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English writers; an attempt towards a his
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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924016645289
ENGLISH WRITERS
English Writers. By Prof. Henry Morley.
Vol. I. — From the Beginning to Beowulf.
,, II.— From Cmvmon to the Conquest.
,, III.— From the Conquest to Chaucer.
,, IV.— The Literature of the Fourteenth Century (Part I.)
„ v.— The Literature of the Fourteenth Century (Part II.).
,, VI.^From Chaucer to Caxton.
,, VII.— From Caxton to Coverdale.
The next volume ivill be '. —
„ VIII. — From Surrey to Spenser.
A First Sketch of English Literature. From
the Earliest Period to the Present Time. By Prof. Henry
Morley. Revised an i Enlarged Edition.
Library of Engh'sh Literature. Edited by Prof.
Henry Mori.ey. Complete in 5 Volumes. With 630 Illustra-
tions from old MSS., Books, Pictures, and Sculptures.
Vol. I.:— Shorter English Poems.
„ 11. —Illustrations of English Religion.
,, III. ^English Plays,
,, IV.— Shorter Works in English Pkose.
,, v.— Sketches of Longer Works in English Verse and Prose.
CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited, Ludgate Hill, London
English Writers
AN ATTEMPT TOWARDS
A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
HENRY MORLEY
LI-.D. EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
VII
FROM CAXTON TO COVERDALE
CASSELL & COMPANY Limited
LONDON PARIS & MELBOURNE
1891
[ali, rights reserved]
COME l'UOM s'ETERNA.
— Dante.
^-rr^^
J \\'\^^
CONTENTS
inok VI.
FROM CAXTON TO COVERDALE.
Chapter I. — New Life. — The Greeks in Italy.
Grocyn and Linacre at Oxford.
Renaissance
I, 2
Dark Ages
2, 3
Provence
3
Sicily
3
Byzantium
3.4
The Normans in Sicily
4
Frederick the Second
4, 5
Dante
5
Chaucer
S
Gradual Change
S.6
The Medici in Florence
6,7
Giovanni de' Medici
7-9
Cosimo de' Medici
9— II
Greek Scholars in Florence
II, 12
The Fall of Constantinople, May 29th, 1453 ...
12
Students of Greek in Italy
12—20
Lorenzo de' Medici
20
William Grocyn
20 — 23
Thomas Linacre
23
William TiUey
23, 24
Thomas Linacre
24 — 26
vi Contents.
fAGE
The Old Science of Medicine 26,27
Thomas Linacre ... ... ... ■-. ■. ■.• ^°
Greek Studies at Oxford 28
William Grocyn 28 — 31
Erasmus 3'> 32
JohnColet 33.34
Thomas More 34— 3^
Thomas Linacre 37
Bernard Andr^ 37
Thomas Linacre 37 — 4°
Foundation of the London College of Physicians ... 40, 4'
Chapter IL — New Life. — New World. — Advance
OF Church Reform.
Discovery of America 42,43
Continued Influence of Wyclif . . ... ... ... 44 — 46
Bohemian Church Reformers ... 46 — 48
John Hus ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 48 — 52
The Council of Constance ... ... ... ... 53
Continued Influence of Wyclif 's Teaching ... ... 53 — 55
Luther 55
Chapter III. — South of the Tweed. — Bernard
AKDRfi AND POLYDORE VeRGIL. — STEPHEN
HAWES, and other writers UNDER KiNG
Henry the Seventh.
Reign of Henry VII 57, S8
Bernard Andr^ .... ... ... ... ... ... 58
Life of Henry the Seventh ... ... ... ... 57 — 66
"Annals" 60
Hercules Henry VII. ... 61,62
Polydore Vergil 62 — 64
Polydore Vergil's " History " 64—66
His other Writings ... ... ... , . , ... 66 67
John Fisher 67,68
John Colet go
Thomas Wolsey 69 70
Contents.
vu
Songs of the People
Stephen Hawes ;
" The Pastime of Pleasure "
" The Example ofVirtue "
" The Conversion of Swearers "
"Joyful Meditation on the Coronation of Henry VII."
Poets in Italy
John Skelton
" The Bowge of Court "
" The Boke of Philip Sparrow "
Chapter IV. — Alexander Barclay and the Ship
OF Fools. — Eclogue.
Alexander Barclay
" The Ship of Fools "
Eclogues
Barclay's " Mirror of Good Manners "
His French Grammar
His Translation of Sallust
The New Impulse to Translation
Last Years of Barclay
Chapter V. — North of the Tweed:
Dunbar and other Writers.
Scotland under James IV.
William Dunbar
"The Visitation of St. Francis"
Dunbar in London
' ' The Thrissil and the Rois "
Court Poetry
" The Golden Tei^e "
The First Printers in Scotland ...
Dunbar's Earlier Poems
" The Tua Maryit Wemen and the Wedo "
Later Years of Dunbar ...
" Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins "
PAGE
70, 71
71, 72
72— 7S
7S-8I
82
83
83-85
85-88
88, 89
89
9c
1-92
92-
-104
104-
-109
III
Ill,
, 112
112
112
112,
"3
William
"4,
"5
"S-
-117
"7.
118
... 119,
1 20
120,
121
121,
122
122,
123
123-
-126
126-
-129
129—
-133
133-
■136
136,
137
viii Contents.
PAGE
" Joust between the Tailor and the Soutar " ...
137
" The Freir of Tungland " ...'
... 137-139
Knights of the Carpet and the Field
139
The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy
... 139. 140
" Lament for the Makars "
141
Dunbar's List of Dead Poets
142
James Auchinlech
142
Holland's "Howlat"
... 142—144
Clerk of Tranent
144
" Gawayne and Golagros "
... 144, 145
Sir Gilbert Hay ...
146
Patrick Johnstoun
146
Mersar
I4&
William Brown. John Ross
147
Stobo
... 147, 148
Quintin Shaw
148
Popular Tales
148
"Ralph Collier"
... 148, 149
" John the Reeve "
... 149—151
" Cockelbie's Sow "
... 151. 152^
The Tale of the Freirs of Berwick
... 153-158
Chapter VL— Gavin Douglas.
Gavin Douglas
159.
" The Palace of Honour "
160
"King Hart"
160, 161
"Conscience"
161
Last Years of Gavin Douglas
... 162, 163,
Douglas's " .lEneid "
... 163— 171
Chapter VII.— Morality Plays. — Skelton.—Cc
)LET.
— More's "Utopia."
Morality Plays
... 172, 173
" The Pride of Life "
■■• "73—175
" The Castle of Perseverance "
... 175, 176
" Mind, Will, and Understanding "
176
"Nature"
177
Contents.
" the World and the Child "
"Every Man"
" Ilicke Scorner"
Skelton's " Nigromansir "
John Skelton
Skelton's " Magnificence ",
Spirit of the Moralities
Skelton and Barclay
Skelton
" Speke Parrot "
" Why Come ye not to Court ? "
"Colin Clout"
" The Tunning of Elynour Rummyng "
" The Garland of Laurel "
Skelton and Gamesche ...
The Spirit of Reform
John Colet
William Lilly
Colet's Convocation Sermon
Colet's Sermon before the King
Statecraft ...
Colet's Last Years
Erasmus
Thomas More
Thomas Wolsey
More' s "Utopia"
Bible Study
The Complutensian Polyglot
Work of Erasmus upon the New Testament
His Paraphrases
Chapter VIII. — Church Militant.
Martin Luther . . . '
Reply of Henry VIII. to Luther
William Tyndal
William Roy
PAGE
177
178
178,
179
180
180,
181
181,
182
182,
183
183,
184
184,
I8S
i8s,
186
186,
187
187-
-189
189,
190
190-
-192
193
■93
193.
194
194.
195
195.
196
196,
197
197.
198
199
199-
-201
201-
-203
203,
204
20s-
-211
211,
212
212,
213
213,
214
214
215-
-219
219,
, 220
221-
-223
-223,
,224
X ' Contents.
Tyndal's New Testament
More and Tyndal .. .
Simon Fishe
More and Tyndal
Thomas More
More and Luther ■■
Fishe's " Supplycacyon for the Beggars"
Mora's " Supplication of Souls "
John Frith
Chapter IX.— Sir. David Lindsay and other
Scottish Writers.
North of the Tweed
David Lindsay
Scotland after Flodden
Young James the Fifth ...
Lindsay and James V.
" Lindsay's Dream ■'
■'Lindsay's Complaint " ... '
" The Testament of the Papingo "
Minor Writings of Lindsay ...
Burnings for Heresy. The Friendly Act of Reformation ...
The Satire of the Three Estates
The Book of Pluscarden ...
John Mair ... ...
Hector Boece
John Bellenden
PAGE
224
226, 227
227, 228
228, 229
229—234
234
23s. 236
236, 237
239
239—242
242—245
245. 246
246. 247
247—249
250, 251
252, 253
254. 255
255. 256
256—262
262, 263
264, 265
265, 266
266
Chapter X. — Historians in
Berners, Sir Thomas
Writers.
Histories in English
Robert Fabyan
Edward Hall
Minor Writers
Richard Grafton
England. -Lord
Elyot, and Many
267
267, 268
269, 270
270
270
Contents.
XI
" A Kalendar of Shepherds '
Robert Bale
Henry Bradshaw ...
Richard Pace
Thomas Lupset
John Batmanson ...
John Kynton
John Rastell
Robert Whittington
William Herman ...
Kobert Shirwood ...
Robert Wakefield ...
Richard Kedermyster
Henry Standish ...
Christopher Seint-german
William Why tford
'John Bourchier, Lord Berners
His Translation of Froissart
Other Translations :
" Sir Huon of Bordeaux "
' ' Marcus Aurelius " ...
" The Castell of Love "
John Bale
Religious Interludes
John Leland
Endowment of Grammar Schools
Sir Thomas Elyot .. .
" The Governour " ...
"The Castle of Health" ...
Other Books of Sir Thomas Elyot
Elyot's Last Years
His Latin-English Dictionary
Chapter XL — Change.
Henry VHI. breaks from the Pope
Change of Wives. Births of Elizabeth and Edward .
270
271
271
271
272
272-
-274
274
27s
27s
27s
275
276
276
277
277
277
278
278
278
278
279
279
280
280-
-282
281
281
281,
282
282
282-
-284
283, 284
284,
28s
285,
286
286-
-29s
287-
-293
293.
294
294.
29s
29s
29s
296,
297
297,
298
Contents.
PAGE
Henty VIII. breaks from Wolsey
... 29». 299
Last Years of John Fisher
299—301
Last Years of Thomas More
... 302-305
Chapter XII.— Tyndal and others.— Coverdale.
— Authorised Pointing of an
English
Bible.
Thomas Cromwell
3^6—309
Sir Thomas Wyatt
309—310
Reginald Pole
3'°. 311
Sir Thomas Wyatt
3". 3'2
Thomas Cranmer
312,313
Richard Byfield
313
William Tyndal
313.314
Robert Barnes, Miles Coverdale
314
Thomas Cranmer
314. 315
Last Days of Tyndal
315. 316
Thomas Bilney
316
Robert Barnes
317
Hugh Latimer
317, 318
Coverdale's Translation of the Bible
318, 319
Matthew's Bible, John Rogers
319
Cromwell's Bible
319, 32°
Taverner's Bible
320
Cranmer's Bible
320
Struggle
320,321
Bibliography
323—343
Index
345-350
Last Leaves
351-355
English Writers.
BOOK VI.
JFrom (Kaiton to ffiotrcrtrale.
CHAPTER I.
NEW LIFE. — THE GREEKS IN ITALY. — GROCYN AND
LINACRE AT OXFORD.
Renaissance was, at first, a term in architecture. It
applied then only to the use of old Greek ornaments- on
buildings not essentially Greek in plan. Walls
were adorned with columns that had nothing to
support, and beauty was a warrant for unreason. This
Renaissance was of the fifteenth century. It began in
Rome with Filippo Brunelleschi, an architect who had first
shown his sense of beauty as a sculptor.* He left Rome in
1420, and he died in 1444.
* Donatello and Brunelleschi were close friends. Vasari tells that
Donatello, having carved in wood with utmost care a Crucifix for the
Church of Sta. Croce at Florence, looked for his friend's praise. But
Brunelleschi told him that the figure on the cross was rather that of a
day-labourer than of the Christ, whose person must have been of
highest beauty, since He was, in all things, the most perfect man.
" It is easy to find fault," said Donatello. " Take a piece of wood
yourself, and try to make a better Crucifix." Brunelleschi said no
B — ^VOL. VII.
2 English Writers. [a-d- ^°°
The word Renaissance found favour, and was next
applied to the recovered interest in Latin classics, and their
influence on style in Italy. Then it advanced until it came
to be a name for the new life on Latin soil, so far as that
was quickened by the genius of ancient Rome. Its use grew
wider until it included vaguely all the movements that led
up to Dante ; all work of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio ;
all gain of strength by other lands from the new forces of the
fifteenth century, which was at first regarded, and is still to
be regarded, as the proper age of the Italian Renaissance.
For Italy alone had a Renaissance. In Europe it was only
possible for Italy or Greece to show the semblance of a
second birth.
In Italy, Rome's old world gone, the roar of elements
that were to build a larger world not Caesar's, might
suggest a reign of Chaos and old Night. Where
Dark Ages. , °. , ° , , , ° . ,
glowmg furnaces roar through the night, and
ashes take the place of the fresh grass, we call it the Black
Country. What tools for use of man, what engines of great
ships that unite land with land, draw their first being from
that seeming waste ! So Italy might say she had Dark
Ages. We had none. The spirit of Virgil left the palaces of
Rome, and there was darkness till it came again as guide
of Dante to the verge of heaven. We had not such a
past of high artistic culture to be lost in darkness and
more. In the next month, he carved secretly a Crucifix according to
his own ideal. When il was done, he set it up on his ground floor in a
good light, and went to fetch his friend to dine with him. On their
way to the house he bought eggs and other eatables, and put them into
Donatello's apron, asking him to go on with them ; he would follow
directly. When he did follow, he found Donatello still with his eyes
fixed upon the Crucifix. His hand had let the apron drop, and its
contents were scattered broken on the floor. " How shall we dine
now ? " said Brunelleschi. " I have enough," said his friend. " Yes,
you have power to shape the figure of Christ ; and I can only carve
day-labourers."
TO A.D. iioo.] New Life. 3
restored to light. In France, Germany, England there was
nothing but a continuity of growth, hindered or helped
in each land by surrounding difficulties and the ways of
meeting them. In each, free effort was advance, the
breath of life was liberty. True progress is the work of
reason, that free energy of thought through which alone a
people hears the voice and speaks the praise of God.
Provence* could sing when Arab science and the
learning of the Jewish schools gave light to her cities ; active
in trade, strong in municipal rights, Toulouse
all but in name a republic. Her first troubadour,
fired with enthusiasm for what seemed to him the noblest of
all earthly aims, went at the head of a great host to the
Crusades. The laymen of Provence could fill their land
with music, and could bring their souls to battle for what
seemed to" be the cause of God, at home against the
sensual Christian priest, abroad against the infidel possessor
of the places holy to the Christian. But when the spirit of
Crusade brought Christian against Christian, when brute
force warred at home against the use of thought, advance
was stayed. The free life of the South of France was lost in
flame and massacre by the crusade against the Albigenses.f
But the voice of Provence swelled the Sicilian music.
With Frederick II. for their leader, J men of many
lands and many creeds joined their free forces
in Palermo. Minds at Palermo were as free as
they could be where bodies were enslaved to luxury. Arabs
in Sicily were numerous, Arabs in friendly fellowship with
Greeks. In the eighth century the Sicilian Church was
Greek ; and in the eleventh century the
chroniclers of Sicily under the Norman rule
made such wide difference between the Eastern and the
■ * " E. W." iii., chap. I, and pages 148—152. t " E. W." v, 4.
X "E. "w." iii., chap. 16, " The Italian Revival."
B 2
4 English Writers. [a°- "°°
Western Church that they distinguished Greeks from
Christians. There was old warrant for the cry that met
the first endeavours to revive Greek scholarship in Europe,
Cave a Grmcis, neftas hceretkus. Until the tenth century,
not only Calabria, Naples, Capua, Salerno, but also Venice
owned the sovereignty of Byzantium. Architects, sculptors,
workers in mosaic, were Byzantine. In the year of the
Norman conquest of England, the Abbot Didier, of Monte
Cassino, who became Pope Victor III., sent to Constanti-
nople for sculptors and workers in mosaic — " whose figures
seem to live, and whose pavements are like flower-beds,
because of the variety of stones of every tint " — and he
caused children to be taught by them. Through them
there shot a last ray of the art of ancient Greece, that
lingered yet about the monastery of Mount Athos.
While Didier was at Monte Cassino, Tancred's son,
Roger I., had supplanted power of the Greeks and
Arabs with his Norman rule as Count of
mans i" Sicily. Tancred's grandson, Roger II., joining
'''"'''■ Sicily with Naples, was crowned King of the
Two Sicilies in 1131. But the Arab population was
left undisturbed, and th6 Greeks had freedom of worship.
New elements of life were added. .The trouvfere and the
chronicler brought their keen interest in fabled or true
stories of the deeds of men to blend with song
AeSecond ^^^ Satire of the South, with science of the
Arabs, with the last throbs of the dying music
of Greek art.* All this and more was ready to his hand
when Frederick II. laid, as we have seen, the founda-
* "I have surpassed thee, O Solomon ! " Justinian said, when,, in
the sixth century, Anthemius of Thralles had in six years finished, at
his command, the Church of Santa Sophia. Of this building, James
Fergusson said in his " History of Architecture " that, internally at
least, it is " the most perfect and most beautiful church which has yet
been erected by any Christian people."
ToA.D. 1370.1 Nevi^ Life. 5
tions of a larger Renaissance.* We have seen alsot how the
vigour of a mixed race in the North of Italy bred among
free cities the spirit that raised Dante to full height, and
made him, when he joined the Southern music
to the Northern energy of thought, first Master
Poet of the modern world. We have seen how Petrarch
and Boccaccio carried on the great Revival in the four-
teenth century, f and, above all, how the art of Chaucer was
perfected by his study of the work of those three* Patriarchs
, of modern" literature. So it was that by contact
... ^_,. ^ . _,, Chaucer.
With the fulness of Italian Renaissance, Chaucer
became first Master Poet of our English world. Now let
us look abroad for forces active in the fifteenth century that
joined with the Invention of Printing to advance the
energies of life in England.
The schools of Paris had been nurseries of logic. After
long endeavour to give philosophical form to accepted
dogmas of the Church, the scholastic philosophy,
of English birth in the days of John Scotus g^^^^|'
Erigena,§ but chiefly nursed in Paris, died
among us in the days of William Occam. || All change
in history is gradual. The most unexpected outbursts have
been long in silent preparation. Dante himself flashed
the glory of the future from the mirrors of the past;
Wyclif laboured towards the restoration of pure Christianity
through terms of the old schoolmen and forms of meta-
physical theology. His metaphysical distinctions perished
in the using, while they left clear in men's view his prac-
tical ideal of a Christian Church.f
As Paris had taught abstract Philosophy, the Universities
of Italy taught Law. They dealt with civil rights and daily
* " E. W." iii. 383—390. § " E. W." ii. 250-259.
+ "E. W." iii. 390—406. II " E. W." iii. 326; v. 9-14, 52.
X "E. W." iv., chap. 2. IF " E. W." v. 35-82.
6 English Writers. [a-i'- '37°
needs of men. They cared only for the philosophy that
served as guide on solid ground through difficulties that
beset us in the home or in the street. In that respect the
people of North Italy have much in common with the
English race.
The ancient house of the Medici in Florence was
enriched by commerce, and for many generations it had
helped to maintain popular rights against en-
h^Fiorenci" croachments of the adstocracy. In 1377, about
the time when Chaucer drew upon Boccaccio for •
his poem of "Troilus and Cressida," and not long before our
own Jack Straw rebellion, Salvestro de' Medici, one of that
noble popular family, as Macchiavelli called it, was made
Gonfaloniere that he might give strength to the people's
cause. He checked the nobles, but could not restrain the
people. In party strife men usually then joined revenges
with reforms, and often troubled Florence with a petty re-
volution. Strife rose and fell. Florence was a town with
150,000 inhabitants, and a revenue of 300,000 gold florins ;
and when she had no war without her gates, within her
gates the people could one day be quieted by a judicious
speech, and next day rose again in revolution. The mob,
when angry, burnt houses, freed' prisoners, "seized," says
Macchiavelli, " the Standard della Giustizia, burned many
houses under it, and persecuted all whom they were angry
with, whether on public or private account. Many, to
satisfy a private grudge, would lead the tumult to the
houses of their adversaries. They had only to cry out
in the multitude, ' To such a house, t© such a man,' or he
who carried the Standard had only to direct it to such
a place. They burned the accounts and books of the
Company of the Clothing Trade, and after they had
done mischief good store, that they might accompany
their exorbitance with some laudable action, they made
Salvestro de' Medici a knight, and conferred like honour
TO A.D. 1420.] New Life. 1
upon sixty-four more of the partners, some of whom
received their honour much -against their wills. And it is
remarkable that some of those persons whose houses were
burned, were thus on the same day knighted by the men
who burned them, so unconstant are the people, and so
small is the distance between their kindness and their spirit
of revenge."*
Veri de' Medici, who, after Salvestro's death, became
head of the family, was a few years later, in 1381, also
besought by the people to take the government and free
them from the tyranny of citizens who were the enemies of
every good. But Veri de' Medici, more virtuous than
ambitious, told the Senate that he was , not sorry to
have lived so that he had earned the love of the
people, but that he would keep from faction. He urged
the nobles to be temperate, and when they assented to his
counsel he went out and, with wise words, persuaded the
armed populace to peace. Veri de' Medici subdued the
strife, but the advantage thus gained by the nobles they did
not use temperately.
The good name of the Medici among the people rose
yet higher when Giovanni, son of Bicci, became head of
'their house. Giovanni de' Medici was born in
1360, and died on the 20th of February, 1429 MedfcL"' ^^
(new style). In his time the wealth of trading
Florence was augmented by the purchase of Leghorn and its
port from Genoa. The free commonwealth was unrivalled
in commercial prosperity. Its citizens were active in all
quarters of the world. There was a treaty even with the
Soldan of Babylori for currency within his realm of the coin
of Florence. The strength thus gathered was soon to be
absorbed and exhausted in the domination of the Medici ;
but, like his forefathers, the rich banker Giovanni, made
* Macchiavelli's History of Florence, bk. iii. Translation of 1675.
8 English Writers. [a-o- "t^o
Gonfaloniere in 142 1, owed his political rise to his good-
will towards the people. The war with Filippo Visconti,
Duke of Milan, begun by Florence in 1423, was to check
aggression upon the free cities of Tuscany. But the war
began ill, and Florence might have fallen in the fight for
liberty if Venice had not at last consented to alliance with
her. Victory cost Florence three and a half millions of
florins; and the popular Giovanni de' Medici, who had
been at the head of a peace party, obtained political
supremacy by the invention and establishment of an
equitable income-tax for payment of the public debts. The
tax was a half per cent, on incomes, as a forced loan to the
Government at five per cent.; or a third part of the tax might
be paid, with aibandonment of right to interest and repay-
ment. Money was worth much more than five per cent, to
the traders of Florence ; but the deductions allowed before
charging for this income- tax secured to everyone untaxed
his house, his horse, and two hundred florins a year for
each mouth in his household. Thus there was a protection
against general discontent, and licence for irregular taxation.
The half per cent., or decima, was soon taken as the mere
unit of calculation, and forced loans of this or that number
of decimas, for this or that new exigence of the State, might
afterwards be raised at the discretion of the ruler. Such
loans were raised now and then as often as twelve times
a year, to feed the magnificence of one man at the expense
of commerce which had given freedom and strength to the
city, and which had sent up that strong shoot of artistic life
whereof the later Medici consumed the fruit.
In 1429 Giovanni died, " enormously rich in treasure, but
richer still in good repute," lord only of his counting-house.
He had steadily rejected the advice of his son Cosimo that
he should take advantage of his position in the city by
placing himself at the head of the popular party against the
weaker faction of the aristocracy, and so rise to political
TO A.D. 1434.] New Life. 9
power. " He was,'' says Macchiavelli, " charitable to the
height ; not only relieving such as asked, but preventing the
modesty of such as he thought poor, and supplying them
without it. He loved all people : the good he commended ;
the bad he commiserated. He sought no ofBce, ^and went
through them all. He never went to the palace but invited.
He was a lover of peace, and an enemy to war. He
relieved those who were in adversity, and those who were in
prosperity he assisted. He was no fft'end to public ex-
tortion, and yet a great augmenter of the common stock.
He was courteous in all his employments ; not very
eloquent, but solid and judicious. His complexion ap-
peared melancholy, but in company he was pleasant and
facetious. He died rich, especially in love and reputation ;
and the inheritance of all descended upon his son Cosimo."
When Cosimo — named from his birth on St. Cosimo's
Day in 1389 — became chief of his house, he became chief
also of the popular party, which he led as a
faction. It was faction against faction, chief MeS"^^
against chief ; and some began to ask themselves
to which of the chiefs Florence would have to yield her
independence. Cosimo's antagonists achieved his banish-
ment in October, 1433, and thereby added to .his strength.
Venice welcomed him ; Florence missed him. Friends and
poor citizens suffered for want of access to the purse by
which he made himself beloved. A signory favourable to
the Medici was voted into office ; the aristocratic faction
failed in an attempt at armed resistance ; and Cosimo —
Cosmo — was recalled, to enter Florence in great triumph as
the father of his country.
His first care was for the exile, fine, imprisonment, or
death of the stronger men of the opposite side. Having
weeded out enemies, or suspected enemies, he and his
comrades strengthened new men into serviceable friends,
divided the goods of the outlawed, made new and con-
10 English Writers. [a.d. 1434"
venient laws, suppressed elections of unfriendly magistrates,
and took means, by bribing and by tampering with the
purses from which names of magistrates were drawn, to
confine to men of their own faction all offices in which
powers of hfe and death were vested. Power of life and
death was given to the eight ; chance of return was almost
wholly cut off from the exiles. Thus the faction led by
Cosmo was supreme. It has been said that to a remon-
strance on the ruift caused to the city by so many deaths
and fines and banishments of worthy citizens, Cosmo
replied that a city ruined was better than a city lost, and
that it cost only a few yards of red cloth to ihake more
citizens worshipful. Twenty families, says one old historian,
were banished by the Medici for every one that suffered
with them. The exiled leader of the aristocratic faction
invited the arms of the tyrant of Milan to an attack on
Florence ; and the city again fought manfully against foreign
despotism while her liberties were sickening at home.
From the year 1434, when Cosmo's influence became
supreme in Florence, until 1455, Cosmo, as Governor, had
the support of the citizen, Neri Capponi, whose name, after
his own, stood highest with the people. But in 1455 Neri
Capponi died. Cosmo's supporters were also kept from
feuds among themselves during the twenty-one years be-
tween r434 and 1455, by the strength of the opposing
• faction. Reality of power was maintained by close attention
to the wishes of the people, In 1455 divisions began in the
party of the Medici, and the Florentines suffered much from
the rapacity of leading citizens, till Cosmo's death in 1464.
When Cosmo's infirm son Piero succeeded him he
found that there were few persons of influence in Florence
who were not in Cosmo's debt. He had given much to the
poor. He had kept Florence free from war without her gates,
and had done much to allay the feud's within. He had built
half a dozen princely houses for himself, but had concealed
TOA.D.'i439. The Greeks in Italy. \i
his princely power, called himself a citizen, and sought for
his children no princely alliances. He had built convents and
repaired churches in Florence. He built a hospital even in
Jerusalem. He was not learned, though a friend, partly
from policy, of learned men, under conditions that made the
time of his rule in Florence an essential part of the History
of Literature. It was at Florence that the learned Greeks,
who were driven from home by the capture of Constanti-
nople, had from Cosmo de' Medici their warmest welcome.
Greek Christians, who sought aid from the nations of
the West, made politic effort to heal the division upon
points of ceremonial between the Eastern and „ ,
the Western Churches. The Council of Basel, Scholars in
1 . T r 1 T-. 1 • Florence.
which was transferred to Ferrara, and again to
Florence, brought together in Florence, in the year 1439,
the Pope Eugenius IV. and the Patriarch Joseph of
Constantinople, with many Greek bishops and scholars, and
also the unfortunate Greek Emperor, John Palaeologus.
Talk of Plato thus first became familiar to the chiefs of
Florentine society. The Eastern Church assented in five
articles to Western opinion, and united itself to the Church
of Rome. But this act of union did not secure the desired
end of saving Constantinople from the Turk, and after the
fall of the Eastern capital the two Churches fell back into
their old state of schism. More came of the intellectual
appetite of the rich merchants and bankers of Florence for
coriimerce with men who had something new to traffic in
— Greek manuscripts worth reading, and the skill to read
them,
The Byzantine Empire had in 1425, by a treaty of the
Emperor John Palaeologus 11., been reduced to Con-
stantinople and its environs, with some outlying places.
These were held subject to a yearly tribute, which trans-
ferred the larger part of their revenues to the Turk. The
treaty was observed by Sultan Amurath II. But his son
12 English Writers. Ia.o. 1439
Mohammed II., in the third year of his reign, began, at the
age of about three-and-twenty, his career of
Constan"-"'^ xonquest by overthrowing all that remained of
"9°i,'°'i4s'^.''^ the Roman Empire in the East. After fifty-
eight days' siege, he took Constantinople by
storm, on the 29th of May, in the year 1453. Five years
later he made himself master of the Morea. Occupation of
Greece by the Turks drove the Greek patriots and scholars
into exile. They sought a livelihood in foreign capitals by
teaching their old language, and diffusing knowledge of the
treasures of its literature. Thus Greek became a part of
European scholarship, and Plato lived again, to join the
ranks of the reformers.
Study of Greek by Italians began with the Greek settle-
ments of the' South, when Calabria was known as Magna
„ , , Grsecia, and had a liturgy in Greek, not Latin.
Students of a./ j
Greek in Petrarch learnt Greek from Barlaam, a monk of
Calabria. But Boccaccio was taught for three
years by Leontio Pilato, a Greek of Thessalonica, who read
Homer in Florence about the middle of the fourteenth
century. Leontio passed from Florence to Venice, met
Petrarch, went to Constantinople, and perished in a storm
on the Adriatic when returning. Boccaccio* described him
as a horrid man with a vile face, long-bearded and black-
haired, occupied with settled meditation, of uncultivated
manners, not as civil as he should be, but, as B.occaccio
said he had reason to know, most learned in Greek "
litefature. Petrarch, who called him Leo, did 'not beheve
that Leontio was a Greek, but said he was a Calabrian who
wished to be thought a Greek of Thessalonica.
George Gemisthus, surnamed Pletho, was a Platonist
and mathematician who lived in high esteem at the Court of
the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, and who distinguished him-
* " Genealogia Deorum," xv. 6.
TOA.D. I453.J The Greeks m Italy. 13
self in 1439 at the Council of Florence. Among his books
was a Commentary on the Magic Oracles of Zoroaster. He
wrote also a book on the difference between Plato and
Aristotle, and a History of what followed the Battle of
Mantineia, with elucidations of Thucydides.
Gemisthus Pletho is said to have taught one of the most
illustrious of the earlier group of Greek scholars in Italy,
Manuel Chrysoloras. Chrysoloras was of a noble family in
Constantinople, distinguished generally for high culture, and
he had transmitted to him by an uncle, Johannes Eud^mon
PalEeologus, a place at Court concerned with the advance-
ment of knowledge. He was in high credit for his
Philosophy, which then comprehended all studies, and
especially for his knowledge of Natural History. When
Constantinople was beset by Bajazet, Manuel Chrysoloras
was sent to seek money and troops from the princes of
Western Europe. He was away upon his mission for three
years, and he brought money back. France also, at his
persuasion, sent four ships under command of Marshal
Boucicault. Then Manuel Chrysoloras was invited to
Florence, with the offer of a hundred florins a year for ten
years. The intention was that he should found in Florence
a school for the study of Greek Literature, the desire for
which had been stirred by previous visits of Barlaam and
Leontio Pilato. Manuel Chrysoloras went, in 1396, by
way of Venice to Florence. It was in September of that
year, 1396, that Bajazet defeated at Nicopolis.the Christian
army under Sigismund of Hungary. Chrysoloras stayed
only three years at Florence. His Emperor was then
himself in Italy to seek for help against the Turk, and
Chrysoloras went with him to Milan, where probably he
also taught. In 1402, after the death of Galeazzo Visconti,
Duke of Milan, Chrysoloras went to Venice, where he
served as agent for Manuel his Emperor. It was the year
in which Timour's conquests made the Greek Empire
14 English Writers. [ad. 1403
tributary to the Tartar, who dismembered also, in 1403, the
Empire of the Turk, and so deferred for a few years the Fall
of Constantinople. Through the intervention of one of his
pupils in Greek, Leonardo Aretino, who was Secretary to
Pope Gregory XII., Manuel Chrysoloras received from that
Pope an invitation to Rome. The Romans at first did not
like his dress and his long hair, but he taught successfully
till, probably in 1409, he was sent Ijy the Pope with a letter
to the Patriarch of Constantinople to promote the union of
the Eastern and Western Churches.
Chrysoloras had, in Italy, given his own assent to the
forms and ceremonies of the Western Church, and, as a
Romanised Greek in highest repute for learning, he was the
best advocate that could be sent from the Pope at Rome to
the Patriarch at Constantinople. After his return to Rome,
there is no further record of his life until its end. He was
sent with two Cardinals to the Emperor to assist in settling
where a Council should be held. Constance was chosen.
Chrysoloras went thither with Pope John XXIII., and died
there on the i6th of April, 1415, before he could use his
influence with the Greeks in favour of the Latin Church.
He was buried at Constance in the Monastery of the
Dominicans. Chrysoloras wrote a text-book of Greek
studies— called 'E/xirij/iaT-a (Questions) — which was much
used by the first learners of Greek at the end of the
fifteenth century.*
* This Grammar of Chrysoloras was printed four times before the
year 1440, without note of date or place of publication ; also at Venice
in 1484; at Vicenza in 1490, and again in 149 1 ; at Paris in 1507 ; at
Strasburg in 1516; and often in combination with other Greek
Grammars. Much valuable information about these bringers of Greek
study into Europe is to be found in Humphrey Hody's book, "Ds
Gracis Illustribus Linguie Grmca literarumque humaniorum Instau-
ratoribus," first published by S. Jebb, M.D., in 1742. Hody, a
Fellow of Wadham, was made Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford in
169S. His book is in two parts, the first of the Greeks before, the
TO A.D. 1485.] The Greeks in Italy. 15
George Trapezuntius, whose family was of Trebizond,
was born in Crete in 1396. He was invited to teach Greek
at Venice in 1428; taught also at Rome after 143 1, under
Eugenius IV., with a public salary. In 1447 Nicolas V.,
when he became Pope, was less friendly. Then George
Trapezuntius went for a time to King Alfonso V. of
Aragon, in Naples.. He returned to Rome, went in 1465
from Rome to Crete, and thence to Constantinople. He
died at Rome in 1485 in his ninetieth year, long vexed
by rivals, and with his reason so far gone that he is said to
have forgotten his own name.
Cardinal Bessarion, said to have been a Greek of
Trebizond, was a monk of the Order of St. Basil. He was
Archbishop of Nicsea, and he was made Cardinal after the
Council of Florence. He used his wealth for the encourage-
ment of learning, and especially of learned Greeks.
Theodore Gaza, of ThesSalonica, went to Italy in 1430
after the destruction of his native town by the Turks.
After studying at Mantua, under Victorine of Feltro, he
became a foremost Latin scholar, and he taught both Latin
and Greek at Siena. He was at the Council of Florence in
1439, ^""i seems to have been very poor before he settled
at Ferrara. There he became first Rector of the Academy,
interpreted orations of Demosthenes, and taught for many
years with so much honour that, after his death, learned
men would lift their hats as they passed the house he had
lived in. About the year 1450 Theodore Gaza was called
from Ferrara to Rome, where Cardinal Bessarion was his
chief patron. He was employed, for small reward, in the
translatiiDn of Greek authors into Latin. He is said to have
thrown a petty gift of the Pope's into the Tiber, saying that
no scholar should come to Rome, where taste was dead.
second of those after, the Fall of Constantinople. See also Christ.
Frid. Boerner, "De Doctis Hominibus Gr<^cis," Leipzig, 1750; and
Tiraboschi, vol. vi., part 2.
1 6 English Writers. [a-d. hsS
The fattest asses, he said, turned their heads from' the best
grain. In 1456 he went to the Court of Alfonso in Naples,
and after the death of Alfonso, in 1458, he returned to
Bessarion in Rome. But his patron gave him only a very
small benefice iii Calabria, where he lived in poverty —
translated, among other books, Aristotle on Animals, and
Theophrastus on Plants, the book that laid the first
foundations of a Science of Botany. Theodore Gaza
translated also the Somnium Sdpionis and Cicero de Senectute
out of Latin into Greek. He died in 1478.
Joannes Andronicus Callistus, also of Thessalonica,
taught Greek also at Rome, and was at Florence before
Chalcondylas. Then he went to Ferrara, and was one of
the teachers of Politian. Callistus finally left Italy for
France, where he died old.
Next came two men, Argyropylos and Chalcondylas, who
have a large place in the history of the introduction of
Greek Literature info Europe, an event that had strong
influence upon the after-course of Literature in England.
Johannes Argyropylos was not quite forty years old at
the time of the Fall of Constantinople, his birth-place. At
Padua, when a young man, he had taught ancient literature,
and especially the philosophy of Aristotle. In 1456 Cosmo
de' Medici settled him at Florence as teacher of the
Peripatetic philosophy, and made him tutor to Piero and
Lorenzo. In 147 1, when the plague was in Florence,
Argyropylos went to Rome, and there he continued to teach
until his death. He died in i486, aged about seventy.
Politian and ReuchKn were taught in his school. He
himself translated many works of Aristotle, and wrote
commentaries on his Ethics and Politics. He wrote a
Latin book also, on the Council of Florence, and another
on the Going Forth of the Holy Spirit.
Demetrius Chalcondylas was the brother of another
scholar of that name, Laonicos or Nicolas Chalcondylas, a
TO A.D. -1535.] The Greeks in Italy. 17
Greek historian who wrote ten books of a History of the
Turks from 1300 to 1463.* Demetrius was born in 1428.
He was twenty-five years old, therefore, at the time of the
Fall of Constantinople. He was of a leading family in
Athens, and went first from Constantinople to Perugia.
Then he taught in Rome and other towns of Italy, and,
about 1479, he was invited by Lorenzo de' Medici to teach
Greek in Florence. After the death of Lorenzo in 1492,
Chalcondylas went to Milan, where he continued teaching.
He died at Rome in 1513. He wrote a Greek Grammar,
which he sought to make more thorough than that of
Chrysoloras, and simpler than that of his teacher, Theodore
Gaza. It was first printed at Milan without date, before the
end of the fifteenth century, t
Constantine Lascaris, of an imperial family in Byzan-
tium, began to be known in Italy after the Fall of Con-
stantinople. He taught at Milan till 1463 or later, then at
Messina in Sicily. He left a Greek Grammar in three
books, first published at Milan in 1476, and a son, Johannes
or Janus Lascaris, born not far from Mount Olympus.
Janus Lascaris taught first at Florence under Lorenzo de'
Medici, whose library he helped to form, and by whom he
was twice sent to Byzantium for Greek books; In 1484
Janus Lascaris dedicated to Piero de' Medici a volume of
Greek epigrams. He went to France in 15 18, and had
charge there of the Royal Library of Francis I. He went
back to Italy in 1523, and was sent by Clement VII. from
Rome upon an Embassy to Charles V. In 1525 he had
returned to Francis I. In 1534 he was in Rome again,
* The relationship is shown by the Greek sketch of them in a manu-
script at Munich, written in the sixteenth century by Antony Calosynos,
and printed by Carl Hoff in " Chroniques Grko-rotiiaines itiidites ou
peu connues." Berlin, 1873.
t Perhaps in 1493. There was an edition printed at Paris by
Gourmont in 1525, another at Basel in 1546.
C — VOL. Vlf
1 8 English Writers. u.d. 1439
where he died of gout next year, leaving a son, Angelo, his
heir, who lived in Paris.
Among the disciples of Janus Lascaris was a Cretan,
Marcus Musurus, who came young into Italy. He settled
at Padua, where there were only four days in a year on
which he did not teach publicly. From Padua he went to
Venice, and taught there also with great profit to himself
and others. In 1516 he was called to Rome by Leo X.,
and made an Archbishop in the Morea, but died next year.
It was of a Spartan in Paris, who supported himself also
by skill with his pen as a copyist, that John Reuchlin, be-
fore he sought more at Florence from Argyropylos, its first
famous teacher there, had learnt Greek enough to surprise
the patriot with speech in his own tongue from a German,
■and caused him to say, " Alas ! Greece is already banished
beyond the Alps."
Among the Greeks who came to Florence was, as we
have seen, the venerable George Gemisthus Pletho, whose
long life had been spent in enthusiastic study of Plato, and
who lectured upon him to the Italians, maintaining his
philosophy as partisan of Plato against Aristotle. Cosmo
de' Medici, his constant hearer, received his opinions.
While he was steadily pursuing his design to become
sovereign in Florence, the head of the great banking-house,
which spread its branches over Europe, set a fashion for the
collecting of Greek manuscripts, proceeded towards the
establishment of a Platonic academy in Florence, and
educated young Marsiglio Ficino especially in Platonism,
that he might become its head.
John Argyropylos worked at Aristotle; but the new
teachers were generally Platonists, reading their
Platonism ° Plato with the glosses of the mystical school
Reform'""'' of Neoplatouists, \vhose philosophy had been
in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries at
war with Christianity, but in this fifteenth century be-
TOA.D. 1464.] The Greeks in Italy. 19
came indirectly an aid in the reformation of the Christian
Church. To the corrupt society of Italy, Platonism gave
some grace of heathendom and many affectations. To men
of the Teutonic or English race, and others who went to
Florence to learn Greek, the new study gave something
more.- Earnest minds were battling with the strong animal
nature of the Church. They passed, through the new study,
to works of a heathen philosopher who saw in the world a
divine soul towards which by heavenward aspiration souls
of men could rise. " But if the company will be persuaded
by me,'' wrote Plato, in the tenth book of the " Republic,"
" considering the soul to be immortal and able to bear
all evil and good, we shall always persevere in the road
which leads upwards, and shall by all means follow justice
with prudence ; that so we may be friends to ourselves and
to the gods, both while we remain here, and when we
afterwards receive its rewards, like victors assembled to-
gether; and so both here and in that journey of a
thousand years we shall be happy." The Neoplatonists had
grafted extreme doctrines of purification and subjection of
man's animal nature upon the teaching in Plato's " Phsedo "
that a soul given to fleshly pleasures takes taint of the
flesh. Upon many of the best minds of Europe the new
study of Greek, through such reading of Plato, came as a new
impulse to conflict with the sensuality which had become
the scandal of the Church of Rome. Plato was thus
associated among such men with the cause of progress;
while Aristotle, of whose teaching the knowledge had been
long since diffused by learned Jews and by the Arabians
through translation, supplied forms for conventional thought,
and, eager pioneer as he had been, was made the idol of
the men who stood upon the ancient ways. The Fall of
Constantinople made Plato a power in Europe. So it was
that those of the clergy who shrank from the quickened
tendency among good scholars to attack their flesh-pots,
c 2
20 ENGLISH Writers. [a.d. 1464
gave new currency to the proverb, " Beware of the Greeks,
lest you be made a heretic."
When Cosmo de' Medici died, at the age of seventy-five,
his son Piero, who succeeded to his position in Florence,
had an elder son, Lorenzo, who was in that year,
MeTd?'^° 1464, sixteen years old. He had beetf born
on the ist of January, 1448. In June, 1469,
Lorenzo de' Medici, aged twenty-one, married Clarice of the
Roman family of the Orsini. On the 3rd of the following
December, his father, Piero, died of the gout which had
long troubled him, and the young Lorenzo became head of
the Florentine Republic. So he remained for not quite
twenty-three years. His death was on the 8th of April,
1492, very nearly sixty years after the establishment of his
grandfather's power in Florence. Within the years of
Lorenzo's rule, William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre, the
two members of the University of Oxford who then became
the founders of Greek study in England, went to Florence.
There they had Chalcondylas for teacher. Grocyn was the
elder man, and he taught Greek before he went to Italy ;
but Linacre was first to go to Florence.
William Grocyn was born not earlier than the year 1 446.
He must have been well trained at another school, perhaps
in Bristol, for he was not admitted as a scholar
GrocylJ! ^' Winchester until the 26th of September, 1463,
and entered New College in 1465, at which
time his home was in Bristol. He became a Fellow of
New College in 1467. The Statutes of New College re-
quired that a Winchester scholar should be a Probationer
Fellow for two years before he became full Fellow, and that
he should be under twenty when he was admitted a
Probationer. Grocyn must, therefore, have obtained his
Fellowship when his age was under twenty-two. William
Grocyn was entered on the books of Winchester as the son
of a tenant at Colerne. Colerne is a Wiltshire village, six
TO A. D. 1485.] GrOCYN AND LiNACRE. 2 1
or seven miles from Chippenham, of which the living is in
the gift of Winchester College, and in which the College
possessed land. Grocyn, as native of Colerne, may have
benefited by William of Wykeham's Statutes, which gave
preference to boys who were born in parishes belonging to
either of the allied Colleges founded by him at Winchester
^nd Oxford in the days when Chaucer's power was at its
ripest.* From Grocyn onward many a man trained at
Winchester will have a place of honour in the record of our
English writers.
While at New College, Grocyn was tutor to William
Warham, who had followed him from Winchester to New
College, lived to rise high in royal favour, became afterwards
Master of the Rolls, and was for the last twenty-eight years
of his life Archbishop of Canterbury. Grocyn was not the
only scholar who' found Warham in his prosperity a helpful
friend. In 1481 Grocyn resigned his Fellowship on pre-
sentation to a Buckinghamshire living, in gift of the College,
at Newton Longville, some three miles from Fenny Strat-
ford. Soon afterwards he joined to the duties of his living
those of Reader in Divinity at Magdalen College, Oxford,
and in that character, in 1483, Grocyn received a buck and
a gift of money from Richard HI. for taking part, with
three others, in a disputation. In 1485 Grocyn obtained a
prebend in Lincoln Cathedral. For the first ten years of
Grocyn's life as member of the University of Oxford, from
1465 to 1475, D''- Thomas Chandler was Warden of New
College. He had been a Fellow of New College from
1435 to 1450, and, obtaining his degree of D.D. in 1455,
was Warden from 1455-6 until 1475. Thomas Chandler
was Chancellor of the University from 1457 to 1461,
* The building of New College began in March, 1380, and was
finished in April, 1386. The building of St. Mary College of Win-
chester was begun in 1387, and finished in 1393. 'William of Wykeham,
their founder, died September 27th, 1404.
22 , English Writers. [* d. 1470
Vice-Chancellor in 1463, 146^, and 1465, again in 1467,
and Chancellor again from 1472 to 1479- His CoUocutiones,
written in 1462, quote an anonymous short Chronicle which
is one of the, sources of our knowledge of the life of
William of Wykeham. When Chandler was Warden, that is
to say before 1475, he appointed an Italian exile of noble
family, Cornelio Vitelli, born within the Pope's dominions
at Corneto, on a height by the Mediterranean, to be Praelector
there. Chandler went to his first lecture, and honoured him
with a set speech after the close of it. Vitelli introduced into
Oxford the New Learning from Italy; and taught both
Greek and Latin. His success was not conspicuous, but
Grocyn studied under him ; and when he was sufficiently
advanced, Grocyn himself taught Greek at Oxford before he
went to Florence to increase his knowledge. Other men
went before Grocyn from Oxford to Italy for improvement
in their Latin studies, and for learning Greek. One of
them, Robert Fleming, had for kinsman and patron Richard
Fleming, founder of Lincoln College. Robert Fleming
became Dean of Lincoln, and after studying Latin and
Greek in Italy under Battista Guarini at Ferrara, made for
himself a Greek-Latin Dictionary, which Leland saw.
Another was William Gray, who also learnt of Guarini, and
was during the last twenty-four years of his life Bishop of Ely.
Gray brought MSS. from Italy, which he gave to his own
College, Balliol. Others were John Gunthorpe (Gundorpius)
who became Dean of Wells, and built the Deanery ; John
" Phreas," who became a rich physician ; and John
Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester.* Young Thomas Linacre also,
who may have begun his Greek studies at Oxford under
Vitelli, went out to Italy in 1485, three years earlier than
Grocyn. He went in the year when Grocyn obtained his
* Leland, "Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis.'' Ed. Antony
Hall, Oxford, 1709.
TO A.D. 148s.] GrOCYN and LlNACRE. 2^
prebend at Lincoln, and nearly at the same time the Rectory
of Depden in Suffolk, which he resigned in 1493.
Of Linacre, as of Grocyn, the birth-year is not exactly
known, but Linacre was, by about fourteen years, the
younger man. Thomas Linacre .was of an old
family settled before the Norman Conquest at Linacre.
Linacre Hall, by Chesterfield in Derbyshire, and
enriched in course of time by acquisition of land in other
parts of England. He was born in Canterbury about the
year 1460, and had his first education there in the public
school of the ancient Benedictine Monastery of Christ-
church. The present King's School at Canterbury was
founded by Henry VHL on the dissolution of the Monastery
of Christchurch. The School, in Linicre's time, was under
a monk named William Tilley, who was called
also Selling, from the Kentish village, three or ^jley"
four miles from Faversham, in which he was
born, and of which the land belonged to St. Augustine's at
Canterbury. Tilley's influence upon young Linacre was very
great. He had been at Oxford Fellow of All Souls before
he taught at Canterbury. His deep interest in the New
Learning had caused him to obtain leave of the Chapter of
his Order to visit Italy and study there. He was provided
with Sufficient means, and settled at Bologna, where he
studied canon and civil law, disputed with distinction in the
schools, and was taught Greek by Agnolo Poliziano, with
whom he became close friend. Tilley collected MSS.
which he brought home to his Monastery. They were
burnt after his death by a fire there, caused by revelry of a
law student and his friends admitted for the night. One of
the burnt books was a complete copy of Cicero's lost work
on the Republic. Tilley had acquired highest repute as
a scholar, and had been elected in 1472 to be Prior of the
Monastery, when his zeal for the New Learning was com-
municated to young Linacre. At Canterbury, Linacre seems
24 English Writers. [a.d. 1485
to have studied under William Tilley until his age was
about twenty. Greek had not been taught at all, and the
teaching of Latin had sunk very low, when Tilley was one of
the first who brought new life and light into the
Linacre scbool. Linacre, with life and light in his own
scholarship, went to Oxford in 1480, probably to
Canterbury Hall, which was connected with the school at
Christchurch. In 1484 he obtained, as Tilley before him
had obtained, a Fellowship at. All Souls. All Souls had .
been founded in 1437 by Henry Chichele, Archbishop of
Canterbury, for a Warden and forty Fellows, and had been
fully incorporated in 1439. There was provision in the
Fellowships on behalf of founder's kin, which has been
thought to favour a belief that there was some family
relationship between William Tilley, ot Selling, and Thomas
Linacre. Linacre, having brought with him to Oxford
some knowledge of Greek, continued his study by attend-
ance at the lectures of Cornelio Vitelli, where he first
became fellow- worker with William Grocyn. Another friend
to whom Linacre was closely drawn by fellowship of studies
was William Latimer, a Divinity student, who seems to have
been of his ownage, or a little younger. He did not obtain
a Fellowship at All Souls until five years later.
Not long after Linacre had obtained his AH Souls
Fellowship, his friend and teacher, William Tilley, Prior of.
Christchurch, was sent by Henry VH. to Rome. That
would be at the close of 1485, or in the next following year.
The Battle of Bosworth Field, in which Richard HL fell,
was fought on the 22nd of August,, 1485. When Tilley,
upon his mission, went for the second time to Italy, he
invited Linacre to go with him. Glad of such aid to the more
thorough study of Greek, Linacre went with his old master,
who, having introduced him to Politian, left him at Bologna,
where Linacre stayed awhile, and then he joined Politian
again at Florence. There he became fellow-student with the
TO A.D. 1487.] Grocyn and Lj nacre. 25
two sons of Lorenzo de' Medici, to one of whom, after he
had become Pope Leo X., Linacre dedicated, in 1521, a
translation of Galen's book on Temperaments, with a
courteous recollection of their former knowledge of each
other. Linacre stayed a year at Florence, and then went
to Rome. At Rome he established in the Library of the
Vatican strong friendship with the scholar, Hermolaus Bar-
baro. The friendship was begun in talk together about
Plato's " Phaedo," which Hermolaus found Linacre reading.
Hermolaus, grandson on the mother's side to the Doge
Andrea, was the son of a noble Venetian, Francesco
Barbaro, who had defended Brescia in 1439 against all the
forces of the Duke of Milan, and who was also a writer.
Hermolaus Barbaro, born in 1454, about six years older
than Linacre, and his most intimate friend among Italians,
was one of the great classical scholars of the fifteenth
century. He was employed, at the age of thirty-two, by
the Venetians as their Envoy to the Emperor. He was
sent also by the Venetian States to Pope Innocent VIIL,
who liked him so well that he made him Patriarch of
Aquileia. Barbaro accepted that office without asking
leave of the Venetians, and thereby brought himself into
trouble with the Republic, because none of its ministers
were allowed to accept preferments at a foreign Court. As
Barbaro held by the Patriarchate, he was living at Rome as
an exile from Venice when Linacre met with him. Linacre
knew him only as a famous scholar retired among his books,
and freely welcoming congenial friends. He dined — we
should say lunched — at three upon an egg, some fruit,
and white bread, with diluted wine. He supped — we should
say dined — on eggs, salad, and a roasted bird, with some
fruit for dessert, early enough for summer evening studies
in the garden, or another hour or two among his books.
Among other works of his was a translation of Dioscorides,
another was a translation of the whole Organon of Aristotle.
26 English Writers. (a.d. uss
In two parts, published in 1492 and 1493, he issued his chief
work, an edition of Pliny, which is said to have contained five
thousand emendations of the corrupted text. From Rome
and the companionship of Hermolaus Barbaro, Linacre
went to Venice, where he established friendship with the
learned printer, Aldo Manuzio, and was introduced by him
to other scholars. From Venice, Linacre went to Padua,
where he seems to have taken a degree in medicine ; and
by way of Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Milan, and the Pays
de C^vennes, he returned through Paris to England.
Linacre used his Greek chiefly for study of the Natural
History of Aristotle and the works of Galen. In his time
.nu ^,j first rudiments of a science of medicine were
The Old ^ . ,
Science of being drawn from the works of Aristotle, and a
Medicine. .,...,., , , ^
prevailmg faith m charms and amulets of precious
stones found encouragement in the mysticism of the Neo-
Platonists. Hippocrates, who had lived in the days of Socrates,
studied by direct observation the natural history of disease,
and saw a Divine operation, Nature, working through , all
physical change. Claudius Galen, of Pergamos, in the latter
part of the second century after Christ, became the great
physician of the past, to whose authority physicians and
surgeons bowed for the next thirteen centuries. Galen
restored the authority of Hippocrates by collecting his works
and enforcing his doctrines. He travelled, observed, reflected.
He wrote many treatises ; was the first man, in his " Use of
Parts," to show real knowledge of the structure of the
skeleton and of the rest of human anatoniy ; and by his de-
scription of the heart and bloodvessels showed that he was
on the right way towards that discovery of the circulation of
the blood which came long after the time even of Linacre.
Galen established himself, at the age of thirty-four, as a
Greek physician in Rome, where Dioscorides, in the time of
Nero, had written a book on Simples, that Galen took as
an authority. Galen had been preceded also by the Roman
TO A.D. 1487.] GrOCYN and LlNACRE. 27
Celsus, who, in the reign of Augustus or Tiberius, had
written treatises on the liberal arts, of which only that upon
Medicine, which is to this day the Latin classic of the
medical profession, has been preserved. Of the three
hundred books that Galen himself is said to have written,
the greater number were destroyed by a fire in the Temple
of Peace. The influence of Hippocrates and Galen —
especially of Galen — ^was great on the Arabs in their day
of intellectual supremacy. To the medical authorities of
Linacre's time let us add Rhazes, who practised at Bagdad
in the tenth century, and wrote on small-pox and measles;
add also the Persian, Haly-Abbas, who dedicated a com-
pendium of Medicine, his " Almaleki," or Opus Regium, to
the Emir of Bagdad about the year 980 ; Avicenna, who
died in 1037 ; and Averroes, who, in the twelfth century,
gave Aristotle to the Arabs. Avicenna left a " Canon of
Medicine," which was the great authority of the schools
until the time of Linacre, when the New Learning brought
Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Celsus, and Galen again to the
front, with Aristotle, whose -science Galen had sought to
harmonise in his own system with Plato's philosophical
idealism. These were the great founders of the Science of
Medicine as it was practised early in. the fourteenth century
by John of Gaddesden,* whose I^atin " Rosa Anglica," or
" Practice of Medicine from Head to Foot," was first printed
in 1492 at Pavia, and again at Venice in 1506, and at
Naples in 1508, and at Venice again in 1516. From the
tenth century until the time of Linacre — we might alrnost
say from the second century — Medical Science had made
no considerable advance. Nor did it then advance ; for
Linacre's chief service was in carrying students back from
the tenth century to the first and second, and yet farther
back; from Avicenna to Dioscorides and Galen, and be-
hind them to Hippocrates and Aristotle. ,
« "E. W."iv. 6s, 66.
28 English Writers. [* f. 1488
The degree of Doctor of Medicine having been ob-
tained in an Italian University, Linacre, after his return,
was admitted to the same at Oxford. With
Lina"re "^^^P ^cnse of the vahie of a knowledge of Greek
as key to the higher science and philosophy,
Linacre again joined his friend Grocyn in teaching Greek
at Oxford.
But the elder scholar was now stirred with a desire to
follow Linacre's example. Not Grocyn alone, but also
younger men — William Latimer, who taught Greek after-
Greek wards at Cambridge ; William Lilly, afterwards
Studies at the first Head Master of St. Paul's School, and
John Colet, the founder of that school, went
in turn for a pure draught of the New Learning to the
fountain-head.
William Grocyn, in 1488, resigned his office of Divinity
Reader at Magdalen College, and went straight to Florence
— William Latimer following in 1489 — where
Gracy™ ^s studied under Demetrius Chalcondylas and
under Politian, whose " Miscellanea " were pub-
lished in 1489. Grocyn remained two years in Italy, and
he also, in Venice, became the friend of the great printer,
Aldus Manutius, the founder of the Aldine Press, whose
grandson, the younger Aldus, was reduced by poverty to
sell the library of 80,000 volumes collected by his family.
The elder Aldus was the first who printed Greek with
accuracy, and without a very large number of contractions.
In 1491 Grocyn was at Oxford again, and rented rooms
at Exeter College. He then again taught Greek, as one
having authority ; though by no formal appointment of the
University or any of the Colleges. Greek was not then
recognised officially as part of the course for graduation.
Cornelio Vitelli had, in 1489, been called to Paris, but
Grocyn and Linacre enlarged the credit of the University,
and were joined presently by William Latimer. Grocyn,
TO AD. 1499.] Grocvn and Lin acre. 29
Linacre, and Latimer then undertook joint labour upon a
translation into Latin of all works of Aristotle ; but that
design was abandoned after Grocyn's death.
A letter from Grocyn was inserted by Aldo Manuzio
in his edition of the translation made by Linacre — and left
with him when Linacre was at Venice — of the " Sphere of
Proclus,"* first published in 1499, and dedicated to Arthur
Prince of Wales. Grocyn, in this letter, congratulates Aldus
upon the completion of his edition of the whole extant
Greek text of Aristotle — Grocyn valued Aristotle above
Plato — and he said, " Our Linacre tells me that you are
contemplating a still more remarkable work, and have
already set it on foot — the printing of the Old Testament in
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and of the New in Greek and
Latin — a most arduous work, and one most worthy of a
Christian man. . . . As to our part of the work,'' he
added, "we will omit nothing which is at all likely to be
useful in the matter.'' This letter was dated from London
in September, and must have been written in 1499. T^e
application of the New Learning to the procuring of a more
accurate text of the Bible, though conceived by Aldus, was
not carried out by him ; but we shall find it carried out early
in the next century, with yet larger aim at thoroughness, by
Cardinal Ximenes.
Grocyn dated that letter from London, whither he was"
more and more drawn by duties of the Rectory of St.
Lawrence Jewry, to which he had been presented in 1496.
He was Rector also of Sheperton in Middlesex. Linacre
visited Italy again in 1498 or 1499, and when he returned
both he and Grocyn worked rather in London than in
* "Prodi Diadochi Sphcera, Astronomiam discere incipientibus
utilissima. Thoma Linacre Britanno Interprete. Ad Arcturum, Cor-
nubia Valliaque lUustrissimum Principem." It is only a piece eight
pages long, last treatise in a volume of ancient writers on Astronomy,
dedicated by Aldo Manuzio to Guido Duke of Urbino.
30 English Writers. La.d. 1497
Oxford, wWere William Latimer remained and still taught
Greek. In 1506 Archbishop Warham added to Grocyn's
offices in the Church that of Master of the College of All
Saints at Maidstone. That College was founded originally for
poor travellers by Archbishop Boniface about the year 1260,
incorporated by Archbishop Courtenay with a College of
Secular Priests, a Master and sixjChaplains, and suppressed
in 1546. In 15 II Archbishop Warham further recognised
Grocyn's services to learning by giving him the Rectory of
East Peckham on condition of his placing a vicar there for
the cure of the souls of his parishioners. Grocyn spent the
last years of his life in London or at Maidstone, not rich,
for he was a free giver. Erasmus sent, in one of his letters
to a London friend, his "heartiest salutations to Dr.
Grocyn, the friend and patron of us all." He had not
proceeded at Oxford beyond B.D. in his graduation. In
the last year of his life Grocyn was struck with palsy. He
made his will on the 2nd of June, 15 19. Without wife or
kinsfolk, he left his books to Linacre, his nearest friend and
his executor, his house to his old servant Thomas Taylour,
his scarlet gown, with the hood lined with sarcenet, to
Linacre's niece Alicia; and he died at Maidstone two or
three months later, at the age of about seventy-three.*
Although letters of Grocyn to his learned friends were
'for a time known, they were never printed. He was recog-
nised as their chief leader among scholars qf-the Revival in
his day, but, like William Latimer, he lives now only through
the work of other men to whom he was in life an inspiration
* In the secofid series of Collectanea (1890), printed for the " Ox-
ford Historical Society," and edited by Professor Montagu Burrows,
Prof. Burrows has a valuable Memoir of William Grocyn which corrects
some errors in previous accounts, and to which I have often been
indebted. It is given together with Linacre's Catalogue of Grocyn's
books, made in 1520, and his accounts as executor, which were dis-
covered among the archives of Merton College in 1889.
TO A.D. 1519.] Grocyn and Linacre. 31
and support. William Latimer, who had Reginald Pole
among his pupils, and that Dr. Pace whom Wolsey envied,
lived to the year 1545. He had a prebend in Salisbury
Cathedral, and besides the Vicarage of Wootton-under-
Edge, the Rectory of Saintsbury, both irt Gloucestershire.
In the year 1497 Erasmus, then thirty years old, came
to England, and in 1498 he was at work upon Greek with
Grocyn and Linacre at Oxford. Erasmus, born
at Rotterdam, probably in 1467, was the
illegitimate son of a Gerhard, whose name, meaning " the
beloved," he translated into Latin and Greek when he took
the name of Desiderius Erasmus. He went to school at
Gouda j then became a chorister - boy at Utrecht; then
was taught by those Brothers of the Common Life at
Deventer, in whose school, founded by Gerhard Groot and
developed by his pupil, Florentius Radewin, Thomas \
Kempis had been trained. Thomas k Kempis died, at the
age of ninety, sub-prior of a kindred community, under
Radewin's brother John, in 147 1. Thomas k Kempis said
that he found in the houses of this Brotherhood all the
brethren of one heart and one mind, self-denying, devout,
and full of mercy. Erasmus said that he found their
teaching of Latin puerile; but his calm philosophical
temperament may have gained something in youth from the
religious life of a community in which feverish exaltations
were discouraged, and the three questions first put to those
who wished to join were, " Do you eat well ? " " Do you
sleep well ? " " Do you obey readily ? " The head of the
school to which Erasmus went was Alexander Hegius,
who was able to teach a little Greek.
When his mother, who was a physician's daughter, died
of the plague, Erasmus left Deventer and went to his father
at Gouda. Then his father died.
Erasmus and his brother were left in the care of three
trustees, who wished to make monks of them. Erasmus
32 English Writers. [a.d. 1500.
agreed to go into an Augustinian house at Delft on con-
dition that he might have freedom to come out of it
again. He remained in it for six years, and came put to be
private secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai, with whom he
went to Paris, after ordination as a priest. In Paris, Erasmus
studied at the College' Montaigu, which was untouched
by the light of the New Learning. He earned also by
private teaching. He had infinite desire for knowledge,
but his means were very small. One of his pupils was
William Lord Mountjoy. Erasmus visited him at Hames
Castle in Guines, which then belonged to the English, and
had Lord Mountjoy for Governor. The desire of Erasmus
was to the new light that shone from Italy. He was too
poor to go to Italy and learn Greek from the famous
scholars there. But Mountjoy told him that Greek was to
be learnt also at Oxford, and brought him to England at the
end of the year 1497. After a short stay in London, he went
to Oxford, where he lodged in a small religious house
of St. Mary's on the site of the house and garden since
appropriated to the Regius Professor of Medicine. It had
Richard Charnock for its Prior. So Erasmus studied Greek
under Grocyn and Linacre, and laid foundations of strong
friendship with the younger men of this school, John Colet
and Thomas More. He liked England, and found in the
Oxford scholars all that he desired. To a friend he wrote
at 'that time, " In Colet I hear Plato himself. Who does
not admire the perfect compass of science in Grocyn ? Is
anything more acute, more exalted or more refined than the
judgment of Linacre ? Has Nature framed anything either
milder, sweeterj or happier than the disposition of More ? "
Thomas More introduced Erasmus to the Prince who
was hereafter to be King Henry VIII., then a boy of
nine. In the year 1500 the Dutch scholar had returned to
France, not only a better Grecian, but also rich in new
friendship that had put new strength into his life.
A.D. 1498.] Erasmus. Colet. 33
Colet and Erasmus were within a year of the same age.
John Colet, born in 1466, was the son of Sir He'nry Colet,
a wealthy City knight, who was twice Lord Mayor
r T J T^ ^-,1 ■ • . • , ,1 J"*"" Colet.
of London. Dame Christian, his mother, had
eleven sons and, eleven daughters, of whom John was the
sole survivor. She lived with him during the last nine years
of his life, after her husband's death in 15 10; and, says
Erasmus, "being come to her ninetieth year, looked so
smooth, and was so cheerful, that you would think she had
never shed a tear ; and, if I mistake not, she survived her
son. Dean Colet. Now that which supplied a woman with
so much fortitude was not learning, but piety to God."
From earlier training in London or Westminster, Colet
passed to Magdalen College, Oxford, about 1483. Having
taken his degree as Master of Arts, after seven years' study,
Colet chose the Church for his profession, and before he
was ordained, he obtained through family influence, in 1485,
the Rectory of St. Mary Dennington in Suffolk ; in 1490
the Vicarage of St. Dunstan and All Saints' in Stepney, and
the Rectory of St. Nicholas Thurning in Huntingdonshire.
In 1494 he was presented to the Prebend of Botevant in the
Church of York, and he had one or two more pieces of
preferment before his ordination as a priest, which was not
until March, 1498. Before Colet left for Italy, in 1493, he
studied Plato and Plotinus, using one as commentary on the
other. But when abroad in France and Italy, while he was
eagerly pursuing his Greek studies, he fastened upon St.
Paul as the great Christian philosopher, the trustworthy
interpreter of Christian doctrine, and was thenceforth among
living men the chief of Paul's disciples. Colet read the
Fathers of the Church, preferring Origen and Jerome to
Augustine, and he devoted himself to the study of the
Scriptures. Lorenzo de' Medici had died the year before
Colet left England. Corruption had spread, and the
ignoble side of life in Italy, that had been less distinct
D — VOL. VII.
34 English Writers. t*-"- '4^^
to Linacre and Grocyn, pressed its repulsive features upon
Colet. In the younger man also there was a more- ardent
spiritual zeal. Greek scholarship in Golet joined St. Paul
to Plato, and became an agent for the reformation of the
Church and of the world.
John Colet came back frorri Italy to Oxford, and
in 1497 gave free lectures in Latin on St. Paul's Epistle
to the Romans, with a large scholarly spirit of interpre-
tation that caused men of all degrees to flock to him,
note-book in hand. He was lecturing upon St. Paul
to the Corinthians when Erasmus came to Oxford as
a scholar very poor in worldly means. Colet, having
observed him, wrote to him a warm offer of friendly help,
and they were friends for life. Of Colet's way of teaching
Erasmus said in a letter to him, " You say what you mean,
and mean what you say. Your words have birth in your
heart, not on your lips. They follow your thoughts, instead
of your thoughts being shaped by them. You have the
happy art of expressing with ease what others can hardly
express with the greatest labour."*
Thomas More had been sent to Oxford, perhaps at
the age of fourteen, before the visit of Erasmus, and was
twenty-two years old at the end of the fifteenth
Thomas century. He was the son of Sir John More,
Knight, a justice of the King's Bench, who was
three times married, though he used to say that marriage
was hke dipping the hand into a bag where there are twenty
snakes and an eel — it was twenty to one that you did not
get the eel. Thomas More's birthplace and early home
being Milk Street, in the City of London, he was sent to St.
Anthony's, in Threadneedle Street, then chief in repute
* Quoted by Mr. Frederic Seebohm in "The Oxford Reformers ot
1498, being a History of the Fellow- Work of John Colet, Erasmus, and
Thomas More;" 1867; second edition, revised and enlarged, 1869; a
book which should be read by every student of this period of Literature.
TO A.D. 1498.] John Colet. Thomas More. 35
among the London schools. More next entered the house-
hold of Cardinal John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury
and Lord Chancellor.
Morton had been one of the foremost of Oxford scholars
when William Grocyn was a child. He was Doctor of Laws
and Vice-Chancellor of the University in 1446. He
practised law, and obtained many Church benefices ; was
Master of the Rolls in 1472, Bishop of Ely in 1479 — the
same Bishop of Ely of whom the Protector Richard, about
to seize the crown, said :
' ' My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn, ■
I saw good strawberries in your garden there ;
I do beseech you send for some of them " —
an hour before he sent him to the Tower. When afterwards
released, and transferred to the custody of the Duke 01
Buckingham, Morton helped to organise the insurrection
which cost Buckingham his head ; and, being himself sa.fe
in Flanders, was thenceforth busy as a negotiator on the
side that triumphed' at Bosworth Field. Thus Morton
became the trusted friend of Henry VH., who, at the
beginning of his reign, made him, in i486. Archbishop of
Canterbury, arid nine months afterwards Lord Chancellor of
England.
In 1489 Morton obtained a bullfrom Pope Innocent
VIII. authorising him, as visitor, to exercise authority
within the monasteries ; in which, the bull said, there were
many who, giving themselves over to a reprobate mind,
and having laid aside the . fear of God, were leading a
wanton and dissolute life, to the destruction of their own
souls and the dishonour of religion. While upholding the
sovereignty of the Archbishop in spiritual things, Morton,
as Henry .VII.'s chief adviser, maintained in temporal
affairs the absolute sovereignty of the King. He greatly en-
riched himself, but was liberal with his wealth. He helped
D 2
36 English Writers. [a,d. 1498
the King, more narrowly avaricious, to draw money, by bene-
volences or otherwise, from his subjects ; and he shared the
king's unpopularity. Morton was a vigorous old man of
between seventy and eighty, whose life was blended with the
history of half a century, when young Thomas More was
placed in his household, and found him a generous patron
and appreciative friend. A son of one of lower rank was
often received of old into a great man's house. He wore
there his lord's livery, but had it of more costly materials
than were used for the footmen, and was the immediate
atendant of his patron, who was expected to give him a start
. in life when he came of age. When at Christmas time a
Latin play was acted, young Thomas More could step in at
will among the players, and extemporise a comic part.
"Whoever liveth to try it," Morton would say, "shall see
this child here waiting at table prove a notable and rare
man." John Colet used to say, "There is but one wit in
England, and that is young Thomas More." About the
year 1492 the Archbishop sent the youth to Oxford, where
he was entered to Canterbury College, now included in
Christ Church. There he learned Greek of Linacre and
Grocyn. In 1496 he had removed thence to London, and
proceeded to study law at Lincoln's Inn. In 1500 Arch-
bishop Morton died..
While studying law, More, who was earnestly religious,
tried on himself for a time the experiment of monastic
discipline, wore a hair shirt, took a log for* a pillow, and
whipped himself on Fridays.
Leaving here for a time those younger men whose lives,
touched in their youth by the influence of Grocyn and
Linacre, belong chiefly to the sixteenth century, we may
now complete the record of the life of Linacre, which had
been active for good in the fifteenth century, and remained
beneficent until his death in 1524.
In the year 1501, while Linacre was at Oxford, Arthur
TO A.D. 1S09.] Thomas More. Thomas Linacre. 37
Prince of Wales, to whom Linacre had dedicated his
translation of the "Sphere of Proclus," was,
during a progress, lodged for a time at Mag- Lka'Sre.
dalen College. The result of this was an in-
vitation to Linacre to take charge of the delicate young
Prince's health, and live at Court as his companion in hours
not set apart for study. Bernard Andr^ was the Prince's
tutor, and had been so since 1496, when Prince
Arthur was ten years of age. On the 19th of Andl-I'''-
May, Andr^ was also witness to Prince Arthur's
marriage by proxy to Catherine of Aragon, at Bewdley, in
Worcestershire. The actual marriage at St. Paul's was on
November 6th, 1501. Andrd was a native of Toulouse, an
Austin Friar, and blind from his first coming into England
with Henry VI L, who called him his Poet Laureate, ob-
tained for him Church preferments, and made him gifts
of money. From 1506 at least until 1521, when his age
was seventy, Bernard Andr^ received from Henry VII.
and Henry VIII. the annual New Year's gift of a hun-
dred shillings. , We shall meet with him again among the
writers in Henry VII.'s reign. Erasmus had no love for
Bernard Andr^, who, in 1509, charged him more than he
was able to pay, for lodging at London with the Austin
Friars, when he came to England in that year. Lord
Mountjoy had to pay Andrd twenty nobles fdr his friend.
To Erasmus, therefore, Andr^, who traduced Linacre to
the King, was " principis optimi non optimus prseceptor."
Prince Arthur died in April, 1502, in his sixteenth
year, and Prince Henry then became heir to the crown-
Henry VII. died in April, 1509, and Prince
Henry became, at the age of eighteen, King Linacre.
Henry VIII. Linacre, who gave a medical
lecture at Oxford in 15 10, was appointed one of the Phy-
sicians to the new King. But, at the same time, Linacre
was joining Physic to Divinity, for he took priest's orders in
38 • English Writers. [a.d. isog
1509 — being dispensed from gradation through the offices of
sub-deacon and deacon — and received preferments from his
friend, William Warham, who, in 1504, had become Arch-
bishop of Canterbury. First Linacre was appointed to the
Rectory of Mersham, in Kent, which he held only for a
month. In the following December, 1509, he was installed
into the prebend of Easton in Gardano in Wells Cathedral.
In 15 10 he was presented also to the living of Hawkhurst,
in Kent, which he held for fourteen years. In 15 17 Linacre
obtained a canonry and prebend in St. Stephen's, West-
minster, vacant by the death of the Papal Collector in Eng-
land. In 15 18 he obtained a prebend in York Minster,
which he resigned six months later, after being admitted to
his better-paid appointment of Precentor in the same cathe-
dral church; He received also in that year from the King
the Rectory of Hoi worthy, in Devonshire. In 1520 Linacre
was made Rector of Wigan, in Lancashire.
Linacre lived in London in a house in Knightrider
Street, known as the Stone House. He was occupied at
the end of the fifteenth century with translations of the
"Meteora" of Aristotle and the " Commentaries " of Sim-
plicius ; but, afterwards, he was drawn to active work upon
a translation of Galen from Greek into Latin. He pub-
lished, with dedication to Henry VIH., in 15 17, at Paris,
having Guillaume Rube for printer, a translation of Galen's
six books on the " Preservation of Health." In 1519, also
at Paris, with Desiderius Maheu for printer, he published
the fourteen books of Galen's " Method of Healing," a work
that brought Linacre praise in Latin verse from Janus Las-
caris. Galen's three books on Temperaments, dedicated
to Archbishop Warham, printed at. Cambridge by John
Sibei-ch, and with a title-page that is said to be the first
piece of English copperplate engraving, followed in 1521,
with dedication to Pope Leo X. A copy that belonged to
Henry VIII. is in the Bodleian Library, but the title-page
TO A.D. 1523.] Thomas Linacre. 39
is there printed from type. In 1522 there followed three
translations by Linacre of works of Galen, from the press of
Richard Pynson ; these were his two books on " The Move-
ment of the Muscles ; " his book on the " Use of the
Pulses," dedicated to Cardinal Wolsey ; and his book on
"Whom and When to Purge Medicinally." In 1523
followed Linacre's translation of Galen's three books on
"Natural Functions," dedicated to Archbishop Warham,
with an annexed treatise of Paulus .^Egineta on " Crises and
Critical Days in Disease, with their Signs." In 1524, the
last year of his life, Linacre published his translation of
Galen on the " Differences and Causes of Symptoms," the
publisher of all these later translations being Richard
Pynson. Taking Galen's works in what he regarded as the
order of their greatest practical importance, Linacre was
busy during the last years of his life in the endeavour to pro-
duce translations of them all. In 1524 appeared— also from
Pynson's press — the first edition of Linacre's work, in six
books, " De Emendata Structura Latini Sermonis," which
is said to include the first specimens of Greek type from a
London press. But there was a little Latin treatise on the
"Rudiments of Grammar" written by Linacre at the close
of his life for the use of the Princess Mary, to whom he
was then appointed tutor in Latin. She was but five years
old, and her more immediate teacher was a retainer of
Queen Katharine's, Juan Luis Vives, of Valentia, who had
been made, in 15 17, one of the first. Fellows of Corpus
Christi College, Oxford, . by its founder, Richard Fox,
Bishop of Winchester. Vives wrote for his pupil, or to
please her mother, in 1523, two letters in aid of gram-
matical studies, entitled " De Ratione Studii Fuerilts," in
the dedication of which to the Queen he spoke of Linacre's
high qualifications as a teacher, and said that his own pur-
pose was only to clear away obscurities or supply omissions
of the grammarians.
40 English Writers. [a-d. 1509
The larger treatise in aid of the study of Latin had been
designed by Linacre for use in St. Paul's School, which his
friend Colet founded in 1512; but it was not the sort of
book that Colet wanted for his schoolboys, and Ijnacre was
vexed by its rejection. It was left with him unused, and,
during the twelve years that it remained unpublished,
Linacre developed it into a book addressed to the wants of
workers who studied language as a science. After Linacre's
death the book was frequently reprinted in different parts of
Europe, and had Melancthon and Camerarius among its
editors.
Eight days before Linacre's death, the King signed the
Letters Patent by which the old physician spent part of his
wealth in founding three Lectures on Medicine, two at
Oxford, one at Cambridge, which were to be called
Linacre's Lectures. He placed property in the keeping of
the Mercers' Company for their support, but it was not
until the third year of Edward VI. that Cuthbert Tunstal,
the surviving trustee, was able to establish these lectures, by
placing a senior and a junior Reader in Merton College,
Oxford, and a Reader in St. John's College, Cambridge.
Linacre also made provision in the last years of his life,
and obtained Letters Patent in 1518, for the foundation in
Foundation London of a College of Physicians. The Letters
J^'^' ^ , Patent were granted to himself and five other
London Col- , . .
lege of physicians, of whom two, John Chamber and
ysicians. j-gmandus de Victoria, were, like himself,
physicians to the King. The College was to have control
over its members in London and within seven miles of
London ; it was to examine medicines as well as those by
whom they were administered ; and it could exclude from
the practice of medicine any who were not licensed by
the President and College. But the Bishop of Londpn
and Dean of St. Paul's had the right to grant degrees in
medicine upon examination, with the help of four, physicians
TO A.D. 1S24.] Thomas Linacre. 41
and some surgeons as assessors, and this right remained to
them. The Letters Patent of the College of Physicians
were extended and confirmed by a statute of the fourteenth
year of Henry VIII., about twelve months before Linacre's
death. Linacre assigned to the new College in his lifetime
the use of part of his house in Knightrider Street, with
possession of the whole after his death; and until his death
he took the chair at its meetings, Founder and First
President of the Royal College of Physicians of London,
the most lasting of his works.*
Linacre died of stone, with ulceration of the bladder,
in the sixty-fourth year of his age, on the 20th of October,
1524. He was buried in the old Cathedral of St. Paul's, in
ground carefully chosen by himself and defined in his will,
near the foot of the cross by the north door. But grave,
cross, and old cathedral are no more. Where Linacre was
laid, fire has made all things new.
* A Life of Linacre, by J. N. Johnson, with incidental sketches of
his friends, was edited by Dr. R. Graves in 1835.
CHAPTER II.
]NEW LIFE. — NEW WORLD. — ADVANCE OF CHURCH REFORM.
To the Invention of Printing and the new life quickened
in Europe by the Greeks dispersed after the Fall of
Constantinople, there is to be added yet a third
Discovery of event that gave new breadth and boldness to
America. ° i i /■ i
the march of life towards the close of the
fifteenth century. While the Greeks taught men to reap
new harvests in recovered fields of the intellectual world
known to the ancients, seafarers turned into truth the old
Greek fable of an Atlantis far away beyond the pillars of
Hercules across the ocean. Speculation was emboldened
and imagination stimulated by the mere fact, before men
felt the stir of its material consequences.
During the early part of the reign of Henry VII., the
New World was discovered. Sebastian Cabot, born at
Bristol, the son of a Venetian pilot, was but twenty years
old when, on a voyage with his father and two brothers in
the service of Henry VII., for the discovery and occupation
of new lands, he first saw the mainland of America, in 1497-
Christopher Columbus, born in Italy in 1445, went to sea
about the time when, in 1462, the printers of Mayence were
first scattered; and was voyaging northward beyond Ice-
land, and southward to the coast of Guinea, while the
printer's press was being first set up in sundry capitals of
Europe. Columbus, in the service of Ferdinand and
Isabella of Spain, had found for Spain in 1492 the West
A.u. 1497—8.] Discovery of America. 43
India Islands. On his third voyage in search of new lands
and their wealth, in 1498, he saw the mainland of America,
which had been seen by the Cabots in 1497, and which was
named after Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine, who did not
visit it till 1499. "Spain, that used to be called poor,
is now the most wealthy of kingdoms," Columbus wrote ;
but in his old age he had for one ornament of his home the
chains in which he had been sent home from Hispaniola
by men weary of one who vexed them with restraints of
honesty. " For seven years," he wrote to Ferdinand and
Isabella, "was I at your Royal Court, where everyone to
whom the enterprise was mentioned treated it as ridiculous ;
but now there is not a man, down to the very tailors, who
does not beg to be allowed to become a discoverer. There
is reason to believe that they make the voyage only for
plunder, and that they are permitted to do so, to the great
disparagement of my honour, and the detriment of the
undertaking itself. It is right to give God His due, and to
receive that which belongs to one's self. .... I was
twenty-eight years old when I came into your Highnesses'
service, and now I have not a hair upon me that is not
grey ; my body is infirm, and all that was left to me, as well as
to my brothers, has been taken away and sold, even to the
frock that I wore, to my great dishonour." So Columbus
wrote from the Indies, in July, 1503, when absent on his
fourth and last voyage to the New World, the voyage
following that from which he had returned in chains. With
a pure heart and noble mind, he had served the greed of
men; and to his death, in 1506, he still found Mammon an
ungrateful master.
And the new life still springs. In the same year, 1474
(old style), were born, within six months of each other^
Ariosto and Michael Angelo. Nine years later, in the same
year, 1483, were born RaflFaelle and Luther.
Wyclif had not laboured in vain. A Lollard memorial
44 English Writers. [a-"- '4oS
to Parliament, eleven years after his death, contained in its
„ . , twelve clauses* the chief points insisted on by
Continued ^„, . t
influence of later Church Reformers. They represented
'""' Rome as stepmother to the English Church,
and Pride of Rome as having banished Faith and Hope and
Charity. They said that the Roman Priesthood is not that
which was ordained by Christ and His Apostles. That
sodomy comes of the continence required of priests to
the prejudice of women. That the feigned miracle of
transubstantiation leads to idolatry ; as Wyclif, the Evan-
gelical Doctor, said in his Trialogus, the bread in the Last
Supper is still bread. That exorcisms and blessings over
wine, bread, water, oil, salt, wax, incense, over stone of the
altar and over walls of the church, over vestm.ent and
mitre, over cross and over pilgrim's staff, belong to
necromancy rather than to true theology. That to unite in
one person a bishop and a king, a prelate and a temporal
judge, establishes misrule. That special prayers for souls
of the dead are a false ground of almsgiving. That pil-
grimages, prayers, and oblations to blind crosses and deaf
images are near to idolatry and far from almsgiving. That
auricular confession, said to be so necessary to salvation,
exalts the pride of priests, and gives occasion for their
misdoing : they say they have the keys of heaven and hell,
and sell God's blessing by the card for twelvepence. That
slaughter by war, or in the name of justice, for temporal
causes, without spiritual revelation, is expressly contrary to
the New Testament, which is the law of grace and full of
mercies : Christ teaches men to love their enemies. That
vows of virginity by women in the Church lead to child-
* First printed by Foxe in his second Latin edition of the Book of
Martyrs. In the British Museum (Cotton, Cleopatra, E 2) there is a
MS. of the twelve " Conclusiones LoUardorum in quodam libello por-
recta plena Parliamento Regis Anglice" (1395), and another MS. of
them in the Bodleian.
TO A,D. 1415.] Lollards. 45
murder and other horrible crimes. That men would be
better without a multitude of useless arts, as of the gold-
smith and the armourer, which lead to idleness and waste.
As long as there survived many in Oxford who had
heard the living voice of Wyclif, his memory was cherished at
the University by a body of men strong enough to speak
sometimes as with the power of the University itself. Al-
though persecution of the. Lollards was far advanced by
the year 1406, yet on the 5th of October in that year a
Declaration was made by the Chancellor and an assembly
of University Graduates, confirmed by the possibly usurped
seal of the University, vindicating Wyclif from the charge
of heresy, and maintaining his honour as strong champion
of the faith, who used weapons of Holy Scripture against
traducers of the religion of Christ. After few more years
all power was- in the hands of a generation that had not
known Wyclif, and had been trained into familiarity with a
Church policy of violent attack upon the Lollards. Eight
years after that testimony on behalf of Wyclif, the University
of Oxford urged on the King that every officer of State
he appointed should be pledged to assist the Church- in
destroying heresy, and that the lands and goods of all men
found by the Church guilty of heresy should be forfeit to
the Crown. Lollards who had gathered together in large
numbers to hear the Bible read and explained to them in
their mother-tongue, could meet only secretly in small
conventicles, or read in their own homes, and many poor
men learnt to read that they might find food for their souls.
John Claydon, a furrier of the parish of St. Anne, Alders-
gate, was burnt at Smithfield, after a hearing in the Chapter
House of St. Paul's, in August, 1415, touching his possession
of heretical books. He said that the books were his, that
he could not himself read, but he bad caused them to be
read to him, because he thought they spoke truths whole-
some to his soul. For many a year afterwards in England
46 English Writers. [a.p. 13S1
the living fire, that had not been stamped out, was smoulder-
ing; elsewhere it broke' out into flame and spread. It
spread from England to Bohemia, and thus prepared the
way for Luther.
Until the marriage of the good Queen Anne to Richard
II., England and Bohemia knew but little of each other.
„ , . Anne of Bohemia brought Bohemian fashions
Bohemian ' " .
Church into London, and in her day Bohemian students
came even more readily to Oxford than to Paris.
She landed at Dover in December, 1381, and was married
twenty days after Christmas. This was in Wyclif s life-
time, and in one of his books, Wyclif, in justifying
translation of the Bible, referred to the likelihood that
"our noble Queen of England, sister of the Caesar, 'may
have the Gospel written in three languages — Bohemian,
German, and Latin" — but she was not,, therefore, to be
called a heretic. When- Queen Anne left Prague, an in-
dependent movement towards Church- Reform had been
already active there. After long subjection to the Arch-
bishopric of Mayence, Prague obtained a first Archbishop
of its own in Ernst of Pradowitz, who began, in 1349, to
work through synods for right ordering of a Bohemian
Church. He sought to restrain encroachments of the
nobles, immorality of priests, and secure to every poor man
a knowledge in his mother-tongue of the Ten Command-
ments, the Belief, and the Lord's Prayer. In 1349 Conrad,
of the village of Waldhausen, in Upper Austria, took priest's
orders. His zeal as a preacher caused him, about twelve
years later, to be invited to Bohemia, where, besides holding
a country living, he came to be the eminent preacher in the
great church of Prague, or in the great square when the
church would not contain the crowd of listeners. He made
unflinching war upon the vices, and produced fruits of
repentance. He died in December, 1369. By his side
there arose Milicz, a pure Bohemian, who, in 1363, gave up
TOA.D. I394-] Influence of Wyclif.
47
all worldly possessions, preached in their own tongue to the
country people, and won in time so wide a hearing that on
Sundays or Feast Days he would preach two, three, or even
five times in different- churches, to the people in Czech, to
the learned in Latin ; and he learnt German that he might
preach also in their own language to the Germans who
were settled among them. He too attacked the vices ; and
where success was hardest to attain, he succeeded so com-
pletely that he emptied in Prague the quarter of the town
devoted to light women, called Little Venice,, and caused
its land to be built over with homes in which they could
live honourable lives, changing the name of that quarter to
Little Jerusalem. He called upon the Pope to put down
Antichrist by establishing a just rule in the Church,
for "where iniquity abounds the love of many shall wax
cold." When Conrad of Waldhausen died, in 1369, Milicz
succeeded him as preacher in the Thein Church at Prague.
He fell under suspicion of heresy, and went to the Pope to
clear himself not many weeks before his death in 1374. A
follower of Milicz, Matthias of Janow, carried on his work
for the next twenty years, until his death in 1394 ; and he
was made a Canon of the Cathedral at Prague in the year
of the marriage of Anne of Bohemia to Richard II,
Anne of • Bohemia was born in Prague. The character
of the young Queen — which won for her the love of the
whole English people, and caused Chaucer to inscribe to
her his " Legend of Good Women " — was formed where
men like these were honoured champions of truth and love.
In Wyclif the young students who came, full of zeal,
from Prague to Oxford, found a power beyond that of
Milicz or Janow. They studied his philosophy, they lis-
tened reverently to his interpretations of the Scripture, and
for three years he was a living presence to them. After his
death he lived in his writings. The Bohemians copied
thein and took them home to Prague. The soil was ready
48 English Writers. [a.d. ... 1396-
for the seed : and among the Bohemians, John Wydif s
spirit passed into the body of John Hus.
Hus is a shortened form of Husinetz, a village seventy-
five miles from Prague, and not far from the source of the
. . „ Moldau. In that village Hus was born, on the
John Hus. °
6th of July, 13B9 — year of the death of Conrad
of Waldhausen. His family could afford him a good
education, and he was sent to the University of Prague,
where he graduated in 1394 as Bachelor of Theology,
and in 1396 as Master of Arts. Like Wyclif, he was
a University man who won the regard of his colleagues.
In 1 40 1 he was Deari of the Philosophical Faculty, and
in 1402-3 served "his half-year as Rector of the Univer-
sity. It was after he had taken his M.A. degree that he
altered his name from John Husinetz to John Hus. He
was graduating at Prague just at the time when students
from England 'had brought, and were still bringing, into
its University copy after copy made by them of the
philosophical and theological writings of Wyclif. Hus
fastened upon these. There is a manuscript in Stockholm
from the hand of Hus which contains five of Wychf's philo-
sophical treatises, copied in the year 1398 — copied, pro-
bably, for use in lectures. From the philosophical, Hus
passed to the theological writings. Then there rose in him
the great wave of enthusiasm for the highest spiritual life.
He was ordained priest in the year 1402, and began
preaching in Prague. He regretted the time lost in chess
play, and his young fastidiousness about clothes. His
appointment was to a newly founded chapel named Beth-
lehem, where he was required, by one of the founders'
statutes, to preach in Bohemian (Czech) at times outside the
usual hours of service in the church. Hus then had the
confidence of the Archbishop, and he preached without
reserve. In the University there was restriction placed on
any lecturing that set forth Wyclif 's doctrine of transub-
A.D.I408.] Bohemian Church Reformers. 49
stantiation and some other opinions of his. But, until the
year 1408, Hus found the Archbishop ready to support
and aid him, even against superstitious customs in the
Church that Wychf had condemned.
In 1408 Hus had brought on himself attacks of the
clergy for the freedom of his preaching in the Bethlehem
Chapel against fees taken from the poor by priests for the
performance of Church rites, as those of baptism and burial.
He was suspended from the priestly office, just at the time
when there was a failure of attempts to end the schism in
the Papacy that rent the stronghold of the Papal power.
Benedict XIII. was Pope in Avignon, and Gregory XII.
was Pope in Rome. Cardinals then proposed to reunite
the Church by putting aside the choice between one Pope
and the other. King Wenceslas of Bohemia adopted this
plan of neutrality, but the Archbishop of Prague held that
the Church of Bohemia was bound to obey Gregory XII.
The King wished for a confirmation of his view from the
Prague University. John Hus and the Bohemian " nation "
in the University held with the King, but the other three
"nations" — the Bavarian, the Polish, and the Saxon — held
with the Archbishop. King Wenceslas presently decreed
that the Bohemian nation in the University of Prague, like
the French at the University of Paris, should have three
votes, and the three other nations collectively should have
one vote. The French in Paris had three votes because three
of the four nations represented three regions of France,
and the foreigner with one vote was the fourth " nation " —
the English. This settlement gave to the King of Bohemia
tlie support of the Prague University, and he then issued
his mandate to laity and clergy "of his kingdom that they
should no longer obey Gregory XII. The result of his
action, however, was that the graduates of the three nations
in the University of Prague — that represented Bavarians,
including Austrians, Swabians, Franconians, and Rhine-
E VOL. VII.
5© English Writers. [a.d. 1409
landers ; Poles, including Silesians, Lithuanians, and
Russians ; Saxons, including the people of Upper and
Lower Saxony, Thuringians, Danes, and Swedes — departed
in a body, and founded, on the 2nd of December, 1409, the
University of Leipzig.
Prague was thus left to be simply a national Bohemian
University, and in that form it had Hus for its first Rector,
standing high in favour of the King and people. But the
Archbishop and the Church were now against him. In-
quiry was made after utterances of his in praise of Wyclif
the heretic, with suggestion that Antichrist was to be found
at Rome. In March, 1409, the Council of Pisa had met,
deposed both the contending Popes, and appointed in their
place a third Pope, Alexander V. The Archbishop of
Prague accepted this decision, and transferred allegiance
from Gregory XII. to Alexander V. on the 2nd of Sept-
ember, 1409. To the new Pope it was then represented
that heresies of Wyclif had been spread throughout
Bohemia and Moravia. In return came a bull giving the
Archbishop independent powers of action, notwithstanding
any appeal, to the Papal See; a bull, said Hus, that the
Pope had sold for money. The Archbishop set up a small
committee of doctors, and required all copies of books by
Wyclif to be brought in and submitted to them for examina-
tion. Hus brought his own books, other men obeyed, and two
• hundred volumes, many of them simply philosophical trea-
tises, were oifered for examination. They were all promptly
condemned as heretical, and sentenced to the fire. By the
same sentence all preaching in chapels was forbidden. Hus
paid no heed. He preached, indeed, in the Bethlehem
Chapel against these enormities. The University protested
and reasoned. On the i6th of July, 1410, to the accom-
paniment of a Te Deum and much bell-ringing, the two
hundred volumes of Wyclifs writings were publicly burnt
at Prague, in the courtyard of the Archbishop's palace.
TO A.D. I4II.] John Hus: 51
Two days afterwards, John Hus was excommunicated,
together with some of his friends. The result was that the
Archbishop found the University and the great body of the
people ranged against him. Students mocked in the streets
at his book-burning. We have plenty more, they said, of
Wyclif's books, and will make ourselves new copies faster,
faster, faster ! The people set up rude scoffing rhymes
against him —
" Sbynjek, Bishop, Abecedan,
Burns the books and doesn't read 'em. "
The Archbishop was even driven by a mob from the high
altar, with sixty priests that were about him ; and a preacher
in one of the churches of Prague, when he attempted to
read the sentence of excommunication, against Hus, was
forced out of his pulpit. King Wenceslas tried to make
peace by forbidding men, on penalty of death, to sing
mocking verses against the Archbishop; and by calling
upon the Archbishop and those who acted with him to pay
their owners for the books they had destroyed. Upon
failure to obey this order, his Majesty proceeded to stop
the money claimed of the delinquent clergy from the in-
come drawn by them.
Hus and his friends went boldly on, appealing to the
Pope against the Archbishop, to whose sentences they paid
no heed. Hus lectured at the University upon eighteen
works of Wyclif that the Archbishop had burnt, and main-
tained the soundness of their doctrine. He continued to
preach in the Bethlehem Chapel in the language of the
people, who thronged to him. When Hus spoke, in a
sermon, of the Pope's bull accusing the Bohemians of
heresy, and said, " I know no Bohemian who is a heretic,''
the people cried aloud, " He lies ! he lies ! " Alexander V.
was dead, and to his successor, John XXHI., both King
and Queen of Bohemia wrote. They complained of his
E 2
52 English Writers. (a.d. 1411
predecessor's accusation against th^e Bohemians, and called
for the annulling of the excommunication against Hus.
John XXIII. justified the action of the Archbishop of
Prague, and summoned Hus before the Papal Court. Soon
the whole city of Prague was placed under interdict, but
Hus preached on to the crowds gathered in his Bethlehem
chapel. The war of prelacy with King and people was,
after a time, submitted by agreement to high arbitration.
The arbiters in three days came to a decision, and required
concessions from both sides, but from the Archbishop most.
Hus did all that was required of him. The Archbishop left
Prague, and on his way into Hungary fell sick, and died in
September, 14 11.
In May, 141 2, there came to Prague a commissary from
the Pope John XXIII. with bulls to authorise, by sale of in-
dulgences and other ways, the raising of money for a crusade
that the Pope John had declared against King Ladislas of
Apulia, who was a supporter of the other Pope, Gregory XII.
Hus attacked this as vigorously as Wyclif had attacked, in
1383, the levying of a crusade by Urban VI. against Cle-
ment VII.* He maintained that Pope or Bishop had no
power of the sword, and least of all when it was used to
obtain earthly possessions. He maintained also, against
sale of indulgences, that a priest could declare pardon of
sin after repentance, but that he could not do so uncon-
ditionally, and least of all in exchange for money. At a
public disputation on the subject, Hus's follower, Jerome of
Prague, who had been twice to Oxford, and had copied,
with his own hand, Wyclif s " Dialogue " and " Trialogue,"
became, by his passionate speech, the hero of the day. At
the wish of King Wenceslas, Hus withdrew from Prague ;
but in this time of his retirement from the capital he
preached in other places, wrote inspiring letters, and was
busy upon some of his best work. Pope John was urgent
* "E. "W."v. 81.
TOA.D. I4I5-1 Continued Influence of Wyclif. 53
against him. A General Council at Rome of cardinals,
bishops, and doctors condemned Wyclif 's " Dialogue " and
"Trialogue" and other of his works, and another General
Council, actively promoted by King Sigismund of Hungary,
was summoned to meet at Constance on the ist
of November, 1 41 4. Heresies in Bohemia would ofCon-
come into question, subordinate to other ques- ^'^""■
tions on other causes of division in the Church. Hus, with
a safe-conduct from King Sigismund, was ready to defend
himself and his people against the charge of having fallen
from the law of Christ. Hus did not receive the King's
letter of safe-conduct until he was already in Constance.
There he arranged for the disposal of his worldly goods
. after his death, and wrote a farewell letter to his Bohemian
friends. The Council of Constance declared Wyclif a
heretic. , The Council of Constance burnt John Hus on
the 6th of July, 1415, with the prayer on his lips, "O God,
in Thee have I trusted, into Thine hands I commend my
spirit." Jerome of Prague was burnt on the 3otb of the
next following May. Having been driven, in. an hour ot
weakness, to recant, he ended with firm declaration that he
held all the articles of the Christian faith as the Church
held them, but that he would not say there had been heresy
in Wyclif and Hus, who were condemned unrighteously
because, he said to his accusers, "they taught and wrote of
your disorderly life to your reproof and correction."
Hus, like Wyclif, rejected customs and traditions that
were not in reasonable conformity with the law of Christ
contained in the New Testament. In placing
the infalhbility of the Bible above that of the Mulncfof
Pope, he necessarily gave an authority to ^/cWng.
Reason and Conscience as interpreters, which
implied a right of judgment in the private reader. By so doing
Hus, like Wyclif, made impossible that unity of doctrine
that the Church had laboured to obtain. The world had not
54 English Writers. [a.b. 1415
discovered then, and has not quite discovered yet, that our
diversities of intellectual opinion are a blessing, not a curse.
The weaknesses of free interpretation, where many of the
interpreters are men of feeble judgment and, faithfully
aiming at the highest they can know, may yet not aim high,
were obvious enough in the English Biblemen, against
whom, in the middle of the fifteenth century, Reginald
Pecock reasoned. But weak and strong they made their
own use of their reason, and Pecock, in his " Repressor,"
only sought to show, by use of better reason, where they
erred. Use of reason in the study of the Bible, and use of
the Bible as the book with which all good doctrine and
practice must agree, Bishop Pecock himself taught. He
was condemned for doing so.*
The followers of Hus were Continental Lollards, and
when their doctrine spread through parts of Germany that
answered afterwards to the appeal of Luther, it was the seed
scattered by Wyclif that was ripening to harvest.
Distraction of the Church good Churchmen sought to
heal by appealing from the Popes, in whom faith failed, to
the Councils, and placing the authority of an CEcumenical
Council above that of the Holy Father. On the other
hand, Pius II., in 1460, by his bull Execrabilis, declared
the doctrine of appeal from the Pope to a Council to be
damnable. Nevertheless there was on each side in the con-
troversy a desire to fix. on some authority beyond that of
the Pope. One side found this in a General Council, the
collective wisdom of picked men. The other side found it
in the Bible, studied by the light of reason and conscience ;
each man seeking faithfully to find the truth, and using only
such aid from opinions of other men as he himself thought to
be trustworthy. It is the old difference in minds of men,
established for our help in all the wars of truth : one
side inclined to rest upon authority, 'the other inclined
* " E. W." vi. 183—185.
TOA.D. i5i8.] From Wyclif to Luther. 55
rather to use independent judgment in the seeking for
reforms.
These were the types of the chief oppositions of opinion
in Christendom at the end of the fifteenth century, when
Luther, the miner's son, was studying at Magde-
burg, and Eisenach, and Erfurth, and was drawn
by strength of his religious feeling into the Augustine oi-der.
Then he taught philosophy in the University at Wittenberg,
visited Rome, came back and taught theology as Doctor of
Divinity. - So followed, early in the sixteenth century, the
day that' opened a new period in European history, and
Martin Luther began his career as a Reformer by affixing
his Ninety-five Theses against Indulgences to the church
door at Wittenberg. He was then a pious, preaching monk,
a Doctor and Professor of Divinity in the University 01
Wittenberg, aged thirty-four, desiring to be faithful alike to
his Church and to his conscience. Leo X., to meet the
expenses of the Roman Court, and for the completion of St.
Peter's at Rome, raised money by an indiscriminate sale of
indulgences. His commissary, John Tetzel, had told the
people that when one dropped a penny into the box for a
soul in purgatory, so soon as the money chinked in the
chest the soiil flew up to heaven. Luther opposed : Tetzel
replied. Luther dutifully submitted his propositions to
Pope Leo X. The papal legate, Caietan, foiled by Luther's
firm placing of Scripture above the Pope, when he had
thought to bring the poor monk to reason, said, " I will not
speak to the beast again ; he has deep eyes, and his head
is full of speculation." Leo X. forced Luther into open
opposition to the See of Rome by issuing, in November,
15 18, a bull declaring the Pope's power to issue indulgences
which will avail not only the living, but also the dead who
are in purgatory. Luther still held by his Church, but
appealed from the Pope to a General Council.
CHAPTER III.
SOUTH OF THE TWEED : BERNARD ANDRlS AND POLYDORE
VERGIL, STEPHEN HAWES, AND OTHER WRITERS UNDER
KING HENRY VII.
South of the Tweed in the twenty-four years of Henry
VH.'s reign, from 1485 to 1509, the fields of Litera-
ture lay still bound by the long winter of a
H°'^" VII ^^^'^ yVax. The quarrels in a greedy family
had wasted England, but warmed no heart
with a touch of heavenly fire. Again I say that tlie best
Literature is born only of days in which men are touched to
their souls by care for something that calls forth their noblest
energies ; battle for freedom, battle of any kind for what
is deeply felt to be the right.
But while the ground lay fallow, its rest was not idle-
ness. The King who, ori the i8th of January, i486, joined
the Red and the White Rose by marriage with Elizabeth of
York, worked cautiously and shrewdly for the weakening
of feudal powers that made his great nobles dangerous
to his authority, and to the well-being of the middle class.
By prudent advances he broke down the organisation of
large bodies of retainers, who wore badges of the nobles
from whom they received maintenance and livery, because
these were as bands pf volunteers ready for strife, each at the
call of a chief's personal ambition. Henry VII. increased
royal revenues as much as possible at the expense of the
great nobles, and made it his constant, quiet labour to
underpin the foundations of a sunken monarchy. When
A.D. isoo.] Reign of Henry VII. 57
Lambert Simnel failed as a Pretender against him, Henry
forgave him, and established- him as turnspit in his kitchen.
When he was obliged to raise an army against France,
Henry made that a means of getting out of France a
handsome payment for not going on with a war he had no
mind to. His avarice came of his desire to support with a
full treasury the power of the Sovereign. It grew at last to
be a master-passion that destroyed the right balance of
mind in a cool, sensible, and not unkindly man.
The reign of Henry VII. was a time of preparation
for new harvest. The New Learning came in and was
spread over the ground. Its quickening power would be
known by the fruits yielded in a later season. Young
Thomas More, at the end of Henry VII.'s reign, was
ready to quit England, out of hope. Not many years after-
wards Greek Platonists, and seamen of Henry VII. and of
Ferdinand and Isabella, had caused the genius of Thomas
More to bring forth his " Utopia," that linked the newest
havings to the noblest hopes of men.
It is evidence of the weakness of our Literature under
Henry VII. that two foreigners, a Frenchman and an
Italian, Bernard Andr^ and Polydore Vergil,
would have been named by the King himself A°ndrf^
or by any Englishman if he had then been asked
who were the chief writers in England. Bernard Andre, the
bhnd scholar of Toulouse, whom the King entrusted with
the education of Arthur, Prince of Wales, and to whom we
now return,* was the first man whom an English King named
as his Poet Laureate. The payment made to him of a
hundred shillings every New Year was entered to the name
of " Master Barnard, the blind poet."
Bernard Andrd began in the year 1500 a .... r-f^
Life of Henry VII., in the title of which he also ?f Henry
styles himself Royal Historiographer : —
# "E. W."vii.,37.
58 English Writers. [a.d. 1500.
" Bernardi Andrea Tholosatis, Foetce Laureati, Regii
Historiographi, de Vita atque Gestis Henrici Septimi,
Anglioe ac Francix Regis Regum Foientissiftii Sapientis-
simique, Historia."*
This history, which has many omissions, ends with the close of the
story of Perkin Warbeck. It is well stuffed with the rhetoric of praise,
but has the very great advantage of being a record of the reign written
within the reign, by an able man, who could not help reflecting much
of the opinion and feeling of the day. Andre begins with the King's
descent on the father's side from Cadwallader, and on the mother's side
from royal blood of France ; and it may be said in passing that the
quick wit of the Tudors owes more than a little to the fact that Henry
the Seventh's father was son to the Welshman Owen Tudor, who
married the French Princess Katherine, widow of King Henry V. We
owe very much in England to Teutonic intermarriage with the Celt,
and so it is that to the Celt we owe the spirit of the Tudors. The son
of Owen and Katherine, Edmund Tudor, was on neither side a Teuton,
and all the English blood in Henry VH. came from his mother, Mar-
garet Beaufort, daughter to John first Duke of Somerset, great grand-
daughter to John of Gaunt through Chaucer's sister-in-law, Catherine
Swynford. That was the Lady Margaret, the King's mother, the
patron of sound literature and best friend to high endeavour in her day.
But we owe much as a people to the Welsh blood in the Tudors.
From the King's pedigree, Bernard Andr^ in his History of Henry
VII., passes on to his birth and early education, the troubled state of
England in his youth, his mother's care for him, and her speech to the
Earl of Pembroke, her late husband's brother, suggesting reasons why
the youth should be sent abroad. The Earl of Pembroke's assenting
reply next follows, and Henry is sent to Brittany, where his friendly
reception is expressed by a speech from the Duke of Brittany. Then
Bernard Andre pauses to tell of the rise and growth of the Wars of the
Roses, of the cruel death of King Henry VI., over which he pours
lament, headed Auctoris lacrymosa exclamatio, and he puts into the
King's mouth a last prayer.
* Published in 1858, With other writings relative to the same reign,
as " Memorials of King Henry VII.," edited by James Gairdner, in the
series of Chronicles and Memorials, issued under the direction of the
Master of the Rolls. In this volume, with its Introduction, and in
the Life of Henry VII., written by Mr. James Gairdner himself in
1890 for the " Twelve English Statesmen " series, the beginning of the
Tudor period can best be studied.
A.D. isoo.] South of the Tweed. 59
Bernard Andre then goes on to tell of the calamities that fol-
lowed ; of the evil reign of Richard III. ; Henry's escape from
Brittany ; help given him by Charles VIII. of France ; and when
he embarks for England, his mind is expressed by putting into
his mouth a prayer before embarking, and an address also to his
soldiers. The soldiers call upon the Earl of Oxford to reply for them,
and he, therefore, makes a speech. When they are landed in England,
there is another oration from Richmond, followed by a speech from
Richard III., which pictures his exasperation. When the Battle of
Bosworth has to be described, the eye, says Bernard Andre, discerns
such things better than the ear, and I am blind. Till I am better
instructed, I leave here the battlefield upon my paper, in plain white.
He leaves accordingly a page and a half blank. (Would that some
later historians had been as considerate in this matter of battles !)
Bernard Andr^ proceeds to set forth, after the victory, the Earl of
Richmond's thanksgiving to God. He is made King, is crowned in
London, and Bernard now himself expatiates in sapphic verse upon the
victory.* After some notes on the honours of the coronation, Bernard
Andre proceeds to the King's marriage, and sets forth the piety of
Edward the Fourth's daughter Elizabeth, her joy at H-enry's victory, his
marriage to her, and the birth of Prince Arthur. Here Andr^ inserts
lyric verses of his own in fortunate prognostication, with 6ve-and-thirty
lines from a long poem of his upon Prince Arthur's birth. The poem
includes a few borrowings from Tibullus. Prince Arthur's precocity is
next set forth, and his creation in 1489 as Prince of Wales. Then
follow the blind Court Poet's hexameters and sapphics upon the theme
of this creation. Bernard tells next how the Pope sent to Henry VII.
the Sword of Justice and the Cap of Maintenance, and of foreign
ambassadors who brought congratulations. This is followed by brief
reference to the rebellion in the North, that introduces Bernard's poem
in sapphic verse upon the murder of the Earl of Northumberland,
subject also of one of the first poems of John Skelton. The gist of this
. poem is still praise of the King, who is subduing discords.f Then
* This is the first of its nine stanzas :
" Musa prseclaros age die triumphos
Regis Henrici decus ac trophseum
Septimi, lentis fidibus canora
Die age, Clio."
t " Lauriger princeps, placidusque, mitis,
Hoslicos omnes reprimit furores,
Ut diuturna liceat Britannis
Vivere pace. "
6o English Writers. [a.d.isoo
follow the Irish difficulties, with the imposture of Lambert Simnel ;
Henry's speech to his soldiers ; the subduing of the rebels ; and the
blind poet's verses of congratulation on the victory.
A crusade is proclaimed by the Pope, and Bernard Andr^ sets
down twenty lines of verse that he produced extempore upon the
coming of the Legate. An Ambassador from France seeks peace,
and there comes an Embassy from Maximilian. Births of two more
children are recorded, Prince Henry and the Princess Margaret. Then
France is invaded. Henry makes a speech. Siege is set to Boulogne,
and agreement made as to the consideration given for Henry's staying
of the action. Then follow three short poems and a long one, with
some rhetoric in prose, upon the return from France of the most
victorious King, interspersed in the Usual manner with speeches.
We are made also to hear speech of Margaret of Burgundy, of
Perkin Warbeck, of the King, and even of Perkin's distressed wife,
who, after Perkin has confessed his imposture, comes to the King
weeping. Henry addresses to her a consoling speech, and then she
relieves her mind with a good round scold at her husband : " O per-
fidissime hominum ... O me miseram . . . Scelestissime
. . . Sceleratissime. "
In the Preface to this fragment of elaborated history,
Bernard Andr^ spoke of his intention to produce every
year a piece of literature for the King ; and he
probably did justify his title of Royal Historio-
grapher vfith a yearly record of events in the King's reign.
Unique copies remain of Annals that were written by
Andrd for the twentieth and twenty-third years of Henry
VII.'s reign (1504-5 and 1507), and for the years 1515
and 1521 in the reign of Henry VH I., soon after which
last date Andr^ seems to have died. The "Annals" for
1507, preceded by French verses to the King, were written
during the year, not at the close of it, and the value of
these four detached records gives us reason to regret the
twelve or thirteen that appear to have been lost.*
* James . Gairdner, in his Preface to the " Memorials of King
Henry VH.," very happily illustrates the advantage of direct refer-
ence to Bernard Andr^. Bacon, in writing his " Life of Henry VIL,"
T0A.D.IS21.] Bernard Andr&. 6i
Bernard Andre wrote also, about the year 14.97, ^^
Court Poet and Historiographer, a poem in jjercuies
Frencb, which set forth Henry vii.
The Twelve Triumphs of Henry VII.
as parallel to the Twelve Labours of Hercules." Juno instigated King
Eurystheus to impose his labours upon Hercules. Who is Juno? She
is the Dowager of Flanders, who instigated one who calls himself
.' ' King of the Romans " (I know not if he be so) to destroy this good
King. Him I mean for Eurystheus. (i) Hercules fought with the lion
of CleonK, and wore his hide. That was Charles VIII. (clearly sug-
gested, but not named, by the blind French poet), and the hide worn
was the wealth taken of him. (2) Hercules killed the Hydra : Henry
used Speed's History, and Speed used Andre. Bacon wrote that, after
Eosworth, Henry entered London, "himself not being on horse-
back or on any open chair or throne, but in a. close chariot, as
one that, having been sometimes an enemy to the whole state, and a
proscribed person, chose rather to keep state, and strike u reverence
into people, than to fawn upon them." This stood in Speed : —
"Henry staid not in ceremonious greetings and popular acclamations,
which, it seems, he did purposely eschew ; for that, as Andreas saith,
he entered covertly, meaning belike, in a horse litter or close chariot. "
But when we read what " Andreas saith," we find that Speed has sim-
ply misread "Ijetanter," joyfully, into "latenter," secretly. Bernard
Andr^ had written that the King "Quo etiam die de hostibus trium-
pharet, urbem Londinum magna procerum comitate caterva Icetanter
ingressus est." Thus, with sententious dignity, a fiction takes its state
in history, its parentage a vagrant pair of vowels.
* " Les Douze Triomphes de Henry VII. Ensuivent dome Gestes
que Herculles fist en son temps, figurees sus douze Triumphes que a
faictes tres-illustre et puissant Roy Henry VII. de ce noin, Roy
d'Anglelerre." This MS. is in the British Museum. Bibl. Reg. 16. E.
xvii. It is on paper of the same quarto size as that used for the
other v/orks of Bernard Andre, and the poem contains classical similes
• — as of Margaret of Burgundy to Juno, and of Henry VII. to Her-
cules struggling vifith Envy — that are used also in Andre's " Life of
Henry VII." The three unique MSS. of Bernard Andre's "History of
Henry VII. " and " Annals " are all in the Cotton Collection. The
History is in Domitian xviii., the Annals are in Julius A iii. and iv.
62 English Writers. [a.d. 1497
destroyed the dissensions of great lords. (3) Hercules slew the wild
boar of Arcadia : Henry's wild boar was Richard HI. (4) Hercules
killed the stag Heripides with golden horns : to Henry this was the
Earl of Lincoln. (5) Hercules drove from Arcadia the great devour-
ing birds called the Stymphalides : Henry cleared England of
robbers, and put down piracy by sea. (6) Hercules overcame Mena-
lippe Queen of the Amazons, and took her girdle : that was the Dowager
of Flanders, who lost her girdle of strength when she squandered
money upon Perkin Warbeck. (7) Hercules overcame Diomedes, who
murdered passers-by and gave them to his horses to eat : Martin Swart
threatened to kill all who were on Henry's side, but he and his people
were cut to pieces. (8) The great bull who was subdued by Hercules
is paralleled by Henry's success in taming the King of Scotland. (9)
The triumph of Hercules over the three-headed Geiryon is paralleled
with Henry's triumph over the King of the Romans, the Archduke and
the Dowager. (10) The Cacus of the tenth exploit is Perkin War-
beck. (11) Perkin's three captains make up the three-headed Cer-
berus of the eleventh Labour, and (12) the last was the overcoming of
the dragon Maxille — Maximilian — who barred the way to the Gardens
of the Hesperides — that is to say, who stopped the course of trade.
Then follows the story of the shirt of Nessus, and the miserable end of
Hercules. Did he deserve it? Yes. Hercules broke his marriage
vow, wherefore his glory must be less than that of our good King. So
the piece ends with the praise of a greater than Hercules, Henry VII.,
who hates vice and loves virtue. " Ilveult user de noble et bonne vie."
If we turn now from the Frenchman who was Henry
VII.'s Poet Laureate — the Laureate throughout his reign
— we find as high in esteem among contem-
vlreu"'^^ porary writers in this country the Italian Poly-
dore Vergil. Born at Urbino, about 1470,
or a few years later, in his earlier life he taught Litera-
ture at Bologna. He was stirred by the new enthusiasm
that had led to a revival of scholarship, and acquired
foi himself a Latin style by which he was distinguished
honourably among Latin writers of his day. Erasmus, not
very much his senior, was among his friends. While still in
Italy, Polydore Vergil published- in Latin, in 1498, with a
Dedication to Guido Ubaldi, Duke of Urbino, a collection
TO A.D. 1499.] PoLYDORE Vergil. 63
of pithy sayings, classical and scriptural. Each Adage had
a short added comment to set forth its origin, explain any
allusion in it, and make its intention clear. The phrases
were well chosen, the glosses not too long and written
pleasantly, the wit and wisdom in the Bible was well
represented, and the book found many readers.* This
was a new kind of book, and when Erasmus closely
followed him with a better volume of Adages, that claimed
also to be first of its kind, Polydore Vergil missed due re-
cognition of his own. He said so in the Preface to his next
book, on the' Inventors of Things, first published in 1499,
but he bore none of the ill-will that critics have supposed.
At the suggestion of Erasmus, he did not reprint the passage
of complaint, and he referred afterwards to the matter with
a kindly courtesy. When Erasmus was about to print his
Adages, Polydore had, in playful talk over dinner, told him
he was a rival. This Erasmus had forgotten, when he thought
himself first in the field. So trivial a matter could not
touch his feeling towards a friend, of whose genius Polydore
then gives the most ungrudging recognition.! The notion
of a book of Adages had, in fact, occurred to each man
separately, and in the mind of each there was the sense
of having entered on new ground.
Polydore's second book dealt in another way with
wit of men, and was not less successful. The work, as first
issued, was in three books, and so remained through the
^ first four editions,! but five books were added in the fifth
* The first edition of Polydore Vergil's " Adagiorum Opus" was
printed at Venice in 1498, and its second edition was printed, also
at Venice, in 1506. It was published again at Basel in 1 52 1, and
again in 1541.
t See in Bayle's Dictionary the note L to the article on Polydore
Vergil, giving the passage from Polydore's letter to Dr. Richard Pace,
in dedication to him of the Basel, 1521, edition of the Adagia.
t Venice, 1499, 1533; Strasbiirg, 1509, 1512, all 4to.
64 English Writers. [a.d. 1499
edition, published at Basel in 15 17. Polydore, then
resident in England, dedicated the eight books of his
history of Inventors of Things to his brother, Giovanni
Matteo, who practised physic at Ferrara, and taught logic
there, but afterwards became Professor of Philosophy at
Padua. Polydore rightly included the ancients among the
inventors of some customs associated by the Church with
Christian festivals. For this reason his book of Inventors
was put into the Expurgatory Index, without prejudice to
the author's character. Many years afterwards, in 1576,
Pope Gregory XIII. brought it again into free circulation by
printing a new edition with the passages omitted which the
Church condemned. Polydore's reputation stood so high,
for his good sense, and good Latin, and the pleasant matter
of his books, that when Pope Alexander VI. sent him to
England as collector of the Peter's Pence — he was the last
who held that office for the Pope — he came as a famous
Italian, and was cordially received by Henry VII., and
by the best scholars in England. Good-will increased.
Polydore Vergil obtained the Rectory of Church Langton
in Leicestershire, and resolved to make England his home
for life. The Bishop of Wells, Adrian Costello, was one
of the Italians to whom the Pope gave Church incomes
in England. That Bishop of Wells, being a kinsman of
Polydore's, presented him, in 1507, to the Wells <Arch-
deaconry. He obtained nearly at the same time the
Prebends of Nonnington in the Church .of Hereford, and^
Scamelsby in the Church of Lincoln, which latter prefer-^
ment he resigned in 1513 for the Prebend of Oxgate in St.
Paul's.
Polydore Vergil wrote in Latin a " History of England "
— "Anglicce Historiie, Libri 26" — which ends with the
Polydore ^"'^ °^ ^^ ^^'^1 of Henry VII., and is a chief
"Hfltor ■' ■^''"^^^ '° ^^ events that happened in that
reign. Bernard Andr^, the companion autho-
TO A.D. 1534.] PoLYDORE Vergil. 65
rity, wrote within the reign itself; Polydore Vergil lived in
the reign, but wrote his History some years after Henry
VII.'s death. His published writings belong to the
early part of his life — the time when he had not yet left
Italy — and to the latter part of his life in England, when
Henry VIH. was King. But, under Henry VUL, our
national life was astir, and Polydore Vergil's was the last
piece of sustained national history written in Latin. Had
the writer been an Englishman, that also would have been
in English. It was undertaken in the year 1521 at the
command of Henry VIII., on the suggestion of Richard
Fox, Bishop of Winchester. All public archives were
thrown open to Polydore Vergil, who spent twelve years on
the production of his History. It was first published in
folio, printed by Simon Grynseus, at Basel, in 1534. Two
years later there was a second edition, with corrections.*
It was well and fairly written, though, among the contests
against Rome that became loud after the time of its pub-
lication, the old-fashioned orthodoxy of a scholarly Italian
gave occasion for attack. The new learning had taught him to
look with calm philosophy, but not yet with reforming zeal,
upon the Church system in which he had been bred. He
desired a married clergy, and disliked worship of images ;
but he was a priest of Rome. He was not fair to Pro-
testants, said some. Dr. Caius, writing upon the antiquities
of Cambridge University, went so far as to say that Poly-
dore Vergil, having free access to all records, burnt a
waggon-load of manuscripts to prevent detection of his
errors. Statements of that kind serve for the evidence of feel-
ing, not of fact. Polydore Vergil's "History of England '' is
now valued not only for the light it throws upon the reign of
Henry VII. It fills a gap of seventy years with trustworthy
• It was again reprinted at Basel in 1556 and 1570, and by Ant.
Thysius at Leyden in 1649 and 1651.
F— VOL. VII.
66 English IVritehs. tA.o. 1484
detail, and it is especially good for the times of Edward IV.
and Richard III.
In 1526 Polydore published a treatise {" JDe Frodigiis")
in which his good sense was opposed to superstitions
common in his day. In the course of the pre-
Wrkings. face to this book he said, " Armed with the doc-
trine of Christ, I have confidently entered the
lists with the soothsayers, wizards, and fortune-tellers,
whom, together with their pernicious arts, you may now see
weakened — or, rather, entirely destroyed — by reasons partly
natural, partly theological." In this piece he dwelt sensibly
upon the natural causes of imagined prodigies.*
Polydore Vergil wrote also short Latin dialogues upon
"Patience and its Fruit," in two books; then, giving to Patience
her perfect work, he wrote upon " The Perfect Life," and
upon "Truth" and "Falsehood," each in one book; also a
short commentary on the Lord's Prayer — "In Dominicam
Precem Commentariolus." The speakers in the dialogue on
" Truth and Falsehood " were the author and Dr. Henry
Cole, who is described as Warden of New College, Oxford.
The piece, therefore, was not written before 1542, when
Cole was appointed to that office. Polydore Vergil had
also edited, with a dedication to his friend Erasmus, the
Greek text of Chrysostom's comparison between a bad king
with his wealth and power, and a monk obedient to the most
true philosophy of Christ. It was printed after a Basel
edition of the "Adages" in 1541; but the dedication is
dated the 3rd of August, 1528, and in it Polydore Vergil
* Polydore Vergil's " £)e Piodigiis" was twice reprinted at Basel in
1531 and 1545, was translated into French by George de la Bouthiire,
and published at Lyons in 1555. There was an edition of it from the
Elzevir press at Amsterdam, together with the " De Inventoribus," in
1671. The " De Inventoribus " was translated into French by Belle-
forest (Paris : 1576 and 1582).
+ These were iirst printed at the end of the book on Prodigies in
the Basel edition of 1545.
TOA.D. I55S] POLYDORE VeRGIL. JoHN FiSHER. 67
tells Erasmus that he has returned lately to his Greek
studies, which had been interrupted by the work upon his
" History of England."
In 1550, when he had lived forty years in England,
Polydore went back, in his old age, to die where he was
born. For the service he had done in the writing of his
" History of England," he was allowed to retain the Arch-
deaconry of Wells and the Prebend of Nonnington. He is
said to have died at Urbino in some year not later than 1555-
I have continued to their end the record of the work of
Polydore Vergil, Linacre, and others who represent in
Henry Vni.,'s reign the survival of preceding move-
ments. I bring only to the close of the reign of Henry
Vil., the record of the rise of men who, in Henry VIH.'s
time, show how those movements — like forces of physical
nature that turn motion to heat, and heat to light —
changed their form, and therewith changed the spirit of
society.
John Fisher, born at Beverley, in Yorkshire, about the
year 1460, was the son of a rich mercer who died when his
two boys — John, the elder, and Robert, the
• n 1 -1 1 ml • 1 John Fisher.
younger — -were still children. Their mother
married again. The boys were first educated by a priest of
Beverley Church. John showed special ability, and was
sent in 1484 to Cambridge. He graduated in 1488 and
1491, became a Fellow of his College, Michael House, and
Master of Michael- House in 1495. It was about this time
that he took holy orders. In 1501 he took the degree of
Doctor of Divinity, and he served afterwards for two years
as Vice-Chancellor of the University. The reputation of
Dr. John Fisher caused Margaret, Countess of Richmond,
mother of Henry VII., to draw him into her service. As
her chaplain and confessor, he obtained her complete con-
fidence, and used it, to the best of his knowledge, for the
advancement of religion and learning. He caused her to
68 English Writers. [a-d- '504
found two colleges at Cambridge — Christ's, completed under
his care in 1505, and St. John's, finished in 1515 — and also
the chair still known as the Lady Margaret's Professorship of
Divinity, which he himself held for a time. She founded
also, at his suggestion, the Lady Margaret's Preachership to
strengthen a religious faith and life among the people by
sermons to them in English. His funeral sermon on the
death of the good countess was printed by Wynken de
Worde, and has been more than once reprinted. In 1504,
Henry VU., who trusted much in Fisher's piety and
wisdom, made him, " for his great and singular virtues,"
Bishop of Rochester. The University of Cambridge made
him in the same year its Chancellor. Between 1505 and
1508, Bishop Fisher was the head of Queen's College. He
invited Erasmus to Cambridge, offered him an appointment
as Lady Margaret's Divinity Professor, and supported him
in the endeavour to teach at Cambridge the Gfeek he had
learnt at Oxford. Erasmus persevered only for a few
months in the endeavour to form a Greek class. Failing
with the Grammar of Chrysoloras, he tried Theodore
Gaza's, and then left the labour to be T;ontinued by Dr.
Richard Croke. Even at Oxford the new study of Greek
was fighting its way slowly against strong opposition of
two parties : idlers who called themselves Trojans, and
who under leaders whom they called Priam and Hector
battled with the Greeks ; and the timidly reHgious men who
cried, " Beware of the Greeks, lest you be made a heretic."
There was called forth, indeed, a royal declaration that no
student of Greek should be molested ; and there was open
rebuke of some Court preachers who made bold, in the
King's presence, to denounce Greek in their sermons.
It was Fisher who preached at St. Paul's the funeral
sermon on the death of Henry VH.
John Colet,* become Doctor of Divinity at Oxford in
* " E. W." vii. 33, 34.
TO A.D. 1509.] Fisher. Colet. Wolse\ . 69
1504, was made, in May, 1505, Dean of St. Paul's. The
death of his father in the followina; October gave
, . . ^ , .' ^ ^ " , John Colet.
nim possession of a large private fortune, the
whole of which he set aside for doing good. He lived
simply upon his Church income, wore a plain black gown
instead of the rich robes of his office, and was the host of
Erasmus when he came to London. He had resigned his
Vicarage of Stepney a month before his father's death, and
had resigned some time earlier his Prebend of St. Martin's
le Grand. As Dean of St. Paul's, John Colet made inquiry
into Scripture an essential part of the Cathedral service ; he
preached generally in exposition of St. Paul's Epistles, his
favourite study. He was handsome, earnest, eloquent ; out-
spoken against corrupt lives of the clerg; , against the con-
fessional, image-worship, belief in purgatory, and thought-
less repetition of fixed quantities of prayer. The Bishop
of London would have brought him into trouble as a heretic
if he had not been protected by Archbishop Warham.
Thomas Wolsey was born in 1471, the son of a well-to-
do butcher at Ipswich. From Ipswich Grammar School he
went to Magdalen College, OjJford, and there
took his B.A. degree so early that he was called wo°i^y!
the Boy Bachelor. He became Fellow of Mag-
dalen, then Master of Magdalen School, where three sons of
the Marquis of Dorset were among his pupils. When the
sons went home for their Christmas holidays the master
was invited with them, and he was so much liked that, in
1500, the marquis gave him the Rectory of Lymington,
in Somersetshire. Wolsey then obtained the post of chap-
lain to Henry Dean, Morton's successor in the Arch-
bishopric of Canterbury, the prelate who, in November,
1501, married the Princess Katherine of Aragon to young
Arthur, Prince of Wales, four months before the boy's
death. Dr. Dean was Archbishop for only two years, and
died in February, 1503, not long after Wolsey had become
7o English Writers. [a.d. 1503
his chaplain. Wolsey next became one of the chaplains to
an old knight, Sir John Nephant, Governor of Calais, and
managed "all his affairs for him so well that when Sir John
was, at his own request, called home, he specially com-
mended Wolsey to the notice of the King, and procured for
him the post of a Court chaplain. Then Wolsey made
friends at Court, obtained employment on a foreign service?
and performed his duty with a rare despatch. The King
rewarded him, in 1508, with the .Deanery of Lincoln.
Meanwhile the people had their songs and stories by
the fireside, on the green, and at the Whitsun ales. De-
scendants, in this office, of the scop and glee-
leopfe"*^ '*'' man, using the rustic crowd or fiddle for a glee-
beam, preserved the memory of Chevy Chase
and multiplied the tales of Robin Hood.*
Wynken de Worde, born in Lorraine, came to England
with Caxton, and after Caxton's death, in or about the year
1491, succeeded him in his printing office, and styled him-
self printer to Margaret, Countess of Richmond. He settled
afterwards in Fleet Street, and lived until 1534. One of
Wynken de Worde's earliest publications was a collection
of Robin Hood ballads into a continuous set, called " A
Lytel Geste of Robyn Hode." In "The Vision of Piers
Plowman," Robin Hood is named as one who was already,
in the second half of the fourteenth century, a hero of
popular song. Sloth there says^
" I kan noght parfitly my Paternoster,
As the priest it syngeth ;
But I lean rymes of Robyn Hood,
And Randolph, ErI of Chestre."
We learn also from the "Paston Letters" that in Ed-
ward. IV. 's time Robin Hood was a hero of one of the
popular mummeries. So he remained. A sermon of
* "E, W."iii, 246—248.
TO A.D. 1509.] • SOITGS OF THE CoXJRT AND PEOPLE. 7 1
Latimer's shows with much emphasis the popularity of
country sports on. a Robin Hood's Day in the time of
Edward VI. There are manuscripts also of the ballads of
"Robin Hood and the Potter" and "Robin Hood and the
Monk," not older than the last years of the fifteenth century.
EngUsh Court Poetry of Henry VH.'s time is repre-
sented by Stephen Hawes, of whose life no more is known
than is told by Anthony k Wood,* who supposes
him to be of the Suffolk family of the Hawes of '^^^^l
Hawes in the Bushes, says that he was instructed
in all such literature as Oxford could in his time afford, but
that there was no register to show whether he took a degree.
He travelled afterwards through England, Scotland, and
France, and "visiting the receptacles of good letters, did
much advance the foundation of literature that he had laid
at the University, so that, after his return, he being esteemed
a, complete gentleman, a master of several languages, espe-
cially of the French, and, above all, for his most excellent
vein in poetry, he was received into the Court of King
Henry VII." The King, after a time, made him one of the
Grooms of his Chamber, and highly esteemed him "for his
facetious discourse and prodigious memory, which last did
evidently appear in this, that he could repeat by heart most
of our English poets, especially John Lydgate, monk of
Bury, whom he made equal in some respects with Geoffrey
.Chaucer."
In support of this record, evidence is found that, in 1502,
Stephen Hawes received, upon the death of Henry VH.'s
Queen, four yards of black cloth for mourning ; but, in
1509, he was not among those who received black cloth
for mourning on the death of King Henry himself. He
had received ten shillings from the King's private purse
"for a ballet that he gave to the Kinges grace." He wrote
verses to welcome Henry VIII. to the throne, and on the
» "Athens Oxoijienses," ed. 1691, vol, i., col. S»
72 English Writers. [a.d. 1505
6th of January, 152 1, there was among the Household Ac-
counts of Henry VIII. an "Item, to Mr. Hawse for his
play vj''- xiijs- iiij^" The will of a Stephen Hawes, most
likely the poet, whose property was in Aldborough, and who
left it to his wife, Katherine, was proved in the Arch-
deaconry Court of Suffolk on the i6th of January, 1523.
The poet was referred to as dead in a book published in
1530-*
" The Pastime of Pleasure," one of the two chief poems
of Stephen Hawes, and some other pieces by him, were
printed by Wynken de Worde at the time of the change of
reign in 1509. One of the pieces was "A JoyfuU Medy-
tacyon to All England," upon the accession of King Henry
VIII.; another was " The Conversyon of Swerers," to which
we shall presently return. Hawes's two chief poems, "The
Pastime of Pleasure," and a somewhat later poem, "The
Exemple of Vertue," which was first printed by Wynken
de Worde about 1512, have a distinct interest. They show
the manner of the gradual advance, from allegories based
upon the " Roman de la Rose," in the direction of " The
Faerie Queene." We find his love-poetry referred to as
that of " Young Stephen Hawes," and what little we know
of his early life allows us to think that in 1505-6, the twenty-
first year of the reign of Henry VII., in which Wynken de
Worde's edition tells us that he wrote " The Pastime of
Pleasure," his age was not yet thirty ; that he wrote little, if
anything, after the age of thirty-five, spent his last years
quietly at home in Suffolk, and died when he was about
forty-six years old. As a poet, Stephen Hawes in the open-
ing of " The Pastime of Pleasure " especially looks up to
Lydgate as his master. He wrote in the Troilus verse
which Chaucer had given to English literature as a measure
* Thomas Felde's "Conversation between a Lover and a Jay."
He is referred to as " Young Stephen Hawes," and as having " treated
of love so clerkly and so well."
TO A.D. 1523.] Stephen Hawes. 73
of its own, to take the place of Italian ottave rime. In his
treatment of allegory, Hawes was more influenced by the
French than by the Italian poets. How far he himself failed
in the music of his lines, how far their music has been
destroyed by errors of the scribe and of the printer, cannot
be determined. Sometimes a stanza runs clear music from
first to last, sometimes with help of final e used at discre-
tion, adaptation of accent, slurring one syllable here on good
phonetic grounds, and creating there another with a well-
rolled r, or self-suflficient y, lame lines can be miraculously
healed ; but, still, there remains, especially in Wynken de
Worde's printing of "The Exemple of Vertue,"much defect to
be ascribed to copyist and press reader, and let us say also
to the poet's ear. Other parts of a true poet, in the care
spent mainly on essentials of life, in choice and treatment of
his fable, Stephen Hawes had ; but if he wrote his lines as they
are printed, he was not skilled in the mechanism of his art.
He was held by the ears when he was dipped in Helicon.
The whole conception of " The Pastime of Pleasure " is a
poet's allegory of the course of life.
Tht " History of- Graund Amours and La Bel Pucell, called The
Pastime of Pleasurt, Conteyning tha Knowledge of the Seven
Sciences and the Course of Man's Life in this World!'
Graund Amoure passed through the fair meadow of Youth, and
then came to the choice between two highways of life, the way of
Contemplation — that was life in a religious^ order — and the way of
Active Life. He took the way of Active Life, met Fame with her two
greyhounds, Grace apd Governaunce, who told him of La Bel Pucell,
in whom Hawes represented the true aim of life, only attainable through
many labours. Then he first visited the Tower of Doctrine, and was
introduced to her seven daughters. These were the seven sciences,
arranged of old into three, Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, forming what
was called the " Trivium ; " and four. Arithmetic, Music, Geometry,
Astronomy, which formed the " Quadrivium. " When, in his intro-
duction to these seven daughters of Doctrine, Graund Amoure had
advanced to Music, he found her playing on an organ in her tower,
74 English Writers. [a.d. 1505
and it was then that he first saw his ideal, La Bel Pucell. He told
his love to her, and danced with her to sweet harmony. This means
that the youth who has advanced far enough in the pursuit of know-
ledge to have ears for the grand harmonies of life, is for a time brought
face to face with the bright ideal to be sought through years of forward
battle.
La Bel Pucell went to her distant home ; and Graund Amoure,
after receiving counsel from Geometry and Astronomy, proceeded to the
Castle of Chivalry, prayed in the Temple of Mars, within which was
Fortune at her wheel, and on his way to the Temple of Venus met
Godfrey Gobilive, who spoke ill of women. This part is in couplets.
They went to the Temple of Venus ; but Godfrey was overtaken by a
lady named Correction, with a knotted whip, who said that he was
False Report, escaped in disguise from his prison in the Tower of
Chastity. To that Tower the lady Correction introduced Graund
Amoure. As the adventurer proceeded on his way he fought a giant
with three heads, named Falsehood, Imagination, Perjury, and cut his
heads off with the sword Claraprudence. Then he proceeded through
other adventures, which carried on the allegory of steadfast endeavour
till Graund Amoure saw the stately palace of La Bel Pucell upon an
island beyond a stormy ocean. After the water has been crossed, there
was still to be quelled a monster against which Graund Amoure could
only defend himself by anointing his sword with the ointment of Pallas.
The last victory achieved, Graund Amoure was received into the palace
by Peace, Mercy, Justice, Reason, Grace, and Memory ; and he was
married next morning to La Bel Pucell by Lex Ecclesias (Law of the
Church). After his happy years with her. Old Age came one day
into Graund Amoure's chamber, and struck Kim on the breast ; Policy
and Avarice came next. Graund Amoure became eager to heap up
riches. Death warned him that these must be left. After the warning,
Contrition and Conscience came to him before he died. Mercy and
Charity then buried him. Fame wrote his epitaph. Time and
Eternity pronounced the final exhortation of the poem.
Allegorical poetry of this kind, when put into dialogue
and spoken by persons dressed to represent the character of
Vice or Virtue in the story, became the Morality Play, also
popular in Henry VII.'s time, of which we shall have pre-
sently to speak. Poem and play differ only — one being
told, the other acted — in the method of expressing the same
TO A.D. isog.] Stephen Hawes. 75
form of thought. In Literature they are own brothers, alike
in ancestry.
Attention is due also in this poem to the manner of the
use of Chaucer's Riding Rhyme, those couplets, framed
for ease, that told how the Pilgrims rode to Canterbury. In
later years it will come to us from France stiff-jointed, and
be known as the heroic couplet until it regains a little of its
free step in its native air. In Henry VII. 's time, Chaucer's
stanza was the heroic measure of the English poets, and
when Stephen Hawes brought on the scene Godfrey
Gobilive, the mean slanderer of women, because he would
not let him speak heroically, Hawes changed the measure
to the Riding Rhyme. Godfrey talks thus : — •
" I did once woo an old^ maiden rich
A foul^ thief, an old^ withered witch,
' Fair^ maid,' I said, .' will^ ye me have ? '
' Nay, sir,* so God me keep and save !
For you are evil favoured and also ugly,
I am the worse to see your visnamy,'
Yet was she fouler many hundredfold
Than I myself, as ye may well behold."
In his other chief poem.
The Example of Virtue,
Stephen Hawes first remembers in a Prologue that the poets of old con-
trived books for the profit of humanity, and he, simple and rude, is
very blind in the poet's art, and is, therefore, laying it all aside, yet
will write something now to fulfil
" Saynt Powlfe word& and true sentement,
All that is written is to our document " —
to our instruction. Then, before he begins, Stephen Hawes invokes
the three who were in his time regarded as first masters of English
poetry —
* Na-y sirrah.
•j6 English Writers. [a.d. 1505
" O prudent Gower, in langag^ pure,
Without corrupcyon most facundyous,
O noble Chawser, euer moost sure,
Of frutfull sentence ryght delycious,
O vertuous Lydgat moche sentencyous,
Vnto you all6 I do me excuse
Though I your connynge now do vse."
The poem, like its Prologue, is in Chaucer stanza. In September,
astrologically signified, the poet was gone to bed for the night when
Morpheus invited him to walk in a fair meadow among trees and
flowers, where he met with a fair lady of middle stature, in a dress set
with pure pearls. When he asked her name, she said it was Dis-
cretion, whose companionship it was great pity for Youth to lack. If
he would be ruled by her, she would lead him to a blameless joy j and
she added a few counsels to that end. Here is again the flowery plain
of Youth, from which the poem proceeds to a new allegory of the course
of life. The poet then went to a haven-side, where he took ship with
Discretion across the troubled waters of Vainglory. The ship had
Good Comfort for its captain, and Fair Passport for its steersman. So
ends Capitulum I. The second of the fourteen chapters of the story
tells how the ship brought Youth and Discretion to an island, where
precious stones lay on the sands, diamonds grew on the rocks, the
earth, glistening with gold, bore flowers of sweet odour. Four ladies
rule over this island — -Dame Nature, shaper of all living things ; Dame
Fortune, tuner of the strings of life ; Dame'Courage, forming men for
praise and wealth ; Dame Wisdom, sister to Discretion, ever inclining
to benignity, and meddling not with fraud and subtilty. She maketh
many noble clerks, and ruleth them in all their works. These four
dwell together in a fair castle by a deep river, are unmatched in skill, and
questioning among one another which shall have prominence : a ques-
tion that they wait for Justice to decide.
In the third chapter, we learn how Discretion led the youth by a
frequented path to a valley, in which a castle shone with towers of
adamant and golden vanes ; and roebucks ran under the boughs of
trees, with hunters far behind. Youth and Discretion were admitted
by Humility into the castle ward, and passed into the hall, hung with
arras showing the story of Tiberius, who asked the prudent Losethus
why he kept the same servants so long about him, and was answered
with a parable. He who had swept away the flies which settled upon the
wounds of one who slept, was told when the sleeger awakened that he
bad not given the conjfort he intended, for be h^d driven away flies
TO A.D. 1509.] Stephen HawMs.
77
that were full and quiet, to make room for the hungry flies "that will
me bite ten times more grievously." At the upper end of the great
hall sat Fortune, richly jewelled, with the Nine Worthies about her,
among whom she turned her wheel, and sometimes frowning, some-
times smiling, gave great falls to many who had risen high upon it.
See, said Discretion to the youth, here is no stableness.
[Cap. IV.] Then they went to the habitude of Dame Courage
(Hardynes), who sate in coat armour on a chair of turquoise, with
flowers strewn around. Her shield bore a lion rampant on a field of
azure. Nine Queens were about her — Asia, Saba, Hippolyta, Hecuba,
Europa, Juno, Penthesilea, Helen, Polyxena. See, said Discretion
to the youth, the courage of all these yielded to Death.
[Cap. v.] Then they went to the dwelling-place of Dame Sapience
— Wisdom — built in the place of soothfastness without the taste of
worldly bitterness. She was so fair to look on that, were Virtue dead,
in her it should revive again, " She was so gentle, and without disdain."
Discretion bade Youth wait till she had spoken with her sister, who
said, "Welcome, Discretin, my sister dear. Where have ye been?"
" With Youth," she answered, " and I bring him here. For my sake,
take him into your train, and he shall do you goodly service." For
her sister's sake. Wisdom, Sapience, or Prudence took Youth into her
service, with counsel and command as to his duties, and with many a
" Wo worth " to the doers of false deeds. Youth remained long under
the teaching of Dame Sapience, in whose service Discretion bade him
be at no time slack.
[Cap. VI.] Then Discretion led Youth to the glorious mansion of
Dame Nature in a tower roofed with sunbeams. When Youth ad-
mired her loveliness. Discretion led him to a place whence he could
see her back, where a doleful image of Death quenched all the beauty.
Then Discretion led Youth into a fair chamber wrought with fine
geometry, where they were alone till Justice entered and went up to
her high seat. Then Nature, Fortune,- Courage, and Wisdom came
before Justice, each to plead for the pre-eminence.
[Cap. VII.] Said Courage : Without me man cannot rise. Three
things are needful to a State — sword, law, and trade. Fear of ^ the
sword protects the other two. I gave to Hercules his power, to
Hector, and to David when he slew Goliath in his youth. I gave their
power and their praise to Ca;sar, Arthur, Charlemagne. When a man
seeks praise and honour, I give the chief help ; and ask of Justice the
pre-eminence.
Not so, said Wisdom, for without me Courage may not avail.
Foolhardiness breaks peace. Caesar was wise as bold, and owed his
78 English Writers. [a.d. 1505
power chiefly to his prudence. I, Wisdom, lead to Heaven, show
the way to peace by Christ. Courage is not the first thing even for a
knight ; six things are better. Prudence first ; then he must be loyal
to his sovereign ; liberal to the common ; strong to defend the right and
amend wrong ; merciful in all his deeds ; and an almsgiver to the poor.
I, Wisdom, am of the king's council, and I ask pre-eminence,
" For I'm most profitable unto man,
And ever have been since the world began."
Then Fortune said : What can ye either do. Courage or Wisdom,
without my good help F I rule men's lives. All wit is labour lost if
I oppose. Hercules Hector, were idolaters, and prayed to Fortune.
Why plead at length, following Wisdom's way? Justice, I am the
first.
But Nature then said, Nay, without me man is dead and turned to
clay. Though a man wanted Fortune, Wisdom, Courage, still he lives
on until my power ends.
" What were the world if I were not ?
It were soon done as I well wot."
Then Justice put aside the controversy, and bade all four of them
agree to unite in jurisdiction over the happiness of Man, and succour
him with loving heart and true affection. To this they all agreed,
and so the hearing ended, after which Justice retired into her close
chamber called Conscience.
[Cap. Vin.] Dame Wisdom remained behind with Discretion,
and suggested that Youth should be married to a lady of marvellous
beauty, daughter to a king. Her name was Cleanness — Purity. But
Youth could only win her if endued by Wisdom with the power
to eschew all frailty and vainglory, and if he had Discretion to lead
him on the way.
[Cap. IX.] Youth went then with Discretion out of the Castle into
a green where birds were making melody, and crossed a river, beyond
which was a long wide meadow. And beyond the meadow was a wilder-
ness, and it was dark ; for the sun had set and a black cloud shrouded
the moon, which was horned and entered in the sign of Capricorn.
Among thorns and wild beasts, they came to a pleasant arbour where
was a fresh lady riding on a goat, who tempted Youth now passing
through the perils and the darkness of the world. Discretion warned
the Youth, who had himself no will to lust, but kept his mind on fair
Dame Cleanness. Next they met an old and amiable lady seated in a
castle on an elephant's back. She held a gold cup set with pearls.
TO A.D. 1S09.] Stephen Hawes. 79
She said she was the Lady of Richesse, the Queen of Wealth and
Worldly Glory. She invited Youth to serve her, and be brought to
Vforship : but he had no mind to hunt in the Park of Pride, who is a
deadly foe to Cleanness. He will abide with Discretion, by whose
help he shall have possession of a heavenly kingdom. As they went on,
Discretion told him what would have befallen him if he had yielded to
the temptation of those two ladies. Sensuality and Pride. They went
on until Youth found that they were lost in a great maze, walking with
doubt, now here, now there, now round about. "Now," said Discre-
tion, "ye are in the business of worldly fashion" ; and they wandered
long in it till they met the glorious lady, Sapience. She would show
him the right way to Dame Cleanness. " Who had thought to find
you here ! " said Youth. "Yes," she replied, " I have been near you
often, and have been the cause of your good guidance."
[Cap. X.] With Wisdom and Discretion for guides, the poet came
to a river that had on the other side a royal castle, only to be reached
over the water by a little bridge not half so broad as a house-ridge.
Turning his eyes aside, he saw Dame Cleanness taking the air by the
river bank. He called to her, desired to come to her. She told him
that there was no way save by the bridge over the troublous water.
"That," said Sapience, "will not hinder him." "Then let him
come," said Cleanness, "and be you his guide, with Dame Discretion
on the other side, to hold him up from falling." By help of those
guides he crossed the bridge, and saw >i place where it was written
none might go over unless he were pure, and stedfast in his faith in God.
The kingdom thus reached was the kingdom of Great Grace, where
Cleanness lived with her father, the King of Love. The King of Love
was girt with two great willows, and was blind. He had two great
wings, a naked body, a dart in his right hand, a torch in his left, a
bottle hung about his neck, and he had one leg armed, one naked.
Wisdom explained that love was girdled with stability, winged as flying
to the person loved, naked as desiring not the outside accidents, with
one leg armed to defend right and amend the wrong, the other naked
to betoken charity.
[Cap. XL] Then the poet was brought by Sapience before that
mighty lord, and was told that, to win Cleanness, he must discomfit a
dragon with three heads who lay in a foul black marsh at the foot of
the way up a fair hill that leads to Heaven. The three heads of the
dragon were the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. Wisdom armed
the combatant with the whole armour of God, as set forth in St. Paul's
Epistle to the Ephesians (vi. 13-17). The Chaucer stanza changes
into couplets for the following description of it — -
8o English Writers. [a-d- 1505
" This is the armure for the soule
That in his epystole wrote saynt Poule ;
Good Hope thy legge barneys shall be
The habergyn of ryghtwysnes gyrde with chastyte.
Thy plackarde of besynes with braunches of almes dede,
Thy shelde of beleue and mekenes for the hede, .
Thy swerde shall be, the to defend,
The Worde of God the Deuyll to blende."
And this will be the armour afterwards of Spenser's Red Cross Knight,
who overcomes the dragon. Stephen Hawes's combatant, after a hard •
fight, obtains the victory ; I do not now call him Youth, because he has
spent some time among the temptations of life and in the maze of
worldly business. Wherefore the poet tells us that at the time of his
marriage with Dame Cleanness, he has reached the age pf sixty.'
[Cap. XII.] After the victory over the dragon, the good knight
returned to the Castle of Great Grace, where Love was King, and was
met there by Dame Perseverance, Faith, Charity, Prayer, Lowliness,
with the bride. Cleanness, who had Dame Grace to bear up her train.
Troth was then plighted, and Cleanness led her knight before her
father, who now gave him the name he had won, VjRTUE. Virtue and
Cleanness were to be married in three days. Virtue slept in a chamber
where a little dog lay, that barked if any came near who would make a
fray with Conscience. In the' morning he rose and called to him Dame
Sapience, and urged marriage without delay to Cleanness, whom he
found among her flowers, and who gave him the flower Margarite,
" Whiche is a flour ryght swete and precyous.
Indued with beaute and moche vertuous."
He kissed the daisy, and set it near his heart ; and when Virtue praised
the delights of the garden of Cleanness, she said that she had another
garden, which would belong to them both by inheritance, but that was
celestial. They went then to the King of Love, who said they should
be wedded on that day.
[Cap. XIII.] So they went into a glorious chapel roofed with
rubies and emeralds, where Virtue saw the Ark of God and Moses' rod ;
and Saint Austin, who. brought Christianity into England ; and the
Twelve Apostles ; and Saint Peter, in a rich cope, on the right of the
high altar. Then there gathered around Virtue and Cleanness the
ladies Prayer, Charity, Penitence, Humility, Faith, Righteousness,
Peace, Mercy, and Contrition. Then came Bede and Saint Gregory,
TO A.D. I509.) Stephen H AWES. 'Si
with Saint Ambrose, good protector of our faith. Then came the
King of Love, led now by Argus with his hundred eyes. Who loveth
Argus will devise or begin nothing unless he see good end. There
came also Saint Jerome, with four bishops, who waited on him ; and
Saint Jerome began the wedding ceremony with an address to the King
of Love. Virtue and Cleanness were arrayed in robes of silver, given
them by Dame Virginity. Saint Jerome spoke the marriage service,
and angels came down from high Heaven — Michael, Gabriel, and the
hierarchy —
" To help saynt Peter the masses to synge;
The organs went and the bellys dyd rynge. "
After the marriage there was a dinner, to which the bride was led by
Saint Edmund, King and Martyr, and Saint Edward, King and Con-
fessor. Two angels knelt to hold each corner of the tablecloth, and
Saint Peter served all of the body of our Lord, a feast most sweet and
precious to the soul. Then Virtue kissed his wife, and, being sixty
years old, grown a little weary of the world, he asked that he might see
her more glorious garden, and was to be taken to it by the angel
Raphael and a crowd of martyrs and confessors. He was shown first
the pains of Hell and the abode of those who had yielded to the lures
of Sensuality and Pride.
[Cap. XIV.] Then he returned to go with the King of Love, with
his wife, with the whole fair company, through the air, among the planets
and the stars, into the joy of Heaven, to be followed by all who love
Jesus truly. And now God keep King Henry and his mother, and
advance the union of the White Rose with the Red in all Cleanness and
Virtue ; and increase in rest and peace Prince Henry, the second
treasure of the land. Then the poet ends with invocation of the great
saints in his art, Gower, Chaucer, Lydgate, and since they cannot
help his rudeness, he will pray only to God to distil His dew upon the
dull rude brain, " and to enlumyn me with His sapyence." *
* This analysis is made from the yet unpublished sheets of Pro-
fessor Arber's edition of the poem, a transcript from the copy of
Wynken de Worde's edition, in the Pepysian Library at Oxford,
which has not until now been reprinted. Professor Arber's edition will
include " The Conversion of Swearers" and the "Joyful Meditation
on the Coronation of Henry VHL" Publication has been delayed by
engrossing labour on another undertaking which will be among the
chief of Professor Arber's many and great aids to the real study of
English Literature, now and hereafter.
G — VOL. VII.
82 English Writers. [a.d. 1505
The close shows that this piece, though printed later,
was written in the reign of Henry VII. in some one of its
last seven years after the death of Prince Arthur
The ,
Conversion in 1502. In Stephen Hawes's poem of "The
Convercyon of Swerers," also in Chaucer stanza
(except one passage of ingenuity in rhyme), Christ is sup-
posed to plead with men for whom He suffered pains of
death, against their daily rending of His tender body
'•' By cruell othes now vpon every side
About the worlde launcing my wbundes wide."
The passage of ingenious rh3'me is formed of triplets grow-
ing gradually from one-syllabled lines to six-syllabled, and
then as gradually diminishing to one-syllabled again. Each
triplet has a fourth line lilce-syllabled, and the fourth lines
rhyme together in pairs, thus : —
See
me
be >
kind,
Again .
my pain
retain
in mind,
My sweet blood
on the rood
did thee good
my brother.
My face right red,
Mine armes spread,
My woundes bled,
think none other.
Behold then my side —
and so forth. It is an early example in our literature of
some tricks in verse that afterwards grew popular.
Stephen Hawes in his "Joyful Meditation to aU England
TO A.D. 1509.] Stephen Hawes. Concetti. 83
on the Coronation of our Most Natural Sovereign, the
Lord King Henry VIII.," offers his little poem with a
Prologue, in which again he honours Lydgate, „ . , . „
and says that he himself never dwelt near the dilation on
laurel by the well of Helicon. He celebrates tion of Henry
VIII '*
the marriage with the Princess Katherine, admits
the avarice of Henry VII., but justifies it in him by good aim
and end. He prays for the late King's soul ; calls down the
good influences of the planets each in turn ; calls upon God
to save our Sovereign from all kirids of woe ; calls on the
Church to rejoice in a King who will increase its liberties ;
calls on the King, who looks to God, to be bold and glad in
the concord that shall bind him to his people, and in God's
power to defend the right. He invokes the grace of God
upon Queen Katherine and the Lady Mary, the King's sister.
He bids the King's officers remember the ill end of extor-
tion, and bids "England be true and lov6 well eche other."'
Let us obey our King and-the omnipotent God, Ruler of the
World, and He, the Sender of all good, will give us grace
to keep His commandments.
Meanwhile, Italian fine gentlemen had begun to affect
far-fetched conceits and ingenuities of speech. Lorenzo de'
Medici, who set forth Platonism in his Alter-
cazione, wrote love-sonnets and canzoni in a stvle F"!'-'' '"
■' Italy.
that would tell how the rays of love from the
eyes of his lady penetrated, through his eyes, the shadow of
his heart, like a ray of sun entering the dark beehive by its
fissure ; and how then, as the hive wakes, the bees ily, full
of new cares, hither and thither in the forest, sip at flowers,
fly out, return laden with odorous spoil, sting those who are
seen idle — so the spirits stir in his heart, fly out to seek the
light, &c. &c. But in those days Florence had other poets.
Luigi Pulci,* born in 1432, lived until 1490, cleverest of
three verse-writing brothers — Luigi, Bernardo, and Luca —
* "E. W."Intr. i. 31.
G 2
84 English Writers. [a. d. 1480
wrote in the fashionable strain of the flowing of the
river Lora in the Apennines into the Severus, in his
poem of "The Dryad of Love." The nymph Lora was
loved by the satyr Severus. Diana changed him to a stag,
then hunted him, and changed him into a river ; but the
loving nymph, changed also into a stream, ran to her union
with him. Luigi Pulci wrote also in a far different vein.
Vasco de Lobeira,* a Portuguese of Chaucer's time, who had
been knighted on the battle-field by the King John to whom
John of Gaunt married his daughter Philippa, died in 1403,
and had written towards the close of the fourteenth century
his "Amadis of Gaul," a long prose romance of original
invention, which, about 1503, was turned into Spanish by
Garcia Ordones de Montalvo, and established in Spain a
new form of knightly prose romance.
" Amadis " itself had and deserved more popularity thati
most of its successors. But impulse from Spain quickened
development in Italy of chivalrous "romance, and caused
Luigi Pulci to produce, in octave rhyme, a prelude of Italian
Charlerhagne poetry in the irreligious and half-mocking
" Morgante Maggiore," of which the first canto has been
translated into English by Lord Byron. Then it was also
that in Florence the pastoral strain, of which Boccaccio, in
his "Admetus," sounded the first note, was taken up by
Agnolo of Monte Pulciano. Agnolo, called Politianus —
Poliziano — was a marvellous young man of twenty when
Caxton finished the printing of his " Game and Play of
Chess." He was born in 1454, and had been educated at
the expense of Cosmo de' Medici. He studied Greek under
Andronicus of Thessalonica, Plato under Marsilius Eicinus,
Aristotle under Argyropoulos ; he became professor of Latin
and Greek at Florence, and was sought as a teacher even
by the pupils of Chalcondylas, for he was a poet as well as
scholar, and could put true life into his teaching. He was
• "E. W."vi. 82.
TO A.D. 1492.] Italian Romance and Pastoral. 85
but forty when he died, and among his poems he has left us
the pastoral tale of Orpheus, his " Orfeo," in terza rima, the
first pastoral in modern literature with a story in it. Niccolo
da Corfeggio called his " Cefalo," in octave rhyme, recited
at Ferrara in i486, also a story — "Favola" — and in the
following years others appeared as rustic comedies,
eclogues, or pastoral eclogues. When long, they were
divided into acts. And here we are at the source of the
taste for pastoral poetry which we shall find after some
years coming by way of France to England.
Lorenzo de' Medici died in 1492. During the latter
years of his rule, Matteo Maria Boiardo, Couat of Scan-
diano and Governor of Reggio, wrote that poem of
"Orlando Innamorato'' (Orlando Enamoured) which is of
most interest for its relation to the later work of Ariosto.
Boiardo died, sixty years old, in 1494, leaving his poem
unfinished in his own opinion, and by several cantos more
than finished in the opinion of others. This poem dealt
more seriously, if less cleverly, than Pulci's " Morgante "
with the Charlemagne romance. Boiardo set up Charle-
magne's nephew Roland, or Orlando, who was also Pulci's
hero, as true knight enamoured of a fascinating Angelica,
brought from the far East to sow dissension among the
Christians with whom infidel hosts were contending.
Boiardo was succeeded in his command of the fortress of
Reggio by Ariosto the father, and in his conduct of the
story of Orlando by Ariosto the son, who took up the tale
where Boiardo ought to have dropped it, not where he
actually did leave off.
John Skelton is the English poet of chief mark whose
name is associated with the reign of Henry VII. He was
born either in Cumberland or Norfolk, and not
before the year 1460 ; educated at Cambridge, |k''e"ton.
where he appears to have taken his degree of
M.A. in 1484, and to have written a poem " On the Death
86 English Writers. Ia.d. 1489
of King Edward IV." Like one of the old metrical trage-
dies of men fallen from high estate, it tells — the dead King
speaking — how the days of power, of wealth wrung from
the commonalty, of costly works under a rule pleasing to
some, to others displeasing, are at an end —
' ' Mercy I ask of my misdoing :
What availeth it, friends, to be my foe,
Sith I cannot resist nor amend your complaining ?
Quia, ecce, nunc in fulvere dormio."
The last line, suggesting royal pomp asleep in dust, is
the refrain to every stanza. In 1489 Skelton wrote, in
Chaucer stanza, an "Elegy "upon the Death of the Earl of
Northumberland," who was killed by an insurgent populace
in Yorkshire. In the following year, 1490, Caxton spoke
of John Skelton, in the preface to his " Eneydos,"* as
" Mayster John Skelton, late created poete laureate " in the
University of Oxford. Caxton prayed that Skelton, who
had translated Cicero's Letters and Diodorus Siculus and
divers other works from Latin into English, would cor-
rect any mistakes he found. Of Skelton's translations, and
of Skelton himself — then about thirty years old — Caxton
wrote in the same preface to " The Boke of Eneydos, com-
pyled by Vyrgyle," that he had translated from the Latin,
" not in rude and olde langage, but in polysshed and ornate
termes craftely, as he that hath redde Vyrgyle, Ovyde,
Tullye, and all the other noble poets and oratours, to me
unknowen. And also he hath redde the nine muses, and
understande theyr musicalle scyences, and to whom of
theym eche scyence is appropred. I suppose he hath
dronken of Elycon's well."
The degree of Poet Laureate was then a recognised
degree in grammar and ' rhetoric with versification. A
wreath of laurel was presented to each new "Poeta
* "E. W." vi. 335.
*o A.D. isoo.] John Skelton. 87
laureatus ; " and if this graduated grammarian obtained also
a licence to teach boys, he was publicly presented in the
Convocation House with a rod and ferule. If he served
a King, he might call himself the King's humble Poet
Laureate ; as John Kay, of whom no verse remains, was, as
far as we know, first to do, in calling himself Poet Laureate
to Edward IV. Before obtaining this degree the candidate
would be required to write a hundred Latin verses on the
glory of the University, or some other accepted subject.
John Skelton, Poet Laureate of Oxford in 1493, and also
of Louvain, was admitted to the same title at Cambridge
eleven years later. He had written a poem, now lost, on
the creation of Prince Arthur, Henry VII.'s eldest son, as
Prince of Wales, in 1489 ; and he wrote Latin verses, also
lost, on the creation of the infant Prince Henry as Duke of
York, in 1494. Skelton was in favour with Henry VII.,
and also with that King's mother, Margaret, Countess of
Richmond, and of Derby by her second marriage. The
Lady Margaret is remembered as a patroness of learning.
In 1498 Skelton took holy orders, and at this time he
was tutor to Prince Henry ; Bernard Andr^, Henry VII.'s
Poet Laureate, being tutor to Prince Arthur. As John
Skelton himself afterwards wrote —
" The honor of Englond I lernyd to spelle
In dygnite roialle that doth excelle :
# * * * # ' * #
It plesyth that noble prince royalle
Me as hys master for to calle
In his lernyng primordialle, "
He produced for his pupil a treatise, now lost, called the
Speculuvi Principis, the " Mirror of a Prince." At the end
of the century, when Prince Henry was nine years old,
Erasmus, in dedicating to the boy a Latin ode in " Praise
of Britain, King Henry VII., and the Royal Children," con-
gratulated him on being housed with Skelton, a special
88 English Writers. [a.d. 1500
light and ornament of British literature (" unum Britanni-
carum literarum lumen et decus "), who could not only
kindle his desire for study, but secure its consummation.
In the ode itself Erasmus again spoke of Skelton as Prince
Henry's guide to the sacred sources of learning.
It may have been during the latter part of Henry VII. 's
reign that Skelton produced his poem of
The Bowge of Court.
It was an allegorical court poem against court follies and vices, and the
Ship in it was perhaps built after the suggestion of Sebastian Brant,
who had but lately launched his famous " Narrenschiff. " Bowge
is the French bouche (the mouth) ; and bowge of court was the old
technical name for the right to feed at a king's table. Skelton here
told, in Chaucer stanza, how in autumn he thought of the craft of old
poets who
' ' Under as coverte termes as could be
Can touche a trouth, and cloke it subtylly
With fresshe utteraunce full sentencyously."
Weary with much thinking, he slept at the port of Harwich, in mine
host's house, called "Power's Quay;" and it seemed to him that he
saw sail into harbour a goodly ship, which cast anchor, and was
boarded by traders,' who found royal merchandise in her. The poet
also went on board, where he found no acquaintance, and there was
much noise, until one commanded all to' hold their peace, and said that
the ship was the Bowge of Court, owned by the Dame Saimce-pere
(Peerless) ; that her merchandise was called Favour, and who would
have it must pay dear. Then there was a press to see the fair lady,
who sat enthroned. Danger wa<^ her chief gentlewoman, and taunted
the poet for being over-bold in pressing forward. Danger asked him
his name, and he said it was Dread. Why did he come ? Forsooth,
to buy some of her ware. Danger then looked on him disdainfully ;
but another gentlewoman, named Desire, came to him and said,
" Brother, be bold. Press forward, and speak without any dread.
Who spares to speak will spare to speed." He was without friends,
he said, and poor. Desire gave him a jewel called " bonne aventure."
With that he could thrive ; but, above all things, he must be careful to
make a friend of Fortune, by whom the ship was steered. Merchants
then thronged, -suing to Fortune for her friendship. What would they
have? " And we asked favour, and favour she us gave." Thus ended
TO A.D. 1S09.] ToHN Skelton. 89
the prologue. Then Dread told how the sail was up, and Fortune
ruled the helm. Favour they had ; but under honey oft lies bitter gall.
There were seven subtle persons in the ship —
" The first was Favell, full of flatery,
With fables false that well coude fayne a tale ;
The seconde was Suspecte, which that dayly
Mysdempte eche man, with face deedly and pale ;
And Harry Hafter, that well coude picke a male ;
With other foure of theyr afiynite,
Dysdayne, Ryotte, Dyssymuler, Subtylte."
Harry Hafter in that stanza derives his name from the old . English
haftan (to lay fast hold of anything). These Seven Sins of the Court
had for their friend Fortune, who often danced with them ; but they
had no love for the new-comer, Dread. Favell cloaked his ill-will
with sugared speech. Dread thanked him, and was then addressed in
turn by the other vices, each in his own fashion ; and at last Dread, the
poet, was about to jump out of the ship to avoid being slain, when he
awoke, "caught penne and ynke, and wrote this lytyll boke."
But Skelton's fame does not rest upon good thought
put into this conventional disguise. He felt -mfCa the
people ; and in the reign of Henry VIH. we shall find him
speaking with them, and for them, by putting bold words of
his own upon the life of his own day into a form of verse
borrowed from nobody. This form of verse, which has
.been called Skeltonical, appeared in the delicately playful
" Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe," the lament of a ,^^ „ ^
simple-hearted maid, Jane Scrope, one of the ofPhiiip_
young ladies who were being educated by the
Black Nuns at Carow, near Norwich. Her grief was for
Philip, her pet sparrow, killed by a cat. The lament
ended with a Latin epitaph to the bird, and it was fol-
lowed by dainty commendations of its mistress. This
poem — suggested, no doubt, by the sparrow of Catullus —
was written by Skelton before the end of 1508, for it is
included among follies at the end of Barclay's "Ship of
Fools."
CHAPTER IV.
ALEXANDER BARCLAY AND "THE SHIP OF FOOLS."
ECLOGUE..
Alexander Barclay is a link between' the North and
South. He was, by residence, almost an Englishman, and
some have thought that he was altogether
Bircfay^'" English. It has been suggested, that he was
born in Devonshire, because his first prefer-
ment was at St. Mary Ottery. But writers of his own time
described him as a Scot,* with some occasional uncertainty,
due to the fact that he came early to England. He was
born about the year 1474. He speaks very distinctly of
having lived at Croydon in his youth,! and he probably took
* Bale, in his Summarium ol British writers, published in 1548,
called him " Scotus, rhetor ac poeta insignis." Holinshed called him a
Scot. Dr. William BuUein, in a " Dialogue against the Fever Pesti •
lence " (1564), said that he was "born beyond the cold river of
Tweed." Ritson, and Mr. David Irving, in his " History of Scottish
Poetry," considered him to be a Scot by birth. Both Christian and
surname are Scottish. It is also pointed out by Mr. T. H. Jamieson,
to whose study of Barclay in his valuable edition of Barclay's trans-
lation of "The Ship of Fools" (2 vols. 4to, Edinburgh, 1874) I am
much indebted, that the praise of James IV. of Scotland, introduced
into " The Ship of Fools," could only have been written by a man of
Scottish family. Again, though his vocabulary is much Anglicised,
there are Scotch words in it that an Englishman would hardly have
used.
t In his first Eclogue^ — "While I in youth in Croidon town did
dwell."
TO A.D. iso3.] Alexander Barclay. 91
the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Oxford or Cambridge,
although there is no clear record of his residence to be
found in either of those Universities. He never mentions
Oxford in his writings, but of Cambridge he tells in his
first Eclogue what "once in Cambridge I heard a scholar
say." -He speaks also of Trumpington as a. place he has
seen. His having obtained the degree of B.A. is inferred
only from the title of "Sir" prefixed to his name as a
translator of Sallust. In his wijl he styled himself Doctor
of Divinity. It is certain that he travelled abroad, in
France and Italy, and he may have graduated in a foreign
University. Among towns that he has seen he names in
his first Eclogue Berwick, Durham, Grantham, Bristol,
Totnes and Exeter in the West, Stow-in-the-Wold in the
East, and Dover in the South, with Rouen, Paris, and
Florence, over sea. Upon his return to England, Barclay
published anonymously his first work, a translation into
Chaucer stanza of Pierre Gi;ingoire's " Chiteau de Labour,"
wherein dwell Riches, Virtue, and Honour. The original
was published in 1499. Barclay's translation was first
printed by Wynken de Worde in 1506.
Barclay's first preferment was to the o'ffice of a chaplain
in the College of St. Mary Ottery, which had been founded
in 1335, by Bishop Grandisson, for forty members under
four officers : a warden, a minister, a precentor, and a
sacristan. There were eight minor canons, and the manor
and advowson of the parish church, bought by Grandisson
from the Chapter of Rouen, was part of the endowment of
the College. Thomas Cornish, Suffragan Bishop of Bath
and Wells, and Bishop of Tyne, was Warden of the College
of St. Mary Ottery from 1490 to 1511 ; he was also Provost
of Oriel from 1493 to 1507. To Cornish, as his chief at
St. Mary Ottery, where Barclay made, in 1508, his trans-
lation of Brant's "Ship ot Fools," that work was dedicated.
It was published by Richard Pynson, who finished printing
92 English Writers. La-d.»5o8
it on the 14th of December, 1509. Henry VII. had died
on the 21st of April in that year. Barclay's translation of
" The Ship of. Fools " was made, therefore, in St. Mary's
College, Ottery, at the close of Henry VII. 's reign, and
published in the first year of the reign of Henry VIII.
The " Narrenschiff," first published in 1494, had become
famous through Europe during the twelve years between its
first appearance and Barclay's work on it as a
of Fo'ois/'*' free-handed translator. Its author, Sebastian
Brant, was still living in 1508, and his work had
been made acceptable to all educated readers by a Latin
version of it as Navis StuUifera that had appeared in
1497. Sebastian Brant, born at Strasburg in 1458, went,
at the age of seventeen, to study at Basel, where he
graduated as Doctor of Laws, and became an academic
teacher. That was his position at Basel when he wrote
there his "Narrenschiff," in Swabian dialect, and published
it in 1494, at the age of six-and-thirty. The book was
enriched with woodcuts giving emblems of one hundred and ,
fourteen different sorts of fool, for which Brant himself
made, or suggested, all the drawings. His descriptions of
the fools were written in the iambic octosyllabic verse that
had become familiar to those who read romances.
Sebastian Brant had a loyal admiration for the Emperor
Maximilian. In July, 1499, the Battle of Dorneck separ-
ated Basel from the Empire. Brant therefore left Basel,
and went back to his native town. His book had made
him very famous. There were four editions of it in the
year of its first issue. Maximilian recognised Brant's
loyalty, and made him a State Councillor. Strasburg
honoured him with the office of Chancellor. He wrote ■
annals of the town,* and lived in honour till his death in
1521.
One sign of the strong local interest in Brant's book
* Burnt in 1870 at the Siege of Strasburg.
TO A.D. 1509.] Alexander Barclay. 93
was that his friend, Geiler von Kaisersberg, the chief
preacher in Strasburg, gave a hundred and ten sermons
upon it in the great church of the town. The book was
translated soon into Low German. From the Latin version
of it, by Jacob Locher, published in 1497, many could
translate who were unable to read German. It was turned
out of Latin into French by Pierre Rivifere, of Poictiers,
before Alexander Barclay made, the English version, of
which he says that he translated it " out of Laten, Frenche,
and Doche " (German) " into Englysshe tonge." Barclay
had probably the three forms of the book at hand in his
quiet room at St. Mary's Ottery, and may have " beheld
them lovingly,''* as Layamon did the three books out ot
which he made his " Brut ; " -but he looked most at the Latin.
The -spirit of Barclay's translation was that of the original
book, with free addition and unconscious adaptation to the
manners of a new nation of ireaders. Brant was a scholar ;
he was a German with strong national feeling, and he was
.very much in earnest about the essentials of life. As a
scholar he illustrated his " Fools " with many recollections 01
pertinent passages in the Bible, and in Seneca and other
Latins. Indeed, among his contributions to his friend
Locher's Latin version of his poem Brant speaks of the
original as if it had only been a mosaic of translation. But
it was much more than that. The fools, no doubt, we have
always with us. Their types are constant, and each of us
may be regarded, by his friends at least, as entitled to some
old familiar berth on board their ship. But the accidental
characters of each type vary a good deal with time and
country, and there may be great differences in the manner
of regarding folly. Brant's accidental characters are those
of Germany in his own time. Their Continental origin is
marked, for example, by distaste for the bold spirit of travel
and adventure which is a main feature of life among us
* "E. 'W."iii. 21!.
94 English Writers. [a.d, 1508
islanders, whose coasts bring us next door to all the nations.
It is the islander who mixes freely with the world ; the in-
lander is frontier-bound, beset with loads of earth at his
house-door. So the old German kept his own stove warm.
Sebastian Brant thought him a fool who did not stay at
home, mind his own business, and in a homely way, with-
out hurt to himself, do his duty to his neighbour and love
God. The whole body of Brant's conception of the folly
of the world was one with his conception of its evil. It
was unwisdom in the choice of the objects of desire, due to
a weakness of mind that fails in power of reasoning the
past into the present, and the present on into the future ;
fails also in calm power of distinguishing their real propor-
tions, among the thousand and one objects of wise and un-
wise desire. Then, being himself bookish, he began his
list of fools, near home, with a collector of books who takes
no wisdom from tHem, buys them, binds them, dusts them,
shows them to his learned friends, and finds only food for
covetousness when he should find Wisdom and get a trea-,
sure beyond all the treasures of the world. Brant was faith-
fully followed by Alexander Barclay in this purpose of giving
Wisdom a voice through his own book, that showed the
truer estimate of life in contrast with a hundred and more
of the chief forms of unwisdom in the world. Their world
was the world seen daily by the readers of the book. Every
suggestion of folly -touched upon some known form of
character. Thus there was clear advance, from a vague
moralising upon human conduct, towards that picturing of
life in action which became, not long afterwards, the sub-
stance of the drama.
Brant's notion of a " Ship " of Fools was derived from
the old carnival processions on Shrove Tuesday^ when
among the pageants drawn through the streets was some-
times a ship on wheels, manned with grotesque merry-
makers.
TO A.D. 1509.] Alexander BARCj^Ay. 95
T/ie Ship of Fools.
" To ship, gallants, the sea is at the full," says Barclay. The wind
calls us, our sails are spread. Where shall we land ? At Lynn or
Hull? No haven in England will deny us entrance. Our anchor's
up. Loosen and slip the ropes ! Look back upoji the crowd ashore
that would fain come on board. We have room for no more. Haul
up the boat ! God keep us from rocks, quicksands, and foul weather !
I steer the ship. Have no disdain, readers, though Barclay is the cap-
tain. He has been so long a scholar in so many schools that he well
may be Captain of a Ship of fools. Enough of that. Pardon my
youth and too bold enterprise, for hard it is duly to speak of every vice.
Had I a hundred tongues, all knowledge of the Seven Sciences, and
life to last till the world's end, I could not touch all the vices. Were
virtue in the place of vice, there Would be no fools in my ship. Who-
ever finds himself in this rude book, let him learn the way to amend-
ment. — There is a prose prologue partly translated from that prefixed
by Locher to the "Navis Stultifera." Readers are asked to pardon
Alexander de Barklay " if ignorance, negligence, or lack of wit cause
him to err in this translation. His purpose and singular desire is to
content your minds ; and soothly he hath taken upon him the trans-
lation of this present book neither for hope of reward nor laud of man,
but only for the wholesome instruction, commodity, and doctrine of
Wisdom, and to cleanse the vanity and madness of foolish people, of
whom over great number is in the Royalme of England."
Next follows the Prologue. This and the main part of the book is
written in . the seven-lined Chaucer stanza. There are a few lively
variations in the measure used for description of the fools, and the
" Envoys of Barclay " that append his counsel to each kind of fool are
written in the eight-lined Chant R'oyal (ababbcbc), specially used in
France for verse written to advance the glory of God. The world is ■
full of good doctrine, says the Prologue. It has the Bible, and books of
philosophy, of the liberal arts and moral virtues, yet Doctrine is
banished, Wisdom is exiled, Grace is decayed, Faith, Love, Pity are
defiled, and the World wanders in darkness —
" Honest manners now are reputed of no more.
Lawyers are lords, but Justice is rent and tore.
Or closed, like a monster, within doors three,
For without meed or money no man can her see."
Fools multiply without restraint. If a man have a great belly and
his coffers full, there is none held wiser between London and Hull.
1)6 English Writers. [a.d. 1508
I should want all the ships of all the lands to float them all. They run
to our ship, swim after it, row after it ; but the wind is up, the sea
swells, we are full laden, and set sail. We must not touch at London
on our voyage, in city or court ; but who will may read their faults
painted about our barge. No creature in this life is without spot,
unable to remember deeds of youth or age that give him sonve place in
our ship ; but if he repent and live in simpleness, he shall have no
place nor room more in our navy : but he who, though he be naught,
thinks of himself all's well, such shall in this barge bear a bauble and
bell. Here are men of all estates and ages — poor and rich, churls and
citizens — who hasten to leap aboard and bruise their shins. Children
with fathers who have not guided them aright, learned and unlearned
man, maid, child, and wife, may here see and read the lewdness of their
life. Here are prodigal gallants, movers of dissension, backbiters and
breakers of wedlock, proud men and covetous —
" It is but foly to rehers the names here
Of all such Poles, as in one shelde or targe,
Syns that they and foly dystynctly shal apere
On euery lefe in Pyctures fayre and large
To Barclay's study, and Pynson's cost and charge.
Wherfore, ye redars, pray that they both may be saued
Before God, syns they your folyes haue thus graued."
Three more stanzas enforce the intention of the book, and says the
author at last —
" If I halt in metre or err in eloquence
Or be too large in language, I pray you blame not me ;
For my matter is so bad it will none other be."
Then follows a prose explanation, setting forth that the book named
"The Ship of Fools of the World" was "translated out of Latin,
French, and Dutch into English, in the College of St. Mary Ottery, by
me, Alexander Barclay, to the felicity and most wholesome instruction
of mankind, the which containeth all such as wander from the way of
truth and from the open path of wholesome understanding and wisdom."
The book might, says Barclay, have been called the Satire — that is to
say, the Reprehension of Foolishness, but the novelty of the name was
more pleasant unto the first Author to call it "The Ship of Fools."
Let the translator be forgiven who has not translated word for word
according to the verses of his author. "For I have but only drawn
into our mother tongue in rude language the sentences " (thoughts) "of
TOA.D. isog.] Alexander Barclay. 97
the verses as near as the parcity of my wit will suffer me, some time
adding, some time detracting and taking away, such things as seemeth
to me necessary and superflue. Wherefore I desire of you readers
pardon of my presumptuous audacity, trusting that ye shall hold me
excused if ye consider the scarceness of my wit and my unexpert youth. I
have in many places overpassed divers poetical digressions and obscure-
ness of fables, and have concluded my work in rude language, as shall
appear in my translation. But the special cause that moveth me to
this business is to avoid the execrable inconveniences of idleness, which
(as Saint Bernard saith) is mother of all vices, and to the utter derision
of obstinate men delighting them in folly and misgovernance. But
because the name of this book seemeth to the reader to proceed of
derision, and by that mean that the substance thereof should not be
profitable, I will advertise you that this book is named the Ship of
Fools of the World, for this World is naught else but a tempestuous
sea in the which we daily wander and are cast in divers tribulations,
pains, and adversities, some by ignorance and some by wilfulness,
wherefore such doers are worthy to be called Fools, since they guide
them not by reason as creatures reasonable ought to do." Barclay adds
presently that, for the pleasure of lettered men, he has adjoined the
verses of his author with divers coiicordances out of the Bible, to fortify
his writing by the same.
Then the gieat company of Fools of the World begins to pass before
us. First comes the Fool of Books, who collects them, values them as
curiosities, and takes no wisdom by them. "All is in them, and
nothing in my mind. " But the greatest fools are first to get promotion,
and the clerk who is firm and diligent in study of the Bible, and
preaches Christ's love without favour, is shent by the commonalty
" and by Estates thretened to Pryson oft therefore." Next come the
evil counsellor, judges and men of law who by favour or rigour con-
demn the guiltless and take bribes to favour the transgressor. They
are represented by a picture of the fools who try to boil a live sow in a
pan. The Fools of Avarice and Prodigality are set in the topcastle of
the ship, for he who lies on the ground content with enough is surer
than he who lies on high, "now up, now down, unsure as a balance."
Crassus was brought to his end by covetousness. Crates the Philo-
sopher so blamed it that iie threw all his treasure into the sea, "to
have his mind unto his study free." " Fools of new fashions and dis-
guised garments " follow ntxt. They are represented in Bra,nt's pic-
ture by an old fool admiring his clothes in a hand-mirror, from which a
youth, whom his example has perverted, is eager to see himself also
reflected. There is lament for the past days "when men with honest
H — VOL. VII.
gS English Writers. [a.d. 1508
ray could hold themselves content," wore beards down to the breast,
strove who should be most cleanly, godly, honest and discreet —
" But nowadays together we contend and strive
Who may be gayest, and newest ways contrive."
Then follow the Old Fools who, the longer they live, are more given to
folly, represented in Brant's woodcut by an old man in a fool's cap,
with vacant face, a staff in each hand, one foot in his grave. "I am a
fool, and glad am of that name, desiring laud for each ungracious deed."
Shakespeare afterwards showed him to us in Justice Shallow. The
next fool in the list is the Negligent Father, represented in the woodcut
with a bandage on his eyes while his boys gamble and dispute with
daggers in their hands. Philip gave to his son, Alexander, the wisest
teacher he could find in all the world, and Aristotle, the disciple of
Plato, enabled Alexander to be lord of land and sea. The next set of
fools are the talebearers, false reporters and promoters of strife, who
seek promotion by their evil ways, but find confusion in the end, and
put their legs to grind between two millstones, the fate represented in
the woodcut which Sebastian Brant designed to be their emblem. Then
come in succession the fools who will not follow good counsel, those of
disordered and ungodly manners, pictured by a foolish youth trailing
his bauble. The next set of fools are those who break friendship.
It is in the one stanza of "Envoy" to these fools that Barclay for the
first time varies from the Chaucer stanza by using the chant royal.
Then comes the despiser of Holy Scripture. He is blind, and his
place in the ship is to pull up the anchor. Then comes the fool with-
out provision, figured by the man who leaps to his saddle before he has
girt his horse. Fools of disordered love ; Fools who sin on without
repentance because they presume upon God's mercy ; Fools who begin
to build before they count the cost ; Fools gluttonous and drunken ;
unprofitably rich ; serving two masters ; babblers, follow next in order.
Then comes the fool who shows the way to others and himself sticks
in the slough ; followed by him who finds goods of another man and .
keeps them for his own — a class that includes the false executor. Now
Wisdom mounts the pulpit and preaches a sermon to the wise and
foolish —
" Wisdom, with voice replete with gravity,
Calleth to all people and saith, ' O thou mankind,
How long wilt thou live in this enormity ?
Alas, how long shalt thou thy wit have blind ?
Hear my precepts and root them in thy mind !
TO A.D. isog.] Alexander Barclay. 99
Now is full time and season to clear thy sight :
Hearken to my words, ground of goodness and right.' "
After the preaching of Wisdom, Folly holds her course. The next
follies represented are Boasting in Fortune ; Chatgeable Curiosity of
Men — represented by a fool stooping to bear the whole world on his
back. Then we are shown the foolishness of them that are always
borrowing ; of vain prayers and vows ; of unprofitable study ; of them
that speak against the works of God ; of them that judge others ; of
the pluralist. His emblem is the miller who brings his ass to the
ground by loading his back with too many sacks. Then follow the
fools who put off the day of their amendment ; they who are jealous of
their wives ; the adulterers ; those who cannot and will not learn,
speak much, hear, see, and bear nothing away. "And here," says
Barclay in a stanza, " slacken sail, I have eight neighbours of this
sort, secondaries in St. Mary's Ottery, whom you ought to take on
board."
Next come the troops of fools who are of great wrath on small
occasion ; who trust mutable Fortune. ; who, when sick, thwart their
physician ; who cannot keep their own counsel ; who cannot be warned
by the misfortunes of others ; who are vexed at the backbitings of the
ignorant ; who are themselves mockers, scorners, and false accusers ;
who prefer things transitory to things eternal ; who are noisy idlers
in the House of God ; who knowingly and idly put themselves in peril.
The next section sets forth the way of Felicity and Goodness, and the
Pain to come' to Sinners. Then follow sections on the ill example that
their elders give to youth ; of bodily pleasure ; of fools who cannot
keep their secrets ; of young fools marrying old women for their wealth ;
of envious fools ; of impatient fools who will not abide correction ; of
foolish physicians, unlearned in their craft ; of leapings and dances,
and fools who pass their time in such vanity. Against the prevalence
of dancing there is vigorous complaint. It began in idolatry—
" Before this idol dancing, both wife and man.
Despising God. Thus dancing first began."
Other fools are night-watchers who play music in the streets when they
should be abed ; there are fools of many kinds among the beggars ;
and women are fools when they are angry. The next section, Of the
great power and might of Fools, has an Envoy of five stanzas on the
close of Civil War in England — the duty of learning to live in peace by
the red rose redolent —
H 2
loo English Writers. [a.d. 1508
" Though that we Britons be fully separate
From all the world, as is seen by evidence,
Walled with the sea, and long been in debate
By insurrection, yet God hath made defence
By the provision ordained us, a prince
In all virtues most noble and excellent.
This Prince is Harry, clean of conscience,
Smelling as the rose, aye fresh and redolent."
Then come the follies of astronomers, geographers, of those who
strive against men stronger than themselves, of those who cannot take
a joke, of those who offend others without thinking how their malice
may be rendered to them again, of improvident fools, litigious fools,
ribald fools, clerical fools. If a youth be misshapen of body or weak of
wit, he is put into the Church, not that he may please God, but that he
may live at ease, avoiding worldly business.
" The order of Priesthpod is troubled of each fool.
The honour of Religion everywhere decays ;
Such caitiffs and courtiers that never were at school
Are first promoted to Priesthood nowadays."
Numa sought to place wise and virtuous men in his temples, but now —
" From the kitchen to the choir, and so to a state,
One yesterday a courtier is now a priest become ;
And then how these follies their minds so elevate
That they disdain men .of virtue and wisdom.
But if they have of gold a mighty sum
They think them able a man to make or mar.
And are so presumptuous and proud as Lucifar.
O godly order, O priestly innocence,
O laudable life, wisdom and humility '' —
Why have we put you away? "The Prelates are the cause of this
misgovernance." O cursed hunger of silver and gold ! for your love
and immoderate desire the priesthood is now sold to fools and boys,
and there are no worse fools than the Fools of the Spirituality —
" O holy orders of Monks and of Freres
And of all other sorts of Religi6n,
Your straitness hath decayed of late yea'rs.
The true and perfect Rule of you is done.
TO A.D. 1509.] Alexander Barclay. ioi
Few keepeth truly their right profession
In inward vesture, diet, word, or deed ;
Their chief study is their wretched womb to feed."
Errors among the people come from ignorance in priests ; and ignor-
ance in priests comes of the avarice in bishops, who will sell the
priestly office for a bribe.
Then follow these orders of fools : — The proud and boastful ; card-
players and dicers ; fools troubled with a- sense of their own folly,
among whom is the poet troubled with a knowledge of his indolence ;
extortionate knights, officers, men Of war, scribes, and practisers of
law, among whom the poet puts
" Mansell of Ottery for polling of the poor :
Were not his great womb, he should have an oar,"
but he shuts out Sir John Kirkham, a Devonshire knight, who was
Sheriff of the county in 1507, and again in 1523.
" My Master, Kirkham, for his perf&t meekness.
And supportation of men in poverty.
Out of my ship shall worthily be free.
I flatter not. I am his true servitour.
His chaplain and bedeman while my life shall endure,
Requiring God to exalt him to hon6ur
And of his Prince's favour to be sure ;
For, as I have said, I know no creature
More manly and righteous, wise, discreet, and sad.
But though he be good, yet others are as bad."
Then come the foolish messengers and pursuivants ; foolish cooks,
butlers and servants, who waste their masters' goods ; the arrogance and
pride of rude men of the country ; the men who begin to do well and
continue not in that purpose ; fools who despise death, making no pro-
vision for it, in which section are some stanzas founded on the
pictures of the Dance of Death. Then come the fools who despise
God ; the blasphemers and swearers ; followed by a section on the
wrath of God and fools who do not fear it. Fools' bargains ; foolish
children who do not honour their father and mother, follow next.
Then comes a section on the chattering and babbling of priests and
clerks in the choir, telling gestes of Robin Hood when they should be
preparing their hearts for the service of God ; but the penny pricked
them to devotion that is outward and not rooted in the heart.
I02 English Writers. [a.d. 1508
Still the crowd presses — fools, fools, fools ! Fools of elevate pride
and boasting ; usurers ; waiters for inheritance of wealth ; neglecters
of holy days ; repenters of gifts ; sluggards. Then come the strange
fools and infidels, as Saracens and Turks ; decay and ruin through
them of the Catholic Faith, danger to Christendom, among whose
states let the English be true to King Henry, whose praise, in four
stanzas, is followed by five glowing in praise of James IV. of Scotland.
The union of the English Lion's wealth and wisdom with the might
and courage of the Scottish Unicorn is able to bring peace to Christen-
dom and make the false Turks yield again our Christian lands.
Then follow more and more of the fools in Christendom — flat-
terers, talebearers, crafty deceivers, false prophets, and the host of
Antichrist ; preachers tonguetied for fear of punishment, with woodcut
emblem of a preacher in the pulpit pressing finger upon lip in presence
of a sword. Fools who withdraw and hinder others from good deeds ;
fools who omit good works, and have no oil in their lamps at the
coming of the bridegroom, follow next. Then are set forth, in two
sections, the reward of wisdom and the despising of misfortune. Back-
biting, vile manners at table, fools in masks or other counterfeit apparel
having been set forth, we have the description of a Wise Man ; after
which comes a section of fools that despise Wisdom and Philosophy,
and a commendation of the same. Next follows a contention between
Pleasure and Virtue. Pleasure objects against Virtue, with praise of
her own service to man, in various light measures with frequency of
rhyme. The varying measure is well managed, and this part of the
" Ship of Fools " might be regarded as an independent poem. Virtue
replies in Chaucer stanza.
Then there is set up the image of a Universal Ship to which Fools
who have been left out may betake themselves. There shall be room
in it for Robin Hill, for millers and bakers who give false weight, and
stealing tailors, as Soper and Mansell. Come, run, companions, it
is time to row ! All men are fools who cannot guide themselves ; that's
all the world except a few. Come Asia, Africa ; come Lombards, come
from Sicily and from Almaine ; come fools of Italy, France, Flanders,
Greece, and Spain. From all cities, huts and palaces in England there
are some to come. Touch where we may— at London or at Bristol —
there are fools enough to come on board. We choose no harbour, but
we wander on the sea, hear Scylla roaring, listen to the mermaids'
song, see Polyphemus in his den, and a thousand more monsters ready
to devour mankind. We have drunk of the cup of foolishness, and
care not though monsters swallow up our souls. Craftsmen and
labourers crowd to our ship, and men who climb to fall through over-
TO A.D. 1509.] Alexander Barclay. 103
worldliness. The list ends with " brief addition of the singularity of
some new fools." They are the hypocrites within the Church — wolves
in sheep's clothing —
" A heavenly life is to be monk or frere,
Yet is it not enough to bear the name —
Such must they be in life as they appear
In outward habit."
Barclay excuses himself to the critics, but Virgil himself was blamed,
and Jerome could not keep himself from envy. .,
" Hold me excused, for why, my will is good
Men to induce unto virtue and goodness.
I write no geste, ne tale of Robin Hood,
Nor sow no sparkles, ne seed of viciousness.
Wise men love Virtue, wild people Wantonn&s ;
It longeth not to my science nor cunning
For Philip the Sparrow the Dirige to sing."
After that reference to Skelton, there follows from the poet of St.
Mary's House at Ottery a poem in chant royal in praise of the Virgin,
and then, after a break, this final Chaucer stanza —
" Our Shyp here length the seas brode
By heipe of God almyght, and quyetly
At Anker we lye within the rode.
But who that lysteth of them to bye
In Fletestrete shall them fynde truly
At the George, in Richard Pynsonnes place.
Printer unto the Kynges noble grace.
Deo gratias."
All the Fools in the Ship having been here cited in the
order chosen for describing them, it may be seen that there
is no attempt at classification, only an occasional associa-
tion of ideas that causes one fool to suggest another. Full
classification would be nothing less than the outline of a
complete system of ethics. Brant's book remained popular
for several generations. Its pictures, repeated by Pynson
in his fine edition of Barclay, were imitated and sometimes
104 English Writers. Ia.d. 1508
repeated with slight variation, and had much influence on
the development of Books of Emblems. Barclay's homely-
good sense fastened readily upon Brant's method of appeal-
ing to the people. He also was apt at proverbs, and well
read in Ovid, Juvenal, and Seneca ; but in the Bible most.
A priest true to the best traditions of his Church, Barclay
was no Lollard, and yet earnest for reform. He distinctly
recognised the dangers in the way of those who made self-
seeking prelates answerable for the corruption of the
Church, yet he himself spoke boldly. Among Barclay's
lost books, named by Bale, was one in Latin against
Skelton. Barqlay's " Ship of Fools " long remained popular.
It led Erasmus to 'his " Praise of Folly '; it may have in-
spired, even in the Commonwealth time, a poet's " Dia-
logue between the Resolved Soul and Earthly Pleasure."
Frequently in " The Ship of Fools " Barclay speaks of
his youth, and he may have begun his version several years
before 1508, when it was ready for Pynson's
Eclogues. -^ . -n 1 . 1 .
press. He wrote also some Eclogues m his
youth and put them aside, to take them up again in
Henry VHI.'s reign, revise them, and then print them.
Very soon after the publication of " The Ship- of Fools,"
Barclay is found to have left St. Mary Ottery, and to have
entered the great religious house at Ely as a Benedictine
monk. He was a monk of Ely when he published, first with-
out date or printers' imprint, three Eclogues in dialogue be-
tween two shepherds, Condon and Cornix, " composed by
Alexander Barclay, priest, in his youth." They were formed
from the Miserim Curialium of .i^Cneas Silvius Piccolomini,
who became Pope in 1458 as Pius IL, and died in 1464.
A fourth Eclogue followed, also without date, " conteyning
the maner of the riche men anenst poets and other clerks.
Emprinted by Richarde Pynson, printer to the kynges noble
grace." This was entitled "The Book of Codrus and
Mynaclus," and closed with the "descrypcion of the towre
TO A.D. 1514.] Eclogues. 105
of Virtue and Honour" (given as a song by one of the
shepherds) " into which the noble Hawarde contended to entre
by worthy actes of chivalry." That is Sir Edward Howard,
who was for a short time Lord High Admiral, and was
killed when attacking, in 15 13, the French fleet in the har-
bour of Brest. This suggests 1514 as the date of publica-
tion. The Eclogue is based on the Fifth Eclogue of Man-
tuan — De Conmetudine Divitum erga Poetas — but Barclay's
additional matter amounts to a thousand lines. " The fyfte
Eglog of Alexandre Barclay, of the Cytezen and vplondysh-
man " next followed, also without date, and was printed by
Wynken de Worde. This also is based upon one of the
Eclogues of Mantuan — De disceptatione Rusticorum et
Civium — which it expands from two hundred to a thousand
lines.
" The Citizen and Uplandiskman "
of Barclay's fifth Eclogue are Amintas and Faustus, two young shep-
herds met in a cottage in cold January, when fire is comfortable. Their
sheep were all sure and closed in a cot, themselves lapped in litter,
pleasantly and hot —
" For costly was fire in hardest of the year.
When men have most need then everything is dear."
Amintas had learnt in London to go mannerly, without a hair on his
cloak or wrinkle in his coat. He wore a tin brooch on his bonnet, but
his purse was empty. In London he had been hostler, waferer, coster-
monger, taverner,
" But when coin failed, no favour more had he,
Wherefore he was glad out of the town to flee."
Faustus had lived content among the fields, though he had no comfort
against age but a milch cow and a cottage. But he did not love the life
in cities.
Amintas opens the dialogue with a description of the winter season,
when snow covers the ground, the north wind blows, icicles hang from
the eaves, the stream is frozen, nights are cold and long, and carts pass
v(.
io6 English Writers. [a.d. 1514
where boats rowed. In the hot summer, cold of winter was desired ;
and winter being come, summer is wanted. " It is the way with men,"
says Faustus. " Yet each season," says Amintas, " hath his delights
and toys. Look in the -streets, behold the little boys, how in fruit
season for joy they sing and hop ; in Lent is each one busy with his
top. In winter a fat pig killed gives hope of a good dinner. They
blow the bladder, put beans or peas into it, toss it rattling in the air,
keep it up from the ground with foot and hand. Running and
leaping, they drive away the cold. The sturdy ploughman, lusty, strong,
and bold, overcometh the winter with driving the football, forgetting
labour and many a grievous fall." " Yes," says Faustus, " men labour
harder over trifles than at work that brings advantage." "Let them
work," says Amintas, " while we rest in the warm litter, with milk on the
fire. If it curdle we shall need no bread, and if thou bide, Faustus,
thereof thou shalt have some." " We are very improvident," says
Faiistus, "here in the country. In summer we leave labour if we hear
a bagpipe or a drone, so goes our money ; and when winter comes we
have bare shoulders and holes in our shoes. In towns they gather
treasure in plenty —
" They spoil the lambs and foxes of their skin.
To lap their wombes and fat sides therein. "
.Says Amintas, " The men of the earth be fools each one, but they are
madder in the cities. I have lived in the city, and do not favour it.
Fortune is stepmother to us and a kind mother to citizens ; but what is
Fortune but a thing vituperable ? " " No doubt," said Faustus, " I shall
come to rule a city if Fortune smile on me —
" Ask thou of Comix, declare to thee he can
How coin more than cunning eialteth every man."
" Thou errest," says Amintas —
' ' 'Tis not Fortune which granteth excellence,
True honour is won by vertue and sapience.
If men get honour by worldly policjr,
It is no honour, but wretched miser^.
God maketh mighty, God giveth true honour
To godly persons of godly behaviour.
God first disposed and made diversitle
Between rude plowmen and men of the citie,
And in what manner, Cornix, thine own mate,
As we went talking, recounted to me of late."
TOA.D. isi6.] Eclogues. 107
Says Faustus, " What told thee Cornix ? He has pregnant wit, though
little money." " But what then? " says Amintas'. " If thou lilce my
tale, now is the time to do some work —
" Faustus, arise thou out of this litter hot,
Go see and visit our wethers in the cot."
" Go, man, for shame ; he is a slothful daw which leaveth profit for
pleasureof hot straw." "I will go," says Faustus; " but look here,
Amintas ! Lord, benedisite ! The cold snow reacheth higher than my
knee." " Give the beasts plenty of rowan," says Amintas, "and stop
all the holes you see. — ^What ! back already, friend ? The short con-
clusion shows bad work." Faustus replies —
" This cumbrous weather made me more diligent.
I ran all the way both as I came and went ;
And there I sped me and took the greater pain
Because I lightly would be with thee again.
After great cold it is full sweet, God wot,
To tumble in the straw or in the litter hot.
Now be we, Amintas, in hay up to the chin,
Fulfil thy promise, I pray thee now begin."
Amintas then repeats what Comix told him. When Adam was
wedded to Eve, and they were bidden to increase and multiply, Eve
had twins every year for the first fifteen years. There being nobody to
woo his wife, Adam went out to his work without jealousy. One day,
while Adam was pitching his fold, Eve sat at home among her many
children, cuddling and kissing them, loosing and combing their hair,
anointing their necks with butter, and sometimes musing how to deck
them pleasantly. Our Lord drew nigh. She blushed, and, being
ashamed to be seen with so great a brood of children, she hastily hid
some —
" Some under hay, some under straw and chaff",
Some in the chimney, some in a tub of draff ;
But such as were fair and of their stature right.
As wise and subtle reserved she in sight."
The Lord said, " Woman, let me thy children see. I come to promote
each after his degree." Then he made one an emperor, another a king,
another a duke, giving him iron armour for the battle ; some he made
earls,somelords, some barons, some knights, some body champions. Next
were brought forth the sceptre and the crown, the sword, the pole-axe,
io8 English Writers. [a-d. ish
helm and habergeon. He gave them armour, taught them chivalry,.made
judges, mages, merchants, aldermen. Joyful Eve now fetched out the
children she had hidden, that they also might have offices of honour.
But their hair was rugged, powdered all with chaff, some full of straw,
some other full of draff; they were black and uncomely, some smelt all
smoky, some were in dust and cobwebs. These children, since a two-
handed sword cannot be made of a cow's tail,, were made into plowmen
and tillers of the ground, thrashers, keepers of oxen, swine, and sheep,
drudgers in works vile and rude, reaping and mowing of fodder, grass,
and corn ; yet shall town dwellers oft laugh you unto scorn, and some
of them should do vile labour also in the city. Now were brought to
them the cart and harrow, the gad, the whip, the mattock and wheel-
barrow, the spade, the shovel, the fork and the plough, and they were
bidden never to grudge at labour nor at pain,- for if they did it should be
labour in vain. Thus began h'onour and thus began bondage. Ask .
Comix if it be not so —
" This told me Comix which wonned in the fen,
I trust his saying before a thousand men."
Then Faustus puts aside these unwise fables,, foolishly feigned, and
begins his praise of country life. The pride of Cain made the earth
stony ; his brother Abel, thfe first shepherd, had favour with God.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Joseph and Job were shepherds. Paris,
the son of Priam, was a pastor. Moses was shepherd when he saw the
burning bush. They were shepherds to whom angels sang the Gloria,
which our priest. Sir Sampson, sings so softly. Shepherds first saw
the Saviour, and were first to bring their simple offerings. David kept
sheep before he was a king ; Christ called Himself the shepherd of His
flock. So Sir Peter tells us, and I have seen it myself in picture
on the wall of the cathedral. Amintas says that he ,has seen it too -
" Lately myself to see that picture was, '
I saw the manger, I saw the ox and ass,
I well remember the people in my mind,
Methinks yet I see the black faces of Inde,
Methinks yet I see the herds and the kings.
And' in what manner were ordered their off'rings.
As long as I live the better shall I love
The name of herds, and citizens reprove.''
Then follows a large indictment of the vices of the city, bred of what
gold can do in overthrow of justice ; and upon these matters both
shepherds are very much of the same mind.
TO A.D. 1516.] Eclogues. 109
Gianbatista Mantuan, who for a time was General
of the CarmeUtes, but did not like what he saw of them,
and left them, died in 1515, about the time when Barclay
was publishing these expansions of his Latin Eclogues. He
remained long famous as one of the best Latin poets of his
day, and he came to be used, like Virgil, as a schoolbook.
If we except Henrvso n 's_ "R obin and Makyn, "* written
at the close of the fifteenth cen tury, fearclayTfiv e' Klogues
— published probably in iSijj , and the next two"^ t h ree
years — stand at the begin ning of the histor jf of , English pas-
toral. -I'keir inspiration came, as we have seen, from Italy,
where Latin Eclogues were in fashion that used dialogue of
shepherds with little care about their sheep or fields. The
speakers stood for men of simple nature who discussed the
follies and corruptions of the world. Eclogues so written
were virtually satires. Boccaccio had led the way in a form
of pastoral, not Latin, that spread to Spain, and grew to
be a later influence on English hterature. But Barclay's
Eclogues were based upon those which formed part of
the Latin literature of the Renaissance in Italy. They lie
on the way to Spenser's "Shepherds' Calendar" as clearly
as the allegories of Stephen Hawes. lie on the way to
Spenser's " Faerie Queen." The form of Spenser's Eclogues
we shall find to have been determined more immediately
by a French poet, who made advance of his own on the
method of Mantuan, and wrote in his mother-tongue. But
the travel is on the same road, the thought is of a life other
than the shepherd's, and in Spenser's Eclogues there are
passages that show the direct influence of Mantuan.
Not long before Alexander Barclay was a monk at Ely,
John Alcock had been Bishop of Ely, and left
a name in highest honour there. Born at JjJ"^]^
Beverley in 1430, and trained at Cambridge,
Alcock was made Master of the Rolls in 1462, a Privy
* " E. W." vi. 254—256.
no English Writers. [a.d. i486
Councillor in 1470, Bishop of Rochester in 1472, Bishop of
Worcester in 1476, in which year also he served as Lord
President of Wales. He served as Lord Chancellor before
he was translated to the See of Ely, which he occupied from
i486 until his death in 1500. He was for a time Comp-
troller of the royal works and buildings, for he had a genius
in architecture ; restored and rebuilt churches and schools ;
endowed Peterhouse, and founded Jesus College at Cam-
bridge, a free grammar school at Hull, a collegiate church
at Westbury. At Cambridge he restored also Great St.
Mary's; at Ely his mark is set upon his chapel in the
Cathedral and the episcopal palace. He was munificent
in good works, liberal in hospitality, but himself a pious
student, who fasted, watched, and prayed while labouring
with cheerful kindliness for the advancement of a true
religion. Barclay sang his praises with enthusiasm as an
Algrind of the Church —
" — a cock was in the fen,
I know his voice among a thousand men :
He laughed, he preached, he mended every wrong ;
But, Corydon, alas, no good thing bideth long !
He all was a cock, he wakened us from sleep.
And while we slumbered he did our folds keep,
No cur, no foxes, nor butchers' dogs wood,
Could hurt our folds, his watching was so good.
The hungry wolves, which that time did abound,
What time he crowed, abashed at the sound."
Alcock could play with, bis own name. He published
in 1498 an address to his clergy as Galli Cantus ad con-
fratres suos curatos in synodo apud Barnwell, and there is
record of a good and gentle Sunday sermon of his that was
two or three hours long. Pynson published for him several
religious books in the last two or three years of his life.
One was "The Abbey of the Holy Ghost, that shall be
founded and grounded in a clear conscience, in which
Abbey shall dwell Twenty and Nine Ladies ghostly." His
TOA.u. I52I.] John Alcock. hi
version of " The Hill of Sapience," from the Latin, was pub-
lished by Pynson in 1497, and also by Wynken de Worde
in 1497 and 1501. There is also a fragment of a metrical
" Comment on the Seven Penitential Psalms," ascribed to
Bishop Alcock.*
Pynson printed at the request of Richard Earl of Kent,
who died in 1523, Alexander Barclay's "Mirror of Good
Manners " — metrical translation of a Latin
poem, De Quatuor Virtutibus, on the Four ?'m^tt\{
Cardinal Virtues, first published in 15 16 by banners."
Domenico Mancini. Barclay made the transla-
tion when the original was a new book, at the request of Sir
Giles Alington, probably of AUington, by Bridport, who had
at first asked him to modernise and abridge Gower's " Con-
fessio Amantis." That task Barclay had declined, consider-
ing it beyond his powers, and unsuited to his calling as a
monk of Ely.
At the request of Thomas Duke of Norfolk, Barclay also
wrote "The Introductory to Write and Pronounce French."
This was published in folio at the sign of the
Rose Garland, in Fleet Street, by Robert g^^^^'j;^''
Copland, in 1521. Nine years afterwards, in
Lesclarcissement de la langue Franfais, compose par maistre
Jehan Palsgrave, Anghys, natyf de Londres, Palsgrave, object-
ing to the use of k, and other faults in Barclay's book, says :
" I have seen an old book written in parchment in manner in
all things like to his said Introductory, which, by conjec-
ture, was not unwritten this hundred years. I wot not if he
happened to fortune upon such another: for when it was
commanded that the grammar masters should teach the youth
of England jointly Latin with French, there were divers
such books devised ; whereupon, as I suppose, began one
great occasion why we of England sound the Latin tongue
* MS. Harl. 1704, 4, fol. 13. Cited by Thomas Warton in his
" History of English Poetry."
112 English Writers. [a,d. 1521
so corruptly, which have as good a tongue to sound all
manner speeches perfectly as any other nation in Europe."
No other work of Barclay's is throughout original, and this,
probably, was founded upon one of the manuscripts at Ely
of the kind described by Palsgrave.
Barclay's other extant work — ^printed; without date, by
Richard Pynson — was the " Cronycle compyled in Latin by
the renowned Sallust," a transition of Sallust's
His Transla- /-it i • itt i t_
tion of History of the Jugurthine War made at ttie
request of Thomas Duke of Norfolk. Of this
there were three editions It was the first translation of
Sallust into English, and one of the first of those translations
_. from the Latin classics which in France and
1 he new
Impulse to England became numerous after the Revival
Translation. ° -i ,- i n • -r. i ,
of Letters, and often had, as m Barclay, the
vigour and freshness of original work. Translation was
at its best a generation or two later in the sixteenth cen-
tury. Barclay had powers capable of independent work,
and his constant use of them in the transplanting of good
thoughts from other languages into our English Literature,
gives him a place of honour among those who first
advanced the work of the translator well beyond the
refashioning of mediaeval treatises from Latin into English
prose, or the turning of romances from French into
English verse. The New Life begins now to stir in
the translator's veins.
No copies are known to remain of two other works
written by Barclay, which are said' to have been
printed by Richard Pynson. One of them was "The
Figure of our Holy Mother Church oppressed by the
French King." The other was the "Life of the Glori-
ous Martyr, Saint George," translated from Mantuan, and
dedicated to N. West, who was Bishop of Ely from 15 15
to 1533-
When Sir Nicolas Vaux was preparing for the meeting of
TO A.D. 1552.] Alexander Barclay. 113
kings on the- Field of the Cloth of Gold, he wrote to Wolsey
asking that Master Barclay — the Black Monk and poet —
might be sent to him, that he might help in the prepara-
tion by devising histories and " convenient raisons to
florisshe the buildings and banquet house withal."
After this, Barclay left the monks at Ely, took the habit
of the Franciscans, and joined himself to their convent at
Canterbury. He outlived the dissolution of
the monasteries in 1539, and seven years later, ofB'arciay.
in the last year of Henry VIH.'s reign, he was
presented to the Vicarages of Much Baden, in Essex, and
St. Matthew, at Wokey, in Somerset. Barclay was pre-
sented also to the Rectory of All-Hallows, Lombard Street,
a few weeks before his death ^n 1552, aged seventy-six. On
the 10th of June in that year he was buried at Croydon,
where he had spent part of his youth.
I — VOL. VII.
CHAPTER V.
NORTH OF THE TWEED : WILLIAM DUNBAR AND
OTHER WRITERS.
North of the Tweed, .in Henry VII. 's reign, the old
spirit of Uberty maintained vigour of life in a group of
writers whose best power was shown when
under James IV. was King of Scotland. The high
spirit had full utterance, for there was rest from
feud between the English Crown and Scottish people.
James IV. had become King in June, 1488, when in his
sixteenth year. Perkin Warbeck was, in 1495, a visitor at
the Court of Scotland, and he was there married to a lady
of the Royal Family. James made some attempts to main-
tain his guest's quarrel with England, but they came to
little; and Henry VII. worked for a reversal of the
policy that made an enemy of Scotland. Scotland, during
the English civil wars free from attack, had increased
in prosperity and power. Henry VII.'s England needed
peace at home; and in 1502 Margaret Tudor, Henry's
daughter, aged twelve, was affianced to King James IV.
of Scotland, then aged thirty. The princess entered Edin-
burgh a year later ; marriage took place on the 8th of
August, 1503, and was celebrated by William Dunbar
in his Court poem of "The Thistle and the Rose,"
not without the home-speaking that usually passed be-
tween a Scottish subject and his Sovereign. For Dame
A.D. I503.] North of the Tweed. 115
Nature says to "the thistle keepit with a bush of
spears '' —
" And sen thou art a king, be thoii discreet ;
Herb without virtue hald not of sic price
As herb of virtue and of odour sweet ;
And let no nettle vile and full of vice
Her fellow to the guidly flour de lis,
Nor let no wild weed full of churlishness
Compare her to the lilie's nobleness."
James IV. of Scotland, to whom such counsel was given,
was a handsome man with uncut hair and beard, liberal,
active in war or chase, familiar with his people, brave to
rashness, well read, and of good address. He could speak
Latin, French, German, Flemish, Italian, Spanish, Gaelic,
and broad Scotch. He wrote verse himself. He was
attentive to priests, and gave by his life good reason for
Dunbar's especial warning in " The Thistle and the Rose "
of the Thistle's solemn trust to
" Hold no other flow'rin sic deuty
As the fresh Rose, of colour red and white ;
For gif thou does, hurt is thine honesty."
Four ladies were mothers to his illegitimate children, and
through this weak side of his nature he is said to have been
cajoled in his youth by those who led him to unite with
them against his father.
William Dunbar was born in Lothian, not later than the
year 1460. Probably he was the grandson of Sir Patrick
Dunbar of Beith. He came of a family founded
in the days of William the Conqueror by Cos- Dunba"
patrick, who was descended through his mother
from an Ucthred, who was Earl of Northumbria before the
Conquest. William I. made Cospatrick Earl of Northumber-
land, but deprived him for rebellion in 1070. The deprived
earl went into Scotland, where he allied himself by marriage
I 2
1 1 6 English Writers. [a.d. 1475
to Malcolm Canmore, from whom he thus obtained the
manor of Dunbar and lands in Merse and Lothian. The
fourth in succession from Cospatrick was made Earl of
Dunbar, and the eighth Earl of Dunbar became in 1292
Earl of March. The eleventh Earl of March was attainted
by James I. in 1435, when his earldom and lands held of
the Crown were forfeited. Thenceforth this branch of the
family — the branch from which, as we learn from the
"Flytings" of Walter Kennedy, the poet, sprang — decayed.
The chief strength had passed to another branch that in
the fourteenth century yielded Earls of Moray, who were re-
presented in the poet's time by the wealthy family of the
Dunbars of Westfield, male descendants of the last Earl
of Moray.
William Dunbar seems to have been educated for the
service of the Church ; — oh the nurse's knee, he tells us, he
was " Dandeley, Bishop, dandeley ! " In 1475 ^^ '^^^ sent
to the University of St. Andrews, which had been founded
by Bishop Wardlaw in 1411. This was the first University
in Scotland ; Glasgow, founded by Bishop Turnbull about
1454, was the next that followed, and then came Aberdeen,
founded by Bishop William Elphinstone in 1494. Of the
three colleges in St. Andrews University, only one existed in
Dunbar's time — St. Salvator's, founded in 1458 by Bishop
Kennedy. St. Leonard's and St. Mary's were not added
until 1532 and 1552. William Dunbar graduated as
Bachelor of Arts from St. Salvator's College in 1477, within
twenty years of its first building, and in 1479 he proceeded
to the degree of Master of Arts. So much having been
learnt from the Acts of the Faculty of Arts at Saint Andrews,
the only light we have upon the next twenty years of
Dunbar's life is from a poem of his own, which tells us that
in early life he wore the habit of the Franciscans, and
travelled in it through all towns between Berwick and
Calais : —
TO A.D. isoo.] William Dunbar. 117
" In freiris weid full fairly half I fleichit,*
In it half I in pulpet gone and preichit
In Derntoun kirk, and eik in Canterberry ;
In it I past at Dover oure the ferry,
Throu Piccardy, and thair the peple teichit. "
Divinity and philosophy were taught at Edinburgh in
a house of Observantine Franciscans, endowed by James I.
about the year 1446. Dunbar may have continued under
them his study of divinity, and joined their order. Of
his travelling as a Franciscan friar and pardoner, Dun-
bar's friend, Walter Kennedy, speaks also in the comic
" Flyting '' presently to be described : —
" Fro Atrik Forrest furthward to Drumfreiss
Thow beggit with ane pardoun in all kirkis
CoUapis, crudis, meill, grottis^ gryce and geiss,
And undir nycht quhylis thow stall staigis and stirkis.
Becauss that Scotland of thy begging irkis,
Thow schaipis in France to be a knycht of the feild ;
Thow has thy clam schellis, and thy burdoun keild,
Unhonest wayis all, wolroun, that thou wirkis." t
But the time came when he threw off with disgust the
habit of the friar, that had become to many men a cloak of
hypocrisy. In the short later poem of his —
" The Visitation of St. Francis"
he feigns that before dawn St. Francis seemed to stand before him with
a religious habit in his hand,
" And said, In this go claith thee, my servand,
Refuiss the warld, for thow men be a Freir."
* Fleichit, wheedled, flattered.
•f Line 3, he begged — Slices of meat, curds, meal, groats (oats with
the husks off), pigs, and geese. Line 4, Staigis, young horses ; stirkis,
young bullocks. Line 7, Clam schellis, pilgrims' scallop-shells ; bur-
doun, the pilgrim's staff ; keild, marked with ruddle.
ii8 English Writers. [a.d. 1500
The poet was scared at the sight, and when the habit was laid
over him upon the bed, jumped nimbly out upon the floor, and
never would come near it. " Why art thou startled by this holy
weed? Clothe thee therein, for thou must preach in it." — "Take
it not ill, sweet Confessor, who are so kind of your clothes. I
have heard of more saints among bishops than among the friars ; fetch
me a bishop's robe, then, if you wish my soul to go to heaven." — " My
brethren have been urging you by speech and letters to take this habit,
but you put them off. Come on, therefore, at once— no more excuses ! "
— "If ever I was to be a friar, the date is past full many a year. I have
flattered and preached in that habit from Berwick to Calais, and as far
as Picardy. As long as I wore it, I knew more tricks than can be cast
out by holy water. I was aye ready all men to ieguile. "
" The freir that did Sanct Francis thair appeir,
Ane feind he wes in liknes of ane freir ;
He vaneist away with stynk and fyrrie smowk ;
With him me thocht all the house end he towk,
And I awoik as wy that was in weir."
He awoke, that is to say, as one who was in doubt whether the foul
fiend might not have become patron of the order of St. Francis.
Good family connections, liberal education, and rare
natural wit, with experience abroad acquired as a Francis-
can, led to the employment of William Dunbar in the service
of the King of Scotland after he had put off the friar's frock.
He seems to have been attached, as a clerk, to embassies
and less formal missions sent by James IV. to foreign
Courts, and visited in this way France, Germany, Italy, and
Spain.
On the 15th of August, 1500, there is entry, in the
Register of the Privy Seal, of a pension of ten pounds to
" Maister Williame Dunbar . . . to be pait to him of
our Souerane Lordis cofFeris, be the Thesaurare, for al the
dais of his life, or quhil he be promovit be our Souerane
Lord to a benefice of xltil or aboue." The accounts of
the Lord High Treasurer, until 1508, after which the next
three years of them become wanting, show that this pension
TOA.D. 1502.] William DuNBAx. 119
was paid half-yearly, and that the five pounds due at Mar-
tinmas in 1 50 1 were not paid on the 20th of December
with other pensions then drawn, but, as the entry records,
" after he came furth of Ingland."
Dunbar was away in England with the Scottish Ambas-
sadors who went to the Court of Henry VII. bearing the con-
tract of marriage between James IV. of Scotland
and the Princess Margaret The contract was Loildon.'"
dated at Stirling, on the 8th of October, 1501.
The same Robert Blackader, Archbishop of Glasgow,
who was one of the ambassadors to London, had been
sent in 1495 ^o seek a wife for James IV. at the Court
of Spain, and that may have been the occasion of
Dunbar'is visit to Spain. Blackader was Bishop of
Glasgow in 1492, when his see was erected into an
Archbishopric. A contemporary chronicle* quotes a
balade made on the occasion of a Christmas dinner
given by the Lord Mayor to the Scottish Ambassadors,
the English Lord Chancellor, and other lords, saying
that " one of the said Scots giving attendance upon a Bishop
Ambassador, the which was reported to be a Protonotary of
Stotland, and servant of the said Bishop, made this Balade
following." Andrew Forraan was joined with Blackader as
one of the ambassadors, and he was Protonotary. At the
time of the Embassy, Forman was named for the Bishopric
of Moray, and he was full bishop by Noveniber, 1502. He
was much in the confidence of James IV., and Dunbar went
to London as a clerk in his service or Bishop Blackader's,
* MS. Brit. Mus. Cotton, Vitellius A xvi., cited by David Laing
in the Supplement (1865) to his, editions of "The Poems of William
Dunbar, now first collected. With Notes and a Memoir of his Life."
2 vols. Edinburgh : 1834. These volumes were the chief of Dr.
Laing's many and great services to the study of old Scottish literature.
I am indebted to him throughout ; but the book has become scarce, and
there is call now for a more accessible edition of the greatest Scottish
poet before Burns.
I20 English Writers. [a.d. 1502
and as a poet who could use his skill in gracing the occa-
sion. Dunbar's balade, written to honour the Lord Mayor's
entertainment, was filled with the praise of London ; it had
for its refrain, " London, thou art the flour of cities all,"
and closed with honour to its Mayor —
" Thy famous Maire, by pryncely governaunce,
With swerd of justice, thee ruleth prudently.
No Lord of Parys, Venyce, or Floraunce
In dignitye or honoure goeth to hym nye.
He is exempler, lood^-ster, and guye,*
Principall patrone and roose oryginalle,
Above all Maires as maister moost worthy :
London, thou art the flour of cities all."
The Princess Margaret, who had not then completed her
twelfth year, was affianced to the King of Scotland at Paul's
Cross, on the 2Sth of January, 1502. In consideration of
her youth, it was stipulated that she should not be sent to
Scotland before the 12th of September, 1503. She arrived,
in fact, on the 7th of August, 1503, and was married to
James IV. at Holyrood on the following day.
Dunbar wrote a song of welcome to the Princess
' Margaret on her arrival at Holyrood, joining his wit to the
minstrelsy that welcomed the rose red and white, " one
stalk yet green, O young and tender flower ; " and it was
upon the occasion of this marriage that he produced, in
Chaucer stanza, that one of his two chief Court poems
which has already been quoted. Both were in the form of
allegory that we have traced through Chaucer from the
" Romaunt of the Rose."
" The Thrissil and the Rois."
When the poet was in bed on a May morning, Aurora looked in at
his window, with a pale green face, and on her hand a lark, whose song
bade lovers wake froni slumber. Fresh May stood then before his bed,
* Guye, guide.
TO A.D. IS03.] William Dunbar. 121
and bade the sluggard rise and write something in her honour. Why
should he rise? he asked; for few birds sang, and May brought only cold
and wind that caused him to forbear walking among her boughs. She
smiled, and yet bade him rise to keep his promise that he would describe
"the rose of most pleasaunce." So she departed into a fair garden ;
and it seemed to him that he went hastily after her, among the flowers,
under the bright sunrise, where the birds sang for comfort of the light.
They sang, Hail to the May, Hail to the Morning, Hail to Princess
Nature, before whom birds, beasts, flowers, and herbs were about to
appear, "as they had wont in May from year to year,'' and pay due
reverence. First of the beasts came the Lion, whom Dunbar's descrip-
tion pleasantly associated with the lion on the arms of Scotland. Nature,
while crowning him, gave him a lesson in just rule. A like lesson she
gave to the eagle when she crowned him King of Birds ; and, as we
have seen, to the Thistle, who personified King James of Scotland,
when she "saw him keepit with a bush of spears," crowned him with
ruby, and bade him defend all others in the field. Then came the poet's
welcome of the Tudor Margaret, when Nature glorified h»ras the Rose,
the freshest Queen of Flowers ; and the poem closed with a song of
hail and welcome to her from the merle, the lark, the nightingale, and
from the common voice of the small birds, who, by their shrill chorus,
woke the poet from his dream.
The bold touch of direct counsel to the King brings an
old form of allegory here into close contact with the life of
its own day. In "The Golden Terge" there is
playful grace of the poet, who is the first since p°"^.
Chaucer in whom we recognise again a Master
in his art. Dunbar was a man of genius, born poet, with
wide range of powers, cultivated mind, and perfect training
in the mechanism of verse. The conventional allegory
belongs rather to Court poetry than to the literature of the
people, which must be adapted to men as they are men
within themselves. The present flashed into the allegory
of " The Thistle and the Rose ; " but " The Golden Terge "
was altogether based upon tradition of the past, and there
was nothing in its design that might not have been invented
in the fourteenth century. Allegorical poems showed in
Stephen Hawes's " Pastime of Pleasure " and " Exemple of
122 English Writers. [a.d. 1563
Vertue " the intervention of the metrical romance ; in
Skelton's " Bowge of Court " the intervention of Sebastian
Brant; but Dunbar's "Golden Terge" is no more than a
prelude to the larger utterance of one who in his youth read
Chaucer eye to eye, and learnt from him to touch the tender
stops of various quills — now grave with the deep under-
tones, now sportive either with broad humour or, as here,
with playful grace.
" The Goldin Terge"
is in stanzas of nine ten-syllabled lines, forming a peculiar measure
allied to that of the balade, each stanza having a musical cadence of tvfo
rhymes thus interlaced— aabaabbab. This poem also begins with
the conventional May morning. The poet rose with the siin, saw the
dew on the flowers, heard the songs of the birds, while a brook rushed,
over pebbles and little waterfalls, among the bushes. The sound of
the stream and song of the birds caused him to sleep on the flowers.
In dream he then saw the river, over which there came swiftly
towards him a sail, white as blossom, on a mast of gold, bright as the
sun. A hundred ladies in green kirtles landed from the ship. Among
them were Nature and Queen Venus, Aurora, Flora, and many more.
May walked up and down in the garden between her sisters April and
June, and Nature gave her a rich, painted gown. The ladies saluted
Flora, and sang of love. Cupid and Mars, Saturn, Mercury, and
other gods were there, also playing and singing, all arrayed in green.
The poet crept through the leaves to draw nearer, was spied by love's
queen, and arrested. Then the ladies let fall their green mantles, and
were armed against him with bows, but looked too pleasant to be
terrible. Dame Beauty came against him, followed by the damsels
Fair Having, Fine Portraiture, Pleasaunce, and Lusty Cheer. Then
came Reason in plate of mail, as Mars armipotent, with the Golden
Targe, or shield, to be his defender.
Youth, Innocence, and other maids did no harm to the shield of
Reason. Sweet Womanhoood, with all her good company. Nurture
and Loveliness, Patience, Good Fame and Steadfastness, Benign Look,
Mild Cheer, Soberness, and others, found their darts, powerless against
the Golden Targe. High Degree failed also ; Estate and Dignity,
Riches, and ethers, loosed against him in vain a cloud of arrows. Venus
then brought in allegorical recruits, and rearranged her forces. But
Reason, with the Shield of Gold, sustained the shock, till Presence
threw a powder in his eyes that blinded him. Then Reason was jested
TO A.D. i5o8.] William Dunbar. 123
at, and banished into the greenwood. The poet was wounded nearly to
the death, and In a moment was Dame Beauty's prisoner. Fair Calling
smiled upon him ; Cherishing fed him with fair words ; Danger came to
him and delivered him to Heaviness. But then the wind began to
blow, and all, flying to the ship, departed. As they went they fired
guns, by which the poet was awakened to the renewed sense of the
fresh May morning.
This kind of invention is as old as " The Romaunt of the Rose," but
Dunbar took it from Chaucer. Though Chaucer had been dead a
hundred years, no poet had yet succeeded to his throne. The land was
still "full filled with his songs." Gower and Lydgate were still named
after him in courtly v^rse as the two other chief poets of tlie past ; but
of.Chaucer men thought as Dunbar wrote in one of the closing stanzas
of his " Golden Terge " —
" O reverend Chaucer ! rose of rhetoris all
As in our tongue ane flower imperial.
That raise in Britain ever, who reads richt.
Thou bears of makars the triumph riall ;
Thy fresh enamellit termes celical
This matter could illuminat have fullbricht :
Was thou nocht of our English all the licht.
Surmounting every tongue terrestrial
Als far as Mayes morrow does midnicht. ''
"The Golden Terge," and other poems by Dunbar,
were among the first productions of the printing press
upon its establishment in Scotland. The patent .j,|^^ ^.^^^^
for establishing a press in Scotland was granted, Printersin
in 1507, by James IV. to Walter Chepman,
a merchant, and Andrew Myllar, a working printer, bur-
gesses of Edinburgh. This patent, dated the 15 th of
September, in the twentieth year of the reign, says that
Chepman and Myllar " hes at our instance and request,
for our pleasure, the honour and proffit of our Realme and
Liegis, taken on thame to furnis and bring hame ane prent,
with all stuff belangand tharto, and expert men to use the
samyne, for imprenting within our Realme of the bukis of
our Lawis, actis of parliament, croriiclis, mess bukis and
1 24 English Writers. [a.d. 1505
*
portuus, eftir the use of our Realme, with addicions and
legendis of Scottis Sanctis, now gaderit to be ekit tharto, and
al utheris bukis that salbe seen iiecessar." Here the first con-
sideration of convenience, in the introduction of a printing
press and a staff of expert printers into Edinburgh, is the diffu-
sion of copies of Acts and Ordinances of the realm, chronicles,
legends of the Scottish saints, and prayerbooks for use in
public worship ; the books of poetry lie hid in an etcetera.
The first book from this press that was found was, in fact, a
breviary, the Breviarium Aberdonense, produced for Bishop
William Elphinstone. A copy of it was presented in 1635 to
the library of the University of Edinburgh. But in 1 7 88 there
was presented to the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh a
volume containing eleven earlier books, each of a few leaves,
in quarto, those which have colophons showing that they
were printed by Chepman and Myllar in 1508. The
earliest date is in this colophon, " Heir endis the maying
and disport of Chaucer. Imprentit in the southgait of
Edinburgh be Walter chepman and Androw myllar the
fourth day of aprile the yhere of God M.CCCCC and viii
yheris." The piece here called " The Maying and Disport
of Chaucer" is "The Complaint of the Black Knight,"
assigned now to Lydgate.*
Andrew Myllar in this partnership was the working
printer ; Walter Chepman was the Edinburgh merchant who
found capital for the enterprise. Myllar had practised his
art at Rouen. Among the books of Victor Lazarche, at
Tours, there was found, in 1869, an Expositio Sequentiarum
dated 1506, and bearing Andrew Myllar's device— as it
appears on Edinburgh books of 1508 — of a man with
a sack over his head going up a ladder to a mill, with
the letters of his name in cipher on a shield in front, and
shields displaying lilies in each upper corner, which point,
of course, to an origin in France. M. Claudin, who
* "E. W."vi. 108.
TOA.D. i5o8.] Chepman and Myllar. 125
discovered the book in making a sale catalogue, found
that it was set in the types of Laurence Hostingue, who
was in 1506 printer at Rouen in partnership with Jamet
Loys. A yet earlier book, dated 1505, was afterwards
found, by M. Claudin, in which Andrew Myllar distinctly
names himself as a Scot, who had printed it with careful
revision.* The place of publication was not told, but it was
probably Rouen. This was a book by John de Garlandia,
an Englishman, born about the year n8o, who after his
first training at Oxford went to Paris and made France his
home, distinguished himself as a grammarian, produced a
dictionary that was widely used, and had many works
ascribed to him — poetical, grammatical, alchemical, mathe-
matical, and musical. In a Latin poem of his, containing
five or six thousand lines, on the " Triumphs of the Church,"t
he describes himself as one —
" Anglia cui mater fuerat, cui Gallia nutrix,
Matri nutricem prjefero raente meam ."
So John de Garlandia lost his place among us, and" is only
now remembered by the way when the first Scottish
printer — two years before he brought presses and workmen
* This is the colophon : " Libro qui vocorum quorundam vocabu-
lorum secundum alphabeti : una cum interpretatione Anglie lingue : finis
impositus est feliciter : quam Andreas Myllar scotus mira arte imprirai
ac diligenti studio corrigi : orthographieque stilo prout facultas suppete-
bat : enucleatumque soUicitus fuit Anno christiane redemptionis Mill-
esimo quingintesimo quinto." Quoted through the little tractate
by Robert Dickson, F.S.A., entitled, "Who was Scotland's First
Printer ? Ane Compendious and breue Tractate in Commendation of
Androw Myllar. London, 1881," which contains the facts above
stated.
t "John de Garlandia, DeTriumphisEcclesiaSjLibri Octo." A Latin
Poem of the Thirteenth Century. Edited from the British Museum
MS. by Thomas Wright, 1856. Roxburghe Club. Presented by the
Earl of Powys.
126 English Writers. [a.d. ... ijob.
(probably from Rouen) into Edinburgh— is found printing
his " Equivoca."
Few of the first books printed by Chapman and Myllar
have come down to us. The volume of pieces of verse
bound together, which includes poems of Dunbar printed in
1508, does not consist throughout of perfect copies.* The
two volumes of the Breviarium Aberdonense, published at
Edinburgh in 1509 and 1510, are said to have been printed
at the command and expense of Walter Chepman, with
whose name that of Andrew Myllar was no longer joined.
Having supplied presses and workmen, and stayed long
enough to bring the Edinburgh printing office into working
order, Myllar may have gone back to his old work at Rouen,
or he may have slipped into his old position as foreman of
works, oir he may have died soon after 1508. Myllar and
Chepman represented to each other, like Gutenberg and
Faust, labour and capital ; but there is no evidence that
Myllar was unfairly used.
The eleven pieces of Chepman and Myllar's printing
which are bound together in the volume now in the Advo-
Dunbar's ^^.tcs' Library at Edinburgh are : (i) three
Earlier leavcs of "The Porteous of Nobleness, trans-
Poems. ...
latit out of Tranche m Scottis be Maister Andrew
Cadiou;" (2) "The Knightly Tale of Golagros and Ga-
wayne ; " (3) " Sir Eglamour of Arteys ; " (4) Dunbar's
"Golden Terge;" (5) a! fragment of "Ane'Buk of Gud
Counsale to the king how to reuU his Realme ; " (6) " The
Maying or Disport of Chaucer," which is Lydgate's " Com-
plaint of the Black Knight;" (7) "The Flyting of Dunbar
* Fifty copies of the contents of this volume were printed at
Glasgow in the year 1800, in black letter, with woodcuts in facsimile of
the trade marks of Chepman and Myllar when they occur in the ori-
ginal. Chepman's trade mark seems to have been brought to him from
France by Myllar. It is said to be an imitation of the mark of Philippe
Pigouchet in Paris.
A.D. ... i5o8.] The First Printers in Edinburgh. 127
and Kennedy ; " (8) " The Traitie of Orpheus King," by
Robert Henryson; (9) "The Ballad of Lord Barnard
Stewart," by Dunbar ; (10) "The tua Maryit Wemen and-
the Wedo," with "The Lament for the Makers," "The
Ballad of Kind Kittock," and " The Testament of Andrew
Kennedy," all by Dunbar; (11) "A Gest of Robyn Hode,"
an imperfect copy of the same " lyttell geste " that Wynken
de Worde printed in, London in 1488. When this volume
was given to the Library of the Faculty of Advocates by a
medical gentleman of Edinburgh, who had picked it up
somewhere in Ayrshire, and knew nothing of its history or
value, Dunbar was little known. The volume caused
nearer attention to be paid to the pieces assigned to Dunbar
in manuscript collections of old Scottish poetry made, for
their own pleasure, by John Asloan in 1515, George Banna-
tyne in 1568,* about the same time by Sir Richard Mait-
land of Lethington, and by John Reidpeth in i623.t
» "E. W." vi. 2S7«.
t Allan Ramsay, in 1724, founded on George Bannatyne's MS.
his " Evergreen, a collection of Scots Poems wrote by the Ingenious
before 1600." Sir David Dalrymple {Lord Hailes) published in 1770
"Ancient Scottish Poems" from Bannatyne's MS.; in. 1786 John
Pinkerton edited, in two volumes, " Ancient Scottish Poems never
before in print, but now published from the MS. Collections of Sir
Richard Maitland, of Lethington ; " and John Sibbald published in
1802, in four volumes, a " Chronicle of Scottish Poetry from the
Thirteenth Century to the Union of the Crowns." In these volumes
the pieces by Dunbar attracted more and more attention. In 1834,
David Laing first collected into two volumes, with Introduction, copious
Notes, and a Glossary, all that he could find of Dunbar, and added a
supplement in 1865, when he reissued the remainder of the two volumes,
which he had withdrawn from sale in discontent at the small attention
given to his labours. The two volumes, with their supplement, were
reissued at the price of £,\ ids. They were at once bought up, and
became attainable only at three times that price. In 1884 Dr. J.
Schipper, Professor of English Philology at Vienna, published a full
study of the poet, with much of his verse well translated into German :
"William Dunbar. Sein Leben und seine Gedichte in Analysen und
128 English Writers. [a.d. ... 1508.
While Chepman and Myllar's press in Edinburgh fixes
the date of certain works of Dunbar before 1508, other con-
siderations justify the dating of some pieces of his before
the marriage of King James IV. to the Princess Margaret
of England, in 1503. The small pension of ten pound
Scots, in the year 1500, given to Dunbar until he had a
benefice, marked him as one attached to the Court;
and "The Tod and the Lamb" — which describes figu-
ratively an amour of the King's at Dunfermline, in
terms little to his credit, though they would not have
offended him — must have been written before 1 503. After
the King's marriage, whatever occasion he might give, such
public comment would have been impossible. Dunbar's
" Dirige to the King at Stirling," on the lines of the Church
funeral service, playfully seeks to bring him out of Purgatory
at Stirling into Paradise at Edinburgh. But the Court is
painted as a Paradise of Men. Had the King been married,
the poet, who paid frequent honour to Queen Margaret, would
not have left her out of Paradise : King James would hardly
have taken her with him for rehgious exercises in his con-
vent of Franciscans at Stirling. The ground is not quite so
sure when, for their style or matter, other pieces of Dunbar's
are placed in the years before 1503 — as his " Brash of
Wowing," for its resemblance in metre and in tone of
thought to " The Tod and the Lamb ; " the " New Year's
Gift to the King " and the poem of " Solistaris at Court "
for'their yet undisturbed faith in the King's willingness to
ausgewahlten Uebersetzungen, nebst einem Abriss der altschottischen
Poesie. Ein Beitrag zur schottisch-englischen Literatur-und Cultur-
geschichte." To carry oil the study of Dunbar, the reader should use
Professor Schipper's volume together with Laing's edition of the works.
Schipper is very helpful in suggestions towards the dating of many
of the poems, for which I am much indebted to him in the text. A
new edition of Dunbar's Poems was begun in 1884 by John Small,
M.A., the editor of Gavin Douglas, for the Early Scottish Text Society.
A.D....IS08.] William Dunbar. 1 29
help the poet. The piece on the power of " Lady Solis-
taris " in advancing suits at Court ; the " Tidings from the
Session ; " the poem " to the Merchants of Edinburgh," in
which some chief features of Old Edinburgh are vividly
described ; " and " The Devil's Inquest," a poem against
profane swearing by all classes of men, with Mahoun's
burden to each, " Renounce thy God and come to me," are
also said to have been written in this earlier time.
To the same time has been ascribed the poem of
" The Tua Maryit Wemen and the Wedo," chiefly because
it is in unrhymed alliterative measure ; for it is
imagined that in later life Dunbar would have yS^-J'^'^
been too much under the influence of later ^I'^^do""
forms of verse to think of using the old measure,
which had lingered long among the people. There is too
much of mere opinion in that argument. Opinion blows from
all points of the compass ; and it may not be a fact that if the
story of " The Freirs of Berwik " be not by Dunbar, it is by
no other Scottish poet whose works have come down to us.
So I believe ; and yet it may have had for author one of the
men whom we know only for the repute they had as poets,
but whose writings are almost or altogether lost. We know
no one but Dunbar who could have written a comic tale
with Chaucer's pen.
"The Tua Maryit Wemen and the Wedo" is a piece of
five hundred and thirty lines, and it is much longer than
any other poem ascribed to Dunbar except. "The Freirs of
Berwik," which is in five hundred and eighty-two lines.
"The Freirs of Berwik" is in Chaucer's rhyming couplets
of ten-syllabled lines, the " riding rhyme " of the " Canter-
bury Tales." " The Tua Maryit Wemen and the Wedo " *
is written in the old national unrhymed measure with triple
* Found only in Sir Richard Maitland's MS., and there ascribed to
Dunbar, before the discovery of the printed edition, where the piece is
said to be " compylit by Maister William Dunbar."
J — VOL. VII.
130 English Writers. [a. d... .1508.
alliteration, that was used by Langland in " The Vision of
Piers Plowman," and by the author of " Sir Gawayne and
the Green Knight " and the poem of " The Pearl," whom
a good English scholar is now hoping to identify with
Chaucer's friend, Ralph Strode. But Dunbar exaggerates
in this poem the alliteration, by often playing upon the same
letter through a second line, sometimes also through a third
line, and even a fourth. Often, also, there are four instead
of three alliterations in a line. Thus, the poet says that he
went alone, near midnight on Midsummer Eve,
" Beside ane Gudlie Grene Garth full of Gay flouris
negeit of ane Huge Hicht with Hawthorn treis."
Then follow, concerning the hawthorn-trees that enclosed
the flower gardens, two successive lines each with the same
letter in triple alliteration —
" Quhairon ane uird, on ane uransche, so Birst out his notis,
That never ane BlythfuUar Bird was on the Beuche harde." *
Two more such couplets follow, the second of them having
quadruple alliteration —
" Quhat through the sugarit sound of hir sang glaid,
And through the savour sanative of the sueit flouris
I Drew in Derne to the Dyk to Dirkin eftir mirthis,
The Dew Donkit the Daill, and Dynarit the foulis." \
Then follow four lines, with a run of as many as thirteen
alliterations on the letter h —
" I Hard, under ane Holyn Hevinly grein Hewit J
An Hie speiche, at my Hand, with Hautand wourdis ;
* On the beuche harde, heard on the bough.
\ In derne, in secret ; dyk, fence ; donkit, moistened, made dank ;
dynarit the foulis, gave drink to the birds. The Celtic "dinim
means, "I drink, imbibe, suck " (Windisch).
X Under a holly, heavenly green of hue.
A.D....J508.] William Dunbar. 131
With that in Haist to the Hege so Hard I inthrang,
That I was Heildit * with Hawthorne and with Heynd lei vis. ''
Then after two lines of triple alliteration, both on the same
letter, there occurs another run of four lines with twelve
alliterations of a single letter, g —
" Through Pykis of the plet thorne T Presandlie luikit,
Gif ony persoun would approche f within that Pleasand garding.
I saw Thre Gay Ladeis sit in ane Grene arbeir,
'All Grathit in to Garlandes of fresche Gudelie flouris ;
So Glitterit as the Gold were thair Glorius Gilt tressis,
Quhill all the Gressis did Gleme of the Glad hewis." J
The poem proceeds to describe the three fair ladies
exchanging confidences over the wine-cup as they sit among
the flowers in their arbour, and they become visible as if
Titian had painted them. Dunbar was not the only poet of
his time in Scotland who made skilful and free use of colour
in descriptions of nature. The suggestion in the line
last quoted that the green grass by the golden tresses of the
ladies " did gleme of the glad hewis," is an illustration of
artistic breadth of touch and sense of harmonies in use of
colour. The talk of the three women is set between an
opening and closing picture of midsummer night and dewy
morning. These pictures represent delightfully a pleasant
feature of old Scottish poetry, that gave to other minds the
poet's joy in glow or glitter of light on rising mists, on
clouds and running streams, in dewdrops on green leaves,
in shades and colours of the morning and the evening.
The three fair women in the arbour talk freely to one
* Heildit, covered over, concealed ; heynd, handy.
f It will be remembered here that, from Anglo-Saxon times, in
words with a prefix alliteration was on the first letter, not of the prefix,
but of the main root word. "E. W." ii. 17 — 19.
i This exuberance once extends even to the interweaving of two
triplets of alliteration through words of a single line : " That Nature
yUU Nobillie anNamelit /ine with/louris."
J 2
132 English Writers. [A.D....1508.
another. Wine has taken from them the last feeble instinct
of reserve. Tell, said the widow to the young wives, what
ye think of marriage, or if ever ye loved anyone more
than the husband ye are bound to, or if ye think ye could
choose better if ye chose again, or if ye bless the bond
that can be undone only by death. The answers of the two
wives show them wantons. One would there were no mar-
riages for longer than a year, and tells how she deals with
her husband, who is old and weak. The other tells how
she deals with a young husband, weak through vice. The
widow tells, in her turn, how she has dealt with two hus-
bands, and now, while she plays the part of the disconsolate
in church, peeps through her cloaks and casts kind looks to
knights and clerks and courtly persons.
The confessions over which the " Tua Maryit Wemen
and the Wedo " make merry together are all of a dishonest
wantonness, and, though set forth with lively humour, they
are not — though it is often said they are — of the same kind
as those of Chaucer's Wife of Bath. The Wife of Bath was,
indeed^ Chaucer's picture of the fleshly side of womanhood,
prompt to replace one husband with another ; but she was
a good-humoured, honest animal, and when one of her hus-
bands troubled her with jealousy she niade him a cross of
his own wood, and set him, as she says, to fry in his own
grease, without being unfaithful to him as a wife. If the
Wife of Bath had been fourth of that company in the
arbour, the poet in the hawthorn hedge would have seen
that she liked the wine, and that she laughed a little at the
ladies' jokes, until she shook her head over them, presently
looked grave, and ended by giving the three fair companions a
stout bit of her mind. Chaucer, as we have seen, had reverence
for womanhood. Dunbar's known works are comparatively
few — much that he wrote may have been lost ; but in what
we have, there is enough to suggest the small reverence in
which women were held at the Court of James IV. of Scot-
A.D.,..i5o8.] William Dunbar. 133
land. Dunbar, as a priest, was unmarried. He had learnt
little of the worth of women when a friar, and at Court the
King's example made, in this respect, bad worse. James IV.
was liked by his people, and in many ways deserved to be so.
He had most of the popular virtues, and the one popular
vice. Its prevalence is shown even in the old ballads which,
together with all that is good in the spirit of the people, very
often reflect stained images of maidenly discretion. Dun-
bar's poems reproduce, in the same way, the features of the
time. He liked the young Queen Margaret, paid her much
honour in his verse, and described whimsically a dance in
the Queen's chamber, wherein he himself took part, "a
mirrear dance mycht na man see." But her after-story
showed Queen Margaret to be of one blood with her brother
Henry VIII. in readiness for change of yokefellow. Dunbar
also wrote a poem " In Praise of Women ; " but the ground
of praise is that they are the mothers of men, and that the
Virgin Mary was a woman. And so did Walter Kennedy.
He wrote, also, " Ane Ballat in praise of our Lady," but his
thoughts then were beyond the spheres.
Dunbar's poems show, simply and clearly, his position
at the Court of James IV. He had renounced the Francis-
can habit, but remained a servant of the
Church. He was Master of Arts in the first Scot- of^cmibar?
tish University, was widely travelled, was wit, poet,
and priest. For his knowledge of languages he had been at-
tached as secretary to an embassy or two, and had even been
to the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella. At Edinburgh the
young King, who wrote verse himself, liked Dunbar's wit,
saw him willingly, was familiar with him, and heard his occa-
sional request for a benefice that would give him some small
income of his own, would also give him duties suited to his
office, which he wished religiously to perform. He saw idle
ministers to the King's pleasures — flatterers, pretenders to
the power of multiplying gold by alchemy — supplied with
134 English Writers. [a.d. 1508
incomes from the Church. But although the Queen spoke
for 'him — and in one poem he told the King he wished " that '
he was John Thomsounis Man," which was old Scottish for
a husband who obeys his wife — no benefice was given by
James IV. to Dunbar. He had the right of a courtier to
feed at the King's cost — the Bouge of Court — but for income
he depended on chance gifts from the King or other patrons,
gifts even of clothes ; and he could not be his own man in
any other way than by becoming free to leave the Court and
serve God in his office as a priest. After many years of
waiting, Dunbar, in a poem to the King, with the refrain,
" Excess of thocht dois me mischeif," compares the hope for
him in his childhood with his present want : —
" I wes in youth on nurciss kne
Dandely! Bischop, dandely !
And quhen that age now dois me greif
Ane sempill Vicar I can nochte be :
Excess of thocht dois me mischeif."
In another poem to the King, on " the Warldis Instabilitie,"
Dunbar says that while some have seven benefices and he
not one, some climb to be cardinals and bishops —
' ' Qnworlhie I, among the laif,
Ane Kirk dois crave and nane can haif."
And later, in the same poem, he Says that he wants no
great abbey, but a little church, to do his duty in —
" Greit Abbaisgrayth I nill to gather,
But ane Kirk scant coverit with hadder ;*
For I of lytill wald be fane ;
Quhilk to considder is ane pane.
" And for my curis in sundrie place,
With help, Schir, of your nobill Grace,
My sillie saule sail ne'er be slane ;
Na for sic syn to suffer pane."
* Hadder, heather.
TO A.D. 1513,] William Dunbar. 135
He wearied of the world in whicli he was compelled to live,
but took its crosses cheerfully, and from time to time, in
deeply spiritual poems, he shaped into music the true wis-
dom of life —
" Quho suld for tynsall drowp or de*
For thyng that is hot vanitie ;
Sen to the lyfe that evir dois lest
Heir is bot twynklyng of an ee :
Yox to be blyth me think it best.
" Had I for warldis unkyndness
In hairt tane ony haviness,
Or fro my plesans bene opprest,
I had bene deid lang syne dowtless :
For to be blyth me think it best.
"How evir this warld do change and vary,
Let us in hairt nevir moir be sary,
Bot evir be reddy and addrest
To pass out of this frawful fary : f
For to be blyth me think it best. '
The King, no doijbt, gratified himself by keeping Dunbar
at his Court. In the accounts of the Lord Treasurer there
is entry of the King's offering of seven P'rench crowns " at
Maister William Dunbar's first mass,'' showing that the poet
sometimes exercised a priest's office at Court. His pension
of ten pound Scots seems to have been doubled in 1507, and
on the 26th of August, 1510, it was raised to eighty pounds,
with record of extra payments, at Christmas, 1511, of_;^i2 los.
for six ells and a quarter to make him a gown of Paris
black, and £^ 2s. 6d. for five quarters of scarlet, his Yule
livery.
James IV. was slain in the battle of Flodden Field on the
9th of September, 1513. From the 8th of August in that
year to June, 1515, there are no extant accounts of the Lord
* Who should droop or die for a loss ?
f Frawful fary, froward tumult ; evir, nevir, pronounced e'er, n^er.
136 English Writ^ers. [a.d. 1507
High Treasurer of Scotland, and after June, 1515, the name
of Dunbar does not occur in thenn . There is no positive
evidence that he was alive after the summer of 1513. He
may, withtherest of the Court, have accompanied the King to
his last battle, and remained among the dead upon the field.
There is a poem addressed to the widowed Queen, after the
battle, to which no writer's name is attached. If Dr. Laing
was right in assigning it to Dunbar, and also " Ane Orisoun
when the Governour " (John Diike of Albany) " past into
France," then Dunbar was alive in 15x7. If so, the ceasing
of his pension may imply fulfilment of the common con-
dition that it was payable till his promotion to a benefice ;
and it has been supposed that his more deeply religious
poems, and especially his " Manner of Passing to Confes-
sion" and his "Table of Confession" — ^which bring out
all that is best and purest in that practice of the Church —
were written in Dunbar's last years, when he was quietly
devoting himself to the care of souls. Sir David Lindsay
named him among dead poets in isja
Dunbar himself records the names of dead poets in his
" Lament for the Makars,'' printed in 1508. To the portion
of his life between the date of the King's marriage in 1503,
and the setting up of Chepman and Myllar's press in 1508,
there belongs one of Dunbar's best pieces, " The Dance
of the Seven Deadly Sins ; " for the first stanza of that
poem assigns the dance to Pastern's Eve — Shrove Tues-
day — on the 15th of February. Fastern's Eve fell on that
date in 1496, 1507, and 1518, and of these dates only one
is possible. With the vigorous homeliness a certain
coarseness was then often associated— ^coarse-
th^leven*^ ness which was not immorality, but consisted in
Sins/''' plain utterance of truths belonging to the grosser
side of life. This was common in Dunbar's
humorous poetry. It was used with noble purpose in his
"Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins," written in 1507, a piece
TO A.D. 1508.] William Dunbar. 137
in which new life was given to the old forms of allegori-
cal poetry by the genius of a master. On the festival night
before Lent, Dunbar saw heaven and hell, in a trance ; and
it seemed to him that Mahoun called for a dance among the
fiends. As the Seven Deadly Sins joined in the dancing,-
the allegorical description of each one became vivid with
intensity of life, and was realised to the imaginations of the
people by a profound earnestness expressed with playful
humour. Thispoem was followed by one purely humorous,
which described another of the sports called for
by Mahoun, "The Joust between the Tailor between the
and the Soutar " (shoemaker). And this, ^ieWar."
again, was followed by an ironical " Amends
to the Tailors and Soutars," with the refrain, " Tailors
and soutars, blest be ye ! " which was but a new form
of"fiyting." You tailors and soutars can shape anew a.
misfashioned man, cover with crafts a broken back, mend
ill-made feet —
' ' In erd ye kyth sic miracles here
In heaven ye sail be sancts full clear,
Though ye be knaves in this countrie :
Tailors and soutars, blest be ye ! "
Humour abounded, but it was the humour of a man essen-
tially earnest. No poet from Chaucer till his own time
equalled Dunbar in the range of genius. He could pass
from broad jest to a pathos truer for its homeliness ; he
had a play of fancy reaching to the nobler heights of
thought, a delicacy joined with a terse vigour of ex-
pression in short poems that put the grace of God into
their worldly wisdom.
" The Fenyeit Freir of Tungland " is a satire of Dunbar's
on a pretender who obtained substantial preferment from
James IV, The poem is especially a jest on his ..Th^p^^.
attempt to fly. The attempt was made in Sept- yeit Freir of
^1 \ 1 • 1 Tungland. *
ember or October, 1507, and the piece must have
138 English Writers. [.A.U....1508.
been written between that time and September, 1508, when
the charlatan obtained five years' leave of absence, without
prejudice to his income " anent the Abbey and place of
Tungland." This man was John Damian, of Lombardy, who
had practised medicine and surgery in France, and came
to Scotland in 1501, where he fastened as a foreign leech on
James IV. He persuaded the King to a faith in alchemy,
professed that he was discovering the quintessence and could
multiply gold, whereby he caused his Majesty to set up an
alchemist's furnace at Stirling, and gave occasion for many
entries in the Treasurer's accounts of money paid to "the
French Leich." He also played cards with his Majesty,
Early in 1504, the King made this leech Abbot of Tung-
land, in Galloway. In September, 1507, the Abbot of
Tungland undertook to fly into France upon an errand
of the King's, with wings made for the purpose, and
be there before the King's messengers. He did really put
on his wings, launched into air from the walls of Stirling
Castle, fell to earth, and broke his thigh. This, he said,
was because feathers of barn-door fowl, which naturally se&k
the soil, had been mixed with the feathers in the wings made
for him. Had all been eagles' feathers, he would have
soared high. Dunbar made merry with the false abbot in
his character of a strange bird, and in another poem, on
"The Birth of Antichrist," he told the King that Fortune
had appeared to him in a dream, and said that he should
never rise upon her wheel or have a benefice until an abbot
clothed himself with eagle's wings, flew into the air among
the cranes, rose as a horrible griffin, met a dragon in the
air with whom he begot Antichrist, and came down with
Simon Magus, and Mahoun, and Jonet on her besom, and
a troop of witches, to preach that the reign of Antichrist was
" \\'ithin my hairt comfort I tuke full sone,
Adew, quoth I, my drery dayis ar done;
A.D....IS08.] Dunbar and Kennedy. 139
Full Weill I wist to me would never cum thrift,
Quhill that twa mones were sene up in the lift,
Or quhill an Abbot flew abdif the mone."
Another of the King's constant companions was Thomas
Nornee — Sir Thomas Norray — one of his Majesty's fools,
whosefameDunbarcelebrated in kindlyburlesque.
But there is true eulogy in welcome of the brave ^"'Ja'pet
French knight, with Stuart ancestors, Bernard '^^^^^
Lord Aubigny, who had fought on Richmond's
side at Bosworth Field. He came to Scotland on the 9th
of May, 1508, and Dunbar's " Welcome " to him was at once
added to the pieces then being printed by Chepman and
Myllar. He came an old man, in weak health, and died at
Edinburgh within a month. William Dunbar then wrote
his elegy.
" The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy " was also be-
fore 1508.
Walter Kennedy, third son of Gilbert, first Lord
Kennedy, was born in Ayrshire, and bred for the Church.
He graduated in 1476 as Bachelor of Arts in the
University of Glasgow, which was not much pSnEof
older than himself, and became Master of Arts Dunbar and
' Kennedy.
in 1478. He travelled abroad ; he was some-
times with his kindred at Carrick ; and he, like Dunbar, was
at the Court of James IV. —
" Trusting to have of his magnificence
Guerdon, reward, and benefice bedene."
He obtained high credit as a poet, but few of his pieces are
known to remain. The chief of them is a long religious
poem of 1,715 lines, upon "The Passion of Christ." It
begins, after a Prelude, with the Fall of Man. Mercy and
Pity, Truth and Justice, reason, as in the old Miracle Plays,
before the throne of God. Then Christ reconciles Justice
140 English Writers. [a.d....iso8.
with Mercy by becoming the Saviour of Man. He is born
of the Virgin. Incidents of His life are set forth leading to
the Cross and Passion, upon which the poet chiefly dwells.
In Dunbar's " Lament for the Makars," written when he
himself "was seik," Walter Kennedy is spoken of with
kindly sympathy as at the point of death, and there is no
evidence that he was living after 1508. " The Flyting of
Dunbar and Kennedy" was nothing singular. In Italy,
Luigi Pulci and Matteo Franco, while excellent friends, had
amused their neighbours with a like ingenuity of invective.
Dunbar challenges, through Sir John Ross. Kennedy
accepts the challenge, and the fray begins. This metrical
scolding-match belongs to a form of literature descended
from the " tenson " or " jeu parti " of early Provencal poetry.
The tenson was a song in dialogue of contention which
found its way into European literature from wit-combats of
the Arabs on nice points of love and philosophy. But the
fifteenth century advanced by many ways to a rough hearti-
ness in dealing with realities of life. Thus, in a " flyting '' —
which takes its name from our old name for contention,
" flit '•'— the two poets, who, if they had lived some centuries
earlier, would, through a tenson, have been attacking and
defending castles in the air, were down upon earth belabour-
ing each other with the pen as heartily as if they had come
into the tilt-yard and the pens were lances, with which they
were engaged each in the playful endeavour to knock down
his friend.
Walter Kennedy acquired, in 1504, the Lairdship of
Glentig, to which reference is made in the Flyting ; there-
fore it was between this date and 1508 that Dunbar and
Kennedy taxed their ingenuity in the grotesque heaping
upon one another of all terms of abuse that could be
squeezed out of a mother-tongue not ill provided in that
way. Kennedy twice called Dunbar " Lollard," but he
seems to have taken that word, like any other, because it
A.D....I508.] Walter Kennedy. 141
was a good hard word of reproach ; though Dunbar's bad
opinion of the Friars might have suggested it.
Dunbar's " Lament for the Makars " — poets — is a poet's
Dance of Death, that shows, with clear reminder „,
' ' Lament
of the images upon church walls, how death '^^.,.
comes to the knight in the field, to the babe at
the breast, the lord with his puissance, the clerk with his
learning : —
" Unto the Deid gois all Estatis,
Princis, Prellatis, and Potestatis,
Baith rich and puire of all degre :
Timor mortis contuibat me."
This burden — " The fear of death disquiets me " — had
been used before by Lydgate and others,* but it is used
with especial emphasis in this poem of Dunbar's. Warm with
religious feeling and a sense of human fellowship, speaking
high thought in homely phrase, with a true poet's blending
of pathos and good-humour, the " Lament for the Makars "
bows to the supremacy of death, while Dunbar dwells kindly
on the memory of poets who have died before him : —
" And he has now ta'en last of aw
Gude gentle Stobo, and Quintine Schaw,
Of whom all wichtis has pitie :
Timor mortis conturbat me,
" Gude Maister Walter Kennedy
In point of deid lies verily ;
Great ruth it were that so suld be :
Timor mortis conturbat me. "
' ' Sen he has all my Brether tane.
He will nocht lat me leif alane,
On forse I mon his nyxt pray be :
Timor mortis conturbat me.
" Sen for the Deidf remeid is none,
Best is that we for deid dispone,
* " E. W." vi. 231. + DeicI, death ; leif, live.
142 English Writers. tA.D....i5o8
Eftir our deid that leif may we :
Timor mortis conturbat me."
This is Dunbar's list of the dead poets :— Chaucer, Lydgate,
Gower, "The good Sir Hugh of Eglinton "— that is,
Huchowne, author of the " Morte Arthure "* —
List of" Etrik, Heriot, and Wyntoun. Of Etrik there
is nothing known. Dr. Laing suggests that
the name may be a misprint for ' and eik,' et being used
as short for and. But, since no more is known of
Heriot than of Etrik, we may as well take Etrik also as
the name of an old poet whose works are lost. Wyntoun,
of course, is Andrew of Wyntoun, Prior of St. Serfs Inch
at Lochleven, and author of the " Orygynal Cronikyl." f,
" Maister John Clerk and James Afflek." Nothing is
known of John Clerk's verse. James Affleck is
Auchfnieck. Maister James Achlik or Auchinleck, servitor to
the Earl of Ross. He was in holy orders, and
by his death left vacant, in 1497, the Chantry of Caithness,
which the King then gave to James Beaton. A poem called
"The Quair of Jealousy," among the Selden MSS.,| has
after it " Explicit quod Auchin . . . ," and is probably one
of his.
" Holland and Barbour he has berevit ;
AUace ! that he nocht with us levit,
Schir Mungo Lokert of the Le :
Timor mortis conturbat me. "
Holland was Richard Holland, called Sir Richard, as a
priest, who followed the fortunes of the House of Douglas,
and was one of three named as sworn Englishmen who
were shut out from the pardon offered in March,
"hS." ^4^2' ^'^ those adherents of the Earl of Douglas
who would return to their allegiance. Richard
* " E. W." vi. 237—244. t " E. W." vi. 49—56.
% Arch. B. 24.
A.D....I508.] "Lamea't for the Makars." 143
Holland wrote, about 1450, a poem called " The Howlat,"
with its scene laid in the forest of Ternoway. It is a long
fable in elaborate rhymed stanzas, with alliteration. The
Howlat, not content with his own feathetj. asks the
Peacock, who is Pope of the birds, to solicit Nature on his
behalf. The Bird-Pope calls a General Council, at which
it is resolved to apply to the temporal power for assistance.
The Swallow is sent as a herald to the Eagle, who is Bird-
Emperor, and lives in the Tower of Babylon. He sets out
on his progress with many attendants, and the Woodpecker,
his pursuivant, showing the arms of the Pope, the German
Emperor, the King of France, and the King of Scotland.
Then follows a digression in honour of the Douglases,
before the spiritual and temporal powers meet and agree to
petition Nature for a reconstruction of the Owl. Nature
then adorns 'him with the finest feathers taken from the
other birds, whereupon the Howlat becomes so insufferably
proud that the other birds complain to Nature, who puts
him back into his original condition. He delivers then a
lesson against pride. The poem contains an incidental
prediction that the King of Scotland should, as heir of St.
Margaret, rule over broad Britain everywhere —
" Our soueraine of Scotland his armes to knawe
Quhilk sail be lord and ledar
Our braid Brettane all quhar
As Sanct Margaretis air,
And the signe schawe.*
Barbour was John Barbour, author of " The Bruce. "f
In the Acta Dominorum Concilii of February 27th, 1489,
there is mention of the spouse of umquhile Sir Mongo
* Sir Richard Holland's "Book of the Howlat " was presented in
an edition of 70 copies by David Laing to the Bannatyne Club, in
1823.
+ " E. W." vi. 1—44.
144 English Writers. [A.D....1508.
I.okart, knight, and of Robert Lokart of the Lee, his son
and heir. In October, 1493, James Lokart is spoken of as
heir to the late Robert. We know only from the place given
to him in Dunbar's "Lament for the Makars " that Sir
Mungo Lokart was a poet.
" Clerk of Tranent eik he has tane,
That maid the awnteris of Gawayne. "
These lines may give us the name of the author of " Gawayne
and Golagros," one of the poems printed in 1508 byChep-
man and - Myllar. " Gawayne and Golagros "
Tranent, was a recent romance in rhymed stanzas of thir-
and _ teen lines, with full alliteration. It told 'two
oagros. adventures of Gawayn, which were drawn, with
variation in the names and in some other respects, from
the romance of " Perceval," by Chrestien of Troyes: — -
" Golagros and. Gawayne.''
When King Arthur was marching to Toscana with his army to take
ship for the Holy Land, they came to a town, and Sir Kay was sent to
ask supply of provisions. Sir Kay passed through an open door of the
castle, entered a great empty hall, and found his way to a fire at which
a dwarf was roasting birds upon a spit. Sir Kay took from the spit a
piece of swan. The dwarf was angry, the lord of the castle came
out ; Kay answered rudely to his rebuke, and the lord of the castle
knocked him down. Kay went back and reported that there was
nothing to be had in that place. Gawayne said. Sir Kay is crabbed of
kind : " I rede ye mak furth ane man meker of mude." Arthur sent
Gawayne, who found a- hall full of fair company, and did his errand
courteously. The lord of the castle said he would not sell provisions ;
he would give them — all he had was at King Arthur's disposal. An
unmannerly knight had been there ; if he was of Arthur's company,
amends should be made for the hurt done him. Then Gawayne brought
King Arthur into the castle, where not only food was to be had, but
support of another thirty thousand men to his army.
Arthur then marches on, and comes to the castle of Golagros, a
strong chief who owns no man as his lord, and whose forefathers have
in like manner held tbeirown. Arthur resolves to subdue him when he
A.D....I508.J "GOLAGKOS AND GaIVAYNE.'' I45
comes back from the Holy Land. He comes back, plants his tent
before the castle, and sends to Golagros, as his messengers, Gawayne,
Lancelot, and Sir Ewin. They are courteous, and Golagros receives
them with an equal courtesy. He will be friendly, but he will
preserve his freedom. When Arthur hears this he lays siege ta the
castle, and the poem tells of many knightly passages of arms. At last
Golagros himself enters the field, and Gawayne is sent to fight with him.
Stout battle is described. Presently Golagros is down, and he must yield
or die. He is too proud to yield, and Gawayne is unwilling that so brave
a man shall die. "How can I save you?" Gawayne asks. "There
is only one way," Golagros replies. " Seem to be overcome, and follow
me into my castle. I will repay you. " Gawayne said, ' ' I will trust
you." He let Golagros rise, they seemed to continue battle, and then
Gawayne followed Golagros into the castle, as if he were prisoner.
There was grief in Arthur's camp, festival in the Castle of Golagros.
At the feast Golagros asked his assembled friends whether they would
have him still for chief, if he had been overcome by Gawayne.
Always our chief, they said. He told them what had happened, and
because Gawayne had been courteous to him in the hour of his triumph,
and had trusted him, he could resist no more. He would be Gawayne's
man. " Let us all go to King Arthur, and make submission." Arthur's
people were alarmed when they saw the power of the enemy advancing
from the castle. But Arthur and his knights were told what had
happened, were bidden to feast, and feasted nine days in the castle.
And Arthur, at departing, said, to Golagros : " I release you of alle-
giance. By sea and land be free as I first found you."
These two lessons in the knightly strength of courtesy — the
second rising higher than the first — were no doubt " The
Awnteris of Gawane,'' written not long before 1508 by
Clerk, of Tranent, a parish and town nine or ten miles from
Edinburgh.*
* Chepman and Myllar's edition of " Golagros and Gawayne" was
printed in 1792 by Pinkerton in his collection of Scottish poems, and it
was included in 1839 by Sir Frederic Madden in a volume printed for the
Bannatyne Club : " Syr Gawayne, a collection of ancient romance-
poems by Scotish and English authors relating to that celebrated
Knight of the Round Table." A full study of the text, together with
the text itself, was contributed in 1878 to Anglia (Vol. H., pp. 395 to 440)
by Moritz Trautmann. In comment on the changes made in names of
persons of story. Dr. Trautmann suggests that the name Golagros,
K — VOL. VII.
146 English Writers. (a.d....iso8.
" Schir Gilbert Hay endit hes he?' Sir Gilbert Hay was
chamberlain to Charles VI. of France, and a diligent trans-
lator from the French. There was found in the
Hay?'-''"' library of the Earl of Ormelie a transcript made
before 1579 from a copy written in 1499 of a
translation of the French metrical romance of Alexander
in 20,000 lines, completed by Sir Gilbert Hay in 1460.
" He hes Blind Haiy and Sandy Traill
Slaine with his schot of mortal haill,
Quhilk Patrik Johnstoune micht not fle."
Blind Harry* needs no interpretation. Of Alexander
Traill no trace has yet been found ; but Patrick Johnstoun
appears in the Treasurer's Accounts from 1488
Johnstoun. to 1 49 2 as One who received, together with the
players, payment for plays before the king. In
the Bannatyne MS. there is one piece ascribed to him,
"The three deid Powis" (death's heads). They speak
their warning to lusty youth : the white and red, the bright
eyes and the crimpled hair, shall come to this, " Behold
our heidis, O lusty gallands gay !."
" He has reft Merseir his endyte,
That did in luve so lifly write,
So schort, so quyk, of sentence hie."
Mersar was praised also by Lindsay, but even his Chris-
tian name is unknown, and of all his poems only
four stanzas remain against false lovers, with the
refrain, " Such peril lies in paramours " — " Sic perrell lyis
in paramouris.''
applied to the free chieftain, who is called by Chrestien of Troyes, in
the romance of " Percival," " li Rices Sodoiers," and is there said to
live in " li Castiaus Orguellous," is a corruption of that word " Orguel-
lous." Sir Frederick Madden had suggested some affinity to the name
Galagars in Sir Thomas Malory.
* "E.W." vi. 244— 250.
A.D....1S08.] "Lament for the Makars." 147
" He hestane RouU of Aberdene,
And gentill RouU of Corstorphene ;
Twa better fallowis did no man se :
Timor mortis conturbat me"
Time also has destroyed their works, unless a Sir John
Rowl be one of them, who wrote the poem called " Rowlis
Cursing," which was among the pieces copied by George
Bannatyne.
" In Dunfermline he hes tane Broiin,
With Maister Robert Henrison."
In Chepman and Myllar's first print of the " Lament for
the Makars," " tane Broun " stands as " doun roune," which
would mean " whispered in the ear " of Robert
TT -n 1 -K ^r^ William
Henryson. But there are m the Bannatyne MS. Browd.
two transcripts of a poem on " Judgment to
Come," by William Brown, who is once called "Sir,'' as
being a priest. Robert Henryson we know.* "Schir
Johne the Ross embraist hes he." Here, also, "Sir"
probably indicates one in religious orders. He was a friend
of Dunbar's, and it was through him that Dunbar challenged
Kennedy to the Flyting. There may be faint traces of
him in the Treasurer's accounts of 1490 and 1498. No
verse of his is known.
" And he hes now tane, last of aw,
Gud gentill Stobo, and Quintin Schaw."
Stobo was the name given at Court to John Reid, who
served as writer and notary public in the reigns of James II.,
James III., and James IV. He had a ten-
pound pension, which James III. made twenty
pounds, " dilecto nostro familiari servitori et scribe, Johani
Red, nuncupate Stobo." In 1488 and 1491, as a witness
to charters, he is described also as Rector of Christ's Kirk.
No verse of his is known. He may have been called
* "E. W." vi. 250-257.
148 English Writers. [A.D....1508.
Stobo from connection with a place of that name on the
Tweed, five miles from Peebles.
Quintin Schaw is named by Gavin Douglas in his
"Palace of Honour" as "Quintin the Poet," worthy to be
joined with Dunbar and .Kennedy in the Court
Bl'aw.'" of the Muses. There remains of him only one
poem of six stanzas, "Advice to a Courtier."
He was the son of a John Shaw, of Haily, in Ayrshire, who
had been an ambassador to Denmark, in 1469, touching
the marriage of James IH. Quintin Shaw's name often
appears in the Treasurer's accounts as one living at Court,
receiving grants for dress, and having a pension of ten
pounds. Thus, for his soul's utterance as well as for his
body's presence in this world, many an old Scottish poet has
had reason to say, " Timor mortis conturbat me." Dunbar
himself but narrowly escaped oblivion.
Pieces of which the writers are unknown were referred to
Popular by Dunbar and Douglas. Some of the pieces
Tales. g^j-g jjQ longer to be found, but we still have the
tales of
" Raf Coilyear with his thrawin brow,
Craibit Johne the Reif, and auld Cowkelpie's sow." *
' ' The Taill of Rauf Coilyear, how he harbreit King Charles " f
is a comic tale of chivalry in long rhymed stanzas, with alliteration.
Charlemagne, while hunting, is separated from his followers, meets
Ralph the Collier on a moor, and is driven by a storm to accept his rude
hospitality. In entering the house and at table the collier gives Charle-
magne rough lessons in politeness, and after the second lesson knocks his
majesty down with a stroke under the ear. Then he gives hini a good
supper of venison, and cares little for the foresters, who threaten to
carry him someday to Paris. When he asks his guest's name and where
he lives, he is told that it is Wymond of the Wardrobe, and that he
belong; lo the queen's chamber. Next morning Charlemagne departs,
and, as the collier will take no payment, he is invited to come next
* Douglas's " Palice of Honour. "
t A copy of this tale, as printed at St. Andrews in 1572, is in the
Advocates' Library at Edinburgh.
A.D....IS08.] Popular Tales. 149
day to the palace with a load of coal. When he comes, Roland is sent
out to meet him and bring him to Court. His rough manners on the way
lead to the promise of a fight on the morrow between collier and paladin.
Through sundry difficulties Ralph makes his way into the presence-
chamber, and knows Wymond through all his golden clothes. When
the truth is out, Ralph is in fear for his life ; hut Charlemagne,
praising him as " a stalwart man, and stout in striking," makes him a
■knight. Equipped as a knight he goes out to his first feat of arms, a
duel with Roland. At the appointed place a great knight appears on a
camel. Ralph, supposing him to be Roland, couches his lance, and there
begins fierce battle. The great knight is the Saracen Magog, sent by
the Cham of Tartary todeclare war against France. While the fight
continues, Roland comes to keep his engagement. The Saracen is per-
suaded to marry a French duchess, and become a Christian. All three
are made friends ; and as for Sir Ralph, lately the Collier, he comes to
be Marshal of France.
" John the Reeve " was written when there were only
three King Edwards in our history. As the poem says —
" Of that name there were kingis three,
But Edward of the Long Shanks was he,
A lord of great renown."
The Story of
"John the Reeve "
professes to have been told in Scotlaiid by a clerk who came out of
Lancashire. Edward L was out hunting when three falcons flew
away, the company was parted, and the king at nightfall, in bad
weather, found himself with no one near him but a bishop and an earl.
They saw riding away from them a stout carle with short, broad legs,
thick, stiff shoes, and a rusty spur. The earl asked courteously that
he would take them to shelter of his house, and had a rough answer.
The bishop entreated, while the king and the earl laughed at his
failure. The king bade pull the man down ; the carle said that
when he saw them roune and reason he suspected them, but if they pro-
mised to do him no hurt he would gladly help them as far as he could.
He should be requited among lords, they said. He answered that he
had no mind to vail his hood or crouch to lords.
" The Kyng said curfeouslye,
' What manner of man are ye
150 English Writers. tA.D....i5o8.
At home in your dwelling ? '
' A husbandman, forsooth, I am,
And the king's bondman,
Thereof 1 have good liking.'"
He told his name, in answer to more questioning, described his life, and
asked in return where his questioners lived. The earl said that they lived
in the king's house. Their clothes are wet, but fuel is scant ; he shall
not be able to give them a fire, and it will hurt him should it come
to knowledge of the king that there is poultry in his kitchen. Then
he led them to his hall, where four men took charge of the horses, a
white-haired wife welcomed the guests, a fire was made, the horses were
fed. The guests were taken to a room where there was a charcoal fire,
and candles were lighted. Meanwhile, John pointed to the king, and
asked of the earl, " Who is that long-limbed fellow?" "That," said
the earl, " is the queen's chief falconer, Pierce PayforaU." " And
who is he in the shirt?" — "He is a poor chaplain," said the earl,
"and I am a sumpter man." — " Courtiers," said John ; " proud lads,
and I trow penniless." The king said, " So mote I thee, there's not
a penny among us three to buy us bread and fiesh. " — ' ' Aha ! " said
John, " I go in russet, and am worth more than a thousand pounds.
'Tis well to be a bondman. When I sit in tavern, I drink as good
wine as Edward or his queen." — "You are a comely knight, John." —
' ' No knight, but I will fight hand to hand whoever wrongs me.''
" Have you arms ? — "A pitchfork with two prongs, a rusty sword and
a knife, and yet I trow I can fight as well as thou. Pierce, with all thy
painted gear. But let us three fellows go to supper, and Pierce Payfor-
aU, the proudest, walk before." So they washed and went to supper,
joined by John's two neighbours. Long Hobkin and Hob. John placed
the king, earl, and bishop with his wife and his two daughters, and
himself sat at a side table with Hob and Hobkin. The first service
was of bean bread, rusty salt bacon, brewis, lean salt beef of a year old,
and cold, sour ale. The king did not like it. John said if they got
any other they must promise not to tell the king. They promised, and
were made merry with spiced bread and fine wine, boar's head, venison,
capons, tarts, fruit, and other such fare. This would content the king,
said the guests. " Were the king here," said John, " he should have
none of it. He would be wroth with John." They had a merry night
— duly set forth in rhyme — slept in fine linen, and heard mass next
morning, with boiled capons to follow.
King Edward, returned to Windsor, told the queen what had
happened, and at her request John the Reeve was bidden to come to
A.D....IS08.] Popular Tales. 151
the king. John sees care before him ; but there is a burlesque descrip-
tion of his arming himself for the adventure, and drinking five gallons
with Hob and Hobkin before he departs for Windsor. There he is
refused admission, charges the porter with his pitchfork, and rides into
the king's hall holding his pitchfork as a lance. Burlesque details
make mirth over the situation, but John is knighted, has his house given
to him with a hundred pounds a year, one of his sons knighted, the
other made a parson of a kirk, and his two daughters married to two
gay esquires. Hobkin and Hob are made freemen, and John the
Reeve keeps open house until he dies.
This old popular tale belongs to a favourite form of
ballad. " King John and the Tanner of Tamworth " is
another example of it, and repeats, indeed, one touch in
" John the Reeve," who expects hanging when the king
calls for a collar to make him a knight. " After a collar a
halter ! " is the reflection of both Reeve and Tanner.
There remains one other popular tale that was referred
to by both Dunbar and Douglas as current in their time —
Cockelbie's Sow.
This begins in a rambling measure, of short lines with alliteration,
that has some relationship to the Skeltonic measure hereafter to be
described, but the lines lengthen as the piece advances to its end.
Cockelbie had a black sow, which -he sold for threepence. One of
his pennies fell into a lake. That penny was found by a poor person,
who bought a pig with it. She
' ' Wynnit near by
And scho wald mak at mangery.
And had no substance at all,
Bot this pur pig stall,
To furniss a gret feist,
Withoutin stufe bot his beist.
And git scho callit to hir cheir
On apostata fretr,
A peruerst pardoneir,
Ane practand palmeir,
A wich and a wobstare,
A myligant and a mychare,
A fond fule," *
* Wynnit, dwelt; mak at, aim at; mangery, a feast; myligant, a
false person — Fr., malegent ; mychare, a skulker.
152 English Writers. [a-d.-isoS.
and so forth. The odd guests come to make merry at the feast of pig,
but the pig escapes, and lives to be a famous boar who fought with
Meleager.
The next fytte tells what came of Cockelbie's second penny. Cock-
elbie walked one day by a river, and met a beautiful maiden, Adria,
who led a blind old man. She saluted Cockelbie innocently on her
knee, and he gave the old man his second penny. In return for it he
got the maiden, who was married to his son Flammislie, a strong archer.
He came to great honour with the King of France. The king gave him
a province named after himself and his wife —
" That is to say, Flammislie and Adria,
His hole earldome callit Flandria ;
' Flan ' fro the first sillab of Flammislie,
And ' dria ' drawn from Adria the free."
That accounted for Cockelbie's second penny of the three he had for his
black sow.
With his third penny Cockelbie bought a godfatherly gift for the son
of his rich neighbour Bleirblowane, to whom he had stood godfather, —
it was a gift of four-and-twenty eggs. The child's mother scorned his
eggs, and he said he would take them home and keep them for his god-
son. So he carried them home,
" And chargit sone his henwyfe to do hir cure.
And mak thame fruct. Than to set thame scho fure
Hir best brod hen, called lady Peckle-pes, —
And goung Cokrell her lord and leman wes, —
Scho maid brud on thir eggis, that in schort space
Twenty-four chikkynis of thame scho hes,
Twelf main and twell famell be croniktilis cleir.
And quhat they war with thair namis we sail heir.
The first wes the samyn Chantecleir to luke
Of quhome Chaucer treitis into his buke,*
And his lady Partlot, sister and wyfe."
The value of the eggs rises by what we should call compound interest
as the eggs of each new brood are dealt with in like manner, and in
fifteen years Cockelbie's twenty-four eggs have produced a thousand
pounds, which he then gives to his godson. Such a parable against
despising small things, intermixed with little passages of homely wisdom,
is the story sometimes quoted proverbially of ' ' Cockelbie's Sow. "
* The Nun's Priest's Tale.
A.D.,..i3o8.] "The Freirs of Berwick.'" 153
The writer of that story quotes Chaucer; the writer
of the " Freirs of Berwick " placed himself by the side of
Chaucer, and told a humorous tale, not only in Chaucer's
couplets, but with much of -Chaucer's skill, and' with a rare
freedom from coarseness. We know only one poet — Dun-
bar— who could come so near to the Master. The tale is
found without an author's name in Sir Richard Maitland's
MS., and also in Bannatyne's. John Pinkerton was the
first who ascribed it to Dunbar, and he suggested that, as it
speaks of all the monasteries in Berwick as standing institu-
tions, it must have been written before the dissolution of the
greater monasteries in is'39. No copy remains of an edition
printed and sold by Robert Charteris at Edinburgh in 1603,
and there is only one known copy of " The Merrie Historie
of the Three Friers of Berwicke. Printed at Aberdene by
Edward Raban for David Melvill, 1622."
The Tale of the Freirs of Berwick
begins with a description of Berwick-on-Tweed, with its wall, its
castle,
" The grit Croce kirk, and eke the Maisone Dew,
The Jacobene freiris of the quhyt hew.
The Carmeleitis and the Monkis eik.
The Four Ordouris wer nocht for to seik.'.'
It happened on a May morning that two of the White Jacobin friars,*
Allane and Robert, who had been sent from their house at Berwick to
visit brethren up the country, and pleased all wives by the way, and told
them tales of saints' lives, were coming home —
" But verry tyred and wett wes Freir Allane,
For he was awld, and micht not wele travell.
And alsf he had ane littill spyce of gravell ;
* Jacobin was a French name for the Dominicans, because they
first settled at Paris in 1219 in the Rue St. Jacques, but the White friars
were Carmelites.
+ All, also.
154 English Writers. IA.D....1508.
Freir Robert wes young, and very hett of blude,
And be the way he bure both clothis and hude,
And all thair geir, for he wes strong and wicht.
Be that it dreiy neir toward the nicht,
As thai wer cumand towart the toun full neir,
Freir Alane seid than, ' Gud bruder deir,
It is so lait, I dreid the yett * be closit,
And we are tyrit, and verry evill disposit
To luge owt of the toun, bot gif that we
In som gude houss this nycht mot herbryt be."
There -was a wonderfully good innkeeper outside the town named Simon
Lawder, who had a fair blyth wife, but she was something dynkf and
dangerous. The friars, when they came to the house, greeted her cour-
teously, and asked after her good man. "He went from home," she
said, " on Wednesday, into the, country to seek corn and hay and other
things we need." Friar Robert said, "I pray God give him speed," and
asked the wife to fill a stoijp of ale. She filled the stoup and brought in
bread and cheese ; they ate and drank and sat at their own ease. While
they enjoyed themselves they heard the prayer-bell of their own
abbey, and then they were aghast, because they knew the gates were
closed, and they might in no wise get entry. They prayed the good
wife, for charity, to give them a night's lodging.
" But scho to thame gaif answer, with gret hichtjj
' The Gudman is fra hame, as I yow tald ;
And God it wait, § gif I durst be so bald
To ierbery Freiris in this houss with iue,
Quhat wald Symon say ? Ha, Benedicite ! ' "
AUane pleaded that the ways were bad, that he was tired and wet, that
the abbey gates were shut, and it would be sin in her to let them perish
without help. The goodwife looked at the two friars, and said at last,
"Ye bide not here, but, if ye list -to lie up in yon loft, ye shall find
straw and I will send you clothes. If you please you may pass on there
both together, for in no wise can I have friars here." She sent her
maid to show the way, and they went gladly into the loft that had
been made for corn and hay. The servant made their bed and left
them, quickly closing the trapdoor as she went down. Friar AUane
* Yett, gate. % Hichl, raised voice and temper,
t Dynk, saucy. § God wot.
A.D....IS08.] "The Freirs of Berwick." 155
went to bed as best he might, but Friar Robert promised himself
to spy sport.
When the friars were shut off, the goodwife was blithe, for sh6
had made a tryst that night with Friar John, who was a Black Friar
of great renown, and sole governor of his abbey. He had silver and
gold . in plenty, and a privy postern by which he came out, un-
known, when he pleased. The goodwife mended the fire, thrust
capons on the spit, set rabbits to roast, bade her maid turn them
tenderly. Then she went to her chamber, put on a white curch and
a red'kirtle, and two rings on every finger, then covered her table
with a green cloth and fine napery above. Then she went out to see
whether anyone was coming : " Sho thocht full lang to meit her
lufe Freir Johne." Soon afterwards he knocked at the gate. She knew
his knock, and let him in. He had brought with him in two jars a
gallon of Gascon wine, a brace of partridges, and a basket of pain
de mane —
" This I haif brocht to yow, my awin luv deir,
Therefoir I pray yow, be blythe and mak gud cheir.
Sen it is so that Symone is fra hame
I will be hamely now with yow, gud dame. "
She made him welcome, and while they talked together Friar Robert, in
the loft, made himself a small hole through the boards with his bodkin,
through which he saw all that was done, and also he heard all that
was said.
Just when the hot supper was ready on the table, and the pair
of wine jars had been set beside Friar John, the Goodman's voice was
heard calling, while he knocked fast at the gate. What should the friar
do? He could not pass out. "Best hide you," she said, "under
yon great meal trough. "
"Sho closit him in, and syne went on hir way,
' Quhat shall I do, allace ? ' the Freir can say. •
Syne to her Madin spedyly scho spak,
' Go to the fyre, and the meitis fra it tak ;
Be bissy als and slokkin out the fyre ;
Go cloiss yone burd ; and tak away the chyre ;
And loke up all into yone almery,
Baith meit and drink, with wine and aill put by ;
The mane breid als thow hyd it with the wyne.
That being done, thou sowp the howse clene, syne,
iS6 English Writers. [A.D....1508.
That na apperance of feist be heir sene,
But sobirly our selffis dois siistene." *
Then she put away her fine clothes and bounded into bed, while Symon
knocked his fill. When Symon was tired of knocking in the front, he
went to the back of the house, to a window by his wife's bedhead,
crying " Alison, awake ! " as fast as he could cry. At last she answered,
crabbedly, "Ach ! who is this that knows so well my name? Go
hence," she says, "for Symon is fra hame." Then Symon said,
" Fair dame, ken ye not me? I am your Symon, and husband of this
place ! " — " Are ye my spouse Symon? Alas ! I had almost gone wrong
by mistake. Who would have thought you'd come so late ? " Then
she rose and let him in. He asked for meat, but she had none fit for
him.
" ' How sa, fair dame ? Ga geit me cheise and breid,
Ga fill the stowp, hald me no mair in pleid.
For I am verry tyrrit, wett, and cauld.' "
So she put a cloth onthe board, and brought him some ox heel and
sheep's head and some cold meat, and filled the stoup.
" Than satt he doun and swoir, ' Be All hallow,
I fair richt weill, and I had ane gud fallow.
Dame, eit with me, and drink gif that ye may.'
Said the gud wyf, ' Devill inche cun I, nay.
It wer mair meit in to your bed to be
Than now to sit desyrand company. ' "
Said Friar Robert in the loft to Friar AUane, " I would the goodman
wist that we were here. I shall have a sore heart if Symon polishes that
sheep's head when there is so much good fare in the cupboard." And
with that he coughed. " Who is in the loft ? " asked Symon. — " Only
two of your own Friars," the dame answered, with soft words. — " What
' Friars ? " — "Friar Robert and Friar AUane, who have been travelling
all day with great pain. It was very late when they came here. Cur-
few was rung and their gate closed, so I gave them lodging in the loft."
" They are welcome heartily," said Symon. " Go call them down, that
we may drink together." — "Better let them be," said the goodwife ;
* Slokin, quench. Go close yon table and take away the chair and
lock all up in yon cupboard. Mane bread, a light white bread of finest
flour, with milk, bread, and almond — French, pain d'amand. Soivp,
sweep.
A.D..,.i5o8.] "The Freirs of Berwick!' 157
" they had liever sleep than sit in company." — " I'll have them down,"
said Simon, and bade the maid go and invite them. Then they came
down and sat with Symon, and Symon was jovial and said, "Yet would
I give a crown of gold for me, for some good meat and drink among us
three." — "Would you so?" said Friar Robert. " What meat would
you like ? I learnt magic at Paris, and if you will keep counsel I will
bring you the best meat you ever saw, and Gascon wine to drink with
it." He took his book in hand and read a bit, looked to the east,
looked to the west, turned and looked down, read again, sat on the
meal-tub under which was Friar John, groaned, glowered, clapped his
hands, turned to the south suddenly, and stooped low at the cupboard.
The dame saw that he knew what she had been doing. "Open this
cupboard, dame," said Friar Robert, " and bring us out two jars of
Gascon wine that hold more than a gallon. You will find pane de
mane in a basket — bring it, also a couple of rabbits fat and piping hot.
You may bring also capons and partridges." Symon was amazed, but
liked his fare. They made a merry night of it, and bade the dame
enjoy herself with them. She made feigned cheer, with a heavy heart.
Then Symon said to the Friar, " I marvel much how ye can bring
suddenly so many dainties. " — "It is no marvel," said the Friar. "I
have a private page of my own, who comes to me when I list, and
brings me what I will. But you must keep this secret." — " By Heaven's
King," said Symon, "it shall be secret for me. But, dear brother, I
should like to see your servant, and drink with him." — " It cannot be,"
said Friar Robert. " He is so foul and ugly that I dare not lake on me
to bring him in sight, especially now, so late at night — unless, indeed, he
were turned into a shape other than his own." — " As you please,'" said
Symon; "but I should be glad to see him." — "What shape shall he
take?" — "A friar's, white, like you; white will frighten nobody."
Friar Robert said that would be dishonour to his order. He should
come as a friar, in a black habit, which was his natural colour, and
he would not be alarming in the figure of a friar. " But you must stand
close, Symon, and speak no word till my conjuring is done, only stand
by with a staff in your hand, near the door." — " Now tell me, master,
what ye will have done ? " — "Only hold still, see what happens, hide
by the door, and when I bid you, strike ; strike hard .upon his neck as
he goes out." Then Friar Robert took his book again, and going pre-
sently to the meal trough cried, " Ha, how ! Hurlibass, now I conjure
thee ! Rise in black habit, make thee like a friar ; rise from this
trough, make thou ho din or cry ! Show thyself openly, grieve no one
here, pull the cowl down over thy face, and draw thy hands within
thy sleeve. Pass freely, and come here no more :
iS8 English Writers. [A.D....1508.
" And our the stair se that thow ga gud speid ;
Gif thow dois nocht on thy awin perrell beid."
Then the friar under the trough soon raised himself, tumbled over the
stone, and pressed towards the door. When Friar Robert saw him
passing by, he cried aloud to the goodman, " Strike — strike hard ; now
is thy time ! " Symon struck so hard that he tripped over a sack and
cut his head against a mustard stone. Friar John missed the steps and
tumbled into a mire below, forty feet broad, from which he got home in
foul clothing from top to tail, and with little desire to come again to
Symon's inn. Friar Robert carried Symon to the door, where he re-
covered when the wind had blown twice in his face ; then told him
that the ghost was gone, " but let him go, he was a graceless gaist, and
boun you to your bed, for it is best."
CHAPTER VI.
GAVIN DOUGLAS.
Gavin Douglas, the poet, who lived to become Bishop of
Dunkeld, was younger than Dunbar — perhaps fourteen years
younger, for he was born at the end of 1474 or
the beginning of 1475. He was one of four sons Douglas
of Archibald, the great Earl of Angus, known as
" Bell-the-Cat." He matriculated at St. Andrews in 1489,
became Bachelor of Arts in 1492, Master in 1494. Dunbar
had taken that degree fifteen years before, in 1479. Gavin
Douglas, after leaving St. Andrews, went abroad, and con-
tinued study in the XTniversity of Paris. He was ordained
priest, and in 1496 had a grant of the teinds of Monymusk,
in Aberdeenshire. In 1498 there was granted to him the
next presentation to the parsonage of Glenquhorn, and
probably about the same time, but at a date not known, he
was presented to the Rectory of Hawche, which was an old
name for Linton or Prestonhaugh, now Prestonkirk, in
Lothian, near Dunbar. It was named Hawche from the
haugh land there on the northern bank of the Tyne, and
Linton was at the linn or fall of the Tyne, half a mile dis-
tant.
In the year 1501 or 1502, Gavin Douglas was made
Provost of the Collegiate Church of St. Giles, in Edinburgh.
This was a well-paid and important benefice, that brought
Gavin Douglas into contact with the Court. He had written
the first of bis poems, " The Palace of Honour," in 1501,
i6o English Writers. [a.i>. isoi
and had addressed it to the king. Such dedication may
have given the strong Douglas family an opportunity of
bringing Gavin near to the king, by obtaining for him a
substantial benefice in Edinburgh, his age then being about
twenty-seven. He had already made a verse translation of
Ovid, De Remedia Amoris, but that is lost.
" The Palace of Honour"
was, in the measure of " The Golden Terge," a court poem dedicated
to James IV., an allegory imitated in the usual way from poems that
remained in fashion. On a May morning the poet entered a garden,
swooned, and dreamt of a procession of Minerva and her court, Diana
and her followers, Venus and all her train, with the Court of the Muses,
to the Palace of Honour. The palace was built on a high slippery
rock with many paths, and but one leading to the summit. After
much detail, classical and allegorical, after seeing the Muses cull
flowers of rhetoric, Gavin Douglas awoke, wrote a lay in praise
of Honour, and dedicated his poem to the king. Steady main-
tenance of right and duty, which runs through the literature of our
country, is here, no doubt ; and the conventional details are often quick-
ened by the homely touches that abound in aq old Scottish poet. We
find the noble aim also in Gavin Douglas's poem, of ' ' King Hart," an
allegory of life, the Heart personified as Man.
"King Hart"
is the hero of a morality poem, built on the same lines as a morality
play. He is young and lusty, beset by the vices of pleasure, though
guarded by five servants, who stand for his five senses. Honour, re-
fused admittance, finds a way into his castle. Dame Pleasaunce, with a
fair train, passes by. Youth-head and Fresh Delight go from the castle
of King Hart to learn more of her, but they are made prisoners, and
fastened in the silken bonds of Venus. Other messengers sent out
are captured also. Then King Hart goes to do battle with Dame
Pleasaunce. He is defeated, wounded, and himself made prisoner.
But Pity sets him free. King Hart seizes the castle, and is wedded to
Pleasaunce.
After a while Age approaches ; Wantonness brings word to King Hart
that Agais at the door. Youth-head, Disport, and Fresh Delight then quit
the Court ; Conscience comes in unchecked ; Sadness whispers King Hart
TO A.D. ISI3-1 Gavin Douglas. i6i
in the ear ; Dame Pleasaunce deserts him. Wisdom and Reason advise
him to retire to his own castle. There Languor meets him at the gate,
Strength creeps out at a postern, and the hideous army of Decrepitude is
next seen marching down upon him. He is overcome, and makes his
will before he dies. To Queen Pleasaunce he leaves his palfrey, Un-
steadfastness ; his great belly he leaves to Gluttony ; his worn-out
stomach to Rere-supper (the second supper, taken when wise folk
should be in bed) ; his conscience to be scoured by Chastity, and so
forth.
This differs only from a Morality Play in being told, in-
stead of being shown in dialogue with action. " King
Hart " probably was written not long after " The Palace of
Honour." All the work of Gavin Douglas, as a poet, falls
in his earlier life within the reign of James IV. The nine
years of his later life belong only to history.
There is a little poem by Gavin Douglas in four
Chaucer stanzas * called " Conscience." " The first stanza
says that, when the Church was young, prelates
were chosen for their perfection because Con- '1?°"" „
■■■ science.
science ruled. The second stanza says that,
■after a time, they slipped the Con away and left only the
science, but yet it was well that wit and learning ruled.
When science began to impair, the sci was cut away, and the
third stanza tells how it fared when there remained only
" This sillab Ens,
Quhilk in our language signifies that schrew
Riches and geir, that gart all grace go hens."
The fourth stanza then cries out on hungry Ens, that
tempted Judas, and, through Simon, infected Holy Church,
praying God send Defence with Conscience back again.
There remains also of Gavin Douglas his translation of
Virgil's ^neid, with the thirteenth book that was added
by Maphseus Vegius. This was the first translation of the
* The seven-lined stanzas, which we can also call " Troilus verse,"
abandoning the name "rhyme royal." — " E. W." v. I32«.
L — VOL. VII.
i62 English Writers. [a.d. 1512
^neid into English, and marked an important advance
in the work of EngHshing the Latin classics. Douglas began
, , this translation in January of i s 1 2, and finished
Last years -' ■' j '
of Gavin it in July, 1513. On the 30th of September,
1513, the freedom of the city of Edinburgh
was conferred upon him ; this was three weeks after the
disaster at Flodden Field, where Gavin Douglas's two elder
brothers shared the king's fate. Their old father, the
great Earl of Angus, broken down by grief, retired to a reli-
gious house in Galloway," where he died early in 15 14.
Gavin Douglas, Provost of St. Giles', was thus left eldest
survivor of the house. But the earldom passed, in the line
of the eldest son, to Archibald, son of George, Master of
Angus ; and before a year was out young Archibald was
married to King James's widow, the young Queen Margaret.
As Margaret was Henry VIII.'s sister, the Douglas family
then came to be identified with English interests in Scot-
land ; but the interests of England were opposed to Scottish
independence, which the French alliance had helped to
maintain, and so the Douglases in Scotland came to be con-
sidered traitors to their country's cause.
As uncle to Queen Margaret's husband, Gavin Douglas
became hopelessly entangled in the difficulties of the
time that followed. In June, 1514, Queen Margaret
named him for Abbot of Arbroath. In October the
death of William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, who
had been named for the Archbishopric of St. An-
drews, caused Queen Margaret to urge the appoint-
ment of Gavin Douglas, whom she had made her Chan-
cellor, to that metropolitan see. His attempt to take
possession was resisted by force, and Gavin Douglas got
neither the Abbey of Arbroath nor the Archbishopric ; but
in 1515 the influence of Henry VIII. with the Pope obtained
for Gavin Douglas the Bishopric of Dunk'eld. Political
questions raised over this appointment led to his imprison-
TO A.D. 1522. Gavin Douglas. 163
ment in Edinburgh Castle by the Duke of Albany. After a
year of such imprisonment he was set free ; at the end of
September, 1516, all difficulties were removed, and Gavin
Douglas was able to be consecrated Bishop of Dunkeld.
But as Bishop of Dunkeld he was still hedged in with poli-
tical troubles. At last he went to London, on a hopeless
mission to Henry VIII., where Polydore Vergil fell into
friendship with him, and tells in his History how Gavin
Douglas gave him materials for a right understanding of
Scottish affairs. " But," Polydore says, " I did not long
enjoy the fruition of this my friend, for in the year of Our
Lord MDXXII. he died of the plague in London.'' He died
in the house of his friend Thomas Lord Dacre, in the middle
of September, 1522, when forty-eight years old.
Gavin Douglas's translation of the ^neid was made
on the suggestion of his cousin Henry Lord Sinclair, to
whom, at the end of the work, there is an address,
wherein "the Translator direkkis his bulk and S:n"efcL'"
excusishymself." The translation, he says, shall
be to many profitable as well as pleasant for the thoughts of
Virgil that are in it —
" It sal eik do sum folk solace, I ges,
To pas the tyme, and eschew idilnes.
. Ane othir proffit of our buke I mark,
That it sal be reput a neidfuU wark
To thame wald Virgill to childryng expone ;
For quha list note my versys, one by one,
Sail fynd therein hys sentens euery deill,
And almaiste word by word, that wait I weill.
Thank me tharfor, maisters of grammar sculis,
Quhar je syt techand on Jour benkis and stulis."
Gavin Douglas adds five stanzas as "Ane Exclamatioun
aganis detractouris and oncurtas redaris, that bene our
studius, but occasioun,* to note and spy owt faltis or offencis
* Uncourteous readers that are over -studious without occasion, &c.
L 2
164 English Writers. [ad- 1512
in this volum, or ony othir crafty warkis." There has been
no time in the history of Literature when this " Exclama-
- tion " would have been without its cause ; but all vermin have
their place in nature, and these will last until aphis and red
spider are no longer found upon the rose. Lastly, Douglas
rhymed a note of " the tyme, space and dait of the transla-
tioun 'of this buik " —
" Completit was this waik Virgiliane,
Apon the fest of Marie Magdelane,
Fra Cristis byrth, the dait quha list to heir,
A thousand fyve hundreth and threttene geyr.
as God lyst lend me grace,
It was compilit in auchtene moneth space,
Set I feil syth, syk twa monethis in feir,*
Wrait neuir a word."
The measure throughout is that of the lines of epilogue
just quoted — Chaucer's rhyming couplet of ten- syllabled
lines, of which example was set in the Prologue to the
"Canterbury Tales," and which became known, therefore, as
Riding Rhyme. Douglas chose it as most suitable for easy,
sustained narrative. The , influence of Chaucer was so far
felt by Douglas that his Scottish dialect was mixed with
southern forms — the use oiy, for example, as a prefix — that
had become familiar through Chaucer's verse. When Dou-
glas claims to have given the sentence — that is, the thought
— of Virgil word for word, he does not mean to suggest that
one word in Latin is translated by one word in English. He
often expands and paraphrases, now and then turning one
line even into five, to give his reader the full taste of Virgil's
meanirig. As he says in the Prologue to the First Book —
" Sum tyme the text mon haue ane expositioun,
Sum tyme the colour will caus a litle additioun,
And sum tyme of ane word I mon mak three.''
* Set, though ; feil syth, many times ; in feir, together.
TO A.D. 1513.] Gavin Douglas. 165
He may also translate, now and then, into ideas of his
time ; but when he translates the cry of the Sibyl —
" Cessas in vota precesque,
Tros, ait, Aenea ? cessas ? "
" ' Blyn noclil., blyn nocht ! thow gret Troiane Enee
Of thi bedis nor of thi prayeris,' quod sche,"
he does not, as has been often supposed, make her te
^neas to count his beads. For beads only came to be
so called from their use in counting prayers. " Bedes " were
named from the word which Gavin Douglas uses here,
rightly, as the Teutonic synonym for Latin " preces,"
(prayers).* It may be noted, also, that his translation of
" viscum " in the same Sixth Book into " gum " or " glue,"
instead of mistletoe, is a reasonable error. The fruit of
mistletoe being used in making bird-lime, "viscum" did
very commonly mean bird-lime, and has given us such words
as " viscous '' and " viscid."
Gavin Douglas's ^neid led the way worthily in the
long line of Virgilian translation. It has freshness and
homely vigour, and it is the work of a true poet. The best
evidence of Gavin Douglas's own power as a poet he has,
indeed, associated with this translation, made, as he said,
in fulfilment of a promise given to Venus in the
"Palace, of Honour." t The wish to translate the vEneid
* So, also, when Gavin Douglas writes of the Sibyl — whom he calls
"may," " virgin," " religius woman " — " And syne the nun to the hie
temple thaim bfocht," he makes no unscholarly use of a word that re-
presented to his readers a secluded votary. The word is older than
the restricted Christian use of it. In Sanscrit " nana " was the child's
word for "mother," and its root in the child's utterance entered
into words involving kindred affection and respect of young for old.
Thus " nun " is a monosyllable that comes from the beginning of speech,
and marked one form of a conception as old as man.
\ Where he said, after receiving the book from Venus which she
made him promise to translate —
" Tuitchand this buik perauenture ge sail heir,
Sum time efter, quhen I have mair laseir. "
1 66 English Writers. [a.d. ijiz
was, therefore, in Douglas's mind in 1501, twelve years
before he was able to say, in the closing dedication to his
cousin— " Now am I fully quyt,
As twichand Venus, of myn auld promyt
Quhilk I hir maid well twelf geris tofor.
As wytnessyth my Palice of Honour :
In the quhilk wark, ge reid, on hand I tuike
For to translait at hir instance a buike,
Sa have I done aboune, as Je may se,
Virgillis volum of her sonne Enee."
Douglas not only translated the ^neid, but wrote a
Prologue of his own to every Book. It is in some of these
Prologues — especially the Prologue to the Twelfth Book,
— that we have Gavin Douglas at his best. The first Pro-
logue opens his purpose, and deals very severely with the
French Virgil which Caxton had translated * as "the Book
of Eneydos" —
" Thocht Williame Caxtoun, of Inglis natioun,
Tn press he prent ane bulk of Inglis gros,
Clepand it Virgill in Eneados,
Quhilk that he sais of Frensch he did translait.
It hes na thing ado therwith, God wait, t
Nor na mair like than the devill and Saint Austine. ''
Douglas dwells at length upon the difference between Virgil's
yEneid and Caxton's, which makes him spit and bite his
lip. He objects that whoever mangled Virgil's work saw
nothing of truths within the clouds of poetry —
" For so the poetis be ther crafty curis.
In similitudis and under quent figuris,
The suthfast mater to hyde and to constrene :
All is not fals, traste wele, in caice thai fene."
Then he proceeds to show that Virgil meant .^neas for the
type of a true man.
* "E. W." vi., 333 — 4. t W-'o^''', wot, knows.
TO A.D. 1513.] Gavin Douglas. 167
The Prologue to the Second Book contains only three
stanzas of lament for the destruction of Troy. The third
Prologue, in five stanzas, suggests that the seeming fables
next to be told wear the armour of Virgil, and the poet
calls upon the Virgin to protect him "from Harpyes ■ fell,
and blind Ciclopes handis. . . . Fra swelth of Si'lla, and
dirk Charibdis band is — I mane from hell." The fourth Pro-
logue introduces Dido with thirty-five stanzas of the true
and the false love^ and much warning against the false. The
fifth Prologue, in eight stanzas, coming before the book that
describes games, exalts the praise of Virgil for variety —
" now dreid, now strif, now luf, now wo, now play," and
everywhere wisdom ; —
' ' Now harkis sportis, merthes, and mery playis,
Full gudlie pastance on mony syndry wayis,
Endite by Virgile, and heir by me translait,
Quhilk William Caxtoun knew neuir all his dayis ;
For, as I said tofoir, that man forvayis.
His febill prois bene mank * and mutilait.
But my propyne coym fra the pres fuit halt,
Vnforlatit, not jawin fra tun to tun,
In fresche sapour new fro the berrie run."
The sixth Prologue prepares religiously, in twenty-one
stanzas, for Virgil's tale of the descent into the under-world.
Saint Augustine, the poet observes, quotes a hundred verses
of Virgil, and many from the Sixth Book of the ^neid —
" For, thocht Crist ground our faith,
Virgilis sawis ar worth to put in stoir."
Having finished his translation to the end of the Sixth Book,
Gavin Douglas adds a prose note to suggest that in those
six foresaid books Virgil had followed Homer in his
Odyssey, showing the long navigation and great perils
and dangers of yEneas on the sea. In the other six books
* Mank, French, manqui, maimed, wanting.
i68 English Writers. U.d. 1512
he followed Homer in his Iliad, describing battles, wherein
he was still a mirror for princes : " Quharfor let euery nobyll
Prynce that desiris to cum to hye honour and grete fame
and name eftir this lyfe, fear God, luf vertew and iustice,
heat* vyce, punyss euyll men and promowe gud men, and to
this end mak all his lawis, ordinances and procedingis : so
schall his kyngdome and posterite be moist permanent and
durabyll. Vivit post funera virtus."
The Prologue to the Seventh Book, in a hundred and
sixty-eight lines of Chaucer's couplets, contains a fine de-
scription of winter — the season in which Douglas began to
write again. Then, seeking the fire, he saw his Virgil on a
lectern, and took pen in hand, grieved that he was but
half through : " Na thing is done quhill ocht remains
to do."
The Prologue to the Eighth Book is in fourteen long
thirteen-lined stanzas, with rhyme and excessive alliteration,
often of five instead of three words in a line. Douglas here
tries his skill, at alliteration, as Dunbar did in the " Tua
Maryit Wemen and the Wedo." In this Prologue an un-
happy man comes to the poet in a dream, and complains of
the wilfulness of men and women of all sorts, who seek only
the fulfilment of their own desires. The ^inhappy man then
turns to Douglas with a " What, man, rot thou in bed with
thy head full of bees?" — "Go away," says Douglas;
"chide with another." — "What, man, do not be vexed. I
speak in sport. What is it people want ? What do you
want ? " — " Let me sleep," says the poet. " What others
want I see but darkly ; for my own part, I long to have
my book done." — " Your book's a small matter. See here."
The man who chid at the low, various desires of men, then
gave him a roll to read that showed " the moving of the
mappamond," sun, stars, and Charles's Wain,
* Hed', hate.
TOA.D. 1513.] Gavin Douglas. 169
" Prater John, and Tort Jatf
Quhy the corn has the caff
And kow weris clufe." *
Here we have homely suggestion of the great .book of
the works of God. The poet said, "These are riddles
to me. Leid, lerne me ane vther lessouh, this I ne
lyke."— " Come, then," he said, " Sir Parson." And
he took the poet to a field where, there was a hidden
treasure. But when the poet began to dig for it he woke,
and the treasure was lost, and the field could not be
found in which it lay. By that last showing of what was
beyond all objects of this world's desire — greater than Vir-
gil's master-work, greater than work of God in the material
creation, and yet near to us if we could find it — Douglas
meant the Kingdom of Heaven, like unto a treasure hid in a
field. It were a shame to us, says Douglas, if such dreams
be true ; and he sprang up and sat under a tree-root, and
" begouth this aucht bulk.''
" The Proloug of the Nynt Bulk," in ninety-eight lines,
suggests the noble nature that speaks fitly of heroic deeds,
and treats of the harmony of words with matter. The Pro-
logue to the Tenth Book, in five-and-thirty stanzas, is a
declaration of faith in the Triune God, and in salvation by
Christ —
" My makar, my redemar, and support,
Fra quham all grace and gudnes cumis at schort,
Grant me that grace my mysdedis til amend,
Of this and all my warkis to mak gud end :
Thus I beseik thee, Lord, thus I exhort.
" From thee, begynning and end be of my muse ;
All other Jove and Phebus I refus,
Lat Virgyll hald his mawmentis to hymsel,
I wirschip noder idoll, stok, nor elf,
Thocht furth I wryte so as myne autour dois."
* Cag", chaff; diif, hoof.
1 70 English Writers. u-d. 1513
The Prologue to the Eleventh Book, in five-and-twenty
eight-lined stanzas (rhyming a b a b b c c b), treats of true
chivalry, both temporal and spiritual ; the aim of this Pro-
Ipgue being to prelude the wars of Turnus and ^neas with
a strain of the great battle of life, in which we must all try
to take our part in the right spirit of chivalry.
Then there remains but one more Book of Virgil, pre-
luded with a description of the joys of May among the
woods and streams, showers and mists, hills, meadows,
flowers, sunlight, song of birds in Scotland. This piece lives
in the memory like a long, happy day that has been really
lived and feli among the radiance of the surrounding world.
A quality in which old poets of our north country were always
strong is here seen at its best, inspired alike by the true love
of Nature and the love of Chaucer, who is .part of her. The
birds' welcome to the sun was closed with hint of the rebuke
of sluggards.
" And with this word, in chalmer quhair I lay,
The nynt morow of fresche temperat May,
On fut I spreng into my bayr sark,
Wilfull for till compleyt my langsum wark
Twichand the lattyr buke of Dan Virgile,
Quhilk me had tareyt al to lang a while."
But when the last book of Virgil's ^neid had been
finished, a thirteenth Prologue tells how Maphseus Vegius
came in a dream, and was very obstinate in requiring that
his added thirteenth book should also be translated. The
poet thought not ; he had laid aside many grave matters
while translating Virgil, which ought now to have full atten-
tion; that thirteenth book added by Maphseus did not,
he said, agree in manner with Virgil, and, for its matter, it
was no more Wanted than a fifth wheel to a cart. There-
upon Maphseus became angry as well as obstinate : " 5a,
smy, quod he, wald thou eschaipe me swa ? " After so long
TO A. D. 1553.] Gavin Douglas. 17 1
following Virgil, who was a heathen, why cannot you give a
little time to me, who am a Christian ?
" For thocht it be bot poetry we say,
My boke and Virgillis moral bene; bayth tway,
Lene me a fourtene nycht, how evir it be,
Or be the faderis sawle me gat, quod he.
Thou sail deir by* that evir thou Vergill knew.
And with that word, doun of the sete me drew :
Syne to me wyth his club he maid a braid.
And twenty rowtis apoun my rigging laid,
Quhill Deo, Deo, mercy did I cry ;
And be my rycht hand strekit up in hy +
Hecht to trainslait his buike, in honour of God
And his Apostolis twelf, in the numbyr od."
So, pleasantly, Gavin Douglas excused himself for join-
ing to Virgil's work that thirteenth book, written by Maffei
Vegio of Lodi, who died in 1458. Maphaeus wrote a few
other well-meaning books ; one was on the Christian Educa-
tion of Children, one on Perseverance in Religion, one
on Truth Exiled. He was a Canon of St. Peter's and Chan-
cellor to • the Papal Court, where his Augustus was Eu-
genius IV. Gavin Douglas's translation of the ^neid
remained unprinted until 1553.
As Dunbar and Douglas are poets almost wholly, if not
wholly, to be associated with the reign of James IV., so
David Lindsay, who was' about thirty years younger than
Dunbar and about sixteen years younger than Douglas —
although in his youth he also was at the Court of James IV.
— belongs not less distinctly to the reign of James V. of
Scotland. We shall find in him the chief Scottish poet of
the troublous time that came after the death of James IV
on the Field of Flodden.
* By, abye, pay for it.
t In hy, in haste. Hecht, promised.
CHAPTER VII.
MORALITY PLAYS. — SKELTON — COLET — MORE'S
" UTOPIA."
The Morality Play did not arise by direct transition
from the Miracle Play to the true Drama. It was one
branch of that allegorical literature which had, as
Morality , . , ^ . ti ^^ mi
Plays. we have seen, its other form in poems like " The
Pastime of Pleasure," " The Example of Virtue,"
or " King Hart." Miracle plays remained miracle plays.
In the reign of Henry VIII. they lost some part of their
reason for existence, came to be less cared for, but were
still occasionally acted. When currency was given by
authority to a translation of the Scriptures into the speech
of the people, the Bible in the home was better than the
Bible in the streets.. The whole truth took away what had
once been the life of that imperfect showing of its sub-
stance. The English people, through their trade guilds,
had developed Miracle Plays to their utmost power of
bringing home to men a knowledge of the Sacred Book.
The Book itself, however, they sought more and more to
make their own, after Wyclif's translation had begun to pass
from hand to hand. Miracle Plays grew vigorously and
struck deep roots as long as they gave real aid to the spread-
ing of religious truths among the people. But wherever the
Bible itself came into the field, and spoke in their own lan-
guage to the people, the Miracle Plays began to fail. Their
roots were cut away, and they soon died.
A.D...,iscx).] Morality Plays. 173
The Moralities, or allegorical plays, were also written to
be acted. There the resemblance ends, except as to that
earnestness of purpose which they have in common with
most forms of English Literature. There were no morality
plays before the reign of Henry VI., and they did not be-
come widely popular until their personification of the virtues
and vices in action could be used for an appeal to the
people on great public questions in debate among them.
They had a use of their own when, north and south, in the
days of Henry VIH., they were planned by men who sought
the reformation of abuses. They helped them to express or
form opinion of the people.
A considerable fragment of an old Morality Play on
Life, Death, and the Life to come, which has just been
discovered* by Mr. JamesMills in the Irish Record Office, is,
perhaps, older than the oldest hitherto described. It was
found on an account roll of the Priory of the Holy Trinity
(now represented by Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin), and
is written on the blank spaces at the back of a seneschal's
account of 1343. It is packed into four columns by two-
different copyists, whose writing seems to be of about the
middle of the fifteenth century. The poem is in four-lined
stanza, with alternate rhymes. The end is wanting ; there
are gaps, also, at the foot of the first and second columns.
A Prologue of twenty^eight stanzas enables us to know how
the piece ended. The fragment of the play itself contains
390 lines. The matter of this play shows the Morality in
its first simple form, the type from which the most fully
developed of later pieces of the kind never departed. Man
is here represented as " the King of Life." In Lindsay's
" Satire of the Three Estates" — the most elaborate and most
* I am indebted to Mr. Mills for his great courtesy in enablirig
me to give a short account of it. His own full description was read
before the Royal Irish Academy on the 13th of April, iSgi. Mr.
Mills has named the piece "The Pride of Life."'
174 English Writers. [A.D....1500
important of the later Moralities — he is called £ex Hu-
manitatis. The -King of Life is supported by his two
knights, Health and Strength, and his messenger is Mirth.
They flatter him into false confidence —
Smiitas. " King of lyf y' berist \P croun,
as hit is skil and rigte
I am hele i com to toun
I)i kind courteyse knigte
" ])U art lord of lim and life
and kinge wlthouten ende
stif and strong and sterne in strif
in londe qwher \\x wende
" J)U nast no nede to sike sor'
for no thinge on lyve
l)u shal lyve ever mor'
qwho dar w' ])e strive."
The King of Life boasts himself to be stronger than
Death. His Queen teaches him better ; he opposes her,
' for is he not the King of Life ? His Knights, Health and
Strength, promise to help him' against Death. Then enters
Mirth, the King's Messenger, who adds his flatteries, and is
promised a reward —
" ])U schal have for ))i gode wil
to ))in avauncement
])e castel of gailispir on \e. hil
and ])e eridom of Kente." *
The Queen then sends the Messengerto fetch the Bishop. He
comes, and, with lament for the corruption of the time, joins
his warnings to those of the Queen. But the King of Life
is stubborn in self-confidence —
» Mr. James Gairdner has pointed out that the Earldom of Kent
was vacant and at the Crown's disposal from 1407 to 1462. And what
of the castle of Gailispir ?
A.D. ...I500.] Morality Plays. 175
" Wat bissop byssop babler
schold y of det hav dred
|)0U art bot a chagler
go home ])i wey i red."
Then the King, who has Health and Strength on his side,
sends his Messenger to challenge Death. The fragment
ends in the midst of the Messenger's proclamation, but the
Prologue has told us that Death will come and slay the
King, after which fiends come to seize his soul, which is
saved from them by the intercession of the Virgin Mairy.
Three of the earliest moral plays are in MSS. that be-
longed to Dr. Cox Macro, afterwards to Mr. Hudson
Gurney, and were described by John Payne Collier in his
" History of English Dramatic Poetry.'' One of them is
" The Castle, of Perseverance," ascribed to the reign of
Henry VI., and regarded as one of the earliest pieces of its
kind. It has thirty-four characters. Lines are provided to
be spoken in announcement of the time of its performance
in any country town. Man is called in the play Humanum
Genus, and enters naked as just born, to deal with the wiles
of the World; the Flesh, and the Devil, Mundus, Caro, and
Belial. Humanum Genus, between the voices of a Good
and a Bad Angel, chooses to follow the Bad, who carries
him to Mundus, who appoints Stultitia, Voluntas, and De-
tractio to attend upon him. He soon becomes acquainted
with the Seven Deadly Sins, is wedded to Luxuria, and is
in great danger until the Good Angel brings to him Con-
fessio, who, with the aid of Pcenitentia, reclaims Humanum
Genus — now forty years old — and advises him to make him-
self safe in the Castle of Perseverance. There he is be-
sieged by the Seven Deadly Sins under Belial, who, for their
neglect in letting Man escape, first beats the sins about the
ground on which the play is shown. It is solid ground,
for some of the combatants come in on horseback. A draw-
ing on the last leaf of the MS. shows that there was a castle
1 7(3 English Writers. [a.d. 1300
set up to represent the Castle of Perseverance, with a bed
under it for Humanum Genus, and five separate scaffolds
for Deus, Belial, Mundus, Caro, and Avaritia. Mundus
and Caro join in the attack. Jffwnanum Genus calls on
Christ for aid, and the Virtues — Charity, Patience, and
others — beat back the Vices, chiefly by battering them with
roses. Humanum Genus then grows old.. Avaritia creeps
under the castle wall, and the Old Man descends to live with
his hoard. Then come Mors and Anima. Aninia calls to
Misericordia for help. The Bad Angel takes Humanum
Genus on his back and departs, saying, " Have good
day ; I goo to helle." There is then pleading in Heaven of
Misericordia and Pax for Man, Justitia and Veritas against
him, before Deus sedens in tronum. The Soul of Man is sent
for, and Pax takes it from the back of the Bad Angel. The
presenter of Deus closes the piece with the lines —
" All men example hereat may take
To mayntein the good and mendyn here mys.
Thus endyth our gamys :
To save you fro synnynge,
Evyr at the begynninge,
Thynke on youre last endynge.
Te Dium laudamus."
Another of this collection of three earliest Moralities is
called " Mind, Will, and Understanding,'' and was presented
also with much pomp of disguising and variety of action. It
represents Wisdom, the Second Person of the Trinity, loved
by Anima, the soul of man, till Lucifer allures to vice Mind,
Will, and Understanding. They bid farewell to Conscience,
and Anima, looking " fouler than a fiend," becomes the
mother of the Seven Deadly Sins. Then Anima feels her
change ; Mind, Will, and Understanding, knowing that they
were the cause of it, turn from their evil courses. A third
piece in the same collection, called "Mankind," makes the
fiend Tutivillus represent the Flesh.
TO A.D. IS22.] MoRALiTv Flays. 177
An early printed Morality, without date or printer's
name, called "Nature," was written by Henry Medwall,
chaplain to Cardinal Morton, and acted before Morton, who
died in the year 1500. It was written, therefore, early in
the reign of Henry VH. Nature is represented as God's
minister on earth to teach all creatures. Nature appoints
Reason and Sensuality to be man's guides in the journey of
life. Mundus aids Sensuality, and Man dismisses Reason
with his companion, Innocency. Pride and his page pre-
sently take their places. Man is disguised in costly fashion,
and strikes Reason for resisting him in following the lead of
Sensuality. He falls in, also, with the other Deadly Sins,
who change their names to deceive him. Pride is called
Worship ; Covetousness, Worldly Policy ; Wrath, Man-
hood ; Gluttony, Good Fellowship ; Envy, Disdain ; Sloth,
Ease. At the end of the first part of the piece, Man finds
he has been deceived, and through Shamefastness is recon-
ciled again to Reason. But in the second part he is again
at odds with Reason, who brings a force against him.
Gluttony, armed with a cheese and bottle, will not fight for
him. Pride stays away. Age reconciles Man to Reason,
and all the Vices are dismissed, save Covetise. Then the
Virtues come with their good teaching. Abstinence and
Chastity bring Man to Repentance, and he returns to
Reason, who promises him Salvation.
Another old Morality, first printed by Wynken de
Worde in 1522, "The World and the Child," represents
Man in five ages — in infancy, when he is called Infans ; in
boyhood, when he is called Wanton ; in youth, when he is
called Lust-and-Liking ; in Manhood, and in Age. Here,
also, in the course of his career, Man becomes acquainted
with the Seven Deadly Sins. When taught their character
by Conscience, Folly delays his turning from them. When
Manhood has changed to Age, Conscience calls in the
M — VOL. VH.
178 English Writers. [a.d. 1500
aid of Perseverance, and Age, converted, takes the name of
Repentance.
" EveryMan " is the name of another of these Moral
Plays, the name being used as English equivalent to
Genus Humanum. It was printed by Richard
M^n'.7' Pynson and also by John Skot, of Paul's Church-
yard, without date, with the title, " Here be-
gynneth a Treatise how the hye Fader of Heven sendeth
Dethe to somon every creature to come and gyve a counte
of theyr lyves in this worlde, and is in maner of a moralle
play."
When Every-man is called to Judgment, after Death has
withdrawn, he calls in vain for help from Fellowship, Kin-
dred, Goods, or Riches, who all leave him. He turns then
to Good Deeds, who rebukes him for long neglect of her.
She introduces him to her sister Knowledge, who leads him .
to Conscience, who appoints him penance, which he under-
goes upon the stage. He retires then to receive the Sacra-
ment, and returns from it with declining powers. Strength,
Beauty, and his Five Wits take leave of him, but not Good
Deeds. He dies. An angel comes to sing his requierri, and
a Doctor comes to bid the hearers have in mind the moral,
that of his earthly goods and graces,-
" They all at last do Every-man forsake ;
Save his good-dedes there doth he take :
But be ware, and they be small
Before God he hath no helpe at all. "
Wynken de Worde printed the Moral Play of " Hicke-
Scorner " without a date, and with woodcut figures of the
chief characters. Pity enters and describes him-
ScSlier!" self, then Contemplation does the same. Con-
templation has been sent by Perseverance to
seek Pity. They speak of the ill times. Then Free-will
enters as a Vice, living a dissolute life, with Imagination
TO A.D. IS22.J Morality Plays. i 79
for his comrade. Free-will and Imagination live ill lives,
and are the companions of Hicke-Scorner, who next
enters. He is glad to say that all the good monks
and nuns — Truth and his kinsman Patience, Meekness and
Humility, Soberness, Charity, Good Conscience and Devo-
tion, true buyers and sellers, almsdeed doers, piteous
people, mourners for sin, and good rich men that help folk
out of prison, true wedlock also — have been drowned to-
gether in a ship that struck upon a quicksand. Vices re-
joice and quarrel. Pity pleads, and — insulted, fettered,
bound with a halter — is left to lament the corruptipn of the
times. Pity is unbound by Contemplation and Perseverance.
Free-will runs riot and boasts of evil-doing, but is detained
by Contemplation and Perseverance, who reason against his
bullying till he asks mercy for his past sin and forsakes it.
He is told that he needs no new name —
" For all that will to Heaven hie
By bis own Free-will he must forsake folly,
Then he is sure and safe. "
Contemplation robes Free-will in a new garment, and he
resolves never to leave the side of Perseverance. Then
enters Imagination with —
" Huff, huff, huff ! V(ho sent after me ?
I am Imagination, full of jollity. '
Lord, that my heart is light !
When shall I perish? I trow never."
The change in his friend Free-will surprises him. Pity and
Perseverance counsel Imagination also, and tell him of the
love of Christ. He is stubborn and defiant, until, follow-
ing the counsel of Free-will, he also asks mercy for" his
sins, is clothed anew, and has his name changed to Good
Remembrance. Perseverance gives the closing counsel to
" be God's servant day and night." Hicke-Scorner, shown
only in the middle of the piece, does not appear again.
M 2
i8o English Writers. [a.d. 1498
Now we return to Skelton. Thomas Warton saw in
possession of William Collins, the poet, at Chichester, a"
Morality Play by John Skelton, which was
"Ni^a- printed in 1504 by Wynken de Worde, and is
not now to be found. It was entitled " The
Nigramansir, a morall Enterlude and a pithie, written by
Maister Skelton laureate and plaid before the King and other
Estatys at Woodstoke on Palm Sunday." The piece, as
described by Thomas Warton from Collins's lost copy, had
for its characters a Necromancer, the Devil, a Notary Public,
Simony, and Philargyria (love of money). It was a morality
upon worldliness within the Church. The Necromancer
was only the speaker of the Prologue, in octave rhyme, at
the end of which he raised the Devil, by whom he was kicked
for fetching him out so early. A court was formed for the trial
of Simony and Philargyria. There were various measures
used in this piece, interspersed with scraps of French and
I/atin. Philargyria quoted Seneca and Saint Austin. Simony
offered to bribe the Devil, who rejected his offer angrily,
and swore that he should be well fried with Mahomet,
Herod, Pontius Pilate, and Judas Iscariot. The last scene,
says Warton, was closed with a view of hell and a dance be-
tween the Devil and the Necromancer. The dance ended,
the Devil tripped up the Necromancer's heels, and dis-
appeared in fire and smoke.
John Skelton had taken holy orders early in the summer
of r498, and was presented to the Rectory of Diss, in Nor-
folk, before the year in which Wynken de
^keUon. Worde printed "The Necromancer." Indeed,
the first evidence of Skelton's residence at Diss
bears the date of that year (1504) when he is witness to
the will of a parishioner, and is described as " Master John
Skelton, Laureat, Parson of Diss." We shall find him in
Henry "VIII. 's reign active against those corruptions of
Church discipline which came through greed of wealth and
TOA.D, IS291 John Skelton. i8i
power. Skelton is said to have attacked the wealth and
pride of the Dominicans in his own neighbourhood, and so
made them his enemies. Ecclesiastics, bound to celibacy,
took women to live with them, by whom they had children,
and if they were unmarried none but the most zealous
bishops interfered. Skelton's mind was much with the
reformers, and he tried to do right without open defiance of
convention, by marrying the woman whom he chose for his
companion in life, but leaving it to be supposed that she
held the usual position — ^not conventionally base * — of what
was called in a priest's household, a focaria. The Domini-
cans found obt that their opponent, the Rector of Diss, was
a married priest, and accused him to his bishop, Richard
Nix, of Norwich. For this offence against ecclesiastical
law Skelton was suspended from his office, and when he
died, though he was nominally Rector of Diss, he had virtu-
ally lost that living. He left Diss, with his wife and children,
to live in London, battling vigorously against pomps and
vanities among the higher clergy.
Skelton, in a later poem of his own, " The Garland of
Laurel," gives a list of writings that include, among other
lost works, his " sovereign Interlude of Virtue," pi^^iton.,
and " his Comedy Achademiss called by name." "Magnifi-
ccncc.
These must have been of the nature of Morali-
ties, as well as his " Magnificence.'' Skelton's " Magnifi-
cence," in verse humorous and earnest, showed how Felicity
argued with Liberty, who was over-impatient of restraint ;
how Measure,' entering, set forth that " Liberty without
Measure proveth a thing of nought ; " how wealthful Felicity
and Liberty allowed Measure to guide them, and resolved that
" There is no prince but he hatli need of us three —
Wealth with Measure and pleasant Liberty."
Magnificence then entered, and took them discreetly for
* "E. W."iv. 23.
iSi English Writers. Iad. 1509
companions, but was presently beguiled by the vice Fancy,
and practised upon by Fancy himself, under the name of the
virtue Largeness, and by the vices Counterfeit Countenance,
Crafty Conveyance, Cloked Collusion, Courtly Abusion, and
Folly, under the names of Good Demeanaunce, Surveyance,
Sober Sadness (seriousness), Pleasure, and Conceit. They
separated Magnificence from Measure, Liberty, and Felicity,
then left him to be beaten down by the blows of Adversity.
He was next visited by Poverty," mocked by the vices that
betrayed him, and left to give entrance to Despair. Upon
Despair followed Mischief, and fallen Magnificence was
about to slay himself, when Good Hope entering put to
flight those tempters, arrested the sword, and told the
sufferer that his physician is the Grace of God. Then came
Redress and Sad Circumspection ; and finally, by help of
Perseverance, he rose to a higher than his old estate, after
he had been taught
" How suddenly worldly wealth doth decay ;
How wisdom, through wantonness, vanisheth away ;
How none estate living of himself can be sure.
For the wealth of this world cannot endure."
Skelton's "Magnificence," written in Henry VIH.'s
reign, is one of the two finest examples of the Morality
Play. The other, and the best of all, written a few years
later, is Sir David Lindsay's " Satire of the Three Estates,"
upon which we shall dwell when we have resumed the his-
tory of our literature north of the Tweed. The
SutUs.^ fundamental notion of the Morality is of Man
tempted by pleasant vices, withdrawn from the
virtues, admonished by adversity or by the coming of old
age, or of death and judgment. Thus the characters were
personifications of abstract ideas, and Vice, when not in
disguise, wore — as Brant or Barclay would have thought
most fitting — the dress of a fool. Man frequently is re-
presented as a king surrounded by the pomps and vanities
TO A.D. 1529.] John Skblton. 183
of life j but the one general conception underlies, of course,
various conceptions of the form of vice against which the
poet should direct his lesson. The best poet will go
straightest to the point. Skelton's " Negramansir " seems
to have wrestled in its way with Simony and Avarice as
vices of the Church, as Wyclif and his followers had wrestled
and were wrestling, and as Skelton himself wrestled in
later years. And we shall find the scope of the Morality
Play enlarged, after the death of Skelton, by Sir David
Lindsay, with a very direct application of that form of liter-
ature to an expression of the chief ills of the land in
Church and State, and a definite suggestion of remedies.
Alexander Barclay's quarrel, against Skelton, which caused
him to write a lost book, " Contra Skeltonum," was no
doubt from the point of view of the religious
orders among whom Barclay lived and died, larday.^"''
Barclay also was a reformer, who would have
turned the great world from its follies if he could ; but
Skelton battled for reform within the little world of monks
and friars, bishops and archbishops. He was of one
mind with Erasmus, and more than half, also, of Luther's
temper. In " The Boke of Philip Sparrow " we now recog-
nize the kindly grace of a music that, with dainty playful-
ness, pours out the lament of an innocent girl, Jane
Scroupe, a school-girl in the house of the Benedictine
nuns at Carowe, in -the suburbs of Norwich, over the loss of
her pet bird. This offended the translator of " The Ship of
Fools," partly because it played with forms of the Church dirge
over a theme so trivial as the death of a sparrow. Long after
Barclay's time there were good men scandalised by Dunbar's
" Dirige,'' written to bring the king out of Stirling into Edin-
burgh. Another ground of offence to Barclay would be the
employment of a poet's powers on so trivial a theme as the
death of a sparrow ; but the root of the dislike sprang, no
doubt, from the part taken by Skelton in Church politics,
184 English Writers. [a.d. 1514
which caused defenders of the weahh and privileges he
attacked to misunderstand him and misrepresent him, as in
such cases the custom is among us still. Many a man's
featiires have come down to us obscured and defiled by the
mud thus thrown in party warfare.
But we care most now for John Skelton as Spenser
cared ' for • him, because he was a poet who, in Henry
VIII. 's time, expressed some of those energetic
feelings which were hastening a reformation in
the English Church. He seems to have been suspended
from his office at Diss, but not deprived. Nominally he
still held it until his death in 1529 ; for in July of that
year Thomas Clerk was instituted as Skelton's successor.
Henry VIII. retained good will for his old master, and
Skelton was much at his Court. But outspoken de-
nunciations of the spiritual pride and pomp of the higher
clergy, and their neglect of spiritual duties, advanced in
Skelton to a courageous attack on Wolsey when he was
at the height of his power. In Wolsey's earlier days,
when he was simply a rising churchman (who early in 15 14
became Bishop of Lincoln, and before the close of the year
Archbishop of York, and who in 1516 began to build for
himself at Hampton Court), Skelton was among his friends.
So he remained until a short time after Wolsey had been
appointed the Pope's sole legate a latere, m June, 1519.
But in that year Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, com-
plained to the king of Wolsey as oppressor of the clergy ;
and in 1522, when the election of Adrian VI. disappointed
him of the Papacy, Wolsey, who was maintaining war against
France without a Parliament, levied a loan of a tenth on lay
subjects, and a fourth on the clergy. In 1523, when
Wolsey's illegitimate son, Thomas Winter, was made
Archdeacon of Yorkj and again Wolsey was ' disap-
pointed of the Papacy by election of Clement VII,, Con-
vocation and Parliament both met. From the clergy Wolsey
TO A.D. issg.] John Skelton. 185
then got a subsidy of half their annual revenue; from
the laity he asked four shillings in the pound, and got half
that amount. The supreme minister, then rising yearly in
power and wealth, was housed luxuriously in his palace at
Hampton Court ; the English people suffered from his exac-
tions, and he was daily pointed at by Church reformers, who
inveighed against the " pomp and pride " of a high clergy,
more ready to shear than feed their sheep. Then it was
that John Skelton, who felt with the people,'poured upon
Wolsey from the voice of one the wrath of many. His form
of verse was itself popular — earnest, whimsical, with torrents
of rhyme added to short lines kindred in accent and allitera-
tion to the old national form of verse. His
" Speke Parrot," in Chaucer's seven-lined stanza, pfrrou"
spoke its satire through a medley of apt say-
ings, jumbled together and pleasantly blended with scraps
from the parrot's feast of languages. The parrot appeared
frequently as a Court bird in the European literature of
these times ; and although parrots had been brought into
Europe by the followers of Alexander the Great, many
centuries before, their diffusion in the earlier years of the
sixteenth century was due to the followers of Columbus,
for it was one of the smaller results of the discovery of
the New World. Skelton's Parrot was gaily painted as a
ladies' pet, and a philologist who picked up phrases in all
tongues, and also, as. he said,
" Such shredis of sentence, strowed in the shop
Of auncyent Aristippus and such other mo
I gader togyther and close in my crop."
Whatever else may be obscure in his whimsically disjointed
oracles, it is clear that he meant Henry VIH. and Wolsey
by the dogs Bo-ho and Hough-ho (Bow-wow and Wow-
wow), when he said —
"Bo-ho doth bark well, but Hough-ho he ruleth the ring ;
From Scarpary to Tartary renown therein doth spring,
1 86 English Writers. [a.d. 1514
With, He said, and We said, I wot now what I wot
Quod fnagnus est dominus Judas Scarioth."
Elsewhere Wolsey was he who makes men to jumble, to
stumble, to tumble down like fools, to lower, to drop, to kneel,
to stoop, and to play couch-quail. " He carrieth a king in his
sleeve, if all the world fail." Since Deucalion's flood, spoke
the Parrot, there were never seen "so many noble bodies under
one daw's head-; so many thieves hanged and thieves never
the less; so much prisonment for matters not worth an
haw ; so bold a bragging butcher, and flesh sold so dear ; so
many plucked partridges, and so fat quails ; so mangy a
. mastiff cur the greyhound's peer ; so fat a maggot bred
of a flesh-fly ; was never such a filthy Gorgon, nor such
an epicure, since Deucalion's flood I make thee fast and
sure."
The same public scorn of Wolsey was poured in Skeltonic
rhyme through Skelton's "Why Come ye Not to Court?"
All was wrong in the land ; the English nobles
COTBeye "crc extinguished under the red hat. "Our
Couru" barons be so bold, into a mouse-hole they
would run away and creep, like a mayny of
sheep ; dare not look out at door, for dread of the mastiff
cur, for dread of the butcher's dog would worry them like an
hog." " I pray God save the king,'' says Skelton, "wherever
he go or ride, I pray God be his guide.'' Bat " once yet
again of you I would frayne (ask), Why come ye not to
Court ? To which Court ? To the King's Court, or to
Hampton Court ? Nay, to the King's Court : the King's
Court should have the excellence. But Hampton Court
hath the pre-eminence, and Yorbes Pla'ce with my lordes
grace, to whose magnificence is all the confluence, suits, and
supplications, embassades of all nations. A straw for law,
it shall be as he will. He regardeth lordes no more than pots-
hordes ; he is in such elation of his exaltation, and the sup-
TO A.D. 1529-1 " Colin Clout" 187
portation of our sovereign lord, that, God to record, he ruleth
all at will without reason or skill. Howbeit the primordial
of his wretched original, and his base progeny, and his
greasy genealogy — he came of the sang-royal that was cast
out of a butcher's stall." In more than 1,200 of such short
lines, Skelton's " Why Come ye Not to Court ? " poured out
the anger of the people against Wolsey —
" He tnaketh so proude pretens
That in his equipolens
He jugyth him equivalent
With God omnipotent :
But yet beware the rod,
• And the stroke of God. "
Skeiton felt deeply, or he could not have braved Wolsey in
his day of power with so bold a satire. In this poem he
painted the condition of the Court.
There was yet another piece, his " Colin Clout,'' which
also denounced Wolsey, but df which the main purpose
was to paint the condition of the country.
Colin Clout represented in his poem the poor cioul!"
Englishman of the day, rustic or town-bred.
The name blends the two forms of life : Colin is from
colonus (tiller of the soil), whence, clown; Clout, or Patch,
sign of a sedentary calling, stands for the town mechanic,
such as Bottom the Weaver, and his " crew of patches,
base mechanicals." In Skeltonic verses, about equal in
number to those of "Why Come ye Not to Court?"
Colin Clout uttered his simple thought upon the troubles of
the Church, and all the evil that had come of the corruption
of the bishops and high churchmen. " That the people
talk this, somewhat there is amiss," said Skeiton. In this
poem the reference to Wolsey was only incidental, and the
design was to sustain the Church by showing what reform ot
discipline it needed if it was to " let Colin Clout have
none manner of cause to moan." While bishops' mules
i88 English Writers. (a-d. ism
eat gold, " their neighbours die for meat.'' Heresies mul-
tiply—
" Men hurt their souls.
Alas, for Goddes will,
Why sit ye, prelates, still,
And suffer all this ill ?
Ye bishops of estates
Should open the broad gates
Of your spiritual charge.
And come forth at large,
Like lanterns of light,
In the people's sight,
In pulpits awtentyke
For the weal publyke
Of priesthood in this case. "
Colin Clout closed his rhyming with a prayer to Christ,
" Such grace that He us send
To rectify and amend
. Things that are amiss
When that His pleasure is. Amen."
The verse of these pieces has been called Skeltonic,
and was imitated by writers on both sides of the argument.
It was in lines of varying accentuation, but chiefly iambic, and
usually, though not always, six-syllabled, with end-rhymes
double, triple, quadruple, or more, that danced forward in
little shifting torrents — a rustic verse, as he called it, that
served admirably to express either a rush of wrath or the
light freaks of playfulness. In such a measure— suited well,
also, to recitation by the chanters of old ballads * — the
* " Colin Clout " was current before it was printed, as appears
from Skelton's reference to the refusal to allow the piece to be
printed —
" And so it semeth they play
Whiche hate to be corrected
Whan they be infected.
Nor wyll sulTie this booke
By hoke ne by croke
TOA.D. IS29.] ToHN Skelton. i8g
scholar-poet, whom his enemies called a buffoon, spoke
home-truths for his countrymen. His fearless speech
obliged him to take refuge from, the power of Wolsey by
claiming the right of sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, and
he died sheltered by Abbot Islip in June, 1529. In the
following October Wolsey was deprived of the Great Seal,
and he survived his fall little more than a year, dying in
November, 1530. Skelton's most direct and bitterest
attacks on Wolsey are in his two poems called " Speak
Parrot," and " Why Come ye not to Court ? " In the latter
part of " Colin Clout " Wolsey is pointed at again and
again, but there is less in this poem of the mere bitterness
of the conflict, although not less of religious earnestness in
its delicate blending of the voice of the people with touches
of irony. What Skelton battled for in the days of
Henry VIII., Spenser sought under Elizabeth, and Milton
under the Stuarts. Spenser, indeed, in his first published
book was so full of the same zeal that appears in Skelton's
" Colin Clout," that he adopted from that poem the name
by which he always spoke-of himself in his verses.
Among Skelton's other poems, two have yet to be
named. One of these was a coarse, humorous piece upon
the Brewing or " Tunning of Elynour Rummyng," who
Printed for to be,
For that no man shulde se
Nor rede in any scrolles
Of theyt dronken noUes,
Nor of theyr noddy poUes,
Nor of theyr sely soules,
Nor of some witlesse pates
Of dyuers great estates,
As well as other men."
The first editions of "Colin Clout" were undated. There were five
several impressions, by Richard Kele, John Wyghte, Anthony Kytson,
Abraham Veale, and Thomas God fray.
I go English Writers. [a.d. 1514
kept an ale-house on a hill by Leatherhead, and became
known to the courtiers of Henry VIII. when the Court
was at Nonsuch, about six miles off. The piece
ning of^"" ^^ ^ ^°'^ ^° " Philip Sparrow," contrasting, with
Rumm-n '' ^^ Simple innocence of a well-trained girl, the
filthiness of a company of women who de-
base themselves for drink, and, if they want money, give
their household goods, their hose, their shoes, their husband's
clothes, their thread, even the rosary, for the foul Elynour's
unclean strong ale. The piece is directed wholly against the
degradation of the women of the people. Elynour and her
house, and the women who frequent it, are a very homely
rendering to simple wits of the repulsive aspects of intem-
perance in women.
The other piece, in 1600 lines, chiefly of Chaucer
stanza, is " A ryght delectable Tratyse vpon a goodly Gar-
lande or Chapelet of Laurell . . . studiously
lande of dcvised " at Sheriff Hutton Castle. That castle
"'° ' is about ten miles from York, and belonged in
Skelton's time to the Crown, but was occupied by the Duke
of Norfolk, who had a grant of it for life. The Goodly
Laurel Garland that gave rise to the poem was embroidered
in coloured silks, with gold and pearls, by the ladies of
Sheriff Hutton Castle and young friends of theirs, to orna-
ment the robe Skelton wore at Court as Poet Laureate. The
poem is his gift in return, including a piece of verse in com-
pliment to every lady who had put a stitch into the work.
Skelton imagines himself in the woods by Sheriff
Hutton, where he hears sound of the hunt, leans against a
great tree, sleeps and dreams. He dreams that he sees
Pallas in a rich pavilion. The Queen of Fame comes to
her with complaint that Pallas had commanded Skelton to
be registered by Fame with laureate triumph in her Court.
But he was idle, wondrous slack, and but for the good word
of Pallas, says the Queen of Fame, " out of my bokis full
TOA.D. IS29] John Skelton. 191
sone I shulde hym rase." Pallas befriends the poet whom
the Queen of Fame condemns. Pallas points to the evil
rout of folly that is advanced by Fame as readily as if it
were attached to Wisdom. The Queen of Fame at least
requires that Skelton shall present himself, and shovir some
cause " with laureat tryumphe why he sholde be crownde."
Then Pallas bids the trumpets to blow bararag, and all
the poets to be summoned. The throng of those who seek
Fame is described with a humour caught from Chaucer.
Then come the poets^ — Orpheus first, lamenting Daphne
changed into the Laurel. The trees move to his music, and
the stump against which Skelton leans " sterte all at once a
hundrethe fote back." With that he sprang towards the
tent of Pallas, and saw the crowding in of poets and ^reat
writers of old, with some of the moderns, as " Plutarch and
Petrarch." At last came three with their arms twined to-
gether — Gower, Chaucer, Lydgate — each of whom greeted
Skelton kindly and had modest answer. The three then
brought him to the pavilion of Pallas and to the rich palace
of Fame, leaving him outside in charge of Occupation, who is
Fame's registrar. Occupation knew him — :
" Of your aqueintaunce I was In tymes past,
Of studyous doctryne when at the Port Salu
Ye fyrste aryued ; whan broken was your mast
Of worldly trust, then did I you rescu."
Then Occupation took him round a wall enclosing the
domain of Fame, with a gate for entry from each nation.
There was an evil crowd outside the EngHsh gate. Then he
was lost in cloud, and when the cloud had passed he was in
a garden where the Laurel grows. In that Laurel the
I'hcenix lives, and the Olive grows near it, balm against all
cankers. Occupation took the poet to a fair chamber in
this Paradise,
" Where the noble Cowntes of Surrey in a chayre
Sat honorably, to whome did repaire
192 English Writers. [a.d. 1514
Of ladys a beue * with all clue reiierence ;
' Syt downe, fayre ladys, and do your diligence !
" ' Come forth, ientyl women, I pray you,' she sayd ;
' I haue contryud for you a goodly warke.
And who can worke beste now shall be asayde ;
A Cronell of Lawrell with verduris light and darke
I have deuysyd for Skelton my clerke ;
For to his seruyce I haue suche regarde
That of our bownte we wyll hym rewarde."
The countess and her daughters and companions were
the poet's friends, " for yet of women he never said shame,"
except of brawling counterfeits. Then the ladies brought
their silks and frames and weaving pins to work the chaplet,
and Occupation told Skelton that he must shape some
goodly conceit, "in goodly wordds pleasauntly comprysed,"
for those who had thus fallen so fast to work on his behalf.
This is the introduction to the series of graceful little
poems in different measures, with fitting refrains, addressed
to each of the needlewomen in turn, some being children.
The workers who received such thanks were the Countess of
Surrey, her children Elizabeth and Muriel Howard, Lady
Anne Dacres, Mistresses Margery Wentworth, Margaret
Tylney, Jane Blennerhasset, Isabel Pennell, Margaret
Hussey, Gertrude Statham, Isabel Knight. Then Occu-
pation took the poet again to the Queen of Fame, and read
from her Book of Remembrance a list of some of Skelton's
works, to meet objection to his wearing the laurel gar-
land. The list includes lost works, and is, therefore, of much
value as a guide to research. When the list had been read
there was aery from thousands of "Triumpha ! Triumpha ! "
clarions sounded, and the din awoke the poet from his
dream.
After the manner of the ' " Flyting " of Dunbar and
* Beue, bevy.
TOA.D. 1529.] The Spirit of Reform. 193
Kennedy in Scotland, of Luigi Pulci and Matteo Franco in
Italy, of Sagon and Marot in France, and others
of their kind, Skelton, having been challenged to l^rn™^^.'^
a scolding match by Sir Christopher Garnesche,
one of Henry VIII.'s gentlemen-ushers, took part in such a
contest, and wrote four poems against Garnesche " by the
kynges most noble commaundement." Garnesche's part of
the controversy being lost, we miss the personalities that
would have given some hint of detail in Skelton's history.
Contest against corrupt ambition in the Church took
many forms in many lands, and was often as direct as
Skelton's attack upon Wolsey. On the 22 nd
of May, 1498, Savonarola, with two of his of'^Rfi^i'^'
followers, had been hanged before the Old
Palace at Florence. His fervent zeal was for the triumph
of soul over body, for the putting away of worldliness and
unbelief, and for the shaping of a Christian Commonwealth
that found its pattern in the spirit of the Christ-Child.
Though ineffectual as a direct attack upon corruptions of the
World and of the Church, it nevertheless lifted the hearts of
other earnest men who would contribute to the shaping of
the future. Pico, Prince of Mirandola — whose age was not
yet thirty-two when he died, three or four years before
Savonarola — had learnt from the reformer to find the
crown of his wide studies in child-like obedience to the
law of Christ. It was characteristic of Thomas More that
in his earlier life, in 15 10, he was publishing a translation
of Pico's Life and Works. In the same year, 15 10, John
Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, was bestowing the fortune left him
by his father upon the foundation of St. Paul's
School. He had felt the touch of Savonarola's g^^
spirit when he went for the new scholarship to
Italy. He had used Greek as an aid to study of the Scrip-
tures, had interpreted Christian doctrine zealously through
the Epistles of St. Paul, and had passed on to diligent
N — VOL. VII.
194 English Writers. [a.d. 1510
instruction of his people in the life, and words, and mind ot
Christ, with whom he sought, as far as in him lay, to recon-
cile the world. He knew that the best hope of- lifting the
minds of men lies in a right use of the teacher's power to
guide children. ' He placed over the Master's chair in his
schoolroom an image of the Child Jesus, to whom the
school was dedicated, with the motto, " Hear ye Him." His
statutes said that his intent by this school was " specially
to increase knowledge, and worshipping of God and our
Lord Jesus Christ, and good Christian life and manners in
the children." The grammar he had asked Linacre to write
for his children being beyond Colet's estimate of their
powers, he was obliged, as we have seen, to decline it, and
to shape another in companionship with the good friend and
scholar, William Lilly, who agreed to work with him as his
first head master.
William Lilly, born at Odiham, Hants, in 1468, was
about two years younger than Colet, and had also been edu-
cated at Magdalene College, Oxford. After
^;i}''^" taking his first degree, Lilly went on a pil-
grimage to Jerusalem. It was on his way back
that he studied Greek at Rhodes, and afterwards at Rome.
He had been head master of St. Paul's School for twelve
years, when he died of the plague. His most famous
book was the Latin Grammar, produced for the use of the
new school, and familiar to boys of many English schools
for many generations. It was first published in 1513. The
preface was written, with view to his Ipswich school, by
Wolsey, not yet cardinal, but in the year of its publication
Dean of York. The English " Rudiments " were written by
Dean Colet, who wanted confidence in his own Latinity.
The English syntax and the rules in Latin verse for
genders, beginning ' ' Propria quae maribus," and for past
tenses and supines, beginning " As in prsesenti," were by
William Lilly. The Latin syntax was chiefly the work of
TOA.D. 1512.] John Colet. 195
Erasmus, and the great currency of the book was the work
of Henry VIII., who established its orthodoxy by declaring
it penal publicly to teach any other.
In a " lytell Proheme " to this book, Colet said : " I
pray God all may be to His honour, and to the erudition and
profit of children, my countrymen, Londoners especially,
whom, digesting this littlcwork, I had always before mine
eyes, considering more what was for them than to show any
great cunning; willing to speak the -things often before
spoken, in such manner as gladly young beginners and tender
wits might take and conceive. Wherefore I pray you all
little babes, all little children, learn gladly this little
treatise, and commend it diligently unto your memories,
trusting of this beginning that ye shall proceed and grow to
perfect literature, and come at the last to be great clerks.
And lift up your little white hands for me, which prayeth for
you to God, to whom be all honour and imperial majesty and
glory. Amen.''
Erasmus, who never ceased to be grateful for the influ-
ence of Colet on his mind when he first went as a poor
scholar to Oxford, wrote also for his friend's school a
little book, De Copia Verborum.
In February, 15 12, Colet preached in St. Paul's Cathe-
dral, at the request of Archbishop Warham, the sermon at
the opening of a meeting of Convocation, sum-
moned chiefly to obtain a vote of money from vocation
the Church for the king's service, and also, if "■'"°"-
Richard Fitzjames, Bishop of London, had his way, for action
against heresy. To the assembled bishops and clergy Colet,
with modesty of tone, but with unflinching firmness, told the
need of a reform Beginning with themselves. Their worldliness
and covetousness, their lust of the flesh and pride of life,
were urged home to them as evils that harmed the Church
far more than the heresies that put them to the trial of
their faith and called for confirmation of right doctrine.
N 2
ig6 English Writers. [a.d. 1512
Reformation, he said boldly, should begin with you, the
bishops. Unlearned men, or men of evil lives, ought not to
be admitted to the care of souls. You must put an end to the
trafficking in benefices. Devout pastors should dwell among
their people. Wealth of the Church should not be spent in
pomps and luxuries, but in things useful for the teaching of
the laity, to whom a faithful clergy ought to be example of
all good.
Richard Fitzjames, Bishop of London from 1506 until
his death in 1522, was an able and zealous man — zealous in
many good ways, and zealous also as a strong opponent of the
men who followed in the steps of Wyclif, and appeared to
Fitzjames a danger to the Church. He stood on the old break-
water and sought to guard them from the rising tide. Dean
Colet's systematic teaching from his pulpit, in sequences of
sermons on the words of Christ, on the Lord's Prayer, on the
Creed, brought Lollards to St. Paul's. The bishop heard how,
with such men present and approving, Colet spoke plain words
upon the need of purer lives among the clergy. He had
translated, also, the Lord's Prayer into English for common
use ; and he had Greek taught to the boys in his new school.
Bishop Fitzjames thought Colet mischievous, and would
have deprived him — perhaps burnt him as a heretic — if
Colet had not found a safe friend in Archbishop War-
ham. After the sermon to the clergy, Fitzjames endea-
voured, unsuccessfully, to fix charges of heresy upon his
dean.
Colet, like his friends More and Erasmus, was opposed
strongly to wars of ambition, waged by princes of the earth
on one another. He was not afraid to speak
Sermon ^^ plainly to the king as he had spoken to the
teforethe magnates of the Church. On Good Friday,
15x3, Dr. Colet was preacher for the day, before
the king, in the Chapel Royal. The king was then deep in
preparations for invading France. Colet preached upon the
TO A.D. ISI3.] John CoLET. 197
theme of the day, Christ's Victory, and contrasted the true
Christian's spiritual warfare with the wars prompted by
hatred and ambition; with the battle-fields on which — as
Erasmus described the sermon — Colet showed how hard it
is to die a Christian. Henry VIII., then twenty-two years
old, without abating in zeal for the invasion of France,
sought in a long conversation to discuss with the plain-
speaking dean his motives and his policy, from the Christian
point of view on which the sermon had insisted. The king,
after talking with him in the garden for an hour or two,
declared unbroken trust in the divine.
Henry VIII. was at this time a handsome young man,
graceful and vigorous of body, a good j ouster, a good dancer,
and gifted naturally with a quick intelligence that
had been cultivated from his early childhood by
John Skelton and others. He was strict in observing hours
of prayer, and paid much attention to questions of theology.
In November, 1511, King Henry had joined his wife's father
Ferdinand, in league with Pope Julius II. and the Venetians,
against France. The force he sent over in the summer of
1512 returned discredited. There was to be no such failure
in the expedition of 1513- Fourteen thousand men were
sent over in May. The young king himself soon followed
with more soldiers, and was joined by eight thousand
German mercenaries. The Emperor Maximilian served
under him. They chased the French force sent to relief
of Terouenne, in their six-mile flight known as the Battle
of the Spurs. They took Tournay, and while they were
besieging Tournay Henry VIII. of England heard from
Queen Katherine of the death of J ames IV. of Scotland on
the Field of Flodden. In October Henry returned, after
concluding a new treaty with Ferdinand and Maximilian for
attack on France in the next fighting season.
But when that season came, Leo X. had succeeded Julius
as Pope ; both Ferdinand and Maximilian had lost interest
198 English Writers. [a.d. 1513
in the league ; the King of France made peace, and on the
9th of October, 1514, Henry VIII. married his sister Mary,
aged sixteen, to Louis XII. of France, aged fifty-three. She
had been married by proxy in December, 1508, to Prince
Charles of Castile, but that engagement was now broken off.
She was in love with Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk,
who had married an Ann Brown, still- living, and had
divorced a Margaret Mortymer on the ground that he and
she were in the second and third degrees of affinity, and
that he was first cousin once removed to her former husband.
As Louis XII. died within three months of his marriage, and
the Duke of Suffolk was sent to Paris to congratulate
Francis I. on his accession to the crown of France, Charles
Brandon snatched a marriage with the young queen-dowager.
Mary's brother Henry would have given his consent to that
marriage if he had been asked for it, but as he was not asked
he took, for satisfaction, his sister's plate and jewels, and a
bond for the repayment, by annual instalments, of ^£'24,000,
as cost of her dowry to King Louis. He had previ-
ously seized goods of his sister Margaret.
Francis I., having renewed the peace with England, went
off to fight in Italy, and won the battle of Marignano in
September, 1515. The Pope, in the same month, by the
King of England's wish, made Wolsey cardinal. On the
1 8th of February, 1516, the princess was born who after-
wards became Queen Mary. On the 23rd of January,
1516, by the death of his grandfather, Ferdinand, Charles
Prince of Castile became, at the age of sixteen, King of
Spain, in joint rule with his insane mother Joanna. It was
not until June, 1519, that, after the death of Maximilian,
he was elected, at the age of nineteen, emperor as
Charles. V.
Dean Colet's health had been failing. He had become
weary of the oppositions of his bishop, and wrote to Erasmus
of a wish to retire from active life and end his days
TOA.D. 1519.1 John CoLET. 199
with the Carthusians. But he died in harness. On the
i8th of November, 1515, he preached in Westminster Abbey
upon Wolsey's installation as Cardinal, and,
faithful still, cautioned the great prelate against Cokfs Last
ambition. In 15 18, a third attack of the danger-
ous sweating sickness warned him to close his earthly
reckonings, and he spent his last month in completion
of the statutes of his school, and other active labour for
its interests. He died in 15 19, on the i6th of September.
Colet's Convocation Sermon was printed by Berthelet
without date, perhaps in his lifetime ; otherwise, except the
grammar for his school, although his pen was not inactive,
he kept his works unpublished, and left the MSS. to his
executors. " A right fruitful Admonition concerning the
order of a good Christian Man's Life made by the famous
Dr. Colet," was first printed in 1534. His two treatises on
the Hierarchies of Dionysius, his treatises on the Sacra-
ments of the Church, his exposition of Paul's Epistle to the
Romans and of his First Epistle to the Corinthians, his
Commentary on the First Epistle of Peter, and his letters
on the Mosaic account of the Creation, all remained in MS.
until they were edited and published by a worthy suc-
cessor of John Ritwise, the first surmaster of the school.
They were edited by the Rev. J. H. Lupton, during the
ten years from 1867 to 1876.
Erasmus was of Colet's mind in applying simple Chris-
tianity as test of right or wrong in royal policy, and so was
Thomas More. Erasmus, in 1499, left Oxford,
where he had been under the influence of Colet.
More went earlier to his law studies ; Erasmus crossed to
France, with the intention of using money that he had earned,
and received from friends, as means of life while studying in
Italy. But, Henry VII. having forbidden the exportation
of precious metals, his custom-house officers took for his
majesty the gold crowns out of the scholar's purse.
200 English Writers. [*-°- 's°'
Erasmus, therefore, was detained in France with broken
health, unable to pass on into Italy, though saved from
absolute want by a noble lady through good offices of
her son's tutor. Erasmus had first printed his " Adages " in
1501. In 1503 he published his Enchiridion Militis Chris-
Hani — an Art of Piety, as he called it in one of his letters,
showing how Christ was to be followed in the warfare of a
Christian. The little book made, light of quarrel over dogma,
laying stress upon the way of life that answered to the
teaching of the Gospel. As the movement for Church
reformation spread, that book — little observed at first — was
more and more drawn into use. It was fastened upon by
the Reformers, and it was a Manual in which calm scholars,
who made right use of their learning, took delight. It was
translated out of Latin into modern languages, and spread
in course of time the fame of its writer throughout Europe.
That would be little, if we could not add that it helped
many to bring their lives into more practical accordance
with the wisdom that is from above. Erasmus returned to
England in 1506, and stayed with More in his chambers by
the Charterhouse. As travelling tutor to two sons of
Henry VII.'s chief physician, Dr. Baptista, Erasmus then
was enabled to reach Italy. He took his doctor's degree at
Turin. Upon the accession of Henry VIII. his English
friends, who were his dearest friends, invited his return to
England. He came back when Sebastian Brant's " Ship of
Fools " was newly published, and in his friend More's house
in Bucklersbury Erasmus wrote his Morics Encomium. This
" Praise of Folly " was a witty satire that included condemna-
tion of the vanity of argument and study over what is high
beyond the reach of human knowledge, and neglect of the
plain teaching that establishes the hope of life not on cowls,
matins, or fastings, but on the practice of faith and charity.
Kings care for themselves, not for their people. Popes take
the sword and give themselves to war, — to war, which is a
TO A.D. 1S15.] Erasmus. Thomas More. 201
thing so savage that it becomes wild beasts rather than men.
The "Praise of Folly," written by Erasmus for the pleasure
of More and his English friends, was sent to press by them,
and printed at Paris in 15 11.
It was during this visit to England that Erasmus taught
at Cambridge, and helped Colet in his work at the founding
of St. Paul's School. He was busy also upon the Greek
text of the New Testament, and upon the works of St.
Jerome. In July, 1514, he left England for Basel, where
he was soon hard at work with Frobenius, his printer. He
revisited England in 15 15, and expressed his contempt for
the policy of kings in a vigorous passage then inserted in a
new edition of the " Adages," which was also being printed
by Froben at Basel.*
We left Thomas More t studying law at Lincoln's Inn,
and seeking to subdue the flesh, in the year of the death of
his patron. Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Can-
terbury. That was in the year 1500, from which mo°^."^
date More's course of life has now to be con-
tinued. He had been born on the 7th of February, 1478 ;
had entered Lincoln's Inn in February, 1496, at the age of
eighteen, after a year or two at New Inn, which was an Inn
of Chancery dependent upon Lincoln's Inn. It is probable
that during the first years of his law study in London, he
did not wholly forsake Oxford. His law study was so
successful that for three years he held an appointment as
reader of law at Furnivall's Inn, another of the Inns of
Chancery dependent on hjs Inn of Court. He also carried
on the studies of which Oxford was the centre with such
thoroughness that he gave lectures on Augustine De Civi-
tate Dei in St. Lawrence Jewry, with Grocyn, who was
rector there, for one of his hearers. Among other pieces of
* This is pointed out by Mr. Frederic Seebohm in his " Oxford
Reformers of 1498 " — a wise book, though not always fair to Rome,
t " E. W." vii. 36.
202 English Writers. [a.d. 1S03
English verse written by More in his earlier years, was an
ode on the death of Queen Elizabeth of York, in 1503,
written in Chaucer stanzas, each closed with the words
" Lo ! now here I lie." In 1504, at the age of twenty-six,
he entered Parliament, and by his opposition to the king's
extravagant demands for a subsidy upon the marriage of
his daughter Margaret to James IV. of Scotland, caused a
reduction of the grant to little more than a fourth of the
sum asked for. One went and told the king that a
beardless boy had disappointed all his expectations. Dur-
ing the last years, therefore, of Henry VII., More was under
the displeasure of the king, and had thoughts of leaving the
country. He did, in fact, go abroad in 1508, when he paid
short visits to Paris and Louvain. But in the first years of
the reign of Henry VIII. he was rising to large practice in
the law courts, where it is said he refused to plead in cases
which he thought unjust, and took no fees from widows,
orphans, or the poor. In the spring of 1505 he married.
He would have preferred marrying the second daughter of
John Colt, of New Hall, in Essex, but chose her elder
sister Jane, that he might not subject her to the discredit
of being passed over. Later in the year of his marriage,
when Erasmus paid him a visit, the friends amused them-
selves with translations of Lucian from Greek into Latin.
More translated three Dialogues — Cynicus, Menippus,
and Philopseudes— and wrote a Declamation in reply to
Lucian's on tyrannicide. At the end of the year 1505 his
daughter Margaret was born. Then followed two more
daughters, Elizabeth and Cecilia, in 1506 and 1507, and a
son, John, in 1509. His wife, Jane, died in 1510, the year
in which Thomas More was made .Under-Sheriff of London.
Before the end of the year More married again. As under-
sheriff. More heard civil causes on Thursday mornings with
great satisfaction to the people, and his practice as a bar-
rister grew rapidly. In 15 13, Thomas More, then Under-
TO A.D. 1513.] Thomas More. 203
Sheriff of London, is said to have written his " History
of the Life and Death of King Edward V., and of the
Usurpation of Richard IIL," first printed in 1557, from a
MS. in his writing. One passage in it could not have been
written before 1514, The book seems to contain the
knowledge and opinions of More's patron, Morton, who,
as an active politician in the times described, was in peril
of his own life from Richard III. When, in describing
the death of Edward IV., and reporting his last words to
the bystanders, it is said, " He laid him down on his right
side with his face towards them,'' Morton, an eye-witness,
rather than More, who was then a five-year-old child, seems
to be speaking. Sir George Buck, in a eulogy of Richard
III., published in 1646, says that Morton "wrote a book in
Latin against King Richard, which came afterwards into
the hands of Mr. More, some time his servant ; " and adds
a note that "the book was lately in the hands of Mr.
Roper, of Eltham, as Sir Thomas Hoby, who saw it, told
me." There is some reason, then, to think that More's
MS. may have been a translation of his patron's Latin his-
tory, and therefore a contemporary record, though ascribed
to More by the son-in-law who first printed it, twenty-
two years after More's death. The work, which comes
down to us in Latin and in English, if wholly More's, is
based on information given to him by his patron Morton.
In the year 15 13, when More's "History of Edward V.
and Richard III." is said to have been written, Henry VIII.
undertook that expedition into France about which he had
reasoned with John Colet after hearing his Good Friday
sermon. In this war the king's chief helper was Thomas
Wolsey, whom we left at the end of Henry VII .'s
reign, newly made Dean of Lincoln, though we "y^l^^^
have since had to speak of him in higher places
of authority. After the accession of Henry VIII., Wolsey
obtained the living of Torrington, in Devon, was made also
2 04 English Writers. [a.d. is^s
Registrar of the Garter, Canon of Windsor, Dean of York.
Dr. Fox, Bishop of Winchester, was Secretary of State and
Lord Privy Seal. To him Wolsey in part owed his advance-
ment. Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, was Lord Treasurer,
and had more of the new king's confidence than the Bishop
of Winchester thought good for his own interests. There-
fore Dr. Fox sought to advance Wolsey, as a creature of his
own, in the king's personal favour; and, to place him in
closer relations with the king, obtained for him the post of
Royal Almoner. From that point Wolsey's rise was rapid.
He made his society delightful, knew how to win the king
to his own counsels, and never flinched from work. In
the campaign of 1513, Wolsey, as Royal Almoner, took
charge of the victualling of the forces. Wolsey crossed to
France with the king, counselling and aiding with his great
administrative power. In France he received from King
Henry, after Tournay had been taken, the rich bishopric of
which it was the seat. Soon after their return, the king
made his friend Bishop of Lincoln. Before the end of the
year 15 14 the see of York fell vacant, and Wolsey was made
Archbishop of York. Lavish. gifts of the king followed
rapidly. Wolsey obtained administration of the see of
Bath and Wells, the temporalities of the Abbey of St. Albans ;
soon afterwards in succession there were added to his
archbishopric the bishoprics of Durham and Winchester.
He had the revenues of a Sovereign, lived pompously, and
favoured learning. From 1515 to 1523 no parliament was
summoned ; Henry and Wolsey held absolute rule. In
November, 15 15, Wolsey formally received, in Westminster
Abbey, from Leo X., the rank of cardinal, which had been
granted in September. Dean Colet preached, as we have
seen, the installation sermon. Towards the close of De-
cember, in the same year, Warham, Archbishop of Canter-
bury, after a vain struggle against usurpation of his power by
the strong rival archbishop, yielded to him the office of Lord
TO A.D. 1516.] More's " Utopia." 205
Chancellor. It was in these days that Thomas More, not
knighted yet, wrote his "Utopia."
In May, 1515, More had been joined in a commission
with Cuthbert Tunstal and others to confer with the Am-
bassadors of Charles V., then only Archduke
of Austria, upon controversies between London i^utopia,"
merchants and the foreign merchants who claimed
special treaty interests. More was joined to the embassy as
tlie barrister who had highest reputation with the Londoners
for skill in cases of disputed shipping interests. Tunstal, a
rising churchman, held several preferments, and was chan-
cellor to Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury. He was
made in that year, 15 15, Archdeacon of Chester, and in
May, 1516, Master of the Rolls. On this embassy More
was absent more than six months, and during that time he
established friendship with Peter Giles (Latinised ^Egidius),
a scholarly and courteous young man, who was secretary
to the municipality of Antwerp. More described him to
Erasmus as so learned, witty, modest, and so true a friend,
that he would have given willingly a great part of his
fortune to be intimate with such a man.
More's " Utopia " is in two parts, of which the second,
describing the place (OiroTroc — or Nusquama, as he called
it sometimes in his letters—" Nowhere ") — was probably
written in the latter part of 1515; the first part, introduc-
tory, early in 15 16. The book was first printed at Louvain,
late in 1516, under the editorship of Erasmus, Peter Giles,
and other of More's friends. It was then revised by More,
and printed by Froben, at Basel, in November, 15 18. It
was reprinted at Paris and Vienna, but was not printed in
England during More's lifetime. Its first publication in this
counti-y was in the English translation made in Edward VI.'s
reign (1551) by Ralph Robinson. The name of the book
has given an adjective to our language — ^we call an imprac-
ticable scheme Utopian. Yet, under the veil of a playful
2o6 English Writers. , U.d. 1515
fiction, the talk is intensely earnest, and abounds in prac-
tical suggestion. It is the work of a scholarly and witty
Englishman, who attacks in his own way the chief political
and social evils of his time. The piece was a political
satire on the vanities of statecraft and the shortcomings of
what then passed for the highest form of civilised society.
Its customs were weighed in the philosopher's balance, and
found wanting. The New World had been discovered by
the Cabots and by Columbus at the end of the fifteenth
century, and in the earlier years of the sixteenth imagination
was stirred by the Latin book, published in 1507, in which
Amerigo Vespucci — after whom America was named — de-
scribed his four voyages, a narrative of which More spoke as
being " abroad in every man's hand." Vespucci, in the
account of his fourth voyage, tells of twenty-four men left
in a fort, with arms and provision for six months.* More
imagines a traveller, whom he calls Raphael Hythloday, to
have been one of these twenty-four men ; to have made with
companions further exploration of his own about the region
of the New World, and so to have come upon the other-
wise unknown island of Utopia. While playfully trifling
with the impossible constitution of an island that is No-
where, More touches in every page with fine irony upon the
actual state of Europe, and especially of England, in his time.
Sometimes the condemnation takes theform of praise, in which
the irony was manifest to every reader while the book was new.
Although the word Utopian is now taken to characterise a
scherhe of which the hope rests upon impossible conditions,
a scheme wholly unpractical, there were few more practical
books published in Henry VIII. 's reign than Sir Thomas
More's " Utopia." It spoke words of deep earnest in the
manner of a jest, ahd could draw men's eyes to the most
* Aprils, 1504: "Relictus igitur in Castello prsefato Christicolis
xxiiij et cum illis xij machinis ac aliis pluiimis armis, una cum provi-
sione pro sex mensibus sufficienter."
TO.A.D. isi6.] " Utopia." 207
sacred and substantial abuses, while it seemed intent on
blowing bubbles in the air. In February, 1517, Erasmus
was advising a correspondent to send for " Utopia," if he
had not yet read it, and if he wished to see the true source
of all political evils. In March, 15 17, Erasmus spoke of a
burgomaster at Antwerp who was so pleased with the book
that he knew it all by heart.
Utopia.
Having commended the book in a witty letter to his friend Giles,
More tells in the first part how he was sent into Flanders with Cuthbert
Tunstal, " whom the king's majesty of late, to the great rejoicing of
all men, did prefer to the office of Master of the Rolls ; " how the com-
missioners of Charles met them at Bruges, and presently returned to
Brussels for instructions ; and how More then went to Antwerp, where
he found a pleasure in the society of Peter Giles, which soothed his desire
to see again his wife and children, from whom he had been four months
away. One day, when he came from the service in Antwerp Cathedral,
More fables that he saw his friend Giles talking to " a certain stranger,
a man well stricken in age, with a black, sunburnt face, a long beard,
and a cloak cast homely about his shoulders," whom More judged to be
a mariner. Peter Giles introduced him to his friend as Raphael Hyth-
loday (the name, from the Greek SflAos and SSios, means " knowing in
trifles "), a man learned in Latin and profound in Greek, a Portuguese
wholly given to philosophy, who left his patrimony to his brethren,
and, desiring to know far countries, went with Amerigo Vespucci in
the three last of the voyages of which an account had been printed in
1507. From the last voyage he did not return with Vespucci, but got
leave to be one of the twenty-four men left in Gulike. Then he tra-
velled oh until, having reached Calicut, he found there one of the ships
of his own country to take him home. So it was that in the course of
travel Raphael Hythloday had visited the island of Utopia, unknown to
other men ; had dwelt there for five years, and had become familiar
with its customs. More's book, which expresses much of the new
energy of independent thought, was thus associated with the fresh dis-
covery of the New World. The Cabots had reached the continent in
1497, on the coast of Labrador. Columbus reached it in 1498, near the
Island of Trinidad, off the northern coast of South America. The
Florentine, Amerigo Vespucci, made his first expedition in 1499,
under command of Ojeda; his second in 1500. His third and fourth
2oS English Writers. [a.d. 1515
voyages were made in 1501 and 1503, in Portuguese ships in the service
of King Emanuel of Portugal. In 1505 he returned into the service
of Spain, but made no more voyages ; he prepared charts, and pre-
scribed routes for voyages of other men to the New World. The fame
of Amerigo's description of his voyages caused a German geographer to
call the newly founded continent after his name, America. He died
three or four years before Thomas More wrote his "Utopia."
After the greeting in the street, Raphael Hythloday and Peter Giles
went with More to his house ; " and there," says More, " in my garden,
upon a bench covered with green torves, we sat down talking together."
The talk was of the customs among men, and of the government of
princes. Why would not Hythloday give his experience as counsellor
of some great prince, since " from the prince, as from a perpetual well-
spring, cometh among the people the flood of all that is good or evil ? "
Thomas More had withheld himself from such service, and he put two
reasons for doing so into the mouth of Hythloday. First, that " most
princes have more delight in war (the knowledge of which I neither
have nor desire) than in the good feats of peace ; and employ much
more study how by right or wrong to enlarge their dominions than how
well and peaceably to rule and govern that they have already."
Secondly, because " every king's counsellor is so wise in his own eyes
that he will not allow another man's counsel, if it be not shameful,
flattering assent." More had in mind the supreme counsels of Wolsey,
abetting Henry VIII. 's war policy, and doing little to secure peace and
well-being for the English people.
Had Hythloday ever been in England? he was asked. Yes, for a
few months, not long after the insurrection of the Western Englishmen
(in 14.96), " which by their own miserable and pitiful slaughter was sup-
pressed and ended." He was then much beholden to Cardinal Morton ;
and here More put into Raphael's mouth eulogy of Morton, with an
account of discourse at -his table which set forth some of those social
miseries, the amending of which would better become a prince than
foreign war. Some one at Morton's table praised the strict execution
of justice which showed felons hanging usually by twenty at a time
upon one gallows. Hythloday said he argued that death was too great
a penalty for theft. Those cannot be kept from stealing who have no
other way whereby to live. " Therefore in this point not you only, but
also the most part of the world, be like evil schoolmasters, which be
readier to beat than to teach their scholars." There were the broken
soldiers who came from the wars maimed and lame. There were
the crowds of idle retainers nourished in the households of great
men ; these were thrust out of doors, capable of nothing, when their
TO A.D. 1516.] " Utopia." 209
masters died, or they fell sick. In France there was what More thought
the worse plague of a standing army, then a "new invention, for which
war must be found, " to the end they may ever have practised soldiers
and cunning man-slayers." A thousand times more regard ought to be
had, said Hythloday, to needs of peace than to the needs of war. Then
there was the destruction of tillage and increase of pastures for the sheep
of the rich abbots. " They inclose all into pastures ; they throw
down houses, they pluck down towns, and leave nothing standing but
only the church to be made a sheep-house." Thus husbandmen were
thrust out of their own ; thus victual had grown dear. Many were
forced into idleness, yet the sheep sufi'ered from murrain, and the price
of wool had risen. " Let not so many be brought up in idleness; let
husbandry and tillage be restored ; let cloth-working be renewed, that
there may be honest labours for this idle sort to pass their time in profit-
ably, which hitherto either poverty hath caused to be thieves, or else
now be either vagabonds or idle serving-men, and shortly will be
thieves. For by suffering your youth wantonly and viciously to be
brought up, and to be infected even from their tender age by little and
little with vice, then a' God's name to be punished when they commit
the same faults after being come to man's estate, which from their
youth they were ever like to do, — in this point, I pray you, what
other thing do you than make thieves and then punish them ? " 'i'o
Hythloday's excuse for recalling this discourse at so much length, More
answered, with a kind recollection of the friend and patron whom he
had thus introduced into his fable, "Methought myself to be in the
meantime not only at home in my country, but also through the
pleasant remembrance of the Cardinal, in whose house I was brought up
of a child, to wax a child again. And, friend Raphael, though I did
bear very great love towards you before, yet seeing you do so earnestly
favour this man, you will not believe how much my love towards you is
now increased." But he holds to his opinion that Hythloday would
be at his right post in a prince's court. Plato judges that a Common-
wealth will be happy either if philosophers are kings, or if kings
give themselves _to study of philosophy. What happiness, then, can
there be unless philosophers will vouchsafe to instruct kings with their
good counsel ? Hythloday answers, but More represents himself as
arguing still against Hythloday, that the abstract truths of philosophy
would, indeed, be as much out of place in a king's court as the noblest
speech of Seneca would be if thrust into a comedy of Plaulus, where
vile bondsmen are scolfing and trifling among themselves. But a ship
must not be forsaken in a tempest because you cannot rule the winds.
A subtle management may sometimes control the ignorant and
O VOL. VII.
2IO English Writers. [a.d. 1515
headstrong, " and that which you cannot turn to good, so order it that it
be not very bad. For it is not possible for all things to be well, unless
all men were good ; which, I think, will not be yet these good many
years. "
"In this way," said Hythloday, "nothing will be brought to
pass, but that whilst I go about to remedy the madness of others, I
should be even as mad as they. If I were to speak of what Plato feigns
in his Republic, or the Utopians do in theirs, I should be as far away
from man's present life as the rule of Christ would be if truly fol-
lowed. But preachers, sly and wily men, have wrested Christianity to
bring it into some agreement with the ways of men. The Utopians
have all goods in common. Of what use would it be to reason
among owners of property that we should follow the better plan of the
Utopians ? "
When Raphael Hythloday's talk in the garden had excited curiosity
by its frequent reference to the way things were done in Utopia, he was
persuaded to give an account of that wonderful island.
His description forms the second part of the little book. It is
designedly fantastic in suggestion of details — the work of a scholar
who had read Plato's " Republic," and had his fancy quickened after
reading Plutarch's account of Spartan life under Lycurgus. But never
was there in any old English version of " The Governail of Princes " a
more direct upholding of the duty of a king in his relation to the country
governed than in Thomas More's " Utopia." Beneath the veil of an
ideal communism, into whiph there has been worked some .witty extra-
vagance, there lies a. noble English argument. Sometimes More puts
the case as of France when he means England. Sometimes there is
ironical praise of the good faith of Christian kings, saving the book
from censure as a political attack upon the policy of Henry VIII. Thus
protected, More could declare boldly that it were best for the king ' ' to
content himself with his own kingdom, to make much of it, to enrich
it, and to make it as flourishing as he could ; to endeavour himself to
love his subjects, and again to be beloved by them, willingly to live with
them, peaceably to govern them, and with other kingdoms not to meddle,
seeing that which he hath already is even enough for him— yea, and
more than he can well turn him to." But Hythloday added, " 'This
mine advice. Master More, how think you it would be heard and
taken?' 'So, God help me, not very thankfully, quod I.'" The
prince's office, in More's " Utopia," continueth all his lifetime, unless he
be deposed or put down for suspicion of tyranny. War or battle the Uto-
pians detest as a thing very beastly, and yet to no kind of beasts in so
much use as to man. They count nothing so much against glory as
TO A.D. isi6.] "Utopia." 211
glory gotten in war. Therefore, although they study war, it is for self-
defence, or for aid of other nations against invasion or tyranny. They
are ashamed if in war they have overcome with much bloodshed, and
glory in a triumph won by little bloodshed, and by much expenditure
of wit. They hire mercenaries — especially from a fierce people, the
Zapoletes — to do much of the fighting for them ; next to these they use
the soldiers of those for whom they fight ; and then their other
friends, and last of all their own citizens, whose skill and courage
they support, and whose lives they cherish. Husband, wife, and
son may go into battle side by side to help one another, ir> which
case it is a great reproach for the husband to come home without
the wife, the wife without the husband, or the son without the
father. Thus, while they use all shifts to keep themselves from
fighting, when they do fight it is not with a sudden rush, but growing
stubbornness, and they will rather die than yield an inch. In battle
they seek always to strike down their adversary's captain, and so bring
the contest to the quickest end. They do not waste their enemies' land.
They defend and protect cities yielded to them, and do not sack or spoil
those taken by assault. They keep truces firmly. War over, they
give all spoil to their allies, and lay all charges of war on the con-
quered.
In the chapter on the Religions in Utopia, More wrote of King
Utopus, who conquered the country because it was distracted with
quarrels about religion, that "first of all he made a decree that it
should be lawful for every man to favour and follow what religion he
would, and that he might do the best he could to bring other to his
opinion, so that he did it peaceably, gently, quietly, and soberly, with-
out hasty and contentious rebuking and inveighing against each other.
If he could not by fair and gentle speech induce them unto his opinion,
yet he should use no kind of violence, and refrain from displeasant and
seditious words. To him that would vehemently and fervently in this
cause strive and contend was decreed banishment and bondage. This
law did King Utopus make, not only for the maintenance of peace,
which he saw through continual contention and mortal hatred utterly
extinguished, but also because he thought this decree would work for
the furtherance of religion."
More wrote when the days were at hand that would have
yielded many bondsmen had Utopus given laws
to Europe. The invention of printing had ^^iy,
caused a wide diffusion of the Bible in the
o 2
212 English Writers. [a.d- 1502
received Latin version, known as the Vulgate. Eighty edi-
tions of it were printed between the years 1462 and 1500. The
new impulse given to scholarship was felt by the great scho-
lars of the Church. In 1502, Ximenez, then Primate of Spain
and founder of the University of Alcala, projected an edition
of the Scriptures known from Complutum, the Latin name
The Com '^^ Alcala, its place of publication, as the Com-
piutcnsian plutensian Polyglot. He proposed to correct
the received version of the books of the Old
Testament by the Hebrew text, and those of the New Tes-
tament by the Greek text. " Every theologian," he said,
" should also be able to drink of that water which springeth
up to eternal life at the fountain-head itself. This is the
reason why we have ordered the Bible to be printed in the
original language with different translations. ... To
accomplish this task we have been obliged to have recourse
to the knowledge of the most able philologists, and to make
researches in every direction for the best and most ancient
Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. Our object is to revive
the hitherto dormant study of the Sacred Scriptures." This
work was prepared at the university of Alcala by some of
the best scholars in Spain, who worked under direction of
Ximenez and were maintained by his liberality. Leo X.
became Pope in March, 15 13, and the printing of the first
part of the Polyglot (dedicated to him), the New Testa-
ment, was completed in folio in January, 15 14. There
were letters and prefaces of St. Jerome and others ; there
was a short Greek grammar on a single leaf, and there was
a short lexicon ; but although money had lavishly been
spent in procuring manuscripts for the determination of
the text, there was no description of them, there were
no specific references to their authority, no various read-
ings. In the whole of the New Testament folio there
were only four critical remarks upon the text. The second
of the six folio volumes was ready in May, 15 14, and served
TOA.D. I520.] Bible Study. 213
as an Introduction to the Old Testament, containing a
Hebrew-Chaldee lexicon, a Hebrew grammar, and other
aids. The other four volumes gave the books of the
Old Testament in five forms — the Septuagint, the Vulgate,
the Hebrew, the Chaldee text, or Targum of Onkelos, and
a Latin version of the Targum. The publication was com-
pleted in July, 15 1 7, only four months before the death of
its promoter. The Pope's permission for the publication of
the work did not appear till March, 1520, and another year
elapsed before any one of the six hundred copies printed
was allowed to pass the Spanish frontier.
The year of the publication of " Utopia," 15 16, was also
the year in which Erasmus turned study of Greek to account
by publishing his New Testament with the Greek ^^^.^ ^^
text revised from collation of MSS., a Latin Erasmus
upon the
version, which corrected mistranslations in the New Tes-
Yulgate, and appended notes to explain changes
of reading. In the Introduction to this work, Erasmus said
that the Scriptures addressed all, adapted themselves even
to the understanding of children, and that it were well if
they could be read by all people in all languages ; that none
could reasonably be cut off from a blessing as much meant
for all as baptism and the other sacraments. The common
mechanic is a true theologian when his hopes look heaven-
ward; he blesses those who curse him, loves the good, is
patient with the evil, comforts the mourner, and sees death
only as the passage to immortal life. If princes practised
this religion, if priests taught it instead of their stock erudi-
tion out of Aristotle and Averroes, there would be fewer wars
among the nations of Christendom, less private wrath and
litigation, less worship of wealth. " Christ," added Erasmus,
" says, He who loves me, keeps my commandments. If we
be true Christians, and really believe that Christ can give us
more than the philosophers and kings can give, we cannot
become too familiar with the New Testament." This new
214 English Writers. [a.d....i524-
edition of it was received with interest by many who soon
afterwards were in strong opposition to the claims of the
reformers. It was revised, and several times reprinted,
while Erasmus followed up his work by the issue of Latin
Paraphrases of the books of the New Testa-
pi'rali?' ment. These expanded here and there for the
sake of interpretation, and put into a fresh
and flowing Latin style, the sense of the text, so as to
bring it home at once to the less learned, and even to
the learned give sometimes a livelier perception of its
meaning. The first paraphrase was of the Epistle to the
Romans, and was first published in 1518. In 15 19 followed
the Epistle to the Corinthians. The demand for more caused
Erasmus to paraphrase other Epistles. At the beginning of
1522 appeared his paraphrase of Matthew's Gospel, dedi-
cated to Charles V. That of John's Gospel followed, with
a dedication to Ferdinand I. In 1523 the paraphrase of
Luke's Gospel was published. It was dedicated to Henry
VIII. ; and the paraphrase of Mark's Gospel, published in
1524, was inscribed to Francis I. In these dedications of
the Gospel of Peace to the chief authors of discord there
was something akin to the spirit of More's " Utopia.''
CHAPTER VIII.
CHURCH MILITANT.
Martin Luther, born on the loth of November, 1483, was
sixteen years younger than Erasmus and twenty-six years
older than Calvin. The best men differ greatly
in temper and opinion, but all seek to establish Lmhe".
what they hold to be the right. Spain itself,
headquarters of the coming battle against Lutheran opinion,
while loyal to the Pope, had carefully guarded her church
system against corrupt interference by the Court of Rome.
Ximenez, Archbishop of Toledo, sought to purify the monas-
teries. He deprived unfaithful clergy of their benefices, and
was careful to place over the Church bishops who were alike
learned and pious. The need was sore when he began his
work. He developed old colleges ; founded, as we have
seen, the University of Alcala ; and fearlessly united the new
learning to the old belief. In no one of our battles of opinion
are the good men all upon one side and the bad upon the
other. After long service of the Church and of the State,
Ximenez died in November, 15 17, eighty-two years old. In
that year, on the 31st of October, Martin Luther, aged thirty-
four, began his career as a Reformer by affixing to the church
door at Wittenberg his Ninety-five Theses against Indul-
gences. John Tetzel had been trading actively in his town
with the Pope's Indulgences, to raise money for the building
of St. Peter's and for a crusade against the Turks. He had
said that when one of his customers dropped a penny into
2i6 English Writers. [*■"■ 'S'?
the box for a soul in purgatory, as soon as the money
chinked in the-chest the soul flew up to heaven. John Hus
(whose name meant " goose ") had said a hundred years
before, when condemned for his faith, " To-day you burn a
goose ; a hundred years hence a swan shall arise whom you
will not be able to burn." That prophesied the advance of
irrepressible thought.
In his Ninety-five Theses, to any one of which he chal-
lenged opposition, and all or any of which he declared him-
self ready to defend, Luther assumed throughout that his
adversary was not the Pope, but the Papal Commissary, who
had misinterpreted the Pope's instructions. His attitude
was that of an orthodox Churchman who opposed heretical
opinion. But his doctrine was that, without repentance of
the sinner, and good life ensuing, the Pope could remit no
penalties but those which he had himself imposed; and that
otherwise the power committed to him for the care of
souls is only, as the English Church Service afterwards ex-
pressed it, " to declare and pronounce to his people, being
penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins." For that
reason, in the reformed English Service, after a few sentences
of Scripture upon transgression and forgiveness, prayer begins
with a general confession of sin in which minister and
people join, and the minister then, after defining the limits
of his power of absolution, declares to the people that " He
pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent and un-
feignedly believe His holy Gospel." Then he proceeds to
pray for himself and for his people, "that it may please
God to grant us true repentance and His holy Spirit, that
those things may please Him which we do at this present,
and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and
holy.'' Distinctly to maintain this, not only as true doctrine,
but also as the doctrine of the Church of Rome, from which
Tetzel had swerved in disobedience to the Pope's instruc-
tions, was Luther's aim throughout the ninety-five sentences
TOA.D. isig.] Church Militant. 217
that he affixed, on the last day of October, 1517, to the
cliurch door at Wittenberg.
But Luther was, by temperament, warmly combative, and
in stopping every loophole to the belief that there could be
pardon for unrepented sin, or that the Pope, as Head of the
Church, could cancel sin by drawing at will from the infinite
store of the merits of the Saviour, he put some of his propo-
sitions in aggressive form. He allowed in them confession
and the fulfilment of penance, imposed by the priest, as
signs and tests of humbling and repentance; but all relations
of the sinner with the Church on earth ended, he said, at
death. The priests had acted without understanding who,
for dying men, carried on their pxnitentias canonkas into
Purgatory ; that weed had sprung up because the bishops
slept. In one of the ninety-five sentences, Luther paren-
thetically denied to the Pope the Power of the Keys. In
another he said that every Christian who truly repents is for-
given without Letters of Indulgence. But he added that
the Pope's Letters of Indulgence were not to be despised,
because they declare God's forgiveness. Christians should
be taught, said Luther, in his forty-ninth thesis, that the
Pope's Indulgence is good in as far as no trust is put in it ;
otherwise nothing is more hurtful, for it causes men to lose
the fear of God. Christians, he said also, should be taught
that money is better spent in aid of the poor than in the
buying of Indulgences.
Friar Johann Tetzel withdrew to Frankfort on the Oder,
where he burnt Friar Martin Luther's theses and published
counter-theses. Tetzel's counter-theses were burnt in re-
taliation by the students at Wittenberg. More theologians
joined in the argument. Dr. Johann Maier, of Eck, a
village in Swabia — who was known commonly as Johann Eck
— attacked Luther's theses in his Obelisci, and challenged his
old friend Dr. Luther — zeal against zeal — to a public dispu-
tation, which was held at Leipzig in July, 15 19. The
2 1 8 English Writers. tA.n. 152°
subjects of controversy were the power of the Pope, Penance,
lYidulgences, and Purgatory. Eck appealed to the Fathers
of the Church and to the decisions of Councils. Luther
appealed chiefly to Scripture, and said that Eck ran
away from the Bible as the devil from the Cross. Eck also
extracted from Luther in this discussion the opinion that
there might be circumstances which would make it right to
disobey both Pope and Council of the Church. After this
Eck wrote his chief book, " On the Primacy of Peter," went
to Rome, and returned to Germany with a Papal bull, dated
the 15th of June, 1520, which declared Luther a heretic. A
former bull had in November, 1518, asserted the Pope's
power to issue Indulgences which will help not only the
living, but also the dead who are in Purgatory.
At the beginning of August, 1520, Luther appealed to
the Emperor and to the Christian nobles of Germany against
the usurpations of the Pope, and called upon the laity to
deal with the confusions of opinion in the Church. This
appeal was followed on the 6th of October in the same year
by another pamphlet, " On the Babylonian Captivity of the
Church," which struck more especially at the Pope's claims
of spiritual power. It was issued in Latin immediately after
Eck's return to Leipzig with the bull that declared Luther a
heretic, and Luther was not pleased at its translation into
German by another hand. It was addressed to educated
readers. If he had meant it for the people at large, he would
himself have written it in German. This treatise dealt
especially with the nature, number, and use of the Sacra-
ments. Luther reasoned that those only were Sacraments
of the Church which were ordained in Scripture and asso-
ciated with visible signs, as of the water in Baptism, and of
the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper. These two —
Baptism and the Lord's Supper — were the only Sacraments.
In these the officiating minister was but the servant of God
who stood for his Master, but who had no personal authority.
TO A.D. IS2I.] Henry VIII.- against Luther. axg
In the outward and visible, as in the inward and spiritual,
part of any service, God only was to be known, and there
was efficacy in the ceremonies of the Church only for those
who in approaching them came before God conscious of
sin, truly contrite, and with a sincere faith in the Gospel
promises of salvation through Christ. The repentant sinner
was justified by his faith only, and by no act of a fellow-
man. This doctrine went to the foundation of the whole
edifice of -priestly authority. It set each Christian on his
knees before God only, with the Bible in his hand. Luther
in this book required also that when there was not a clear
reason to the contrary, the words of the New Testament
should be read in their plain natural sense. This opened
the way to a greater freedom of opinion than Luther himself
was found quite ready to admit.
It was to this piece of Luther's that Henry VIII, replied
in 1521, in Latin, with his Assertion of the Seven Sacra-
ments against Martin Luther — Assertio septem
Sacramentorum aduersui Martinum Lutherum, HenryViii.
cedita ab inuicHssimo Anglice et Franciee Rege, '° "' "'
et Do. HybernicB, Henrico eius Nominis octavo. It was pub-
lished in London, in quarto, by Pynson, and reprinted the
same year in Rome, with a liberal offer prefixed of Aposto-
lical Indulgences to those who read it.* The King of
England was described in this reprint by the title which the
Pope then formally gave him of Defender of the Faith. In
this way the words " Fidei Defensor " came to be added to
the titles of an. English king or queen.
In June, 1520, Leo X. published a bull formally condemn-
ing as heretical forty-one propositions collected from Luther's
writings. The Pope gave the heretic sixty days within
which he was to recant, if he would not suffer punishment
* " Librura, hunc invictiss. Anglise .Regis, Fidei Defensoris contra
Mart. Lutherum Legentibus, decern Annorum et totidem xl Indulgen-
tia apostolica Authoritate concessa est."
Z20 English Writers. [a.d. 1521
for heresy. The breach then was complete. Luther
denounced " the execrable bull of Antichrist," and wholly
separated himself from communion with the Church of
Rome. He had denied, he said, Divine right in the Papacy,
but now he knew it to be the kingdom of Babylon. Em-
peror Charles V., crowned in October, 1520, called his first
Diet of Sovereigns and States to meet at Worms in April,
152 1. Luther was summoned to appear before it, and
desired no better than an opportunity of personal appeal to
German princes. He was condemned beforehand by an
order issued for destruction of his books. He obtained
a safe-conduct, as Hus in like position had obtained a
safe-conduct, and had nevertheless been seized and burnt.
" I am resolved," said Luther, "to enter Worms, though as
many devils set upon me as there are tiles on the house-
tops." He appeared on the 17th of April, and was called
upon to retract, but not allowed to defend, his opinions.
" Unless I be convinced," he said, " by Scripture and Reason,
I neither can nor dare retract anything j for my conscience
is a captive to God's Word, and it is not safe or right to go
against conscience. There I take my stand. I can do no,
otherwise. SohelpmeGod. Amen."
In a document known as the Edict of Worms, drawn
up by the Papal Legate on the 26th of May, but dated
the 8th, Luther was pronounced a heretic, and it was de-
clared that whoever sheltered him, or printed or read his
books, should be outlawed. After his return from Worms —
under the ban of the Empire as well as of the Church —
Luther's friend, the Elector of Saxony, protected him against
more dangerous arrest by a show of seizure and imprison-
ment in the Castle of the Wartburg. There Luther remained
for the next twelve months, busy upon a translation of the
Bible into German. It is said by a Romanist biographer,
Audin, that when, in April, 152 1, on his way to the Diet of
Worms, where he maintained his cause before the assembled
TO A.D. 1523.] William Tyndal. 221
cardinals, bishops, and princes of Germany, as the towers 01
Worms came in sight' Luther stood up in his carriage and
first chanted his famous hymn, " Eine feste Burg ist unser
Gott" (A mighty stronghold is our God), which Audin
called the " Marseillaise of the Reformation."
William Tyndal was about Luther's age, born probably
in 1484, at Stinchcombe, or North Nibley, Gloucestershire.
He was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford,
graduated at Oxford, was then for some years at x 'ndaT
Cambridge, and about 1519 became tutor in the
family of a Gloucestershire gentleman. Sir John Walsh, of
Little Sodbury. He translated into English the " Enchiri-
dion " of Erasmus, which argues that Christian life is a war-
fare against evil, sustained rather by obeying Christ than by
faith in scholastic dogmas. As the controversy ^bout
Luther gathered strength, Tyndal supported Luther's cause
so earnestly that he was cited before the Chancellor of the
Diocese of Worcester, and warned. In dispute afterwards
with a Worcestershire divine, he said, " If God spare my
life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the
plough shall know more of the Scriptures than thou dost."
About 1523 — when Luther had returned to Wittenberg
and published atoo bitter reply to King Henry VIII. — Tyndal
came to London. More's friend, Cuthbert Tunstal, who
was at the Diet of Worms in 152 1, had been made Bishop
of London in October, 1522, and became Keeper of the Privy
Seal in the following May. Tyndal failed to obtain, through
the good offices of Sir Harry Guilford, one of Sir John
Walsh's friends, appointment as one of Tunstal's, chaplains,
but he preached some sermons at St. Dunstan's, and was
received into the house of Humphrey Monmouth, a rich
draper, liberal of mind and purse. There he was for about
half a year, and as Monmouth said afterwards, when, in
trouble for his own opinions, " he lived like a good priest,
as methought. He studied most part of the day and of the
222 English Writers. [a.d. 1523 ■
night at his book, and he would eat but sodden meat by
his good will, nor drink but small beer." Tyndal was a
small and thin man, who lived sparely and studied with-
out stint. He must have been .already at work in Mon-
mouth's house on his translation of the New Testament
into English.
Finding, as he said afterwards of himself, "not only
that there was no room in my Lord of London's palace
to translate the New Testament, but also that there was
no place to do it in all England," Tyndal left England for
Hamburg, where he increased his knowledge of Hebrew.
He was skilled in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, in Italian,
Spanish, French, and German. Tyndal followed Luther's
method, and fifty-two of his ninety glosses were simply
Luther's in translation. As a translator Tyndal trusted most
in the Greek and Latin texts of the New Testament as given
by Erasmus. These he compared thoughtfully with Luther's
version. But he did not leave the Vulgate out of sight, or
Wyclif's version that was based upon it.* Although no
copies of such an edition are now extant, there is reason to
believe that Tyndal at once printed, somewhere on the
Continent, his translation into English of two of the
Gospels, those of Matthew and Mark. He then, in 1525,
secretly printed — beginning to print at Cologne and finish-
ing at Worms — 3,000 copies of his translation of the New
Testament into English, in a quarto edition, of which only
one fragment remains. There was added to it imme-
diately a second edition of 3,000 copies in octavo, printed
at Worms.
This was three years after Luther's publication, in Sep-
tember, 1522, of his translation of the New Testament into
German.
.Edicts against the issue of his New Testament caused
* See Anglia, vi. 277—316 (1883), for a minute inquiry by James
Loring Cheney into " the Sources of Tindale's New Testament."
TO A.D. 1528.] Church Militant. 223
Luther to write a treatise on "The Secular Power,"
in which he held that princes were usually paltry fools,
ordained only to serve God as a dignified sort of execu-
tioners for punishment of the wicked, and not even them-
selves carrying their artifice so far as to pretend to be good
shepherds of the flock. In 1523 Luther was in full activity,
and two of his followers were burnt at Brussels. In October,
1524, Luther abandoned the monastic habit; and in 1525,
while Tyndal was printing his New Testament, Luther,
aged forty-two, married Catherine Bora, once a nun.
Tyndal was aided in his work by William Roy, a
Minorite friar, educated at Cambridge, whose help he
needed but whom he did not like; for he de-
scribed him as " a man somewhat crafty when he Royl^"*
Cometh unto new acquaintance and before he be
thorough known." Tyndal adds concerning Roy that " as
long as he had gotten no money, somewhat I could rule
him ; but as soon as he had gotten him money he became
like himself again. Nevertheless, I suffered all things till
that was ended which I could not do alone without one both
to write and to help me to compare the texts together. When
that was ended I took my leave, and bade him farewell for
our two lives and, as men say, a day longer." The same
William Roy, aided by Jerome Barlowe, another Minorite,
published at Strasburg, in 1528, a satire in verse known as
"The Burying of the Mass," with "Rede me and be not
wroth " for the first words upon its title-page, and a woodcut
of a satirical shield of arms with two fiends as supporters,
for Wolsey, who is styled " the vile butcher's son " and
"the proud cardinal." It contains axes to signify cruelty,
bulls' heads for sturdy furiousness, a club for tyranny, and
in the centre a figure described as
" The mastifl cur bred in Ipswich town
Gnawing with his teeth a kinges crown."
2 24 English Writers. [a-"- 's^s
This was in 1528, when Wolsey felt so strong in his
supremacy that he could venture, without the king's know-
ledge, to order heralds to declare war against Spain. His
fall was in October, 1529.
Meanwhile copies of Tyndal's translation of the New
Testament, printed in 1525 at the cost of English merchants
T ndai's abroad, had, by their agency, reached England
New Testa- in March, 1526. In the same month
Henry VIH, received Luther's second letter
to his Majesty, written in the preceding September, and
printed before it reached the king. In the autumn of
1526, in a sermon at Paul's Cross by Cuthbert Tunstal,
then Bishop of London, Tyndal's New Testament was
officially denounced, and copies of it were then publicly
burnt.
Luther wrote on the ist of September, 1525, a letter to
Henry VIIL, upon the suggestion of the King of Denmark,
who believed that the King of England might
Hm'Ty'vin. yet side with the Reformers. Luther, therefore,
apologised for his rude answer to the king's book
on the Sacraments, said he had not certainly known that the
king wrote it himself, referred to Edward Lee, Archbishop
of York, as a great beast, and so far humbled himself to
the king as to give his Majesty a- little opportunity of
triumph. In December, 1526, appeared in Latin King
Henry's answer to Luther, printed with Luther's letter and
an address to the pious reader. At the beginning of 1527
there was published also, in English, "A Copy of the
Letters wherein the most Redoubted and Mighty Prince our
Soverayne Lorde Kynge Henry the Eight, Kynge of Eng-
lande and of France, Defensor of the Faith, and l^orde of
Ireland, made Answer unto a certayne Letter of Martyn
Luther," &c. This had a special preface, in which it was
said that Luther " fell into device with one or two lewd
persons born in this our realm for the translating of the
TO A.D. 1528.] Church Militant. 225
New Testament into English, as well with many corruptions
of that holy text, as certain prefaces and pestilent glosses in
the margins, for the advancement and setting forth of his
abominable heresies ; intending to abuse the good minds
and devotion that you our dearly-beloved people bear to-
ward the Holy Scripture, and to infect you with the
deadly corruption and contagious odour of his pestilent
errors. In the avoiding whereof we, of our especial
tender zeal towards you, have, with the deliberate advice
of the most reverend father in God, Thomas Lord Car-
dinal, Legate de Latere, of the see apostolic of York
Primate, and our Chancellor of this realm, and other
reverend fathers of the spiritualty, determined the said and
untrue translations to be burned, with further sharp correction
and punishment against the keepers and readers of the same ;
reckoning of your wisdoms very sure that ye will well
and thankfully perceive our tender and loving mind towa.rd
you therein, and that ye will never be so greedy upon any
sweet wine, be the grape never so pleasant, that ye will de-
sire to taste it, being well advertised that your enemy before
hath poisoned it." In this year 1527, Henry VIII., with
his eye upon Ann Boleyn, began questioning the lawfulness
of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon.
Tyndal doubtless referred to Luther's version of the
New Testament into German while he was making his own
from the Greek. More than half of Luther's short preface
to his New Testament is incorporated in the prologue to the
• New Testament of Tyndal, who used also, with a few
additions, Luther's marginal references, simply translated
some of his glosses, gave the sense of others, and added
many of his own. It was asserted, also, by the English
bishops that there were 3,000 errors in Tyndal's translation.
Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, bought up all copies
that he could find.
In March, 1528, Sir Thomas More was licensed by his
P — VOL. vir.
226 English- Writers. [a.d. 1528
old friend Tunstal to have and read Lutheran books in order
that he might confute them, " forasmuch as
Tyndal"'^ you, dcarly-beloved brother, can play the De-
mosthenes both in this our English tongue and
also in the Latin." More had been made Treasurer of the
Exchequer in 1520, had become Sir Thomas in 1521, a
month after his appointment as Master of the Requests.
In 1523 he was chosen Speaker of the House of Commons,
when a Parliament was summoned to raise money for a war
with France, and he had then offended Wolsey by opposing
an oppressive subsidy. Henry VIH. delighted in his
society, and would pay him unceremonious visits in the
house at Chelsea to which he had removed from Bucklers-
bury. " Great honour," said one of his family, "was this to
him." " Yes," answered More, " the king is my very good
master ; but if my head would win his Majesty a castle in
France, it would not fail to be struck off my shoulders." In
1527 Tunstal and More were joined with Wolsey in an em-
bassy to France. On their return Wolsey opened a court
for the remedy of abusions in the Church. One of the first
called before it, in November, 1527, was Thomas Bilney,
whom Tunstal persuaded at that time to recant ; and he was
released after carrying a fagot in procession, and standing
bareheaded before a' preacher. at Paul's Cross. In 1528 the .
king made More Chancellor of the .Duchy of Lancaster.
This was his position, and he was forty-eight years old, when
he was licensed by Tunstal to read Lutheran books, that he
might use his skill in argument against them. He produced
in the same year, and published in 1529, a " Dialogue " in
four books, being in form of the report to a friend of dialogue
between himself and a confidential messenger whom the
friend had sent to question More upon religious controver-
sies of the day. There was frequent recurrence, therefore,
of the words, " Quoth he," and " Quoth I," which caused
the book to be known commonly by the name of " Quod
TO A.D. 1529.] More and Tyndal. 227
he and Quod /." The discussion was of image-worship,
prayer to saints, going on pilgrimages, and other topics to be
met with argument against the views of Luther and Tyndal.
The new English translation of the Testament More would
take as a New Testament only in the sense of its being
Tyndal's or Luther's. More illustrated his complaint against
the text by citing Tyndal's substitution of the words- con-
gregation, elder, favour, knowledge, repentance, for church,
priest, grace, confession, and penance. In this Dialogue
More maintained that the English ought to have the Bible
in their mother tongue, and said that " to keep the whole
commodity from any whole people because of harm that by
their own folly and fault may come to some part, were as
though a lewd " (unlearned) " surgeon would cut off the leg
by the knee to keep the toe from the gout, or cut off a man's
head by the shoulders to keep him from the toothache."
A trustworthy version might, he thought, be used prudently
for distribution by the clergy. More published' also, in
1529, a "Supplication of Souls," in reply to a short invec-
tive called " The Supplication of Beggars," written by Simon
Fishe.
Simon Fishe entered Gray's Inn from Oxford in 1525,
and was active, among other young men, in attack upon the
wealth and .pride of prelates, and of Wolsey as
the typical example. They produced an inter- |^j^™
lude, written by Mater Roo^a Cambridge man
— in which Wolsey was satirised. Fishe, having acted a
part in it, escaped from the wrath that might have followed
by joining Tyndal and Roy abroad. When he came back
to London he lived in a house by the Whitefriars, and was
an agent for the diffusion of Tyndal's New Testainent. Con-
fession was made by a purchaser of now five, now ten, now
twenty or thirty of these prohibited books, and Fishe —
again in danger— about the end of 1527 returned to the Low
Countries, where he wrote "The Supplication of the Beggars,"
P'2
228 English Writers. [a.d. 1529
about which more will be said presently when we speak also
of John Frith, whose views on the Sacrament of the Altar were
argued against by Sir Thomas More.
From 1529 until 1533, More was appealing to the people
through the press with tracts designed to meet and confute
those of Tyndal and others. Tyndal produced
More and "An Answcr unto Sir Thomas More's Dia-
iyndal.
logue," written in 1530, and published in the
spring of 1531. In 1532 appeared More's " Confutation "
of Tyndal's answer. The spirit of Tyndal's argument for
the impugned parts of his translation was expressed in his
saying that the clergy had led men to "understand by the
word church nothing but the shaven flock of them that shore
the whole world;" but that it "hath yet, or should have,
another signification, little known among the common people
nowadays. That is, to wit, it signifieth a congregation ; a
multitude or a company gathered together in one, of all de-
grees of people." In short, he avoided words to which a
special and, as he thought, false meaning had become attached,
and thus incurred strong condemnation as a partisan transla-
tor from those who believed such special meanings to be
true. More, in his rejoinder, and elsewhere in his contro-
versial writing of these years, was at times false to the prin-
ciples laid down in his " Utopia " and illustrated by the
main course of his life. He was not himself a ■ persecutor,
but he was defending his own Church at a time when it be-
lieved that thousands might be saved from everlasting fire by
terror of the burning of a few. He flinched from the
practical enforcement of that doctrine, when he himself
wielded the terrors of the law. But abroad and at home it
was enforced by governments, when, in reply to Tyndal's
sentence, " If our shepherds had been as willing to feed
as to shear, we had needed ho such dispicience, nor they
to have burnt so many as they have," More admitted that
there would have been less heresy if there had been more
TOA.D. 1533.] More and Tyndal. 229
. diligence in preaching. He then said, " Sure if the prelates
had taken as good heed in time as they should have done,
there should peradventure at length fewer have been burned
thereby. But there should have been more burned by a
great many than there have been within this seven year last
past ; the lack whereof, I fear me, will make more burned
within this seven year next coming than else should have
needed to have been burned in seven score." But we must
go back now a few years to take up the thread of the per-
sonal story of Sir Thomas More.
After the publication of " Utopia " — first printed by
Thierry Martins at Louvain in December, 1516 — More was
joined, on the 1 6th of August, 1617, in a com-
mission to Calais, in the interests of London '^^^^
merchants, upon disputes arising out of incidents
in time of war. In the' same year Sir John More, his father,
at the age of sixty-five, was made a judge in the Court of
Common Pleas, to be tr3,nsferred, probably in April, 1520,
to the King's Bench. It was while at Calais that Thomas
More received a present from his friends Erasmus and Peter
Giles of their portraits by Quentin Matsys, on two panels
joined together as a diptych.* While remaining under-
sheriff until the 23rd of July, 1519, More was drawn, early
in ,15 1 8, into the service of the king, and made before the
end of July in that year a Privy Councillor, with the offices
presently added of the King's Secretary — with Dr. Pace for
his colleague — and Master of Requests. In June, 1520,
More went with the king to Calais, and was among those
present on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He was
knighted, and made Under-Treasurer, in 15 21. In July of
that year he was at Calais again, joined, on behalf of the
Londoners, to a commission for the settlement of merchants'
* They have since been separated. The portrait of Erasmus, or a
copy of it, is now at Hampton Court, and that of Peter Giles at Nostel
Priory, near Wakefield.
230 English Writers. [a.d. 1523
disputes. In April, 1523, he was made Speaker of the
House of Commons, and vexed Wolsey by his conscientious
interpretation and discharge of the duties of his office.
Wolsey, in fact, would have got him out of the way by find-
ing him some work in Spain ; but More had the king's
friendship, and Wolsey too became his friend again. In
July, 1525, Sir Thomas More, on the death of Sir Richard
Wingfield, was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan-
caster. In 1527 he went with Wolsey on an embassy to
France, to treat of peace at Amiens. In July, 1529, More
was joined with his old friend Tunstal, who had become
Bishop of London, in an embassy to Cambray, to meet
ambassadors of the Emperor, the Pope, and the King of
France. They were sent with instructi6ns to promote the
interests of the Pope and the Holy See. More joined in
signature to the Treaty of Cambray on the 8th of August, ■
1529. On the 25th of October, 1529, Sir Thomas More
was appointed by the king to succeed Wolsey as Lord High
Chancellor. He remained in that' office until the i6th of
May, 1532 — that is to say, for a period of two years and not
quite seven months.
More was a man neither tall nor short, well made,
except that his right shoulder was higher than his left,
and for that reason, or from carelessness of dress, he usually
wore his gown awry. He had dark-brown hair, grey-blue
eyes, a pale face faintly tinged with pink, a happy expression,
and a mouth that seemed ready to break into laughter. He
preferred water to wine, plain food to luxuries, and simple
dress to pomps and fashions. He reckoned among duties
of life hours of kindly intercourse with wife, children, and
servants of his house, as well as with his friends, to whom he
was most faithful ; but he dropped them quietly and gradu-
ally when he found they were ill-chosen. He made time for
his own studies by stealing from the night, and began the
work of the day with devout worship of God. Once, when
TOA.D. 1532.] Sjr Thomas More, 231
urgently and repeatedly called from a morning mass to the
king's presence, he would not leave until the mass was ended.
His higher allegiance was to the King of Kings. From his
first home in Bucklersbury, More had removed to Crosby
Place, in Bishopsgate Street Without, and in 1523 he bought
a piece of land in Chelsea on which he made for himself a
large garden stretching to the Thames, and built in it a
house. sufficient for his family. Thenceforth that was his
home.
As an officer of state, he was obliged to go abroad with
more attendants than were necessary. These servants he
kept from idleness by allotting to each man a piece of the
garden to be worked on. Apart from the house he built his
chapel, with a book-room and a study — the New Building,
in which he worked and worshipped. Erasmus sent to
More Hans Holbein, when Holbein needed a friend. More
befriended him, and to the artist it was labour of love to
paint More in his home. The picture was painted at the
end of 1527 or early in 1528. The group contains Sir
Thomas More, with his father, Sir John ; also his wife, whom
he had married when she was Alice Middleton, a widow,
seven years older than himself, and with a daughter by a
former marriage. She had no more children, and answered
to his wish in being a kind mother to the four children left
him by his first wife Jane. She was a matter-of-fact woman,
a little sharp of tongue ; but his kindly playfulness and con-
stant goodness made her life happy, and she learnt to play
music, and otherwise to make herself as companionable as
she was helpful in his house. The group contained also the
daughters and their husbands, who all lived together in the
home at Chelsea. Margaret, the eldest — most like to her
father in face and mind — had married William Roper when
she was sixteen. William Roper, after his marriage, turned
Lutheran, and More argued with him in vain. " Meg," he
said at, last to his daughter, " I have borne with thy husband
232 English Writers. [a.d. 1527
a long time ; I have reasoned and argued with him in these
points of religion, and still given to him my poor fatherly-
counsel, but I perceive none of all this able to call him home ;
and therefore, Meg, I will no longer dispute with him, but
will clean give him over, and get me to God and pray for
him." Roper returned to the faith 'in which his wife had
i-emained constant. The picture also contained More's
second daughter Elizabeth, aged twenty-one. She had
married the son and heir to Sir John Daunsey. The picture
also contained More's third daughter, Cecily, aged twenty,
who was married to Mr. Giles Heron, son of Sir John Heron
of Hackney. More's son John, aged nineteen, was married'
also, and Holbein included in the' picture young John
More's wife, who "had been Anne Cresacre, married at
fifteen. There is another young wife in the group. More
had received into his family, and treated as a daughter, an
orphan relative, Margaret Gigs, who married another member
of the household, John Clements. More had taken him
from St. Paul's School, made friendly use of him while help-
ing to advance his education till he became a man of repute
and Professor of Greek at Cambridge. Room was found
also in the picture for James Harris, a faithful servant, and
for Henry Pattison, the domestic fool. Mrs. Clements, in
her old age, used to delight in telling of More's goodness in
his home ; would tell that she sometimes misbehaved wil-
fully for the pleasure of bringing down on herself his kind
rebuke. She only twice in her life saw him angry. He
made good scholars of the women of his household, and
said, if it were true that women are less capable than
men, that only made it necessary to take more pains with
their education in order to overcome such a defect in nature.
Most carefully he sought to keep the lives of all about him
pure and true. That his own life was so, none have ever
doubted.
But then, it has been asked, why was he, as Lord
TOA.D. 1532.] S/R Thomas Moke. 233
Chancellor, a cruel persecutor of the Lutherans? The
charge of cruelty rests upon accusations that began with
calumnies to which, even at this day, public men are ex-
posed when they are strong on either side in a great contro-
versy that has stirred the passions of the people. John Foxe
was a good man, though he did not need much evidence to
convict a Roman Catholic of any wrong-doing with which he
might be charged. Bias directed judgment. Thirty years
after More's death, Foxe charged him with the examination
and torture of John Tewkesbury, who had retracted several
months before More was Chancellor ; with the death of John
Frith, which was a year after More had resigned his office ;
he told also another story that, like the tale of Tewkesbury,
worked up the old popular fable about a whipping-tree in
More's garden at Chelsea, called Jesus' Tree, or the Tree ot
Truth. More in his lifetime explicitly contradicted accu-
sations of this kind. No man, while More was Chancellor,
was put to death by him for heresy. Among the passionate
accusations, blindly hurled from one side to the other in
More's time, that story of the Tree of Truth was current.
More contradicted it when it was most easy, if he did not
speak truth, to confute him. His whippings,' he said, had
been only two — one of a child in service of his house who
sought to corrupt another child, and one a public whipping
of a lunatic who brawled in churches, and was thereby
restrained from continuance in that form of disorder. In
More's time the whip was thought to be remedial in
lunacy, and society had yet to learn the proper care of the
insane. Of this lunatic More wrote in his " Apologia,"
" God be thanked, I hear none harm of him now," and
added that " of all that ever cariie in my hand for heresy,
as help me God, saving (as I said) the sure keeping of them,
had never any of them any stripe or stroke given them,
so much as a fillip on the forehead." More went on to
reply as decisively to a particular slander that shows the
234 English Writers. [a.u. 1527.
source of such inventions as Foxe was ready to accept for
truth.
Against Luther and his opinions More fought with all
his might in public controversy. Luther's violence offended
him. The violence to which it stirred large
Luther!"^ numbers of ignorant peasantry appeared to More
to threaten a loosening of the bonds of peace in
States as well as in the Church. The part taken by the ■
Anabaptists in the Peasants' War, that was ended in June,
1525, after the loss of a hundred thousand lives, seemed to
him ominous of ills to come by the diffusion of I^uther's
heresy. The boldness of Luther's attack upon the Primacy
of the Pope seemed to More dangerous to the continuance
of a United Christian Church. Luther's attack on faith in
the Seven Sacraments seemed to More's simple piety attack
upon the faith of Christendom. More did indeed think that it
would have been well if a few sentences of death had stayed
the tumult of change before nations were involved in it ; but
it is very doubtful whether he could have brought himself,
in that or any case, by his own choice and will to pronounce
those sentences. We know that he never did pronounce
them, that he never applied torture, that he took much
pains to persuade men, by word of mouth, into retracta-
tion of what he took to be an error most dangerous to
the common weal, and that he set himself to the true
work of intellectual battle with the best arms he could
bring into the field. He produced a thousand pages or
more of controversial writing in measuring his powers of
wit and reason against those of the stoutest combatants
upon the other side. He defended outworks of the for-
tress of Authority, fought, perhaps, on the weaker side,
but he did seek to let Truth and Error grapple.
Simon Fishe's " Supplicacyon for the Beggars " com-
plained that the lepers, the maimed, and the blind lose alms
that should sustain them because the country is impoverished
TOA.D. 1532.] Simon FisHE. 235
by " Bishops^ Abbots, Priors, Deacons, Archdeacons,
Suffragans, Priests, Monks, Canons, Friars, Pardoners, and
Summoners, who are wolves in herds' clothing
devouring the flock. They possess a third of "'luppiyca-
the land, besides their tenth of all the corn, g^'egg^s."''''
meadow, pasture, grass, wool, colts, calves,
lambs, pigs, geese, and chickens. Over and besides,
the tenth part of every servant's wages, the tenth
part of the wool, milk, honey, wax, cheese, and butter.
Yea, and they look so narrowly to their profits that the
poor wives must be countable with them for every tenth
egg, or else she getteth not her rights at Easter, shall be
taken as an heretic. Hereto they have their four offer-
ing days. What money pull they in by men's offerings to
their pilgrimages, and at their first masses ! "
More and more ways of drawing from the people
money that might otherwise help the poor, Simon Fishe
recites, until he finds that an idle clergy has possession of
half the substance of the realm. And then he asks. What
do they with the wealth thus raised ? It is spent on mis-
chief to the state, corruption of women, defiance of the law.
These men make heretics of those who cannot pay, and
deny the New Testament to the people because they
would find in it that Christ paid tribute to Caesar. The
king's power is weak because priests have been his Chan-
cellors. This was said in the time of Wolsey. The
appointment of lay Chancellors was a departure taken
when Sir Thomas More was made Wolsey's successor.
There will be an end of beggary, said Simon Fishe, the land
shall be rich and the Gospel preached, if you declare the
hypocrisy of these false priests, send out the begging friars
to get their living in the world, and whip them at the
cart's tail if they will not work. It is said that
Henry VIII. was not displeased with this little book when
it was shown to him, but he observed upon it, "If a
236 English Writers. [a.d. 1527
man shoyld pull down an old stone wall and begin at the
lower part, the upper part thereof might chance to fall upon
his head."
Sir Thomas More replied to the book with a " Suppli-
cation of Souls." Fishe's evil genius had come with the
devil to bring news of his book to the souls in
Thomas Purgatory, whom More imagines speaking their
■; Suppiica- mind on its argument. More, of course, in his
Souls." reasonings defended no corruption, nor did he
at any time deny that evil was done by many
who should be servants of God. But he argued that if the
Church system was to be destroyed because many Popes
and priests were corrupt, States also might be destroyed
because many kings and Ministers of State lived evil lives.
He wished to purify the Church without destruction of
what he reverenced as its time-honoured discipline and
doctrine. But party strife has a bad language of its own.
Calm reasoning will not be weighed by many until many be
wise. More mixed his mirth and sense and pious feeling
with more words of contempt for argument upon the other
side than St. Paul would have thought decent.
Luther replied to Henry VHI.'s " Defence of the Seven
Sacraments" with especial virulence. The king.himself could
not reply again, and More replied for him, but
Luther and ^^^^^ jj^g ^^^^ ^^ William Ross. He took
Luther's reply to pieces, and reviled again with
energy,* pained, as he said, to speak foul words to pure
ears; but he must do it, or, as he had earnestly desired,
leave Luther's book untouched. The answer was written to
please the king, but More did not choose to put his name
to it.
Of the end of Simon Fishe we know only from More's
* For example, "Quis non rideat nebulonem miserrimum tain
furiosas efflantem glorias, quasi sederet in Christi pectore, cum
clausus jaceat in culo diaboli. Inde crepat ac buccinat."
TO A.D. 1533-1 Luther and More. John Frith. 237
" Apology," that " he came into the Church again, and for-
swore and forsook all the whole hill of those heresies out of
which the fountain of that same good zeal sprang," and that
he died of the plague in 1531. His wife took for her second
husband James Bainham, a lawyer of the Middle Temple,
who was burnt in Smithfield for a heretic on the 30th of
April, 1532, by sentence of the Bishop of London's Vicar-
General.
John Frith, born in 1503, went from Eton to King's
College, Cambridge, and took at Cambridge the B.A. degree
before proceeding to Oxford, where he was ad-
mitted to the same degree in December, 1525. John Frith.
Wolsey made Frith, for his abilities, a junior
canon of his College — Cardinal College, afterwards Christ
Church. Frith helped Tyndal in his translation of the New
Testament, shared his opinions, was imprisoned in a cellar
of the college, and released by the desire of Wolsey on con-
dition that he kept away from Oxford. He was then abroad
for about six years, married, and had children, still working
with the Reformers and assisting Tyndal. He wrote a book
against Purgatory. When he returned to England, having
left wife and children abroad, he was set in the stocks at
Reading as a rogue and vagabond, but released at inter-
cession of the schoolmaster of the town. He went on to
London, and soon afterwards, when endeavouring to get
back into Holland, he was arrested and imprisoned as a
heretic. In the Tower he set down his views upon the
Eucharist, which were shown to Sir Thomas More, who
pubHshed a reply to them. On the 20th of June, 1533,
Frith was brought before three bishops sitting at Saint
Paul's, was condemned by the Bishop of London as a
heretic, and burnt at Smithfield on the 4th of Jul}', after
writing continually in his prison, although bent down by a
load of chains. Among his many writings was a reply to
Sir Thomas More's " Supplication of Souls." Another ot
238 English Writers. [a.d. 1533-
his writings was published in the year of his martyrdom as
" A Boke made by John Fryth, prysoner in the Tower 01
London, answerynge to M. More's Letter which he wrote
agaynst the fyrst lytle Treatyse that John Ffryth made con-
cernynge the Sacramente of the Body and Bloode of Christ."
This was printed by Conrad Willems, at Munster. Another
of his boojis, printed by John Day in 1533, was " A Myrroure
or Lookynge Glass wherein you may beholde the Sacramente
of Baptisme described." It was answered by More after
Frith's death.
CHAPTER IX.
SIR DAVID LINDSAY AND OTHER SCOTTISH WRITERS.
We look northward again. Before the voice of Dunbar was
silent, Ijndsay took up the strain and was free Scotland,
canny, humorous, sincere, with a direct earnest-
ness that brings out notes of the deeper poetry of JJe T^eed.
life ; the voice for Scotland of that spirit of
reformation which had grown up, as we have seen, among
true men of all theological creeds during the fifteenth cen-
tury, and had been strengthened by all influences of the
time. Whatever makes a man most man brings out the
voice that reaches far beyond the present. The foundations
of Scottish literature were laid by our Edward I., when he
forced on the Scotch their war of independence, and so
gave to their countrymen a Wallace and a Bruce — their
countrymen and ours; the Lowland Scots, being, in fact, most
EngUsh of the English. Their country, an old place of
refuge for the patriotic fugitives from Norman rule, was little
oppressed with castles of early Norman build. The Norman
castles of which ruins are now to be found in Scotland show
their later date almost invariably by the more ornamented
style of Edward I.
David Lindsay, born about 1490, was the eldest of five
sons. His father, also a David, was son to the second- son
of a Lord Lindsay of Byres,- and inherited a
smaller estate in Haddingtonshire, which he left Lkidly.
when he bought house and land known as the
Mount, upon Mount Hill, five or six miles to the north-west
240 English Writers. [a.d. 'sos
of Cupar, county town of Fife. It was after the marriage of
the Thistle and the Rose that David Lindsay began his
court Hfe. Prosperous Scotland was then busy in her
dockyards, and King James IV. achieved the construction
of what passed as a monster vessel, the Great Michael, 240
feet long, its hull cannon-proof because ten feet thick and of
solid oak. In 1509 Henry VII. died, and the new king of
England promised to give more trouble to his neighbour.
Young David Lindsay was then leaving college. He had
been sent to school in Cupar, and had seen sometimes
the Mysteries and Moralities there acted upon ground
near the Castle Hill, which is still called the Play Field. In
1505, the year of the birth of John Knox, Lindsay pro-
ceeded to the University of St. Andrews, and while he was
a student there, about seventeen years old, the death of his
father gave him the Mount for inheritance.
He stayed another two years at St. Andrews, and was alto-
gether four years in the University, under the rectorship of the '
Reverend David Spens. There was in his time only one col-
lege at St. Andrews, that of St. Salvador. St. Leonard's was
founded about three years after Lindsay left. After study
of books came, perhaps, study of men by travel ; but
Lindsay was soon in service at the Scottish court. When,
on the 1 2th of April, 1512, the prince who became James V.
was born, on the same day David Lindsay, aged about
twenty-two, was one of those appointed to attend upon him.
In the following year Henry VIII. was going to war with
France, and France knew how to procure again the help of
her old Scottish ally. For love of freedom, because the
kings of England sought to subdue Scotland, Scotland had
become the natural ally of France. Every venture made by
England in war of ignoble ambition against France brought
the Scots over the border to enjoy the opportunity of Eng-
land's weakness, and create diversion on behalf of their ally.
Until Henry VII. 's time the policy of our kings maintained
TO A.D. 1513.1 FlODDEN. 241
Scotland in a constant league with France, so close that
French words, clipped and nationalised, became familiar on
Scottish lips ; and even the national " great chieftain of the
pudding race " — notwithstanding all scornful comparison of
it with French ragouts — the haggis, was given to Scotland
by the French allies. Its name is the French hachis. Fol-
lowing the old usage, in 15 13, King James IV. resolved, in
aid of France, to invade England. Having come, on his
way to Linlithgow, with Lindsay in attendance on him, he
was there sadly praying for success in his adventure, when a
man in a blue gown, bare-headed, and apparently fifty years
old, came rapidly forward among the lords to the desk
where the king was at his prayers. There, without
homage or salutation, he leaned on the desk and said,
" Sir king, my mother has sent me to thee, desiring thee
not to go where thou art purposed, which if thou do
thou shalt not fare well in thy journey, nor none that is
with thee. Further, she forbade thee to mell nor use the
counsel of women, which if thou do thou wilt be confounded
and brought, to shame." Even-song was then near done ;
the king paused as if to answer, but in the meantime, be-
fore the king's eyes, and in the presence of all, this man
vanished away and could no more be seen. " I heard,"
says Lindsay of Pitscotie, who tells the tale — a tale which
Buchanan records upon Sir David Lindsay's personal testi-
mony — " I heard Sir David Lindsay, lion herald, and John
Inglis, the marshal, who were at that time young men and
special servants to the king's grace, thought to have taken
this man but they could not, that they might have speired
further tidings at him, but they could not touch him." In
August, 15 13, King James, at the head of an army, entered
England ; on the 9th of September he was one of the ten
thousand dead Scots upon whom the night fell over Flodden
Field.
Lindsay's young prince, aged one, became James V. —
Q — VOL VII.
242 English Writers. [a.d. 1513
Stuart the seventh. The child's mother, Henry VIII.'s
sister, aged but twenty-four, was made Regent, and, being a
Tudor, lost no time in marrying again. She gave birth to a
posthumous child in the following April ; and four month.s
after that, since she might not leave Scotland, became wife
to the handsome young Archibald, Earl of Angus, grandson
to the Earl of Angus known as " Bell the Cat," and nephew
to Gavin Douglas, the poet. At a later date Lindsay re-
minds King James of State service rendered to him at the
beginning of his reign —
" How as ane chapman beris his pack
I bure thy grace upon my back,
And sumtymes stridlingis on my nek,
Dansand with mony a bend and bek ;
The first sillabis that thou did mute
Was ' Pa — Da — Lyn.' Upon the lute
Then playit I twenty springis perqueir {par cceur)
Quhilk was great plesour for to heir.
Fra play thou leit me never rest,
But ' Gynkertoun ' thou luffit ay best ;
And ay, quhen thow come fra the scuel
Then I behafEt to play the fule."
In 1515 Francis I. came to the throne of France, rati-
fied peace with England (his predecessor, Louis XII., had
married a sister of Henry VIII.), and, with little
after consultatioH, included Scotland in the treaty, on
condition of her good behaviour. This, after
Flodden, piqued the Scots, but they accepted the apologies
of France. In May, 1515, the Duke of Albany, son to a
younger brother of James III., came, with a fleet of escort
and a small court of gay French companions, to be Regent
of Scotland. He came from a life of luxury, had been Lord
High Admiral of France, and had been bred to French
despotic ideas of the relation between ruler and people.
The Scot throve often in France ; but the Frenchman could
not so well make himself at home in Scotland. The new
TOA.D. I520.] North of the Tweed. 243
regency proposed to take the royal children from the queen.
The queen showed them defiantly to the commissioners
from behind the portcullis of Edinburgh Castle, and took
them to Stirling. But a besieging force obliged her to give
up the king and his infant brother Alexander to the custody
of Parliament. In the next year, 1516, feud of Douglases
or Anguses against Hamiltons, and other contests, filled the
land with slaughter. The regent tried main force, and could
not manage the people in that way. He sent to France for
men, and thereby almost raised an insurrection. Angus was
overmastered and despatched to France, where he was kept
close. The queen escaped to England, where she bore z.
daughter. Her husband, escaping from France, joined her,
and became an instrument wherewith Henry VHI. could
vex the Scots. Upon plea of negotiation necessary for pro-
tection against England, the Duke of Albany returned to
France, when he had been little more than a year in Scot-
land. The Estates gave him but four months' leave of
absence. He left Frenchmen in charge of Dumbarton,
Dunbar, and Inchgarvie, and a trusted French favourite. La
Bastie, acting as warden of the marches. There La Bastie
was killed n'ext year. The Scots made great parade of a
search for the murderers, without meaning to catch them.
Yet the alliance with France had just been renewed. The
regent overstayed his time, and was reminded of the fact.
He was wanted at home. The party of Angus — that is to
say, the Douglases — battled again for predominance, and,
with the help of fighting borderers, almost raised a civil war.
During these days of confusion James V. was a child, and
David Lindsay faithful in attendance on him.
In April, 1520, Arran and many of the western nobility
met at Edinburgh, in the house of' Bishop James (not
David) Beaton, to plan the seizure of the Earl of Angus.-
Angus, informed of this, asked his uncle, Gavin Douglas,
Bishop of Punkeld, to calm the resentment of his enemies..
Q 2
244 English Writers. u.d. 1520
The bishop met James Beaton in the church of the Black
Friars, and urged him to be peacemaker. Beaton protested
that he knew of no design to break the peace, and striking
his breast with too much animation, to enforce his denial on
his conscience, the blow rang on a coat of mail under the
sacred vestments. "My lord," said Gavin Douglas, "Iperceive
your conscience is not good ; I hear it clattering.'' The word
" clattering " had a double sense, for in Scottish dialect it
meant also " telling tales." There was presently a battle in
the street, after which seventy-two lay dead, and Bishop
James Beaton, who had taken refuge behind the altar, owed
his life to the intervention of Douglas. Angus then held
Edinburgh by an armed force. But his Tudor wife had
turned against him, was tired of him, and laboured to
bring Albany back. In November, 152 1, after more than
five years' absence, Albany returned. The orders of the
Estates had become threatening, for they had declared
that if he was not in Scotland by midsummer, Scotland
would declare him infamous, deprive him of office, break
with France, make peace with England, and even join
Henry VIII. against France. When Albany came back,
the queen's warm welcome was imputed to dishonest
motives. He was essentially a Frenchman, disliked by the
people. The death of the infant prince, Alexander, was
ascribed to him. Some asked, Was the king safe ? Would
Albany kill him to rule in his place, or carry him to France
and make another Frenchman of him ? Scotland had no
pleasure in the unnatural alliance forced upon her by the
English crown ; dislike for it was becoming active. But
then Henry VIII. threatened the Scots, and commanded
them to turn out Albany, so they were driven to stand by
him. Henry had broken with France ; he had joined Spain
and the Pope. Scotland was not to be driven ; and thus
King Henry's threat checked the rise of an English party.
In the following year, 1522, an army of 80,000, raised in
TO A.D. 1524.] James V. of Scotland. 245
Scotland, moved towards the border, causing fear in Eng-
land. But it did nothing. The insulting threat was with-
drawn, and the Scottish leaders were now for a policy of
strong defence, not of invasion. Albany went, by his own
desire, to France ; and thither also went his rival Angus.
Still there was border war with England. In September,
1523, Albany returned from France with 3,000 footmen and
500 men-at-arms, in fifty vessels. He gathered much of the
disbanded army. It was ready to serve Scotland by acting
as a check on England's border war, but it would not again
play into the hands of France by invading England. Nothing
wag done, and Albany lost credit still. In May of the next
year, 1524, Albany and nearly all the Frenchmen went to
France for good, leaving Scotland headless and distracted.
Wolsey then wrote to the queen that Henry VIII. meant
only love to his nephew. The desire was to win Scotland
from France. There was even talk of an eventual union
of crowns, by marriage of James V. with the Princess
Mary of England. Queen Margaret, the Rose of Dunbar's
poem, having shifted her love, in hate of Angus denounced
war on him if he should enter Scotland.
James V. was then in his thirteenth year, and it seemed
that the best way to check the French party and keep out
Albany, was " the erection " of the boy as king
by the Estates. The king himself rebelled at jamesthe
confinement. A gentleman who opposed him
he struck through the arm with his dagger ; and he raised
his dagger to a porter who restrained his going forth. Then
it was settled that the Earl of Cassilis and three others
should ride with the king, and that he might ride with
them where he would, so that they brought him at night
into Stirling Castle ; but they never ventured out more than
a mile from Stirling. A letter of liberal promise was con-
veyed from Henry VIII. to his nephew, and suddenly, one
day in August, 1524, the king was brought from Stirling to
246 English Writers. [a.d. 1524
Edinburgh, where he received sceptre, crown, and sword of
honour in the old Tolbooth. Many leaders in the Estates
signed a bond to stand by "the erection," and this was the
Revolution of 1524. Wolsey and Henry VIII. highly
approved of the whole proceeding.
The young king was flattered into love of his uncle,
and had no goodwill to France. Meanwhile emissaries
of France were active. In the following year, r525, the
capture of Francis I., at Pavia, excited generous sympathy
of Scotland for the old ally. The English emissaries were
unpopular, and were .abused by women in the street. In
r526 the Earl of Angus came to Scotland, humbling himself
to his queen. The boy king, told that he might choose his
own guardians, took Angus for one of three. Each was
to be guardian for three months at a time. Angus, at the
end of his first three months, would not give up his office,
but kept the king in merciless restraint. Forcible attempts
were made in vain for his release. Angus said, " If his
enemies got hold of him by one side, his friends would keep
him by the other, so that he should be torn in twain.''
In May, 1528, King James escaped to Stirling; he was
then seventeen years old, and thenceforth his own master.
When he ceased to hold the person of the king, Angus was
ruined. In the same year Queen Margaret succeeded in
obtaining her divorce from him, and married the new man
of her choice, young Harry Stewart, son of Lord Evandale.
King James applied himself vindictively to the punishment
of Angus. His estates were forfeited, and he was driven to
England, where Henry VIII. received him kindly, but his
Majesty had then no time for Scotch affairs.
While Angus and the English party held possession of
the king, he had been separated from the patriotic David
Lindsay, although Lindsay's payment as one of
jameTv.""'* the king's personal attendants was not stopped.
When King James broke bounds and became
TOA.D. 1528.] S/Ji Davw^s Dream. 247
independent, Lindsay again was by his side, and thence-
forth stood by him always as a faithful counsellor. He
sought incessantly to use his genius as a poet and his
influence as a friend, for the benefit alike of James V. and
of Scotland. Never had king a poet friend who preached
to him more indefatigably. First, there was "Lindsay's
Dream," the first of his longer works, written apparently in
1528, the first year of the king's independent rule. It
contains 1,134 lines, and is throughout in Chaucer's stanza.
Lindsay's Dream.
In a prefatory epistle to the king, he reminded his master how
' ' Quhen thou wes young, I bure ye in myne arm.
Full tenderlie, tyll thou begouth to gang,
And in thy bed oft happit thee full warme ; "
how he had been his playfellow in childhood, and had told him in his
youth " of antique stories and deeds martial ; " but now, he said, with
the support of the King of Glory, he would tell a story altogether new.
He told, in a prologue of the usual fashion, how, after he had lain sleep-
less in bed, he rose and went out, on a January morning, to the seashore,
there climbed into a little cave high in a reck, and sat with pen and
paper, meaning rhyme. But instead of rhyming, he wrapped himself
well up, and after a wakeful night, was lulled to sleep by the sound
of the waves, which he had been comparing to this false world's
instability. "Heir endis the prolong, and foUowis the dreme." A
fair lady. Dame Remembrance, came into Lindsay's Dream, and took
him with her first to Hell, where they saw popes, emperors, kings,
conquerors, cardinals, archbishops, "proud and perverse prelates out
of number," with many other churchmen. They suffered. Remem-
brance said, for covetousness, lust, and ambition ; also because they had
not taught the ignorant, "provoking them to penance by preadhing; "
and because they had not made equal distribution of the patrimony and
rent of Holy Kirk, but misspent temporally all that they should have
divided into three parts, one for the maintenance of the Church, one
for themselves, one for the poor. There also were captive kings and
nobles who suffered for their pride or cruelty, or who had given up
eternal bliss for the delights of earth. From hell. Remembrance took
the poet up, through earth, water, and the upper air, beyond the moon
248 English Writers. [a.u- is^s.
and sun and planets, to the firmament "fixitfuU of sterries brycht,"
and to the ninth sphere, prime mover of the rest ; although the planets
have also a motion in their proper spheres from west to east, some
swift, some slow,
" Quhose motioun causes contynewallie,
Rycht melodious harmonie and sound,
And all throw mouying of those planetes round-"
On they went, through the crystalline sphere, to the empyrean, where
they saw the happiness of Heaven. Returning thence against his will,
the poet questioned his companion about the Earth ; was told its shape,
size, divisions, and sub-divisions ; then he asked about Paradise, and
passed, with a significant transition, from Paradise to Scotland. Scot-
land, at his request, was shown to him by Dame Remembrance, and
when he saw that it was a fair country, he says, " I did propone
ane lytill questioun :
" ' Qahat is the cause our boundes ben so bair ? '
Quod I ; ' or quhate does mufe our miserie ;
Or quareof does proceed our pouertie ? ' "
Scotland has natural wealth, and a people both ingenious and strong
to endure. Lindsay asked, therefore, to be told " the principal cause
wherefore we are so poor." The answer to this question brought him
to the purpose of his poem, as a warning to James V., now master
of his realm. Remembrance said, " The fault is not — I dare well take
on hand— nother in to the peple nor the land. The want is of justice,
policy and peace." " Why then," asked Lindsay, " do we want
justice and policy more than they are wanted by France, Italy, or
England ? " " Quod sche : 'I fynd the fait in to the held. For they
in whom does lie our whole relief, I find them root and ground of all
our grief.' " " The poverty of the nation comes," said Remembrance,
' ' from the negligence and insolence of infatuate chiefs,
" Hauand small ee unto the common Weill,
Bot to thare singulare proffect euerilk deill.
As Lindsay and his guide thus talked, there came a. lean and
ragged man, with scrip on hip and pikestaff in his hand, as one who is
leaving home. This was the well-being of Scotland, John the Common
Weal. Few cared for him, he said, in Scotland ; the spiritual estate
never paid heed to his complaint, and among the laity there was nought
A.D. 1S28.] Lindsay's Drmam. 249
jelse but each man for himself ; so John the Common Weal must leave
the land. " But when will you come back again ? " asked Lindsay.
" ' That questioun, it sail be sone desydit,'
Quod he : ' there sail na Scot have comfortying
Off me, tyll that I see the countre gydit
Be wysedome of ane gude auld prudent kyng,
Quhilk sail delyte him maist, above all thyng,
To put justice tyll executioun,
And on Strang traitouris mak puneisioun.
Als yit to the I say ane uther thyng :
I se, rycht weill, that prouerbe is full trew :
Wo to the realme that hes ouer young ane kyng.' "
This text from Ecclesiastes x. 16, "Woe to thee, O land, when thy
king is a child," was often quoted by our English writers in the earlier
part of the reign of Richard II. The course of Scottish history now
brought it home to Lindsay, and he did not refrain from uttering
it, although it was to a young king of seventeen or eighteen that he
told the dream of which this was the pith. Remembrance seemed to
the poet to have brought him back to the cave in which he slept, and,
there, when a passing ship seemed to discharge all her cannon, he
awoke and besought God to send grace to the king to rule his realm in
unity and peace. " Heir endis the Dreme and be'gynnis the Exhorta-
tioun to the kyngis grace." "Sir," it begins, "since God of His
preordinance hath granted thee to have the governance of His people
and create thee a king, fail not to print in thy remembrance that He
will not excuse thine ignorance if thou be reckless in thy governing;
. . . and since that thou must reap as thou hast spwn, have all thy
hope in God, thy Creator, and ask Him grace that thou may be His
own." With Lindsay for unwearied counsellor, James V. could not
plead that he was uninformed as to his duties. This poem ended
in reminder of what paths were to be followed, and what shunned,
with a warning of the evil end of those who had not condescended to
good counsel. " And, finally, remember thou mon dee. . .
Quhar have they gone, thir papis and empriouris?" For some of
them that question had been answered in the beginning of the poem.
The visions of hell and heaven were no purposeless opening to
Lindsay's Dream of a king's duty to John the Common Weal.
Lindsay's next poem was " The Complaint," also ad-
dressed to the king, and written, probably, in 1529, the year
250 English Writers. [a.d. 1528
of Skelton's death, soon after James escaped from thraldom.
It is in 510 hnes of octosyllabic rhyme, and professed to
. .^. , complain that, now the. king was his own master,
" ^'"".', greedy men sought and had gifts from him, while
his old friend " Da Lyn " was overlooked. This
may have been seriously meant, and the " Complaint " may
be associated with the fact that in 1530 Lindsay, then about
forty years old, was knighted and made Lion King of Arms,
with lands and produce of lands assigned to secure pay-
ment of salary. But in his poem named the " Complaint "
Lindsay chiefly recalled with strong censure the history of
the " erection " of the young king at the age of twelve by
new rulers, " for commoun weill makand no cair." Lindsay
dwelt on what he regarded as the wilful endeavour of those
who then possessed him to corrupt and cheat him by base
flatteries, with allurements to a self-indulgence that would
make him weakly subject to their will. The prelates who
then ruled should have shamed to take the name of spiritual
priests —
" For Esyas in to his wark
Calles tliame lyke doggis that can nocht bark,
That callit ar preistis, and can nocht preche,
Nor Christis law to the people teche.
Geve for to preche bene thare professioun,
Quhy sulde thay mell with court or sessioun, .
Except it war in spirituall thyngis ? "
There was discord among great lords, till suddenly the
king escaped —
' ' Then rais ane reik, or ever I wyste,
The quhilk gart all thare band& bryste ?
Than they allone quhilk had the gyding,
Thay could nocht keip thare feit frorjie slyding ;
Bot of thare lyff^s they had sic dreid.
That thay war faine tyll trott over Tweid."
John Upland was blithe, said Lindsay, to see order re-
stored ; but it had yet to be restored in the spiritualty. The
TOA.D. 1530,] Lindsay's Complaint. 251
king was admonished, therefore, to have an eye to the
clergy, and make their lives better conform tp their voca-
tion, make them preach earnestly, and leave their vain
traditions, which deceived the simple sheep for whom Christ
shed His blood —
" As superstitious pylgramagis
Prayand to gravin ymagis,
Expres againis the Lordis command."
Lindsay added a warning to the king of the fate of Jeroboam,
and many more princes of Israel who assented to idolatry.
Sir David Lindsay has been rightly called the poet of the
Scottish Reformation, but the reformation sought by him in
the most active years of his life was far more social than
doctrinal. He had bitter cause to direct the king's attention
to the pride of prelates who, in the year of the king's escape
from the hands of Angus, first lighted a martyr fire in Scot-
land. It was rare in Scotland to hear any preaching, except
from the Black and Grey Friars. George Crichton, who
succeeded the scholar and poet, Gavin Douglas, as Bishop
of Dunkeld, once thanked God that he knew neither the
Old Testament nor the New, but . only his breviary and his
pontifical. For this he passed into a proverb with the
people, who would say, "Ye are like the Bishop of Dunkeld,
that knew neither, the new law nor the old." But when
Tyndal's New Testament was ready, traders from Leith,
Dundee, and Montrose smuggled copies of it into Scotland ;
Lutheran opinions spread ; and on the 29th of February,
1528, young Patrick Hamilton, not twenty-five years old,
born of a good Scottish house, an abbot and a scholar,
who had learnt to think in Paris and in Germany, was burnt
for his religion at St. Andrews. In the midst of the flames
he was called upon by some spectator, if he still held to his
faith, to give a last sign of his constancy. At once he raised
three fingers of his half-burnt hand, and held them raised
until he died. Each fagot kindled a new fire of zeal.
252 English Writers. [a.d. 1530
"Gif ye burn more," said a friend to one of the bishops,
" let them be burnt in the cellars, for the reik of Mr. Patrick
Hamilton has infected as many as it did blow upon." Calvin
was then only nineteen years old, John Knox but three-
and- twenty. Lindsay's "Complaint" was followed, in 1530,
by
" The Testament of the Papingo,"
or Popinjay, in 1,183 ''"£s of Chaucer's stanza — a Scottish " Speke
Parrot." In this poem, Lindsay, after a preface in praise of the poets
who preceded him and Scottish poets of his time,' feigned that he had
the care of the king's parrot, and took her, one bright morning, into a
garden. There he set her on a branch, from which, in spite of warn-
ing, "Thouart right fat, and not well used to fly," the ambitious bird
must needs climb to " the highest little tender twist." A gust of wind
broke the branch under her ; she fell, swooned, recovered voice, and
blamed false Fortune, who had brought her to court to be ruined by
ambition. Then she desired, before her death, to send some counsel to
the king. " Heir foUowis the first Epystyll of the Papingo, direct to
Kyng James the Fyft." The Parrot bequeathed to the king her true
unfeigned heart, with much serious advice to him as to the performance
of his duties; for
" Be thou found sleuthfuU or negligent,
Or iniuste in thyne executioun.
Thou sail nocht faill devine puneissioun."
Let him take note that he was the last king of five score and five —
" Of quhose number fiftie and fyve bene slane.
And, most parte, in thare awin mysgouernance."
The Parrot then dictated a second letter to her brethren of the court,
against ambition and the misuse of prosperity, against court vices and
court perils. She recalled the unhappy ends of the last four Scottish
kings from James L to James IV. ; the recent fall of Wolsey (in Oc-
tober, 1529) ; and the fall from power of the Earl of Angus (in 1528).
To the courtiers, therefore, the Parrot said, there is no constant couit
but one, where Christ is King, whose time interminable and hjgh
triumphant glory is never gone. "Heir foUowis the commonyng betvix
the Papingo and hir holye execvtovris." The Magpie, a canon regular
and prior, seeing the Parrot in pain, flew down, and asked for bequest
TO A.D. 153s.] The Testament of the Papingo. 253
of her goods ; the Raven came, too, as a black monk, and the Kite
as a friar. The Parrot expressed doubt as to the Kite's good con-
science, though her raiment was religious like : " 1 saw you," she said,
" privily pick a chicken from a hen under a dyke." " I grant," said
the Kite, " that hen was my good friend, but I only took the chicken
for my tithe." Let Parrot confess, and the three religious birds would
give her worthy funeral. The Parrot longed for better friends to com-
fort her. Then said the Kite, " We beseech you, ere you die, declare
to us some causes reasonable why we ben holden so abominable. " Thus
Lindsay introduced into the poem, after his plain counsels to the king,
an earnest setting forth of the corruption of the clergy. This had come,
he said, since Constantine in Rome divorced the Church from Poverty
and married her to Property. The children of that marriage were two
daughters. Riches and Sensuality, who grew to power, and took whole
rule of the spiritual state. The clergy who paid court to these ladies
soon forgot to study, pray, and preach, " they grew so subject to Dame
Sensual, and thought but pain poor people for to teach." Were it not
for the preaching of the begging friars, all faith would be extinct among
the seculars. When the Parrot had spoken at some length her mind
upon such matters, she was shriven by the Kite, and, for want of
better, made the Kite and Raven her executors, with the Magpie for
overman. She bequeathed her green dress to the owlet, . her eyes to
the bat, her beak to the. pelican, " to help to pierce her tender heart
in twain," her voice to the cuckoo and her eloquence to the goose, her
bones to be burnt with those of the phoenix when she next renewed
her life, her heart to the king, and the rest of her inside to her
executors. Then she commended her spirit to the Fairy Queen, She
died, and her exeqjitors fought over her remains.
In 1531, Sir David Lindsay, of the Mount, joined
officially as Lion King of Arms in an embassy to Charles V.
It was for the renewal of an old Treaty of Commerce
between Scotland and the Netherlands. In 1533 he was
married to a Janet Douglas. That was the year of the
divorce of Henry VIII. from Queen Katherine, and the
year of the birth of the Princess, afterwards Queen, Eliza-
beth. No children were born to David Lindsay. In 1535,
he was sent with Sir John Campbell to the Emperor to ask
in marriage one of the princesses of his house for James V.
No marriage came of that negotiation.
254 English Writers. [a.d. 153s
In the same year, 1535, Lindsay is said to have pro-
duced in the Play Field at Cupar the most interesting of
his works, the Morality Play called "A Satire of the
Three Estates." There is no evidence that it was acted
ii 1535- That the king in the Morality is unmarried,
and that James V. married in 1537, is of no significance.
The play was described twenty days after its production at
Linlithgow on the sixth of January, 1540, by Sir William
Eure in a letter to Thomas Cromwell as evidence of a dis-
position towards reform in the King and the temporal lords
of Scotland. Had the piece then been five years old, would
there not have been some note of the fact that it was a
revival? We can only say that the acting at Epiphany,
January 6th, 1540, was the earliest of which there is clear
evidence. Still there is no disproof of the tradition that
the play was first acted at Cupar, Fife, in 1535.*
In 1536, Lindsay wrote for the king two little pieces.
One was in " Answer to the King's Flyting," a playful warn-
ing answer to the king's, attack on his strict
Minor ° . . °
Writings of prcachmg of contmence. The other was a
" Complaint and Public Confession of the King's
Old Hound, Bagsche," who petitionedbn his ow^n behalf the
king's new favourite, Bawte, and the other dogs, his com-
panions. Bagsche had worried lambs and sheep, had
attacked men savagely ; every dog trembled when he was
near ; but at last, for his misuse of power, he was cast off,
and barely escaped hanging. Prosperous brother Bawte
was admonished to take warning, and any strong man who
* David Laing in his three volume edition of " The Poetical Works
of Sir David Lindsay, with Memoir, Notes, and Glossary, Edinburgh,
1879," says of the " Satire of the Three Estates," " I do not hesitate to
assert that it was first exhibited at Linlithgow at the feast of Epiphany,
on the 6th January, 1539-40 in the presence of the King, Queen, the
ladies of the Court, the BishopSj and a great concourse of people of all
ranks."
TOA.D. 153?.] Sir David Lindsay. 255
enjoyed court favour might take to himself the auld hound's
warning against harsh use of his strength. Within the next
three or four years Lindsay wrote also a satire on the long
trains worn by ladies — " Ane Supplication against Side
Taillis " — and " Kittie's Confession," an attack on the Con-
fessional. Its doctrine is :
" To the great God omnipotent
Confess thy sin and sore repent,
And trust in Christ, as writis Paul,
Who shed His blood to save thy saul ;
For none can thee absolve but He,
Nor take away thy sin from thee."
In 1536 there was an embassy- to France, attended by
Sir David Lindsay as Lion King of Arms, to ask in marriage
for James V. a daughter of the house of Venddme. That
embassy was detained until the king himself arrived, when
he chose for himself Magdalene of France, the consumptive
eldest daughter of King Francis. She was married to James
with much banqueting. On the 28th of May the king and
queen arrived at Holyrood. On the 5th of July the bride
was dead. Lindsay then wrote "The Deploration of Queen
Magdalene," dwelling at large upon the pomps of her recep-
tion, and then passing in one stanza from the festal music to
the music of her requiem. Within a year there was another
bride to greet. On the loth of June, 1538, Mary, widow of
the Dake of Longueville and daughter of the Duke of Guise,
landed at Fifeness. She was received with triumphs of
Lindsay's devising. The genius of Scotland, in angelic
form, delivered to her the keys of Scotland from a cloud
above an arch. There were forty days of sport. Occasion
came of this for Lindsay's short piece on " The Jousting
between James Watson and John Barbour."
In the following year, 1539, five men were burnt for
heresy at Edinburgh, and David Beaton, who had taken
part in their condemnation, and had in the preceding year
256 English Writers. [a.d. 1540
been made a cardinal, became, by the death of his uncle
James, Archbishop of St. Andrews. In January, 1540,
at the Feast of Epiphany, the king had Lind-
Herelyf'"' say's "Satire of the Three Estates " acted at
Friendly Linlithgow before himself and his queen, and
fbrmadon' ^'^ wholc council, temporal and spiritual. At
the end of the piece James warned some of the
bishops who were present that if they did not take heed, he
would send some of the proudest of them to be dealt with
by his uncle of England.
The Satire of the Three Estates
was a public setting forth of the condition of the country, with distinct
and practical suggestion of the reforms most needed. Diligence
first entered, as messenger from King Humanity, who was at hand.
The people might now be assured of Reformation. The Three Estates
of the nation were warned, in the king's name, to appear. Spectators
were invited to be patient for some hours, and exhorted
" That na man tak our wordis intill disdaine,
Althoct ye hear, be declamatioun.
The common-weill richt pitiouslie complaine.''
The King then entered, with a prayer that he might use his diadem to
God's pleasure and his own great comfort. But he was met and
enticed by Wantonness and Placebo, and by Sandie Solace, fresh from
a visit to fair Lady Sensuality, whose charms he praised. Sensuality
then entered, the king was attracted by her song ; she was commended
and brought to him. Then came Good Counsel, after long banishment
from Scotland, meaning to save King Humanity, who was thus overset
in the beginning of his reign. But next came the Vices — Flattery,
Falsehood, and Deceit — resolved to seek the King, and to devise some
sujjtle way of keeping him from the guidance of Good Counsel :
" Wee man turne our claithis and change our stiles.
And disagyse vs, that na man ken vs.
Hes na man clarkis cleathing to len us ? "
Flattery, disguised as a friar, took the name of Devotion ; Deceit
called himself Discretion ; and Falsehood, Sapii nee, but being little
A.D. 1540.] A Satire of the Three Estates. 257
wise he presently forgot his name, and confounded it with "thin
drink " — " sypeins," the leakage from a cask. The disguised Vices
met and beguiled the King. When the greybeard Good Counsel
entered they turned him out, and agreed together to make haste with
their own profit while the King was young. With aid from Wantonness
and Solace, they had the King in attendance on a song from Sensuality
when Dame Verity entered with a call for the spirit of judgment to him
that sitteth in judgment :
" Let not the fault be left into the head
Then sail the members reulit be at richt. "
Especially " the Princes of the Priests " should let their light shine
before men, who will pay more heed to their deeds than .to their words,
and follow them in both. The Vices spying Verity, resolved together
that she must not come to the King's presence. They accused her to
the Spiritual Lords :
" O reverent fatheris of the Spirituall Stait,
Wee counsall yow, be wise and vigilant.
Dame Veritie has lychtit, now of lait.
And in hir hand beirand the New Testament."
An Abbot advised that she be held prisoner till the third day of the
Parliament, and then accused of heresy ; a parson advised, now that
the King was guided by Dame Sensuality,
"To tak your time, I hauld it best for me.
And go destroy all thir Lutherians,
In speciall, yon ladie Veritie."
The Spiritual Lords then sent the Parson, with Flattery as the Friars to
Dame Verity. The Parson asked what right she had to preach, and
said :
" I dreid, without ye get ane remissioun,
And, syne, renunce your new opiniones.
The spritual stait sail put yow to perditioun
And in the fyre will burne yow, flesche and bones."
Verity would not recant, and told her inquisitors that if the king knew
her they would all be defamed for their traditions. Then suddenly
cried Flattery, the Friar :
R — VOL. VII.
258 English Writers. [a.d. 1540.
" Quhat buik is that, harlot, into thy hand ?
Out ! walloway ! this is the New Test'ment,
In Englisch toung, and printit in England !
Herisie ! herisie ! fire ! fire ! incontinent."
If this Morality was acted at Cupar in 153S, it was the year before the
martyrdom of Tyndal. In 1534 the Convocation of the English clergy
had asked the king for an authorised translation of the Scriptures into
English ; and in 1535 Coverdale's translation was printed and licensed,
though its introduction was delayed till 1536, which was the year also
of the appearance of the first copies printed in England of Tyndal's
New Testament. The outcry of Falsehood belongs rather to a per-
formance in January, 1540, than to a date so early as 1535, but it may,
of course, have been an addition to the first text.
So Verity was haled to the stocks, saying :
" Howbeit ye put ane thousand to torment.
Ten hundreth thowsand sail rise into thair place,"
and praying to God for some reasonable reformation. Chastity entered
next, and fared no better than Truth. Neither Estates nor people
would receive her, and after some jest by a tailor's wife and a shoe-
maker's wife, both Verity and Chastity were put in the stocks. Then
entered a varlet to announce the coming of Divine Correction. The
Vices resolved upon flight, but first quarrelled over the stealing of the
King's box, which Deceit made off with. Divine Correction itame
resolved, with help of the Three Estates, to make Iniquity his thrall.
Good Counsel welcomed him. Verity and Chastity were released from
the stocks, and with these three in his company, Correction came near
to the sleeping King. They drove from him Dame Sensuality, who
went to the spiritual lords, and was welcomed by them as their day's
darling. The King then received his fit companions and guides,
humbly embraced Correction, and having conditionally pardoned
Solace and Placebo, so long as they confined themselves to innocent
amusements, he proclaimed that there should be a Parliament of all the
Three Estates for the redress of wrongs.
Here ended the first part of the satire. The audience ate and
drank, and while the actors were gone from their seats there was an
Interlude. Pauper, the poor man, came into the field, and, in spite of
Diligence, who played prologue, climbed into the chair of the player
King. After sundry antics, he told that he was from Lothian, and was
going to St. Andrews to seek law. He had kept his old father and
mother by his labour, and 'then had a mare and three cows, When
A.D. 1540.) A Satire of the Three Estates. 259
his father and mother died, the landlord took the mare for heriot. Heriot
was the fine of a beast of any kind that the tenant died possessed of,
which became due, after the tenant's death, to his superior. The vicar
had taken from the poor man the best cow when his father died, the
next best when his mother died, and then, when his wife Meg had
mourned herself to death, the vicar got the third cow ; while, by like
custom, their umest clayis — outer clothes — went to the clerk. When
there was nothing left, the poor man and his bairns must needs go beg.
"But," asked Diligence, "how did the parson, was not he thy good
friend?" " He," said the poor man, "cursed me for my tithes, and
still denies me sacrament at Easter." An English groat was all that he
had left, and that was for a man of law. Pauper could not be made to
understand that there was no law for him, and that his cows had gone,
if not by law, yet by sufficient and good custom, to the vicar —
" Ane consuetude against the Common Weill
Sould be na law, I think, be sweit Sanct Geill I "
Not being allowed, to ask unwelcome questions about the prelates.
Pauper lay down in the field. Presently there came by him a Pardoner,
crying up relics, and abusing the New Testament that spoilt his
trade. There followed some rough jesting at the Pardoner's expense,
and then the poor man woke from dreaming of his cows, blessed him-
self, and prayed St. Bride to send his kye again. Seeing the Pardoner,
he looked to him for help. The Pardoner found that he had a groat,
took it, and gave a thousand years of pardon for it. The poor man was
not satisfied unless he saw what he got for his money, and the inter-
lude closed with a wrestle between the Pardoner and the poor man, in
the course of which the bag of relics was thrown into the stream that
ran across the Play Field.
Diligence then opened the second part of the Morality by proclaim-
ing the arrival of the Three Estates, who marched from the Pavilion,
walking backwards, led by their Vices. The Three Estates of the
Scottish Parliament were the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Bur-
gesses, or representatives of cities and boroughs, who had been added
as a third estate in the days of Robert Bruce. They greeted the King,
explained that it was usual with them to walk backwards, took their
seats, and were told by the King that it was his will to reform all abuses.
Every oppressed man was summoned by Correction to give in his bill.
Then entered, as complainant, John the Common Weal of fair Scot-
land, ragged, lame, and sad. He was sad, he said, because the Three
Estates walked backwards, led by their several Vices — Spirituality by
R 2
26o English Writers. ['^■d- j54o-
Sensuality and Covetousness ; Temporality by Public Oppression, and
the Burgesses by Falsehood and Deceit :
" Quhat raervell thocht the three estaits back wart gang,
Quhen sic an vyle cumpanie dwels them amang,
Quhilk has reulit this rout monie deir dayis,
Quhilk gars John the Common Weil want his warme clais ! "
The Vices were presently put in the Stocks ; Sensuality and Covetous-
ness were banished, to the great grief of the Spiritual Lords ; Good
Counsel was seated in honour to advise the Parliament ; while John the
Common Weal, and Pauper the poor man, were set to keep the door.
Good Counsel then began the argument of Reformation, with note of
the sufferings of the oppressed poor. John Common Weal complained
of treacherous border thieves, and held that the chiefs who har-
boured them ought to be hanged. He complained of idlers;- strong
beggars, fiddlers, pipers, and pardoners ; of discords raised by the great
fat friars, who laboured not and were well fed. He complained of
judgment without mercy upon petty thieves, while a cruel tyrant who
wronged all the world — a common, public, plain oppressor — could by
bribery compound with law. Correction bade the Temporal Lords put
down oppression, bade the Burgesses avoid deceit, and bade the
Spiritual Lords rent land to men who laboured for their bread.
The Temporal Lords and Burgesses embraced John the Common
Weal, but the Spiritualty still stood aloof. Correction then asked
John the Common Weal what more he had to say against the
Spiritual Lords. There was much more, and he said it. Pauper the poor
man heartily backing him with the complaint for his lost cows. All
that followed was debated and resolved with the assent of Two Estates
and the dissent of the Lords Spiritual : reforms as to the corpse-present
and cow ; as to the money spent at Rome in bribery ; as to pluralities.
Each priest was to have but a single benefice ; the bishops and the
clergy were to preach and teach : for what else were they paid in tithes ?
The Spiritual Lords asked where there was any such duty enjoined on
them. They were referred by Good CounseJ toTvhat St. Paul wrote to
Timothy :
" 'Tak, thair, the buik : let segif ye can spell.'
' I never red that. Thairfoir, reid it yoursel.' "
Good Counsel then read the passage aloud (i Timothy iii. i, 2, 3).
Spiritualtjf hinted that it had been good that Paul had never been born.
John Common Weal thought that if King David, who founded so many
A.D. 1540.] A Satire of the Three Estates. 261
abbeys, could look 'down and see the abominations in them, he would
wish he had not narrowed his income threescore thousand pounds a year ;
King James I. called him a dear saint to the crown. For this suggestion
Spiritualty held that John Common Weal deserved to be irlcontinently
burnt. Called upon tomafeehis confession of faith, John gave for it the
Apostle's Creed, adding that he believed in Holy Church, but not in these
bishops and friars : upon which Correction held him to be a good Chris-
tian. It was further resolved that no clergy should judge of temporal
causes, ^fferity and Chastity then claimed that fit clergy should replace
those who were enemies to them, and said that poor ignorant men
understood their own crafts better than the clergy theirs ; in witness
whereof the shoemaker and tailor were produced and examined in their
trades. Then Diligence was sent to search for a good preacher.
While he was gone Theft entered, and Mighty Oppression, who was in
the stocks, contrived to slip out, leaving Petty Theft in his place. Dili-
gence came back with a Doctor of Divinity and two Licentiates. There
followed examination of a Bishop, of an Abbot, of a Parson, of a
Prioress ; and the Sermon was called for. This the Doctor preached.
His argument was that Christ through love died to save man, and that
God asks of us only love for love. Love, he taught, is the ladder with
but two steps by which we may climb to Heaven, the first step being
Love of God, the second Love of our Neighbour. The Parson and the
Abbot scoffed at this doctrine, and called the Doctor down out of the
pulpjt. When the two Licentiates had dwelt presently upon the poverty
of Christ and the great wealth of His successors. Flattery, in the friar's
dress, was seized forgiving evil counsel to the prelates. Then came the
unfrocking and disclosure of the Vices, the deprivation of three perverse
prelates, and the setting of the three wise clergy in their places. John
the Common Weal was gorgeously clothed, and seated in the Par-
liament, before which were read the Acts resolved upon. The read-
ing thus Introduced by earnest dramatic satire, interspersed with some
rough jesting to amuse the people, was a reading, in fifteen metrical
clauses, of what might be called Sir David Lindsay's draft of a Reform
Bill for Scotland. Theft, Deceit, and Falsehood were then taken
from the stocks and hanged, but Flattery escaped. Then entered
Folly to jest, with a basketful of fools' caps. When he found that
the king gave bishoprics to preachers, Folly hung his fools' caps round
the pulpit, and preached a satirical sermon to commend them to all
purchasers. They were commended to the merchant discontented with
abundance, who torments himself for gain ; to the rich old widower
who has children and weds a girl ; to the clergy who take cures only
for pelf ; to the princes who shed innocent blood in labour merely , of
262 English Writers. [a-i>. 146*
"ilk Christian prince to ding down uther." After Folly's sermon,
Diligence spoke a short epilogue, and the play was over.
Before the end of 1540 the Estates, while they main-
tained the Pope's authority, so far followed Lindsay's lead
as to pass a friendly Act of Reformation for abatement of
"the unhonesty and misrule of kirkmen, baith in wit,
knowledge, and manners," as " the matter and cause that
the kirk and kirkraeii are lightlied and condemned."
Now Lindsay is left for awhile, but he does not go out
of the story.
From Fordun and Bower we pass to the later Scottish
historians by way of "The Book of Pluscarden." This was
the name given by George Buchanan, in his
"The Book „^^. r r. ^ ■,„ • 1 •
of Plus- " History of Scotland, to a manuscript history
""^ ™' from which he took some details of the death of
the Duke of Clarence at the Battle of Baugd, in Anjou, in
the year 142 1. That reference by Buchanan, and his men-
tion of a poem in English set in the Latin prose, identify the
record. Thus we learn that it belonged originally to the Cis-
tercian Priory of Pluscarden, which lies in a wooded valley
some six miles to the south-east of Elgin. In the time of
an abbacy that lasted from 1445 to 1460, the Cistercians
were ejected from Pluscarden and Benedictines introduced.
In the chartulary of Dunfermline there is a commission to
the Prior of Pluscarden by the Abbot of Dunfermline,
which speaks of Pluscarden as a " cell of Dunfermline," and
" a convent now of the Order of St. Benedict." The original
" Book of Pluscarden " is not now to be found, but there are
two early copies of it, and a passage in it named 1 461 as the
year in which it was written. It is a revised copy of the
" Scotichronicon," with BoVer's additions, but with abridg-
ments, and with other additions that make it an original
authority for many details of the wars of the Scots in France
against the English from 1420 to 1445. Whoever wrote
this chronicle says that he was for nine years daily about
TOA.D. 1540.] The Book of Pluscarden. 263
the person of the Princess Margaret, who married the French
dauphin in 1436, and died in 1445, of a slander, \yhen but
twenty-two years old. The writer of the "Book of Plus-
carden " knew Joan of Arc personally, and was present at
her death. He promised in the prologue to his chronicle to
give an account of her, and in the copies that have come
down to us this is begun, but breaks off in the second
sentence. He was a Scot, for he inserted in his Latin
chronicle a translation of a French poem on the death of
the dauphiness into his native dialect, a translation made by
command of her brother James II. This is the piece re-
ferred to by George Buchanan. The author of "The Book
. of Pluscarden " was one also who knew Gaelic, for he re-
stored Highland names miswritten by Bower to their Gaelic
form. He was also a cleric, for he says that he compiled
the work by order of the Abbot of Dunfermline. Mr.
William F. Skene has argued, in a paper read before the
Edinburgh Society of Antiquaries, that all these conditions
are fulfilled in the person of Maurice Buchanan, treasurer
to the dauphiness. He was grandnephew by marriage to
Sir John Stewart of Derneley. He had probably settled
among the Benedictines of Pluscarden in 1461, when he
assented to the wish of his superior that he should add
to a revised copy of the " Scotichronicon " his personal
knowledge of the last doings of Scots in France. The
chief manuscripts of this work now in existence are two —
one in Glasgow College, written between 1478 and 1496, when
William Schevez, whose name heads the first page, was Arch-
bishop of St. Andrews ; and a Fairfax MS. in the Bodleian,
of which the copyist adapted passages to his own time, and
altered the date of writing, 1461, to 1489. There are later
copies that were made from these.* The writer of this
* " The Book of Pluscarden," edited by Felix J. H. Skene,
nephew of William F. Skene, was published in two volumes^ one of
the original Latin, the other of an English translation, with introduction
264 English Writers. [a.d. 1521
chronicle showed his skill as a poet not only by inserting in
his Latin prose a metrical version of a poem on the death
of Margaret the Dauphiness, but he closed the chronicle,
after comment on the ills of Scotland following the murder
of King James I., with an English poem in Chaucer stanza,
which he described as " a Morality figuring the harmony or
discord of a kingdom by the figure of a Harp." When the
strings are in accord and the sound true, the song is sweet ;
when not, we wish the minstrel were away. If the strings
be out of tune, does not the fault lie in the wrist of the
minstrel ? S.o let the king look to his realm. Then follow
counsels on the way to tune a kingdom — well-intended
words upon the old theme, De Regimine Prindpum.
John Mair — Latinised Major — was born in 1469, near
North Berwick, in Haddingtonshire. He went early, as a
Scot, to France, and graduated in 1494 as Master
John Mair. of Arts in Paris at the College of Sainte-Barbe.
He then gave himself to the scholastic studies of
the College of Montaigu, and graduated in 1505 as Doctor
of Theology. As teacher of logic and philosophy in the Col-
lege of Navarre, he obtained wide reputation. In 1518 he
taught in the College at Glasgow, where he had John Knox
among his pupils. He wrote commentaries on Peter Lom-
bard, and a History of Great Britain in six books of Latin,
which joined the chronicles of England and Scotland. His
History was published at Paris in 1521, the year in which
Luther appeared at the Diet of Worms. This book, by a
Scottish Doctor of the Sorbonne, was not sparing in con-
demnation of the corruptions of the clergy and the usurpa-
tions of the Court of Rome. - For each period Mair, who
weighed evidence carefully, gave first the English history
and then the Scottish. For its free speech, Mair's history
was placed by the orthodox abroad below its author's
and notes, in 1877, as one of the series of " The Historians of Scot-
land," issued by William Paterson in Edinburgh.
TOA.D. 1536.] John Mair. Hector Boece. 265
scholastic writings. In 1525 Mair returned to Paris, and
remained there teaching until 1530. In 1533 he was esta-
blished at St. Andrews as Provost of St. Salvator's College,
where he died in 1550.
Five years later than Mair's History of Britain, Hector
Boece (Boyis or Boyce) published, also at Paris and in Latin,
his "History of the Scots." He was born at
Dundee, and was a few years older than Mair. Boec"
He went early as a Scot to France, studied at
Paris in the College of Montaigu, where he became Pro-
fessor when his age was about twenty-one. At the end of
the fifteenth century, Hector Boece was invited by William
Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, to assist him in the work
of founding a university in the city of Old Aberdeen, upon
the plan of the universities at Paris and Bologna. The col-
legiate church within the University, known afterwards as
King's College, was founded in 1505, with Boece for its first
principal. He gathered learned men about him, and made
the new University of Aberdeen aid powerfully in the ad-
vance of culture. He himself delighted in the study of
history. He presented to his college a manuscript of For-
dun. He published at Paris, in 1522, the lives of the
Bishops of Mortlach and Aberdeen, including the life of his
friend William Elphinstone, who had died eight years be-
fore. In 1527 he published his History of Scotland from
the earliest times to the accession of James III. Boece
accepted from Fordun and Bower the early traditions of the
history of Scotland without critical dissent, for which his
book was the more popular. The king gave him, in 1527,
a pension of ;^So Scots. His university gave him, in 1528,
its degree of Doctor. James V. caused Boece's History to
be translated into Scottish prose by John Bellenden, and
this translation was printed at Edinburgh in 1536. A con-
tinuation of it to the death of James III. was published in
1574. The pension given by the king seems to have ceased
266 English Writers. [a.d. 154°-
in 1534, when Boece obtained a benefice in Buchan, the
rectory of Tiree. He died in 1536.
John Bellenden, or Ballentyne, who translated Hector
' Boece's Historia Scotorum at the command of the young
King James V., had begun his studies at St.
BeHenden. Andrcws in 1508, and then continued them at
Paris until he became a doctor of the Sor-
bonne. He came back to Paris, and was, like David
Lindsay, in the king's service (he calls himself "clerk of
his comptis ") until his more patriotic friends were parted
from him. He was paid also, as the Treasurer's accounts
show, for work on the young king's behalf at a translation
of Livy. John Bellenden became Archdeacon of Moray and
Canon of Ross. As he held by the Pope, the fierceness of
Church controversy drove him from Scotland, and he is
supposed to have died — none can say when — at Rome.
CHAPTER X.
HISTORIANS IN ENGLAND. — LORD BERNERS, SIR THOMAS
ELYOT, AND MANY WRITERS.
The passage from Latin Chronicles to Histories in English
began with a Londoner, Robert Fabyan, if we leave out
of account such early work as the rhymed
Chronicle of England, written at the end of Engiuh.^'"
the thirteenth century by Robert of Gloucester,
for recitation to the people ; or the rhyming Chronicles of
John Harding, who fought at Agincourt ; and Andrew of
Wyntoun. It is very noticeable also that the interest in
English history, as matter that concerned the English
people, began at the centre of English life, with citizens of
London — here a lawyer, there a draper or a tailor who,
except in the way of silk, scissors, and thread, knew little of
the fashions of the Court.
Robert Fabyan, son of John Fabyan, of a respectable
Essex family, was born in London, and apprenticed to a
draper. He became a member of the Drapers'
Company, Alderman of the Ward of Farringdon Fabyan.
Without, and in 1493 served in the office of
sheriff. In September, 1496, in the mayoralty of Sir Henry
Colet, Robert Fabyan was chosen, with the Recorder and
certain commoners, to ride to the king " for redress of the
new impositions raised and levied upon English cloths in
the archduke's land." That was the newly appointed Philip's
charge of a florin for- every piece of English cloth imported
into the Low Countries ; a charge withdrawn in July, i497-
268 English Writers. [a.d. is'S
Soon afterwards Fabyan was an assessor upon London
wards of the fifteenth granted to Henry VII. for his Scottish
war. In 1502 Fabyan resigned his alderman's gown to
avoid the expense of taking the mayoralty, for, although
opulent, he had a large family. His wife, with four sons
and two daughters, from a family of ten boys and six girls,
survived him. He died in 1512.
Robert Fabyan was a good French and Latin scholar ;
and, in using monkish chronicles as material for his own
compilation of history, was a devout adopter of the censures
of all kings who were enemies to religious places. Of
Becket he spoke as a "glorious martyr" and a "blessed
saint " ; of Henry IL as a " hammer of Holy Church " ;
but he was not credulous of miracles and marvels. His
" Concordance of Histories," afterwards called " New
Chronicles of England and France, in Two Parts," opened
with a prologue in Chaucer stanza, which represented
its author as one who prepared material for the skilled
artist or historian who should come after him to perfect
what he had rudely shaped. The prologue ended with an
invocation to the Virgin for help; and the seven parts of the
chronicle, which brought the history from Brut to his
own time, ended with seven metrical epilogues, entitled the
" Seven Joys of the Blessed Virgin." The chronicle itself
was in prose, with translation into English verse of any
Latin verses that were cited. A notable example of this
was Fabyan's English version of the Latin verses said to
have been made by Edward IL in his imprisonment.
Fabyan's Chronicle was first printed by Richard Pynson
in 1516 as the " New Chronicles of England and France,"
and ended at the Battle of Bosworth. The second edition,
pubhshed in 1533 by Rastell, gave for the first time
Fabyan's record of events in the reign of Henry VII.
A fourth edition, in 1559, had a continuation by another
hand, to the accession of Elizabeth.
TOA.D. 1542.] Historians in England. 269
The next English chronicler was Edward Hall, son
of John Hall, of Northall, in Shropshire, who was born near
the close of the fifteenth century, and, after
training at Eton, went, in 1514, to King's hIF'"'
College, Cambridge. After graduating as B.A.
at Cambridge, Edward Hall entered, in 15 18, to Gray's
Inn. In 1532 Edward Hall was appointed Common
Serjeant of the City of London; in 1533 he was summer
Reader of Gray's Inn, and again, in 1540, double Reader
in Lent and one of the judges of the Sheriff's Court. He
entered Parliament as a supporter of the king's view of his
prerogative, and sat in 1542 for Bridgenorth. It was in
1542 that. Edward Hall published the first edition of his
Chronicle, finished in 1542, and supplemented with notes
that were used by Richard Grafton for its continuation.
The ■ first edition was printed by Berthelet in 1542, the
second in 1548, a year after Hall's death, and the third by
Richard Grafton in 1550. Its historical theme is set
forth in its long title, " The Union of the Noble and Illustre
Families of Lancastre and York, being long in continual
dissension for the Crown of the noble Realm ; with all the
acts done in both the times of the Princes both of the one
lineage and of the other, beginning at the time of King
Henry the Fourth, the first author of this Division, and
so successively proceeding to the reign of the high and
prudent Prince, King Henry the Eighth, the indubitable
flower and very heir of both the said lineages." Though
Edward Hall was a thorough defender of the policy of
Henry VIII., and supported in Parliament the Act of
the Six Articles, both his father and his mother were in
active sympathy with the men persecuted as heretics. Hall,
like Fabyan, in speaking of his own time, writes with
especial attention to afTairs of London. The rising of the
prentices against foreigners on Evil May Day, the dealings
of Wolsey with the London Corporation for the raising of
270 English Writers. [a°- "*''
money, are told as by an eye-witness. , Hall's Chronicle has
a sustained interest that arises from its unity of purpose.
The strong upholding of Henry VIII. is meant for a strong
assertion of the authority of the English Crown against
all forces of discord. Hall used for Henry VII.'s reign
the Latin History of Polydore Vergil, and applied, in
some measure, to his English prose the Latin rhetorical
style. But he does not bury little matter under many
words. He shaped an English Chronicle that Shakespeare
read, and used in the framing of some of his historical plays.
We must now take note of a company of minor writers
who express in different ways the current of opinion as
it eddies by the banks. Then, pushing again
Writers, i'lto mid-stream, we complete in this volume the
record of the course of English Literature from
the invention of Printing to the first licensing of the
diffusion of a printed Bible in English. Richard Grafton
was its printer, a member of the Grocers' Com-
GraS P^'^y ^1^° turned printer. He printed Hardyng's
Chronicle in 1543, with a continuation in prose
from where Hardyng left off, at the beginning of Edward
IV.'s reign, to the date of publication. He it was who
produced the edition of Hall's Chronicle in 1548. There
will be more to say of him.
The current of thought in any period is always indicated
clearly by the direction in which the main body of its
writers move. To show this for the time we are now
studying, let us glance over a little crowd of books and
men, once high in repute, and now almost forgotten.
A " Kalendar of Shepherds " was printed by Wynken de
Worde in 1497, translated by an unknown writer from
A "Kalendar ^ French Kakndrier des Bergers. It was a
sL herd" '■' P^^'P^*"^" almanac in verse and prose, with
ep er s. information about saints' days for the year
movable feasts, signs of the Zodiac, and a metrical
TOA.D. isai.) Minor Writers. 271
character of each month ; also with rules for blood-letting, a
collection of proverbs, and general information about many,
things, including the punishments assigned in Hell to each
one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Robert Bale, of Norwich, who died in 1503 Prior of
Carmelites at Burnham, had lived with the Carmelites at
Oxford for purposes of study. He wrote in
_. , ., ,-,^1 ri^ Robert Bale.
Latm short Annals of the Order of the Car-
melites, and an Offichim Sinionis Angli ; that is, of Simon
Stock, the most famous of the Carmelites, and the first of his
Order who took a degree at Oxford. The legend of Simon
Stock is that when he was a Kentish boy, but twelve years old,
he went into the woods, lived in a hollow tree (whence his
surname), fed upon wild herbs and fruit, and said it was
revealed to him that some should come out of Syria and
confirm his Order. This came to pass when the Carmelites
first settled in England, and he became Master-General of
their Order, and worked miracles.
John Sowle, who was a Carmelite of the White Friars
in Fleet Street, was a friend of Colet's, and,
like Colet, a special student of Saint Paul.
John Sowle died in 1508.
Henry Bradshaw, born in Chester, joined as a youth the
Benedictines in St. Werbergh's. After studying at Glou-
cester College, Oxford, among novices of his
Order, he returned to his cell in the Abbey, BrSiaw.
where he shaped, from Monastic Chronicles and
Latin Lives of Saints, into English verse, " The Life of the
glorious Virgin S. Werbergh. Also many Miracles that
God hath shewed for her." This included an account of
the foundation of Chester and Lives of Saint Etheldred and
Saint Sexburgh. Henry Bradshaw died in 1513, and his
Life of St. Werbergh was printed in 1521. He wrote also
a Life of St. Radegunde, which Pynson printed without
date. This good Benediptine's reference to poets of his
272 English Writers. U"- 'Sh
time indicates the popularity of Barclay's " Ship of Fools "
-and the repute of Skelton.
" To all auncient poetes, litell boke, subtnitte the
Whilom flouryng in eloquence facundious,
And to all other whiche present now be :
First to Maister Chaucer and Ludgate sentencious,
Also to preignaunt Barldey, now beyng religious,
To inuentive Skelton and poet laureate,
Praye them all of pardon both erly and late."
Richard Pace, or Paice, has been already spoken of.*
He was received as a boy into the household of Thomas
Langton, Bishop of Winchester, who found him
Pacef'^'' an apt scholar and a good musician. Langton
bequeathed him a pension for seven years to
maintain him in his studies at Bologna. He settled next
with Dr. Bainbridge, Langtoh's successor as Provost of
Queen's College, Oxford, afterwards Cardinal and Arch-
bishop of York. Pace went with him to Rome, and when
Bainbridge was poisoned, Pace, one of his executors,
was strenuous in effort for detection of the murderers.
From the service of Cardinal Bainbridge he passed into
that of Henry VIH. as the King's Secretary. In 1514
he followed Wolsey in the prebend of Bugthorpe in
the Church of York, when Wolsey was made Bishop
of Lincoln ; and later in the same year Dr. Pace was
made Archdeacon of Dorset. The King sent him on
missions, and in 15 19 he became Colet's successor as
Dean of St. Paul's. John Stow, in his Annals, reports of
" this Dr. Pace " that he " was a right worthy man, and one
that gave in counsel faithful advice ; learned he was also,
and endowed with many excellent parts and gifts of nature,
courteous, pleasant, and delighting in music, highly in the-
King's favour, and well heard in matters of weight." Upon
* "E. W." vii., 31, 63».
TO A.D. 1327.] Minor Writers. 273
the death of Leo X., in 1521, Dr. Pace was sent to Rome
in hope that he might aid in procuring Wolsey's elevation to
the Papacy, but Adrian VI. was elected before Pace came
to his journey's end. He was sent afterwards by the king
to Venice, where his intimate knowledge of Italian and his
good wit were alike serviceable. But he had fallen out of
favour with Wolsey for his readiness to assist the Duke
of Bourbon in obtaining money which Henry VIII. had
supplied as aid in the war against Francis I., and also
for his want of readiness when there was the question
of Wolsey's election to be Pope at Rome. Wolsey con-
trived that Pace should be left at Venice without letters of
instruction from the Court in Council, and without the due
allowances for diet. This neglect unsettled his reason.
When the Venetian Ambassador in London asked Wolsey
whether there were any instructions to the English Am-
bassador in Venice, Wolsey only replied, "Pace has
deceived the king." When the king heard of Pace's
insanity, he sent for him back. Pace recovered his interest
in study. The king- then spoke with him in Wolsey's
absence, and afterwards called upon Wolsey for explanations.
Wolsey turned them into accusations, and Dr. Pace was
confined for two years in the Tower, where his reason was
again lost. He was released, but died insane.*
* In Shakespeare's Henry VIII., when the king is speaking with
Gardiner, his new secretary, Cardinal Campeius says to Wolsey —
" My lord of York, was not one Doctor Pace
In this man's place before him ? "
Wolsey — "Yes, he was."
Camp. — "Was he not held a learned man? "
Wolsey — "Yes, surely."
Camp. —
" Believe me, there's an ill opinion spread, then.
Even of yourself, lord Cardinal."
Wolsey— " How ! of me ? "
S — VOL. VII.
2 74 English Writers. [a.?. 1518
Pace's Latin Oration delivered in St. Paul's on the
Peace between the kings of France and England was
printed by Kichard Pynson in 15 18. There are published
letters of his to Edward Lee and to Erasmus. He wrote
also a preface to a study of the Hebrew text of Ecclesias-
ticus, and a book, in 1527, on the unlawfulness of the king's
marriage to Queen Katherine.
Dr. Pace's secretary at Venice was Thomas Lupset, son
of a London citizen and goldsmith. He became known
as a boy to Colet, who, for his good promise,
Lup^t.' sent him to St. Paul's School, where he became
one of the most distinguished of its early
scholars. Colet afterwards supported him in Cambridge,
at Pembroke Hall. Lupset studied in the University
of Paris before 1519, when he settled at Oxford in Corpus
Christi College, and was presently made Cardinal Wolsey's
Reader in Rhetoric. He was admitted Master of Arts in
1521 on consideration .of four years' study, part at Paris,
part at Oxford, and soon afterwards read Wolsey's Greek
Lecture there. After he had served in Venice as secretary
to Richard Pace, he was, in 1523, with Reginald Pole
at Padua. He then travelled to Italy as tutor to Thomas
Winter, Wolsey's natural son. In April, 1526, he was in^
stituted to the rectory of Great Mongeham, in Kent, and
three months later to the rectory of St. Martin, Ludgate.
In 1530 he was made rector of Cheriton, in Hampshire, and
prebendary of Ruscombe in the Church of Sarum. He
wrote " an Exhortation to Young Men, persuading them to
Walk Honestly," printed in 1535 and 1538; also a "Treatise
of Charity," printed by Berthelet in 1539; and there was
Camp. —
"They will not stick to say, you envied him,
And fearing he would rise, he was so virtuous,
Kept -him a foreign man still ; which so grieved him,
That he ran mad, and died,"
TOA.D. I557-] Minor Writers. 275
published in 1534, 1541, 1546, and 1560, his English
Ars Moriendi, " A compendious and a very frutefyl treatyse
teachynge the waye of dyenge well, writen to a frende, by
the flowre of lerned men of hys tyme, Thomas Lupsete,
Londoner, late deceased, on whose sowle Jesu have mercy."
His collected works were published in 1545. Lupset made
himself useful as corrector of the press, and assisted in that
way the publication of Linacre's edition of G^len De Sanitate
Tuenda, and of the second edition of Sir Thomas More's
" Utopia."
John Batmanson died in' November, 1531, Prior of the
Charterhouse by Smithfield. He wrote against Erasmus
for his Annotations on the New Testament, and
against the Doctrine of Luther, but withdrew i^'lman^n
both books. His successor, John Houghton,
was hanged for denial of the king's supremacy.
John Kynton, a Franciscan, and Doctor of Divinity,
succeeded John Roper at Oxford as Lady Margaret
Divinity Professor, and wrote, in 1521, by com- jo^n
mand of Henry VIU., a Latin treatise against Kynton.
the Doctrine of Martin Luther. He died in 1535.
John Rastell, a Londoner, after liberal education at Ox-
ford, established himself at London as a printer in days
when many cultivated men, who were their own
press correctors, and used their presses with JR^stcii
definite intellectual aims, had placed exercise of
the printer's art among the liberal professions. John Rastell
married Sir Thomas More's sister Elizabeth, printed some
of the controversial books of his brother-in-law, and ' wrote
several books of his own, including an Apology, written
against John Fryth, which was answered by Fryth in a way
that drew his adversary into good accord with the reformers.
John Rastell died in 1536, leaving a son Wiffiam, a lawyer^
who edited More's English works in 1557, and another
John, who was a justice of the peace.
s 2
276 English Writers. [a.d. 1513
Robert Whittington, born in Lichfield, and educated at
Oxford, in 15 13 represented to the regents in the University
of Oxford that he had spent fourteen years in
whitting- the study of rhetoric and twelve in the teaching
of boys, and asked for the degree of Laureate.
Having stuck up a thousand Latin verses of his own upon
the door of St. Mary's Church, he was laureated by the Uni-
versity in July of that year, and in addition to this grade,
which implied a doctorate in Grammar and Rhetoric, he was
admitted to the standing of a Bachelor of Arts. Thereafter
he wrote himself in his books " Protovates Angliae." He
was a vain man, who earned his repute as a schoolmaster,
wrote grammars and gramrnatical treatises, and translated
Latin books for his boys from Cicero and Seneca, also Eras-
mus's De CivilUate Morum Puerilium. Some thought him,
in his own time, to be as famous a schoolmaster as William
Lilly. Some thought him an ass. He wrote praises of
Wolsey, both in verse and prose.
Whittington's pretensions were opposed, and his verses
criticised, in a couple of books, published in 1521, by
William Herman, Vice-Provost of Eton.*
Horm^. Horman was born in Salisbury, educated. Bale
says, at King's College, Cambridge; Antony
Wood says, at Winchester and New College. After grad-
uation as M.A., he became a Master and, in April, 1502,
a Fellow of Eton College, where he was afterwards Vice-
Provost. He was for nine years Rector of East Wrotham,
in Norfolk, but resigned that benefice in 1503. He wrote for
the use of his Eton boys a book of sentences in English and
Latin, Vulgaria Puerorum, printed in 15 19 and 1530. He
wrote also " Elegies on the Death of William Lilly " in 1522 ;
a compendium of the "History of William of Malmesbury'';
an " Epitome of the History of Pico di Mirandola"; and two
* Antibossicon ad Gul. Lilium. Apologeticon contra Hob. Whit-
tingloni, Protovatis Anglia incivilem indoctamque criminationem .
TO A.D. 1535.] Minor Writers. 277
books of Human Anatomy. He died in April, 1535, and
was buried in Eton College Chapel.
Robert Shir wood, of Coventry, studied' at Oxford, read
lectures on Hebrew in some foreign universities, and pub-
lished at Antwerp, in 1523, a book on the
Hebrew text of the Book of Ecclesiastes, with fhirwood.
notes from the Chaldee and Rabbinical inter-
pretations. This he dedicated to John Webbe, Prior of
the Benedictines at Coventry. Shirvvood was also proficient
as a Greek scholar, and was living, in high esteem among
learned men, in the year 1530.
Robert Wakefield, of the North of England, graduated at
Cambridge, and became the foremost Oriental scholar of his
time. ' He travelled, obtained much knowledge
of Greek and Hebrew, and of Arabic, Chaldaic, wakefieU.
and Syriac. He taught those languages at Tubin-
gen and Paris ; was, in 1 5 1 9, for four months Hebrew Professor
at Louvain'; returned to England; and through the friendship
of Richard Pace, Dean of St. Paul's, was made one of the
king's chaplains. In the matter of Queei) Katherine, Robert
Wakefield first took the queen's side, in the belief that she
had married Henry as a virgin widow. When convinced
that this was not the case, he took the king's side in the
argument. He began, about 1530, to read the Hebrew
lecture at Oxford ; his brother, Thomas Wakefield, did the
same afterwards at Cambridge. Robert Wakefield died in
1537. He wrote a paraphrase of the Book of Ecclesiasticus.
Wynken de Worde printed, in 1523, his Oratio de Laudibus
et Utilitate trium Linguarum, ArabiccB, ChaldaiccB, et He-
braicce, atque Idiomatibus Hebraicis qucB in utroque Testamenio
invemuntur. Wynken de Worde, for want of Hebrew types,
omitted the whole third part of this book, and in the other
parts used a few letters of Hebrew and Arabic, rudely cut in
wood for the purpose. This was the first use of such letters
by an English printer. Wakefield wrote also Latin books
278 English Writmrs. tA.n. is^s
on Agriculture, on the Best State of a Republic, on Peace,
on Parsimony, on Faith and Works, and he made a
Chaldee Lexicon. At the breaking-up of the monasteries,
he took pains for the rescue and preservation of their Greek
and Hebrew books.
Richard Kedermyster (Kidderminster), Abbot of Winch-
combe, who had entered that Benedictine monastery as a
boy of fifteen, and had been sent thence to
Keder- Glouccster College at Oxford, was a preacher in
myster. jjj,jj,jj fayour at the Court of Henry VIII. In
15x5 he preached a sermon at Paul's Cross against the
responsibility of the clergy to temporal judges, which was
answered by Henry Standish, Guardian of the Franciscans
in London. Kedermyster wrote a Latin treatise against
the Doctrine of Luther, and also a history of Winchcombe
Monastery.
Henry Standish, the Franciscan, was of an old Lanca-
shire family. He studied at both Universities, and after
serving as Guardian of the Franciscan Convent
s^andLh. '" London, and acting as Provincial of his Order,
he was made, in 1519, Bishop of St. Asaph. In
1526 he went, with Sir John Baker, on embassy to Den-
mark, and in 1530 he was one of the bishops who assisted
and directed Queen Katherine in the suit concerning her
divorce. He was opposed strongly to the new teaching in
the Church, and wrote a treatise against Erasmus's trans-
lation of the New Testament. He died in the course of
nature in August, 1535, and so escaped the day of persecu-
tion for his loyalty to Rome.
Christopher Seintgerman (St. Germain), son of Sir
Henry Seintgerman, knight, by Anne, daughter of Sir
Thomas Tindale, was born at Shilton, near
Seint-"'' " Coventry, about the year 1460. He passed from
german. Oxford to the Inner Temple, and became a
learned lawyer, who remained unmarried. He used his
TOA.D. IS40.] Minor Writers. 279
paternal estate as means for the accumulation of one of the
largest law libraries of his time, and means also of help to
the poor, to whom he gave his unpaid service as a lawyer.
H^ was in sympathy with the Church Reformers, and a
devout student of the Bible, from which every night, when
he was not engaged abroad, he read and interpreted a
chapter to the people of his house. He wrote a Latin
Dialogue, published in 1528, afterwards Englished as
" Doctor and Student : Being a Dialogue between a Doctor
of Divinity and a Student in* the Common Laws of Eng-
land," which was in its original edition " Dialogus de funda-
mentis Legum Angltce, et de Conscientia" ; a showing forth of
the essential harmonies between Law and Religion. Seint-
german wrote also a " Treatise, showing that Clergy cannot
make Laws " ; a " Dialogue concerning the Power which
belongs to the Clergy, and the Power which belongs to the
People " ; a " Treatise of the Church and the meaning there-
of"; a "Treatise of the Sacraments"; and an "Apology
written to Sir Thomas More." Seintgerman brought the
mind of a highly-cultivated and religious lawyer to discussion
of questions touching Church and State in the earlier stage
of the English Reformation under Henry VIH. There can
be no doubt that it was the mind of a ripe lawyer, for he
died at the age of eighty in September, 1540.
William Whytford, of an old family in Flintshire, was a
Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, who had, in 1497,
five years' leave of absence from his college, to
go abroad with William Blount, Lord Mountjoy, ^"''^^j
as his confessor. He was chaplain afterwards
to Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester. William Whytford
was a friend of Erasmus. Erasmus dedicated to him his
edition of Lucian's " Tyrannicide," and Whytford published a
few books of his own, including "The Psaltery of Jesus,"
which became a popular book of devotion; "Saint Augus-
tine's Rule'' in English, printed in 152,5, by Wynken de
28o English Writers. La.d. 1515
Worde ; " A Werke for Householders, or for them that have
the gydynge or governaunce of any Company" (1531);
" The Pipe or Tonne of the Life of Perfection, in defence
of the three Vows of Religion against Luther" (1532);
"Saint Bonaventure, his lessons, entitled Alphabetum
Religiosorum, Englysshed by a brother of Syon, Richard
Whitford" (1532); also "A Dialogue, or Communication,
betwene the Curate, or Ghostly Father, and the Parochiane,
or Ghostly Child, for a due preparacion unto the Howse-
linge" (1537), with other books, all for the help of those
who make good life their aim. William Whytford entered
the Monastery of Sion, had a pension of £fi upon its
dissolution, and was alive in 1541.
John Bourchier's father, Humphrey Bourchier, fought on
the side of Edward IV., and was killed at the Battle of Barnet,
in April, 147 1. In 1474 John Bourchier, aged
chier, Lmd seven — for he was born in 1467, at Therfield,
erners. about four miles from Royston, in Hertfordshire
— succeeded his grandfather as Baron Berners, second of
that name. His grandfather, John Bourchier,- youngest son
of William Bourchier, Earl of Ewe, had been created Baron
Berners in 1455.. John Bourchier, second Lord Berners, is
said to have studied at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1492,
when his age was five-and-twenty, he agreed to serve King
Henry VII. beyond sea, for a whole year, in his wars. Five
years later he served against the Cornish rebels who sup-
ported Perkin Warbeck. He was in the service of King
Henry VIII. at the capture of Terouenne ; and in the same
year (15 13) he was Marshal of the Earl of Surrey's army in
Scotland. In October, 1514, he was with the king's sister,
Mary, as chamberlain, when she was married to Louis XII.
In May, 1516, Lord Berners became Chancellor of the
Exchequer. Holbein painted him in the robes of that
office. In 15 18 he was joined with the Archbishop of
Armagh in a mission to Spain. In 1520 he and his wife
TOA.D. IS33-] John Bourchier, Lord Berners. 281
were at the Field of the Gloth of Gold ; and in December
of that year he was made Lieutenant of Calais during
pleasure. There he strengthened the fortifications, watched
the armies in France and the Low Countries, and, at the
suggestion of Henry VIII., worked at his clear and vigor-
ous translation of Froissart. This book, though „. ^
' ° His Transla-
a translation, was a masterpiece of idiomatic UonofFrois-
English prose. Lord Berners was inspired, no
doubt, by the liveliness of his original in style and matter,
but he. so translated as to give his Froissart a lasting place
among the classics of the English language. Its first
volume was published in folio by Richard Pynson in
1523, the second in 1525, as "the Cronicles of Eng-
lande, France, Spayne, Portyngale, Scotland, Bretayne,
Flaunders : and other Places adioynynge, translated out of
Frenche into our maternall Englysshe Tonge, by Johan
Bourchier, Knight, Lorde Berners."
Lord Berners, who had been in money difficulties, was
plagued by law-suits, and occasionally a borrower from Henry
VIII. of money which he did not repay. He
was helped ineffectually in 1528 by grants of i°*om— "Sir
manors. His nioney troubles lasted to the end of Bordeaux."
life. About the year 1530 he translated the French
prose romance of " Sir Huon of Bordeaux," upon the sug-
gestion of the Earl of Huntington, who had it printed in
1534, after the translator's death.* Lord Berners translated
also " The History of the moost noble and valyaunt knight,
Artheur of Lytell Britaine;" and Antonio de Gue-
vara's " Marcus Aurelius," then a new book, first ^ureliu" "
published in 1529 as "The Clock or Dial for
* Lord Berners's Translation of Sir Huon was printed again in 1601
" by Thomas Purfoot at his shop at the little north dore of Poules, at the
signe of the Gunne." In 1883 it was published as one of the collection
of Charlemagne Romances in the Extra Series of the Early English Text
Society, where it had one of the best of editors in Mr. Sidney L. Lee.
282 English Writers. [a.d. 1529
Princes '' {Relax de Prificipes). This was John Bourchier's
last work, undertaken at the suggestion of his nephew
Sir Francis Bryan, and finished six days before his death, on
the i6th of March, 1533. Antonio de Guevara died twelve
years later, Bishop and Imperial Historiographer. He had
designed in his " Dial for Princes " to offer to Charles V.
a Life of Marcus Aurehus, shaped into an ideal of a prince
more perfect even than the hero of the Cyropsedia. The book
was translated into Latin, Italian and French. To Lord
Berners it came through the French. But Lord Berners
also translated, as "TheCastell of Love," the
teiTSfLove." Carcel de Amor (Prison of Love), a romantic
prose fiction by the Spanish poet Diego de San
Pedro, a piece first published in 1492, which was very
popular, and of which the romantic adventures are intro-
duced by an allegory that suggests the fashion of some
later English allegories. The author walks in winter in
a wood, where a fierce savage is seen dragging a prisoner
by a chain.. The savage is Desire, the prisoner is Leriano,
hero of the romance, whom the author .follows, as he
is dragged into the Prison of Love, and fastened there irv
torment to a fiery seat. But this allegory ends with the
release obtained for Leriano, and the rest is simply a
romance of chivalry. John Bale says that Lord Berners
wrote also a comedy, Ite ad Vineam, which was often acted
after vespers at Calais. The title of this piece indicates a
version of the parable in the twentieth chapter of Matthew,
but the piece is lost.
John, son of Henry and Margaret Bale, was born on the
2ist of November, 1495, in the village of Cove, near the
old seaport of Dunwich, in Suffolk, where there
was once a town with churches and rrionasteries,
of which the sites are now under the sea, and where there
are now only the homes of a few herring- and sprat-fishers.
As one of a large family whose means were small, Bale was
TO A.D. IS40.] John Bale. 283
sent, when twelve years old, to the monastery of the Carmelites
at Norwich, then to another religious house, which he calls
Holme. It may have been the Carmelite Abbey of Holn,
near Alnwick, in Northumberland ; but there is a Benedictine
Abbey of Hulme upon the coast of Norfolk. John Bale
was sent to Jesus College, Cambridge, and graduated B.D.
in 1529. After this he obtained the living of Thornden,
in Suifolk. He told afterwards, in the " Vocacyon of John
Bale," that he was drawn to the side of the Church Re-
formers by the influence of Lord Wentworth. Then he threw
offhis monastic vows, and "took to wife the faithful Dorothy."
In 1534 he was brought into question by Dr. Edward Lee,
Archbishop of York, for sermons preached at Doncaster
against invocation of saints. He was brought also before
John Stokesley, Bishop of London, but released through
the intervention of Thomas Cromwell.
John Bale became, after this time, a diligent writer, and
is said to have first produced, in 1538, his " Tragedie, or
Enterlude, manifesting the chief Promises of
God unto Man by all ages in the Olde Lawe, f„Sdes.
from the Fall of Adam to the. Incarnation of
Our Lord Jesus Christ." To the same date is assigned
"A brefe Comedy, or Enterlude, of Johan Baptistes
preachynge in the Wyldernesse, openynge the crafty
assaultes of the hypocrites, with the gloryouse baptysm of
the Lord Jesus Christ"; and 1538 is said to be the date
also of two other such pieces, namely : " A briefe Comedy, or
Enterlude, concernynge the temptatyon of oure I^orde and
Saver, Jesus Christ, by Sathan in the desart," and " A New
Comedy, or Enterlude, concerning three lawes, of Nature, of
Moises, and Christe, corrupted by the Sodomytes, Pharysies,
and Papists." In 1540 Bale escaped to the Low Countries,
where he lived for the next eight years with his wife and
children, always busy with his pen. As the main part of
John Bale's life as a writer was after the year 1540, the
284 English Writers. [a.d, 1522
date to which this volume brings its narrative, here we will
leave Bale, and return to him when he returns to England.
John Leland was born in London, in September, 1506
or 1507. There had been a grammarian of the same name
who taught at Oxford, near the Church of St.
Ldrnd. Fridiswide. That Leland died at Oxford in
1428, after writing declamations in Latin and
Greek, and a treatise on genders, by which he earned
from his admirers the line, " Ut Rosa flos florum, sic Leland
Grammaticorum." Though that Leland is now forgotten,
memory of him caused Leland of Henry VIIL's time to be
distinguished in former days 'as "Lelandus junior" from
" Lelandus senior et grammaticus.'' John Leland, junior,
having lost his parents, was cared for by Thomas Myles,
possibly the Thomas Myles who graduated D.D. of Cam-
bridge in 15 12, and was Prior of Boxgrove, in Sussex, at
the dissolution of that house in 1538. Thomas Myles kept
young Leland at St. Paul's School, under William Lilly, and
in due time entered him at Christ's College, Cambridge,
where he graduated in the year 1522. After this, Leland
went to Oxford, where he was chosen a Fellow of All Souls'
in 1525. In a Latin Encomium, Ad Thomam Milonem,
Leland afterwards expressed his gratitude to his guardian
for all his care.*
From Oxford Leland went, with an exhibition from
* " Dicerer a cunctis merito ingratissimus esse,
Si non laudaret Te mea Musa, Milo.
Tu me vel teneris annis utroque parente
Orbum accepisti, vel pietate mera.
Tu me informandum studiis melioribus usque
Curasti : instructor Lillius ille fuit
Cujus ab industria cura didicere Britanni
Facunde pubes ingeniose loqui.
Tu me Socraticos Juvenem post inter alumnos
Qua nitet eximie Granta beata, locas.
Deinde etiam Isiacum petii feliciter urbem," etc.
TO A.D. 1540.] TOHN LELAND. 285
Henry VIIL, to continue his studies at the University ot
Paris. He acquired knowledge of French, Italian, and
Spanish, as well as of Latin and Greek, wrote Latin
verse, and was accounted an accomplished scholar when
he came back to England and took holy orders. Henry VIIL
made him one of his chaplains, and gave him the rectory
of Poppehng, in the marches of Calais. Afterwards the
king made Leland Keeper of his Library, and in 1533 issued
to him, under the Broad Seal, with the special title and dig-
nity of King's Antiquary, a commission to search after the
antiquities of England, " examining the libraries of all
cathedrals, abbeys, priories, colleges, and all places wherein
records, writings, and secrets of Antiquity were reposited."
No man then living was more fit for such an office, and the
issue of this commission to John Leland is another illustra-
tion of the growing national strength of a land caring the
more for her past as she became more conscious of her
future. A stipend was paid to Leland for his new services ;
he was authorised, in July, 1536, to keep a curate at Poppe-
ling, and travel where he would. For the next six years .
Leland was journeying from place to place, gathering know-
ledge of men and things that concerned the mind-history of
England. He was still engaged upon this work, accumulat-
ing books and notes, in the year 1540, when his age was
about thirty-four. We return to him in the next volume.
The stir of the new life is felt in every direction.
During the reign of Henry VIIL sixty-three new founda-
tion grammar schools were established. There
had been sixteen such foundations in the reign ment'of
of Henry VII., and sixteen in all the time be- gThiX'
fore; so that the- school foundations in Henry
VIII.'s reign w^re within one of doubling the number of all
that had been estabUshed before Henry VIIL was king..
This movement for the spread of education gathered
strength. Fifty more schools were endowed in the six years
286 English Writers. [a-k. iss'-
of the reign of Edward VI. ; even nineteen in the reign of
Mary. One hundred and thirty-eight endowed schools were
founded in the reign of Elizabeth, and eighty-three in the
reign of James I. There were nearly sixty founded in the
reign of Charles I., ijiost of them poorly endowed, and the
force of the first impulse was then spent.
Sir Thomas Elyot's book, called " The Governour," pub-
lished in 1531, well represents the energy of thought con-
cerning education in the reign of Henry VIII.
HyoL°"^ Sir Thomas was born before 1490, only son of
Sir Richard Elyot, who had also a daughter
Marjory. He was educated at home, and it is not known
that he was sent to either university. He read Galen, he
says, before he was twenty, with " a worshipful physician " —
perhaps Linacre. In 1511 he became Clerk of Assize on
the western circuit, where his father had been judge since
the beginning of the century. The death of his father in
1522, and of a relation on his mother's side, put into Elyot's
possession two manors in Cambridgeshire, and the estate
• of Combe, now Long Combe, near Woodstock, which
became his home. After this he married. Wolsey, in 1523,
of his own will, selected Elyot for the post of Clerk of the
Privy Council, but omitted to provide for payment of a
salary. Elyot was relieved of this office in June, 1530, and.
had no recompense for his services but a knighthood. In
1528, when he was Sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire^ he
had resigned the office of Clerk of Assize. " The Gover-
nour,'' published in 1531, when Sir Thomas Elyot, newly
knighted, was a little more than forty years old,
GOTcrnour '' drew the king's attention to its author. In the
first sentence of its " Proheme " to Henry VIII.,
Elyot joins " my duty that I owe to my natural country "
to his duty to his king, and in his second sentence he says
that he feels bound to use the " one little talent " deli-
vered to him, by making his study helpful to others. Almost
A.D. 1531.] S/R Thomas Elyot's "Govesnour." .287
from childhood he had been employed in the king's busi-
ness of furthering the public welfare, and he had been thus
led to strengthen his experience by sayings of ancient
authors. He now writes his book, he says, " not of pre-
surnption to teach any person, I myself having most need of
teaching; but only to the intent that men who will be
studious about the weal public may find the thing thereto
expedient compendiously written." He calls his book " The
Governour " because it " treateth of the education of them
that hereafter may be deemed worthy to be governors of the
public weal under your highness."
" TTie Governour "
is divided into three sections or books.
The First Book starts from Elyot's definition of a Public Weal, as
" a body living, compact or made of sundry estates and degrees of men,
which is disposed by the order of equity and governed by the rule and
moderation of reason. " To its well-being order is essential, and order
cannot be without a single Head, inferior governors or magistrates
being appointed by the sovereign governor. Reason and Experience
declare also that, when the sovereign's dominion is large, there is need
of those inferior governors, to be what Aristotle called his eyes, ears,
hands, and legs. These will be drawn from the estate called worshipful,
when they have sufficient virtue and knowledge, or from men of the
lower rank who are thought worthy to be so much advanced. Men of
the higber estate, having private means, should be less tempted to cor-
ruption ; and they should have more affability and mildness than men
country-bred or very base of lineage. Men also more readily obey
them, and they have greater advantages of education- open to them,
"towards the which instruction," Elyot says, "I have prepared this
work."
Sir Thomas Elyot then proceeds to set forth his view of the right
training of a gentleman, beginning with the choice of a nurse to suckle
him, and of a "governess, or dry nurse, another woman of approved
virtue, discretion, and gravity, who shall not suffer in the child's pre-
sence to be showed any act or tache dishonest, or any wanton or un-
clean word to be spoken. And for that cause all men, except physicians
only, should be excluded and kept out of the nursery." There is to be
like care in the choice of childish companions and playfellows. Then
288 English Writers. [a.d. 1531.
follows " the order of learning that a nobleman should be trained in
before he come to the age of seven years." Elyot rather approves of
the doctrine of those Greeks and Latins who said that before the age
ofsevenyearsa child should not be instructed in letters ; but then, he says,
those were Greeks and Latins, "among whom all doctrine and sciences
were in their maternal tongues, by reason whereof they saved all that
long time which at this day is spent in understanding perfectly the
Greek or Latin." Wherefore " the infelicity of our time and country
compelleth us to encroach somewhat upon the years of children, and
especially of noblemen, that they may sooner attain to wisdom and
gravity than private persons." Sir Thomas would not have any
children ' ' enforced by violence to learn ; but, according to Quintilian,
to be sweetly allured theireto with praises and such pretty gifts as
children delight in. And their first letters to be painted or limned in
pleasant manner, wherein children of gentle courage have much delec-
tation." He would have the learning of Latin begun in familiar speech
by teaching children first to know the Latin names of things about
them, and to ask for what they want in Latin as well as English.
The reason for this early use of Latin was the necessity of learning
early what was then the common language of the educated throughout
Europe, in which nearly all books of higher instruction were written.
" And," said Elyot, " it is no reproach to a nobleman to instruct his
own children, or, at the least ways, to examine them by the way of
dalliance and solace. . . . And why should not noblemen rather
so do than teach their children how at dice and cards they may cunningly
lose and consume their own treasure and substance ? " The next
caution is that all who speak in presence of a child should speak
correctly, even the nurses and women, if it be possible, speaking pure
and elegant Latin, "or, at the least way, that they speak no English
but that which is clean, polite, perfectly and articularly pronounced,
omitting no letter or syllable, as foolish women often do of a wanton-
ness." At seven years old the boy should be withdrawn from company
of women, saving that he may have for a year or two a grave, elderly
matron attending on him in his chamber, which shall not have any
young woman in her company. The tutor " should be an ancient
and worshipful man, in whom is approved to be much gentleness
mixed with gravity, and, as nigh as can be, such one as the child by
imitation following may grow to be excellent. And if he be also
learned, he is the more commendable." The office of the tutor is to
know the nature of a pupil, and develop in him a courteous nature,
with ready sympathies, a free and liberal heart, a knowledge of what
honour is, what love. The discretion of a tutor consists in temperance,
A.D. JS3I,] ElYOt's " GOVERNOVR." 289
that he do not dull the tender wit by the fatigue of continual study;
Elyot commends intermixture of musical training as a refreshment. The
harmony of music is type of the harmony of right life and right govern-
ment'; but it is better for a nobleman to be without knowledge of music
than to make it matter of inordinate delight leading to wantonness. If
the child have an aptitude for painting or sculpture, it is good that he
should be trained in it "in vacant times from other more serious
learning. " Such knowledge has been an ornament of kings, has served
the purposes of captains, it quickens the sense of harmony in all things,
" the wit thereto disposed will always covet congruent matter," and
it gives to its possessor a livelier perception of what is read and heard .
After pleasant early training by a tutor in the grammar of his own
language, the child needs a master "excellently learned both of Greek
and Latin, and therewithal of sober and virtuous disposition, specially
chaste of living, and of much affability and patience, "the work of the
teacher still being to encourage and develop the young wit, and not to dull
it by cruelty and anger. The next argument is of authors to be read.
Greek should be begun early ; and Latin, partly learned by the way of
household speech, should' be used in teaching it. " After a few and
quick rules of grammar, immediately, or interlacing it therewith, would
be read to the child .^Esop's fables in Greek, in which argiiment
children much delight. . . . The next lesson would be some
quick and merry dialogues elect out of Lucian, which be without
ribaldry or too much scorning. . . . The comedies of Aristo-
phanes may be in place of Lucian, and by reason they be in metre,
they be the sooner learned by heart. I dare make none other com-
parison between them, for offending the friends of them both ; but thus
much dare I say, that it were better that a child should never read any
part of Lucian than all Lucian. I could rehearse divers other poets
which for matter and eloquence be very necessary, but I fear me to be
too long from noble Homer, from whom, as from a fountain, proceedeth
all eloquence and learning." While Greek is being studied, "some
Latin author would be therewith mixed, and specially "Virgil." After
dwelling much on the praise of Homer and Virgil, Sir Thomas Elyot
recommends next, as two noble poets very expedient to be learned,
Silius and Lucan, each setting forth the emulation of two valiant
captains — the one of Scipio and Hannibal, the other of Caesar and
Pompey. 'With a word of Hesiod, and a few paragraphs in defence
and praise of the poets, Sir Thomas presses on to logic and rhetoric,
with praise tiy the way of " that little book made by the famous
Erasmus (whom all gentle wits are bound to thank and support), which
he calleth Copiam Verbomm et Rerum ; that is to say, ' Plenty of
290 English Writers. a-°- 'Ssi-
,Words and Matters.'" He turns then to the studies of cosmography
and history, and of moral philosophy, with praise by the way of
Erasmus on the "Institution of a Prince." "And here," says Sir
Thomas Elyot, "I make an end of the learning and study whereby
noblemen may attain to be worthy to' have authority in a public weal."
"Always I shall exhort Tutors and Governors of noble children,
that they suffer them not to use ingurgitations of meat or drink,
, neither to sleep much — that is. to say, above eight hours at the most.
For undoubtedly both repletion and superfluous sleep be capital
eneniies to study, as they be semblably to health of body and soul.
" Aulus Gellius saith, that children if they use to eat and sleep over-
much be made therewith dull to learn. And we see that thereof slow-
ness is taken, and the children's personages do wax uncomely, and
grow less in stature. Galen will not permit that pure wine without
allay of water should in. any wise be given to children, forasmuch as it
humecteth the body, or maketh it moister and hotter than is con-
venient ; also it fiUeth the head wilh fume, in them specially which be
like, as children of hot and moist temperature. These be well nigh
the words of the noble Galen."
Sir Thomas Elyot proceeds next to consider the causes of the decay
of learning among gentlemen, and finds them in the pride, avarice, and
negligence of parents, and the lack or fewness of sufficient masters or
teachers. Pride looks upon learning as a notable reproach to a great
gentleman, and hunting and hawking as more proper to their dignity.
Avarice grudges the cost of a good teacher. A lord asks touching a
schoolmaster only his price, where of a cook or a falconer he would
minutely inquire into the qualification. Negligence is in them who
take pride in the early progress of a son, and when he is fourteen years
old, and ready to pass on to more.serious. learning, suffer him then to
live in idleness, or, by putting him to service, banish him from all
virtuous study, and from exercise of that which he before learned. Sir
Thomas Elyot then reasons of the importance of continuing the studies
of a youth after the age of fourteen, and shows how the statesman or the
lawyer builds his power upon a well-cultivated intellect, and the skill in
rhetoric which only a trained mind can give. Having lamented next
the fewness of good schoolmasters as a chief impeachment of excellent
learning, he turns to the sundry forms of exercise necessary for every
gentleman. Here he commends wrestling, running, insists much on
the "excellent commodity that is in the feat of swimming," discusses
riding, and vaulting-horses. He has regard for hunting only when it is
a manly sport, in which men are not mere followers of dogs, but them-
selves hunters of noble game, with javelin and other weapons, in
A.D. 1S3I.] ElyOT's " GOVERNOUR." 29I
manner of war. Hunting the hare with greyhounds is well enough for
studious men, cowards, and ladies who are not afraid of spoiling their
complexions. Hunting and killing deer is good for the pot. Hawking
is pleasant, though it gives less exercise than hunting. " But I would
our falcons might be satisfied with the division of their prey, as the
falcons of Thracia were, that they needed not to devour the hens
of this realm in such number that unless it be shortly considered, and
that falcons be brought to a more homely diet, it is right likely that
within a short space of years our familiar poultry shall be as scarce as
be now partridge and pheasant. I speak not this in dispraise of the
falcons, but of them which keepeth them like cockneys. "
Sir Thomas Elyot next gives seven chapters to dancing, an accom-
plishment in high favour at Henry VIII. 's Court, and works out in
much detail a. relation between the figures of dancing and the first
moral virtue called Prudence. In closing the First Book of the
"Governour," with reference to other exercises useful as preventatives
of Idleness, he condemns dice-playing as the most plain figure of Idle-
ness and the allective by which Lucifer brings men into his servitude.
Playing at cards and tables is, he says, more tolerable, but of all
games wherein there is no bodily exercise, chess is, he says, most to be
commended. Sir Thomas ends his First Book in the spirit of a courtly
patriot of Henry VIII.'s time by commending shooting with the long-
bow as the chief of exercises.. Tennis, seldom used and for a little
space, is a good exercise for young men. In football " is nothing but
beastly fury and extreme violence, whereof proceedeth hurt ; and con-
sequently rancour and malice do remain with them that be wounded,
wherefore it is to be put in perpetual silence." After his praise of
shooting with the bow, Sir Thomas adds, " Hereat I conclude to write
of exercises which appertaineth as well to princes and noblemen as to
all other, by their example, which determine to pass forth their lives
in virtue and hone'sty. And hereafter, with the assistance of God, unto
whom I render this mine account for the talent that I have of Him
received, I purpose to write of the principal and (as I might say) the
particular study and afiairs of him that by the providence of God is
called to the most difficult care of a public weal."
The Second Book of the " Governour " begins with preparation that
should be made by one Who first receives any great dignity, charge, or
governance of the weal public. His first consideration should be that
from God only proceedeth all honour and power ; his second should
be not of the honour but. of the care and burden, esteeming the place
and its revenues as no booty or prey, but a laborious office and travail.
The more dominion, the greater need of care and study. The finer
T 2
292 English Writers. La.d. 1531-
clothes and ornaments, the more need to think what a reproach it
would be " to surmount in that which be other man's works and not'
theirs, and to be vanquished of a poor subject in sundry virtues, whereof
they themselves be the artificers." Sir Thomas dwells on the re-
sponsibility to God and the service to man, as a just judge, and an
observed example. Then follows a picture of majesty ; fuller discussion
of the outer state and the inner spirit of nobility, which is only the
praise and surname of virtue. Chapters follow on the three qualities
of gentleness — Affability, Placability, and Mercy. Then Sir Thomas
Elyot turns to " the nature or condition of man wherein he is less than
God Almighty, and excelling notwithstanding all other creatures on the
earth." This is his Humanity, " which is a general name to those virtues
in whom'seemeth to be a mutual concord and love in the nature of
man. And although there be many of the said virtues, yet be there
three principal, by whom humanity is chiefly compact — benevolence,
beneficence, and liberality — which maketh up the said principal virtue
called Benignity, or Gentleness." These virtues having been severally
discussed. Friendship, in which Benevolence and Beneficence are
specially comprehended, is next treated of, and this leads to an old
story re-told in an illustrative chapter — " The Wonderful History of
Titus and Gisippus, and whereby is fully declared the figure of per-
fect amity." The rest of the Second Book discusses, the Division
of Ingratitude and the dispraise thereof, the election of friends and the
diversity of flatterers. " This," says Sir Thomas Elyot, " I trust shall
suffice for the expressing of that incomparable treasure, called Amitie ;
in the declaration whereof I have aboden the longer, to the intent to
persuade the readers to insearch thereof vigilantly, and being so happy
to find it, according to the said description, to embrace and honour it,
abhorring above all things Ingratitude, which pestilence hath long time
reigned among us, augmented by Detraction, a corrupt and loathly
sickness, whereof I will treat in the last part of this work, that men of
good nature espying it, need not, if they list, be therewith deceived."
The subject of Detraction supplies matter accordingly for one of the
chapters in the Third Book of " The Governour."
The Third Book of " The Governour " proceeds with the training in
Ethics, by discussions and illustrations of Justice .(to which man is
directed by reason, society, and knowledge, and of which Faith or
Fidelity is the foundation), and of the opposites of Justice, fraud and
deceit. In Aristotle's Ethics, Vices consist only in the too much or too
little of a Virtue. Following this system, Elyot speaks of Fortitude and
the vices formed by its extremes, Audacity and Tiraerosity ; of Patience ;
of Magnanimity, which may be named Valiant Courage,, and of
TO A.D. I534-) Elyot's "Castle of Health." 293
Obstinacy and Ambition, familiar vices following Magnanimity ; of
Abstinence and Continence ; of Constancy ; of Temperance ; of Sapience
and the Definition thereof ; of Understanding and of Experience which
hath preceded our time, with a defence of Histories. Then follows a
chapter on the Experience or practice necessary in the person of a
Governor of a Public Weal. The next chapter is of Detraction, and
the Image thereof made by the painter Apelles.
There are but three chapters upon Counsel for the Public Weal
between this and the close of the book called " The Governour. " There
may be a little reason in the idleness of speculation when one thinks of
this among the books young Spenser would very probably have read
with special liking, and holds it not inconceivable that the first vague
thought of a poem which took definite shape as " The Faerie Queene "
was born of that little suggestion from Lucian of an allegorical picture,
at the end of a book that with variety of pleasant illustration applied
the system of ethics to the shaping of a perfect gentleman.
New editions of this book, printed by Thomas Berthelet,
followed that of 1531 in 1534, 1537, 1546, and 1557, and
there were two more in Elizabeth's reign.
Desiring to plant a sound mind in a sound body, Sir
Thomas Elyot followed his " Governour," in 1534, with a
little treatise on the management of health, " The
Castle of Health," which is, in the edition of of^la^^'!^
1 610, a small quarto book of about a hundred
and forty black-letter pages. It has a " Proheme," in which
the author justified himself for writing " about physic, which
beseemeth not a knight." " Truly," he says, " if they will
call him a physician which is studious about the weal of his
country, I vouchsafe they so name me, for during my life I
did in that affection always continue." Then he vindicates
the honour of physic, hopes that the king will encourage
and assist the cultivation in England of medicinal herbs,
and though some of the new College of Physicians said of
his book that it had errors, and of him that he was more
learned in histories than in physic, yet he had read as many
books of physic as the doctors, and found himself in body
the better for having read them, though he had not studied
294 - English Writers. U-i-- ^S34
at Montpelller, Padua, or Salerno. If there -were errors in
his book, they had been taken from the chief authorities.
" The Castle of Health " is interesting to the modern reader
as a short guide to the common medical opinions of Elyot's
time, which were little changed in the reign of Elizabeth.
The First Book is an account of complexions and humours,
with meats and drinks suited or unsuited to each, things
hurtful for the teeth and eyes, good for the head, heart,
liver, and stomach. The Second Book of " The Castle of
Health " deals in detail with the properties of many kinds
of meat and drink, with diet for different times of year, and
times of eating, sleeping, taking exercise in sundry forms.
The Third Book deals with repletion and abstinence, bleed-
ing, purging ; influence of anger and grief upon health ;
adaptation of diet to the complexions and humours of
the body. The Fourth Book applies the previous teach-
ing to different forms of interrupted health — crudities,
rheums, lassitude, sicknesses that belong to seasons of the
year; and all ends with " a diet preservative in time of pes-
tilence." Sir Thomas Elyot thought that in the climateof Eng-
land many people might find breakfasts to be necessary. He
allowed, therefore, to men under forty, three meals in a dg,y,
breakfast, dinner, and supper, provided that there was an
interval of four hours between breakfast and dinner, and of
six hours between dinner and supper.
Other books of Sir Thomas Elyot's were " Pasquil the
Playne," a prose dialogue between Pasquil, Gnatho, and
Harpocrates, ori the advantages of silence ; also
by'sTr^""''^ a dialogue between Plato and Aristippus, "Of
Ei"™^ the knowledge which maketh a Wise Man " ;
and one or two translations. One translation
was of the Oration of Isocrates to Nicocles, as " the Doctrine
of Princes, made by the noble Oratour Isocrates and trans-
lated out of Greke in to Englishe." Other translations were
of a sermon of Saint Cyprian on " The Mortalitie of Man,"
TO A.D. IS46.) Sir • Thomas Elyot. 295
and of " The Rules of a Christian Lyfe, made by Picus
Erie of Mirandola." These were all printed by Berthelet
in 1533 and 1534.
After the publication of " the Governour," Henry VIII.
sent Sir Thomas Elyot as ambassador to Charles V. to
obtain the Emperor's assent to the divorce of
Queen Katherine. He was also privately in- f^^"^'.' '''"'
structed to assist the English agent at Antwerp
in a search for William Tyndal. He was away a few
months, receiving little attention from home, and paid only
half as much as he was obliged to spend ; his fault being
that he gave advice not suited to King Henry's inclinations.
When he came home, Elyot was busy with his pen, and
wished to avoid pubhc life. So it was that books of his
followed one another through the press in 1533 and iS34'
But in May, 1535, he was again sent as ambassador to
Charles V. He went with the emperor to Tunis, and at the
end of the year, when in Naples, was told by the emperor
of the execution of Sir Thomas More.
When Elyot came home from this mission, he set to
work upon a Latin-English Dictionary, which was issued
in 1538. Sir Thomas Elyot, having two manors ,,. , .
'''' y I o jjis Latin-
in Cambridgeshire, sat in Parliament for Cam- English
bridge in the year 1542. He was made Sheriff
of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire in November,
1544, and he died on the 20th of March, 1546. His
Latin-English Dictionary had pleased the king, and laid
to rest suspicions bred from knowledge of his close
affection for Sir Thomas More.
CHAPTER XI.
CHANGE.
Truth is among us veiled. According to his predilections
each man is inclined to believe that he has seen her with
the veil off, making sunshine in a shady place.
HenryVIII. , . , . , , . ,
breaks from Let US Say what wc thmk, but let us thmk ; and
°^' we cannot do that unless we weigh fairly our
own thoughts against the thoughts of others. Seen through
the veil, Henry VHI. was in the earlier part of his reign
handsome of mind and body. He was well educated in
the studies of his time, and he retained the marks of what
was then considered a religious education. He was affable
and well meaning. It was in him also to be self-willed and
self-indulgent ; he showed also touches of his father's avarice,
in being greedy for the means of being lavish. If all who
were about him had not yielded to his will, his good genius
might have v/on the mastery, his faults might have been
checked. He might have been a statesman if he had not
been a king, or if he had been a king less absolute. As '
it was, he became more and more selfish and masterful.
Wolsey assented to his wrongful will. More stood aside
in silence. Each knew that his counsel was only followed
when it furthered the king's will. "When the king has
taken anything into his head," said Wolsey once, " nothing
can move him." More counselled Thomas Cromwell, when
he rose to power, not to let the king know how much he
could do, or he would do it dangerously. Yet we are not
seeing the whole face of truth when we point a moral, and
A-D. 1533.] Change. 297
comparing the beginning with the end of Henry VIII.'s
reign, say, Behold a man who drank daily the poison of an
abject flattery, who misused power, and was corrupted in his
mind and in his body by self-will and self-indulgence.
It is true that want of a son to inherit the throne, at
a time when no woman had ever reigned in England, was
an element in Henry VIII.'s wish to put away his first
wife Katherine. It is triie also that he was deeply con-
cerned about the prohibition in the eighteenth chapter
of Leviticus, which had been covered before his marriage
with his brother's wife by dispensation from the Pope. It
is true also that no man was better read than Henry VIII.
in argument about validity of the dispensing power in such
cases of conscience. It is true also that Anne, daughter of
Sir Thomas Boleyn, who had been in France for a couple
of years as one of the P'rench Queen's women, and whose
sister Mary he had already dishonoured, within a year after
her return, took the king's fancy at a Court revel, in
March, 1522. She was a girl under sixteen, and his
interest in her grew, and he wrote her love-letters, and
he fitted up apartments for her near his own, while he
was seeking from the Pope a revocation of the Indul-
gence that had formally legalised his marriage to Queen
Katherine. It is true that without waiting for such re-
vocation, about the 25th of January, 1533, the king secretly
married Anne Boleyn, who was already pregnant by him.
It is true also that, because the Pope would not revoke
a predecessor's act, Henry broke from the Pope.
Cranmer pronounced the divorce from Katherine, and
declared legal the marriage with Anne Boleyn,
° ° ■' ' Change of
who was crowned on Whit-Sunday in West- wives.
TT n T-r /• 1 •! 1 . Births of
mmster Hall. Her first child was again a Elizabeth
, . . - - , , . T 1 » ^>id Edward.
disappointment to the king. It was a daughter.
But it was the future Queen Elizabeth, born on the 7th
of September, 1533.
298 English Writers. ' I*-"- '533
Anne Boleyn never had the love of the people, and
soon lost that of the king. The divorced Queen Katherine
died on the 8th of January, 1536. Queen Anne's
marriage was declared invalid on the 17 th of the next
following May ; and two days later she was executed upon
charges in which none saw the clear face of truth. On
the day after Anne Boleyn's execution, the king married
Jane Seymour, who, on the r2th of October, 1537, gave
birth to the gon who lived to reign as King Edward
VI. The Queen died twelve days afterwards, and the
king remained unmarried until April, 1540. His new wife,
Anne of Cleves, proved so much less good-looking than her
picture that his majesty let her alone, and bought her out of
wifehood with a divorce and an allowance of ;^3,ooo, upon
which she was to live in England with the title of the king's
sister, the king presently taking for his fifth wife the Duke
of Norfolk's niece, Katherine Howard. These were the
king's wives to the year 1540. Katherine Howard was
only to be queen for a year. She was declared to have
been incontinent before her marriage, and was beheaded in
1541 ; to-be followed in 1543 by Katherine Parr, and this
third Katherine survived her husband.
If we. turn now from the king's wives to his best
Ministers, who fared no better at his hands, how hard it is
to see through the veil of truth wlien we desire
breaks from' a full knowledge of Wolsey ! He was ambitious,
° ^°''' and ambition is overbearing ; but he had
noble ambitions for his country and his king. He was,
probably, the greatest statesman of his time, but his best
plans were crossed by the king. After the capture of King
Francis at Pavia, in 1525, Wolsey's better policy was
wholly crossed by Henry VIII. 's low-minded eagerness to
seize the opportunity for an invasion of France'. Wolsey
had to find for the king more money than the land could
pay, and bore in silence the whole obloquy of that
TO A.D. 1540.3 Change. 299
" Amicable Loan " which would have brought upon the
king the indignation of the people. The king left Wolsey
to bear it all. It was by the king's wish that Wolsey
had, in 1518, been appointed the Pope's legate a latere, as
from the Pope's side and with a Pope's authority in
England, above that of- the Archbishop of Canterbury. It
was by the king's wish that, in 1529, proceedings were
taken against Wolsey by the Statute of Praemunire for
having usurped legatine powers. The king's plunder of all
Wolsey's possessions extended to the seizure of the college
he had founded in his birthplace, and of the college he
built at Oxford, Cardinal's College, which was afterwards
re-founded as Christchurch. While Wolsey was dying.
Master Kingston was at his bedside, sent by the king to
worry about fifteen hundred pounds that had been entered
in a list of Wolsey's forfeited possessions and had not been
found. Wolsey had borrowed that money from several
friends for his funeral and for gifts, at his death, to faithful
servants. Wolsey died on the 2gth of November, 1530.
The pious John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who was
Chancellor of the University of Oxford since 1504, and for
three years from 1505 was President of Queen's
College while engaged on the erection of Christ's of John
College according to his promptings of the Lady
Margaret, was also the founder, in 151 1, of St. John's Col-
lege at Cambridge, in the place of an old hospital of the
Brethren of St. John. For this work towards the advance
-of education he had also obtained aid from the Lady Mar-
garet, and he himself afterwards endowed the new college
with four fellowships, two scholarships, and lectureships in
Greek and Hebrew. The best of the men who stood on the
• old ways were not less anxious than their antagonists to mul-
tiply an earnest, educated clergy, and to exclude from the
service of the Church the men who were unfit for ordina-
tion. Fisher protected at Cambridge Greek students, learnt
300 English Writers. [a.d. 1551.
some Greek himself, and brought Erasmus into Cambridge.
But he stood firm against the new opinions of Luther.
He preached the sermon at Paul's Cross on the 12 th of
May, 152 1, when Luther's writings were burnt in the
presence of Wolsey and Archbishop Warham. He replied
three times to Luther— in 1523, 1524, and 1525 — with pieces
severally in defence of the Pope's authority, the Christian
priesthood, and the king's "^Assertion of the Seven Sacra-
ments." John Fisher was Queen Katherine's confessor, and
alone among the bishops he stood forward in the Legate's
Court to show that the king's marriage to her could not be
dissolved by any law, divine or human. It was by Fisher's
counsel that the Convocation of the Church, on the nth of
February, 1531, assented to the king's Assertion of Suprem-
acy over the English Church, with the saving clause, " as far
as it is permitted by the law of God," Many were, like
More's daughter Margaret Roper, permitted to take the
oath with this reservation. Nothing could shake the old
bishop's firmness of resistance to the king's claim to be Pope
in England. Then he was struck at, through his faith in
an imposture. Ehzabeth Barton, in 1525, when a maid-
servant, nineteen years old, at Aldington, in the house of
Thomas Cobb, who was steward of an estate owned by
Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, had become hysterical
with a religious mania that the village took for inspiration.
When she got well, she was tempted to continue prophesy-
ing, and her oracle was worked by monks of Christchurch,
Canterbury. Archbishop Warhain, in his old age, was
among the credulous. In 1527 Elizabeth Barton settled at
Canterbury, in a cell of the Priory of St. Sepulchre, and be-
came famous throughout the country as the Nun of Kent.
She was taught, among other things, to prophesy against the-
king's divorce. Fisher and More were among those who
sought to learn how far they might believe her to be gifted.
More found that she talked religiously, but could not believe
TO A.D. 1535. J John Fisher. 301
all her stories, and refused to listen to anything she had to
say about the king. More thought of her charitably, and
was not unwilling to believe that she had some gift of in-
sight. Fisher believed that she was inspired.
Archbishop Warham died on the 23rd of August, 1532,
and Thomas Cranmer became Archbishop on the 30th of
March, 1533. Cranmer obtained from the Nun of Kent
confession of her frauds. She and her prompters made
public confession in London and at Canterbury, and they
were executed at Tyburn on the 20th of April, 1534.
Fisher, indicted for misprision of treason by confederacy
with the Nun, had been sentenced to imprisonment and for-
feiture of all his goods, but was set free upon payment of
three hundred pounds. Then, in the month of the execu-
tion of the Nun of Kent, he was required to take the oath
of compliance with the Act of Succession. He was ready to
comply with the fixing of succession in children of the king
and Anne Boleyn ; but he could not, he said, without peril
to his soul, take that part of the oath which involved denial
of allegiance to the Pope. He was then imprisoned in the
Tower. His great library, which he had meant to leave to
St. John's College, the king seized. Books were denied to
the old scholar, his goods were taken, and only rags were
left to cover him. There was illegality in the demand he
had resisted, but that difficulty was removed soon after-
wards by the Act of Supremacy. Fisher was brought to
trial, and found guilty of having openly declared in English
" that the king our sovereign lord is not supreme head of
the Church of England." He was, at the age of seventy-
six (or possibly not more than sixty-six), beheaded on Tower
Hill on the 22nd of June, 1535. His last work was a
Spiritual Consolation, addressed to his sister Elizabeth
during his confinement in the Tower. A few words spoken
against conscience would have saved him from the scaffold.
Both promises and threats were used in the patient
302 English Writers. [a-d. is34
-endeavour to obtain assent to the king's act from Bishop
Fisher and Sir Thomas More, as men whose
sir^homls characters would give the greatest weight to any
""■ words of theirs among the people. When Henry
VIII. replied to Luther's book upon the Babylonian
Captivity, a book which put Faith above all the machinery
through which the Church was agent for salvation, he was
Defender of Faith in the Seven Sacraments — defender of
authority^-against that new doctrine of an individual and
independent Faith of which the influence would hereafter
be felt in States as well as Churches. When he had written
his book, the king showed it to Sir Thomas More, who
counselled him to modify some passages in which he com-
mitted himself most strongly to acceptance of the Pope's
supremacy. A time might come, he said, when an un-
friendly Pope could take advantage of the king's concessions.
The king would alter nothing. He could not say too much.
He owed his crown to the Pope. More said he was struck
by that statement, as of something he had not known
before. When More was in disgrace for wishing that he
might be suffered to say nothing, one way or another, on
the subject of the Pope's supremacy, the angry king accused
his counsellor of having caused him to insert those passages
which he had asked him to erase. Passion mistakes its
lying for the truth. But a king, and such a king, must not
be contradicted.
When More had first appeared before four members of
the Council, he went home by boat with his son Roper to
Chelsea, and was very cheerful. After they had landed,
Roper said to him in the garden, " I trust, sir, that all is
well, because you are so merry ? " " It is so, indeed, son
Roper, I thank God." " Are you then put out of the bill ? "
" By my troth, son Roper, I never remembered it. . . .
Wilt thou know why I am so merry ? In good faith, I re-
joiced that I had given the devil a foul fall, and with those
TO A.D. 1535.] Sir Thomas More. 303
lords I had gone so far as, without great shame, I could
never go back again." This was, nominally, the matter of
the Nun of Kent. More was put out of the bill, and when
Roper sent word to his wife, that she might tell her father
the good news, " Meg," he said, " quod differtur non
anfertur '' — what is put off is not put away. The Duke of
Norfolk, in friendly, talk with him afterwards, said, " By the
mass, Mr. More, it is perilous striving with princes, there-
fore I wish you would somewhat incline to the king's
pleasure ; for, by God's body, Mr. More, indigiiatio principis
mors est." " Is that all, my lord ? " said More. " Then, in
good faith, between your grace arfd me is but this, that I
shall die to-day and you . to-morrow.'' When the king
began to move for the divorce. More in his family talk had
forecast the possibility of an oath being some day demanded
which he would be unable to take, and had even begun
quietly to prepare for death. When he was summoned to
Lambeth to take the required oath, he was ready to take it
so far as concerned the succession of Henry's children by
Anne Boleyn, but he was not ready to forswear allegiance to
the Pope as head of the whole Christian Church in England
and elsewhere. He' knew, when he left that day his home
at Chelsea, he should not be suffered to return. That
morning. Roper says, " whereas he evermore used before, at
his departure from his wife and children, whom he tenderly
- loved, to have them bring him to his boat, and there to kiss
them and bid them all farewell, then he would suffer none
of them forth the gate to follow him, but pulled the wicket
after him and shut them all from him ; and with a heavy
heart, as by his countenance it appeared, with me and our
four servants took boat towards Lambeth. Wherein, sitting
still sadly awhile, at the last he suddenly rounded in my
ear and said, ' Son Roper, I thank Our Lord the field is
won.' "
From that interview at Lambeth Move was committed
304 English Writers. La-d. 1535
as prisoner to the custody of the Abbot of Westminster j
then, after four days, to the Tower, where Sir Edward Wal-
singham, who was an old friend, regretted that he was not
suffered to do more for his comfort. " Mr. Lieutenant,"
More answered, " I verily believe as you say, and heartily
thank you ; and assure yourself I do not mistake my cheer ;
but whensoever I do so, then thrust me out of your doors.''
After a little while More's imprisonment was made
closer than at first, of which his daughte'r Margaret sup-
posed "that, considering he was of so temperate a mind
that he. was content to abide there all his life with such
liberty, they thought it not possible to incline him to their
will, except by restraining him from the Church and the
company of his wife and children." What wonder that the ■
wife of such a man, who by a word of compliance against
conscience — a word he stood almost alone in withholding —
could have won back home, wife, children, honour from the
king, instead of death, should fret at his firmness ? If she,
the wife, was weak, how strong had all the men in the land
been who shared More's convictions and escaped their
penalty? When Lady More was first allowed to see him.
Roper tells, "What a good year, Master More," said she.
" I marvel that you, that hitherto hath been taken for a
wise man, will now so play the fool, to lie here in this close
filthy prison, and be content thus to be shut up among mice
and rats, when you might be abroad at your liberty, and
with the favour and good-will both of the kingand his Council,
if you would but do as all the bishops and best-learned of
this realm" have done." Then the poor woman set forth
the attractions of his happy home at Chelsea, and said, "I
muse what, in God's name, you mean, still thus fondly to
tarry ! " She was npt weaker than the world about them :
and even to him the -battle had been very hard before
the victory. He felt that, as he strengthened himself in the
Tower by writing upon "The Agony in the Garden." The
A.D. IS35.] S/R Thomas More. 305
good wife, when her husband's goods were forfeited, sold
her own dress to raise the fifteen shilUngs a week that
had to be paid for her husband's better support in the
Tower, when sickness was fastening upon him after eight
months of imprisonment.
Arraigned at last, and condemned as a traitor on the
first of July, 153s, on the sixth More was beheaded. His
parboiled head was set up on a stake at London Bridge.
When it had been there a month, and should have been
thrown into the river, his daughter Margaret begged it.
She kept it till her death, and it was buried with her, lying
on her bosom.
U vol.. VII.
CHAPTER XII.
TYNDAL AND OTHERS. — COVERDALE. AUTHORISED
PRINTING OF AN ENGLISH BIBLE.
Thomas Cromwell, who rose in Henry Vni.'s favour
after Wolsey's fall, and who, though no writer, had for a
time the lives of writers in his power, was born
Cromwell about the year 1485, the son of a blacksmith at
Putney, who owned also a fulling mill and kept
an inn. Difficulties at home caused him to go abroad and
enlist as a common soldier in the French army. Then he
found his way in poverty to Florence, where he was helped
by a kindly banker who had dealings with England. Then
Thomas Cromwell became a clerk to Antwerp merchants,
after which he returned to Italy in company with some
people from Boston, in Lincolnshire, who were going to^
Rome to obtain privileges for the Guild of Our Lady in the
Church of St. Botolph's at Boston. Cromwell contrived
to get them friendly hearing from Pope Julius II. by way-
laying His Holiness as he came home from hunting, and
recommending to him a few English presents with a three-
man song. An offering of sweetmeats finished the business,
and they went home with the desired concessions. He
was clerk for a time to a Venetian merchant, but in 15 12
Thomas Cromwell had returned to the Low Countries,
and was a merchant trading at Middleburgh. Next year
he seems to have come home, and married the daughter of
.1529-] Thomas Cromwell. 307
an old neighbour at Putney, who was a shearman, sind who
had been usher of the chamber to Henry VII. He was
then in several services, and held to the family fulling-
mill even after he had established himself as a solicitor in
London by the gate of Austin Friars. Wolsey discovered
the ability of Thomas Cromwell, and in 1514 made him col-
lector of his revenues. In 1523 Cromwell had advanced so
far by Wolsey's interest that he was in Parliament, professing
utmost favour to the king's desire for a war upon France,
but suggesting difficulties that would make it prudent to
begin with Scotland, In 1524 Thomas Cromwell became a
member of Gray's Inn ; and Wolsey used his services as
agent for the suppression of certain small monasteries, from
whose incomes he intended to provide endowment for his
two colleges at Ipswich and Oxford. The process of the
demolition cairied out during the next two years caused
many complaints, but Thomas Cromwell had a strong pro-
tector. He was addressed as Councillor to my Lord
Cardinal, he was receiver-general to Cardinal's College, and
he drew up all legal deeds concerning the foundation of
both colleges. He had all Wolsey's law business, and not
Wolsey's only.
Cromwell's wifd died in 1527, leaving him a son
(Gregory) and two daughters (Anne and Grace). In June,
1528, he was living with Wolsey at Hampton Court, his
clever man of business, always on the spot. In 1529 he
succeeded Gardiner as Wolsey's secretary.
After Wolsey's fall, Thomas Cromwell showed his
address in extricating himself from a position of considerable
difficulty, while doing what he could on behalf of his old
master ; and he was thought the better of on that account.
An astute man of great ability, with a winning manner,
Thomas Cromwell soon became one of the properties trans-
ferred from Wolsey to the king. He helped the king on his
own path, and encouraged him to be fearless in gratifying
u 2
3o8 English Writers. Ca.o. 1529
his own inclinations. A few weeks after Wolsey's death,
Thomas Cromwell was made a Privy Councillor. He saw
chiefly to the legal business of the Council. He continued
shrewdly to make money for himself, and showed the king
how to make money. In April, 1533, he became Chancellor
of the Exchequer. In April, 1 534, he was the king's secretary.
In October of the same year he was Master of the Rolls.
In November of that year the Act of Supremacy was
passed; in January, 1535, Thomas Cromwell was made the
king's Vicar-General for carrying out its provisions, and was
empowered to hold a general visitation of churches and
monasteries. There was delegated to him the king's
supremacy for reformation of the Church. He took pro-
ceedings against those who refused the oath, pressed hard on
More and Fisher, and after Fisher's execution it was Crom-
well who succeeded him as Chancellor of the University of
Cambridge.
Cromwell established visitors who made reports upon
the monasteries, that prepared the way for their confiscation
to the Crown. In 1536 an Act was passed for the dis-
solution of all monasteries that had not two hundred a year
of revenue. They were confiscated to the king, and the
king, by Cromwell's advice, sold them on easy terms to the
nobility. After the execution of Anne Boleyn, the office of
Lord Privy Seal, resigned by her father, was conferred
on Thomas Cromwell, and seven days afterwards, on the
9th of July, 1536, he was raised to the peerage as Baron
Cromwell of Oakham. He was at this time presiding in
the Convocation of the Church, and providing for reforms
in rites and ceremonies. In August, 1537, Thomas Crom-
well was made Knight of the Garter, and accepted as
a layman the Deanery of Wells. In November, 1538, he
was made Captain of Carisbrooke, and two months later
Constable of Leeds Castle, in Kent. In 1539 he was
made Lord Chamberlain. The confiscation of the greater
TOA.D. I540.] S/s Thomas Wyatt. 309
monasteries followed two or three years after that of the
smaller, Cromwell obtaining for himself in February, 1538,
the whole of the large possessions of the Priory of Lewes ;
and in April, 1540, the lands of the Priory of St. Osyth, in
Essex, and of the Monastery of Colchester, and of the
Monastery of Launde, in Leicestershire. On the 17th of
April, 1540, he was created Earl of Essex. But he was on
the point of incurring the king's highest displeasure for
having brought him into his marriage with Anne of Cleves.
On the loth of June the Duke of Norfolk accused Crom-
well of treason at the Council table. The king left him
to his enemies. He was sent to the Tower, and on the
28th of July, 1540, he was executed upon Tower Hill.
In his own way, which was not that of the saints,
Thomas Cromwell did much to advance the reformation of
the English Church; especially it was indebted to him
for aid to the introduction of the Bible in the language
of the people.
We turn in the next volume to the poets of the
latter part of Henry VIH.'s reign, with whom there is
advance in native strength, and wider influence
of Italy. But one of these poets, Sir Thomas wyS.™^'
Wyatt, being fourteen years older than the Earl
of Surrey, with whom he is especially associated in the
history of literature, may be brought now into the story, so
far as regards his outward life to the year 1540.
Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder was born in 1503, at
Allington Castle, in Kent, son of Sir Henry Wyatt, who was
high in the king's favour, and who died in 1538. Thomas
Wyatt entered St. John's College, Cambridge, at the age of
twelve ; took his Bachelor of Arts degree at fifteen ; and was
Master of Arts at seventeen. He became a gentleman of
the king's bedchamber, and married Elizabeth, daughter of
Lord Brook of Cobham. His eldest son, Thomas Wyatt
the younger, was born about 1520. In 1533, Wyatt was
3IO English Writers. [a.d. 1525
ewerer at the coronation of his friend Anne Boleyn. In
1537 he was knighted. . He was tall and handsome ; his
friend Surrey praised his form as one where "force and
beauty met." He was skilled in exercise of arms, spoke
French, Italian, and Spanish, was apt at kindly repartee,
played on the lute, and at the age of five-and-twenty had
been honoured by Leland as the most accomplished poet of
his time. The king found pleasure in his conversation.
Soon after a short imprisonment in the Tower during the
king's pleasure, Sir Thomas Wyatt was sent as ambassador
to the Emperor Charles, in Spain, and did not obtain until
April, 1539, the recall he wished for. He had to deal with
the personal questions between the two sovereigns arising
out of the divorce of Queen Katherine, the position of her
daughter, the Princess Mary, and the birth of Jane Sey-
mour's son, Edward, afterwards King Edward VI., in the
autumn of 1537. There was also the argument of the King
of England's next marriage after the death of Jane Seymour.
There was also the war between Charles V. and Francis I.,
closed by the Peace of Nice, in 1538, during Wyatt's tenure
of office as English ambassador in Spain. Wyatt followed
the emperor, posted to England, was wise and active, but
too good a man for diplomatic work in which he was
not free to be true.
Reginald Pole went to Spain during Wyatt's embassy,
and Wyatt's duty was to stand between him and the
emperor. Pole's father was cousin to Henry
Poil!""^'' VII., and his mother was a niece of Edward IV.
In 1525, Reginald Pole, aged five-and-twenty,
returned from foreign universities high in Henry VIII. 's
favour, and enriched with pension and Church preferment.
But he did not approve of the divorce of Katherine, or
of King Henry's repudiation of the Pope's authority over
the Church. The king, who sought in vain to win him,
sent him a pamphlet written by Dr. Sampson, Bishop of
TO A.D. 1538;. Sjj? Thomas Wya tt. 3 1 1
Chichester. His reply was a Latin treatise, addressed to
the king, in four books, in "Defence of Church Unity,"
pubhshed in 1536. It condemned the secession of England
from Rome. For this he was deprived of his pension and
preferments, and compelled to leave England. Henry
persecuted his family, and even executed his mother. He
was made a cardinal in December, 1536, and afterwards
employed as papal legate.
Sir Thomas Wyatt was a reformer, liberal and thought-
ful, able to appreciate the sincerity of Pole, while he fulfilled
his duty by procuring for him a cool reception
at the Court of Charles. The death of Wyatt's wyJu."""^'
father during the time of his embassy gave him
reason to be urgent for a recall, that he might attend
to his own family affairs ; but he was told that his private
affairs were not neglected, since His Majesty had set aside
for him the house of the Friars at Aylesford, in Kent,
which adjoined his own estate at AUington, and was dis-
posed to continue "good lord unto him." From Spain,
Wyatt wrote earnest letters to his son, on the model of
Seneca's epistles. Here are a few sentences from them : —
" Make God and goodness your foundations. Make your
examples of wise and honest men ; shoot at that mark. Be
no mocker ; mocks follow them that delight therein. He
shall be sure of shame that feeleth no grief in other men's
shames. Have your friends in a reverence ; and think un-
kindness to be the greatest offence, and least punished,
among men ; but so much the more to be dreaded, for God
is justicer upon that alone. ... If you will seem
honest, be honest ; or else seem as you are." Not many
months after his return to AUington, Wyatt's good sense and
experience were again called for by the course of public
events. The Emperor's journey through France to the
Netherlands, against revolted Ghent, was to be watched for
any under-currents in its policy. Wyatt, therefore, was
312 English Writers. [a-d. 1529
appointed for four months to be with Charles as Ambassador
Extraordinary. He went, and he sent home faithful reports,
with acute comments and sensible suggestions. His recall
was delayed, though again he urged for it ; but he was able
to return to Allington by the middle of May, 1540. In the
following July came the fall of Thomas Cromwell, and after
this Sir Thomas Wyatt, who had been one of Cromwell's
friendsj was sent in the winter 1540-1 to the Tower, charged
with disrespect to the king, and traitorous correspondence
with Cardinal Pole. There he wrote :
" Sighs are my food ; my drink they are my tears ;
Clinking of fetters such music would crave ;
Stink and close air away my life wears ;
Innocency is all the hope I have.
Rain, wind, or weather, I judge by mine ears ;
Malice assaults that righteousness should have.
Sure I am, Bryan, this wound shall heal again ;
But yet, alas ! the scar shall still remain."
It remains for us now to bring to the year 1540 the
story of the English Church Reform.
Thomas Cranmer was, at the time of the fall of Wolsey,
forty years old, Doctor of Divinity, Archdeacon of Taunton,
a Theological Examiner at Cambridge, and a
&amner kuown expert in Canon Law. There being
plague at Cambridge in August, 1529, Dr. Cran-
mer was then staying with two pupils at the house of their
father, Mr. Cressy, at Waltham, in Essex. The king
happening to come to Waltham, his almoner and secretary,
Edward Fox and Stephen Gardiner, who' had been to Rome
upon the matter of the king's divorce, were lodged with
Mr. Cressy. At supper Dr. Cranmer argued that if the
king's" marriage was null by any Divine law, the Pope could
not uphold it, since he could not cancel any law of God.
The question might, therefore, be settled on its own merits
by learned men. Report made to the king of this opinion
TO A.D. is4p.] Tyndal and Others. 313
of Cranmer's caused him to be sent for, and in or before
February, 1530, Dr. Cranmer published in support of his
argument a treatise, of which no copy remains. The king
at tlie same time made this new ally one of his chaplains,
and gave him a benefice. At the end of 1530, Cran-
mer went to Rome with Sir Thomas Boleyn (become Earl
of Wiltshire and Ormond) and with others. There his
book was presented to the pope, and he undertook to
dispute openly against King Henry's marriage with Queen
Katherine. He returned to England in 1531, and was
much with the king at Hampton Court. In August of that
year Thomas Bilney, who, being resolved to recant his
recantation, had preached publicly in Norfolk, was, on the
writ of Dr. Nix, the bishop of the diocese, burnt for his
faith at Norwich. Dr. Nix was a man eighty years old,
infirm and blind. At this time one Richard Byfield, who
had been Chamberlain of the Benedictine
Monastery of Bury St. Edmunds, was engaged ^^^{l
in the introduction of the numerous Reformation
tracts issued by Tyndal and others in Latin and English.
He had- landed a supply at Colchester, in Midsummer,
1530; a second supply at St. Catherine's, in November,
1530, which was seized; a third supply he brought to
London in the spring of 1531 ; but in the beginning of
November, 1531, he was arrested, and before the end of
the month burnt.
Among the Reformation tracts brought into England in
the year 1530 was a little book of Tyndal's on the question
of the king's divorce. It was called " The Prac-
tice of Prelates ; whether the King's Grace may ^'"dX
be Separated from his Queen because she was
his Brother's Wife." Ascribing to Wolsey's ambition the
sufferings of the people and the scheme for the king's separ-
ation from his wife, it declared the scheme to be without
warrant from Scripture, and one against which the most
314 English Writers. i.a.d. 1530
glorious king might be warned by one,, however mean, who
spoke with the authority of God's Word, which is "the
chiefest of the Apostles, and Pope, and Christ's Vicar, and
Head of the Church, and the Head of the General Council."
Tyndal issued this tract from Marburg, in Hesse, where,
in the same year, 1530, on the 17th of January, he finished
printing his translation of the Pentateuch. He had com-
pleted this with the help of Miles Coverdale, a
Barae" Yorkshircman, then forty-three years old, who had
c'ovlrdaie bccn an Austin Friar at Cambridge. The Prior
of Coverdale's house was Dr. Robert Barnes, a
good scholar, who had cultivated scholarship in those about
him, reading Plautus, Terence, and Cicero, lectiiring upon
St. Paul's Epistles, and encouraging discussions upon Scrip-
ture. Dr. Barnes had become a leader in arguments of
Reformation held by Cambridge men of different colleges at
a house called the " White Horse." Compelled by Wolsey,
Barnes recanted ; but being a second time in extreme peril,
he escaped to Germany, where he found friends in the
Lutheran chiefs. While resident at Wittenberg he was em-
ployed in several negotiations. His friend Coverdale also
escaped to the Continent, where he joined Tyndal in his
work as a translator of the Scriptures.
In January, 1532, Henry VIII.'s new favourite, Cranmer,
was sent as king's orator to the Imperial Court. He was six
months at Nuremberg associated with the English
Cmi^lr ambassador. Sir Thomas Elyot, who had it
among his instructions to seek the arrest of
Tyndal. On the 22nd of August in that year Warham,
Archbishop of Canterbury, died. Then Cranmer was sum-
moned home to be his successor. King Henry had been
privately married to Anne Boleyn when Cranmer was in-
stalled in his archbishopric — the last Archbishop of Can-
terbury who took the oath of obedience to the see of Rome.
He took this oath on the 30th of March, 1533, after a
TOA.D. IS36.] Last Days of Tyndal. 315
protestation that it did not bind him to do anything con-
trary to the laws of God, the King's prerogative, or the
commonwealth and statutes of the kingdom.
For some time Tyndal was effectually shielded from de-
signs against him by the English Government. His best
friends abroad were members of the English
Company of Merchant Adventurers. These Ty'^dlf'"^
also supplied money wherewith to keep the
press at work. In 1535 Tyndal was living with Thomas
Poyntz, an English merchant, at Antwerp, when he was
arrested while his watchful host was gone to a great annual
fair. After long detention in the Castle of Vilyorde, he was
condemned by the Privy Council of Brussels, under a decree
against heresy which had been issued in 1530, on the- Em-
peror's authority. Tyndal was strangled and burnt at Vil-
vorde, on the 6th of October, 1536, and his last words were,
" Lord, open the King of England's eyes."
While Tyndal was in his prison at Vilvorde, the King of
England had, as we have seen, been active at home. Fisher,
More, and Anne Boleyn were during that time condemned
and executed. Cranmer, when made archbishop, had held
an ecclesiastical court at Dunstable, and in May, 1533, pro-
nounced sentence of divorce between King Henry and
Queen Katherine, whose daughter Mary was then seventeen
years old. The Pope by a brief declared this divorce to be
illegal. Katherine went to Kimbolton, and claimed still to
be a queen. The stately coronation of Anne Boleyn fol-
lowed ; then, in September, the birth of her daughter Eliza-
beth. Parliament had passed in the same year, 1533, an
Act against appeals to Rome, asserting the king's supremacy
within his realm. Another statute declared it to be no
heresy to speak against the Pope ; but as to other points
heretics had their judges at home, and upon lawful convic-
tion and refusal to abjure, or relapse after abjuration, they
were to be " committed to lay power to be burned in open
3i6 English Writers. [a.d. 1510
places, for example of other, as hath been accustomed."
Cranmer took part in the examination of John Frith, and
assented to the sentence by which he was burnt in Smith-
field, in July, 1533, together with Andrew Hewit, a tailor's
apprentice.
Thomas Bilney had been burnt on the 19th of
August, 1531. He was of a Norfolk family, and his
religious nature when he was studying at Trinity
Biin™." Hall, Cambridge, drew him from law to the
Church. He took priest's orders in 1519,
and began an intent study of Scripture in the revised Latin
version of the New Testament which had been published
by Erasmus in 1516. He found the light he sought for in
the teaching of Saint Paul. He became a leader in the
little company of Cambridge men who were then studying
the Scriptures; Matthew Parker, afterwards Queen Eliza-
beth's first Archbishop, came up to Cambridge in 1521, and
was drawn into Bilney's circle. Robert Barnes, already
mentioned, who was of Bilney's age and had come back
from- Louvain to be Prior of the Augustinian house at
Cambridge, a man eager for enlightenment, was introduced
by Bilney to the writings of Luther, and became another
leader in the Cambridge band. It was Barnes, as we have
seen, who enlisted among them Miles Coverdale. Bilney at
Cambridge — little Bilney, Latimer called him, for he was
small and thin — opposed formal ceremonials, but he ate
only tince a day, that he might give the rest of his commons
to prisoners and the poor. He preached as widely as he
could, opposing prayer to saints and images. This brought
him to a year's imprisonment in the Tower, from which he
was released in 1529; but he was tormented for the next
two years with fear lest he had been an apostate. Forbidden
to preach in the churches, he preached in the fields, and he
was burnt at Norwich as a relapsed heretic on the 19th of
August, 1531.
TOA.D. I540.] BiLNEY, Barnes, Latimer. 317
Robert Barnes, after troubles about heresy, imprison-
ment, and escape to Germany, came back to England under
change of times, and was thought by Henry
VIII. and Thomas Cromwell useful as an agent Barne".
for obtaining German assent to the doctrine
of the king's supremacy. But he was one of those who
assisted in bringing over Anne of Cleves. He had no friends
at Court when he preached at Paul's Cross Luther's doctrine
of justification by faith, and he was burnt at Smithfield as a
heiretic on the 30th of July, 1540.
Hugh Latimer was born about 1491, and was the only
son among seven children of Hugh Latimer, a yeoman who
rented a farm at Thurcaston, in Leicestershire.
When fourteen years old he went to Clare Hall, Lalfmer
Cambridge, obtained a fellowship of his college
while yet undergraduate, took his degrees of Bachelor of Arts
and Master of Arts in 15 10 and 15 14, and at the age of about
twenty-four was ordained priest at Lincoln. At the age of
thirty he graduated Bachelor in Divinity. His speech on
the occasion was against opinions of Melanchthon, for he
was then active in argument against those who opposed the
Pope's authority. Bilney, being among those who heard the
speech, went to Latimer's rooms afterwards and argued with
him. To the influence of Bilney, Latimer in later years ascribed
his great change of opinion. This change soon caused him to
be summoned before Wolsey on a charge of heresy ; but he
was then content to subscribe such articles as were proposed
to him. Latimer's opposition to the Pope, which involved
support of the king's supremacy, was made known to
Henry VIII. by his physician, Dr. Butts, and in March,
1530, Latimer was called to preach before the king at
Windsor. Henry then made Latimer his chaplain ; and,
not offended by his letter written in December, " for restor-
. ing again the liberty of reading the Holy Scriptures," in the
following year, 1531, he gave Latimer, at the suggestion of
3 1 8 English Writers. U-d- 'S35
Dr. Butts, the rectory of West Kington, in Wiltshire. The
new rector's preaching was soon declared to be heretical ;
he was summoned before Stokesley, Bishop of London, and
afterwards before Convocation. He was excommunicated
and imprisoned, but made his submission, and by special
request of the king went home absolved. A year afterwards
Cranmer became archbishop, and was Latimer's friend. In
1534 Latimer preached before Henry VIIL on Wednesdays
in Lent. In the autumn of 1535, when, by Act of Parlia-
ment, an Italian, who was non-resident, had been deprived
of the bishopric of Worcester, Hugh Latimer was elected in
his place.
At this time Miles Coverdale was printing at Zurich a
complete translation of the Bible into English. At the
Coverdaie's ^'^^^ of 1 5 34 the EngHsh clergy had carried
Translation in Couvocation against a strong party headed
by Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, a
petition to the king for a translation of the Scriptures into
English. Thomas Cromwell, actively supporting the vote
of Convocation, was in search of an English Bible which
might go among the people and escape the charge of
containing heresies. Coverdaie's translation was submitted
to the English bishops, who said that it had many faults.
" But," said the king, " are there any heresies maintained
thereby ? " And when they said that they had found none,
he answered, " Then, in God's name, let it go among the
people."
The royal licence was obtained, but the introduction of
Coverdaie's translation, printed in 1535, was delayed by the
necessity of striking out the name of the king's " most
dearest, just wife, Anne," which stood with his own in the
dedication. The first printed copies of the whole Bible
were admitted into England in 1536, the year of the burning
of Tyndal, the year also in which Tyndal's New Testament.
was first printed in England.
TOA.D.1538.] COVERDAL^S TRANSLATION OF THE BlBLE. 319
Coverdale's translation was described on the title-page
as having been made from the German and Latin — " faith-
fully and truly translated out of Douche and Latin into
English." Coverdale said that he had five several transla-
tions by him, and followed his interpreters. A new edition,
revised and corrected, appeared in 1537, printed in England.
In July of the same year, 1537, there was published
abroad a complete Bible in folio, professing to be "truly
and purely translated into English by Thomas ,
Matthew. This was formed out of the trans- Bible,
lations of Tyndal and Coverdale, under the
superintendence of John Rogers, who assumed the name of
Matthew. He was the son of a John Rogers, of Deritend,
in Birmingham, was born there about 1509, educated at
Pembroke Hall, took his B.A. in 1526, and afterwards
became chaplain to the English merchants at Antwerp,
where Tyndal and Coverdale found in him a friend and
ally. His Bible, known as Matthew's Bible, included
all that had been done by Tyndal, namely, his Pentateuch
followed by other translations of his down to the end of the
second book of Chronicles, and his New Testament. The
other canonical books Rogers gave in a strict revision of
Coverdale's translation, and the Apocrypha he gave in a
translation of his own. Having issued his Bible, Rogers
married in the same year, and went to Wittenberg, where he
was minister of a congregation during the rest of the reign
of Henry VIH.
In 1538 Thomas Cromwell had become Lord Cromwell
of Oakham, Lord Privy Seal, and the king's vicegerent
in all causes touching ecclesiastical jurisdiction
and the godly reformation of heresies and abuses Bib£"'"^
in the Church. By virtue of this office he sat
in Convocation above the archbishops. Since Henry
agreed that diffusion of an English Bible was good policy
against the Pope, Cromwell, in 1538, was planning a
320 English Writers. IA'°- 'ssS
republication at Paris of Tyndal's translation in a form that
would adapt it for free use. Miles Coverdale had looked
to Thomas Cromwell as his friend and patron even when
Cromwell was Wolsey's retainer. In February and March,
1538, he was in Berkshire, officially examining church
service books to see that the Pope's name had been duly
erased from their pages. He was then sent by Cromwell to
Paris, where he was to superintend the printing of the Bible
known as Cromwell's, and there he was in some peril from
the Inquisition. The printing begun at Paris was therefore
finished in London.
Cromwell also employed Richard Taverner, an Oxford
Reformer who was then attached to the "court, on a careful
revision of Matthew's Bible. Tavernef's Bible
Taverner's ^3.5 published in foli ) in 1539, with a dedication
to the king; and in April of the same year, 1539,
appeared Coverdale's revision of Tyndal's work and his own,
in the folio known as Cromwell's (or the Great) Bible.
Cromwell then was Lord Chamberlain, and he in the
following year, 1540, was made Earl of Essex, when there
appeared the most authoritative of the versions made in
Henry VIII.'s reign. It was a revision of Tyndal, planned by
Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury, and made by direct
collation with the Hebrew and Greek texts. It was first
published in April, 1540, with a prologue by Cranmer, and
is known as " Cranmer's Bible." This became
Bibie"^"^^ and remained, till 1568, the translation appointed
to be read in churches. Its version of the
Psalms is retained to this day by the Church of England in
its book of Common Prayer.
But heresy, especially that of the Sacramentarians, who
denied real presence in the Eucharist, was still being
^^^ ^^ attacked with fire and fagot. John Nicholson,
trugg e. ]5.f,Q^n as Lambert, was publicly argued with by
the king himself and bishops in Westminster Hall, silenced
TO A.D, I540. Struggle. 321
and burnt. Cromwell read the sentence. An Observant
Friar, named Forest, was burnt alive in an iron cage for
denial of the king's ecclesiastical supremacy, after Hugh
Latimer, Bi:shop of Worcester, had argued with him in vain.
The final Act for the Dissolution of Abbeys was passed and
enforced in the same year, 1539, in which Cromwell's Bible
appeared, and in which also appeared " An Act Abolishing
Diversity of Opinions.'' This law was dictated in person by
the king to a tractable Parliament. It became known as
the "Whip with the Six Strings." It declared for transub-
stantiation, auricular confession, vows of chastity, and private
masses, against communion in both kinds, and against mar-
riage of priests. To the king's opinion upon these six points
Englishmen were to conform their teaching upon pain of
death. Latimer, who could not so teach, resigned his
bishopric, and was placed in custody of Dr. Sampson,
Bishop of Chichester. But in the next year, 1540, Dr.
Sampson became himself a prisoner.
In the same year, 1540, the order of the Jesuits was
founded by Ignatius Loyola.
Count nothing won till Love he Lord of all.
Upward through mire, and over stony ground
And rugged blocks, we climb with many a fall.
And what we seek, we seek : where little's found.
Labour is gain till Love be Lord of all.
Count nothing won till Love be Lord of all.
Greed gives a hand upon the upward v^ay.
Lust lends a ladder, Malice comes at call ;
Still we are climbing ; while we curse and
Labour is gain till Love be Lord of all.
Count Labour's gain when Love is Lord of all,
When the mists melt and leave us in the light.
When we are forth as beasts out of the stall,
When we breathe heaven on the long-sought height ;
. But labour on till Love be Lord of all.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
THOMAS LliSTACRE.
Procli Sphsera, Thoma Linacro Interprete. Printed by Julius Maternus
Firmicus in Astronomicorum libri viii. Venetiis, 1499. Fol.
Galeni Pergamensis de Temperamentis, et de Inaequali Intemperie,
libri ttes, T. Linacro . . . interprete. [Venet. 1498.] Per
Joannem Siberch, apud prseclaram Cantabrigiam, 1521. 4to.
[The first book printed in England in which Greek type was intro-
duced.]
Galeni Pergameni de Pulsuum Usu. T. Linacro . . . interprete.
Londini in ajdibus Pynsonianis [1522]. 4to.
Galeni Pergameni de Naturalibus Facultatibus, libri tires. T. Linacro
. . . interprete (De Decretoriis Diebus). In ^dibus R. Pyn-
soni, Londini. 1523. 4to.
Galeni Pergameni de Symptomatum DiCferentiis, liber unus. Ejusdem
de Symptomatum Causis libri tres. T. Linacro . , . inter-
prete. Londini in Eedibus Pynsonianis. 1524. 4to.
T. Linacri . . . de Emendata Structura Latini Sermonis libri sex .
Apud R. Pynsonum, Londini, 1524, 4to — Lutetise, 1532, 1543,
1550, &c.— Lipsise, 1545, 8vo— Col. Agrip,, 1555. Recognitus et
emendatus Joachim Camerario. Lipsise, 1591. 8vo.
The Rudiments of Grammar. In aedibus Pynsonianis. 1524, 410.
Turned into Latin by George Buchanan. Lutetise, 1533, 1539,
1541. IS43. 1547, 'SSo- 8vo and 4to.
Linacri progymnasmata Graramatices vulgaria. [A. Latin-English
Grammar.] J. Rastell; London [1525]. 4to.
Galen de Methodo Medendi. Lutetise, 1525.
Life of Linacre. By J. Noble Johnson, M.D., edited by R. Graves.
2 vols. 1835. 8vo.
WILLIAM GROCYN.
The only printed writing of Grocyn's, except a Latin epigram of
four lines which has been ascribed to him, was a letter to Aldus
V 2
324 English Writers,
Manutius. Aldus inserted it after his own Preface to Linacre's
"Sphere of Proclus." " I have thought it well," he said, "to
subjoin a certain learned and elegant letter which William Grocyn,
a man of exceeding skill and universal learning, even in Greek, not
to say Latin, has sent me."
The four lines of epigram, which Grocyn was supposed to have written
in his youth, were quoted by Bale, " De Scriptoribus Britannise,"
Centuria IX., num. 5, and re-quoted in Fuller's " Worthies " under
the head "Bristol," Thomas Fuller joining to it a translation of
his own :
" Me nive candenti petiit mea Julia: rebar
Igne carere nivem, nix tamen ignis erat.
Sola potes nostras extingaere, Julia, flammas,
Non nive, non glacie, sed potes igne pari."
" A snowball white at me did Julia throw.
Who would suppose it ? Fire was in that snow.
Julia alone can quench my hot desire,
But not with snow or ice, but equal fire."
Fuller added a marginal note to the Latin lines : " These verses are
printed among Petronius his fragments, being a Farrago of many
verses later than that ancient author."
John Bale ascribed to Grocyn six other pieces of writing left in MS. :
"Tractatus contra hostiolum Jo. Wiclevi " ("Non est videre
majorem abominationem ") ; " Grammaticam quandam "; " Notu-
las in Terentium " ; " Vulgaria puerorum " ; " Isagogicum quod-
dam ; " " Epistolse ad Erasmum et alios."
Linacre's Catalogue of Books belonging to William Grocyn in 1520, to-
gether with his Accounts as Executor, followed by a Memoir
of William Grocyn [by Montagu Burrows, M.A., Chichele Pro-
fessor of Modern History in the University of Oxford] is in Part V.
of the Second Series of " Collectanea," printed for the Oxford
Historical Society. Clarendon Press, 1890.
JOHN COLET.
Oratio habita a D. Joanne Colet Decano Sancti Pauli ad Clerum in
Conuocatione Anno M.D.xj. Richard Pynson. Two editions in
1511 — one 4to, one 8vo.
The Sermon of Doctor Colete made to the Conuocation at Paule's.
Thomas Berthelet excud. No date ; 22 leaves l6mo.
Bibliography. 325
Rudimenta Grammatices in usura Sc'.nlze ab ipso institutEe. 1510.
4to.
Rudimenta Grammatices et Docendi Methodus, non tarn Sciiolse Gyp-
suichianse per reverendissimum Dominum Thomam Cardinalam
Ebor. feliciter institutze quam omnibus aliis totius Angliae scholis
prescripta. [Contains, after Cardinal Wolsey's Preface and Do-
cendi Methodus, the " Introduccyon of the partes of spekyng for
chyldren and yonge begynners in to Latyn speche," written by
Colet for use in St. Paul's School, preceded by his rules of admis-
sion, precepts, prayers, &c., and followed by William Lilly's Latin
Syntax.] Excussum per me Pelrum Treveris [London]. Black-
letter, 32 leaves, 4to.
The Seven Petycyon's of the P'rn-'r, by John Colet, Dean of Poules.
London, 1533. [Added afterwards to the Almanacs.]
A ryght fruitful Monicion concernynge the Order of a good Christen
Mannes Lyfe. Imprinted at London, in Flete strete. John
Byddell other wyse called Salysbury at the sign of our lady of pyte
nexte Flete brydge, the yere of our lorde MDxxxiiii, the xxvii day
ofMarche. 8vo [1563, 1577, 1641].
Coleti Gram, una cum quibusdam G. Lilii Grammatices Rudimentis.
Lond. In Eedibus W. de Worde. 1534. 8vo.
Joannis Coleti, Opus de Sacramentis Ecclesise. Edited by J. H.
Lupton, M.A., Sur-Master of St. Paul's School apd late Fellow of
St. John's College, Cambridge [Latin Text only]. London, 1867.
8vo.
Joannes Coletus super Opera Dionysii. Two Treatises on the Hierarchies
of Dionysius, by John Colet, D.D. , formerly Dean of St. Paul's,
Now first published with a Translation, Introduction, and Notes,
by J. H., Lupton, M.A., Sur-Master of St. Paul's School, and
late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. London, 1869. 8vo.
[These are the Treatises "De Cselesti Hierarchia" and " De
Ecclesiastica Hierarchia,'' of both of which the MS. is in the
Library of St. Paul's School, copied in a fair hand, together with
a third treatise, " De Sacramentis Ecclesise." The original MS.
of the treatise on the Celestial Hierarchy is in the Cambridge Uni-
versity Library, Gg. iv. 26, with the Treatises by Colet. ]
Joannis Coleti Enarratio in Epistolam S. Pauli ad Romanes : An Ex-
position of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, delivered as Lectures
in the University of Oxford about the year 1497. Now first
published from the MS. in the Cambridge University Library,
Gg. iv. 26, with a Translation by J. H. Lupton, M.A. London,
1873. 8vo.
326 English Writers.
Joannis Cokti Enarratio in Primam Epistolam S. Pauli ad Corin-
thios : An Exposition of St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corin-
•thians, by John Colet, now first published from the Cambridge
MS., Gg. iv. 26, with a Translation by J. H. Lupton. London,
1874. 8vo.
Joannis Coleti Opuscula qusedam Theologica : Letters to Radulphus
on the Mosaic Account of the Creation, with other Treatises by
J. Colet, namely (i) an unfinished exposition of St. Paul's Epistle
to the Romans, taken, with the Letters to Radulphus, from Arch-
bishop Parker's MS., ccclv., in Corpus Christi College Library ;
(2) Christ's Mystical' Body of the Church, from Cambridge Univ.
Lib. MS., Gg. iv. 26; and (3) Commentary on L Peter, from
Gale's MS., O. 4.44, in Trin. Coll., Cam., all edited with Transla-
tions by J. H. Lupton. London, 1876. 8vo.
The Lives of Jehan Vitrier, Warden of the Franciscan Convent of St.
Omer, and John Colet, from the Letter of firasmus to Justus
Jonas of Wittenberg (1520), translated, with Notes and Appen-
dices, by J. H. Lupton. London, 1883. Post 8vo..
The Life of Dean Colet, by the Rev. Samuel Knight, D.D. Oxford,
1724. New Edition, 1823.
The Oxford Reformers of 1498, being a History of the Fellow Work
of John Colet, Erasmus, and Thomas More. London, 1867 ;
second edition, revised and enlarged, 1869 ; third edition, 1887.
A Life of John Colet, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's, and Founder of St.
Paul's School. With an Appendix of some of his English Writings
by J. H. Lupton, M.A., Sur-Master of St. Paul's School, and
formerly Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. London, 1887.
THOMAS MORE.
The Workes ot Sir Thomas More, Knyght, sometyme Lorde Chancel-
lour of England, wrytten by him in the English Tonge. London.
At the Costes and Charges of lohn Cawood, lohn Waly, and
Richard Tottell. 1557.
[A folio of 1,458 pages, not counting title, dedication to Queen
Mary by William Rastell, the editor, and sundry unpaged leaves,
among which were eight containing a few poems in English written
by More in his youth. One of them, " A Merry Jest how a Ser-
geant would learn to play a Fryar," had been printed separately,
without date, by Julyan Notary. A spendthrift, to avoid arrest,
has taken refuge in a friend's house. A sergeant obtains admis-
sion as a friar, but when he attempts arrest there is a general
Bibliography. 327
pommelling, and the sergeant is thrown out of doors. Others
were : Verses on the Hanging of a Painted Cloth in his Father's
house, nine pageants, with verses to each ; Lamentation on the
Death of Elizabeth, wife of King Henry VII., an. 1503 ; Verses
on the Book of Fortune ; Lewys the Lost Lover ; Davy the
Dicer.]
Omnia Latina Opera, quorum aliqua nunc primum in lucem pro-
deunt. Basil, 1563, 8vo ; Lovanii, isSSi folio- [Omits the
"Utopia."]
The Lyfe of Johan Picus, Erie of Myrandula, with dyvers Epystles and
other Workes of the sayd Picus. London, by W. de Worde, ijio.
4to. Inserted in the collection of More's English Works, IS57'
Libellus vere aureus nee minus salutaris quam festinus de optimo
reip. statu deque nova insula Utopia. Lovanii, 1516, 4to ; Lutetiae,
1517, i2mo. [Lupset's edition, printed by Gilles de Gourmont.]
Basel, 1517-18 [with More's own revision, and addition of letters of
Erasmus to Froben and of Bud^ to Lupset, printed by Froben, who
added the Epigrams of More and Erasmus]. Viennse Fannonise,
1519, 4to ; Lutetiae, 1519 ; Basel, 1520 ; Lovanii, 1548.
A fruteful and pleasaunt worke of the best state of a publyque
weale, and of the newe yle called Utopia, written in Latine by
Syr Thomas More, Knyght, and translated into Englyshe by Raphe
Robynson, Citizein and Goldsmythe of London, at the procure-
ment and earnest Request of George Tadlowe, Citezein and Haber-
dassher of the same Citie. Imprinted at London by Abraham
Vele, dwelling in Pauls churcheyarde, at the sygne of the Lambe.
Anno 1551. i2mo [first edition of the first translation into Eng-
lish]. Second edition newlie perused and corrected, London,
Vele, !$$(>• Third edition, IS97) sm. 4to. Fourth edition, 1624,
printed by Bernard Alsop and dedicated to Cresacre More. Fifth
edition, 1639. Sixth edition, with copious notes and a biographi-
cal and literary Introduction by the Rev. T. F. Dibdin, D.D.,
two vols., 1808, small 8vo. — Seventh edition, by Prof. Edward
Arber, 1869, in his series of "English Reprints." "Sir Thomas
More, Utopia. Originally printed in Latin, 1516. Translated into
English by Ralph Robinson, sometime Fellow of Corpus Christi
College, Oxford." His Second and Revised Edition, 1556: pre-
ceded by the Title and Epistle of his First Edition, 1551. — Eighth
edition, in the Pitt Press Series, Cambridge: More's Utopia.
The English Translation thereof made by Raphe Robynson (some-
time Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford). Printed from the
second edition, 1556. To which is prefixed the Life of Sir
328 English Writers.
Thomas More, written by his son-in-law William Roper, reprinted
from Hearne's edition, 17 16. Edited, with Introduction, Notes,
Glossary, and Index of Names, by J. Rawson Lumby, D.D.,
Fellow of St. Catherine's College, Norrisian Professor of
Divinity.
Utopia. Translated into English by Dr. Gilbert Burnet, afterwards
• Bishop of Salisbury. London, 1684, 8vo ; 1685, 8vo; Dublin,
1737, i2mo; Glasgow, 1743, sm. 8vo ; Oxford, 1751, l2mo; Glas-
gow, 1762, i2mo ; London, 1808. In " Ideal Commonwealths,"
Morley's Universal Library, 1885.
Another translation by Arthur Cayley was published in Memoirs of
Sir Thomas More, with a new translation of his Utopia ; also his
History of King Richard III., and his Latin Poems. London,
1808. 2 vols., 4to.
Utopia : a Philosophical Romance. To which is added the " New
Atlantis " by Lord Bacon, with a Preliminary Discourse, and Notes
by J. A. St. John. London, 1838 ; second edition (Bohn),
1846.
Progymnasmata Tho. Mori et Gul. Lilii Sodalium. Basel, 1518. 4to.
Epigrammata. Thomse Mori ad emendatum Exemplar ipsius Autoris
excusa. Basel, 1520, 4to. London, 1638. 32mo.
Thomas Mori Epistola ad Germanum Brixium : qui quum Morus in
Libellum ejus, quo contumeliosis Mendaciis incesserat Angliam.
Lond. in .lEdibus Pynsonis. 1520, 410. This reply to Germain
de Brie's retort on ridicule cast upon him in some of Mere's Epi-
grams was called in by the advice of Erasmus. Only a few copies
— seven, it is said — became current.
More's fragment of the History of Richard III., in Latin and English,
is supposed to have been written about 1 5 14. He speaks in it of
Thomas Lord Howard as "afterwards Earl of Surrey." He was
so created on the ist of February, 1514. It was first published in
English in 1543, by Richard Grafton, as part of a prose continuation
of Harding's Chronicle. Grafton then inserted it in Hall's
Chronicle in 1548, and in his own Chronicle in 1569, acknowledging
the source in side references, bijt meddling with the text, which was
first given accurately in the edition of More's English works pub-
lished by William Rastell in 1557. The first publication of the
Latin version was at Louvain in 1566.
The Historic of the pittiful Life and unfortunate Death of King Edward
V. and the Duke of York, his Brother ; with the Troublesome and
Tyrannical Government of the Usurpation of Richard III. and his
miserable end. Edited by W. Sheares. London, 1641. i8mo.
Bibliography. 329
The History of Richard III. Edited by S. W. Singer, Esq. Chis-
wick, 1821.
"Memorare Novissima," begun in 1522. Left unfinished and not
printed until its insertion in the 1557 edition of More's English
works. This was to have been an English treatise on Ecclesiasticus
vii. 20 — " In all thy works remember thy last end." The novissima,
the last things, More understood to be Death, Judgment, Heaven,
and Hell. More designed a treatise on each, but only wrote a part
of that on Death.
The Supplycacyon of Soulys made against the Supplycacyon ot
Beggars. London. W. Rastell [n.d., 1529 ?], fol. Reprinted in
1530 with the next piece :
A Dyaloge of Syr Thomas More, Knyghte ; wherein be treatyd divers
Matters, as of the Veneration and Worshyp of Ymagys and
Relyques, prayyng to Sayntys, and goyng on Pylgrymage, wyth
many othere thyngys touchynge the pestylent Sect of Luther and
Tyndale, by the tone bygone in Saxony, and by the tother laboryd
to be brought into England. London, by John Rastell. 1529,
fol. 1530, fol. (W. Rastell). 1531, fol.
The Confutacyon of Tyndales Answere. London, by William Rastell.
1532, fol.
The second Parte of the Confutacion of Tyndals Answere, in which is
also confuted the Chyrche that Tyndale deuiseth, and the Chyrche
also that Frere Barns deuiseth, made by Syr Thomas More,
Knyght. Lond., by Wyllyam Rastel. 1533, fol.
The Apologye of Syr Thomas More, Knyght, made by him anno 1533,
after he had geven ouer Thoffice of Lord Chancellour of England e.
Prynted by W. Rastell, [spring of] 1533. i6mo. Of the fifty
chapters in this book, ten deal with More's writings against Tyndal
and others, the rest are against a treatise called "The Pacifier of
the Division between the Spirituality and the Temporality." The
author of "The Pacifier," whom More had styled Sir John Somesay,
replied to More with a Dialogue called "Salem and Bizance."
More answered at once with
The Debellacyon of Salem and Bizance. Printed by W. Rastell, 1533.
8vo. It deals with questions concerning ancient laws of Church
and State concerning heresy.
A Letter impugnynge the erronyouse writyng of John Fryth against
the blessed Sacrament of the Aultare. London. W. Rastell.
1533-
The Answer to the first Part of the poysoned Booke whyche a nameless
Heretike hath named " The Supper of the Lord." By Sir Thomas
33° English Writers.
More, Knight. Anno 1533, after he had giuen ouer the Offyce of
Lorde Chancellour of Englande. By W. Rastell. 1534. 8vo.
A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, made by a Hungarian in
Latin, and translated out of Latin into French, and out of French
into English ; now newly set forth, with many places restored and
corrected by conference of sundry copies. Written in the Tower,
and first printed in the 1557 edition of the English Works.
[It imagines that when the Hungarians expected to be overwhelmed
by the Turks a Hungarian noble named Vincent visited a wise
uncle who was near his death. Under this parable, with the
fiction of translation and collation, More shadows his own position,
speaks like himself, and maintains his cheerfulness of temper with
his trust in God.]
The letters of Erasmus abound in contemporary details and illusfra-
tions of the life and character of Thomas More.
William Roper, from his own recollections and those of his wife,
More's daughter Margaret, wrote in the reign of Mary recol-
lections meant as notes to be used by Dr. Nicholas Harpsfield,
Archdeacon of Canterbury. Dr. Harpsfield' s Life, dedicated to
William Roper, has not been printed. There are several MSS.
of it. Two are in the Lambeth Library ; one is at Emmanuel
College, Cambridge ; one in the British Museum, Harleian, 6,253.
Roper's notes were used by others before they were first printed
at Paris in 1626. Then they were edited by Thomas Hearne as
Gulielmi Roperi Vita D. Thomse Mori Equitis Aurati, Lingua
Anglicana contexta. Accedunt, Mori Epistola de Scholasticis
quibusdam Trojanos sese appellantibus ; Academiae Oxoniensis
Epistolse et Orationes, aliaque multa. Anonymi Chronicon
Godstovianum ; et Fenestrarum depictarum Ecclesise Parochialis
de Farrford in Agro Glocestriensi Explicatio. Veneunt apud
Editorem. 1716. 8vo.
Roper's Life of Sir Thomas More was edited also by the Rev. John
Lewis in 1729, with added documents. Later editions, 1731, 1765.
Life of Sir Thomas More by William Roper, edited by S. W. Singer.
Chiswick, 18 1 7 [only 125 copies printed].
William E.astell, More's nephew and editor of his English works, is said
to have written his Life. The work is lost. " Notes from
Rastell's Life of More " are in Vol. 152 of the Arundel MSS. in
the British Museum.
Thomas Stapleton, D.D., wrote a Life of More as the third of his Tres
Thomte : sen, de S. Thorns Apostoli Rebus Gestis : de S. Thoma
Archiepiscopo Cantuariensi et Martyre : D. Thomse Mori Anglije
BlBLIOGR APHY. 3 3 1
quondam Cancellarii Vita : his adjecta est Oratio funebris
in Laudem' R. P. Arnoldi de Ganthois Abbatis Marchennensis.
Douay, 1588. 8vo [with a portrait of Sir Thomas More].
Col. Agrip., 1599, 1612. Lutetiae, 1617, 1620. [Stapleton was
helped with information from his old friends John Clements and
his wife nee Margaret Gigs, and from More's secretary, John Harris,
and Harris's wife, who had been servant to Margaret Roper.]
The Life and Death of Sir Thomas More, Lord High Chancellor of
England, written by M. T. M., and dedicated to the Queen's
most gracious Majestic. Paris, 1626. London, 1726.
[The editor, M.C.M.E., of the Paris edition of 1626 attributes this
life to Thomas More, priest and great grandson of More. In the
edition of 1726 he is called Thomas More, Esquire. It is the Life
by Cresacre More, ascribed to its right author in the volume that
next follows.]
The Life of Sir Thomas More, by his great grandson Cresacre More,
with a biographical Preface, Notes, and other Illustrations, by the
Rev. Joseph Hunter, F.S.A. London, 1828. 8vo.
The Life of Sir Thomas More, by the Right Hon. Sir James Mackin-
. tosh. London, 1844. i2mo.
Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England
and Martyr under Henry VIII. By the Rev. T. E. Bridgett, of
the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, London, 1891.
Post 8vo.
[An accurate and able study of More from the point of view of the
Roman Church, which on the 9th of December, 1886, confirmed
More in a place among its saints and martyrs.]
Philomorus : a brief Examination of the Latin Poems of Sir Thomas
More. London, 1842. Post 8vo. Second edition, 1878.
JOHN FISHER.
This Sermon folowynge wascoropyledand sayd in the Cathedrall chyrcbe
of Saynt Poule within ye cyte of London by the ryght reverende
fader in god, John bysshop of Rochester, the body beynge
present of the moost famouse prynce Kynge Henry the vii., &c.
Wynkyn de Worde. 1 509. 8vo.
Treatyse concernynge the fruytfuU Sayings of Dauyd the Kynge and
Prophete in the seven penytencyall Psalmes, deuyded in seven
setmones. Emprynted at London, in Flete Strete, at the sygne
of the Sonne, by Wynkyn de Worde, prynter unto the moost
excellent Pryncesse my Lady, the Kynge's grandaume, in the
332 English Writers
yere of our Lorde God MCCCCC. and ix., the xii. daye of the
moneth of Juyn." 4to. Pynson, 1510; W. de Worde, 1525,
1529; Thomas Marshe, 1555.
A Mornynge Remembrance had at the Moneth Minde of the noble
Prynces Margarete, Countesse of Richnionde and Darbye, Moder
unto Kynge Henry the Seventh, and Grandame to our soveraign
Lorde that now is. Upon whose soul Almightye God have
mercy. Compyled by the Reverent Fader in God, Jdhan Fisher,
Byshop of Rochester. Emprynted at London, in Flete Street,
at the sygne of the Sonne, by Wynkyn de Worde. No date.
4to.
Joanni Fischeri (Ep. Roffensis) de Unica Magdalena libri duo (contra
Judochum Clichtoveum Neoportuensem et Jacobum Fabrum
Stapulensem). In Eedibus Jodoci Badii Ascensii. Ad octavam
calendas Martias. 15 19- Cum privilegio in biennium.
[This replied to the argument of a dissertation published at Paris by
Jacques le Fevre d'EtapIes, arguing that there were three different
women who went by the name of Mary Magdalene — the one
who had been a sinner, another who was the sister of Martha, and
another out of whom the Lord cast seven devils. Fisher
replied in the same piece to another writer, who had held a
like opinion.]
The sermon made against y« pernicious Doctryn of Martin Luther.
Imprynted by W. de Worde [1521]. 4to.
[This was Fisher's sermon at St. Paul's on the occasion of the public
burning of Luther's books. The text was John xv. 26 — " When
the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the
Father, even the Spirit of Truth, who proceedefh from the Father,
he shall testify of me." The sermon was published also translated
by Dr. Pace into Latin, as — ]
Concio in Joh. xv. 26, habita Londini eo die quo Lutheri scripta Flam-
mis commissa sunt ; Latine versa per Ric. Pacseum. Cantab, per
J. Siberch. 1521. 4to.
Assertionis Lutherana; Confutatio. Basel, 1523, fol. ; Antwerp, 1523,
fol. [Two editions in 1525, enlarged with marginal notes and cita-
tion of the assertions answered.]
J. Fisheri Defensio Assertionis Hen. VIIL Regis Anglise de vii. Sacra-
mentis contra Captivitatem Babylonicam Lutheri.
Sacri Sacerdbtii Defensio contra Lutherum. Colonise, 1525. 4to.
De Veritate Corporis et Sanguinis Christi in Eucharistia per reverendum
in Christo patrem ac Dominum D. Johannem Roffensem Episco-
pum adversus lohannem Oecolampadium. Colonise A. D. md.xxvii.
Bibliography. 333
Fisher wrote, when a prisoner in the Tower, a small tract for the use of
his sister Elizabeth, who was a professed nun of the Order of the
Augustin Eremites at Dartford, in Kent. He called it "A
Method of Attaining to the Highest Perfection in Religion." He
had sent to the same sister a sermon of his on Our Lord's
Passion, with a letter prefixed, which was published in 1535 as
" A spiritual! consolation written by J. F. . . . to his sister
Elizabeth, at suche tyme as he was prisoner in the Tower of
London (A sermon . . . upon thys sentence of the Prophet
Ezechiell, Lamentationes, carmen, et vae, very aptely applyed
unto the Passion of Christ, etc.)." He wrote also, while prisoner,
a treatise on the Necessity of Prayer. These pieces and his own
Prayers in Latin, as the Psalms or Prayers of John, Lord Bishop of
Rochester, were collected after Fisher's death by a, bookseller
named Francis Birckmann, who caused them to be printed, and
they were included in the collection of his works.
E. D. D. Joannis Fischeri Roffensis .in Anglia Episcopi Opera, cum
Indice Rerum et Verborum. Wirceburgi apud Geo. Fleischman-
num. Anno 1597; folio.
In the British Museum the Arundel MS. 152 contains, together with an
independent Latin Life, an English Life of Fisher, probably in the
author's handwriting, together with some of the materials used by
him in answers to questions, and other notes from correspondents
and extracts from MSS., including, extracts from a complete
account by an eye-witness of Fisher's execution. One or two
references in this Life show that it was finished in the reign of
Mary. This MS. has been much burnt, but it was partly copied
into Harleian 7047 (a volume of Baker's Collections). There is
also an early copy in MS., Harl. 6896. Other copies are in
Harleian 6382, 250 (imperfect), 7049; Lansdowne, 423; addi-
tional MSS. 1705, 1898. Pits says that he made, at Douay, the
acquaintance of Richard Hall, and saw at the Anglo-Benedictine
Monastery at Dieulward, in Flanders, a Life of Fisher, written by
Richard Hall, in English. A book by J. C. (Joseph Creswell ?),
published in 1620, called " The Theatre of the Catholic and the
Protestant Religions," also attributes to Richard Hall the English
Life of Fisher. Richard Hall was educated at Christ's College,
Cambridge, where Fisher was honoured as a founder, and in 1579
he published in Latin Fisher's Treatise on Prayer. Richard
Hall, early in Elizabeth's reign, went to Flanders and to Rome,
where he graduated as Doctor in Theology. He was always a
334 English Writers.
supporter of the Pope's authority. He taught theology at Douay,
- and died at St. Omer in 1604.
Life and Death of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. By Thomas
Bayly, D.D. London, 1655. i2mo. Later editions In 1739,
1740, 1835. This was made out of the English Life by Dr.
Richard Hall, but introduced errors. The author, son of a
Protestant Bishop, was Sub-Dean of Wells. He published, in 1649,
a book on the Divine Right of Kings and Bishops, for which he
was committed to Newgate. Under the Commonwealth he joined
the Church of Rome.
The Life of Dr. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester in the Reign of
Henry VHI., with an Appendix of Illustrative Documents and
Papers. By the Rev. John Lewis, A.M., Author of the Life of
John Wickliffe, D.D., Bishop Pecocke, etc. Now First Printed
from the Original Manuscript prepared by the Author for the Press.
With an Introduction by T. Hudson Turner. 2 vols. 1885. 8vo.
[This Life, for which use was made of Dr. Hall's work in the Arundel
MS. 152, includes much useful illustrative matter. Besides the
Appendix of Documents, the text contains a full analysis of Luther's
Babylonian Captivity, and of Henry VIII.'s answer to it, with
other such details, faithfully given, and commented on from the
Protestant point of view.]
Life of the Blessed John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Cardinal of
the Holy Roman Church, and Martyr under Henry VIII. By
the Rev. T. E. Bridgett, of the Congregation of the Most Holy
Redeemer. London. Second edition, 1890. Post 8vo.
[Father Bridgett, from the Roman point of view, has written
the last word on Fisher with the same scholarly attention to
detail that is in his companion Life of More. Father Bridgett
places Fisher's birth-date nine or ten years later than Hall
placed it, making him so many years younger at the time of
his execution. The change is made for two reasons. In an
academical address to Henry VII., delivered in 1506, Fisher
says that, he was young when made a bishop — quipaucos annos
habuerim. According to the date received from Hall, he would
have been made bishop at the age of forty-five ; the suggested
correction of the birth-date would make him bishop at
thirty-five. He took his Bachelor's degree in 1487. If born in
1459, his age then would have been twenty-eight ; it is more
likely that he graduated at eighteen. The- Bishop of Faenza,
Papal Nuncio ~in Paris, who had known Fisher in England,
writing upon the day of Fisher's death, said of him : " The
Bibliography, 335
English call him a valetudinarian of ninety, reckoning him
twenty-five years older than he is." This gives the corrected
age of sixty-five. But Hall's statement was founded on deliberate
inquiry among Fisher's friends, and is not without some corrobora-
tive evidence.]
Fisher is said by Dr. Hall to have written a large volume contain-
ing the whole history and matter of the King's Divorce. He
is said to have entrusted it to Walter Boxley, Prior of the
church of Rochester, who burnt it in Edward VI.'s reign when he
heard that some Commissioners were coming to search his house for
books and papers.
WILLIAM TVNDAL.
The Obedyence of a Christen Man, and how Christen rulers ought to
governe. Marlborowe, by Hans Luft, 1528. Small 4to, 1535,
1537. London, 1548, 1549, 1561.
The Parable of the Wicked Mammon. Marlborowe, by Hans Luft,
1528; l6mo, 1529. Southwark, for J. Nycholson, 1536, as "A
Treatise of Justyfycacyon by Faith only." London, by W. Cop-
lande, n.d. London, by Jhon Daye, 1547 ; by W. Coplande,
iS49-
Exposition on I Cor. vii. ; with d. Prologue, wherein all Christians
are exhorted to read the Scriptures. Marlborow, 1529. 8vo.
The Practyse of Prelates, whether the Kynges Grace may be seperated
from his Quene, because she was hys Brothers Wyfe. Marborch,
in the Yere of oure Lorde 1530. i6mo.
A compendious Introduccion, Prolpge, or Preface vnto the Pistle oft
Paul to the Romayns. Marlborowe, by Hans Luft, 1530. i6mo.
The fyrst boke of Moses called Genesis. Marlborow, by Hans Luft,
1530. Small 8vo.
The Exposition of the fyrste Epistle of Seynt Jhon, with a Prologge
before it by W. T. 1531. i6mo.
The Supper of the Lorde after the true Meenyng of the sixte of John
and the xi of the fyrst Epistle to the Corinthians, wheirevnto is
added an Epistle to the Reader, and incidently in the Exposition
of the Supper is confuted the Letter of Master More against John
Fryth. Anno 1533, v daye of Apryll. l6mo.
A briefe Declaration of the Sacraments expressing the fyrst Originall,
how they come up and were institute, &c., by Wyllyam Tyndall.
London, by Robert StoUghton, n.d. i6mo.
336 English Writers.
An Answere vnto Sir Thomas More's Dialogue, made by Wyllyam
Tyndale. i6mo.
The whole Workes of W. Tyndall, John Frith, and Doct. Barnes, three
worthy Martyrs, and principall Teachers of the Churche of Eng-
land. London, by John Daye, 1573. Folio.
The Works of the English Reformers : William Tyndale and John
Frith. Edited by Thomas Russell, A.M. London, 1831. 3 vols.,
8vo.
The Works o( William Tyndale ; Doctrinal Treatises and Expositions.
Edited ! y the Rev. Henry Walter, B.D., F.R.S. 3 vols., Cam-
bridge. Parker Society, 1848-50. 8vo.
The First P.lnted English New Testament. Translated by William
Tyndab. Photo-lithographed from the Unique Fragment now in
the Grenville Collection, British Museum. Edited by Edward
Arber. Small 4to, 1871.
[This facsimile has a very full and valuable introduction by Pro-
fessor Arber on the history of Tyndal's work as a translator of the
New Testament and Pentateuch.]
WILLIAM DUNBAR.
The Thrissil and the Rois, preserved only in the Bannatyne MS.
("E. W." vi., 257» vii. 127), was first printed by Allan Ramsay
in the " Evergreen " in 1724 (" E. W." vii., I27«).
Here begynnys ana litil tretie intitulit the goldyn targe compilit be
Maister Wilyam dunbar. Printed by Chepman and Myllar, 1508,
in six leaves 4to.
[Chepman and Myllar printed also, in 1508, Dunbar's Ballad of
Lord Barnard Stewart (not in any of the MS. collections ) ;
his Lament for the Makars ; the Flyting-of Dunbar and Kennedy
(from line 316 to end, earlier part lost) ; The Twa Marryit
Wemen and the Wedo (imperfect at the beginning) ; the Ballad
of Kind Kittock (without Dunbar's name, and his authorship is
doubtful) ; and the Testament of Mr. Andro Kennedy.]
John Asloan's MS. contains these poems by Dunbar —
The Freir of Tungland (imperfect). Jousts between the Tailor
and the Sowter. Ane Ballat of Our Lady. The Passion of
Christ.
Bannatyne's MS. contains —
The Golden Terge. The Visitation of St. Francis. The Birth of
Antichrist. The Freir of Tungland. The Devil's Inquest.
The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins. Jousts between the
Bibliography. 337
Tailor and the Sowter. Amends to the Tailors and Sowters.
■ The Twa Curamaris. The Tod and the Lamb. Dirige to the
King at Stirling. Of Ladyis Solistaris at Court. In Praise
of Women. Tidengs fra the Session. Ane his awin Enemy.
Aganis Treason. Testament of Andrew Kennedy. To the
King (two poems, one of them not in other MSS.). Of Dis-
cretion in Asking. Of Discretion in Giving. Of Discretion
in Taking. Inconstancy of Love. Of Men Evill to Pleis
(wants last stanza, and has no author's name). Of Covetyce.
Gude Counsale. Rewl of Anis Self. Of Deming. How shall I
govern me ? Best to be biyth. To spend his awin Good. No
Treason avails, &c. None may assure, &c. Erdly Joy, &c.
Lament for the Makars. The Merle and the Nychtingaill. Of
Luve Erdly and Divine. The Table of Confession. Of Lyfe
(has no author's name). The Nativitie of Christ. On the
Resurrection of Christ. Of Man's Mortality. The Freiris of
Berwick (has no author's name) . A General Satire (ascribed
to Dunbar ; in Maitland MS. ascribed to Sir James Inglis).
Ane Brash of Wowing (ascribed in a later hand to Clerk).
Ballad of Kind Kittock (anonymous, Dunbar's authorship
very doubtful). The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy.
Sir Richard Maitland's MS. contains —
The Golden Terge. To a Ladye. The Visitation of St. Francis.
The Birth of Antichrist. The Devil's Inquest. The Dance
of the Seven Deadly Sins. Jousts between the Tailor and the
Sowter. Amends to the Tailors and Sowters. The Twa
Maryit Wemen and the Wedo. The Twa Cummeris. The
Tod and the Lamb. Dirige to the King at Stirling. Of
Ladyis Solistaris at Court. In Praise pf Women. Of Solis-
taris at Court. Tidings fra the Session. Ane his awin
Enemy. Of James Doig. That the King was Johne Thom-
soiine's Man. To the Queen. Complaint against Mure.
Dance in the Queen's Chamber. To a Lady. Of a Blacka-
moor. Of Sir Thomas Norray. Aganis Treason. Testa-
ment of Andrew Kennedy. Complaint to the King. Remon-
strance to the King. Fragments of Petition to the King. To
the King (three poems). Of Discretion in Asking. Of Dis-
cretion in Giving. Of Discretion in Taking. Of Covetyce.
Of Deming. How shall I govern me ? Best to be blyth. Of
Content. To spend his awin good. No Treasure avails, &c.
None may assure, &c. Learning vain, &C. Of the Warldis
Vanity. Of the Changes of Life. Of the Warldis Instability.
W — VOL. VII.
338 English Writers.
Erdly Joy, &c. Lament for the Makars. The Merle and the
Nychtingaill. The Table of Confession. Ane Orisoun. Of
Lyfe. The Passion of Christ. Of Man's Mortality. Quhen
the Governour past into France. Meditatioun in Wynter.
The Freiris of Berwik (has no author's name). A general
Satire (ascribed to Sir James Inglis; in Bannatyne MS.
asgribed to Dunbar). Ane Brash of Wowing. The Flyting
of Dunbar and Kennedy.
John Reidpeth's MS. contains —
Beauty and the Prisoner (only the first two stanzas, adding " et
quEe sequitur Quod Dunbar"). Dunbar's Dream. The
Birth of Antichrist. The'Devil's Inquest. The Dance of the
Seven Deadly Sins. The Twa Cummeris. The Tod and the
Lamb (two stanzas only). Dirige to the King at Stirling.
New Year's Gift to the King. Of Ladyis Solistaris at Court.
To the Merchants of Edinburgh. Of Solistaris at Court.
Tidings for the Session. To the Lord Treasurer. To the
Lordis of the Kingls Checker. Of James Doig. To the
Queen. Complaint against Mure. Dance in the Queen's
Chamber. Of a Blackamoor. Of Sir Thomas Norrey. On
his Heid-ake. Elegy on Bernard Stewart. Aganis Treason.
Testament of Andrew Kennedy. Complaint to the King.
Other Fragments of Petition to the King. The Queen's Re-
ception at Aberdeen. To the King (two poems). Of Discre-
tion in Asking. Of Discretion in Giving. Of Discretion in
Taking. Of Men evill to Pleis. Of Covetyce. How shall I
govern me ? Best to be blyth. Of Content. None may
assure, &c. Learning vain, &c. Of the Changes of Life. Of
the Warldis Instability. Ane Orisoun. Quhen the Governour
past into^France. Ane Brash of Wowing. The Flyting of
Dunbar and Kennedy.
The Howard MS., written about a.d. 1500, is now among the
Arundel MSS. in the British Museum. It has the autograph
of William Howard. In this MS. are Walter Kennedy's
Passion of Christ, and Dunbar's Manner of Passing to Confes-
sion and Table of Confession ; also Dunbar's Passion of
Christ.
The Poems of William Dunbar, now first collected, with Notes, and a
Memoir of his Life. By David Laing. Two volumes, Edinburgh,
1834. Post 8vo. Supplement, Edinburgh, 1865.
The Poems of William Dunbar, edited by John Small, M.A., F.S.A.
Scottish Text Society, two parts (2 and 4 of the Series), 1884. 8vo.
Bibliography. 339
[Mr. Small's knowledge of Scottish poetry would have made the
results of his special study of Dunbar very valuable, but his death
deprived us of them. He had incidentally expressed his belief
that Dunbar died about 1513, which is the year of Flodden.]
GAVIN DOUGLAS.
The Palis of Honoure, compyled by Gawyne dowglas Bysshope of
Dunkyll. Imprinted at London in flet street, at the sygne of the
Rose garland, by wyllyam Copland. God save Quene Marye
[1563?].
Heir beginnis ane treatise callit the Palice of Honovr compylit be M.
Gawine Dowglas Bischop of Dunkeld. Imprentit at Edinburgh be
Johne Ros for Henrie Charteris. Anno 1579-
[Reprinted by John Pinkerton in 1792 in Vol. I. of his " Scotish
Poems, reprinted from scarce editions."]
The Palice of Honour. By Gawyn Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld.
Bannatyne Club, 1827. 4to. Presented by John Gardiner
Kinnear, Esq.
King Hart, and Conscience are in the Maitland MS. There is no known
MS. of the Palice of Honour. King Hart was first printed by
John Pinkerton in 1786, in his " Ancient Scottish Poems never
before in print : But now published from the MS. collections of
Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, Knight, Lord Privy Seal of
Scotland."
Of Gavin Douglas's translation of the ^neid there are five MSS. ;
(l) One at Trinity College, Cambridge (Gale's MSS. O 3. 12), the
first copy from the author's MS., written about 1525 by Matthew
Geddes, who was Gavin Douglas's chaplain. (2) The Elphyn-
stoun MS. in the Library of the University of Edinburgh, which
has the name of the transcriber, "M. Joannes Elphynstoun," on
the last page. It has at the bottom of the first page, " W. Hay,
'S27-" (3) The Ruthven MS., also in the Edinburgh University
Library. It may have been written between 1530 and 1540, and
has at the top of the blank leaf before the title the signature,
" W. Dns Ruthven." (4) The Lambeth MS. at Lambeth Palace,
which describes itself as " written Anno 1545 2° Februarii." (5)
The Bath MS., in the Library of the Marquis of Bath, at Longleat.
It was " written be me, Henry Aytoun, Notare" publick, and endit
the twenty-twa day of November the geirof God MVc fourty-seven
Seiris."
W 2
340 English Writers.
The xiii Bukes of Eneados of the famose Poete Virgiil, translatet out of
Latyne Verses into Scottish Metir, bi the Reuerend Father in God,
Mayster Gawin Douglas Bishop of Dunkel and vnkil to the Erie of
Angus. Every buke hauing his perticular Prologe. Imprinted at
London [William Copland] 1553. 4to.
Virgil's .(Eneis translated into Scottish verse by the famous Gawin
Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld. A new edition wherein the many
errors of the former are corrected, and the defects supplied from
an excellent manuscript. To which is added a large glossary
explaining the difficult words, which may serve for a dictionary to
the old Scottish language. And to the whole is prefixed an exact
account of the Author's Life and Writings from the best histories
and records. Edinburgh, 1710. Folio.
[The editor was Thomas Ruddiman, who made the Glossary ; the
Life of Douglas was written by Bishop John Sage.]
The jEneid of Virgil, translated into Scottish Verse. By Gawin
Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld. Edited by George Dundas. Two
Volumes, Bannalyne Club, 1839. 4to. Presented as a joint-con-
tribution by Andrew Rutherfurd, Esq., and George Duhdas, Esq.
The Poetical Works of Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, with Memoir,
Notes, and Glossary. By John Small, M.A., F.S. A.Scot. Edin-
burgh, 1874.
[The thoroughness of this edition quickens the feeling of regret that
, Mr. Small's death has deprived us of the best fruits of his study of
Dunbar.]
JOHN SKELTON.
Here begynnelh a lytell treatyse named the Bowge of Court. . . . Thus
endeth the Bowge of Courte. Emprynted at Westmynster By me
Wynkyn de Worde. 4to.
[Another edition by W. de Worde, also undated.]
Here folowythe dyuers Balettj-s and dyties solacyous deuysyd by Master
Skelton Laureat. [Four leaves 4to, no date or printer's name, but
from Pynson's press ; also the next piece in four leaves, 4to.]
Skelton Laureate, agaynste a comely Coystrowne that curiowsly chawntyd
and curryshly cowntred and madly in hys Musykkys mokkyshly
made agaynste the ix Musys of polytjjke Poems and Poettys
matryculat.
Honorificatissimo, Amplissimo, longeque reuerendissiino in Christo
patri ac Domino, Domino Thomse, etc. Tituli Sanctse Ceciliie
sacrosanct^ Romanae ecclesise presbytero Cardinali meritissirao, et
ApostolicK sedis legato, a latereque legato superillustri, &c.
Bibliography. 341
A replycacyon agaynst certayne yong scolers, abiured of late, &c.
Argumentum :
Crassantes nimlum, nimium sterilesque labruscas
(Vinea quas Domini Sabaot non sustinet ultra
Laxius expandi) nostra est resecare uoluntas,
London, Richard Pynson, no date, 4to.
A ryght delectable tratyse upon a goodly Garlande or Chapelet of
Laurel! by mayster Skelton, Poete laureat, studyously dyuysed at
Sheryfhotton Castell in y= foreste of galtres, wher in ar comprysyde
many and dyuers solacyons and ryght pregnant allectyues of
syngular pleasure, as more at large it doth apere in y= proces
folowynge. Imprynted by me Rycharde faukes, dwellyng in
duram rent or els in Powlis chyrche yarde at the sygne of the
A. B.C. The yere of our lorde god 1523. The iii day of
Octobre. 4to.
Magnyfycence, A goodly interlude and a mery deuysed, and made by
mayster Skelton poet laureate late deceasyd. [No date or
printer's name. Probably Rastell.]
Here after foloweth the boke of Phyllyp Sparowe compyled by
mayster Skelton Poete Laureate. Prynted at London at the
poultry by Rychard Kele. n.d. i2mo.
[Other undated editons printed by Antony Kitson, Abraham Veale,
John Walley, and John Wyght.]
Here after foloweth certaine bokes compyled by mayster Skelton Poet
Laureat whose names here after shall appere. Speake Parot.
The death of the noble Prynce Kynge Edwarde the fourth. A
treatyse of the Scottes. Ware the Hawke. The Tunnynge of
Elynoure Rummyng. . . . Imprynted at London, in Crede
Lane, by John Kynge and Thomas Marche. No date. i2mo.
[Another undated edition of these pieces was printed in i2mo by
John Day, and another by Richard Lant for Henry Tab, dwelling
in Paul's Churchyard at the sygne of Judith. Warton saw an
edition printed for W. Bonham in IS47.]
Here after foloweth a litel boke called Colyn Cloute, compyled by
mayster Skelton poete Laureate. . , . Imprinted at Lond'on
by me Rycharde Kele dwellyng in the poultry at the long shop
under saynt Myldredes chyrche. n.d. izmo.
[Other undated editions in i2mo were issued by John Wyghte,
Anthony Kytson, and Thomas Godfray.]
Here after foloweth a lytell boke, whiche hath to name. Why come ye
not to Courte, compyled by mayster Skelton poete Laureate
"London. Richard Kele dwelling as above. n,d, i2mo,
342 English Writers.
[Other undated editions in I2mo were issued by Anthony Kytson,
Abraham Veale, John Wallye, and Robert Toy.]
Pithy, pleasaunt, and profitable workes of maister Skelton, Poete
Laureate. Nowe collected [by I. S.] and newly published.
Anno 1568. Imprented at London in Flete streate, neare unto
saint Dunstone's churche by Thomas Marshe. l2mo.
The Poetical Works of John Skelton : with Notes, and Some Account
of the Author and his Writings, by the Rev. Alexander Dyce. In
Two Volumes. . 1843. 8^°-
[The standard edition.]
The Poems against Garnesche, first printed in Mr. Dyce's Skelton, are
in Brit. Mus. MS., Harl., 367. Colin Clout is in MS., Harl.,
2252. Garland of Laurel in Brit. Mus., Cotton MS., Vitellius E.x.
On the Death of the Earl of Northumberland. Brit. Mus. MS.
Reg. 18 D. ii. Skelton's translation of Diodorus Siculus into
English is in a MS. at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
DAVID LINDSAY.
The Complaynte and testament of a Popiniay which lyeth sore wounded
and maye not dye tyll euery man hathe herd what he sayth : Wher-
fore gentyll readers haste you y' he were oute of his payne. . . .
Imprynted at London in Flete strete at the sygne of the Sonne, by
John Byddell. The yere of our lorde 1538. 4to.
The Tragical Death of Dauid Beaton, Eishoppe of sainct Andrewes in
Scotland : whereunto is ioyned the martyrdom of maister George
Wyscharte gentleman, &c. . . . Imprinted at London by
John Daye and William Seres, dwellynge in Sepulchres parish at
the signe of the Resurrection, a little aboue Holbourne conduite.
n.d. Small 8vo.
[Probably 1547. It refers to an incident of 1546, and belongs with
the next published piece to that part of Lindsay's work which will
be described in the next volume of "English Writers."]
Ane Dialog betuix Experience and ane Courteour. Copmanhoun.
[Printed at St. Andrews by John Scot, 1554.] No date. 410.
Ane Dialog and other Poems. Imprinted at the command and ex-
penses of Maister Sammuel Jaseuy, in Paris, ISSS.
[In two editions of the same year, one 4to and one small 8vo.
Besides the Dialogue, it contains The Testament and Complaint of
the Papingo, Lindsay's Dream, and the Tragedy of Cardinal
Beaton.]
Bibliography. 343
A Dialogue, &c., and Other Works. Imprinted at London by Thomas
Purfoote' and William Pickering, an. 1566. Purfoote reprinted
the volume in 1575 and 1581.
The Workes of the famous and worthie Knicht Schir Dauid Lyndesay
of the Mount, &c. Imprentit at Edinburgh be John Scot, at the
expensis of Henrie Charteris. 1568.
Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits in commendation of Vertew and
vituperation of Vyce. Maid be Sir Dauid Lindesay, &c. Edin-
burgh, Robert Charteris, 1602.
The Workes of the famous and vorthie knicht Schir Dauid Lyndesay
of the Mount, alias, Lyoun King of Amies, Newly correctit, and
vindicate from the former errouris quhairwith thay war befoir
corriiptit : and augmentit with sindrie workis quhilk was not befoir
Imprentit. Imprentit at Edinburgh be John Scot at the expensis
of Henrie Charteris : and ar to be sauld in his Buith, on the North
syde of the Gait, abone the Throne. Anno Do. 1571.
Other editions of the works were : Edinburgh, by Thomas Bassendyne,
1574, 4tO ; Edinburgh, by Henry Charteris, 1582, 4to [1588?];
Edinburgh, Henry Charteris, 1592, 1597, both 410: Robert
Charteris, 1602, 1604, both 4to ; Edinburgh, 1605 ; Edinburgh,
Thomas Finlason, 1610, 4to ; Edinburgh, Andro Hart, 1614, 1617,
both 8vo ; Aberdeen, Imprinted by Edward Reban for David
Melvill, 1628, small 8vo ; Edinburgh, prented by the Heires of
Andro Hart, 1630, small 8vo, and again in 1634, with eight more
editions before the close of the seventeenth century, and eight
more between 1700 and 1776. After this there was a pause till
the edition by George Chalmers, F.R.S., F.S.A., in three volumes
in 1806, and finally
The Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay, with Memoir, Notes, and
Glossary. By David Laing, LL. D. In Three Volumes. Edin-
burgh. 1879. 8vo.
INDEX
Adages of Polydore Vergil and Eras-
mus, 63
^neid, Gavin Douglas's Translation
of the, 161 — 171, 34^
Affleck, James, 142
Albany, John, Duke of, 136
Albigenses, 3
Alcala, University of, 212
Alchemy, 138
Alcock, John, Bishop of Ely, log, no
Aldus Manutius, 26, 29
Alliteration, 130, 144, 168, 169
All Souls College, Oxford, 24
, Maidstone, 30
Amadis of Gaul, 84
America discovered, 42 — 44
Andr^, Bernard, 37, 57 — 62, 87
Annals, Bernard Andrd's, 60
Anne of Bohemia, 46
Arabs, 3, 4
Arber, Prof. Edward, 81, 327, 336
Argyropylos, Johannes, 16, 18
Ariosto, 43 .
Aristotle, 18, 26, 29, 38
Arthur, Prince, Henry VII. 's son, 37,
69, 87
Asloan, John, 127, 336
Atlantis, 42
Aubigny, Bernard Stewart, Lord, 127,
139
Averroes, 27
Avicenna, 27
B
Babylonian Captivity of the Church,
Luther's book on the, 218, 219
* ' Bagsche the King's hound, Lindsay's
Complaint and Confession of,"
254. 255
Bainham, James, 237
Balade on London, Dunbar's, 120
Bale, John, 90W, 282 — 284
— , Robert, 271
Bannatyne, George, 127
Barbaro, Hermolai, 25, 26
Barbour, John, 143
Barclay, Alexander, 90 — J13, 183, 272 1
Barlaam, 12
Barnes, Robert, 314, 31
Batmanson, John, 275 .
Ba.ttle in blank, Bernard Andre's, 59
Bellenden, John, 263, 266
Bernard Stuart, Lord Aubigny, Dun-
bar's Ballad of, 127, 139
Eerners, Lord, 280—282
Berwick, Tale of the Freirs of, 153 —
158
Bessarion, Cardinal, 15
Bible Translation, Erasmus's, 213,
214; Luther's, 222 ; Tyndal's, 221
— 227, 251 ; Coverdale's, 318,319 ;
John Rogers's (Matthew's), 319 ;
Cromwell's Bible, 319, 320 ; _Ta-
verner's, 320 ; Cranmer's Bible,
320
Bilney, Thomas, 316
Birth of Antichrist, Dunbar's, 138,
139
Blackader, Robert, 119
Boece, Hector, 265, 266
Boerner, Christ. Frid., i4«
Bohemian Church Reformers, 46—54
Boiardo, 85
Books, The Fool of, 97
Bourchier, John, Lord Bemers, 280 —
282
** Bowge of Court," Skelton's, 88, 89
Bradshaw, Henry, 271, 272
Brant, Sebastian, 92, 93
*' Brash of Wowing," Dunbar*s, 128
Breviarium AbercVonense, 124, iz6
Broun, William^ 147
BrunelleschL FUippo, i«
Buchanan, George, 262
— , Maurice, 263
Bullein, Dr. William, gcw
Burrows, Prof. Montagu, 3QK, 324
Byfieldj Richard, 313
Byzantium, 3, 4
C
Cabot, Sebastian, 42, 43, 207
Cadiou, Andrew, 126
346
Index.
Calabrian Greeks, 12
Callistus, Joannes Andronicus, 16
" Carcel d'Amor," 282
"Castle of Health," Sir T. Elyot's,
293, 294
" Love," translation by Lord
Berners, 282
■■ Perseverance," a Morality
Play, 175, 176
" Cave a Grsecis," 4, 20, 68
Caxton on Skelton, 86
" Cefalo," Niccolo da Correggio's, Bs
Celsus, 27
Chalcondylas, Demetrius, 16, 17 ;
Laonicos, z6, 17
Chandler, Dr. Thomas, 21, 22
Charnock, Richard, 32
Chaucer, 5, 164
Chepman, Walter, 123, 124, 126, 139
Chrysoloras, Manuel, 13, 14, i4«
Citizen and Uplandishman, Eclogue of
the, 105 — 108
Clements, John, 232
Clerk, Maister John, 142 .
— of Tranent, 144
"Cockelbie's Sow," 151, 152
Codrusand Mynaclus, Barclay's Book
of, 104
Colet, John, 28, 33, 34, 68, 6g, 193 —
igg, 324 — 326
"Cohn Clout,'^ Skelton's, 187—189
College of Physicians, London,
founded, 40, 41 .
Columbus, Christopher, 42, 43
" Complaint," Lindsay's, 249—251
—7 of the Blnck Knight, 124
Complutensian Polyglot, The, 212, 213
Concetti, 83
Confession, Dunbar's Poems on, 136 -
Conrad of Waldhausen, 46
"Conscience," by Gavin Douglas, 161
Constance, Council of, 14, 53
Constantinople, The Fall of, ii, 12
"Conversion of Swearers," Hawes's,
72, 82
Convocation Sermon,. Colet's, 195, ig6
Copland, Robert, 1x1
Cornish, Dr. Thomas, 91
Corpus Chrisli College, Oxford, 39
Corre^gio, Niccolo da, 85
Councils of the Church, 54, 55
,Coverdale, Miles, 314, 318, 319
Ci^nmer, Thomas, 312, 313, 314, 315
Croke, Dr. Richard, 68
Cromwell, Thomas, 306 — 308
Cyprian, St., Sir Thomas Elyot's
translation from, 294
D
Dalrymple, Sir David, 127K
"Dance of Death,'' 141
the Seven Deadly Sins," 136,
137
Dark Ages, 2
" Deploration of Queen Magdalene,
Lindsay's', 255
" Devil's Inquest," Dunbar's, 129
'•Dial for Princes," Guevara's, 281,
282
" Dialogue," Sir Thomas More's, 226,
227, 228
— of Coipfort, 330
Dickson, Robert, i25« ^
Dictionary, Greek-Latin, 22 ; Latin-
English, 295
Didier, Abbot, 4
Dioscorides, 26
" Dirige to the King at Stirling,"
Dunbar's, 128
Diversity of Opinion, Henry .VIII. 's
Act for Abolishing, 321
Donatello, xn _
Douglas, Gavin, 159-171, 243, 244,
„_ 339. 340. , ,
"Dream, Lmdsays, 247 — 249
" Dryad of Love,"'Pulci's, 84
Dunbar, William, 115— 144, 336—339
Dyce, Rev. Alexander, 342
Eclogues, Barclay's, 104 — no
Edinburgh, Dunbar to the Merchants
of, 129
Education, Sir Thomas Elyot on, 287
— 29s ; Foundation of Grammar
Schools,' 285, 286 ; St. Paul's
School, 193— X95
Edward IV,, Skelton's Poem on the
Death of, 86
— V. and Richard III., More's
History of, 203, 329 -
El^ot, Sir Thomas, 2B6 — 295
Epigram ascribed to Grocyn, 324
Erasmus, 31, 32, 34, 37, 68, 87, 88, 199
— 201, 213, 214
Etrick, 142
" Every Man," a Morality Play, 178 .
" Example , of Virtue," Stephen
Hawes's, 75 — 82
Fabyan, Robert, 267, 268
"Fenyeit Freir of Tungland," Dun-
bar's, 137, 138
Ficino, Marsiglio, 18
Fishe, Simon, 227, 234 — 236
Fisher, John, Bishop of Rochester, 67,
68, 299—301, 53T— 335 ; the ques-
tion of his birth-date, 335
Fleming, Robert, 22
Flodden, 135, 241
Florence under the Medici, 6—20
Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy, 126,
139, 140
— — James V. with Lindsay, 254
■ Index,
347
Flyting of Skelton and Garnische^ 193
Forman, Andrew, iig
Fox, Richard, Bishop, 39
Foxe, John, 447;, 233
Franciscans, Dunbar on, 117, 118
Frederick 11. at Palermo,
.?» 4i 5
" Freirs of Berwick, The, •'^153— 158
French Grammar, Barclay's, iii
Frith, John, 237, 238
Frobenius, 205
Froissart- translated by Lord Berners,
Gaddesden, John of, 27
Gairdner, James, 587*, 6o«
Galen, Claudius, 26, 27, 38
" Garlande of Laurel," Skelton's. 190
— 192
Garlandia, John de, 125
Garnesche and Skelton, 193
"Gawayne, Awnteris of," 144, 1457^
Gaza, Theodore, 15, 16
Gemisthus Pletho, 12, 13, 18
Ghost Story, Lindsay's, of James IV.
on the way to Flodderl, 241
Gigs, Margaret, In More's household,
232. 331
Giles, Peter, 205, 207
" Golagros and Gawayne," 126, 144,
14s
" Golden Targe, The," 121 — 123, 126
"Governour, The," by Sir Thomas
Elyot, 287 — 293
Grammar, Latin, Colet and Lilley's,
i94i i95j 325 ; Linacre's, 39, 40 ;
French, Barclay's, iii
— Schools, Endowment of, 285, 286
Grafton, Richard, 270
Graves, Dr. R., 41W
Gray, William, 22
Greek, Revived Study of, 11 — 25, 28—
32, 68 ; Type, 39
Gringoire, Pierre, 91
Grocyn, William, 20 — 23, 28 — 30, 323,
^ S.S't „ .
Guarmi, Battista, 22
Guevara, Antonio de, 281, 2B2
Gunthorpe, John, 22
Gurney, Mr. Hudson, 175
H
Hall, Edward, 269 ; h!s Chronicle,
269, 270
— , Richard, his Life of Fisher, 334
Haly-Abbas, 27
Hamilton, Patrick, 251
Harry the Minstrel, 146 '
Hawes, Stephen, 71 — 83
Hay, Sir Gilbert, 146
Henry VIL, 37^ 56, 57 ; Bernard
Andre's Writmgs on, 58—62
Henry VIIL, 37, 38 ; poem by Stephen
Hawes on his accession, 72, 83^
tajight by Skelton, 87, 88 ; Colet's
Sermon before, ig6,'i97 ;'repli«is
to Luther, 219, 224; breaks from
the- Pope, 296 — 299 ; is Pope of
' England, 321
Henryson, Robert, log, 147
Hercules, Henry VII. as, 61, 62
Heriot, 142
Hermolai Barbaro, 25, 26
" Hicke-scorner," a Morality Play,
178, T79
Hippocrates, 26, 27
History of England, Polydore Vergil's,
64, 65 '
Hody, Humphrey, i4«
HoiF, Carl, \^n
Holbein, Hans, 231, 232
Holinshed, Ralph, 90M
Holland, Richard, 142, 143
Horman, William, 276
Howard, Sir Edward, 105
" Howlat,'' Holland's, 143
Hugh of Eglintoun, Sir, 142
Hunter, Rev. Joseph, 331
Huon of Bordeaux, translated by
Lord Berners, 281
Hus, John, 48—53
Income Tax, Giovanni de' Medici's, 6
Indulgences, 55
Interludes, Religious, 283,-284
Inventors, Polydore Vergil's book on,
64
Irving, David, 9c»
Isocrates, Sir Thomas Elyot's trans-
lations from, 294
James IV. of Scotland, 114, 115, 128,
133, 135
— V. of Scotland, 241, 242, 245 —
247, 25s, 256
Jamieson, 1'. H., 90«
Janow, Matthias of, 47
Jerome of Prague, 52, 53
"John the Reeve," Tale of, 149—151
Johnson, J. N., <j.i«
Jobnstoun, Patrick, 146
Joust between James Watson and
John Barbour, 255
the Tailor and the Soutar,
Kalendar of Shepherds, A, 270, 271
Kedermyster, Richard, 278
348
Index,
Kennedy, Walter, 139— 141, 338
"Kind Kittock, The Ballad of," 127,
338
"King Hart," Gavin Douglass, 160,
i6z
" King John and the Tanner of Tarn-
worth," 151
"Kiltie's Confession," 255
Kynton, John, 275
Laing, David, iigw, i27«, i43», 338,
343
" Lament for the Makars, ' 127, 141 —
Lascaris, Constantine, 17
— , James, 17, 18, 38
" Latenter," '* Lsetanter," 6om
Latimer, Hugh, 317, 318
— , William, 28, 29, 30
Laureate, Poets, 37, 57, 86, 87
Law in the Italian Universities, 5, 6
Lazarche, Victor, 124
Lee, Sidney L., 28i»
Leipzig, University of, 50
Leland, John, 22"«, 284, 285
Leo X., Pope, 18, 38, 55, 212, 219
Lewis, Rev. John, 334
Lilly, William, 28, 194, 195
Linacre, Thomas, 23—29, 37 — 41, 323
Lindsay, Sir David, 240 — 262, 342, 343
Locher, Jacob, 93
Logic in the University of Paris, 5
Lokart, Sir Mungo, of the Lee, 143,
144
Lollards, 45, 46
London, Dunbar's Balade on, 120
Lord Mayor's Dinner, Dunbar at a,
iig
Lucian, More's translation from, 202
Lupset, Thomas, 274, 275
Lupton, Rev. J. H., 199, 325, 326
Luther, Martin, 43, 55, 215 — 219 ; Sir
T. More against, 234, 236, 237
Lydgate, John, 71, 72
M
Macro, Dr. Cox, vjs
Mackintosh, Sir James, 331
Madden, Sir P'rederick, 1457;
Magdalene, John Fisher on the Only,
332
"Magnificence," Skelton's, 181, 182
Mair, John, 264, 265
Maitland, Sir Richard, 127, 337, 338
" Mankind,*' a Morality Play, 176
Mantuan, Eclogues of, 105, 109
Maph^eus Vegius, 171
Marcus Aurelius, Guevara's, trans-
lated by Lord Berners, 281, 282
Margaret, mother of Henry VII.,
67, 68
— , daughter of Henry VII.> 114,
115, 119 — 121, 242, 243, 245, 246
Matsys, Quentin, his portraits of
Erasmus and Peter Giles, 229
Matthew's Bible, 319
"Maying and Disport of Chaucer,"
124, 126
Medici, The, 6 — 11, 20
Medicine, The Old Science of, 26, 27
Mersar, 146
Merton College, 3o«
Metres, 122, 129, 130, 131, t6i, 164.,
168, 188
Michael Angelo, 43
Milicz, 46, 47
Mills, Mr. James, 173
"Mind, Will, and Understanding," a
Morality Piay, 176
"Mirror of Good Manners," Bar-
clay's, III
Miseria; Curialium, 104
Monasteries, Dissolution of the, 30S,
309
Monmouth, Humphrey, 221
Morality Plays, 74, 172 — 183, 254
More, Sir Thomas, 34 — 36, 2ci — 211,
226 — 238, 302 — 305, 3^6 — 331
— , Margaret, 231, 305 ; Elizabeth
and Cecily, 232 ; John, 232
— , Cresacre, 331
" Morgante Maggiore," 84
" Moriae Encomium," 200, 201
Morton, John, Archbishop, 35, 36,
208, 209
Mountjoy, William, Lord, 32
Musurus, Marcus, 18
Myllar, Andrew, 123, 124, 126, 139
N
" Narrenschi6f," Brant's, 92, 93
" Nature," a Morality Play, 176
New College, Oxford, 2i«
New Testament, Work of Erasmus on
the, 213, 214
, translated by Luther, 222
— — , Tyhdal's, 222 — 229, 251
" Nigramansir," Skelton's, 180
Ninety-five Theses, Luther's, 215 — 217
Normans in Sicily, 4
Northumberland, Earl of. Poem on
Death of the, 86
Occam, William, 5
"Orfeo," Politian's, 85
Oriental Languages, Study of, 277,
278
Orlando of Boiardo and Ariosto, 85
Orpheus," Henryson's, 127
Index,
349
Pace, Dr. Richard, 31, 63«, 229, 272—
274
"Palace of Honour," Gavin Douglas's,
160, 161
Palermo, 3
Palsgrave, John, 11 1
Paraphrases, New Testament, by
Erasmus, 214
Paris, The Schools of, 5
" Pasquil the Playne," 294
"Passion of Christ," Walter Ken-
nedy's poem on the, 139, 338
, Fisher's Sermon on the, 333
" Pastime of Pleasure," Stephen
Hawes's, 72 — 74
Pastoral Poetry, 84, 85, 104— no
Patience, Polydore Vergil on, 66
Paul, St., Study of, 33, 34, 193, 194,
199
Paul's, St., School, 193—195
Pecock, Reginald, 54
Perceval, Romance of, 144
Perfect Life, The, Polydore Vergil on,
66
"Philip Sparrow," Skelton's Boke of,
8g, %83, 184
Phreas, John, 22
Physicians, London College of,
founded, 40, 41
Pico di Mirandola, 193 ; translation
from, by Sir T. Alore, 36, 327 ;
by Su: T. Elyot, 295
Pinkerton, John, i27«, 145;/
Plato, II, x8, 19, 210
— and Aristippus, Sir T. Elyot's
Dialogue of, 294
Pluscarden, The Book of, 262—264
Pole, Reginald, 310, 311
Poliziano, Agnolo, 16, 23, 84, 85
Polyglot, The Complutensian, 212, 213
P«3pular Tales, 148 — 158
" Porteous of Nobleness, The," 126
Prague, University of, 49, 50
" Prelates, Practice of," Tyndal's, 313
"Pride of Life, The," a Morality
Play^ 173—^75
Pnnters m Scotland, The First, 123—
128
Proclus, Grocyn on the Sphere of, 29
Prodigies, Polydore Vergil on, 66
Provence, 3
Fulci, Luigi, 83, 84
Pynson, Richard, 39, 91, 103, no, in
" Quair of Jealousy, The," 142
Quintin Shaw, 341, 148
Raffaelle, 43
" Ralph the Collier," Tale of, 148, 149
Ramsay, Allan, i27»
Rastell, John, 275 ; William, 329, 330,
331
Reformation, Friendly Act of, in the
Scottish Church, 255 — 262
Reid, John (Stobo), 147, 148
Reidjjeth, John, 127, 338
Religions in Utopia, 211
Renaissance, i, 2, 5
Reuchlin, Johann, 16, 18
Rhazes, 27
Richard III., More*s History of, 203,
_328, 329
Riding Rhyme, Chaucer's, 75
Ritson, Joseph, 90%
Robin Hood, 70, 71, 127
Roman de la Rose, 72
Roper, William, 231, 330, 331
Ross, John, 147
Roull, 1^7
Roy, William, 223, 224
Salem and Bizance, 329
Sallust, Barclay's translation of, 112
Salvator's College, St., 1x6
San Pedro, Diego de, 2B2
" Satire of the Three Estates," Lind-
say's, 183, 254, 256 — 262
Savonarola, 193
Schipper, Prof. J., i27«
Scotichronicon, 262
Seebohm, Frederick, 201M
Seintgcrman, Christopher, 278, 279
Shaped Verses, 82
Sheep Pasture, 209
Shepherds* Kalendar, A, 270, 271
Ship of Fools, Barclay's, 92 — 104
Shirwood, Robert, 277
Sibbald, John, i27n
Sicily, 3, 4
" Sir Eglamour of Arteys." 12
Six Articles, Henry VHI.s Act of the,
321
Skelton, John, 59, 85 — 89, 180 — 193,
272, 340 — 342
Skene, Felix J. H., 2.S-^k
Small, John, i28»
" Solistaris at Court," Dunbar's, 128,
129
Sowle, John, 271
" Speke Parrot," 185, 186
Sphere of Proclus, Grocyn's 29
Standish, Henry, 278
Stapleton, Dr. "Thomas, 331
Stobo, 141, 147, 148
" Supplication of Beggars," 227, 234 —
236
« Souls," 227, 236
" — against Side Tailtis," 255
Swearers, 72, 82, 129
35°
Index,
Taverner's Bible, 320
"Testament of Andro Kennedy,"
Dunbar's, 127
" the Papingo," Lindsay's, 252,
253
Theophrastus, 16
Thieves, Hanging of, 208, 2op
"Thistle and Rose, Dunbar's, 120,
121
" Tidings from the Session," Dunbar's,
129
Tilley, William, 23, 24
Tiptoft, John, Earl of Worcester, 22
"Tod and the Lamb," Dunbar's, 128
Traill, Alexander, 146
Translators, 112 ; of the Bible, 221 —
227
Trapezuntius, George, 15
Trautmann, Moritz, 145M
Truth and Falsehood, a Dialogue, t(i
" Tua Maryit Wemen'and the Wedo,"
Dunbar's, 127, 129 — 132
"Tungland, The Feinyeit Freir of,"
137. 138
"Tunning of Elynour Rummyng,"
.Skelton's, 189, 190
Tunstal, Cuthbert, 205, 207, 226
Tuti villus, 176
. Twelve Triumphs of Henry VII.,
The, 61, 62
Tyndal, William, 221—224, 226 — 229,
313—315, 335. 336
U
Utopia, More's, 205—211, 327, 328
Vegio, MafFei, 171
Vergil, Polydore, 62—67, 163. 270
Vespucci, Amerigo, 43, 206, 207, zoB
Virgil's iEneid, translated by Gavin
Douglas, 161 — 171
*• Visitation of St. Francis," Dunbar's,
117 — 118
Vitelli, Cornelio, 22, 24, 28
Vives, Juan Luis, 39
W
Wakefield, Robert, 277
War in Utopia„zjo, an
Warham, William, Archbishop, 21, 38,
39, 69, 195, 301
" Warldis Instabilitie," Dunbar's poem
on the, 134
Werberghi Life of Saint, 271
Whittington, Robert, 276
"Why come ye nat to Court?" 186, 187
Whytford, William, 279, 280
"Wife of Bath," Chaucer's, 132
Winchester School, 21W
Wolsey, Thomas, 69, 70, 199, 203, 204,
298, 299
Worfd and the Child, The, 177, 178
Worms, Diet of, 220"
Wright, Thomas, i25»
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 309—312
Wyclif, Continued Influence of, 43 —
55
Wynken de Worde, 70, 73, gi
Wyntoun, Andrew of, 142
Ximenez, Archbishop of Toledo, 212
213, 215
LAST LEAVES.
On the 2nd of April, 1891, Professor Skeat found at
Oxford, in the Bodleian Library, on the last leaf of a fifteenth
century copy of Chaucer's "Troilus," the following balade,
signed (as the " Troilus " also is signed) " Tregentil —
Chaucer.'' There can be no question of Chaucer's author-
ship, and Professor Skeat may again* be most heartily con-
gratulated upon the recovery of one of the lost songs with
which Chaucer'fiUed the land. Professor Skeat published
this discovery in the Athenaum of the 4th of April last, with
a revised text and some notes, also some further notes on
the nth of April. I add the balade here as it stood in
the MS., including, however, in the third line of the second
stanza, between brackets. Professor Skeat's corrections of
the copyist's errors — "semy" and "fynall" — and adding a
mark or two of accent : —
" Madam^, ye ben of al beaute shryne,
As fer as cercled is the mapamonde,
For as the cristall glorious ye shyne,
And lyke Ruby ben your cbekys rounde ;
" For a former recovery, see " E. W.,'' v. 274.
352 ■ English Writers.
Therwyth ye ben so mery and so iocunde
That at a Reuell whan that I se you dance,
It is an oyntoent vnto my wounde,
Thoght ye to me ne do no daliance.
" For thogh I wepe of ter& ful a tyne,
Yet may that wo myn herte nat confounde ;
Your [semly] voys that ye so [smal] out-twyne
Makyth my thoght in ioy and blys habounde.
. So curtaysly I go, wyth loue bounde,
That to my-self I sey, in my penance
Sufiyseth me to loue you, Rosemounde,
Thogh ye to me ne do no daliaunce.
" Was never Pyk walwed in galauntyne
As I in loue am walwed and I-wounde ;
For which ful ofte I of my-self deuyne
That I am trew Trystram the secounde ;
My loue may not be refreyde nor affounde ;
I Brenne ay in an amorous plesaunce.
Do what you lyst, I wyl your thral be founde,
Though ye to me ne do no daliance."
The lover rolled in love as a pike in galantine, is
playful in his gallantry, and innocently playful. He deals
with quips and cranks that are of the train of " jest and
youthful jollity." There must be many more of Chaucer's
" balades, roundels, virelays,'' yet waiting to be found. I
hope that the same eyes may light next on a nest of half-a-
dozen. No one has earned more fully than Professor Skeat
the honour and the joy of such discoveries.
The young life and love born daily among us, glad in
its companionship with the May blossoms, now white with
promise of the perfect fruit, can still feel the spirit of life in
the soul of the poet who said, " I ne clepe not innocence
folic."
Last Leaves. 353
Would that we all so felt the touch of life in our best
writers that we could learn to trace through their succession
the slow upward labour of the soul of man towards fulfil-
ment of its greatest hope. When will our old Universi-
ties, that now on many paths go with the time as faithful
leaders of the time, help us here also ? They can best
rescue the vigorous young minds of Englishmen from the
belief to which they are committed, that there is no study
in the Literature of their Country. They are left to suppose,
although ready for better things, that they may read a book
without thought of its place in history or of its writer's aim;
so they are left to amuse themselves with quips and cranks
and playful mockeries, and raptures upon style, all positive
enough, as young opinion is and ought to be, but in a form
more suitable for fans and teapots than for books. The
style of a true book is as the man who wrote it and his
aim when it was written. Even in one man the style varies
. with the aim. They who would form opinions worth utter-
ing must be furnished with the knowledge upon which
alone opinion should be based. Old trainers of our intel
lectual athletes, for this also we now look to you. From
battles of the past we learn to fight the battles of the future.
Join wisdom to knowledge, and show how thought has
worked thus far towards the evolution of the perfect type of
man. Steam engines, printing machines, telephones, are
helps on the way, when they bring force of matter to aid
force of mind by drawing men nearer together, for so they
may dissipate errors and unveil the face of truth. But
man lives to strive towards his own perfection. He is not
merely a polytechnic beast. An ideal has been from the
beginning with men whose minds live in their writing
The ideal has not changed essentially ; but it grew clearer
in the new lights of thought, until at last it was perfected,
not formulated by a definition but made actual, in the life
of Christ.
354 English Writers.
The whole story of England, as shown in its literature,
is the story of a nation which has for the mainspring of its
action a religious sense of duty, seeking to find out the
right and do it, to find out the wrong and get it undone.
To make the study of that long, slow process of yet incom-
plete development bring some aid to the minds of living
workers — to show, at least in some small way, how English
Literature can become one of the great forces for the education
of an Englishman — would be, as long ago it seemed to me,
the best use to which I could try to put my bit of life. Though
little would be done, it would be an endeavour in the right
direction. This bbok is written to no other end. If, here
and there, I venture at some turning-point to glance in a
few lines of verse towards the unattained ideal, it is only that
the spirit of the story may at intervals be felt in its simpli-
city, after long dwelling on the details of the body it inhabits
and informs. More centuries must add their varied records
to the life of man before this living, struggling world of ours
has shaped itself. into the mind of Christ. At this day,
the most Christian land is not half Christianised. England
is not half civilised. We struggle on.
This volume contains a part of the story of what has
been technically called the English Reformation. Former
volumes have shown that labour towards Reformation has
been from the first, as it will be also to the end, continuous.
But, in the times now being described, the question of
Church Reform with us involves the Stat6, and stands espe-
cially conspicuous. Whenever it happens that two honest
men fall out, I am apt to find myself of both sides in the
controversy. In following the story of our feuds about re-
ligion, we have need enough for fellow-feeling with the
natural infirmity that colours all the strife of men. We
are constantly opposed in honest battle each for the same
cause, differing only in the means by which its end shall be
secured. Some day we shall have learnt how all this can be
Last Leaves. 355
done more strenuously and effectually because of the putting
away of bitterness ■ and evil speaking. No time will then
be lost in the correction of perverse misstatements, and
truths then will not come to us refracted through the mist
of passion. Let us hope humbly that all is helping to bring
on the day when Man loves God with all his heart, and with
all his mind, and with all his soul, and with all his strength.
Then it will follow that he loves his neighbour also, and at
last attains, as far as he is able to attain, the mind that was
in Christ.
H. M.
Carishrooke,
May, 1 89 1.
Pklnted by Caesell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.G.
22.5,391
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