than be involved in a miserable dispute -about money, and now he was threatened with -demands for money which were beyond his resources. -There was nothing to prevent the king piling up -greater and greater sums against him, till hopeless -ruin had been reached. He was powerless to withstand -such an onslaught. To Rome, “the refuge of -all the oppressed,” would Thomas appeal, and then, -if it seemed well to the pope, he would retire from -Canterbury. But he would not surrender his post, -however great the wrath of the king, unless it were -for the welfare of the Christian Church.</p> - -<p>In the council-chamber Thomas sat alone, with -one or two clergy attending him, including Herbert -of Bosham and William FitzStephen, while the -bishops went in to the king’s chamber. Among -the nobles the cry was going up that the archbishop -was a perjurer and a traitor, because, after signing -at Clarendon, he now, in violation of those constitutions, -forbad bishops to give judgment in a case -that did not involve bloodshed, and had further -made appeal to Rome.</p> - -<p>Then the king sent to know whether the archbishop -refused to be bound by the Constitutions of -Clarendon, and whether he would find sureties to -abide by the sentence of the court regarding the -accounts of his chancellorship.</p> - -<p>Thomas again pointed out that he had not been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span> -called there to give an account of his chancellorship, -that on his appointment to the archbishopric he had -been declared by the king free of all secular claims, -and that he had forbidden the bishops to take part -in any judgment against him, and had appealed to -Rome, “placing his person and the church of -Canterbury under the protection of God and the -pope.”</p> - -<p>At the end of this speech the barons returned in -silence to the king, pondering the archbishop’s -words.</p> - -<p>But hostile murmuring soon broke the silence, -and Thomas could overhear the barons grumbling -that, “King William, who conquered England, -knew how to tame his clerks. He had put his own -brother Odo in prison, and thrown Stigand, Archbishop -of Canterbury, into a dungeon.”</p> - -<p>The bishops renewed their pitiful chorus. Thomas -had placed them between the hammer and the anvil -by his prohibition: of disobedience to Canterbury -on the one hand, and of the king’s anger on the -other. They had given their word at Clarendon, -and now they were being forced to go against the -promises they had made. They, too, would appeal -to Rome against his prohibition, “lest you injure us -still more.”</p> - -<p>All that Thomas could say was that the Constitutions -of Clarendon had been sent to the pope for -confirmation, and had been returned, rather condemned -than approved. “This example has been -given for our learning, that we should do likewise, -and be ready to receive what he receives at Rome, -and reject what he rejects. If we fell at Clarendon, -through weakness of the flesh, the more ought we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span> -to take courage now, and in the might of the Holy -Ghost contend against the old enemy of man.”<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">17</a></p> - -<p>So bishops and nobles came and went between -the king and the archbishop, and the day drew on. -Henry allowed the bishops to stand apart from the -judgment, and demanded sentence from the barons, -and Earl Robert of Leicester advanced as the -spokesman of the council to where the archbishop -was sitting. The earl began to speak of the judgment -of the court, when Thomas rose and refused to -hear him.</p> - -<p>“What is this you would do?” he cried. “Would -you pass sentence on me? Neither law nor reason -permit children to pass sentence on their father. -You are nobles of the palace, and I am your spiritual -father. I will not hear this sentence of the king, or -any judgment of yours. For, under God, I will be -judged by the pope alone, to whom before you all -here I appeal, placing the church of Canterbury -with all thereto belonging under God’s protection -and the protection of the pope.” Then he turned -to the bishops. “And you, my brethren, who have -served man rather than God, I summon to the -presence of the pope; and now, guarded by the -authority of the Catholic Church and the Holy See, -I go hence.”</p> - -<p>So he passed out of the hall, no one gainsaying -his passage, though some plucked rushes from the -floor and threw at him. There were shouts of -anger, and again the cries of “traitor” and “perjurer” -were raised. The archbishop turned on Earl -Hamelin, the king’s brother, and Randulf of Brok, -who were calling “traitor,” and said sternly: “If I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span> -were not a priest, my own arms should quickly -prove your lie. And you, Randulf, look at home -(his cousin had lately been hanged for felony) before -you accuse the guiltless!”</p> - -<p>His horses were at the gate, and a great crowd -that were afraid lest the archbishop had been killed. -St. Thomas mounted, and accompanied by Herbert -of Bosham, rode back to the monastery of St. -Andrew, where he had been lodging. The crowd -thronged him and prayed for his blessing all the -way until the monastery was reached, and then he -would have the multitude come in to the refectory -and dine with him. Of his own retinue of forty -who had come with him to Northampton, scarce six -remained; and so the places of those who had -thought it safer to desert their lord were filled by -the hungry multitude. It was the archbishop’s farewell -banquet, and he, the constant champion of the -poor, had those whom he loved for his guests that -day.</p> - -<p>At nightfall, after compline had been sung and the -monks dispersed to their cells, the archbishop, with -three other men in the dress of lay brothers, rode -out from Northampton by the north gate, and at -dawn were at Grantham. Three weeks later -Thomas had reached Flanders, and the exile had -begun which was only to end six years later when -death was at hand.</p> - -<p>It was useless to remain in England, hopeless as -Thomas was of any support from the bishops. He -could but appeal, as Anselm had appealed, to the -one court that alone was recognised as owning a -higher authority than that of the kings of this world, -the court of Rome.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span></p> - -<p>But Pope Alexander, still harassed by an anti-pope -set up by the Emperor Frederick, could do as little -for Thomas as his predecessor had done for Anselm, -though he refused to allow him to resign the -archbishopric. Unlike Anselm, Thomas vigorously -carried on his contest with the king from the -friendly shelter of King Louis of France, and -Henry retaliated without hesitation, driving out of -England all the friends and kinsmen of Thomas, to -the number of four hundred, and threatening a like -banishment to the Cistercian monks, because -Thomas had taken refuge in their monastery at -Pontigny.</p> - -<p>The fear that the pope would allow the archbishop -to pronounce an interdict against England, and a -sentence of personal excommunication against its -king, drove Henry in 1166 to appeal himself to the -pope. “Thus by a strange fate it happened that -the king, while striving for those ‘ancient customs,’ -by which he endeavoured to prevent any right of -appeal (to the pope), was doomed to confirm the -right of appeal for his own safety.” (John of -Salisbury.)</p> - -<p>Months and years passed in correspondence. -More than once Henry and Thomas met at the -court of Louis, but neither would yield. The -pope, without blaming the archbishop, and without -sanctioning any extreme step against Henry, did -what he could to make peace between them.</p> - -<p>At last, in the summer of 1170, the king really -was disturbed by the fear of an interdict, for his last -act against Archbishop Thomas had been to have his -son crowned by the Archbishop of York, in defiance -of all the rights and privileges of the see of Canterbury.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span> -Besides this, Louis was threatening war -because his daughter, who was married to the young -King Henry, had not been crowned with her -husband. Henry hastened over to France and -made friends with Thomas, and the reconciliation -took place at Freteral. The king solemnly promised -that the archbishop should enjoy all the possessions -and rights of which he had been deprived in his -exile, and that his friends and kinsmen should all be -allowed to return home. He even apologised for -the coronation of his son. It seemed as if the old -friendship had been revived. “We conversed -together until the evening as familiarly as in the -days of our ancient friendship. And it was agreed -I should arrange my affairs and then make some -stay with the king before embarking for England; -that the world might know how thoroughly we are -restored to his favour and intimacy. We are not -afraid that the king will not fulfil his promises, -unless he is misled by evil counsellors.” So Thomas -wrote to the pope in July, 1170. Yet there were -many—including King Louis—who doubted the -sincerity of the reconciliation, for Henry was not -willing to give the kiss of peace to his archbishop.</p> - -<p>On December 1st Thomas landed at Sandwich, -and went at once to Canterbury. The townspeople -and the poor of the land welcomed him with enthusiastic -devotion. “Small and great, old and young, -ran together, some throwing themselves in his way, -others crying and exclaiming, ‘Blessed is he that -cometh in the name of the Lord.’ In the same -manner the clergy and their parishioners met him in -procession, saluting their father and begging his -blessing.... And when all things in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span> -cathedral was solemnly ended, the archbishop went -to his palace, and so ended that joyful and solemn -day.” (Herbert of Bosham.)</p> - -<p>But against the affection and goodwill of his own -people at Canterbury, and a similar demonstration of -rejoicing by multitudes of clergy and people in -London, Thomas had to face the fact that the -bishops generally hated his return, that the young -Prince Henry, recently crowned, who had been his -pupil, refused to see him and ordered his return to -Canterbury, and that the nobles openly spoke of -him as a traitor to the king. “This is a peace for -us which is no peace, but rather war,” said the -archbishop bitterly.</p> - -<p>The end was not far off. Thomas, as zealous for -good discipline in the Church as Henry was for -strong authority in the State, was no sooner returned -than he was asked to withdraw the sentence of -excommunication against the Archbishop of York -and the Bishops of London and Salisbury. He -promised to do this if the bishops on their part -would promise to submit to the decision of the pope -on the matter. London and Salisbury were moved -to receive absolution on these terms, but Roger, of -York, who had always been against Becket, dissuaded -them, urging them to throw themselves on -the protection of the king, and threatening Thomas -“with marvellous and terrible things at the hands of -the king” unless he relented. Naturally, these -threats left the archbishop undisturbed, and Roger -of York, with Gilbert Foliot of London and Jocelin -of Salisbury, at once hastened over to France to lay -their case before the king.</p> - -<p>These bishops were not the only men who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span> -troubled Thomas in these last days. Randulf de -Broc, with others of his family, and certain -knights, all known as strong “king’s men,” “sought -every means to entangle him in a quarrel,” and did -not stop from robbing a ship belonging to the archbishop -and from seizing a number of horses, and -mutilating one of them. Thomas replied by excommunicating -Randulf and Robert de Broc, the -boldest of these offenders.</p> - -<p>At Christmas more than one of the archbishop’s -followers warned him that his life was in danger, -and Thomas seems to have realised that his position -was hazardous. But he would not fly.</p> - -<p>Already his murderers were at hand.</p> - -<p>The excommunicated bishops had reached the -king at Bur, near Bayeux, had told their story, and -had coloured it with a fanciful description of Thomas -making a circuit of England at the head of a large -body of men.<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">18</a> Someone had said, “My lord, as -long as Thomas lives, you will have neither peace -nor quiet in your kingdom, nor will you ever see -good days;” and at this Henry had burst out into a -terrible rage of bitterness and passion, for such fits -at times took possession of him, “Here is a man,” -he cried out, “who came to my court a sorry clerk, -who owes all he has to me, and insults my kingdom -and lifts his heel against me. And not one of the -cowardly sluggish knaves, whom I feed and pay so -well, but suffers this, nor has the heart to avenge -me!”</p> - -<p>The words were spoken, and four of the king’s -knights—Reginald FitzUrse, William of Tracy, -Hugh of Morville, and Richard the Breton—hearing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span> -what was said, and that Roger of York had declared -“as soon as Thomas is dead all this trouble will be -ended, and not before,” at once departed. They -sailed from different ports and met together at -Saltwood, the castle of the Brocs, on December 28th. -The following day they rode on to Canterbury, -taking with them twelve of Randulf’s men and -Hugh of Horsea, who was called the Evil Deacon.</p> - -<p>The king, on finding the four knights had left the -court, gave orders to have them stopped, but it was -too late. They were then at Canterbury, and entering -the hospitable doors of the palace had made -direct for the archbishop’s private chamber.</p> - -<p>It was four o’clock. Dinner had been at three, -and Thomas was sitting on his bed talking to John -of Salisbury, Edward Grim, and a few other friends. -When the knights entered, Thomas recognized -Reginald, William, and Hugh, for they had served -under him years before, and waited for them to -speak.</p> - -<p>Reginald FitzUrse was the spokesman. He -declared they had come from the king, that Thomas -must take an oath of fealty to the newly-crowned -prince, and must absolve the excommunicated -bishops. Thomas answered that the bishops might -have been absolved on their willingness to obey the -judgments of the Church, and that the king had -sanctioned what had been done at their reconciliation.</p> - -<p>Reginald denied there had been any reconciliation, -and swore that Thomas was imputing treachery to -the king in saying such a thing.</p> - -<p>The archbishop pointed out that the reconciliation -had taken place in public, and that Reginald himself -had been present.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span></p> - -<p>Reginald swore he had never been there, and had -not heard of it. And at this the other knights -broke in, swearing again and again, by God’s -wounds, that they had borne with him far too long -already.</p> - -<p>Then Thomas reminded them of the insults and -losses he had endured, especially at the hands of the -De Brocs, since his return.</p> - -<p>Hugh of Morville answered him that he had his -remedy in the King’s Courts, and ought not to excommunicate -men on his own authority.</p> - -<p>“I shall wait for no man’s leave to do justice on -any that wrong the Church and will not give satisfaction,” -Thomas replied.</p> - -<p>“What do you threaten us! Threats are too -much!” cried Reginald FitzUrse.</p> - -<p>Then the knights bit their gloves and angrily -defied the archbishop.</p> - -<p>Thomas told them that they could not intimidate -him. “Once I went away like a timid priest; now -I have returned, and I will never leave again. If I -may do my office in peace, it is well: if I may not, -God’s will be done.” Then he turned to remind -them they had once sworn fealty to him when he -was chancellor.</p> - -<p>“We are the king’s men,” they shouted out, “and -owe fealty to no one against the king!”</p> - -<p>Bidding his servants keep the archbishop within -the precincts on peril of their lives, the knights -withdrew.</p> - -<p>“It is easy to keep me,” said Thomas, “for I -shall not go away. I will not fly for the king or -for any living man.”</p> - -<p>“Why did you not take counsel with us and give<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span> -milder answer to your enemies?” said John of -Salisbury. “You are ready to die, but we are not. -Think of our peril!”</p> - -<p>“We must all die,” the archbishop answered, -“and the fear of death must not turn us from doing -justice.”</p> - -<p>Word was quickly brought in that the knights -were putting on their armour in the courtyard, and -the monks, frightened at the sight of these men with -drawn swords entering the orchard to the west of -the cathedral, rushed to the archbishop and implored -him to fly to the cathedral. Thomas smiled at their -terror, saying, “All you monks are too cowardly, it -seems to me.” And not till vespers had begun -would he leave for the minster. The knights broke -into the cloisters after him, and reaching St. Benet’s -chapel began to hammer at the door, which for safety -the monks had barred behind them.</p> - -<p>Thomas at once ordered the door to be unbolted, -saying, “God’s house shall not be made a fortress on -my account.” He slipped back the iron bar himself, -and the angry knights rushed in with cries of -“Where is the traitor? Where is the archbishop?”</p> - -<p>It was five o’clock and a dark winter’s night. Had -Thomas chosen, he could easily have escaped death -by concealing himself in the crypt or in one of the -many hiding places in the cathedral. But he felt his -hour had come and met it without faltering. John -of Salisbury and the rest of the monks and clerks -vanished away and hid themselves, leaving only -Edward Grim, Robert of Merton and William FitzStephen -with the archbishop. Soon only Grim was -left, when the archbishop came out boldly, and -standing by a great pillar near the altar of St. Benedict,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span> -answered his accusers. “Here I am: no -traitor, Reginald, but your archbishop.”</p> - -<p>They tried to drag him from the church, but he -clung to the great pillar, with Edward Grim by his -side. For the last time Reginald called on him to -come out of the church. “I am ready to die, but -let my people go, and do not hurt them,” was the -archbishop’s answer. William Tracy seized hold of -him, but Thomas hurled him back. Upon that -FitzUrse shouted, “Strike! strike!” And Tracy -cut savagely at the head of the archbishop. Grim -sprang forward and the blow fell on his arm, and he -fell back badly wounded.</p> - -<p>Then Thomas commended his cause and that of -the Church to St. Denis and the patron saints of the -cathedral, and his soul to God, and without flinching -bowed his head to his murderers. FitzUrse, Tracy -and Richard the Breton struck the archbishop down, -and Hugh the Evil Deacon mangled in brutal -fashion the head of St. Thomas before calling out to -the others: “Let us go now; he will never rise -again!”</p> - -<p>Then they all rushed from the church, and shouting, -“King’s knights! King’s knights!” proceeded -to plunder the palace. They fled north that -night to the castle of Hugh of Morville at Knaresborough, -where for a time they lived in close -retirement. Tracy subsequently went on a pilgrimage -to Rome and Palestine, but all four “within -two years of the murder were living at court on -familiar terms with the king.”<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">19</a></p> - -<p>Henry and all his court were horrified when the -news was brought of the archbishop’s martyrdom,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span> -for all the people proclaimed the murdered prelate a -saint and a martyr, and “a martyr he clearly was, -not merely to the privileges of the Church or to the -rights of the see of Canterbury, but to the general -cause of law and order as opposed to violence.”<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">20</a> -Had St. Thomas yielded in the matter of the excommunicated -bishops, and sought favour with the -king at the expense of the liberties and discipline of -the Church, and had he given way to the savage, -lawless turbulence of the king’s knights, he would -not only have escaped a violent death, but might -have lived long in the sunshine of the royal pleasure. -He chose the rougher, steeper road, daring all to -save the Church and the mass of the English people -from being brought under the iron heel of a king’s -absolute rule, and he paid the penalty, pouring out -his blood on the stones of the minster at Canterbury -to seal the vows he had taken when he first entered -the city as archbishop.</p> - -<p>In his dying St. Thomas was even stronger than -in his life. Henry hastened to beg the forgiveness -of Rome for his rash words that had provoked the -murder, and in the presence of the pope’s legates -in Normandy promised to give up the Constitutions -of Clarendon and to stand by the papacy against the -emperor. Nor did he make any further attempt in -his reign to bring the Church under the subjection -of the crown, but built up a great system of legal -administration, which in substance exists to-day.</p> - -<p>St. Thomas was canonised four years after his -death. “There was no shadow of doubt in men’s -minds that here was one who was a martyr as fully -as any martyr of the catacombs and the Roman<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span> -persecutions.” (R. H. Benson, <cite>St. Thomas of Canterbury</cite>.) -Countless miracles were alleged to prove -the sanctity of the dead hero, and pilgrims from all -parts made their way to the shrine of the “blessful -martyr” at Canterbury. Not only in England, but -in France and Flanders, and particularly in Ireland -was there an outburst of devotion to St. Thomas.</p> - -<p>The shrine at Canterbury was destroyed by -Henry VIII., who after a mock trial of the archbishop -slain more than 300 years earlier, declared -that “Thomas, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, -had been guilty of contumacy, treason and rebellion,” -and “was no saint, but rather a rebel and traitor to -his prince.”</p> - -<p>But though Thomas, canonised by the pope on -the prayers of the people of England, could be struck -out of the calendar of the Church of England by the -arbitrary will of King Henry VIII., as an enemy of -princes, and his shrine destroyed, it is beyond the -power of a king to reverse the sentence of history or -to blast for ever the fame of a great and courageous -champion of the poor of this land. Time makes -little of the insults of Henry VIII. Thomas of -Canterbury died for the religion that in his day protected -the people against the despotism of the crown. -“He was always a hater of liars and slanderers and -a kind friend to dumb beasts (hence his rage with -De Broc for mutilating a horse) and all poor and -helpless folk.” (F. York Powell.)</p> - -<p>That Henry II. strove to make law predominant -in the spirit of a great statesman is as true as that -Thomas strove to mitigate the harshness of the -law. As a writer of the twelfth century put it: -“Nothing is more certain than that both strove<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span> -earnestly to do the will of God, one for the sake of -his realm, the other on behalf of his Church. But -whether of the two was zealous in wisdom is not -plain to man, who is so easily mistaken, but to the -Lord, who will judge between them at the last day.”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_3">William FitzOsbert, called Longbeard<br /> - -<span class="subhead">The First English Agitator</span> -<span class="subhead">1196</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: Roger of Hoveden; William of Newburgh; -Gervase of Canterbury; Matthew Paris; Ralph -Diceto; (Rolls Series); <cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">Rotuli Curiæ Regis</cite> (Sir F. Palgrave. -Vol. I.).</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">WILLIAM FITZOSBERT<br /> -CALLED LONGBEARD, THE<br /> -FIRST ENGLISH AGITATOR -<span class="subhead">1196</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">When</span> Richard I., on his accession, -picked out Hubert Walter, Bishop of -Salisbury, to be Archbishop of Canterbury, -he chose a prelate whom he could -rely upon as his representative. Hubert had been a -crusader; he was the nephew of Ralph Glanville—who -sold the justiciarship to William Longchamp, -Bishop of Ely, for £3,000, and followed Richard to -Palestine, dying of the plague at Acre in 1191—and -though a man of little learning he was a capital -lawyer, a strong administrator and expert at raising -money for the king.<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">21</a> Hubert was no champion of -the poor as St. Thomas had been, no preacher of -righteousness like St. Anselm, no stickler for the -rights of the Church or the liberties of the people; -he was “the king’s man,” and “forasmuch as he was -neither gifted with a knowledge of letters nor endued -with the grace of lively religion, so in his days the -Church of England was stifled under the yoke of -bondage.” (Geraldus Cambrensis.)</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span></p> - -<p>Richard Cœur de Lion, occupied with the crusades, -had no mind for the personal government of -England. He depended on his ministers for money -to pay for his military expeditions to Palestine. -England was to him nothing more than a subject -province to be bled by taxation. Both William -Longchamp and Hubert Walter—to whom Richard -committed the realm when he left England for good -in 1194—did all that could be done to meet the -king’s demands. Government offices, earldoms and -bishoprics were sold to the highest bidder.<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">22</a> Judges -bought their seats on the bench and cities bought -their charters. Crown lands already granted to -tenants were again taken up by the king’s authority, -and the occupier compelled to pay for readmission -to his holding. Tournaments were revived, because -everyone taking part was obliged to take a royal -license. Even the great seal was broken by the -justiciar’s authority, and all documents signed by it -had to be reissued, with the payment of the usual -fees (or stamp duties) for new contracts. “By these -and similar inquisitions England was reduced to -poverty from one sea to the other,” for more than -£1,000,000 was sent to Richard by Hubert in the -first two years of his justiciarship.</p> - -<p>The only protest against the general distress -came from London, and not from the aldermen or -burghers, but from the voteless labouring people -upon whom the whole burden of raising the city’s -taxes had been thrown. Against this monstrous -injustice William Longbeard FitzOsbert stood out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span> -as the spokesman of the poor of London, and died a -martyr for their cause.</p> - -<p>London’s political importance had been seen in -the struggles against King Cnut and William the -Conqueror. Its remarkable influence in national -politics (an influence that endured to the middle -of the nineteenth century) was manifest when -London acclaimed Stephen as King of England in -1135. At the close of the twelfth century, London, -with the civic charter it had just obtained from -Richard, with its thirteen convent churches and more -than a hundred parish churches within its boundaries, -with its great cattle market at Smithfield and its -growing riverside trade, was already prosperous and -overcrowded. “The city was blessed with the healthiness -of the air and the nature of its site, in the -Christian religion, in the strength of its towers, the -honour of its citizens and the purity of its women; -it was happy in its sports and fruitful of high spirited -men.” It had its darker side, but at that time “the -only plagues were the intemperate drinking of foolish -people and the frequent fires.”</p> - -<p>Richard’s charter left to the citizens the business -of assessing their own taxes, and in 1196 there was -trouble over this matter; for in that year the city -fathers decided that the large sums required by -Archbishop Hubert for the king’s needs should be -paid in full by the poorer craftsmen and labourers, -who had no say in the matter.<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">23</a></p> - -<p>“And when the aldermen assembled according to -usage in full hustings for the purpose of assessing -the taxes, the rulers endeavoured to spare their own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span> -purses and to levy the whole from the poor.” (Roger -of Hoveden.)</p> - -<p>Whereupon up rose William Longbeard, the son -of Osbert, and made his memorable protest against -these rascally proceedings, to go down to history as -the first popular agitator in England.</p> - -<p>An exceptional man was this Longbeard, a man -of commanding stature and great strength, ready -witted, something of an orator and a lawyer, who -“burning with zeal for righteousness and fair play -made himself the champion of the poor,” holding that -every man, rich or poor, should pay his share of the -city’s burdens according to his means.</p> - -<p>Longbeard was not of the labouring people himself. -He was a member of the city council, though -by no means a rich man. He had distinguished -himself as a crusader in 1190, making the journey to -Portugal against the Moors; and a vision of St. -Thomas Becket had appeared to him and his fellow -Londoners when their ship was beset by storms off -the coast of Spain.</p> - -<p>Longbeard was known to the king, and he was -already hateful to the ruling class because he had -declared that Richard was being defrauded by financial -corruption of the money raised for the crown. -He had also accused his brother of treason in 1194, -but the case was not proved.</p> - -<p>Richard was in Normandy in 1196, and Longbeard -having banded together 15,000 men in London, -under an oath that they would stick by him and -each other, went to the king and laid their grievances -before him. Richard heard the appeal sympathetically -enough, for after all, as long as the money was -forthcoming, he had no particular desire that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span> -pockets of rich burghers should be spared at the -expense of the poor, but left matters in the hands of -Archbishop Hubert the justiciar. Longbeard returned -to London, and with his 15,000<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">24</a> workmen in -revolt, bid an open defiance to the justiciar.</p> - -<p>Only a fragment of one of Longbeard’s speeches -has been preserved, a solitary specimen of popular -oratory in the twelfth century.<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">25</a></p> - -<p>Taking a passage from the prophet Isaiah for his -text: “Therefore with joy shall ye draw water -from the wells of the Saviour” (Isaiah xii, 3), the -agitator delivers his message.</p> - -<p>“I am,” he saith, “the saviour of the poor. You -the poor, who have endured the hard hands of the -rich, draw ye from my wells the waters of sound -doctrine, and this with joy, for the time of your -visitation is at hand. For I will divide the waters -from the waters, and the People are the waters. I -will divide the humble and faithful from such as are -proud and froward. I will divide the just from the -unjust, even as light from darkness.”</p> - -<p>For a time Longbeard was too strong for the -justiciar. Archbishop Hubert had no force at his -disposal for the invasion of London, for a battle -with Longbeard and his league.</p> - -<p>At a great gathering of citizens, held in St. Paul’s -Churchyard, the justiciar’s men sent to arrest Longbeard -had been driven out of the city with violence. -All that Hubert could do was to give orders for the -arrest of any lesser citizens found outside London, -and two small traders from the city actually were -taken into custody at the town of Stamford on Mid-Lent -Sunday, 1196, under this authority.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span></p> - -<p>But the aldermen grew more and more frightened -at Longbeard’s bold speeches and his big public -meetings, and weakness and cowardice began to -demoralise the league. The people, who had -risen for “liberty and freedom,” fell away from -their leader, and FitzOsbert was left with a -comparatively small band to face the anger of the -justiciar.</p> - -<p>Backed up by the city fathers, Hubert’s officers -again attempted to seize the agitator. Longbeard, -hardly pressed, snatched an axe from one of his assailants—a -citizen named Godfrey—and slew him; and -then retreated, overwhelmed by numbers, to take -refuge in the church of St. Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside. -There was a right of sanctuary in this -church, a right not to be denied to the commonest -felon.</p> - -<p>But what were rights of sanctuary to the justiciar—bent -on hunting his prey to the death? He commanded -Longbeard “to come out and abide by the -law,” and gave orders to his men that, failing instant -obedience, he was to be dragged out.</p> - -<p>Longbeard’s answer was to climb up into the -church tower, and thereupon Hubert ordered the -tower to be set on fire, and this was done. And -now the only chance of life for William Longbeard -and his followers was to cut their way through -the host of their enemies and make a bold rush -for safety. It was a remote chance at the best, -but sooner that than to perish in the burning -tower.</p> - -<p>At the very church door Longbeard was struck -down—some say by Godfrey’s son—and his little -company were quickly slain or taken prisoners.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span> -Loaded with chains, the once bold advocate of the -poor of London, now badly hurt, was at once haled -off to the Tower. Sentence was pronounced without -delay of the law, William, the son of Osbert, -was to be dragged to the elms at Tyburn and there -hanged in chains.</p> - -<p>A few days later—it was just before Easter—the -wounded man was stripped naked, tried to the tail -of a horse and dragged over the rough stones of the -streets of London. He was dead before Tyburn -was reached, but the poor broken body, on whom -the full vengeance of the rich and mighty had been -wreaked, was strung up in chains beneath the -gallows elm all the same. Bravely had Longbeard -withstood the rulers of the land in the day of his -strength; now, when life had passed from him, his -body was swinging in common contempt. And -with him were nine of his followers hanged.</p> - -<p>So died William, called Longbeard, son of Osbert, -“for asserting the truth and maintaining the cause -of the poor.” And since it is held that to be faithful -to such a cause makes a man a martyr, people -thought he deserved to be ranked with the martyrs. -For a time multitudes—the very folk who had -fallen away from their champion in the hour of -battle and need—flocked to pay reverence to the -ghastly, bloodstained corpse that hung at Tyburn, -and pieces of the gibbet and of the bloodstained -earth beneath were carried off and counted as sacred -relics. All the great, heroic qualities of the man -were recalled. He was accounted a saint. Miracles -were alleged to take place when his relics were -touched.</p> - -<p>Then the dead man’s enemies were aroused, an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span> -alleged death-bed confession was published, wherein -Longbeard was made out to be a sorry criminal. -Not the least of the offences laid to his charge -was that a woman, who was not his wife, had stood -faithfully by the rebel, even when the church was on -fire.</p> - -<p>The times were rough. It is probable that Longbeard, -crusader and fighting man, had sins enough -to confess before death took him. But his traducers -were silent as to these sins in the man’s lifetime. -They waited until no answer could be given before -uttering their miserable libels against the one -courageous champion of the poor.</p> - -<p>Longbeard had roused the common working -people to make a stand against obvious oppression -and injustice—there was the head and front of his -offending, there was his crime; earning for him not -only a felon’s death, but the loss of character, and -the branding for all time with the contemptuous -title “Demagogue.”</p> - -<p>Yet in the slow building up of English liberties -William FitzOsbert played his part, and laid down -his life in the age-long struggle for freedom, as many -a better has done.</p> - -<p>In 1198, two years after the death of Longbeard, -Hubert was compelled to resign the justiciarship. -His monks at Canterbury, to whom the Church of -St. Mary, in Cheapside, belonged, and who had no -love for their archbishop,<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">26</a> indignant at the violation -of sanctuary and the burning of their church, -appealed to the king and to the pope, Innocent III.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span> -to make Hubert give up his political activities and -confine himself to the work of an archbishop. In -the same year a great council of the nation, led by -St. Hugh of Lincoln, flatly refused a royal demand -for money made by Hubert.</p> - -<p>Innocent III. was against him, the great barons -were against him, and Hubert resigned. But he -held the archbishopric till 1205.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_4">Stephen Langton and the Great Charter<br /> - -<span class="subhead">1207–1228</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: Roger of Wendover and Matthew -Paris; Walter of Coventry; Ralph of Coggeshall (Rolls -Series); <cite>Letters of Innocent III.</cite>; Rymer’s <cite>Fœdera</cite>; K. -Norgate—<cite>John Lackland</cite>; Stubbs—<cite>Select Charters</cite>; -Mark Pattison—<cite>Stephen Langton</cite> (Lives of the English -Saints); C. E. Maurice—<cite>Stephen Langton</cite>.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">STEPHEN LANGTON AND<br /> -THE GREAT CHARTER -<span class="subhead">1207–1228</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">When</span> Hubert Walter, Archbishop of -Canterbury—the old Justiciar of -Richard I.—ended his long life of -public service on July 12th, <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> 1205, -King John exclaimed, with frank satisfaction, “Now -for the first time I am King of England!” As -long as Hubert was alive there was one man strong -enough to restrain the king, and the primate and -William the Marshall together had done something -to guard England against the foulest and most -ruthless tyranny of all its kings. To the end -William the Marshall was a brave and patriotic -statesman, but he served the crown rather than the -people.</p> - -<p>On Hubert’s death John meant to have for archbishop -a creature of his will, and he was defeated by -Pope Innocent III., who, dismissing the appeal of -the monks of Canterbury for Reginald, their subprior, -and John’s appeal for his nominee, John de -Gray, Bishop of Norwich, proposed the English-born -Cardinal, Stephen Langton, “than whom there -was no man greater in the Roman court, nor was -there any equal to him in character and in learning.” -The monks consented to Stephen’s appointment, -but John’s reply was a flat refusal, and when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span> -on June 7th, 1207, Pope Innocent proceeded to -consecrate Stephen Langton Archbishop of Canterbury, -the king’s rage broke out. Innocent’s wise -judgment gave England one of its noblest and -greatest archbishops, and the service wrought by -Langton for the liberties of England’s people was -of deep and lasting value. But the immediate price -to be paid for later profit was heavy.</p> - -<p>John met Langton’s consecration by seizing the -estates of Canterbury, driving the chapter into exile, -and proclaiming that anyone who acknowledged -Stephen as archbishop should be accounted a public -enemy. The remonstrances and warnings of the -pope were disregarded, and in March, 1208, all -England was laid under an interdict, and there was -an end to the public ministrations of religion in the -country for six years—to the bitter distress of the -common people.</p> - -<p>Immediately the interdict came into force, John -declared all the property of the clergy, secular or -monastic, to be confiscated, and there was no one -to stay his hand from speedy spoliation. For the -barons were willing enough to see the clergy robbed -and the king’s treasury filled at the expense of the -Church, and of the bishops only two were left in -England—Peter des Roches, of Winchester, and -John de Gray, of Norwich—and both these were -willing tools of the king. Never did John enjoy his -royal will and pleasure with such unhindered ferocity -as in that year 1209. Had the barons stood by the -Church they might have saved England unspeakable -miseries, and as it was the laity were soon in as -sorry a plight as the clergy, “and it seemed as -though the king was courting the hatred of every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span> -class of his subjects, so burdensome was he to both -rich and poor.”<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">27</a></p> - -<p>In 1211 came Pandulf from Pope Innocent with -suggestions for peace. Let the king restore the -property of the clergy, and receive Archbishop -Langton, with his kinsmen and friends, and the -other exiled bishops “fairly and in peace” and the -interdict should be withdrawn. John declined to -receive Langton as archbishop, and Pandulf, in the -presence of the whole council, pronounced the papal -sentence of excommunication on the king, absolving -all his subjects from allegiance, and commanding -their obedience to whomsoever should be sent as -John’s successor.</p> - -<p>John treated the excommunication with cheerful -contempt, and pursued the evil tenour of his way. -But his position was precarious, for the barons—especially -the northern barons—were plotting his -overthrow, and the pope had decided that Philip of -France should depose John and reign in his stead. -John was driven to capitulate to the pope at the end -of 1212, and in May, 1213, Pandulf arrived, and -the invasion by Philip was stopped, to the exceeding -annoyance of the French king.</p> - -<p>John met the papal legate at Ewell, near Dover, -and in the presence of “the great men of the -realm,” swore to carry out all Innocent’s demands, -promising that Stephen should be received and -recompense paid to the clergy for their losses. -Then the King of England formally surrendered -“to God and to the Holy Mother Church of Rome, -and to Pope Innocent and his Catholic successors,” -the whole realm of England and Ireland, “with all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span> -rights thereunto appertaining, to receive them back -and hold them thenceforth as a feudatory of God -and the Roman Church.” He swore fealty to the -pope for both realms, and added that he would send -a yearly tribute of 1,000 marks. At the same time -John declared that the act of homage was voluntary, -done, “not at the driving of force nor the compulsion -of fear, but of our own good free will and by -the common counsel of our barons.”</p> - -<p>There is no evidence that the pope asked for this -abject submission, but there are good reasons why -John desired that political protection of the papacy -which he obtained by the act of homage.<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">28</a> (Matthew -Paris has a story that John was willing to pay -homage and tribute to the Mohammedan Emir of -Morocco in order to effect an alliance with some -foreign power.)</p> - -<p>The barons themselves appealed to the pope two -years later to take their part against John, on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span> -ground that it was only by their compulsion the king -had been brought to pay homage to Rome, and -though they were then to curse the papal overlordship -they had helped procure, and England was to -come to regard John’s surrender to the pope as -“a thing to be detested for all time,” in that year 1213 -the protection of the pope was invaluable to John -and, as some thought, to the country. “For matters -were in such a strait, and so great was the fear on -all sides, that there was no more ready way of avoiding -the imminent peril—perhaps no other way at all. -For when once he had put himself under apostolical -protection and made his realms a part of the patrimony -of St. Peter, there was not in the Roman -world a sovereign who durst attack him or would -invade his lands, in such awe was Pope Innocent -held above all his predecessors for many years -past.” (Walter of Coventry.)</p> - -<p>The long war being at an end Stephen Langton -and four of the exiled bishops landed in June, and -Stephen was now to do the work of archbishop, the -work he had been solemnly consecrated to six years -before.</p> - -<p>John met the primate at Winchester, and swore -on the gospels in the cathedral “that he would -cherish, defend and maintain the holy Church and -her ordained ministers; that he would restore the -good laws of his forefathers, especially St. Edward’s, -rendering to all men their rights; and that before -the next Easter he would make full restitution of all -property which had been taken away in connection -with the interdict.” Then Stephen formally absolved -the king from excommunication and gave him the -kiss of peace, to the general rejoicing.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span></p> - -<p>And now England was to see what sort of archbishop -it was Pope Innocent had sent to Canterbury. -With a king as cruel as he was vigorous, and as -astute as he was unscrupulous, with barons who -knew neither loyalty nor patriotism. Archbishop -Stephen, out of such materials, was to win for his -native land the Great Charter, and to have it written -in black and white that all who would might read -the several duties of king and people. In August -Langton, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, read to the barons -the old coronation charter of Henry I., and reminded -them that the liberties promised in that document -were to be recovered. “With very great joy the -barons swore they would fight for these liberties, -even unto death if it were needful, and the archbishop -promised that he would help with all his -might.” Thus within three months of his setting -foot in England Langton had started the movement -for the Great Charter.</p> - -<p>But not with king and barons only had the archbishop -to deal. There were endless difficulties with -the clergy concerning the restitution of their property, -and the payment of compensation to be -settled. And above all there was Nicholas, the -papal legate, in England, usurping the primate’s -functions, filling up vacant bishoprics and churches, -regardless of the rights of the Church and of the -archbishop. Nicholas was recalled to Rome when -the interdict was finally removed, and in November, -1214, John made a public proclamation that free -and undisturbed election to all the churches in his -realm should be allowed henceforth. This was an -attempt on the king’s part to have the Church on -his side against the barons, for the battle was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span> -beginning between John and the barons which was -to be fought to a bitter end.</p> - -<p>John’s last campaign to recover the lost Angevine -provinces for the English crown ended in disaster, -and he returned to England in 1214 to face the full -discontent of the barons whom he had harassed and -insulted from the day he came to the throne, and of -a country suffering from “the evil customs which -the king’s father and brother had raised up for the -oppression of the Church and realm, together with -the abuses which the king himself had added -thereto.”</p> - -<p>The national grievances were enormous and -intolerable. The whole administration of justice -was corrupt, and no one could be sure how the -arbitrary decisions of the king’s officers would be -carried out. Liberty of the person was a farce when -free men could be arrested, evicted from their lands, -exiled and outlawed without legal warrant or a fair -trial. “In a word, the entire system of government -and administration set up under the Norman kings, -and developed under Henry and Richard, had been -converted by the ingenuity of John into a most -subtle and effective engine of royal extortion, oppression -and tyranny over all classes of the nation, from -earl to villein.”<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">29</a></p> - -<p>Here and there the barons had struck against -some act of personal injury, and the northern barons -had been conspicuous in their resentment, refusing -to follow John as their liege lord in his expeditions to -France. But there was neither cohesion nor any sense -of national injury amongst the barons until Stephen -Langton, with a full sense of the responsibility<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span> -laid on the successor of Lanfranc and Anselm, -of Theobald and Thomas, took the lead, and by -strong, courageous effort sought to end for all time -in England such tyranny as the country had endured -under John’s rule. To Langton this was no mere -struggle between a despotic king and a set of turbulent -nobles. It was a struggle to win recognition of -law for <em>all</em> men, and to restore some measure of -justice and the enjoyment of fair liberty throughout -the land. The people had neither spokesman nor -champion, and no man heeded their wrongs save -Langton. More than 150 years were to pass before -John Ball and Wat Tyler would appear at the head -of a peasant army in revolt. In the reign of John, -yeomen, peasant and artizan were dumb. It was -Langton who saw that the barons fighting for their -own rights could be made to fight for all England.</p> - -<p>In November the barons came together at St. -Edmundsbury, and in the abbey church “they swore -on the high altar that if the king sought to evade -their demand for the laws and liberties of the charter -of King Henry I., they would make war upon him -and withdraw from fealty to him till he should by a -charter furnished with his seal confirm to them all -that they demanded. They also agreed that after -Christmas they would go all together to the king -and ask him for a confirmation of these liberties, and -that meanwhile they would so provide themselves -with horses and arms that if the king should seek to -break his oath, they might, by seizing his castles, -compel him to make satisfaction. And when these -things were done every man returned to his own -home.” (Roger of Wendover.)</p> - -<p>John kept Christmas at Worcester, but his court<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span> -was very small, and he realised that he stood -alone. All through the years of the interdict the -pope’s ban had not kept the nobles from attendance -on the king; it was now when he stood reconciled -to the Church that John found himself deserted. -He moved to London at the new year, and there on -the Epiphany came the confederate barons, making -display of arms, and praying that the laws and -liberties of Edward the Confessor written in the -charter of Henry I. might be confirmed. John -urged that the question was too big and too difficult -to be settled off hand, and asked that it should be -put off till Easter. This was agreed to on condition -that the king pledged himself by three sureties to -fulfil his promises. Archbishop Stephen, William -the Marshall and the Bishop of Ely were accepted -as sureties, and in accepting the post Langton -proved his great statesmanship. There was no -question of going over to the king’s side. The -barons knew the archbishop as their chief ally, but -John knew that Langton was to be trusted as implicitly -as he trusted William the Marshall. Langton’s -one desire was to see the written enactment -granting constitutional liberties, and ending the -worst of the royal abuses.</p> - -<p>John did not waste the time allotted to him, but -worked his hardest to gain friends and supporters -against the barons, and to break up the confederacy. -It was all to no purpose. His commissioners to the -County Courts—in the southern and midland shires, -sent to explain the king’s cause—met with no -success. Nobles and churchmen alike stood aloof, -and all John could do was to write to the knights at -Poitou to send him mercenaries, and to appeal to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span> -his liege lord, the pope, against his rebellious -subjects. Finally, he took the cross, hoping for -the favours awarded to a crusader. These efforts -were all of no avail. The mercenaries were inadequate. -The pope’s letters of rebuke to the barons -for their conspiracies and conjurations were unheeded, -and at Easter, John (whom the pope had -warned to harken to “just petitions”) was driven to -send the primate and the Marshall for a definite -statement of the laws and liberties demanded.</p> - -<p>The barons, who were assembled at Brackley, -presented “a certain schedule,” probably compiled -with Langton’s assistance, and this was read to the -king by the primate. “They might as well ask for -my kingdom at once,” was John’s reply to the -various items, and he swore he would never grant -liberties that would mean his own enslavement. -Both Langton and the Marshall strove to persuade -the king to yield, but to no purpose; and all that -remained was to return to the barons and to state -that the king refused their demands. Then the -barons, on hearing this, flew to arms, formally -renounced their homage and fealty to the king, and -chose a military leader for themselves—Robert -Fitz-Walter. London welcomed the insurgents on -May 24th, and John, with a handful of mercenaries, -had the whole baronage against him. Capitulation -was inevitable. From Windsor John sent -envoys to the barons in London, promising, for the -sake of peace and for the welfare and honour of his -realm, to concede the laws and liberties demanded, -and advising the appointment of time and place for -a meeting for “the settlement of all these things.” -The barons at once fixed the meeting for June 15th,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span> -in a meadow called Runnymead, between Staines -and Windsor, and there, in the presence of well-nigh -all the baronage of England, of Archbishop -Stephen, and seven bishops, and “a multitude of -most illustrious knights,” the Great Charter was -signed. It was the work of Langton.<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">30</a> It was he -who had inspired the movement, had framed the -articles, and had brought the struggle to a successful -issue.</p> - -<p>“One copy of the Great Charter still remains in -the British Museum, injured by age and fire, but -with the royal seal still hanging from the brown, -shrivelled parchment. It is impossible to gaze without -reverence on the earliest monument of English -freedom which we can see with our own eyes and -touch with our own hands, the Great Charter to -which from age to age patriots have looked back as -the basis of English liberty.” (J. R. Green.)</p> - -<p>Yet the Charter itself was in the main but the -old charter of Henry I. writ large. It set up no -new rights and conferred no new privileges. It -sanctioned no constitutional changes, and proclaimed -no new liberties. Its real importance is in the fact -that it was a <em>written</em> document—“this great table -of laws, won by the people of England from a -tyrannous king, was the first great act which laid -down in black and white the main points of the -constitution and the several rights and duties of -king and people.” (F. York Powell.)</p> - -<p>“The bonds of unwritten custom, which the older -grants did little more than recognize, had proved too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span> -weak to hold Angevins; and the baronage now threw -them aside for the restraints of written law. It is in -this way that the Great Charter marks the transition -from the age of traditional rights, preserved in the -nation’s memory and officially declared by the -primate, to the age of written legislation, of parliaments -and statutes, which was soon to come.” (J. R. -Green.)</p> - -<p>The first article of the Charter guaranteed the -freedom of the English Church, and, in especial, the -freedom of elections, “which was reputed most -requisite.”</p> - -<p>By the Great Charter the feudal rights of the -king over his vassals were defined and settled, -and the tenants of the barons were protected -in similar way from the lawless exactions of their -lords.</p> - -<p>No scutage or aid was to be levied by the crown, -“save by the common council of the realm”—except -the three customary feudal aids for the ransoming -of the king, the knighting of his eldest son, and the -marriage of his eldest daughter. This common -council, consisting of bishops, abbots, earls, and -greater barons, was to be summoned by special writ. -The free rights of London and the other chartered -towns were fully admitted.</p> - -<p>The Court of Common Pleas (cases between -subjects) was to sit at Westminster (and not to -follow the king in his wanderings), and judges of -assize were to go on circuit four times a year.</p> - -<p>No free man was to be seized, imprisoned, ousted -of his land, outlawed, banished, or in any way -brought to ruin, save by the legal judgment of his -peers or by the law of the land.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span></p> - -<p>To no man was justice to be sold, denied, or postponed -by the king.</p> - -<p>The free right of Englishmen and foreigners to -pass in and out of the country in time of peace was -granted.</p> - -<p>The king’s mercenaries, “all the gang that came -with horses and arms to the hurt of the realm,” were -to be sent out of England.</p> - -<p>Finally, by a supplementary document, the barons -present at Runnymead were to choose out of the -whole baronage twenty-five sworn guardians of the -Charter, who, in the event of any violation of its -articles, were not to hesitate from making war on -the king till the matter had been put right.</p> - -<p>Well might John exclaim, in a wild burst of rage, -when the Charter was signed, and he was alone with -his foreign troops, “They have given me five-and-twenty -over-kings!”</p> - -<p>The twenty-five were to ensure the king’s obedience -to the Charter, but who was to ensure the obedience -of the twenty-five?—all of whom were of the -party of revolt against the king. A safeguard was -obviously necessary, and a second court of barons, -thirty-eight in number, was chosen—(which included -William the Marshall)—and these first swore -obedience to the twenty-five, and then a second -oath to enforce on king and barons mutual -respect.<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">31</a></p> - -<p>The Great Charter was signed, and within a week -it was published throughout all England. But the -“sort of peace” patched up between John and -the barons was not to last. None of the barons -believed that the king would abide by the oaths he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span> -had sworn, and they, for their part, prepared for -war.<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">32</a></p> - -<p>To the Continent John looked for aid, “seeking -to be revenged upon his enemies by two swords, -the sword of the spirit and the sword of the flesh, -so that if one failed he could count upon the other -for success.” He had appealed to the pope in May, -and Innocent’s reply had been a general condemnation -of all disturbers of the peace. Pandulf, the -papal legate, was at Runnymead, and in August, -when the barons were openly making ready for -hostilities, he and Peter des Roches, of Winchester, -called on Stephen Langton to enforce the papal -sentence of excommunication against certain of the -barons. Langton, who was about to set out to -Rome for a general council, declined to do this until -he had seen the pope and discussed the whole -question with him. He believed the sentence had -been drawn up by the pope under a misunderstanding. -Thereupon Pandulf and Peter des Roches, by -virtue of their authority, declared Stephen disobedient -to the papal mandate, and pronounced his -suspension from his office of archbishop.</p> - -<p>Langton made no protest against the sentence but -went to Rome, and was present at the general -council in November. His chiefest work for England -was done when the Charter was signed at Runnymead. -With the king and the barons at civil war, -the country ravaged by John’s foreign bands of -merciless savages, and the barons praying Louis, the -son of Philip of France, to take the English crown,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span> -what could Archbishop Stephen accomplish? Pope -Innocent had declared the Charter annulled on the -ground that both king and barons had made the -pope the over-lord of England, and that in consequence -nothing in the government and constitution -of the country could be altered without his knowledge -and sanction. But as the legate, the primate, -and the bishops had all left for Rome, the pope’s -disallowing of the Charter never got published in -England at all, though it was known that he had -sent letters.</p> - -<p>The sentence of suspension was removed from -Langton in February, 1216. A few months later -the great pope, Innocent III., passed away, and in -October John was dead.</p> - -<p>In 1217 Stephen Langton was back again at -Canterbury, to remain for eleven more years the -primate of England. With William the Marshall -and Hubert de Burgh, Stephen worked for the preservation -of public peace during those early years of -Henry III. We find him in 1223 demanding a fresh -confirmation of the Charter in the council at Oxford, -and two years later its solemn proclamation is -required by the archbishop and the barons as the -price of a new subsidy. Equally resolute is Archbishop -Stephen for public order, threatening with -all the pains and penalties of excommunication the -barons, who (in spite of Hubert de Burgh’s letters -from the pope declaring Henry to be of age) were -anxious to keep the royal castles in their own hands. -“At a time when constitutional freedom was hardly -known, when insurrection seemed the only possible -means of checking despotism, he (Langton) -organized and established a movement for freedom<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span> -which by every act and word of his life he showed -to be in opposition to mere anarchy.” (C. E. -Maurice.)</p> - -<p>Stephen Langton was never canonized, though -application was made to Rome to that end shortly -after his death in 1228. His learning had made him -famous in Paris before Pope Innocent summoned -him to Rome to become cardinal priest of St. -Chrysogonus. His wise statesmanship was proved -by the victory he won for England’s liberties over -so energetic and ruthless a despot as John, and -with such material as the barons. His strength of -character and disinterested patriotism were impaired -by no taint of baseness or self seeking. If Stephen -Langton is not numbered with the saints, he ranks -high in the great list of England’s primates, serving -religion as faithfully as he served justice and social -order, and his name is resplendent for all time in the -charters of English liberty.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_5">Bishop Grosseteste, the Reformer<br /> - -<span class="subhead">1235–1253</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: <cite>Letters of Robert Grosseteste</cite>, edited -by Luard; <cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">Monumenta Franciscana</cite>; <cite>Letters of Adam -of March and Eccleston on the coming of the Friars</cite>, -edited by Brewer; <cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">Annales Monastici</cite>—Burton and -Dunstable; Matthew Paris (Rolls’ Series); Samuel -Pegge—<cite>Life of Robert Grosseteste</cite>, 1793; F. S. Stevenson, -M.P.—<cite>Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln</cite>; -M. M. C. Calthrop—<cite>Victoria County History—Lincolnshire</cite>; -Gasquet—<cite>Henry III. and the Church</cite>.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">BISHOP GROSSETESTE<br /> -THE REFORMER -<span class="subhead">1235–1253</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">The</span> story of Robert Grosseteste’s bishophood -is the record of eighteen years’ unflinching -battle with abuses in Church -and State. From his enthronement as -Bishop of Lincoln in 1235 till his death in 1253 -Grosseteste is conspicuous as a reformer. Now it is -the slackness of the clergy he is combatting, enforcing -discipline on men and women who, vowed -to religion, preferred an easier way of life. At -another time he is maintaining the laws and liberties -of the nation against Henry III., who with all his -piety knew neither honesty nor truth in his sovereignty. -Right on till the last year of his life -Grosseteste is as vigorous in resisting papal encroachments -on the English Church as he is in -dealing with his clergy or with the king. As a -reformer his work is threefold:—(1) The correction -of current abuses in the Church. (2) Maintenance -of justice under the misrule of Henry III. (3) -Resistance to the aggressive claims of the papacy. -With all this work, fighting enemies of England at -home and abroad, Grosseteste is busy administering -his enormous diocese of Lincoln—then the largest -in the country, including as it did the counties -of Lincoln, Leicester, Buckingham, Huntingdon, -Northampton, Oxford and Bedford (Oxford and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span> -Peterborough were afterwards carved out of Lincoln)—and -is found writing to and advising all -manner of men, kings, nobles and peasants.</p> - -<p>Here is the character of Bishop Grosseteste as -his contemporary, Matthew Paris, saw it, and -Matthew was a monk, and the champion of the -monks, and hated Grosseteste’s stern interference -with monastic <span class="locked">life:—</span></p> - -<p>“He was an open confuter of both pope and -king, the corrector of monks, the director of priests, -the instructor of clerks, the support of scholars, a -preacher to the people, a persecutor of the incontinent, -the tireless student of the Scriptures, the -hammer and despiser of the Romans. At the table -of bodily refreshment he was hospitable, eloquent, -courteous, pleasant and affable. At the spiritual -table devout, tearful and contrite. In his episcopal -office he was sedulous, venerable and indefatigable.”</p> - -<p>Six hundred years later the whirligig of time -leaves this verdict of old Matthew Paris unreversed, -and finds Grosseteste’s reputation enhanced.</p> - -<p>“There is scarcely a character in English history -whose fame has been more constant, both during -and after his life, than Robert Grosseteste, Bishop -of Lincoln from 1235 to 1253. As we find his -advice sought universally during his lifetime, and -his example spoken of as that which almost all the -other prelates of his day followed, so was it also -after his death. If threats from Rome and excommunications -from Canterbury fell harmlessly upon -him while alive, his example nerved others in subsequent -years—as in the case of Sewal, Archbishop -of York—to bear even worse attacks without giving -way. And probably no one has had a greater<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span> -influence upon English thought and English literature -for the two centuries which followed his time; few -books will be found that do not contain some quotations -from Lincolniensis, ‘the great clerk, Grostest.’”<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">33</a></p> - -<p>A Suffolk man was Grosseteste, and born of -humble parents. Sent to Oxford by his friends he -becomes master of the schools and chancellor of the -university—the foremost scholar of his day—receives -various ecclesiastical preferments, and at the age of -sixty is freely elected by the chapter of Lincoln as -their bishop. If the canons of Lincoln believed -that Grosseteste’s age would ensure comparative -quiet for the diocese and a continuance of the loose -order of his immediate predecessors, they were -speedily undeceived.</p> - -<p>Grosseteste brought into Lincoln an energy for -religion that disturbed the easy-going monks, with -their comfortable common-room life, and altogether -upset the secular clergy with their illegal marriages -and their parochial revellings. In the first year of -his authority Grosseteste’s letter to his archdeacons, -followed by his diocesan constitutions, shows the -hand of the reformer. He calls attention to the -neglect of the canonical hours of prayer—certain -clergy “fearing not God nor regarding man, either -do not say the canonical hours or say them in -mutilated fashion, and that without any sign of devotion, -or at an hour more suitable to their own -desires than convenient to their parishioners”—to -the private marriages of many priests, to the strife -and bloodshed and desecration caused by the miracle -plays in churchyards, and to the drunkenness and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span> -gluttony attendant on funeral feasts. Grosseteste -also complains that the parochial clergy oppose the -preaching friars, “maliciously hindering the people -from hearing the sermons of the friars, and permitting -those to preach who make a trade of it, and -who only preach such things as may draw money.” -Incidentally, and with a curiously modern touch, -Grosseteste urges his archdeacons to warn mothers -and nurses against overlaying their children at night, -for it seems many infants were suffocated in this way.</p> - -<p>Grosseteste relied on the friars, Franciscan and -Dominican, to revive religion in his diocese. -From their first coming to England he had befriended -the little brothers of St. Francis and St. -Dominic’s order of preachers, and at Oxford had -been conspicuously their rector. He writes to Pope -Gregory IX. in the highest praise of the Franciscans: -“Inestimable benefits have been wrought in my -diocese by the friars. They enlighten our whole -land with the bright light of their preaching and -learning.”</p> - -<p>The secular clergy and the monks generally by -no means shared Grosseteste’s appreciation of the -preachers of poverty, and when the Bishop of Lincoln -began to rout up the monasteries in his diocese -with visitations and enquiries the dismay was -considerable. The Benedictine monks in England -were good, easy men in the thirteenth century—Grosseteste -finds no grave faults against morality to -rebuke in them—fond of their pleasant social life, -and enjoying the comfort of an existence that had -few temporal cares beyond finding money for pope -and king. At the worst their sloth was culpable. -Grosseteste charged upon them with his preaching<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span> -friars, calling for amendment and the fulfilment of -duties, attacking old abuses sanctioned by custom, -and showing no tolerant sympathy for the infirmities -and shortcomings of middle-aged clerks.<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">34</a> Respect -him they must, for the learning and high character -of the bishop were conspicuous in the land, but the -dislike of all this strenuous exhortation was not concealed. -The very chapter of Lincoln, which had -elected him bishop, refused to admit Grosseteste as -their visitor, or to acknowledge his jurisdiction over -their proceedings, and only after six years of controversy -and litigation was the case finally decided at -Rome (1245) wholly in the bishop’s favour. A sentence -of excommunication pronounced upon him by -the monks at Canterbury during the vacancy of the -see was of course entirely ignored by Grosseteste. -If the clergy resented Grosseteste’s call to arms, it is -to be remembered that they had suffered considerably -from the tyranny of the times, and had been -reduced under the general oppression to a feeble -and sluggish timidity. The old “Song of the -Church”<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">35</a> tells how low they had fallen:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Free and held in high esteem the clergy used to be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">None were better cherished: or loved more heartily.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Slaves are they now: despised, brought low,</div> - <div class="verse indent12">Betrayed (as all deplore)</div> - <div class="verse indent2">By those from whom: their help should come;</div> - <div class="verse indent12">I can no more.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">King and pope alike in this: to one purpose hold.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How to make the clergy yield their silver and their gold.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Truth to say: the pope gives way,</div> - <div class="verse indent12">Far too much to the king</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Our tithes he grants: for the crown’s wants</div> - <div class="verse indent12">To his liking.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>To check the rapacity of the king, and to stop -the seizure of Church revenues for Italian clerics, -and thereby to raise the English clergy from their -state of sluggish despondency was Grosseteste’s -work for England. We find him conspicuous at the -council summoned by the king to meet at Westminster -in 1244. In vain Henry III. appealed for -money, bishops and nobles reminded him that the -money so frequently granted had done no good -either to the king or the country, and that a justiciar -and chancellor must be appointed for the strengthening -of the state. Henry demurred, tried postponements -and delays, and these failing, summoned the -bishops alone, and confronted them with a letter -from Pope Innocent IV. exhorting them to give -liberally to the king. Even this failed to move the -prelates. After much discussion, however, some -were for “a mild answer,” for many of the prelates -“fearing the king’s instability and the pusillanimity -of the royal counsellors,” were unwilling to deny the -pope’s request. Grosseteste clinched the matter by -declaring they must all stand together with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span> -barons:<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">36</a> “We may not be divided from the -common counsel. For it is written if we be divided -we shall all perish forthwith,” The next day Henry -tried to get at each of the bishops separately—an -old device. “But they with wary heed would not be -so entrapped, and by departing early in the morning -escaped the net in which they had once been caught; -and so the council broke up to the king’s discontent.” -(Matthew Paris.)</p> - -<p>Again in 1252 Henry summoned the bishops, and -tried to coerce them into giving him money by producing -a papal mandate, authorising the payment -of a full tithe of all Church revenues to the king for -the space of three years. To make matters worse, -“payment was not to be made on the old assessment, -but on a new assessment conducted with -strict inquiry, at the will and judgment of the royal -agents and extortioners, who would seek their own -profit before the king’s.” The excuse was that the -king was about to start on a pilgrimage. Grosseteste -was then an old man, but he blazed out at this -monstrous demand, especially when the king’s -messengers went on to explain that the tithe for two -years might be paid at once, and that the third<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span> -year’s tithe could also be raised before the king -actually started. “By our Lady,” said the sturdy -bishop of Lincoln, “what does all this mean? You -assume that we shall agree to this damnable levy, -and go on arguing from premises that have not been -admitted. God forbid that we should thus bend -our knee to Baal.”</p> - -<p>The king’s half-brother, Ethelmar, bishop-elect of -Winchester, deprecated resistance to the will of -pope and king, and urged that the French had consented -to pay a similar demand. “Yes,” said the -Bishop of Ely, “and it brought their king no good.” -“For the very reason the French have yielded must -we resist,” replied Grosseteste. “To do a thing -twice makes it a custom, and if we pay too, we -shall have no peace. For my own part, I say plainly -that I will not pay this evil demand, lest the king -himself as well as us should incur the heavy wrath -of God.” The other bishops followed Grosseteste’s -lead, and the old man went on to advise them to -pray the king to think of his eternal salvation, and -to restrain his rash impulses. Henry naturally -declined to send an independent remonstrance to the -pope against the mandate, and the bishops decided -they could do nothing in the way of granting this -special tithe. But they were hard put to it, “between -the pulling of the king and the pushing of the pope.”</p> - -<p>All Grosseteste’s dealings with the king show the -same firm resolution to stop the royal extortion, and -to insist on the fulfilment of the charters of liberties -obtained from the crown. He carries on the work -of Stephen Langton, always backing up the unsuccessful -efforts of the good St. Edmund Rich -(Archbishop of Canterbury, 1234–1240) to keep<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span> -Henry faithful to his word, and prepares the way for -the great campaign of his friend Simon of Montfort.<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">37</a> -The very worst period of Henry’s long -reign is covered by Grosseteste’s episcopal life. -Hubert de Burgh’s wise rule was over by 1232, and -Peter des Roches and the horde of aliens were -fleecing the country for the next twenty years. It -is not till after Grosseteste’s death that the barons -dealt with Henry’s misrule to any purpose.</p> - -<p>At the great council held in London in 1248, at -which Grosseteste was present, a full list of the -national grievances is given: the lavish waste of the -wealth of the country on foreigners, the ruin of -trade by the arbitrary seizure of goods by the king -and his agents, the robbery of poor fishermen by -royal authority, “so that they think it safer to trust -themselves to the stormy waves and seek a further -shore,” and the keeping bishoprics and abbacies -vacant so that the crown may enjoy the revenues -therefrom, are the chief causes of complaint. They -were not new grievances, for the most part, and they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span> -were not to die with Henry III., all charters and -royal promises notwithstanding.</p> - -<p>Added to the common wrongs of Henry’s wretched -misrule were the papal extortions, directly encouraged -by the king. In return for papal mandates directing -churchmen to supply the king with money, what -could Henry—himself the most devoted servant of -the papacy—do but help the pope to get what he -could out of England? The wealth of England -was held to be of fabulous amount at Rome, and -popes beset by fierce ungodly emperors naturally -turned to it in their need as to a treasury.</p> - -<p>But the thing was intolerable to Grosseteste. He -had studied in Paris, he welcomed Dominican and -Franciscan friars from the continent as no other -prelate did, and had no objection to foreigners <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">per se</i>. -But the pope claimed the revenues of church livings -for boys and presented illiterates to benefices—to -the obvious degradation of the Church in England. -Grosseteste was always willing enough to raise what -money he could for the holy see, but appoint unworthy -and incompetent clerks to livings in his -diocese, that he would not do—not for any pope.</p> - -<p>The country groaned under the biting avarice of -the Roman see, as it bled under the vampire politics -of Peter des Roches and his needy, greedy crew of -Bretons and Poitevins.</p> - -<p>What it all meant to England Matthew Paris has -told us in his description of things in 1237:</p> - -<p>“Now was simony practised without shame and -usurers on various pleas openly extorted money from -the common people and lesser folk; charity expired, -the liberty of the Church withered away, religion -was trampled to the dust. Daily did illiterate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span> -persons of the lowest class, armed with bulls from -Rome, burst forth into threats; and, in spite of the -privileges handed down to us from good men of old, -they feared not to plunder the revenues consecrated -by our holy forefathers for the service of religion, the -support of the poor, and the nourishment of strangers, -but thundering out their excommunications they -quickly and violently carried off what they demanded. -And if those who were wronged and robbed sought -refuge by appealing or pleading their privileges, they -were at once suspended and excommunicated by a -papal writ. Thus mourning and lamentation were -heard on all sides, and many exclaimed with heart-rending -sobs, ‘It were better to die than to behold -the sufferings of our country and its saints. Woe to -England, once the chief of provinces, the mistress -of nations, the mirror of the Church, the exemplar -of religion, and now brought under tribute,—trampled -on by worthless men, and the prey of men -of low degree.’”</p> - -<p>The arrival of Otho, in 1237, a papal legate (on -the request of Henry), far from remedying, increased -the contemporary distress. For though Otho was a -discreet man, he was more eager to get money for -Rome than to deal with the oppression that plagued -England, and when he did give advice it was spurned -by those who saw his grasping hands. Archbishop -Edmund was particularly vexed at having a papal -legate set over him, and what with one disappointment -and another finally gave up in despair the task -of guiding the English Church, and in 1240 went to -die at Pontigny, where his predecessors Anselm and -Thomas had lived in exile.</p> - -<p>Grosseteste stuck to his post, and the Franciscans<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span> -and Dominicans, whom he aided, poured in oil and -wine on the wounds of the Church folk, and revived -religion in the country.</p> - -<p>Grosseteste fought the extortionate papal demands -for Church revenues all the time. In 1239, with -his fellow bishops, he tells Otho plainly that the -Church is drained dry by the grasping importunity -of Rome. Otho left in 1241, and that same year -saw Boniface of Savoy, a handsome, soldierly man -appointed to Canterbury as St. Edmund’s successor. -The following year came a new extortioner from -Rome, named Martin, an altogether inferior person -to Otho, but with all the legate’s powers of suspension -and excommunication. His confiscations and -rapacity provoked a remonstrance to the pope even -from Henry. Martin at last, in 1245, had to fly for -his life from England, and when Grosseteste subsequently -had a calculation made of the English -Church revenues enjoyed by foreigners, it was found -that the incomes of foreign clerks appointed by Pope -Innocent IV. amounted to more than 70,000 marks—more -than treble the king’s income. And all this -was done in spite of refusals by Grosseteste to -appoint illiterates or allow boys to hold benefices.</p> - -<p>The barons sided with the Church against Martin, -and drew up a long protest which they sent to the -pope at the council of Lyons in 1245. In this they -complained:—That the pope, not content with -Peter’s Pence, which had been paid cheerfully from -old times, wrung money from the Church against -the law of the realm, without the king’s permission; -and that the pope wrongfully put ignorant, covetous, -or absentee Italians into English livings notwithstanding -his own promises, the rights of patrons,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span> -and the privileges of the English clergy. A year -later the protest was repeated with another item -objecting to the pope’s claim to recall former -charters.</p> - -<p>Innocent IV.’s answer to this was to threaten to -dethrone Henry as he had dethroned his brother-in-law, -the Emperor Frederick. The king weakly said -no more, the barons, without a leader, were equally -silent, and the Church continued “to sate the greed -of Rome.”</p> - -<p>But in Grosseteste there was no spirit of surrender. -In 1253, the very last year of his life, he was called -upon by the pope to provide a nephew of his with a -canonry at Lincoln, and the bishop’s letter of refusal -is, perhaps, the only well remembered thing of all -Grosseteste’s writings. This letter was not, as -commonly stated, sent to the pope but to his representative -who was also named Innocent.<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">38</a> “The -pope has power to build up,” wrote Grosseteste, -“but not to pull down. These appointments tend -to destruction, not edification, being of man’s device -and not according to the words of the Apostles or -the will of Christ. By my very love and obedience -to the Holy See I must refuse obedience in things -altogether opposed to the sanctity of the Apostolic -See and contrary to Catholic unity. As a son and -a servant I decline to obey, and this refusal must not -be taken as rebellion, for it is done in reverence to -divine commands.”</p> - -<p>(This letter is quoted by Matthew Paris and in -the <cite>Burton Annals</cite>. It can be read in full in the -<cite>Epistles</cite>, No. 128.)</p> - -<p>When the pope heard of this answer he talked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span> -angrily of “the old madman” who dared to sit in -judgment on him, and blustered about the king of -England being his vassal. The cardinals, however, -said frankly that Grosseteste had spoken the truth, -and that he was far too good a man to be condemned. -“He is Catholic,” they declared, “and of -deepest holiness. More religious, and more saintly -than we are, and of better life. They say that -among all the bishops there is no one his equal, still -less his superior. All the clergy of France and -England know this. Besides, he is considered a -great philosopher, thoroughly learned in Latin and -Greek; and he is zealous for justice, and a man who -deals in theology, a preacher to the people, a lover -of chastity, and a persecutor of those who practise -simony.” So they extolled him. And it is to the -everlasting credit of the cardinals of the Roman See -in that year 1253 that they could discern the sincerity -and the great qualities of the brave old bishop who -defied the pope’s unrighteous commands. There -was no question at Rome of any disloyalty on -Grosseteste’s part to the Holy See, no suggestion -of any failing as a good Catholic.<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">39</a> And Pope<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span> -Innocent IV. wisely let the matter drop, when the -cardinals assured him it would never do to interfere -with Grosseteste.</p> - -<p>Before he died Grosseteste made a last appeal “to -the nobles of England, the citizens of London and -the community of the whole realm” on behalf of -the Rights of the English Church, making a careful -list of the ills to be redressed. He also solemnly -charged his friend Simon of Montfort, never, as he -valued his immortal soul, to forsake the cause of the -English people, but to stand up even to the death, -if needs be, for a true and just government, and -with prophetic foresight spoke of the heavier troubles -coming on the land.</p> - -<p>On October 9th, 1253, the long life and the magnificent -battling with odds were over, and the great -bishop passed away. He was buried in Lincoln -Cathedral, and in 1307, King Edward I. and the -dean and chapter of St. Paul’s made application for -his canonization, but without success. Fifty years -later and Edward III.’s Statutes of Provisors, 1351, -and Praemunire, 1353, by their prohibition of papal -bulls and of the appointment of papal nominees to -English benefices, may be accepted as the real -acknowledgment of Grosseteste’s political work.</p> - -<p>“I confidently assert (wrote Matthew Paris) that -his virtues pleased God more than his failings displeased -Him.”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_6">Simon of Montfort and the -English Parliament<br /> - -<span class="subhead">1258–1265</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: Matthew Paris; William of Rishanger; -Thomas of Wykes; Adam of Marsh—<cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">Monumenta -Frascescana</cite>, <cite>Burton Annals</cite>, <cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">Annales Monastici</cite>; Robert -of Gloucester—<cite>Royal letters of Henry III.</cite> (Rolls Series); -<cite>Political Songs</cite> (Camden Society, 1839); <cite>Chronicle of -Melrose</cite>; Stubbs—<cite>Constitutional History</cite>, vol. ii; and -<cite>Select Charters</cite>; W. H. Blaauw—<cite>The Barons’ War</cite>; -Dr. Pauli—<cite>Simon of Montfort</cite> (translated by Una M. -Goodwin); G. W. Prothero—<cite>Simon of Montfort</cite>; Dr. -Shirley in <cite>Quarterly Review</cite>, cxix. 57.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">SIMON OF MONTFORT AND<br /> -THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT -<span class="subhead">1258–1265</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">“In</span> the year of our Lord 1238, which was the -twenty-second of his reign, King Henry -held his court in London at Westminster, -and there on the day after Epiphany, which -was a Thursday, Simon de Montfort solemnly espoused -Eleanor, daughter of King John, sister of -Henry III., and widow of William Marshall, Earl of -Pembroke. The king himself gave away the bride -to the said Simon, Earl of Leicester, who received -her gratefully by reason of his disinterested love for -her, her own beauty, the rich honours that were -attached to her, and the distinguished and royal -descent of the lady, for she was the legitimate -daughter of a king and queen, and furthermore was -sister of a king, of an empress (the wife of Frederic -II.), and of a queen (Joan, wife of Alexander II. of -Scotland). Our lord the pope, too, gave him a dispensation -to marry this noble lady.”</p> - -<p>Thus Matthew Paris, when Earl Simon, then a -man about thirty-seven, and “tall and handsome,” -enjoyed the royal favour and stood godfather to the -infant Prince Edward. Simon had only done homage -as Earl of Leicester in 1232; his boyhood was -passed in France, and his father was the great -soldier who led the French crusade against the -Albigenses. Earl Richard of Cornwall, Henry’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span> -brother—soon to become King of the Romans—objected -to the marriage, regarding it as one more -victory for the foreigners whom Henry nourished at -the expense of England. But Simon was no real -alien. His grandmother had been sister and heiress -of the Earl of Leicester, and Simon’s French training -no more made him a stranger in England than did -Stephen Langton’s years of study in Paris and -Rome unfit him for the primacy of the English -Church.</p> - -<p>Henry’s favour was short-lived. Earl Simon -made friends with Earl Richard and left for the -crusades, disgusted with the king’s want of honesty. -So much wisdom did he show in Palestine, and so -great was his prowess, that Simon might have stayed -in the east as regent for the young King of Jerusalem. -But he had work to do in England, and -came home with Richard in 1242.</p> - -<p>Here against all the disorder of misrule and the -royal and papal extortions Simon laboured with his -friend Bishop Grosseteste, and he is conspicuous at -the Parliament of Westminster in 1244, and in -drawing up the great protest to the pope a year later.</p> - -<p>Then for five years (1248–53) Simon was in -Gascony contending with a body of nobles whom -neither Henry II. nor Richard I. had been able to -make good subjects, and whose only object in -making formal acknowledgment of Henry III. was to -escape the rule of Louis of France. Henry gave -Simon neither men nor money, and lent a willing -ear to all the complaints of Simon’s enemies in Gascony -and in England.<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">40</a> At his own expense the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span> -Earl of Leicester saved Gascony for the English -crown, and brought peace and law and trade to that -province. Henry’s return was to make Simon -answer trumped-up charges of robbery, cruelty and -treason brought by Gascons in 1252. The charges -were not proved, although Henry sent his own -commissioner to Gascony to make enquiry. Earl -Richard and other nobles who knew the country -were convinced of Simon’s justice, and Simon, who -was in England trying to raise supplies, turned -sharply on the king, reminding him of unfulfilled -promises. “Keep thy agreement with me,” he went -on, “or pay me the money I have spent in thy service; -for it is well known I have impoverished my -earldom beyond recovery for the honour of the -king.” “There is no shame in breaking my word to -a traitor,” the king answered angrily. At this Simon -in open wrath declared the king a liar, only saved -by the shelter of royalty from the penalty of his -speech. “Call thyself a Christian?” said the earl. -“Dost thou ever confess thy sins?” “Yes,” said the -king, “I do.” “Thy confession is useless without repentance -and atonement.” said the earl. The king, -more angry than ever, retorted, “I repent of one thing, -and that is that I made thee an earl in England, to -wax fat and kick against me. Get thee to Gascony, -thou who lovest strife, and take thy fill there and -meet thy father’s fate.” “I go willingly, my lord,” -came the answer. “And, ungrateful as thou art, I -will not return till I have made these rebels thy subjects -and thy enemies thy footstool.”</p> - -<p>Simon returned to Gascony, and though Henry -again undermined his authority, he kept his word, -only giving up his command when the work was done.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span></p> - -<p>Adam of Marsh, a Franciscan friar, the friend -and correspondent of Grosseteste, often writes to -Simon in those days, encouraging and advising him. -“Better is patience in a man than force,” says Adam, -“and better he who rules his own passions than he -who storms a city.” He prays this strong upright -soldier-statesman to find comfort in the frequent -reading of the Holy Scriptures, “breaking through -as far as you can the cares and distractions of storm -and trouble,” and recommends the 29th, 30th and -31st chapters of the book of Job, “together with the -delightful commentaries of St. Gregory.”</p> - -<p>Once more back in England, the time soon came -when Simon was the recognised leader of the barons -in their struggle with the king. And this leadership -gave England its first representative parliament.</p> - -<p>Henry was in greater financial difficulties than -ever in 1257. The mad scheme of accepting the -crown of Sicily for his second son Edmund from the -pope, on condition that the cost of driving out Manfred, -the Emperor Frederick’s son, undertaken by -the pope, was to be paid for by England, had been -adopted by Henry in spite of the opposition of -bishops and nobles. Henry pledged his kingdom -with the pope as security for the expenditure in -Sicily,<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">41</a> and at last in the parliament of 1257 had to -confess his indebtedness. Fourteen thousand marks -were owing to Pope Alexander, and this wretched -debt, in addition to the general contempt for law and -justice by the king’s judges, sheriffs and foreign -favourites, drove matters to a climax. The wet -summer of 1257, followed by a failure at harvest, -brought famine in the winter.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span></p> - -<p>The barons insisted that the time had come for -constitutional amendment. “The king’s mistakes -call for special treatment,” said Richard, Earl of -Gloucester, at a parliament early in 1258, and Simon, -closely related to the royal house as he was, agreed. -The swarm of royal parasites from Poitou raised -objections to any interference with Henry’s prerogative, -but were swept aside. “If the king can’t do -without us in war he must listen to us in peace. -And what sort of peace is this when the king is led -astray by bad counsellors and the land is filled with -foreign tyrants who grind down native-born Englishmen?” -So the barons argued.<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">42</a></p> - -<p>To Henry’s threat, “I will send reapers and reap -your fields for you,” Hugh Bigod of Norfolk had -retorted briskly, “And I will send you back the -heads of your reapers.”</p> - -<p>Parliament met again in June that year at Oxford—the -“Mad Parliament” it was called—and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span> -barons came fully armed, for civil war seemed imminent. -But the barons led by Richard of Gloucester -and Earl Simon carried all before them and the war -was postponed for five years.</p> - -<p>The work of this parliament, well known as the -Provisions of Oxford, was one more attempt to get -the Great Charter honestly observed. Under this -<span class="locked">constitution:—</span></p> - -<p>The king was to have a standing council of fifteen, -by whose advice he was to act, and to whom the -justiciar, chancellor and treasurer were to be accountable.</p> - -<p>Parliament was to meet three times a year—February, -June and October. Four knights were -to be chosen by the king’s lesser freehold tenant-knights -in each county.</p> - -<p>To save expense twelve commissioners were to be -chosen to represent the baronage—“and the commonalty -shall hold as established that which these -twelve shall do.”<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">43</a> The fifteen counsellors consisted -of six of the king’s party, and nine of the barons’—the -most conspicuous of the latter were Simon of -Montfort, Richard of Gloucester, and Bishop Cantilupe, -of Worcester.</p> - -<p>Then the oath was taken, “that neither for life -nor death, for hatred or love, or for any cause whatever, -would they be bent or weakened in their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span> -purpose to regain praiseworthy laws, and to cleanse -the kingdom from foreigners.”</p> - -<p>Henry and Prince Edward, his eldest son, took the -oath willingly enough—though the latter soon began -“to draw back from it so far as he could.” The -king’s half-brothers and the rest of the aliens not only -refused the oath, but swore that as long as they had -breath they would never surrender their castles, -revenues, or wardships.<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">44</a> Simon, who on the -ground of his foreign birth had at once yielded his -castles of Kenilworth and Odiham, without recompense, -turned to William de Valence—who was -blustering more than the rest—and said sharply, -“To a certainty you shall either surrender your -castles or lose your head.” The barons made it -plain that they were in agreement with this, and -then were the Poitevins afraid, not knowing what to -do; “for if they hid themselves in their castles they -would be starved out; for all the people would -besiege them and utterly destroy their castles.” The -aliens fled to the continent, and the new constitution -was proclaimed in every county—in Latin, French, -and English.<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">45</a></p> - -<p>Twenty years had passed since Henry had blessed -Simon’s marriage with his sister Eleanor, and Simon -had stood godfather to Prince Edward, and now -after the Parliament at Oxford, meeting the Earl of -Leicester in the Bishop of Durham’s palace on the -Thames bank, the king cannot conceal his fear of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span> -the one man who held up the good cause—“like a -pillar that cannot be moved.” The king had taken -refuge from a thunderstorm, and to Simon’s assurance -that the storm was passing, and was no longer to be -feared, answered grimly, “I fear thunder and -lightning a good deal, Lord Simon, but by the -Head of God, I fear you more than all the thunder -and lightning in the world.”</p> - -<p>“Everyone suspected that these astounding words -broke from the king because the Earl of Leicester -manfully and boldly persevered in carrying out the -provisions, compelling the king and all the enemies -of these provisions to assent to them, and utterly -banishing his brothers, who were corrupting the -whole kingdom.” (Matthew Paris.)</p> - -<p>Manfully as the great earl might strive, he could -not accomplish the carrying out of the Provisions of -Oxford. Henry was quickly at his old work, -obtaining from Rome a dispensation from his old -promises on the ground they had been obtained by -compulsion, and bringing back his foreign supporters. -The barons neither held together nor made any -serious effort to promote good government.</p> - -<p>Richard of Gloucester, jealous of Simon, fell away -from the national cause before his death in 1262.<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">46</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span></p> - -<p>Prince Edward stood by his oath, but did nothing -to prevent the break-up of the provisional government, -and soon openly supported his father.</p> - -<p>In spite of all this the Provisions, modified at -Westminster in 1259, endured for five years, and -then it seemed as if nothing could save the country -from civil war. As a last resource appeal was made -by both sides to King Louis of France to arbitrate -concerning the fulfilment of the Provisions, and at -Amiens, in January, 1264, the award was given. -Louis solemnly gave sentence for the king against -the barons, entirely annulling the Statutes and Provisions -of Oxford, and in particular declaring the -king free to appoint his own ministers, councils, and -sheriffs, and to employ aliens. But by the award—the -mise—of Amiens the earlier charters given by -the crown were to remain, and all disputes arising -out of the Parliament of Oxford were to be suppressed. -Louis gave as a reason for annulling the provisions -that the pope had already annulled them.</p> - -<p>The appellants had turned to Louis hoping for -peace. The award was the signal for war. Many -of the bishops and barons at once withdrew from -Simon, who answered the deserters by declaring, -“Though all should forsake us, I and my four sons -will fight to the death in the righteous cause I have -sworn to uphold, to the honour of the Church and -the good of the realm. Many lands have I travelled, -heathen and Christian, but nowhere have I seen -such bad faith and falsehood as in England.”</p> - -<p>London was enthusiastic in its support of the -barons, and the Cinque Ports, the scholars of -Oxford, and the Dominican and Franciscan friars -were all on the side of reform. Chief among<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span> -Simon’s supporters were Bishop Cantilupe, of Worcester, -Gilbert, the young Earl of Gloucester, Hugh -le Despenser, the justiciar, and Roger Bigod.</p> - -<p>War began in March, when Prince Edward -captured Gloucester, joined Henry at Oxford, and -then seized Nottingham and Northampton, while -Simon and the citizens of London attacked -Rochester. Henry turned south, and encamped in -full force near Lewes.</p> - -<p>Again Simon laboured for peace, and in his own -name and the name of Gilbert of Gloucester, the -Bishops of Worcester and London went as ambassadors -to Henry. Simon offered £30,000 to the -king if he would make peace and keep to the Provisions -of Oxford, and assured him that he had -taken up arms not against Henry but against those -who were “not only our enemies, but yours, and -those of the whole kingdom.”</p> - -<p>The king treated the proposal with scorn, and -Prince Edward added an additional message of -contempt.</p> - -<p>On the 14th of May the battle of Lewes was -fought and won by Simon, “through a singular conjunction -of skill and craft on the one side, and rashness -and panic on the other.”<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">47</a></p> - -<p>The Earl of Leicester went into the battle fighting -for his country and his oath, and with the exhortation -to his men “to pray God, if this our undertaking -be pleasing in His sight, to give us might to fulfil -the same, serving Him as good knights.”</p> - -<p>The stout old Bishop of Worcester blessed the -troops, “who had among them all but one faith, one -will in all things, one love towards God and their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span> -neighbour, so that they feared neither to offend the -king nor even to die for the sake of justice, rather -than violate their oaths.” (Matthew of Westminster.)</p> - -<p>At the end of the day the defeat of the royalists -was complete, and the king, Prince Edward and his -kinsmen were prisoners.</p> - -<p>Then peace was made, Henry once more swearing -to keep the charters and articles of Oxford, to employ -no aliens, to submit the Provisions to arbitration -again, to live thriftily till his debts were paid, -and to give his son Edward and his nephew Henry -as hostages for good behaviour till a permanent -reform in the constitution was made. Early in June -these terms of peace were proclaimed in London, to -the general satisfaction, and on all sides the people -shouted their thankfulness to Simon.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">God’s blessing on Earl Simon, his sons and followers light!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who put their lives in jeopardy and fought a desperate fight,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Because their hearts were moved to hear their English brethren groan</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Beneath the hard taskmasters’ rods, making a grievous moan,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like Israel under Pharaoh’s yoke, in thraldom and in dread,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their freedom gone, their lives scarce spared, so evilly they sped.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But at the last the Lord looked down and saw His people’s pain,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And sent a second Mattathias to break their bonds in twain;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who with his sons so full of zeal for the law and for the right,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Will never flinch a single inch before the tyrant’s might.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To Simon’s faith and faithfulness alone our peace we owe,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He raised the weak and hopeless and made the proud to bow,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He set the realm at one again and brought the mighty low.<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">48</a></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>And now in the summer of 1264 Earl Simon was -to show what he could do for England, for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span> -victory of Lewes had placed power in his hands, and -he stood indisputably the foremost man in the realm. -For one short year his counsel was to guide the -destinies of England and to make that year memorable -for all time by the creation of the first representative -Parliament.</p> - -<p>A new scheme of government was at once drawn -up. Three electors chosen by the barons were to -appoint a council of nine for the guidance of the -king, and Simon of Montfort, Gilbert of Gloucester, -and Stephen Berksted, Bishop of Chichester, were -speedily chosen as the three electors. Hugh le -Despenser remained justiciar, and Thomas Cantilupe, -the bishop’s nephew, became chancellor. (This -Thomas subsequently became Bishop of Hereford, -died in Italy, and was canonized.)</p> - -<p>Then in December came the issue of writs for -Simon of Montfort’s famous Full Parliament of 1265. -Two knights are to be returned from each shire, and -for the first time from each city and borough the -burgesses are to send two representatives. Hitherto -Parliament had consisted of barons and clergy, and -knights sent by the king’s tenants, and the representation -of the townspeople was unknown. Simon’s -earlier policy at Oxford had done nothing to extend -the basis of government or create a national responsibility -for the laws. “The provisions of 1258 -restricted, the constitutions of 1264 extended the -limits of parliament.... Either Simon’s views of a -constitution had rapidly developed, or the influence -which had checked them in 1258 were removed. -Anyhow, he had had genius to interpret the mind of -the nation and to anticipate the line which was taken -by later progress.” (Stubbs.)</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span></p> - -<p>This development of Simon’s views may fairly be -traced to his close and intimate connection with the -Dominican friars.<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">49</a> Simon’s father, the warrior of -the Albigensian wars, had been the warm friend of -St. Dominic. Simon himself was equally the friend -of Bishop Grosseteste, the champion of the friars. -As far back as 1245 Simon had founded a Dominican -priory at Leicester. In 1263 he had been present at -a General Chapter of the Dominican Order in Holborn, -London, and the Parliament of Oxford had -met in a Dominican priory in that city. All along -the friars had supported the popular movement.<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">50</a></p> - -<p>Now the peculiarity of the Dominican Order of -Friars is its representative form of government. -Each priory sends two representatives to its provincial -chapter, and each province sends two representatives -to the general chapter of the order.</p> - -<p>Simon of Montfort, when the opportunity came to -him for striking out a reform in the English Parliament, -adopted the plan which he had studied and -seen at work amongst the Preaching Friars. “The -idea of representative government had ripened in his -hand,” and his genius interpreted the mind of the -nation. In spite of all the scorn that has been -poured on popular elections and the Houses of -Parliament, in spite of all the imperfections that -necessarily are attached to any constitutional system -devised by the wit of man, the idea of representative -government has become the inspiration of the -nations of the world. The failings of democracy are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span> -obvious, the weak spots in popular electoral systems -glaring; but mankind, once grasping the idea of -freedom in politics, clamours eagerly for responsibility -in law-making and the administration of justice, -and refuses to rest satisfied under any despotism or -bureaucracy, benevolent or malevolent. Suppressed -by dictators, perverted by demagogues, abused by -the unscrupulous in power, there still seems nothing -better in politics for mankind than self-government. -“Better is he who rules his own temper than he who -storms a city,” wrote Friar Adam of Marsh to Simon -of Montfort. “Better self-government for a people -than world-wide conquest,” the average man declares, -and the opinion slowly moulds the destinies of -nations, till “patriotism” becomes the word for good -service in politics.</p> - -<p>The verse of the thirteenth century <span class="locked">chronicler:—</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The king that tries without advice to seek his people’s will,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Must often fail, he cannot know the woes and wants they feel,</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="in0">gets re-expression in the nineteenth century in Abraham -Lincoln’s: “Government of the people, by the -people, for the people.” Always threatened by the -personal ambition of man, often overthrown when -ambition held the sword of power, contemptible -to the wise and prudent because of the simplicity and -innocence of “the people,” denounced as dangerous -by the professional expert in bureaucracy because of -the ignorance of “the people,” its inadequacy the -common theme of the disappointed—representative -government survives its enemies, defies its critics, and -with its blemishes unconcealed, finds the company of -its lovers ever increasing and recruiting in its behalf.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span> -For since that first Full Parliament of Earl Simon’s -in 1265 it has never been possible to get rid of the -notion that representative government was a key to -the portals of freedom; and though the wider the -freedom the greater the responsibility, to the credit -of the race at all times men and women have pressed -forward, not rejecting responsibility.</p> - -<p>Simon’s parliament sat from January to March. -Its chief business was the confirmation of the treaty -of peace at Lewes, and Henry swore as usual to -maintain the new constitution, the charters and provisions. -The government was short-lived. Danger -from France, where the queen and Archbishop Boniface -of Canterbury and all Henry’s alien courtiers -planned invasion with an army collected in Holland, -had passed away at the close of the previous summer. -There had been a great muster of troops for national -defence near Dover, bad weather had incapacitated -the queen’s fleet, and Louis of France agreed to -negotiations in place of war. The Cinque Ports -mariners refused a landing to the pope’s legate, who -was ready to excommunicate the new government, -and flung his papal bull in the sea.<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">51</a></p> - -<p>Not from abroad but from within came the foes -who overthrew Simon’s government and murdered -the great statesman. Earl Gilbert, of Gloucester, -like his father, grew jealous of Simon’s leadership, -and disputed his authority as to the ransom of some -of the prisoners of Lewes, and Simon’s sons added<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span> -fuel to the flame by their pride and overbearing -insolence. Roger Mortimer and some of the nobles -of the Welsh marches rose for King Henry in the -spring of 1265, and Gilbert deserted the barons for -the king.<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">52</a> William of Valence landed in South -Wales with a body of crossbowmen in May, and -when Simon reached Hereford to put down the -rebellion, Prince Edward, who, with the king, had -been in Simon’s custody, made his escape to Mortimer -and the marches.</p> - -<p>Edward quickly raised troops, and joined Gilbert -at Ludlow, where he took an oath to obey the laws -and charters of the realm. Simon, in some danger -of being cut off by this movement on his rear, sent -word to his second son—Simon—to go to Kenilworth -and join him at Evesham, and then turned -back from Wales.</p> - -<p>The younger Simon was surprised at Kenilworth -by a sudden raid by Edward. His camp was broken -up, his banners taken, and he was driven back into -the castle. Edward, fully aware that Earl Simon -had only a small force with him, hurried off to -Evesham to attack him, before young Simon could -rally his scattered troops and come to his father’s -help.</p> - -<p>On the morning of August 4th Earl Simon halted -at Evesham, and at the king’s request, for Henry -was still his captive, heard mass and dined. His<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span> -son’s army, now on its way, halted for the same -purpose at Alcester. “He was now only ten miles -distant and the junction of father and son seemed -secure.”<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">53</a> But Prince Edward was already between -them. “As the morning broke his army lay across -the road that led northward from Evesham to -Alcester. Ere three hours had passed the corpse of -the great earl lay mangled amid a ring of faithful -knights, and the ‘murder of Evesham, for battle -none it was,’ was over.”</p> - -<p>At first Simon thought the advancing army was -his son’s, for Edward displayed the captured banners -of Kenilworth, but when he saw the standards of the -prince and of Gloucester, and the well-known banner -of Mortimer, the truth was clear.</p> - -<p>“By the arm of St. James,” cried the earl, “they -come on skilfully, for they have turned my lessons -against me. God have mercy on our souls, for our -bodies are theirs! Though if Simon were to come -up we might hope yet.” He turned to his eldest -son, and pointing to the banner of Gloucester said, -“See, Henry, what your pride has done.”</p> - -<p>In vain Henry urged his father to fly while escape -was possible. “I had as lief die here in a good -cause as in the Holy Land,” said the earl, and the -barons and knights standing round were equally -resolute to fight to the end—though they had but -two men to every seven of the enemy. The good -Bishop of Worcester blessed the little army as he -had done at Lewes, and then the battle began. The -Welsh footsoldiers quickly lost heart and fled from -Simon and the field, and the barons were soon -hemmed in. One by one they fell—Henry of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span> -Montfort, Hugh le Despenser, the wise and upright -justiciar, and Simon himself, wounded and unhorsed, -“fought on to the last like a giant for the -liberties of England.” A soldier stabbed him in the -back under the mail he wore, and then he was borne -down and slain, overwhelmed by numbers rather -than conquered. “So a death full of honour ended -the chivalry and prowess, ennobled by so many -deeds in so many lands.” “Thus lamentably fell -the flower of knighthood, leaving to others an -example of steadfast courage. Who can prevent -the treachery of friends? Those who had eaten his -bread had raised their heels against him. Those -who had spoken words of love to him with their lips -lied in their throats, for their hearts were not right -with him, and they betrayed him in his hour of -need.” (W. Rishanger.)</p> - -<p>For nearly three hours the unequal battle was -fought, in the midst of storm and darkness. So -dark was it that King Henry, who had been forced -to remain with Simon’s knights, had difficulty in -saving his life, and was actually wounded by a javelin -before he was recognized by Edward’s soldiers.</p> - -<p>The monks of Evesham carried the bodies of -some of the barons into the abbey for burial, and -after horrible mutilations by the victors the remains -of the great earl were reverently interred by the -side of Hugh le Despenser, before the high altar.</p> - -<p>“Those who knew Simon praise his piety, admire -his learning, and extol his prowess as a knight and -skill as a general. They tell of his simple fare and -plain russet dress, bearing witness to his kindly -speech and firm friendship to all good men, describe -his angry scorn for liars and unjust men, and marvel<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span> -at his zeal for truth and right, which was such that -neither pleasure nor threats nor promises could turn -him aside from keeping the oath he swore at Oxford; -for he held up the good cause ‘like a pillar that -cannot be moved, and like a second Josiah esteemed -righteousness the very healing of his soul.’ As a -statesman he wished to bind the king to rule according -to law, and to make the king’s ministers responsible -to a full Parliament; and though he did not -live to see the success of his policy, he had -pointed out the way by which future statesmen -might bring it about.” (F. York Powell.)</p> - -<p>The news of Simon’s death was received with -general mourning as it spread over the land. He -was acclaimed by the people as a saint and martyr, -and miracles were said to be worked by his relics.<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">54</a> -The Franciscan friars drew up a service in his -honour—“consisting of lessons, responses, verses, -hymns, and other matter appertaining to the honour -and respect due to a martyr.”<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">55</a> But the pope who -had excommunicated Simon was not likely to hear of -canonization, and “as long as Edward lives the service -compiled in Simon’s honour cannot gain acceptance -to be chanted within the church of God, which -was hoped for.”<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">56</a></p> - -<p>The “Lament of Earl Simon,”<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">57</a> compared the -mighty statesman with Thomas of Canterbury:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">For by his death Earl Simon hath</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In sooth the victory won,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like Canterbury’s martyr he</div> - <div class="verse indent2">There to the death was done.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thomas the good, that never would</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Let holy church be tried;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Like him he fought, and flinching not,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The good earl like him died.</div> - </div> - <div class="center"><i>Refrain:</i></div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">Now low there lies the flower of price</div> - <div class="verse indent6">That knew so much of war;</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The Earl Montfort, whose luckless sort,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">The land shall long deplore.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Death did they face to keep in place</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Both righteousness and peace;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wherefore the saint from sin and taint</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Shall give their souls release.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They faced the grave that they might save</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The people of this land;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For so his will they did fulfill</div> - <div class="verse indent2">As we do understand.</div> - </div> - <div class="center"><i>Refrain.</i></div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Sir Simon now, that knight so true,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With all his company,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Are gone above to joy and love</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In life that cannot die;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But may our Lord that died on rood</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And God send succour yet</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To them that lie in misery,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Fast in hard prison set.</div> - </div> - <div class="center"><i>Refrain.</i></div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The good cause for which Simon had fought -might well have seemed lost, when Edward’s -knights were hacking the dead body of the great -earl to pieces at Evesham. But it was not exactly -a “Royalist victory,” for the very men who stood -victors over the mangled corpse of Earl Simon were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span> -men as resolute as he was to enforce the Great -Charter and its results against the king.<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">58</a></p> - -<p>In the hour of triumph Henry struck hard, and a -mad reaction of terror ensued. But the movement -Simon had led could not be turned back, and the -very savage extravagance of the royalist party -defeated its own ends. A general sentence of -disinheritance against all who had fought with -Simon drove the disinherited barons to keep up -the fight. The siege of Kenilworth, where Sir -Henry of Hastings defied the whole royal army, -lasted from June to December, 1266, and was only -ended by Parliament insisting on the king appointing -a board of twelve, who made a just award -concerning the disinherited. By this award, called -the Ban of <span class="locked">Kenilworth:—</span></p> - -<p>The royal obligation to keep the charters was -required.</p> - -<p>The acts of Simon were annulled, and the full -prerogatives of the crown declared.</p> - -<p>The freedom of the Church was demanded.</p> - -<p>Justice was to be done according to the laws and -customs of the realm.</p> - -<p>The adherents of Simon were to be punished by -fine and not by disinheritance, so that the king -could repay those who had served him faithfully -without giving occasion for fresh war.</p> - -<p>Simon was not to be proclaimed a saint (seeing -he died under the excommunication of the Church), -and those who spread idle tales of miracles done at -his tomb were to be punished.</p> - -<p>A complete indemnity was promised to all who -accepted the ban within forty days.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span></p> - -<p>For a time the ban was rejected, and it was not till -the summer of 1267 that the struggle was finally over. -Peace was assured by the Parliament of Marlborough -in November, 1267, which re-enacted the Provisions -of Westminster (1259) as a statute.</p> - -<p>The lasting value of Simon’s work was seen in -1295, when Edward I. summoned his great representative -parliament on the professed principle that -“that which touches all shall be approved by all.” -This assembly, by that very principle, served as “a -pattern for all future assemblies of the nation.” -(Stubbs.)</p> - -<p>Had Simon of Montfort received canonization by -the Church he would surely have been the patron -saint of all workers in the world of politics, and of all -who honestly and courageously engage in public -work.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_7">Wat Tyler and the Peasant Revolt<br /> - -<span class="subhead">1381</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: Walsingham; Knyghton—(Rolls -Series); Wright’s <cite>Political Songs</cite>—(Rolls Series); -Froissart; Professor Oman—<cite>Great Revolt of 1381</cite>, -containing translation of a chronicle of the rising in the -Stow MSS., first published in <cite>English Historical Review</cite>, -1895; André Réville—<cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Le Soulèvement des Travailleurs</cite> -(1898); Dr. G. Kriehn—<cite>American Review</cite>, 1902; -Edgar Powell—<cite>Rising of 1381 in East Anglia</cite>; Dr. -James Gairdner—<cite>Lollardy and the Reformation</cite>; G. M. -Trevelyan—<cite>England in the Age of Wycliff</cite>; J. Clayton—<cite>Wat -Tyler and the Great Uprising</cite>.</p> - -<div id="ip_141" class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/i_p140.jpg" width="1430" height="1941" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><p>KING RICHARD II.</p> - -<p>(<cite>From the Panel Painting in the Sanctuary at Westminster Abbey.</cite>)</p></div></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">WAT TYLER AND THE<br /> -PEASANT REVOLT - -<span class="subhead">1381</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">The</span> Peasant Revolt of 1381, led by Wat -Tyler, was not only the first great national -movement towards democracy, it was the -first uprising of the English people in -opposition to all their hitherto recognised rulers in -Church and State, and it was the first outburst in -this land against social injustice.<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">59</a></p> - -<p>The Black Death in 1349 and the pestilence that -ravaged the country in 1361 and 1369 upset the old -feudal order. The land was in many places utterly -bereft of labour, and neither king nor parliament -could restore the former state of things. Landowners, -driven by the scarcity of labour, went in for -sheep farming in place of agriculture, and were compelled -to offer an increase of wages in spite of the -Statutes of Labourers (1351–1353) which expressly -forbade the <span class="locked">same:—</span></p> - -<p>“Every man or woman of whatsoever condition, -free or bond, able in body, and within the age of -three-score years, and not having of his own whereof -he may live, nor land of his own about the tillage of -which he may occupy himself, and not serving any -other, shall be bound to serve the employer who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span> -shall require him to do so, and take only the wages -which were accustomed to be taken in the neighbourhood -two years before the pestilence.”</p> - -<p>This act remained the law until the fifth year of -Elizabeth.</p> - -<p>“Free” labourers, landless men but not serfs, -wandered away to the towns or turned outlaws in -the forests. Serfs—only a small number of the -population, for the Church had always recommended -their liberation, even while abbots and priors retained -them on Church estates, and Edward III. had encouraged -granting freedom in return for payment in -money—escaped to those incorporated towns that -promised freedom after eighteen months’ residence. -Villeins and lesser tenants commuted the service due -from them to their landlords by money payments, -and so began the leasehold system of land tenure.</p> - -<p>For thirty years preceding the Peasant Revolt -the social changes had bred discontent, and discontent -rather than misery is always the parent of -revolt.</p> - -<p>An early statute of Richard II., framed for the -perpetual bondage of the serfs, heightened the discontent.</p> - -<p>“No bondman or bondwoman shall place their -children at school, as has been done, so as to advance -their children in the world by their going into the -Church.”</p> - -<p>This same act made equal prohibition against -apprenticeship in the town.</p> - -<p>The free labourer had his grievance against the -Statute of Labourers. Villeins and cottar tenants -had no sure protection against being compelled to -give labour service to their lords; and they, with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span> -the freehold yeomen and the town workmen and -shopkeepers, hated the heavy taxation, the oppressive -market tolls and the general misgovernment.</p> - -<p>To unite all these forces of social discontent into -one great army, which should destroy the oppression -and establish freedom and brotherhood, was the work -John Ball—an itinerant priest who came at first -from St. Mary’s at York, and then made Colchester -the centre of his journeyings—devoted himself to for -twenty years.</p> - -<p>Ball preached a social revolution, and his gospel -was that all men were brothers, and that serfdom and -lordship were incompatible with brotherhood. In -our times such teaching is common enough, but in -the fourteenth century, with its sumptuary laws and -its feudal ranks, only in religion was this principle -accepted.<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">60</a> John Ball became the moving spirit in -the agitation set on foot by his teaching. He had -his colleagues and lieutenants, John Wraw in Suffolk -and Jack Straw in Essex—both priests like himself—William -Grindcobbe in Hertford and Geoffrey -Litster in Norfolk. The peasants were organised -into clubs, and letters were sent by Ball far and wide -to stir up revolt. In Kent and the eastern counties -lay the main strength of the revolutionaries—it was -in Kent that Ball was particularly active just before -the rising—but Sussex, Hampshire, Lincolnshire, -Warwickshire, Yorkshire and Somerset were all -affected, so grave and so general was the dissatisfaction, -and so hopeful to the labouring people was the -message delivered by John Ball.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span></p> - -<p>Of course Ball did not escape censure and the -penalty of law during his missionary years. He -was excommunicated and cast into prison by three -Archbishops of Canterbury, Islip, Simon Langham, -and Simon Sudbury, for teaching “errors, schisms, -and scandals against the popes, archbishops, bishops, -and clergy,” and he was only released from prison, -from Archbishop Sudbury’s gaol at Maidstone, by -the rough hands of the men of Kent when the rising -had begun. The “errors” of John Ball were civil and -social rather than theological. The notion that Ball -and his fellow socialists of the fourteenth century were -mixed up with Wycliff and the Lollards has really no -foundation in fact.<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">61</a> Wycliff’s unorthodox views on -the sacraments and his attacks on the habits of the -clergy were of no interest to the social revolutionists, -and John of Gaunt, the steady friend of Wycliff, -was hated above all other men in the realm by the -leaders of the revolt. Wycliff expressed as little -sympathy with the Peasant Revolt of his day as -Luther later in Germany did with the Peasant War, -or Cranmer with the Norfolk rising under Ket in -1549.</p> - -<p>John Ball’s sermons were all on one text—“In -the beginning of the world there were no bondmen, -all men were created equal. Servitude of man to -man is contrary to God’s will.” He declared that -“things will never go well in England so long as -goods are not kept in common, and so long as there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span> -are villeins and gentlefolks.” He harped on the -social inequalities of his age, quoting freely from -Langland’s <cite>Piers the Plowman</cite>, and enlarging on -the famous couplet:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">When Adam delved and Eve span,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Who was then the gentleman?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>As years went by and the time grew ripe for -revolt, there is a definite call to rise in Ball’s letters and -speeches. “Let us go to the king, and remonstrate -with him,” he declares, “telling him we must have it -otherwise, or we ourselves shall find the remedy.”</p> - -<p>Richard II. was but eleven when he came to the -throne in 1377. “He is young. If we wait on him -in a body, all those who come under the name of -serf or are held in bondage will follow us, in the -hope of being free. When the king shall see us we -shall obtain a favourable answer, or we must then -ourselves seek to amend our condition.”</p> - -<p>Some of the rhymed letters Ball sent out, bidding -his hearers “stand together manfully in the truth,” -urge preparation for the coming conflict:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">John Ball greeteth you all,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And doth to understand he hath rung your bell.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Now with right and might, will and skill,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">God speed every dell.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent2">John the miller asketh help to turn his mill right:</div> - <div class="verse indent4">He hath ground small, small,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">The King’s Son of Heaven will pay for it all,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Look thy mill go right, with its four sails dight.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">With right and with might, with skill and with will,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And let the post stand in steadfastness,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let right help might, and skill go before will,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Then shall our mill go aright.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But if might go before right, and will go before skill,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">This is our mill mis-a-dight.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Beware ere ye be woe,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Know your friend from your foe,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Take enough and cry ‘Ho!’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And do well and better and flee from sin,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And seek out peace and dwell therein,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">So biddeth John Trueman and all his fellows.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>In other letters he greets John Nameless, John -the Miller, and John Carter, and bids them stand -together in God’s name; and bids Piers Plowman “go -to his work and chastise well Hob the Robber (Sir -Robert Hales, the king’s treasurer); and take with -you John Trueman and all his fellows, and look that -you choose one head and no more.”</p> - -<p>These letters and the preaching did their work; -the peasants were organised; men of marked courage -and ability were found in various counties; and -“the one head and no more” was ready in Kent to -lead the army of revolt to the king when the signal -should be given. Litster, Grindcobbe, and Wraw -were at their posts. In every county from Somerset -to York the peasants flocked together, “some armed -with clubs, rusty swords, axes, with old bows -reddened by the smoke of the chimney corner, and -odd arrows with only one feather.”</p> - -<p>John Ball had rung his bell, and at Whitsuntide, -at the end of May, 1381, came the great uprising, -the “Hurling-Time of the Peasants.” The fire was -all ready to be kindled, and a poll-tax, badly ordered, -set the country ablaze.</p> - -<p>The poll-tax was first levied, in 1377, on all over -fourteen years of age. Two years later it was -graduated, from 4d. on every man and woman of the -working class to £6 13s. 4d. on a duke or -archbishop. Even this with a further tax on wool -was found insufficient.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span></p> - -<p>So early in 1381 John of Gaunt called the parliament -together at Northampton, and declared that -£160,000 must be raised. Parliament refused to -find more than £100,000, and the clergy, owning at -that time one-third of the land, promised £60,000. -Again a poll-tax was demanded. This time everybody -over fifteen was required to pay 1s., but in districts -where wealthy folks lived it was held sufficient that -the amount collected in every parish averaged 1s. -per head; only the rich were not to pay less than -£1 per household, nor the poor less than 8d. In -parishes where all were needy the full shilling was -demanded without exception. It soon appeared -that the money was not to be raised. In many -parts the returns as to the population liable to the -tax were not even filled in with any attempt at -accuracy, and numbers avoided liability by leaving -their homes—to escape a tribute, which to the -struggling peasant meant ruin. Of the £100,000 -required only £22,000 was forthcoming.</p> - -<p>Then one John Legge undertook to supply the -deficit, if he had the authority of the crown to act -as special commissioner to collect the tax. The -appointment was made, with the result that the -methods of the tax-collectors provoked revolt, and -Legge lost his life over the business.</p> - -<p>The rising began in Essex, when the villagers of -Fobbing, Corringham, and Stanford-le-Hope were -summoned to meet the tax-commissioner at Brentwood. -Unable to pay, they fell upon the collectors -and killed them. The government met this assault -by sending down Chief Justice Belknap to punish -the offenders. But as the judge merely had for -escort a certain number of legal functionaries, and as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span> -the blood of the people was up, Belknap was received -with open contempt, and, forced to swear on the -Bible that he would hold no other session in the -place, was glad to escape from the town without -injury. And with this defiance and overpowering of -the king’s officers the signal was given, the beacon of -revolt well lighted.</p> - -<p>It was June 2nd, Whit Sunday, when the Chief -Justice was driven out of Brentwood; two days -later Kent had risen at Gravesend and Dartford.</p> - -<p>At Gravesend Sir Simon Burley, the friend of -Richard II., seized a workman in the town, claiming -him as a bondsman of his estate, and clapped him in -Rochester Castle, refusing to hear of release unless -£300 was paid.</p> - -<p>At the same time word went about that the tax-collector -at Dartford was insulting the women, and -that, in especial, the wife and daughter of one John -Tyler had been abused with gross indecency.</p> - -<p>Whereupon this John Tyler, “being at work in -the same town tyling of an house, when he heard -thereof, caught his lathing staff in his hand, and ran -reaking home; where, reasoning with the collector, who -made him so bold, the collector answered with stout -words, and strake at the tyler; whereupon the tyler, -avoiding the blow, smote the collector with his lathing -staff, so that the brains flew out of his head. -Wherethrough great noise arose in the streets, and -the poor people being glad, everyone prepared to -support the said John Tyler.”<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">62</a></p> - -<p>Robert Cave, a master baker of Dartford, led the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span> -people straight off to Rochester; and the castle -having been stormed, and all its prisoners released, -Sir John Newton, the governor of the castle, was -retained in safe custody.</p> - -<p>And now the time had come for good generalship -and discipline in the ranks, if the fire of revolt was -to burn aright. Accordingly at Maidstone, on -June 7th, Wat Tyler is chosen captain of the host; -and proof is quickly given that the rising is not for -mob rule or general anarchy, but to redress positive -and intolerable wrongs. (Five Tylers are mentioned -in the records of the Peasant Revolt: Wat Tyler, of -Maidstone; John Tyler, of Dartford, who slays the -tax-collector, and is not heard of again; Walter Tyler, -of Essex; and two Tylers of the City of London—William, -of Stone Street, and Simon, of Cripplegate.)</p> - -<p>In every respect was this Wat Tyler a man of -remarkable gifts. Chosen as leader by the voice -of his neighbours in Kent, his authority is at once -obeyed without dispute, and his influence is seen to -extend beyond the borders of his own county. -Jack Straw acts as his lieutenant; John Wraw, of -Suffolk, and William Grindcobbe, of St. Albans, -come to him for advice; and it is not till Tyler -moves on London with his army that the rising -becomes national. He is plainly marked out as a -great leader of masses of men. Skilful, courageous, -humane, Wat Tyler is proved to be; firm, clear-headed, -downright in manner, and yet large-hearted, -jovial and brotherly—equally at home with king or -beggar. There is nothing of the fanatical doctrinaire -about this first great leader of the English people. -He could order the execution of “traitors,” but -he is not the man for bloodshed in England if the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span> -revolution he and John Ball aimed at can be accomplished -by peaceful means. After more than 500 -years the reputation of Wat Tyler stands out untarnished -and unshaken.<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">63</a></p> - -<p>Yet for eight days—and eight days only—does -history allow us to follow the career of this remarkable -man. On June 7th Wat Tyler was chosen by -the men of Kent to lead the revolt; on June 15th -he was dead. Of his antecedents we know nothing. -Parentage, birth-place, age, height, and personal -appearance, are all unrecorded. His trade alone we -can infer, and we know that his contemporaries -trusted him to the full: for no suggestion has been -made of any kind of rivalry or jealousy amongst the -leaders, or of criticism or grumbling amongst the -rank and file.</p> - -<p>Wat Tyler emerges from the obscurity of history -to become a strong democratic leader. For eight -days he commands a vast army of men; he confronts -the king as an equal; orders the execution of the -chief ministers of the crown; and wrests from the -king promises of fundamental social importance. -Then, in the very hour of victory, an unexpected -blow from an enemy strikes him down, and death -follows. Surely to few men is it awarded to achieve -an immortal reputation in so brief a public life.</p> - -<p>No sooner is Tyler acclaimed as leader at -Maidstone than the commons of Kent are flocking -to the standard of revolt. The cry is for “King<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span> -Richard and the Commons,” and it goes hard with -any who refuse to take the oath. John of Gaunt is -the enemy. John of Gaunt is held to be responsible -for all the mischief wrought on the coast towns of -Kent by the privateer fleets of the Scots and the -French, for the raiding of Rye and Winchelsea. -(Only in the previous year these fleets had invaded -the Thames as far as Gravesend.) John of Gaunt -is the head and front of the misrule that bled the -land with poll-taxes. John of Gaunt is the incarnation -of the landlord rule that would keep the -labourer in bondage for ever. So bitter is the -feeling against John of Gaunt, and so acute the fear -that he is aiming at the crown, that a vow is taken -by the men of Kent that no man named “John” -shall be King of England.</p> - -<p>John of Gaunt was the common enemy. But -John of Gaunt was far away on the Scottish border, -and there were enemies near at hand to be dealt -with. The manor-houses of Kent were attacked; -in a few cases, where their owners were notoriously -bad landlords, were burnt. The main thing, however, -was to obtain the rent-rolls, the lists of tenants and -serfs, and all the documents of the lawyers. These -papers were seized and destroyed by the peasants, -for no assurance of freedom was possible while such -evidence of service could be produced. These -documents were the legal instruments of landlord -rule; and as the people had risen to end this rule, -a beginning had to be made by destroying the -machinery. There was no general reign of terror -in the country; there was nothing of the ferocity of -the Jacquerie in France; no slaughter of landlords; -and no common destruction of property.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span></p> - -<p>The nobility seemed to expect judgment at the -hands of the people, and those who were at Plymouth -making preparation for their invasion of -France put to sea as quickly as possible when news -came of the rising.<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">64</a> But the people had risen not -for blind vengeance or for civil war, and the class -who suffered badly at the rising were the lawyers -rather than the landlords. It was the lawyer’s hand -that the peasants saw and felt, and not the mailed -fist, for the lawyer was not only the land agent of the -lord of the manor, he was also the judge in matters -of dispute between landlord and tenant, and it was -he who kept the lists of villeins and serfs, and in the -service of his lord did not scruple to manipulate -those lists.</p> - -<p>In those first days of the rising, when yeomen and -more than one landholder joined the army of revolt,<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">65</a> -and all who were willing to cry “King Richard and -the Commons” were counted as supporters, the -worst that the landlord suffered (except in extreme -cases) was the loss of his papers, but the lawyer -who clung to his office was often hanged without -mercy, as a scourge to the commonwealth.</p> - -<p>Tyler was at Canterbury on Monday, June 10th, -and here Archbishop Sudbury’s palace was ransacked -for papers, and his tenant-rolls burnt. Beyond -this, and a rough exhortation to the monks to -prepare to elect a new archbishop, no injury was -done. The following day Tyler was back at Maidstone,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span> -and his men burst open the archbishop’s -prison and released John Ball, with all others who -had incurred ecclesiastical displeasure. This accomplished, -with John Ball, the people’s poor priest, in -the midst of them, 30,000 men of Kent—yeomen, -craftsmen, villeins and peasants—set out for London -under Wat Tyler’s command.</p> - -<p>Blackheath was reached at nightfall on Wednesday, -June 12th, and a camp fixed; but a few indefatigable -rebels hastened on to Southwark that same -night to burst open the Marshalsea and King’s -Bench prisons. John Wraw was at Blackheath, and -after a short conference with Wat Tyler, hastened -back to Suffolk to announce that the hour of rising -had struck.</p> - -<p>Near Eltham Tyler had overtaken the young -king’s mother, the widow of the Black Prince, returning -from a pilgrimage, and had promised that no -harm should befall her or her women from his host. -Reassured, the princess and her company went on -their way in safety to the Tower of London, where -Richard and his council were assembled, and told -of the great uprising.</p> - -<p>Judges had already been despatched into Kent at -the first news of the disorders, but had turned back -before reaching Canterbury, not liking the look of -things.</p> - -<p>Early on Thursday morning, June 13th, the camp -at Blackheath was astir. It was Corpus Christi day -and a solemn festival. After mass had been said -before all the people, John Ball preached on his old -theme of equality and brotherhood. “For if God -had intended some to be serfs and others lords He -would have made a distinction between them at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span> -beginning.” He went on to speak of the work to be -taken in hand at once.</p> - -<p>“Now is the opportunity given to Englishmen, -if they do but choose to take it, of casting off -the yoke they have borne so long, of winning the -freedom they have always desired. Wherefore let -us take good courage and behave like the wise husbandman -of scripture, who gathered the wheat into -his barn, but uprooted and burned the tares that had -half-choked the good grain. Now the tares of -England are her oppressive rulers, and the time of -harvest has come. Ours it is to pluck up these -tares and make away with them all—the evil lords, -the unjust judges, the lawyers, every man indeed -who is dangerous to the common good. Then -should we all have peace for the present and -security for the future. For when the great ones -have been rooted up and cast away, all will enjoy -equal freedom, all will have common nobility, rank -and power.”</p> - -<p>The sermon was received with bursts of cheers, -and the people shouted that John Ball should be -archbishop, “for that the present archbishop and -chancellor, Simon Sudbury, was but a traitor.”</p> - -<p>Later that morning Sir John Newton arrived at -the Tower with a message from Tyler, asking for an -audience with the king. All along it was the belief -of the commons that the king had but to hear the -tale of their wrongs and redress would be speedily -obtained.</p> - -<p>“Hold no speech with the shoeless ruffians,” was -the advice of Sir Robert Hales, the treasurer. But -Richard agreed to an interview, and presently rowed -down the Thames in the royal barge as far as Rotherhithe<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span> -with the Earl of Suffolk (President of the -Council), and the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick.</p> - -<p>The river bank was crowded with the commons -of Kent, and Wat Tyler and John Ball urged the -king to land and listen to the message his subjects -brought. They were promptly rebuked by the Earl -of Salisbury<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">66</a> for their boldness:</p> - -<p>“Gentlemen, you are not properly dressed, nor -are you in a fit condition for the king to talk to -you.”</p> - -<p>Instead of landing, Richard listened to the counsels -of fear and pride, and the royal barge was -turned and rowed back swiftly to the Tower.</p> - -<p>Wat Tyler and the men of Kent, with thousands -more from Surrey, at once marched on to London -Bridge, where they destroyed the houses of ill-fame -that clustered round the south side of the bridge. -The prisons had been pulled down the night before, -and now the brothels were burnt to the ground and -their inmates dismissed—that the new City of -God of John Ball’s vision might be cleansed of -its old foulness. These places of infamy, rented by -Flemish women, were the property of William -Walworth, the Mayor of London; and their destruction -filled him with rage against the invaders.</p> - -<p>Walworth made some attempt to fortify London -Bridge by placing iron chains across the bridge; -and he gave orders for the drawbridge to be pulled -up, in order that a passage might be prevented. -But on Tyler’s threat that he would burn the bridge -if a way was not quickly made for him, Alderman<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span> -Sibley (who, with Aldermen Horne and Tonge, -supported the claims of the revolutionaries on the -City Corporation) had the chains removed and the -draw-bridge lowered, and Alderman Horne met -Tyler at the city gate and bade him welcome.</p> - -<p>Fifty thousand men followed Tyler in London, -and the city was now at the mercy of the peasant -army. Walworth, who had no want of spirit, declared -to the king and his council in the Tower that -6,000 soldiers could be raised in the city, but “fear -had so fallen upon the soldiery that they seemed -half dead with fright.” Sir Robert Knolles with -600 men-at-arms guarded the Tower.</p> - -<p>It was now that Wat Tyler’s great qualities of -leadership and the good discipline of his army were -seen. With London in his hands, he warned his -followers that death would be the instant punishment -for theft; and proclaimed to the citizens, “We -are indeed zealots for truth and justice, but we are -not thieves and robbers.” Every respect was to be -shown to the persons and property of the people of -London, and wrath was only to fall on John of -Gaunt and the ministers of the crown, and the -lawyers—the enemies, as it seemed to Tyler, of the -good estate of England. In return, the citizens -offered bread and ale freely to the invaders, and -London artisans joined their ranks in large -numbers.</p> - -<p>The archbishop’s palace at Lambeth was soon -stormed, and all the records it contained were -destroyed; the building itself was left uninjured.</p> - -<p>At four o’clock in the afternoon the Savoy Palace of -John of Gaunt, by the Strand, was in flames; and -all its wealth of treasure, rich tapestries and costly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span> -furniture, rare vessels of gold and silver, precious -stones, and art work of priceless value, heaped up -on a bonfire or ground to powder. The Duke of -Lancaster’s jewelled coat, covered with gems, was -set up as a target and riddled with arrows, before it -was cut into a thousand pieces and pounded to dust. -One wretched man was caught attempting to sneak -off with a silver cup; and being taken in the act, -was put to death as Tyler had decreed. The Savoy -was burnt to the ground, but no one interfered with -its inhabitants; and Henry, Earl of Derby, John of -Gaunt’s son (who was to reign in Richard’s stead as -Henry IV.), passed out with all his servants unmolested. -The wine-cellar proved fatal to certain -of the host, who, drinking freely, perished, buried -under the fallen building.</p> - -<p>From the Savoy the army of destruction passed -to the Temple, the head-quarters of the Knights -Hospitallers, of whom Sir Robert Hales was president, -and a hive of lawyers. The Temple was -burnt, but no lives were lost; for the lawyers, “even -the most aged and infirm of them, scrambled off with -the agility of rats or evil spirits.”</p> - -<p>At nightfall the priory of the Hospitallers at -Clerkenwell, the prisons at the Fleet and at Newgate, -and the Manor House at Highbury, had all been -demolished; and the men of Essex, led by Thomas -Faringdon, a London baker, were at Mile End; -while William Grindcobbe, with a body of men from -St. Albans, lay at Highbury.</p> - -<p>In vain Walworth urged the king and his -royal council to act. Richard had sent to Tyler -asking for a written statement of the grievances -of the commons, and had been told in reply<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span> -that the king must meet his commons face to face, -and hear with his own ears their demands. In the -evening Walworth proposed that the garrison at -the Tower should be despatched against Tyler, “to -fall upon these wretches who were in the streets, and -amounted to 60,000, while they were asleep and -drunk. They might be killed like flies,” Walworth -added, “for not one in twenty had arms.”</p> - -<p>But the handful of soldiers at the Tower were in -mortal terror of the peasant host, and “all had so -lost heart that you would have thought them more -like dead men than living.”</p> - -<p>The Earl of Salisbury checked Walworth’s rash -proposals. “If we begin what we cannot carry -through,” he observed, “we shall never be able to -repair matters. It will be all over with us and our -heirs, and England will be a desert.”</p> - -<p>An open conflict with Tyler and his 60,000 was -a very hazardous proceeding. Who could be sure -of escape if it came to battle? So far Tyler had -only struck at the chief ministers and the lawyers, -and why should others risk their lives in such a -quarrel? Besides, it was said that Wat Tyler and a -mad priest of Kent were for doing away with all -nobles, and for making all men equal, and caution was -necessary in dealing with men who held such strange -opinions. England without its nobility would be a -desert, and at all costs such an irreparable calamity -as the loss of England’s nobility must be prevented.</p> - -<p>So Walworth got no help in his plans for resistance; -and when that night a messenger from Tyler -warned the king that if he refused to meet the -commons of England in open conference, the people -would seize the Tower, Richard sent word in reply<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span> -promising to meet his subjects on the morrow at -noon at Mile End, and there hear their complaints.</p> - -<p>Tyler accepted the king’s word, and after sleeping -with his men hard by the Tower, at St. Catherine’s -Wharf, was at Mile End betimes. Here he met -Grindcobbe, and hearing that the people of Hertfordshire -had trouble with the abbot at St. Albans, -bade Grindcobbe return and accomplish freedom for -the abbot’s tenants and serfs.</p> - -<p>Richard went to Mile End with no large retinue, -and two of his companions, the Earl of Kent and -Sir John Holland, left him at Whitechapel and -galloped off in craven fear of the multitude that -thronged the road. Richard, though he was only -fifteen, displayed both courage and cunning when -confronted with Tyler. He knew that the discontent -in the country was directed against the government, -and not against the king, and that the misrule -could not fairly be laid to his charge. Besides, he -was the son of the Black Prince, and the people -showed no signs of hostility. His policy was to -yield and to wait an opportunity for regaining power.</p> - -<p>The conference at Mile End began with a request -from Richard to know what was required of him. -Tyler answered that first all traitors should be executed, -and to this demand the king agreed. Then -four definite proposals were put forward by Wat -Tyler:</p> - -<p>1. A free and general pardon to all concerned in -the rising.</p> - -<p>2. The total abolition of all villeinage and serfdom.</p> - -<p>3. An end to all tolls and market dues,—“freedom -to buy and sell in all cities, burghs, mercantile<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span> -towns, and other places within our kingdom of -England.”</p> - -<p>4. All customary tenants to be turned into lease-holders -whose rent should be fixed at 4d. an acre for -ever.</p> - -<p>Richard at once assented to these requests, and to -prevent any uncertainty and remove all doubt or -suspicion of good faith, thirty clerks were set to work -on the spot to draw up charters of manumission, -and to present banners to each county represented.</p> - -<p>Then Richard bade the people return home in -peace, bearing the king’s banner in token that the -king had granted the request of his subjects. One -or two from each village remained to carry the -charters of freedom signed and sealed by royal -warrant.</p> - -<p>Richard was taken at his word. Thousands of -the peasants dispersed that day believing their cause -had triumphed. Nothing could be plainer than the -charters of manumission:—“Know that of our -special grace we have manumitted all our liege and -singular subjects and others of the county of Hertford, -freed each and all of their old bondage, and -made them quit by these presents; pardon them all -felonies, treasons, transgressions, and extortions committed -by any and all of them, and assure them of -our <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">summa pax</i>.”</p> - -<p>So ran the document which the peasants of Hertford -bore, and similar charters were given to the -counties of Bedford, Essex, Kent, and Surrey.</p> - -<p>Richard was also taken at his word concerning -the execution of traitors, and by the authority of -Wat Tyler, Archbishop Sudbury, the chancellor, Sir -Robert Hales, the treasurer, and John Legge, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span> -poll-tax commissioner, were dragged out of the -Tower and beheaded on Tower Hill. When Richard -returned from Mile End the heads of these three -men were on the gate of London Bridge.</p> - -<p>Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, deserved -a better fate, for he was an amiable and gentle -priest, and “lenient to heretics.” As chancellor he -shared the punishment of a government deservedly -hated, but there were many who deplored his death.</p> - -<p>The soldiers at the Tower offered no resistance, -but joked and fraternised with the people.</p> - -<p>(John of Gaunt’s chaplain, William Appleton, -some of Legge’s subordinates, and Richard Lyons -also perished that day on Tower Hill. Of these, -Richard Lyons was a thoroughly corrupt person, -who five years earlier had been convicted of gross -usury and of fraudulently “forestalling” in the wool -trade, and had escaped the penalty of the law on -being sentenced to pay a heavy fine and suffer imprisonment. -At one time he had been a member of -Edward III.’s council, and in that capacity had enriched -himself and his friends at the expense of the -nation.)</p> - -<p>A cry was raised in London that night against -the Flemings, and many of these industrious aliens, -whose only offence was the employment of cheap -labour, were put to death, denied even the right of -sanctuary when they fled to the altar of the church -of the Austin Friars. The houses of certain unpopular -citizens were also fired, and it went hard -with all who refused to shout for “King Richard -and the Commons.”</p> - -<p>But Tyler gave no sanction to the attack on the -Flemings, and though the London mob took the law<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span> -into its own hands and dealt roughly with those -whom it disliked, there is no evidence of general -rioting and disorder. To the end the peasant folk -in London remembered the brotherhood John Ball -had proclaimed, and respected their fellows, and -their good order is a lasting tribute to their leaders.</p> - -<p>Tyler, with the bulk of the men of Kent and -Surrey, remained in the city, and the king hearing -of what had happened at the Tower, decided to pass -the night at the Wardrobe, by St. Paul’s, whither his -mother had gone when the Tower was invaded.</p> - -<p>Tyler, in spite of all that had been obtained at -Mile End, was not satisfied. The peasants and -serfs had been freed by royal warrant, but the landlords -remained in possession of power, and there -was no promise of better government, no word as to -the restoration of the old common rights in the -land, or the repeal of the savage forest laws. -Reforms had been won, but the changes were not -strong enough to ensure a social revolution.</p> - -<p>Once more, on the Saturday, June 15th, Richard -was invited to meet his subjects, and again he -declared his willingness, summoning his commons -by proclamation to meet him that afternoon at -Smithfield, in the square outside St. Bartholomew’s -Priory.</p> - -<p>It seemed on the morning of June 15th as though -the rising had succeeded triumphantly. The peasants -had their charters of manumission, the nobles were -thoroughly alarmed and cowed, the soldiery powerless, -and Wat Tyler and his men still held the City -of London.</p> - -<p>Holding such an advantage, Tyler determined to -make the king decree further reforms, and when the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span> -two met at Smithfield, the confidence of victory could -be seen in the peasant leader’s bearing.</p> - -<p>Richard, with two hundred retainers, and with -Henry, Earl of Derby, the Earls of Suffolk and -Salisbury, Sir Simon Burley, and Walworth, the -mayor, were on the east side of the square, the -great priory at their back.</p> - -<p>Tyler and his army drew up on the west side, -and when Walworth opened the proceedings by -calling on Wat Tyler to speak with the king, Tyler, -seated on a little horse, rode out into the middle of -the square with a single attendant. There he dismounted, -dropped on one knee before the king, and -shook him heartily by the hand. He bade Richard -be of good cheer, and declared that within a fortnight -he should have even more thanks from the -commons than he had won already. “You and I -shall be good comrades yet,” Tyler added.</p> - -<p>Richard, in some embarrassment, enquired why -the commons did not return home, and Tyler answered -with a great and solemn oath that no one -should leave the city until they had got a further -redressing of all their grievances. “And much the -worse will it be for the lords of this realm if this -charter be refused,” he concluded.</p> - -<p>Then Richard bade Tyler say what charter it was -the commons demanded.</p> - -<p>“First, then,” said Tyler, “let no law but the law -of Winchester prevail throughout the land, and let -no man be made an outlaw by the decree of judges -and lawyers.<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">67</a> Grant also that no lord shall henceforth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span> -exercise lordship over the commons; and since -we are oppressed by so vast a horde of bishops and -clerks, let there be but one bishop in England; and -let the property and goods of the holy Church be -divided fairly according to the needs of the people in -each parish, after in justice making suitable provision -for the present clergy and monks. Finally, let -there be no more villeins in England, but grant us -all to be free and of one condition.”</p> - -<p>“All that you have asked for I promise readily,” -Richard answered, “if only it be consistent with -the regality of my crown. And now let the commons -return home since their requests have been -granted.”</p> - -<p>In the presence of his nobles and the hearing of -his people the king had promised that the demands -of his subjects should be granted.</p> - -<p>For Wat Tyler the victory seemed complete, and -now that the battle was won he called out that he -was thirsty, and complained of a parched throat. -The days had been strenuous, and Tyler longed for -a draught of the good home-brewed beer of his -native county. His attendant brought him water, -and Tyler rinsed out his mouth with it, to the disgust -of the king’s courtiers. Then beer was brought in -a mighty tankard, and Tyler drank a deep draught -to the health of “King Richard and the Commons.” -He remounted his little horse, while the nobles stood -by in silent and sullen anger, “for no lord or counsellor -dared to open his mouth and give an answer -to the commons in such a situation.” Had they not -heard it proclaimed that henceforth all were to be -free and equal in the land?</p> - -<p>A “valet of Kent,” some knight in the royal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span> -service, broke silence, muttering loudly his opinion -that Wat Tyler was the greatest thief and robber -in all Kent.</p> - -<p>Tyler caught the abusive words, and immediately -ordered his attendant to cut down the man who had -spoken in this insulting fashion.</p> - -<p>The “valet” edged back within the ranks of the -king’s party, and Tyler drew his dagger. Walworth, -sharing to the full the rage of the nobles at the -capitulation of the king, and yet anxious to avoid a -conflict, shouted that he would arrest all those who -drew weapons in the royal presence. Tyler struck -impatiently at Walworth, but the blow was harmless, -for the mayor had armour on beneath his jerkin.</p> - -<p>Before Tyler could defend himself the mayor -retaliated. Drawing a short cutlass he slashed at -Tyler, wounding him in the neck so that he fell -from his horse. And with the fall of their leader fell -all the promised liberties of the peasants, and the -rising collapsed.</p> - -<p>Two knights, Ralph Standish and another, plunged -their swords into him while he was on the ground. -Still, mortally wounded though he was, Tyler -managed to scramble on to his little horse. He -rode a yard or two, gave a last call on the commons -to avenge his death, and then dropped to the ground -to rise no more.</p> - -<p>Had the commons at once attacked the king’s -party, they would have conquered. But confusion -fell upon the people, and there was no one ready to -take command. “Let us stand together,” “We will -die with our captain or avenge him,” “Shoot, lads, -shoot,”—the various cries went up, and the bowmen -looked to their weapons.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span></p> - -<p>But Richard, with the presence of mind that -marked his dealings with the people at Mile End, -turned the doubt and uncertainty to his own advantage. -He rode out boldly into the middle of the -square, reminded the people that he, and not Tyler, -was their king, and bade them follow him into the -fields and receive their charters.</p> - -<p>There was no reason to refuse obedience, no -reason to mistrust the king. Tyler had always -spoken well of Richard, and the people themselves -had seen him only yesterday sign their charters, and -had heard him in Tyler’s presence, only a few -minutes ago, promise to do the will of the commons. -It was not by the king’s hand that their leader had -been slain.</p> - -<p>A small band carried Tyler’s body into the Priory -of St. Bartholomew, while the rest of the peasants -followed Richard into the fields that stretched from -Clerkenwell to Islington. Here he held them until -Sir Robert Knolles arrived with 700 soldiers, for -Walworth had lost no time in spreading the news -that Tyler was dead, and in raising a troop for the -king. By Richard’s orders the commons were dispersed -when the soldiery arrived, the men of Kent, -now broken and dispirited, being marched through -the city, and left to take their way home.</p> - -<p>That very night Walworth and Standish were -knighted for what they had done, and in the morning -Wat Tyler’s head stared horribly from London -Bridge.</p> - -<p>“My son, what sorrow I have suffered for thee -this day,” cried the king’s mother, when Richard -came to the Wardrobe.</p> - -<p>“I know it well, madam,” answered the king;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span> -“but rejoice with me now, and thank God that I -have this day won back my heritage of England, -so nearly lost.”</p> - -<p>The great uprising was over. Wat Tyler had -fallen, as it seemed, in the very hour of victory.</p> - -<p>By Walworth’s orders, Jack Straw and two prominent -men of Kent were hanged on the night of -June 15th, without the formality of trial. Jack -Straw, an itinerant priest sharing John Ball’s views, -it is said, explained before he died what had been in -the minds of the leaders of the revolt. They had -meant to get rid of the supremacy of the landlords -altogether, and to substitute for the established -clergy a voluntary ministry of mendicant friars; the -boy-king was to be enlisted in the cause of the -revolution before the monarchy was finally abolished; -and in place of parliament and royal council each -county was to enjoy self-government.<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">68</a></p> - -<p>No longer in the presence of danger, the king and -his ministers struck fiercely at the rebels.</p> - -<p>On June 18th a general proclamation was issued -ordering the arrest of all malefactors and the dispersal -of all unruly gatherings. On June 22nd, -Chief Justice Sir Robert Tressilian went on assize, -and “showed mercy to none and made great havock.” -John Ball was taken at Coventry and, with Grindcobbe, -hanged at St. Albans on July 15th.</p> - -<p>The Earl of Suffolk went down to Suffolk with -500 lances on June 23rd, and John Wraw, with -twenty others, including four beneficed clergy, was -quickly taken and hanged. Henry Despenser,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span> -Bishop of Norwich, grandson of Edward III.’s -minister, suppressed the rising in Norfolk, and -walked beside Litster to the gallows.</p> - -<p>At least a thousand peasant lives were sacrificed -to the law under Tressilian’s sentence.</p> - -<p>At Waltham a deputation came to Richard to ask -if it were true that the royal promises and charters -were annulled, and the king’s answer left no room -for doubt, for it breathed all the hatred and contempt -of the commons that Tyler had striven to end:</p> - -<p>“O vile and odious by land and sea, you who are -not worthy to live when compared with the lords -whom ye have attacked; you should be forthwith -punished with the vilest deaths were it not for the -office ye bear. Go back to your comrades and bear -the king’s answer. You were and are rustics, and -shall remain in bondage, not that of old, but in one -infinitely worse. For as long as we live, and by -God’s help rule over this realm, we will attempt by -all our faculties, powers, and means to make you -such an example of offence to the heirs of your -servitude as that they may have you before their -eyes, and you may supply them with a perpetual -ground for cursing and fearing you.”</p> - -<p>In despair at this rough ending to all their -cherished hopes of freedom, the Essex peasants -made a last attempt to fight for liberty, and on -June 28th, at Great Baddow and Billericay, more -than 500 fell before the king’s soldiery.</p> - -<p>On July 2nd all the charters of manumission and -royal pardons were declared formally annulled, -and sheriffs were strictly forbidden to release any -prisoners. It was not till August 30th an amnesty -was granted to those suspected of taking part in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span> -rising. In the autumn parliament refused to ratify -the charters, and the lawyers declared that without -the consent of parliament the charters were illegal.</p> - -<p>So there was an end to all Wat Tyler and the -peasants had risen to obtain, and well might it seem -that the rising had been in vain.<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">69</a></p> - -<p>Yet it was not altogether in vain that John Ball -had rung his bell and died for his faith, that Wat -Tyler had led the peasant folk of Kent to do battle -for freedom. The poll-tax was stopped for one -thing. And villeinage was doomed. “The landlords -gave up the practice of demanding base -services; they let their lands to leasehold tenants, -and accepted money payments in lieu of labour; -they ceased to recall the emancipated labourer into -serfdom or to oppose his assertion of right in the -courts of the manor and the county.” (W. Stubbs.)</p> - -<p>The great uprising brought out the desire for -personal liberty in the labouring people of England -that has never since been utterly quenched. It was -the first insistence that peasants and serfs were men -of England. “It taught the king’s officers and -gentle folks that they must treat the peasants like -men if they wished them to behave quietly, and -it led most landlords to set free their bondsmen, -and to take fixed money payments instead of uncertain -services from their customary tenants, so -that in a hundred years’ time there were very few -bondsmen left in England.” (F. York Powell.)</p> - -<p>If Wat Tyler died as a man should for the cause -he loves, few of those who trampled on the cause of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span> -the peasants were to know the paths of peace in -later years.</p> - -<p>Richard died in prison at the hands of Henry -Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt’s son, whom Tyler had -let depart in safety when the Savoy was in flames. -The Earls of Suffolk and Warwick died exiled -fugitives. The Earl of Salisbury, fleeing from -Henry V., was hanged in the streets of Cirencester. -Chief Justice Tressilian was hanged for a traitor in -1387, and Sir Simon Burley was beheaded.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">This worldly wealth is nought perseverant</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor ever abides it in stabilitie.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_8">Jack Cade, the Captain of Kent<br /> - -<span class="subhead">1450</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: William of Worcester, Gregory, Mayor -of London, 1451–2; <cite>Collections of a London Citizen</cite>; <cite>an -English Chronicle</cite>; <cite>Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles</cite> -(Camden Society); Fabyan—<cite>Ellis Letters</cite> (second series), -<cite>Issue Rolls, Devon, Rolls of Parliament, Paston Letters</cite>, -vol. i, with introduction by Dr. Gairdner; Orridge—<cite>Illustrations -of Jack Cade’s Rebellion</cite>; Durrant Cooper—<cite>John -Cade’s Followers in Kent and Sussex</cite>; J. Clayton—<cite>True -Story of Jack Cade</cite>; Dr. G. Kriehn—<cite>The English -Rising in 1450</cite>, Strasburg, 1892.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">JACK CADE, THE<br /> -CAPTAIN OF KENT -<span class="subhead">1450</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">The</span> rising of the commons of Kent in 1450 -under their captain, Jack Cade, was the -protest of people—sick of the misrule at -home and of the mismanagement of affairs -abroad—driven to take up arms against an incapable -government that would not heed gentler measures.</p> - -<p>It was not such a peasant revolt as Wat Tyler -had led, this rising of the fifteenth century. It was -largely the work of men of some local importance, -and country squires were active in enrolling men, -employing the parish constable for that purpose in a -good many parishes.<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">70</a></p> - -<p>For years discontent had been rife. Henry VI., a -weak, religious man, more fit for the cloister than -the throne, had lost the great statesmen of the early -years of his reign. The Duke of Bedford, good -Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, and Cardinal Beaufort -were all dead, and Richard, Duke of York, by -far the ablest man left among the nobles, had been -banished to the government of Ireland. The Duke -of Suffolk became the chief minister of the crown in -1445, and all the disasters of the war in France and -of corrupt maladministration in England were laid at -his door. Suffolk was responsible for the king’s -marriage with the penniless princess, Margaret of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span> -Anjou, who, ambitious and self-willed, proved the -worst possible counsellor for Henry. And the price -of this marriage was the territories of Anjou and -Maine, which were ceded to Margaret’s father, -besides a heavy tax of one-fifteenth of all incomes -demanded by Suffolk in payment for his expenses in -arranging and carrying out the undesirable wedding. -The years of Suffolk’s ministry saw nothing but -defeat and disgrace as the hundred years’ war with -France drew to its end. The victories of Edward -III. and Henry V., and all the wealth of life and -treasure poured out so lavishly by England, had -come to nothing, and by 1451 all France save Calais -was lost. Popular discontent turned to action early -in 1450 against Suffolk and his fellow ministers. At -the opening of parliament Suffolk was impeached as -a traitor, along with Lord Say-and-Sele, the treasurer, -and Ayscough, Bishop of Salisbury; and -Suffolk, without even demanding a trial by his peers, -threw himself on the king’s mercy. Henry was -satisfied with the banishment of his fallen minister -for five years; but when Suffolk went on board, the -sailors of the vessel that was to take him across seas -decreed a capital sentence, and after a rough court-martial -trial the Duke of Suffolk was beheaded on -May 2nd in a small boat off the coast of Dover, and -his body left on the sands. Four months earlier, -Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester, who had only just -resigned the keepership of the Privy Seal, and was -known as a supporter of Suffolk’s, had been slain by -the sailors of Portsmouth, when he arrived at that -town with arrears of pay long overdue to the troops. -Ayscough, Bishop of Salisbury, survived till the end -of June, and then, at the time when Cade was marching<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span> -on London, he was dragged away from the very -altar of Erdington Church, in Wiltshire, when he -had said mass, and put to death on a hill there by -the infuriated people of his diocese.<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">71</a></p> - -<p>Widespread as the discontent was in 1450, there -was no general movement throughout the land as -in the days when John Ball and his companions -bound the peasants together by village clubs. Kent, -“impatient in wrongs, disdaining of too much -oppression, and ever desirous of new change -and new fangleness,” was well organised for -revolt, and the men of Surrey and Sussex were -ready to bear arms with Cade. Outside these -counties no one is found to have taken the lead -against the government. Kent and Sussex had -their own reasons for revolt, for piracy swept the -English Channel unchecked, and the highways were -infested with robbers—soldiers broken in the war; -and they had their leader—Mortimer, whom some -called “John Mendall” and others, later, Jack Cade. -So by the end of May a full list of grievances and -necessary reforms was drawn up, and the commons -of Kent had, for the second time in history, risen in -arms and encamped on Blackheath, resolute to get -redress from the king for their injuries.</p> - -<p>The success of democratic revolt depends largely -on the clear courage of its leaders and the complete -confidence of the people in those they elect for their -captains. In 1450 Jack Cade proved himself both<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span> -clear-headed and brave, and the men of Kent followed -him whole-heartedly.</p> - -<p>To this day we are still in the dark as to the real -name and family of the Captain of Kent. He was -known popularly as “Mortimer,” and was so described -in the “pardon” he received. He was a -man of some property, or he would not have been -attainted by special act of parliament, nor have -enjoyed the confidence of the men of substance who -accepted his generalship. He was known as an -Irishman and as a soldier in the French wars, and it -is likely enough that he served under the Duke of -York both in France and Ireland. His strong -advocacy of the claims of York favours the notion of -kinsmanship; but, on the other hand, York was by -far the ablest statesman of the day, and to demand -his recall to the king’s council was no guarantee of -family motives.</p> - -<p>There was some talk at the time that Cade was -called John Aylesmere, and that he was married to -the daughter of a Surrey squire at Taundede. But -there is no more evidence for these things than for -the charges made against him in the warrant for his -arrest, that he had once killed a woman in Sussex -and had then fled to France and fought with the -French arms.</p> - -<p>The undisputed high character of Cade’s followers -is all against the portrait painted by the government -after his death; when, anxious to blacken the good -name of so resolute a leader, it was made out that -he was merely a disreputable ruffian. The landowners -of Kent and Sussex would never have -accepted for their captain a mere swashbuckling -blackguard. They rallied to him as a Mortimer,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span> -seeing in him a likeness to Richard, Duke of York.<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">72</a> -If his real name was Cade, then he was probably a -squire or yeoman, for Cade was no uncommon name -round Mayfield and Heathfield in Sussex, and Cades -were landed proprietors near Reigate as late as the -seventeenth century.</p> - -<p>It was enough that, chosen Captain of Kent, Cade, -or Mortimer, was known and trusted as a brave, -upright man of good character and ability.<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">73</a> -Whether descended from nobles or of good Sussex -stock was a small matter to men in earnest for the -changes and reforms the country needed.</p> - -<p>Ashford was the heart of the rising, and from -Ashford the host marched to Blackheath, where, at -the beginning of June, the camp was fixed. The -army, estimated at 46,000, included 18 esquires, 74 -county gentlemen, and some five clerks in holy -orders, who were presently joined by the Abbot of -Battle, the Prior of Lewes, and twenty-three county -gentlemen from Sussex.</p> - -<p>Cade at once explained that they must deal -directly with the king if they were to get relief from -their present burdens, and then set to work to draw -up the bill of “the complaint and requests” of the -commons of Kent, while the rank and file laboured -“to dyke and stake the camp all about, as it had -been in the land of war.”</p> - -<p>But war had not yet been declared, and for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span> -present discipline was loose in the camp at Blackheath.<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">74</a> -“As good was Jack Robin as John at the -Noke, for all were as high as pig’s feet; until the -time that they should come and speak with such -states and messengers as were sent unto them. -Then they put all their power into the man that was -named captain of all their host.”</p> - -<p>On June 7th the king was at Smithfield with -20,000 soldiers, and messengers were promptly -despatched to Blackheath to know the meaning of -the insurrection. Cade answered by showing the -petition he had drawn up, and mentioned that they -had assembled “to redress and reform the wrongs -that were done in the realm, and to withstand the -malice of them that were destroyers of the common -profit, and to correct and amend the defaults of them -that were the king’s chief counsellors.” He then -sent off the “bill of complaints” to the king and to -the parliament then sitting at Westminster, “and -requested to have answer thereof again, but answer -he had none.” The “complaint” was received with -contempt, and the opinion of the king’s counsellors -was that “such proud rebels should rather be suppressed -and tamed with violence and force than with -fair words or amicable answer.”</p> - -<p>Yet “the complaint,” which consisted of fifteen -articles, was no revolutionary document. It contained -protests against the royal threat to lay waste -Kent in revenge for the death of the Duke of -Suffolk; the diversion of the royal revenue raised -by heavy taxation to “other men”; the banishment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span> -of the Duke of York “to make room for unworthy -ministers who would not do justice by law, but -demanded bribes and gifts”; the purveyance of -goods for the royal household without payment; the -arrest and imprisonment on false charges of treason -of persons whose goods and lands were subsequently -seized by the king’s servants, who then “either compassed -their deaths or kept them in prison while they -got possession of their property by royal grant”; -the interference with the old right of free election of -knights of the shire by “the great rulers of the -country sending letters to enforce their tenants and -other people to choose other persons than the -common will is to elect”; the misconduct of the war -in France, demanding inquiry and the punishment by -law of those found guilty. Complaint was also -made of various local grievances—the insecurity of -property, the arbitrary conduct of the lords of the -seaports, the extortion in taxation owing to sheriffs -and under-sheriffs farming their offices, the fines -exacted by sheriffs for non-compliance with the -orders of the court of exchequer (whose writs were -sealed with green wax) when no summons or warning -had been given, and the “sore expense” incurred -by there being only one Court of Sessions in -the whole county.</p> - -<p>Five “requests” were added to the bill of complaints. -These expressed the desire of the commons -that the king should reign “like a king royal”; that -“all the false progeny and affinity of the Duke -of Suffolk” should be banished from the king’s -presence and brought to trial, and the Duke of York -and his friends included in the royal council; that -punishment should be meted out to those responsible<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span> -for the death of the Duke of Gloucester; that the -extortions practised daily by the king’s servants in -the taking of goods from the people should cease; -that the old Statute of Labourers for keeping down -wages should be abolished; and that the “false -traitors” and “great extortioners,” Lord Say and -Crowmer, the sheriff of Kent, should be brought low.</p> - -<p>In brief, the charter of the commons of Kent -demanded the total expulsion of all Suffolk’s -ministers and relatives from public service, the -return of the Duke of York and his party to power, -the suppression of the bribery, corruption, and -extortion practised by the sheriffs and government -servants, and the repeal of the Statute of Labourers.</p> - -<p>It would have been well if Henry had heeded -these complaints and requests. As it was he pushed -on to Blackheath, in spite of murmuring in his army, -and Cade, unwilling to risk a battle, and knowing -that disaffection was at work in London, quietly -withdrew to Sevenoaks. There was no spirit in the -royal troops to suppress the rising, and many -favoured the Captain of Kent. But two knights, -Sir Humfrey Stafford and Sir William Stafford, -kinsmen of the Duke of Buckingham and the Archbishop -of Canterbury, and men of some military -repute, decided to pursue the rebels and advanced to -Sevenoaks with a small picked body of soldiers. -Their defeat was complete. Both knights were -slain, and those of their men who were not cut to -pieces fled from the battle, or joined Cade’s host.</p> - -<p>The result of this disaster to the royal plans was -that Henry returned to London with an army that -soon melted away, or broke into open disorder. -Many of the nobles, who on receipt of the petition of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span> -the commons of Kent had called for violent measures -against the rebels, now left the king, and, with their -retainers, rode to their country estates. Henry, to -appease the clamour of some of his own followers, -ordered the arrest of Lord Say-and-Sele, the king’s -treasurer, and of Sheriff Crowmer, and bade officers -take them to the Tower. Parliament was dissolved, -and Cade was busy in Kent gathering reinforcements, -and doing what he could to repair locally -the mischief of Suffolk’s rule before proceeding to -London.<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">75</a></p> - -<p>As a last resource, Henry decided to treat with -Cade by ambassadors, and on June 29th, when the -commons were again encamped on Blackheath, came -the Duke of Buckingham, and Stafford, Archbishop -of Canterbury, for many years the king’s -chancellor—a gentle old man, who, if he had made -no stand against the misgovernment himself, was -hardly to be blamed—to arrange, if possible, a -peaceful settlement.</p> - -<p>The conference came to nothing, for neither -Buckingham nor the archbishop could promise Cade -any positive redress of grievances, or the interview -he sought with the king.</p> - -<p>“These lords found him sober in talk, wise in -reasoning, arrogant in heart, and stiff in opinions; -one who that by no means would dissolve his -army, except the king in person would come to -him, and assent to the things he would require” -(Holinshed.)</p> - -<p>The failure of the mission was reported, and -Henry, after appointing Lord Scales as guardian of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span> -the prisoners in the Tower, hastily fled to Kenilworth, -although the lord mayor and citizens of -London promised to stand by him if he would -remain in the city. There was little of sovereignty -in Henry VI., son of Henry V., the conqueror of -Agincourt. Quiet he loved, and in religious exercises -he found the satisfaction that others found in war -and statecraft.</p> - -<p>On the first of July the way was open for the -commons to enter London. Suffolk, Bishop -Moleyns, and Bishop Ayscough had all been -summarily executed. Lord Say, the treasurer, -alone remained of the discredited ministers. No -opposition was offered to Cade by the citizens of -London. The Common Council had discussed the -rising, and at the Guildhall only one dissentient -voice had been raised to the admission of the -Captain of Kent to the city. One Horne, a stockfishmonger -and alderman, alone objected to any -recognition of the unlawful assembly of the commons, -and he was sent to Newgate prison for safety, -and on Cade’s entry fined 500 marks for his daring -speech.</p> - -<p>Negotiations had been opened between the City -Council and the commons while the latter were at -Blackheath, and Thomas Cocke (or Cooke),<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">76</a> a past -warden of the Drapers’ Company, acted as the -mutual friend of both parties. From Cocke the -corporation learnt of Cade’s purposes, and that the -city stood in no danger from the rising; and it was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span> -Cocke who carried instructions from Cade to the -wealthy foreign merchants, requiring them to furnish -horses, arms and money for his army.</p> - -<p>“Ye shall charge all Lombards and strangers, -being merchants, Genoese, Venetians, Florentines and -others this day to draw them together: and to ordain -for us, the captain, twelve [sets of] harness complete, -of the best fashion, twenty-four brigandines, twelve -battle-axes, twelve glaves, six horses with saddle -and bridle completely harnessed, and 1,000 marks of -ready money.”</p> - -<p>So ran the summons, which was duly obeyed.<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">77</a> -For Cade had added the stern warning that “if this -demand be not observed and done, we shall have the -heads of as many as we can get of them.”</p> - -<p>The corporation had really no choice but to welcome -Cade. Kings and nobles had fled, and here -was the Captain of Kent with 50,000 men come to -do justice at their gates. London had suffered as -badly as any place from the misgovernment of the -country, and it was plain the commons of Kent were -no army of maurauders, for no complaint had been -heard of their ill doing in Kent, and their captain -had treated with full civility the Duke of Buckingham -and Archbishop Stafford.</p> - -<p>So the keys of the city were presented to Cade, -and at five o’clock on the 2nd of July the Captain of -Kent, mounted on a good horse, rode across London -Bridge, followed by all his army. In Cannon Street, -in the presence of Sir John Chalton, the Lord -Mayor, and a great multitude of people, Cade laid<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span> -down his sword on the old London Stone and declared -proudly, “Now is Mortimer lord of this city.” -At nightfall he returned to his headquarters, the -White Hart, a famous inn in Southwark, and next -morning was betimes in the city. That day sentence -was passed on Lord Say-and-Sele and on his son-in-law, -Sheriff Crowmer. They were removed from the -Tower by Cade’s orders, taken to the Guildhall, -tried and condemned for “divers treasons,” and for -“certain extortions,” and executed forthwith. Say -was beheaded at the standard in Cheapside, and -Crowmer at Mile End, and so bitter was the public -feeling against these two men, and so fierce the -popular hatred, that their heads were carried on -poles through the city, and made to kiss in ghastly -embrace before being placed on London Bridge.</p> - -<p>These, with a third man named John Bailey, who -was hanged with Cade’s permission for being a -necromancer and a dabbler in magic and the black -arts, were the only persons put to death while Mortimer -was lord of the city. At Southwark, where -the commons were now encamped, as at Blackheath, -theft in the popular army was treated as a capital -offence, and two or three “lawless men” were -hanged. It was inevitable if discipline and good -order were to be obtained in so vast a company that -punishment should follow sharp and swift on all who -brought discredit on the rising.</p> - -<p>Lord Say and Sheriff Crowmer being dead, the -city fathers saw no further purpose in Cade’s lordship, -and they dreaded being called upon to contribute -to the support of his army, for they knew that -Cade needed money for his men. To the everlasting -credit of the commons no charge was laid against<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span> -them of riot or disorder. The city was in their -hands for three days, yet no harm befell the citizens. -On their captain alone has blame fallen for the -events of those days in July.</p> - -<p>The difficulties of the man were immense. He -had rendered no mean service to the state by calling -attention to the ills that plagued the country, and -proposing remedies. He had roused a large body of -Englishmen to demand a better government, and by -the sharp method of the times he had got rid of a -bad minister and a corrupt sheriff, so that public life -was at least the healthier for the deliverance from two -of its oppressors. And now he had this army of 50,000 -men, all needing food and shelter—an orderly, well-disciplined -body, no mob of mercenaries—and the -city of London, with all its wealth, gave him nothing.</p> - -<p>Cade had to get supplies. The commons of Kent -could not live on the good will of the London people. -Their captain was forced to levy toll where he could. -At present all he had received was the tribute from -the foreign merchants and 500 marks from the fishmonger -Horne.</p> - -<p>On July 3rd, the night of Say’s execution, Cade -supped with Philip Malpas, Cocke’s father-in-law. -Malpas was one of Suffolk’s party, a King Henry’s -man, unpopular in the city, and though an alderman -and a draper, an expelled member of the city council. -Warned by Cocke, Malpas got rid of his valuables -before Cade arrived. But the Captain of Kent -found certain jewels belonging to the Duke of York -in the house, and these he carried off.<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">78</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span></p> - -<p>The following night Cade supped with a merchant -named Curtis (Ghirstis according to Fabyan, Girste -according to Stow) in the parish of St. Margaret -Pattens and before he left insisted on a contribution -to the war chest. Curtis paid, but he resented -bitterly the abuse of his hospitality. It seemed to -him, as it seemed to his fellow merchants to whom -he told the tale of his wrongs, sheer robbery, and -the following morning (Sunday, July 5th), while -Cade rested quietly at the White Hart in Southwark, -the city fathers were busy shaking their heads -over the business, and grave anxiety filled their -minds. This might be but the beginning of pillage; -there were always materials in London for a riot, -apart from Cade’s army.</p> - -<p>“And for this the hearts of the citizens fell from -him, and every thrifty man was afraid to be served -in like wise, for there was many a man in London -that awaited and would fain have seen a common -robbery” (Stow.)<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">79</a></p> - -<p>In the course of the day mayor and corporation -were in consultation with Lord Scales, the Governor -of the Tower, with the result that decision was made -to prevent Cade and the commons from re-entering -the city. London Bridge was at once seized and -fortified by the citizens, and Matthew Gough, a distinguished -soldier in the French wars, was placed in -command.</p> - -<p>Cade, knowing nothing of the hostility he had -created, took his ease that day—it was the last -peaceful Sabbath he was to know. Towards evening<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span> -he gave orders for the King’s Bench and Marshalsea -prisons to be opened, and their inmates—for -the most part victims of official extortion and injustice—to -be released. This was done, and certain -“lawless men” convicted of disobedience were haled -off to be hanged; to the end there was no relaxing -of discipline.</p> - -<p>Then came word that the passage of London -Bridge was stopped, and the right of entry to the -city barred against the commons as against a foe. -Cade took this as a declaration of war, of the civil -war he had done his best to prevent, and sallied out -to force an entrance. At nine o’clock the battle -began on the bridge, and all through the short -summer night it raged, neither side effecting victory. -“For some time the Londoners were beat back to -the stulpes at St. Magnus corner, and suddenly -again the rebels were repulsed and driven back to -the stulpes at Southwark.” It was not till nine -o’clock on Monday morning that the commons, -wearied and disheartened, fell back from the fray, -and Cade understood that the attack had failed, and -that for the first time since the assembling of the -people on Blackheath, at the end of May, a check -had been given to the democratic movement. A -hasty truce was settled between Cade and the mayor, -that while the truce lasted the commons should not -cross into London nor the citizens into Southwark. -Cardinal Kemp, Archbishop of York, the king’s -chancellor, who with old Archbishop Stafford had -been left undisturbed in the Tower since the king’s -ignominious flight, immediately decided that the -time had come to arrange a settlement with the -Captain of Kent.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span></p> - -<p>Kemp sent messengers that day to the White -Hart, asking Cade to meet the representatives of the -king, “to the end that the civil commotions and disturbances -might cease and tranquility be restored,” -and Cade consented.</p> - -<p>Kemp, who had himself presided at the trial and -condemnation of Suffolk, brought to the conference, -which was held in the church of St. Margaret, -Southwark,<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">80</a> on July 7th, Archbishop Stafford and -William Waynfleet, Bishop of Winchester. The -chancellor, bent on making peace, also brought -pardons to all concerned, duly signed and sealed. -He listened courteously to Cade’s “complaints” and -“requests,” received the petition, promised it should -have the full consideration of parliament, and then -announced a full pardon to all who should return home.</p> - -<p>The proposals of the bishops won the general -approval of the commons. There was nothing to be -gained, it seemed, by remaining in arms, now they -had won a promise that their charter should come -before parliament.</p> - -<p>Cade alone hesitated. What if parliament should -disavow these “pardons,” and the commons be -treated as the peasants were treated when they -trusted a king’s word? He asked for the endorsement -of his own pardon, and the pardons of his -followers, by parliament before his army dispersed. -Chancellor Kemp explained that this was impossible, -because parliament was dissolved. The people were -satisfied with the cardinal’s word. The rising was -at an end.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span></p> - -<p>The following day the bulk of the commons -departed from Southwark for their farms and -cottages in Kent and Surrey and Sussex. Cade -watched them go. His own mind was made up. -Not till parliament should give him a pardon of -indisputable legality would he lay down his arms. -With a small band of followers he set off for -Rochester, sending what goods and provisions he -had by water.</p> - -<p>The rising was at an end, and nothing more was -heard in parliament, or elsewhere, of the famous -charter of “complaints” and “requests.”</p> - -<p>With the break-up of the insurgent army, the -government woke to activity. Alexander Iden was -appointed sheriff of Kent, and marrying Crowmer’s -widow, subsequently gained considerable profit. -Within a week the king’s writ and proclamation, -declaring John Cade a false traitor, was posted -throughout the countryside, and Cade, defeated in -an attempt to get possession of Queenborough -Castle, was a fugitive with the reward of 1,000 -marks on his head, alive or dead, and with Sheriff -Iden in hot pursuit.</p> - -<p>Near Heathfield, in Sussex, Iden came up with -his prey, early on Monday, July 13th.</p> - -<p>Cade died fighting. A broken man, worn and -famished, friendless and alone, he still had his -sword. The spirit of Mortimer, Captain of Kent, -flickered up in the presence of his enemies—it were -better to die sword in hand fighting for freedom -than to perish basely by the hangman. So Cade -fought his last fight in the Sussex garden, and fell -mortally wounded, overpowered by the sheriff and -his men.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span></p> - -<p>In all haste Iden sent off the dead body to -London; it was identified by the hostess of the -White Hart, and three days later the head was -stuck on London Bridge. The body was quartered -and portions sent to Blackheath, Norwich, Salisbury, -and Gloucester, for public exposure. The sheriffs of -London, upon whom the gruesome task fell of -despatching these remains, complained bitterly of -the cost of this proceeding, “because that hardly any -persons durst nor would take upon them the carriage -for doubt of their lives.”<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">81</a></p> - -<p>Iden got his 1,000 marks reward, besides getting -the governorship of Rochester Castle, at a salary of -£36 per annum.</p> - -<p>Cade was “attainted of treason” by act of parliament, -and all his goods, lands, and tenements made -forfeit to the crown. A year later another act of -parliament made void all that had been done by -Cade’s authority during the rising.</p> - -<p>In January, 1451, Henry VI. went into Kent with -his justices, and this royal visitation was known as -the harvest of heads; for in spite of Cardinal -Kemp’s pardons, twenty-six men of Canterbury and -Rochester implicated in the rising were hanged.</p> - -<p>So the last echoes of the rising died away, and -corruption and misgovernment remained. But the -commons of Kent and their captain had done what -they could, and in the only way that seemed possible, -to get justice done, and their failure was without -dishonour.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_9">Sir Thomas More and the -Freedom of Conscience<br /> - -<span class="subhead">1529–1535</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: William Roper—<cite>Life of Sir Thomas -More</cite>, 1626; Harpsfield—<cite>Life of More</cite> (Harleian -MSS.); Stapleton—<cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">Ires Thomæ</cite>, 1588; Cresacre -More—<cite>Life of More</cite>, 1627; Erasmus—<cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">Epistolae</cite> -(Leyden, 1706); Sir James Mackintosh—<cite>Life of More</cite>, -1844; Campbell—<cite>Lives of the Chancellors</cite>; Foss—<cite>Lives -of the Judges</cite>; <cite>Calendar of State Papers—Henry -VIII.</cite>, edited by Dr. Brewer and Dr. Gairdner -(Rolls Series); <cite>More’s English Works</cite>, edited by -William Rastell; Rev. T. E. Bridgett—<cite>Life of Blessed -John Fisher</cite>, and <cite>Life and Writings of Sir Thomas -More</cite>, 1891.</p> - -<div id="ip_193" class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/i_p192.jpg" width="1509" height="2094" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><p>SIR THOMAS MORE</p> - -<p>(<cite>From the Drawing by Hans Holbein.</cite>)</p></div></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">SIR THOMAS MORE AND THE<br /> -FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE - -<span class="subhead">1529–1535.</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">“Did</span> Nature ever frame a sweeter, happier -character than that of More?”—so -Erasmus wrote in 1498, when Thomas -More was twenty, and Erasmus, recently -come to England, some ten years older. It was -at the beginning of their friendship, a friendship -that was to last unbroken till death,<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">82</a> and More had -then passed from the household of Cardinal Morton -to Oxford, and from Oxford to Lincoln’s Inn, to -take up his father’s calling and follow the law as a -barrister.</p> - -<p>Twenty years later Erasmus, writing at length to -Ulrich von Hutten, gives us a portrait of More in -full manhood. Temperance, simplicity, human -affection, good humour, independence of mind—these -qualities are conspicuous.</p> - -<p>“I never saw anyone so indifferent about food. -Until he was a young man he delighted in drinking -water, but that was natural to him. Yet, that he -might not seem to be singular or unsociable, he -would conceal his temperance from his guests by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span> -drinking the lightest beer, or often pure water, out -of a pewter vessel.”</p> - -<p>“He prefers milk diet and fruits, and is especially -fond of eggs. He would rather eat corned beef and -coarse bread than what are called delicacies.”</p> - -<p>“He likes a simple dress, using neither silk nor -purple nor chains of gold—except on state occasions. -It is wonderful how careless he is of all that ceremony -which most men identify with politeness. -He neither requires it from others nor is anxious -to use it himself, though when it is necessary, at -interviews or banquets, he knows how to employ -it. But he thinks it unmanly to waste time over -such trifles.”</p> - -<p>“He seems born and fashioned for friendship, and -is a most faithful and enduring friend. He is easy of -access to all; but if he chances to get familiar with -one whose vices will not brook correction, rather -than a sudden breaking off, he gradually relaxes the -intimacy and quietly drops it. He abhors games of -tennis, dice, cards, and the like, by which most -gentlemen kill time. Though he is rather too negligent -of his own interests, no one is more diligent in -behalf of his friends. So polite, and so sweet-mannered -is he in company, that no one is too -melancholy to be cheered by him. Since boyhood -he has always so delighted in merriment that it seems -to be part of his nature; yet his merriment is never -turned into buffoonery.”</p> - -<p>“No one is less led by the opinions of the crowd, -yet no one is less eccentric.”</p> - -<p>The friendship of More and Erasmus had ripened -in those twenty years. In More’s house, and at his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span> -instigation, Erasmus had written the <cite>Praise of -Folly</cite>,<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">83</a> and the great scholar watched with warm -interest the famous career and the brilliant character -of the man he loved so heartily.</p> - -<p>More was already high in Henry VIII.’s favour -when Erasmus could write that no one was less led by -the opinions of the crowd, and more than once his -independence and courage of mind had been proved -in the twenty years that had passed.</p> - -<p>Drawn at first to the monastic life, More had -spent four years (1500–1504) with the Carthusians -in Smithfield, “frequenting daily their spiritual -exercises, but without any vow.” Then it is plain -to him that his vocation is not the priesthood, but -marriage and public life, and he leaves the Charterhouse, -and in 1505 is married and in Parliament.<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">84</a> -But all his life the devotion to religion, and to the -services of the Church, remain in More, and he is -ascetic in the mortifications of the body till the spirit -and the will ride supreme.</p> - -<p>In the House of Commons More stood out against -the exactions of Henry VII., and at once fell under -the king’s displeasure.</p> - -<p>More’s son-in-law, Roper, tells the story:</p> - -<p>“In the time of King Henry the Seventh, More -was made a burgess of the Parliament wherein was -demanded by the king (as I have heard reported) -about three-fifteenths, for the marriage of his eldest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span> -daughter, that then should be Scottish Queen; at -the last debating whereof he made such arguments -and reasons against, that the king’s demands were -thereby overthrown. So that one of the king’s privy -chamber being present thereat, brought word to the -king out of the Parliament house that a beardless boy -had disappointed all his purpose. Whereupon the -king, conceiving great indignation towards him, -could not be satisfied until he had some way -revenged it. And forasmuch as he, nothing have, -nothing could lose, his Grace devised a causeless -quarrel against his father, keeping him in the Tower -till he had made him pay a hundred pounds fine.... -Had not the king soon after died, Sir -Thomas More was determined to have gone over -sea, thinking that being in the king’s indignation, he -could not live in England without great danger.”</p> - -<p>The grant from parliament to the king was reduced -from £113,000 to £30,000 by More’s action; and if -this action brought royal anger, it won for More the -confidence of his fellow-citizens in London, so that -we see him in the second year of Henry VIII. under-sheriff -for the city, and according to Erasmus and -Roper, the most popular lawyer of the day. With -all his legal business, and good income, More is -never anxious after money. “While he was still -dependent on his fees, he gave to all true and -friendly counsel, considering their interests rather -than his own; he persuaded many to settle with -their opponents as the cheaper course. If he could -not induce them to act in that manner—for some -men delight in litigation—he would still indicate the -method that was least expensive.”<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">85</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span></p> - -<p>More’s rising reputation was bound to attract the -notice of Henry VIII., for the king was alert in the -early years of his reign to get good men at the -court, and Wolsey, who had become chancellor on -Archbishop Warham’s retirement in 1515, was -anxious to enlist More in the royal service. The -court had no attractions for More, his embassies to -Flanders and Calais, to settle trade disputes and -difficulties with France, wearied him, and in 1516 he -was engaged in finishing his <cite>Utopia</cite>. According -to Roper, it was More’s independence of mind that -made the king force office at court upon him. A -ship belonging to the pope, which had put into -Southampton, was claimed by Henry as a forfeiture. -More argued the case so clearly that the commissioners -decided in the pope’s favour, and the king at -once declared he must have More in his service.</p> - -<p>Then for the next twelve years Sir Thomas More -enjoyed the royal favour and friendship. His promotion -was rapid. Secretary of state, master of -requests when the king was travelling, privy councilor, -under-treasurer, or chancellor of the exchequer—all -these offices were filled. In 1521 More -was knighted, in 1523 he was speaker of the House -of Commons, and in 1525 chancellor of the Duchy -of Lancaster.</p> - -<p>Erasmus writes to Ulrich von Hutten in 1519 in -praise of More’s public work: “In serious matters -no man’s advice is more prized, and when the king -wishes for recreation no man’s conversation is more -entertaining. Often there are matters deep and involved -that demand a grave and prudent judge, -and More unravels these questions in a way that -gives satisfaction to both sides. Yet no one has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span> -ever prevailed on him to receive a gift for his decision. -Happy that commonwealth where kings -appoint such officials! No pride has come to him -with his high estate. With all the weight of state -affairs he remembers his old friends, and returns -from time to time to the books he loves so well. -Whatever influence has come to him with his high -office, whatever favour he enjoys with his wealthy -king, he uses all for the good of the state and for -the assistance of his friends. Ever fond of conferring -benefits and wonderfully prone to pity, his disposition -has grown with his power of indulging it. Some -he helps with money, to others he gives protection, -and others he recommends for promotion. When -he can help in no other way he does it by his advice: -no one is sent away dejected. You might well say -that he had been appointed the public guardian of -the distressed and needy.”</p> - -<p>If the cares of state did not cut off Sir Thomas -More from assisting old acquaintances, they made -great inroads into the home life he loved so well. -He had married again on the death of his first wife, -and his letters to his children, especially to his “most -dear daughter, Margaret”—Roper’s wife—are full -of tenderness. He is anxious about the education of -his children, and rejoices that his daughter shares -his love for books. We find him writing to Margaret -Roper just after her marriage in <span class="locked">1522:—</span></p> - -<p>“I am therefore delighted to read that you have -made up your mind to give yourself diligently to -philosophy, and to make up by your earnestness in -future for what you have lost in the past by neglect. -My darling Margaret, I indeed have never found -you idling, and your unusual learning in almost<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span> -every kind of literature shows that you have been -making active progress. So I take your words as -an example of the great modesty that makes you -prefer to accuse yourself falsely of sloth rather than -to boast of your diligence, unless your meaning is -that you will give yourself so earnestly to study that -your past history will seem like indolence by comparison.... -Though I earnestly hope that you will -devote the rest of your life to medical science and -sacred literature, so that you may be well furnished -for the whole scope of human life, which is to have -a healthy soul in a healthy body, and I know that -you have already laid the foundations of these studies, -and there will be always opportunity to continue the -building; yet I am of opinion that you may with -great advantage give some years of your yet flourishing -youth to humane letters and liberal studies.... -It would be a delight, my dear Margaret, to me to -converse long with you on these matters, but I have -just been interrupted and called away by the servants, -who have brought in supper. I must have -regard to others, else to sup is not so sweet as to talk -with you.”<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">86</a></p> - -<p>The close friend of Erasmus and Dean Colet, an -accepted champion of the New Learning, More -was naturally enthusiastic for education—for girls as -for boys. He had written to Gunnell, for a time the -tutor of his <span class="locked">family:—</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span></p> - -<p>“Though I prefer learning, joined with virtue, to -all the treasures of kings, yet renown for learning, -when it is not united with a good life, is nothing else -than splendid and notorious infamy: this would be -especially the case in a woman.... Since erudition -in woman is a new thing and a reproach to the sloth -of men, many will gladly assail it and impute to -literature what is really the fault of nature, thinking -from the vices of the learned to get their own -ignorance esteemed as virtue. On the other hand -if a woman (and this I desire and hope with you as -the teacher for all my daughters) to eminent virtue -should add an outwork of even moderate skill in -literature, I think she will have more real profit than -if she had obtained the riches of Crœsus and the -beauty of Helen.”</p> - -<p>In this letter More goes on to speak of the profit -of learning and the happiness of those who give -themselves to it—“possessing solid joy they will -neither be puffed up by the empty praises of men nor -dejected by evil tongues.”</p> - -<p>“These I consider the genuine fruits of learning, -and though I admit that all literary men do not -possess them, I would maintain that those who give -themselves to study with such views (avoiding the -precipices of pride and haughtiness, walking in the -pleasant meadows of modesty, not dazzled at the -sight of gold) will easily attain their end and become -perfect. Nor do I think that the harvest will be -much affected whether it is a man or a woman who -sows the field. They both have the same human -nature, which reason differentiates from those of -beasts; both therefore are equally suited for those -studies for which reason is perfectioned, and becomes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span> -fruitful like a ploughed land on which the seed of -good lessons has been sown.”</p> - -<p>This strong love for wise learning, laying emphasis -on a complete education—the training in virtue no -less than the knowledge of letters—had its roots in -More’s character. The “genuine fruits of learning” -ripen in his life and death. His wide toleration, -which will blame no man for not taking the path he -trod to martyrdom, is coupled inextricably with a -refinement of conscience that cannot be sullied by a -denial of his faith. The freedom of conscience -Thomas More claimed for himself he most willingly -allows to others. Just as the education he valued for -himself he extends to all his children.</p> - -<p>Standing largely aloof from the violent controversies -Luther had started, hating the bitter -intolerance and savage abuse of theological strife, -refusing to be drawn into the deadly discussion of -Henry VIII.’s divorce, Sir Thomas More is content -to live in loyal devotion to his religion and to the -service of the state, if haply he may. And when this -is denied him he is content to die, retaining his -tolerant good-humour and the love of his kind to -the end, and without resentment at his fate.</p> - -<p>The courage of the sage never failed Sir Thomas -More in his public work. As “a beardless boy” he -had resisted in parliament the king’s extortions, as -speaker of the House of Commons he protected the -privileges of the commons. Wolsey had come down -to the House with all his train to command a subsidy, -but no word was uttered in reply to his address. In -vain Wolsey appealed for an answer, Sir Thomas -More could only declare that the speaker, then the -mouthpiece of the commons, had nothing to say till<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span> -he had heard the opinion of the House. “Whereupon, -the cardinal, displeased with Sir Thomas -More that had not in this parliament in all things -satisfied his desire, suddenly arose and departed.”</p> - -<p>High as More stood at that time in the affection -of Henry, Sir Thomas knew the king, and the -nature of the favour of princes. Roper relates that -when he offered his congratulations, at the time of -the appointment to the chancellorship of the Duchy -of Lancaster, More answered, “I may tell thee I -have no cause to be proud thereof, for if my head -would win him a castle in France (for then was there -war betwixt us) it should not fail to go.”</p> - -<p>Aware of Henry’s character, More yet had no -choice but to accept the lord chancellorship from the -king on Wolsey’s fall in 1529. It was no matter -for personal satisfaction, and More’s reply to the -Duke of Norfolk was substantially the same as his -previous answer to Roper: “Considering how wise -and honourable a prelate had lately before taken so -great a fall, he had no cause to rejoice in his new -dignity.” Erasmus wrote, “I do not at all congratulate -More, nor literature; but I do indeed -congratulate England, for a better or holier judge -could not have been appointed.”</p> - -<p>On November 3rd, 1529, Sir Thomas More, as -chancellor, opened parliament, and in a long speech -declared that “the cause of its assembly was to -reform such things as had been used or permitted by -inadvertence, or by changes of time had become -inexpedient.” It was the opening of the seven years’ -parliament, and before six years should run, this -same parliament would, at the king’s order, condemn -Sir Thomas More by act of attainder.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span></p> - -<p>The position of the new chancellor was dangerous -from the first. Wolsey had fallen because he had -failed to help Henry to a divorce from his queen, -Catherine of Aragon, and More had been made his -successor because the king had counted on him to -accomplish the “great matter.” All that Sir -Thomas could hope for was that he might be -allowed to do his work as chancellor without being -mixed up with divorce proceedings. As long as he -was not called upon to declare publicly that the -divorce was right, he had no wish to interfere in the -matter. First to last no word of approval came -from More’s lips to encourage Henry in the divorce, -but he was not the man to express judgment on a -case that he did not wish brought before him.<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">87</a> In -the end the chancellor’s very silence turned Henry’s -disappointment to active displeasure, and More’s life -was taken in savage revenge for non-compliance -with the royal will.</p> - -<p>Henry’s divorce dates the beginning of the Protestant -Reformation in England—of that ecclesiastical -revolution in which the supremacy of Rome -was rejected, the crown superseded the pope as -supreme head of the Church of England, and -England was detached from the rest of Roman -Catholic Christendom. In the reigns of Edward VI. -and Elizabeth the revolution proceeded still further, -and Catholic rites and doctrines, service books and -ceremonies were rigorously cast out of the Church -of England, and all who adhered to the old order in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span> -religion were punished by law. But those days were -far off as yet.</p> - -<p>More, at the outset of this revolution, declines to -follow the king in the rejection of the old allegiance -to Rome. All he asks for is freedom of conscience -to remain in the faith of his fathers, to worship as -Christians in England had worshipped since the -coming of Augustine. To escape death by giving -up this freedom is impossible for Sir Thomas More.</p> - -<p>The divorce from Queen Catherine is the turning -point in More’s worldly fortunes as well as in ecclesiastical -affairs in England.</p> - -<p>Eighteen years passed from the day of Henry’s -marriage to Catherine, on his accession to the -throne, before the divorce was mooted. The -scruple was that Catherine had been formerly -betrothed to his dead brother Arthur; the moving -force of Henry’s petition for divorce was the desire -to marry Anne Boleyn. Unable to get the marriage -annulled at Rome, or to get a favourable opinion -from the universities, Henry fell back on Archbishop -Cranmer to decree the divorce, and finally this was -done in 1533, all appeals to Rome being henceforth -forbidden. Henry had already, in 1531, called upon -the clergy to acknowledge him as the supreme head -of the Church of England, and the following year -they were required to surrender the ancient right to -meet and enact canons.<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">88</a></p> - -<p>In these four years the chancellor had kept out of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span> -political life as far as he could, and had given his -attention to his judicial work. But in May, 1532, -he resigned the great seal into the king’s hands, -“seeing that affairs were going badly, and likely to -be worse, and that if he retained his office he would -be obliged to act against his conscience, or incur the -king’s displeasure as he had already begun to do, for -refusing to take his part against the clergy. His -excuse was that his salary was too small, and that he -was not equal to the work. Everyone is concerned, -for there never was a better man in the office.”<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">89</a></p> - -<p>Nothing is known of Sir Thomas More’s work in -the chancery except his integrity and his despatch. -“When More took the office there were causes that -had remained undecided for twenty years. He presided -so dexterously and successfully that once after -taking his seat and deciding a case, when the next -case was called, it was found that there was no second -case for trial. Such a thing is said never to have -happened before or since.” (Stapleton.)</p> - -<p>For nearly two years More lived unmolested after -his resignation of the chancellorship; but he had -incurred the enmity of the king and the hatred of -Anne Boleyn, and Henry was swiftly driving at -certain changes in religion that were to bring Sir -Thomas More to the Tower and the block, and -many another honest Christian to the prison and the -gallows of Tyburn.</p> - -<p>In June, 1533, after Cranmer had duly pronounced -Henry’s marriage with Catherine void, came the -coronation of Anne Boleyn, and Sir Thomas More -declined an invitation from some of the bishops to -be present at the celebration. He knew that his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span> -absence would be marked unfavourably by the king, -and was ready to pay the penalty; but his care in -avoiding the expression of any disapproval of -Henry’s proceedings required an equal care that no -approval should be expressed. To have been present -at the coronation of Anne would have been, for -More, to condone the divorce.</p> - -<p>In the autumn came an attempt to include More, -with Bishop Fisher and certain monks and friars, in -the treason of the “Holy Maid of Kent,”—Elizabeth -Barton, a Canterbury nun. The -“treason” amounted to this, that the nun, who was -given to prophesying, declared that God had revealed -to her to speak against Henry’s divorce, and -it was sufficient to bring her to Tyburn. But against -Sir Thomas More no shred of evidence could be -procured, for none existed. He had seen the nun, -and talked with her, and “held her in great estimation,” -but would neither commit himself to a belief -in her visions, nor permit any discussion on the -king’s doings; but wrote to the nun a letter which -could not have been more prudent, as he exhorted -her “to attend to devotion, and not meddle in the -affairs of princes.”</p> - -<p>The name of Sir Thomas More was struck out of -the bill of attainder, but the days of his liberty were -already numbered.</p> - -<p>The Act of Succession, passed in March, 1534, -made Mary, the daughter of Henry and Catherine, -illegitimate, and Elizabeth, Anne’s child, the heir to -the throne. The act also declared that “all the -nobles of the realm, spiritual and temporal, and all -other subjects arrived at full age, should be obliged -to take corporal oath, in the presence of the king or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span> -his commissioners, to observe and maintain the whole -effect and contents of the act,” under the penalties -for treason for refusal. The words of the oath were -not inserted in the act, and the commissioners drew -up a formula, requiring all persons to affirm in -addition that the marriage with Catherine was invalid, -and the marriage with Anne valid, and further -to recall and repudiate allegiance to any foreign -authority, prince, or potentate. This was a much -larger demand than parliament had authorised, for it -contained a denial of the papal supremacy, while all -that the act had required was an acknowledgment of -the succession to the crown. The pope had only just -given his final decision on Henry’s appeal for divorce -(March, 1534), and the decision had been against the -king and in favour of the marriage. The oath -now administered was in direct opposition to the -supremacy of Rome, and as such was impossible to -the consciences of men like Sir Thomas More and -Bishop Fisher, though the great bulk of the clergy -took it without giving any trouble.</p> - -<p>More was quite prepared to swear to the succession -of Elizabeth. Parliament had, in his eyes, a -plain right to decide who should wear the crown, -and the doctrine of divine hereditary kingship does -not come in till the Stuarts. But this mere willingness -to comply with the letter of the law was not -sufficient. More’s silent want of sympathy with the -divorce, and with the breach it involved with Rome, -was intolerable to Henry, who had counted More -amongst his dearest friends; for friend or foe, in -Henry’s power, could only live by abject agreement -with the royal pleasure. No king had three more -faithful servants than Henry VIII. had in Thomas<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span> -Wolsey, Thomas More, and Thomas Cromwell, and -no king destroyed his ministers with such fierce -caprice.</p> - -<p>Sir Thomas More, unable to take the oath, was -sent to the Tower in April, 1534, Bishop Fisher -having already been lodged there. In November -parliament met again, and passed the Act of -Supremacy, making Henry VIII. “the supreme head -of the Church of England,” and declaring that on -and after the first of February, 1535, it was high -treason “to deprive the king’s most royal person, the -queen’s, or their heirs apparent of their dignity, title -or name of their royal estates, or slanderously and -maliciously publish or pronounce, by express writing -or words, that the king, our sovereign lord, should be -heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, etc.” Under this -act Sir Thomas More was to be assailed and to die. -That the martyrdom was a “judicial murder” is -plain—to Lord Campbell it was “the blackest crime -that ever has been perpetrated in England under the -form of law.”<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">90</a></p> - -<p>The indictment was for treason, and on July 1st, a -week after Bishop Fisher’s execution, Sir Thomas -More was brought before the judges. To the charge -of having refused the king, “maliciously, falsely, and -traitorously, his title of supreme head of the Church -of England,” More answered that the statute had -been passed while he was in prison, and that he was -dead to the world, and had not cared about such -things—“your statute cannot condemn me to death -for such silence, for neither your statute nor any laws -in the world punish people except for words and -deeds—surely not for keeping silence.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span></p> - -<p>“To this the king’s proctor replied that such -silence was a certain proof of malice intended -against the statute, especially as every faithful -subject, on being questioned about the statute, was -obliged to answer categorically that the statute was -good and wholesome.” “Surely,” replied More, “if -common law is true, and he who is silent seems to -consent, my silence should rather be taken as -approval than contempt of your statute.”</p> - -<p>To the first article charging him with having -always maliciously opposed the king’s second -marriage, More had answered that anything he had -said had been according to his conscience, and that -for “this error,” he had already suffered fifteen -months’ imprisonment, and the confiscation of his -property.</p> - -<p>The trial was soon over, for the king had decided -on More’s death when Fisher was executed, ordering -the preachers to set forth to the people the -treasons of the late Bishop of Rochester and of Sir -Thomas More; “joining them together though the -later was still untried.”<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">91</a> The jury, after a quarter of -an hour’s absence, declared him guilty of death for -maliciously contravening the statute, and sentence -was pronounced by the chancellor “according to the -tenour of the new law.”</p> - -<p>Death being now in sight, and faith having been -kept with his conscience, More has no longer any -reason to observe silence. To the usual question -whether he has anything to say against the -sentence, he replied, that for the seven years he had -studied the matter he could not find that supremacy -in a church belonged to a layman, or to any but the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span> -see of Rome, as granted personally by our Lord -when on earth to St. Peter and his successors; and -that, as the city of London could not make a law -against the laws of the realm of England, so -England could not make a law contrary to the -general law of Christ’s Catholic Church; and that -the Magna Charta of England said that “the -English Church should be free to enjoy all its rights,” -as the king had sworn at his consecration. Interrupted -by the chancellor with the inquiry whether -he wished to be considered wiser and better than all -the bishops and nobles of the realm who had sworn -to the king’s supremacy, More retorted, “For one -bishop of your opinion, my lord, I have a hundred -saints of mine; and for one parliament of yours, and -God knows of what kind, I have all the general -councils for a thousand years.” The Duke of Norfolk -said that now his malice was clear.</p> - -<p>On the sixth of July, 1535, Sir Thomas More -was beheaded on Tower Hill, for the king remitted -the ferocious mutilations that accompanied the executions -for treason at Tyburn. “The scaffold was -very unsteady, and putting his feet on the ladder, he -said, merrily, to the lieutenant of the Tower: “I -pray thee see me safe up, and for my coming down -let me shift for myself.”<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">92</a></p> - -<p>Then, with a simple request to the people standing -round to pray for him, and to bear witness that he -died a Catholic for the faith of the Catholic Church, -a friendly word to the executioner, and a last prayer—the -51st Psalm—the axe fell, and More was dead.</p> - -<p>Beyond More’s scholarship and wit, and his affection -for his family and friends, stands out his great,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span> -unflinching quality of loyalty to conscience. When the -power was in his hands as lord chancellor, no one -was put to death by Sir Thomas More for heresy in -England, though he did what he could by his pen to -check the innovations of Luther, which he hated,—not -only because they broke up the unity of Christendom, -but because, it seemed to him, they struck at -all social morality and decency.<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">93</a> The violence -of Luther’s outbreak, the determination of the -Lutherans—sure of their own possession of the -truth—to allow no liberty to Catholics, and the antinomian -communism of the anabaptists—all these -things made Protestantism detestable to men like Sir -Thomas More and Erasmus, and made More declare -that dogmatising heretics ought to be repressed by -the state as breeders of strife and contention. But -his own record is clear: “And of all that ever came -in my hand for heresy, as help me God, saving (as I -said) the sure keeping of them, had never any of -them any stripe or stroke given them, so much as a -fillip on the forehead.”<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">94</a></p> - -<p>“What other controversialist can be named, who, -having the power to crush antagonists whom he -viewed as the disturbers of the quiet of his own -declining years, the destroyers of all the hopes which -he had cherished for mankind, contented himself -with severity of language?”<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">95</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span></p> - -<p>The author of the <cite>Utopia</cite> was a critic, as -Colet and Erasmus were, of abuses in the Church; -but like his friends he lived and died a Catholic. -He saw Lutheranism as the source of a thousand -ills, and with Erasmus opposed it; but though -heretics were anti-social and factious, he would -not put one to death for error.</p> - -<p>It is all through Sir Thomas More’s character—this -respect for conscience. There is no going back -on the wide toleration of his early manhood, and -high office and responsibilities of state no more -cramp or belittle his faith than they destroy his playfulness -or the warmth of his affections.</p> - -<p>He died a martyr for the religion of his life, -for the simple right to abide in the old Catholic -paths of his fellow-countrymen.</p> - -<p>As Sir Thomas More was not the first of the -Catholic martyrs at the Reformation, for he had -seen his old friends, the Carthusian monks, carried to -Tyburn, so he was not the last. For the next fifty -years of Henry and Elizabeth, English men and -women were to suffer for the old faith of England, -and in Mary’s reign to die as bravely for Protestantism.</p> - -<p>In spite of monasteries and priories destroyed, and -parish churches stripped and plundered, in spite of -penal laws which banned its priesthood and proscribed -its worship, the Catholicism More died for -has endured in England. All that parliament could -do to exterminate the belief in papal supremacy has -been done; all that panic and prejudice could -accomplish by “popish plots” to the same end has -been accomplished. These things have been no -more successful than the mad “no popery” riots of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span> -Lord George Gordon in crushing the faith of the -Roman Catholic minority. The penal laws have -gone, Catholic emancipation has been obtained, a -Catholic hierarchy has been set up, and to-day in -England the freedom of conscience that was refused -to Sir Thomas More is the accepted liberty of all.</p> - -<p>In 1887 Sir Thomas More, with Bishop Fisher -and the Carthusian martyrs, were beatified by Pope -Leo XIII. Serving their religion in life and death, -they served the cause of human liberty, withstanding -Henry as Anselm withstood the Red King, and -as Langton withstood John.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_10">Robert Ket and The Norfolk -Rising<br /> - -<span class="subhead">1549</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: <cite>The Commotion in Norfolk</cite>, by -Nicholas Sotherton, 1576 (Harleian MS.); <cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">De -Furoribus Norfolciensum</cite>, by Nevylle, 1575 (Translated -into English by Wood, 1615); Holinshed—<cite>Chronicle</cite>; -Sir John Hayward—<cite>Life of Edward VI.</cite>; Strype—<cite>Memorials</cite>; -Blomefield—<cite>History of Norfolk</cite>; F. W. -Russell—<cite>Kett’s Rebellion</cite>; W. Rye; <cite>Victoria County -History—Norfolk</cite>.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">ROBERT KET AND THE<br /> -NORFOLK RISING. -<span class="subhead">1549.</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">The</span> Norfolk Rising of the sixteenth century -was a land war, caused directly by -the enclosing of the common fields of the -peasants, and the break up of the -accustomed rural life.</p> - -<p>The landowners finding greater profit in breeding -sheep and cattle than in the small holdings of -peasants, began, about 1470, to seize the fields which -from time immemorial had been cultivated by the -country people in common, and to evict whole -parishes by pulling down all the dwelling places. -For eighty years these clearances were going on. -Acts of Parliament were passed in 1489 and 1515 -to prohibit the “pulling down of towns” and to -order the rebuilding of such towns, and the restoration -of pasture lands to tillage, but both acts were quite -inoperative. In 1517, Cardinal Wolsey’s Royal -Commission on Enclosures reported on the defiance -of the law in seven Midland counties, where more -than 36,000 acres had been enclosed; but legal -proceedings against the landowners were stayed on -the latter promising to make restitution.</p> - -<p>Thomas More, in the first part of his <cite>Utopia</cite>, -in 1516, described for all time what the enclosures -he witnessed meant for England.</p> - -<p>“For look in what parts of the realm doth grow -the finest and therefore dearest wool, there noblemen<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span> -and gentlemen, yea, and certain abbots, holy men -no doubt, not contenting themselves with the yearly -revenues and profits that were wont to grow to their -forefathers and predecessors of their lands, nor being -content that they live in rest and pleasure—nothing -profiting, yea, much annoying the public weal—leave -no ground for tillage, they inclose all into -pastures; they throw down houses; they pluck down -towns and leave nothing standing but only the -church to be made a sheep fold.... They turn -all dwelling-places and all glebe land into desolation -and wilderness. Therefore, that one covetous and -insatiable comorant may compass about and inclose -many thousand acres of ground together within one -pale or hedge, the husbandmen be thrust out of their -own, or else either by cunning and fraud, or by -violent oppression, or by wrongs and injuries they -be so wearied, that they be compelled to sell all. By -one means therefore or another, either by hook or -by crook they must needs depart away, men, women, -husbands, wives, fatherless children, widows, mothers -with their young babies, and their whole household -small in substance and large in number, as husbandry -requireth many hands. Away they trudge, I say, -out of their known and accustomed houses, finding -no place to rest in.... And when they have -wandered abroad till the little they have be spent, -what can they then else do but steal, and then justly -be hanged, or else go about a begging. And yet -then also they be cast in prison as vagabonds, -because they go about and work not: whom no man -will set a work, though they never so willingly proffer -themselves thereto. For one shepherd or herdsman -is enough to eat up that ground with cattle, to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span> -occupying whereof about husbandry many hands -were requisite.”</p> - -<p>This was social England in the early years of -Henry VIII., and every year saw things grow worse -for the rural folk, in spite of further royal proclamations -against enclosures in 1526. A series of -bad harvests drove a starving population to riot in -Norfolk in 1527 and 1529. In 1536 came the -suppression of 376 lesser monasteries, followed two -years later by the dissolution of all remaining -monasteries and priories, and in 1547 by the royal -confiscation of the property of the religious guilds and -brotherhoods.</p> - -<p>The landowners having established a starving -unemployed class by the simple process of depriving -people of access to the land, and the crown having -removed the only source of relief to the unemployed -by destroying the monasteries, it remained for -parliament to deal with the “social problem” thus -created by declaring poverty a crime, and the -unemployed person a felon. The lash and the -gallows were to solve the problem.</p> - -<p>In 1531, an act of parliament granted licences to -the impotent beggar, and ordered a whipping for all -other mendicants. Five years later stronger -measures were adopted, and whipping was only -permitted to first offenders: mutilation and hanging -were the subsequent penalties on conviction, and -thousands of unemployed men and women suffered -under this act. But still the unemployed existed, -for the enclosures had not been stopped; and so the -first year of Edward VI. saw an act passed declaring -the convicted unemployed “a slave.” (As it seemed -to many that parliament had got rid of papal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span> -authority only to bring back slavery in England, this -act was repealed in two years, and the act of 1531 -revived.)</p> - -<p>The bitterness of the agrarian misery, the violent -destruction of all the old religious customs and -habits of the people, the confiscation of the funds -of the guilds, the open despoiling of the parish -churches of the people<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">96</a>—all these things plunged -the country into confusion and despair. The -general rising in Lincolnshire and the north in 1536 -(known as the “Pilgrimage of Grace”) against the -suppressions of the monasteries, and the rising in -Cornwall and Devon in 1549 against Edward’s VI.’s -new Book of Common Prayer were strong manifestations -of the popular dislike of the changes -made in religion by Henry VIII. and the ministers -of Edward VI.</p> - -<p>In Norfolk, in 1537, the people made an insurrection -against the suppression of the monasteries; but -the later risings of 1540 (at Griston, when one John -Walker “exhorted the people to destroy the gentry”), -and in 1549, under Ket, were not concerned with -the religious troubles of the times, but were frankly -agrarian. The Norfolk rising, which Ket led, was -no more connected with Protestantism than the -Peasant Revolt of 1381 was with Lollardy. Agrarian -disturbances took place in a number of counties in -1549. In May the peasants of Somerset and -Lincoln were in revolt, and in July there were -tumults in Essex, Kent, Wiltshire, Buckinghamshire, -and Oxfordshire. A rude Cambridge ballad of the -time extols the pulling down of enclosures:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Cast hedge and ditch in the lake,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fixed with many a stake;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Though they be never so fast,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Yet asunder they are wrest.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Sir, I think that this work</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is as good as to build a kirk.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>In 1548 Protector Somerset had followed Wolsey’s -footsteps in issuing a proclamation for a royal commission -to inquire and report concerning enclosures, -and to give the names of all who kept more than -two thousand sheep or who had “taken from -any other their commons.”<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">97</a> The commissioners -were also “to reform” any cases of the enclosing of -commons and highways, “without due recompense,” -which they might find; “and to the intent your -doings may proceed without all suspicion, and the -people conceive some good hope of reformation at -your hands, we would that as many of you as be -in any of the cases to be reformed, do first, for -example’s sake, begin to the reformation of yourselves.”</p> - -<p>Somerset’s ingenuous suggestion was naturally -disregarded by the commissioners, and beyond -making inquiries and publishing a report—to the -effect that in the counties of Suffolk, Essex, Hertford, -Kent, and Worcester nearly all the common -lands<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">98</a> had been enclosed, while in Norfolk and -Northampton large enclosures had been made—the -commission of 1548 was as fruitless as its predecessors. -Somerset, however, got some reputation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span> -by it as an enemy to the enclosures, and certainly -incurred the dislike of the landowners. But where -Wolsey, in the hey-day of power, had failed, there -was small chance of success for Somerset, with the -country in a state of anarchy, and the nation rent -and distracted by a violent revolution in the Church.</p> - -<p>The only strong movement to prevent the utter -downfall of the country-people was the Norfolk -Rising, which Robert Ket directed in the summer of -1549. It failed in the end, but for more than six -weeks the power of the landlords was broken round -Norwich, their enclosures were stopped, and the -hope of better things filled the hearts of the peasants.</p> - -<p>The rising began at Attleborough on 20th June -when Squire Green, of Wylby, set up fences and -hedges round the common lands at Harpham and -Attleborough, and the people, excited by news that -in Kent similar fences had been destroyed, proceeded -to pull them down. For the next fortnight -the revolt had neither leaders nor organization. -“There were secret meetings of men running hither -and thither, and then withdrawing themselves for -secret conferences, but at length they all began to -deal tumultuously and to rage openly.” On July 7th -the annual feast at Wymondham, in honour of the -translation of St. Thomas of Canterbury, brought -the country folk together from miles round; and at -the close of the fair they all set off to break down -the fences set up round the common lands at Hetherset -by one Sergeant Flowerdew.<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">99</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span></p> - -<p>Flowerdew, unable to save his fences, proposed a -diversion. The Kets at Wymondham had made -enclosures, why shouldn’t the rioters deal with them -in similar fashion? Flowerdew actually paid over -40d. to encourage an attack on the Kets.</p> - -<p>Robert Ket and his brother were well-known men. -Both were craftsmen, Robert, a tanner, and William, -a butcher. They were landowners besides, and men -of substance and of old family, for it was said the -Kets had been in the land since the Norman Conquest. -Robert Ket held three manors from the -Earl of Warwick; his yearly income was put down -at £50, and his property valued at 1,000 marks. -Like other landowners, the Kets had made enclosures, -but on the arrival of the people from Hetherset -they at once declared themselves willing to -stand by the movement for freeing the land. Robert -Ket felt the misery of his neighbours. He saw that if -the revolt was to be anything more than a local riot -it must have necessary guidance, and his sympathies -were entirely on the democratic side. And so from -that time forward he gave up the quiet of a country -gentleman’s life at Wymondham for the strenuous -movement of an insurgent camp.</p> - -<p>To the appeal of the people for help, Ket -answered passionately, “I am ready, and will be -ready at all times, to do whatever, not only to -repress, but to subdue the power of great men. -Whatsoever lands I have enclosed shall again be -made common unto ye and all men, and my own -hands shall first perform it.”</p> - -<p>Then Robert Ket went on to commit himself -body and soul to the movement, resolved that the -peasants should not be left unaided in the struggle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span> -they had begun, and willing to take upon himself the -burden and responsibility of leadership.</p> - -<p>“You shall have me, if you will, not only as a -companion, but as a captain; and in the doing of -the so great a work before us, not only as a fellow, -but for a leader, author and principal.”</p> - -<p>If the ambition which clutches at sovereignty and -rule is despicable, even more despicable is the weakness -which refuses to take command at times of -peril.</p> - -<p>To Robert Ket and his brother there was no -promise of the world’s honour and glory should the -rising be successful. At the best would be the -satisfaction of a battle fought and won for the -deliverance of long-suffering peasants. At the worst -the laying down of life in a good cause, as Geoffrey -Litster and many a Norfolk man had done in bygone -days.</p> - -<p>Robert Ket’s leadership was acclaimed with enthusiasm, -nor was it ever disputed throughout the -rising. In this, the last of the great popular risings -in England, the Norfolk men were as loyal to their -leader as the men of Kent were to Wat Tyler and -Jack Cade. And in each case that loyalty had ample -justification.</p> - -<p>There were but a thousand men involved when -the rising began, but under Ket’s command the -movement passed rapidly from the fluid “running -hither and thither” condition of the first fortnight, -and became the march of an organized army.</p> - -<p>On July 10th, two days after Ket took command, -this army was on the road to Norwich, and after -crossing the river at Cringleford, lay encamped at -Eaton Wood.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span></p> - -<p>It is plain from Ket’s speeches to his men, and -from “The Rebels’ Complaint,” which he published at -this time, that to Robert Ket the rising was not only -to put down enclosures, its aim was rather to strike at -the root of the evil and to put an end to the ascendancy -of the landlord class, and make England a free -commonwealth. Either the people must put down -landlords, or very soon the landlords would have the -whole land in their possession, and the people would -be in hopeless and helpless subjection. Had not -an act of parliament been actually passed making -“slaves” of the landless men, dispossessed by -enclosures? When parliament was establishing -slavery it was time for honest men to be up and -doing, rousing the people to action.</p> - -<p>Ket’s speech at Eaton Wood is a fierce attack on -the landlords, and a reminder that having ventured -so far, the peasants must advance yet further:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Now are ye overtopped and trodden down by gentlemen, -and put out of possibility ever to recover foot. Rivers of -riches ran into the coffers of your landlords, while you are -pair’d to the quick, and fed upon pease and oats like beasts. -You are fleeced by these landlords for their private benefit, -and as well kept under by the public burdens of State wherein -while the richer sort favour themselves, ye are gnawn to the -very bones. Your tyrannous masters often implead, arrest, -and cast you into prison, so that they may the more terrify and -torture you in your minds, and wind your necks more surely -under their arms. And then they palliate these pilleries with -the fair pretence of law and authority! Fine workmen, I -warrant you, are this law and authority, who can do their -dealings so closely that men can only discover them for your -undoing. Harmless counsels are fit for tame fools; for you -who have already stirred there is no hope but in adventuring -boldly.</p></div> - -<p>In “The Rebels’ Complaint,” the same note is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span> -struck. Only by taking up arms, and mixing -Heaven and earth together, can the intolerable -oppression of the landlords be ended.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>The pride of great men is now intolerable, but our condition -miserable.</p> - -<p>These abound in delights; and compassed with the fullness -of all things, and consumed with vain pleasures, thirst only -after gain, inflamed with the burning delights of their desires.</p> - -<p>But ourselves, almost killed with labour and watching, do -nothing all our life long but sweat, mourn, hunger, and thirst. -Which things, though they seem miserable and base (as they -are indeed most miserable), yet might be borne howsoever, -if they which are drowned in the boiling seas of evil delights -did not pursue the calamities and miseries of other men with -too much insolent hatred. But now both we and our miserable -condition is a laughing stock to these most proud and -insolent men—who are consumed with ease and idleness. -Which thing (as it may) grieveth us so sore and inflicteth such -a stain of evil report, so that nothing is more grievous for us -to remember, nor more unjust to suffer.</p> - -<p>The present condition of possessing land seemeth miserable -and slavish—holding it all at the pleasure of great men; not -freely, but by prescription, and, as it were, at the will and -pleasure of the lord. For as soon as any man offend any of -these gorgeous gentlemen, he is put out, deprived, and thrust -from all his goods.</p> - -<p>How long shall we suffer so great oppression to go unrevenged?</p> - -<p>For so far as they, the gentlemen, now gone in cruelty and -covetousness, that they are not content only to take all by -violence away from us, and to consume in riot and effeminate -delights what they get by force and villainy, but they must -also suck in a manner our blood and marrow out of our veins -and bones.</p> - -<p>The common pastures left by our predecessors for our relief -and our children are taken away.</p> - -<p>The lands which in the memory of our fathers were -common, those are ditched and hedged in and made several; -the pastures are enclosed, and we shut out. Whatsoever -fowls of the air or fishes of the water, and increase of the -earth—all these do they devour, consume, and swallow up;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span> -yea, nature doth not suffice to satisfy their lusts, but they -seek out new devices, and, as it were, forms of pleasures to -embalm and perfume themselves, to abound in pleasant -smells, to pour in sweet things to sweet things. Finally, -they seek from all places all things for their desire and the -provocation of lust. While we in the meantime eat herbs -and roots, and languish with continual labour, and yet are -envied that we live, breathe, and enjoy common air!</p> - -<p>Shall they, as they have brought hedges about common -pastures, enclose with their intolerable lusts also all the commodities -and pleasures of this life, which Nature, the parent -of us all, would have common, and bringeth forth every day, -for us, as well as for them?</p> - -<p>We can no longer bear so much, so great, and so cruel -injury; neither can we with quiet minds behold so great -covetousness, excess, and pride of the nobility. We will -rather take arms, and mix Heaven and earth together, than -endure so great cruelty.</p> - -<p>Nature hath provided for us, as well as for them; hath -given us a body and a soul, and hath not envied us other -things. While we have the same form, and the same condition -of birth together with them, why should they have a -life so unlike unto ours, and differ so far from us in calling?</p> - -<p>We see that things have now come to extremities, and we -will prove the extremity. We will rend down hedges, fill up -ditches, and make a way for every man into the common -pasture. Finally, we will lay all even with the ground, which -they, no less wickedly than cruelly and covetously, have -enclosed. Neither will we suffer ourselves any more to be -pressed with such burdens against our wills, nor endure so -great shame, since living out our days under such inconveniences -we should leave the commonwealth unto our -posterity—mourning, and miserable, and much worse than -we received it of our fathers.</p> - -<p>Wherefore we will try all means; neither will we ever rest -until we have brought things to our own liking.</p> - -<p>We desire liberty and an indifferent (or equal) use of all -things. This will we have. Otherwise these tumults and -our lives shall only be ended together.</p></div> - -<p>Revolutionary as this manifesto is, Robert Ket is -seen all through the rising exerting his authority on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span> -behalf of law and good order, curbing anarchy and -checking ferocity in the rebel camp.</p> - -<p>Only one day was spent at Eaton Wood. Ket’s -plan was to advance to Mousehold, a wide stretch of -high, well-wooded ground to the east of Norwich. -Here the camp was fixed on July 12th, the river -having been crossed at Hailsdon, and a night’s halt -called at Drayton—for the mayor of Norwich, -Thomas Cod, positively refused to allow the rebels -to pass through the city. Ket, anxious to unite -citizens and peasants in a common cause, willingly -avoided altercation, and Cod, alarmed at the rising, -and unable to dissuade the insurgents from their -enterprise, was careful to refrain from all hostile -demonstrations. Cod’s one purpose was to exclude -Ket’s army from the city, and to accomplish this he -kept on friendly terms with Ket, even while appealing -to the government to send down troops to suppress -the rising. Ket’s purpose was to break down landlord -rule in Norfolk, extend the area of revolt, and to get -the king to attend to the complaints of his subjects.</p> - -<p>Ket’s company at Mousehold numbered no more -than 2,600 on July 12th; but the ringing of bells -and the firing of beacons brought in thousands of -homeless men. At the end of a week 20,000 men -were enrolled under the banner of revolt, and now -Ket had all his work to do in maintaining discipline -and in arranging for provisions for the camp.</p> - -<p>It is clear Robert Ket was the right man for a -leader.<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">100</a> The people trusted him and obeyed his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span> -orders. Cod and two other reputable citizens of -Norwich—Aldrich, an alderman, and Watson, a -preacher—attended the camp daily, and along with -Ket and his brother William sat under a great tree, -known as the Oak of Reformation, and administered -justice. The 20,000 hungry, disinherited men -carried out in as orderly way as they could the -instructions they received.</p> - -<p>Ket’s first business was to send to the king a -plain statement of “Requests and Demands.” He -knew what was wanted for rural England, and refused -to admit that his purpose was disloyal or that -his conduct was rebellion.</p> - -<p>The “Requests” were twenty-nine, and they contained -a full statement of the grievances of the -country folk. The chief requests were for the stoppage -of enclosures, the enactment of fair rents, the -restoration of common fishing rights in sea and -river, the appointment of resident clergymen in -every parish to preach and instruct the children, and -the free election or official appointment of local -“commissioners” for the enforcement of the laws. -One significant prayer was “that all bond men may -be made free, for God made all free with His precious -bloodshedding.”</p> - -<p>This document, which was signed by Ket, Cod -and Aldrich,<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">101</a> was answered by the arrival of a -herald from the king with a promise that parliament -should meet in October to consider their complaints, -and that something should be done to redress their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span> -grievances, if in the meantime they would quietly -disperse to their homes.</p> - -<p>All this was too vague and uncertain for Ket. -Not till some definite step was taken by king or -parliament to end the present distress was he willing -to lay down his arms and bid his followers disperse. -He had put his hand to the plough, and no turning -back was possible while the evils he had risen -against flourished unchecked.</p> - -<p>So Ket put his house in order on Mousehold -Heath. The Oak of Reformation was boarded over -“with rafters,” and to this place of summary justice -landowners were brought and tried for making -enclosures. Two men were chosen by the commons -from every hundred to assist in the work of administration, -and all the people were strictly admonished -“to beware of robbing, spoiling and other evil -demeanours.” As the army had to be victualled, -Ket sent out men armed with his official warrant -requiring the country houses to provide cattle and -corn, “so that no violence or injury be done to any -honest or poor man,” and this requisition brought in -guns, gunpowder and money, in addition to “all -kinds of victual.” The smaller farmers sent their contributions -“with much private good will,” while on -the landowners a great fear had fallen, and it seemed -that the day of their might was passed.</p> - -<p>A royal messenger bearing commissions of the -peace to various country gentlemen falling into the -hands of Ket, he was at once deprived of these -documents and sent on his way. Ket filled in the -names of men who had joined the rising on these -commissions, and these new magistrates gave assistance -in maintaining order.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span></p> - -<p>Cod and Aldrich were shocked at the arrest of -landowners. “Notwithstanding were divers gentlemen -taken and brought to prison, some in Norwich -Prison, some in Norwich Castle and some in Surrey -Place.”—St. Leonard’s Hill.</p> - -<p>In every case the lives of the landowners were -spared. Stern and unmoved by respect of persons -was Robert Ket, but there was no taint of cruelty, -meanness or bloodthirstiness in his rule. It was not -his purpose to raise civil war or leave a festering -sore of hatred by putting his neighbours to death. -To destroy the power of the landlords and ensure -the right of an evicted people to live on the land was -the aim of the Norfolk Rising.</p> - -<p>At the end of the first week relations became -strained between Cod and the army on Mousehold.</p> - -<p>It was the custom to have prayers every day under -the Oak, and Dr. Conyers, vicar of St. Martin’s, -Norwich, acted as chaplain. “Grave persons and -good divines” would come out from the city and -preach under the Oak, and on one occasion Dr. -Matthew Parker, a Norwich man, who had been -chaplain to Anne Boleyn, and who was to become -Archbishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth, filled -the pulpit. Parker’s sermon, full of rebukes on the -rising and praise of Edward VI., was so obnoxious, -for “he touched them for their living so near that -they went near to touch him for his life,” that -Conyers only prevented a riot by striking up the -“Te Deum” in English, and during the singing -Parker withdrew “to sing his part at home.”</p> - -<p>Matthew Parker was a great man in Norwich (his -brother Thomas became mayor), and the incivility -he had received at Mousehold gave great offence.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span> -Cod and the aldermen sent off Leonard Sutherton, -a respectable burgess, to report to the king’s council -the doings in Norfolk, and Sutherton brought back -from London a royal herald, who went out to Mousehold -and promised the king’s pardon to all that -would depart quietly to their homes.</p> - -<p>The people cheered and shouted “God save the -king’s majesty,” but to Ket this talk of pardon was -altogether beside the mark. With some dignity he -informed the herald that “kings and princes are -wont to pardon wicked persons, not innocent and -just men,” and added, “I trust I have done nothing -but what belongs to the duty of a true subject.”</p> - -<p>The herald then called on John Petibone, the -sword-bearer of Norwich, who with other civic -notables was standing by, to arrest Robert Ket. -But the thing was impossible. Ket had 20,000 men -at his back, and the sword-bearer was supported by -half-a-dozen elderly members of the town council. -All that could be done was to escort the herald into -the city, leaving Ket to his own devices.</p> - -<p>There was no more peace between the camp at -Mousehold and the city of Norwich after this. -Hitherto Mayor Cod had retained the keys of the -city, and his authority had been respected by Ket. -At the same time Ket’s men had gone freely to and -fro throughout the city without let or hindrance. -Now all was changed. First the landowners were -being arrested and despoiled, then the learned -doctor, Matthew Parker (was he not master of -Corpus Christi College, Cambridge?) had been -interrupted and hooted, and now a king’s herald was -contemned! Cod ordered the city gates to be made -fast, commanded Ket’s prisoners to be released, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span> -placed the city’s ordnance in the meadows by the -river. This amounted to a declaration of war, and -Ket replied by bringing up his guns.</p> - -<p>The night of July 21st was spent “in fearful shot -on both sides,” but little injury was done. For -Ket’s guns brought “more fear than hurt to the -city,” and “the city ordnance did not much annoy -the enemy.”</p> - -<p>In the morning Ket sought to renew peace by -asking permission for the transport of victuals through -the city, “as the custom was of late,” and warning -the mayor that refusal would provoke fire and sword.</p> - -<p>Cod refused permission, and Ket opened fire on -the city gates. But “for lack of powder and want -of skill in the gunners the ordnance was spent to -small and little purpose.” A desperate encounter -followed, with bows and arrows for the chief weapons -of offence. Boys from Mousehold, “naked and unarmed, -would pluck the arrows from their bodies -and hand them to the rebels to fire at the city.” At -Bishopsgate a number of men swam the river and -forced their way into the city, and on the night of -July 22nd Norwich was in the hands of Robert -Ket.</p> - -<p>No reprisals followed. The herald made a last -attempt to induce the insurgents to disperse by promising -pardons, and was greeted derisively. “Depart -with a plague on thee!” they cried. “To the -devil with these idle promises. We shall only be -oppressed afterwards.” Forthwith the herald did -depart, with eight pounds of gold in his pocket from -the mayor.</p> - -<p>Ket retired to Mousehold, the passage through -the city having been secured, and Cod accompanied<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span> -him, leaving a deputy, Augustine Steward, who -lived in the big house in Tombland, opposite Erfingham -Gate, to act as mayor.</p> - -<p>Judgment went on as before under the Oak of -Reformation, and people clamoured for the landowners -to be hanged. “So hated at this time was -the name of worship or gentleman, that the basest -of the people, burning with more than hostile hatred, -desired to extinguish, and utterly cut off, not only -the gentry themselves, but if it were possible, all -the offspring and hope of them.” (Nevylle.)</p> - -<p>But Ket was as strong in his mercy as in his -resistance to the land enclosers. The gentry were -imprisoned, and made to pay tribute: their fences -were pulled down, but their lives were spared, and -no hurt befell them. In the city Steward, no friend -to Ket, was left undisturbed in authority.</p> - -<p>At the end of July came William Parr, Marquis -of Northampton, with 1,500 soldiers, mostly Italian -mercenaries, and a number of country squires with -their retainers, to put down the rising. Steward at -once admitted him to the city; but Northampton—Henry -VIII.’s brother-in-law—was neither a soldier -nor statesman, and after two days’ hard fighting he -fled from Norwich, utterly defeated.</p> - -<p>Ket’s men were badly armed, but they had -numbers on their side, and they fought for freedom -and for very life. They swam the river, as before, -and forced an entrance. “Half dead, drowned in -their own and other men’s blood, they would not -give over; but till the last gasp, when their hands -could scarce hold their weapons, would strike at -their adversaries.”</p> - -<p>Lord Sheffield fell in the fight on August 1st,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span> -killed by a stalwart rebel—one Fulke, a butcher and -carpenter by trade—and some hundred of Ket’s men -lay dead. The city suffered. Several houses and -city gates were fired, and only a heavy rain prevented -the flames from spreading. (This same rain -drove many of the rebels to take refuge in the -cathedral, much to the annoyance of the dean and -chapter.)</p> - -<p>And now for three weeks Ket had to take charge -of Norwich as well as of Mousehold camp, for it was -impossible to trust Steward. Many of the wealthier -townsmen hastened away to Cambridge and London, -leaving their wives and families behind. Trade was -at an end.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>The state of the city began to be in most miserable case, -so that all men looked for utter destruction, both of life and -goods. Then the remnant that feared God, seeing the -plague thus of sorrow increasing, fell to prayer and holy life, -and wished but to see the day that after they might talk -thereover, looking never to recover help again, nor to see -their city prosper.</p> - -<p>The women resorted twice a day to prayer, and the servants -(except what must needs stay at home) did the same. -When Ket’s ambassadors were sent to any private house they -were fain to bake or brew or do any work for the camp, else -they were carried as traitors to the Oak. As for trading, -there was none in the city, people being forced to hide up -their choicest goods, and happy were they that had the -faithfullest servants.</p> - -<p>They that did keep open their shops were robbed and -spoiled, and their goods were measured by the arm’s length -and dispersed among the rebels; their children they set -away for fear of fire. I, the writer (who was then above -twenty-two years of age, and an eye-witness) was present -after prayer during this dolorous state, when people met and -bewailed the miserable state they were in. (Sutherton.)</p></div> - -<p>But for all their misery the tradesmen of Norwich<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span> -were in no fear for their lives. The city had done -its best to thwart the rising, but Ket treated it -generously, allowing neither pillage nor bloodshed—though -he did not scruple to take what goods were -necessary for his army.<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">102</a> It was beyond the power -of man to prevent all thieving during those first -few weeks of August, for the civic magistracy was -gone, and Ket had large responsibilities on his -hands.</p> - -<p>The hope that the rising would become general -turned to disappointment in the weeks that passed -after the flight of Northampton. In Suffolk a -number of men rose at Ket’s call, and made an -unsuccessful attempt to take Yarmouth. A small -camp set up at Rising Chase was dispersed, but for -a fortnight the peasants gathered at Watton, and -stopped the passages of the river at Thetford and -Brandon Ferry. For want of leadership they then -came on to Mousehold. At Hingham a rising was -put down by Sir Edmund Knyvett. And while Ket -waited, hoping against hope for better news, the -fugitive citizens from Norwich had already persuaded -Somerset to send down an army to crush -the revolt.</p> - -<p>On August 21st the Earl of Warwick, with 14,000 -troops, reached Cambridge, and three days later was -at Norwich.</p> - -<p>Warwick, Henry VIII.’s high chamberlain, the -son of Dudley, Henry VII.’s minister, was a man of -war and resolution. Sent down to suppress the -rising he did his work, but not till he had tried an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span> -appeal to the peasants to disperse without further -trouble.</p> - -<p>Halting outside the city, Warwick sent a herald -to proclaim pardon to all who should now return to -their homes, and, as before, the people shouted, -“God save King Edward!” Ket himself talked -with the herald on the high ground near Bishop’s -Gate.</p> - -<p>Negotiations ended abruptly. Some ill-mannered -boy gave an indecent and offensive salute to the -herald, and was shot dead by an arrow from the -herald’s escort. At once the cry of “treachery” -was raised by the people, and all talk of peace was -at an end. While the herald tried to persuade Ket -to come to the Earl of Warwick under a flag of -truce, the rebels gathered round their leader and -besought him not to forsake them. To Ket there -could be sure reliance on royal promises of pardon, -and no surrender of the charge he had undertaken. -His reply to the herald was to retire on Mousehold -and prepare for battle.</p> - -<p>Warwick at once entered the city, and began the -business of pacification by promptly hanging sixty -men in the Market Place, by Norwich Castle, -“without hearing the cause”; and by issuing a proclamation -that all who were out of doors would -receive similar treatment. Then came a mishap, for -the greater part of Warwick’s artillery fell into Ket’s -hands. The drivers of the gun-carriages, entering -the city after the soldiers, by St. Bennet’s Gate on -the west, and ignorant of the way, actually passed -out at Bishop’s Gate on the east on the very road -towards Mousehold, and were quickly taken. Ket -had now the advantage in ordnance, and there was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span> -fighting in the city all Sunday, August 25th. So -uncertain was the issue that the burgesses feared -Warwick would suffer Northampton’s fate, and -prayed him to depart without further loss. But -Warwick, waiting for reinforcements, and knowing -that 1,400 German mercenaries were close at hand, -was not the man to beat an ignominious retreat.</p> - -<p>The hireling “lanznechts” arrived next day, and -on Tuesday, August 27th, came the fatal battle.</p> - -<p>Instead of remaining at Mousehold, where a -strong resistance might have been made, the rebels -decided to march out boldly from their camp and -meet the king’s army in the open country that lay -between Mousehold Heath and the city. An old -song was recalled, which, it seemed, foretold victory -in such a case:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The country gnoffes (churls), Hob, Dick, and Rick,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With clubs and clouted shoon,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Shall fill the vale</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Of Dussindale</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With slaughtered bodies soon.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>But the country churls were to be the slaughtered, -and not the slaughterers.</p> - -<p>Warwick marched out by the north-east gate of -St. Martin-at-the-Oak, and for the last time a herald -promised pardon to all who would surrender. But -the hangings in the market place had destroyed all -confidence in such proclamations, and the answer to -the herald was that they “perceived this pardon to -be nothing else but a cask full of ropes and halters.”</p> - -<p>Ket’s judgment failed him utterly on that last -day of the rising. On the strength of an irrelevant -old song he allowed his army to go to its doom unchecked,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span> -and at the very time when good generalship -was wanted above all other things, Robert Ket -seems to have lost his nerve, and to have been -struck by some paralysis of the will, as though -conscious of impending ruin.</p> - -<p>The peasants poured down into the valley, and -into the meadows beyond Magdalen and Pockthorp -Gates, and fought with desperate courage, but they -were simply cut to pieces by the professional soldiery. -At four o’clock in the afternoon it was all over, the -defeat utter and complete, and Robert Ket and his -brother were in flight.</p> - -<p>The remains of the rebel army laid down their -arms, when Warwick himself offered pardon in the -king’s name to those who would surrender.</p> - -<p>The rising was at an end. The foreign mercenaries -of the crown had triumphed over English -peasants. Robert Ket was taken the same night at -Swannington, eight miles north of Norwich. He -had ridden away from the battle when the field was -lost, but horse and rider were too tired to proceed -further. Taking refuge in a barn, he was recognized -by some men unloading a wagon of corn and seized. -The farmer’s wife “rated him for his conduct, but he -only prayed her to be quiet, and to give him meat.” -That same night William Ket was taken, and the -two brothers were delivered to the lord lieutenant of -the county, and by him carried to London to be -tried for their lives.</p> - -<p>At Mousehold Warwick proved the worth of the -pardons he had given by first having nine of the -bravest of the peasants hanged, drawn, and quartered -under the Oak of Reformation, and distributing -their bodies in the city; and then by hanging 300<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span> -prisoners on trees, and then forty-nine more at the -Market Cross in Norwich. The country gentlemen -of Norfolk, backed by their wealthier citizens, called -for more executions, till Warwick turned with disgust -from the vindictive clamour of these bloodthirsty -civilians, and pointed out in impatient reproof that -no one would be left “to plough and harrow over -the lands” if all the peasants were massacred.</p> - -<p>And now the king’s authority having been re-established, -a public service of thanksgiving was -held in the church of St. Peter, Mancroft, and -August 27th was ordered to be observed henceforth -as “Thanksgiving Day” in Norwich. (This was -done by prayers and sermon until 1667. In the -grammar school, during Elizabeth’s reign, an account -of the rising—<cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">De Furoribus Norfolciensum</cite>, -written in Latin by Nevylle, and violently anti-popular -in expression—was ordered to be used as a -text book in place of the usual classics, and was so -used for some years.)</p> - -<p>On September 7th Warwick returned to London.<a id="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">103</a> -In November Robert and William Ket, after lying -in the Tower for two months, were brought to trial. -They offered no defence for what they had done: for -having borne arms without the king’s permission, -and for having striven to stop the robbery and -oppression of the peasant without the authority of -king and parliament.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span></p> - -<p>On November 26th they were found guilty of high -treason, their property confiscated, and they were -condemned to death. On November 29th they were -delivered out of the custody of the Tower to the -high sheriff of Norfolk, and on December 1st the -Kets were again in Norwich.</p> - -<p>It was winter, and hope was dead. The last -great rising of the English peasantry had failed, -crushed without pity, and the leaders of the army of -revolt, who had judged it better to give up ease and -worldly honour rather than acquiesce dumbly in the -enslavement of their poorer neighbours, were to die -as traitors.<a id="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">104</a> On December 7th the executions were -carried out, and Robert Ket was hanged in chains -outside Norwich Castle, while William Ket was -taken to Wymondham (where he held the manor of -Chossell—Church lands, bought years earlier from -the Earl of Warwick), and there hanged in chains -from the parish church.</p> - -<p>The property of the Kets was duly taken by the -servants of the crown, and the bodies of the rebel -leaders swung in the wind—to remind unthinking -men of the reward of rebellion, of the fate of all -who challenge, without success, the arms of government.</p> - -<p>The Norfolk Rising was the last great movement -of the English people in social revolt. Riots we -have known even in our times, and mob violence,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span> -but no such rising as those led by Wat Tyler, by -Cade, and by Ket has England seen since the year -1549.</p> - -<p>The country people sunk into hopeless poverty -and permanent degradation under Edward VI. and -Elizabeth, and with the rejection by the government -of papal authority, the supremacy of the crown and -of the ministers of the crown was established.</p> - -<p>In the nineteenth century, when the working -people in town and country once more bestirred -themselves at the call of freedom, their wiser leaders -advised political and not revolutionary methods of -action, and the advice has been followed.</p> - -<p>But if the year 1549 marks the end of organized -democratic resistance to intolerable misgovernment, -the coming centuries were to see the rise of the -middle class with the insistent demand for the predominance -of that class in the parliament of the -nation, and the incurable belief that in a popularly -elected House of Commons resided all the safeguards -of civil and religious liberty.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_11">Eliot, Hampden, Pym, and the -Supremacy of the Commons.<br /> - -<span class="subhead">1625–1643</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: S. R. Gardiner—<cite>History of England</cite>, -<cite>History of Great Civil War</cite>, <cite>History of Commonwealth -and Protectorate</cite>; Clarendon—<cite>History of the -Great Rebellion</cite>;, John Forster—<cite>Life of Sir John -Eliot</cite>, <cite>Life of Hampden</cite>, <cite>Life of Pym</cite>, <cite>The Grand -Remonstrance</cite>, <cite>Arrest of the Five Members</cite>; Nugent—<cite>Memorials -for Life of Hampden</cite>; <cite>Calendar of State -Papers</cite>; <cite>House of Commons’ Journals</cite>.</p> - -<div id="ip_245" class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/i_p244.jpg" width="1543" height="1894" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><p>SIR JOHN ELIOT</p> - -<p>(<cite>From a Steel Engraving by William Holl.</cite>)</p></div></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">ELIOT, HAMPDEN, PYM,<br /> -AND THE SUPREMACY<br /> -OF THE COMMONS. -<span class="subhead">1625–1643</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">John Eliot</span>, John Hampden, John Pym—by -the work of these men comes the supremacy -of the House of Commons in the government -of England.</p> - -<p>All three are country gentlemen of good estate, of -high principle and of some learning.<a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">105</a> They are men -of religious convictions, of courage and resolution, -and of blameless personal character. Two of them—Eliot -and Hampden—are content to die for the -cause of good government.</p> - -<p>The strong rule of Elizabeth left a difficult legacy -of government to James I. The despotism of the -queen had been forgiven in the success of her State -policy; and if she had no high opinion of parliament, -Elizabeth had ministers who fairly represented the -mind of the English middle class. Elizabeth’s absolutism -in Church and State was the direct following -of Henry VIII., and only at the very close of her -reign was it threatened by the discontent of parliament. -With a shrewd instinct for popularity Elizabeth -at once yielded. Like her father, she saw the -importance of retaining parliament on the side of the -crown and making it the instrument of the royal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">246</span> -will. There was no idea in the Tudor mind of -parliament sharing the government with the crown. -The business of the House of Commons of Elizabeth -was to express its opinion and then decree the proposals -of the crown. “Liberty of speech was granted -in respect of the aye or no, but not that everybody -should speak what he listed.” (1592.)</p> - -<p>In religion Elizabeth had done her worst to exterminate -the Roman Catholic faith, and by the fierceness -of her persecution had kindled undying enthusiasm -for the old beliefs and worship. But forty -years of repression did their work, and a generation -arose which only knew Catholicism as the faith of a -proscribed and unpatriotic sect, who denied the absolute -sovereignty of the crown and had another -sovereign at Rome—the religion of Spain—popery, -in short: a faith worse than Mahomedanism or -heathenism—the scarlet woman of the Apocalypse—according -to the fierce Puritan expounders of the -Bible, and not to be counted as Christianity. That -this very Roman Catholicism—so hateful because -the penal laws kept it hidden and unknown, and -because it was the religion of Spain, then the national -enemy—had been the religion of all England for -centuries, and that under it the earliest charters of -public liberty had been wrung from the crown, and -the principle of a representative parliament established, -were facts uncontemplated.</p> - -<p>But Elizabeth, while persecuting Roman Catholics, -had left in the Book of Common Prayer of the -Church of England a sanction for ceremonial and -for episcopal ordination, and a body of doctrine which -were to be interpreted under the Stuarts by certain -Anglican divines as witnesses to Catholicism. Such<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span> -interpretation was to be found in Elizabeth’s reign as -a pious opinion. With Laud it was an active principle, -and it brought him to the scaffold. The -Elizabethan bishops in the main were thoroughly -Protestant, the queen was the head of the Church of -England, and the ritual of the Church prescribed by -her was reduced to a simplicity that average Protestants -could accept.</p> - -<p>If Elizabeth burnt anabaptists and hanged other -nonconformists, her excuse was that the Church of -England was sufficiently Protestant to include all -well-affected persons. The extreme Puritans whom -she persecuted had this in common with the Roman -Catholics, that neither accepted the absolute supremacy -of the crown, and the best Puritan teaching -in England, even when it counselled conformity to -the Established Church, was creating a mind and -temper that only found expression in the Commonwealth.</p> - -<p>James I. came to the throne in 1603 prepared to -carry on the Tudor absolutism. He failed because -he had neither Elizabeth’s ministers nor her knowledge -of the English country landowners. James -never realised that Spain was the popular enemy, -that a discontent had suddenly grown up in parliament -in the last years of Elizabeth’s reign, and that -the English landowners—in many cases from their -inherited possession of the old Church lands—were -generally bitterly hostile to the Roman Catholic -religion. James was tolerant in religion, and not -inclined to press Elizabeth’s penal laws against -Roman Catholics, and this very toleration brought him -under the dislike of the country party. He thought -he could disregard the opinion of parliament and he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">248</span> -found that while a House of Commons submitted -to a despotism when the country was governed -by a strong queen, it would not put up with the -follies and extravagance of the Duke of Buckingham.</p> - -<p>James died before the strength of the growing -movement for parliamentary government was seen. -Charles who was no more tyrannical than his father, -but even more blind to the signs of the times, fell -before that parliamentary movement—a movement -which outraged all the traditions of Tudor government—and -with his fall brought down the throne, the -House of Lords, and the Established Church. By -his inability to understand the House of Commons, -by his support of the Anglican movement towards -Catholicism in the Church of England, and by the -mistakes of his ministers, Charles ripened the -desire for constitutional monarchy till the desire was -irresistible.</p> - -<p>John Eliot gave forcible utterance to this desire, -and died in prison for his speech. John Pym -carried on the work till the sword of civil war was -drawn. John Hampden, “the noblest type of -parliamentary opposition,” was content to back Pym -as he had earlier backed Eliot, and to die on Chalgrove -Field. Brought up to regard as an alien -creed the old belief in papal supremacy in religion, -unable to accept the new doctrine of the Church of -England that the king was supreme by divine right -(a doctrine begotten by the Tudors and dying with -the Stuarts), Eliot, Hampden, and Pym were all of -the same Puritan type which found its authority in -the individual conscience.</p> - -<p>Eliot was less afflicted than his colleagues by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span> -theological Protestantism of the age.<a id="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">106</a> First and -last he was the straightforward country gentleman, -with exalted views on the sacred responsibility of -civil government, and a high standard of personal -honour. For Eliot there was no nobler sphere of -work for an Englishman than the House of -Commons, and his example has not been without -followers. Seneca and Cicero are on his lips, as the -later Puritans had the Bible on theirs, and his -eloquence marks the beginning of parliamentary -oratory. With a strong and clear view of constitutional -government, Eliot was no republican; he held -to the notion that the king must depend on the -decisions of parliament. Time was to show that -this notion, in the event of a collision between king -and parliament, was to make parliament the predominant -partner.</p> - -<p>On his first entry into the House of Commons as -member for St. Germans, in 1614, Eliot was the -friend of Buckingham—whom he had met as a youth -abroad—and on Buckingham’s rise to the lord high -admiralship Eliot was knighted and became vice-admiral -of Devon.</p> - -<p>The fidelity of his service to the State as vice-admiral -brought an unpleasant experience of the -will of princes. Grappling with the scourge of -piracy which afflicted the seaports and shipping<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span> -trade of the West of England, Eliot accomplished -the arrest of Nutt, a notorious sea-robber. But -Nutt had friends in high places, and Eliot found -himself lodged in the Marshalsea prison over the -business. He was released on Buckingham’s return -from the continent, for the charges were absurd, -and in 1624 returned to the House of Commons as -member for Newport. Two years later Eliot was -estranged from Buckingham—convinced that the -favourite of the king was an evil counsellor—and -had become the recognized leader of the House of -Commons. Once assured in his mind that Buckingham -was responsible for the policy of the king, -Eliot became his implacable opponent. For the -policy of the crown in not making war upon Spain, -in relaxing the penal laws against Roman Catholics, -and for the mismanagement of the war on the continent -in support of the Protestants, Eliot held -Buckingham responsible. In answer to the demand -of Charles for money in 1626, Eliot insisted that an -inquiry into past disasters should precede supply, -and that Buckingham should be impeached. Not -the king but his minister is to blame, Eliot maintained, -for all that was wrong in the State, and this very -speech strikes the note of the campaign that was -beginning. Buckingham was not responsible to -Charles alone, in the eyes of Eliot and his friends, -but also to parliament.<a id="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">107</a></p> - -<p>Charles, quite unable to fathom the depth of the -parliamentary discontent, or to note the strength of -the current against absolutism, fell back upon the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span> -old Tudor doctrine of sovereignty, the doctrine of -the high Anglican party in the Church of England, -that the king was responsible for his acts to God -alone. “Parliaments are altogether in my calling,” -he replies to the House of Commons.</p> - -<p>Only twenty-five years had passed since Bacon -had declared, “the Queen hath both enlarging and -restraining power: she may set at liberty things -restrained by Statute, and may restrain things which -be at liberty.” Twenty-three years more were -to see monarchy abolished and the king beheaded. -Eliot, standing midway between Bacon and Bradshaw, -cleaves to the theory of constitutional government -and persists in the impeachment of a minister in -whom parliament had no confidence.</p> - -<p>The prologue of impeachment declared in the -plainest language the responsibility of the king’s -ministers to parliament, and the responsibility of -parliament to the nation: “The laws of England -have taught us that kings cannot command ill or -unlawful things, and whatsoever ill event succeed, -the executioners of such designs must answer for -them.”</p> - -<p>And now the issue was fairly set, and the battle -begun between Charles and the House of Commons. -In that year, 1626, no man in England could foretell -the result.</p> - -<p>Charles, ill-advised to the end, believed he could -overawe the Commons by a display of might, and -was beaten. Twice he had Eliot arrested before the -final imprisonment which ended Eliot’s life.</p> - -<p>The loyalty of the House of Commons to its -leader compelled Charles to release Eliot, after sending -him to the Tower for his attack on Buckingham.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span> -Then dissolving parliament in June, 1626, and -falling back on a forced loan, the king was met -by wide refusals, and Eliot, with Hampden and -others, suffered imprisonment over this. Eliot was -also deprived of his vice-admiralship and struck off -the roll of justices of the peace.</p> - -<p>Driven to call a parliament for the third time in -1628, the king was faced by a stronger opposition -than ever.</p> - -<p>Eliot, now member for Cornwall, throughout the -session continued the attack on arbitrary taxation, -and with the lawyers Seldon and Coke carried the -Petition of Right to stop the illegal imprisonments, -the enforced billeting of soldiers, and forced loans. -Buckingham, slain at Portsmouth, no longer troubled -the commonwealth; but Wentworth, ambitious to -use his powers in the service of the government, -had left the popular side for the king; while Laud, -and Weston, the chancellor of the exchequer, were -daily preaching to Charles the divine right of kings -and to his subjects the duty of passive obedience.</p> - -<p>The following year both Eliot and Pym attacked -the ecclesiastical policy of Laud. To them the -established religion of England, settled on the Protestant -basis by Elizabeth, was being definitely -changed in a Catholic direction without the sanction -of parliament, and in the very teeth of the opposition -of the House of Commons. High-church -clergymen, like Montague and Mainwaring, holding -to the full a Catholic interpretation of the Book of -Common Prayer, were only censured by the House -of Commons to be promoted by the crown. Laud -preaching a royal supremacy undreamt of by the -great archbishops before Henry VIII., combined<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span> -with it a doctrine of ecclesiastical independence, -owning no allegiance to Rome, equally novel.</p> - -<p>Eliot, stoical in his beliefs, and Pym, whose Calvinism -was tempered by common sense, regarded -with horror the revival in the Church of England of -Catholic doctrines concerning the sacraments and -the priesthood. They had done what they could to -check any indulgence to Roman Catholics in -England, and it was monstrous to them that the -Church of England, whose formularies and ritual -had been defined by parliament for the maintenance -of Protestantism, should be expanded to reintroduce -doctrines and practices essentially Catholic. But -for the time the House of Commons was powerless -in the matter, and only sixteen years later was Laud -to expiate on the scaffold his Anglo-Catholicism, -dying a veritable martyr for the high Anglican -doctrine. “None have gone about to break parliaments -but in the end parliaments have broken -them,” declared Eliot on March 2nd, 1629, and -Laud, no less than Charles and Wentworth, was to -prove the truth of the warning.</p> - -<p>If parliament could do nothing in that year, 1629, -to stop Laud’s policy, it could at least defend the -privileges of its members. The goods of John -Rolle, M.P., had been seized by the king’s officers -because their owner had refused to pay tonnage and -poundage on demand, and at once Eliot was up in -arms in defence of the privileges of his fellow -member, whose liberties had been interfered with.</p> - -<p>Pym was for a wider view of the matter—objecting -to the question being narrowed down to a breach -of privilege. “The liberties of this House,” he -argued, “are inferior to the liberties of this kingdom.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span> -To determine the privilege of this House is -but a mean matter, and the main end is to establish -possession of the subjects, and to take off the commission -and records and orders that are against us.” -With Pym it was not Rolle, the member, who had -been ill-used, but Rolle the British subject, and it -was for the liberties of the subject he strove, holding -the freedom of parliament as but a means to that end.</p> - -<p>Eliot, a House of Commons man, through and -through, saw in the welfare of parliament the -welfare of the nation, and stuck to his point, carrying -the House with him, that the privileges of a -member extended to his goods. To this Charles -sent word that what had been done had been done -by his authority. The only question now was, how -long would it be before the king dissolved parliament.</p> - -<p>On the second of March, when the House met, -the speaker’s first word was that the king had -ordered an adjournment till the tenth, and that no -business could be transacted. Eliot insisted on -moving his resolutions, and the speaker was held -down in his chair. Then the serjeant-at-arms -attempted to remove the mace, and was promptly -stopped, while the key of the House was turned -from within.</p> - -<p>Eliot moved his declaration, beginning with the -famous words: “By the ancient laws and liberties of -England, it is the known birthright and inheritance -of the subject, that no tax, tallage, or other charge -shall be levied or imposed but by common consent -in England; and that the subsidies of tonnage and -poundage are no way due or payable but by a free -gift and special act of parliament.”</p> - -<p>The resolutions were carried with loud shouts of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span> -assent, two members guarding the speaker, and the -door was flung open; the sitting was over.</p> - -<p>A royal proclamation for dissolving parliament -followed on the fourth of March, and Eliot, with eight -other members, was summoned to appear before the -Privy Council.</p> - -<p>From the hour of that summons John Eliot’s liberty -was over, and not for eleven years was England to -have another parliament.</p> - -<p>For the fourth time Eliot was a prisoner. He -declined altogether to give an account of what he -had said in parliament, or to acknowledge any right -of interference with the proceedings in parliament. -To the crown lawyers his reply was to stand on the -privileges of a member of the House of Commons. -“I refuse to answer,” he said, “because I hold that -it is against the privilege of parliament to speak of -anything which is done in the House.” He insisted -that he was accountable to the House alone, and -that no other power existed with a constitutional -right to inquire into his conduct there.</p> - -<p>At the end of October Eliot was removed from -the Tower to the Marshalsea, and then in January, -1630, he was charged in the King’s Bench with two -other members, Holles and Valentine, with conspiring -to resist the king’s lawful order, to calumniate -ministers of the crown, and to assault the speaker. -Again Eliot refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction. -He was fined £2,000, and sent back to the Tower.</p> - -<p>To the last Eliot’s loyalty to the House of -Commons remained unshaken. He had but to -acknowledge that he had done wrong, to admit that -he had offended, and the prison doors would have -opened to him. But to make this acknowledgment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span> -was to deny the sacred liberty of parliament, to -admit wrong was to betray the House of Commons. -To John Eliot the welfare of the House of Commons -was a national cause—dearer than life. To -betray its honour was to betray the State. The -loyalty of John Eliot to the House of Commons was -interwoven with his devotion to the State, but it -was something England had never seen before, and -never saw again. “He learned to believe, as no -other man believed before or after him, in the -representatives of the nation.” (Gardiner.)</p> - -<p>The character and temperament of Eliot must be -taken into account in understanding this passionate -belief in the House of Commons. It was not as a -great thinker but as a great orator he had risen to -the leadership of the House of Commons. He saw -in his mind, as no other man saw at the time, a perfectly -balanced constitution of king, lords, and -commons. In parliament was the best wisdom of -the country placed at the service of the crown. In -the crown was the appointed ruler who, with his -ministers, had but to come to parliament for advice -and counsel. So it seemed to John Eliot; and -single-minded himself, he could not realise that in -the House of Commons were plenty of men of but -passing honesty, and that Charles and Laud and -Wentworth were fundamentally opposed to his views -of constitutional government, and bitterly hostile to -the growing powers of the commons.<a id="FNanchor_108" href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">108</a></p> - -<div id="ip_257" class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/i_p256.jpg" width="1213" height="1711" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><p>JOHN PYM</p> - -<p>(<cite>From an Engraving by Jacob Houbraken.</cite>)</p></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">257</span></p> - -<p>Months passed, and John Eliot’s health gave -way in the confinement in the Tower, but his -steadfastness was unchanged. He corresponded -with his friend John Hampden, wrote his treatise -on the <cite>Monarchy of Man</cite>, and calmly awaited his -end. An application on behalf of his friends and -his son for Eliot’s release was made in October, 1622, -on the ground that “the doctors were of opinion he -could never recover of his consumption until such -time as he might breathe in purer air.” The reply -of Chief Justice Richardson was “that, although -Sir John were brought low in body, yet was he as -high and lofty in mind as ever; for he would -neither submit to the king nor to the justice of that -court.”</p> - -<p>On November 27th, 1632, the spirit of John -Eliot, unbroken by captivity, passed from the body -his gaolers had deprived of life. A last appeal from -his son to the king for the removal of his father’s -body into Cornwall, there to lie with those of his -ancestors at Port Eliot, received the curt refusal, -“Let Sir John Eliot’s body be buried in the church -of the parish where he died.” And so he was -buried in the Tower, and no stone marks the spot -where he lies.</p> - -<p>John Eliot was but forty-two when he laid down -his life for the principle of parliamentary government.</p> - -<p>Any satisfaction that might have been felt by -Charles and Laud at the death of the foremost -antagonist to their policy of absolutism was fleeting. -For if Eliot was dead, the cause he had championed -with such conspicuous sincerity and courage was -alive, and John Hampden and John Pym were at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">258</span> -hand to carry on the fight till Cromwell and his -Ironsides were ready to end the battle.</p> - -<p>Charles was determined that, until the commons -should be more submissive, he would call no parliament, -but would govern through his ministers alone. -The difficulty was to find money.</p> - -<p>In 1634 London and the seaports were persuaded -to furnish supplies for ships on the pretext that -piracy must be prevented. A year later and the -demand was extended to the inland counties, and -John Hampden, taking his stand on the Petition of -Right which Charles had granted in 1628, declined -to pay. Ten out of twelve of the king’s judges had -decided that ship-money might be enforced if the -kingdom appeared to be in danger, but against this -declared legality there was the decree of parliament -forbidding forced loans or taxes without parliamentary -sanction.</p> - -<p>On this resistance of the ship-money Hampden’s -fame has been chiefly built up. The amount was -small—only a matter of some twenty shillings—the -issue was of a first importance. It was clear to -Hampden that if the king could raise money by -such methods, what need would there be in the -royal mind for the calling of parliament at all? The -question was forced upon him: Was parliament an -essential part of the constitution? The judges had -declared ship-money was legal, other taxation and -forced loans could easily find justification on the -judicial bench, and thus the crown obtain its revenue, -and England ruled without any let or hindrance from -its citizens. To admit the position was to see the -work of centuries undone, and the old contest in the -land for liberties in return for taxes abandoned.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">259</span></p> - -<p>Hampden’s refusal to pay ship-money was a -declaration for parliamentary government. No -more a republican than Eliot or Pym, Hampden -could see that either crown or parliament must be -supreme in the affairs of the nation.<a id="FNanchor_109" href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">109</a> The constitution -was not to be balanced so evenly as Eliot had -believed. Eliot himself had been deprived of life -for maintaining, not the supremacy but the liberty of -parliament. For John Hampden the evils of royal -supremacy were obvious and present: misrule, the -restoration of a religion banished by authority of -crown and parliament, and disliked and feared by -the majority of serious-minded people in the country, -and the imprisonment of all who claimed the old -freedom of parliament.</p> - -<p>The case was decided against him in the law -courts, but five of the twelve judges supported -Hampden’s contention that the resistance to payment -was valid, and the arguments for his defence -were published far and wide. “The judgment -proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman -condemned than to the king’s service.”<a id="FNanchor_110" href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">110</a></p> - -<p>Three years later, and Charles was forced to -summon parliament to get money for his war in -Scotland—the “Bishop’s War,” perhaps the most -hopeless of all his ventures.</p> - -<p>Parliament met in April, and its temper was so -unfavourable to the desires of the king, for the -forcible conversion of the Scots to episcopacy, that -it was dissolved in three weeks. John Pym was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">260</span> -notable in that “Short Parliament” as the spokesman -of the aggrieved country party, and the commons -decided that the grievances of the nation must be -considered before supplies were voted. The Scotch -war was intolerable to Pym and Hampden. They -had no objection to episcopacy as long as bishops -were men of Protestant convictions. It was Laud -the “Anglo-Catholic,” Laud the preacher of the -divine right of kings, not Laud the Archbishop of -Canterbury, whom they detested, and they had no -relish for the expenditure of English life and -treasure in the forcing of Laudian doctrine on -Protestant Scotland.</p> - -<p>In the long eleven years of silence from the utterance -of parliament things had been going steadily -from bad to worse in England, Pym made out. -Naturally conservative in mind, seeing in the constitution -of king and parliament an admirable -instrument of government, and in the Established -Church of England an excellent expression of the -Protestant religion, Pym had found that with -parliament suspended the Protestantism of the -Established Church had been steadily undermined -by Laud’s policy, and the revival of some estranged -Catholic doctrines and practices had proceeded -apace. Without parliament there was no security -for national well-being. “Powers of parliament are -to the body politic as rational faculties of the soul -to man,” he declares in April, 1640.</p> - -<p>Pym had entered the House of Commons with -Eliot in 1614, and had been imprisoned in that year -for his boldness. In 1620 he had been one of the -“twelve ambassadors” to James I., for whom that -king had ordered chairs to be set in Whitehall.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">261</span> -With Eliot and Hampden he had pressed for -Buckingham’s impeachment and for the Petition of -Right. Now in 1640, John Pym, in his fifty-sixth -year, was about to become the accredited leader of -the parliamentary party, to be called “King Pym” -by his enemies at the court, and to pass away when -the long constitutional struggle was being settled on -the field of civil war. Unimaginative, and averse -from new ideas, Pym had a quite clear perception -of the business of the House of Commons, and of -the fitting relations of king and parliament. The -crown, the lords, the commons were all recognized -and necessary elements in the constitution, but their -importance was not equal. The collective assembly -of parliament had prevailed over the crown more -than once; to Pym, the Laudian “divine right” -was a novelty, and nonsense at that. Parliament -could do much of its work with or without royal -approval, and of the two Houses, if the Lords -were unwilling to work with the lower House, the -Commons could “save the kingdom alone.”</p> - -<p>In the autumn Charles was driven again to appeal -to parliament, and in November, 1640, the “Long -Parliament” met, only to be dissolved thirteen -years later by the arms of Cromwell. To the -eleven years of “personal government” by Charles -succeed thirteen years of parliamentary government, -and then the House of Commons, now too -enfeebled to endure, itself goes down before a -military dictatorship.</p> - -<p>Pym anticipated the coming struggle by riding -over England on the eve of the elections to the -Long Parliament and urging the electors to return -men to the House of Commons resolute and alive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">262</span> -to the crisis. The response was unmistakable. -Parliament assembled to find some remedy for the -distresses of the country before voting any money -for the purposes of the crown. Enormous numbers -of petitions were presented, and the House of -Commons appointed its committees to attend to -and report on the complaints.<a id="FNanchor_111" href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">111</a></p> - -<p>Before the year closed the House of Commons -had struck at the power of Laud and Wentworth -(now the Earl of Strafford), and the two ministers -lay in prison impeached for high treason. Windebank, -Charles’s secretary of state, and Finch, the -chancellor, were already fled over seas.</p> - -<p>It was Pym who went to the bar of the House of -Lords to summon Strafford to surrender, and it was -Pym who opened the charge of impeachment the -following March. As in Eliot’s time, Hampden is -content to be overshadowed by his friend, though -his was the greater influence in the House.</p> - -<p>Clarendon has given us his view of Hampden at -the opening of the Long Parliament:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>When this parliament began the eyes of all men were fixed -upon him, as their <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">patriae pater</i>, and the pilot that must steer -the vessel through the tempests and rocks which threatened -it. I am persuaded his power and interest at that time were -greater to do good or hurt than any man’s in the kingdom, or -than any man of his rank hath had in any time; for his reputation -of honesty was universal, and his affections seemed -so publicly guided, that no corrupt or private ends could bias -them.</p></div> - -<p>Baxter, it may be recalled, had written in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">263</span> -<cite>Saints’ Rest</cite> that one of the pleasures which he -hoped to enjoy in heaven was the society of John -Hampden. The name of Hampden was blotted -out in the copies published after the Restoration. -“But,” wrote Baxter, “I must tell the reader that I -did blot it out, not as changing my opinion of the -person.”</p> - -<p>The work of Pym and Hampden is conspicuous -at the beginning of the Long Parliament. The -Star Chamber and High Commission Courts are -abolished. Ship-money and all enforced taxation -unauthorised by parliament are declared illegal. -Oliver Cromwell’s motion for annual parliaments is -amended into an act for triennial parliaments to be -called with or without royal summons. Strafford—the -only strong minister Charles had—perished on -Tower Hill in May, both Pym and Hampden supporting -impeachment instead of attainder, and -voting for the fallen minister to be allowed the use -of counsel at his trial. That Strafford was a -criminal and a traitor ready to use his Irish army -for the suppression of the English parliament Pym -had no doubt.</p> - -<p>Still Charles would not admit the position lost, -and still struggled to govern, not through parliament, -but by personal rule. The death of Strafford, -though approved by all supporters of the House of -Commons, rallied the king’s friends. The House of -Lords was no longer quite at one with the Commons -in the contest. In the House of Commons a -royalist party emerges to oppose Pym, and the -beginning of party government is seen. Overtures -are made by Pym to the queen—to be disregarded, -of course; though the tide is setting towards<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">264</span> -revolution, yet Pym and Hampden are far from -revolutionaries. They are willing to end the political -power of the bishops by turning them out of the -House of Lords, but have only moderate sympathy -with the root-and-branch Puritans who would abolish -episcopacy.</p> - -<p>In the Grand Remonstrance which Pym laid -before the House of Commons in November, 1641, -the case for the Parliament was stated with frankness, -but the demands were not revolutionary. The -main points were securities for the administration of -justice, and insistence on the responsibility of the -king’s ministers to parliament. The royalists fought -the Remonstrance vigorously, and in the end it was -only carried by a majority of eleven, 159 to 148. -At the end of the debate the excitement was intense: -“some waved their hats over their heads, and others -took their swords in their scabbards out of their -belts, and held them by the pummels in their hands, -setting the lower part on the ground.” Violence -seemed inevitable, “had not the sagacity and great -calmness of Mr. Hampden, by a short speech, -prevented it.”</p> - -<p>On the 1st of December the Remonstrance, with -a petition for the removal of grievances, especially -in matters of religion, was presented to the king at -Hampton Court. “Charles had now a last chance -of regaining the affection of his people. If he could -have resolved to give his confidence to the leaders -of the moderate party in the House of Commons, -and to regulate his proceedings by their advice, he -might have been, not, indeed, as he had been, a -despot, but the powerful and respected king of a free -people. The nation might have enjoyed liberty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">265</span> -and repose under a government with Falkland -at its head, checked by a constitutional opposition -under the conduct of Hampden. It was not necessary -that, in order to accomplish this happy end, -the king should sacrifice any part of his lawful -prerogative, or submit to any conditions inconsistent -with his dignity.” So Macaulay wrote. But the -days of “governments” and “constitutional oppositions” -were far off in 1641, and only the germ of -party government is seen in the division of the -House of Commons. To “submit to any conditions” -from parliament was inconsistent with the -king’s notions of royal dignity, fostered by Laud to -reject all criticisms as denials of the absolutism of -the crown.</p> - -<p>Charles promised an answer to the deputation -which waited on him, and the answer was seen on -January 3, 1642, when the king’s attorney appeared -at the bar of the Lords, impeached Pym, Hampden, -Holles, Strode, and Hazlerig of high treason, in -having corresponded with the Scots for the invasion -of England, and demanded the surrender of the -five members. “All constitutional law was set -aside by a charge which proceeded personally from -the king, which deprived the accused of their legal -right to a trial by their peers, and summoned them -before a tribunal which had no pretence to a jurisdiction -over them.”</p> - -<p>The House of Commons simply declined to -surrender their members, but promised to take the -matter into consideration.</p> - -<p>Then Charles, with some three hundred cavaliers, -went to Westminster, and entered the House of -Commons to demand the accused. But the five<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">266</span> -members, warned of his coming, were out of the -way and safe within the city of London. “It was -believed that if the king had found them there, and -called in his guards to have seized them, the members -of the House would have endeavoured the defence -of them, which might have proved a very unhappy -and sad business.” As it was, the king could only -retire discomfited, with some words about respecting -the laws of the realm and the privileges of parliament, -and “in a more discontented and angry passion -than he came in.”</p> - -<p>The invasion of the Commons was the worst move -Charles could have made, for parliament was in no -temper favourable to royal encroachments, and it -had a large population at hand ready to give substantial -support. The city of London at once -declared for the House of Commons, ignored the -king’s writs for the arrest of the five members, and -answered the royal proclamation declaring them -“traitors” by calling out the trained bands for the -escort of the members back to Westminster, and for -the protection of the House of Commons.</p> - -<p>Falkland and the royalist members turned for the -moment from Charles at his unexpected attack on -the House, the cavaliers of Whitehall, menaced by -the trained bands from Southwark and the city, -fled, and Charles, standing alone, left London.</p> - -<p>War was now imminent. Pym and Hampden at -once prepared for the struggle.</p> - -<p>Pym secured the arsenals of Portsmouth and Hull -for the parliament, but his efforts to obtain the control -of the militia in the counties were frustrated for -a time by the king’s natural refusal to consent to -the Militia Bill, which would have placed troops<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">267</span> -under the orders of country gentlemen of the -parliamentary party.</p> - -<p>Both king and parliament had to break through -all constitutional precedent. The king levied troops -by a royal commission, and Pym got an ordinance -of both Houses of Parliament passed appointing -the lords-lieutenant to command the militia, and -thereby published the supremacy of parliament over -the crown. In April the king appeared at Hull to -obtain arms, and was refused admission to the town -by Sir John Hotham, the governor. Parliament -expressed its approval of Hotham’s act, the royalists -gathered round Charles at York, and the final proposals -of parliament for ending absolute monarchy -were rejected by the king in June with the words, -“If I granted your demands I should be no more -than the mere phantom of a king.”<a id="FNanchor_112" href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">112</a></p> - -<p>With this refusal all negotiations were broken off. -Essex was appointed commander of the parliamentary -army, and in August Charles raised the -royal standard at Nottingham, and war was begun.</p> - -<p>Hampden threw himself vigorously into the campaign. -From his native county of Buckingham, -the county which made him its representative in -parliament in 1640, he raised a regiment of infantry.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">268</span> -“His neighbours eagerly enlisted under his command. -His men were known by their green -uniform, and by their standard, which bore on one -side the watchword of the parliament, ‘God with -us,’ and on the other the device of Hampden, -‘<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">Vestigia nulla retrorsum</i>.’” In the first stages of -the war, before any decisive blow had been struck, -Hampden was busy passing and repassing between -the army and the parliament. Clarendon praises -his courage and ability on the field.</p> - -<p>A skirmish at Chalgrove, on June 18th, 1643, -between bodies of horse commanded by Rupert -and by Hampden, ended in victory for the royalists. -Hampden was seen riding off the field, “before the -action was done, which he never used to do, and -with his head hanging down, and resting his hands -upon the neck of his horse.” He was mortally -wounded, for two carbine balls were lodged in his -shoulder, and reached Thame only to die six days -later.</p> - -<p>The death of Hampden—at the age of 49—came -at a dark hour in the early fortunes of the -parliamentary army, and deepened the gloom. -“The loss of Colonel Hampden goeth near the -heart of every man that loves the good of his king -and country, and makes some conceive little content -to be at the army now that he is gone.” But Pym -remained, and Cromwell and Vane, and many -another resolute House of Commons man.</p> - -<p>Pym’s health was already broken when Hampden -fell, but he lived to accomplish the alliance of the -English Puritans and the Scotch army, and, as the -price of this alliance, the abolition of episcopacy -and the adoption of Presbyterianism in the Church<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">269</span> -of England. The Solemn League and Covenant -was accepted by parliament, and imposed on the -nation in September. Henceforth the parliamentary -army was pledged to extirpate “Popery, prelacy, -superstition, schism and profaneness”; to bring “the -Churches of God in the three kingdoms to the -nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion”; to -“preserve the rights and privileges of the parliament -and the liberties of the kingdom; and to -unite the two kingdoms in a firm peace and union to -all posterity.”</p> - -<p>The taking of the covenant—a political necessity—was -John Pym’s last work. He was ten years -older than Hampden, and his character was ruggeder -and sterner and without the charm of the younger -man. But Pym’s was the greater genius in politics, -and his scheme of constitutional government was to -be fulfilled in England at a later season.</p> - -<p>John Pym died on December 8th, 1643, and his -body was buried in Westminster Abbey—only to be -turned out at the Restoration and removed to St. -Margaret’s churchyard.</p> - -<p>With Pym and Hampden gone, henceforth the -conduct of parliament was in other hands, and the -day of moderate statesmanship had passed.</p> - -<p>The war undertaken to preserve the liberties and -establish the supremacy of the House of Commons -was to bring in its train not only the abolition of -monarchy and the House of Lords, but the suppression -of the House of Commons itself.</p> - -<p>Important to the nation as the issues at stake -were, most people in England took hardly any -more part or interest in the great civil war than they -had done in the Wars of the Roses. “A very large<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">270</span> -number of persons regarded the struggle with -indifference.... In one case, the inhabitants -of an entire county pledged themselves to remain -neutral. Many quietly changed with the times -(as people changed with the varying fortunes of -York and Lancaster). That this sentiment of -neutrality was common to the greater mass of the -working classes is obvious from the simultaneous -appearance of the club men in different parts of the -country, with their motto, ‘If you take our cattle, we -will give you battle.’”<a id="FNanchor_113" href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">113</a></p> - -<p>How could it be otherwise? Supremacy of King, -or supremacy of Commons,—seed time and harvest -remain, and the labourer and the artizan must needs -do their day’s work.</p> - -<p>Not till the deposing of the Stuarts—forty-five -years after John Hampden’s death—is the supremacy -of parliament over the crown arrived at by general -consent, to become a recognized and settled thing -in British politics. By the middle of the nineteenth -century the House of Commons is unmistakably the -ruling power in the constitution, and the labours of -Eliot, Hampden and Pym are vindicated.</p> - -<p>In our own day changes in the balance of constitutional -power may be noted. The supremacy of -the House of Commons is quietly disappearing -before the growing popularity of the crown, the reawakened -activity of the House of Lords, and the -steady gathering of the reins of power into the hands -of the Cabinet and Executive. As the crown in -the last twenty years has increased in popular -esteem, so the influence and importance of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">271</span> -Commons has waned in the country; and this -waning influence of the Lower House has been -further diminished by the frequent rejection and -revision of its measures by the House of -Lords.</p> - -<p>The power of the Executive has also been -obtained at the expense of the power of the -Commons. The Cabinet, rather than the House of -Commons, holds the supremacy to-day, and the -direction of foreign policy, and the making of international -treaties are no more within the authority of -the House of Commons than are the administration -of Egypt and India. Pym and Hampden fought -and gave their lives for the right of the House of -Commons to control the ministers of the crown and -to order the policy of these ministers. By its own -consent, and not from pressure from without, the -House of Commons has silently surrendered this -right, and has agreed that the policy of its Foreign -Minister for the time being—whether he be Liberal -or Conservative—must not be subject to reproof, -still less to correction. In home affairs administrative -order steadily supersedes statute law.</p> - -<p>In theory ministers are still subject to the House -of Commons. In actual practice they can rely on -not being interfered with as long as their party has a -majority in the House. When the price of effective -interference with the conduct of affairs is a defeat -of the Cabinet and a consequent dissolution, the -payment is more than members of parliament are -prepared to make.</p> - -<p>Given the sense of security of social order and of -the administration of justice, the nation, generally, -no more heeds the passing of the supremacy from the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">272</span> -House of Commons, than it heeded the winning of -that supremacy.</p> - -<p>The Laudian doctrine in the Church of England, -revived at the Restoration, disappeared with the -passing of the non-jurors at the close of the seventeenth -century. But its Anglo-Catholic teaching -was renewed by the Oxford Movement, early in -Queen Victoria’s reign, and has largely changed the -whole appearance of the Church of England. The -modern high Anglican, claiming, as Laud claimed, -the right to interpret the Book of Common Prayer -as a Catholic document, but no longer the advocate -of any theory of divine right of kings, or the -champion of any particular political creed, has -travelled indeed far beyond Laud’s very limited -success in winning support for Catholic doctrine and -ritual in the Church of England. Laud was beaten -by the opposition of parliament; his present day -successors in the Church of England have prospered -in spite of that opposition, and have triumphed over -acts of parliaments, adverse judicial sentences, -privations and imprisonments. But with Laud the -movement was directed by bishops and approved -by the king, the modern Laudian movement was -banned by bishops and disfavoured by all in high -authority.</p> - -<p>To-day nearly every Catholic doctrine, save papal -supremacy, has its expounders and defenders in the -Church of England, and Catholic rites and ceremonies -are freely practised.</p> - -<p>Laud, dying on the scaffold in 1645 at the hands -of parliament, is amply avenged in the twentieth -century by the victorious high-churchman. The -Laudian clergy of the Established Church can now<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">273</span> -maintain their Anglo-Catholic faith and practice, -without any fear of parliamentary interference. For -generally they enjoy a popularity and respect that -the House of Commons does not willingly venture -to assail.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_12">John Lilburne and the -Levellers<br /> - -<span class="subhead">1647–1653</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: Lilburne’s Pamphlets; <cite>Calendar of -State Papers</cite>; <cite>Charles I. and the Commonwealth</cite>; <cite>State -Trials</cite>; <cite>House of Commons’ Journals</cite>; Whitelocke—<cite>Memorials -of English Affairs</cite>; Clarendon—<cite>History of -the Rebellion</cite>; W. Godwin—<cite>History of the Commonwealth</cite>; -S. R. Gardiner—<cite>History of the Great Civil -War</cite>; <cite>History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate</cite>; -G. P. Gooch—<cite>History of Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth -Century</cite>.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">277</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">JOHN LILBURNE AND<br /> -THE LEVELLERS -<span class="subhead">1647–1653.</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">From</span> his coming of age in 1637 till the near -approach of death, when he turned, a dying -man, to the peaceful tenets of the Quakers, -the life of John Lilburne is a record of -twenty years of strife and battle with the rulers -of the land.</p> - -<p>He came of pugnacious stock, for John Lilburne’s -father, a well-to-do Durham squire, was the last -man to demand the settlement of a lawsuit by the -ordeal of battle, and came into court armed accordingly—only -to be disappointed by an order from the -crown, forbidding the proposed return to such -ancient and obsolete methods of deciding the -differences of neighbours.</p> - -<p>Apprenticed to a wholesale cloth-merchant in -London, John Lilburne soon became acquainted -with Bastwick and Prynne, then busy over anti-episcopal -pamphlets, and, keeping such company, -naturally fell into the clutches of the Star Chamber. -The charge against him was that he had helped to -print and circulate unlicensed books, in particular, -Prynne’s <cite>News from Ipswich</cite>; and though Lilburne -declared the charge to be false, on his refusal to -take the usual oath to answer truly all questions put -to him, the Star Chamber adjudged him guilty, and -passed sentence—Lilburne was to be whipped from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">278</span> -the Fleet to Westminster, to stand in the pillory, -and to be kept in prison.</p> - -<p>The sentence was carried out on February 13th, -1638, but Lilburne was not cowed, for he scattered -some of Bastwick’s offending pamphlets on the -road, and was gagged in the pillory to reduce him -to silence. In prison things went hardly with -Lilburne, for the authorities had him placed in irons -and kept in solitary confinement, and only the -compassion of fellow prisoners saved him from actual -starvation in the two years and nine months of his -imprisonment.</p> - -<p>It was a rough beginning, and John Lilburne -was henceforth an agitator and a rebel.</p> - -<p>At the end of 1640 one of the first things done -by the Long Parliament was to order Lilburne’s -release, and in the following May the sentence was -pronounced “illegal and against the liberties of the -subject.” But illegal or not, the punishment had -been inflicted, and with unbroken spirit, passionately -resenting the tyranny that could so wrong men, -Lilburne flew quickly to the attack on the authors of -the injustice.</p> - -<p>At Edgehill Lilburne held a captain’s commission, -and at Brentford he was taken prisoner by the -royalists. Only the threat of swift reprisals by the -parliamentary army saved him from being shot as -“a traitor,” and the following year he was again at -liberty on an exchange of prisoners. Again, after -fighting at Marston Moor, he fell into the hands of -the royalists, and, shot through the arm, was kept in -prison at Oxford for six months.</p> - -<p>Brave soldier as Lilburne was, he left the army -in 1645 (with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">279</span> -with £880 arrears of pay owing to him) rather than -take the covenant and subscribe to the requirements -of Cromwell’s “new model.”</p> - -<p>And now monarchy having fallen from its high -estate, Lilburne at once saw elements of tyranny in -the Parliamentary government, and did not hesitate -to say so. Courageous and intrepid, with considerable -legal knowledge, a passion for liberty, and clear -views on democracy, John Lilburne might have -given invaluable service to the commonwealth. He -had shown skill and daring in the war, his character -for fearless endurance had been proved, his ability as -a pamphleteer was considerable, and his capacity -for work enormous; the government had either to -treat Lilburne as a friend or foe—he was not to -be ignored. The government, unwisely, decided -Lilburne was an enemy, and for the next ten years -he fought the rule of parliament and the army, his -popularity increasing with every new pamphlet he -produced. The price the commonwealth government -paid for its opposition to Lilburne was to -be seen on the death of Cromwell.<a id="FNanchor_114" href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">114</a></p> - -<p>From 1645 to 1649 Lilburne’s vigorous criticisms -of the men in power provoked retaliation, and -brought him to Newgate. But in prison or out of -prison Lilburne went on hammering away to establish -a democratic constitution. The time was to come -when Cromwell would find the Long Parliament -had outlived its usefulness and would end it by main -force. Lilburne was anxious in 1647 for a radical -reform of parliament and a general manhood<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">280</span> -suffrage. His proposals were popular in the army, -and had Cromwell supported him the whole future -of English politics would have been changed.</p> - -<p>When the Presbyterian majority in parliament -proposed the disbandment of the army in 1647, the -regiments chose their agitators, and, refusing to -disband, drew up the “Agreement of the People” -and the “Case for the Army.” These documents -give the political standpoint of the Levellers and the -particular grievances to be remedied.</p> - -<p>The distribution of parliamentary seats according -to the number of inhabitants was the chief proposal -in the “Agreement of the People,” and the principles -maintained are that “no man is bound to a government -under which he has not put himself,” and that -“all inhabitants who have not lost their birthright -should have an equal voice in elections.”</p> - -<p>The particular demands in the “Case for the -Army” were the abolition of monopolies, freedom -of trade and religion, restoration of enclosed common -lands, and abolition of sinecures.</p> - -<p>While Cromwell and Ireton were both bitterly -against manhood suffrage, the council of officers to -whom the Levellers appealed agreed to support it, -without approving the rest of the programme.</p> - -<p>Cromwell, relying on the army to prevent a -royalist reaction—for Charles was plotting from -Carisbrooke for aid from Scotland, and the royalists -in the House of Commons were anxious to effect a -reconciliation—would give neither time nor patience -to the demands of Lilburne and the Levellers.</p> - -<p>In vain the Levellers exclaimed, in 1648, “We -were ruled before by King, Lords, and Commons, -now by a General, Court Martial, and Commons:<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">281</span> -and, we pray you, what is the difference?” Cromwell, -at all costs, was determined to preserve the -discipline of the army, and to suppress mutiny with -an iron hand. For him the army which had beaten -the cavaliers was the one safeguard against the -return of the old order in Church and State. Lilburne -and the Levellers, with the “Fifth Monarchy” men, -had been the strength, the very life of the army that -had conquered at Marston Moor and Naseby. The -petition of the Fifth Monarchy men for the reign of -Christ and His saints (which, according to prophecy, -was to supersede the four monarchies of the ancient -world) had no terrors for Cromwell; in other words, -they demanded government exclusively by the godly, -Independents and Presbyterians combining to elect -all representatives, “and to determine all things -by the Word.” “Such a proposal might attract -fanatics; it could not attract the multitude. The -Levellers who stood up for an exaggeration of the -doctrine of parliamentary supremacy were likely to -be far more numerous.”<a id="FNanchor_115" href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">115</a> To Cromwell the immediate -thing was the royalist danger; it was no season -for embarking on democratic experiments with which -he had no sympathy. The breach between Cromwell -and the Levellers widened, and as Cromwell -became more and more impatient of their agitation, -distrust and suspicion of Cromwell and of the newly-appointed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">282</span> -Council of State ripened, in 1649, into -revolt.<a id="FNanchor_116" href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">116</a> It is the perennial misunderstanding between -the statesman and the agitator. The one weighted -by responsibility can rarely travel at the pace of the -other, untrammelled by office, and as the distance -between the two lengthens, it seems they are not -even pursuing the same course—as, indeed, very -often they are not.</p> - -<p>Lilburne had none of Cromwell’s anxieties as to -a possible royalist reaction; for him the danger -could not come from the dethroned king and his -defeated cavaliers, but from a parliamentary oligarchy -or a military dictatorship. But he overestimated -the strength of the Leveller movement in the army. -With the presentation of the “Agreement of the -People” the bulk of the discontent in the army -diminished, and while the Levellers who remained -became in several regiments openly mutinous, the -movement generally died down, so that when the -revolt came, it was suppressed without difficulty.<a id="FNanchor_117" href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">117</a></p> - -<p>Lilburne was out of prison at the beginning of -1649. He took no part in the trial of Charles I., -and let it be known that he doubted the wisdom of -abolishing monarchy before a new constitution had -been drawn up.</p> - -<p>As neither the remnant of the Long Parliament<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">283</span> -nor Cromwell and Fairfax were doing anything to -set up this new constitution, Lilburne proceeded to -lay a remonstrance before parliament, and to follow -this up by his two pamphlets on “England’s New -Chains.” He now urged that “committees of short -continuance” should supersede the Council of State, -that the Self-denying Ordinance should be put in -force, “seeing how dangerous it was for one and the -same persons to be continued long in the highest -commands of a military power,”<a id="FNanchor_118" href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">118</a> that a new parliament -should be elected, and the “Agreement of the -People” proceeded with heartily. At the same time -he called for army reform by a reconstruction of the -General Council and the election of agitators.</p> - -<p>The expulsion of five troopers from the army for -directly petitioning parliament provoked another -pamphlet—“The Hunting of the Foxes from Newmarket -to Whitehall by five small beagles late of -the army.” The argument here was that Cromwell, -Ireton, and Harrison ruled the council of officers, -and that the council of officers ruled parliament and -the nation. “The old king’s person and the old -lords are but removed, and a new king and new -lords with the commons are in one House, and so -we are under a more absolute arbitrary monarchy -than before.”</p> - -<p>There was only one answer to be made to -Lilburne’s pen, and that was to arrest the man who -held it, for the commonwealth had no one on its -side who could reply to him. At the end of March -Lilburne and three of his supporters, Walwyn,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">284</span> -Prince, and Richard Overton were arrested as -traitors, “England’s New Chains” having been voted -by parliament seditious and destructive of the -government, and were committed to the Tower to -await trial.</p> - -<p>At once a petition was got up and signed by -80,000 persons for Lilburne’s release, and a fortnight -later—April 18th—another petition was taken -to the bar of the House of Commons to the same -effect. Parliament promised that the prisoners -should have a legal trial, but declared the course of -justice must not be interfered with. A large deputation -of women also appeared at Westminster on -April 23rd with a similar petition; but these were -forbidden to enter the House, and, admonished by -members to “go home and wash their dishes,” -answered they would soon have no dishes to wash.<a id="FNanchor_119" href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">119</a></p> - -<p>Lilburne was not brought to trial till October, and -in the six months’ interval, though the output of -democratic pamphlets continued from the Tower, -the Leveller movement in the army ended in open -mutiny and defeat.</p> - -<p>Carlyle tells the story accurately enough of the -mutiny in Whalley’s regiment in Bishopsgate, -London, on April 25th:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>They want this and that; they seize their colours from the -cornet, who is lodged at the “Bull” there; the general -(Fairfax) and lieutenant-general (Cromwell) have to hasten -thither, quell them, pack them forth on their march, seizing -fifteen of them first to be tried by court-martial. Tried by -instant court-martial, five of them are found guilty, doomed -to die, but pardoned; and one of them, Trooper Lockyer, is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">285</span> -doomed and not pardoned.<a id="FNanchor_120" href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">120</a> Trooper Lockyer is shot in -Paul’s Churchyard on the morrow. A very brave young man, -they say; though but three-and-twenty. “He has served -seven years in these wars,” ever since the wars began. -“Religious,” too, “of excellent parts and much beloved”; -but with hot notions as to human freedom, and the rate at -which the milleniums are attainable. Poor Lockyer! He -falls shot in Paul’s Churchyard on Friday, amid the tears of -men and women. Lockyer’s corpse is watched and wept -over, not without prayer, in the eastern regions of the city, -till a new week come; and on Monday, this is what we see -advancing westward by way of funeral to him:</p> - -<p>About one thousand went before the corpse, five or six in a -file; the corpse was then brought, with six trumpets sounding -a soldier’s knell, then the trooper’s horse came, clothed -all over in mourning, and led by a footman. The corpse was -adorned with bundles of rosemary, one half stained in blood, -and the sword of the deceased along with them. Some -thousands followed in ranks and files, all had sea-green and -black ribbon tied on their hats and to their breasts, and the -women brought up the rear.</p> - -<p>At the new churchyard at Westminster some thousands -more of the better sort met them, who thought not fit to -march through the city. Many looked upon this funeral as -an affront to parliament and the army; others called these -people “Levellers”; but they took no notice of any of them.<a id="FNanchor_121" href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">121</a></p></div> - -<p>In May one Corporal William Thompson rallied -a body of Levellers at Banbury, published a manifesto -called “England’s Standard Advanced,” and -inveighed against the tyranny of courts-martial. -Overwhelmed by force of numbers, Thompson<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">286</span> -escaped, and later died fighting alone near Wellingborough. -Some twenty of his followers joined the -mutineers of Scrope’s regiment at Salisbury. Numbering -some 1,200, these Levellers made their way -by Marlborough and Wantage to Burford. Here -Cromwell came up with the mutineers, and surprised -them at midnight. Resistance was hopeless, -and the majority at once surrendered. All were -pardoned except Cornet Thompson (brother to -William), and two corporals—Church and Perkins—who -showed neither fear nor admitted any wrong -on their part. These three men were shot in -Burford churchyard on May 15th,<a id="FNanchor_122" href="#Footnote_122" class="fnanchor">122</a> and with their -deaths the Leveller movement was at an end.</p> - -<p>But Lilburne was unsubdued. His new “Agreement -of the Free People,” published on May 1st, -called for annual parliaments elected by manhood -suffrage—pensioners, militant royalists, and lawyers -excluded—and for the free election of unendowed -church ministers in each parish. At the same time -he disclaimed all connection with Winstanley’s -“Diggers”—political reform was Lilburne’s -demand.<a id="FNanchor_123" href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">123</a></p> - -<p>Released on bail in July, Lilburne issued in -August an “Impeachment for High Treason against -Oliver Cromwell and his son-in-law, James Ireton.” -In this his hatred of government by the army -compels the admission that monarchy is preferable -to a military despotism: “If we must have a king, -I for my part would rather have the prince than any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">287</span> -man in the world.... For the present army -to set up the pretended Saint Oliver or any other as -their elected king, there will be nothing thereby -from the beginning of the chapter to the end -thereof but wars and the cutting of throats year -after year; yea, and the absolute keeping up of a -perpetual army under which the people are absolute -and perfect slaves.”</p> - -<p>Thereupon, instead of bringing him to trial, the -government merely issued a warrant for Lilburne’s -arrest. The agitator met this by a stronger -manifesto, “An Outcry of the Young Men and -Apprentices of London,” calling on the army to rise in -support of a democratic parliament and to vindicate -the men executed at Burford. Some response came -from the garrison at Oxford, who summoned their -officers to join in the demand for a free parliament, -but no success attended this step.</p> - -<p>At last in October Lilburne was brought to trial -at the Guildhall, not on the charge for which he had -been first committed to the Tower in March, but -for the “treason” of his later pamphlets. The trial -is memorable for Lilburne’s demand that counsel -should be assigned to him in the event of legal -technicalities arising, and for his bidding the jury -remember they were judges of law as well as of fact. -His real defence lay in the question he had put so -often: Was England to be governed by the sword -and a mock parliament, or by duly elected representatives -of the People? The jury understood -that Lilburne was on trial for putting that question, -and, agreeing with him, they acquitted -him. The verdict was received with tremendous -applause, and “a loud and unanimous shout” of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">288</span> -triumph went up from the citizens of London in the -Guildhall.<a id="FNanchor_124" href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">124</a></p> - -<p>In December Lilburne was elected to the common -council of the city, but parliament promptly declared -the election void. “Fiercely as Lilburne attacked -Cromwell, there was at times considerable liking -between the two men, and they met on friendly -terms before Cromwell went to Scotland in 1650. -Cromwell assured Lilburne of his desire to make -England enjoy the real fruit of all the army’s promises -and declarations,” and friendly relations lasted -till Cromwell’s return. But, in Cromwell’s absence, -Lilburne charged Hazlerigg with corruption in the -administration of justice concerning a disputed -colliery lease in Durham, and parliament took up -the matter. In January, 1652, it declared Lilburne’s -petition for redress a libel, and imposed a fine of -£7,000 with a sentence of banishment for life.</p> - -<p>This proceeding by parliament revived the -methods of the Star Chamber in imposing a conviction -and a sentence without trial, but the House -of Commons was determined to stop Lilburne’s -activities at all cost.</p> - -<p>Cromwell made no effort to hinder the conviction, -and Lilburne insisted that Cromwell’s professions of -friendship were hypocritical, and that the general -himself was responsible for the sentence.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">289</span></p> - -<p>For the time Lilburne retired to Holland, where -he discussed favourably the chances of a royalist -restoration. But on the expulsion of the Rump of -the Long Parliament the agitator at once wrote off -to Cromwell for permission to return to England, -and getting no answer crossed to London in June, -1653, and settled in lodgings in Moorfields. He petitioned -Cromwell and the Council of State for leave -to remain unmolested, promising to live peacefully, -but Cromwell, with the whole government on his -shoulders, had no willingness to incur the risk -Lilburne and his doctrine of popular rights involved -to the safety of the State.</p> - -<p>Lilburne was promptly arrested by Cromwell’s -order and brought to trial at the Old Bailey on July -13th. The government case was that he had returned -to England knowing that a sentence of death -was decreed by parliament if he broke his exile.</p> - -<p>Lilburne’s defence, in the main, was that the -parliament which had passed sentence was dead, -and that if Cromwell had acted justly in dissolving -it, then its unjust actions ought not to be maintained; -if Cromwell had acted unjustly, why was he not -punished?</p> - -<p>Again the jury acquitted him, and again the people -of London expressed their satisfaction at the verdict, -“the very soldiers sent to guard the court joining in -the shouts, and beating their drums and sounding -their trumpets as they passed along the streets to -their quarters.”</p> - -<p>But “for the peace of the nation” Cromwell -would not let Lilburne be at large. Back in the -Tower, then at Guernsey, and then in Dover Castle -for more than two years Lilburne was a prisoner.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">290</span></p> - -<p>His health was broken in 1656, and consumption -had set in. Death was near, and for John Lilburne -the days of “carnal sword-fighting and fleshly -hustlings and contests” were over. He wrote to -Cromwell from Dover Castle telling the Lord -Protector of his conversion to Quakerism, and -Cromwell, assured that there was to be no more -agitation from “Free-Born John,” granted his -release, and a pension of 40s. a week.</p> - -<p>The battle was over for John Lilburne, liberty -could not stay the hand of death. The many imprisonments -and close confinements had done their -work, and rapid consumption marked down the man -who had stood up against the whole might of -Cromwell’s government.</p> - -<p>John Lilburne died at Eltham in August, 1657, -at the age of forty. A year later, and his old -antagonist, and older comrade-in-arms, Oliver -Cromwell, Lord Protector, was dead, and the -Commonwealth government which had contemned -the agitation for democracy was doomed.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_13">Winstanley the Digger<br /> - -<span class="subhead">1649–1650</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: Winstanley’s Pamphlets; Whitelocke—<cite>Memorial -of English Affairs</cite>; Clarke Papers; L. H. -Berens—<cite>Digger Movement in the days of the Commonwealth</cite>.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">293</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">WINSTANLEY THE DIGGER -<span class="subhead">1649–1650.</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">In</span> the spring of 1649, the “Digger” movement -revealed a strange and unexpected manifestation -of the democratic spirit in England. -Free communism had been the creed of more -than one Protestant sect on the continent in the -sixteenth century, and the Anabaptists had been -conspicuously identified with the proposal. But in -England John Lilburne and the Levellers were -attacking the parliamentary government in the -name of political democracy, and social agitation -had been unknown since the Norfolk Rising of -1549, save for a riot against land enclosures at the -beginning of James I.’s reign.</p> - -<p>Gerrard Winstanley was the leader at the sudden -outbreak of social discontent, and his “Digger” -movement was to end this discontent and all other -miseries of the time by getting rid of enclosures of -common lands, and allowing people to plough these -common lands and waste spaces, “that all may feed -upon the crops of the earth, and the burden of -poverty be removed.”</p> - -<p>Little is known of Winstanley, and the movement -is shortlived. The “Diggers” never threatened -the safety of the Commonwealth government as -Lilburne and the Levellers did, for Winstanley’s -social doctrine included the non-resistance principles -that later found exponents in the Society of Friends,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">294</span> -and the agrarian revolution he preached could -hardly be accomplished without force of arms. -What is notable about Winstanley is his witness to -the fact that a social question existed—that he saw -beyond the Civil War, and the strife for political -liberties, a great mass of poverty unheeded; and -seeing the miseries of his fellows resolutely thought -out some cure for their distress, and did his best, as -it seemed to him, to get this cure adopted.</p> - -<p>Neither the Council of State nor the republican -army had time or patience for Winstanley’s schemes, -and the “Diggers” were dispersed with little -trouble; but Winstanley’s religious teaching was -to exercise considerable influence in the world -when George Fox became its preacher, and his -social teaching on the land question has thousands -of disciples in Great Britain to-day.</p> - -<p>Gerrard Winstanley was born in Lancashire in -1609.<a id="FNanchor_125" href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">125</a> He seems to have settled in London as a -small trader and to have lost what money he had in -business—cheated he says, “in the thieving art of -buying and selling, and by the burdens of and for -the soldiery in the beginning of the war”—so that -he was obliged “to accept of the good-will of -friends to live a country life.” In the country Winstanley -ponders the source of the ills around him, -and, having some considerable gift of expression, -gives utterance, in a number of pamphlets, to a cry -for reform, and gathers followers.</p> - -<p>In December, 1648, Winstanley (or one of his -friends) issued the earliest of the Digger publications -under the title of “Light Shining in Buckinghamshire—A<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">295</span> -Discovery of the Main Ground, -Original Cause of all the Slavery of the World, but -chiefly in England. Presented by way of a Declaration -of many of the Well-affected in that County, to -all their poor oppressed Countrymen in England. -And also to the consideration of the present army -under the conduct of the Lord Fairfax.”</p> - -<p>A month later and Winstanley publishes his -“New Law of Righteousness: Budding forth to -restore the whole Creation from the Bondage of the -Curse. Or a glimpse of the new Heaven and the -new Earth, wherein dwells Righteousness.” Here, -with a good deal of mystical religious phrasing (the -author explains that when he was in a trance the -message came to him), Winstanley proclaims his -calling and unfolds his agrarian proposals:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>And when the Lord doth show unto me the place and -manner, how He will have us that are called common people -manure and work upon the common lands, I will then go -forth and declare it by my action, to eat my bread by the -sweat of my brow, without either giving or taking hire, -looking upon the land as freely mine as another’s.</p></div> - -<p>There is to be no forcible expropriation of landlords:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>If the rich still hold fast to this propriety of Mine and -Thine, let them labour their own lands with their own -hands. And let the common people, that say the earth is -<em>ours</em>, not <em>mine</em>, let them labor together, and eat bread -together upon the commons, mountains, and hills.</p> - -<p>For as the enclosures are called such a man’s land, and -such a man’s land, so the Commons and Heath are called the -common people’s. And let the world see who labor the -earth in righteousness, and those to whom the Lord gives -the blessing, let them be the people that shall inherit the -earth.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">296</span></p> - -<p>None can say that their right is taken from them. For -let the rich work alone by themselves; and let the poor work -together by themselves. The rich in their enclosures, saying, -<em>This is mine</em>; and the poor upon the commons, saying, <em>This -is ours, the earth and its fruits are common</em>. And who can be -offended at the poor for doing this? None but covetous, -proud, idle, pampered flesh, that would have the poor work -still for this devil (particular interest) to maintain his greatness -that he may live at ease.</p> - -<p>Was the earth made for to preserve a few covetous, -proud men to live at ease, and for them to bag and barn up -the treasures of the earth from others, that these may beg or -starve in a fruitful land: or was it made to preserve all her -children? Let Reason and the Prophets’ and Apostles’ -writings be judge.... For the earth is the Lord’s; -that is the spreading Power of Righteousness, not the -inheritance of covetous proud flesh that dies. If any man -can say that he makes corn or cattle, he may say, <em>That is -mine</em>. But if the Lord made these for the use of His creation, -surely then the earth was made by the Lord to be a Common -Treasury for all, not a particular treasury for some.</p> - -<p>Leave off dominion and lordship one over another; for -the whole bulk of mankind are but one living earth. Leave -off imprisoning, whipping, and killing, which are but the -actings of the curse. Let those that have hitherto had no -land, and have been forced to rob and steal through poverty; -henceforth let them quietly enjoy land to work upon, that -everyone may enjoy the benefit of his creation, and eat his -own bread with the sweat of his own brows. For surely this -particular propriety of mine and thine hath brought in all -misery upon people. First it hath occasioned people to steal -from one another. Secondly it hath made laws to hang -those that did steal. It tempts people to do an evil action, -and then kills them for doing of it. Let all judge whether -this be not a great evil.</p></div> - -<p>In April, 1649, the time was ripe—so Winstanley -and his friends judged—for making a start to get -rid of this evil.</p> - -<p>The Council of State, but a few months old, and -much occupied with dangers in Scotland and Ireland,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">297</span> -and with mutinous Levellers in the army, was suddenly -informed of the strange activities of “a -disorderly and tumultuous sort of people” by one -Henry Sanders, of Walton-upon-Thames.</p> - -<p>Sanders’ testimony affirmed that “there was one -Everard, once of the army but was cashiered, who -termeth himself a prophet, one Stewer and Colten, -and two more, all living at Cobham, came to St. -George’s Hill in Surrey, and began to dig on that -side the hill next to Camp Close, and sowed the -ground with parsnips, carrots, and beans. On -Monday following they were there again, being -increased in their number, and on the next day they -fired the heath, and burned at least forty rood of -heath, which is a very great prejudice to the town. -On Friday last they came again, between twenty -and thirty, and wrought all day at digging. They -did then intend to have two or three ploughs at -work, but they had not furnished themselves with -seed-corn, which they did on Saturday at Kingston. -They invite all to come in and help them, and -promise them meat, drink, and clothes. They do -threaten to pull down and level all park pales, and -lay open, and intend to plant there very shortly. -They give out they will be four or five thousand -within ten days, and threaten the neighbouring -people there, that they will make them all come up -to the hills and work: and forewarn them suffering -their cattle to come near the plantation; if they do, -they will cut their legs off. It is feared they have -some design in hand.”<a id="FNanchor_126" href="#Footnote_126" class="fnanchor">126</a></p> - -<p>The date of this information was April 16th, and -Bradshaw, the President of the Council, at once<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">298</span> -asked General Fairfax “to disperse the people so -met, and to prevent the like for the future, that a -malignant and disaffected party may not under colour -of such ridiculous people have any opportunity to -rendezvous themselves in order to do a greater -mischief.”</p> - -<p>Fairfax sent Captain John Gladman to attend to -the matter, and Gladman reports three days later -that Mr. Winstanley and Mr. Everard are the chief -men responsible, that he “cannot hear that there -have been above twenty of them together since they -first undertook the business,” and that Mr. Winstanley -and Mr. Everard will wait upon Lord Fairfax. -He adds; “I believe you will be glad to be rid of -them again, especially Everard, who is no other -than a mad man. I intend to go with two or three -men to St. George’s Hill this day and persuade -these people to leave this employment if I can, and -if then I see no more danger than now I do I shall -march back again to London to-morrow.” Gladman’s -opinion is that “the business is not worth the -writing nor yet taking notice of.”</p> - -<p>The interview between Fairfax and Winstanley -and Everard took place on April 20, and Everard -explained that the Diggers “did not intend to -meddle with any man’s property nor to break down -any pales or enclosures, but only to meddle with -what was common and untilled, and to make it -fruitful for the use of man: that they will not defend -themselves by arms, but will submit unto authority; -that as their forefathers lived in tents, so it would -be suitable to their condition now to live in the -same.”</p> - -<p>Fairfax evidently decided that the movement was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">299</span> -not so alarming as the Council of State had represented, -for Winstanley and his Diggers resumed -their work, and at the end of May, Fairfax, with -the officers of the army, paid a visit to St. George’s -Hill. Winstanley returned “sober answers” to the -inquiries of Fairfax, “though they gave little satisfaction -(if any at all) in regard of the strangeness of -their action.” Winstanley’s argument, often enlarged -in his pamphlets, was that the people were dispossessed -of their lands by the crown at the Norman -Conquest, and that “the king who possessed them -by the Norman Conquest being dead, they were -returned again, being Crown Lands, to the Common -People of England.”</p> - -<p>This was not conclusive to their visitors, and -“some officers wished they had no further plot in -what they did, and that no more was intended than -what they did pretend.” To the objection that the -ground was too poor to repay cultivation, “the -Diggers answered they would use their endeavours -and leave the success to God, who had promised to -make the barren ground fruitful.” Public opinion -gave out that the Diggers were “sober, honest -men,” and that “the ground will probably in a short -time yield them some fruit of their labour, how -contemptible soever they do yet appear to be.”</p> - -<p>Encouraged by Fairfax’s “kindness and moderation,” -Winstanley appeals to him in June against -the interference of the local landowners, and getting -no response (for Fairfax had said that the Diggers -were to be left to “the Gentlemen of the County -and the Law of the Land”), publishes an appeal to -the House of Commons against his arrest for trespass -by the Lords of Manors in Surrey. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">300</span> -House of Commons, occupied with State matters, -turned an indifferent ear to Winstanley’s complaint, -and the leader of the Diggers sent a “Watchword -to the City of London and the Army,” telling the -wrongs the Diggers suffered at the hands of the -law for “digging upon the barren common”—how -they were mulcted in damages at £10 a man, with -costs at twenty-nine shillings and a penny, and taken -in execution, and how their cows were seized by the -bailiffs. At the end of November the very huts -they had built were pulled down, and it was a hard -winter for the little colony still left on St. George’s -Hill.</p> - -<p>Winstanley does not merely relate his injuries in -these publications, he is all the time urging that his -plan for setting people upon the common lands is -the needful thing in England, that a common ownership -of land is God’s will, and that the crown lands -taken by the Normans must revert to the people on -the execution of the king.</p> - -<p>In the spring of 1650 an attempt was made to -extend the digging propaganda—for the planting of -St. George’s Hill was doomed—and some of Winstanley’s -disciples made a tour through the counties -of Middlesex, Bedford, Hertford, Huntingdon, and -Northampton, settling down at last on some waste -ground near Wellingborough. Here they were -very soon arrested by a local justice of the peace, -the Council of State ordered their prosecution, and -the movement was suppressed.</p> - -<p>To the Council of State these Diggers were -“Levellers,”<a id="FNanchor_127" href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">127</a> “intruders upon other men’s properties,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">301</span> -“seditious and tumultuous,” against whom the -public peace must be preserved.</p> - -<p>Of Winstanley’s future, when the days of the -digging were over, nothing seems to be known. -Only one pamphlet is issued by him after 1650—“The -Law of Freedom in a Platform; or, True -Magistracy Restored”—an open letter to Oliver -Cromwell, February, 1652. With this final manifesto -on the land question, and on the whole social -question, as he saw it, Gerrard Winstanley disappears -from history. In the multitude of prophets -and preachers, visionaries and practical reformers of -the Commonwealth, Winstanley is little heeded by -his contemporaries. The importance of his mission -is seen more clearly to-day, when statesmen, politicians, -and philanthropists all urge agrarian changes -and the excellence of land culture.</p> - -<p>As to Winstanley’s claim on behalf of the people -to the common lands, the advantage of possession -of these lands was realized by the landowners in -the eighteenth century, and from 1760 to 1830 more -than a thousand acts of parliament were passed for -enclosing these lands.<a id="FNanchor_128" href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">128</a></p> - -<p>In “The Diggers Song,” (of unknown authorship<a id="FNanchor_129" href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">129</a>), -the outlook of Winstanley and his followers is -expressed in popular form:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">You noble Diggers all, stand up now, stand up now,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">You noble Diggers all, stand up now,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The waste land to maintain, seeing Cavaliers by name,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your digging do disdain; and persons all defame.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Stand up now, stand up now.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">302</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Your houses they pull down, stand up now, stand up now,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Your houses they pull down, stand up now;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your houses they pull down to fright poor men in town,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the Gentry must come down, and the poor shall wear the crown.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Stand up now, Diggers all!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">With spades, and hoes, and plowes, stand up now, stand up now,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With spades, and hoes, and plowes, stand up now;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Your freedom to uphold, seeing Cavaliers are bold</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To kill you if they could, and rights from you withhold.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Stand up now, Diggers all!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Their self-will is their law, stand up now, stand up now,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Their self-will is their law, stand up now;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Since tyranny came in, they count it now no sin</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To make a gaol a gin, to starve poor men therein.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Stand up now, stand up now.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The Gentry are all round, stand up now, stand up now,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The Gentry are all round, stand up now;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Gentry are all round, on each side they are found,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Their wisdoms so profound to cheat us of our ground.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Stand up now, stand up now.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The Lawyers they conjoin, stand up now, stand up now,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The Lawyers they conjoin, stand up now;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To arrest you they advise, such fury they devise,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The devil in them lies, and hath blinded both their eyes.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Stand up now, stand up now.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The Clergy they come in, stand up now, stand up now,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The Clergy they come in, stand up now;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Clergy they come in, and say it is a sin</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That we should now begin our freedom for to win.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Stand up now, Diggers all!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The tithes they yet will have, stand up now, stand up now,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The tithes they yet will have, stand up now;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The tithes they yet will have, and Lawyers their fees crave,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And this they say is brave, to make the poor their slave.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Stand up now, Diggers all!</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">303</span> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">’Gainst Lawyers and ’gainst Priests, stand up now, stand up now,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">’Gainst Lawyers and ’gainst Priests, stand up now;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For tyrants they are both, even flat against their oath,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To grant us they are loath, free meat, and drink and cloth.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Stand up now, Diggers all!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The club is all their law, stand up now, stand up now,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The club is all their law, stand up now;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The club is all their law, to keep poor men in awe,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But they no vision saw, to maintain such a law.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Stand up now, Diggers all!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The Cavaliers are foes, stand up now, stand up now,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The Cavaliers are foes, stand up now;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Cavaliers are foes, themselves they do disclose</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By verses, not in prose, to please the singing boys.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Stand up now, Diggers all!</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">To conquer them by love, come in now, come in now,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">To conquer them by love, come in now;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To conquer them by love, as it does you behove,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For He is King above, no Power is like to Love.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Glory here, Diggers all.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_14">Major Cartwright<br /> - -<span class="subhead">“The Father of Reform”</span> - -<span class="subhead">1775–1824</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: <cite>Life and Correspondence of Major -Cartwright</cite>, edited by his Niece, 1826; <cite>A Memoir of -John Cartwright the Reformer</cite>, 1831; <cite>The Times</cite>, September -25th, 1824; Graham Wallas—<cite>Francis Place</cite>.</p> - -<div id="ip_307" class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/i_p306.jpg" width="1516" height="1840" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><p>MAJOR CARTWRIGHT</p> - -<p>(<cite>From a Contemporary Drawing.</cite>)</p></div></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">307</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">MAJOR CARTWRIGHT<br /> -“THE FATHER OF REFORM” -<span class="subhead">1775–1824.</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">The</span> substance of Major Cartwright’s life is -told on the pedestal beneath his statue in -the dingy garden of Burton Crescent, to -the south of Euston Road, in London.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="center large wspace">JOHN CARTWRIGHT,</p> - -<p class="center">Born 28th September, 1740. Died 23rd September, 1824.</p> - -<p class="in0">The Firm, Consistent and Persevering Advocate of <em>Universal -Suffrage</em>, Equal Representation, Vote by Ballot and Annual -Parliaments.</p> - -<p class="in0">He was the first English Writer who openly maintained the -Independence of the United States of America, and although -his distinguished merits as a Naval Officer in 1776 presented -the most flattering Prospects of Professional Advancement, -yet he nobly refused to draw his Sword against the Rising -Liberties of an oppressed and struggling People.</p> - -<p class="in0">In Grateful Commemoration of his inflexible integrity, exalted -Patriotism, “profound Constitutional Knowledge,” and in sincere -admiration of the unblemished Virtues of his Private Life,</p> - -<p class="center larger">THIS STATUE</p> - -<p class="center">was erected by Public Subscription near the spot where he -closed his useful and meritorious career.</p></div> - -<p>There is nothing false or exaggerated in this -epitaph. Fox, in the House of Commons, testified -to Cartwright’s “profound constitutional knowledge.” -Hazlitt, who never met Cartwright, classed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">308</span> -him with the men of one idea (and lingered over the -subject), but the charge is ill-founded. It is true that -for nearly fifty years, in season and out of season, -Cartwright, a pupil of Locke in politics, contended -publicly for annual parliaments and manhood suffrage, -claiming personality and not property as the -ground for enfranchisement, and insisting that while -the right of the rich and the poor to the vote was -equal, the need of the latter was far greater. But -this agitation was by no means the limit either of his -ideas or his activities.</p> - -<p>Entering the navy at eighteen, John Cartwright, -who came of an old Nottingham family, devised -improvements in the gun service, and, made a lieutenant, -was marked for high promotion. The revolt -of the American colonies cut short his professional -career. An innate love of liberty compelled the -young naval officer to side with the colonists, and he -writes in 1776 that it is a mistaken notion that the -planting of colonies and the extending of empire are -necessarily the same things. Self-governing colonies, -he declares, bound to England only by “the ties of -blood and mutual interests, by sincere love and -friendship, which abhors dependence, and by -every other cementing principle which hath power -to take hold of the human heart,” are to be -desired.</p> - -<p>Lord Howe put Cartwright’s principles to the test -by inviting him to join the expedition against the -Americans, and Cartwright, who was “passionately -attached to the navy,” and had an immense admiration -for Howe, could only answer that he was unable -to take part in a war he thought unjust. With this -refusal his naval services were ended, in spite of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">309</span> -Howe’s quiet and dignified reply that “opinions in -politics are to be treated like opinions in religion.” -(No word of reproach came from Howe, no taunt of -want of courage or lack of patriotism.)</p> - -<p>Cartwright never condemned all war. He urged -in a letter to a nephew in the army that the answer -to the question of the justice or injustice of a war -decided whether justifiable homicide or wilful murder -was committed by those engaged in battle. He -hated standing armies and barracks and barrack life, -and all the pomp and glory of militarism, as heartily -as he hated the attempt to coerce the colonists. But -no sooner was he out of the navy than, with a major’s -commission, he at once set to work to train the Nottinghamshire -militia, only retiring from this post in -1791 when the government cancelled his appointment -for attending a meeting called to celebrate the -fall of the Bastille.</p> - -<p>The militia in Cartwright’s view was strictly a -citizen army for home defence. “The militia,” he -wrote, “by its institution is not intended to spread -the dominion or to vindicate in war the honour of -the crown, but it is to preserve our laws and liberties, -and therein to secure the existence of the State.” -Thirteen years before the fall of the Bastille Major -Cartwright had the cap of liberty displayed on the -banners and engraved on the buttons of the Nottinghamshire -Militia. A greater service than providing -symbols of liberty was rendered to the army by -Cartwright in the matter of better clothing for the -men. The misery endured by ill-clad sentries -aroused his compassion and indignation, and Cartwright -worried the government until it provided -great-coats for all private soldiers.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">310</span></p> - -<p>The humaner courage is as conspicuous in John -Cartwright’s long life as his political enthusiasm.</p> - -<p>Four times he risked his life to save others from -drowning, rescuing two men from the Trent, a naval -officer at sea, and, in late middle-life, a small boy -who had fallen into the New River, near London. -In the year 1800, hearing of a riot planned at -Sheffield, Cartwright made his way alone to the -barn where the conspirators were assembled, and -stayed all night, reasoning with them against their -project. In the morning the confederates, dissuaded -from violence, quietly dispersed, and the riot was -prevented.</p> - -<p>An untiring advocacy of democratic politics earned -for Cartwright, justly, the title of “The Father of -Reform.” He was the real founder of that movement -for political reform, which in the nineteenth -century swept away rotten boroughs, gave representation -to all towns of importance, and extended -the franchise to the great bulk of male householders -in town and country; which to-day presses towards -a general suffrage for men and women.</p> - -<p>Major Cartwright began his speeches and -pamphlets on behalf of political reform in 1776, -just after his retirement from the navy, and his -acceptance of the commission in the militia.</p> - -<p>The ideas of the French Encyclopædists, the -writings of Rousseau, and the revolt of the American -colonists, had aroused a belief in social equality, -and the “natural” rights of man, and this belief -Cartwright championed till his death. His early -pamphlets, beginning with “Legislative Rights of -the Commonalty Vindicated,” (1777) are heavy -reading to-day, but in them Cartwright argued for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">311</span> -all the famous “six points” of the People’s Charter -of fifty years later—Universal Manhood Suffrage, -Annual Parliaments, Vote by Ballot, Abolition of -Property Qualification for Parliamentary Candidates, -Payment of Members, and Equal Electoral Districts. -He even uses the modern phrase in urging “one -man one vote.”</p> - -<p>Unlike Thomas Paine, and many of the “Radical -Reformers,” Cartwright pleads for political democracy -as the natural outcome of the Christian faith, maintaining -that “No man can have a right sense and -belief of Christianity who denies the equality of all -conditions of men.” Incidentally, challenged on the -point of why not Votes for Women? Cartwright -could only fall back on certain passages in the -Bible to justify his objection to Women’s Enfranchisement. -Nothing was more abhorrent to his -mind than the notion that government was a matter -for “experts,” an exclusive affair for persons with -specially trained intelligences. “Of all the errors -to which mankind have ever submitted their understandings,” -he wrote, “there is no one to be more -lamented than that of conceiving the business of -civil government to be above the comprehension of -ordinary capacities.”</p> - -<p>The poor, because of their very poverty, had a -need for the vote and for parliamentary representation -which the man of property could not experience. -This Cartwright emphasised in a petition he presented -to the House of Commons as late as 1820:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>And when your Honourable House shall further consider -that the humblest mortal on earth is equally a co-heir of an -immortality with the most exalted who now wears stars, or -coronets, or crowns, your petitioner hopes that your Honourable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">312</span> -House will rise superior to the mean thoughts and vulgar -prejudices of the uncharitable among the wealthy, the ignorant, -the interested, the vain, and the proud; and will acknowledge -that, in reference to the respective claims of legislative representation -by the poor and the rich, the poor have equal right -but far more need.</p></div> - -<p>Enthusiasm and an entirely disinterested zeal for -democracy kept the spirit of youth in Cartwright, -and carried him at the age of 80 over a trial for -sedition undisturbed. His zeal was not to be -quenched. “Moderation in practice may be commendable,” -he declared, “but moderation in principle -is detestable. Can we trust a man who is moderately -honest, or esteem a woman who is moderately -virtuous?”</p> - -<p>This very allegiance to principle had its drawbacks -in the world of practical politics, of corruption -and compromise. Three times Major Cartwright -stood for parliament: for the county of Nottingham -in 1780, for Boston in 1806 and 1807; and on each -occasion he was at the bottom of the poll. His -nominations for Westminster in 1818 and 1819 -received no serious support at all. The old major -was no more distressed by any feeling of personal -disappointment at these defeats than he was cast -down at seeing no signs of the triumph of political -democracy in his lifetime. At eighty-four we find -him writing cheerfully, “To despair in a good cause -is to approach towards atheism.”</p> - -<p>Cartwright did not live to see the passage of the -great Reform Bill of 1832. Wilkes’ motion for -reform in 1776 had been negatived in the House of -Commons without a division. In 1780 the Duke -of Richmond’s motion in the House of Lords for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">313</span> -manhood suffrage and annual parliaments was -mocked by the outbreak of the Gordon (“No -Popery”) Riots in London on the very day the -motion was made. Pitt’s third and last effort for -parliamentary reform was rejected in 1785. The -French Revolution turned men’s minds in Great -Britain towards democracy, but reaction followed -hard on the Terror in Paris, and for a time a -government terror crushed every expression in -favour of political liberty in England. Sir Francis -Burdett became the parliamentary leader of the -“radical reformers” early in the nineteenth century, -and in 1809 found fifteen supporters in the House of -Commons. Ten years later the government, in the -face of a strong working-class movement for political -reform, brought out the military against the people -at a peaceful meeting held at Peterloo, near Manchester, -and followed this up by six repressive acts -of parliament, and a general prosecution of the -leaders of the reform agitation.</p> - -<p>Cartwright was eighty when, with several friends, he -was charged “with being a malicious, seditious, evil-minded -person, and with unlawfully and maliciously -intending and designing to raise disaffection and -discontent in the minds of his majesty’s subjects.”</p> - -<p>All England knew that Major Cartwright was a -single-minded and high-principled man, in whose -heart was neither guile nor malice, a man who had -proved his loyalty and patriotism over and over -again, and was no more seditious than he was evil-minded -or disaffected. Apart from his advocacy of -political reform and his services to the militia, Cartwright -had done much for farming and agriculture, -he had helped Clarkson and Wilberforce in their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">314</span> -anti-slavery work, and he had called the attention -of the government, as loudly as he could, to the -defenceless state of the east coast against foreign -invasion. Yet in 1820 a British jury, obedient -to the orders of a political judge, found John -Cartwright guilty of “maliciously intending and -designing to raise disaffection and discontent,” and -a fine of £100 was inflicted.</p> - -<p>Francis Place, the radical tailor of Charing Cross, -in whose shop the later Chartists and Reformers were -to be found, gives his impression of Major Cartwright -as he knew him in old age:</p> - -<p>“When he was in town he used frequently to sup -with me, eating some raisins he brought in his pocket, -and drinking weak gin and water. He was cheerful, -agreeable, and full of curious anecdote. He was, -however, in political matters exceedingly troublesome -and sometimes as exceedingly absurd. He -had read but little, or to little purpose, and knew -nothing of general principles. He entertained a -vague and absurd notion of the political arrangements -of the Anglo-Saxons, and sincerely believed -that these semi-barbarians were not only a political -people, but that their ‘twofold polity,’ arms-bearing -and representation, were universal and perfect.”<a id="FNanchor_130" href="#Footnote_130" class="fnanchor">130</a></p> - -<p>To Place, chief political wire-puller of his age, -industrious and persistent in getting things done, -with a typical cockney politician’s scorn of disinterested -enthusiasm, Major Cartwright appeared -“troublesome” and “absurd”—Francis Place had -quite an honest liking for the “old gentleman,” as -he called him, all the same. By the government -Cartwright stood convicted as a “seditious, evil-minded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">315</span> -person.” Posterity is content to know -John Cartwright by the title his contemporaries -conferred upon him—the Father of Reform—and -to rank him as the foremost man in England in -the eighteenth century to raise the standard of -Political Democracy.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 id="hdr_15">Ernest Jones and Chartism<br /> - -<span class="subhead">1838–1854</span></h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Authorities</span>: R. G. Gamage—<cite>History of the Chartist -Movement</cite>; Thos. Frost—<cite>Forty Years’ Recollections</cite>; -Ernest Charles Jones—<cite>Songs of Democracy</cite>; Graham -Wallas—<cite>Life of Francis Place</cite>; J. A. Hobson—<cite>Ernest -Jones</cite>, in <cite>Dictionary of National Biography</cite>; <cite>The Times</cite>, -Jan. 27, 29; Mar. 31, 1869.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">319</span></p> - -<h3 class="left">ERNEST JONES AND<br /> -CHARTISM -<span class="subhead">1838–1854.</span></h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">The</span> Chartist agitation was at once the -largest, the most revolutionary, and the -least successful of all the serious political -movements of the first half of the nineteenth -century. For ten years, with varying -fortune, it threatened the authority of parliament, -and then slowly expired—destroyed by its own -internal weakness and the quarrels of its leaders -rather than by the repression of the government.</p> - -<p>The failure of the great Reform Act of 1832 to -accomplish any particular improvement in the lot of -the mass of working people brought the Chartist -movement to life,<a id="FNanchor_131" href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">131</a> and roused the politically minded -leaders of the workmen to agitate for changes in the -constitution that would place political power in the -hands of the whole people.</p> - -<p>The six points of the Charter, embodied in the -“People’s Charter” drawn up by Francis Place and -Lovett in 1838, revived the old programme of -Major Cartwright and, in substance, the earlier -demands of John Lilburne and the Levellers. -Universal manhood suffrage, the ballot, payment of -members of parliament, equal electoral districts,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">320</span> -abolition of property qualification for members, and -annual parliaments, these were the “six points” of -the Charter, the platform of its advocates, and for -ten years the hope of multitudes of earnest and -devoted men and women.</p> - -<p>Francis Place and the Working-Men’s Association -which gave Chartism its name and programme -never had any considerable voice in its direction.<a id="FNanchor_132" href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">132</a></p> - -<p>Feargus O’Connor, who had sat in parliament -from 1832 to 1835 for an Irish constituency, was -from the first the real leader of the movement. His -personality and his rhetorical powers roused the -manufacturing districts in the North and the -Midlands to form political unions for the Charter in -1838, and his presence dominated the first Convention, -held in London, with Lovett for its -secretary. Later, O’Connor’s obvious weaknesses, -his vanity and egotism, his want of self-control and -that “one fatal disqualification for a leader of -revolt—the fear of the police”<a id="FNanchor_133" href="#Footnote_133" class="fnanchor">133</a>—left leadership in -his hands, but left him a leader without followers.</p> - -<p>Next to O’Connor stood another Irish orator, -James Bronterre O’Brien, a man of finer character, -and clearer head, but smaller gifts of command.</p> - -<p>South Wales, the manufacturing districts of -Lancashire and Yorkshire, and towns like Birmingham, -Leicester, and Northampton, were the strongholds -of Chartism, and “in the dark days of the late -thirties and early forties it was a real and dangerous -power.”<a id="FNanchor_134" href="#Footnote_134" class="fnanchor">134</a> Feargus O’Connor never advocated an -armed rising, and advised the abandonment of the -huge torchlight processions; but pikes were being<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">321</span> -fashioned and men were being drilled in preparation -for a revolution that was to end the Whig rule, and -give the working classes the reins of government. -The circulation of the <i>Northern Star</i>, O’Connor’s -weekly paper, stood at 50,000 in those days.</p> - -<p>Riots at Newport (Monmouth) and Birmingham -in 1839, followed by several arrests and imprisonments -of the Chartist leaders the following year, -ended for the time all notions of a successful -revolution. Lord John Russell declared strongly -against manhood suffrage when the question was -raised in the House of Commons, and on a division -in the House the petition for the Charter was rejected -by 237 to 48 votes.</p> - -<p>The outbreak at Birmingham, provoked, in the -first place, by the interference of a body of London -police with an orderly meeting in the Bull Ring, -was put down in two days by the soldiers; but not -till many houses had been attacked and a considerable -amount of property destroyed. No robberies -or petty thefts accompanied the riot.</p> - -<p>At Newport the harsh prison treatment of Vincent, -a Chartist advocate, convicted for what was held to -be a political offence, brought a crowd of 10,000 -men, led by Frost, William, and Jones, to demand -his release. The insurgents had a few rifles and -pikes, but were generally unarmed, and the fire of -the military soon overpowered them. But lives -were lost on both sides, and Frost and his two -lieutenants were sentenced to death, though the -sentence was at once reduced to transportation for -life, and some years later to simple banishment from -British dominions.</p> - -<p>Feargus O’Connor, Bronterre O’Brien, and all the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">322</span> -chief speakers of the movement were brought to -trial for seditious utterance in 1840, and in most -cases sent to prison either for twelve months or two -years.</p> - -<p>With these imprisonments and the general election -of 1841 came the first serious disintegration of the -Chartist movement.<a id="FNanchor_135" href="#Footnote_135" class="fnanchor">135</a> O’Brien and O’Connor differed -vigorously on the question of election policy, and -before they were released from prison were expressing -their opinions in the <i>Northern Star</i>. O’Connor, -full of wrath at the repressive treatment meted out -to Chartists by the Whig Government, was for -attacking the Whigs at the election, and O’Brien -objected to this as a pro-Tory policy.<a id="FNanchor_136" href="#Footnote_136" class="fnanchor">136</a></p> - -<p>The decision to run independent Chartist candidates -for parliament in certain constituencies, and -the failure of these candidates to get returned on -the limited franchise of 1832, increased disunion in -the Chartist ranks and brought demoralisation.</p> - -<p>To make matters worse for the movement, several -prominent Chartists left prison with fresh notions -and ideas of reform, which had come to them in -their long hours of solitude and reflection. Lovett, -imprisoned in connection with the Birmingham riot, -though he was entirely innocent of giving any -encouragement to violence, on his release was full -of vast plans for national education, convinced that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">323</span> -education must precede political democracy. Vincent -had become a strong temperance advocate, and -henceforth must give himself to the work of a -teetotal lecturer. Other men were for bringing in -religion by “Chartist Churches.”<a id="FNanchor_137" href="#Footnote_137" class="fnanchor">137</a> Antagonism to -the anti-corn law league of Cobden and Bright, -and later his own “National Land Company” experiments, -withdrew Feargus O’Connor from actual -Chartist propaganda.</p> - -<p>The movement languished. But in spite of -government repression, the indifference of parliament, -the hostility of the wealthier classes, and its -own jarring elements of discord, Chartism was not -dead.<a id="FNanchor_138" href="#Footnote_138" class="fnanchor">138</a></p> - -<p>The misery of the English people kept it from -death. With one in every eleven of the industrial -population a pauper in 1842, general satisfaction with -the state of government was impossible for men of -strong social sympathies. Some exerted themselves, -like Sadler and Oastler, in following Lord Shaftesbury’s -entirely disinterested and successful crusade -against the horrors of factory oppression. Others -supported the Free Trade agitation.</p> - -<p>To one man, Ernest Jones, it seemed, in 1845, -that before all else must come political enfranchisement, -that the social miseries and discontents of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">324</span> -England were not to be cured save by the people -of England. The evils might be mitigated by -ameliorative legislation, but it was not enough that -the decencies of life—then very far beyond the -reach of the mass of town and country labourers—should -be secured for people; the main thing -was that people should have freedom to work out -their own industrial salvation.</p> - -<p>So in 1846, Ernest Jones plunged boldly into -Chartism. He quickly became a leader, and his -reputation has endured: for Ernest Jones was the -most respected, single-minded, and steadfast of the -many who sat in Chartist conventions. Chartism -for him was the cry of the uncared-for, because -voteless, multitudes, and Ernest Jones was ready to -give his life that the cry should move the rulers of -the nation.</p> - -<p>It was a bad time for England in 1846, -that was plain,<a id="FNanchor_139" href="#Footnote_139" class="fnanchor">139</a> and Ernest Jones, believing with -the average Englishman that in politics lay the key -to necessary change, was henceforth a Chartist -advocate and till his death the faithful preacher of -democracy. Without becoming a socialist, Ernest -Jones, in his “Songs of Democracy” and in his -speeches and newspaper writings, is clear that -political enfranchisement was but the high road to -social and economic reform, that the Charter was -to bring a better distribution of wealth as the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">325</span> -consequence of a better distribution of political -power.<a id="FNanchor_140" href="#Footnote_140" class="fnanchor">140</a></p> - -<p>Ernest Jones was twenty-seven when he joined -the Chartist movement. The son of an army -officer—who had been equerry to the Duke of -Cumberland—and educated on the continent, -Ernest Jones came to England when he was -nineteen, and was duly presented to Queen Victoria -(as Robert Owen had been) by Lord Melbourne -in 1841. He married a Miss Atherley, of Cumberland, -and settled down in London, writing -novels, verses, and newspaper articles. In 1844 -he was called to the Bar, and two years later -took the step which separated him from the friends -and acquaintances of his social order, and placed -him on the hard and strenuous road of the political -agitator.</p> - -<p>Averse from faction, realising the fatal folly of -internal jealousies and strife, and alive to the importance -of discipline in the army of revolt, Ernest -Jones did his best to work with O’Connor—and was -naturally charged with cowardice by the Chartists -who hated O’Connor’s supremacy. In 1847 he -began writing in the <i>Northern Star</i>, and was joint -editor with O’Connor of <i>The Labourer</i>. His -“Songs of Democracy” were to the Chartists what -Ebenezer Elliott’s “Corn-Law Rhymes” were to -the Free Traders, and his “Song of the Lower<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">326</span> -Classes” has retained a place in the song-books of -social democrats to our own day.</p> - -<p>At the general election of 1847, when, to everybody’s -astonishment, Feargus O’Connor was elected -member for Nottingham, Ernest Jones stood for -Halifax, but though immensely popular at the -hustings, he only polled 280 votes.</p> - -<p>1848, the memorable year of revolutions abroad, -saw Chartism once more a formidable movement -in England. An enormous petition was again -prepared for parliament, and the Chartists decided -to carry the petition to the House of Commons -after a mass meeting on Kennington Common on -April 10th. Lord John Russell and his Whig -government became thoroughly alarmed. The -Duke of Wellington, as commander-in-chief, undertook -to guard the safety of London, and garrisoned -the city with troops, and protected the bridges, -while 70,000 special constables (of whom Prince -Louis Napoleon was one) were quickly enrolled. -But on the government prohibition of any procession -to Westminster, Feargus O’Connor at once -decided against any collision between the people -and the authorities. The mass meeting was held, -some 50,000 persons were present, and O’Connor -and Ernest Jones made speeches. Then the -petition was sent off in a cab to parliament, and all -was over.</p> - -<p>O’Connor had boasted that the monster petition -contained 5,000,000 signatures, but on investigation -it was found that the signatures only amounted to -1,975,496, and many of these were duplicates and -forgeries. Anti-Chartists had signed in several -places, using ridiculous names, like “Pugnose,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">327</span> -“Punch,” and “Fubbs,” or boldly signing as -“Queen Victoria” and “Duke of Wellington.”<a id="FNanchor_141" href="#Footnote_141" class="fnanchor">141</a> -Parliament gladly took advantage of O’Connor’s -characteristic exaggeration to discredit the whole -movement. At the same time the government -hastily prepared a bill to suppress the renewed -agitation, and the “Treason Felony” bill was passed, -making “open and advised speaking with seditious -intent” a crime. This clause in the act only remained -on the statute book for two years, but it was -sufficient for securing the conviction of all prominent -Chartist speakers.</p> - -<p>Ernest Jones, unlike Feargus O’Connor, believed -that the people should arm, and that a display of -force was necessary for carrying the Charter. The -failure of April 10th strengthened this belief, and -for the next two months he was busy speaking in -England and Scotland, urging the necessity for -enrolling a national guard and forming a provisional -government.</p> - -<p>But in spite of great public meetings the movement -was already breaking up. The Chartist -Convention, which met in London on May 1st, -dissolved on May 13th in hopeless disagreement, and -Ernest Jones, who had attended as a member of -the executive committee, exclaimed that “amid the -desertion of friends, and the invasion of enemies, -the fusee had been trampled out, and the elements -of their energy were scattered to the winds of -heaven.” Still he tried to rally the broken ranks, -and the government decided that the time had come -to put the movement down by means of the new<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">328</span> -“Treason Felony” Act. Feargus O’Connor, now -a member, was no longer dangerous to the authorities. -His attendance in the House kept him from -the agitation in the country, and Ernest Jones was -the man to be struck at.</p> - -<p>On May 29th and 30th Ernest Jones addressed -great, but quite orderly, meetings in London, on -Clerkenwell Green and Bishop Bonner’s Fields, and -then proceeded to Manchester. Here he was arrested -and put on trial with five other Chartists—Fussell, -Sharpe, Williams, Vernon, and Looney. The -judge had little patience for the prisoners, and -Ernest Jones was frequently interrupted in his -defence. In the end, he and his fellows were all -found guilty of seditious speech, and Ernest Jones -was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, to find -sureties, himself in £200 and two persons in £150, -and to keep the peace for five years.</p> - -<p>A number of police spies procured many more -arrests and convictions by gaining admission to -Chartist meetings, joining Chartist unions and inciting -the members to violent speech and an armed conspiracy. -By these means at the end of the year -1848 the government had succeeded in getting the -prominent Chartists into prison, as it had done in -1840. That Ernest Jones exhorted his followers to -learn to bear arms is indisputable; that the success -of the revolutionary movements on the continent -encouraged the belief amongst a certain number of -Chartists that an armed rising was desirable and -could be successful in England is equally true. But -as no serious attempt was made in 1848 by the -“physical force” Chartists to organize such a rising, -no rising took place, and “the conspiracy,” as it was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">329</span> -called, was chiefly the work of the government’s -police spies.</p> - -<p>The riots at Newport and Birmingham gave some -excuse to the government for repression in 1839–40; -in 1848 no outbreaks were even threatened to justify -the sentences on Ernest Jones and other Chartist -speakers. The government’s chief concern was to -end the agitation, even if this could only be accomplished -by means of a special act of parliament, and -the unsavoury methods of <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">agents provocateurs</i>. Lord -John Russell and his Whig colleagues were not the -men to be kept from their purpose by any nice -discrimination in the choice of weapons. It was not -the time, when crowns were falling on the continent, -to hesitate about crushing a movement which seemed -to menace public safety in England. That the -strength of Chartism was in the sober, law-abiding -character of most of its adherents the government -knew no more than they knew that the movement -was already doomed for want of cohesion.</p> - -<p>The bitter hostility of the government pursued -Ernest Jones in prison, and left him to be treated as -a common felon. Ordered to pick oakum he refused, -and was put on a diet of bread and water. The -struggle between the prisoner and his gaolers was at -last brought before the House of Commons,<a id="FNanchor_142" href="#Footnote_142" class="fnanchor">142</a> and in -the end Ernest Jones was allowed to purchase -exemption from the allotted prison tasks by a small -payment of money.</p> - -<p>On his release from prison the Chartist movement -was flickering out. It was impossible to work with -O’Connor, who, now looking favourably on household -suffrage, was already failing in health and showing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">330</span> -signs of the insanity which possessed him two years -later. The trade-union movement and the co-operative -store were attracting the attention of -intelligent workmen, to whom for the time political -enfranchisement seemed a lost cause. Contesting -Halifax in 1852, Ernest Jones only polled 52 votes, -and the <i>People’s Paper</i>, which he started in that -year and edited, never had the success of the -<i>Northern Star</i>.</p> - -<p>Feargus O’Connor was led away from the House -of Commons hopelessly insane, to die in 1855, and -Chartism utterly disintegrated could not be revived -by Ernest Jones. In 1854 the movement was -extinct, and from that time till his death Ernest -Jones gave his political support to the advanced -Radicals. He contested Nottingham in 1853 and -1857, but without success, returned to his old -practice at the Bar, and wrote novels and poems. -In 1868, the year of household suffrage in the towns, -he was adopted by the Radicals as parliamentary -candidate for Manchester, and then on January 26, -1869, came a sudden failure of the heart, and death -ended all earthly hopes and plans for Ernest Jones. -He was just fifty when he died, and though Chartism -had passed away, Ernest Jones had not outlived his -usefulness or his popularity with all those who believed -in the ultimate triumph of democracy, and he -had gained the respect of many earlier foes.</p> - -<p>The People’s Charter remains unfulfilled, but two -of its points have long been granted—the ballot, -and the abolition of a property qualification for -members of parliament. Annual parliaments are no -longer desired by any section of political reformers, -the extension of the franchise to the agricultural<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">331</span> -labourer in 1884 brought manhood suffrage appreciably -nearer, equal electoral districts were never -more than a plan of quite reasonable political -theorists, and the demand for payment of members, -never altogether dropped by Radicals, is once more -heard in the land.</p> - -<p>The great contention of Ernest Jones and the -Chartists that political liberty should precede the -granting of reforms by parliament, that the people -should have the power to control and direct the -deliberations of parliaments still has its advocates; -but government is passing—almost unnoticed—once -more into the hands of an executive, for that “eternal -vigilance” which is the price of political liberty is -oftentimes relaxed.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">335</span></p> -<h2 id="CONCLUSION">Conclusion</h2> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h3 class="left">CONCLUSION</h3> - -<p class="drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Two</span> political movements may be noted -to-day in Great Britain by all who are -interested in such things: the Labour -movement and the Women’s movement -for political enfranchisement.</p> - -<p>The efforts of the past twenty-five years to -establish a separate socialist party in parliament -have not been directly successful, but the Labour -Party has managed to return a group of some thirty -workmen to the House of Commons, and these -men are the responsible and trusted leaders of the -trade-unions and the Independent Labour Party. -Without requiring any formal acknowledgment of -socialist belief, the Labour Party is largely inspired -by socialist teaching, and its goal is the conquest -of government by the labouring people, and a -more even distribution of wealth by the gradual -expropriation of the landlord and the capitalist. -While adhering strictly to constitutional methods of -agitation, giving full respect to the procedure of -parliament and the legal conduct of elections, the -leaders of the Labour Party, in their speeches at -public meetings, use much of the old revolutionary -talk of John Ball and Robert Ket, and the arguments -of Winstanley for the popular ownership of -the land. To the Labour Party as to the Chartists -democratic politics are but a stepping-stone to social -reform, and as in the days of the Chartists the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">336</span> -strength of the Labour Party is in the industrial -districts of the North of England, and in South -Wales.</p> - -<p>The Women’s movement, on the other hand, while -demanding nothing but the right to the franchise, -and claiming this right to a voice in the affairs of -the State on the old constitutional ground of Pym -and Hampden—that those who pay direct taxation -to the government must have some political control -of the expenditure—boldly avows in the face of -government refusal the necessity for revolutionary -methods to acquire the franchise. More than 600 -women have gone to prison in the last four years in -the cause of Women’s Suffrage, and the methods -adopted have startled the public, created an enthusiasm, -and generally aroused the attention of a -formerly indifferent parliament to the claim of -women to political enfranchisement.</p> - -<p>Mary Wollstonecraft, in her <cite>Vindication of the -Rights of Women</cite>, published in 1792, struck the -first note of this movement. In the latter half of -the nineteenth century it received the support of -John Stuart Mill and a certain number of parliamentary -radicals, and Women’s Suffrage societies -were formed. Then, five years ago, the Women’s -Social and Political Union was started at Manchester -by Mrs. Pankhurst and her daughter Miss Christabel -Pankhurst, and the extraordinary energy and activity -of this union and the daring and resource of its -members have made the women’s demand for the -vote a vital question in politics.</p> - -<p>Both these movements—the agitation of the -Labour Party for a fuller and more abundant life -for wage-earners, and the agitation of the women<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">337</span> -for political enfranchisement are proceeding in our -midst—a guarantee that the centuries of struggle -for freedom are not fruitless.</p> - -<p>“The battle of freedom is never done and the -field never quiet,” and while ever sun and moon -endure and man seeks to dominate his neighbour, so -long in England shall men and women be found to -resist such dominance. For “to meet such troubles -and overcome them, or to die in strife with them—this -is a great part of a man’s life.”</p> - -<p class="p2 center wspace larger"><span class="smcap">The End.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">339</span></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"><div class="footnotes"> -<h2 class="nobreak left p1" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="fnanchor">1</a> “By the mouth of the clergy spoke the voice of the helpless, defenceless -multitudes who shared with them in the misery of living in a time -when law was the feeblest and most untrustworthy stay of right, and -men held everything at the mercy of masters, who had many desires -and less scruples, were quickly and fiercely quarrelsome, impatient of -control, superiority and quiet, and simply indifferent to the suffering, -the fear, the waste that make bitter the days when society is enslaved -to the terrible fascination of the sword.”—Church, <cite>Saint Anselm</cite>.</p> - -<p>“Unrestrained by religion, by principle or by policy, with no family -interests to limit his greed, extravagance and hatred of his kind, a foul -incarnation of selfishness in its most abhorrent form, the enemy of God -and man, William Rufus gave to England and Christendom a pattern of -absolutism.”—Stubbs, <cite>Constitutional History</cite>. Vol. I.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="fnanchor">2</a> No Archbishop of Canterbury has received the pallium since -Cranmer, but the sign of it remains in the archiepiscopal arms of -Canterbury.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="fnanchor">3</a> “No one in those days imagined Christianity without Christendom, -and Christendom without a Pope: and all these bishops understood -exactly as Anselm did the favourite papal text, ‘Thou art Peter, and on -this rock I will build my Church.’ Nobody in those days doubted the -divine authority of the Pope.”—Church, <cite>Saint Anselm</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="fnanchor">4</a> “The boldness of Anselm’s attitude not only broke the tradition -of ecclesiastical servitude, but infused through the nation at large a new -spirit of independence.”—J. R. Green.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="fnanchor">5</a> “When in Anglo-Norman times you speak of the ‘King’s Court,’ -it is only a phrase for the king’s despotism.”—Sir F. Palgrave, <cite>History -of Normandy and England</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="fnanchor">6</a> “The see of St. Peter was the acknowledged constitutional centre of -spiritual law in the West.... It was looked upon as the guide and -regulator of teaching, the tribunal and court from which issued the -oracles of right and discipline, the judgment seat to which an appeal -was open to all, and which gave sentence on wrong and vice without -fear or favour, without respect of persons, even the highest and the -mightiest.... If ever there was a time when the popes honestly -endeavoured to carry out the idea of their office, it was just at this -period of the Middle Ages. They attempted to erect an independent -throne of truth and justice above the passions and the force which -reigned in the world around.”—Church, <cite>Saint Anselm</cite>.</p> - -<p>“Under the rule of William the Red, law had become unlaw, and in -appealing from him to the apostolic throne Anselm might deem he was -appealing from mere force and fraud to the only shadow of right that -was still left on earth.”—Freeman, <cite>Norman Conquest</cite>, Vol. V.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="fnanchor">7</a> “In England Anselm had stood only for right and liberty; he, the -chief witness for religion and righteousness, saw all round him vice -rampant, men spoiled of what was their own—justice, decency, honour -trampled under foot. Law was unknown, except to ensnare and -oppress. The King’s Court was the instrument of one man’s selfish and -cruel will, and of the devices of a cunning and greedy minister. The -natural remedies of wrong were destroyed and corrupted; the king’s -peace, the king’s law, the king’s justice, to which men in those days -looked for help, could only be thought of in mocking contrast to the -reality. Against this energetic reign of misrule and injustice, a resistance -as energetic was wanted; and to resist it was felt to be the call -and bounden duty of a man in Anselm’s place. He resisted, as was the -way in those days, man to man, person to person, in outright fashion -and plain-spoken words. He resisted lawlessness, wickedness, oppression, -corruption. When others acquiesced in the evil state, he refused; -and further, he taught a lesson which England has since largely learned, -though in a very different way. He taught his generation to appeal -from force and arbitrary will to law. It was idle to talk of appealing to -law in England; its time had not yet come.”—Church, <cite>Saint Anselm</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="fnanchor">8</a> “No discipline restrained them (the king’s attendants); they plundered, -they devastated, they destroyed. What they found in the houses -which they invaded and could not consume, they took to market to sell -for themselves or they burnt it. If it was liquor they would bathe the -feet of their horses in it or pour it on the ground. It shames me to -recall the cruelties they inflicted on the fathers of families and the -insults on their wives and daughters. And so, whenever the king’s -coming was known beforehand, people fled from their houses and hid -themselves and their goods, as far as they could, in the woods or wherever -safety might be found.”—Eadmer.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn1"><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="fnanchor">9</a> “If the Church had continued to buttress the thrones of the king’s -whom it annointed, or if the struggle had terminated in an undivided -victory, all Europe would have sunk down under a Byzantine or Muscovite -despotism.”—Acton, <cite>History of Freedom in Christianity</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="fnanchor">10</a> “By the surrender of the significant ceremony of delivering the -bishopric by the emblematic staff and ring, it was emphatically put on -record that the spiritual powers of the bishop were not the king’s to -give; the prescription of feudalism was broken.”—Church, <cite>Saint -Anselm</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="fnanchor">11</a> “With regard to Thomas’ dealings with the Church, if one thing is -clear it is this—that he was not in the least a man who pushed his Order -at the expense of his loyalty. More than once he refused to listen to an -ecclesiastical claim against the king, even when his old friend Theobald -was behind it: he was perfectly impartial: he taxed churchmen as he -taxed laymen, and in fact, so loyal and reasonable was he that Henry, -when he made him archbishop, seems to have thought that he was wholly -on his side. There were innumerable questions to be decided between -Church and State. Again and again small points came up as to the -appointment of this man or the other, as to the infliction or remission of -a fine; and again and again Thomas decided the cause and advised the -king on the merits of the case.... He was as zealous now for the -State as he was for the Church afterwards. There he stood Chancellor -of England; his business was to administer the laws, and he knew and -did his business.”—R. H. Benson, <cite>St. Thomas of Canterbury</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="fnanchor">12</a> “The only instance which has occurred of the chancellorship being -voluntarily resigned either by layman or ecclesiastic.”—Campbell, -<cite>Lives of the Chancellors</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="fnanchor">13</a> “It must be held in mind that the archbisholp had on his side the -Church or <em>Canon Law</em>, which he had sworn to obey, and certainly the -law courts erred as much on the side of harshness and cruelty as those -of the Church on that of foolish pity towards evil-doers.”—F. York Powell.</p> - -<p>“We have to take ourselves back to a state of society in which a -judicial trial was a tournament, and the ordeal an approved substitute -for evidence, to realise what civilization owes to the Canon Law and the -canonists, with their elaborate system of written law, their judicial -evidence, and their written procedure.”—Rashdall, <cite>Universities of -Europe during the Middle Ages</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="fnanchor">14</a> W. H. Hutton.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="fnanchor">15</a> This conversation is reported by Roger of Pontigny, who ministered -to St. Thomas when the latter was in exile at that place.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="fnanchor">16</a> Garnier was a poet, and he protests passionately against this law, -maintaining that God has called us all to His service. Much more -worth is the villein’s son who is honourable than a nobleman’s son who -is false.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="fnanchor">17</a> W. FitzStephen.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="fnanchor">18</a> W. FitzStephen.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="fnanchor">19</a> Dean Stanley.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="fnanchor">20</a> Freeman, <cite>Historical Essays</cite>. First series.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="fnanchor">21</a> “Hubert was very gracious in the eyes of all the host that lay -before Acre, and in warlike things so magnificent that he was admired -even by King Richard. He was in stature tall, in council prudent, and -though not having the gift of eloquence, he was an able and shrewd -wit. His mind was more on human than divine things, and he knew all -the laws of the realm.”—Gervase.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="fnanchor">22</a> It is notable that in our day only peerages and knighthoods are -sold, and these by political leaders to their partisans. Government -offices, the judicial bench and bishoprics are still fortunately not in the -market, though frequently allotted for partisan reasons.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="fnanchor">23</a> “Owing to the craft of the richer citizens the main part of the -burden fell on the poor.”—Matthew Paris.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="fnanchor">24</a> Some writers say 50,000.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="fnanchor">25</a> William of Newburgh.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="fnanchor">26</a> “Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, was a shrewd financier, and -an honourable, conscientious statesman; but as a prelate he is noted -chiefly for his quarrels with his chapter.”—W. H. Hutton, <cite>Social -England</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="fnanchor">27</a> Matthew Paris.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="fnanchor">28</a> “If he was to give up all for which he had been fighting, and -fighting successfully, against the pope and the Church for the past six -years, he must make quite sure of gaining such an advantage as would -be worth the sacrifice. Mere release from excommunication and -interdict was certainly, in his eyes, not worth any sacrifice at all. To -change the pope from an enemy into a political friend was worth it, but—from -John’s point of view—only if the friendship could be made something -much more close and indissoluble than the ordinary official -relation between the pope and every Christian sovereign. He must -bind the pope to his personal interest by some special tie of such a -nature that the interest of the papacy itself would prevent Innocent -from casting it off or breaking it.... To outward personal -humiliation of any kind John was absolutely indifferent, when there was -any advantage to be gained by undergoing it. To any humiliation -which the crown or the nation might suffer in his person, he was indifferent -under all circumstances. His plighted faith he had never had a -moment’s hesitation in breaking, whether it were sworn to his father, his -brother, his allies or his people, and he would break it with equal -facility when sworn to the supreme pontiff.... There seems, in -short, to be good reason for believing that John’s homage to the pope -was offered without any pressure from Rome and on grounds of -deliberate policy.”—K. Norgate, <cite>John Lackland</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="fnanchor">29</a> K. Norgate, <cite>John Lackland</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="fnanchor">30</a> “By the intervention of the Archbishop of Canterbury, with several -of his bishops and some barons, a sort of peace (<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">quasi pax</i>) was made -between the king and the barons.”—Ralph of Coggeshall.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="fnanchor">31</a> Matthew Paris, <cite>Greater Chronicle</cite>, quoted by K. Norgate.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="fnanchor">32</a> “The Charter was a treaty between two powers neither of which -trusted, or even pretended to trust, the other.”—Stubbs, <cite>Constitutional -History</cite>. Vol. II.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="fnanchor">33</a> Luard. Preface to <cite>Grosseteste’s Letters</cite>. Rolls’ Series. 1861.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="fnanchor">34</a> A well-known passage in Matthew Paris, vol. v, gives the monk’s -point of view of Grosseteste, the reformer:—“At this time the Bishop -of Lincoln made a visitation of the religious houses in the diocese. If -one were to tell all the acts of tyranny he committed therein, the bishop -would seem not merely unfeeling but inhuman in his severity. For -amongst other things when he came to Ramsey he went round the -whole place, examined each one of the monks’ beds in the dormitory, -scrutinized everything, and if he found anything locked up destroyed it. -He broke open the monks’ coffers as a thief would, and if he found any -cups wrought with decoration and with feet to stand on he broke them -to pieces, though it would have been wiser to have demanded them -unbroken for the poor. He also heaped the terrible curses of Moses on -the heads of those who disobeyed his injunctions and the blessings of -Moses on those who should observe the same.... And it is believed -all this he hath done to restrain from sin those over whom he hath -authority, and for whose souls he must give account.” This was written -in 1251, when Grosseteste had been sixteen years at Lincoln.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="fnanchor">35</a> Wright, <cite>Political Songs</cite>. Camden Society, 1839.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="fnanchor">36</a> Grosseteste had been unable to get his way with the barons on the -question of legitimacy of children before legal wedlock. By the old -church law marriage made such children legitimate, and at the council -of Merton, in 1236, Grosseteste, with the bishops, tried to bring the -common law into union with the church view on this matter. He was -defeated, and to this day these children are illegitimate. “It would -indeed have been better if the independence exhibited by the majority -who opposed the prelates at Merton had been reserved for another -occasion; for it cannot be deemed that the perpetuation of a law contrary -to that which prevails on the subject in almost every European -country, and which still differentiates Scotland from England by abroad, -though unintelligible line of demarcation, has been open to grave -objection on grounds of public convenience, apart from any inherent -merits or demerits it may possess.”—F. S. Stevenson, <cite>Robert Grosseteste</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="fnanchor">37</a> “Grosseteste, then, may be regarded in a threefold aspect; first, as a -reformer who sought to reform the Church from within and not from -without, by the removal of existing abuses, by the encouragement he -gave to the great religious revival of the early part of the 13th century, -and by the example of unflinching fearlessness and rectitude which he -set in his performance of the episcopal office; secondly, as the teacher -who guided the rising fortunes of the University of Oxford; and thirdly, -as the statesman who, applying to new conditions the policy associated -with the name of Stephen Langton, endeavoured to combine into one -effort the struggle of the clergy for the liberties of the Church with the -struggle of the laity for the liberties of the nation, imbued Simon de -Montfort with principles of ‘truth and justice’ which went far beyond -the mere maintenance of the privileges of his own order, and at the -same time, by his effort to reconcile him with his sovereign, and by the -whole tenour of his actions, showed that had he lived a few years longer, -his influence would have been directed to the task of achieving by -peaceful means the constitutional advance brought about by those -who, taking the sword, perished by the sword.”—Stevenson, <cite>Robert -Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="fnanchor">38</a> See recent article on “Grosseteste” in <cite>Catholic Encyclopædia</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="fnanchor">39</a> Yet out of this letter and out of his great knowledge and love of the -Scriptures a notion has been current that Grosseteste was a forerunner -of Protestantism, and “a harbinger of the Reformation.” “If this -implies that he had any tendency towards the doctrinal changes -brought about in the Church at the Reformation, or that he evidenced -any idea of a separation of the Church of England from that of Rome, -a more utterly mistaken statement has never been made.”—Luard, Preface -to <cite>Grosseteste’s Letters</cite>. (Rolls Series.)</p> - -<p>As for Grosseteste’s Scriptural knowledge, “The thorough familiarity -with the Old Testament is, perhaps, only what we might expect; but -the use which is made of the actions of all the characters of Scripture, -and the forced and sometimes outrageous way in which they are introduced -to illustrate his argument, show how thoroughly ‘biblical’ the age -was, and how completely the Old Testament history was regarded -rather as the guide of men’s conduct in Christian times, than as a mere -historical record of past events.”—<cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">Ibid.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="fnanchor">40</a> “The king acted as if he had sent him abroad simply to ruin his -fortunes and wreck his reputation.”—Stubbs.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="fnanchor">41</a> Matthew Paris.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="fnanchor">42</a> Rishanger, the chronicler for St. Albans, puts the case for the -national <span class="locked">party:—</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indentq">“The king that tries without advice to seek his people’s weal</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Must often fail, he cannot know the wants and woes they feel.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The Parliament must tell the king how he may serve them best,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And he must see their wants fulfilled and injuries redressed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A king should seek his people’s good and not his own sweet will,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor think himself a slave because men hold him back from ill.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">For they that keep the king from sin serve him the best of all,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Making him free that else would be to sin a wretched thrall.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">True king is he, and truly free, who rules himself aright,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And chooses freely what he knows will ease his people’s plight.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Think not it is the king’s goodwill that makes the law to be,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For law is steadfast, and a king has no stability.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No! law stands high above the king, for law is that true light</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Without whose ray the king would stray and wander from the right.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When a king strays he ought to be called back into the way</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By those he rules, who lawfully his will may disobey</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Until he seeks the path, but when his wandering is o’er,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">They ought to help and succour him and love him as before.”</div> - </div> - <div class="attrib">(Translated by F. York Powell.)</div> -</div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="fnanchor">43</a> “The new form of government bears evidence of its origin; it is -intended rather to fetter the king than to extend or develop the action -of the community at large. The baronial council clearly regards itself -as competent to act on behalf of all the estates of the realm, and the -expedient of reducing the national deliberations to three sessions of -select committees, betrays a desire to abridge the frequent and somewhat -irksome duty of attendance in parliament rather than to share the -central legislative and deliberative power with the whole body of the -people. It must however be remembered that the scheme makes a very -indistinct claim to the character of a final arrangement.”—Stubbs.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="fnanchor">44</a> A board of twenty-four—half chosen by the king and half by the -barons—had laid a body of resolutions before the Oxford Parliament, -and the first of these resolutions declared that all castles and estates -alienated from the crown should be at once resumed.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="fnanchor">45</a> “The first time, as far as we know, English was used in any public -document.”—Blaauw, <cite>The Barons’ War</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="fnanchor">46</a> </p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indentq">“End, O Earl of Gloster, what thou hast begun!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Save thou end it fitly, we are all undone.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Play the man, we pray thee, as thou hast promised,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Cherish steadfastly the cause of which thou wast the head.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He that takes the Lord’s work up, and lays it down again,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shamed and cursed may he be, and all shall say Amen.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Earl Simon, thou of Montfort, so powerful and brave,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Bring up thy strong companies thy country now to save,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Have thou no fear of menaces or terrors of the grave,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Defend with might the nation’s cause, naught else thine own needs crave.”</div> - </div> - <div class="attrib">—Rishanger, <cite>Political Songs</cite>.</div> -</div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="fnanchor">47</a> Stubbs.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="fnanchor">48</a> “The Song of Lewes”—<cite>Political Songs</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="fnanchor">49</a> I am indebted to my friend Fr. Bede Jarrett, O.P., for this interesting -and, I believe, hitherto unpublished suggestion.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="fnanchor">50</a> It was to a Dominican Convent at Montargis that Simon’s widow, -the Princess Eleanor, retired after the fatal battle of Evesham.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="fnanchor">51</a> An appeal was lodged at Rome by several English bishops against -the threatened excommunication, but the papal legate himself became -pope early in 1265, and, as Pope Clement V., was the strongest enemy of -Simon and the national cause. It was only after Evesham and the -death of Simon that Clement urged a wise policy of mercy on Henry -and the royalists.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="fnanchor">52</a> “In this year, while Edward, the king’s son, was still held in ward in -the Castle of Hereford, dissension arose between Simon, Earl of -Leicester, and Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester....</p> - -<p>“For which cause the old friendship was turned into hate, so much so -that neither the consideration of his oath nor former devotion could -thenceforth pacify the said Gilbert.... An endeavour was made -by certain prelates to restore the Earls of Leicester and Gloucester to -their former union; but they could in no wise succeed.”—W. Rishanger.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="fnanchor">53</a> J. R. Green, “The Ban of Kenilworth,” <cite>Historical Studies</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="fnanchor">54</a> “The triumph over Earl Simon had been a triumph over the -religious sentiment of the time, and religion avenged itself in its own -way. Everywhere the earl’s death was viewed as a martyrdom, and -monk and friar, however they might quarrel on other points, united in -praying for the souls of the dead as for ‘soldiers of Christ.’”—J. R. -Green, “The Ban of Kenilworth,” <cite>Historical Studies</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="fnanchor">55</a> <cite>Chronicles of Melrose.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="fnanchor">56</a> <cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">Ibid.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="fnanchor">57</a> Wright, <cite>Political Songs</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="fnanchor">58</a> See J. R. Green, “Annals of Osney and Wykes,” <cite>Historical Studies</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="fnanchor">59</a> “The project was clearly to set up a new order of things founded on -social equality—a theory which in the whole history of the Middle Ages -appears for the first time in connection with this movement.”—Gairdner.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="fnanchor">60</a> It may be said that to-day the idea of political and social equality is -generally accepted and that of brotherhood denied. In the fourteenth -century brotherhood was esteemed, but equality was a strange, intruding -notion.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="fnanchor">61</a> “The bias of Wyclif in theory and practice is secular, and aristocratic, -and royalist: it is not really socialistic or politically revolutionary,”—Figgis, -<cite>Studies of Political Thought</cite>. Nevertheless, many -writers have tried to discredit Lollardy by associating it with social -revolt, just as others have tried to discredit John Ball by making him out -a “heretic,” and a follower of Wycliff.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="fnanchor">62</a> Froissart seems to be mainly responsible for the belief that this -John Tyler became the great leader of the movement, confusing him -with Wat Tyler, of Maidstone, the real leader. Several writers allege -the indecency of the tax-collectors.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="fnanchor">63</a> “Tyler, according to Walsingham, was a man of ready ability -and good sense. Save in some excesses, which, perhaps, were politic, -possibly unavoidable, and certainly exaggerated, the rebels under him -are admitted to have kept good order, and to have readily submitted to -discipline.”—Thorold Rogers. To Froissart Tyler appears merely as “a -bad man, and a great enemy of the nobility.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="fnanchor">64</a> “Fearful lest their voyage should be prevented, or that the populace -should attack them, they heaved their anchors and with some difficulty -left the harbour, for the wind was against them, and put to sea, when -they cast anchor for a wind.”—Froissart.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65" class="fnanchor">65</a> Two names at least have been preserved—Squire Bertram Wilmington -of Wye and John Corehurst of Lamberhurst.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66" class="fnanchor">66</a> Seven years later this Earl of Salisbury, fleeing from Henry Bolingbroke, -was hanged in the streets of Cirencester at the hands of the -people.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67" class="fnanchor">67</a> This law of Winchester was the statute of Edward I., 1285, which -authorised local authorities to appoint constables and preserve the -peace. Tyler’s aim was to strengthen local government in the counties, -making them as far as possible self-governing communes.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68" class="fnanchor">68</a> “It was in the preaching of John Ball that England first listened to -the knell of feudalism, and the declaration of the rights of man.”—J. R. -Green.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69" class="fnanchor">69</a> “Observe how fortunate matters turned out, for had the rebels -succeeded in their intentions they would have destroyed the whole -nobility of England, and after their success other countries would have -rebelled.”—Froissart.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70" class="fnanchor">70</a> See Durrant Cooper—<cite>John Cade’s Followers in Kent</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71" class="fnanchor">71</a> “These two bishops were wonder covetous men, evil beloved among -the common people and holden suspect of many defaults; assenting and -willing to the death of the Duke of Gloucester, as it were said.”—(<cite>A -Chronicle of Henry VI</cite>). According to Gasgoigne—<cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">Loci e Libro Veritatum</cite>—the -people said of Ayscough: “He always kept with the king -and was his confessor, and did not reside in his own diocese of Sarum -with us, nor maintain hospitality.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72" class="fnanchor">72</a> “He himself asserted that he had been a captain under the Duke of -York, and that his real name was Mortimer, which may possibly have -been true, for there were several illegitimate branches of the house of -March.”—Professor Oman, <cite>Political History of England</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73" class="fnanchor">73</a> “A young man of a godly nature and right pregnant of wit.”—Holinshed. -Shakspeare’s farcical account of the rising in <cite>King -Henry VI.</cite>, Part II., is, of course, entirely misleading.—See the author’s -<cite>True Story of Jack Cade</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74" class="fnanchor">74</a> See the letter of John Payn in the <cite>Paston Letters</cite>. But Payn -wrote fifteen years afterwards, and seems to have been a person of no -very scrupulous honesty.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75" class="fnanchor">75</a> A special act of parliament was passed in 1452 to cancel all that -Cade had accomplished.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76" class="fnanchor">76</a> Cocke was a well-known supporter of Henry VI. and a man of note. -He was sheriff of London 1453, alderman in 1456, and mayor and M.P. -1462–3. Knighted by Henry in 1465, he fell from his high estate when -Edward IV. was king, and languished in prison on a charge of high -treason, only escaping with his life on payment of £8,000.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77" class="fnanchor">77</a> “What answer to this demand was returned I find not, but like it is -the same was granted and performed; for I find not the said captain and -Kentishmen at their being in the city to have hurt any stranger.”—Stow.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78" class="fnanchor">78</a> When, by order of the Privy Council, the Exchequer seized all -Cade’s goods, these jewels were sold with the rest. They fetched £114, -and a payment of £86 7s. was subsequently made to the Duke of York. -So the crown made some profit on the transaction, but Malpas was -unrecompensed.—See Devon’s <cite>Exchequer Rolls</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79" class="fnanchor">79</a> “Whereof he lost the people’s favour and hearts. For it was to be -thought if he had not executed that robbery he might have gone far and -brought his purpose to good effect.”—Fabyan.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80" class="fnanchor">80</a> This church has long been pulled down. It was absorbed into St. -Saviour’s parish the following year. St. Margaret’s Hill is now part of -High Street, Borough, and the present St. George’s Church stands near -the site of old St. Margaret’s Church.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81" class="fnanchor">81</a> <cite>Acts of Privy Council</cite>, 1451.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82" class="fnanchor">82</a> “In the interests of truth, I must declare at the outset that I cannot -find the very slightest foundation for the assertion of Stapleton, copied -by Cresacre More and many others, that in the course of time their -friendship cooled. Abundant proofs of the contrary will appear.”—Rev. -T. E. Bridgett, <cite>Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83" class="fnanchor">83</a> “Indeed, it was he who pushed me to write the <cite>Praise of Folly</cite>, -that is to say, he made a camel frisk.”—Erasmus to Ulrich von Hutten, -1519.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84" class="fnanchor">84</a> “He had a purpose to be a priest, yet God had allotted him for -another estate, not to live solitary, but that he might be a pattern to -married men: how they should carefully bring up their children, how -dearly they should love their wives, how they should employ their -endeavour wholly for the good of their country, yet excellently perform -the virtues of religious men, as piety, charity, humility, obedience and -conjugal chastity.”—Cresacre More.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85" class="fnanchor">85</a> Erasmus to Ulrich von Hutten.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86" class="fnanchor">86</a> “It is clear that Sir Thomas had a little Utopia of his own in his -family. He was making an experiment in education, and he was delighted -with its success. The fame of his learned daughters became -European through the praises of Erasmus, and was so great in England -that in 1529, when they were all married ladies, they were invited by -the king to hold a kind of philosophical tournament in his presence.... -More will ever stand foremost in the ranks of the defenders of -female culture.”—Rev. T. E. Bridgett, <cite>Life and Writings of Sir -Thomas More</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87" class="fnanchor">87</a> “He most warily retired from every opposition but that which -conscience absolutely required. He displayed that very peculiar -excellence of his character, which, as it showed his submission to be -the fruit of sense of duty, gave dignity to that which in others is apt to -seem to be slavish.”—Sir James Mackintosh, <cite>Life of More</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88" class="fnanchor">88</a> “Parliament is discussing the revocation of all synods and other -constitutions of the English clergy, and the prohibition of holding -synods without express license of the king. This is a strange thing. -Churchmen will be of less account than shoemakers, who have the -power of assembling and making their own statutes.”—Chapuys, -<cite>Letters and Papers of Henry VIII.</cite> (Rolls Series).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89" class="fnanchor">89</a> Chapuys, <cite>Letters and Papers of Henry VIII.</cite> (Rolls Series).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90" class="fnanchor">90</a> <cite>Lives of the Chancellors.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91" class="fnanchor">91</a> <cite>Letters and Papers of Henry VIII.</cite> (Rolls Series).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92" class="fnanchor">92</a> Roper.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93" class="fnanchor">93</a> “To More a heretic was neither a simple man erring by ignorance, -nor a learned man using his freedom in doubtful points: he was a man -whose heart was ‘proud, poisoned, and obstinate,’ because he denied -the Divine guidance of the Church while he claimed special Divine inspiration -for himself.”—Rev. T. E. Bridgett.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94" class="fnanchor">94</a> More’s <cite>English Works—Apology</cite>. It is only thirty years after his -death that Foxe suggests More as a persecutor. All the evidence is in -the opposite direction.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95" class="fnanchor">95</a> Sir James Mackintosh, <cite>Life of More</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96" class="fnanchor">96</a> See Dr. Jessop, <cite>The Great Pillage</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97" class="fnanchor">97</a> <cite>See State Papers, Domestic, Edward VI.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98" class="fnanchor">98</a> The common lands engrossed in the 15th and 16th centuries were -the farm lands cultivated in common by the peasants. The enclosure of -the commons was left to a later date, and took place between 1760 and -1830.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn2"><a id="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99" class="fnanchor">99</a> This Flowerdew had distinguished himself at the destruction of the -abbey at Wymondham by Henry VIII., by tearing off the lead from the -roof of the church and pulling down the choir, for the sake of the stones, -after the people had raised a large sum of money for the king in order to -save the church.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100" class="fnanchor">100</a> “By bearing a confident countenance in all his actions the vulgars -took him (Ket) to be both valiant and wise and a fit man to be their -commander.”—Sir John Hayward, <cite>Life of Edward VI.</cite></p> - -<p>“This Ket was a proper person to be a ringleader of mischief, for he -was of a bold, haughty spirit, and of a cankered mind against the -Government.”—John Strype, <cite>Ecclesiastical Memorials</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101" class="fnanchor">101</a> These two “were partly fain to agree, lest they being out of favour -and place, others might come to bring all out of frame that now might -partly be well framed, and the rather they assented to keep the -people in better order during answer from the prince.”—Nicholas -Sutherton.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102" class="fnanchor">102</a> “That a populous and wealthy city like Norwich should have been -for three weeks in the hands of 20,000 rebels, and should have escaped -utter pillage and ruin speaks highly for the rebel leaders.”—W. Rye, -<cite>Victoria County History of Norfolk</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_103" href="#FNanchor_103" class="fnanchor">103</a> A few years later, and John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, now Duke of -Northumberland, again visited East Anglia to proclaim his daughter-in-law, -Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England. No one rose at his call. -Neither peasant nor landowner responded to the proclamation; and -John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland, died, as -his father before him had died, convicted of treason, beheaded by the -executioner’s axe on Tower Hill. It was August 22nd, 1553, just four -years after the suppression of the peasants’ rising in Norfolk when -Northumberland was put to death.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_104" href="#FNanchor_104" class="fnanchor">104</a> “Robert Ket was not a mere craftsman: he was a man of substance, -the owner of several manors: his conduct throughout was -marked by considerable generosity: nor can the name of patriot be -denied to him who deserted the class to which he might have belonged -or aspired, and cast in his lot with the suffering people.”—Canon Dixon, -<cite>History of the Church of England</cite>.</p> - -<p>In 1588 a grandson of Robert Ket was burnt as a Nonconformist -heretic by order of Elizabeth.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_105" href="#FNanchor_105" class="fnanchor">105</a> The three were Oxford men. Sir John Eliot was at Exeter (1607), -Hampden at Magdalen (1609) and Pym at Broadgate Hall, afterwards -called Pembroke (1599).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_106" href="#FNanchor_106" class="fnanchor">106</a> “In Eliot’s composition there was nothing of the dogmatic orthodoxy -of Calvinism, nothing of the painful introspection of the later -Puritans. His creed, as it shines clearly out from the work of his -prison hours, as death was stealing upon him—<cite>The Monarchy of Man</cite>—was -the old heathen philosophic creed, mellowed and spiritualised by -Christianity. Between such a creed and Rome there was a great gulf -fixed. Individual culture and the nearest approach to individual perfection -for the sake of the State and the Church, formed a common ground -on which Eliot could stand with the narrowest Puritan.”—S. R. Gardiner.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_107" href="#FNanchor_107" class="fnanchor">107</a> Eliot’s argument “was a claim to render ministerial responsibility -once more a reality, and thereby indirectly to make parliament -supreme.”—S. R. Gardiner.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_108" href="#FNanchor_108" class="fnanchor">108</a> “He (Eliot) was to the bottom of his heart an idealist. To him the -parliament was scarcely a collection of fallible men, just as the king -was hardly a being who could by any possibility go deliberately -astray. If he who wore the crown had wandered from the right path, -he had but to listen to those who formed, in more than a rhetorical -sense, the collective wisdom of the nation.”—S. R. Gardiner.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_109" href="#FNanchor_109" class="fnanchor">109</a> “His (Hampden’s) distinction lay in his power of disentangling the -essential part from the non-essential. In the previous constitutional -struggle he had seen that the one thing necessary was to establish the -supremacy of the House of Commons.”—S. R. Gardiner.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_110" href="#FNanchor_110" class="fnanchor">110</a> Clarendon.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_111" href="#FNanchor_111" class="fnanchor">111</a> “The same men who, six months before, were observed to be of -very moderate tempers, and to wish that gentle remedies might be -applied, talked now in another dialect both of kings and persons; and -said that they must now be of another temper than they were in the last -parliament.”—Clarendon.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_112" href="#FNanchor_112" class="fnanchor">112</a> The Nineteen Propositions fairly express the views of Pym and -Hampden at this time on the supremacy of the Commons. The main -proposals were the authority of parliament: in the <em>sole</em> choice of the -ministers of the crown, in the regulation of state policy, in the management -of the militia, in the education of the royal children, in the -remodeling of the discipline of the Church of England; and the -guardianship by parliament of all forts and castles. It was of first -importance in Pym’s mind that parliament should have the control in -military matters. Without the power of the sword the House of -Commons could not ensure the personal safety of its members or the -privileges of free debate against the enmity of the king. To command -the army was to govern the country.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_113" href="#FNanchor_113" class="fnanchor">113</a> See G. P. Gooch, <cite>History of Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth -Century</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_114" href="#FNanchor_114" class="fnanchor">114</a> “By its injudicious treatment of the most popular man in England, -parliament was arraying against itself a force which only awaited an -opportunity to sweep it away.”—G. P. Gooch, <cite>History of Democratic -Ideas in the Seventeenth Century</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_115" href="#FNanchor_115" class="fnanchor">115</a> “Advocating direct government by a democratic Parliament and -the fullest development of individual liberty, the Levellers looked with -suspicion on the Council of State as a body which might possibly be -converted into an executive authority independent of parliament, and -thoroughly distrusted Cromwell as aiming at military despotism. Well-intentioned -and patriotic as they were, they were absolutely destitute -of political tact, and had no sense of the real difficulties of the situation, -and, above all, of the impossibility of rousing the popular sympathy on -behalf of abstract reasonings.”—S. R. Gardiner, <cite>History of the Commonwealth -and Protectorate</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_116" href="#FNanchor_116" class="fnanchor">116</a> S. R. Gardiner.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_117" href="#FNanchor_117" class="fnanchor">117</a> The movement “had sprung into existence in response to a widely -spread apprehension that the victory of the people might be rendered -fruitless. Its call had found an echo in the ranks of the army, and by -its admirable organization it had insisted that the leaders should hear -what it had to say. It had powerfully influenced their conduct and had -introduced a radical element into their programme. When this had -been done, the soldiers felt that its <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">raison d’être</i> as a separate party had -come to an end. The battle had been fought, and the victory, at least -for the time, had fallen to Ireton.”—G. P. Gooch, <cite>History of Democratic -Ideas in the Seventeenth Century</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_118" href="#FNanchor_118" class="fnanchor">118</a> “In other words, not only Cromwell and Ireton, but also Fairfax, -who had recently been elected a member of the House, were to be summarily -cashiered.”—S. R. Gardiner, <cite>History of the Commonwealth</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_119" href="#FNanchor_119" class="fnanchor">119</a> See the pamphlet “A Petition of Well-affected Women,” 1649. -There is something curiously familiar in the exhortation to the women.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_120" href="#FNanchor_120" class="fnanchor">120</a> “Unfortunately his friends, in petitioning for his release, rested -their case on the ground that all sentences given by a court-martial -were made illegal by the Petition of Right and the law of the land. -Such a doctrine would have dissolved the army into chaos, and when -Lilburne and Overton wrote to Fairfax, threatening him with the fate of -Joab and Strafford, all chance of pardon was at an end. Lockyer -firmly believed himself to be a martyr to the cause of right and justice.”—S. -R. Gardiner, <cite>History of the Commonwealth</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_121" href="#FNanchor_121" class="fnanchor">121</a> See Whitelocke’s <cite>Memorials</cite>, “The Army’s Martyr,” “A True -Narrative,” and “The Moderate” (1649).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_122" href="#FNanchor_122" class="fnanchor">122</a> “So die the Leveller corporals. Strong they, after their sort, for -the liberties of England; resolute to the very death.”—Carlyle.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_123" href="#FNanchor_123" class="fnanchor">123</a> Lilburne’s attitude to Winstanley’s propaganda was similar to the -attitude of the political Chartists in the 19th century to Robert Owen’s -socialism.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_124" href="#FNanchor_124" class="fnanchor">124</a> “Then ensued a scene, the like of which had in all probability never -been witnessed in an English court of justice, and was never again to be -witnessed till the seven bishops were freed by the verdict of a jury from -the rage of James II.”—S. R. Gardiner.</p> - -<p>“In a revolution, where others argued about the respective rights -of king and parliament, he spoke always of the rights of the people. -His dauntless courage and his power of speech made him the idol of the -mob.”—Professor C. H. Firth, “Lilburne,” <cite>Dictionary of National Biography</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_125" href="#FNanchor_125" class="fnanchor">125</a> See L. A. Berens, <cite>Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_126" href="#FNanchor_126" class="fnanchor">126</a> <cite>Clarke Papers</cite>, vol. ii.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_127" href="#FNanchor_127" class="fnanchor">127</a> Government rarely distinguishes between different schools of -agitators.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_128" href="#FNanchor_128" class="fnanchor">128</a> Between 1710 and 1867 the number of acres so enclosed was -7,660,439.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_129" href="#FNanchor_129" class="fnanchor">129</a> <cite>Clarke Papers</cite>, vol. ii.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_130" href="#FNanchor_130" class="fnanchor">130</a> See Graham Wallas, <cite>Life of Francis Place</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_131" href="#FNanchor_131" class="fnanchor">131</a> “Disappointment bitter and wide-spread was following closely upon -the inevitable failure of the extravagant expectations and overheated -hopes which the agitation for parliamentary reform had kindled.”—F. -York Powell, <cite>The Queen’s Reign: a Survey</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_132" href="#FNanchor_132" class="fnanchor">132</a> See Graham Wallas, <cite>Life of Francis Place</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_133" href="#FNanchor_133" class="fnanchor">133</a> Herbert Paul, <cite>History of Modern England</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_134" href="#FNanchor_134" class="fnanchor">134</a> <cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">Ibid.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_135" href="#FNanchor_135" class="fnanchor">135</a> “Want of leaders and organization, and the great difference in -objects among the Chartists themselves, led to their failure. For a while -Chartism was stayed.”—Professor T. F. Tout, <cite>England from 1689</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_136" href="#FNanchor_136" class="fnanchor">136</a> The differences between the two became more acute when Feargus -O’Connor started his land colonization schemes a few years later. -O’Brien opposed these schemes, which all ended in heavy financial -losses, and urged sticking to political reform. From 1842 O’Brien was -practically outside the Chartist movement, though it was not till 1848 he -formally retired. He died in poverty in 1864, after giving some help to -the middle-class radical movement for household suffrage.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_137" href="#FNanchor_137" class="fnanchor">137</a> A similar impulse fifty years later brought “Labour Churches” into -existence.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_138" href="#FNanchor_138" class="fnanchor">138</a> “The ministers had met the Chartist outbreaks with strong, -repressive measures, and here they had the concurrence of parliament, -which had no sympathy with the movement. The House of Commons, -indeed, had little understanding of the processes that were maturing -outside its walls. The industrial and the social evolution went on -almost unnoticed by statesmen and politicians absorbed in the party -controversy.”—Sidney Low and Lloyd Sanders, <cite>Political History -of England</cite>, 1837–1901. See also Hansard’s <cite>Parliamentary Debates</cite> for -these years.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_139" href="#FNanchor_139" class="fnanchor">139</a> “The least satisfactory feature of English life in 1846 was the -condition of the labouring classes. Politically they were dumb, for they -had no parliamentary votes. Socially they were depressed, though -their lot had been considerably improved by an increased demand for -labour and by the removal of taxes in Peel’s great Budget of 1842. -That was the year in which the misery of the English proletariat -reached its lowest depth.”—Herbert Paul, <cite>History of Modern -England</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_140" href="#FNanchor_140" class="fnanchor">140</a> Stephens, a “hot-headed” Chartist preacher, put the case as he, a -typical agitator of the day, saw it in 1839: “The principle of the -People’s Charter is the right of every man to have his home, his hearth, -and his happiness. The question of universal suffrage is after all a -knife-and-fork question. It means that every workman has a right to -have a good hat and coat, a good roof, a good dinner, no more work -than will keep him in health, and as much wages as will keep him in -plenty.”—See R. G. Gamage, <cite>History of the Chartist Movement</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_141" href="#FNanchor_141" class="fnanchor">141</a> Charles Kingsley, who is said to have signed the petition, gives his -view of April 10th in <cite>Alton Locke</cite>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p class="fn3"><a id="Footnote_142" href="#FNanchor_142" class="fnanchor">142</a> See Hansard, June, 1849.</p> - -</div> -</div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"><div class="index"> -<h2 class="nobreak left p1" id="INDEX">INDEX</h2> - -<ul class="index"> -<li class="ifrst">Adam of Marsh, Franciscan friar, friend of Grosseteste and de Montfort, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Aldrich, an Alderman of Norwich, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Alexander III., Pope, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Anselm, Abbot of Bec, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">called to court of William II., <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">refuses to give up church lands, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">firm attitude at Council of Rockingham, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">semblance of peace with the king, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">leaves England, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">returns at request of Henry I., <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his services to the king, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">dispute with the king, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">reconciliation, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death and character, <a href="#Page_27">27–30</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his birthplace, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Appleton, William, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ayscough, Bishop of Salisbury, impeached for treason, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">murdered at Erdington, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Bailey, John, hanged by Cade, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ball, John, itinerant priest from York, preaches social revolution, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">released from Maidstone prison by Wat Tyler, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">preaches to Tyler’s followers at Blackheath, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">hanged as a rebel, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Barton, Elizabeth, “Holy Maid of Kent,” <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Becket, Thomas, his parentage, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">early years, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">appointed Chancellor of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">ordained priest and appointed to Archbishopric, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">dispute with the king, <a href="#Page_41">41–45</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">yields to king’s demands at Council of Clarendon, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">refutes charges at Council of Northampton, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">leaves England and appeals to the pope, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">reconciliation with the king, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">lands at Sandwich, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">ill-will of the bishops, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Henry’s sudden rage, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his murder, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his canonisation, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Belknap, Chief Justice, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Berksted, Stephen, Bishop of Chichester, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bigod, Hugh of Norfolk, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bigod, Roger, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Boniface of Savoy, Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bradshaw, John, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Buckingham, Duke of, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Burdett, Sir Francis, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Burley, Sir Simon, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Cade, Jack, leader of the revolt of Kentish commons, 1450, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">uncertainty as to real name and family, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">marches to Blackheath at head of <a href="#Page_46">46</a>,000 followers, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">draws up and presents petition to Henry VI., <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">no answer returned, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">withdraws to Sevenoaks and defeats small body of Henry’s troops, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">gathers reinforcements in Kent, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Henry VI. treats with him fruitlessly, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">enters London without opposition, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">preserves strict discipline in his force, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">forced to levy toll for support of his followers, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">after first good reception London turns against him, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">unsuccessful fight for London Bridge, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">treats with Henry’s representatives, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">many of his adherents return to their homes, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">refuses to lay down arms till parliament issues legal pardon, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">340</span>proclaimed a traitor, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">defeated at Queenborough, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">dies fighting as a fugitive, in Sussex, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">head exposed on London Bridge, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cartwright, John, enters Navy and begins promising career, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">it is cut short by his siding with the Americans at outbreak of war, 1776, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">trains the Nottinghamshire Militia, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">pioneer of political reform, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">writes and speaks on the subject, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">unsuccessful efforts to enter parliament, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at age of 80 charged with sedition and fined, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">known as “Father of Reform,” <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Catherine of Aragon, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cantilupe, Thomas, Chancellor, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cave, Robert, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Chalton, Sir John, Lord Mayor of London, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Charles I., <a href="#Page_250">250</a> <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Church, Corporal, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Clarendon, Earl of (quoted), <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Clarendon, Council of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Clarkson, Thomas, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cocke (or Cooke) Thomas, friend to both Henry VI. and Cade, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cod, Thomas, Mayor of Norwich, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Coke, Lord Justice, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Colet, Dean of St. Paul’s, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Conyers, Dr., Vicar of St. Martin, Norwich, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cranmer, Archbishop, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cromwell, Oliver, <a href="#Page_279">279</a> <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">et seq.</i></li> - -<li class="indx">Cromwell, Thomas, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Crowmer, Sheriff of Kent, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">arrested and sent to Tower, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">beheaded by Cade’s orders, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Curtis (Girste, or Ghirstis) City Merchant, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">De Burgh, Hubert, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> - -<li class="indx">De Gray, John, Bishop of Norwich, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> - -<li class="indx">De Morville, Hugh, <a href="#Page_59">59–63</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Derby, Henry, Earl of (afterwards Henry IV.), <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Despenser, Henry, Bishop of Norwich, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Des Roches, Peter, Bishop of Winchester, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> - -<li class="indx">De Tracy, William, <a href="#Page_59">59–63</a></li> - -<li class="indx">De Valence, William, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Eadmer (quoted), <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Edward, Prince, son of Henry III., afterwards King-Edward I.;</li> -<li class="isub1">takes oath of reform to barons, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">takes Gloucester in civil war, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">taken prisoner at Battle of Lewes, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">escapes to Welsh marshes, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">intercepts de Montfort’s relief force at Evesham, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Eliot, John, enters parliament as member for St. Germans, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">knighted and becomes Vice-Admiral of Devon, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">captures the pirate Nutt, but eventually finds himself in Marshalsea prison over the affair, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">released and is returned for Newport, 1624, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">quarrels with Buckingham and insists upon his impeachment, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">imprisoned in Tower in connection therewith, but soon released, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">refuses forced loan and again imprisoned and deprived of Vice-Admiralship, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">carries Petition of Right, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">attacks policy of Laud, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">supports John Rolle in refusing payment of taxes, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">summoned before Privy Council, imprisoned for fourth time, and fined, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">remains passionately loyal to House of Commons, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">health gives way in confinement, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">dies in the Tower, 1632, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his son’s appeal for his burial at Port Eliot, Cornwall, refused, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Erasmus, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Essex, Earl of, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ethelmar, half-brother to Henry III., <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">341</span>Everard, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Fairfax, General, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Falkland, Lord, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Finch, Chief Justice, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> - -<li class="indx">FitzOsbert, William, called Longbeard; his early life, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">lays his grievances before Richard I., <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">defies Archbishop Hubert, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his arrest and death, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> - -<li class="indx">FitzStephen, W. (quoted), <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> - -<li class="indx">FitzUrse, Reginald, <a href="#Page_59">59–63</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Flowerdew, Sergeant, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Frost, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fulke, follower of Ket, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fussell, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gough, Matthew, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Green, J. R. (quoted), <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Green, Squire of Wylby, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gregory IX., Pope, letter to, from Grosseteste, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Grindcobbe, William, supporter of John Ball in Hertford, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">follows Wat Tyler, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Mile End, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">hanged at St. Albans, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, born in Suffolk of humble parentage, goes to Oxford, rises to foremost honours there, and becomes bishop, at sixty, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">institutes reforms at Oxford, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">befriends Dominican and Franciscan friars, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">withstands Henry III.’s rapacity, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">attends council in London, recites grievances of Henry III.’s misrule, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">resists seizure of English Church revenues by Innocent IV., <a href="#Page_108">108–111</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">refuses canonry of Lincoln to pope’s nephew, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Cardinals uphold Grosseteste against Innocent IV., <a href="#Page_112">112</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">makes appeal to whole realm on behalf of rights of English Church, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">dies, 1235, and is buried in Lincoln Cathedral, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Edward I.’s application for canonization refused, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gunnell, Tutor in Sir Thomas More’s family, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Hales, Sir Robert, Treasurer to Richard II., <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">advises no conference with Tyler’s followers, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">beheaded on Tower Hill, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hampden, John, refuses to pay ship-money, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">case decided against him, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">acts with Eliot against Buckingham, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">strong influence in House of Commons, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">prominent work in Long Parliament, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">impeached for high treason, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">takes refuge from Charles in city, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">prepares for war, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">raises regiment of infantry in Bucks, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mortally wounded at Chalgrove, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hazlerig, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Henry I., <a href="#Page_19">19–26</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Henry II.; appoints Thomas Becket Chancellor of England, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">their close friendship, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">determines to appoint Thomas to the archbishopric, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his dispute with Thomas, and its cause, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">draws up the Constitutions of Clarendon, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his dissatisfaction with the result, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">charges Thomas with corrupt practices, <a href="#Page_48">48–54</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his sudden rage and hasty words, resulting in the murder of the archbishop, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Henry III.; appeals for money at Council of Westminster, 1244, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">confronts bishops with Innocent IV.’s letter exhorting them to give liberally, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">bishops evade coercion, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">king again tries in 1252, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">bishops, led by Grosseteste, refuse, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his miserable misrule, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">dealings with Simon of Montfort in Gascony, <a href="#Page_118">118–120</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">342</span>his financial difficulties reach climax, 1257, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">continued quarrels with barons, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">obtains dispensation from promises to barons, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">civil war is declared, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">defeated by Simon of Montfort, and peace made, 1264, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">war again breaks out, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">is victorious, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Henry VIII., <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Holland, Sir John, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Holles, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Horne, Alderman, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Horne, Alderman, supports Tyler, and welcomes him to London, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hotham, Sir John, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Howe, Lord, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hugh of Lincoln, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Herbert of Bosham (quoted), <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Iden, Alexander, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Innocent III., Pope, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Innocent IV., Pope, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ireton, General, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">John, King, refuses to acknowledge Stephen Langton’s appointment to archbishopric, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">seizes estates of Canterbury, and drives chapter into exile, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">is excommunicated, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">meets primate at Winchester and is formally absolved, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">strife with barons, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his campaign to recover lost Angevine provinces, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">capitulation to the barons, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">signs the Great Charter, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> - -<li class="indx">John of Gaunt, calls parliament at Northampton, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his unpopularity with the people, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his palace of the Savoy and its valuable contents destroyed, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> - -<li class="indx">John of Salisbury (quoted), <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Jones, Ernest, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">joins Chartist movement at <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">son of an officer and educated abroad, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">works with Feargus O’Connor, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">attends Chartist convention, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">addresses large meetings in London, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">arrested, tried, found guilty of seditious speech and imprisoned, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on his release Chartist movement declining, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">contests Halifax unsuccessfully, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">gives support to advanced radicals, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">stands twice unsuccessfully for Nottingham, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">dies suddenly at the age of <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Kemp, Cardinal, Archbishop of York, Chancellor to Henry VI., <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kent, Earl of, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ket, Robert, landowner in Norfolk, a tanner by trade, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sympathies on the side of the people, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">offers to lead the movement against enclosures of land, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">he is eagerly accepted as captain, and leads large army towards Norwich, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">issues manifesto attacking landlords, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">advances to Mousehold, and his force increases to 20,000, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sends statement to Edward VI., <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">king replies by herald, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sets about organising and victualling his followers, as he is not content with vague promises, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">arrests landowners, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">repudiates king’s “pardon” as being a just and innocent man, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his arrest ordered by king’s messenger, but impossible in the presence of his followers, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">friction arises between Norwich authorities and the rebels, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fight ensues, Norwich in his hands, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">unsuccessfully opposed by Marquis of Northampton, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">commands in Norwich for three weeks, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">disappointed at rising not becoming general, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">negotiates with Earl of Warwick, sent to suppress revolt, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">343</span>abrupt conclusion, and battle follows, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his mistaken tactics and defeat, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his followers surrender to Warwick, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his flight and capture, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">tried, found guilty of high treason and condemned to death, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">hanged in chains in Norwich, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ket, William, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Knolles, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Knyvett, Sir Edmund, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Langham, Simon, Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Langland, Robert, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Langton, Stephen, appointed to archbishopric of Canterbury against King John’s wishes by Innocent III., <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">is driven into exile by the king, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">returns six years later, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">starts the movement for the Great Charter, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">frames articles for the Charter, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">disagreement with papal legate, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">works for preservation of peace during early years of Henry III.’s reign, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his character and place in history, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Laud, Archbishop, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Legge, John, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> - -<li class="indx">le Despenser, Hugh, Justiciar, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lilburne, John, apprenticed to a cloth merchant in London and becomes friend of Prynne, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">charged before Star Chamber with circulating unlicensed books, and sentenced to be whipped, pilloried, and imprisoned, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">released by order of Long Parliament, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fights at Edgehill and Marston Moor, where he is taken prisoner, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">leaves army in 1645 rather than take the Covenant, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">resists the tyranny of parliamentary government, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">heads the party in the army called the Levellers, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">again imprisoned and released in 1649, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">writes pamphlets against the government and is again imprisoned, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">petition presented to parliament for his release, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">tried for treasonable writings, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fined and banished, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to Holland, and returns, without permission, to London, in 1653, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">arrested and acquitted, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">again imprisoned by Cromwell for two years, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">converted to Quakerism, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">released and pensioned, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">dies at Eltham, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Litster, Geoffrey, follower of John Ball in Norfolk, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Looney, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lovett, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Luard (quoted), <a href="#Page_101">101–2</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lyons, Richard, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Macaulay, Lord (quoted), <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Malpas, Philip, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Martin, Papal Legate, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Matthew of Westminster (quoted), <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Maurice, C. E. (quoted), <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mendall, John, a name by which Jack Cade was known, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester, supporter of Duke of Suffolk, killed at Portsmouth, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Montfort, Henry of, eldest son of Earl of Leicester, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Montfort, Simon of, second son of Earl of Leicester, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Montfort, Simon of, Earl of Leicester, son of first Earl of Leicester, marries Eleanor, sister of Henry III., and widow of Earl of Pembroke, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">boyhood passed in France, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">leaves for crusades, distinguished career in Palestine, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">returns in 1242, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">works with Grosseteste in his reforms, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">goes to Gascony for five years (1248–53) and deals with turbulent nobles, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">saves Gascony for English crown, and restores order in the province, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Henry III.’s ingratitude, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">344</span>recognized leader of the barons on his return to England, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">successful in “Mad Parliament,” 1258, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as “foreigner” yields castles of Kenilworth and Odiham, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fresh difficulties with Henry III. in carrying out Provisions of Oxford, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">civil war imminent, 1264;</li> -<li class="isub1">and many bishops and barons desert Simon, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">offers £<a href="#Page_30">30</a>,000 to king to make peace and adhere to Provisions of Oxford—proposal rejected, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Battle of Lewes won by Simon, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">peace made, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">draws up new scheme of reform, the precursor of later representative government, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fresh disturbances and defections, followed by renewal of war, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Battle of Evesham, and death of Simon, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">interred in Evesham Abbey, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> - -<li class="indx">More, Sir Thomas, born 1478, member of Cardinal Morton’s household, leaves there for Oxford, and later studies law in Lincoln’s Inn, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">friendship with Erasmus, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">spends four years with Carthusians, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">leaves Charterhouse, marries and enters parliament, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">opposes Henry VII.’s exactions, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Under-Sheriff for the City, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">embassies to Flanders and Calais, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">enters Henry VIII.’s service, and rises rapidly to highest offices of State, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">happy domestic life, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">withholds support from king on his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">resigns chancellorship, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">declines to be present at Anne Boleyn’s coronation, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">unsuccessful attempt to implicate him in the “treason” of Holy Maid of Kent, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">finds himself unable to take oath denying papal supremacy, and is sent to Tower, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">indicted for treason, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sentenced to death, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">beheaded on Tower Hill, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">beatified, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mortimer, name by which Jack Cade was popularly known, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mortimer, Roger, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Newton, Sir John, Governor of Rochester Castle, taken prisoner by Tyler, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sent with message from Tyler to the king, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Nicholas, papal legate, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Norfolk, Duke of, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Northampton, Council of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Northampton, Marquis of (William Parr), <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Oastler, <a href="#Page_323">323</a></li> - -<li class="indx">O’Brien, James Bronterre, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a></li> - -<li class="indx">O’Connor, Feargus, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Otho, papal legate, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Overton, Richard, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Palgrave, Sir Francis (quoted), <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pandulf, papal legate, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pankhurst, Mrs., <a href="#Page_336">336</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pankhurst, Christabel, <a href="#Page_336">336</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Paris, Matthew (quoted), <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Parker, Matthew, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Perkins, Corporal, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Petibone, John, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Place, Francis, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Powell, Professor York (quoted), <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Prince, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pym, John, enters House of Commons, 1614, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">conspicuous in “Short Parliament,” <a href="#Page_260">260</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">supports Eliot in Buckingham’s impeachment, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">becomes leader of parliamentary party, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">canvasses England on horseback before “Long Parliament,” <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">opens charge of impeachment against Strafford, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">active work in parliament, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">345</span>makes overtures to the queen, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">impeached for high treason, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">takes refuge in city from Charles, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">secures Portsmouth and Hull for the parliament, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his “solemn league and covenant” accepted by parliament, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">dies, 1643, and buried in Westminster Abbey, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Rich, Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">retires to Pontigny, 1240, and dies, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Richard II., agrees to interview with Tyler, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">allows himself to be dissuaded, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sends to Tyler for written statement of grievances, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">agrees to a meeting at Mile End, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">assents to Tyler’s requests, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">second meeting at Smithfield, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">again agrees to Tyler’s demands, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">after Tyler’s death personally disperses his followers, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the danger passed, rebels fiercely punished, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">formally annuls charters granted to Tyler, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Richard the Breton, <a href="#Page_59">59–63</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Richard, Earl of Cornwall, half brother to Henry III., became King of the Romans, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Richard, Earl of Gloucester, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rishanger, Chronicler for St. Albans (quoted), <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rockingham, Council of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Roger of Wendover (quoted), <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Roper, William, son-in-law to Sir Thomas More, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Roper, Margaret (his wife), <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Russell, Lord John, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Sadler, <a href="#Page_323">323</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Salisbury, Earl of, counsels Richard II. not to interview Tyler, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Smithfield, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sanders, Henry, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Say-and-Sele, Lord, treasurer to Henry VI., impeached for treason, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">arrested and taken to Tower, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">beheaded by Cade’s order, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Scales, Lord, guardian of prisoners in Tower, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in conjunction with mayor and corporation opposes Cade, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Seldon, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Shaftesbury, Lord, <a href="#Page_323">323</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sharpe, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sheffield, Lord, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sibley, Alderman, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Somerset, Protector, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, Chancellor to Henry VI., <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stafford, Sir Humfrey, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stafford, Sir William, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Standish, Ralph, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Steward, Augustine, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Strafford, Earl of, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Straw, Jack, priest in Essex, follower of John Ball, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">acts as lieutenant to Wat Tyler, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">hanged without trial, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Strode, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sudbury, Simon, Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his palace at Canterbury ransacked by Tyler, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Lambeth palace stormed by Tyler and records destroyed, but building uninjured, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">beheaded by Tyler, on Tower Hill, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Suffolk, Duke of, chief minister to Henry VI., <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">impeached as a traitor, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">beheaded, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Suffolk, Earl of, President of Richard II.’s council, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sutherton, Leonard, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Tonge, Alderman, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Theobald, Archbishop, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Thompson, Corporal William, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Thompson, Cornet, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tressilian, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tyler, John, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tyler, Wat, chosen captain of peasants at Maidstone, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his recorded history can be followed for eight days only, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">346</span>his followers at first moderate, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Canterbury, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">bursts open gaol at Maidstone and releases Ball and other prisoners, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sets out for London at head of <a href="#Page_30">30</a>,000 men, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">encamps at Blackheath, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sends Sir John Newton with message to Richard II., <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">interview refused, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">he marches on London Bridge, and destroys adjacent property, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">keeps his followers under strict discipline, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">demands interview with the king, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">conference at Mile End, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">invites king to meet him again, at Smithfield, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his demands agreed to, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in sudden scuffle draws dagger, strikes Walworth, and is mortally wounded in return, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his head exposed on London Bridge, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Urban, Pope, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Vernon, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vincent, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Von Hutten, Ulrich, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Warwick, Earl of, High Chamberlain to Henry VIII., <a href="#Page_236">236–240</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Walter, Hubert, Bishop of Salisbury, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Walter of Coventry (quoted), <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Walworth, William, Mayor of London, owns London houses of ill-fame, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">the same destroyed by Tyler, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">attempts to fortify London Bridge, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">urges king and council to action, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Smithfield, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">wounds Tyler mortally, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">knighted by Richard, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Walwyn, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Warham, Archbishop, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Watson, a Norwich preacher, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Waynfleet, William, Bishop of Winchester, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wellington, Duke of, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wentworth (see Strafford, Earl of).</li> - -<li class="indx">Weston, Chancellor of the Exchequer, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wilberforce, William, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> - -<li class="indx">William I., his character, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">condition of country under, <a href="#Page_3">3–5</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">death, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li> - -<li class="indx">William II., his character, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">condition of England under, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">appoints Anselm to Archbishopric of Canterbury, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his quarrel with Anselm, <a href="#Page_11">11–13</a>, <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">et seq.</i>;</li> -<li class="isub1">his death, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Williams, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Windebank, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Winstanley, Gerrard, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">leader of the “Digger” movement, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">born in Lancashire, but settled in London as a trader, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">fails, and retires to the country, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">publishes pamphlets, social and religious, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">first action of the “Diggers,” <a href="#Page_297">297–8</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">appeals to General Fairfax against interference, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">receives little notice, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">makes further active efforts, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">movement suppressed, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">little known of him later, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wollstonecraft, Mary, <a href="#Page_336">336</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wolsey, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wraw, John, supporter of Ball in Suffolk, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">follows Wat Tyler, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Blackheath, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">returns to Suffolk to announce rising, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">is hanged as rebel, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> -</ul> -</div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="p2 center"><i>The Westminster Press (Gerrards Ltd.), Harrow Road, London, W.</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"><div class="transnote"> -<h2 class="nobreak center p1" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Note</h2> - 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