The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part C. / From Henry VII. to Mary

The enterprises however, of the Scots proceeded no farther than some inroads on the borders: when D’Oisel of himself conducted artillery and troops to besiege the Castle of Werke, he was recalled, and sharply rebuked by the council.[*]

In order to connect Scotland more closely with France, and to increase the influence of the latter kingdom, it was thought proper by Henry to celebrate the marriage between the young queen and the dauphin; and a deputation was sent by the Scottish parliament to assist at the ceremony, and to settle the terms of the contract.

The close alliance between France and Scotland threatened very nearly the repose and security of Mary; and it was foreseen, that though the factions and disorders which might naturally be expected in the Scottish government during the absence of the sovereign, would make its power less formidable, that kingdom would at least afford to the French a means of invading England. The queen, therefore, found it necessary to summon a parliament, and to demand of them some supplies to her exhausted exchequer. As such an emergency usually gives great advantage to the people; and as the parliaments during this reign had shown that, where the liberty and independency of the kingdom were menaced with imminent danger, they were not entirely overawed by the court; we shall naturally expect that the late arbitrary methods of extorting money should at least be censured, and perhaps some remedy be for the future provided against them. The commons, however, without making any reflections on the past, voted, besides a fifteenth, a subsidy of four shillings in the pound on land, and two shillings and eightpence on goods. The clergy granted eight shillings in the pound, payable, as was also the subsidy of the laity, in four years by equal portions.

The parliament also passed an act, confirming all the sales and grants of crown lands, which either were already made by the queen, or should be made during the seven ensuing years. It was easy to foresee that, in Mary’s present disposition and situation, this power would be followed by a great alienation of the royal demesnes; and nothing could be more contrary to the principles of good government, than to establish a prince with very extensive authority, yet permit him to be reduced to beggary. This act met with opposition in the house of commons. One Copely expressed his fears lest the queen, under color of the power there granted, might alter the succession, and alienate the crown from the lawful heir; but his words were thought “irreverent” to her majesty: he was committed to the custody of the serjeant at arms, and though he expressed sorrow for his offence, he was not released till the queen was applied to for his pardon.

The English nation, during this whole reign, were under great apprehensions with regard not only to the succession, but the life of the lady Elizabeth. The violent hatred which the queen bore to her broke out on every occasion; and it required all the authority of Philip, as well as her own great prudence, to prevent the fatal effects of it. The princess retired into the country, and knowing that she was surrounded with spies, she passed her time wholly in reading and study, intermeddled in no business, and saw very little company. While she remained in this situation, which for the present was melancholy, but which prepared her mind for those great actions by which her life was afterwards so much distinguished, proposals of marriage were made to her by the Swedish Ambassador, in his master’s name. As her first question was, whether the queen had been informed of these proposals, the ambassador told her, that his master thought, as he was a gentleman, it was his duty first to make his addresses to herself, and having obtained her consent, he would next, as a king, apply to her sister. But the princess would allow him to proceed no further; and the queen, after thanking her for this instance of duty, desired to know how she stood affected to the Swedish proposals. Elizabeth, though exposed to many present dangers and mortifications, had the magnanimity to reserve herself for better fortune; and she covered her refusal with professions of a passionate attachment to a single life, which, she said, she infinitely preferred before any other.[*] The princess showed like prudence in concealing her sentiments of religion, in complying with the present modes of worship, and in eluding all questions with regard to that delicate subject.[**]

The money granted by parliament enabled the queen to fit out a fleet of a hundred and forty sail, which, being joined by thirty Flemish ships, and carrying six thousand land forces on board, was sent to make an attempt on the coast of Brittany. The fleet was commanded by Lord Clinton; the land forces by the earls of Huntingdon and Rutland. But the equipment of the fleet and army was so dilatory that the French got intelligence of the design, and were prepared to receive them. The English found Brest so well guarded as to render an attempt on that place impracticable; but, landing at Conquet, they plundered and burnt the town, with some adjacent villages, and were proceeding to commit greater disorders, when Kersimon, a Breton gentleman, at the head of some militia, fell upon them, put them to rout, and drove them to their ships with considerable loss. But a small squadron of ten English ships had an opportunity of amply revenging this disgrace upon the French. The mareschal de Thermes, governor of Calais, had made an irruption into Flanders, with an army of fourteen thousand men, and, having forced a passage over the River Aa, had taken Dunkirk and Berg St. Winoc, and had advanced as far as Newport; but Count Egmont coming suddenly upon him with superior forces, he was obliged to retreat; and being overtaken by the Spaniards near Gravelines, and finding a battle inevitable, he chose very skilfully his ground for the engagement. He fortified his left wing with all the precautions possible, and posted his right along the River Aa, which, he reasonably thought, gave him full security from that quarter. But the English ships, which were accidently on the coast, being drawn by the noise of the firing, sailed up the river, and, flanking the French, did such execution by their artillery that they put them to flight, and the Spaniards gained a complete victory.[*]

Meanwhile the principal army of France under the duke of Guise, and that of Spain under the duke of Savoy, approached each other on the frontiers of Picardy; and as the two kings had come into their respective camps, attended by the flower of their nobility, men expected that some great and important event would follow from the emulation of these warlike nations. But Philip, though actuated by the ambition, possessed not the enterprising genius of a conqueror; and he was willing, notwithstanding the superiority of his numbers, and the two great victories which he had gained at St. Quintin and Gravelines, to put a period to the war by treaty. Negotiations were entered into for that purpose; and as the terms offered by the two monarchs were somewhat wide of each other, the armies were put into winter quarters till the princes could come to better agreement. Among other conditions, Henry demanded the restitution of Navarre to its lawful owner; Philip, that of Calais and its territory to England; but in the midst of these negotiations, news arrived of the death of Mary; and Philip, no longer connected with England, began to relax in his firmness on that capital article. This was the only circumstance that could have made the death of that princess be regretted by the nation.

Mary had long been in a declining state of health; and having mistaken her dropsy for a pregnancy, she had made use of an improper regimen, and her malady daily augmented. Every reflection now tormented her. The consciousness of being hated by her subjects, the prospect of Elizabeth’s succession, apprehensions of the danger to which the Catholic religion stood exposed, dejection for the loss of Calais, concern for the ill state of her affairs, and, above all, anxiety for the absence of her husband, who, she knew, intended soon to depart for Spain, and to settle there during the remainder of his life,—all these melancholy reflections preyed upon her mind, and threw her into a lingering fever, of which she died, after a short and unfortunate reign of five years four months and eleven days.

It is not necessary to employ many words in drawing the character of this princess. She possessed few qualities either estimable or amiable; and her person was as little engaging as her behavior and address. Obstinacy, bigotry, violence, cruelty, malignity, revenge, tyranny; every circumstance of her character took a tincture from her bad temper and narrow understanding. And amidst that complication of vices which entered into her composition, we shall scarcely find any virtue but sincerity; a quality which she seems to have maintained throughout her whole life; except in the beginning of her reign, when the necessity of her affairs obliged her to make some promises to the Protestants, which she certainly never intended to perform. But in these cases a weak, bigoted woman, under the government of priests, easily finds casuistry sufficient to justify to herself the violation of a promise. She appears, also, as well as her father, to have been susceptible of some attachments of friendship; and that without the caprice and inconstancy which were so remarkable in the conduct of that monarch. To which we may add, that in many circumstances of her life she gave indications of resolution and vigor of mind, a quality which seems to have been inherent in her family.

Cardinal Pole had long been sickly from an intermitting fever; and he died the same day with the queen, about sixteen hours after her. The benign character of this prelate, the modesty and humanity of his deportment, made him be universally beloved; insomuch that in a nation where the most furious persecution was carried on, and where the most violent religious factions prevailed, entire justice, even by most of the reformers, has been done to his merit. The haughty pontiff, Paul IV., had entertained some prejudices against him; and when England declared war against Henry, the ally of that pope, he seized the opportunity of revenge; and revoking Pole’s legatine commission, appointed in his room Cardinal Peyto, an Observantine friar, and confessor to the queen. But Mary would never permit the new legate to act upon the commission; and Paul was afterwards obliged to restore Cardinal Pole to his authority.

There occur few general remarks, besides what have already been made in the course of our narration, with regard to the general state of the kingdom during this reign. The naval power of England was then so inconsiderable, that fourteen thousand pounds being ordered to be applied to the fleet, both for repairing and victualling it, it was computed that ten thousand pounds a year would afterwards answer all necessary charges.[*]

The arbitrary proceedings of the queen above mentioned, joined to many monopolies granted by this princess, as well as by her father, checked the growth of commerce; and so much the more, as all other princes in Europe either were not permitted, or did not find it necessary, to proceed in so tyrannical a manner. Acts of parliament, both in the last reign and in the beginning of the present, had laid the same impositions on the merchants of the still-yard as on other aliens; yet the queen, immediately after her marriage, complied with the solicitations of the emperor, and by her prerogative suspended those laws.[*] Nobody in that age pretended to question this exercise of prerogative. The historians are entirely silent with regard to it; and it is only by the collection of public papers that it is handed down to us.

An absurd law had been made in the preceding reign, by which every one was prohibited from making cloth unless he had served an apprenticeship of seven years. The law was repealed in the first year of the queen; and this plain reason given, that it had occasioned the decay of the woollen manufacture, and had ruined several towns.[**] It is strange that Edward’s law should have been revived during the reign of Elizabeth; and still more strange that it should still subsist.

A passage to Archangel had been discovered by the English during the last reign; and a beneficial trade with Muscovy had been established. A solemn embassy was sent by the czar to Queen Mary. The ambassadors were shipwrecked on the coast of Scotland; but being hospitably entertained there, they proceeded on the journey, and were received at London with great pomp and solemnity.[***] This seems to have been the first intercourse which that empire had with any of the western potentates of Europe.

A law was passed in this reign,[****] by which the number of horses, arms and furniture, was fixed which each person, according to the extent of his property, should be provided with for the defence of the kingdom. A man of a thousand pounds a year, for instance, was obliged to maintain at his own charge six horses fit for demi-lances, of which three at least to be furnished with sufficient harness, steel saddles, and weapons proper for the demi-lances; and ten horses fit for light horsemen, with furniture and weapons proper for them: he was obliged to have forty corselets furnished; fifty almain revets, or, instead of them, forty coats of plate, corse, etc. or brigandines furnished; forty pikes, thirty long bows, thirty sheafs of arrows, thirty steel caps or skulls, twenty black bills or halberts, twenty harquebuts, and twenty morions or sallets. We may remark that a man of a thousand marks of stock was rated equal to one of two hundred pounds a year; a proof that few or none at that time lived on their stock in money, and that great profits were made by the merchants in the course of trade. There is no class above a thousand pounds a year.

We pay form a notion of the little progress made in arts and refinement about this time, from one circumstance; a man of no less rank than the comptroller of Edward VI.‘s household paid only thirty shillings a year of our present money for his house in Channel Row;[*] yet labor and provisons, and consequently houses, were only about a third of the present price. Erasmus ascribes the frequent plagues in England to the nastiness, and dirt, and slovenly habits among the people. “The floors,” says he, “are commonly of clay, strewed with rushes, under which lies unmolested an ancient collection of beer, grease, fragments, bones, spittle, excrements of dogs and cats, and every thing that is nasty.”[**]

Holingshed, who lived in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, gives a very curious account of the plain, or rather rude way of living of the preceding generation. There scarcely was a chimney to the houses, even in considerable towns; the fire was kindled by the wall, and the smoke sought its way out at the roof, or door, or windows: the houses were nothing but watling plastered over with clay; the people slept on straw pallets, and had a good round log under their head for a pillow; and almost all the furniture and utensils were of wood.[***] 22

In this reign we find the first general law with regard to highways, which were appointed to be repaired by parish duty all over England.[****]

NOTES.

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[ NOTE A, p. 58. Stowe, Baker, Speed, Biondi, Holingshed, Bacon. Some late writers, particularly Mr. Carte, have doubted whether Perkin were an impostor, and have even asserted him to be the true Plantagenet. But to refute this opinion, we need only reflect on the following particulars: (1.) Though the circumstances of the wars between the two roses be in general involved in great obscurity, yet is there a most luminous ray thrown on all the transactions during the usurpation of Richard, and the murder of the two young princes, by the narrative of Sir Thomas More, whose singular magnanimity, probity, and judgment, make him an evidence beyond all exception. No historian, either of ancient or modern times, can possibly have more weight: he may also be justly esteemed a contemporary with regard to the murder of the two princes; for though he was but five years of age when that event happened, he lived and was educated among the chief actors during the period of Richard; and it is plain from this narrative itself, which is often extremely circumstantial, that he had the particulars from the eyewitnesses themselves. His authority, therefore, is irresistible, and sufficient to overbalance a hundred little doubts, and scruples, and objections. For in reality his narrative is liable to no solid objection, nor is there any mistake detected in it. He says, indeed, that the protector’s partisans, particularly Dr. Shaw, spread abroad rumors of Edward IV.‘s pre-contract with Elizabeth Lucy; whereas it now appears from record, that the parliament afterwards declared the king’s children illegitimate, on pretence of his pre-contract with lady Eleanor Talbot. But it must be remarked, that neither of these pre-contracts was ever so much as attempted to be proved; and why might not the protector’s flatterers and partisans have made use sometimes of one false rumor, sometimes of another? Sir Thomas More mentions the one rumor as well as the other, and treats them both lightly, as they deserved. It is also thought incredible by Mr. Carte, that Dr. Shaw should have been encouraged by Richard to calumniate openly his mother the duchess of York, with whom that prince lived in good terms. But if there be any difficulty in this supposition, we need only suppose, that Dr. Shaw might have concerted in general his sermon with the protector or his ministers, and yet have chosen himself the particular topics, and chosen them very foolishly. This appears, indeed, to have been the case, by the disgrace into which he fell afterwards, and by the protector’s neglect of him. (2.) If Sir Thomas’s quality of contemporary be disputed with regard to the duke of Glocester’s protectorate, it cannot possibly be disputed with regard to Perkin’s imposture: he was then a man, and had a full opportunity of knowing and examining and judging of the truth. In asserting that the duke of York was murdered by his uncle, he certainly asserts, in the most express terms, that Perkin, who personated him, was an impostor. (3.) There is another great genius who has carefully treated this point of history; so great a genius, as to be esteemed with justice one of the chief ornaments of the nation, and indeed one of the most sublime writers that any age or nation has produced. It is Lord Bacon I mean, who has related at full length, and without the least doubt or hesitation, all the impostures of Perkin Warbeck. If it be objected, that Lord Bacon was no contemporary, and that we have the same materials as he upon which to form our judgment; it must be remarked, the lord Bacon plainly composed his elaborate and exact history from many records and papers which are now lost, and that consequently he is always to be cited as an original historian. It were very strange, if Mr. Carte’s opinion were just, that, among all the papers which Lord Bacon perused, he never found any reascn to suspect Perkin to be the true Plantagenet. There was at that time no interest in defaming Richard III. Bacon, besides, is a very unbiased historian, nowise partial to Henry; we know the detail of that prince’s oppressive government from him alone. It may only be thought that, in summing up his character, he has laid the colors of blame more faintly than the very facts he mentions seem to require. Let me remark, in passing, as a singularity, how much English history has been beholden to four great men who have possessed the highest dignity in the law, More, Bacon, Clarendon, and Whitlocke. (4.) But if contemporary evidence be so much sought after, there may in this case be produced the strongest and most undeniable in the world. The queen dowager, her son the marquis of Dorset, a man of excellent understanding Sir Edward Woodville, her brother, Sir Thomas St. Leger, who had married the king’s sister, Sir John Bourchier, Sir Robert Willoughby, Sir Giles Daubeney, Sir Thomas Arundel, the Courtneys, the Cheyneys, the Talbots, the Stanleys, and, in a word, all the partisans of the house of York, that is, the men of chief dignity in the nation; all these great persons were so assured of the murder of the two princes, that they applied to the earl of Richmond, the mortal enemy of their party and family; they projected to set him on the throne, which must have been utter ruin to them if the princes were alive; and they stipulated to marry him to the princess Elizabeth, as heir to the crown, who in that case was no heir at all. Had each of those persons written the memoirs of his own times, would he not have said that Richard murdered his nephews? Or would their pen be a better declaration than their actions, of their real sentiments? (5.) But we have another contemporary authority, still better than even those great persons, so much interested to know the truth: it is that of Richard himself. He projected to marry his niece, a very unusual alliance in England, in order to unite her title with his own. He knew, therefore, her title to be good: for as to the declaration of her illegitimacy, as it went upon no proof, or even pretence of proof, it was always regarded with the utmost contempt by the nation, and it was considered as one of those parliamentary transactions, so frequent in that period, which were scandalous in themselves, and had no manner of authority. It was even so much despised, as not to be reversed by parliament after Henry and Elizabeth were on the throne. (6.) We have also, as contemporary evidence, the universal established opinion of the age, both abroad and at home. This point was regarded as so uncontroverted, that when Richard notified his accession to the court of France, that court was struck with horror at his abominable parricide in murdering both his nephews, as Philip de Comines tells us; and this sentiment went to such an unusual height, that, as we learn from the same author, the court would not make the least reply to him. (7.) The same reasons which convinced that age of the parricide still subsist, and ought to carry the most undoubted evidence to us; namely, the very circumstance of the sudden disappearance of the princes from the Tower, and their appearance nowhere else. Every one said, “They have not escaped from their uncle, for he makes no search after them: he has not conveyed them elsewhere; for it is his business to declare so, in order to remove the imputation of murder from himself. He never would needlessly subject himself to the infamy and danger of being esteemed a parricide, without acquiring the security attending that crime. They were in his custody. He is answerable for them. If he gives no account of them, as he has a plain interest in their death, he must, by every rule of common sense, be regarded as the murderer. His flagrant usurpation, as well as his other treacherous and cruel actions, makes no better be expected from him. He could not say, with Cain, that he was not his nephews’ keeper.” This reasoning, which was irrefragable at the very first, became every day stronger from Richard’s continued silence, and the general and total ignorance of the place of these princes’ abode. Richard’s reign lasted about two years beyond this period; and surely he could not have found a better expedient for disappointing the earl of Richmond’s projects, as well as justifying his own character, than the producing of his nephews. (8.) If it were necessary, amidst this blaze of evidence, to produce proofs which, in any other case, would have been regarded as considerable, and would have carried great validity with them, I might mention Dighton and Tyrrel’s account of the murder. This last gentleman especially was not likely to subject himself to the reproach of so great a crime, by an imposture which, it appears, did not acquire him the favor of Henry. (9.) The duke of York, being a boy of nine years of age, could not have made his escape without the assistance of some elder persons. Would it not have been their chief concern instantly to convey intelligence of so great an event to his mother, the queen dowager, to his aunt, the duchess of Burgundy, and to the other friends of the family. The duchess protected Simnel; a project which, had it been successful, must have ended in the crowning of Warwick and the exclusion of the duke of York. This, among many other proofs, evinces that she was ignorant of the escape of that prince, which is impossible had it been real. (10.) The total silence with regard to the persons who aided him in his escape, as also with regard to the place of his abode during more than eight years, is a sufficient proof of the imposture. (11.) Perkin’s own account of his escape is incredible and absurd. He said, that murderers were employed by his uncle to kill him and his brother; they perpetrated the crime against his brother, but took compassion on him, and allowed him to escape. This account is contained in all the historians of that age. (12.) Perkin himself made a full confession of his imposture no less than three times; once when he surrendered himself prisoner, a second time when he was set in the stocks at Cheapside and Westminster, and a third time, which carries undoubted evidence, at the foot of the gibbet on which he was hanged. Not the least surmise that the confession had ever been procured by torture; and surely the last time he had nothing further to fear. (13.) Had not Henry been assured that Perkin was a ridiculous impostor, disavowed by the whole nation, he never would have allowed him to live an hour after he came into his power, much less would he have twice pardoned him. His treatment of the innocent earl of Warwick, who, in reality, had no title to the crown, is a sufficient confirmation of this reasoning. (14.) We know with certainty whence the whole imposture came, namely, from the intrigues of the duchess of Burgundy. She had before acknowledged and supported Lambert Simnel, an avowed imposter. It is remarkable that Mr. Carte, in order to preserve the weight of the duchess’s testimony in favor of Perkin, suppresses entirely this material fact: a strong effect of party prejudices, and this author’s desire of blackening Henry VII., whose hereditary title to the crown was defective. (15.) There never was, at that time, any evidence or shadow of evidence produced of Perkin’s identity with Richard Plantagenet. Richard had disappeared when near nine years of age, and Perkin did not appear till he was a man. Could any one from his aspect pretend then to be sure of the identity? He had got some stories concerning Richard’s childhood, and the court of England; but all that it was necessary for a boy of nine to remark or remember, was easily suggested to him by the duchess of Burgundy, or Frion, Henry’s secretary, or by any body that had ever lived at court. It is true, many persons of note were at first deceived; but the discontents against Henry’s government, and the general enthusiasm for the house of York, account sufficiently for this temporary delusion. Everybody’s eyes were opened long before Perkin’s death. (16.) The circumstance of finding the two dead bodies in the reign of Charles II. is not surely indifferent. They were found in the very place which More, Bacon, and other ancient authors, had assigned as the place of interment of the young princes; the bones corresponded by their size to the age of the princes; the secret and irregular place of their interment, not being in holy ground, proves that the boys had been secretly murdered; and in the Tower no boys but those who are very nearly related to the crown can be exposed to a violent death. If we compare all these circumstances, we shall find that the inference is just and strong, that they were the bodies of Edward V. and his brother, the very inference that was drawn at the time of the discovery.

Since the publication of this History, Mr. Walpole has published his Historic Doubts concerning Richard III. Nothing can be a stronger proof how ingenious and agreeable that gentleman’s pen is, than his being able to make an inquiry concerning a remote point of English history, an object of general conversation. The foregoing note has been enlarged on account of that performance.]

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[ NOTE B, p. 69. Rot. Parl. 3 Henry VII. n. 17. The preamble is remarkable, and shows the state of the nation at that time. “The king, our sovereign lord, remembereth how, by our unlawful maintainances, giving of liveries, signs, and tokens, retainders by indentures, promises, oaths, writings, and other embraceries of his subjects, untrue demeanings of sheriffs in making panels, and untrue returns by taking money, by juries, etc. the policy of this nation is most subdued.” It must indeed be confessed, that such a state of the country required great discretionary power in the sovereign; nor will the same maxims of government suit such a rude people, that may be proper in a more advanced stage of society. The establishment of the star-chamber, or the enlargement of its power, in the reign of Henry VII., might have been as wise as the abolition of it in that of Charles I.]

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[ NOTE C, p. 72. The duke of Northumberland has lately printed a household book of an old earl of that family, who lived at this time. The author has been favored with the perusal of it; and it contains many curious particulars, which mark the manners and way of living in that rude, not to say barbarous, age; as well as the prices of commodities. I have extracted a few of them from that piece, which gives a true picture of ancient manners, and is one of the most singular monuments that English antiquity affords us; for we may be confident, however rude the strokes, that no baron’s family was on a nobler or more splendid footing. The family consists of one hundred and sixty-six persons, masters and servants. Fifty-seven strangers are reckoned upon every day; on the whole, two hundred and twenty-three. Twopence halfpenny are supposed to be the daily expense of each for meat, drink, and firing. This would make a groat of our present money. Supposing provisions between three and four times cheaper, it would be equivalent to fourteenpence: no great sum for a nobleman’s housekeeping; especially considering that the chief expense of a family at that time consisted in meat and drink; for the sum allotted by the earl for his whole annual expense is one thousand one hundred and eighteen pounds seventeen shillings and eightpence; meat, drink, and firing cost seven hundred and ninety-six pounds eleven shillings and twopence, more than two thirds of the whole; in a modern family it is not above a third, (p. 157, 158, 159.) The whole expense of the earl’s family is managed with an exactness that is very rigid, and, if we make no allowance for ancient manners, such as may seem to border on an extreme; insomuch that the number of pieces which must be cut out of every quarter of beef, mutton, pork, veal, nay, stock-fish and salmon, are determined, and must be entered and accounted for by the different clerks appointed for that purpose. If a servant be absent a day, his mess is struck off. If he go on my lord’s business, board-wages are allowed him, eightpence a day for his journey in winter, fivepence in summer. When he stays in any place, twopence a day are allowed him, besides the maintenance of his horse. Somewhat above a quarter of wheat is allowed for every mouth throughout the year; and the wheat is estimated at five shillings and eightpence a quarter. Two hundred and fifty quarters of malt are allowed, at four shillings a quarter. Two hogsheads are to be made of a quarter, which amounts to about a bottle and a third of beer a day to each person, (p.4,) and the beer will not be very strong One hundred and nine fat beeves are to be bought at Allhallow-tide, at thirteen shillings and fourpence apiece; and twenty-four lean beeves to be bought at St. Helens, at eight shillings apiece. These are to be put into the pastures to feed; and are to serve from Mid-summer to Michaelmas; which is consequently the only time that the family eats fresh beef. During all the rest of the year they live on salted meat. (p.5.) One hundred and sixty gallons of mustard are allowed in a year, which seems indeed requisite for the salt beef, (p.18.) Six hundred and forty-seven sheep are allowed, at twentypence apiece; and these seem also to be all eat salted, except between Lammas and Michaelmas, (p.5.) Only twenty-five hogs are allowed at two shillings apiece; twenty-eight veals, at twentypence; forty lambs, at tenpence or a shilling, (p. 7.) These seem to be reserved for my lord’s table, or that of the upper servants, called the knights’ table. The other servants, as they eat salted meat almost through the whole year, and with few or no vegetables, had a very bad and unhealthy diet; so that there cannot be any thing more erroneous than the magnificent ideas formed of “the roast beef of old England.” We must entertain as mean an idea of its cleanliness. Only seventy ells of linen, at eightpence an ell, are annually allowed for this great family. No sheets were used. This linen was made into eight table-cloths for my lord’s table, and one table-cloth for the knights, (p.16.) This last, I suppose, was washed only once a month. Only forty shillings are allowed for washing throughout the whole year; and most of it seems expended on the linen belonging to the chapel. The drinking, however, was tolerable, namely, ten tuns and two hogsheads of Gascogny wine, at the rate of four pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence a tun. (p.6.) Only ninety-one dozen of candles for the whole year. (p.14.) The family rose at six in the morning, dined at ten, and supped at four in the afternoon. The gates were all shut at nine, and no further ingress or egress permitted, (p. 314, 318.) My lord and lady have set on their table for breakfast at seven o’clock in the morning a quart of beer, as much wine; two pieces of salt fish, six red herrings, four white ones, or a dish of sprats. In flesh days, half a chine of mutton, or a chine of beef boiled, (p.73, 75.) Mass is ordered to be said at six o’clock, in order, says the household book that all my lord’s servants may rise early, (p.170.) Only twenty-four fires are allowed, beside the kitchen and hall, and most of these have only a peck of coals a day allowed them. (p.99.) After Lady-day, no fires permitted in the rooms, except half-fires in my lord’s and lady’s, and lord Piercy’s and the nursery, (p.101.) It is to be observed, that my lord kept house in Yorkshire, where there is certainly much cold weather after Lady-day. Eighty chalders of coals, at four shillings and twopence a chalder, suffices throughout the whole year; and because coal will not burn without wood, says the household book, sixty-four loads of great wood are also allowed, at twelvepence a load.(p.22.) This is a proof that grates were not the used. Here is an article. “It is devised that from henceforth no capons to be bought but only for my lord’s own mess, and that the said capons shall be bought for twopence apiece, lean, and fed in the poultry; and master chamberlain and the stewards be fed with capons, if there be strangers sitting with them.” (p. 102.) Pigs are to be bought at threepence or a groat a piece; geese at the same price; chickens at a halfpenny; hens at twopence, and only for the abovementioned tables. Here is another article. “Item, it is thought* good that no plovers be bought at no season but only in Christmas* and principal feasts, and my lord to be served therewith and his board-*end, and none other, and to be bought for a penny apiece, or a penny halfpenny at most.” (p. 103.) Woodcocks are to be bought at the same price. Partridges at twopence, (p. 104, 105.) Pheasants a shilling; peacocks, the same. (p. 100.) My lord keeps only twenty-seven horses in his stable at his own charge. His upper servants have allowance for maintaining their own horses, (p. 126.) These horses are six gentle horses, as they are called, at hay and hard meat throughout the whole year, four palfreys, three hobbies and nags three sumpter horses, six horses for those servants to whom my lord furnishes a horse, two sumpter horses more, and three mill horses two for carrying the corn, and one for grinding it; whence we may infer that mills, either water or windmills, were then unknown, at least very rare; besides these, there are seven great trotting horses for the chariot or wagon. He allows a peck of oats a day, besides loaves made of beans, for his principal horses; the oats at twentypence, the beans at two shillings a quarter. The load of hay is at two shillings and eightpence. When my lord is on a journey, he carries thirty-six horsemen along with him; together with bed and other accommodation. (p. 157.) The inns, it seems, could afford nothing tolerable. My lord passes the year in three country seats, all in Yorkshire; Wrysel, Leckenfield, and Topclyiffe; but he has furniture only for one. He carries every thing along with him, beds, tables, chairs, kitchen utensils, all which, we may conclude, were so coarse, that they could not be spoilt by the carriage; yet seventeen carts and one wagon suffice for the whole. (p. 391.) One cart suffices for all his kitchen utensils, cooks’ beds, etc. (p. 388.) One remarkable circumstance is, that he has eleven priests in his house, besides seventeen persons, chanters, musicians, etc. belonging to his chapel; yet he has only two cooks for a family of two hundred and twenty-three persons. (p. 325.)[*]

Their meals were certainly dressed on the slovenly manner of a ship’s company. It is amusing to observe the pompous and even royal style assumed by this Tartar chief. He does not give any orders, though only for the right making of mustard, but it is introduced with this preamble: “It seemeth good to us and our council.” If we consider the magnificent and elegant manner in which the Venetian and other Italian noblemen then lived, with the progress made by the Italians in literature and the fine arts, we shall not wonder that they considered the ultramontane nations as barbarous. The Flemish also seem to have much excelled the English and even the French. Yet the earl is sometimes not deficient in generosity; he pays, for instance, an annual pension of a groat a year to my lady of Walsingham, for her interest in heaven: the same sum to the holy blood at Hales. (p. 337.) No mention is anywhere made of plate; but only of the hiring of pewter vessels. The servants seem all to have bought their own clothes from their wages.]

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[ NOTE D, p. 132. Protestant writers have imagined, that because a man could purchase for a shilling an indulgence for the most enormous and unheard-of crimes, there must necessarily have ensued a total dissolution of morality, and consequently of civil society, from the practices of the Romish church. They do not consider, that after all these indulgences were promulgated, there still remained (besides hell fire) the punishment by the civil magistrate, the infamy of the world, and secret remorses of conscience, which are the great motives that operate on mankind. The philosophy of Cicero, who allowed of an Elysium, but rejected all Tartarus, was a much more universal indulgence than that preached by Arcemboldi or Tetzel; yet nobody will suspect Cicero of any design to promote immorality. The sale of indulgences seems, therefore, no more criminal than any other cheat of the church of Rome, or of any other church. The reformers, by entirely abolishing purgatory, did really, instead of partial indulgences sold by the pope, give, gratis, a general indulgence of a similar nature, for all crimes and offences, without exception or distinction. The souls once consigned to hell were never supposed to be redeemable by any price. There is on record only one instance of a damned soul that was saved, and that by the special intercession of the Virgin. See Pascal’s Provincial Letters. An indulgence saved the person who purchased it from purgatory only.]

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[ NOTE E, p. 142. It is said, that when Henry heard that the commons made a great difficulty of granting the required supply, he was so provoked that he sent for Edward Montague, one of the members, who had a considerable influence on the house; and he being introduced to his majesty, had the mortification to hear him speak in these words: “Ho! man: will they not suffer my bill to pass?” And laying his hand on Montague’s head, who was then on his knees before him, “Get my bill passed by to-morrow, or else to-morrow this head of yours shall be off.” This cavalier manner of Henry succeeded; for next day the bill passed. Collins’s British Peerage. Grove’s Life of Wolsey. We are told by Hall, (fol. 38,) that Cardinal Wolsey endeavored to terrify the citizens of London into the general loan exacted in 1525, and told them plainly, that “it were better that some should suffer indigence than that the king at this time should lack and therefore beware and resist not, nor ruffle not in this case, for it may fortune to cost some people their heads.” Such was the style employed by this king and his ministers.]

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[ NOTE F, p. 177. The first article of the charge against the cardinal is his procuring the legatine power, which, however, as it was certainly done with the king’s consent and permission, could be nowise criminal. Many of the other articles also regard the mere exercise of that power. Some articles impute to him, as crimes, particular actions which were natural or unavoidable to any man that was prime minister with so unlimited an authority; such as receiving first all letters from the king’s ministers abroad, receiving first all visits from foreign ministers, desiring that all applications should be made through him. He was also accused of naming himself with the king, as if he had been his fellow—“the king and I.” It is reported that sometimes he even put his own name before the king’s—“ego et rex meus.” But this mode of expression is justified by the Latin idiom. It is remarkable, that his whispering in the king’s ear, knowing himself to be affected with venereal distempers, is an article against him. Many of the charges are general, and incapable of proof. Lord Herbert goes so far as to affirm, that no man ever fell from so high a station who had so few real crimes objected to him. This opinion is perhaps a little too favorable to the cardinal. Yet the refutation of the articles by Cromwell, and their being rejected by a house of commons, even in this arbitrary reign, is almost a demonstration of Wolsey’s innocence. Henry was, no doubt, entirely bent on his destruction, when, on his failure by a parliamentary impeachment, he attacked him upon the statute of provisors, which afforded him so little just hold on that minister. For that this indictment was subsequent to the attack in parliament, appears by Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey, and Stowe, (p. 551,) and more certainly by the very articles of impeachment themselves. Parliamentary History, vol. iii. p. 42, article 7. Coke’s Inst. part iv. fol. 89.]

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[ NOTE G, p. 183. Even judging of this question by the Scripture, to which the appeal was every moment made, the arguments for the king’s cause appear but lame and imperfect. Marriage in the degree of affinity which had place between Henry and Catharine, is, indeed, prohibited in Leviticus; but it is natural to interpret that prohibition as a part of the Jewish ceremonial or municipal law; and though it is there said, in the conclusion, that the Gentile nations, by violating those degrees of consanguinity, had incurred the divine displeasure; the extension of this maxim to every precise case before specified, is supposing the Scriptures to be composed with a minute accuracy and precision, to which, we know with certainty, the sacred penmen did not think proper to confine themselves. The descent of mankind from one common father obliged them, in the first generation, to marry in the nearest degrees of consanguinity. Instances of a like nature occur among the patriarchs; and the marriage of a brother’s widow was, in certain cases, not only permitted, but even enjoined as a positive precept, by the Mosaical law. It is in vain to say that this precept was an exception to the rule, and an exception confined merely to the Jewish nation. The inference is still just, that such a marriage can contain no natural or moral turpitude; otherwise God, who is the author of all purity, would never, in any case, have enjoined it.]

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[ NOTE H, p. 191. Bishop Burnet has given us an account of the number of bulls requisite for Cranmer’s installation. By one bull, directed to the king, he is, upon the royal nomination, made archbishop of Canterbury. By a second, directed to himself, he is also made archbishop. By a third, he is absolved from all censures. A fourth is directed to the suffragans, requiring them to receive and acknowledge him as archbishop. A fifth to the dean and chapter, to the same purpose. A sixth to the clergy of Canterbury. A seventh to all the laity in his see. An eighth to all that held lands of it. By a ninth he was ordered to be consecrated, taking the oath that was in the pontifical. By a tenth the pall was sent him. By an eleventh the archbishop of York and the bishop of London were required to put it on him. These were so many devices to draw fees to offices which the popes had erected, and disposed of for money. It may be worth observing, that Cranmer, before he took the oath to the pope, made a protestation, that he did not intend thereby to restrain himself from any thing that he was bound to, either by his duty to God, the king, or the country; and that he renounced every thing in it that was contrary to any of these. This was the invention of some casuist, and not very compatible with that strict sincerity, and that scrupulous conscience, of which Cranmer made profession. Collier, vol. ii. in Coll No. 22. Burnet, vol. i. p. 128, 129.]

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[ NOTE I, p. 203. Here are the terms in which the king’s minister expressed himself to the pope. “An non, inquam, sanctitas vestra plerosque habet quibuscum arcanum aliquid crediderit, putet id non minus celatum esse quam si uno tantum pectore contineretur; quod multo magis serenissimo Angliæ regi evenire debet, cui singuli in suo regno sunt subjecti, neque etiam velint, possunt regi non esse fidelissimi. Væ namque illis, si vel parvo momento ab illius voluntate recederent”. Le Grand, tom. iii. p. 113. The king once said publicly before the council, that if any one spoke of him or his actions in terms which became them not, he would let them know that he was master. “Et qu’il n’y auroit si belle tête qu’il ne fit voler.” Id. p. 218.]

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[ NOTE K. p 226. This letter contains so much nature, and even elegance, as to deserve to be transmitted to posterity, without any alteration in the expression. It is as follows:—

“Sir, your grace’s displeasure and my imprisonment are things so strange unto me, as what to write, or what to excuse, I am altogether ignorant. Whereas you send unto me (willing me to confess a truth and so obtain your favor) by such an one whom you know to be mine ancient professed enemy, I no sooner received this message by him, than I rightly conceived your meaning; and if, as you say, confessing a truth indeed may procure my safety, I shall with all willingness and duty perform your command.

“But let not your grace ever imagine that your poor wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault where not so much as a thought thereof preceded. And, to speak a truth, never prince had wife more loyal in all duty, and in all true affection, than you have ever found in Anne Boleyn; with which name and place I could willingly have contented myself, if God and your grace’s pleasure had been so pleased. Neither did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation or received queenship, but that I always looked for such an alteration as I now find; for the ground of my preferment being on no surer foundation than your grace’s fancy, the least alteration I knew was fit and sufficient to draw that fancy to some other object. You have chosen me from a low estate to be your queen and companion, far beyond my desert or desire. If then you found me worthy of such honor, good your grace let not any light fancy, or bad counsel of mine enemies withdraw your princely favor from me; neither let that stain, that unworthy stain, of a disloyal heart towards your good grace, ever cast so foul a blot on your most dutiful wife, and the infant princess your daughter. Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and judges; yea, let me receive an open trial, for my truth shall fear no open shame; then shall you see either mine innocence cleared, your suspicion and conscience satisfied, the ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly declared. So that whatsoever God or you may determine of me, your grace may be freed from an open censure; and mine offence being so lawfully proved, your grace is at liberty, both before God and man, not only to execute worthy punishment on me as an unlawful wife, but to follow your affection, already settled on that party for whose sake I am now as I am, whose name I could some good while since have pointed unto, your grace not being ignorant of my suspicion therein.

“But if you have already determined of me, and that not only my death, but an infamous slander, must bring you the enjoying of your desired happiness; then I desire of God, that he will pardon your great sin therein, and likewise mine enemies, the instruments thereof; and that he will not call you to a strict account for your unprincely and cruel usage of me, at his general judgment-seat, where both you and myself must shortly appear, and in whose judgment, I doubt not, (whatsoever the world may think of me,) mine innocence shall be openly known and sufficiently cleared.

“My last and only request shall be, that myself may only bear the burden of your grace’s displeasure, and that it may not touch the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen, who (as I understand,) are likewise in strait imprisonment for my sake. If ever I have found favor in your sight, if ever the name of Anne Boleyn hath been pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain this request; and I will so leave to trouble your grace any further, with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity to have your grace in his good keeping, and to direct you In all your actions. From my doleful prison in the Tower, this sixth of May.

“Your most loyal and ever faithful wife, “ANNE BOLEYN.”]

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[ NOTE L, p. 234. A proposal had formerly been made in the convocation for the abolition of the lesser monasteries; and had been much opposed by Bishop Fisher, who was then alive. He told his brethren, that this was fairly showing the king the way how he might come at the greater monasteries. “An axe,” said he, “which wanted a handle, came upon a time into the wood, making his moan to the great trees, that he wanted a handle to work withal, and for that cause he was constrained to sit idle; therefore he made it his request to them, that they would be pleased to grant him one of their small saplings within the wood to make him a handle; who, mistrusting no guile, granted him one of their smaller trees to make him a handle. But now becoming a complete axe, he fell so to work within the same wood, that in process of time, there was neither great nor small trees to be found in the place where the wood stood. And so, my lords, if you grant the king these smaller monasteries, you do but make him a handle, whereby, at his own pleasure, he may cut down all the cedars within your Lebanons.” Dr. Bailie’s Life of Bishop Fisher, p. 108.]

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[ NOTE M, p. 244. There is a curious passage with regard to the suppression of monasteries to be found in Coke’s Institutes, 4th Inst. chap. i. p. 44. It is worth transcribing, as it shows the ideas of the English government, entertained during the reign of Henry VIII., and even in the time of Sir Edward Coke, when he wrote his Institutes. It clearly appears, that the people had then little notion of being jealous of their liberties, were desirous of making the crown quite independent, and wished only to remove from themselves, as much as possible, the burdens of government. A large standing army, and a fixed revenue, would, on these conditions, have been regarded as great blessings; and it was owing entirely to the prodigality of Henry, and to his little suspicion that the power of the crown could ever fail, that the English owe all their present liberty. The title of the chapter in Coke, is, “Advice concerning new and plausible Projects and Offers in Parliament.” “When any plausible project,” says he, “is made in parliament, to draw the lords and commons to assent to any act, (especially in matters of weight and importance,) if both houses do give upon the matter projected and promised their consent, it shall be most necessary, they being trusted for the commonwealth, to have the matter projected and promised (which moved the houses to consent) to be established in the same act, lest the benefit of the act be taken, and the matter projected and promised never performed, and so the houses of parliament perform not the trust reposed in them, as it fell out (taking one example for many) in the reign of Henry VIII. On the king’s behalf, the members of both houses were informed in parliament, that no king or kingdom was safe but where the king had three abilities: 1. To live of his own, and able to defend his kingdom upon any sudden invasion or insurrection. 2. To aid his confederates, otherwise they would never assist him. 3. To reward his well-deserving servants. Now, the project was, that if the parliament would give unto him all the abbeys, priories, friaries, nunneries, and other monasteries, that, forever in time then to come, he would take order that the same should not be converted to private uses; but first, that his exchequer for the purposes aforesaid, should be enriched; secondly, the kingdom strengthened by a continual maintenance of forty thousand well-trained soldiers, with skilful captains and commanders; thirdly, for the benefit and ease of the subject, who never afterwards, (as was projected,) in any time to come, should be charged with subsidies, fifteenths, loans, or other common aids; fourthly, lest the honor of the realm should receive any diminution of honor by the dissolution of the said monasteries, there being twenty-nine lords of parliament of the abbots and priors, (that held of the king ‘pet baroniam,’ whereof more in the next leaf,) that the king would create a number of nobles, which we omit. The said monasteries were given to the king by authority of divers ants of parliament, but no provision was therein made for the said project, or any part thereof!”]

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[ NOTE N, p. 252., Collier, in his Ecclesiastical History, (vol. ii. p. 152,) has preserved an account which Cromwell gave of this conference, in a letter to Sir Thomas Wyat, the king’s ambassador in Germany. “The king’s majesty,” says Cromwell, “for the reverence of the holy sacrament of the altar, did sit openly in his hall, and there presided at the disputation, process, and judgment of a miserable heretic sacramentary, who was burned the twentieth of November. It was a wonder to see how princely, with how excellent gravity, and inestimable majesty, his highness exercised there the very office of supreme head of the church of England. How benignly his grace essayed to convert the miserable man; how strong and manifest reasons his highness alleged against him. I wish the princes and potentates of Christendom to have had a meet place to have seen it. Undoubtedly they should have much marvelled at his majesty’s most high wisdom and judgment, and reputed him no otherwise after the same, than in a manner the mirror and light of all other kings and princes in Christendom.” It was by such flatteries that Henry was engaged to make his sentiments the standard to all mankind; and was determined to enforce, by the severest penalties, his “strong” and “manifest” reasons for transubstantiation.]

15 (return)
[ NOTE O, p. 254. There is a story, that the duke of Norfolk, meeting, soon after this act was passed, one of his chaplains, who was suspected of favoring the reformation, said to him, “Now, sir, what think you of the law to hinder priests from having wives?” “Yes, my lord,” replies the chaplain, “you have done that; but I will answer for it you cannot hinder men’s wives from having priests.”]

16 (return)
[ NOTE P, p. 265. To show how much Henry sported with law and common sense, how servilely the parliament followed all his caprices, and how much both of them were lost to all sense of shame, an act was passed this session, declaring that a precontract should be no ground for annulling a marriage; as if that pretext had not been made use of both in the case of Anne Boleyn and Anne of Cleves. But the king’s intention in this law is said to be a design of restoring the princess Elizabeth to her right of legitimacy; and it was his character never to look farther than the present object, without regarding the inconsistency of his conduct. The parliament made it high treason to deny the dissolution of Henry’s marriage with Anne of Cleves. Herbert.]

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[ NOTE Q, p. 274. It was enacted by this parliament, that there should be trial of treason in any county where the king should appoint by commission. The statutes of treason had been extremely multiplied in this reign; and such an expedient saved trouble and charges in trying that crime. The same parliament erected Ireland into a kingdom; and Henry henceforth annexed the title of king of Ireland to his other titles. This session the commons first began the practice of freeing any of their members who were arrested, by a writ issued by the speaker. Formerly it was usual for them to apply for a writ from chancery to that purpose. This precedent increased the authority of the commons, and had afterwards important consequences. Holingshed, p. 955, 956. Baker, p. 289.]

18 (return)
[ NOTE R, p. 281. The persecutions exercised during James’s reign are not to be ascribed to his bigotry, a vice of which he seems to have been as free as Francis I. or the emperor Charles, both of whom, as well as James, showed, in different periods of their lives, even an inclination to the new doctrines. The extremities to which all these princes were carried, proceeded entirely from the situation of affairs during that age, which rendered it impossible for them to act with greater temper or moderation, after they had embraced the resolution of supporting the ancient establishments. So violent was the propensity of the times towards innovation, that a bare toleration of the new preachers was equivalent to a formed design of changing the national religion.]

19 (return)
[ NOTE S, p. 331. Spotswood, p. 75. The same author (p. 92) tells us a story which confirms this character of the Popish clergy in Scotland. It became a great dispute in the university of St. Andrew’s, whether the pater should be said to God or the saints. The friars, who knew in general that the reformers neglected the saints, were determined to maintain their honor with great obstinacy; but they knew not upon what topics to found their doctrine. Some held that the pater was said to God formaliter, and to saints materialiter; others, to God principaliter, and to saints minus principaliter; others would have it ultimate and non ultimate: but the majority seemed to hold that the pater was said to God capiendo stricte, and to saints capiendo large. A simple fellow, who served the sub-prior, thinking there was some great matter in hand that made the doctors hold so many conferences together, asked him one day what the matter was: the sub-prior answering, “Tom,” (that was the fellow’s name,) “we cannot agree to whom the pater-noster should be said.” He suddenly replied, “To whom, sir, should it be said, but unto God?” Then said the sub-prior, “What shall we do with the saints?” He answered, “Give them aves and creeds enow, in the devil’s name; for that may suffice them.” The answer going abroad, many said, “that he had given a wiser decision than all the doctors had done, with all their distinctions.”]

20 (return)
[ NOTE T, p. 351. Another act, passed this session, takes notice, in the preamble, that the city of York, formerly well inhabited, was now much decayed; insomuch that many of the cures could not afford a competent maintenance to the incumbents. To remedy this inconvenience, the magistrates were empowered to unite as many parishes as they thought proper. An ecclesiastical historian (Collier, vol. ii. p. 230) thinks that this decay of York is chiefly to be ascribed to the dissolution of monasteries, by which the revenues fell into the hands of persons who lived at a distance.

A very grievous tax was imposed this session upon the whole stock and moneyed interest of the kingdom, and even upon its industry. It was a shilling in the pound yearly, during three years, on every person worth ten pounds or upwards; the double on aliens and denizens. These last, if above twelve years of age, and if worth less than twenty shillings, were to pay eightpence yearly. Every wether was to pay twopence yearly; every ewe, threepence. The woollen manufactures were to pay eightpence a pound on the value of all the cloth they made. These exorbitant taxes on money are a proof that few people lived on money lent at interest; for this tax amounts to half of the yearly income of all money-holders, during three years, estimating their interest at the rate allowed by law; and was too grievous to be borne, if many persons had been affected by it. It is remarkable, that no tax at all was laid upon land this session. The profits of merchandise were commonly so high, that it was supposed it could bear this imposition. The most absurd part of the laws seems to be the tax upon the woollen manufactures. See 2 and 3 Edward VI. cap. 36. The subsequent parliament repealed the tax on sheep and woollen cloth. 3 and 4 Edward VI. cap. 23. But they continued the other tax a year longer. Ibid.

The clergy taxed themselves at six shillings in the pound, to be paid in three years. This taxation was ratified in parliament, which had been the common practice since the reformation, implying that the clergy have no legislative power, even over themselves. See 2 and 3 Edward VI. cap. 35.]

21 (return)
[ NOTE U, p. 412. The pope at first gave Cardinal Pole powers to transact only with regard to the past fruits of the church lands; but being admonished of the danger attending any attempt towards a resumption of the lands, he enlarged the cardinal’s powers, and granted him authority to insure the future possession of the church lands to the present proprietors. There was only one clause in the cardinal’s powers that has given occasion for some speculation. An exception was made of such cases as Pole should think important enough to merit the being communicated to the holy see. But Pole simply ratified the possession of all the church lands; and his commission had given him full powers to that purpose. See Harleian Miscellany, vol. vii. p. 264, 266. It is true, some councils have declared, that it exceeds even the power of the pope to alienate any church lands; and the pope, according to his convenience or power, may either adhere to, or recede from, this declaration. But every year gave solidity to the right of the proprietors of church lands, and diminished the authority of the popes; so that men’s dread of popery in subsequent times was more founded on party or religious zeal, than on very solid reasons.]

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[ NOTE V, p. 448. The passage of Holingshed, in the Discourse prefixed to his History, and which some ascribe to Harrison, is as follows. Speaking of the increase of luxury: “Neither do I speak this in reproach, of any man, God is my judge; but to show that I do rejoice rather to see how God has blessed us with his good gifts, and to behold how that in a time wherein all things are grown to most excessive prices, we do yet find the means to obtain and archive such furniture as heretofore has been impossible. There are old men yet dwelling in the village where I remain, which have noted three things to be marvellously altered in England, within their sound remembrance. One is, the multitude of chimnies lately erected; whereas in their young days, there were not above two or three, if so many, in most uplandish towns of the realm; (the religious houses and manor-places of their lords always excepted, and peradventure some great personage;) but each made his fire against a reredosse in the hall where he dined and dressed his meat. The second is, the great amendment of lodging; for, said they, our fathers and we ourselves have lain full oft upon straw pallettes covered only with a sheet under coverlets made of dagswaine or hopharlots, (I use their own terms,) and a good round log under their head instead of a bolster. If it were so, that the father or the goodman of the house had a matrass or flock-bed, and thereto a sack of chaff to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged as the lord of the town, so well were they contented. Pillows, said they, were thought meet only for women in childbed. As for servants, if they had any sheet above them, it was well; for seldom had they any under their bodies to keep them from the prickling straws, that ran oft through the canvass, and razed their hardened hydes. The third thing they tell of is, the exchange of treene platers (so called, I suppose, from tree or wood) into pewter, and wooden spoons into silver or tin. For so common were all sorts of treene vessels in old time, that a man should hardly find four pieces of pewter (of which one was peradventure a salt) in a good farmer’s house.” Description of Britain, chap. x. Again, in chap. xvi.: “In times past, men were contented to dwell in houses builded of sallow, willow, etc.; so that the use of the oak was in a manner dedicated wholly unto churches, religious houses, princes’ palaces, navigation, etc., but now sallow, etc., are rejected, and nothing but oak any where regarded. And yet see the change; for when our houses were builded of willow, then had we oaken men; but now that our houses are come to be made of oak, our men are not only become willow, but a great many altogether of straw, which is a sore alteration. In these the courage of the owner was a sufficient defence to keep the house in safety; but now the assurance of the timber must defend the men from robbing. Now have we many chimnies; and yet out tender**** complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses; then had we none but reredosses, and our heads did never ache. For as the smoke in those days was supposed to be a sufficient hardening for the timber of the house, so it was reputed a far better medicine to keep the good man and his family from the quacke or pose, wherewith, as then, very few were acquainted.” Again, in chap. xviii.: “Our pewterers in time past employed the use of pewter only upon dishes and pots, and a few other trifles for service; whereas now, they are grown into such exquisite cunning, that they can in manner imitate by infusion any form or fashion of cup, dish, salt, or bowl or goblet, which is made by goldsmith’s craft, though they be never so curious, and very artificially forged. In some places beyond the sea, a garnish of good flat English pewter (I say flat, because dishes and platers in my time begin to be made deep, and like basons, and are indeed more convenient, both for sauce and keeping the meat warm) is almost esteemed so precious as the like number of vessels that are made of fine silver.” If the reader is curious to know the hour of meals in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, he may learn it from the same author. “With us the nobility, gentry, and students, do ordinarily go to dinner at eleven before noon, and to supper at five, or between five and six at afternoon. The merchants dine and sup seldom before twelve at noon and six at night, especially in London. The husbandmen dine also at high noon, as they call it, and sup at seven or eight; but out of term in our universities the scholars dine at ten.”

Froissart mentions waiting on the duke of Lancaster at five o’clock in the afternoon, when he had supped. These hours are still more early. It is hard to tell, why, all over the world, as the age becomes more luxurious, the hours become later. Is it the crowd of amusements that push on the hours gradually? or are the people of fashion better pleased with the secrecy and silence of nocturnal hours, when the industrious vulgar are all gone to rest? In rude ages, men have few amusements or occupations but what daylight affords them.

END OF VOL. III