n one of the loveliest and most picturesque vales of the county of Surrey, there exists, to this day, a fragment of Esher, or, as it is termed in old records, Asher Place, the last place of retreat where Wolsey fell,—

"Like a bright exhalation in the evening."

Here,—

"In the lovely vale
Of Esher, where the Mole glides lingering; loth
To leave such scenes of sweet simplicity,"—

was anciently a palace of the prelates of Winchester, built by William Wayneflete, who held the see from 1447 to 1486. It was a stately brick mansion, on the bank of the Mole, within the park of Esher.

The Bishops of Winchester occasionally resided at this palace. Cardinal Wolsey, who was appointed to the see on the death of Bishop Fox, in 1528, gave directions for the repair and partial rebuilding of this house at Esher, purposing to have made it one of his usual residences, after he had bereft himself of the palace which he had erected at Hampton Court, and which he had found it prudent to surrender to his jealous master. Many interesting circumstances relating to this last retirement of Wolsey to Esher, on the decline of his favour with the King, are related by his biographers.

On the 18th of October, 1529, when the Cardinal was at York House, Westminster (where now stands Whitehall), King Henry sent to him the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, to demand the Great Seal, Wolsey being lord chancellor; and he was ordered, at the same time, to retire to Esher. The order being unaccompanied by any voucher of authority, the chancellor refused to obey it; but the King's messenger returning with his written commands on the following day, the devoted minister submitted. He then went to Putney by water, and having landed, rode to Esher.

Wolsey now took up his residence at Esher, where he continued, with a numerous family of servants and retainers, "the space of three or four weeks, without either beds, sheets, table-cloths, dishes to eat their meat in, or wherewithal to buy any: howbeit, there was good provision of all kind of victual, and of beer and wine, whereof there was sufficient and plenty enough: but my lord was compelled of necessity to borrow of Martin Arundell and the Bishop of Carlisle, plate and dishes, both to drink in, and eat his meat in. Thus, my lord, with his family, continued in this strange estate until after Hallownetide."—(Stow.) He then dismissed a considerable part of his attendants; and Thomas Cromwell, afterwards Earl of Essex, who was in his service, went to London, professedly to take care of his interest at court; and having obtained a seat in the House of Commons, where a bill, of articles of impeachment against the Cardinal for treason, was brought forward, "Master Cromwell inveighed against it so discreetly, with such witty persuasions and deep reasons, that the same could take no effect."

Although the charge of treason was for the present abandoned, Wolsey was indicted for a præmunire, the result of which was, to place him at the King's mercy as to all his goods and possessions. Whilst his enemies were thus steadily pursuing their schemes for his destruction, the King betrayed occasional symptoms of returning favour, sending him gracious messages, first by Sir John Russell, and then by the Duke of Norfolk; but it may be questionable whether these demonstrations were not merely meant to cajole him; for, during the time that he was entertaining the Duke, Sir John Shelly, one of the judges, arrived at Esher, for the express purpose of obtaining from Wolsey a formal cession of York House, the town mansion of the Archbishops. The cardinal hesitated at making such an assignment of the property of his see, but at length yielded, yet not without a spirited remonstrance against the conduct of his despoilers. The acts of insult and oppression to which he was subjected, at length brought on severe illness, and he was confined to his bed. Dr. Butts, the court physician, having visited him, informed the King that his life was in danger; and Henry, as if in a moment of conscientious regret, sent him "a comfortable message," with a valuable ring, as a token of regard. Cavendish, in his Life of Wolsey, has thus related the circumstances under which the Royal message was delivered:—

"At Christmas, he [Wolsey] fell sore sick, that he was likely to die, whereof the King being advertised, was very sorry therefore, and sent Doctor Buttes, his grace's physician, unto him, to see in what state he was. Dr. Buttes came unto him, and finding him very sick lying in his bed, and perceiving the danger he was in, repaired again unto the King. Of whom the King demanded, saying, 'How doth yonder man; have you seen him?' 'Yea, sir,' quoth he, 'if you will have him dead, I warrant your Grace, he will be dead within these four days, if he receive no comfort from you shortly and Mistress Anne.' 'Marry,' quoth the King, 'God forbid that he should die. I pray you, good Master Buttes, go again unto him, and do your cure upon him, for I would not lose him for twenty thousand pounds.' 'Then must your Grace,' quoth Master Buttes, 'send him first some comfortable message as shortly as possible.' 'Even so will I,' quoth the King, 'by you. And therefore make speed to him again, and ye shall deliver him from me this ring for a token of our good-will and favour towards him; (on which ring was engraved the King's image within a ruby, as lively counterfeit as was possible to be devised.) This ring he knoweth very well; for he gave me the same; and tell him that I am not offended with him in my heart nothing at all, and that shall he perceive, and God send him life, very shortly. Therefore, bid him be of good cheer, and pluck up his heart, and take no despair. And I charge you come not from him until ye have brought him out of all danger of death.' And then spake he to Mistress Anne, saying, 'Good sweetheart, I pray you at this my instance, to send the Cardinal a token with comfortable words; and in so doing it shall do us a loving pleasure.' She being not minded to disobey the King's earnest request, whatever she intended in her heart towards the Cardinal, took incontinent her tablet of gold hanging at her girdle, and delivered it to Master Buttes, with very gentle and comfortable words and commendations to the Cardinal."

The invalid was comforted by the seeming kindness of his tyrannical master, and recovered. In his last letter from Esher, which was addressed to Stephen Gardiner, one of his secretaries, he prays him to help him and relieve him in his miserable condition, and remove him from this moist and corrupt air: dropsy had overtaken him, with loss of appetite, and sleep; "wherfor," says the letter, "of necessyte I must be removyd to some other dryer ayer and place, where I may have comodyte of physcyans," &c. Wolsey subsequently obtained permission to remove from Esher to Richmond, where he remained until his journey into Yorkshire, a few months previous to his death, which took place at Leicester Abbey, on the 29th of November, 1530.

When Henry VIII. had resolved to constitute Hampton Court an honour, and make a chace around it, he purchased several neighbouring estates, and, among them, Esher. A survey of the manor, early in the reign of Edward VI., shows there to have been here a mansion-house, sumptuously built, with divers offices, and an orchard and garden; and also a park adjoining, three miles in circuit, stocked with deer.

We shall not trace the future possessors of Esher Place. The natural undulations of the ground would seem to have required but little improvement from the conceptions of Art. Yet Kent, the landscape-gardener, "the inventor of an art that realizes painting," was employed by the Right Hon. Henry Pelham, a leading statesman in the reign of George II., possessor of the estate; and the artist and patron have thus been inseparably connected with

"Esher's peaceful grove,
Where Kent and Nature vie for Pelham's love."

Noble fir and beech plantations cover the swelling heights of Esher; and there are fine oaks and elms, together with a remarkable holly-tree, the girth of which is between eight and nine feet. There are also several small ornamental buildings in the park; but the principal one in picturesqueness and historic interest, is the old brick tower, which formed part of "Asher Palace," when this estate belonged to the see of Winchester. It also constituted the central division of the mansion of the Pelhams, but was judiciously left standing, when the modern additions, by Kent, were pulled down by Mr. Spicer, who purchased the estate in 1805, and erected a new mansion upon a more elevated site. In Mr. Pelham's time, the mansion consisted of little more than the Tower, or Gate-house, to that in which Wolsey had resided, and to which Kent's additions were much inferior, proving, as Walpole remarks, "how little Kent conceived either the principles or graces of Gothic architecture."

The erection of this Tower has been attributed to Wolsey, whose name is associated with several architectural works; but there is inferential evidence to show that he did not erect the Tower at Esher. Although nominated to the bishopric of Winchester in the autumn of 1528, he was not installed until April in the following year (and that by proxy), at which season he was too deeply engaged in the affair of the King's divorce, to have time for extensive building. The only distinct notice which has appeared to connect Wolsey's name with any architectural works at Asher Palace, is where Cavendish speaks of the removal to Westminster (Whitehall), of "the new gallery which my lord had late before his fall newly set up at Asher;" and "the taking away thereof," he continues, "was to him corrosive—the which discouraged him very sore to stay there any longer,—for he was weary of that house at Asher, for with continual use it waxed unsavoury."

In the form and character of the Tower itself are also indications of an earlier period than that of Wolsey; and this well-built structure may be assigned to the days of Bishop Wayneflete, who preceded the Cardinal in his possession of the see by about eighty years, and is known to have erected "a stately brick mansion" and "gate-house" in Esher Park. The Tower is luxuriantly mantled with ivy, which was planted by a son of Mr. Spicer, whilst yet a boy. The interior comprises three storeys; but the apartments are small and much dilapidated. There is, however, within one of the octagonal turrets, a very skilfully-wrought newel, or geometrical staircase, of brick, in excellent preservation; and in the roofing of which the principles of the construction of the oblique arch, (a supposed invention of modern times) are practically exhibited.[65]

There is, on the Esher estate, another structure, which is popularly associated with Wolsey's name. This is a small building, of flints and rude stones, with a central recess and stone seat; and at the foot a refreshing spring, called Wolsey's Well. It is most probable that this little edifice was raised by Mr. Pelham, as the buckle, a part of his family arms, is sculptured upon a stone over the middle arch, and also the initials, H. P. The seat is more properly named "the Travellers' Rest." Wolsey spent some weeks at Esher, a prey to his fears and mortified ambition. As might be expected, the world, that had paid him such abject court in his prosperity, deserted him in this fatal reverse of his fortunes. Wolsey was not himself prepared for what he conceived to be base ingratitude: it surprised and deceived him; and the same pride, unsupported by true dignity of character, which made him be vainly elated with his recent grandeur, made him now doubly sensitive to the humiliations of adversity. Under any circumstances he would be unfit for solitude: the glory and the gaze of the multitude being the breath of his nostrils, the calm contentment of private life was to him a sound of no meaning. What, then, must have been his feelings in this first hour of his misery? Baffled in all the schemes of his ambition, disgraced before his rivals, abandoned by the world, and forsaken by his royal master, his heart was not yet sufficiently chastened by affliction to seek for consolation in its only true source—religion; but still clung, with the despair of a lover, to the hope of the royal mercy. His letters to Gardiner, whom he had the merit of bringing forward from obscurity, and who, excepting his other secretary, Cromwell, of all his followers, alone retained grateful respect for their benefactor in his fallen fortunes, bespeak the agony of his feelings. They are severally subscribed, "With a rude hand, and sorrowful heart, T. Card^lis Ebor. miserrimus," and are scarcely legible, from the excitement under which they seem to have been written.

In chastening verse has our great moralist thus portrayed the proud Churchman:—

"In full-blown dignity see Wolsey stand,
Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand:
To him the Church, the realm, their pow'rs consign;
Through him, the rays of regal bounty shine:
Turn'd by his nod, the stream of honour flows;
His smile at once security bestows.
Still to new heights his restless wishes soar;
Claim leads to claim, and pow'r advances pow'r;
Till conquest unresisted ceased to please;
And rights submitted, left him none to seize!
At length, his Sov'reign frowns—the train of state
Mark the keen glance, and watch the sign to hate;
Where'er he turns, he meets a stranger's eye;
His suppliants scorn him, and his followers fly.
Now drops at once the pride of awful state,
The golden canopy, the glittering plate,
The regal palace, the luxurious board,
The liveried servants, and the menial lord!
With age, with cares, with maladies oppress'd,
He seeks the refuge of monastic rest.
Grief aids disease, remember'd folly stings,
And his last sighs reproach the faith of Kings."—Johnson.

Whatever appertains to the record of his appalling fall is treasurable as an addition to the narrative in our popular histories. A few points of novelty and interest as regards Wolsey have been derived from a State manuscript of the reign of Henry VIII., now in the possession of Sir Walter C. Trevelyan, Bart. F.S.A. a junior member of whose family was one of the chaplains to Henry VIII.; and through him it may have found its way to the venerable seat of Nettlecombe, in the county of Somerset, where this MS. relating to domestic expenses and payments has for some centuries been deposited.

In this manuscript Wolsey is spoken of by his double title of Cardinal of York and Bishop of Winchester, in connexion with a payment to him of one thousand marks, out of the revenues of Winchester. By the above entry, confirmed by a subsequent passage in Cavendish, it is clear that this was a pension of 1,000 marks; and that in consideration of the necessities of the Cardinal, it was to be allowed him beforehand. After all his pomp and prosperity, after all his vast accumulation of wealth, after all his piles of plate and heaps of cloth-of-gold, and costly apparel, Wolsey, in March 1530 (judging only from this entry), was reduced to the necessity of obtaining a loan of a thousand marks. This, too, to carry him to his exile at York, whither his enemies had by this date induced the fickle, selfish, and luxurious King to banish his great favourite.

Of Wolsey's subsequent residence at Cawood, we find in this MS. an item to David Vincent, of the considerable sum of 35l. 6s. 8d. (more than 200l.), whence we may infer this messenger to have made some stay there, watching the progress of Wolsey's illness, and sending intelligence to the King, who was more anxious for the death than for the life of his victim, in order that he might seize upon the remainder of his moveables. It is quite evident that the Cardinal was not at this period so destitute as many have supposed, and that he had carried with him a very large quantity of plate, of which the King possessed himself the moment the breath was out of the body of its owner. Among the payments for January, 22 Henry VIII., we read in the Trevelyan MS. that two persons were employed for three entire days in London "weighing the plate that came from Cawood, late the Cardinalles." Such are the unceremonious terms used in the original memorandum, communicating a striking fact, of which we now hear for the first time.

It is a curious and novel circumstance which the Trevelyan manuscript has brought to light, that exactly three months before the death of Wolsey, the Dean and Canons of Cardinal's (now Christchurch) College, Oxford, had so completely separated themselves from Wolsey, and from all interest he had taken in their establishment, that, instead of rewriting to him for the comparatively small sum of 184l. for the purpose of carrying on their works, they applied to the King for the loan of the money; the entry of which loan is made in this State manuscript, "upon an obligation to be repaid agayne," "on this side of Cristinmas next cumming;" so that even this trifling advance could not be made out of the royal purse, filled to repletion by the sacrifice of Wolsey, without an express stipulation that the money was to be returned before Christmas.

To the credit of Wolsey it must be told, that in the midst of his troubles his anxiety for his new college was unabated, and it is upon record, that, among his last petitions to the King, was an urgent request that "His Majesty would suffer his college at Oxford to go on."[66]

Everything in Wolsey—his vices and his virtues—was great. He seemed incapable of mediocrity in anything: voluptuous and profuse, rapacious and of insatiable ambition, too magnanimous to be either cruel or revengeful, he was an excellent master and patron, and a fair and open enemy. If we despise the abjectness which he exhibited in his first fall, let it be remembered from and to what he fell, from a degree of wealth and grandeur which no subject on earth now enjoys, to instantaneous and utter destitution. He wanted at Esher the comfort which even a prison would have afforded, the very bed on which he slept having been taken from him. We are also to take into account the abject submission which he had long been taught to exercise towards the tyrant,

"Whose smile was transport, and whose frown was fate."

There are certain circumstances connected with Wolsey's death and interment which are noteworthy. "He foretold to Cavendish that at eight o'clock he would lose his master.... Towards the conclusion, his accents began to falter; at the end his eyes became motionless, and his sight failed. The abbot was summoned to administer the extreme unction, and the yeomen of the guard were called in to see him die. As the clock struck eight he expired."

Cavendish and the bystanders thought Wolsey must have had a revelation of the time of his death; and from the way in which the fact had taken possession of his mind, it is supposed that he relied on astrological prediction.

Mr. Payne Collier observes:[67] "It is unnecessary, as well as uncharitable, to suppose what there is no proof of—that Wolsey died of poison, either administered by himself or others. The obvious and proximate cause of his death was affliction. A great heart, oppressed with indignities and beset with dangers, at length gave way, and Wolsey received the two last charities of a death-bed and a grave, with many circumstances affectingly told by Cavendish, in the Abbey of Leicester."

Wolsey's remains were privately interred in one of the chapels of the Abbey at Leicester, which has long been reduced to a mass of shapeless ruins. The Cardinal had, however, designed a sumptuous receptacle for his remains. Adjoining the east end of St. George's Chapel at Windsor is a stone edifice, built by King Henry VII., as a burial-place for himself and his successors; but this Prince afterwards altering his purpose, began the more noble structure at Westminster, and the Windsor fabric remained neglected until Wolsey obtained a grant of it from Henry VIII. The Cardinal, with a profusion of expense unknown to former ages, designed and began here a most sumptuous monument for himself, from whence this building obtained the name of Wolsey's Tomb-house. This monument was magnificently built; and at the time of the Cardinal's disgrace 4,250 ducats had been paid to a statuary of Florence for the work already done; and 380l. 18s. sterling had been paid for gilding only the half of this costly monument. It thus remained unfinished; in 1646 it was plundered by the rebels of its statues and figures of gilt-copper. The Tomb-house is now in process of decoration as a memorial to the late Prince Consort.

Wolsey had also executed for him at Rome a beautiful marble sarcophagus, but which did not arrive in time for the burial of the Cardinal: it lay neglected for two centuries and three-quarters, when it was removed to the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, and in it were placed Nelson's remains.

It is scarcely possible to leave the Tower at Esher without saddening thoughts that "lie too deep for tears." Here, amidst "the sweetest solitude" of wood and grove, stands the memorial of the ambitious minister, the powerful favourite, the selfish ecclesiastic, and the victim to tyranny,—yet a tyranny that he had himself assisted both to form and exercise. How troubled were the times which the sight of this structure recals! How painful is the contrast with the scene of peaceful nature around it!—with the refreshing quiet of the wood and glade, and the repose of the water, whereon the nothingness of human glory may be shown in one simple but sublime lesson—the circle that expands into nought. How painful, we repeat, is the contemplation of such contrasts; yet, how fraught with lessons for our happiness! We weep over the fallen fortunes of men, and their abuse of the means entrusted to them for the welfare of their fellow-men; yet what a rebuke do we receive in the reflection that Nature surrounds us with the means of endless enjoyments, while Art, by its subtlety, perverts and corrupts, thus weaning the affections from the beautiful and the pure.

Yet, if "Asher Place" had its vicissitudes in past ages, so too has Claremont—a portion of the same manor—in our own times. Here, in the mansion built for the great Lord Clive, Leopold, Prince of Saxe-Cobourg, half a century since, brought his bride, the fair-haired daughter of England, and lived for a short and blissful period, in all the happiness of conjugal and domestic union, when premature death struck down the Princess and her infant offspring. Here Louis Philippe and his Queen found an asylum, in the year of Revolutions, 1848; and have since gone to their earthly home a few miles distant. Leopold, too, has descended to the tomb, full of years and kingly honours, having received in marriage, in succession, a daughter of the King of England, and a daughter of the King of France.

[The Life of Wolsey, by Cavendish, (quoted in the preceding pages,) is one of the most interesting and valuable specimens of biography in the English language. Its first merit is originality in the strictest sense of the word. The writer, one of Wolsey's gentlemen, and much in his confidence, was not merely a spectator, but an agent, and in some degree, a sufferer in the scenes which he describes. In the next place, though he writes from the heart, there is an air of impartiality in some parts of the work, which gives them the clear stamp of veracity. Of the hauteur and insolence of the Cardinal during his elevation, he sometimes allows himself to speak with asperity. The tender compassion which rendered him the faithful companion of his fallen fortunes, gives an amiable and pleasing colour to the latter part of his narrative. Besides, the cumbrous magnificence of the reign of Henry VIII., under the great change of manners which two centuries and a half have produced, is become in its representation to us, extremely picturesque; and for this part of his undertaking Cavendish was eminently qualified. He was not one of those unobserving men, who seem never to apprehend that what is familiar to themselves will become curious to posterity. He saw with an exact and discriminating eye, and what he beheld he was able to describe. In no other work, perhaps, is to be found so minute and faithful a detail of what the palaces of kings and prelates, and the houses of the great nobility then were; their loads of plate, their hangings of arras, the ponderous plenty of their tables, and the useless accumulation, as we should conceive, of cloth, linen, &c., which were sometimes exhibited in their great galleries as in so many warehouses. Add to this, the innumerable links then subsisting in the great chain of dependence, the haughty distance of the superior to his immediate inferior, the obsequiousness of the immediate inferior in return; the young nobility serving in the houses of the greater prelates like menial servants, and these prelates themselves as often, perhaps, on the knee to their king as to their God. All these particulars, acquired from the life by the writer before us, form so many vivid pictures presented to the mind's eye, so that ideas become images, and we seem to behold what we only read of.—See Dr. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography.]

TRADITIONS OF BATTLE-FIELDS.

t has been frequently remarked that the general decay of local traditions, or the difficulty of obtaining particulars of events, or the sites of the most remembered passages of history, is, year by year, becoming more evident. It might be expected that in the vicinity of great transactions, among a rude and ignorant peasantry, we should find more frequent vestiges of the one memorable action which made their locality famous; yet, it is astonishing to find how often these are completely obliterated.

Much of this falling-off in tradition may be referred to the more rigid test to which it is subjected by means of the printing-press; as well as to the new class of materials for history. For a century or so, the habit had prevailed of receiving implicitly the traditions and records of past times, assuming them to have been substantiated at the date of their publication. This mode of constructing history consisted merely of breaking up and re-arranging the old materials, which have been compared to stereotype blocks. The worthlessness of this mode of proceeding has become apparent; and now the opposite error has come strongly into vogue—that of going back to neglected documents of the same date as the transaction, and, on their evidence, revoking the settled deliberate verdict of past centuries. The vast accession of materials of this kind obtained of late years, is truly surprising. There is likewise another means of verifying the dates, places, and names, of great events: we mean in the visits of archæologists to the sites, and the comparison of the actual localities with recorded details; proceedings of the most pleasurable and intellectual kind.

Nevertheless, the old traditional stock is not yet entirely exhausted. There are no families in the British Islands more ancient than many of those which are yet to be found among our yeomanry and peasantry. Every now and then some proof comes to light of an antiquity of tenure on the part of such families, far exceeding that of the Stanleys or Howards. The Duke of York, for example, ejected from a farm at Chertsey a certain Mr. Wapshott, who claimed lineal and accredited descent from Reginald Wapshott, the armour-bearer of Alfred, who is said to have established Reginald in this very farm. This personage was an example of the tenacity with which tradition might be thus preserved, for his family version of their origin derived them from Wapshott, the warrener, and not the armour-bearer of Alfred.[68]

Again, we have recovered of late a series of instances, which show how few individuals not uncommonly intervene between ourselves and the eye-witnesses of remarkable men or actions. King William IV. had spoken to a butcher at Windsor, who had conversed with Charles II. What is still more remarkable, a person living in 1847, aged then about sixty-one, was frequently assured by his father that, in 1786, he repeatedly saw one Peter Garden, who died in that year at the age of 127 years; and who, when a boy, heard Henry Jenkins give evidence in a court of justice at York, to the effect that, when a boy, he was employed in carrying arrows up the hill before the battle of Flodden Field.

In this year, 1856, Mr. Sidney Gibson, F.S.A. showed, as above, that a person living in 1786, conversed with a man that fought at Flodden Field.

We now proceed to narrate a few instances in which the details of early battles have been most successfully investigated and identified.

There is not much myth about the Battle of Hastings. On that undulating upland, and in that steep morass, raged on Saturday, October 14th, a.d. 1060, from nine till three, when its tide first turned, as fierce a battle, as real a stand-up fight between the army of England and the great Norman host, as any which has ever decided the destinies of countries. There is no important battle, the details of which have been so carefully handed down to us. How the Conqueror's left foot slipped on landing—the ill omen—and how his right foot "stacked in the sand"—the good omen of "seisin;"—how the ships were pierced, so that his host might fight its way to glory without retreat; and how he merrily extracted an omen for good even while putting on his hauberk the wrong side foremost; how brother Gurth with the tender conscience counselled brother Harold with the seared conscience to stay away from the fray, lest his broken oath to William should overtake him; and how, as they reconnoitred the vast Norman host, the elder brother's heart had failed him, had not the younger one called him scoundrel for his meditated flight; the prayerful eve in the one camp and the carousing eve in the other, "with wassails and drinkhails;" the exploits of valiant knight Taillifer between the lines; how the Normans shot high in air to blind the enemy; and the dreadful mêlée in the "blind ditch Malfosse shadowed with reed and sedge;" and the Conqueror's hearty after-battle meal, when he was chaired among the dying and the dead; and that exquisitely pathetic touch of story which tells how Edith, the swan-necked,—for the love she bore to Harold,—when all others failed to recognise him, was brought to discover his mutilated corse among the slain; and the Conqueror's vow, so literally redeemed, to fix the high altar of the "Abbey of the Battaile" where the Saxon gonfanon fell—all these, and a thousand other minute circumstances of the memorable day, stand out in as clear relief at this distance of time as the last charge of Waterloo, or the closing scene at Trafalgar.

Sussex has little occasion to feel humbled by having been the scene of this well-contested field. Whatever the inhabitants of the British isles have since been able to effect for their own greatness and for the happiness of the human race, is attributable in no small degree to the issue of that fight. Thenceforth the Saxon was guided and elevated by the high spirit and far-reaching enterprise of the Norman, and the elements of the national character were complete.[69]

Among the memorials of the conquered must not be forgotten the roll of the companions of the Conqueror, which was installed with great festivity in August, 1862, at Dives, a small town on the seacoast, in the department of Calvados, in Normandy. It was near this town, at the mouth of the Dives, that William and his companions in arms met previous to their embarkation for the subjugation of England. The very spot was already marked by a column erected in 1861, by M. de Caumont, the eminent Norman savant and archæologist; and the fête in August, 1862, was held under the auspices of the same learned gentleman. The commemoration was intended to be international, and a public invitation was given to the English residents in the locality; but, from some unexplained cause or other, no English person attended. Sir Bernard Burke attributes this absence to the announcement being imperfectly made; "for what," he asks, "could more come home to the better and more educated classes of English people than the inauguration of a roll which contains the greatest names amongst us; a roll to which the proudest feel prouder still to belong, and which may be said to form the very household words of our glory—the roll, in fact, of what has since been the best and bravest aristocracy in the universe?"

The fête commenced by a meeting in the Market-hall of Dives, which was characteristically decorated; one of the objects being a large picture of the construction and embarkation of William's fleet, painted from the Bayeux Tapestry. The Dives Roll is deposited within the church, over the principal entrance. It differs from the Battle Abbey Roll in this respect, that the latter is the roll of those who actually fought at Hastings, and the former is the roll of those who assembled for the expedition, and were otherwise engaged in furthering the conquest of England. The roll is printed in the Bulletin de la Societé des Antiquaires de Normandie, and in the Vicissitudes of Families, third series.

Next are three battles of the fifteenth century: Towton, Tewkesbury, and Bosworth. Towton Field, supposed to be the most fierce and bloody battle that ever happened in any domestic war, was fought between the Houses of York and Lancaster in 1461. On the 29th of March, the armies met at Towton: the Lancastrians were totally routed, and Edward left unquestionably king. The carnage of this terrible field is appalling. Proclamations forbidding quarter were issued before the engagement. Like Leipsic, it reached over the night; but, unlike Leipsic, even the hours of darkness brought no rest. They fought from four o'clock in the afternoon, throughout the whole night, on to noon the next day. Like Waterloo, it was fought on a Sunday. And the accounts of contemporary writers state, in words very like the letters from Mont St. Jean, that, for weeks afterwards the blood stood in puddles, and stagnated in gutters, and that the water of the wells was red. No inaccuracy is more frequent in ancient authors than that of numbers, and generally on the side of exaggeration. But on this occasion we can form a more correct estimate of the carnage by the concurrence of unusually reputable testimonies; and, perhaps, in these times it will give the best idea of it, to say that the number of Englishmen slain exceeded the sum of those who fell at Vimiera, Talavera, Albuera, Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo.[70]

Tewkesbury Field has been minutely explored. Mr. Richard Brooke, F.S.A., after narrating, from Holinshed, the circumstances which preceded this memorable battle—from the arrival of Queen Margaret at Weymouth, to the termination of the conflict, and the murder of Prince Edward—points out the field of battle as close to the first mile-stone on the high road leading from Tewkesbury through Tredington to Cheltenham and Gloucester. On the western side of the town of Tewkesbury is the Home-ground, or Home-hill, where once a castle stood; a part of this elevated ground is a field, called "the Gastons," which extends to the first mile-stone, just opposite which, on the eastern side of the road, is a field which has been immemorially called "Margaret's Camp." The battle was, according to tradition, fought on that place, and in the adjacent fields on the southward, as also in those a little eastward of it. In "Margaret's Camp," in the centre is a small circular inclosure, surrounded by a ditch, without hedge or bank, but having some large elm trees growing round its inner edge. This is too insignificant to have been a military entrenchment; but it may have been the place of interment of some of the slain; or is thought to have been formed in comparatively modern times to commemorate the spot where the Lancastrian army was posted. In the field, called "Gup's Hill," Mr. Brooke was told by elderly persons, bones had formerly been discovered.

The old annalists and chroniclers, Mr. Brooke says, have left us much in the dark as to the exact spot near the camp of the Lancastrians where Edward's forces passed the night prior to the battle; but on the morning of the battle, and immediately before it commenced, his army, according both to tradition and probability, took up a position upon some elevated ground adjoining the turnpike-road, and to the southward of and opposite the Lancastrian army. From that position a tract of ground (now fields and closes) slopes downwards, so as to form a depression between it and the spot occupied by the Lancastrians. This tract of ground was formerly called the "Red Piece," and it is now intersected by the turnpike-road, and forms two fields, one on each side of the road, one of which is called the Near Red Close, and the other the Further Red Close. This tract of ground extends to the field called "Margaret's Camp," and it appears almost certain that it was on the southward side of the latter that Edward's forces made their attack.

A meadow in the rear of the Lancastrian position, and lying on the westward side of the turnpike-road, half a mile from Tewkesbury, and within a few hundred yards of the Tewkesbury Union Workhouse, is called the "Bloody Meadow:" an idea is generally entertained that it derives its name from the slaughter of many of the fugitives, who fled from the battle towards the meadow, in hope of getting over the Severn, as there is a ferry not far from it. Fourteen or fifteen years ago, was found in the Bloody Meadow a long piece of iron, which appeared to have been part of a sword-blade.

Bosworth Field is a still more memorable site. On August 22, 1485, was fought the famous battle of Bosworth, the precise spot being pointed out by the following passage contained in a proclamation sent by Henry VII., almost immediately after his victory, to the municipality of York: "Moreover, the King ascertaineth you that Richard, Duke of Gloucester, lately called King Richard, was slain at a place called Sandeford, in the county of Leicester, and brought dead off the field," &c.

The field of battle lies about three miles south of Market Bosworth; and it is clear from direct historical testimony, which is in this instance fully corroborated by local traditions, that the principal encounter between the forces of Richard and Richmond took place on "Ambien Hill," on the southern slope of which rises the spring, "Richard's Well," from which the King is traditionally reported to have drank during the engagement. The plain of Redmoor was also partly comprehended in the movements of the two armies, and across which there cannot be a doubt the flight of the vanquished royalists was afterwards directed towards Dadlington, Stoke Golding, and Crown Hill, besides the strong position of Ambien Hill, on the south and west. It is, therefore, evident that the place where the King fell must be looked for in the immediate vicinity of these two well-ascertained sites of conflict. Now Sandeford, or Sandford, named in the proclamation of Henry VII., is not known to have existed as a hamlet or village in the county of Leicester, from the date of Domesday-book; hence Sandford is taken to imply an ancient road or passage over some fordable stream or water-course. It has been found that the old road from Leicester to Atherstone, through the villages of Peckleton and Kirkby Mallory, and along which road Richard advanced, when on his march from Leicester upon Sunday, August 21, to meet his antagonist, used formerly, after skirting and partially traversing the field of battle, to cross a ford, remembered by the present generation, and situated at but a short distance from the south-western slope of Ambien Hill. And part of the comparatively modern highway which now passes over the site of the same ford, is called the Sandroad at the present time. The stream which once flooded the highway, is now carried through a vaulted tunnel beneath it. The ford has consequently disappeared; but any visitor to Bosworth Field, who inquires for the Water Gate, may yet stand on the ground pointed out as the scene of the death of Richard III. by the words of his rival Henry VII. It should be added that Mr. J. F. Hollings, of Leicester, who has communicated the above details to Notes and Queries, 2nd S., No. 150, has shown also that the Ordnance Map is not altogether to be relied upon as a guide to the various localities connected with the battle of Bosworth.

Mr. Syer Cuming, F.S.A., in a paper read to the British Archæological Association, in 1862, has grouped these interesting Memorials of Richard III. On this occasion, the archæologists proceeded from Leicester to the battle-field; and a considerable accession to the number being received at Bosworth, the procession extended upwards of half-a-mile in length. On arriving at the field, large numbers of people had preceded the procession and congregated round the platform, and altogether there could not have been fewer than a thousand persons present. The platform was decorated with banners. A facsimile of the crown of Richard III. was shown on a cushion in front of Major Wollaston, who presided on the occasion. A flag marked the place where King Richard died, near a small pond, and a white flag pointed out the position of Richmond's army.

Richard Plantagenet was born about the year 1450, of Lady Cecilia, wife of Richard, Duke of York, in the ancient castle of Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire; but his natal abode was swept away by order of our first James, and we have perhaps no earlier relic of the Prince than his official seal as Admiral of England the date of which is fixed by Mr. Pettigrew between the years 1471 and 1475. It bears on it a large vessel, the mainsail blazoned with the arms of France and England, crossed by a label of three points; similar charges appearing on a flag held by a greyhound at the aft-castle. The verge represents a collar of roses, and within it is a legend setting forth that it is the seal of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Admiral of England, for the counties of Dorset and Somerset—S' Rici: Dvc' Glovc': Admiralli: Angl: I: Com: Dors' et Soms.

[When Dr. Dibdin was on his "Northern Tour," published in 1838, at Whiburn, in the neighbourhood of Tynemouth, he had the good fortune to be introduced to Sir Hedworth Williamson's old trunk of family seals, in red and white wax, among which he found a warrant of Richard III., then Duke of Gloucester, dated 20th of February, in the thirteenth year of Edward IV., with the Autograph of the Duke, and part of the Seal appended; both of which are of most rare occurrence.]

If tradition is to be believed, King John and Queen Elizabeth must have had as many palaces as there are counties in England; and though the name of Richard III. is less frequently connected with old mansions, there are still plenty of antiquated houses which are said to have been his abiding-places for more or less lengthy periods. Among others may be mentioned the Black Boy Inn, Chelmsford, where were formerly to be seen two carved bosses on the ceiling of its great room: one being painted with a blue boar on a deep red field, surrounded by a collar of seven stars or mullets; the other, with a full-blown rose, once entirely white, but subsequently white and red, indicative of the union of the Houses of York and Lancaster. Both these bosses were communicated to the Gentleman's Magazine (May, 1840), by John Adey Repton; but the editor of that serial contended that the boar is the insignia of Vere, Earl of Oxford, and that the tradition regarding Richard must therefore be rejected, forgetful of the fact that after the attainder of the Earl for high treason, his vast possessions in Essex and other counties were given to the Duke of Gloucester, so that the Black Boy Inn may, after all, have served as a hunting-lodge of the Plantagenet. Of Richard's two London residences one has altogether vanished, and the other has lost much of its antique aspect, but Shakspeare has given a world-wide and lasting fame to both. Baynard's Castle stood on the northern bank of the Thames, and was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. It was in the court of this fortress that Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, offered the crown to the Duke of Gloucester, and where the dramatist makes the latter say:—

"Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
To bear her burden, whe'r I will or no,
I must have patience to endure the load."
Richard III. ii. 7.

The other dwelling alluded to is Crosby Place, Bishopsgate, built by Sir John Crosby about the year 1467; and, in spite of alterations and renovations, this is still one of the finest examples of Early Domestic architecture in England. Hither Shakspeare makes Gloucester invite the Lady Anne; and bid the murderers repair after the assassination of Clarence and the young princes in the Tower.

The old building in Leicester, which was properly called "King Richard's House," was known to be part of the Old Blue Boar: at the commencement of the last century, it was used as an inn, and known by that sign, though originally it bore the name of the "White Boar," the cognizance of King Richard III.; but, after his defeat, this sign was torn down by the infuriated populace, and the owner or landlord compelled to change the title. Popular tradition has always identified the building with the ill-fated monarch, and the inquiries of our local antiquaries confirm the tradition. It was taken down in the month of March, 1836; but, fortunately, before its destruction, a drawing was made of the front; and that has been frequently engraved. In this house Richard took up his quarters, and slept on a bedstead, the remains of which are believed to be in existence. It had a false bottom, in which a large sum of money could be concealed, and did duty as a military chest. Engravings of the house and bedstead are given in Hutton's Battle of Bosworth Field, 2d edition, by J. Nichols, F.S.A.

Richard is reported to have been peculiarly subject to the influence of omens. "During his abode at Exeter," says Holinshed, "he went about the citie, and viewed the seat of the same, and at length he came to the castle; and when he understood that it was called Rugemont, suddenlie he fell into a dumpe, and (as one astonied) said, 'Well, I see my dayes be not long.' He spake this of a prophecy told him, that when he once came to Richmond, he should not long live after." He had more rational cause for alarm when Jockey of Norfolk produced the doggrel warning found in his tent, for it clearly indicated the desertion and treachery that were about to prove fatal to him.

On the night before the battle, going the rounds, Richard found a sentinel asleep, and stabbed him, with the remark, "I found him asleep, and have left him as I found him."

The vanguard of Richard's army was commanded by the Duke of Norfolk; the centre and main body by the King himself, who rode at their head, mounted on his celebrated milk-white steed, White Surrey, and arrayed in the splendid suit of armour which he had worn at Tewkesbury. Like Henry V. at Agincourt, Richard wore a golden crown, not as a man would wear a hat or cap, but by way of crest over his helmet. Richmond, too, bore himself gallantly, and rode through the ranks, marshalling and encouraging his men, arrayed in complete armour, but unhelmeted. His vanguard, commanded by the Earl of Oxford, began the battle by crossing the low ground towards the elevated position where Richard prudently waited the attack. "The trumpets blew, and the soldiers shouted, and the King's archers courageously let fly their arrows. The Earl's bowmen stood not still, but paid them home again; and the terrible shot once passed, the armies joined, and came to hand-strokes."[71]

The leaders of those days deemed it a point of honour to fight hand to hand, if possible, and Oxford and Norfolk managed to engage in a personal encounter. After shivering their spears on each other's shields or breastplates, they fell to with their swords. Oxford, wounded in the arm by a blow which glanced from his crest, returned it by one which hewed off the vizor of Norfolk's helmet, leaving the face bare; and then, disdaining to follow up the advantage, drew back, when an arrow from an unknown hand pierced the Duke's brain. Surrey, hurrying up to assist or avenge his father, was surrounded and overpowered by Sir Gilbert Talbot and Sir John Savage, who commanded on the right and left for Richmond:—

"Young Howard single with an army fights;
When, moved with pity, two renownèd knights,
Strong Clarendon and valiant Conyers, try
To rescue him, in which attempt they die.
Now Surrey, fainting, scarce his sword can hold,
Which made a common soldier grow so bold,
To lay rude hands upon that noble flower,
Which he disdaining—anger gives him power,—
Erects his weapon with a nimble round,
And sends the peasant's arm to kiss the ground."—
Bosworth Field, by Sir John Beaumont, Bart.

If we may credit tradition or the chroniclers, all this was literally true. When completely exhausted, Surrey presented the hilt of his sword to Talbot, whom he requested to take his life, and save him from dying by an ignoble hand. He lived to be the Surrey of Flodden Field, and the worthy transmitter of "all the blood of all the Howards."

When Richard was about to make that renowned charge, which historians describe as the last effort of despair, he was bringing up his main body, and intelligence reached him that Richmond was posted behind the hill with a slender attendance. His plan was formed on the instant; nor, although fiery courage or burning hate might have suggested it, was it ill-judged or reckless. Three-fourths of the combatants, if we include the Stanleys, were ready to side with the strongest. Richmond's army, without Richmond, was a rope of sand. His fall would be the signal for a general scattering, or a feigned renewal of hollow allegiance to the conqueror. Neither did the execution of the proposed coup de main betoken a sudden impulse inconsiderately acted upon. Richard rode out at the right flank of his army, and ascended a rising ground to get a view of his enemy, with whose person he was not acquainted. He summoned to his side a chosen body of knights, all of whom, with the exception of Lord Lovell, perished with him; and he paused to drink at a spring, which still goes by his name. That Richard's horse was slain is very doubtful; and, for aught we know, it was White Surrey that bore him, like a thunderbolt, against the bosom of his foe; and it was spear in rest that he dashed against Richmond's surprised and fluttered bodyguard.

The personal prowess of the pair who were contending for a kingdom, is thus estimated by Hutton: "Richard was better versed in arms, Henry was better served. Richard was brave, Henry was a coward. Richard was about five feet four, rather runted, but only made crooked by his enemies; and wanted six weeks of thirty-three. Henry was twenty-seven, slender, and near five feet nine, with a saturnine countenance, yellow hair, and grey eyes." According to Grafton, Richard, so soon as he descried Richmond, "put spurs to his horse, and, like a hungry lion, ran with spear in rest towards him." He unhorsed Sir John Cheney, a strong and brave knight,[72] and rushing on Sir William Brandon, Henry's standard-bearer, cleft his skull, tore the standard from his grasp, and flung it on the ground. "He was now," says Hume, "within reach of Richmond himself, who declined not the combat." Others say that Richmond drew back, as a braver man might have done in his place—

"No craven he, and yet he shuns the blow,
So much confusion magnifies the foe."

Fortunately for him, Sir William Stanley came up at the very nick of time, "with three thousand tall men," and overpowered Richard, who died, fighting furiously, and murmuring with his last breath, Treason! Treason! Treason! So nicely timed was Stanley's aid, that Henry afterwards justified the ungrateful return he made for it, by saying: "He came time enough to save my life, but he stayed long enough to endanger it." Richard received wounds enough to let out a hundred lives; his crown had been struck off at the beginning of the onset; and his armour was so broken, and his features were so defaced, that he was hardly to be recognised when dragged from beneath a heap of slain.

And can that stripped and mutilated corpse be the crowned monarch who at morning's rise led a gallant army to an assured victory, who had recently been described by Philip de Commines as holding the proudest position held by any King of England for a hundred years? Nothing places in a stronger light the depth of moral degradation and insensibility, fast verging towards barbarism, to which men's minds had been sunk by the multiplied butcheries of these terrible conflicts, than the indignities heaped upon the dead King, with the sanction, if not by the express orders, of his successor. The body, perfectly naked, with a rope round the neck, was flung across a horse, like the carcase of a calf, behind a pursuivant-at-arms, and was thus carried in triumph to Leicester. It was exposed two days in the Town-hall, and then buried without ceremony in the Gray Friars' Church. At the destruction of the religious houses, the remains were thrown out, and the coffin, which was of stone, was converted into a watering-trough at the White Horse Inn. The best intelligence that Mr. Hutton, who made a journey on purpose in 1758, could collect concerning it, was that it was broken up about the latter end of the reign of George I., and that some of the pieces had been placed as steps in the cellar of the inn. "To what base uses may we return!" The sign of the White Boar at Leicester, at which Richard slept, was forthwith converted into the Blue Boar; and the name of the street called after it has been corrupted into Blubber-lane.

Leicester and Richard III. are associated in traditional history, which the Corporation have handed down, with a newly-built bridge, in two inscriptions:—1. "This bridge was erected by the Corporation of Leicester, in the mayoralty of S. Viccars, Esq., a.d. 1862, on the site of the ancient Bow Bridge, over which King Richard III. passed, at the head of his army, to the battle of Bosworth Field, August, 1485. Joseph Whetstone, Chairman of Highway Committee; S. Stone, Town Clerk; E. S. Stephens, Borough Surveyor." The plate on the opposite side bears the legend in verse, according to Speed's History of Great Britain:—

"Upon this bridge [as tradition hath
Delivered] stood a stone of some height,
Against which King Richard, as he passed
Towards Bosworth, by chance struck his spur,
And against the same stone, as he was brought
Back, hanging by the horse's side, his head
Was dashed and broken, as a wise woman
[Forsooth] had foretold, who, before Richard's
Going to battle, being asked as to his success,
Said that where his spur struck, his head
Should be broken."

This is legendary evidence of Richard's belief in omens, in addition to that recorded at page 305.

Richard had a habit of gnawing his under lip, and a trick of playing with his dagger, which, although misconstrued into signs of an evil disposition, were, probably, mere outward manifestations of restlessness. Polydore Virgil speaks of his "horrible vigilance and celerity." It was the old story of the sword wearing out the scabbard; and the chances are, that he would not long have survived Bosworth Field had he come off unscathed and the conqueror.

"In the dreadful wars of York and Lancaster," writes Mr. Brooke,[73] "it is said that more than 10,000 Englishmen lost their lives; but that is merely the number believed to have been slain in battle; and, however repulsive it may be to our feelings, it must be admitted that it cannot include the numbers who must have perished during that disastrous period, in unimportant skirmishes, in marauding parties, in private warfare, by assassination, by the axe or by the halter, in pursuance of or under the colour of judicial sentences, or by open and undisguised murder. Besides this horrible sacrifice of human life, during this distracted period it is shocking to think what sufferings unprotected and helpless persons must have been exposed to, from the lawless partisans of the rival parties, when they passed through or were located near any district, which they chose to consider as favouring their antagonists. Pillage, cruelty, violence to women, incendiarism, and contempt of the laws and of religion, were the natural attendants upon a civil war, carried on with feelings of bitter hatred by each party; and it is certain that the examples of cruelty and wickedness which were openly set by the nobles and leaders of both factions would readily be copied by their followers. One of our ancient historical writers correctly states, that 'this conflict was in maner unnaturall, for in it the sonne fought against the father, the brother against the brother, the nephew against the uncle, the tenant against his lord.'"

It is well known that the Wars of the Roses had weakened to the last degree the great nobles—destroying many of the houses, and impoverishing all to such an extent that when Henry assumed the Crown he found himself in possession of nearly absolute power. Under his Plantagenet predecessors the great nobles had so much authority that at times they could defy the Crown, and an influential earl might be regarded as almost the rival of the Sovereign. The English barons were now reduced to comparative insignificance, and the descendants of men who in the bygone time might have aspired to the throne, and actually ruled as independent princes in their ample domains, were content to appear at Court and to swell the train of their Sovereign liege. The Wars of the Roses had in reality precipitated in England a change which was gradually approaching—the destruction of the feudal, and the rise of the municipal system. But the decay of the feudal system and the rise of the municipal produced consequences which are very important for their social and political bearings.[74]

Sad are the memories of these devastating wars, which are intertwined with many a legendary tale and fitful romance. Not the least curious of these records is the story that in a beautiful district of England, whilst the wars raged, there was discovered in the garden of Longleat Priory, in Wiltshire, a French rose-tree, covered on one side with white roses, and on the opposite with red; which, being known, attracted crowds of persons, who believed it to portend the speedy return of peace to their country, by the union of the rival powers. According to the same tradition, a short time afterwards, the tree bore roses of mixed petals, and there immediately followed the marriage of Henry VII. and Elizabeth, thus fulfilling the floral prediction by the friendship and union of the contending parties. The rose is thought to have been an early specimen of our "York and Lancaster;" a red-white—the colours of the two houses—hence its name; and although the account is probably but a fable, it has, like many others, found its way into history.

The tendency to embalm falsehoods is a part of the question of the worth of traditions, which is really worthy of a philosophical inquiry. The rib of the Dun cow and Guy's porridge-pot are still shown at Warwick Castle, though the one is the bone of a fossil elephant, and the other a military cooking vessel of the time of Charles I. Sir Samuel Meyrick scientifically classified and arranged the collection of armour in the Tower, but the Beefeaters stick to the old stories still. Richard the Third's bed in the neighbourhood of Bosworth, turns out to be Elizabethan;[75] Queen Mary's, at Holyrood, to be of the last century. Only the other day they sold off at Berkeley the bed of the murdered Edward as an undoubted anachronism and admitted imposture. Old chairs are as little to be trusted. Some persons have even doubted the famous Glastonbury specimen, but these are unduly cautious and sceptical. St. Crispin's chair in Linlithgow Cathedral is of excellent mahogany,—a wood which he could only have obtained by miracle previous to the discovery of America. Princes of Wales are not more fortunate in their traditions than the Popes themselves, for the Tower of Carnarvon, in which it is said that the first of them was born, was almost certainly built after he came into existence. The printing press will dispose of these false traditions in time, as it has already extinguished so many others, whether false or true.[76]