Full text of "Pictures and royal portraits illustrative of English and Scottish history : from the introduction of Christianity to the present time, engraved from important works by distinguished modern painters, and from authentic state portraits"

100
!CVJ

100

=CD

ico

Y0.5D

PICTURES

AND

ROYAL PORTRAITS.

.
THE H.-U'TISM OK ETHEIBERT KING OF ECENT

,v w

PICTURES

AND

ROYAL PORTRAITS

ILLUSTRATIVE OF

ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH HISTORY,

FROM THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE PRESENT TIME.

ENGRAVED

FROM IMPORTANT WORKS BY DISTINGUISHED MODERN PAINTERS, AND FROM

AUTHENTIC STATE PORTRAITS.

WITH DESCRIPTIVE HISTORICAL SKETCHES,

THOMAS ARCHER,

AUTHOR OF APPENDIX TO DE BONNECHOSE*S "HISTORY OF FRANCE," ETC.

VOLUME I.

LONDON:
BLACKIE & SON: OLD BAILEY;

GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH.

NOV 1 197R

GLASGOW:
W. O. BLACK IK AND CO., FRINTERS,

V1L1.AF1ELD.

PREFACE.

IN any collection of Paintings, whether they belong to a private or a
public gallery, it will be seen that the eager attention of most of the
visitors is at once attracted by a really good historical picture
representing a well-known incident or containing the figures of some
prominent actors in the national story.

The reason for this is obvious. It is the peculiar province of a
great work of art to appeal directly to sentiment and imagination, and
where the outlines of the narrative are already known, there is an
immediate gratification in receiving a vivid impression of the scene
in its dramatic action, and in making closer acquaintance with the
personages who were engaged in the principal event, " in their habits
as they lived." No ordinary reading of history can compensate for
the lack of this direct interest, no mere biographical notice can produce
so distinct an impression as authentic portraits exhibiting the actual
characteristics of those about whose personal appearance we have often
speculated.

This general desire to bring home to the imagination some
of the most important occurrences in history, and to realize the
true semblance of the persons who were principally engaged in them,
will be gratified by the following series of Pictures and Royal Portraits.
They consist of faithful reproductions of famous historical paintings
by eminent artists of the present century. The originals are mostly
pictures of large size. Several of them were painted for the nation
and adorn the walls of the Houses of Parliament at Westminster,
while others have their places in private galleries. The Royal
portraits commence with Henry VII., the earliest sovereign of whom

Vi PREFACE.

a trustworthy "likeness" can be found. They are partly taken from
large portraits which are to be seen in the Legislative Palace at
Westminster, while those representing more recent sovereigns are
taken from the originals at Windsor Castle and from other authentic
sources.

The writer of the articles which accompany the engravings has
endeavoured to present to the reader a connected set of historical papers
on the incidents and events to which the pictures have special refer-
ence. It is hoped that these descriptive articles will be interesting alike
to the student and to the general reader, since the author has carefully
examined and investigated the subjects that fall within the scope of
his remarks, and at the same time has endeavoured to deal with the
various topics in an easy and pleasant manner.

T. A.

LIST OF THE PLATES,

WITH
NOTES ON THE ORIGINAL PICTURES AFTER WHICH THEY ARE ENGRAVED.

VOLUME FIRST.

PAGE

THE BAPTISM OF ETHELBERT, KING OF KENT, .... Frontispiece, 12

The original picture is a fresco painted by W. Dyce, R.A., in the year 1846, on the
south wall of the House of Lords over the throne. It was the first of the frescoes executed
in the House of Lords by order of the Royal Commissioners. The picture is 16 feet 9 inches
high, and 8 feet 11% inches wide.

CELTIC RELICS, 6

The original is a drawing made for this work by J. L. Williams in the year 1871. The
larger number of the relics are drawn from the objects themselves in various museums and
private collections.

THE FIRST PREACHING OF CHRISTIANITY IN BRITAIN, 8

The original is a drawing by C. W. Cope, R.A., executed in the year 1858, and now
preserved in the South Kensington Museum. The drawing is 21 inches wide, and
15 inches high.

ANGLO-SAXON RELICS, 16

The original is a drawing made for this work by J. L. Williams in the year 1871. The
relics are drawn from the objects themselves in various museums and private collections.

KING ALFRED INCITING THE ANGLO-SAXONS TO REPEL THE DANES,. 24

The original picture is a cartoon executed by G. F. Watts, R.A., and first exhibited in
the year 1847 at the great competition in Westminster Hall, instituted by the Com-
missioners for the Decoration of the Houses of Parliament, and presided over by the late
Prince Albert. The Commissioners awarded the painter a premium of ^500, and purchased
the cartoon, which now hangs in one of the committee rooms of the Houses of Parliament.
It measures n feet 3 inches high, and 19 feet J< inch long.

THE CORONATION OF HAROLD, 30

The original drawing is one of a series of 42 designs by D. Maclise, R.A., illustrative
of the Norman Conquest. The drawings were first exhibited at the Royal Academy in
the year 1857, and have been engraved for the Art-Union of London.

RELICS ASSOCIATED WITH THOMAS A BECKET 32

The original is a drawing made for this work by J. L. Williams in the year 1870. The
relics are drawn from the objects themselves in various museums and private collections.

viii LIST OF THE PLATES.

PAGE

RICHARD CCEUR DE LION FORGIVING BERTRAND DE GURDUN, ... 40

The original picture, painted by John Cross, was first exhibited in 1847 at the great
competition in Westminster Hall, instituted by the Commissioners for the decoration of the
Houses of Parliament. After gaining the prize of ,300, it was purchased for the nation,
and is now in one of the committee rooms of the Houses of Parliament. It measures
13 feet 9# inches in length, and 10 feet 4^ inches in height.

THE SEIZURE OF ROGER DE MORTIMER BY EDWARD III. ...... 48

The original picture is a cartoon executed by Sir J. Noel Paton, R.S.A., in the year
1845-6, in competition for an important prize offered by the Art-Union of London. It was
exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1847. Its size is 7 feet long, and 5 feet high.

WYCLIFFE ON HIS SICK-BED ASSAILED BY THE FRIARS, ...... 54

The original picture is a drawing in water colours, painted by George H. Thomas, in
1854, for the publishers of this work, and is still in their possession. Its size is io& inches
long, and ^' J ^ inches high.

LORD SAVE AND SELE BROUGHT BEFORE JACK CADE, ....... 60

The original picture, painted by Charles Lucy for the present Lord Saye and Sele,
was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1860, and again in the Great International
Exhibition at South Kensington in 1862. The picture occupies the end of the great drawing-
room in Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire. It is 14 feet long, and 10 feet 8 inches high.

THE INTRODUCTION OF THE ART OF PRINTING, ......... 64

The original picture, painted by E. H. Wehnert, was first exhibited at the Gallery of the
New Society of Painters in Water Colours (now the Institute of Painters in Water Colours)
in the year 1850 ; and again at the Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester in 1857.

THE SONS OF EDWARD IV. PARTED FROM THEIR MOTHER, .... 70

The original picture was painted by Gosse, a distinguished artist of the French School,
about the year 1838. It is a picture of large size.

PORTRAIT OF HENRY VII., ................. 76

This engraving is from one of the series of portraits of the Tudor sovereigns, painted
by order of the Royal Commissioners in the Prince's Chamber of the Palace of Westminster.
The picture is 5 feet uj inches high, and 2 feet 5& inches wide.

PORTRAIT OF HENRY VIII., ................ 80

RELICS ASSOCIATED WITH HENRY VIII., ............ 84

The original is a drawing made for this work by J. L. Williams, in the year 1871. The
relics are drawn from the objects themselves in various museums and private collections.

SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS DAUGHTER IN THE PRISON, ..... 90

The original picture, painted by J. R. Herbert, R.A., was first exhibited at the Royal
Academy in 1844. It is now in the National Gallery Vernon Collection. It measures
3 feet 7# inches in width, by 2 feet $ 1 A inches in height.

PORTRAIT OF EDWARD VI.

This engraving is from one of the series of portraits of the Tudor sovereigns, painted
by order of the Royal Commissioners in the Prince's Chamber of the Palace of West-
minster. The picture is 5 feet 11% inches high, and 2 feet 7 inches wide.

LIST OF THE PLATES. IX

PAGE

PORTRAIT OF QUEEN MARY, ................ 100

LADY JANE GREY'S RELUCTANCE TO ACCEPT THE CROWN, ..... 108

The original picture, painted by C. R. Leslie, R.A., was first exhibited at the Royal
Academy in 1827. It is now in the collection of his Grace the Duke of Bedford, at Woburn
Abbey. Its size is 4 feet 4^ inches in width, by 3 feet 3% inches in height.

CRANMER AT THE TRAITOR'S GATE, .......... ...114

The original picture, painted by Frederick Goodall, R.A., was first exhibited at the
Royal Academy in 1856, and afterwards at the Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester in
1857. Its size is 6 feet in width, by 3 feet 6 inches in height.

PORTRAIT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, .............. 116

This engraving is from one of the series of portraits of Tudor sovereigns, painted by
order of the Royal Commissioners in the Prince's Chamber of the Palace of Westminster.
The picture is 5 feet nji inches high, and 2 feet sJi inches wide.

RELICS ASSOCIATED WITH QUEEN ELIZABETH, ......... I2O

The original is a drawing made for this work by J. L. Williams in the year 1875.
The relics are drawn trom the objects themselves in various museums and private
collections.

QUEEN ELIZABETH KNIGHTING ADMIRAL DRAKE, ........ 126

The original drawing by John Gilbert (now Sir John Gilbert, R.A.) was executed in the
year 1861. Its size is 13 Ji inches in width, by 9% inches in height.

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS COMPELLED TO SIGN HER ABDICATION, . . .132

The original picture, painted by Sir William Allan, R.A., P. R.S.A., was first exhibited
at the Royal Academy in 1824, and afterwards at the Royal Institution for the Encourage-
ment of the Fine Arts in Scotland in 1827. It is a picture of large size.

PORTRAIT OF JAMES L,

This engraving is from a drawing made by J. L. Williams in the year 1871, after
contemporary prints by Pass and C. Vischer. The back-ground is from richly-embroidered
hangings at Knole in Kent, the border is adapted from carvings of the period in South
Kensington Museum. The heraldic devices are from " Willement's Regal Heraldry."

DEPARTURE OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS FROM DELFTHAVEN, . . . .142

The original picture is a fresco painted by C. W. Cope, R. A., on the wall of the Peers'
Corridor of the Houses of Parliament, in the year 1856. It is 9 feet 2 inches wide, and
7 feet ft inch high.

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT GUY FAWKES INTERROGATED BY JAMES L, . 148

The original is a drawing made for this work by J. M'L. Ralston in the year 1875. It
is in possession of the publishers.

X LIST OF THE PLATES.

PAGF

PORTRAIT OF CHARLES 1 152

This engraving is from the picture by Vandyke. The back-ground is from silk damask
of the I7th cent, in South Kensington Museum, and the border from tapestry of the early
part of the i7th cent, from the Palace at Newmarket.

OPENING SCENE OF THE GREAT CIVIL WAR CHARLES I. RAISING
HIS STANDARD, 162

The original picture is a fresco painted by C. W. Cope, R.A., on the wall of the Peers'
Corridor of the Houses of Parliament, in the year 1861. It is 9 feet a inches long, and
7 feet Ji inch high.

CROMWELL AT BATTLE OF MARSTON MOOR, . 164

The original picture, painted by Abraham Cooper, R.A., was first exhibited at the
Royal Academy in the year 1863.

CHARLES I. IN THE GUARD-ROOM, 168

The original picture, painted by Paul Delaroche, in the year 1838, is one of the noblest
works of the artist. It was purchased by Lord Francis Egerton, and is now in the Bridge-
water Gallery. Its size is 12 feet 6 inches wide, by 10 feet high.

PORTRAIT OF OLIVER CROMWELL, 172

This engraving is from a drawing made by J. L. Williams in the year 1871, the head
from the fine miniature by Cooper, the figure from a contemporary print by Walker. The
back-ground is from a piece of embroidery dated 1650, the border from panelling of the
early part of the i7th century in South Kensington Museum. The Mottoes are those
used by the Commonwealth, and by Cromwell when Lord Protector.

THE MARQUIS OF MONTROSE AT THE PLACE OF EXECUTION, . . . .180

The original picture is a fresco painted by E. M. Ward, R.A., on the wall of the
Commons' Corridor of the Houses of Parliament, in the year 1857. It is 7 feet 7 inches
wide, by 6 feet 8 inches high.

CHARLES II. IN DISGUISE, AIDED IN HIS ESCAPE BY JANE LANE, . .182

The original picture is a fresco painted by E. M. Ward, R.A., on the wall of the
Commons' Corridor of the Houses of Parliament, in the year 1864. It is 7 feet 7^ inches
wide, by 6 feet 8 inches high.

%* The back-grounds and borders of the portraits of James I., Charles I., and Oliver Cromwell, are adapted so as to be in
keeping with the series of portraits of the Tudor sovereigns, painted by Richard Burchett, in the Prince's Chamber of the
New Palace of Westminster, which are reproduced in the earlier part of this volume.

HISTORICAL PAPERS.

VOLUME FIRST.

PAGE
I

Celt and Roman,

Celtic Relics, 5

The Dawn of Christianity in Britain, . 7

The Saxon Rule, 12

Anglo-Saxons Growth of Christianity, 14

Anglo-Saxon Dress and Ornaments, . 16

The First Great English King, ... 19

Harold, 26

Thomas a Becket, 32

The Lion-Heart, 37

Roger de Mortimer, ...... 43

The Dawn of the Reformation, . . . 50

John Wycliffe, 52

Jack Cade and his Insurrection, . . 56

Caxton and the Art of Printing, . . 63

Richard III. and the Young Princes, . 67

The Tudor, 73

The Great Harry, 79

Sir Thomas More and his Daughter, . 86
The Boy King Edward VI., . . . 93

Mary, 99

Offer of the Crown to Lady Jane Grey, 105

Cranmer, Martyr, in

The Days of "Queen Bess," . . . .115

Sir Francis Drake, . 122

Mary Queen of Scots at Lochleven, . 127

James Stuart, 133

The Departure of the Mayflower, . .139

The Gunpowder Plot, 143

Charles, " King and Martyr," . . .150

The Great Civil War, 155

The Battle of Marston Moor, . . .163
Charles I. in the Guard-room, . . .166

The Protector, 170

The Execution of Montrose, . . . .177
The Escape of Charles IL, .... 181

PICTURES

AND

ROYAL PORTRAITS,

CELT AND ROMAN.

THE careful and reflecting student will frequently be impressed
by the resemblance between the growth of an individual and the
development of a nation ; the biography of a man and the history
of mankind. In examining early records, the first of which are often
only traditional accounts of events that have belonged to the infancy
of a people, we can trace a very remarkable analogy between the
style and language of such legendary histories and those tales or
representative stories by which knowledge is first communicated to
a child, but regarding which children use a very wide interpretation,
separating with considerable accuracy the poetic or imaginative element
from the actual information intended to be conveyed. Traditions
of national, events were expressed in forms which took a hold on
memory by their association with the poetic faculty, with the deeper
imaginative moods of men, and often with thoughts of the unseen
world; and this association confirmed, instead of diminishing, the
sense of reality, in ages when such language was the usual mode of
expression in narrating great and solemn occurrences. Subsequently
the form remained, but becoming to some extent uninterpretable,
because of men having attained to another stage of development, was
separated into a mixture of fact and myth. People of a later age and
of a different nation and language often failed to discover the true
meaning of the tradition, and were ready to regard it as false in fact,
because they were unable to appreciate its symbolical, or, as they were
sometimes called, its mystical references.

We live in wonderful times, when it has been discovered that the

earth itself, the very soil beneath our feet, has been as it were a great

2 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

bookcase, containing, in almost imperishable records, a portion of the
unwritten chronicles of pre-historic years. In geological strata; amidst
the sites of buried cities and in the deep excavations of ruined temples
and palaces, so long ago destroyed that their existence had also been
denied, there have been discovered verifications of traditional and
written history, the declarations of which were scornfully disputed.

These investigations have rebuked alike the narrow credulity and
the equally restricted incredulity of men; but on the whole we have
gained immeasurably in the region of belief, by the unanswerable
proofs which such discoveries have given us of the truth of the earliest
accounts of social and national life with which we are acquainted.

That these prefatory remarks are not inapplicable to the history
of our own country may be seen by referring not alone to the strange
traditions preserved (and altered) by the early monks, but also to the
colder, more concise, and more accurate chronicles of Caesar and the
Roman governors of Britain.

In the monkish stories we find an almost inextricable mixture
of Romish legends with Celtic, Danish, and Saxon elements; Scan-
dinavian myth and Teutonic Saga; stories of giants and warriors,
trolls and witches, mingled in such strange confusion that we are
unable to regard them except as indications of earlier histories; but
there is enough, taken in conjunction with the legends of bards and
minstrels, to show that Britain had a history other than that of a mere
tribe of painted savages long before the Roman invasion. Caesar's
account of Britain is after all but the note-book of a visitor who
carefully made memoranda of what he saw, and set down, as honestly
and literally as he could, what he was told by others of the social
condition, civilization, religion, and institutions of the inhabitants of the
islands " in the uttermost parts of the earth."

We must remember, however, not only that cultivated Romans
were almost incapable of understanding the primitive and (as they
would deem them) barbarous traditions of a people like the Celtic
dwellers in Britain, but that they regarded all tribes and nations
beyond the pale of Greek or Roman influence as fanatics or savages,
for whom the best thing that could be done was to subjugate them
to the imperial arms, and make them contribute to the vast structure
of physical power which threatened to overshadow the whole world.
The history and institutions of these islanders would offer a subject

CELT AND ROMAN. 3

for curious philosophical inquiry, but need not trouble too much
a conqueror, the object of whose descent upon the coast was to add
another remote colony to Rome, and so demonstrate her political and
military supremacy.

It is obvious that the writer of The Commentaries took a great deal
for granted, but it is equally certain that he discovered essential differ-
ences amongst the people whom he came to conquer, both as regards
their tribe and the degree of civilization and social culture. " The
inland part of Britain," he says, " is inhabited by those who, according
to existing traditions, were the aborigines of the island; the sea-coast
by those who, for the sake of plunder, or in order to make war, had
crossed over from among the Belgae. ... Of all the natives, those
who inhabit Cantium (Kent), a district the whole of which is on the
coast, are by far the most civilized."

Admirable as the account of the noble Roman is, it should be read
with an appreciation, not only of his position as an invading general,
the representative of the greatest nation in the world, but as a foreign
aristocrat, with perhaps about the same estimate of "the barbarians"
as an eminent English officer of to-day might form beforehand of some
little-known islanders in a remote region of the globe, and with far
fewer opportunities of investigating " habits and customs."

It is now made tolerably certain that long before the time of Caesar's
invasion there were people in Britain small tribes or clans under
their own kings or chieftains, who had attained to a very considerable
degree of civilization, so far as the conveniences and even the luxuries
of life were concerned. They possessed a coinage stamped with
regular dies, and used various implements, the manufacture of which
indicates a condition much in advance of semi-barbarism.

Even if the people who composed the nation, or rather the cluster
of communities, were of different tribes, they resembled each other
in the warlike and independent spirit, which not only refuses to acknow-
ledge defeat, but declines to adopt the language of the conquerors as
an acknowledgment of subjugation. Britain, "the last that was con-
quered and the first that was flung away," was in reality one of the
hardest nuts that the Roman arms were set to crack. The generals
and governors sent hither were worn out or died in the constant effort
to subdue the island, that it might be a province of Rome. The people
would not be beaten; and it is certainly a proof, if not of a high degree

4 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

of civilization and of the power to organize means of defence, at least
of courage and persistent determination, that a large and carefully
equipped army which had been prepared, for the invasion under Julius
Caesar, could only maintain a footing on the sea-coast. This army was
over and over again unsuccessful against the British warriors in their
chariots, who " perform the part both of rapid cavalry and of steady
infantry; and, by constant exercise and use, have arrived at such
expertness that they can stop their horses when at full speed in the
most steep and difficult places, turn them which way they please, run
along the carriage pole, rest on the harness, and throw themselves back
into their chariots with incredible dexterity."

These being the conditions under which Caesar was able to narrate
the incidents of his visit to Britain, it is not very wonderful that the
actual history of Britain before the Roman invasion should be regarded
as half fabulous. Constant internecine war, as a consequence of the
successive invasion of the island by various tribes who came hither
for conquest or plunder, must have rendered it difficult or even
impossible to preserve an unbroken series of traditions. At the same
time the nations which were then at the head of civilization had little
communication with these islands. Still later, the followers of Ida and
Cerdic brought to their settlements in Britain all the superstitions of
the Elbe, while the Teutonic chiefs who had settled in the provinces
of the Roman Empire, Alaric, Theodoric, Clovis, and Alboin, were
zealous Christians. The isolated position of Britain, and the struggle
that was perpetuated there, cut off her people from communion with the
continental kingdoms which had succeeded the Western Empire, and
which " kept up some intercourse with those eastern provinces where
the ancient civilization, though slowly fading away under the influence
of misgovernment, might still astonish and instruct barbarians, where
the court still exhibited the splendour of Diocletian and Constantine,
where the public buildings were still adorned with the sculptures
of Polycletus and the paintings of Apelles, and where laborious
pedants, themselves destitute of taste, could still read and interpret
the master-pieces of Sophocles, of Demosthenes, and of Plato. From
this communion Britain was cut off. Her shores were to the polished
race which dwelt by the Bosphorus objects of a mysterious horror,
such as that with which the lonians in the age of Homer had regarded
the Straits of Scylla and the city of the Lsestrygonian cannibals.

CELTIC RELICS. 5

There was one province of our island in which, as Proconius has been
told, the ground was covered with serpents, and the air was such that
no man could inhale it and live. To this desolate region the spirits
of the departed were ferried over from the land of the Franks at
midnight. A strange race of fishermen performed the ghastly office.
The speech of the dead was distinctly heard by the boatmen, their
weight made the keel sink deep in the water, but their forms were
invisible to mortal eye. Such were the marvels which an able historian,
the contemporary of Belisarius, of Simplicius, and of Tribonian, gravely
related touching the country in which the founder of Constantinople
had assumed the imperial purple. Concerning all the other provinces
of the Western Empire we have continuous information. It is only
in Britain that an age of fable completely separates two ages of truth.
Odoacer and Totila, Enric and Thrasimund, Clovis, Fredegunda, and
Brunechild, are historical men and women. But Hengist and Horsa,
Vortigern and Rowena, Arthur and Mordred, are mythical persons,
whose very existence may be questioned, and whose adventures must
be classed with those of Hercules and Romulus." 1

CELTIC RELICS.

In the British Museum, and several other public and private
collections, the relics of that period when the Celt chiefly occupied
these islands are to be found in remarkable variety. The materials
of which warlike and industrial implements are formed are stone,
bronze, and iron, and it has been thought that these may indicate
three successive periods, but there is perhaps no unquestionable reason
for assigning to them a strictly chronological significance, as they may
possibly vary only according to the social condition or the degree of
importance of the persons or tribes to which they belonged. It is by
no means certain, for instance, that the barrows or excavations where
stone implements are found belong to an earlier time than those con-
taining the articles of bronze; while ornaments of silver and gold, or
of gold combined with bronze, have been discovered, and glass vessels,
beads, trinkets, and various kinds of urns, ornamented cups, and

1 Macaulay.

6 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

drinking-vessels have also been found in the cromlechs or burial places,
and the cairns and tumuli in different parts of the country.

The ruder implements are arrow-heads, or short chisel-shaped
knives of stone set in handles of deers' horn, knives and daggers
of flint and horn, stone hammer heads pierced or grooved for the
reception of the hafts or handles, bodkins, armlets, and pins of bone
and hard wood, and beads, pieces of amber, and other fragments of
ornaments.

The bronze adze-heads (named "celts"), spears, knives, and swords
are many of them remarkable for their shape and finish, and not only
the moulds for casting them, but also the portions of metal and the
cinders found in the same spots as the moulds, show that they were
the work of the people themselves; while the presence of some of the
most remarkable of the weapons, cups, and ornaments in the " cists"-
or rude sarcophagi formed of slabs of sandstone sunk in the ground,
and known to be the most ancient of the burial places which have been
discovered or in the mounds (or tumuli) and " cairns," or heaps of
stones in other parts of the country, attest their antiquity. Curiously
wrought ear-rings and beads of gold and amber have been discovered,
and " torques," or collars of gold worn round the neck and descending
to the breast, as well as necklaces, gorgets, or breastplates, and armlets
of bronze and gold, many of them beautifully ornamented, are among
the more valuable relics. The "torque," or neck-chain, appears to
have been an ornament of distinction, and consists of small rods of
gold, silver, or bronze, so twisted as to form a kind of flexible ring, not
completely joined, but capable of being opened where the extremities
approach, in order to admit the neck of the wearer. Other specimens
have been found which consist of elaborately chased and ornamented
links. The Celts wore their rings on the middle finger, and the women
wore numerous ornaments, consisting of beads, which formed necklaces,
pins of bronze, and ivory bracelets. Not only these articles, numbers
of which have been discovered in tombs and "barrows," but the
ordinary household utensils and pieces of furniture, show a state con-
siderably above barbarism. Their wicker-work was almost as ingenious
and as widely utilized as the bamboo plaiting of the Chinese or Japanese.
Their light and elegant baskets, which were adapted to all kinds of
purposes, were the fashion in Rome itself; their river boats, or "coracles,"
were woven of compact and tenacious withes; the very walls of their

CELTIC RELICS.

PERSONAL ORNAMENTS, ETC., OF GOLD AND BRONZE.

1. Gold Bracelet ; found near Egerton Hall, Cheshire.

2. Bronze Fibula ; found at Arras, Yorkshire.

3. Do. late Celtic ; from Horae Ferales.

4. Do. do. found at Borough, Westmoreland ; presented to the British
Museum by Sir G. Musgrave, Baronet.

5. Bronze Horse Trapping, enamelled ; found in London, now in the British Museum.

6. Enamelled Ring, found at Stanwick ; from Horse Ferales.

7. Bronze Torque, found at Embsay, near Skipton, in Yorkshire ; from the Archieologia.

8. Gold Torque, found in Needwood Forest ; the property of the Queen.

9. Gold Ear-ring, found near Castlerea, county Roscommon; in the Royal Irish

Academy.
ro. Bronze Ornament, found at Brighthampton, in Oxfordshire ; in the British Museum.

11. Bronze Horse Trapping enamelled, found at Westhall, Suffolk; in the British

Museum.

12. Bronze Horse Trapping, enamelled, found at Killeevan, near Analore ; Kilkenny

Archaeological Association.

13. Bronze Horse Trapping ; found on Polden Hill, Somersetshire.

14. Bronze Bracelets, late Celtic, enamelled ; found near Drummond Castle, Perthshire.

Presented by Lord Willoughby D'Eresby to the British Museum.

15. Belt of thin brass, repousse ; found at Standwick ; from Horae Ferales.

CELTIC RKTJCS.

PERSONAL ORNAMENTS &c. OF GOLD AND BR.ONZ.E.

DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY. 7

huts or houses were often composed of hurdles which held an impene-
trable coating of cement or plaster. Cups, jars, and funeral or cinerary
urns were common before the Roman invasion, and many of them are
remarkable examples of ornamentation. We have already alluded to
the coinage, to which a very early date must be assigned; and not only
the chequered cloth and braccce of the Gauls, but the robes and apparel
of a higher civilization, and obtained from people coming to Britain
to trade, distinguished the inhabitants of the coast; even though in the
interior, ruder and less enlightened tribes may have clothed themselves
in the skins of animals. On the whole, it would appear that a consider-
able degree of civilization was not wanting, but that there was too little
organization, too great a difference among the tribes inhabiting the
island, to enable the people to erect large buildings or permanent
monuments.

THE DAV/N OF CHRISTIANITY IN BRITAIN.

A new power had already been in operation before the coming of
the Saxons, that power before which Rome itself disappeared, and to
which the victorious Goth submitted, and so founded upon a rock the
new empire which he was instrumental in establishing. Strangely as
it seems to us, at the very time when the British Roman colony was
falling to pieces, and like Rome itself was quickly to become the prey
of an invader, the country was divided by dogmatists who disputed
fiercely on the subjects of Christian doctrine, or on the less important
observances and ceremonials. There had been a difference between
the Welsh and the English Church on the mode of computing Easter,
and a revival of this question threatened to divide the churches of
Mercia and Northumberland from those of the other part of the
Heptarchy, the former having been founded by Scottish missionaries,
while the latter received their instruction from France and Rome.
The fashion of priests' tonsures was also a question which caused no
little dissension. Animosity and ill-feeling prevailed till, at a council
at Hereford in 673, the bishops agreed to observe the canons which
Theodore had brought from Rome. The apostolic age had passed,
and the orthodoxy of the Christian religion was made the excuse

8 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

for quarrels as bitter and as violent as those that had distinguished the
various septs and tribes of former years. It is true that when the
Romans abandoned the island the gospel had not been preached in
several parts of it; but it is equally certain that as early as the year 314,
Eborius, Bishop of York, Restitutus, Bishop of London, and Adelphius,
Bishop of Richborough, represented Britain at the council at Aries, so
that these islands were then regarded as a province, like Spain and
Gaul, with a fully acknowledged church authority. This church of
Britain was considered to be orthodox on the authority of St. Jerome
and St. Chrysostom; but first the Arian and afterwards the Pelagian
heresy troubled it, and as Bede tells us, the clergy sent to Gaul for the
aid of learned bishops who would refute the errors by which they were
threatened. Eventually Germanus of Auxerre and Severus of Treves
not only silenced their opponents but caused them to be banished.

Apart from the accounts of these disputes, however, we have no
authentic record of the first or even of the earlier introduction of
Christianity to Britain. It may be said that the kingdom of God had
come without observation; and though it was established only in some
parts of the island, and the faith of the gospel was to a great extent
mingled with legends and observances that belonged to the old supersti-
tions, it had begun to exercise its influence over the hearts and lives
of men. Alban, the Roman officer and first English martyr, had
been beheaded probably as early as A.D. 303, during the persecutions
of Diocletian, and his conversion was attributable to the instrumentality
of a priest whom he had carefully concealed, in order to shelter him
from his assailants. The Roman governor heard that the priest was
in Alban's house, and sent soldiers to take him prisoner, but the
generous Christian host had provided a safe retreat for his friend, and
presented himself dressed in the priest's clothes. He was led before
the governor, and declaring himself to be a Christian was scourged and
afterwards beheaded; but it is said that his holy demeanour and his
serene and cheerful courage converted to the Christian faith the soldier
who was appointed to be his executioner.

It is to Saint Augustine, the first historical missionary to England,
that attention is usually directed when we speak of the planting
of Christianity in this country, and with him we necessarily associate
the Great Pope Gregory, who, long before he had succeeded Pelagius
II. in the papal throne, had manifested an intense desire to preach the

DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY.

gospel to the English people, who, it' must be remembered, were no
longer Britains but Anglo-Saxons. Most of us have heard or read
the fine old story of Gregory's walk through the slave-market at Rome,
and the immediate occasion of his effort to promote a mission to
England. The legend is nearly thirteen hundred years old, but it
remains as a part of the national history, and a record of the Christian
charity and love for children, which were distinguishing characteristics
of the Great Pope.

Gregory was but a monk of the convent of St. Andrew on the
Ccelian Mount, rising just behind the Coliseum, on that memorable
day, the exact date of which is lost, when, amidst the crowd of African
negroes, swarthy Egyptians, and lithe keen-eyed Greeks, who were
ready to be sold, he noticed three fair boys, whose blue eyes and
flowing flaxen hair no less than the beauty of their features and their
shapeliness of limb at once arrested attention.

The monk stood gazing thoughtfully at the group.

" Whence come these strange beautiful children ? " he inquired of
the slave-dealer.

" From Britain, where all the people are of that complexion," was
the answer.

" And what is the religion there ? "

" They are Pagans."

" Alas ! that eyes so bright and faces so full of light should be
in the power of the Prince of Darkness, that such outward grace should
belong to minds that have not the grace of God within and what is
their nation called ? "

"Angles."

"Well said, for they indeed have the faces of angels, and should
be fellow-heirs with the angels in heaven. And is their land so called?"

" They are Deirans, from that part of Britain named Deira." 1

"Well said again, for rightly are they named Deirans, plucked
as they are from God's wrath (de ira Dei] and called to the mercy
of heaven what is the name of their king ? "

" Ella."

" Alleluia ! the praise of God their Creator shall be sung there, said
the monk, and went at once to the pope to seek permission to go and
preach the gospel in England."

1 The tract of country between the Tyne and the Humber Deira, the land of the wild deer.

IO PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

The permission was granted, and Gregory quickly chose the men
who should accompany him; but his intention was not destined to be
fulfilled. Though but a monk he possessed great personal influence,
and was a man of eminently popular talents. Whether he guessed
what would be the consequence of his absence or received some private
intelligence, it is perhaps futile to inquire; but the account of his
mission goes on to state that when the missionaries were but three days'
journey from Rome, and while they were resting from the sultry heat
of noon, a locust leaped upon the book that Gregory was reading, and
he at once drew a kind of augury from it, in the curious punning
manner which was by no means uncommon among the early fathers
of the church, who frequently used this epigrammatic style in reproof,
exhortation, or instruction a practice by no means unknown among
English and Scottish divines in more modern times.

He interpreted the sudden messenger by its name locusta, and it
seemed to say " loco sta" stay in your place so that they would
not be able to finish their journey. Whatever may have been the
impression or the knowledge which gave rise to this interpretation of
the sign, the result proved Gregory to be right, for even as he spoke
messengers came up with a command that he should return to Rome
where a tumult had arisen because of his absence.

Years passed away, and Gregory, immersed in public affairs, and,
as it said, and as he himself declared, reluctantly consenting to become
pope, had not forgotten the boys in the slave-market and his arrested
mission. The time seemed to be propitious for renewing the endeavour
to establish the Christian religion in Britain.

Ella, the conqueror of South Sussex and the founder of the
kingdom of the South Saxons, was dead. Ceawlin, King of Wessex,
was also dead. He had claimed the dignity of being " Bretwalda"-
which appears to have been a title of courtesy implying the superiority
of him who held it over the other rulers of the heptarchy. It is
derived from Brit or Britain, and Walda or Wielder, and signifies the
ruler or chief of Britain. Not without dispute and repeated battles
had the King of Wessex assumed this dignity; for Ethelbert, fourth
King of Kent, claimed it by right of his descent from Hengst, and in
spite of defeat maintained the contest for more than twenty years.
He at length succeeded to the kingdom, A.D. 593, his authority
extending to the right bank of the H umber.

DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY. II

Ethelbert, who had a far closer acquaintance with continental courts
than the rest of the Saxon rulers, had married Bertha, daughter
of Caribert, King of Paris, who was a descendant of Clovis, and
a Christian. One of the stipulations in the contract of marriage was
that the princess should follow her own religion without opposition, and
she therefore brought with her as chaplain a French bishop named
Luidhard, who, with her and her attendants, worshipped at a little
building close to Canterbury, on the site of which the ancient church
dedicated to Saint Martin was built a church still shown to visitors,
who may trace some portion of the structure which, if not of so early
a date as the first Saxon period, is yet of very great antiquity.

It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that Gregory, remembering
his former desire to establish a Christian mission in England, should
think this a favourable time for renewing his purpose, and it was natural
that he should select his own convent of St. Andrew for the honour.

Augustine the prior, and forty monks of the community on the
Ccelian Mount, prepared for this enterprise, and a picture representing
the departure of the missionaries for Britain adorns one of the chapels
of the monastery to this day. Ebbes Fleet, in the Isle of Thanet, was
the place at which Augustine and his companions landed. They
preferred to make their first efforts here as Thanet was at that time
really an island divided from the mainland by an arm of the sea, and
they were thus separated from the large body of the Saxons. Ethel-
bert, who fancied that the priests might influence him by the exercise
of magical skill, also desired them to be secluded for a time. A
day was afterwards appointed for the reception of the missionaries by
the king, who sat beneath an ancient oak on the rising land in the
centre of the Isle of Thanet, surrounded by warriors and the nobles
of his courts; while on the other side sat the prior amidst his monks
and choristers, attired in hooded frock and stole. The address of
Augustine was translated to the king by interpreters who were brought
from France by the missionaries, and the answer of Ethelbert, grave
and royal in its simple dignity, was as follows :

"Your words and promises are fair, but as they are new and
doubtful I cannot give my assent to them, and leave the customs I
have so long observed with all my race. But as you have come hither
strangers from a long distance, and as I seem to myself to have seen
clearly that what you yourselves believe to be good you wish to impart

12 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

to us, we do not wish to molest you; nay, rather, we are anxious to
receive you hospitably, and to give you all that is needed for your
support; nor do we hinder you from joining all whom you can to the
faith of your religion." Augustine and his companions were permitted
to reside in Canterbury, whither they went in procession, with cross
and banner, the choristers singing a litany which had been composed
by Gregory when Rome was threatened by the plague, and commencing
"We beseech thee, O Lord! in all thy mercy, that thy wrath and thine
anger may be removed from this city and from thy holy house,
Allelujah." This is still one of the famous Gregorian chants.

The success of the mission was soon apparent, though doubtless the
influence and character of the Princess Bertha had already commended
the claims of Christianity to the king and his court. On the Whit-
sunday following the conference between Augustine and Ethelbert (that
is to say on the 26. of June, 597), the latter was solemnly admitted to
the church by baptism; his example was soon followed by a number
of chieftains and their followers, and it was recorded by Gregory that
on the following Christmas 10,000 Saxons were baptized in the river
Swale, near Sheerness.

THE SAXON RULE.

The most probable derivation of the name " Saxons" is Sakai Suni,
or sons of the Sakai or Sacse, a Scythian tribe who made their way from
the East to Europe. Pliny speaks of the Sacae who called themselves
Sacassani, and Ptolemy comes still nearer when he mentions another
branch as Saxones. At the time of the descent of the sea-rovers upon
Britain, however, the name was applied to various tribes and nations
of the Teutonic or Gothic race, who alike traced their descent from
Odin, who, if he had any real existence, was probably a king of a
powerful nation. Indeed the capital of this sovereign, who was at
length deified, was declared to have been at Sigtuna, on the borders of
the great Malar Lake, between the old city of Upsala and Stockholm,
the present capital of Sweden.

Saxons, Danes, Norwegians, Franks, Norsemen, and Normans,
were all of the same origin, and their kings claimed descent from Odin
the war-god, " The terrible and severe god, the father of slaughter, the

SAXON RULE. 13

god that carries desolation and fire; the active and roaring deity; he
who gives victory, and who names those who are to be slain." Frea
was his wife, the goddess of pleasure; Thor ruled the tempests; Balder
was the god of light; Kiord the god of waters; Tyr the god of cham-
pions; Brage the god of poets and orators; and Heimdal the keeper
of heaven's gate and guardian of the rainbow. Then there were eleven
children of Odin and Frea as minor divinities. Three Fates were
concerned with the destinies of men, and an individual fate controlling
the career of each human being; there were valkeries or goddesses
employed by Odin as attendants, and numberless genii. Lok was the
evil one, beautiful in form, but utterly depraved, the calumniator of the
gods, the author of lies and fraud, whom the deities had been con-
strained to imprison in a cavern. The goddess Hela, Feuris, the
wolf, a great dragon, and a multitude of giants, witches, sorcerers,
and malignant personages, made up this fierce and dark mythology.
Hela was the dweller in Niflheim, or Hell, where she bore rule in
her palace of anguish, at her table of famine, with her attendants
Expectation and Delay. The threshold of her door was precipice,
her bed leanness or unrest; her looks were sufficient to strike the
beholder with horror. Yet beneath this strange wild dream which
tempts one to endeavour to unravel its myth, nay even in spite ol
the apparent devotion of the Scandinavian race to war and bloodshed,
succeeded by plunder and riotous feasting, there was a greater and a
purer faith. In the Valhalla, to which the heroes who perished bravely
in battle were admitted, the joys consisted of days of battle and furious
conflict, succeeded by nights of banqueting, when all the wounds received
in the fray were immediately healed, and the warrior sat down to feast
on inexhaustible boar's flesh and drink deep draughts of mead. The
lazy and the cowardly were consigned to Niflheim.

But neither Valhalla, nor Niflheim, nor the world, nor even the
gods and goddesses, Hela, Lok, and the minor divinities, were to last
for ever. After countless ages the malignant powers were to break
from their restraints, and then a vast conflagration was to consume
gods and goddesses, Valhalla and Niflheim, with all their inhabitants.
A new world, a new heaven, and a new hell, more beautiful, more
glorious, more dreadful, were to emerge under the dominion of a deity
infinitely greater and more noble than Odin, while higher virtues than
mere warlike bravery, and worse crimes than sloth and cowardice, were

14 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

to be the standards of good and evil; the former enabling men to
attain to Gimle, the happy and blessed heaven, and the latter dooming
them to the unutterable punishments of Nastrande, the hell of the
wicked, to all eternity.

The distinguishing feature of these fierce tribes was their respect
for their women, who were regarded as the equals, if not as the superiors
of men, the receivers of messages from the gods, and the reciters of
heroic poetry and stories of the heroes. The " Alruna wives" exercised
considerable influence, and were often consulted as oracles, while the
daughters of kings or princes were frequently priestesses, and some
other women were regarded as witches in league with the malignant
divinities. What were the functions of the priests cannot easily be
discovered, but it is said by Tacitus that among the Germans they
settled controversies, awarded and inflicted punishments, and attended
the armies to battle. Among the Saxons they were neither permitted
the use of arms nor horses.

The Scandinavian religion here referred to was that of the fiercer
tribes, like the Danes who lived by the sword, but there is reason to
believe that the Saxons, while they worshipped Odin and believed in
the same divinities, held less terrible and revolting views. Indeed it is
possible that the wild poems and stories of the " Scalds," or Scandina-
vian bards, had given to the primitive superstition of the Danes horrors
that did not originally belong to it. At all events the Saxons after
their conquest betook themselves to peaceful pursuits, cultivated the
soil, and though the people of different districts fought constantly to
obtain the mastery, and so eventually became subject to another
invasion, they made settled laws and preserved a social fabric the
effects of which have lasted to the present day.

THE ANGLO-SAXONS.

THE GROWTH OF CHRISTIANITY.

The conversion of Edwin made Christianity the national religion of
the Anglo-Saxons, for under him the country first approached to the
unity of a kingdom. Other Saxon kings paid him tribute, and the
pope styled him King of the Angles. This continued until 633, when

THE GROWTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 15

Penda, the pagan prince of Mercia, allied with Cadwallader, the
king of North Wales, revolted and carried fire and sword with
relentless fury into Edwin's territory. In a battle fought at Hatfield,
near the river Trent, Edwin was slain, and the triumph of Penda who
spared neither priest nor peasant, women nor children, caused a great
apostasy of the people of Northumberland, which, however, lasted
only for a short time. Edwin had laid the foundations of a more
permanent monarchy, and his people clung to his family, so that
when Oswald came to the throne they once more turned to the
Christian faith.

Oswald had indeed been educated at the famous college and
sanctuary of lona, and quickly summoned teachers from that famous
community to instruct his people. So barbarous were the Northum-
brians that the first monk sent from lona gave up the task, but the
second (Aidan) persevered, and in 635, little more than a year after
the death of Edwin, founded a monastery upon the island of Lindis-
farne known as Holy Island. As an example of what were the
primitive buildings of the Saxons, it is recorded that the church was
at first built of split oak and covered with reeds. It was rebuilt
by Eadbert, successor to St. Cuthbert, who caused the body of Cuthbert
to be removed and placed in a magnificent tomb near the high altar.
Here the venerated remains rested till about the middle of the ninth
century, when the coast was overrun by the barbarous Danes, and
the affrighted monks of Lindisfarne, carrying with them the bones
of their apostle, commenced those wanderings which at length led
to their establishment at Durham.

Before that time, however, religious houses had been founded
in various parts of the country, many of them great and noble
structures endowed with lands and wealth by successive rulers, who,
like Oswald and Oswy, upheld the Christian faith. It was not until
the accession of Egbert, however, that the kingdom was again united
under one ruler, whose courage and ability, first in establishing his
authority over Devonshire, Cornwall, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia, and
Northumberland, and afterwards in resisting the frequent invasions of
the Danes, gave him an importance which his actual title as King
of Wessex would not alone have secured.

It should be remembered, too, that Egbert had spent fourteen
or fifteen years on the Continent, and chiefly in France, where he

1 6 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

was cordially received by Charlemagne, and employed both in the court
and in the army of that famous emperor.

From the time of Edwin, and still more completely in the reign of
his more eminent successors, our Saxon ancestors had been admitted
into the great federation of the nations of Western Europe the
federation which had for its bond the church and the Christian doctrines.
A regular communication was opened between our shores and that part
of Europe in which the traces of ancient power and policy were yet
discernible.

Learning followed in the train of Christianity. The poetry and
eloquence of the Augustan age was assiduously studied in Mercian and
Northumbrian monasteries. The names of Bede and Alcuin were
justly celebrated throughout Europe. 1

ANGLO-SAXON DRESS AND ORNAMENTS.

The great love of the Saxons and kindred races for display in dress
and ornament led to a very, remarkable development of artistic skill in
fashioning and decorating articles of jewelry, which were worn by men
in greater profusion than by women.

There is no authentic record of the original costume of the Saxons
on their invasion of Britain, but probably their dresses were so scanty
as to need little description, and mainly consisted of coarse tunics,
horse -hide leggings and jerkins, and barbarous ornaments. It is
certain that the practice of tattooing the skin was not uncommon, and
that both that and the maintenance of the barbarous costume was
continued by some of the Anglo-Saxons as late as the latter part of
the eighth century. But even at that time more luxurious and becoming
apparel and choice ornaments had become general. Of the Christian-
ized Anglo-Saxons of that period Paulus Diaconus says : " Their
garments were loose and flowing, and chiefly made of linen adorned
with broad borders, woven or embroidered with various colours." This
was doubtless the attire of the wealthy at that time, but we have very
distinct accounts of the Anglo-Saxon costume at a later period; that
is to say, in the time of Alfred the Great. There was little distinction

1 Macaulay.

ANGLO-SAXON RELICS.

PERSONAL ORNAMENTS, ETC., OF GOLD AND BRONZE.

1. Enamelled Ring of King Ethelwulf ; in British Museum.

2. Brooch set with garnets and enamelled, and enriched with filagree ; found at Sarre, in

Kent, and now in British Museum.

3. 3, 3. Pins enriched with engraving ; found in the river Witham, now in British Museum.

4. Bronze Cross, the ornament in centre blue and white enamel, with gold mount ; found

near Gravesend, now in British Museum.

5. Gold Cross ; found in Kent.

6. Bronze Buckle, part gilt ; found at Gilton, in Kent.

7. Bronze Fibula ; found at Badby, in Northamptonshire.

8. Pendant of gold and enamel ; in the Fausset Collection.

9. Enamelled Pendant ; in the C. R. Smith Collection.
ro. Gold Ring ; found at Bosington, Hants.

11. Necklace; found at Sarre, in Kent, now in British Museum. The beads are of

various colours white, yellow, green, amethyst, &c. ; the pendant is beautifully
enamelled, and the coins are of gold.

12. Bronze Brooch, having four pearls and four wedge-shaped slices of garnet inlaid ;

found in a tumulus near Canterbury.

13. Gold and Enamelled Brooch; found in Kent.

ANGLO -SAXON RKI.ICS.

PERSONAL OP-NAMKNTS OF GOLD AND BRONZE.

ANGLO-SAXON DRESS AND ORNAMENTS. 17

in fashion between the garments of the nobles and those of the com-
monalty, the distinction being in the material and texture.

Over a linen shirt they wore a tunic of linen or woollen descending
to the knee, and open at the neck, and sometimes at the sides also.
The sleeves of this garment reached to the wrists, and were either
made to fit closely or were puckered into folds or creases. Occasion-
ally the edges and the collars of these tunics were ornamented with
needle-work, and it would appear to have been the original of the
" smock-frock " of our agricultural population. 1 The legs were encased
in drawers or trousers which first reached no further than above the
knee, but were afterwards made long like pantaloons and of one piece
with stockings. These stockings were bandaged or cross gartered
from ankle to knee with strips of coloured cloth or leather, while the
shoes closely resembled those worn at the present day, and were
fastened by two thongs, or thwangs. Over the tunic was thrown
a short cloak or mantle, gathered up and fastened at the breast or
shoulder with a broach or a buckle. Nobles and distinguished persons
substituted for this mantle a long tunic falling below the knee, and
over it a surcoat with short wide sleeves and an aperture at top
to admit the head. These were frequently of richly embroidered
silk, and were lined with the fur of the beaver, sable, or fox. For
high and low the covering of the head was a kind of Phrygian cap-
but strangely enough this was usually worn in the house, while the
long fair curly hair of which the Anglo-Saxons were so proud was
considered to be sufficient protection in the open air in fine weather.

The relics of Anglo-Saxon jewelry and personal ornaments
discovered in various places are so numerous as to enable us to
estimate the artistic skill which was expended on such baubles, the
work frequently consisting of ingenious involutions of knots and
borders of a running pattern. These ornaments consist chiefly of
pins, buckles, fibulae or brooches, and necklaces, the latter being
frequently composed of beads of very quaint device and fine colours.
These beads are sometimes of various sizes and different degrees
of opacity; some are banded, and others have projecting bosses or
knobs of a different colour from the groundwork, the predominant
hue being deep blue; but pale green, red, yellow, and brown tints

1 Much interesting information on this subject is to be found in The Comprehensive History of England,
by Charles Macfarlane and the Rev. Thomas Thomson.

fg PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

are found both in the beads and their stripes or patterns, some
of which form a kind of zigzag line, while the beads themselves
are of all shapes, many of them being formed with facets, while
others are made of a kind of coloured paste, and bear more elaborate
designs. The metal brooches or buckles were formed of gilded bronze
as well as of the precious metals, and gems were occasionally set
in them. The necklaces worn by women were occasionally of garnets,
and finger rings were some of them formed like spirals, so that they
closed on the finger. Hair-pins of great beauty of design have also
been discovered. It has already been mentioned that the nobles
seemed more addicted to finery than their ladies, yet the dress of an
Anglo-Saxon lady was particularly graceful, modest, and suggestive
of dignity. The outer gunna, or gown, was a simple long tunic
reaching nearly to the ground, and with wide sleeves falling to the
elbows. It was mostly made of linen, and on the white ground the
skill of the wearer could be exercised in order to enrich it with
needle-work and embroidery in various colours and patterns. Over
the gown a cloak or mantle was worn when the lady went abroad.
Beneath the gown was a more closely fitting tunic, with sleeves to
the wrist, while the head-dress consisted of a veil or scarf of silk
or linen, either wrapped round the head or fastened with a brooch
at the forehead, and suffered to fall loosely about the neck and
shoulders, the ends of it descending on each side as low as the
knee. Black shoes, and doubtless stockings of linen or woollen,
completed the costume. The head-gear was sometimes confined by
half-circles or fillets of gold; and ear-rings, necklaces, jewelled crosses,
worn as lockets, and girdles, often richly set with gold or precious
stones, formed the ornaments of a lady of distinction.

To great skill at needle-work and in the management of the
household, the Saxon ladies frequently added considerable learning,
and their purity of character added to the influence which they
exercised, while at the same time the high position accorded to
them in the social organization caused their fair fame to be protected.
In truth the Saxons had little to learn from the Normans with regard
to that part of chivalry which concerns the vindication of the honour
and reputation of the gentler sex. It is doubtless due to the influence
and high education of the Saxon ladies that many of their lords
were not debased by the pagan superstitions which lingered long

THE FIRST GREAT ENGLISH KING. 19

after the establishment of Christianity. Following the earnest instruc-
tions of Gregory, the early missionaries, instead of attempting to
abolish the more innocent of the heathen observances and to forbid
the keeping of certain festivals, associated them with some of the
saints' days or historical events of the church, or with monastic legends.
Nowhere had there been so little change, in the names of days and
festivals, and even now the days of our week retain the appellation
taken from the old Scandinavian deities, while Easter, the great
festival of the church, continued (it is said) to be so called from
Eostre, the planet which represented the Venus or the Lucifer of
ancient Rome.

THE FIRST GREAT ENGLISH KING.

It is scarcely too much to say that the actual history of England
commences with the chronicles of the reign of Alfred the Great, since
he is the first king with whose personal character and achievements we
all seem to have been familiar from the time when we first heard the
story of his having left the cakes to burn while he was hiding in the
peasant's hut. Whatever may be the foundation for the legends of
Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, they occupy but a vague
place in the imagination, while almost every boy and girl in the country
has learned to regard Alfred not only as the first great prominent
figure in the history of England, but as an example of courage,
diligence, learning, and piety. They have good reasons for so doing;
and happily while the records of the reign of Alfred were kept with
some accuracy, and have been to a great extent preserved, the bio-
graphy of the king himself from childhood to the close of his reign was
written by one who, though he was a close and constant friend and
counsellor, 1 wrote a narrative which was universally accepted as true,
and was confirmed by bards, by the public chronicles, and by celebra-
tions of the events which he described.

1 Asser, a Welshman, the most learned man then in the country, and a monk of St. Davids, afterwards
Bishop of Sherburn.

2O PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

Alfred the Great was fourth son of Ethelwolfe by Osburg, a
daughter of Osric, the royal butler. Osric was himself of noble Gothic
descent, and on the marriage of his daughter to the king was raised
to an earldom, a rank that added little to his noble birth, which was
only just beneath that of his grandson, whose lineage was reckoned by
Anglo-Saxon authors as reaching up to Woden himself. The other
legitimate sons of Ethelwolfe were Ethelbald, Ethelbert, and Ethelred,
with one illegitimate eldest son Athelstane, king of Kent. But to the
youngest seems to have fallen the greater dignity, even though he could
have but little expectation of succeeding to the crown. It is a strange
fact, however, if we are to receive the Saxon Chronicle, that when he
went with his father to Rome at the early age of five years, Alfred was
received by the pope (Leo IV.) with royal inaugural honours; and
Asser, his biographer and historian, is equally explicit on this point.

In the struggle to maintain his kingdom, and to check the spread
of the Danish hosts over England, Ethelred could probably have done
little but for the undaunted courage and able generalship of his younger
brother. The enemy had indeed learned to regard the name of Alfred,
if not with fear, at least with respect, and

" The stern joy which warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel."

To the steadfast, patient resolution of the Saxon he united a genius
for government and a talent for resource and invention, which make
him the pre-eminent figure of his time, in the pictures of those conflicts
.which represent the history of the period from the accession of Ethelred
in 867 to the formation of the first English navy, with which Alfred
succeeded in more effectually preventing the incursions of the enemy.

From mere marauding excursions for plunder, or for the devastation
of a portion of the country from which these pirates could escape to
their ships on sea-coast or river, the Danes had increased their hostilities
till they assumed the proportions of a regular invasion. They held the
Isle of Thanet, and so commanded the river Thames and the coasts of
Kent and Essex. They had overrun or conquered all Northumbria;
had rebuilt the city of York and settled a strong colony there; had
desolated Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and
Suffolk, and with constantly increasing numbers occupied the whole
length of the island on this side the Tweed, with the exception only of

THE FIRST GREAT ENGLISH KING. 21

the western counties of England; and had established fortified camps
between the Severn and the Thames.

For seven years a Danish army had occupied the land when Alfred,
at twenty-three years of age, came to the throne in 871. The Anglo-
Saxon standard had been gradually retreating towards the south-
western corner of the island, and in less than a month after the young
king had taken the command he found himself with a small army
opposed to a great force of the enemy at Wilton, where the Danes were
routed; but discovering the inferior numbers of their opponents again
took the field, and were thus able to conclude a treaty of peace. They
left the Kingdom of Wessex to turn their attention to London, whither
they marched, and being joined by fresh hosts in the following spring
ravaged Lincolnshire and Derbyshire, robbing and burning towns and
villages, and reducing the people to a condition little short of slavery.

For three years the Kingdom of Wessex was tranquil, but in 875
Halfdani was in North umbria with an army, amongst whom he divided
the territory, which they subsequently adopted as a permanent dwelling-
place, intermarrying among the Saxons, and ultimately forming one
mixed population. Meanwhile another army, commanded by three
kings, marched upon Cambridge, which they fortified and made their
winter quarters. The Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia,
and East Anglia had been obliterated, and the contest lay between the
Danes and Alfred's men of Wessex. 1

In the spring of the next year the Danes, adopting their usual
tactics, took to their ships, intending to carry the war into Wessex.
They succeeded in landing on the coast of Dorsetshire and in taking
the castle of Wareham, but the victory cost them dear. During the
three years' truce Alfred had time to consider how he could best repel
the continued invasions of the enemy, and had come to the conclusion
that this could be best effected by opposing them upon the sea before
they could effect a landing, or during their attempts to run up the rivers
in the small vessels which accompanied their larger ships, and were
not only of little draught, but were often light enough to be carried
overland.

During their settlement in England the Saxons, who had them-
selves been accustomed to use the same skill in seamanship, had entirely

1 The Comprehensive History of England.

22 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

neglected either to maintain or construct ships as a means of defence,
and Alfred now set himself to provide a few vessels with which to
protect the Dorsetshire coast. The result was as successful as to the
Danes it was unexpected. Small as the Saxon flotilla was, it attacked
seven Danish vessels, one of which was taken, and the consequence
was that the enemy once more treated for peace, and agreed to leave
Wessex unmolested.

The Danish chiefs promised to maintain this treaty by their most
solemn oaths sworn on their golden bracelets, and repeated the pledge
when Alfred insisted that they should also swear by the relics of some
Christian saints; but the "treaty breakers," as the Saxon people had
learned to call them, observed neither obligation. The very next night
they attacked Alfred as he rode with a small body of men-at-arms
towards Winchester, and though he escaped, his followers were mostly
slain or dismounted, the Danes seizing their horses and riding away
towards Exeter, where they joined another body of their countrymen,
who had come round by sear and landed at the mouth of the Exe.

The Danes had planned a combined movement by which they might
take Alfred in his western stronghold, and for this purpose, while the
King Guthrun held the town of Exeter, a large Danish fleet sailed from
the mouth of the Thames to carry fresh forces to the scene of action.
But Alfred was able to gain one more great and decided victory before
the treachery of Guthrun and the second breach of a solemn treaty by
the Danes led to the sudden taking of Chippenham, and the subsequent
retreat to Athelney.

The English fleet, which had been considerably increased, was still
weak, but small as it was, had only been partially manned by Saxon
sailors, and the crews were made up of Friesland rovers, whom Alfred
had induced to serve him. These men did their work faithfully and
well, and were ready to intercept the Danish vessels, half of which were
wrecked by a storm which caught them off the Hampshire coast, while
the rest coming on slowly, and in a shattered condition, were met by
the Saxon flotilla in the mouth of the Exe, and after some hard fighting
were entirely destroyed.

Meanwhile Alfred himself had invested Exeter with his army, and
Guthrun, to whom intelligence had been given of the loss of his fleet,
was ready to capitulate, to give hostages, and to swear any oaths which
were demanded from him before he marched out of the west country

THE FIRST GREAT ENGLISH KING. 2$

into Mercia, to wait for a more convenient time when he might again
break all his solemn treaties.

The opportunity came quickly, for the Danish general went no
further than Gloucester, where he set up his standard, the black and
boding raven, around which invading birds of prey gathered from all
parts of the kingdom to prepare for another expedition to the west.

In January, 878, Alfred was at Chippenham, the residence of the
Kings of Wessex, celebrating the feast of the Epiphany, for it was
"twelfth night," and the Saxons were all engaged in observing the
festival when a sudden panic overwhelmed them. The Danes were at
the gates. Guthrun's chosen followers, well armed and mounted, were
unbidden guests, and had come upon them as it were in a moment, and
with an organized plan that gave them no time to make any effectual
resistance. The grim foe burst into the streets of the town slaying as
he went, and it was only with great difficulty that the king and a
small band of followers at last escaped to the woods and moors.

Close to the confluence of the rivers Thone and Parret is still to be
seen the Prince's Island or Athelney, and it was there, when the whole
tract was covered with an almost impenetrable wood, the abode of wild
boars, deer, and forest game, that Alfred was secluded with the few
faithful followers who had accompanied him. To a band of huntsmen
well skilled in woodcraft, subsistence in such a place was not difficult,
and bogs and morass made the place unapproachable except by boats.
It was during his concealment here that the king experienced the
vicissitudes and adventures which have made his history as romantic
as tales of fictitious heroes, and have furnished materials alike for
painters and chroniclers. We all know the story of the royal wanderer
taking refuge in the swine-herd's hut, where the good wife left her
unknown guest to watch the cakes baking in the embers, and rated him
so soundly for suffering them to burn. We can imagine that Alfred
was then too preoccupied to think of anything but the masterly
stratagem by which he afterwards succeeded in defeating the enemy.
His retirement at Athelney lasted about five months, but during that
time the place became a stronghold, to which a large number of his
trusted followers gathered, and the men of Somerset, Wiltshire, Dorset,
and Hampshire soon flocked to his standard in such numbers that he
was able to make excursions against the Danes. His hopes began to
revive. The attempt of Habba, a Danish chief of great renown, to

24 PICTURED AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

land in Devonshire had been frustrated. The chief himself and 800
or 900 of his followers were slain, and his magical banner bearing a
raven, embroidered by the three daughters of the great Ladbroke, was
taken by the Saxons.

Alfred believed that the time had arrived to try his strength with
Guthrun in a pitched battle, but it was first necessary to learn what was
the force and disposition of the enemy. This information the king
determined to gain for himself, and the plan which he adopted was an
indication both of his personal courage and his eminent and varied
ability. Disguised as a minstrel or gleeman, he obtained ready access
to the Danish camp, and while he sung songs to the harp and told
stories to amuse the fierce but idle warriors in their tents, he not only
obtained accurate impressions of the numbers of the enemy, but marked
their disorganization and negligence, while he listened attentively at
councils and noted their plans. Soon afterwards secret messengers
summoned the men of Wessex to meet in arms at Egbert's Stone on
the east of the forest of Selwood on a certain day, and a large and
enthusiastic army was there to greet the king, rejoicing in the prospect
of once more opposing the enemy at Ethandune (said to be the present
Yatton), where, seven weeks after Easter, the Danes were taken by
surprise and utterly defeated in a battle which probably took place at
Slaughterford on the Avon. A series of victories followed, and the
Danes, who retreated to a fortified position, were obliged to capitulate
and to accept Alfred's conditions. There was no hope of expelling his
enemies from the country, and he took the course of converting them
into friends. The country was large enough for them to settle in it and
become its guardians. When once they became attached to the portion
of the land which he was ready to cede to them they would take to
agriculture, and would in due time embrace Christianity, while there
was already so little difference in race and customs between Danes and
Saxons that they would rapidly unite in one community. To Guthrun
and his followers was given a large tract of country known thencefor-
ward as the Danelagh, or Dane Law, Alfred's dominion extending to
the river Thames and thence to the water of the Lea, " even unto the
head of the same water," and thence straight unto Bedford; and finally,
going along by the river Ouse and ending at Watling Street, while the
Danes held the territory beyond these lines on the east side of the
island as far as the Humber, to which their possessions in Northumbria

H w

H,. ><

<t n

* w
S

w ^

ffi o

H c

y (/.'

M <!

G R

^ M

M [l|

P .

a s

THE FIRST GREAT ENGLISH KING.- 25

were quickly added, so that they held the whole eastern part of the
country from the Tweed to the Thames. Soon afterwards, Guthrun,
relying on the Saxon good faith, went with a few followers to Aulre,
near Athelney, and was there baptized, Alfred answering for him at
the font, and giving him the Saxon name of Athelstan. Mercia then
came under the dominion of the King of Wessex, who gave the
military command of it to Ethelred, who had married his daughter
Ethelfleda.

But there were other hosts of marauding Danes who continually
endeavoured to invade England, and it was only during intervals of
peace, when these pirates turned their attention to Holland, Belgium,
and France, that he had time to prosecute those studies for which he
was already distinguished. Still devoting his attention to the increase
of the navy, he caused vessels to be built far exceeding those of his
enemies in length of keel, height of board, swiftness, and steadiness,
some of them carrying above sixty oars, or long sweepers, to be used
after the fashion of the Roman galleys when the wind failed. At the
end of his reign there were 100 sail of large ships, many of the crews
being chiefly composed of Frisians, who fought faithfully.

It was to this fleet, as well as to his extraordinary skill and rapidity
of action as a general, that we must attribute the series of victories
which he gained over the Danes in the enormous invasion under
Hasting in 893, when the men of Kent beheld a fleet of 250 vessels
full of warriors, and bringing horses from Flanders and France. The
army on board these ships landed at Rodney Marsh, towed their light
craft four miles up the river towards the weald, and after defeating the
fen-men, who were trying to raise a fortress, proceeded to Appledore.
Almost at the same time Hasting had entered the Thames with another
army in eighty vessels, and intrenched himself at Milton, near Sitting-
bourne; but Alfred was ready with a strong and well disciplined force,
took up a position between the two Danish divisions, and completely
out-manceuvred them both. This was but the beginning of three years
of continued hostilities, in which swarms of the enemy came to reinforce
the armies, which the Saxons defeated over and over again with great
slaughter, both at sea and in various parts of England, and yet Alfred
treated his enemies with a nobility, and often with a humanity, which
they could at first little appreciate. After the death of Hasting only
a few and scattered attempts were made to invade our coasts.

26 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

Among the recorded benefits assured to his people by the great
Alfred was the translation, either by himself or by learned men selected
for the purpose, of Latin books into the Saxon language. He was
especially fond of studying navigation, geography, and. accounts of
distant countries, endeavoured by courtesy and generosity to attract
foreigners to his court, and his friends made distant and frequent
voyages. He may be said, indeed, to have first established English
influence in India, for having heard that there were colonies of Christian
Syrians settled on the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel, he sent out
Swithelm, bishop of Sherburn, to pay them a visit; and the courageous
ecclesiastic not only made what is now called the overland journey, but
returned with valuable presents of gems and spices.

HAROLD.

A hundred and sixteen years after the death of Alfred England
was completely subject to the dominion of the Danes. What Sweyn,
who came with fire and sword, had failed to effect, his son Canute
accomplished, and by his marriage with Emma, the widow of Ethelred
and sister of Duke Richard of Normandy, doubtless prepared the way
for that later conquest which placed William upon the throne.

The Danes who had settled in England had become a changed
people. They had long ceased to burn farms, sack convents, torture
monks for gold, and slay every human being they met with for sheer
delight in bloodshed. Gradually they had settled down on the land,
intermarried with the Angles and Saxons, and colonized all England
north and east of Watling Street (a rough line from London to Chester),
and the eastern Lowlands of Scotland likewise. They had their own
priests and bishops, and built their own minsters. The convents which
the fathers had destroyed, the grandsons rebuilt; and often, casting
away sword and axe, they entered them as monks themselves; and
Peterborough, Ely, and above all Crowland, destroyed by them in
Alfred's time with a horrible destruction, had become their holy places,
where they decked the altars with gold and jewels, with silks from the

HAROLD. 2 7

far east, and furs from the far north. For a while they had been lords
of all England. The Anglo-Saxon race was wearing out. The men
of Wessex, priest-ridden and enslaved by their own aristocracy, quailed
before the free Norsemen, among whom was not a single serf.

Vain, incapable, profligate kings, the tools of such prelates as Odo
and Dunstan, were no match for such wild heroes as Thorkill the Tall,
Olaf Trygvasson, or Swend Forkbeard. The Danes had gradually
colonized a great part of Wessex. Large sums of danegelt were every
year sent out to buy off the fresh invasions which were continually
threatened.

Then Ethelred the Unready, Ethelred Evil Counsel, laid a plot with
his chief supporters to combine on a given day and exterminate with
sword and torture the Danes, who had long been resident in the king-
dom; and on Saint Bnce's eve, 1002, this murderous plan was executed
throughout a great part of England, and the then peaceful colonists
were massacred without distinction of quality, age, or sex. Among them
Gunhilda, the sister of Sweyn, king of Denmark, who had embraced
Christianity, and married an English earl of Danish descent, was first
made to witness the death of her husband and child, and was then put
to death herself.

Sweyn was soon ready to avenge this crime. The next year a
mighty fleet bore down upon our coasts with a great army of Vikings,
and after thirteen fearful campaigns came the great battle of Assing-
down, in Essex, where " Canute had the victory, and all the English
nation fought against him, and all the nobility of the English race was
there destroyed."

For the next twenty-five years Danish kings ruled from the Forth
to the Land's End.

Though the early part of Canute's career was marked by the
rapacity and bloodshed which was characteristic of the northern
invaders, he lived to institute a milder and more beneficent rule, and
under his strong hand England enjoyed a period of comparative
happiness. He strove successfully to blend the two races over whom
he ruled, rebuilt the churches and monasteries, and was not only
accessible to his subjects, but was a cheerful patron of the glee-
singers, the ballad-makers, and of those who maintained the old
sports and pastimes. He himself wrote verses which were sung to
the common people, and a verse of one of his songs said to have

28 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

been suggested to him when his state barge was passing along the
river Ncne, near Ely Minster, survives in the Historia Eliensis:

M Merrily sung the monks within Ely
When Canute king rode thereby.
Row my knights, row near the land,
And hear we these monks' song."

Around the history of Canute has gathered the kind of interest
which survives in such records as live among the people and every
child has heard of his rebuking the flattery of his housecarles by setting
his chair upon the shore and suffering the waves to rise up to his feet,
after which, in token of humility, he placed his golden crown upon the
high altar at Winchester, and refused to wear it more.

At his death Wessex passed into the hands of the furious Earl
Godwin, who had married the king's sister, and was at that time the
ablest and most eloquent man in England. He, though married to a
Danish princess, and acknowledging his Danish connection by the
Norse names which were borne by his three most famous sons, Harold,
Sweyn, and Tostig, constituted himself the champion of the men of
Wessex and the house of Cerdic. He had murdered, or at least caused
to be murdered horribly, Alfred the Etheling, King Ethelred's son
and heir-apparent, when it seemed his interest to support the claims
of Hardicanute against Harefoot; he afterwards found little difficulty
in persuading his victim's younger brother to come to England, and
become at once his king, his son-in-law, and his puppet. 1

Edward the Confessor was an Englishman only in name. His
mother was the aunt of William the Conqueror, he was educated on
the Continent, and his court was filled with Norman knights and clerks
Norman French was the fashionable language Norman customs the
signs of civilization. Everything was preparing for the conquest which
took place within a year after his death.

Godwin was the great opponent of the Norman influence and the
chief of the Saxon party, so that at his death his eldest son Harold,
who resembled him in talent and address, became the representative
of the English or national interests, and at the death of Godwin became,
as it were, the competitor with William of Normandy for the English
crown. They were not ill-matched; both were famous generals, noted

1 Kingsley.

HAROLD. 29

for their bravery and for their unscrupulous boldness in achieving their
ends. While it is believed that the weak and fanatic Edward had, in
accordance with his Norman tastes, promised the crown to William,
the power and influence of Godwin, and afterwards of Harold, had
reduced the Norman authority about the court, while the people, hearing
that Edward intended to make a pilgrimage to Rome, demanded that
he should appoint his successor, and turned their thoughts to the young
Prince Edward, the son of his half-brother, that Edmund Ironside, whose
character and heroic deeds against the Danes were regarded as only
inferior to those of the Great Alfred himself. Prince Edward dwelt
with Henry III., emperor of Germany, whose daughter he had married,
and at the strong desire of the Saxon Witan, the king sent for him
to England, but on his arrival neglected to admit him to his presence,
a circumstance which was strange enough to provoke universal comment,
and lent additional rancour to the popular feeling when, after a short
time, the prince died in London, and was buried in St. Paul's. Whether
he died a natural death or was the victim of the ambition of Harold or
of William of Normandy cannot be certainly determined, but at any
rate no proof of foul play was ever forthcoming, and though his death
took Harold a step nearer to the throne, it would be unjust to accuse
him of so heinous a crime. It is remarkable that at this time Harold
should have gone to Normandy, and the reason of his journey is alto-
gether uncertain. Indeed, some historians declare that his journey
thither was accidental, and that while he was out at sea in a fishing-
boat during an excursion from his manor of Bosham, at Sussex, he and
his few attendants were driven by a storm upon the opposite coast,
where his vessel was wrecked or stranded near the mouth of the river
Somme, in the territory of Guy, count of Ponthieu. At any rate Harold
and his followers when they landed in France were made prisoners by
this nobleman, and shut up in the castle of Belram, now Beaurain, near
Montreuil, and were not released until Duke William, to whom they
applied, purchased their liberty by a large sum of money and the gift
of an estate to their captor. Harold then went to Rouen as William's
guest, and found that he was as much a prisoner as before, though he
was treated with remarkable distinction. He had but a short time
to wait to know what was expected of him. One day as they rode side
by side the duke said to him, "When Edward and I lived like brothers
under the same roof, he promised me that if ever he became king

30 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

of England he would make me his successor. Harold! I would right
well that you helped me in the fulfilment of this promise, and be assured
that if I obtain the kingdom by your aid, whatever you choose to ask
shall be granted on the instant."

Harold was compelled to answer fairly, promising that he would
do what he could; but the duke had him in his power, and was not so
easily satisfied.

" Since you consent to serve me," said he, " you must fortify Dover
Castle. Dig a good well of water there, and give it up to my men-at-
arms. You must also give me your sister that I may marry her to one
of my chiefs ; and you yourself must marry my daughter Adele. More-
over, I wish you, at your departure, to leave me one of the hostages
whose liberty you now reclaim. He will stay under my guard, and I
will restore him to you in England when I arrive there as king."

This conversation would seem to confirm the belief that Harold
had made the journey to Normandy to release his brother Wulnot and
his nephew Haco, both of whom had been committed by Edward to the
custody of Duke William as hostages for the Godwin family. At all
events, this proposition added another difficulty. By refusing to
consent to the demands of the duke, not only himself but both his
relatives would be in imminent danger. He promised everything under
circumstances which most men of that time, and probably William
himself, would have regarded as sufficient reason for breaking faith. It
was a suspicion of this which led the wily Norman to summon a grand
council of his barons and headmen to witness a more solemn form of
pledge. It is uncertain whether this meeting took place at Avranches
or Bayeux; but in the hall of assembly at one of these towns sat William
in his chair of state, wearing a golden crown, holding a jewelled sword,
and surrounded by his chiefs. Before him stood a kind of table or
altar covered with cloth of gold, and upon this was placed the missal on
which Harold was to swear. " Earl Harold," said William rising, " I
require you, before this noble assembly, to confirm by oath the promises
you have made me, to wit, to assist me in obtaining the crown of
England after King Edward's death, to marry my daughter Adele, and
to send me your sister that I may give her in marriage to one of mine."
It was a crafty trick, but a deeper one than it appeared at first sight.
Even an oath taken on the Gospels might, in that age and between
such men, have been held doubtful as to its binding power, but the

K C H

^ tt

rh < F

i S

^ fc

HAROLD. 3 1

duke was too well aware of this fact to trust to a vow so made.
Harold perturbed, knowing that he was taken by surprise, and unable
to refuse, placed his hand upon the book and took the required oaths,
when, at a signal, the cloth of gold was removed, and beneath it was
discovered a cask filled with the bones and relics of saints which had
been brought from all the surrounding monasteries to give an awful
efficacy to the enforced promise. To a Saxon, to whom such relics were
of peculiar sanctity, this would have been terrible enough to justify the
assertion of the Norman chronicler that Harold trembled at the sight.
He was at once suffered to depart, but not before William had made
him rich and valuable presents, and had restored Haco to be the com-
panion of his uncle to England, while Wulnot was still retained as a
hostage.

If the conditions in which he had been placed made it necessary for
him to forswear his claim to the crown, those in which he found himself
on his return rendered it almost as difficult for him to refuse it. His
brother Tostig had so misruled the Northumbrians that they rose
against him, and elected Morcar, one of the sons of the Earl Algar, the
ancient enemy of the house of Godwin, and Harold himself was unable
to bring about a reconciliation. Tostig fled to Bruges, where, in
revenge for what he considered to be unjust abandonment of his cause,
he gave his support to William of Normandy. Edward was dying, and
it was necessary for him to appoint his successor. Whether he really
named William or Harold is not known. The Normans declared that
he bequeathed the kingdom to the duke, the Saxons were ready to
swear that he had told the chiefs and churchmen that no one was so
worthy of the crown as the great son of Godwin; and as after all the
choice of a king had to be confirmed by the Witenagemot or Great
Council of the nation, the will of the sovereign was not paramount.
That will, if it ever existed, was never produced, and after Edward's
death, on the eve of Epiphany, Harold was proclaimed king in a vast
assembly of chiefs, and nobles, and the citizens of London, almost as
soon as the body of the late monarch was deposited in the tomb in
Westminster Abbey, that magnificent building which he had lived to
reconstruct and to complete. Only a few hours intervened between the
two ceremonies of the funeral of the king and the coronation of his
successor. It is said that Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, who in
right of his office should have placed the crown on Harold's head, had

32 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

been suspended because of a quarrel with the court of Rome, and
Alfred, Archbishop of York, took his place. Other accounts have
represented that the son of Godwin crowned himself, but there is grave
reason to doubt this statement, not only because William of Poitiers,
a contemporary writer, declares that the ceremony was performed by
Stigand, but from the fact that in the representation of the scene in
the Bayeux tapestry Harold appears seated on the throne with the
archbishop standing on the left.

THOMAS A BECKET.

It is not a little remarkable that the only Romish shrine which has
been publicly brought to notice in England during the last few years is
that of a Becket, the representative of the unyielding supremacy of
that church, which still demands not only spiritual but temporal power.
Those relics which Sir Thomas More was so anxious to remove from
the Cathedral of Canterbury when Henry VIII. was ready to defy the
Papal power had been potent in the days of the Second Henry, who
had, by a few words of furious passion, caused what was instantly
regarded as the martyrdom of a Saint. It remained for a few persons
who, perhaps, because they knew that Henry Manning (once an
English clergyman, but now a Roman Catholic Cardinal, and so-called
Archbishop of Westminster) held in his keeping one of the two mitres
of Thomas a Becket, to try to revive a Canterbury pilgrimage in the
year of grace 1875. Not much notice was taken of this journey. The
so-called pilgrimages to French shrines had preceded it, and such
observances were felt to be (apart from any supposed religious excite-
ment) inconsistent with present modes of living and means of travelling.
A pilgrimage by railway is an anachronism. Chaucer's wonderful party,
which started from the old inn in the borough of Southwark, is almost
the only account of such an excursion which the English people now
regard with interest.

And yet it cannot be denied that the story of the Saxon scholar and

RELICS ASSOCIATED WITH THOMAS A BECKET.

1. Ivory Grace Cup of Thomas a Becket ; in the possession of P. H. Howard, Esq., of

Corby.

2. Mitre of Thomas a Becket ; preserved in the Abbey of Sens, Normandy.

3. Mitre of Thomas a Becket ; in the care of Cardinal Manning.

4. 5, 6, 7. Leaden Tokens. ) Bought by Pilgrims at Canterbury, and worn by them to
8. Leaden Ampulla. ) show they had visited the shrine of Thomas h Becket.

Engraved "fey

RELICS ASSOCIATED WITH THOMAS A BPXXKET

PIiACKIE. A SOK-IiONDON. Gr.AEGOW- 4 EDJNBOBG fi .

THOMAS A BECKET. 33

knight who, in the court of the Norman, held rank and power next to
the king himself, is full of that kind of romantic vicissitude which excites
the imagination, and frequently stirs the sentiments and the passions of
men.

To the student no less than to the general reader the history of
Thomas a Becket offers vivid attractions. The chronicles of Fitz-
Stephen, Gervase of Canterbury, Diceto, Peter of Blois, and other
writers, give us some consecutive accounts of this remarkable career,
and as Fitz-Stephen was not only biographer but secretary to a Becket
we are able to estimate the position which was held by the man who
united the two distinctions of opposing the Norman influence, and at
the same time of upholding the sacerdotal power against a king, whose
desire it was to oppose the growing arrogance and authority of the
church and of the rival Popes, Victor IV., who was established at
Rome under the protection of the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, and
Alexander III., who had found an asylum north of the Alps.

Thomas a Becket was the son of a London tradesman, and was born
in 1117. His father was not of Norman but of Saxon race, and the
youth, who had many of the sympathies which belonged to his lineage,
was the first of the Saxon people who rose to any great distinction
under the Norman rule. To the advantages of a handsome person and
a remarkably engaging address, he added great accomplishments and no
little learning, for his father sent him to study first at Merton Abbey,
afterwards to Oxford, and then to Paris, where he applied himself to
the subject of civil law. Coming back to London he was employed
as a clerk in the office of the sheriff, and attracted the attention of
Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent him to complete his
studies at the famous school of Bologna, where he became a pupil of
the learned Gratian. On returning to London he took deacon's orders,
and was raised by the primate to the dignity of Archdeacon of Canter-
bury, a position which demanded no church duties, and left him still in
the position of a courtier and diplomatist.

In this latter capacity the young and versatile favourite was sent to
the court of Rome to conduct some important negotiations, and there,
by his address, he obtained from the pope letters which defeated the
project for crowning Eustace the son of Stephen. This brought him
more prominently into notice, and thenceforward he became the chosen
friend and companion of Henry II. A Becket was now Lord High

34 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

Chancellor, and distinguished for the magnificence of his retinue and
his sumptuous style of living, which was almost equal to, even when it
did not exceed, that of his royal master. The greatest nobles of the
court were glad to sit at his table, where Henry himself was sometimes
a guest. The rich baronies of Eye and Berkham were bestowed on
him, and his revenues were large and increasing. Though a churchman
in deacon's orders, he joined in the gay amusements of the court; kept
a stud of hunters, and with a large following of knights and retainers
travelled in princely state. At Toulouse and on the borders of Nor-
mandy he took part in military affairs, and everywhere held a foremost
place not only by his personal accomplishments but by his wit and
scholarship.

It had long been the desire of Henry II. to diminish the power of
the church and to define the ecclesiastical authority, and a Becket had
seconded these efforts with no little ability, so that on the death of the
primate Theobald, the king proposed to raise his trusted councillor to
the see of Canterbury. This was effected without much difficulty, and
a Becket assumed the archiepiscopal dignity. From that moment his
mode of life was entirely changed. He was no longer the courtier and
the man of pleasure, but the churchman who sought to discharge the
duties of his high office first, by relinquishing his chancellorship;
secondly, by a life of simplicity, to which was frequently added consider-
able austerity; thirdly, by upholding that ecclesiastical authority which
his appointment to the see of Canterbury was intended to limit.

Henry was astonished at the change which had suddenly come upon
his friend and favourite, and it is not easy to explain it by attributing it
to any one cause. The archbishop became the avowed champion of the
church, and began at once to take measures for asserting its authority.
Instead of supporting the royal power, he opposed it with an intensity
and a persistency that must have arisen from some deep and earnest
conviction. Perhaps his Saxon birth was the mainspring of his motives,
for never since the Norman Conquest had a Saxon attained a position
which made opposition to the throne effective. He was inclined to
assert his ecclesiastical authority to the utmost, and to enforce it with
all the powers of censure and even of excommunication. His first
demonstration was to order the Earl of Clare to resign the barony of
Tunbridge, which though it had been the property of the family ever
since the conquest, had formerly belonged to the see of Canterbury.

THOMAS A BECKET. 35

This was followed by other interpositions with regard to church pro-
perty, and by an almost arrogant defiance of the royal authority.

The great point of dispute at that time was the subjection of the clergy
to the civil power in civil and criminal cases. Councils of churchmen
had always demanded that priests were not liable to be tried by courts
which were instituted by and for laymen, and consequently crimes com-
mitted by the clergy were not liable to be punished by the magistrate,
but only brought the culprits under the censure of the church. Henry
declared that the ancient laws of the kingdom could not be superseded
by the ecclesiastics; a Becket took the other side, and refused to deliver
up to punishment a clerk in holy orders who had been guilty of murder.
The king then summoned a council to meet at Clarendon, where they
drew up the famous " Constitutions of Clarendon," against the pre-
vailing abuses of ecclesiastical power. To these a Becket refused
to assent, and it was only when he stood alone in his opposition, and
found that he was in danger of being deserted by the clergy themselves,
that he gave in his adhesion. But Pope Alexander refused to ratify
the articles, and a Becket thereupon withdrew his consent, and pro-
fessed to regard his former compliance as a fault requiring penance and
the absolution of the pope.

Unable to move the obstinate prelate on these grounds, the enraged
king at once began to humble his fortunes, by suing him for large
sums of money said to be due to the crown, and as a Becket did not
appear in person, confiscating his property for contempt of court.
A Becket saw that it was intended to work his ruin, and at once
refused to acknowledge the authority of the court which condemned
him, appealed to the pope, and ultimately succeeded in escaping
to Sens, where Alexander received him with great distinction, while
Lewis of France and Philip of Flanders both gave him a cordial
welcome. Henry was powerless. He could fine and banish the friends
and family of a Becket, but meantime, sustained by the support of the
pope, the primate was pronouncing sentence of excommunication against
the king's ministers who had favoured the Constitutions of Clarendon.
Henry dreaded the moment when his own turn would come to be
anathematized and at once began to negotiate for a reconciliation, which
was only effected by great concessions to the former favourite; in return
for which all that he obtained was absolution for the excommunicated
ministers, and the withdrawal of threatened censure to himself.

36 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

Amidst the acclamations of the people, but not without attempted
hindrances from the nobles, a Becket returned to Canterbury, but only
to resume the demonstrations of that ecclesiastical authority, which he
demanded for the church as superior to the civil power. He issued
severe censures against the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of
London and Salisbury, who in his absence had usurped the right of
officiating at the coronation of his former pupil, the young Prince
Henry. He excommunicated' Robert de Broc, Nigel de Sackville,
and others who had assisted at the ceremony. All these people
had been his personal enemies, and had tried to ruin him. The
prelates left England for the Continent, where they appealed to Henry,
who was still at Montmirail.

When Henry heard of this resumption of hostilities he was seized
with an ungovernable fit of rage, and is said to have ejaculated,
" What sluggard wretches, what cowards have I brought up in my
court! Not one will deliver me from this low-born priest." The
words led to swift action. Without deliberation four knights, Reginald
Fitzurse, Hugh de Moreville, William de Tracy, and Richard le Brez,
stole from the court, embarked by different routes to England, and
met near Canterbury. On the evening of the 2Qth of December
these four men entered the chamber of the archbishop, who, though
he had been warned by a letter, seems to have scorned to appear
afraid. His visitors declared that they only sought to bring the
primate to allegiance, and demanded that he should absolve the
bishops. He refused, and words ran high, a Becket not sparing
epithets and denunciations. The knights went out calling, " To arms,
to arms! king's men, king's men!" The attendants of the archbishop
saw his danger, and implored him to take refuge in the church. He
at first refused, but as the sound of the vespers reached him he con-
sented to enter the sacred precincts, as it was his duty to be present.
He had not reached the altar when the four knights rushed in fully
armed, and heedless of sacrilege. After great confusion and contention
Fitzurse struck at the primate's head with his sword, but the blow was
warded by an attendant, whose arm was broken by the force of the
blow, which fell more slightly on his master. The archbishop was
wounded, and with the blood running down his face said, " For the
name of Jesus, and in defence of the church, I am willing to die."
The blows of two others of his assailants followed, and he fell close

THE LION-HEART. 37

to the foot of St. Bennet's altar, a third stroke from a sword cleaving
his skull, so that his brains were scattered on the pavement.

The terrified priests and the crowd which had assembled at once
proclaimed him a martyr; and the title attained strength from the
discovery of the monks, who, in preparing the body for burial, found
by the marks of penance that the proud and once luxurious a Becket
had practised austerities to which they themselves were strangers.
Soon the story of these marks of humility and self mortification was
made known. People who had dipped cloths and handkerchiefs in the
blood of the martyred archbishop began to speak of miracles effected
by their means. In spite of the prohibitions and threats of Robert de
Broc, the monks buried the body with great solemnity in the crypt
of the cathedral. The king himself was alarmed at the effects of his
words spoken in passion, and disclaimed any such intention as had
been attributed to him. In order to avert the probable consequences
of the act, which might have brought upon him the excommunication
of the pope, shut himself up to fasting and solitude, and ultimately
proffered an oath upon the holy Gospels and relics at Avranches that
he had neither ordered nor desired the murder of the archbishop.
This oath was sworn before the two legates of the pope and a large
concourse of clergy and people; and having been accompanied by large
payments of money, sufficed to obtain absolution, though, as he could
not deny that his wrathful words had been the occasion of the crime,
he also agreed to maintain 200 knights during a year for the defence
of the Holy Land, and to serve himself if it should be required of him.
At the same time he engaged to restore to the family and friends of
a Becket all their possessions, and to relinquish such customs against
the church as had been introduced in his time.

THE LION-HEART.

In Richard of Aquitaine, or, as he was for some time called, of Poitou,
there seemed to revive some of those personal qualities which were
conspicuous in William the Conqueror. Henry II. had exhibited some-

38 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

thing of the statesmanship and the executive control which distinguished
the first Norman ruler; and his son Richard, though he scarcely equalled
him in administrative ability, yet possessed those personal qualifications
which gave him an heroic aspect and signalized him as a leader of men ;
fitted alike by an imposing figure and by an undaunted courage to com-
mand those by whom he was surrounded. It is scarcely to be wondered
at that, while Cceur de Lion is so prominent a figure in what may be
called the romance of history, he is so differently regarded by various
writers who discuss his character and influence.

While on the one hand he is represented as a Troubadour knight,
speaking the language of Southern France and possessing the accom-
plishments of those poet-warriors of Aquitaine of whom he was the
companion in arms, he is on the other side represented as a fierce and
ruthless conqueror delighting in battle and with a propensity to coarse
and almost brutal indulgences.

There can be little doubt that he combined something of both char-
acters that while he exhibited the strong characteristics of the Vik-
ings, from whom he could claim direct descent, his habits were greatly
modified by the influences of early training and education as well as by
the influence of his mother, the heiress of the land south of the Loire.
There was the commanding presence which overawed opposition, and
seemed to stamp him as a natural leader of men ; there was the chival-
rous yet somewhat stern courtesy; there was the uncompromising pride;
there was the adventurous spirit, in which the love of fame and the law-
less greed of acquisition seemed to be blended in almost equal propor-
tions ; there was the devotion to a great purpose of an enthusiast, often
distracted for a moment by the temptation of immediate adventure and
gain, but using even these distractions as new instruments in its further
prosecution; there was the thirst for battle, and the delight in the mere
physical contest, and yet the common sense and shrewdness of percep-
tion which could see the limits of acquisition and of fame, and could turn
away from fruitless laurels. 1

The vicissitudes which Richard I. suffered, and the treachery and
cruelty of his enemies, never seemed to subdue his spirit; and though
he .sometimes made severe reprisals, he was not wanting in an impul-
sive and noble generosity. As an example of his unconquerable courage

1 Sanford's Estimates of English Ktngi.

THE LION-HEART. 39

may be cited the boldness with which, after enduring sickness and a
long imprisonment in the castle of Tiernsteign, where the base and
cowardly Henry, emperor of Germany, loaded him with chains, he
maintained his cause by frank and noble speech in presence of the council
before which he was brought, proudly declaring that as King of England
none there had a right to call him to account, but flinging back the foul
charges brought against him. His revenge was, it is true, shown by the
refusal to release the Bishop of Beauvais, a relative of the French king
and one of Richard's bitterest enemies, who was taken prisoner while
fighting in complete armour by Marchadee, the leader of the Brabanters,
who was in Richard's service during the long war with Philip of France.
The king ordered him to be loaded with irons and imprisoned in the Castle
of Rouen. When two of the bishop's chaplains waited on Richard
to ask for milder treatment for their master, he answered them by
saying, " You yourself shall judge whether I am not justified. This
man has done me many wrongs. Much I could forget, but not this.
When in the hands of the emperor, and when, in consideration of my
royal character, they were beginning to treat me more gently
and with some marks of respect, your master arrived, and I soon
experienced the effects of his visit; overnight he spoke with the
emperor, and in the morning a chain was put upon me such as a horse
could hardly bear." The bishop afterwards implored the intercession
of the pope (Clementine), who, however, upbraiding him with his
departure from canonical rules, consented only to ask for mercy as a
friend and refused to interfere as pope. He wrote to Richard, how-
ever, requesting him to pity his son the bishop; to which entreaty the
king responded, by sending to the pontiff the blood-stained coat of mail
which the bishop wore when he was taken prisoner, with a scroll attached
to it inscribed with the words, " This have we found, know now whether
it be thy son's coat or no."

The ready and noble generosity of Cceur de Lion may be illustrated
by his prompt forgiveness (at the intercession of his mother Eleanor)
of his despicable brother John, who had done all he could to ruin and
supplant him. There was perhaps something a little contemptuous,
however, in his remark : " I forgive him, and hope I shall as easily
forget his injuries as he will forget my pardon."

It is scarcely to be wondered at that this bold frank man should
have exacted from his equally chivalrous foes an admiration which in

4O PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

some instances led them to regard him with a kind of loyal friendship.
There can be no doubt that he and Saladin, the accomplished and
warlike chief of the Saracens, respected each other; and we can scarcely
wonder that the battle of Jaffa should have made the English king
famous both among friends and foes. Deserted by the French and
Germans under their treacherous leaders, Richard had fallen back upon
Acre, and Saladin, ever vigilant, at once came down from the mountains
of Judea and took Jaffa all but the citadel. The king immediately
ordered his few stanch troops to march by land to its relief, while he
and a small retinue of knights took seven vessels and hastened to
make the journey by sea. On arriving in the roadstead they found
the beach occupied in force by the enemy; but rejecting the advice
of his companions, Richard at once leaped into the water, exclaiming,
"Cursed for ever be he that followeth me not." There was
enough force in that great stalwart frame and strong arm to represent
half-a-dozen ordinary men, and one and all sprang after him with a
shout and a fierce onslaught that dispersed the best of the Saracens
and retook the town. The next day Saladin appeared with the main
body of his army, and Richard's troops had also arrived though they
were greatly inferior in number. Here was an occasion when as general
and leader Cceur de Lion made up for the want of a more numerous
army. His dispositions were so well ordered, his personal valour so
conspicuous, that victory was the result. Every champion who met
Richard that day was dismounted, and his untiring arm smote on till
nightfall. The generous admiration of Saphadin the brother of Saladin
was so moved that when the king's charger was killed he sent him
two magnificent horses as a present. There was something wildly
chivalrous about the feeling of these warriors towards each other.
Every time that Cceur de Lion headed the charge the Saracens broke
and fled. No wonder that his name became a word of fear among the
Mussulmans and of fame amongst friends and enemies alike. Tall
above the middle height, but more remarkable for his broad chest and
strong yet pliant sinews, he was by general confession physically the
strongest of living men of his time, and he was also the least accessible
to fear and the most self-confident in his strength.

Strange that after all, this great warrior should be slain by an arrow
from a rebel among his Poictevin vassals. For some time a ballad had
been known to exist in Normandy, the burden of which was that in

THE LION-HEART. 4!

Limousin the arrow was making by which the tyrant would die; but
this, perhaps, was common during the reign of Henry also, for he was
shot at more than once by these disaffected men of the south. The
exact occasion of Richard's death-wound is perhaps uncertain, but the
most fully accredited account is that it was during a visit to Vidomar,
Viscount of Limoges, who had found a treasure, and refusing to give up
the due share to Richard as his lord, was being besieged by the king
in his castle of Chaluz. Richard, with Marchadee, the captain of his
Brabant mercenaries, was viewing the stronghold to see where a breach
might best be effected, when a youth named Bertrand de Gurdun
recognized him from the ramparts, and at once discharged an arrow
which entered the king's shoulder. Soon after, the castle was taken by
assault, and the wound, which was not in itself very dangerous, had
been made mortal by unskilful attempts to extract the arrow head.
Bertrand de Gurdun, who was among the few of those who remained
alive after the victory, was brought before Richard.

"Wretch," said the king, "what harm have I done to thee that
thou shouldst seek my life ?" to which the man made answer, " You
slew my father and my two brothers with your own hand, and you had
intended now to kill me; therefore take any revenge on me that you
may think fit, for I will readily endure the greatest torments so long as
you have met with your end after having inflicted evils so many and so
great upon the world."

" Youth, I forgive thee," cried Richard ; " loose his chains and give
him a hundred shillings;" but the youth stood before the king, and
with scowling features and undaunted neck did his courage demand the
sword.

" Live on," said Richard, " although thou art unwilling, and by my
bounty behold the light of day. To the conquered faction now let
there be bright hopes and the example of myself."

Richard was frequently addicted to gross and sensual indulgence,
but his fits of penitence seem to have been sincere; and he had a real
respect for religion, though he did not always forbear jesting with the
clergy, and making shrewd and pungent speeches at their expense.
Indeed his wit was caustic, and his ability as a serious lampooner was
an accomplishment which properly belonged to him as a poet knight of
Languedoc. Perhaps the most remarkable instance of it was his retort
to the bishop, who, coming to visit him on his death-bed, and being

42 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

asked by the king what he should do, replied, " Consider of disposing
of thy daughters in marriage and do penance."

" This confirms what I said before," said the king, " that you are
jesting with me, for you know that I never had either daughters or
sons."

"Of a truth, O King," rejoined the bishop, "you have three
daughters, and have had and nourished them long; for as your first-
born daughter you have Pride; as your second, Covetousness ; as your
third, Self-indulgence. These you have had and have loved out of all
reason from your very youth."

" True, it is," said the king, " that I have had these, and thus it is
that I will bestow them in marriage. My first-born, Pride, I give to
the Templars, who are swollen with insolence and puffed up beyond
all others. My second, that is Covetousness, I give to the Gray Friars,
who with their Covetousness molest all their neighbours like mad devils.
My last, however, namely, Self-indulgence, I make over to the Black
Friars, who devour roast meat and fried, and are never satiated."

A strange contention this at the death-bed of a king, but not out
of keeping with a time which has grown almost as unfamiliar to many
of us as that of which we read when we take up the history of Greece
or Rome.

Richard of the Lion- Heart was a great man of an English pattern,
however. Not without some of the diplomacy of his father Henry,
but with more warlike ability and robust physical force. He was only
forty-two years old when he died, after reigning ten years, all of which
were years of strife. His body was carried to Fontevraud, where it
was buried at the feet of his father. His heart was deposited in two
caskets of lead and deposited in the Cathedral at Rouen, where it was
discovered "withered to the semblance of a faded leaf" on the 3ist
July, 1838. It was then in a cavity in the lateral wall near the effigy
which was hidden beneath the pavement of the choir. The thin leaf of
silver which had inclosed the heart in the inner casket was rudely
inscribed,

+ Hie JACET : COR : RICAR.
DI : REGIS : ANGLORUM :

ROGER DE MORTIMER. 43

ROGER DE MORTIMER.

The name of this man is inscribed on one of the darkest pages of
English history, and though it is associated with the great house of
Lancaster, which afterwards long maintained its power over the English
throne, it can only be regarded as equalling in infamy that of the
wicked and ignoble king whose neglected queen chose the great noble
for her paramour.

The weak tool of base favourites and the companion of sots and
buffoons, Edward II. appears to have been afflicted with a moral
imbecility which prevented him from being true either to himself or
to others, except in the two instances of Hers Gaveston and Hugh
Despenser, to whom he showed in succession an almost idiotic and
fawning complacency, which aroused the wrath of the nobles whom
they superseded and the nation whom they wronged. For Gaveston,
whose presence in England Edward I. had forbidden just before his
death, the king neglected wife, and throne, and state, subversed his
councils, and betrayed his friends. The war which his father had carried
on against Scotland and had left to him to continue sank into a mere
pretence of hostilities, till the barons demanded annual parliaments and
decreed that all grants made to Gaveston should be recalled. Edward
was compelled to yield, and when Gaveston retired to Flanders, pre-
pared to go to York after the dissolution of the assembly, for the great
Bruce was already beginning to achieve the entire deliverance and
independence of Scotland. The queen, the lovely Isabella of France,
was left behind with the utmost indifference, and in a few weeks
Gaveston was back again with the king, who restored all his estates
and honours. His time had come, however. The Earl of Lancaster,
cousin to Edward, headed the barons who came upon the royal party
at Newcastle, whence the king escaped; while Gaveston retreated to
Scarborough Castle, was besieged there, and, after capitulating, was
conveyed to Dedington, where the grim Earl of Warwick met him and
carried him to Warwick Castle. There he was tried by a hasty council
consisting of the Earls of Lancaster, Hereford, and Arundel, who, with
other chiefs, condemned him to death, a sentence which was at once

44 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

executed on Blacklow Hill, a rising knoll overlooking the Avon, where
he was beheaded.

Then followed that series of achievements by which Bruce and his
patriotic followers maintained the independence of Scotland ending
with the battle of Bannockburn, where the great English army was
overthrown by a force much fewer in number and with vastly inferior
equipments. Not till the Scottish forces had by a series of incursions
carried their arms into Yorkshire, was a truce concluded which was
to last for two years, after which there was to be a suspension of arms
for thirteen years, unaffected by the death of either or both of the con-
tracting parties.

But in those two years Edward had contrived to ruin his own claim
to hold the throne, by alienating from him both the barons and the people.
Another favourite (Hugh Despenser) had taken the place of Gaveston,
and with the same result. Sentence of banishment was pronounced
against the whole family of the Despensers in August, 1321 ; in October
they had returned, encouraged by the sudden action of the king, who
had caused twelve knights of the opposite party to be hanged and
by the sudden departure to the north of the Earl of Lancaster, who as
a prince of the blood was their most powerful enemy. For a time it
appeared as though Edward would regain his position and be able to
maintain that of his favourites, for Lancaster had agreed with the
Scots that an army should be sent across the border to join his own
forces. This aroused the wrath of the English people, who thence-
forward looked upon him as a traitor, and he was finally compelled
to surrender with a number of other knights after an engagement in
which several of his companions were killed. In his own castle of
Pontefract a court was formed of six earls and a number of barons
of the king's party. Lancaster was tried and found guilty of treason,
and amidst insult and indignities was led to execution along with
twenty-nine of his followers, consisting of knights and baronets, while
many were thrown into prison. Others escaped to France, where
they soon began to plan the ruin of the king and his adherents.
The latter had already provoked the hatred of the nation by their
arrogance, while Edward himself had disgusted the people by his
vices, and had aroused indignation by the suspension of hostilities
with Scotland, although that measure may be considered as the most
politic he could have adopted under the constant reverses which he

ROGER DE MORTIMER. 45

had experienced in the endeavour to repulse Bruce and his advancing
army.

After the treaty was concluded an attempt was made first to remove
the elder Despenser, and next to liberate some of the Lancastrian
prisoners. It failed, except in one important instance. Roger de
Mortimer, who had been twice condemned for treason, and was then
lying in the Tower of London under sentence of death, contrived to
drug his keepers and to escape by means of a ladder of ropes, after
which he succeeded in reaching the Hampshire coast, and crossing
to France, where he joined the malcontents.

The plan against the king was not yet complete. It needed the
presence of the Queen Isabella and of the young Prince Edward, her
son, to make it secure. Charles le Bel, Isabella's brother, had long
had a dispute with Edward III. on the subject of sundry English
possessions, which he (Charles) had seized on the Continent, and the
queen represented to her husband that she could obtain from him
acknowledgments of more importance than he would yield to ambas-
sadors. Edward agreed that she should proceed to Paris; and in
March, 1325, she set out with a splendid retinue for Boulogne. The
treaty which she made demanded the presence of Edward himself to
do homage for the territory he was allowed to retain in France, a
proposition the dishonour of which he appears not to have resented,
since he prepared to make the voyage and reached Dover, whence he
sent word that sickness prevented him from concluding his journey.
It has been supposed that the Despensers who did not dare to
accompany him to Paris, where their enemies were so powerful, and
who almost equally dreaded being left alone in England persuaded
him to remain. An answer was returned that if he would concede
Ponthieu and Guierre to his son the boy might be allowed to represent
him, and to this he acceded, so that the whole party of his enemies
were united in France, with Roger de Mortimer as the representative
of the house of Lancaster, and the queen at their head.

Between Isabella, who was still beautiful and no more than twenty-
eight years of age, and de Mortimer, who was one of the handsomest
and most accomplished men of his time, there arose a guilty companion-
ship, which for a time seemed likely to frustrate the plot against Edward;
for Hugh Despenser bribed the French ministers to prevent the forma-
tion of an army in the cause of Isabella, and at the same time induced

46 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

his master to write to the pope, asking him to compel Charles to restore
Isabella to England, a request which the pontiff granted by threatening
to excommunicate Charles unless he sent his sister to her husband. In
feigned anger Charles urged the queen to return, or at all events to
leave his kingdom; and she, with the Lancastrians, took refuge with
his vassal, the Count of Hainault, to whose daughter the Prince
of Wales was soon afterwards affianced. A strong party was formed,
which was joined by the ambassadors whom Edward had sent to
France, so that an army of 2000 men was ready, headed by Roger de
Mortimer, and including not only the exiles of high rank and station
who were so numerous that scarcely one of the whole force was below
the rank of knight but the Earl of Kent (brother to the king), the
Earl of Richmond, Lord Beaumont, and the Bishop of Norwich, the
ambassador who had joined the queen in the Low Countries. There
were at the same time numerous partisans in England, under the
leadership of Bishop Orleton, ready to pronounce against the king.
When Isabella and her followers landed at Orwell, in Suffolk, she was
received with enthusiasm. The force sent to oppose her at once
joined her standard and that of the young prince. The Earl of
Norfolk, Edward's other brother, was ready to receive her, the bishops
offered their services. Edward was abandoned alike by nobles and
people. The citizens of London refused to aid him against the queen
and prince, and he fled with his few retainers, the two Despensers,
and the Chancellor Baldock. At Bristol the elder Despenser was
taken, tried, and almost immediately executed with horrible torture, and
then the barons issued a proclamation summoning Edward to return to
the throne. They had no expectation that he would resume his reign,
and the next day, assuming the privileges of a parliament, they declared
that he had left the country without a ruler, and that the Prince of Wales
was the hereditary guardian of the kingdoms. The younger Despenser
met with the same dreadful doom as his father, and was hanged at
Hereford on a gallows 50 feet high. Baldock, as a priest, was spared
from the scaffold, but died not long afterwards a prisoner in Newgate.

We need not here enter into the terrible tragedy which followed,
nor dwell upon the foul murder of the deserted king, whose imprison-
ment for two months preceded the declaration that he had ceased
to reign. That sentence was received by the nation without any voice
being raised in his behalf, and the Prince of Wales was proclaimed

ROGER DE MORTIMER. 47

amidst general acclamation. Five days afterward Stratford, Bishop
of Winchester, produced a bill charging Edward of Caernarvon with
shameful indolence, incapacity, cowardice, cruelty, and oppression. The
young Edward was present in parliament and seated on the throne
when the charge was made and the sentence of deposition confirmed.
The queen pretended some sorrow. On the 2Oth of January, 1327,
a deputation of bishops, knights, and nobles, representing each county
in England, proceeded to Kenilworth, where Edward was confined, to
tell him that the people no longer owed him allegiance, and to demand
that he should resign the crown. He appeared in the hall wrapped in
a common black gown, and at the sight of Bishop Orleton fell to the
ground in a swoon. He agreed to every demand, thanked the par-
liament for not having overlooked his son, and then had to listen to the
declaration that he was no longer king, and to witness the breaking
of the White Staff, or wand of office, by the steward of the royal house-
hold, Sir Thomas Blount a ceremony usually performed on the death
of the sovereign.

He had not long to live. The fearful tragedy which was after-
wards enacted was said to have been caused by certain plots which
were formed against Mortimer, with the intention of supporting the
renewal of the royal claims. Edward was the prisoner of the Earl
of Lancaster, who, though he might have been expected to avenge
the death of a brother, treated the deposed king with some courtesy
and kindness. When he was removed from Lancaster's custody
to that of Sir John Maltravers, who had also suffered great wrongs,
he was made to travel by night, and, as though with the purpose
of concealing his place of confinement, became a prisoner at three
or four different castles. At last he was taken to Berkeley Castle,
where Lord Berkeley was associated with Maltravers as his jailer,
and proved to be a less fierce and cruel one. But Berkeley fell sick,
and during a temporary absence his place was by order of Mortimer
filled by Thomas Gourney and William Ogle. Then came that dark
September night when shrieks and " a wailful noise " were heard
from the castle even by people in the town. The next morning the
castle gates were thrown open, and all comers were admitted to see the
body of Edward of Caernarvon, who had died in the night "of a sudden
disorder." There were no outward marks of violence, but the coun-
tenance was distorted and horrible to look upon. Rumours of foul and

48 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

secret murder were rife, but few seemed to care for the fate of the
wretched king, whose corpse was conveyed to Gloucester and buried in
the Abbey Church, the Berkeley family attending the funeral.

The young Edward was but fourteen, and Queen Isabella, who
was herself entirely controlled by Mortimer, became the ruler of the
nation. The Earl of Lancaster, who was the guardian of Edward,
attempted to oppose the tyrannous usurpation of this bold bad man,
who had been loaded with honours, made Earl of March, and was
overbearing the council of the regency; but Lancaster stood alone; the
prince remained with his mother and the favourite, and the Earls of
Kent and Norfolk deserted their kinsman, who, having retreated, left
his estates to be plundered by his enemy, and was then obliged to sue
for pardon and to pay an enormous fine. The Earl of Kent was
doomed, and by an artful plot Mortimer effected his ruin. Agents
were employed to represent to him that his brother (Edward II.) was
not dead ; that it was the corpse of another which had been taken from
Berkeley Castle and buried at Gloucester; that the late king was still
a prisoner at Corfe Castle. Some monks were found who urged him
to release the captive, and restore him to the throne. Forged letters,
said to come from the pope, and advising the same course, were
brought to him. He was induced to write to his brother, whom he was
persuaded was not dead. The letters were conveyed by Maltravers
to Isabella and Mortimer, who immediately summoned a parliament to
try Kent for high treason. Sentence of death was pronounced, and
though it was supposed that his royal blood would protect him he was
taken out and beheaded after the execution had been delayed for
some hours till a condemned felon could be found who would consent
to do the work of headsman on condition of a free pardon, and because
no one could be induced to undertake the office.

Retribution was already on the heels of the arrogant usurper.
Edward was eighteen years old, and had married Philippa, who bore
him a son afterwards to become that famous Black Prince who is so
prominent a person in English history.

It was time for the young king to assert his power, and he prepared
for the cunning and sudden overthrow alike of Isabella and Mortimer.
Lord Montacute was the adviser with whom he cautiously conferred,
and their plan must have been formed with remarkable secrecy.
The parliament was to meet at Nottingham. The young king lodged

rf o

o ^

N H

o g

o 2

< c:

u w

ROGER DE MORTIMER. 49

at the castle with Mortimer and his mother. On the morning of the
assembly Montacute and a number of his friends and retainers were
observed to ride away from the town, after a private conference with
Edward. Mortimer had received some intelligence, and with his
usual audacity appeared before the council and declared that a con-
spiracy known to the king was being attempted against himself and
the queen. Edward denied the accusation and was insulted. That
same night Montacute and his party quietly returned to Notting-
ham, where in the castle Mortimer, the Bishop of Lincoln, and others
who were in his confidence, sat late and in serious consultation. The
castle was well defended, a vigilant watch was kept, and the keys of
the gate were every night carried to Isabella, who kept them by her
bed-side. But there was a secret subterranean passage, the entrance
to which was overgrown with briars, at the foot of the castle hill. - By
this difficult way, which had been made known to them by the governor
of the place, Montacute and his friends crawled to the foot of the
tower, where Edward led them up a staircase into an apartment which
was in complete darkness, but where they heard in the larger hall the
voices of Mortimer and his associates. Suddenly the assailants burst
open the door, killed two knights who tried to defend it, and seized upon
the favourite in spite of the entreaties of Isabella, who rushed from her
chamber imploring her " sweet son" to spare her "gentle Mortimer."
Mortimer was dragged from the castle and confined in another place,
and on the following morning a proclamation was issued declaring that
Edward had assumed the government, and calling a new parliament
at Westminster. Before this parliament Roger de Mortimer was
called to answer for the crimes which had wrought such evil to the
highest families in the land, and for usurping the power of the Council
of Regency, procuring the death of Edward the late king, and accom-
plishing the judicial murder of the Earl of Kent. To these charges
were added that of appropriation of the king's moneys, and notoriously
of 20,000 marks which had been paid by the King of Scots when the
final treaty of peace was signed after the last incursion of Robert Bruce,
when the young Edward took the field and the English and the
Scottish armies lay one on either side of the river Wear for eighteen
long days and nights without coming to an engagement. All these
charges against the man who had lorded it over his peers the council
found to be " notoriously true and known to them and all the people."

50 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

They sentenced Mortimer to a felon's death. He was to be drawn
and hanged. Edward was present in court as he was at the impeach-
ment of his father; and when Mortimer was sentenced, he desired that
the accomplices might be tried also. After a protest that they were
not bound to sit in judgment on men of inferior rank, the peers found
Sir Simon Hereford, Sir John Maltravers, John Deverel, and Boeges
de Bayonne also guilty, and condemned them to death; but three of
them had already escaped, and Bereford alone accompanied Mortimer
to the scaffold, when he was hanged at " The Elms" in Smithfield,
on the 2Qth of November, his body remaining " two days and two nights
to be seen of the people." The queen-mother, Isabella, was compelled
to relinquish her wealth, and passed the remaining twenty-seven years
of her life in obscurity in her manor house at Risings. A price was
set on the head of Gourney and Ogle, the former of whom was arrested
in Spain and handed over to an English officer, who, obeying secret
instructions, cut off his head at sea. Sir John Maltravers was executed
on the charge of aiding Mortimer in his plot against the Earl of Kent.
Lord Berkeley, in whose castle this happened, declared his innocence,
demanded a trial, and was acquitted. Thus fell the powerful clique
which had ruled England, and the members of which, after having
dethroned Edward of Caernarvon and placed the young prince upon
the throne, were removed like puppets from the scene.

THE DAWN OF THE REFORMATION.

During the reign of Edward III. a silent alteration had been wrought
in the condition of the lower classes. Feudalism was beginning its slow
decline, the divisions in the state made by contending parties, the
divisions in the church made by contending popes, and a general
upheaving of society, followed or preceded those political agitations,
which, though they appeared to be confined to the barons and chiefs
of houses, yet involved the common people, and still more the bur-
gesses, who had already attained to some political power in parliament.

THE DAWN OF THE REFORMATION. 5 1

These events roused the thoughts of men and created a certain desire
for freedom of thought and conscience. At this time too there arose
a number of earnest followers of a preacher whose undaunted cour-
age and personal independence at once attracted the bold and encour-
aged the timid. " Second to none in philosophy, and in the discipline
of the schools incomparable," was the testimony which K nigh ton, one
of his bitterest enemies, bore to the attainments of John of Wycliffe,
"the morning-star of the Reformation." Wycliffe first rose into pro-
minence by his courageous denunciations of the mendicant friars with
whom England was at that time swarming. He declared that they
interfered with the duties of the settled priesthood. He denounced
all the orders, the higher as hypocrites, who, in spite of their professions
of poverty and affectation of beggary, fared sumptuously, dwelt in grand
houses, and lived in the luxury of wealth; the lower kind as common
able-bodied vagabonds and idle saunterers. The opinions of this early
reformer advanced so rapidly, that though he did not altogether separate
himself from the Roman Catholic communion, he began by question-
ing the polity of Romanism and eventually declared its theology to be
erroneous.

He has been compared to Calvin, with the difference that he was
broader and more liberal in doctrine, the whole system of the hierarchy
he regarded as the result of priestly ambition, the first step being
the distinction between bishop and presbyter, which he declared was
an innovation on the practice of the primitive church, where all were
equal. He was for disestablishment and disendowment, asserting that
pastors should depend on the free offerings of their flocks. He himself
was a missionary preacher, and his followers, whom he called " poor
priests," were directed to go and preach, as it was the sublimest work;
but at the same time they were not to imitate the priests, who after the
sermon were to be seen sitting in the ale-houses, or at the gaming-
table, or wasting their time in hunting. After their sermon was ended
they were to visit the sick, the aged, the poor, the blind and the lame,
and succour them according to their ability. A century after Wycliffe's
death his doctrine expounded in numberless manuscripts, and its free-
dom aided by the Scriptures, of which he had produced a version for the
common people revived in the Lollards, who themselves survived
persecution and eventually succeeded in establishing the supremacy
of Protestantism.

52 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

JOHN WYCLIFFE.

John Wycliffe was born during the reign of Edward II., in the year
1324, at the village of Wycliffe in the valley of the Tees, and in the
North Riding of Yorkshire. His family, which was a good one, had
long resided in those parts, and he was sent about the age of sixteen
to Oxford. At that time Oxford was a great place of resort, and
thousands, not only from all quarters at home, but from abroad, pursued
their studies there. Among the professors it may suffice to mention
Bradwardine, who was drawing to the close of a brilliant career as an
astronomer, a mathematician, and a teacher of religion, when Wycliffe
entered. Of our young student's course at the university not much
is known, but he went through the usual curriculum, and eventually
became a fellow of his college, that of Merton. By the time he had
reached the age of thirty-two he appears to have commenced his
crusade against the ecclesiastical corruptions of his day; and in 1360 he
distinguished himself by his activity in opposing the encroachments
of the mendicant friars. In 1361 he was appointed master of Balliol
College, in which capacity he was authorized to give public lectures
on the Scriptures. Soon after, he was presented to the living
of Fillingham, which he subsequently exchanged for another. In 1365
he was made Warden of Canterbury Hall, a new college founded at
Oxford by Simon de I slip. By its constitution the fellowships of this
college were to be held by four monks and eight secular priests, but the
rivalry which sprang up between them led the founder to dismiss the
monks, to substitute priests for them, and to make Wycliffe the
warden or master. Ere long I slip died, and Langham, his successor,
restored the monks and dismissed Wycliffe, who appealed to the pope,
but who, after three years of waiting, found that the decision was given
against him.

In the meantime Wycliffe had been brought into greater prominence.
Many years before, the pope had exacted an annual tribute of a thousand
marks from King John, but in course of time the payment had been
quietly discontinued. In 1365 Urban V. made a demand for the annual
tribute and all arrears, and intimated that if Edward III. failed to

JOHN WYCLIFFE. 53

comply he would be summoned to Rome, there to appear before his lord
the pope and answer for his contumacy. Instead of submitting, the
king summoned parliament, laid the pope's missive before the house,
and bade it consider and say what reply should go back. The parlia-
ment decided not to pay the money. The pontiff, however, had his
supporters, and a monk who undertook to be his champion challenged
Wycliffe to dispute the question. The challenge was accepted, the
papal claims were powerfully resisted, and the English nation paid no
more tribute to Rome, a result which was very acceptable not only to
the people, but to the king himself.

In 1372 Wycliffe became Doctor of Divinity, and as such was author-
ized to open his own school as a public teacher of theology in the
university.

The quarrel with the pope was not yet over, however, and was no
longer confined to the question of tribute, but extended to other matters,
which gravely affected the rights of the crown and the property of the
nation. The Papal see reserved to itself a goodly number of wealthy
benefices in England, and presented to them Italians and other foreigners.
In 1373 the king sent commissioners to the pope, Gregory XI., to
complain and seek redress, but to no purpose. The next year, a royal
commission was appointed to estimate the number and value of the
ecclesiastical posts occupied in this country by foreigners. Negotiations
with the pope were renewed, and Wycliffe was one of the commissioners
sent out as delegates. They met at Bruges, and after two years an
unsatisfactory compromise was come to. During these two years
Wycliffe remained abroad, and soon after his return was made rector
of Lutterworth.

Public opinion was forming, and the English spirit of independence
was growing stronger every day; nor can we doubt that Wycliffe power-
fully contributed to this improvement by his writings, his preaching, and
his counsels. It is no matter for surprise that the adherents to Roman
practices and the Papal system took the alarm, and looked round for
the means of getting Wycliffe out of the way. His patriotic policy was
popular at court, where he had many powerful friends; but he might
still be accused of heresy, and this course was adopted.

In February, 1377, convocation met, and summoned him to appear
and answer the charge of holding and publishing erroneous and
heretical opinions. Courtney, the new Bishop of London, was a leader

54 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

in this business. The reformer, as we may now call Wycliffe,
answered the summons, and presented himself at St. Paul's before the
reverend assembly. Not alone, however, for he was attended by John
of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and Lord Percy the earl-marshal.
There was a vast crowd eager to see what happened, and an alterca-
tion ensued between Wycliffe's friends and the bishop. Some of the
harsh words which fell from the duke excited popular feeling, confusion
ensued, and nothing was done. Great riots took place out of doors,
but they were soon suppressed, and settled no controversy.

A few months later Edward III. died, and was succeeded by
Richard II., whose first parliament inherited the national spirit of
opposition to the Roman see, which, by taking out money and sending
in men and dictates, seemed at once to attack the liberties and the
prosperity of the country. About this time the pope wrote letters against
Wycliffe to the king, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the University
of Oxford, requiring immediate steps to ascertain his opinions, to
condemn them so far as heretical or erroneous, and to prevent their
diffusion. The university hesitated, but the clergy were prompt, and
the archbishop wrote to the chancellor of Oxford, ordering him to
proceed. As a result, early in 1378 Wycliffe appeared at Lambeth,
and alone, before a synod; but though alone, the support outside was
great and significant, for crowds were assembled to proclaim their zeal
for him and for his doctrine. The situation was not a pleasant one for
the ecclesiastics; and while they pondered, Sir Lewis Clifford entered,
and, in the name of the queen-mother, forbade them to pronounce any
definite sentence. The pliable synod discreetly, not to say timidly,
succumbed, after receiving a statement and explanation from the
reformer, and bidding him to abstain from teaching such doctrines.
It was a narrow escape, but it was a decided one, for although the
clergy expressed their disapproval, they could not proceed to deal
with the liberty and life of Wycliffe as they desired to do. Nor
must we omit to observe that an order to be silent on certain
topics supplied a new reason and greater leisure for the employment
of the pen. How actively and successfully the reformer wielded his
literary power is known by the number and amazing diffusion of his
books and doctrines at home and abroad. By his writings alone he
did much to bridge over the interval between himself and Luther. It
may be worth noting that the greater part of his voluminous works

v~ W

^ 6

^ fll

psj o

O (H
H HJ

JOHN WYCLIFFE. 55

seem to have been written during the last eight or ten years of his life,
and included the famous translation of the Scriptures out of Latin into
English. The effects of this version, especially the New Testament
portion of it, were very remarkable in the development of liberty
of conscience.

In a dangerous illness which befell Wycliffe about 1379, he being
then at Oxford, it was hoped that he might be persuaded to recant.
Four friars and four civilians who held office in the city were deputed
to wait upon him as he lay on his sick-bed. They began with some
expressions of sympathy and hope of returning health. Then they
referred to the many injuries which the mendicant friars had received
at his hands, and hinted that as death was approaching they trusted
he would not conceal his penitence, but revoke all he had said against
them. The sick man heard them out, and then, beckoning to his
attendants to raise him in bed, and fixing his eyes upon his visitors,
he exclaimed with all the energy he could command, " I shall not die,
but live; and shall again declare the evil deeds of the friars." The
intruders glanced confusedly at each other, and retreated in disappoint-
ment and dismay. He did live, and he fulfilled his promise.

The boldness of Wycliffe in assailing various doctrines and practices
of the Roman Church could not be ignored; and in a convention at
Oxford, consisting of twelve doctors, eight of whom were monks or
begging friars, several of his opinions were condemned in his absence.
The decision was brought to him while he was lecturing. He
complained of the course which had been taken, and challenged his
opponents to refute him in fair discussion. This they did not want,
and he resolved to appeal to the civil power. One consolation
remained, for though he could not teach at Oxford in consequence
of this decision, he could preach and write at Lutterworth.

The next year Courtney, who was now Archbishop of Canterbury,
convoked a synod in London to consider the new doctrines. Soon
after the assembly met an earthquake occurred, and greatly alarmed
many of the members, but eventually certain opinions were condemned
as heretical or erroneous. Every attempt was made to give effect
to this decision. The clerical party laid their complaints before the
young king, Richard II., and his court, and this was at a time when
political affairs were in a critical state, and when the alliance of the
clergy might be useful. As a result, a proclamation was sanctioned

56 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

by the king and some of the lords, the first proclamation in English
history for the punishment of heresy. The document was not sanctioned
by parliament, but it was more or less- acted upon.

Wycliffe was not abashed, and in November, 1381, he boldly laid
his complaint before the king and parliament. The parliament in
its turn petitioned the king to withdraw the persecuting statute.
This was at Oxford, where also convocation assembled at the same
time, and summoned Wycliffe to appear. He obeyed, and presented
his confession of faith, but the only direct result seems to have been
a further limitation of his freedom of speech. The pope, it is true,
summoned him to Rome to answer for himself, but he was allowed
to plead the state of his health as a reason for not going. During the
rest of his days no great demonstration was made against him, and
he quietly went on with his work in his parish until the close of 1 384,
on the last day of which year he departed this life in peace.

In 1415 the Council of Constance, though very busy in condemning
the wretched Pope John XXIII., found time to decree that John
Wycliffe was a heretic, and that his bones should be dug up and burned.
The English were not in a hurry to do so silly and spiteful a thing, but
in 1428 Pope Martin V. ordered the Bishop of London to see that the
sentence was executed. So the grave was opened, the bones were
taken out and burned, and the ashes were thrown into the stream which
runs near Lutterworth church.

JACK CADE AND HIS INSURRECTION.

The admission of burgesses to parliament at the instance of Simon
de Montfort in the reign of Henry III.; the codification and just settle-
ment of the laws relating to individual freedom in pleading at the
courts, effected by Edward I.; and, finally, the growth of liberty by the
teaching of such men as Wycliffe, who led the people to question the
authority of the clerical magnates, just as Thomas a Becket had claimed
the support of the popular voice in defying the demands of the nobles

JACK CADE AND HIS INSURRECTION. 57

of the court, were the influences which led to the extension of national
independence. With regard to the effects of the laws established by
the Great Edward, who has been rightly designated the English Justin-
ian, they fitly succeeded the provisions previously made for giving the
people themselves a voice however little may have been its authority
in the legislation of the country. "From the reign of Henry III.,"
says Hallam, "at least the /^/equality of all ranks of freemen below
the peerage was for every essential purpose as complete as at present.
. . . What is most particular is that the peerage itself imparts no
privilege except to its actual possessor. The sons of peers are
commoners, and totally destitute of any legal right beyond a barren
precedence." Unhappily though this was the theory of the law the
tyranny of the rulers who succeeded Edward kept its practice in
abeyance, while the whole nation was harassed beyond endurance;
and the revenues were maintained by a brutal system of imposing and
collecting the taxes which at last roused the people, and especially the
peasantry, to a pitch of fury. The peasantry indeed had been gradually
emerging from slavery to freedom, and the system of villeinage was
dying out, not only in England but in Flanders, where many of the
burghers made common cause with them; and in France, where the
Jacquerie had set up a series of horrible cruelties during the attempt
at insurrection, the lower classes of the population were making wild
and often terrible efforts to achieve freedom from that degraded and
brutalized condition to which they had been consigned by their rulers.

These causes, combined with the arbitrary tyranny with which the
taxes were imposed, led, as we all know, to the insurrection that
in the reign of the youthful Richard II. found its leader in Wat the
Tyler. Similar conditions excited by the efforts of the nobility
again to reduce the people to vassalage, produced the revolt which
seventy years afterwards found its representative in Jack Cade. At
that time England had begun to lose under Henry VI. all the prestige
which his. predecessors had gained by their conquests in France. It was
proposed by the court to supplement the deficiencies of a king who
was unfit to govern, by marrying him to a queen whose ambition it
was to tyrannize. The council chose Margaret of Anjou, and the
Earl of Suffolk gave force not only to the wish of the council but to
the attempts of the queen to monopolize the whole authority of the
government. Between them they ruled England, and compassed the

58 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

destruction of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, and his wife Eleanor
Cobham, who was tried and condemned to perpetual imprisonment on
a charge of necromancy against the king. Thus they played into the
hands of the French monarch, till the whole of Normandy was lost,
and it seemed as though England would itself be ceded as an appanage
of the crown of France.

This was too much for the spirit of the English parliament, where
at length the minority which had ventured to raise a cry against the
despotism of the queen and her adviser grew into a majority, the com-
plaints of which were echoed by a popular clamour, that was not
easily silenced even by the impeachment and subsequent temporary
banishment of "the queen's darling."

Insurrections had broken out in several parts of the kingdom before
the fall of the Duke of Suffolk, and the public discontent was augmented
by the burden of taxes imposed upon the people and the infamous
extortions practised by sheriffs and their collectors. At the time when
the excitement against the government was at the highest there
appeared in England a man named John Cade, who was a native of
Ireland, whither he had returned after having been for some time in
France either as a soldier or an outlaw, a point upon which authorities
are divided. Ireland was at that time governed by the Duke of York,
and when Cade appeared under the name of Mortimer at the head of
an insurgent army, and claimed a descent which made him a relation
(though illegitimately) of the duke, there were not wanting declarations
that the latter had employed this man in order to prepare the way for
him in assuming the crown. There is little if any evidence of the truth
of such an accusation, but it cannot be denied that the insurrection,
by weakening the government, forwarded the expectations of the duke
at that time.

Suffolk was dead. On the day that he was liberated, in order that
he might quit England, a furious mob of 2000 persons assembled to
assail him, but he contrived to evade them and to reach his estates,
whence he travelled to Ipswich, and there embarked for the Continent
with his retinue. Between Dover and Calais the course of two small
vessels which he had engaged was arrested by a great ship of war, and the
duke was ordered to go on board. As he stepped upon the deck the
captain accosted him with the words "Welcome, traitor!" For two days
he was detained on board, and probably foresaw that he was to die, for

JACK CADE AND HIS INSURRECTION. 59

he was most of the time with his confessor. On the third day a cock-
boat came alongside, and in the boat was an executioner with block and
axe. Suffolk was delivered to this man, who struck off his head, and
his body was discovered on the beach near Dover. No investigation
was made into the circumstances of his death, at which the people
rejoiced with a kind of fierce exultation that may explain the tumults
that followed and those subsequent wars of the Roses which afterwards
desolated England.

The men of Kent had formed the most intelligent and determined
contingent of Wat Tyler's followers, and their insurrectionary spirit had
continued, so that they were ready to accept the chieftainship of Cade,
who at once led them towards London. It was on a day in June that
this irregular army of from 15,000 to 20,000 men encamped on
Blackheath, whence their leader kept up communications with the dis-
affected people of the metropolis. In reply to the demand of the court
why this great body of men had left their homes, Cade, who seems
to have been able to employ somebody to write his manifesto, issued
a document entitled " The Complaint of the Commons of Kent." It
began artfully enough with allusions to a report that the county of
Kent was to be destroyed and made into a royal hunting ground,
"for the death of the Duke of Suffolk, of which the commons were
never guilty," and proceeded to set forth how justice and prosperity
had been put out of the land by misgovernment; that the king was
stirred to live only on the substance of the commons, while other men
fattened on the lands and revenues of the crown; that the people of the
realm were not paid for stuff and purveyance, forcibly taken for the
king's use; that princes of the blood royal were excluded from the
court and government, which were filled exclusively by mean and
corrupt persons, who plundered and oppressed the people; that it was
noised that the king's lands in France had been alienated and put away
from the crown, and the lords and people there destroyed with untrue
means of treason; that the commons of Kent had been especially over-
taxed and ill-treated; that their sheriffs and collectors had been guilty
of infamous extortion; and that the free election of knights of the
shire had been hindered.

The court, while feigning that they were about to prepare an answer
to these charges, gained time to collect troops in London, and mean-
while another protest was put forth, entitled " The Requests by the

6o PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

Captain of the Great Assembly in Kent," and requiring the king to
resume the grants of the crown, to dismiss all the false progeny and
affinity of the Duke of Suffolk, and take about his person the true
lords of the royal blood, namely, the Duke of York, and the Dukes
of Exeter, Buckingham, and Norfolk. It also demanded, but in
respectful language, the punishment of the traitors who had contrived
the death of the Duke of Gloucester and of Cardinal Beaufort, and
who had promoted and caused the loss of Anjou, Maine, Normandy,
and other parts of France.

Some of the statements in these manifestoes were absurdly erroneous,
such as that which attributed the death of the cardinal to treachery,
while in fact his death, which took place when he was nearly eighty
years of age, was entirely natural ; but it is evident that such documents
were compiled by some one who knew how to give them deep political
significance, and it is therefore scarcely surprising that Cade's
influence in the rebellion should have been attributed to the Duke of
York. At any rate Cade himself can scarcely have been a mere
common ruffian. He proved more than a match for his opponents
as a commander, when the royal forces, having been collected, were
sent out to give an answer to the rebels, not by proclamation of redress
or consideration, but by cold steel.

Cade then fell back upon Sevenoaks, and awaited the attack of the
first detachment of the army, which he defeated. Sir Humphrey
Stafford, who led them on, was killed, and it is declared that the men
themselves fought reluctantly. This seems probable, for when news
of the defeat reached the main body of troops at Blackheath, there
was some murmuring among the soldiers, that they liked not to fight
against their own countrymen, who only called for a reasonable redress
of grievances. The court found it best to temporise; and of course
it had its own victims ready. Lord Say, who had been accused of
aiding in the loss of the French possessions, was sent to the Tower
along with others who had been closely connected with the actions
of the Duke of Suffolk. Lord Scales undertook to defend the Tower
from the rebels, the army was disbanded, and the king sought a safe
refuge at Kenilworth Castle. Meantime Cade was up and doing. By
the end of June he had reappeared at Blackheath, and held the whole
of the right bank of the Thames, from Lambeth to Greenwich. From
Southwark he sent to the lord-mayor, demanding entrance into the

OH
^ (0

2 M

JACK CADE AND HIS INSURRECTION. 6 1

city of London, and after a debate in the common council this was
granted. On the $d of July the insurgents were in the streets, but
Cade did his best to enforce something like discipline, forbade plunder,
and controlled the license which it might have been expected would
follow the entrance of a rabble army into the capital. In the evening
he led his host back to South wark, and returned on the following
morning to demand the trial of Lord Say and Sele, who by some
unexplained means had been made prisoner by the rebels. Of course
there was but a show of justice so far as regular proceedings were
concerned, for the mayor and the judges were forced to sit in the
Guildhall to try him for treason. It was a mockery, and there seems
to be reason to suppose that the unfortunate nobleman had been
made the victim of timorous supporters of the crown, and had been
suffered to fall into the hands of the rebels in order to appease them.

The trial at Guildhall was of no moment, Lord Say's demand to be
judged by his peers was disregarded, and he was hurried thence to the
Standard at Cheapside, where Cade held a kind of rude court. There
he was briefly charged with crimes set forth in an indictment which he
was not permitted to answer, and his head was almost immediately
afterwards severed from his body. The execution of Cromer, the
sheriff of Kent, who was Say's son-in-law, followed, and then for the
second time the insurgent army went quietly into Southwark to their
night's quarters. On the next day some houses were pillaged, and the
citizens began to rouse themselves to action. There were 1000 soldiers
in the Tower with Lord Scales, and it was decided that they should
muster at London Bridge and prevent the return of the insurgent army
in the morning. The latter obtained intelligence of this design, and
attempted to cross the bridge at night, but a large force of armed men
already occupied it, and after six hours' fighting the rebels were driven
back and retired to their quarters. Like all undisciplined and only half
informed assemblies the great body of rebels had little cohesion, and
this determined attitude of the citizens of London produced consider-
able results. The execution of Lord Say had committed the insurgents
to treason, and it is not unlikely that a very large proportion of them
began to dread the consequences. Then was the time to try what could
be done by promises of pardon and persuasions of redress, and the Arch-
bishops of York and Canterbury, who were chancellor and ex-chancellor,
were consulted as to a repetition of the policy which was effectual

62 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

in the case of the former rebellion, under Wat Tyler. Finally the
Bishop of Winchester was sent to the rebels with a general pardon
under the great seal for all those who returned to their homes, and
a promise to the whole assembly that grievances should be inquired
into and redressed.

From that time there was serious division in the insurgent camp,
between, those who were ready to accept the pardon and the promise
and those who put no faith in either. A large number of the rebels
began to retire, and Cade soon afterwards professing to accept the
conditions, the whole force began rapidly to disperse. Either Cade
himself was doubtful, or he had lost his power of control, and was
compelled to remain the nominal head of the malcontents. In two
days he was back in Southwark with a vast number of armed men,
who declared that they must have some security from the government
for the fulfilment of its promises. They were still divided among
themselves, however, and the Londoners were so united and deter-
mined that they dared not venture to enter the city. They therefore
again retreated to Blackheath, and thence retired to Rochester; but it
was evident that there was no more probability of their agreement
amongst themselves, and Cade began to fear for his own life, for he
had been proclaimed a traitor, and 1000 marks were offered for his
apprehension. It was no wonder that he began to think of his own
safety amidst a mutinous and disaffected army, and that he eventually
fled alone and on horseback across country. He was followed by one
Alexander I den, a country esquire, who at last overtook and attacked
him. After a desperate combat Cade fell beneath his opponent's sword,
and I den, having cut off his head, carried it to London, where it was
placed on a pole on London Bridge with the face looking towards Kent.
The capture and execution of many of Cade's companions soon followed,
and the insurrection was at an end ; but it was declared in a subsequent
bill of attainder that the object of the rebellion was to place the Duke
of York on the throne, and the assumption of the name of Mortimer
by Cade himself was regarded as collateral evidence that the plot
had been laid with that end in view. It need scarcely be pointed out
that the five scenes of Cade's rebellion and death in the second part
of Shakspere's " King Henry VI." afford an admirable text for the
picture which represents the trial of Lord Say and Sele by the chief
rebel and his lieutenants. It can scarcely be denied that Shakspere

CAXTON AND THE ART OF PRINTING. 63

has represented the character of Cade somewhat as it would be regarded
by the Lancastrians; but the subtle pourtrayal of mingled ignorance,
arrogance, shrewdness, and courage, as displayed in the address of the
chief rebel to Lord Say and Sele, at once challenges our admiration.
That address, as written by the great dramatist, is, it must be con-
fessed, an exaggeration of the pretences for rebellion, and may be
regarded as a kind of implied defence by the poet of the actual
character of the condemned nobleman, as where Cade is made to say,
" Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in
erecting a grammar school, and whereas, before, our forefathers had
no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing
to be used; and contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast
built a paper-mill."

CAXTON AND THE ART OF PRINTING.

The revolution which had been effected by war, by changes of
dynasties, by the partial admission of the commons to a voice in legisla-
tion, was succeeded by a still mightier influence than any of these could
exert. A power had arisen before which all others were to give place.
Slowly but surely the growth of intelligence and the increase of know-
ledge contributed to human freedom, and to that eager desire for liberty
which inevitably followed when people had learned to think for them-
selves and to discard the fetters imposed by those who, while they
alone possessed the means of intellectual culture, strove to fetter the
consciences and control the destinies of men.

The invention of printing and the gradual circulation of books
opened a new era to the world; and though the historical accuracy of
Shakspere may be open to question when he makes Jack Cade accuse
Lord Say of having established a paper-mill in England, it is certain
that printed sheets had found their way here at a very early period after
the first use of wooden types began to supersede the manuscripts which
were the only books known to the learned till the middle of the fifteenth
century. It is remarkable that the actual invention, or, as it may

64 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

more properly be called, the adaptation, of printing sheets from blocks
of wood containing whole sentences, cannot be distinctly traced to any
one individual. The first known examples of this kind of printing in
Europe consisted of playing cards, and books or sheets of pictures
accompanied by texts of Scripture or verses, and intended as manuals
of devotion. These early "books" came, it is believed, from Holland
in the first part of the fifteenth century, and the art of printing from
movable types was certainly practised not many years afterwards, but
to whom this vast improvement is due, is by no means certain, while
the successive processes of casting the types in metal and using a steel
punch for forming the "face" or letter of the types in a matrix of copper,
have been claimed for various persons living at the same period.

The names of Lawrence Coster (Janszoon) of Haarlem, John Guten-
berg of Strasburg, John Fust or Faust of Mainz, and Peter Schceffer
(Apilio) of Gernsheim, are those which stand most prominently in the
records of the art. The probability is that Coster was one of the early
Dutch block-printers; that Gutenberg first began to print from movable
wooden types at Strasburg at some time between 1436 and 1442, and
that having established himself at his native town of Mainz in 1445,
he entered into partnership with Fust, who seems to have assisted
him in his great improvement of casting types in metal. To Schceffer,
who was in the service of Gutenberg and Fust and had married Fust's
daughter, is attributed the process of founding by the contrivance of the
punch. The art was at first almost confined to the members of this
workshop, but after the storming of Mainz by Adolphus of Nassau in
1462 the workmen were dispersed, and the practice of printing was
carried to other countries. By the year 1530 there were, it is said,
already 200 printing-presses in Europe.

In 1474 William Caxton had established himself at Westminster.

Even now it is difficult for us to regard the quiet patient work that
was being carried on in a nook of the ancient abbey, as the greatest
historical event of a period when civil war threatened to overwhelm
the nation in a common ruin; and though books were soon so rapidly
multiplied that they were not only widely disseminated in England but
were exported to other countries, their influence was scarcely to be
appreciated at a time when, in the midst of strife, very few men had
leisure or opportunity to cultivate learning. The effect was none the
less certain, however; and it may be asserted that the unsettled condition

CAXTON AND THE ART OF PRINTING. 65

of the country, and the social revolutions which followed the constant
vicissitudes of rulers and people, aroused a certain independence, since
the contending parties were themselves obliged to conciliate the
commons by granting greater freedom, even though they may have
recalled their promises when the ends which they were intended to
secure had been temporarily achieved.

Surely no picture in English history is more remarkable than that
of Caxton and his companions, during a period of fierce conflict and
repeated insurrection, pursuing, in the seclusion of a quiet workshop,
an art which had already begun to revolutionize the world. Caxton,
who was a native of the Weald of Kent, was born about the year 1422,
and had been brought up as a mercer in the city of London. He
evidently became a person of some distinction, for he was afterwards
appointed Governor of the English in Bruges, where he had taken
up his residence along with a considerable number of our countrymen
who had settled there as traders, and required a person in authority,
not only to exercise control, but to maintain their privileges. Caxton
was a man of wealth and of considerable learning, and during this time
he occupied himself in translating the Recueil of Histories, a book the
copies of which (manuscript copies, of course) fetched a good price,
and were in great demand. It was probably the need for multiplying
the manuscripts of this book and their comparatively slow circulation
which directed the earnest attention of Caxton to the professions of one
Colard Mansion, who was then endeavouring to introduce into Bruges
the art of multiplying books by printing from blocks and movable
types, a plan by which Fust, Gutenberg, and Schceffer had already
produced an edition of the Bible which could scarcely be distinguished
from the most perfect manuscript. Caxton was ready to provide the
money for a printing-office, and Mansion quickly went to work to print
The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye> the first book ever printed
in English.

Caxton is soon after found to have "returned to his own country
and commenced business as a printer and publisher, being for certain
the first who practised the typographic art in this island. He was
wealthy; he had been in a high employment; it looks to us as a descent
that such a man, past fifty years of age, should have gone into such
a business, for certainly it was no more dignified than it is now. We can
only suppose that Caxton had, all along, had strong literary tastes had

66 PICTURES AND KOYAL PORTRAITS.

prudentially kept them in check while realizing an independence, and
now felt at liberty to indulge his natural bent, while yet pleasing himself
with the idea that he was usefully and not unprofitably occupied.
Whatever his motives might be, there we find him practising typo-
graphy, and also selling books in a house called the Almonry (i.e. alms
distributing house) near the western door of Westminster Abbey, and
this from about 1476 till 1491, when he died about seventy years
of age."

So says Mr. Blades in his Life and Typography of William Caxton,
but we cannot agree with him that for Caxton so to have employed
himself looks like a descent, or that there is any doubt about the real
nobility of the work, which was to disseminate information and infinitely
multiply the means of enlightenment.

It is not indeed difficult to imagine what must have been the quiet
but profound gratification of the father of English printing when he
read that first proof-sheet, which displayed in very clear and beautiful
typography the dedication of The Game and Playe of the Chesse to
the unfortunate Duke of Clarence. For it was this work which may
really be regarded as the first which was printed and published by
himself. Others soon followed, such as Dictes and Sayings, 1477;
Chronicles of England, 1480; Mirror of the World, 1481; Confessio
Amantis (Gower's), 1483; dELsop, 1484; King Arthur, 1485; and
so on.

It is probable that with his commercial education Caxton really
made a regular trade of printing, and did it not without an eye to
profit; and there was no reason why he should not have done so, for
nearly all who then had learned to read could afford to pay for books.
He made no pretence of being a great philanthropist, though surely
he must have exulted in the thought of what he was instrumental in
accomplishing. His simple advertisement of one of his books is quaint
enough. "If it pies ony man, spirituel or temporel, to bye ony pyes
(piece) of two and three Comemoracios of Salisburi vse, enpryntid
after the forme of this preset lettre, whiche ben wel and truly correct,
late hym come to Westmonester in to the Almonesrye at the reed pale,
and he shall have them good chepe."

Caxton's house is said to have been on the north side of the
Almonry, in the spot now occupied by the entrance to the Westminster
Palace Hotel. It was a three-storied house with a bold gable, and

RICHARD THE THIRD AND THE YOUNG PRINCES. 67

a gallery running along the upper story. It fell down in November,
1845, when the other dwellings in the Almonry were pulled down to
make Victoria Street, and from a beam of wood which formed a portion
of it was sawn material for making a chess-board and two sets of chess-
men, as a fitting memorial of Caxton's first work printed in England.

RICHARD THE THIRD AND THE YOUNG PRINCES.

During the hundred and sixty years which preceded the Union
of the Roses, nine kings reigned in England. Six of these nine kings
were deposed. Five lost their lives as well as their crowns. It is
evident therefore that any comparison between our ancient and our
modern polity must lead to most erroneous conclusions, unless large
allowance be made for the effect of that restraint which resistance and
the fear of resistance constantly imposed on the Plantagenets. As our
ancestors had against tyranny a most important security which we
want, they might safely dispense with some securities to which we
justly attach the highest importance. A nation of hardy archers and
spearmen might, with small risk to its liberties, connive at some
illegal acts on the part of a prince whose general administration
was good, and whose throne was not defended by a single company
of regular soldiers. If a popular chief raised his standard in a popular
cause an irregular army could be assembled in a day.

Regular army there was none. Every man had a slight tincture
of soldiership, and scarcely any man more than a slight tincture. The
national wealth consisted chiefly in flocks and herds, in the harvest
of the year, and in the simple buildings inhabited by the people. All
the furniture, the stock of shops, the machinery which could be found
in the realm, was of less value than the property which some single
parishes now contain. Manufactures were rude, credit was almost
unknown. Society therefore recovered from the shock as soon as the
actual conflict was over. The calamities of civil war were confined to
the slaughter on the field of battle, and to a few subsequent executions

68 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

and confiscations. In a week the peasant was driving his team and
the esquire flying his hawks over the field of Towton or of Bosworth,
as if no extraordinary event had interrupted the regular course of human
life. Though during the feeble reign of Henry VI. the state was
torn first by factions, and at length by civil war; though Edward IV.
was a prince of dissolute and imperious character; though Richard III.
has generally been represented as a monster of depravity; though the
exactions of Henry VII. caused great repining, it is certain that our
ancestors, under those kings, were far better governed than the
Belgians under Philip, surnamed the Good, or the French under that
Louis who was styled the father of his people. Even while the wars
of the Roses were actually raging, our country appears to have been
in a happier condition than the neighbouring realms during years
of profound peace. 1

No small part of this condition must be attributed to the increased
political influence which had been acquired by the commons, not only
in parliament, where by the constitution they had always (in theory at
least) had a voice, but because of the growth of intelligence and the
expansion of commerce, which gave to the burgesses of our larger
towns, and especially to the citizens of London, an importance which
was of considerable weight during a changeful period. When rival
claimants contested the throne it became necessary not only to secure
the allegiance of the great nobles but to conciliate the people, and when
the Duke of Gloucester had laid the profoundly treacherous plan by
which he was able to seize the crown, he based his pretensions not
only on the assertion of the illegitimacy of his brother's children, but on
the assumed suffrages of the citizens of London.

There can be little doubt that Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was
one of the most cultivated intellects of his time, and that though he
ruthlessly disregarded many primary moral claims he was favourable
to education and to a liberty which, while it left him master of the
realm, should defy the power of the nobles, whose claims had too long
deferred the true freedom of the people. It is not a very uncommon
thing to discover that an autocrat may be theoretically the head
of a republic, where individual liberty is supposed to be the chief end
of the oppression which is exercised by the ruler himself. We have
most of us heard of that kind of arbitrary rule which is declared to be

1 Macaulay.

RICHARD THE THIRD AND THE YOUNG PRINCES. 69

only the necessary method for educating a people up to a point when
independence will be possible for them.

Richard would doubtless have expressed this view, and perhaps not
altogether insincerely. The first and only act of parliament passed in
his reign was also the first that was in English, and he theoretically
abolished those "benevolences" or enforced loans which had been
so bitterly resented by the citizens in the reign of Edward. Their
proscription was in theory only, however, for towards the end of his
reign, amidst the added execrations of the people, similar grants
were forcibly demanded, the only difference being that they were not
to be called " benevolences " upon which the citizens named them
" malevolences."

It has been granted that Richard, when he was Duke of Gloucester,
was a patron and even a promoter of learning, and amidst some
obscurity which rests upon his early history, it may be assumed that
he was himself a scholar. Subsequent events show him either to have
been deficient in moral sense, or to have made all his actions subser-
vient to a bad and unscrupulous ambition which permitted nothing to
stand in the way of his attaining the crown. Some of those with whom
he had to contend were themselves so little moved by moral con-
siderations, that he thought it necessary, in order to achieve his ends,
to be even less amenable to the demands of conscience. The Wood-
villes were not only parvenus, with little claim save that of the
favouritism of Edward IV., but they appear to have been so base and
designing as to have disregarded even the commoner sentiments
of honour.

On the death of Edward they held nearly all the chief commands,
and the two young princes were in the hands of the queen's relations,
from whose grasping ambition much was to be feared, while the
Howards, the Stanleys, and other heads of ancient houses were bitterly
opposed to them, in spite of the peace which the king had endeavoured
to patch up between the rival factions. Richard was then at the head
of a considerable army in the marches of Scotland, the Prince of Wales
was at Ludlow Castle with his maternal uncle, the Earl of Rivers, his
younger brother, was with his mother in London. When the Duke
of Gloucester started to York with a retinue of 600 knights and
esquires, all like himself clad in mourning suits, the strife in the
council had begun. Hastings had threatened the queen; Buckingham

7<D PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

was almost in open rebellion. Richard, who with his followers had
sworn fealty to his nephew at York, increased the number of his men-
at-arms as he came southward; the queen-mother began to suspect,
and Elizabeth to fear him. Lord Rivers was charged to bring the
prince to London with an escort of 200 armed horsemen, and the queen
attempted, against the advice of the council, to collect another army
there. Both doubts and fears were justified, but Richard the arch-
dissembler made the imprudence of his opponents a reason for carrying
out his designs. He arrived at Northampton on the very day that his
nephew was carried to Stony Stratford, only ten miles distant. Earl
Rivers and Lord Gray went on behalf of the prince to greet the Duke
of Gloucester. Buckingham arrived at the same time with a troop
of 300 horse. The two dukes, the earl, and the lord supped together,
and passed a convivial evening.

The next day Gloucester and Buckingham continued the journey to
Stony Stratford in company with their guests, who were, however,
arrested the moment they entered the town. They were accused by
Richard of estranging the affections of his nephew, and were at once
secured, after which Richard and Buckingham waited on the prince,
bent their knees before him, and saluted him as king. They next
ordered the arrest of his two adherents, Sir Thomas Vaughan and Sir
Richard Hawse, commanding the rest of his attendants to disperse,
and making him in reality a prisoner under pretence of escorting him
themselves. The noblemen who had been arrested were consigned to
Pontefract Castle, and though Hastings assured the people of London
that the . two dukes were acting for the good of the realm, the queen
was so alarmed that she took the Duke of York to Westminster, there
to claim the right of sanctuary. Thither Rotherham, Archbishop
of York and chancellor to the queen-mother, went to console her, but
she was already foreboding evil, and the assurances sent by Hastings,
who seems to have been partially duped by Richard, did not suffice to
abate her anxiety.

Hastings was more successful in the city, and the Londoners were
persuaded that the queen's relations were concerned in a plot to destroy
the Dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham, a declaration which was
supported by the exhibition to the populace of barrels filled with arms
said to have been intended for the purpose. The arrival of the two
dukes bringing the young king was eagerly expected as the means

ti
w

K
H

Pd to

H 05

W 2

S p:
H

f*
ifl

id
?

*
S

H
u

(!)

X
>

f4-

1 "'

RICHARD THE THIRD AND THE YOUNG PRINCES. J\

of restoring tranquillity, and the chief citizens, with gowns and chains,
rode out to meet the royal party as far as Hornsey Wood. Then all
the party entered London, Gloucester riding bareheaded before his
nephew, who was dressed in royal robes.

The queen's fears were soon verified. Her son, who was at first
lodged in the palace of the bishop, had little opportunity of seeing her
in the sanctuary of Westminster. The council was summoned, and
at the instance of Buckingham agreed to send the boy to the Tower
for safety before the coronation, which was fixed for the 22d June;
and on the i6th of June Richard (who was then "protector"), with the
Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury and several other prelates and
lords, proceeded to Westminster to demand that the Duke of York
should join his brother, as his presence would be necessary at the
coronation, while his remaining in sanctuary was causing dishonour-
able rumours and suspicions. Elizabeth yielded probably from the
conviction that resistance would be useless. Only three days had
passed since that scene was enacted in the council chamber at the
Tower, which has been so vividly represented by Shakspere. It had
ended in the immediate execution of Hastings, and the imprisonment
of Lord Stanley, the Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of Ely, while
at the same time Earl Rivers, Lord Gray, Sir Thomas Vaughan,
and Sir Richard Hawse were beheaded at Pontefract.

In the pages of the great dramatist as in the pages of history we
read how through blood and by treachery Richard crept to the throne.
His consummate hypocrisy was accompanied by what appears to be
a kind of desperate resolution, which makes it extremely difficult to
estimate his character. It is often regarded as impossible for any
man to be so unscrupulously wicked, so dangerously determined, as
Richard appears to have been, for the sake of an ambition which one as
astute as he must have seen would work destruction to its subject.
The contradictions in Richard's character have, indeed, led some
keen investigators to vindicate it from many of the charges by which
it has been brought into detestation. "If Richard," says one of these
critics, "was a hypocrite and a dissembler, he certainly was a very
poor proficient in his art, for an impetuous rashness and imprudence
of conduct, and an impatience of difficulties which made him always
cut the gordian knot instead of attempting to unloose it, appear to be
his real characteristics. Under these influences he was always either

72 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

too violent or too generous. It seemed as if he restrained his nervous
excitability and concealed under it a smiling face, just long enough
to give the uncomfortable impression of a deep and designing nature,
and then gave vent to it on some momentary occasion with the excess
and abandon of a man who took no thought before he acted. It was
as if his judgment was not well balanced enough for any medium
between blind confidence and blind violence. His brother Edward's
mind, even when seemingly palsied by sensual indulgence, was always
clear, healthy, and active; that of Richard was perplexed, morbid, and
restless. He gave an impression of violence and irregularity far beyond
the natural import of his actions. There was scarcely a public man
then alive who might not (as far as his moral character is concerned)
have committed most of the acts of cruelty attributed to Richard; but
by his mode of action he gave to them a character of exceptional
atrocity which goes far beyond the actual fact. And so men came
to attribute to him a natural and systematic cruelty that was really
alien to Richard's nature, which was quite as much addicted to an
excess of compassion and generosity as to anything in the opposite
direction. He was accordingly credited with nearly all the suspicious
deaths of the period, of several of which he was certainly innocent."

This is an example of the conclusions of the apologists for a
king who, perhaps without strict justice, holds nearly the most
infamous place in English history. It cannot be forgotten that he
was, as the young Duke of Gloucester, somewhat a popular favourite,
and remarkable for many of the qualities which are regarded as belong-
ing to a noble character. But on the other hand, public opinion was
changed by his actions, and though we may greatly owe our impres-
sions of Richard III. and the combined treachery and cruelty which
characterized his career to the great tragedy of Shakspere, it must
not be forgotten that Shakspere reflects the general opinion. It is
argued by the apologist that young Edward, the son of Henry VI.,
was killed in battle, calling out to Clarence, his brother-in-law, who
was in the opposite ranks, and that Richard had nothing to do with
the event; that Henry VI. died while Richard (who was then only
eighteen) was in the Tower, and that there is nothing whatever to
connect Richard with the deed, especially as the queen and family
of Edward were also in the same place; Clarence's death was due
to the family of the Woodvilles; and the executions ordered by

THE TUDOR. 73

Richard were actuated by alarm and resentment consequent on the
discovery of the plots of the Woodvilles and of Hastings. All this
may be allowed to have weight, but the fact remains that Richard
acted throughout with a duplicity and relentless ambition, which,
however we may seek to explain it, appears to make his conduct a
striking example of the evils committed by rulers at a period when
men rose to power by battle, murder, and unscrupulous dissimulation.

Curiously enough, the popular notion of Richard's personal appear-
ance a notion for which there is some historical foundation has also
been combated. There can be little doubt, however, that though he may
not have been positively hunchbacked, he was subject to some defor-
mity, which did not remarkably affect his activity or warlike prowess.
At the same time the descriptions of his melancholy troubled visage
and his habit of gnawing his lip are consistent even with the character
attributed to him by his defenders. Perhaps the most remarkable
evidence produced against his ill-favouredness is that of the old
Countess of Desmond, who, it is declared, lived to be 140 years old,
and died in 1604. The tradition says that the countess had in her
youth danced in the court of Edward IV. with the Duke of Gloucester,
of whom she affirmed that he was the handsomest man in the room
except his brother Edward.

THE TUDOR.

Henry the Seventh was less than thirty years old when the victory
at Bosworth placed him on the English throne. Born- in 1457, after
the death of his father, Edmund Tudor, and when his mother, Margaret
Beaufort, was yet a girl of fourteen years of age, his early life was
passed under conditions little calculated to stamp him with the nation-
ality of the people whom he came to rule. Neither by birth nor
training was he truly English. His grandfather, Owen Tudor, was
a Welshman; his grandmother was Catherine of France, the widow

of Henry V., so that his father Edmund Tudor was of course half-

74 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

brother to Henry VI. It was not by that relationship alone that he
claimed succession to the crown; nor was it because of his descent
from the house of Lancaster, on his mother's side, though she was
the daughter of John, first Duke of Somerset, who was himself the
grandson of John of Gaunt. His mother was still living. After her
first widowhood she had married Sir Henry Stafford; on becoming
a widow a second time she accepted the hand of Lord Stanley. She
had no other children; but failing more legitimate successors of the
house of Lancaster of whom there were, doubtless, some in exile
she had a claim to the throne before her son Henry, to whom, however,
she devoted all her talents and influence, especially to bring about
his marriage with Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV., and
so to unite the interests of York and Lancaster to blend the red
and white rose.

Henry himself felt how all three claims might fail to afford an
unquestionable right to the crown, and took care to add to " his just
title of inheritance," the " sure judgment of God, who had given him
the victory over his enemy in the field." The date of the battle of
Bosworth was fixed on as that of his accession, but it was the eve
of the battle, and while Richard the Third still wore the crown. This
remarkable antedating by a few hours had the effect of enabling him
to treat as treasonable, acts which would have been no treason if he
had not been king. This shifty policy of relying at the same time
on hereditary right, on the right of conquest, and on the claim by
marriage, was in some degree illustrative of Henry's character. It
had a curious result when the first parliament was called, a week
after his coronation. A number of the members of the new House
of Commons had been attainted by Edward IV. and Richard III.
for their treasonable adherence to the house of Lancaster, and more
than that, Henry himself had been attainted. He would have carried
the matter with a high hand, but even then there was a certain
unalterable regard for constitutional law which led the Commons to
doubt whether their house was capable of sitting, and to refuse to
assemble till the question had been decided by the whole body of
judges. Their decision was that members could not take their seats
till the judgment of attainder was reversed. In the case of the king,
the fact of his having succeeded to the crown was itself a reversal
not only of attainder but of defects in claim by inheritance.

THE TUDOR. 75

Of course he quickly repealed all the acts which had been in force
against the house of Lancaster, so far as they affected himself or his
succession. The act of settlement ordained that the inheritance of the
crown should remain in him and his heirs perpetually, and though
his marriage with the Princess Elizabeth really confirmed his claims
to the crown and gave him a title which only this union of the two
houses of York and Lancaster induced the nation patiently to concede,
he afterwards obtained by a subtle stroke of policy a still more stringent
confirmation of his personal ambition to be regarded as the sole heir
to the throne.

On the 1 8th of January, 1486, Henry complied with the plainly
expressed petition of the Commons that he would "take to wife and
consort the Princess Elizabeth." A papal dispensation granted by the
legate in England had been necessary because of the relationship
between the bride and bridegroom. Henry, with the craft which distin-
guished him, made use of this opportunity to obtain a second special
dispensation from the pope himself, and to include in it clauses
which should give the authority of the church to the royal claims
of succession.

Innocent VIII. recognized the power which England might again
attain now that civil wars had ceased to devastate the country, and
the important document arrived with every particular confirmed by
his authority. It was more than a dispensation to satisfy religious
scruples of king and subjects, it was a declaration of royal rights by
an authority which would scarcely be questioned rights incompatible
if not contradictory; for they began with that of conquest, and included
those of notorious and indisputable succession, of election by prelates,
lords, and commons of the realm, and of act of settlement passed by
the three estates of the realm in parliament assembled. The king,
it was represented, had consented to marry Elizabeth at the request
of parliament, and to put an end to the claims of the house of York;
therefore the dispensation was granted.

There was more than the mere document itself, however. The
pontiff not only gave authority to this bull, but as an essential part
of it, confirmed the act of settlement to which it referred, so as to define
and unalterably fix the meaning of that act of the English parliament,
pronouncing sentence of excommunication against anybody who should
otherwise represent its meaning. That meaning was declared to be

76 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

that if the queen should die before the king and without issue, or if
her children should die before their father, the children of Henry by
any subsequent marriage should be heirs to the crown. It is to be
assumed that the knowledge of the value of such a binding decision
in preventing the recurrence of those conflicts which had for so long
devastated the country, gained the acceptance of parliament and people
to this interpretation.

From the very commencement of his appearance in England Henry
exhibited both sides of a character which united some of the subtle
statecraft and cunning of Henry I. with a certain bright frankness
of demeanour and activity of social intercourse which enabled him
rapidly to assimilate himself to English manners and English modes
of thought. He could even be profuse when occasion demanded,
though he loved money and was loath to part with it on ordinary
occasions. It should be remembered that he had passed an early
life of poverty, and perhaps had learned to value money by noting
how much it would buy in emergencies, when empty coffers meant
failure or disgrace. He could chaffer and haggle about the dower
and the plate of the Princess Catherine of Aragon when she came
to wed his son, but he could display magnificence at the wedding. He
was ready enough to receive from the Commons a grant of " tonnage
and poundage," on almost express condition that he should marry
the Princess Elizabeth, but he spent large sums on the subsequent
royal progress, reduced the town rents of the disaffected city of York
from 160 to ^18, 5.?., ordered pageants, held sumptuous feasts, and
distributed money among the people, who welcomed his "sweet and
well-favoured face."

That face was itself not of the national type. Pedro de Ayala,
the Spanish envoy, and an acute judge of men, told Fernando that
there was nothing "purely English" in the English king; and there
was certainly a want of that robust appearance which was the eminent
characteristic of Henry VIII. For many years Henry VII. was liable
to the results of that sickliness of constitution which is so often followed
by consumption; but he seemed able to live in such a way as to over-
come this tendency, and his naturally cheerful disposition probably had
much to do with this reserve of force. Lean and spare of build, but
of middle height, his fair complexion, bright humorous gray eyes,
and rather thin fine hair gave him a delicate appearance, but his face

Drawn by J.L. Williams. Enslaved by T.Bro

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE NEW PALACE OF WESTMINSTER.

BLACKIE & SON.LOKDON.GIJSSGOW Si. EDINBURGH.

THE TUDOR. 77

bore a smile, his whole bearing was attractive and engaging, and his
expression full of vivacity.

The first fourteen years of his life had been passed in Wales, where
he imbibed an admiration which was little less than a passionate belief
in the legends of the bards, and especially in those that related to
Arthur and his knights. It is by no means certain that in his first son,
Prince Arthur, he did not hope to revive those chivalric institutions,
and that romantic and poetical influence which he believed to belong
to perfect knighthood, for there was a certain half-concealed dreamy
mysticism about the character of Henry which some modern students
of history believe to be a key to many of the actions which apparently
contradicted the more practical and matter-of-fact side of his disposition.

The second fourteen years of his life were passed in Brittany or in
France. In Brittany he had been constantly in danger of being
delivered over to Edward IV. or to Richard, but the Count of Brittany
was a man of honour, and kept his trust. In France he learned some-
thing of that subtle diplomacy of which Louis XI. was so distinguished
a master, that, had he lived, the French monarchy might have absorbed
half Europe, and was already the great rival of the growing influence
of Spain and the astute Ferdinand.

England, so long torn by civil wars, had been regarded as of little
importance as an ally by foreign powers, and the King of Spain sought
an imperial alliance to strengthen him against France. Both France
and Spain undervalued the power of England, and had not yet learned
that Henry was even more than a match for Ferdinand. In Italy
a truer estimate of England and the English king had been adopted,
and Henry's great talent as a cunning statesman was recognized by the
papal power.

His chief object was to avoid the war with France into which
Ferdinand afterwards endeavoured to force him, and to achieve an
alliance with Spain to be afterwards cemented by the marriage of
Prince Arthur and the Princess Catherine of Aragon. He effected
both, although he had to make a pretence of French invasion. At a
period of the year when no commander would have prepared for laying
siege to a garrison that is to say, in the month of October and just
before any efficient force would have been thinking of retiring to winter
quarters, he sailed for Calais, with a great and splendidly equipped
army of 25,000 foot and 1600 horse. Everybody in the king's

78 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

confidence knew that he never meant to commence hostilities. The
French king, Charles VIII., and his counsellors knew it also, for no
opposition was offered, though Henry marched his troops from Calais
to Boulogne. It ended in the signature of a treaty of peace and
alliance, which was to last for the lives of the two kings, and for one
year after the survivor. The treaty was ratified, and Charles was to
pay to Henry ,149,000 by instalments.

This pretended war, which was undertaken on a hypocritical as-
sumption of surprise at the treachery of Charles VIII. in forcing the
orphan Countess Anne of Brittany into a marriage with himself, that
he might seize the province which he coveted, filled Henry's treasury.
The sum of 124,000 was paid to him as a discharge of his claims on
Anne of Brittany, for whom he professed to take the field, and 25,000
as the overdue payment of the tribute owing from France to Edward
IV. It was a splendid stroke of policy, but it had been likely to cost
England dear. The country was murmuring everywhere at the heavy
subsidies raised for this bloodless war so soon after the people had been
heavily taxed, and the many knights and nobles being ready for war,
and believing that the campaign was to be a genuine one, were ready
to sell or mortgage their estates in order to join the army, thinking
probably that they would be able to indemnify themselves by taking
possession of land in France. Every facility was given for them to
ruin themselves, by bearing the expenses of an expedition from which
they were to receive neither riches nor honour. An act was passed by
which they could alienate their estates without paying the usual fees or
fines, and they plunged into poverty with fatal facility. Can it be
wondered at when Henry had declared in parliament that he was
determined to make war against Charles of France as a disturber
of Christendom, and that he meant to take the French crown for
himself as his rightful inheritance ?

The result was that he sold his friends, and took a heavy bribe from
his supposed enemies. " But the truth is," says Bacon, " this peace was
welcome to both kings. To Charles, for that it assured unto him the
possession of Brittany, and freed the enterprise of Naples; to Henry,
for that it filled his coffers, and that he foresaw, at that time, a storm
of inward troubles coming upon him, which presently after broke forth."
The foremost of these inward troubles was the death of the young
Prince Arthur, heir to the crown, soon after his marriage with the

THE GREAT HARRY. 79

Princess Catharine of Aragon, a union which was to achieve so much
for England and to exhibit to Europe a court that Henry seems to
have thought would revive the example of the legendary Arthur of the
" Round Table," and his company of brave knights and pure dames.
When this great sorrow was followed by the fading and passing away
of his pious and dearly loved queen, Henry may well have begun to
contemplate his own end. A constitution, never strong, but sustained
by a spirit remarkable for fortitude and for cheerful and courageous
foresight, was doubtless seriously impaired by private griefs, and he left
to the surviving Prince Henry, not only a personal position of extreme
difficulty, but a state subject to political complications, to deal with
which, required both foresight and determination.

THE GREAT HARRY.

Few studies are more difficult than that of the history of England
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is necessary to consider
occurrences in relation to many events that preceded or were to follow,
rather than to accept without question the opinions and declarations
of those who recorded them; and it is equally necessary to learn,
what were the particular circumstances which swayed each historian
in his estimate of the character of the monarch, priest, or statesman
who bore rule and made an indelible mark in the chronicle of the time.

Yet strange to say, there appears to be but one opinion of the
character of Henry the Eighth during the early part of his long and
impetuous career. Even now we are accustomed to speak of him, not
without a kind of unwilling admiration, and as though he still lived. No
English king seems to be more real to us. We resent the tyranny and
arrogance that darkened a splendid period, the inconsequent fury that
was associated with the later cruelties of statecraft, the misgoverned
policy that subjugated marriage to kingcraft, and placed the headman's
block behind the throne, and the axe beside the altar; but there is still
something within us, by which we can understand how London citizens

80 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

and English yeomen regarded Prince Harry of Greenwich the very
example of English chivalry and youthful vigour: that young King
Harry the magnificent and accomplished monarch, who for many
anxious years was a true lover and faithful husband, a model of
knighthood, of manly prowess, and even of such Christian virtues as
few princes of his time displayed.

At eighteen he had no peer in Europe, either for beauty, strength,
or stature, certainly none for learning or for art. His fair face, golden
hair, and bright blue eyes, added to a huge and stalwart frame,
would have distinguished him anywhere, even if his great height had
escaped notice. At every sport he was master of other men, and tired
even the sinewy knights, and men-at-arms, by his endurance and vast
personal strength. In wrestling or at tournament, in the chase or at
the butts, where he bent a bow that few of his archers could draw,
he approved himself a man, though he retained the freshness and the
ingenuous looks of boyhood.

The Venetian Pasqualigo said, "He had a round face, so very
beautiful, that it would have adorned the person of a pretty woman."
And Sagudino, another keen and curious envoy, who was sent by the
Doge to watch events and to describe the king, said, that when he
was mounted on his charger, which he rode with a perfect skill, " he
was like Saint George himself." But Henry VII. was a father who
took care that his children should be trained not only to arms, but
to learning and to arts. Arthur, the eldest, was a pattern of grace
and mental culture; but his frame was not robust, and his early death,
when his widowed bride Catharine of Aragon was little more than
a child, and the boy husband and wife were nearly strangers to each
other, and did not even speak a common language, left to Henry
of Greenwich the foremost place. He was able to sustain it by mental
as well as personal prowess. That he understood and could speak
and write Latin and Italian may be proved from the records of his
talk, and by written letters to Erasmus, to Frangois, and to Marguerite
of Austria. At a later date he learned to speak Castilian for Catharine's
sake. A master of music, according to the testimony of Italians who
were themselves proficients, he could play on the virginals and the
organ, and could sing at sight. His compositions are still to be heard,
anthems and church music which he conducted himself in the Royal
Chapel. He could write a ballad too in quaint verse, and set it to

D7avm by J.'lTWBUams . Ej^ramed V T. BK

FROM THE PICTURE IN THE NEW PALACE-OF WESTMINSTER.

BLZCKIE e SOK.LONDOH. GLASGOW & EDINBURGH.

THE GREAT HARRY. 8 1

an air, that he might sing it as he lolled in the royal barge, or beneath
the trees in the park. In the theology of the time he had unusual
knowledge, and turned it to account in his denunciation of Luther,
as well as in essays on canonical views of marriage. He was also
a skilful engineer, and had a special and remarkable talent for ship-
building, and making roads and bridges. Amidst all these accomplish-
ments, and the many weighty cares that press upon the man who will
be king in fact as well as name, he displayed a rare talent for seizing
and enjoying hours of leisure, for organizing games and jousts, and
giving a kind of royal splendour and artistic pageantry to common
sports and popular pastimes.

To all these varied gifts and rare attainments Henry united a healthy
moral character and devotion to religion. Churchmen regarded him,
indeed, as the fit successor to that title of " Defender of the Faith"
which had been bestowed on his father. Seldom had a young man
been seen who exhibited so consistent and ingenuous a delight in gay
and innocent pastimes, with so genuine an aversion to vice and so deep
a respect for piety.

His celebrated song, " Pastance with Good Company," was held
to express his opinions on the rule of life. He had composed it, and
set it to music, and it may well be preserved as a good old English
ditty, worthy even of a prince, who himself was essentially English.

Pastance with good company
I love, and shall until I die;
Grudge who will, but none deny,
So God be pleased, this life will I.

For my pastance,

Hunt, sing, and dance,
My heart is set;

All goodly sport

To my comfort,
Who shall me let?

Youth will needs have dalliance,
Of good or ill some pastance;
Company me thinketh the best
All thoughts and fantasies to digest.

For idleness

Is chief mistress
Of vices all;

Then who can say,

But pass the day
Is best of all?

82 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

Company with honesty

Is virtue, and vice to flee;

Company is good or ill,

But every man hath his free will

The best I sue

The worst eschew;
My mind shall be,

Virtue to use;

Vice to refuse,

I shall use me.

It is a very terrible reflection that so promising a youth should
have deteriorated into a manhood like that of the " Defender of the
Faith," who became persecutor, tyrant, and extortioner, while all his
social relations were profaned by cruelty, and an arbitrary temper
which gives good reason for doubting his sanity. One can scarcely
examine the character of Henry without coming to the conclusion,
that an originally active and even sensitive conscience, perverted
by selfish ambition and gross indulgence, led to a diseased self-con-
sciousness.

His early marriage with his brother's widow though it was declared
to be legal, because she had previously been a wife only in name may
have been afterwards regarded by him with some doubt, in spite of the
dispensation which he used all his powerful influence to obtain; but
it was not till Catharine had grown old, and his policy was in danger,
because of there being no heir to the throne, that he repudiated it.
That no heir was born to him and survived, was attributed by the
opponents of the marriage to a signal divine judgment, and it is
possible that Henry himself may have come so to regard it; but the
history of his first acquaintance and subsequent marriage with Anne
Boleyn gives little reason for the opinion that he was altogether sincere
in his professions of remorse; and the fate of Anne herself, his brutal
indifference to her death, and the jealous fury with which he seemed
to be afterwards haunted, appear to be the result of a mind and temper
overthrown by arrogance, and weakened by false counsellors and
sycophants, who were in continual dread of those fits of rage, during
which their own lives were in danger.

It has been well observed that we cannot estimate the character
of Henry VIII. without reference to his magnificent bodily organization.
In the youth and prime of his life, when health was strong and every
wish appeared to be within his reach, the higher and nobler features

THE GREAT HARRY. 83

of his character predominated, and his truly royal presence represented
a truly kingly character. When the strong physical constitution gave
way, and disease and bodily incapacity superseded the health and
activity of his prime, his manliness degenerated into grossness, his
self-confidence and self-will into tyranny, and his boisterous tempera-
ment towards brutality.

The strong individuality of the king, and his exaggerated self-
consciousness, gave effect to the entire government. The nation
alternately gained and suffered from the alterations in the passions
of its head. As long as Wolsey lived and stood at the right hand
of Henry as his confidential and trusted adviser, the evils of this too
great personal government were to a great extent moderated. Wolsey
fell in order that the government might have in the eyes of the world
but one presiding will; but the confidence withdrawn from Wolsey
was never again bestowed on any minister. Thenceforward the policy
was that of Henry alone, and with its intensified personality came a long
train of attendant misfortunes. The fire of his will was fierce and
unquenchable even by his own better instincts. The absence of
a matured and thoroughly disciplined mind, often gave an appearance
of inordinate and reckless passion and cruelty to what was really little
else than a spasmodic attempt on the part of a strong will to . escape
from the consequences of its own unwise acts.

With the nation the case stood thus. The people had the right
and the means of resistance to his will, but they scarcely even resisted
or wished to do so, till at last if they had wished they had lost the
courage to act. The king had practically the power to be a tyrant,
but with the nation at large he preferred being an idolized autocrat. 1

Considering that he was the very model of what was then regarded
as manly strength, that his affability and good humour were proverbial,
and that he represented to the people not only a king but a champion,
it is not wonderful that he should have attained such a position. The
Venetian envoys at the English court said in their reports to their
own government " His majesty is twenty-nine years old, and extremely
handsome. Nature could not have done more for him. He is much
handsomer than any other sovereign in Christendom, and a great deal
handsomer than the King of France: very fair, and his whole frame
admirably proportioned. On hearing that Francis the First wore

1 Sanford, Estimate of English Kings.

84 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

a beard, he allowed his own to grow; and as it is reddish, he has now
got a beard that looks like gold. He is very accomplished; a good
musician; composes well; is a most capital horseman; a fine jouster;
speaks good French, Latin and Spanish; is very religious; hears three
masses daily when he hunts, and sometimes five on other days. He
hears the office every day in the queen's chamber, that is to say vespers
and compline. He is very fond of hunting, and never takes his
diversion without tiring eight or ten horses. He is extremely fond
of tennis, at which game it is the prettiest thing in the world to see
him play, his fair skin glowing through a shirt of the finest texture." 1
Another report in 1515 says, " His majesty is the handsomest potentate
I ever set eyes on; above the usual height; with an extremely fine calf
to his leg, his complexion very fair and bright, with auburn hair
combed straight and short in the French fashion: and a round face
so very beautiful, that it would become a pretty woman, his throat
being rather long and thick." Sagudino describes a joust at which
he was present, in which the king took part. There were ten knights
on each side, very well mounted, and the horses being all richly
caparisoned, several of them in cloth of gold. " Then they began
to joust, and continued this sport for three hours, to the constant sound
of trumpets and drums, the king excelling all the others, shivering
many lances, and unhorsing one of his opponents."

These are the portraits of Henry in his youth, and before the dark
times when, heavy of body and brutalized in temper and disposition,
he had begun to think of consoling his widowhood after the death
of Jane Seymour by making an offer to Anne of Cleves.

Holbein was despatched to the court of the duke to paint a portrait
of the lady, so that we are not totally unfamiliar with her features. The
picture came to Henry in an ivory box, which represented a rose
so delicately carved as to be said to be worthy of the jewel it contained.
Unhappily either the ivory box and the setting captivated the king,
and gave a fictitious beauty to the portrait, or the painter had
deceived him, or the original was not to the taste of so inconstant
an admirer; who, when he saw his consort at Rochester, whither he had
gone to meet her, was so bitterly disappointed that he scarcely stayed
to give her greeting. Furious with the ambassadors, and still more
so with Cromwell, who without knowing the lady had promoted the

1 Giustinian.

RELICS ASSOCIATED WITH HENRY VIII.

1. Miniature of Anne of Cleves, painted by Holbein.

2. Lid of the Ivory Box containing the miniature of Anne of Cleves

3. Lid of the Ivory Box containing the miniature of Henry VIII. by Holbein.

4. Miniature of Henry VIII., painted by Holbein.

5. Rosary, exquisitely carved in boxwood. On the beads are subjects from the creed,

figures of the Apostles, Prophets, &c. In the possession of the Duke of Devonshire.

6. Cup of Silver, gilt, presented by Henry VIII. to the Barber Surgeons Company of

London.

7. Sword, the hilt of crystals mounted in Silver. This Sword was given (as also a cap of

maintenance) with great pomp, May igth, 1514, by Pope Julius II. to Henry VIII.
in St. Paul's Cathedral. It is now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

8. Birding Piece, the lock wanting ; in the Tower of London.

Enfar'oved bv E-Ajldersoii acnd. C.lowrie

RELICS ASSOCIATED WITH HENRY Vlll.

THE GREAT HARRY. 85

match, Henry called a council at Greenwich, and there, after abusing
the minister and delicately referring to the royal bride as a "great
Flanders mare," commanded Cromwell to devise some pretext or
plausible cause for preventing the conclusion of the marriage.

It does not appear, however, that Anne of Cleves was an ugly
princess, and the king, who was himself very gross and heavy, had been
expressly desirous of marrying only a fine, large woman. Perhaps
Anne was on too large a scale at all events, the fickleness of the
overgrown lover was manifested by his being afterwards so quickly
attracted by the little Lady Catherine Howard, who was below the
ordinary stature.

Anne, according to Holbein's picture, had a very fair and beautiful
complexion, and a face certainly agreeable. Marillac the French
ambassador, who was not prejudiced in her favour, says that she was
tolerably handsome " de beautt moyenne"

Among the relics of the reign of the Great Harry the Holbein
portraits are the most suggestive. That of Henry himself has been
painted alike by artists and by ambassadors. In the words of one of the
latter may be best described the magnificent dress of the king, when
he was holding high state in the prime of his life and prosperity.

" After passing the ranks of the bodyguard, which consisted of 300
halberdiers with silver breast-plates, who were all as big as giants,
the ambassador and his followers were brought to the king. They
found him standing under a canopy of cloth of gold, leaning against
his gilt throne, on which lay a gold brocade cushion, with the gold
sword of state. He wore a cap of crimson velvet in the French fashion,
and the brim was looped up all round with lacets and gold enamelled
tags. His doublet was in the Swiss fashion, striped alternately with
white and crimson satin, and his hose were scarlet, and all clasped from
the knee upwards. Very close round his neck he had a gold collar,
from which there hung a rough diamond, the size of the largest walnut
I ever saw, and to this was suspended a most beautiful and very large
round pearl. His mantle was of purple velvet, lined with white satin,
the sleeves open, with a train more than four Venetian yards long.
This mantle was girt in front like a gown with a thick gold cord, from
which there hung large golden acorns, like those suspended from
a cardinal's hat; over this mantle was a very handsome gold collar, with
a pendant of St. George entirely of diamonds. Beneath the mantle

86 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

he wore a frock of cloth of gold which carried a dagger, and his fingers
were one mass of jewelled rings."

Such was the appearance of the Great Harry, and though we are
perhaps less impressed than surprised at the gorgeous brilliant figure,
it is evident that all this sheen of gold and jewels was an important,
if not a necessary accompaniment of state occasions, or the writers
would scarcely have dwelt on it with such admiring attention to details.

SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS DAUGHTER.

Amidst the number of remarkable men associated with the historical
events of the reign of Henry VIII., not one was more truly distin-
guished than Sir Thomas More. His blameless life and tragic death
are subjects of which few Englishmen tire to read, and the tender
affection that existed between him and his noble and accomplished
daughter Margaret, makes one of the most charming episodes in the
story of English life and character of that period.

M ore's father, who occupied a place on the judicial bench in the
reign of Henry VII., placed his only son at a school of high repute
in Threadneedle Street, London, whence the lad was received into the
family of Cardinal Morton, who was chancellor and Archbishop of
Canterbury. The extraordinary talents, and probably that acute, ready,
and pleasant wit for which he was afterwards famous, gained for him
the notice of the distinguished visitors to the chancellor's house;
so that when at the age of seventeen he went up to Oxford to study
rhetoric, logic, and philosophy, in order to qualify himself for legal
practice, he may already have had the prospect of that great career
which began when he afterwards entered New Inn and then removed
to Lincoln's Inn.

At Oxford young More became acquainted with Erasmus, between
whom and himself a close friendship afterwards existed, and it was
there that he composed the greater number of his English poems.
More was one of those rare men in whose characters are combined

SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS DAUGHTER. 87

great scholarship, brilliant wit, and earnest religious sentiments.
While he was a lad at the cardinal's house, Colet, Dean of West-
minster, used to say that he was the only wit in England; when
he entered on legal studies he rapidly acquired great celebrity, and was
soon appointed reader at Furnival's Inn, where he delivered lectures
on the law for three years, and about the same time lectured at
St. Lawrence's Church in Old Jewry on the subject of St. Augustin's
" De Civitate Dei."

He was always a student of theology, and for some time thought
of entering the church, but he finally relinquished that intention, and
was called to the bar. His religious opinions were strong, and his
personal piety remarkable. As a Roman Catholic he practised penance
and self-mortification with austerity, conforming to the practices of the
charter- house where he resided. He was an earnest upholder of the
church and of the faith which he professed, so that he doubtless
afterwards became associated with the persecutions inflicted on Pro-
testants. Mr. Froude says, " The philosopher of the Utopia, the friend
of Erasmus, whose life was of blameless beauty, whose genius was
cultivated to the holiest attainable perfection, was to prove to the world
that the spirit of persecution is no peculiar attribute of the pedant, the
bigot, or the fanatic, but may co-exist with the fairest graces of the
human character." It is doubtful, however, whether he was ever
concerned in the infliction of death upon those whom he regarded
as heretics, though he declared to Erasmus that he would give them
all the molestation in his power.

More soon obtained an extensive legal practice, and was frequently
engaged by leading merchants in foreign arbitration cases, which took
him to Flanders, where he made many friends. He was appointed
under-sheriff of London, and so became a judge in the sheriffs' court,
and his reputation was so great that he was always engaged in
important trials. On becoming a burgess, and taking his seat in
parliament, however, his honesty had nearly ended his career, for
he opposed the attempt made by Henry VII. to raise a subsidy on the
occasion of the marriage of his daughter to the Scottish king. This
so incensed the king that More had determined to leave the country,
when the death of Henry VII. and the accession of Henry VIII.
restored him to safety. Then followed a succession of honours and
royal favours, none of which appear to have changed the simplicity and

88 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

piety of More, or to have affected his love of truth and honesty. In
1515 Henry employed him on an embassy to Bruges, and in the
following year conferred on him the honour of knighthood; but More
refused the offer of a pension, on the ground that, when acting as judge
in any dispute between the crown and the city, he would probably
be embarrassed by the knowledge that he was taking the money of one
of the parties concerned.

He had married Jane Colt, an Essex lady, who died, leaving a son
and three daughters, one of whom married Mr. Roper, and was the
chief stay and comfort of her father in his last years; though he had
again married. His second wife was Alice Middleton, a widow some
years older than himself.

The king, who thoroughly recognized the wit and learning of More,
insisted on an intimacy, which, flattering as it was, does not seem
to have misled that acute observer. When, in 1520, More was made
treasurer, and afterwards built his house at Chelsea, whither he removed
with his children and his second wife, Henry was his frequent guest.
This was after the treasurer had received new honours, and when
he had also become a constant visitor to the king, who was doubtless
glad to avail himself of his favourite's wit and learning in composing
the book which was to help to bring him the title of " Defender of the
Faith."

Walking in the garden by the Thames, Henry would talk for
an hour together with his arm over More's shoulder, a familiarity
observed by Mr. Roper, Margaret's husband, who congratulated his
father-in-law on the happy royal friendship he enjoyed. " But, son,"
replied the treasurer, " I may tell thee I have no cause to be proud
of it; for if my head could win him a French castle, it would not fail
to go." On another occasion, perhaps foreseeing the troubles that were
menacing the state because of the furious self-will of the king, he said,
" On condition that three things were well established in Christendom,
I would to our Lord, son Roper, that I were here put into a sack, and
presently thrown into the Thames," these three things he explained
to be " peace among Christian princes, uniformity in religion, and the
settlement of the dispute about the king's marriage."

He preferred the love of his family, and the quiet pleasures of his
own household, to the royal favour and the life of a court. When
he consented to undertake affairs of state, he yielded only to the urgent

SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS DAUGHTER. 89

requests of the king, who, when More had succeeded Wolsey as lord-
chancellor, commanded the Duke of Norfolk to commend him to the
" people there with great applause and joy gathered together" " for his
admirable wisdome, integritie, and innocencie, joined with most pleasant
facilitie of witt."

This character was not too flattering. More filled his high office
with a wisdom and unspotted integrity which were a noble example,
at the same time that he was easy, courteous, and graceful. On
one occasion when a woman sought to bribe him, by presenting him with
a valuable cup, he ordered his butler to fill it with wine, and having
drunk her health returned it; and when another presented him with
a pair of gloves containing forty pounds, he accepted the gloves and
returned the gold, declaring that he " preferred gloves without lining."

When Henry determined to marry Anne Boleyn, and to be divorced
from Catherine, no persuasion could induce More to give his approval.
He remained neutral, and resigned his office of chancellor, after having
held it for two years and five months. From that time the king, whose
resentment was furious against all who opposed him, determined
on either overbearing or ruining his former favourite. More was
included in the charge of favouring the "prophecies of Elizabeth
Barton," the maid of Kent, who, from general foretelling of events which
did not happen, had been induced by some of the priestly party
to denounce the divorce from Catherine. A number of innocent
persons whom it was desired to get rid of were included in a bill of
attainder for upholding this pretender, and More was one of them, but
his innocence was so obvious that his name was afterwards removed,
and he was required only to take an oath to maintain a statute passed
in 1533-34, which made it high treason by writing, print, deed, or act,
to do anything to the prejudice of the king's lawful matrimony with
Queen Anne.

More declined to take the oath, but offered to swear that he would
maintain the order of succession as established by parliament, for the
exclusion of the Princess Mary from the throne. He was therefore
attainted of misprision of treason, and was conveyed to the Tower.
He had already given up his preferments, obtained places for his
servants, retired from his home at Chelsea, and had become so poor
that there was -little to take from him but his life. For thirteen months
he remained in prison, and neither the urgent reasoning of his friends,

QO PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

nor appeals on behalf of his family, could induce him to act in opposition
to his convictions.

Dear Margaret was distracted ; when he had remained about
a month's space in the Tower, she, longing to see her father, made
most earnest suit, and at last got leave to go to him. At which coming,
after they had said together the Seven Psalms, and Litanies, among
other speeches he said, " I believe Mag, who have put me here think
they have done me a high displeasure; but I assure them on my faith,
mine own good daughter, that if it had not been for my wife and you,
and my children, I would not have failed to have closed myself in
a straiter room than this; nor since I am come hither without my own
desert, I trust God will discharge me of my care, and with his gracious
help supply the want of my presence to you," and much more he said
of gratitude that he should be counted worthy to follow in the army
of martyrs.

She plied him with family reasons for concession, but he replied
patiently but firmly in the negative. Once after questions about the
home people, he asked how Queen Anne did. "In faith, father, never
better," said she; "there is nothing in the court but sporting and
dancing." "Never better!" he replied; "alas! Mag, alas! it pitieth
me to remember into what misery, poor soul! she will shortly come.
These dances of hers will prove such dances that she will spurn our
heads off like footballs, but it will not be long ere her head will dance
the like dances."

Fisher, the aged bishop, the friend of the king, the supporter of
learning, was already dead on the same charge. While he lay in the
Tower a cardinal's hat was sent to him from Rome. " Ha!" exclaimed
Henry, " Paul may send him the hat, I will take care that he have
never a head to wear it on." He kept his word. On the 22d day
of June, 1535, the old prelate was dragged from the Tower, his gray
head severed from his body and stuck upon London Bridge, whence
it seemed to look towards the Kentish hills. His body was exposed
naked to the populace, and then placed in a humble grave in Barking
churchyard, without coffin or shroud.

More was soon to follow. They had taken away his books-
had refused him pen and ink and paper. On some scraps of paper,
perhaps flung in his way by some relenting gaoler, -he wrote with
a piece of charcoal his last letter to his beloved Margaret. Nothing

SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS DAUGHTER. 91

availed him. " I am the king's true, faithful subject, and daily beads-
man," he had written while he had the means of writing. " I pray for
his highness, and all his and all the realm. I do nothing harm, I say
no harm, I think none harm, and wish everybody good; and if this
be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live.
I am dying already, and since I came here have been divers times in the
case that I thought to die within one hour. And, I thank our Lord,
I was never sorry for it, but rather sorry when I saw the pang past;
and therefore my poor body is at the king's pleasure. Would to God
my death might do him good!"

After a year's imprisonment, he was led out of the Tower to be
tried at Westminster Hall for high treason. There he stood calm and
undaunted, his hair white, his face pale and emaciated, his dress
a coarse woollen gown; his strength so reduced that he had to support
himself on a long staff. His judges feared his uprightness and
eloquence. The indictment was long and wordy: even then he might
obtain pardon by doing the king's will. This he refused, and in his
defence showed that there was no foundation for that of which he was
accused. Rich, the infamous solicitor-general, deposed that More had
said in a private conversation : " The parliament cannot make the king
head of the church, because it is a civil tribunal without authority
in spiritual matters." More denied the accusation, and remarked upon
the character of his accuser. Two witnesses brought to substantiate
the charge declared, that though they were in the room they did not
pay attention to what was said. At last it was declared, though More
had remained silent on the matters demanded of him that silence was
treason and he was sentenced to death.

When this doom was pronounced he rose to address the court. Twice
he was interrupted, but the third time obtained a hearing, when he told
them that what he had hitherto concealed he would now proclaim.
The oath of supremacy was entirely unlawful. He regretted to differ
from the noble lords whom he saw on the bench, but his conscience would
not permit him to do otherwise. He declared that he had no animosity
against them, and that he hoped that even as St. Paul was present
and consented to the death of Stephen, and yet was afterwards
a companion saint in heaven, so they and he should all meet together
hereafter. " And so," he concluded, " may God preserve you all, and
especially my lord the king, and send him good counsel!"

92 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

As he moved from the bar, his son rushed through the hall, fell
upon his knees, and begged his blessing. With the axe turned towards
him he walked back to the Tower, amid the great wonderment and
commiseration of the citizens. On reaching the Tower-wharf his dear
daughter, Margaret Roper, forced her way through the officers and
halberdiers that surrounded him, clasped him round the neck, and
sobbed aloud. Sir Thomas consoled her, and she collected sufficient
power to bid him farewell for ever; but as her father moved on she
again rushed through the crowd, and threw herself upon his neck.
Here the weakness of nature overcame him, and he wept as he repeated
his blessing and his Christian consolation. The people wept too, and
his guards were so much affected that they could hardly summon
up resolution to separate the father and daughter.

After this trial the bitterness of death was past. The old man's wit
flashed brightly in his last moments. When told that the king had
mercifully commuted the hanging, drawing, and quartering into simple
decapitation, he said, " God preserve all my friends from such royal
favours!" This happy vein accompanied him to the very scaffold.
The framework was weak, and some fears were expressed lest the
scaffold might break down. " Mr. Lieutenant," said More, " see me safe
up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself." The executioner
as usual asked forgiveness. " Friend," said More, " thou wilt render
me to-day the greatest service in the power of man; but my neck is
very short, take heed, therefore, that thou strike not awry, for the sake
of the credit of thy profession." He was not permitted to address the
spectators, but he ventured to declare that he died a faithful subject
and a true Catholic. After prayers said, he placed his head upon the
block, but he bade the headsman hold his hand until he removed his
beard, saying with a smile, " My beard has never committed any
treason." Then the blow fell, and the neck was severed at once.

The body of Sir Thomas More was first interred in St. Peter's
Church, in the Tower, and afterwards in Chelsea Church; but his head
was stuck on a pole, and placed on London Bridge, where it remained
fourteen days. His eldest and favourite daughter, Margaret Roper,
much grieved and shocked at this exposure of her father's head,
determined if possible to gain possession of it. She succeeded, and
according to Aubrey, in a very remarkable manner. " One day," says
he, " as she was passing under the bridge, looking on her father's head,

THE BOY KING EDWARD VI. 93

she exclaimed, 'That head has lain many a time on my lap, would
to God it would fall into my lap as I pass under!' She had her wish,
and it did fall into her lap." Improbable as this incident may appear,
it is not unlikely that it really occurred. For having tried in vain
to gain possession of the head by open and direct means, she bribed
or persuaded one of the bridge-keepers to throw it over the bridge,
as if to make room for another, just when he should see her passing
in a boat beneath. And she doubtless made the above exclamation
to her boatmen, to prevent the suspicion of a concerted scheme between
her and the bridge-keeper.

However some of these particulars may be questioned, it appears
certain that Margaret Roper gained possession of her father's head
by some such means, for when summoned before the council for having
it in her custody, she boldly declared that " her father's head should not
be food for fishes." For this she was imprisoned, but was soon
liberated and allowed to retain her father's head, which she had inclosed
in a leaden box, and preserved it with the tenderest devotion. She
died in 1544, aged 36, and was buried in the Roper vault, in St. Dun-
stan's Church, Canterbury ; and, according to her own desire, her father's
head was placed in her coffin. But subsequently, for some cause not
now known, it was removed from its leaden case, and deposited in
a small niche in the wall of the vault, with an iron grating before it,
where it now remains in the condition of a fleshless skull.

THE BOY KING EDWARD VI.

Surely there are few royal personages whose history is alike as
brief and as painful as that of the son of the Great Harry. Even when
we have been accustomed to regard with admiration the religious
character and the royal charity of the young King Edward VI.,
we lament his restricted, almost joyless childhood, his sickness, and
early death. But when we estimate the conditions of his mental train-
ing and disposition, and note the results in a character which could

94 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

apparently regard with something like apathy the execution of both the
uncles who had striven to become his guardians, we are compelled to
the conclusion that, even though the crown passed from the pious boy
king to his half sister, the dark and fanatic Mary, his early death was
better for the nation than that it should have had a ruler with such a
character, hardened, and narrowed, and self-concentrated.

It must not be forgotten, however, that the shadows of the axe and
the block, which had so long rested on the state during the latter part
of Henry's reign, still loomed darkly over the land. He had made
them the instruments for the gratification of revenge or the removal
of those who stood between him and arbitrary rule; they were now
adopted as the means of enabling successive parties to rise to power
by the destruction of their opponents, while the stake seldom lacked
victims who were to be burned in the interest of religion.

Edward VI. seems to have given the whole force of his char-
acter to sustain his religious convictions. We look almost in vain
for any youthful warmth of affection, and even what may be regarded
as natural tenderness of sentiment had been little developed in his dis-
position. Who can wonder at this when it is remembered that he had
lived a childhood of seclusion, during which his studies had been of a
formal nature, only occasionally relieved by recreations which were
permitted by his tutors or governesses. Just as Henry VIII. was a
man with the ill-regulated and turbulent passions and vagaries of a boy,
Edward, while a mere infant, was exhibiting the demure precision and
self-consciousness of a narrow character. Of course he was little more
than a royal puppet in the hands of his uncle Somerset, who had
become king in all except the name. At the same time Cranmer was
ever ready to induce him to give royal authority to the severities which
had been ordained for the promotion of the Protestant cause; and
Thomas Seymour, by his bold intrigues, was endeavouring at once to
ingratiate himself with his nephew, and to gain such a position as
would make him the arbiter of the crown in case of that early death
of Edward of which warnings had not been wanting.

For the physical constitution of Edward VI. was not such as to
bear the educational forcing process to which he had been subjected.
The Milanese physician, Cardano, who visited England in the last year
of the reign, fancied he saw a look in Edward's face which foretold an
early death. From him we learn that the young king in stature was

THE BOY KING EDWARD VI. 95

below the usual size; his complexion was fair, his eyes gray, his gesture
and general aspect sedate and becoming. Indeed, Edward seems to
have possessed much of the Tudor dignity, and not unfrequently arose
to the self-assertion which characterized his family; but it was only in
relation to his strong religious convictions that he thus assumed an
authority of which ordinarily he had but the shadow.

It was the policy of those who ruled the state as his governors to
put him forward on all important occasions with a semblance of power,
that he might appear to aid their policy. In this* they were mostly
successful; but whenever on religious subjects they sought to defend
an illogical conclusion, or to temporize with what he regarded as an
inevitable truth, they found that the boy who had been trained to an
intellectual coldness of temperament could be obstinate and almost
impetuous. Thus he was continually opposed to the exercise of the
Romish rites by his sister Mary, even though he had as much regard
for his sisters as it was in his nature to cherish. He had been so
carefully trained in Protestant opinions, and was so convinced that it
was sin to allow idolatry in the land, that the council, when the
emperor threatened war unless Mary's religion was respected, found
it very difficult to persuade their royal pupil to acquiesce in their polite
subterfuges.

Dudley, Earl of Warwick, had suggested a reference of the question
to the Bishops Cranmer, Ridley, and Poynet. The bishops asked, "If
war was inevitable if the king should persist?" Being told there was no
hope of escaping it, they begged for a night to consider their answer.
On the following morning they gave an opinion as the result of their
deliberation, that "although to give license to sin was sin, yet if all
haste possible was observed, to suffer and wink at it for a time might
be borne." The king was then called in, and the result of the reference
to the bishops submitted to him. "Are these things so, my lords?"
said Edward, turning to them; "is it lawful by Scripture to sanction
idolatry?" "There were good kings in Scripture, your majesty," they
replied, " who allowed the hill altars, and yet were called good." " We
follow the example of good men," the boy answered, " when they have
done well. We do not follow them in evil. David was good, but
David seduced Bathsheba and murdered Uriah. We are not to
imitate David in such deeds as these. Is there no better Scripture?"
The bishops could think of none. " I am sorry for the realm then,"

96 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

said Edward; "and sorry for the danger that will come of it. I shall
hope and pray for something better, but the evil thing I will not allow."
The council, however, seern to have persuaded him to content himself
for the present with punishing all who attended the princess' mass,
except herself, and meanwhile delayed a positive answer to the
emperor till they had secured an alliance with France, which enabled
them to set him at defiance.

It seems possible that the morbid condition of the mind of Henry
VIII., and even some of the mental tendencies of Henry VII., were
shown in the character of Edward. What was probably a strict con-
scientiousness took the form of an intellectual or logical process, and
led him to false conclusions, first, because he was too young to grasp
many of the subjects to which his attention had been strained; and
secondly, because his disposition, aided by the system of his instructors,
had led him to disregard the teachings of the heart, and indeed all
personal considerations, for the sake of what he deemed to be con-
sistent logical conclusions.

When to this characteristic was added the formal etiquette with
which his governors caused him to be treated, and the self-consequence
which was the substitute they offered him in place of authority, we may
wonder that he exhibited even such amiable traits as he really pos-
sessed. No one was permitted to address him, not even his sisters,
without kneeling to him. " I have seen," says Ubaldini, " the Princess
Elizabeth drop on one knee five times before her brother ere she took
her place." At dinner, if either of his sisters were permitted to eat
with him, she sat on a stool and cushion at a distance beyond the limits
of the royal dais. Even the lords and gentlemen who brought in the
dishes before dinner knelt down before they placed them on the table
a custom which shocked the French ambassador and his suite, for in
France the office was confined to pages, who bowed only, and did not
kneel.

Fuller tells us how the young king, speaking of his tutors, used to say
that " Randolph, the German, spoke honestly, Sir John Cheke talked
seriously, Dr. Coxe solidly, and Sir Anthony Cooke weighingly" an
estimate which gives us a rather melancholy impression of a boy's
mind, and is wonderfully in accordance with the subjects and treatment
of those literary essays, which, like the " Discourse on the Reformation
of Abuses," display a gravity and an impersonal quality of temperament

FROM THE PICTURE I N THE NEW PA] .ACE OF WESTMINSTER.

THE BOY KING EDWARD VI. 97

remarkable in a boy of fourteen, especially when that boy was a son of
Henry VIII., and only waiting till he became of age to be actual king
of England. To us, at the present day, it is sufficiently remarkable
that a lad who became nominally king at ten years old, and died when
he was sixteen, should actually have left, not only a diary which is a
remarkable indication of his disposition, but several works showing
what was his mental character. 1

In those five years the royal boy was to see the overthrow of both
the uncles who had striven, one to retain and the other to acquire the
governorship of the realm ; and it is scarcely too much to say that he
appears to have been little affected by the fate of either. When the
Protector Somerset returned from Scotland, his brother, Thomas
Seymour, was using every effort to wrest from him one, if not both, his
high offices, and the marriage of this man with the queen-dowager had
apparently given him great influence. But Somerset was the quieter
and the more powerful intriguer; and when Catherine died, shortly after-
wards, though there was an appearance of reconciliation, and Thomas
Seymour was presented with fresh honours and emoluments, it became
evident that one or the other must be removed. The younger brother
was charged with treason, and without any proper formal trial was
condemned to death. The warrant for his execution was signed by his
brother and by Cranmer, and acquiesced in by Edward, apparently with
a calm indifference that is almost amazing. We must remember, how-
ever, that Edward was entirely under the control of the council, of which
Somerset was the head while Cranmer was its most active member.
When the day of adversity came to the protector, and he himself was
superseded by the Earl of Warwick, who was made Duke of Northum-
berland, and took his place as regent, there ensued not only a reaction
on the part of the Romanists, which it required all the ability of Cranmer
and a strict enforcement of existing laws to resist, but also a reaction
against Somerset as the too arbitrary ruler who had exercised more than
royal authority.

He was first disgraced, then partially restored to favour, appar-
ently by the desire of his nephew, who showed him as much kindness
as it was in his nature to show, or as he was permitted by his new
rulers to exercise. Probably Warwick intended to make use of the

1 The Literary Remains of King Ed-ward VI., by Mr. John Gough Nichols, in two volumes, printed
for the Roxburgh Club in 1857, is perhaps the best edition of his works.

98 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

influence of the late protector to his own advantage, for he agreed to a
reconciliation, and soon afterwards his eldest son, the Lord Lisle,
married the Lady Ann, one of Somerset's daughters, and the wedding
was celebrated by a feast and various entertainments, at which the king
was present, for in his journal he says, " there were certain gentlemen
who did strive who should first take away a goose's head which was
hanged alive on two cross posts." But Somerset began to take secret
measures to restore his fallen fortunes. It was said that he intrigued
to bring about a marriage between the king and his daughter Jane;
but this at all events was frustrated by a proposal on behalf of the
boy king for the hand of Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry of France,
a request that was immediately accepted. It was agreed that on
her attaining a certain age the alliance should be ratified, and that
with a dower of 200,000 crowns (about a tenth part of the sum first
asked for) she should be sent to England, as Edward notes in his
journal, " at her father's charge, three months before she was twelve,
sufficiently jewelled and stuffed."

This was in May, 1551, and in the following September Warwick
was made Warden of the Scottish Marches. This enabled him to take
measures for cutting off the retreat of Somerset should he take to open
revolt and add to the insurrections which were now appearing in
various parts of the country the horrors of a civil war. In the begin-
ning of October Warwick was created Duke of Northumberland, his
friends and dependents being also promoted to new titles. Five days
afterwards Somerset was arrested on a charge of conspiracy and high
treason, and committed to the Tower. He was condemned, not for
treason, but for conspiring to compass the death of the leading members
of the government, and was executed on the 226. of January, 1552, a
day or two after the festivities of Christmas, in which Edward seems to
have taken a more than usually gay part, especially in the masques and
entertainments given under the direction of the Lord of Misrule. It
is said that " he seemed to take the trouble of his uncle somewhat
heavily;" but the note in his journal merely records the tragic event
thus: "The Duke of Somerset had his head cut off upon Tower Hill
between eight and nine o'clock in the morning."

His own end was near. A year or so afterwards he was attacked
by measles and small-pox, from which he appeared to have recovered,
though probably his constitution was weakened by their effects. Later

THE BOY KING EDWARD VI. 99

in the year, when heated by a game at tennis, he is said to have drunk
too freely of some cold liquid, and was soon after seized with a con-
sumptive cough. It was evident that the young king was dying.
Northumberland induced him to execute a will which excluded Mary
from the throne on the plea that she had been so excluded by the
edict of Henry, but really because of her anti- Protestant religion. This
determined the succession in favour of Lady Jane Grey, who as daughter
of the Duchess of Suffolk, the eldest of the surviving daughters of
Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VII., was after her mother and
the two princesses the next in succession. She had been espoused to
Northumberland's son, the Lord Guildford Dudley, and the alliance
might thus be made of the utmost importance.

Edward, anxious to prevent Mary from restoring the Romish
faith, at once consented to the required instrument. The judges
and councillors hesitated to draw up a document which altered
the succession without the authority of Parliament; but Edward
strongly rebuked them, while Northumberland was furious. At
last they consented, as they were supported by the friends of the
regent and by Cranmer, who was at the head of the clergy. Between
the discussion and his death, which occurred on the i5th July, 1553,
Edward was committed to the care of a nurse who professed to be
skilled in the cure of his complaint. It was afterwards declared that
she hastened his death, and that the Duke of Northumberland was not
dissatisfied with the result; but this suspicion was probably only the
expression of a feeling which, having already gained ground, was after-
wards emphasised by one of the most tragical events of English history.

MARY.

It is only in recent times that a fair examination of the facts of
history, and a consideration of the conditions under which Mary suc-
ceeded to the throne, have led, if not to some vindication of her char-
acter, at all events to a very considerable mitigation of the dislike and

IOO PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

aversion with which she has been regarded. It should be remembered
that she was treated with injustice and suspicion from her birth, that
she was denied the exercise of the religious observances which belonged
to the faith in which she had been educated, that the persecutions with
which her reign was disfigured were, to some degree, retaliations which
followed the severities of Cranmer and others of the Protestant leaders
against Romanism and heresy. Let us remember too that during the
latter part of the short reign of Edward VI. various parts of the country
were in partial insurrection, that tyrannous laws and the oppressions
of rulers who were trying to supplant each other, were nearly repro-
ducing civil war, to which might have been added a still fiercer conflict,
in the name of liberty of opinion on both sides, but with each side
ready to persecute directly its adherents obtained the mastery.

It will be well in considering the history of this period, and of all
periods where these religious questions are paramount, to note the
fact that persecution to death is a logical deduction for any sect
or "church" which, while it holds the belief that eternal salvation
depends on the acceptance of certain dogmatic opinions, considers
it a duty to enforce those opinions even to the death of the bodies
of those who deny them, either for the possible salvation of the souls
of the unbelievers themselves, by wringing from them a recantation,
or in order to prevent the spread of a damning heresy. The remorseless
disposition to persecute had been aroused long before, during the dark
tempestuous close of Henry's reign, and it seemed to rise to a fury
of cruelty and a fanaticism of destruction under the influence of his
elder daughter's embittered temper, till men sickened and turned with
loathing from the sight and scent of blood that pervaded the land.

But the reformation of religion had been so surely advanced that the
reaction in favour of Romanism was but a transient political symptom.
Cranmer, whose character and conduct with regard to former friends
and acknowledged foes we cannot regard with admiration, since it
appears to have been actuated at once by too great subservience to his
temporal superiors, and a too persistent and unscrupulous opposition to
those who stood in the way of his policy, yet carried on the work of
Protestantism with effect. He had seen Catharine of Aragon divorced,
Anne Boleyn beheaded, Mary and Elizabeth declared to be illegiti-
mate, and Edward placed on the throne.

During the short reign of the boy king, the work of the Information

*y
A
&

sy '

LIBRARY

FROM THK PICTURE IK THK "MKW PALACK O1J WESTMINSTER.

MARY. IO1

had been virtually accomplished. The visitation of dioceses was con-
firmed, and laymen were joined with bishops in ordering the points of
religious belief and public worship; eminent preachers of the reformed
doctrines went the circuits with the visitors to expound the Scriptures,
and a copy of the English Bible and of a translation of Erasmus' para-
phrase on the New Testament were ordered to be in every parish church
in England. The parliament from which Bonner and Gardiner, the
two most able and strenuous opponents of Cranmer, were excluded,
began with repealing the atrocious acts which gave royal proclamations
the force of law, and abrogated the additions to the law of treason
and the laws against the Lollards. The new felonies created during
the reign of Henry, and every other act concerning doctrine and matter
of religion, were also dealt with in the first meeting of the parliament
after the return of Somerset from Scotland. The form of administering
the sacrament was changed, for it was ordered that the cup should
be delivered to the laity as well as to the clergy. Thus with the pro-
hibition of unlicensed preaching, the removal of shrines, the seizure
of the plate and jewels belonging to them for the use of the king, and
the clothes that covered them for the use of the poor, the forbidding
of the elevation of the host, the order that the whole service of the
church should be in the English language, the publication of a catechism
by Cranmer for the profit and instruction of children and young people,
and the meeting of a committee of divines for the composition of a new
Liturgy, the Reformation proceeded.

That it was carried on with harshness and with persecutions is
to be deplored, but it was an age of violence. True liberty of con-
science was yet unknown, or at all events was disallowed. Though
the amendments made by parliament seemed to be intended to set men
free, new penalties and disabilities were pronounced against those who
would not conform to the regulations. Punishments were less severe,
the executions for opinions comparatively few, but a cold relentless
temper characterized the proceedings of the council. The logical
heartlessness which has been noticed as the result of the training of
the young king seems to have characterized nearly all those who
were in power.

Perhaps the act against mendicancy which was passed at that time
was one of the most barbarous measures ever devised. Edward in his
journal calls it an " extreme law," and it cannot be doubted that it was

IO2 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

to this that many of the insurrections in various parts of the kingdom
were to be attributed. This act is very remarkable as the beginning
of what may be called "a poor law" in England. During the days
before the Reformation it had been the practice for the various religious
houses, as well as for some of the nobility of the country, to make
provision for the relief of the poor, and in many places there was
an open table in the baronial hall for necessitous wayfarers, and tem-
porary food and shelter in the convents or the monasteries for those
who were without either. Even at that time it was found necessary,
in order to check these encouragements to mendicity, to proclaim laws
against sturdy rogues and masterless men, and to threaten severe
punishments against vagabonds and mendicants who were likely to
become a serious danger to the community; but after the suppression
of religious houses and the diminution of that feudal state which once
distinguished the nobility, the danger was likely to assume alarming
proportions. The parliament thought that the occasion demanded
vigorous legislation, and the result was an act which, if it could have
been carried out, would have established actual slavery in England.
" The act for the punishment of vagabonds and the relief of poor and
impotent persons" ordained that the latter, who included the maimed and
the aged, who could not be styled vagabonds, should have houses pro-
vided for them, and be otherwise relieved in the places where they were
born or had chiefly resided for the last three years, by the willing and
charitable disposition of the parishioners. But the vast and appalling
evil of mendicancy was to be met by desperate remedies. Any person
found living idly or loiteringly for the space of three days, should, on
being brought before a justice, be marked with a hot iron on the breast,
and adjudged to be the slave for two years of the person informing
against him, who "shall take the same slave, and give him bread, water
or small drink, and refuse meat, and cause him to work by beating, chain-
ing, or otherwise in such work and labour as he shall put him to, be it
never so vile." If this slave during the two years absented himself
for fourteen days without leave he was to be branded on the forehead
or the ball of the cheek, and condemned to be a slave to his said master
for ever. If he ran away a second time, he was to suffer death as
a felon. Masters could sell, bequeath, or let out for hire the services
of their slaves, " after the like sort and manner as they may do of other
their movable goods and chattels." A master might put an iron ring

MARY. IO3

about the neck, arm, or leg of his slave. Justices of the peace might
inquire after idle persons, brand them and convey them to the places
of their birth, there to be nourished and kept in chains or otherwise
at the common works in amending highways, or in servitude to private
persons; and all persons who chose to do so, could seize the children
of beggars and retain them as apprentices, the boys till they were twenty-
four, the girls till they were twenty years of age. If they ran away
during that time the master was permitted to recover them, to punish
them with chains or otherwise, and to use them as slaves till their
apprenticeship had expired.

These then were the provisions which, while they may be said to
have been the original enactments which afterwards resulted in the
organization of slavery abroad and of the poor law at home, were
instrumental in keeping the country in a condition of revolt. To the
reaction in favour of Romanism these harsh laws must greatly have
contributed, and it was at the time when both were most active that the
death of Edward left the throne vacant for the princess, who took to
it a religion the rites of which she had been forbidden to observe,
and a sense of years of wrong and injustice inflicted on her mother
and herself.

Doubtless the repression to which Mary had so long been subject
reacted in a kind of fanaticism, of which even her passionate regard for
Philip of Spain was very largely composed. A considerable portion, if
not the majority, of the country was in a state of recoil, or the unre-
lenting measures which were regarded for a time as necessary or
inevitable reprisals could not have been suffered.

Darkness lowered over the whole kingdom, the lurid fires of per-
secution burned with a flame that threatened to destroy the sincerity
and the honour of public men, who could see no safety but in recan-
tation, if they were Protestants, or in acquiescence with a policy which
was destroying England on behalf of Spain and the pope. Yet it was
the very fury and recklessness of the queen and her Romish advisers
against the reformed religion which at last extinguished the Papal
domination in England. When Ridley and Latimer were burned at
Oxford those two sturdy old men the latter turned round at the
stake to say that they would that day light a candle in England which
would not be put out, and he was right. Cranmer during months of
imprisonment was constantly plied with devilish subtlety, for it was

IO4 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

accompanied by temptations in the shape of pleasant changes from
prison hardships and an implied promise that his life would be spared
if he did but sign a recantation. He was nearly worn out, and seems
to have been demoralized by the persistent wiles of his enemies, for he
was not a courageous man, and had been often too much of a time-
server to Henry and to the ruling faction that succeeded him. He
signed not one only but six recantations, and there is reason to believe
that he was at once gnawed by remorse. Happily for him and for the
nation his foes carried their duplicity to the end, and condemned him
to die. The sentence awoke manhood and truth in his soul. The
fallen primate, who had been cajoled into treachery, and who yielded
to cowardice, reasserted his faith, condemned his own weakness,
thrust into the flames the hand that had signed the recantations, and
went cheerfully to be burned. It was practically all over with the
Romish power then, though the queen, aided by the furious pope Paul
IV., had by an unbridled exercise of bigotry, and with a temper
rendered darker and more bitter by jealousy and disappointment,
entered into a career which in less than five years gave her the title
which has remained to this day, the name of "Bloody Mary."

Perhaps no better portrait of this unhappy and bigoted queen can
be given than that of the Venetian Michele. These Venetian ambassa-
dors appear to have been the most accomplished "word painters"
of the time, and we are indebted to them for their graphic descriptions
of our rulers. Michele writes: "Queen Mary, the daughter of Henry
VIII. and of his queen Catharine ... is a princess of great
worth. In her youth she was rendered unhappy by the events of her
mother's divorce, by the ignominy and threats to which she was exposed
after the change of religion in England, she being unwilling to bend
to the new one, and by the dangers to which she was exposed by the
Duke of Northumberland and the riots among the people when she
reached the throne. She is of short stature, thin and delicate, and
moderately pretty; her eyes are so lively that she inspires reverence
and respect and even fear whenever she turns them : nevertheless she
is very short-sighted. Her voice is deep, almost like that of a man.
She understands five languages, English, French, Spanish, Latin, and
Italian, in which last, however, she does not venture to discourse. She
is also much skilled in ladies' work, such as producing all sorts of
embroidery with the needle. She has a knowledge of music, chiefly

MARY. IO5

on the lute, which she plays exceedingly well. As to the qualities
of her mind, it may be said of her that she is rash, disdainful, and
parsimonious rather than liberal. She is endowed with great humility
and patience, but withal high-spirited, courageous, and resolute, having
during the whole course of her adversity been guiltless of any the least
approach to meanness of comportment; she is, moreover, devout and
staunch in the defence of her religion.

"Some personal infirmities under which she labours are the causes
to her of both public and private affliction. To remedy these recourse
was had to frequent blood-letting, and this is the real cause of her
paleness, and the general weakness of her frame. The cabals she has.
been exposed to, the evil disposition of the people towards her, the
present poverty and the debt of the crown, and her passion for King
Philip, from whom she is doomed to live separate, are so many other
causes of the grief by which she is overwhelmed. She is, moreover,
a prey to the hatred she bears to my lady Elizabeth, and which has its
source in the recollection of the wrongs she experienced on account
of her mother, and in the fact that all eyes and hearts are turned
towards my lady Elizabeth, as successor to the throne."

This was written a year before the death of Mary, and making
allowance for the tendencies of the author is a moderately accurate
portrait of the daughter of Catharine of Aragon.

THE OFFER OF THE CROWN TO
LADY JANE GREY.

" She has left a portrait of herself, drawn by her own hand a
portrait of piety, purity, and free noble innocence, uncoloured even to
a fault with the emotional weaknesses of humanity." These are the
words of Mr. Froude in speaking of that "twelfth day" queen of
England, whose name appears in history without a royal title, and
only as Lady Jane Grey. Amidst the sickening incense of flatterers,
the fury of persecution, the intrigues of factions, this pure and gentle

IO6 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

lady appears in the record of the time an almost solitary figure, and
her name even now thrills a responsive chord in every sympathetic
heart. Not as the daughter of Henry Grey, duke of Suffolk, but
through her mother, Frances Brandon, niece of Henry VII., she stood
next to Mary and Elizabeth as successor to the English crown.

We have already noted how, during the illness of Edward VI., the
impetuous and unscrupulous Dudley, duke of Northumberland, brought
about a marriage between her and his son the Lord Guildford Dudley.
She was then only seventeen, but her great accomplishments, the
strength of her understanding, and the firmness and yet gentleness of
her character, gave her a dignity which enabled her to support the
trials through which she was so soon afterwards to be made a martyr
to wrongful ambition.

In an age when women of high rank were not only accomplished
but learned, Lady Jane Grey was distinguished for her attainments.
She was acquainted with the Greek, Latin, Italian, and French
languages, and had some acquaintance with Hebrew and Arabic.
She was a favourite scholar of the learned Roger Ascham, and with
the reformer Bullinger she corresponded in Latin as correct as his
own. Out of regard for her youth, and perhaps that she might remain
ignorant of the intrigue in which she was soon to be involved, she
and Lord Guildford Dudley, the boy to whom she had been married,
were allowed for a time to reside with her mother in the country,
but when Edward's death became imminent she was summoned to her
father-in-law's house and informed that the king had appointed her to
be heir to the crown.

The intelligence was treated by Lady Jane Grey as a jest: she
was utterly averse to the whole proposal; but the Duchess of
Northumberland, after a stormy scene with the Duchess of Suffolk,
carried the young bride off with her. On the Qth of July, three days
after the king's death, which had been kept secret, Lady Jane was
requested to be at Sion House, and upon her arrival was waited on
by Northumberland and other lords, his fellow-conspirators.

" The Duke of Suffolk, with much solemnity, explained to his
daughter the disposition the late king had made of his crown by
letters patent, the clear sense the privy council had of her right, and
the consent of the magistrates and citizens of London, and in con-
clusion himself and Northumberland fell on their knees, and paid

LADY JANE GREY. 1 07

homage to her as Queen of England. The poor lady, somewhat
astonished at their behaviour and discourse, but in no respect moved
by their reasons, or in the least elevated by such unexpected honours,
answered them ' that the laws of the kingdom and natural right
standing for the king's sisters, she would beware of burdening her
weak conscience with a yoke that did not belong to them; that she
understood the infamy of those who had permitted the violation of
right to gain a sceptre; that it were to mock God and deride justice.
Besides,' said she, ' I am not so young nor so little read in the guiles
of Fortune as to suffer myself to be taken by them. . . . What
she adored but yesterday is to-day her pastime. ... My liberty
is better than the chain you proffer me, with what precious stones
soever it be adorned, or of what gold soever framed. I will not
exchange my peace for honourable and precious jealousies, for magni-
ficence and glorious fetters. And if you love me in good earnest
you will rather wish me a secure, a quiet fortune, though mean, than an
exalted condition exposed to the wind, and followed by some dismal
fall.'"

All the moving eloquence of this speech had no effect, and the
Lady Jane was at length prevailed on, or rather compelled, by the
exhortations of her father, the intercessions of her mother, the artfu]
persuasions of Northumberland, and, above all, the earnest desires
of her husband, whom she tenderly loved, to comply with what was
proposed to her.

The next day she was conveyed by water to the Tower, and
there publicly received as queen by some of the citizens and other
persons. It was only a mock reign of ten days, and then the Tower,
instead of a royal palace, became a prison. Mary, who had retired on
having been informed of Northumberland's plot, was already advanc-
ing with an armed force; and the people, who were more in favour
of the direct succession than in fear of Popery, were everywhere
well-affected towards her; even the citizens were silent and unrespon-
sive when Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed, and the people of Suffolk,
Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire, who detested Northumberland for his
severity in repressing their rebellion, were ready to support Mary's
cause, while the noblemen who were not at the Tower with the
council and the supposed adherents of the new regime hastened to
give her their aid. It was evident that the plot had failed, and were

I08 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

it not for the innocent victim of that conspiracy we could scarcely
be sorry for it. The intriguing crew were false to each other and
to the cause which they professed to maintain.

Northumberland feared to leave everything to the treachery of
the council, while they on their part were pressing him to go at the
head of an army to oppose the approach of Mary. He had at first
intended to intrust the command to Suffolk, but Suffolk was not a
distinguished commander; and the new queen besought that her
father should stay with her the father who himself was little less
false and selfish than the rest. Northumberland went out himself
towards Norfolk at the head of a small army, after appealing to
the good faith and sentiments of the council. As he marched with
his force of 6000 men through the city his spirits fell, for the people
looked on and none wished him God-speed. As to the council, they
seem to have made up their minds to desert him and all their recent
oaths, and to declare for Queen Mary as soon as his back was turned.
Ridley alone appears to have been stanch to the revolution in order
to prevent the return of Papistry, but on the Sunday when he preached
at Paul's Cross on behalf of the Lady Jane, and against both Mary and
Elizabeth, the Londoners listened in silence. On the same day the
lord-treasurer stole out of the Tower to his house in the city, evidently
to make arrangements for the council going over in a body to Mary.
At night he returned, and two days after Cecil, Cranmer, and the rest
of the councillors persuaded Suffolk to levy fresh forces, and to
place them at their disposal. Meantime, in order to be better able to
support the cause of his daughter, they were to leave the Tower, and
hold their sittings at Baynard's Castle, then the residence of the Earl
of Pembroke. Here they at once declared for Queen Mary, and
instantly despatched the Earl of Arundel, Sir William Paget, and Sir
William Cecil to notify their submission and " exceeding great loyalty."
The lord-mayor and aldermen were sent for^ and told that they must
" ride with them into Cheap, and there proclaim a new queen, where
Master Garter-king-at-arms, in his rich coat, stood with a trumpet, and
'the trumpet being sounded they proclaimed the Lady Mary, daughter
to King Henry VIII. and Queen Catharine, to be Queen of England,
France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, and supreme head of the
church, and to add more majesty to their act by some devout
solemnity, they went in procession to Paul's singing that admirable

w tf

O ><

LADY JANE GREY. 1 09

hymn of those holy fathers St. Ambrose and St. Augustine commonly
known by its first words Te Deum"

Who can follow subsequent events without some feeling of wonder
and shame at the prevailing cowardice and treachery, the ignoble ending
of some of the men concerned, and the duplicity of others? The
next move was to send some of the companies of men-at-arms at
their disposal to besiege the Tower. There was no need. The Duke
of Suffolk opened the gates at once, went and told his daughter that
she must be content to return to private life (at which she rejoiced),
and while she was at prayer in an inner room posted off to Baynard's
Castle to join the rest of the council in favour of Queen Mary. The
Duke of Northumberland was only a little behindhand. He had reached
Cambridge the day after the proclamation in Cheap, and being
apprised of the fact at once went with such of the nobility as were
in his company to the market cross, and calling for a herald
proclaimed Queen Mary, and was the first to throw up his cap and
cry, " God save her!" This did not save his own neck. When he
was afterwards brought to trial, he asked whether any such persons
as were equally culpable with him, and those by whose letters and
commandments he had been directed in all his doings, might be his
judges or sit upon his trial as jurors, but the question was of no avail.
Cranmer, Cecil, and the rest, who averred that they had acted in peril
and had been coerced by the duke, tried and condemned him.

Before the coronation Cranmer was arrested. He was the greatest
enemy of Catharine of Aragon, and the most eminent of the Protestant
reformers, so we need not wonder that Mary had determined to bring
him to death, even without the additional motive that at this time,
assisted by the learned Peter Martyr, he wrote (some say, published,
but perhaps the documents were only treacherously conveyed to the
queen) a manifesto of the Protestant faith and his abhorrence of Popish
superstitions.

These superstitions were soon restored, the prisons began to be
filled with Protestant clergymen, the mass was read and the service
of the church conducted in Latin, and except in London and the great
cities where Protestantism had taken deeper root, every part of the
reformed service was almost immediately thrown aside. Persecutions,
fines, imprisonments, and all kinds of barbarities followed. Pestilence
and death added their terrors to the scene, and public morality was at

IIO PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

a low ebb. Crime and cruelty went together. From the martyrdom
of John Rogers, who suffered on the 4th of February, 1555, about
six months after Mary's accession, to the last five victims who were
burned at Canterbury on the loth November, 1558, only seven days
before her death, not fewer than 288 individuals, among whom were five
bishops, twenty-one clergymen, fifty-five women, and four children, were
burned in different places for their religious opinions; and in addition
to these, several hundreds were tortured, imprisoned, starved, and
ruined. Of course to these are to be added a host of executions for
felonies and offences against the laws, and these commenced with
Northumberland and those who were his immediate abettors in the
proclamation of Lady Jane Grey as queen. This was on the 22d
of August, 1553.

The innocent victim of their plots, though she had been sentenced
to death and was kept a prisoner at the Tower, might have remained
alive but for Wyatt's rebellion. Mary was made to believe that the
safety of the crown could only be secured by the execution of the
sentence, and on the i2th of February, 1554, Lord Guildford Dudley
was delivered to the sheriffs and conducted to the scaffold on Tower-
hill. On that dreadful morning the Lady Jane had declined a meeting
with him, saying that it would rather increase their grief than be
a comfort in death, and that they should shortly meet in a better place
and a more happy estate. She saw him conducted to Tower-hill, and
with a dauntless but gentle spirit, waiting for immortality, beheld his
headless trunk as it was brought back for burial.

It was feared that the sympathy of the people for this young and
faultless woman would be dangerous, and therefore her scaffold had
been made ready on the green within the verge of the Tower, and
almost as soon as her husband's body had passed she was led forth
to her death. Fecknam, the very catholic dean of St. Paul's, had
tormented her last hours with disputations and arguments, but her
faith remained unshaken. She went " in countenance nothing cast
down, neither her eyes anything moistened with tears, although her
gentlewomen, Elizabeth Pilney and Mistress Helen, wonderfully wept."
She had a book in her hand wherein she prayed until she came to the
scaffold. She addressed the few bystanders, saying that she had
deserved her punishment for suffering herself to be made the instru-
ment, though unwillingly, of the ambition of others, and that she hoped

CRANMER, MARTYR. I I I

her fate might serve as a memorable example in after-times. She then
implored God's mercy, caused herself to be disrobed by her gentlewomen,
veiled her own eyes with her handkerchief, and laid her head on the
block, exhorting the lingering executioner to the performance of his
office. At last the axe fell, and her lovely head rolled away from
the body, drawing tears from the eyes of the spectators, yea, even
of those who from the very beginning were best affected to Queen
Mary's cause. 1

CRANMER, MARTYR.

Cranmer was brought to trial for high treason on the i3th of
November, 1553, but he was respited and pardoned of his treason to be
sent back to the Tower on the equally perilous charge of heresy. He
had been condemned to death along with the Lady Jane Grey, her
youthful husband Lord Guildford Dudley, and Lord Ambrose Dudley,
and when he entered the Traitor's Gate he was in no greater danger
than that which continued to threaten him until he was committed to
the flames. Whatever may have been the seeming weakness and vacilla-
tion of Cranmer's conduct, in some respects there can be no doubt that
he firmly and consistently supported the Reformation, and that he was
willing to live and die for it. Even his so-called recantations are no
proof to the contrary, for the Papists, with what appears to be a keen
appreciation of his character, tortured him through his mental constitu-
tion, just as they were ready to apply physical torments to men of grosser
organization.

It is extremely difficult to estimate, and still more difficult to
describe, the character of Cranmer. His extreme caution frequently
misleads us with the notion that he was a coward, while it is at the same
time obvious that he never relaxed his efforts to maintain the claims of
Protestantism, even at the utmost danger to himself. In the same way
it has been shown that the severities with which he was instrumental

1 Bishop Godwin. De Thou.

I 1 2 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

in punishing Papists and heretics were a constant cause of grief to him-
self, but that he was obliged to follow his own convictions to what was
to him an inevitable, because a logical issue. The whole career of
Cranmer is illustrative of his character, and the outset of his preferment
suggests the caution that obtained for him the suspicion of duplicity,
and the hesitation which, while it was allied to a certain quiet persis-
tency, really achieved the Reformation in England, and yet laid him
open to a charge of time-serving that would have been wholly inconsis-
tent with the fervour and impetuosity of Luther.

Cranmer, who belonged to an old and reputable family, was born at
Aslacton in Nottinghamshire in 1489, and became a student at Jesus
College, Cambridge, in 1503, obtaining his fellowship in 1510. He
applied himself to Greek, Hebrew, and theology, and attained consider-
able reputation as a scholar. Before he was twenty-three years old he
married, and therefore was obliged to forfeit his scholarship, though he
was still employed as a lecturer at Buckingham (now Magdalen) College.
On the death of his wife a year afterwards he was restored to his
previous position, and in 1523 took the degree of Doctor of Divinity,
and was appointed lecturer on theology by Jesus College. It was in
1528, while the sweating sickness was raging in Cambridge, that
Cranmer retired to Waltham Abbey, there to become tutor to the two
sons of a gentleman named Cressy. At this time Henry VIII., who
was striving to obtain a divorce from Catharine of Aragon, was in the
neighbourhood, and Gardiner and Fox, afterwards bishops of Winchester
and Hereford who were in attendance on the king, paid a visit to Mr.
Cressy, at whose table they met Cranmer, and began to discuss with him
the pressing business which was then occupying their attention. The
quiet college tutor, who was a thorough advocate for royal supremacy,
at once suggested that the question of the divorce should be tried "out
of the word of God," thereby implying that it was not a matter for
decision by the pope. When Henry heard of this remark from Fox,
he at once saw how well it would suit his own demands, and ex-
claimed, "That man hath gotten the right sow by the ear."

But for the shrewd insight into character which distinguished Henry,
Cranmer might have been little heard of. He at once sent for him and
gave him a chaplaincy and the archdeaconry of Taunton, at the same
time commanding him to write a treatise expressing his views on the
subject of the divorce, and to devote all his attention to the settlement

CRANMER, MARTYR. 113

of the matter. He was afterwards appointed to join the embassy to
Rome, and though the mission was unsuccessful was deputed about
a year afterwards as ambassador to the German emperor on the same
business. It was during his residence in Germany that he married
Anne, the niece of Osiander, pastor of Nuremburg. This was in 1532,
and in the following year, on the death of Warham, the archbishop
of Canterbury, Cranmer was appointed to the vacant see. On the 23d
of May, 1533, he declared Henry's marriage with Catharine null and
void, and publicly married the king to Anne Boleyn. In 1536, in
virtue of his office, he had to dissolve this marriage also, and again in
1546 presided at the convocation which pronounced the invalidity
of the union with Anne of Cleves.

These transactions and the persistency with which he seemed to
support the royal tyranny in secular matters, give us the least favour-
able aspect of Cranmer's character, but in the fixed resolution to
promote the Reformation he could be firm and unyielding even though
his determination was likely to bring him into collision with his royal
master. His residence in Germany had probably made him acquainted
with the eminent reformers who were fighting the battle of religious
liberty, and to the same cause he devoted his great ability and that
patient effort which distinguished him as the leader of the Protestant
part of the English people. It was to his influence that the waning
power of the pope may be chiefly attributed, and he assisted in promot-
ing those statutes which had for their object the recognition of the king
as head of the church in this country, where it should be remembered
the overweening demands of the Papal authority had always been
resisted when they threatened to interfere with the government, or with
such liberties as had been conceded to the people.

To Cranmer we owe the translation and distribution of the Bible
and the revision of the Liturgy. He caused books of religious
instruction to be circulated throughout the country, urged the suppression
of the monasteries, and the application of their revenues to the advance-
ment of religious teaching and education. He was bold enough to
remonstrate with Henry for bestowing some of this property on his
favourites, and at the risk of the king's displeasure strenuously
resisted the enactment of the six articles proposed by the Duke of
Norfolk.

Caution and prudence were his characteristics, but he was inde-

I 1 4 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

fatigable in advancing the cause for which, in spite of the cowardice
that caused him to temporize, he was willing at last to die. It would
appear that Cranmer was an unimpassioned man, and this slowness of
temperament, together with a certain persistency, gives many of his
acts an appearance of following out a course in an unrelenting if not
a persecuting spirit. It has been well said by a commentator on his
life, that it is easier to detract from or to extol a character than to
analyze it. " As a man he was weak and vacillating, as a Christian
strong, and as both prudent." A man naturally weak may be often
courageous, and an upright conscience is easily confused in a weak mind.
Prudence was Cranmer's chief characteristic, and prudence begets
compromise, compromise vacillation. He said, "It pertains not to
private subjects to reform things, but quietly to suffer what they cannot
amend." Yet he was the most thorough and consistent reformer in
England. He seems to have had little personal ambition, and even
less of worldliness, and in his own day he was regarded as a man ever
ready to forgive injuries. " Do my lord of Canterbury an ill turn and
he is your friend for ever," was the estimate of his disposition.

When he entered the Tower through the Traitor's Gate, he was
charged with treason and with exceeding his powers under the regency
by his vigorous support of the Reformation. Against the latter charge
he offered to defend himself, and accompanied Latimer and Ridley to
Oxford for that purpose, denying the authority of the pope and that
of the commission from Rome which charged him with blasphemy,
heresy, perjury, and incontinency. He was sent back to prison upon
his appeal, and it was then that the dean of Christchurch took him
to his lodgings, and when he was broken in health and spirit obtained
his signature to the six documents which together made up his
recantation, and were at once published.

He saw what he had done when it was too late, and immediately
wrote out his general confession of faith, not knowing what the malice
of his enemies might attempt. The queen resolved that he should
die, and by a refinement of cruelty it was arranged that the fact
should not be intimated until the day of his execution. Accordingly
on the 2ist March, 1554, he was informed of his fate, and taken to
a scaffold erected opposite the pulpit in St. Mary's. Dr. Cole preached
a sermon to justify the execution in spite of the recantation, and called
on Cranmer to announce his belief. His courage had risen to the

THE DAYS OF "QUEEN BESS." 115

occasion, and as he had previously answered the advice of his friends
who persuaded him to attempt to escape out of the kingdom, by saying
that he relied upon the Word of God, so now he met his accusers
and persecutors by proclaiming anew the tenets of the Reformation.
The assembly before whom he was brought had refused to listen to
his defence, and to the defence of the brave and learned Ridley and
the stout old Latimer, both of whom had already sealed their faith
amidst the flames. It was not to be expected that the hooting, mocking
crowd of priests and students would long permit him to make his
dying declarations. They pulled him from the scaffold and hurried
him to the stake, but he feared neither them nor death, as he thrust
his right hand into the flame, ejaculating, " That unworthy hand ! that
unworthy hand!" and soon afterwards expired, saying, "Lord Jesus,
receive my spirit."

It may almost be said that Cranmer's death had more effect in
ending the Romish rule in England than any event which had happened
during his laborious life. The malice of his enemies defeated itself,
and the people began to see to what they had committed themselves,
when to the rule of Queen Mary was to be added the attempted
domination of "the most catholic" Philip of Spain.

THE DAYS OF "QUEEN BESS."

The change which was effected both in the government of the
country and the condition and loyalty of the people under the reign
of Elizabeth, must to some extent be attributed to the character of the
queen herself, and to that keen perception of the talents and qualities
of counsellors, which was a distinguishing characteristic of Henry
VIII. She appears, indeed, to have inherited much of her father's
strength of will and determination, while her policy exhibits the caution
of her grandfather. Perhaps it is because she also displayed a great
liking for admiration, and for the refined and respectful flattery with
which timid lovers address their mistresses, that it is difficult to define

I 1 6 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

her true character. Her wilfulness occasionally took the form of womanly
waywardness, just as her literary ability on more than one occasion was
directed to the composition of a love sonnet. There can be no doubt
that she was pleased with the company of statesmen who were also
courtiers enough to devote attention to this feminine disposition, and
thence arose an artificial or romantic style about the court, and in the
addresses of her favourites, which her enemies and calumniators after-
wards turned to scandalous account, by base insinuations against her
moral character. These slanders were supposed to receive some support
from the repeated dissimulations by which she encouraged and yet
frustrated the expectations of her marriage; dissimulations which had
their reason both in a kind of irresolution which made her slow to
commit herself to any policy depending on a foreign coalition, and
a personal repugnance to any course of action which would interfere
with her own royal prerogative. Whether there was really any
sentiment of affection for the unscrupulous and brilliant Leicester, or
still later, with the accomplished Essex, it is difficult to declare,
especially as her enemies grossly exaggerated every evidence which
might have been regarded as a proof of womanly attachment, for the
purpose of accusing her of a license of which she was herself too ready
to suspect and to accuse other women.

The conduct of Elizabeth to the unfortunate Mary, Queen of
Scots, is the greatest stain upon a period which, taken altogether,
may be justly regarded as one of the most brilliant in English history;
but Mary unhappily was in such a position that she aroused the
antagonism of the English queen in the very directions where jealousy
and an imperious and unforgiving temper were most likely to lead to
actual vindictiveness. Mary was possessed of far greater personal
attractions than Elizabeth; her beauty was famous in Europe; she had
been married, and was in fact still a competitor in matrimonial alliance.
She was a Roman Catholic, and though there may have been some
doubts as to the original inclination of Elizabeth to Protestantism, her
policy was soon determined on the side of the Reformation. Above
all she was next in succession to the English throne, and yet was an
independent ' sovereign, a position which the dominant and jealous
temper of Elizabeth could not tolerate.

It is not difficult to understand how "the Virgin Queen" should
have gained the loyalty of the nation, and exercised such influence over

TFJDM THE PICTURE IN THE NE T tf PALACE OF WESTMINSTER.

BLACKTF. 4 SON, LONDON. OLASOGW ,H, EDTKBO* in.

THE DAYS OF " QUEEN BESS." I 1 7

some of the most gifted men of the time, that their praises took the
form of fantastic flattery in accordance with the custom of poets and
sonneteers of that age. She has been soberly described, however, as
" of a modest gravity, excellent wit, royal soul, happy memory, and inde-
fatigably given to the study of learning, inasmuch as before she was
seventeen years of age she understood well the Latin, French, and
Italian tongues, and had an indifferent knowledge of Greek. Neither
did she neglect music, so far as became a princess, being able to sing
sweetly, and play handsomely on the lute. With Roger Ascham, who
was her tutor, she read over Melanchthon's Commonplaces, all Tully,
a great part of the histories of Titus Livius, certain select orations of
I socrates (whereof two she turned into Latin), Sophocles' tragedies,
and the New Testament in Greek, by which means she framed her
tongue to a pure and elegant way of speaking, and informed her mind
with apt documents and instructions, daily applying herself to the
study of good letters, not for pomp and ostentation, but in order to use
in her life and the practice of virtue; insomuch as she was a kind of
miracle and admiration for her learning among the princes of her
times."

This, apart from its obvious exaggerations, was not an altogether
false estimate of the accomplishments of Elizabeth, who certainly made
use of her attainments, not only in those discussions on theological
subjects with which she had to contend during the reign of her fanatical
sister, but afterwards by a prompt power of illustration which gave
force to her wit, and frequently discomfited her political opponents.
" Her pure and elegant way of speaking" was not always apparent,
especially when she rapped out those resonant oaths which reminded
the hearers of her royal father; but there can be no doubt that she was
able to hold her place amidst a court distinguished not only for learning
but for cultivation of the lighter arts, and her reign was distinguished
for a revival of letters. With a certain masculine force of character, and
the frequent exhibition of a temper and arrogance that can scarcely
be regarded as womanly, the queen was of a right royal presence, and
possessed just that kind of personal beauty which might be expected
in a daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, an underlying
feminine grace which was not altogether obscured by her dominant
manner and keen authoritative expression of countenance.

Never was there a period when the refining and elevating influences

Il8 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

were more rapidly developed. The Elizabethan age was illustrious
because of the number of great and gifted men who adorned it. The
court itself included men who were not only themselves accomplished
in literature, poetry, and philosophy, but who were the patrons of those
who were still more distinguished. Spenser, Shakspere, and Jonson
were the friends of the brilliant company represented by Raleigh,
Bacon, and others whose names are as familiar in the world of literature
as in that of statesmanship. Indeed a time of peace and of the
abatement, if not the abolition of religious persecution, enabled the
successors of the men who had made the reign of Henry VIII. and
Edward VI. famous for the cultivation of letters, to raise dramatic and
poetic art in England to a position which inaugurated a new era, and
has never since been surpassed, while the attainments of ladies of
aristocratic or gentle birth gave a stimulus to learning and accomplish-
ments which has since been wanting, so that we have even in the
present day to revert to that higher culture for women without which
our advanced education fails to exercise a wide and lasting social
influence.

The reign of Elizabeth is still regarded as a glorious period in
English history, not only a period of great deeds and of a certain
magnificence of display, but one in which, after long suppression, the
English people rose, if not to absolute freedom of conscience, to a wide
and welcome liberty of thought and action, and to that kind of inde-
pendence which gives men room to live and work hopefully in the
expectation of personal as well as national benefit. The policy which,
while it was successful in avoiding war, raised the spirit and the deter-
mination of the country, promoted both the prosperity and the enterprise
of the community. Agriculture prospered, commerce was developed
and enormously extended, and those maritime adventurers who com-
bined trading with exploration, and both with pillage of the Spaniards,
opened up to England a new world.

Even with all the corrections that must be made, now that calm
and unprejudiced examination enables us to estimate the character of
Elizabeth, and the true nature of the alternately bold and crafty policy
which distinguished her reign, we cannot restrain our admiration for
the ability and courage of the sovereign, and of a court consisting of
men eminent alike for their accomplishments and their sagacity. State-
craft, bravery, wit, and learning centered round the person of the queen,

THE DAYS OF "QUEEN BESS." 119

and though the court was filled with intrigue, and Elizabeth herself was
constantly in danger of exhibiting undue favouritism, there can be little
doubt that the almost fantastic eulogies addressed to her represented a
sentiment not altogether false or unnatural. It should be remembered
that the accession to the throne of a young and not unlovely princess,
who added to a royal grace and dignity those accomplishments which
enabled her to hold her sovereign place amidst a brilliant throng of
courtiers, aroused a sentimental chivalry, which caused men like Raleigh,
Cecil, Sidney, and the rest to display an emotional loyalty. It was an
age of poetry, of music, and of song, as well as an age of action. There
were theatres for stage-plays at Bankside and elsewhere, besides gardens
for bear-baiting, and great bouts of single-stick, broadsword play, and
morris dancing. Dramas were performed in the inn yards, and shows
and pageants always accompanied royal visits. Shakspere, Beau-
mont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Spenser, and Bacon, would have made
any age illustrious; and when to their grand and enduring achievements
in literature and philosophy were added the daring and successful
enterprise of men like Hawkins, Drake, and those navigators who
were both merchantmen and privateers; and the statesmanship of
Walsingham, Throckmorton, Burleigh, and the confidential advisers of
the queen, we cease to wonder that the "days of Queen Bess" should
so long have been regarded with pride and significant satisfaction.

The extension of commerce, together with the prosperity of the
country, contributed to the increase of luxuries, and the introduction
of the products of distant lands added to the enjoyments not only
of the nobility but of the people. The court of Elizabeth was char-
acterized by a certain sumptuousness which did not degenerate into
vulgar excess, and though many of the nobles of the time were extra-
vagant in the matter of dress, they ceased to support a large number
of followers. Indeed the independence of the country had contributed
to the abolition of that feudal state which kept such large numbers
of the common people in a condition of servitude. The queen, who
probably from the necessities of her early life had learned to be frugal
and even parsimonious in her private expenditure, could exercise a
fitting magnificence when occasion required; and as she never without
the utmost reluctance called on her people for additions to the royal
revenues, the charges for presents and expenses which were requisite
on state occasions were mostly paid from her own purse.

I2O PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

It was an age too when costly display and rich presents were
recognized as essential, as our illustrations of some of the private gifts
to and from the queen will show. One of the most curious of these
is the jewel which was presented to the queen by Bishop Parker, who
by the interest of Anne Boleyn had been chaplain of Henry VIII.,
but was deprived of all his preferments by Mary, to be reinstated again
and made Archbishop of Canterbury when the daughter of his patroness
came to the throne. Parker was a representative prelate; for he was
earnest in advancing the Reformation, and strict in preventing the
encroachment of the Puritans. It was he who superintended the
translation of the Scriptures known as the Bishop's Bible, and he was
celebrated " also for his acquaintance with Saxon history and early
English literature. The cup given by the queen to Bullinger, the
earnest, able, but moderate Swiss reformer, is also an interesting relic.

Of course the dresses both of men and women of the higher rank
were costly, even though they were often ungraceful, and the variety
of costume among the lower order offered a contrast even to those
of the time of Henry VIII. Sumptuary laws forbidding certain
articles of apparel and ornament, had to be enforced against the
London apprentices, and the nobles of the court wore doublets and
cloaks embroidered with silk and pearls, jewelled buttons, and ropes
of pearls or gems around the neck, or even encircling the hat, which
was made of silk or velvet, beaver or taffety. The variety of female
costume was bewildering, especially in the matter of hoods and head-
dresses, while the hair was " curled, frizzled, and crisped, and laid out
in wreaths and borders from one ear to the other." In addition to this
there was a varying fashion in the colour of hair, so that ladies not
only dyed their locks, but wore false plaits, and even wigs. Both
Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth had wigs of various colours, and
wore black, fair, or red hair, as whim or fashion changed. With the
enormous ruff (which had to be sent to Holland to be stiffened, as the
Dutch laundresses alone understood the art of starching), the long stiff
embroidered bodice, reaching in a peak almost to the knees; the clumsy
and expansive " fardingale," precursor of the hooped skirt; the big fan
of feathers, the portable mirror attached to the girdle, and the black
velvet mask with glass eyes, we are familiar through numerous pictures
and illustrations. Perfumed silken or linen gloves, embroidered with
gold or silver, and stockings of knitted silk, were in use at the later

RELICS ASSOCIATED WITH QUEEN ELIZABETH.

1. Jewel given by Archbishop Parker to Queen Elizabeth.

2. The Golden Prayer-book of Queen Elizabeth.

3. Cup set with Amethysts and Turquois.

4. Cup given by Queen Elizabeth to Bullinger, A.D. 1560; now preserved at Zurich.

5. Cup belonging to the Goldsmiths' Company, said to have been given by Queen

Elizabeth on her coronation to Sir Martin Bowes.

6. Dish of Glass supposed to have been used at the Christening of Queen Elizabeth,

September loth, 1533; in Dr. William's Library, Red Cross Street, London.

7. Book in embroidered cover, presented to Queen Elizabeth by Archbishop Parker ; in

British Museum.

8. Book of Meditations and Prayers in Latin, French, and Italian, written by Elizabeth

when Princess, and given to her father Henry VIII. The cover was embroidered
by Elizabeth, and is a monogram of Henry VIII. and Katherine, with heart's-ease
at the corners.

9. Pair of White Linen Gloves embroidered with black thread ; in possession of H. Syers

Cuming, Esq.

10. Violin, said to have been given by Elizabeth to the Earl of Leicester; in the
possession of the Earl of Warwick.

RELICS ASSOCIATKn WITH QUKKN KI,1XAF/FH

BIjAOUF, SON LONDON. GLASGOW 8c EDINBURGH.

THE DAYS OF "QUEEN BESS." 121

period of the reign of Elizabeth, for whom her tire woman made the
first pair of silken hose, as a New Year's gift, stockings having been
previously made of fine cloth.

The luxurious mode of living which the nobles of the time of Henry
VIII. had maintained, continued, but with greater variety and greater
refinement, while the provisions of the common people were generally
more plentiful, and included some luxuries. The dealers in flesh,
poultry, and grain were prevented by law from increasing prices of
commodities in London by combining to raise the market, and accord-
ing to Chamberlain in 1572 the poulterers' charges were: for the best
goose, is.; the best wild mallard, 5</.; the best capon, is.; the second
sort, iod.\ the best hen, *jd.\ the best chicken, 3^.; an inferior sort, i^d.\
the best woodcock, $d. ; the best plover, 3^.; pigeons, per dozen, is.;
blackbirds, per dozen, $d.\ rabbits, each, 3^.; larks, each, 6d. ; the best
butter, at per pound, $d. ; the best eggs, five for a penny.

In the reign of Henry VIII. the usual meals of the nobility were,
breakfast, which was taken at eight o'clock, dinner at twelve; a slight
meal, called "an afternoon" at three; supper at six; and an after supper
near bed time, at which wine was used, the drink at the other meals
being mostly ale. In the reign of Elizabeth the meals were reduced
to three, of which the dinner was a kind of state repast. When the
guests assembled at a nobleman's house perfumed waters were handed
round, in which they dipped their fingers; after which the company was
ushered into the dining hall in order of rank, the superior guests
occupying seats at the upper tables, and the inferior, together with the
officers of the household, at the lower. The tables were covered with
costly cloths, the dishes were mostly of silver, and the viands were both
dainty and plentiful. The boar's head was a standing dish, and beef,
mutton, venison, sucking pigs, game, and poultry, were accompanied
by rich sauces, and succeeded by all kinds of cakes and confectionery.
The wines were so numerous that it appeared as though the world
must be ransacked to procure them ; but they stood upon a sideboard,
and each guest called for a flagon of that which he preferred. The
men wore their plumed and jewelled hats on all occasions except when
exchanging courtesies, giving or acknowledging a toast, or in the
presence of some very superior person or of royalty.

Of course the ordinary fare even of the gentry was less luxurious.
For a considerable portion of the year fresh beef was scarce and dear,

122 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

though there was mutton, venison, pork, poultry, and plenty of fish.
The drink was mostly ale, claret, and sack, which was simply sherry
negus; the vegetables, boiled coleworts, and various herbs lettuce,
cress, endive, angelica, and others for salads, made the chief vegetable
diet until potatoes were introduced by Sir Francis Drake.

The common people, of course, fared much more plainly, and the
ordinary drink was ale, which was always taken to sea along with beef,
pork, and biscuit.

Not only ale, however, but wine and other luxuries were on board the
ships, where commanders like Drake who yet "would have the
gentlemen hale with the mariners" assumed a kind of sumptuous
state, in order to show semi-savage tribes, and the people of countries
where costly ceremony was not unknown, how the mariners of the
great Queen of England could have their food served on silver, drink
their wine out of flagons of plate, and to the sound of a band of music,
and yet be in accord with their free followers, and ready to take the
same risk, and to share the same labour as the humblest of their crews.

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.

It was in the reign of Elizabeth that the sovereignty of the sea
was transferred from Spain to England. Through the century and
a half which intervened between the death of Edward III. and the
fall of Wolsey, the English sea-going population, with but few excep-
tions, had moved in a groove in which they lived and worked from
day to day and year to year with unerring uniformity. The wine brigs
made their annual voyages to Bordeaux and Cadiz; the bays plied
with such regularity as the winds allowed them between the Scheldt
and the Thames; summer after summer the Iceland fleet went north
for the cod and ling which were the food of the winter fasting days ; the
boats of Yarmouth and Rye, Southampton, Poole, Brixham, Dartmouth,
Plymouth, and Fowie fished the Channel. The people themselves,
though hardy and industrious, and though as much at home upon the

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. 123

ocean as their Scandinavian forefathers or their descendants in modern
England, were yet contented to live in an unchanging round from which
they neither attempted nor desired to extricate themselves.

Yet Columbus had discovered a new world. Cabot, sailing from
Bristol for Cathay, had struck the American continent at Nova Scotia,
passed into the Greenland seas till he was blocked by ice, and then
coasted back to Florida, returning with the news of another continent
waiting to be occupied. Yet English mariners turned away from these
enterprises, and it was left to Spain in that grand burst of energy
which followed on the expulsion of the Moors and the union of the
Crowns, to add a hemisphere to the known world, and found empires
in lands beyond the sunset. 1

But Henry VIII., having to look to the defences of his
kingdom after having set himself against the pope, began to develop
the navy, and with characteristic energy commenced the building of
great vessels which he himself designed. Giustiniani found him in
1518 practising at Southampton with his new brass artillery. The
Great Harry was the wonder of northern Europe, and the fleet after-
wards collected at Spithead was the strongest that had ever floated
on English waters.

Mariners and merchants soon caught the influence of the time, and,
after Mr. William Hawkins of Plymouth "armed out a tall and goodly
ship" wherein he sailed for the coast of Guinea, and there trafficked
with the negroes for gold dust and ivory, and then crossed the Atlantic
to Brazil, a trade was opened which was to be the beginning of that
wonderful commerce which has ever since distinguished the English
mercantile marine.

Sebastian Cabot was appointed by Edward VI. to the title of
grand pilot of England, and the spirit of adventure grew among
merchants and gentlemen, who fitted out trading expeditions which
were also devoted to exploration. The accession of Elizabeth found
commerce leaving its old channels and stretching in a thousand new
directions, while from India, Persia, Turkey, Russia, the south of
Europe, came articles of hitherto unknown luxury and ornament or
of almost invaluable utility, and from the New World was brought rare
woods, dyes, precious metals, pearls and new varieties of food. For
a time Cecil endeavoured to protect the fishing trade by carrying an

1 Proud e.

124 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

act of parliament to ordain the eating of fish on Fridays and Saturdays;
but the manners and the larger vessels were out on a different kind of
service, engaged in that English mercantile fleet which was scattered
about the world, and each vessel in which, having first to protect itself,
and afterwards being led to attempt reprisals, became a sea-rover sailing
on expeditions half genuinely commercial but certainly half piratical, and
wholly devoted to the detriment of the power of Spain and to the
assertion of English liberty and freedom of conscience against the
arrogant assumptions of Empire and the fanatical persecutions which
accompanied the Spanish policy. Indeed it may be said that the
mercantile fleet was at war with Spain, partly with the concurrence
of Elizabeth, who did not scruple to allow privateering all the time
that she was listening to the representations of Philip's ambassadors,
or the complaints of other foreigners, and affecting to take stricter
measures for the repression of piracy and buccaneering. At length
it became a system of reprisals, until, when war was declared, and the
Spanish Armada threatened an invasion of England, this continued
animosity found an occasion for the leading captain adventurers to take
command in the English fleet.

Their names are many of them familiar to us, along with those
who went forth with them upon the sea to protect England from the
powerful attempt of her enemies. Hawkins, Drake, Winter, Frobisher,
Palmer, Seymour, Southwell, Sheffield, Fenner, were with Howard
at that council of war which was held in his cabin, where it was
determined to drive the Spanish vessels out of the shoal water with
fire-ships and then to attack them in the open channel. There were
others whose names are famous in English history who had been
concerned in the "adventures," of which explorations, trading with
savages, burning Spanish " Plate" ships, taking galleons, and even
attacking and pillaging Spanish stations, formed a part.

Foremost among these bold navigators was Francis Drake, the
man whose name and deeds are familiar not only to readers of history,
but to every lad who lingers with thrilling interest over stories of brave
achievements and discoveries.

There is some confusion in the accounts of the conditions of
Francis Drake's early life, but it is certain that he was born on the
banks of the Tay, in Devonshire, in 1546. His father is said by some
to have been a poor yeoman, by others a mariner, who as a Protestant

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. 125

was compelled to take refuge in Kent during the reign of Mary, but
who afterwards, on the accession of Elizabeth, obtained an appointment
to read prayers to the seamen of the Royal Navy. Young Francis
Drake, who was thus brought up among sailors, was the eldest of
twelve sons, and was apprenticed to the master of a bark trading
to Zealand and France. With him he acquired a thorough knowledge
of seamanship, and his master bequeathed to him the vessel and its
equipments, with which he continued to trade long enough to acquire
some property. At the age of twenty-two he sold his vessel, and
embarked with Sir John Hawkins, his kinsman and early patron, in the
last expedition of that famous navigator to the Spanish main. Sir
John Hawkins had in fact entered into the trade of procuring slaves
from the coast of Guinea and disposing of them for merchandise else-
where. He had made a profitable business by two or three voyages,
but on this last occasion, being driven into the port of St. Juan D'Ulloa
by stress of weather, his vessels, of which Drake commanded one, were
at first mistaken for a part of the Spanish fleet. Hawkins acted in good
faith, and though there were several merchantmen which he might have
taken, agreed not to prevent the entrance of the Spanish vessels of war
into the bay; but having once permitted them to pass in, they treacher-
ously attacked him, and though he and Drake with their crews fought
so desperately as to sink and burn several of the Spaniards, only these
two vessels of the squadron escaped, the rest being lost beside all
their money, the cargoes of merchandise, and the lives of a great number
of their followers.

From this time Drake was the implacable enemy of Spain, and
sought every opportunity for making reprisals, and after some smaller
expeditions obtained a kind of privateering commission from Elizabeth,
and in 1572 sailed with two small vessels, the Paslia and the Swan,
and a force of only 73 men, with whom he took and plundered the
town of N ombre de Dios on the Isthmus of Darien. Thence he went
to Vera Cruz, where he obtained more booty, and afterwards intercepted
on the land route fifty mules laden with silver. In August, 1573, he
returned in triumph, his vessels full of wealth and his name already so
renowned that, after serving with distinction in Ireland with three
frigates fitted at his own expense, he was introduced to the queen by
Sir Christopher Hatton. He had long cherished the desire to make
a voyage in the South Seas through the straits of Magellan, and it is

126 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

said that, having unfolded his plan to Elizabeth, she at once commissioned
him but secretly and only as a privateer, at the same time saying,
" Who striketh at thee, Drake, striketh at us," words sufficiently
suggestive of her participation in the probable success of the enterprise,
and in the wealth which it might secure.

The story of that wonderful voyage of the Pelican, afterwards
called the Golden Hind, and the four other small vessels with their
pinnaces and 164 men, has been told over and over again, and is ever
fresh and full of interest. It is a story of battle, exploration, discovery,
and the accumulation of treasure both by plunder of Spaniards and
trade with hitherto unknown people. Along the coasts of Chili and
Peru sacking towns, and so by the shores of California and North
America, named by him New Albion; thence to the Moluccas and
Java, and afterwards doubling the Cape, and reaching Plymouth again
amidst acclamations and rejoicings on the 3d of November, 1580,. Francis
Drake made the voyage round the world in two years and about ten
months.

Not only his bold exploits but the large amount of treasure which
he brought back commended the expedition to Elizabeth, and though
for some time she delayed acknowledging her authority, she treated
the representations of the Spanish ambassador with silence, and
ultimately, when the Golden Hind lay at Deptford, went on board to
a grand state banquet, at which she was the guest of the victorious
captain, on whom she bestowed the honour of knighthood. Con-
cealment of her opposition to the arrogant claims for compensation
made by Spain was no longer necessary, for war had become inevitable.
The Golden Hind was to be preserved as a monument of the captain's
achievements, and when it at last fell to pieces a chair made out of its
timbers was sent to Oxford. In 1585 threats of war became violent,
and Drake, with a fleet of twenty sail and a force of 2300 soldiers and
marines, was sent against the Spanish settlements in the West Indies,
where he took St. Jago, St. Domingo, Carthagena and St. Augustine.
Two years afterwards he "singed the King of Spain's beard," by
sailing with a fleet of thirty ships to the very coast, where, in the
harbour of Cadiz, he burned 10,000 tons of shipping destined to form
part of the invincible Armada, and also destroyed a hundred vessels
between Cadiz and Cape St. Vincent and four castles on the shore.
Again he was fortunate in capturing a richly laden carrack near

K ft

-K fi

H P

* <

IV ^ 2

N g fl

*1 fi <

^ O g

O A

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AT LOCHLEVEN CASTLE. 127

Terceira on his homeward voyage, and so satisfied the merchant
adventurers who had helped to fit out the expedition, beside adding
to his own wealth, a portion of which he spent in bringing pure water
into the town of Plymouth from a distance of nearly fifteen miles.
In 1588 the great Armada was threatening England, and the sturdy,
bright-eyed, compact-headed captain was appointed vice-admiral of the
British fleet, under Lord Howard of Effingham, who took the chief
command in that memorable engagement.

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AT LOCHLEVEN CASTLE.

There are portions of history of which even "the plain unvar-
nished tale" is in itself so full of deep and lasting interest that no
artificial aid is required to add to them the excitement of romance. The
narrative of the life of Mary Queen of Scots needs no embellishment
from the hand of the picturesque writer to make it potent in its effects
both on the imagination and the heart, and it also possesses the power
of claiming our sympathies with the unhappy and beautiful heroine, for
whom we cannot fail to express our pity, even . while we are deeply
impressed with the serious faults of her character, and the difficulty
of determining whether she was actually guilty of some of the crimes
of which she was accused.

However we may regard the strange life-history of this fascinating,
brave, and accomplished woman, and the vicissitudes of a sovereignty
which could scarcely have been maintained even by a man's strong
hand, we cannot forget that towards her Elizabeth displayed much of
the Tudor dissimulation, and of the Tudor duplicity and selfish cruelty.
No upright policy could have permitted, and no plea even of cunning
statecraft can justify, the deliberate treachery and prevarication, by
which the Queen of England wrought the ruin of her whom she regarded
as her rival while she lived, and whom she had come to detest as her
probable successor if she died. It is not too much to say that all
Europe was provoked by the foul play which resulted in the enforced

128 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

abdication, followed by the unjustifiable execution, of an independent
sovereign by the Queen of England; and it is evident that though the
power of this country, combined with a wilfully uncertain policy which
made it doubtful what alliances might be made with other states,
prevented foreign interference, Elizabeth really feared the general
condemnation which these acts deserved, since she was suspiciously
anxious to declare with violent protestations that both abdication and
execution were effected without her knowledge or consent.

At the same time it must be taken into account that Mary was the
grand-daughter of the eldest daughter of Henry VII., and that during
the unsettled question of succession to the crown of England she and
her husband, the dauphin, had been persuaded by her ambitious uncles
the Dukes of Lorraine to continue to urge their claims. She was but
seventeen years old, the youthful bride of Francis, who was about her
own age, when the death of Henry II. made her Queen of France.
One year of splendour and power seemed to be hers, but at the end of
that short period the death of her mother was followed by that of her
royal husband, and Catherine de Medici again rose to power.

Mary determined to leave the land of her adoption and to seek that
of her birth, but during the time since she had left it, an infant of five
years old, everything was changed. Beatoun had been slain. The
battles of Flodden, Fala, Solway Moss, and Pinkie had been fought and
lost. The entire current of public opinion had been altered. Knox
and the severe preachers of the Reformation had thrown their unyield-
ing energies into the denunciation of the Roman Catholic system, and
the establishment of a Presbyterian government. The very first
Sunday after her arrival she commanded a solemn mass to be celebrated
in the chapel of the palace. This produced an uproar, and on the
following Sunday Knox preached a sermon in which he declared his
belief that one mass was more to be feared than ten thousand armed
men. Mary was a widow, only nineteen years of age, and with opinions
entirely at variance with those which had grown up amidst the people
whom she came to rule. She had also to contend with a powerful
faction of fierce and unscrupulous nobles, and yet the influence of per-
sonal beauty, grace, and splendid accomplishments gained the popular
favour, and even enabled her for a time to frustrate the attempts of her
enemies.

Surely it is difficult to imagine a more terrible life than that of this

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AT LOCHLEVEN CASTLE. 129

young and beautiful woman, for whose hand the princes of foreign
courts were competing. Yet her courage sustained her. She appears
to have been anxious to conclude amicable relations with Elizabeth, and
when she accepted the offer of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, who had
been sent under favour of the English queen, it was probably with the
desire to conciliate her cousin by abandoning any foreign alliance.
Elizabeth, however, was less inclined to her than before, and appears to
have resented those personal charms which enabled Mary to captivate
even her enemies. The marriage was peculiarly unhappy in offending
all parties, and when the ruthless Bothwell and his followers joined
her husband in the murder of Rizzio, there was positive estrangement
between the hapless queen and her husband.

Whatever may have been the innocence of Mary's intentions, many
of her actions seem to have given to her enemies an opportunity for
accusation against her, and to have increased the animosity of Elizabeth
for one whom she had learned to regard as a subtle, fascinating, and
dangerous rival. Even the assassination of the secretary, Rizzio, was
the assumed result of the former assumptions of Chastelard, the French
poet, who came over in the royal train, and whose boldness led to his
arrest and execution. The dreadful tragedy at the lonely house of
Kirk-a-field, which was blown up with gunpowder while Darnley was
staying there instead of residing with her at Holyrood, was believed
to be with her connivance, an opinion which was said to be confirmed
by her subsequent marriage with Bothwell, the blood-stained assassin,
who carried her off, as she avowed against her will, to his castle
of Dunbar, after raising a process of divorce against his duchess on the
ground of consanguinity.

Her child Darnley's child was then scarcely more than a twelve-
month old, and yet he was born shortly after that terrible evening when
the armed ruffians broke into the room at Holyrood, and stabbed Rizzio
to death in her presence an event to which the terror of James I.
at the sight of a drawn sword has been attributed. His apparently
sagacious guess at the meaning of the letter addressed to Lord Mount-
eagle, and the subsequent discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, has also
been associated with the impression made upon him by the story of the
murder of his father in the explosion of the house at Kirk-a-field.

Mary had perhaps mitigated the anger of Elizabeth by giving
a remoter heir to the English throne, but she was still first in order

130 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

of succession. Her marriage with Bothwell was the occasion not only
for an outburst of indignation on the part of her own subjects, but for a
succession of artfully contrived plots, which were designed to ruin her.
It was then that, in expectation of a pitched battle at Carbery Hill,
between her adherents and those who condemned her cause, she aban-
doned Bothwell and appealed to her subjects. She was conducted first
to Edinburgh, and then to the secluded castle of Lochleven, where
Elizabeth's emissaries were ready to aid in procuring her renunciation
of the throne in favour of the infant James (then little more than a year
old), who was afterwards solemnly crowned at Stirling on the 29th
of July, 1567.

After this a fatality seemed to attend every attempt made by the
unfortunate Mary; and whether we wholly condemn her conduct or
regard her as being in a greater measure the victim of base plots and
carefully prepared designs against her life, we cannot avoid comparing
her to some beautiful wild creature, whose attempts to assert its free-
dom and to escape from the toils of its pursuers only enmesh it more
and more in the snares laid for its destruction.

Her life had been a seven years' tragedy, full of horrors and of fierce
conflict, full also of such strange alternations of sentiment, such contra-
dictory impulses, and what would appear to be reckless abandonment
of ordinary sentiments, that she might have been deemed a wreck.
But twice widowed, thrice married, discrowned, disowned, and a prisoner,
she was yet only twenty-five years old, and still possessed that beauty
of face and grace of person which charmed all who came within her
influence. A lad who stole the keys led her forth from the castle of
Lochleven, an army of partisans were waiting for her, only to lose the
battle of Langside, after which she fled to Galloway, and then desper-
ately, but not without hope, passed into England, claiming the protection
which one queen might ask of another. Elizabeth refused to see her,
and she on her part declined to accept a subtle offer of mediation
between herself and her subjects, of whom she declared that she was
lawful sovereign.

Instead of being a guest she was a prisoner a prisoner for nineteen
years, which yet must have been the most peaceful if not the happiest
in her life. Her spirit was still unbroken, her beauty matured, her health
impaired. To the accusation df complicity in Babington's conspiracy,
and to the proposal to form a commission by which she should be tried,

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AT LOCHLEVEN CASTLE.

she answered, " I came into this kingdom an independent sovereign to
implore the queen's assistance, not to subject myself to her authority.
Nor is my spirit so broken by past misfortunes, or so intimidated by
present dangers, as to stoop to anything unbecoming a crowned head,
or that will disgrace the ancestors from whom I am descended, or the
son to whom I leave my throne. If I must be tried princes alone can
try me; they are my peers, and the Queen of England's subjects,
however noble, are of a rank inferior to mine. Ever since my arrival
in this kingdom I have been confined as a prisoner. Its laws never
afforded me protection, let them not be perverted now to take away
my life."

After this protest against the commission she consented to be tried,
confident as it would seem that she would be acquitted. Nothing of
the sort was intended, and the strange wild life ended on Wednesday
the 8th of February, 1587, on the scaffold at Fotheringay Castle, where
she was beheaded, after a farewell to the world which, while it was
illustrative of her dauntless and yet feminine courage, was inconsistent
with the guilty career with which she had been charged.

At all events, if she was false and wicked, those who compassed her
destruction were traitors, perjurers, and many of them murderers.
Maitland, Morton, Huntly, Argyle, Moray, who as her ministers issued
a proclamation for the discovery of Darnley's murderers, were concerned
with Bothwell in that crime as in the assassination of Rizzio, and were
afterwards his closest friends, not making any attempt to release Mary
from his castle at Dunbar, whither, she asserted with all the out-
ward signs of grief and indignation, she had been taken by surprise
and force. After her marriage to Bothwell, however, they not only
combined to release her, and took up arms as they declared to punish
Bothwell, and to protect the queen and her son against him, but began
to accuse him of the murder, of which they had before striven to acquit
him lest they themselves should be implicated. The whole proceeding
was a pretence. An act of the privy council was issued against their
former accomplice, charging him with the murder of Darnley, and with
the abduction of the queen to enforce her to marry him. This was
equivalent to protesting Mary's innocence of intent; but Bothwell had
plenty of time given him to escape, while Mary was carried to Loch-
leven. There the traitorous lords pretended that they only kept her in
ward till Bothwell should be banished, and Cecil, on behalf of Elizabeth,

PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

represented to foreign courts that England would intervene for her
liberation as soon as he should be out of the kingdom.

He soon disappeared, went into Morayshire, and thence to his
dukedom of Orkney, where he was refused admittance by his own
lieutenant. In desperate case he became chief of a band of northern
pirates, but, on a small fleet being despatched after him from Leith,
fled to Norway, and being taken prisoner by the Danish government,
was shut up in the castle of Malmo, where he is said to have died

insane.

Mary remained a prisoner, and the lords who had themselves usurped
power, and had been concerned in the crimes in which she was accused
of participating, declared that she should be dethroned on account of her
misgovernment, and compelled her to resign the crown to her infant son.
Her friends, including the Hamiltons, the Earl of Huntly, Lord Herries,
and some of the noblest families in Scotland, were unable to help her,
though they insisted that she should be restored to the throne under
equitable conditions. The lords were unscrupulous, active, and powerful,
the preachers incited the towns-people, and cried aloud not only for her
dethronement but for her execution. The chapel at Holyrood was
demolished, all the queen's plate, jewels, and furniture were seized.
"The lords of the secret council," which consisted of the Earls of Athole,
Mar, and Glencairn, Lords Ruthven, Hume, Semple, Sanquhar, and
Ochiltree, were led by the Earl of Morton. They arrested, tortured,
and executed Captain Blackadder and four other obscure persons for
the murder of Darnley, but the trial was secret, and the confessions
were never published. France was inclined to interfere, but the French
envoy was refused an interview with Mary, and the lords threatened
to side altogether with England. Throgmorton, who was there to
represent Elizabeth, was cordially received, but was also denied access
to the queen, and all his despatches came from information derived
from Maitland and his confederates. Elizabeth made a show of remon-
strating with the lords of the secret council for their undutiful conduct,
but rendered no assistance, and it was obvious that she desired to induce
them to send the infant Prince James into England. The assembly
of the Kirk meeting at Edinburgh chose George Buchanan for their
moderator, and entered into league with the lords of the secret council.
The Duke of Chatelherault and the Earl of Moray were in France.

Thus deserted, betrayed, in danger of torture and of death, the unfor-

i s

& h

o
o

JAMES STUART. 133

tunate queen, on the 24th of July, 1567, signed a deed in presence
of the brutal conspirators Ruthven, Lindsay, and Sir Robert Melville,
by which she resigned the crown in favour of her baby James, then about
fourteen months old, and at the same time was compelled to sign
a commission, appointing her half-brother Moray regent during the
child's minority.

JAMES STUART.

It was sixteen years after the victory over the Spanish Armada, and
nearly eighteen since Mary Queen of Scots had been beheaded at
Fotheringay Castle, after that long and severe imprisonment which
made her a cripple and marred her great beauty. Leicester too had
paid the penalty of his audacity and his treachery. Essex had perished
on the scaffold, a fallen favourite, after a brilliant career as soldier,
scholar, and general. Drake, Hawkins, and the great opponents of the
Armada, had gone to their rest. Raleigh and Cecil remained with
some others in high office; but Elizabeth had outlived most of her early
courtiers, and now she too lay dying, an old woman of seventy, who after
a reign of forty-five years sat on cushions upon the floor at her palace
at Richmond, neither rising nor lying down, her finger almost always
in her mouth, her eyes open and fixed on the ground.

On the 2ist March, 1603, she was laid in her bed partly by force,
and listened earnestly to the prayers of Whitgift, Archbishop of Canter-
bury. The most authentic account of the last hours of the great
queen says, that on the 22d of March secretary Cecil, with the lord-
admiral and the lord-keeper, approached and asked her to name her
successor. She started and said, " I told you my seat has been the
seat of kings; I will have no rascal to succeed me." The lords not
understanding this dark speech looked one on the other, but at length
Cecil boldly asked her what she meant by those words "no rascal?"
She replied that a king should succeed her, and who could that be but
her cousin of Scotland ? They asked her whether this was her absolute
resolution? whereupon she begged them to trouble her no more.

j^4 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

Notwithstanding, some hours after, when the Archbishop of Canter-
bury and other divines had been with her, and left her in a manner
speechless, the lords repaired to her again, and .Cecil besought her,
if she would have the King of Scots to succeed her, she would show
a sign unto them. Whereat, suddenly heaving herself up in her bed,
she held both her hands joined together over her head in manner
of a crown. Then she sank down, fell into a dose, and at three o'clock
on the morning of the 24th of March died in a stupor, without any
apparent pain of mind or body.

The "dark saying" of Elizabeth is still far from having been
explained. In those long cogitations, during which she had her finger
in her mouth and her eyes fixed on the floor, her wandering thoughts
must have been busy. Not without bitterness could she have
contemplated the succession of that son of her enemy and rival, who
assuredly she must have regarded as "a rascal" in the sense of his
unkingly character and the want of any quality which fitted him to
bear rule in England. In duplicity James Stuart was perhaps the
equal of Elizabeth herself, in dissimulation he would have been a match
for his own mother, as he was a match for English envoys, for Catholic
plotters, and for Scottish preachers. But in addition he was altogether
mean in conduct, conceited of his crude learning, cowardly and vulgar
in disposition, and with a doting and foolish fondness for the favourites
of his caprice, which excited the disgust of his court and people, and
the contempt and reviling of foreign ambassadors.

Bacon, who was then seeking power and eminence, spoke of the time
of Elizabeth's death as " a fine morning before sun rising," meaning
thereby the rising of James; and if the heir to the English throne had
possessed the qualifications of a king, the simile would scarcely have
been misplaced, for to what a splendid inheritance he was called! The
country was powerful and feared abroad, and was prosperous at home;
agriculture had revived and was in a flourishing condition; trade was
vastly extended by the commerce which the great maritime adventurers
had opened up in distant parts of the world ; the monopolies which had for
so long crippled business dealings had for the most part been removed
at the urgent demand of parliament; the noble age of literature had
progressed, and following the scholars and poets of the time of Henry,
Sir Thomas More, Surrey, and the father of Sir Thomas Wyatt, a host
of brilliant wits and writers, like Sidney, Raleigh, Spencer, Lord -Dorset,

JAMES STUART. 135

and the immortal Shakspere, had contributed to make the literature
of England a national inheritance, independent of Greek and Roman
models.

This literature was developed far more during the reign of James,
for in the previous half century, though it had been growing in strength
and variety of expression, its progress had been delayed by wars and
persecutions, and even in the latter portion of the reign of Elizabeth,
the punishments which followed assumed detection of plots against the
throne and the state, revived the policy of the axe and the block.
Indeed these last years of a great period were darkened by the intrigues
of men in power, to maintain their influence by implicating their rivals
in treasons, which were often as it seems mere snares, invented to entrap
dangerous men to deeds for which they might afterwards be tried and
condemned to death or long imprisonment.

It should be placed to the account of any estimate of the character
of James, that he was born within the shadow of a dark and murderous
coalition, that he was a neglected orphan, never knowing what
desperate or unfriendly enterprise might work his ruin, that he lived
ever amidst plots and counter-plots involving the lives of men, and often
sustained by treachery, perjury, and bloodshed, that the stern and
fanatical preachers by whom his youth was watched were themselves
necessarily associated with men whose authority was sustained by violence
and falsehood. Yet learning and literature had advanced in Scotland,
and even commerce had been extended by the enterprise of the people,
and by their intimate connection with foreign courts. With scanty
produce, and a restrictive legislation which almost prohibited individual
enterprise, the trade of the country had greatly increased. The
impetus given to shipbuilding by James IV. and his son James V., who
was a bold and skilful sailor, had developed commerce and enhanced
the comfort of the people, who would probably have made far greater
progress but for the turbulent aristocracy who governed them.

The style of living in Scotland was rude and scanty as compared
with that of England, so that James on his journey may well have
looked forward to his new kingdom as a land of plenty, and may be
excused for expressing astonishment at the luxury, order, and refinement
of the noblemen's houses at which he was a guest, and particularly at
the palatial and splendid seat of Cecil at Theobalds. Fynes Moryson,
who visited Scotland in 1598, says, " Myself was at a knight's house,

136 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

who had many servants to attend him, that brought in his meat with
their heads covered with blue caps, the table being more than half-
furnished with great platters of porridge, each having a little piece of
sodden meat, and when the table was served the servants sat down with
us; but the upper mess instead of porridge had a pullet, with some
prunes in the broth, and I observed no art of cookery, or furniture of
household stuff, but rather rude neglect of both, though myself and
my companions, sent from the governor of Berwick about Bordering
affairs, were entertained after their best manner." Describing the general
diet of the country he tells us that their bread was chiefly hearth cakes of
oats, and in the towns wheaten bread, " which for the most part was
bought by courtiers, gentlemen, and the best sort of citizens. The
drink of the upper classes was wines sweetened with comfits after the
French fashion. There seemed to be no inns, but the citizens brewed ale,
which was the common drink for festivity or hospitality. The bed-
places were built in the wall, with doors to open and shut, in a similar
manner to those dormitories which are still occasionally to be seen in
cottages in Scotland, but even in country mansions the beds were of
straw.

The character of James Stuart has been so admirably depicted by
Sir Walter Scott in The Fortunes of Nigel, that it might be sufficient
to refer to that inimitable story for an estimate of the manners and
disposition of the king. The great novelist treats his majesty certainly
with as much consideration as he appears to have deserved, and refrains
from presenting us with a portrait as coarse as that which was drawn
by some of the contemporaries of James himself, or which may be
obtained by an examination of his own royal records.

He was a man of small and mean extremes. At once a pedant and
a conceited dunce, a pretender to learning and wit, and a devourer of
flattery which would have been nauseous to any but a person of coarse
and depraved taste; a man grossly selfish and unscrupulous, and yet
one who lavished on the favourites with whom he was disgustingly
familiar, wealth and station which eminent scholars and statesmen
might have sought for in vain. Full of subterfuges, and yet so con-
stantly in dread of plots that he wore a quilted dagger-proof doublet,
and revived the torture in order to wring from innocent or unwill-
ing witnesses confessions of what they did not know or were too
brave to reveal; a professed peacemaker, who yet was continually

lAMESI

Engraved by
FROM CO TEMPORARY ENGRAVINGS BY PASS AND C.VISSCHER.

UiACKIj: & SON IjONDON GLASGOW Si KDTNHTJKG-i:

JAMES STUART. 137

making enemies by his want of good faith ; a loud professor of religion,
who, with low and grovelling propensities and a shifty tyrannous disposi-
tion, lowered the whole tone of the court to a dangerous profligacy, and
injured the progress of the Reformation and the cause of piety itself by
a pretence of discussing matters which he afterwards settled by
declaring his divine right to be not only head of the state but head of
the church, so that he might at once persecute the Papists whom he
feared for their supposed plots, and the Puritans whom he hated because
of the rigour with which they had governed him in his youth.

During the early period of his life he had been permitted a show
of power, while Scotland was actually ruled by a knot of fierce and
unscrupulous conspirators. As King of England he was cajoled and
flattered by less fierce and perhaps only a little more scrupulous courtiers
in order to gain their own ends, while the men who really guided the
state watched each other with a growing suspicion which at last in suc-
cessive reigns led to the temporary ruin of the country. It took a terrible
revolution, the execution of one king, the banishment of another, and the
prayer of the people for a foreign governor, to counteract the deadly effects
of the Stuart rule in England. To undo the work of flatterers, favourites,
and plotting statesmen, much noble and innocent blood had to be shed,
and ultimately both England and Scotland were saved only as by fire.

Elizabeth must surely have held James in small estimation. She had
at one time sought to have him in safe-keeping in England, and had
afterwards, it is thought, been concerned in his being shut up in Ruthven
Castle, whence he contrived to be liberated by persuading his keepers into
a belief that he was not at all angry at their keeping him in duresse.
Whether his pusillanimity and the apparent indifference with which
he regarded the imprisonment, and afterwards the execution, of his
mother, satisfied Elizabeth that he was her slave, it is not easy to say,
but he certainly exhibited scarcely ordinary emotion, and was perhaps
quite willing that Mary should be kept captive and suffering in England,
that he might occupy the throne. At the very time that Elizabeth was
preparing the commission to try Mary at Fotheringay he told Courcelles,
the French ambassador, that he loved his mother as much as nature and
duty commanded, but he could not like her conduct, and knew very well
that she had no more good-will towards him than tow r ards the Queen
of England, adding among other things that he had seen letters in her
handwriting which proved her ill-will towards him, and that he knew

138 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

very well that she had made frequent attempts to appoint a regent in
Scotland and deprive him of the throne. This is an illustration of the
pettishness, pedantry, and suspicious selfishness of the boy, and the
man fulfilled the promise of his youth. The ambassadors of James at
the court of England were creatures of Elizabeth as much as they
were his representatives. Courcelles indeed complained that the king
of Scotland did not seem to have much heart at any embassy in his
mother's favour, and except on two occasions he appears to have
regarded her only as a woman of a different religion who was an
obstacle to his own ambition. When he did at last venture to make
a more spirited remonstrance, Elizabeth was so enraged that he wrote
a humble letter of apology. When the execution was determined on,
and James for a little while displayed a more becoming conduct by
urging his ambassador, Gray, to spare no pains nor plainness, but to be
no longer reserved in dealing for his mother, things might have gone dif-
ferently but that Gray himself was in the interests of Elizabeth, and was
in reality helping Walsingham and Leicester to send Mary to the scaffold.
The former wrote to James expressing surprise that he should interfere
to rescue his mother, since as a Protestant prince he ought to feel that
her life was inconsistent with the safety of the reformed churches in
England and Scotland. James, with a sudden show of dignity, recalled
his ambassadors, and that was all, except that he issued an order to the
Scottish clergy to remember his mother in their public prayers, and with
very few exceptions they refused to pray for an idolater and a Papist.

James was then nearly twenty-one years old. Some weeks after his
mother's execution he received a visit from Sir Robert Carew, who
had been sent by Elizabeth to make excuses, to declare that the deed
had been done without her knowledge and consent, to assure him of her
anxious concern for his welfare, and to express her trust that he would
consider every one as his own enemy who endeavoured to excite any
animosity between them on account of the present accident. After a
hysterical outburst and cry for vengeance the royal orphan accepted an
increased pension, some deer, and a leash of hounds.

Years afterwards this weak, selfish, and unfeeling man displayed
even less emotion at the death of his eldest son, the accomplished
Prince Henry, and even hurried away the mourning in order to celebrate
a series of court entertainments, balls, and masques, for which under
such circumstances he gained the wrath and detestation of the people.

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 139

Before the death of Elizabeth he had married the Princess Anne,
daughter of the King of Denmark, and when, as soon as Elizabeth^
had breathed her last, Sir Robert Carew stole out of the palace of
Richmond and posted to Scotland with the news, James was ready to
set out for England without her, as delays were dangerous. He was
too poor to commence his journey till Cecil sent him some money, the
council declining to grant his request that the crown jewels might be
sent for the queen.

He was full of alacrity to commence the work of ruling the English,
though he had held little kingly authority in his own country. During
his progress he ordered new coin to be struck, and was anxious to
attend the funeral of " the queen defunct," as he called the late Elizabeth.
Cecil and the lords were too sagacious to have him present on that
solemn occasion however. It is astonishing that they could have
endured his prating folly and vulgar self-assertion, but he gave ample
evidence that he meant to make the utmost of prerogative. " Do I make
the judges? Do I make the bishops?" he asked. "Then, God's
wounds! I make what likes me law and gospel;" and this he
endeavoured to carry out to the end of his reign, and would have
succeeded, but that the people and the parliament had learned freedom,
and he was too much of a coward and liked the throne too well to risk
disaffection. His belief in witchcraft, and the dread of plots against
himself, amounted to an unreasonable terror, and was almost as sugges-
tive of his base nature as his captious choice of favourites, and the
indifference and even gratuitous injury with which he discarded and
then ruined those of whom he had tired, as he discarded the once
all-powerful Rochester for the equally infamous but more accomplished
Buckingham.

THE DEPARTURE OF THE MAYFLOWER.

The English Puritans, who had undergone severe repression and
persecution in the reign of Elizabeth, had some hope of being able
to obtain, under the rule of James, not only a mitigation of the penalties
under which they suffered, but such concessions as would secure those
reforms in the church for which they contended. To this end they

I4O PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

presented what was called " the millenary petition," without estimating
.the fact that though James had stigmatized the English Church service
as an " evil said mass," he had a decided antipathy to Presbyterian
church government, and had received with favour the emissaries
sent to Scotland by the arbitrary Bishop Whitgift, the great opponent
of Puritanism in the reign of Elizabeth.

The consequence of the petition of the Puritans was the Hampton
Court Conference, in which, so far from granting anything that they
asked, the king, exhibiting all his tyranny, pedantry, and buffoonery,
entered at once into theological disquisition, and to use his own
words with regard to his antagonists " peppered them soundly."
Dr. Reynolds, the chief of the Puritan advocates, and at that time
reckoned the most learned man in England, pleaded in vain though
he proposed a system which approximated very closely to the form
of church government which James himself had formerly endeavoured
to establish in Scotland.

Only one great benefit arose out of the Hampton Court Congress,
and that has been an incalculable blessing to the world at large.
During the course of the discussion Dr. Reynolds had proposed that
there should be a new translation of the Bible, and this suggestion
the king caught at, and in spite of the grumbling remonstrance
of Bancroft, bishop of London, eagerly closed with the proposal. In
truth, though James was a pedant, and was guilty of absurdities in
his common conduct, he had enough of real learning not only to
superintend but to appreciate such a work, and the result was that
the men appointed to make the translation were the best scholars and
linguists that could be found in England. It was a happy decision
also which ordered " That a translation be made of the whole Bible
as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek, and this
to be set out and printed without any marginal notes," so that there
was to be no sectarian interference. As Selden tells us, " The trans-
lators took an excellent way. That part of the Bible was given to
him who was most excellent in such a tongue (as the Apocrypha to
Andrew Downes), and then they met together, and one read the
translation, the rest holding in their hands some Bible, either of the
learned tongues, or French, Spanish, Italian, &c. If they found any
fault they spoke, if not they read on." The whole version was com-
pleted in 1611, and such was its recognized superiority that all the

THE DEPARTURE OF THE MAYFLOWER. 141

previous translations gave way to it. It even superseded the Geneva
Bible, which in Scotland was the honoured version, and its authority
remains to this day.

The Puritans gained nothing else by the meeting, and the Convo-
cation which was held two months afterwards confirmed their worst
fears. A new Book of Canons, drawn up by the intolerant Bancroft,
brought forward with unsparing distinctness all the ceremonials to
which especial objection had been made. It was decreed that all
objectors to the Book of Common Prayer, to the Thirty-nine Articles,
to the apostolical character of the Church, and to the ordination of bishops,
and that all abettors of churches not belonging to the Establishment,
should be accursed and excommunicated. Such severities were practised,
that while it is alleged that no fewer than 1500 ministers were sus-
pended, no better alternative remained for the oppressed than flight
and exile. But by the agency of these despised and afllicted Puritans
an empire as powerful as the parent country was to be founded in the
untrodden wilds beyond the Atlantic.

At the close of Elizabeth's reign, when the English ports were so
closely watched that the victims of persecution could obtain the
privilege of banishment only at the risk of death or imprisonment, a
congregation of Puritans, with their pastor, John Robinson, had effected
their escape to Leyden, where, however, they found no congenial home.
Though their country had cast them out, they were and would be
Englishmen, and they resolved to find a land where they would still
be under the dominion of their country, and where they and their
posterity would still speak in the English tongue, where they could
follow the modes of English life, and above all, where they and their
children might worship God according to the dictates of their own
consciences. Virginia was the place they selected; and, having ob-
tained the permission of the Virginia Company of London, they
prepared for their departure by converting their scanty property into
one common stock, and hiring two small vessels, the Speedwell of
60 and the Mayflower of 100 tons. "We are well weaned," they said,
" from the delicate milk of our mother country, and inured to the
difficulties of a strange land. The people are industrious and frugal.
We are knit together as a body in a most sacred covenant of the Lord,
in the violation whereof we make great conscience, and by virtue
whereof we hold ourselves straitly tied to all care of each other's good,

1^2 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

and of the whole. It is not with us as with men whom small things
can discourage."

Such were the Pilgrim Fathers who founded in the New World
a community which, with amazing rapidity, became the nucleus of
a great nation. They had been for more than ten years in Leyden,
and the persecutions in England forbade their return to their own
country. In 1620 the first detachment of Robinson's congregation
embarked as the pioneers of the enterprise. Only a small number
of the 300 who formed that community could set out at once, because
of the smallness of the vessels; and though their Dutch friends had
offered not only to defray their expenses but to accompany them, they
declined this generous offer, from the motive which led them to
preserve their own distinct nationality.

Robinson himself and the remaining members of the congregation
were to follow as soon as a settlement had been made in Virginia,
which was thenceforward to be called New England. There was
a noble liberality and lofty sentiment in his parting address. He said:
" The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His Holy Word.
I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the Reformed Churches,
which are come to a period in religion, and will go at present no further
than the instruments of their reformation. Luther and Calvin were
great and shining lights in their times, yet they penetrated not into the
whole counsel of God. The Lutherans cannot be drawn to go beyond
what Luther saw, and the Calvinists, you see, stick fast where they were
left by that great man of God. I beseech you remember it 'tis an
article of your church covenant that you shall be ready to receive
whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written Word
of God."

The vessels sailed first from Holland to England, but after a short
stay there, the Speedwell was declared to be unserviceable, and the
Mayflower alone pursued her course, with 101 passengers on board,
consisting of men, women, and children. After a voyage of sixty-three
days they landed at that part of the American coast on which they
founded the towns of Plymouth and Boston. A huge mass of dark
gray granite was the ground on which they first set foot when they
landed, and before the town-hall of Plymouth it is now planted as
a great national memorial of the Pilgrim Fathers, the founders of the
American Republic. Sick and exhausted with the fatigues of the

w g

<! fe

THE DEPARTURE OF THE MAYFLOWER. 143

voyage, they fell upon their knees as soon as they had reached the
shore, and gave thanks to God who had brought them in safety through
storms and perils. They then proceeded to draw up the brief political
constitution under which they were to live together. It was simple
enough, and ran as follows :

"In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten,
the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign King James, having under-
taken for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, and
honour of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in
the northern parts of Virginia, do, by these presents, solemnly and
mutually, in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and
combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better
order and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid, and by
virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws,
ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall
be thought most convenient for the general good of the colony, unto
which we promise all due submission and obedience."

It would be impossible within the limits of a single article to pursue
the intensely interesting account of the vicissitudes of the first colonists,
the growth of the community by the arrival of other bands of refugees
in the two succeeding reigns, and the internal as well as external
difficulties which beset the eventual establishment of the States of
Massachusetts, and Providence or Rhode Island. The reader who
desires to become acquainted with the sequel to the affecting and
important story of the Pilgrim Fathers would do well to refer to
Mather's History of New England and Bancroft's History of the
United States.

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT

Is of course the most memorable of those events which gave something
like reality to other suspicions which were baseless. There is little
necessity for repeating the whole tangled story, and indeed there have
grown around it so many doubtful excrescences, and the secrecy with
which examinations were at that time conducted was so favourable to
false reports being issued from political motives, that only the main

144 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

narrative can be indicated without long explanations. The Catholics,
who had expected some toleration for the exercise of their religion,
were rendered desperate by the severities enforced against them. Fine,
imprisonment, and persecution had been their constant experience, and
there were hundreds of suffering gentlemen in the country who were
moody and disaffected. Few, however, were so ready for a mad and
monstrous enterprise as Robert Catesby, a bold, determined, and reck-
less man, who had been engaged with Essex in his last treasonable
attempt, had intrigued with France and Spain, and was now ready for
almost any conspiracy, no matter how dangerous. It was he who
imagined a scheme for destroying at one blow king, lords, and commons,
but what he and his party were to gain by the success of such a hideous
crime does not appear.

Even those to whom he first mentioned his design were at first too
much overcome with horror to assist him in it, but the representation
of the sufferings of their co-religionists appears to have persuaded them
to join him in the attempt. The first of these was Thomas Winter,
a gentleman of Worcestershire, who would not agree to the plot till he
had sought the mediation of the King of Spain who was then negotiating
with James. He went over to the Netherlands, where he learned from
the Spanish ambassador that no clause for the toleration of the
Romanists could be obtained in the treaty. From that moment he
determined to join Catesby, and accidentally meeting at Ostend an
old friend and associate whom he knew to be a man of iron nerve
and determined courage, enlisted him in the same cause and brought
him back with him to England. This man was Guido Fawkes, who
has sometimes been represented as a mercenary, consenting to join the
conspiracy for a reward, but who was really a gentleman whose unshaken
bravery was heightened to a pitch of indifference to personal safety
or personal suffering by the intensity of his fanaticism. Having met
Catesby in London they were joined by two others, Thomas Percy the
relative and steward of the Duke of Northumberland, and John Wright
Percy's brother-in-law and the best swordsman in England, both of
whom were furious at James's broken promises.

These men met at a lonely house in the fields beyond Clement's Inn,
and there each solemnly swore on the sacrament to keep secrecy and
not to desist from the enterprise till the rest should give him leave.
Then Percy disclosed his purpose to blow up the parliament house with

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 145

gunpowder the next time the king should go to the House of Lords.
Most of us know some of the strange details of this wild and monstrous
attempt : how it was at first intended to bore and mine through the wall
of a house abutting on the back of the parliament house, how the wall
was of such a thickness that further aid was secured, and two more men
were admitted to the plot Robert Kay, who had the custody of the
house at Lambeth, where wood, faggots, and gunpowder were stored,
and Christopher Wright, a younger brother of John Wright, who was
already in the conspiracy. These made seven " all which seven," said
Fawkes in his examination, " were gentlemen of name and blood, and
not any was employed in or about this action (no, not so much as in
digging and delving), that was not a gentleman; and while the others
wrought I stood sentinel to descry any man that came near, and
when any man came near to the place, upon warning given by me they
ceased until they had again notice from me to proceed; and we seven lay
in the house and had shot and powder, and we all resolved to die in
that place before we yielded or were taken."

But the accident of the coal-dealer who rented the vault under the
parliament house removing his business, and wanting a tenant for his
cellar, changed their plans (just as they were approaching completion),
till the repeated prorogation of parliament. The conspirators grew
uneasy, all but Fawkes, who seems to have become a mere monomaniac,
permitting no other matter to occupy his thoughts than this set and
deadly purpose. Others were meanwhile admitted to the plot : John
Grant of Warwickshire, Robert Winter, the brother of Thomas Winter,
Thomas Bates (Catesby's servant), Sir Everard Digby, Ambrose Rook-
wood, and Francis Tresham. All was ready; these later members had
money and fleet horses. The consultations were held at White Webbs,
a house near Enfield, a wild and solitary place. The parliament was
again prorogued till the 5th of November, and on that day the deed
was to be done. There were thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in the
cellar. Fawkes was to fire the train communicating with the mine by
means of a slow match, which would give him time to escape. A ship
hired with Tresham's money was in the Thames, in which he was to
proceed to Flanders.

The conduct of Tresham from the moment of his joining the plot
gave Catesby constant uneasiness. He was anxious by some means
to warn the Lord Mounteagle, his close friend, so that he might not

146 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

be involved in the tragedy. Sir Everard Digby and others of the
conspirators also desired to take some means of preventing their par-
ticular friends from attending the parliament on that day. We know
what followed: Lord Mounteagle, having sat down to supper in his
mansion at Hoxton, had a letter delivered to him, said to have been
left by an unknown messenger, and containing a mysterious warning.
He carried the letter to Whitehall and showed it to Cecil, the
king being out at Royston hunting the hare. On the king's return
the Lords Cecil and Suffolk, who had already penetrated the mystery,
handed the mysterious letter to his majesty, who either guessing or
being partly prompted to discover the import of the warning, afterwards
received the full credit of that wonderful foresight which could interpret
its meaning. This was on the 3ist of October, and as it was deter-
mined to wait until the night before the meeting of parliament before
frustrating the plot, it may be imagined that a coward like James
needed some strong stimulus to his vanity to enable him to bear the
suspense.

On Sunday, the 3d of November, the conspirators were warned
through a man in the service of Lord Mounteagle. They were desper-
ately alarmed, but yet so infatuated that none of them, not even Tresham,
would fly he, perhaps, because he knew that he had brought discovery
upon his accomplices. Fawkes was still calm and unmoved. On the
Monday afternoon Suffolk, as lord-chamberlain, accompanied by Lord
Mounteagle, went down to the house. From the parliament chamber
they went into the vaults pretending to be looking for some of the king's
stuffs. They threw open the door of the powder cellar, and there,
standing in a corner, saw " a very tall and desperate fellow." This
was Guido Fawkes, who, in answer to an apparently careless inquiry as
to who he was, said that he was servant to Mr. Percy, and looking after
his master's coals. When the visitors had gone, Fawkes went to inform
his confederates, and then returned to the cellar. About two o'clock
the next morning he undid the door and looked about him. So secretly
and effectually had the counterplot been conducted, that before he could
step back he was seized and pinioned by a party of soldiers under
command of Sir Thomas Knevett, a magistrate of Westminster. There
was no time for him to light a match, or they would all have been
blown up together. Behind the door was a dark lantern. In his
pocket was a watch a rare possession in those days, some touch-

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 147

wood, tinder, and slow matches. The prisoner was carried to Whitehall,
and there in the royal bedchamber was interrogated by the king and
council, the former doubtless in no little perturbation, for though the
man was bound, his voice was bold, his countenance defiant if not
menacing. He answered their inquiries with fearless scorn, declaring
his name to be John Johnson, and that he was servant to Mr. Percy.
He avowed his purpose, and regretted that he had not accomplished it,
but refused to name any accomplices. The king asked him how he
could have the heart to destroy his children and so many innocent souls
that must have suffered. He replied, " Dangerous diseases require
desperate remedies." One of the Scottish courtiers inquired why he
had collected so many barrels of powder. " One of my objects," he
retorted, " was to blow Scotchmen back to Scotland."

He was taken to the Tower, and there subjected to the question by
various grades of torture, comparatively slight at first, but at last terrible,
as his failing and uncompleted signature attests. He would at first
confess nothing, but the other conspirators disclosed their guilt by
fleeing or taking up arms. The story was soon known, but Fawkes,
firm to the last, did not name his accomplices till the government knew
who they were already. He was tortured horribly, and at last put his
hand to a confession which after all revealed no secret with which the
council was not acquainted. Such is the outline of this notorious plot;
the account which was officially made known, beginning with the
handing of the mysterious letter to the king, says :

1 " The king no sooner read the letter but, after a little pause and
then reading it over againe, hee delivered his iudgement of it in such
sort, as he thought it was not to be contemned, for that the style of it
seemed to be more quick and pithie than is vsuall to be in any Pasquil
or Libell (the superfluities of idle brains)." The Earl of Salisbury knew
James well, and played on this notion by objections which strengthened
it. He quoted the sentence, "' For the danger is past as soon as you
have burnt this letter/ saying it was likely to be speech of a foole; for
if the danger passed so quickly the warning could be of little worth.
Againe, ' that they should receive a terrible blow at their parliament,
and yet should not see who hurt them.' This, the king replied, pointed

1 His maiestie's speach in this last session ... as neere his very words as could be gathered. Together
with a discourse of the manner of the discovery of this late intended treason, ioyned with the examination,
&c. c. Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, printer to the king's most excellent maiestie, anno 1605.

148 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

to the use of gunpowder. He 'therefore wished that before his going to
parliament, the under room of the parliament house should be well and
narrowly searched.' Whereupon it was at last concluded, 'that nothing
should be left vnsearched in those houses.' And yet for the better
colour and stay of rumour in case nothing were found, it was thought
meet, that vpon a pretence of Whyneard's missing some of the king's
stuffe or hangings which he had in keeping, all those roumes should be
narrowly ripped for them. And to this purpose was Sir Thomas Kneuet
(a gentleman of his maiesties priuie chamber) employed, being a justice
of the peace in Westminster, and one of whose ancient fidelitie both the
late queene and our now sovereigne have had large proofe, who, accord-
ing to the trust committed vnto him, went about the midnight next
after, to the parliament house, accompanied with such a small number
as was fit for that errand. But before his entrie in the house, finding
Thomas Percyes alleadged man standing without the doores, his cloathes
and boots on at so dead a time of the night, he resolued to apprehend
him, as hee did, and thereafter went forward to the searching of the
house, where after he had caused to be ouerturned some of the billets
and coales, he first found one of the small barrels of powder, and after
all the rest to the number of thirty-sixe barrels, great and small. And
thereafter searching the fellow whom hee had taken, found three matches,
and all other instruments fit for blowing vp the powder, ready vpon him,
which made him instantly confess his owne guiltinesse, declaring also
vnto him, that if he had happened to be within the house when he
tooke him, as hee was immediately before (at the ending of his worke)
hee would not haue failed to haue blowen him vp, house and all.

"Thus after Sir Thomas had caused [him] to be surely bound and
well guarded by the company he had brought with him, he himself
returned backe to the king's palace, and gaue warning of his successe
to the lord chamberlaine and Earle of Salisburie, who immediately
warning the rest of the councel that lay in the house, as soon as they
could get themselves ready, came, with their fellow counsellers to the
king's bed-chamber, being at that time near foure of the clocke in the
morning. And at the first entrie of the king's chamber doore, the lord
chamberlain, being not any longer able to conceale his ioy for the
preuenting of so great a danger, told the king in a confused haste,
that all was found and discovered, and the traitor in hands and fast
bounds.

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 1 49

"Then order being first taken for sending for the rest of the counsell
that lay in the towne, the prisoner himself was brought into the house,
where, in respect of the strangnesse of the accident no man was stayed
from the sight or speaking with him. And within a while after, the
counsell did examine him, who, seeming to put on a Romane resolution,
did both to the counsell, and to euery other person that spake with him
that day, appeare so constant and setled vpon his grounds, as we all
thought wee had found some newe Mutius Scaeuola borne in England.
For notwithstanding the horour of the fact, the guilt of his conscience,
his suddain surprising, the terrour which should haue been stroken in
him by comming into the presence of so graue a counsell, and the rest-
lesse and confused questions that euery man all that day did vex him
with; yet was his countenance so farre from being deiected, as he often
smiled in a scornful manner, not onely auowing the fact, but repenting
onely with the said Scaeuola his failing in the execution thereof, whereof
(hee said) the diuell and not God was the discoverer. Answering
quickly to every man's obiection, scoffing at any idle questions which were
propounded vnto him, and iesting with such as hee thought had no
authoritie to examine him. All that day could the counsell get nothing
out of him touching his complices, refusing to answere to any such
questions which hee thought might discouer the plot, and laying all the
blame upon himselfe; whereunto he said he was mooued onely for
religion and conscience sake, denying the king to be his lawful soueraigne,
or the anoynted of God in respect hee was an hereticke, and giuing
himself no other name than John Johnson, servant to Thomas Percy.
But the next morning being carried to the Tower, he did not there
remaine aboue two or three dayes, being twise or thrise in that space
re-examined, and the rack only offred and shewed vnto him, when the
maske of his Romaine fortitude did visibly begin to weare and slide off
his face. And then did he begin to confess part of the truth and there-
after to open the whole matter."

150 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

CHARLES, "KING AND MARTYR."

Before the death of James negotiations had been made for the
marriage of Prince Charles (" Baby Charles," as his father used to
call him) to Henrietta Maria, sister to King Louis of France. In
this alliance both the king and the prince had to deal with the crafty
and powerful Richelieu, who at once insisted on a complete relaxation
of the laws against the Roman Catholics. These demands were a
repetition of the agreements made by James with the King of Spain
when Charles was affianced to the Infanta a match which the prince
and Buckingham continued to elude with a duplicity which was worthy
of the Stuarts. It is said, indeed, that Charles had seen the French
princess at the Spanish court during his half clandestine visit there,
and that he had then been so smitten with her charms as to determine
to break away from the proposed marriage with the sister of Philip.
This want of faith led to the difficulties and apprehensions, which,
combined with full feeding and excess, of strong sweet wines, hastened
the death of James. On the fourteenth day of his illness, being Sunday,
the 27th of March, 1625 (on the 8th of April, new style), he sent
before daybreak for the prince, who rose out of his bed and went to
him in his night-gown. The king seemed to have something earnest
to say to him, and so endeavoured to raise himself on his pillow; but
his spirits were so spent that he had not strength to make his words
audible. He lingered for a few hours, and then " went to his rest upon
the day of rest, presently after sermon was done."

An hour or two afterwards Charles was proclaimed king at
Theobald's, where the ministers had assembled, and on the following
day he was proclaimed in London. Charles was then twenty-five
years of age, and but for the influence of the latest of his father's
favourites, the violent, insolent, and dissolute Buckingham, might
have come to the throne with a better promise of a peaceful and a happy
reign. But while Buckingham supported the pretensions of the king
for his own ends, Charles himself combined the Stuart shiftiness
and weakness of character with the Tudor arrogance, and was soon
ready to claim from the parliament what would not have been granted

CHARLES, " KING AND MARTYR." I 5 I

to Elizabeth, though a remarkable advance in the assertion of
freedom had been made during the twenty-two years since her death.
The nation had became conscious both of its rights and its strength,
and the spirit of freedom kept pace with the growing wealth and
intelligence of the people.

There was nothing in the personal character of Charles which
entitled him to the place he has so long held in English history,
but the circumstances of his position made him prominent. His
combined weakness and assumption placed him in opposition to the
great national struggle, which became imminent directly the divinely
instituted right of kings to arbitrary power was reasserted. Had
his end been less tragic, or the events of the contest less momentous,
Charles would have been neither hero nor martyr. His public
character has been made as it were to reflect the colour of the times
by those who regard him as representing a certain principle opposed
to anarchy, whereas, he represented no principle but that of autocracy
and the aggrandizement of the crown. Had he succeeded, he would
perhaps have attempted to drive the nation back to the time when
it was declared that laws were concessions to the people from the
monarch who granted, and was therefore above, the laws; and this
theory might have been held, while in practice a considerable degree
of national and personal liberty would have been obtained. The
English people, however, had grown into a free constitution. They
had no intention of struggling for concessions any more. They deter-
mined to have political liberty established and secured by measures
which were effectual both with sovereign and subject.

There is something in the character of Charles and in the real
facts of the case to mislead a superficial observer, and at first to lend
a certain plausibility to the attractive picture of him which the soften-
ing influences of time and the imaginations of his sympathizers have
substituted for the real man. Every one is acquainted with the con-
ception of him which is still perhaps the prevalent one in the majority
of English drawing-rooms, as a stately English gentleman of the
most refined tastes and habits, of highly cultivated mind, deep religious
feelings, and the purest morals, who unfortunately entertained (or
rather was educated into) notions of absolute authority, which were
inconsistent with the predominant spirit of the age, though justified
by precedents, and who, after making every concession, consistent with

152 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

right, to the exorbitant demands of his rebellious subjects, resisted
them by arms in strict self-defence, and more than expiated any errors
he had committed in his lifetime by his heroic and saintly bearing on
the scaffold.

Such a representation could be supported only by the widest
deductions from the most imperfect premises, by a total disregard
of all but a few isolated facts, and a violation of all the sequences and
natural relation of events. 1 The truth is that Charles was brought up
in a court where the influences were coarse and peculiarly demoraliz-
ing, and that he observed a much greater decorum of life than
had been displayed by James is so far to his credit, but it may be
doubted whether a certain coldness and formality of temperament and
a more cultivated taste had not a large share in this superiority. It
seems difficult to believe that any man could retain the infamous
Buckingham as prime favourite and close friend, and yet have a deep
and practical moral sense.

The errors of Charles' character may perhaps be partially extenuated
by remembering the associations of his youth, and the political crimes
of which he was guilty may be referred to the self-importance which
he learned from his father and from the tuition of the churchmen to
whom his education had been confided. When he was a child his
brother Harry, prince of Wales, was living, and he was kept in the
back-ground till he was twelve years old. He was also weakly in
constitution, and thus had learned to live much within himself, and so
may have become reserved and uncommunicative. Thus disposed he
would learn from his tutors, and the books to which they directed him,
to look upon government as an absolute function of the sovereign. His
education was casuistical, his way of looking at things had less relation
to the practical duties and obligations of real life than to a narrow
standard of conscience and self-assertion, to which those duties were
subordinated. As he grew up his reserve was caused less by self-
diffidence than self-conceit. He evidently believed that he had a
talent for diplomacy, while he was continually imperilling the nation
by acts and words which showed no regard for the opinion or the
claims of others. His belief ii, his own wisdom was little less
profound than that of James. The overt act of a lie seemed frequently
the best method of incommunicativeness, and the lying of Charles

1 Sanford, Estimates of English Kings.

FROM THE PICTURE BY VANDYKE.

CHARLES, "KING AND MARTYR. 153

differed in this essential point from that of Elizabeth, that it did not
represent any occasional or partial sentiment of his mind, but was
entirely external to his whole nature, and was justified probably to
his conscience by the casuistical argument that its perpetration was
an essential agency in a policy which, as a whole, represented his real
views, and, indeed, to his eyes, the cause of truth.

Charles appears to have been incapable of seeing the falsity of his
own conduct, or the results of his own arrogant demands, and so
sanguine was his nature that it was only when he had lost all, that he
gave up the direct opposition, and the tortuous plotting by which he
sought to gain his ends. He was true, however, to his own autocratic
assertions to the last, and there was after all a nobility in the man which
enabled him to bear his reverses, and even to go to the scaffold with
a high and dignified bearing. Reduced to complete inaction by inexor-
able necessity, he was saved from the consequences of his own ill-advised
action. His self-confidence, which in prosperity assumed such an unami-
able and unattractive form, exhibited, under these altered circumstances,
all the aspect of dignified self-respect. His proud nature fell back upon
itself, and the "wise passiveness" thus imposed upon him, became his
greatest strength, and has proved the best foundation for his reputation
in the eyes of posterity. The more complete the restraint, the more
hopeless his prospects, the more helpless his "gray discrowned head,"
the nobler became his bearing, the brighter grew his fame; until at last
in "that memorable scene" at Whitehall, when every earthly hope had
vanished, and all possibility of weak or unworthy plotting had ceased,
he was more completely royal in his demeanour, and more worthy of our
respect, than at any other epoch of his life. At that moment he dropped
the cloak of a constitutional king, which he had hitherto affected to wear,
and died with a steady eye and unfaltering tongue, asserting his real
creed that "a share in government" is "nothing pertaining" to the people. 1

There can be little doubt that Charles was in the main a fond and
faithful husband, and he was certainly a good and affectionate father, and
to these domestic virtues he deservedly owes part of that reputation for
virtue which has been so long maintained. His court was decorum and
virtue itself in comparison with that of James. Drunkenness disappeared,
there were no scandalous favourites, Buckingham only retaining his
ascendency, and the king manifested his notions of the royal dignity by

1 Sanford. Charles I.

PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

a stately reserve. Charles also had an artistic taste, and not only
collected pictures but encouraged Rubens and Vandyke; he was a judge
of literature, and retained Jonson as his laureate, read Shakspeare and
Spenser, and was friendly to Sandys, May, and Carew. Walpole was
of opinion that the celebrated festivals of Louis XIV. were copied from
the masques and shows at Whitehall, in its time the most polite court in
Europe; yet Charles constantly provoked dislike because of his arrogant,
contemptuous and irritable manner, and especially by his offensive
speeches. His reformations, except in regard to the more scandalous
doings of the court of James, appear to have been little more than
external. Mrs. Hutchinson, while she speaks highly of the improvement,
intimates that there was still a great deal of private licence, and though
it is asserted that Charles discountenanced swearing, perhaps even this
was only by comparison. It is reported of Charles II., that in answer
to a remonstrance made to him on the oaths in which he indulged, he
exclaimed in a very irreverent and unfilial manner, "Oaths! Why, your
martyr was a greater swearer than I am."

Unluckily for Charles' dignity in the eyes of his attendants and his
ultimate welfare with the people, there was a contest of irritability too
often going forward between him and his consort Henrietta, who was of
a petulant, and violent temper. When not offended, however, the
queen's manners were lively and agreeable.

We are to imagine the time of the court divided between her
majesty's coquetries and accomplishments and Catholic confessors, and
the king's books and huntings and political anxieties, Buckingham, as
long as he lived being the foremost figure next to himself, and Laud and
Strafford domineering after Buckingham. In the morning the ladies
embroidered, and read huge romances, or practised their music and
dancing (the latter sometimes with great noise in the queen's apartments),
or they went forth to steal a visit to a fortune-teller, or to see a picture
by Rubens, or to sit for a portrait to Vandyke, who married one of them.
In the evening there was a masque, or a ball, or a concert, or gaming;
the Sucklings, the Wallers, and Carews repeated their soft things, or their
verses; and "Sacharissa" (Lady Dorothy Sydney) doubted Mr. Waller's
love, and glanced towards sincere-looking Henry Spenser; Lady Carlisle
flirted with the Riches and Herberts; Lady Morton looked grave; the
queen threw round the circle bright glances and French mots; and the
king criticized a picture with Vandyke or Lord Pembroke, or a poem

THE CIVIL WAR. 155

with Mr. Sandys (who, besides being a poet, was gentleman of his
majesty's chamber), or perhaps he took Hamilton or Strafford into a
corner, and talked not so wisely against the House of Commons. It
was upon the whole a grave and graceful court, not without an under-
current of intrigue. 1

THE GREAT CIVIL WAR.

From the hour that Charles ascended the throne it became inevitable
that he must come into collision with the parliament as representing the
body of the people. Such demands as he made were themselves an
outrage upon the constitution of England, and the threats by which they
were accompanied would have been out of place even in the time of the
Plantagenets. The king was perpetually out of temper with the House
of Commons, and they regarded him with suspicion, if not with dislike,
and began to organize a systematic resistance to his arrogant claims;
while the people were stung to fury by the shameless favouritism dis-
played to Buckingham, by the successive disasters which accompanied
his command, and by the treachery practised towards them by expedi-
tions which it was pretended were for the assistance of the Protestants,
while they were secretly destined to aid the king of France.

The insolent arrogance of Buckingham had become unbearable, and
his disgraceful failures in the expeditions of which he was appointed to
the command brought the country into contempt. Both in and out of
parliament he was pronounced to be the curse of the nation. This was
but a few days before he went down with the king to Deptford, to see
the ships which had been prepared for operations at Rochelle, while all
the time it was intended that the French Protestants should be aban-
doned and a peace made with Louis. The London rabble was ready
for any mischief, for they partook of the general fury against the duke,
whose physician, Dr. Lambe, they actually set upon and murdered in
the streets, on the perhaps erroneous supposition that he had a part in

1 Leigh Hunt

PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

his evil counsels. A doggerel distich passed from mouth to mouth
saying,

Let Charles and George do what they can,
The Duke shall die like Dr. Lambe,

and a label was stuck upon a post in Coleman Street inscribed thus :
"Who rules the kingdom? The king. Who rules the king? The
duke. Who rules the duke? The devil."

It is said that the king uttered these words to Buckingham while
they looked at the ships at Deptford : " George, there are some that
wish that both these and thou mightst both perish. But care not for
them; we will both perish together if thou doest." This was significant
of the public feeling, and the end was not far off. The duke went on
to Portsmouth, where he was to embark for Rochelle. Upon Saturday,
the 23d of August, 1629, being St. Bartholomew's Eve, he rose up in
a well-disposed humour out of his bed and cut a caper or two, and
being ready, and having been under the barber's hand (where the
murderer had thought to have done his deed, for he was leaning upon
the window all the while), he went to breakfast attended by a great
company of commanders. Beside Soubise, there were many refugees
about Buckingham; and they were seen to gesticulate very violently in
conversing with the duke. This was only the habit of their country
when excited, but to the English it seemed as though they threatened
his grace with actual violence. The duke left his chamber to proceed
to his carriage which was in waiting, still followed by the vociferating
and gesticulating Frenchmen. In the hall he was stopped by one of his
officers, and at that moment he received a knife in his left breast. He
drew forth the weapon, staggered, and fell, and died with the word
"Villain!" upon his lips. In the throng and confusion no one saw who
struck the mortal blow. Suspicion fell upon the Frenchmen, who were
with difficulty saved from the fury of the duke's attendants. Then
some ran to keep guard at the gates, some to the ramparts of the town.

During this time there was a man who went into the kitchen of the
very house where the deed was done, and stood there unnoticed of all.
But when a multitude of captains and gentlemen rushed into the house
exclaiming, "Where is the villain!" "Where is the butcher!" that man
calmly came forth amongst them, saying, " I am the man; here I am."
They drew their swords and would have despatched him on the spot,

THE CIVIL WAR. 157

but for the timely interference of secretary Carleton, Sir Thomas
Morton, and some others, who took charge of him till a guard of
musketeers arrived and conveyed him to the governor's house. The
assassin, who might most easily have escaped had he been so minded,
had written a paper to declare his motive, imagining that he must
perish on the spot, and leave nobody to speak for him. This paper
was sewed in the crown of his hat half within the lining, and was to
this effect : " That man is cowardly, base, and deserveth not the name
of a gentleman or soldier, that is not willing to sacrifice his life for the
honour of his God, his king, and his country. Let no man commend
me for the doing of it, but rather discommend themselves as the cause
of it; for if God had not taken our hearts for our sins, he had not gone
so long unpunished. John Felton."

This John Felton was a gentleman, and was known to many of the
officers at Portsmouth with whom he had served on various occasions.
He had been a lieutenant in a regiment employed in the previous year
on the miserable expedition to the island of Rhe, and had thrown up
his commission in disgust because another man had been irregularly
preferred before him, and because he had been refused payment of his
arrears. Felton was persistent in his assertion that he committed the
deed as an act necessary for the deliverance of the country, and he was
firm in declaring that he had no accomplices, and no motive but the
good of the nation and the cause of the Protestant religion. He was
thrown into a dungeon and laden with irons, but was afterwards
removed to the Tower. Exhortations and threats could not shake
his original affirmation, and when the Earl of Dorset threatened him
with the rack he said, " I am ready, yet I must tell you that I will then
accuse you, my Lord of Dorset, and no one but yourself." This was
an awkward determination, but the king would have had him tortured,
had not the judges feared the decision of the House of Commons, which,
in face of the attempted tyranny of Charles, had on several occasions
pronounced the rack and the torture to have been at all times unwarrant-
able by the law of England. Felton was therefore hanged at Tyburn,
and his body was afterwards taken to Portsmouth and there fixed on a
gibbet.

Charles did not at first appear greatly moved by the intelligence of
Buckingham's death, but afterwards it was said that he retired to his own
apartment in a paroxysm of grief. He called the dead duke his martyr,

158 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

caused his body to be laid secretly in Westminster Abbey, where a more
public funeral with an empty coffin afterwards took place, the procession
of a few courtly mourners being guarded all the way from Whitehall
by train-bands armed with pike and musket, and beating drums to
drown any probable cries or mutterings of the disaffected populace.

The king's alleged declaration to Buckingham that they would both
perish together took a tragic meaning both for Charles and for the
country, for after the death of the favourite he again essayed to reign
without parliaments, and first to deny and then to defy the growing
demands of a people desiring to be free and a legislative assembly
determined to uphold the laws of the constitution. Nothing could
teach him. He had tried to obtain his will by the plan of dissolving
successive parliaments which were opposed to his exactions, he had
illegally caused several persons and some obnoxious members to be
arrested and imprisoned, he had spoken words that only the patience
that comes of a sense of coming power could have enabled the commons
to bear patiently. Each assembly was as firm and resolute as the one
that preceded it. He was compelled to dissimulate, to interpret his
demands as though they differed only in words from the concessions
that were offered to him, and to agree to proposals which he had just
acuteness enough to see that he dare not refuse, all the time pre-
meditating how he could avoid or renounce them. Men like Coke,
Seymour, Selden, were not to be cajoled, and there were many others
in the house who were not to be frightened by threats, even though
they were careful to speak in bated and respectful terms of the king's
majesty.

After the dissolution of his second parliament, and his refusal to
listen to the petition for the reform of abuses and the dismissal of
Buckingham, the Earl of Arundel was confined in his own house, the
Earl of Bristol in the Tower. Meanwhile the king had begun to make
up for the subsidies which he had failed to extract from the parliament
by issuing a warrant under the great seal for levying duties on imports
and exports, and for enforcing fines for religion. He who was secretly
engaged with the King of France, and who was supported by Laud,
issued orders to inquire into the arrears of fines due from the Catholics,
to compound with them for immediate payments, and to insure a more
regular return. Fresh privy seals for loans were issued to the nobility
and to wealthy merchants and a demand for .120,000 was made on the

THE CIVIL WAR. 159

city of London. Both London and the seaport towns were ordered
to furnish ships, the lords-lieutenants of counties were ordered to raise
troops, to be ready to meet insurrection at home or invasion from
abroad.

The royal despotism did not stop here, however, for the money
raised by these means was still insufficient. Charles's pretended
adhesion to the Protestant cause had brought nothing but disgrace to
the members of the alliance. Not only the affairs of his brother-in-law
the Palatine, and of his uncle the King of Denmark, but the cause of
Protestantism in Germany, seemed to be desperate. King and council
at once made use of these conditions as an excuse. "Parliament,"
they said, with bare-faced falsehood, "was not called together, because
the urgency of the case would not allow time for its assembly and
deliberation." A general loan was ordained, and every person was called
upon to contribute according to the rating of the last subsidy. The
people were assured that the money would all be paid back by the king
to his loving subjects directly parliament had met and granted new sub-
sidies, but this was so doubtful a promise, that a host of commissioners
were sent out with books and registers and full power to exact these
illegal demands. Those who refused to submit were at once made to
feel the weight of the royal displeasure; the rich were imprisoned, the
poorer were pressed into the army and navy, and those who were not
fit for this service were mercilessly punished. The officers of the law
were stimulated to use the utmost severity, and those who showed
reluctance were removed. Most of the lawyers and judges, however,
were subservient enough, but they were even less so than the bishops
and the high church clergy, who were at that time seeking preferment,
and many of whom preached the doctrine of royal absolutism and divine
right in terms that were too shocking even for the primate, Abbott,
who was afterwards suspended, and his functions intrusted to a com-
mission of which Laud was the chief. The consequence of the
subserviency of bishops, priests, and deacons to the court, and their
fulsome support of injustice, drove the people to the ranks of the
Puritans, and a number of distinguished men, who were not themselves
inclined to the rigid notions of Puritanism and at least had no aversion
to the creed and ceremonies of the church, became the opponents of
the whole hierarchy, and prepared to make of Puritan ardour a sharp
sword against civil tyranny.

[60 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

The determination of Buckingham to drag the nation into a war
with France, and the disastrous failure of the attempt, made it again
necessary to convoke a parliament; but the commons were little disposed
to be subservient, and after voting five subsidies, or .280,000, refused
to carry the vote into law till the king had assented to the famous
"Petition of Right," which was a renewal of the terms of Magna Charta.
By this Charles was bound to abstain from forced loans and illegal taxes,
from arbitrary imprisonment, and from billeting his soldiers on the people.
The law of habeas corpus was strictly insisted on, and the sentence of
death, except by a properly constituted legal tribunal, was forbidden,
while at the same time the establishment of martial law was condemned.
After endeavouring to return an evasive acceptance, which the commons
would not receive, Charles, who sorely needed money, gave his complete
assent to this new charter of English liberty; but neither oath nor
promise could bind, any more than bitter experience could teach
him. Parliament was again prorogued and his tyrannous exactions
were renewed. Neither the nation nor the house could believe him;
both had ceased to respect him, both had ceased much to fear him,
when the death of Buckingham removed the evil counsel upon which it
was supposed that he had acted, and there began to be some hope
of amendment.

The temper of the House of Commons had hitherto been kept within
moderate bounds, but it was quickening into wrath. Coke, Selden, Kir-
ton, Elliot, Digges, and others, had spoken boldly and with stern decision.
A collision between king and parliament became imminent. Taxes and
ship money were again raised by the king's arbitrary authority, Puritans
were fined, imprisoned and tortured, and at last, in an access of hierarchi-
cal arrogance, Laud and the king together attempted to force a church
liturgy upon Scotland. Never was a greater mistake made. The
whole country was opposed to the Romanizing tendencies of the arch-
bishop; and though James had by crafty measures introduced bishops
into the Scotch Church, the people rose against the attempt of his more
arrogant son to force upon them a book of canons and a liturgy.

On Sunday, the 23d of July, 1637, the new service book was to be
read in every parish church in Scotland, but the evidences of popular
resentment were so strong that few of the clergy were prepared to
obey. In the principal church of Edinburgh, the church of the old
cathedral of St. Giles, which contained the seats of the judges, magis-

THE CIVIL WAR. l6l

trates, and state officials, the liturgy was formally introduced under
the auspices of the bishop, dean, and other clergy. Here, if anywhere,
it might have been expected that the royal will would have been
implicitly carried out. And so it would, perhaps, if there had been
an assembly only of official dignitaries. But the body of the church
was filled with a congregation of the common people, including a
number of citizens' wives and their maid-servants Christians of vast
zeal, and comparatively safe in their obscurity. There were no pews
in those days. Each dame sat on her own chair or folding-stool, which
was brought to church with her. When the dean, Mr. James Hannay,
opened the service-book and began to read the prayers, this assembly
was struck with horror which defied all control. They remonstrated
aloud, shrieked, and raised their voices in abuse, denouncing the dean
as the progeny of the devil, and the bishop as a belly-god, who desired
to bring in rank Popery. Another minute and a woman named Jenny
Geddes had launched her stool at the dean's head, and the missile was
followed by a storm of small clasp Bibles, amidst which, the bishop from
the pulpit vainly endeavoured to quell the disturbance, assisted by the
magistrates who shouted from the gallery. The whole congregation
had to be dismissed by main force before the reading of the liturgy,
and the people then remained in the street to mob the bishop, who
narrowly escaped with his life. The king was informed of the opposi-
tion manifested to the service-book, and had he withdrawn it peace
would probably have been restored, but he thought that he could
enforce obedience. A formal opposition from the people of Scotland
arose, the policy of the previous forty years was overthrown, and the
beginning of the civil war may be said to have dated from " the casting
of the stools" in St. Giles' Kirk. 1

It was then that the " National Covenant" was framed, and in the
spring of 1639 Charles marched northward at the head of a powerful
army, only to conclude a treaty with the insurgents which lasted but
a short time. Another army was raised for the purpose of subduing
the Scotch malcontents, but as he could no longer raise money by illegal
expedients he was forced to summon parliament. His attempted
tyranny over this assembly, and his arbitrary attempt to imprison some
of its most distinguished members, made the final breach between the king
and the nation. Nothing remained but an appeal to arms, and counter

1 Chambers' Book of Days.

162 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

proclamations appeared, the king endeavouring still to levy illegal taxes,
and the parliament issuing orders that money both for the state and for
the army could only be raised by their authority.

The popular cause grew apace. The members who had been
accused of high treason, and for whose arrest the king had gone to the
House of Commons with an armed force, were greeted with public
enthusiasm, and were safely bestowed in the city till they could return
to their places, when the commons demanded a proper impeachment
and a legal trial. They were Lord Kimbolton (in the House of Lords),
and in the commons Mr. Denzil Hollis, Sir Arthur Hazlerig, Mr. John
Pym, Mr. John Hampden, and Mr. William Strode, men who afterwards
did good service for the cause of the nation.

At length, after an attempt to take Hull, where he was compelled
to raise the siege, the king issued a proclamation requiring all men that
could bear arms to meet him at Nottingham by the 25th of August,
and upon that day the royal standard was erected, " about six o'clock
in the evening of a very stormy and tempestuous day. The king
himself with a small train rode to the top of the Castle Hill. Varney,
the knight-marshal, who was standard-bearer, carrying the standard
which was then erected in that place with little other ceremony than
the sound of drums and trumpets. Melancholy men observed many
ill presages about that time. There was not one regiment of foot yet
brought thither, so that the train-bands which the sheriff had drawn
together, were all the strength the king had for his person and the
guard of the standard. There appeared no conflux of men in obedience
to the proclamation, the arms and ammunition were not yet come from
York, and a general sadness covered the whole town. The standard
was blown down the same night it had been set up, by a very strong
and unruly wind, and could not be fixed again in a day or two till the
tempest was allayed. This was the melancholy state of the king's
affairs when the standard was set up."

THE BATTLE OF MARSTON MOOR. 163

THE BATTLE OF MARSTON MOOR.

The two parties had been for many months engaged in a warfare
in which success and defeat so equally alternated that it was difficult
to ascertain on which side lay the balance of advantage. That such
should have been the result of the contest speaks highly for the courage
and discipline of the Cavaliers, for from the very first the strength and
resources of the rivals were most unequally divided. The Parliament
commanded London and all the seaports except Newcastle. Through
the influence of the Earl of Northumberland, lord high admiral, the
entire dominion of the sea was in the hands of the Houses. All the
magazines of arms and ammunition were, at the outset of the civil war,
seized by the Parliament, whilst the right of levying taxes a host of
strength in itself could be exercised with profit only by the assembly.
Charles, on the other hand, was deprived of much that his enemies
possessed. His revenue had been taken by the Parliament, and he
was thus forced to rely on the wealth and generosity of. his adherents,
and on the taxes levied in the counties that declared for him. He was
ill supplied with artillery and ammunition, and in order to arm his
followers was even compelled to borrow the weapons of the trained
bands. The one grand advantage he possessed, and it was an
advantage that stood him in good stead in the early part of the war,
was in the nature and quality of his troops. In a conflict between
patrician and proletarian it was confidently expected that men drawn
from the aristocracy, the landed gentry, and the yeomanry, would prove
themselves superior to an army comprised of the rabble of the multitude
the " poor tapsters" and " town apprentice people," as Cromwell
called them. Nor were these expectations at first falsified. The
Royalists were victorious at Edgehill; they had reduced Cornwall to
submission; at Stratton and at Roundaway Down the troops of Lord
Stamford and Sir William Waller were defeated; the great Hampden
had perished at Chalgrove Field, an irreparable loss to the Parliament;
and Bristol, the second city in the kingdom, had been surrendered
by Nathaniel Fiennes with such pusillanimity, that it nearly cost
its cowardly defender his head.

1 64 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

The war had not lasted a year, and the advantage was not with the
Parliament. Instead, however, of following up his successes by at once
marching on London, then in a state of consternation and approaching
disaffection, Charles wasted his time by attacking Gloucester. This
city was the only remaining garrison in the west possessed by the
Parliament, and once reduced, the king held the whole course of the
Severn under his command. The siege was resolutely undertaken by
the Royalists, and as resolutely sustained by the defenders. But the
gallant city was not to be left long unaided. The progress of the king's
arms, the defeat of Waller, the taking of Bristol, and now the siege
of Gloucester, had excited the fears and the indignation of the Parlia-
ment. Every effort, it was felt, must at once be made to prevent any
further triumphs of the Royalists. Fourteen thousand men were
instantly marched westward, and the king was forced to raise the siege.
The battle of Newbury followed. The result was indecisive, and
Charles lost on the field his valued friend and faithful adherent
Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland. In the north the Royalists were
defeated at Wakefield and at Gainsborough, but shortly afterwards
were compensated for these reverses by the total rout of Fairfax at
Atherton Moor.

A union with Scotland, however, at this time, gave additional
increase to the power of the Parliament, and the Solemn League and
Covenant 1 had been signed at Edinburgh. Twenty thousand Scottish
troops poured into England, and the popular party soon began to
acquire ascendency, while the energies of the Parliament were
devoted to bring the contest to an issue. In the eastern association

1 This covenant was received by the Parliament of the Assembly of Divines, September 25, 1643.
According to Hallam it "consisted in an oath to be subscribed by all sorts of persons in both kingdoms,
whereby they bound themselves to preserve the Reformed religion in the Church of Scotland, in doctrine,
worship, discipline, and government, according to the Word of God and practice of the best Reformed
churches; and to endeavour to bring the churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction
and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of church government, directory for worship, and
catechizing ; to endeavour, without respect of persons, the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy (that is, church
government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors, and commissaries, deans and chapters, archdeacons,
and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy), and whatsoever should be found contrary
to sound doctrine and the power of godliness; to preserve the rights and privileges of the parliaments and
the liberties of the kingdoms, and the king's person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the
true religion and liberties of the kingdoms; to endeavour the discovery of incendiaries and malignants,
who hinder the reformation of religion, and divide the king from his people, that they may be brought
to punishment; finally, to assist and defend all such as should enter into this covenant and not suffer
themselves to be withdrawn from it, whether to revolt to the opposite party, or to give in to a detestable
indifference or neutrality." This document was signed by members of both houses, and by civil and
military officers. A large number of the beneficed clergy, who refused to subscribe, were ejected.

Q ti
H co

w a <

P* {

<l H u

S 8 s

W o

fM y

p a

W ^ ^

t-1

i H

H w n

n " S

w t>

p &

H w

CD f

w 2

b> S
> H

THE BATTLE OF MARSTON MOOR. 165

fourteen thousand men were levied under the Earl of Manchester
seconded by Cromwell, while nearly twenty thousand men under Essex
and Waller were assembled in the neighbourhood of London. The
troops of Essex were to march against the king, while those of Waller
were to attack Prince Maurice in the west. The utmost efforts of
Charles were barely sufficient to raise ten thousand men. 1 Lincoln
had been taken by the Earl of Manchester, whose army now uniting
with that of Lords Leven and Fairfax was closely besieging York,
then vigorously defended by the Marquis of Newcastle. On a sudden
the besiegers were surprised by Prince Rupert. The forces of the
Parliament hastily raised the siege, and drawing themselves up on
Marston Moor prepared to give battle to the Royalists.

An engagement was now inevitable. After a night spent in
anxious repose both armies prepared for action. A large ditch ran
in front of a portion of the Parliamentarian force. Their centre was
under the command of Lords Fairfax and Leven. On the right
Sir Thomas Fairfax was stationed; Cromwell and Manchester held
the left, which was a barren waste ending in a moor. The royal forces
under Prince Rupert took up their position opposite to Sir Thomas
Fairfax, while Cromwell and Manchester on the left were opposed by
Goring's cavalry and several infantry brigades.

At seven in the evening the battle commenced. Manchester's
infantry moved upon the ditch, but whilst endeavouring to form they
were mowed down like ripened grain before the murderous fire of the
Royalists. Goring now ventured to take advantage of this opportunity
and charged with his cavalry, but ere he could advance for that purpose
Cromwell wheeled round the right of the ditch and fell full upon his
flank. The right wing of the Royalists essayed to resist, but in vain;
they were broken, routed, and fled in every direction. " Colonel
Sydney," says the Parliamentary Chronicle, "son to the Earl of
Leicester, charged with much gallantry at the head of my Lord of
Manchester's regiment of horse, and came off with many wounds, the
true badge of his honour." It is also stated that on this occasion, after
Sydney had been dangerously wounded and was within the enemy's
power, a soldier stepped out of the ranks of Cromwell's regiment and
rescued him from his dangerous position. Sydney naturally desired
to know the name of his preserver; but the soldier, with that uncouth

1 A. C. Ewald, Life and Times of Algernon Sydney.

1 66 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

magnanimity which characterized the men who fought under Cromwell,
sternly replied that he had not saved him to obtain a reward, and
returned to his place in the ranks without disclosing his name.

General Fairfax had been driven back under the impetuous
charge of Rupert, and the prince, believing the day won, eagerly
pursued his retreating foe. He had cause to repent his rashness.
Whilst turning to break the centre of the Parliamentary force, and
finish what he considered to be a complete victory, he suddenly
encountered Cromwell, who had simultaneously charged and defeated
the centre of the Royalists. The shock was tremendous, but the result
of the conflict was never for a moment doubtful. Prince Rupert was
driven back with great loss, and victory declared decisively for the
forces of the Parliament. "It was ten o'clock," writes Mr. Forster in
his Life of Cromwell, " and by the melancholy dusk which enveloped
the moor might be seen a fearful sight. Five thousand dead bodies
of Englishmen lay heaped upon that fearful ground. The distinction
which separated in life these sons of a common country seemed trifling
now. The plumed helmet embraced the strong steel cap, as they
rolled on the heath together, and the loose love-locks of the careless
Cavalier lay drenched in the dark blood of the enthusiastic republican."
Soon after the battle of Marston Moor York opened her gates, and a
large part of the north of England submitted to the authority of the
Parliament.

CHARLES THE FIRST IN THE GUARD-ROOM.

We feel now, as men felt very soon after the execution of Charles,
that we cannot hope entirely to justify the means taken to bring about
his trial and to insure the sentence. The last act of the terrible
tragedy closes on a scene which has remained for more than two cen-
turies one of the saddest and most affecting pictures in English history.

By the 6th of January the " High Court of Justice," the self-
constituted commission of a self-elected parliament, had been appointed.
There were 135 members, and on the 8th of January fifty-thiree of

CHARLES THE FIRST IN THE GUARD-ROOM. 167

these had assembled in the Painted Chamber, headed by the Lord
General Fairfax, who never appeared among them after that day. No
more than eighty of the commissioners ever met at one time.
Bradshaw was appointed president; Mr. Steel, attorney-general; Mr.
Coke, solicitor-general. At the first day of the trial only sixty
answered to their names, which were called after the king had been
brought in. On the Qth a herald proclaimed that the people should
bring in what matter of fact they had against Charles Stuart.

The place of trial was the upper end of Westminster Hall, which
was divided by strong barriers from the lower half, the Gothic portal
being opened to the immense crowds of people. Everywhere within
and without the building were soldiers under arms. The bar was an
inclosed space within the barrier. On the igth the king, who was
now a prisoner in the custody of guards, was brought from Windsor;
and on the following day he was brought in a sedan chair to take his
trial. A chair covered with velvet was provided for him to sit upon.
As he entered he looked sternly upon the court and upon the people
in the galleries, and sat down without moving his hat. His severe
glances were returned by his judges, who also remained covered.

One can almost imagine the awful stillness of that scene broken
by the buzz of the attendants or the whispers of the people. The
vast building with its lofty, dark oaken roof; the gray cold January
day, the commissioners seated with grim and solemn countenances,
the galleries at the sides filled with spectators, among them the
Presbyterian wife of the lord-general, Lady Fairfax, who is bitterly
opposed to the whole proceeding, and remains loyal to the king.
Bradshaw rises stern and hard to inform the prisoner of the cause
of his being brought thither. Coke, as solicitor to the Common-
wealth, succeeds him, but as soon as he begins to speak Charles
holds up a goldheaded cane, and touches him two or three times
on the shoulder with it, crying, " Hold! hold!" The head of the
cane drops off, and Bradshaw tells Coke to proceed with the charge
against Charles Stuart, king of England, in the name of all the
commons of England, for treason and high misdemeanours.

When the clerk, to whom it is delivered, begins to read the charge,
Charles again cries, "Hold!" but the reading is not stopped, nor are the
faces of the president and the court moved by the interruption. The
prisoner sits down looking on the ground, but presently looks some-

1 68 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

times on the High Court, sometimes up to the galleries, and then
rises again and turns to scan the guards and the people in the hall,
but still with the same stern face, till, when he has sat down once more,
the clerk comes to the words, " Charles Stuart to be a tyrant and
a traitor," at which he laughs. The charge accuses him of the whole
civil war, and the death of thousands of the people, of division within
and invasion from without, of waste of public treasure, spoliation and
desolation of great parts of the country, and of continued commissions
to rebels and disaffected persons.

Charles demands by what lawful authority he is brought to this
place, after a yet unconcluded treaty into which he had entered with
both Houses of Parliament.

Bradshaw replies that he might have observed that he is there
by the authority of the people of England, whose elected king he is;
and he retorts that England was never an elective kingdom, but an
hereditary kingdom, for near these thousand years. He stands,
he says, more for the liberty of his people than any here that come
to be his pretended judges; upon which Bradshaw replies bitterly,
" Sir, how well you have managed your trust is known. If you
acknowledge not the authority of the court they must proceed."

Charles reasons that he has been brought there by force; that he
sees there no House of Lords that may constitute a parliament, and
that the king too must be in and part of a parliament. " If it does not
satisfy you," exclaims Bradshaw, " we are satisfied with our authority,
which we have from God and the people."

The court is adjourned till the following Monday, the 22d of January,
and the guard is ordered to take the prisoner away. Upon which
he ejaculates, "Well, sir," and retires facing the court, and pointing
to the sword says, " I do not fear that;" after which, amidst mixed cries
of "God save the king!" and "Justice! Justice!" he is removed to
Sir Robert Cotton's house, and thence to St. James', while the High
Court adjourns to keep a fast at Whitehall.

On the Monday Charles again persists in questioning the legality of
the court, declaring a king could not be tried by any jurisdiction on earth,
and that he represents the lives and liberties of the people. Bradshaw
interrupts him, and the sergeant-at-arms is ordered to remove him from
the bar, as he exclaims, "Well, sir! remember the king is not suffered
to give in his reasons for the liberty and freedom of all his subjects."

o t

p J

Pi
w

CD
M
r 1 W

w 8

h-! H

CHARLES THE FIRST IN THE GUARD-ROOM. 169

" Sir," replies Bradshaw, " how great a friend you have been to the laws
and liberties of the people let all England and the world judge."

It is Tuesday afternoon, and the sixty-three commissioners who have
been in conference at the Painted Chamber adjourn to Westminster Hall,
determined to give no further time to the king to plead, if he should still
refuse. Coke asks for judgment, and Charles, on being called on for his
defence, attempts to repeat the statements of yesterday. They will not
hear him, and on his again refusing to acknowledge the authority of the
court the clerk is ordered to record the default, and the king is again
taken away by the guards. For two days, the 24th and 25th of January,
the court has sat in the Painted Chamber hearing witnesses, and on the
26th the sentence is prepared. The morning of the last day of the
trial dawns, and Bradshaw puts on a scarlet robe while the rest of the
court are attired in their best habits. Again the king is brought in,
and there is in his manner a singular mildness. Amidst cries of
" Justice!" and "Execution!" from some of the rabble, one of the soldiers
on guard says, "God bless you, sir," and Charles thanks him; but the
officer strikes the man with his cane. " Methinks," says the king, " that
the punishment exceeds the offence." He sees that there is little to be
hoped for from this assembly, the solemn aspect of the court, the scarlet
robe of the president, the manner of the soldiery. He urgently asks
for a hearing, but is told that he must hear the court first. Bradshaw
tells him that he has refused to answer the charge brought against him
in the name of the people of England; and a woman's voice cries out,
" No, not half the people!" It is supposed to be Lady Fairfax, but
the voice is silenced. Charles appeals to be heard in the Painted
Chamber. John Downes, a citizen and one of the commissioners,
desires that the court may adjourn.

In some confusion the court adjourns, but returns in half an hour.
Bradshaw cries out, " Sergeant-at-arms, send for your prisoner!" and
Charles, who has been in solemn conference with Bishop Juxon, returns to
the bar. Bradshaw refuses his request to be heard in the Painted Cham-
ber, by the Lords and Commons, and in'a long and harsh speech seeks to
justify the sentence. Charles hastily asks leave to say one word before
that sentence is pronounced. He has heard himself called in the words
of the charge, " tyrant, traitor, and murderer," and at the last word has
uttered a loud and startling " Hah!" and now Bradshaw says, "What
sentence the law affirms to a traitor, a tyrant, a murderer, and a public

I7O PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

enemy to the country, that sentence you are now to hear." The sen-
tence is that he shall " be put to death by severing his head from his
body." Bradshaw will not suffer him to answer a word; and saying,
"I am not allowed to speak; expect what justice other people will
have," he turns away and goes out with his guard.

These soldiers have little sympathy with him, though it is but two
days before his execution, and he has had to submit to their insults
added to his other misfortunes. Their outrages are borne with
a serene patience, a lofty forbearance, and a fortitude which do
not desert him, even during the sad parting which takes place
on the last evening before his execution, when he bids his wife
and children farewell nor even at the block, when he takes the royal
ornament from his neck, and hands it to Bishop Juxon with the solemn
word " Remember.

It is to the pages of Guizot's History of the English Revolution
that Delaroche went for the subject of the famous picture representing
the insults to which Charles was subjected in the guard-room on the
last day of his trial, the 2;th of January, 1649, a scene which must
have wrung the heart of the one spectator who was probably present,
the faithful Herbert, who was the king's constant and attached
attendant, who attended the body to the grave, and to whom Charles
gave his copy of Shakspere, the volume which is still preserved in
the Queen's library at Windsor.

THE PROTECTOR.

It may be said of Charles I. that "nothing in his life so much
became him as the leaving of it." During that strange trial in West-
minster Hall before the High Court of Justice whose jurisdiction
he denied the manner and bearing of the king was so full of patient
dignity, his serene temper and uncomplaining meekness under the
insults of the soldiery and the rabble were so remarkable, the royal
calm with which he went to the scaffold had in it so much of true
nobility, that we can scarcely wonder at his obtaining the reputation of

THE PROTECTOR.

a martyr among those who were ready to forget or had previously
defended his unscrupulous use of power for the suppression of liberty,
and his constant refusal to observe the conditions on which he became
King of England. At the same time, his undoubted affection for his
children, the tender farewell which he took of his family, his pious
conversation, and the religious reflections which he had written and
published, left a deep impression on the minds of those who alike
abhorred the execution of a sentence evidently prepared before the
trial, and feared the now dominant party which had clutched the
sword of state in the same iron grip with which it held the sword
of war.

It is difficult to perceive what could have been done with a king
who, while he claimed absolute authority, contrived so to dissimulate
that the country was threatened with a devastating civil war. The
leaders of the stern, unyielding Independents, who saw that no
government would be possible except by a strong hand, are not all
to be charged with the inevitable consequences of the iron energy
with which they protected the country from threatened anarchy and
bloodshed. The reserved and silent man whose first appearance
in the House of Commons little betokened the vast space he was to fill
in the history of the country, was himself obliged to submit to the
power which he was able to guide to victory, but which, even in the
plenitude of his subsequent authority, he found it difficult to control
except by an assumption of arbitrary rule that it took all the force
of his impregnable self-possession and great reputation to sustain even
for a few months.

In any endeavour to arrive at a just conclusion on the subject
of the changes in administration, the strife of parties, and finally the
arbitrary assembling and dissolution of Parliament by Cromwell, whose
strong hand was then the only one which could take the helm when the
whole state and constitution of the country was in the midst of a
political vortex, it will be wise to consider the following words of
Thomas Carlyle, in one of his elucidations of Cromwell's letters and
speeches : " I will venture to give the reader two little pieces of advice
which, if his experience resemble mine, may prove furthersome to him
in this inquiry; they include the essence of all that I have discovered
respecting at : the first is by no means to credit the wide-spread report
that these seventeenth-century Puritans were superstitious, crack-

172 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

brained persons : given up to enthusiasm, the most part of them : the
minor ruling part being cunning men, who knew how to assume the
dialect of the others, and thereby, as skilful Machiavels, to dupe them.
This is a wide-spread report but an untrue one. I advise my reader to
try precisely the opposite hypothesis to consider that his fathers, who
had thought about this world very seriously indeed, were not quite
so far behindhand in their conclusions respecting it that actually their
' enthusiasms,' if well seen into, were not foolish, but wise that
Machiavelism, cant, official jargon, whereby a man speaks openly what
he does not mean, were, surprising as it may seem, much rarer than
they have ever since been."

It is easy, at any rate, to discover that the demands made by the
Parliament which refused to consider the question of tonnage and
poundage at the king's behest until they had resolved to protest against
the promotion of Arminianism and Popery by Laud, were clear and
earnest enough.

It was during these debates, in February, 1629, that there rose
to speak a rough, plain-looking, sturdy, rather slovenly man, in a
homely coat and a countrified old hat. His words were unstudied, and
possessed little grace of oratory, but they were full of meaning, and
there was a look of determination in his face, which, with a resolute
bearing, commanded the attention of the house. This was Mr. Oliver
Cromwell, the new member for Huntingdon, and the man who might
have been King of England in name as he was more than king in power
and influence. Sir Philip Warwick, a Royalist, who saw him on this
first occasion of his speaking in Parliament, speaks of him as of good
size, his countenance swollen and reddish, his voice sharp and
untunable, and his eloquence full of fervour, so that he was very
much hearkened unto. The redness of his face, and even the pitch
of his voice, in these days may well have been attributable to
the passionate character of the man, associated with that exercise
of self-control which seldom deserted him. That Cromwell was of a
deeply earnest and passionate nature there can be little doubt, and
it must have been a constant struggle for him to hold back from
the exercise of an authority which he would only consent to claim
when he believed that it was a Divine commission. " I say to you
I hoped to have had leave to retire to a private life," he declared to the
first Protectoral Parliament which he appointed after the battle of

FROM: A. FINE MINIIATUR-E BV COOPER..

AK1D CO TEMPORARY PRIKT BYWATjKER.

THE PROTECTOR. 173

Worcester. " I begged to be dismissed of my charge; I begged
it again and again; and God be judge between me and all men if 1
lie in this matter. That I lie not in matter of fact is known to very
many; but whether I tell a lie in my heart, as labouring to represent
to you what was not upon my heart, I say, The Lord be judge."

Even afterwards, when he had necessarily assumed a power which
rendered those strong tendencies to absolute rule most difficult to
contend against, he spoke in the same strain. The arbitrary dismissal
of the Long Parliament, when he broke forth into invective against
members who were once his friends, he declared to have been chiefly
caused by the desire to lay down the power which was in his hands.
" I say to you again," he asserted, " in the presence of that God who
hath blessed and been with me in all my adversities and successes that
was to myself my greatest end; a desire perhaps, I am afraid, sinful
enough, to be quit of the power God had most clearly by his providence
put into my hands, before he called me to lay it down, before these
honest ends of our fighting were attained and settled."

In considering the character and the position of Oliver Cromwell
it is necessary to remember that he was forty-three years old, and
a man of established reputation and fortune, before he became pro-
minent as a general; but that the power to which he attained was
the result of conditions apart from personal ambition, and of so urgent
a nature that he was justified in regarding them as the direct
ordinations of Providence. Whatever we may think of his assumption
of the authority to call and to dissolve parliaments, the fact of his
efforts to establish a legislative assembly, and his readiness to appoint a
House of Lords, are proofs that he desired to renew the government
on a constitutional basis, even though the factions with which he had to
contend rendered the task temporarily impracticable.

In order to estimate what he really achieved for this country, it
is well to note what a sudden and calamitous collapse followed his
death and the restoration of monarchy in the person of Charles II.
Under the lord -protector England was the strongest state in
Europe. Foreign ambassadors spoke with bated breath when he
demanded justice and the suppression of abuses which affected English
claims. The arrogant demands of Holland were humbled, France
was silenced, Spain brought to submission. Everywhere on land
the arms of the Ironsides were triumphant; and on the sea, piracy

174 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

was abolished and the supremacy of England was maintained. Ireland
was subdued, Scotland ceased to be an independent kingdom when
factions and parties were dissolved by repeated defeats, and the
cause of Charles was lost beyond repair. Justice was administered
without fear and without reproach; the whole moral atmosphere of
the court was purified; and liberty of conscience was proclaimed and
so consistently upheld, that, even when the nation was again debased
by its rulers, the spirit of freedom was ready to reassert itself.

After Cromwell's death came the reign of impotence. It would
almost seem that the country had yet to be taught that true national
greatness was not to be achieved under the arbitrary rule of any one
man, however conscientious or however eminent. There was no
abiding principle of self-government. The fierce and fanatic section
of those parties which strove for power had been suppressed, the less
violent had been weakened by division and so had succumbed to the
energy which was compelled to govern in spite of their repeated and
ineffectual efforts. Charles had lost his throne and his head in the
endeavour to usurp arbitrary power for the monarchy. Oliver might
have gained the throne, and perhaps at one time was tempted by a
royal title, but he spent his enormous energy in the unselfish exercise
of an arbitrary power which he believed could alone save the country
from anarchy. The vast space which he fills in English history is
measured not alone by what he achieved, but by the principles which
he represented. It is perhaps not too much to say that the strange
vicissitudes of that period, forced him to adopt a course in seeming
opposition to the liberty of which he was the advocate, in order that
the principles themselves might be vindicated. If he failed, or rather
had not at the time of his death succeeded, in the attempts to create
a representative assembly of the nation, which might share and not
monopolize the seats of legislature and judicature, and which, on the
other hand, might secure the foundations of society in a different spirit
to that of a blind supporter of old abuses or a religious persecutor, we
ought not to ignore the wisdom and foresight which saw in his own
absolute authority only a transitional necessity.

Oliver Cromwell was in fact a man of powerful character, strong
will, and intense convictions, with a passionate and at the same time a
deeply sympathetic nature. " His temper was exceedingly fiery," says
Maidston, who was one of his household, " as I have known, but the

THE PROTECTOR. 1/5

flame of it kept down for the most part, or soon allayed with those
moral endowments he had. He was naturally compassionate towards
objects in distress, even to an effeminate measure; though God had
made him a heart wherein was left little room for any fear but what
was due to himself, of which there was a large, proportion. Yet did
he exceed in tenderness towards sufferers. A larger soul, I think, hath
seldom dwelt in a house of clay than his was."

This honest declaration of one who knew him well contrasts
strangely with the false estimate of the protector which was dissemi-
nated after his death by his enemies, and which, like the pretended
names of some of the members of the "Barebone" Parliament, such
as Praise God Barebone and others, was the invention of a later
time. The true records of history Cromwell's speeches, his letters,
the evident confidence reposed in him by the most trustworthy men
show at least what his personal character must have been, and that
religious liberty and purity of life were the principles which he con-
stantly advocated. It has even been the fashion to represent him as a
sour sectary, caring little for intellectual culture or social graces and
refinements; but his rule of life was truly a noble one. He advised
his son Richard to " be above the pleasures of this life and outward
business, and then you shall have the true use and comfort of them, and
not otherwise."

Cromwell in his earlier days had been the subject of strong religious
convictions, and had suffered from that combined depression of the
nervous system and distress of mind which have been experienced
by other men of intense or emotional temperament combined with
a conscience too much directed to self-analysis. But he seems to have
emerged from this condition to that of a strong, cheerful, and energetic,
but still sympathetic man, with a mind well cultured and a taste by no
means unrefined. He formed a noble library, could dispute with the
Scotch commissioners, and match their arguments from Mariana and
Buchanan; supported the two universities, and planned a third one
at Durham; and was certainly an impartial friend and patron of the best
scholars, painters, musicians, and poets of the age. He drew around
him the best men of the time, and his prayer was, " God give us hearts
and spirits to keep things equal." Milton was his Latin secretary and
familiar friend, Andrew Marvel was his frequent guest, Waller was his
companion and kinsman, Dryden was among his visitors; Hartlib, the

176 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

advocate of education, the learned Archbishop Usher, and John Biddle
were pensioned.

His court was quiet and modest, yet dignified in its simplicity. At
Hampton Court, which was Cromwell's favourite residence, there was
often a good deal of harmless fun going on. He was a great lover
of music, and entertained the most skilful in that science in his pay and
family. " He respected all persons that were eximious in any art, and
would procure them to be sent or brought to him. Sometimes he
would for a frolic, before he had half dined, give order for the drum
to beat, and call in his foot-guards, who were permitted to make booty
of all they found on the table. Sometimes he would be jocund with
some of the nobility, and would tell them what company they had lately
kept, when and where they had drunk the king's health and the royal
family's, bidding them, when they did it again, to do it more privately;
and this without any passion, and as festivous, droll discourse." 1 Crom-
well, the iron soldier, was a man of deep family affection, and the tone
of his court partook of his domestic character.

Not only the disposition but even the original station of Cromwell
has been persistently misrepresented. It would certainly have been
no disgrace if the great Protector had been "the son of a brewer at
Huntingdon;" but the truth is that his father was one of the landed
gentry with a good estate and influential family connections, while
Oliver himself was afterwards a substantial landowner in Cambridge-
shire, and did not take any prominent part in public affairs till he was
above forty years of age, when he was returned to Parliament.

The history of the Commonwealth, and of the man who was at its
head, need to be studied carefully and without prejudice by the reader
who desires to discover what were the elements of those vast changes
which led to the establishment of a free constitutional government in
England.

1 Whitelock

THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE. 177

THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE.

During the vicissitudes which accompanied the attempts of
Charles I. to gain an advantage either by arms or by the art of
playing upon the antipathies of the antagonistic Presbyterians and his
English parliament, the Marquis of Montrose sustained a brief but
an important position. It may be said that the successes of Montrose
gave the king courage to refuse to make peace, even in opposition
to the advice of the fiery Prince Rupert himself.

James Graham, Earl, and afterwards Marquis, of Montrose, was
a brave, adroit, and unprincipled adventurer, who had been by turns
courtier and Covenanter, and then again an adherent of the king.
He had marched into London with Leslie's army, and had been
appointed by the Covenanters one of their commissioners to treat
with the king at Ripon and York. Charles induced him to betray his
colleagues, and to continue to play the part of a zealous Covenanter
while he was really devoting himself to the opposite cause. A letter in
which Montrose agreed to this service was stolen from the king's pocket,
copied, and sent to the Covenanters. It was said that this was done
by the Duke of Hamilton, who with Argyle was a powerful upholder
of the Covenant. Montrose had time to accuse them both of treason
before he was arrested and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle with
some of his adherents. He was afterwards liberated, and with the
men to whom both he and the king had been treacherously opposed,
was raised to higher honours, so that he afterwards offered aid to the
royal cause in conjunction with a similar adventurer, the Irish Earl
of Antrim, who was to bring an army from Ireland while Montrose
exerted his influence to cause a division in Scotland. Their schemes
were not at first successful ; but afterwards, when the Royalists had
been beaten at Marston Moor; when the old Covenant had been
succeeded by the new Solemn League and Covenant, which was all
that the Scottish Commissioners could induce the Presbyterian Parlia-
ment to accept ; when the king had heaped fresh insults on both parties ;
when the decisive battle of Naseby had been fought and won, and Charles
was still holding out with weak obstinacy at Ragland Castle, Montrose

178 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

who had penetrated into Scotland and had taken Dumfries, but had
been compelled to retreat in the absence of a promised Irish army
again began to move. He crossed the Border once more and hid in
the Highlands till the arrival of 1200 Irish a wild undisciplined
force which joined 2000 Highlanders, as wild and badly armed as
themselves.

Argyle (now lieutenant of the kingdom) and Lord Elcho marched
against him from different points; but Montrose was too quick for them,
and at once established a kind of guerilla warfare, in which his hardy,
swift, but undisciplined troops were most successful. He defeated
Elcho in Perthshire, and captured the town of Perth, which his followers
so ruthlessly plundered that they grew rich enough to desert his
standard and to return with their booty to the mountains. The Irish
contingent could not retreat, for Argyle had burned their ships. Mon-
trose led them northward, hoping to be reinforced by the whole clan
of the Gordons. Two thousand seven hundred men were posted at
the Bridge of Dee to intercept him ; but he crossed at a ford above that
place, took his foes in the flank, and drove them before him into
Aberdeen, which was made the scene of awful carnage, and was
pillaged without mercy. But Argyle was at his heels, and after two
or three days the Highlanders and the Irish were obliged to
abandon Aberdeen, whence Montrose led them northward to the Spey,
still pursued by Argyle, and that so rapidly that they were obliged to
bury their artillery in a morass and hurry along the right bank of the
stream to the mountains at Badenoch. Thence they made repeated
raids, waiting in vain for the great clans to join them.

Both forces were pretty nearly exhausted. The adherents of Mon-
trose, worn out with rapid forced marches, left him with only his dimin-
ished Irish troops. The Covenanters went into winter quarters and
Argyle retired to rest to his castle at Inverary, at the head of Loch Fyne,
" where he hived himself securely, suffering no enemy to be within a hun-
dred miles of him." But when he suspected nothing less, the trembling
cowherds came down from the hills and told Argyle the enemy was
only two miles off. Montrose, enforced by clans of Highlanders, had
braved the winter storms and snows and crossed moor and morass, laying
the country waste as he went, till he was almost under the shadow of
the old castle of Inverary. Argyle, who had set a price upon his head,
had nothing to hope from his clemency, and only saved himself by

THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE. 179

crossing the loch in a fishing-boat. Then Montrose divided his army
into three irregular columns, which carried fire and sword throughout
Argyleshire and laid it utterly waste, slaying and sparing not.

Having accomplished this they marched through Lome and Aber
to Lochness to encounter the Earl of Seaforth; but learning that Argyle
had gathered forces from the Lowlands, Montrose determined to
engage him first, and so passing by an obscure way over the Lochaber
hills he came upon him unawares, and on the next day a hand-to-hand
conflict ended in the rout and pursuit of the Covenanters, of whom
about 1500 were slain.

After this victory Montrose was joined by the Gordons and other
clans, and so was enabled to break into Dundee, from which he retreated
almost immediately before a large body of Covenanters, and again
escaped to the mountains. Another victory, at a village near Nairn,
where the slain on both sides amounted to 2000, raised the spirits of
Charles, who made an attempt to push on his cavalry to meet the forces
of Montrose, and had actually crossed the country from Hereford to
Doncaster when the pursuit by Sir David Leslie with the entire body
of Scottish cavalry then in England caused him to turn back.

Montrose crossed the Forth a little above Stirling, directing his
march across the narrow isthmus which separates the Firth of Forth
from the Firth of Clyde. Baillie and the Covenanters came up with
him at Kilsyth, but they were utterly defeated, losing all their artillery,
arms, and ammunition. Argyle and the chiefs of the party fled by sea
to England. Glasgow opened its gates to Montrose and his wild and
savage followers.

Then there came an end to his victories; the Highland tribes
who had joined, him retired again to the mountains with their
plunder. He had overrun and laid waste the country, but he held
no positions nor had he secured any place in the Lowlands. He
advanced southward expecting to meet a reinforcement of cavalry from
England; but Charles was still uncertain, had lost Bristol, which had
been surrendered by Prince Rupert, and after the defeat of the
Royalists at Rowton Heath was compelled to retreat to Denbigh,
where he subsequently learned that his northern ally had also lost his
desperate game.

David Leslie, who advanced on the east coast of Scotland, had
heard that Montrose was moving to the south-west, probably with

l8o PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

the view of meeting Charles at the time that he had determined to
unite the two armies. The Covenanter general, therefore, led his
Scottish cavalry from the shores of the Forth to Solway Firth, and,
taking a lesson from the frequent tactics of his opponent, fell suddenly
upon the Royalists in Selkirk Forest, and so completely vanquished
them that the army was destroyed, Montrose himself escaping to the
Highlands, many of his principal adherents being either killed in
battle or afterwards executed by the Covenanters.

After the execution of Charles I. the Independents declared that
the proclamation of the Prince of Wales or any other to be king or
chief magistrate would be punished as high treason. The Rump
Parliament determined to bring some of the chief royalists to a speedy
trial. On the 9th of March following the king's death on the 3Oth of
January, Duke Hamilton and the Lords Holland and Capel were
beheaded in Palace Yard. The late king's eldest son was proclaimed
as Charles II. both in Scotland and Ireland, and in August Cromwell,
with his son-in-law Ireton, landed near Dublin in order to suppress the
insurrection. Before the month of May in the following year (1650)
the Papists and Royalists there were entirely subdued.

In Scotland a more determined effort was made to support the
claims of Charles, and in the spring of the same year Montrose again
made his appearance, crossing over from the Continent as the precursor
of the prince, and landing at the Orkneys with a few hundred foreign
soldiers. He disembarked at Caithness, intending once more to go to
the Highlands and call his former followers to his aid; but the Presby-
terians had had enough of him and were on the alert. The Committee
of Estates had appointed Strachan as their general, and though they
were Royalists they regarded the guerilla chief as an enemy. Montrose
had scarcely gone beyond the pass of Invercarron when Strachan fell
upon him and completely defeated him, so that he could only escape
for his life, leaving behind cloak, star, sword, and the garter which had
just been bestowed upon him. He was taken at last through the
treachery of an old friend with whom he sought an asylum, but who
shamefully betrayed him to the Covenanters. Bound with ropes like a
wild beast he was conveyed to Edinburgh, where, on a former attainder,
sentence of death was speedily passed upon him, and he was hanged
on a gallows 40 feet high. Montrose was only thirty-eight years
old when he thus came to the end of a career, which, for courage and

o n
H

S g

w H

oi S

H *
5 en

O w

P
c/

THE ESCAPE OF CHARLES II. l8l

adroitness in war, might have gained for him the highest honours had
it been regulated by the considerations which influence the conduct of
noble men even if they are engaged in a mistaken cause.

THE ESCAPE OF CHARLES II.

The total defeat of the Scottish Royalists at Dunbar, in September,
1650, was the beginning of the complete victory which was afterwards
gained by Cromwell. Charles, who after the battle of Naseby had
retired to Scilly and afterwards to Paris, had been proclaimed king
in Scotland immediately after his father's execution, and on the
23d of June, 1650, set out for Edinburgh, where he was again pro-
claimed on the i5th of July. On the ist of January, 1651, he was
crowned at Scone, but the battle of Dunbar had then been lost by the
Scots, and in the following summer Cromwell turned the position of
their army at Stirling. Charles, who does not seem to have been
wanting in cool personal bravery, then determined to venture marching
into England, in the expectation that his friends would flock to his
standard; but the decisive battle of Worcester, Cromwell's "crowning
mercy," entirely frustrated this desperate attempt, and after the total
rout of his adherents Charles escaped with considerable difficulty.

Then began that series of adventures, hair-breadth escapes,
disguises, and expedients by which he eluded the vigilance of his
" Roundhead " pursuers, and the story of which was just the kind of
narrative to enlist the sympathies of the people, and to evoke an admiring
sentiment allied to that dramatic interest which we still feel in reading
the account of the retreat to Boscobel and the hiding of the fugitive in
the "Royal" Oak. After the defeat at Worcester (Sept. 3d, 1651)
the king and some of his principal officers fled, intending to pass along
the west of England to Scotland; but Charles, who doubted the possi-
bility of so large a party making a retreat with safety, proposed to push
on to London before the news of the defeat should reach the capital,
and so obtain a passage in some vessel bound to France or Holland.

1 82 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

By the time they had reached Kinver Heath, however, it was night,
and the guide who was with them declared that he was unable to find
the way. This caused no little dismay, but the Earl of Derby told the
king that when he had himself been in a similar strait he found refuge
and safe concealment in a place on the borders of Staffordshire called
Boscobel, upon which, out of the darkness, came the voice of one
Charles Gifford, a Roman Catholic Royalist, saying, " I will undertake
to guide his majesty to Boscobel before daybreak." Boscobel was in
fact Gifford's own mansion, which he had built not long before and
fancifully named it after the Italian Boscobello or Fairwood. The offer
was at once accepted, and the king, with only a small party of his
friends, set out for the promised hiding-place, a very good one for the
purpose, since it was in a remote situation far from the ordinary track
of passengers, and belonging to a Catholic gentleman, was sure to have
been provided with " hiding-places " for priests, who frequently were
compelled to have recourse to these priests' holes, which were often
entered by traps in the floor of some closet, or by sliding panels in the
walls. At the time that Mr. Gifford was at the wars his house was
left in charge of a family of peasants named Penderel, who followed
the business of wood-cutters, and were simple trustworthy faithful
people devoted to their master and the royal cause. By daybreak
Charles had reached a house called White Ladies, so named from a
ruined convent close by, and also in the possession of the Giffords.
Here he was hospitably entertained, and having put on the dress of a
peasant was conducted by Richard Penderel to Boscobel after taking
leave of his friends, who departed for the north.

It was while he was in this district that the king made the
acquaintance of Father Huddlestone, a priest who assisted him in his
efforts to escape, and from whom he took the sacrament when he was
on his death-bed, after he had solemnly declared himself to be a
member of the Romish Church. Though in the woodland retreat but few

amusements and little society could be found, it was a place of compara-
tive safety a roomy half-timbered building, with a central turret of
brickwork and timber forming the entrance stair. A small portion of
the wood was cleared around it for a little inclosed garden, having a
few flower-beds in front of the house and an artificial " mount " with a
summer house upon it, reached by a flight of steps. Here Charles sat
during the only Sunday he passed at Boscobel. Blount says, " His

THE ESCAPE OF CHARLES II. 183

Majesty spent some part of this Lord's-day in reading, in a pretty arbour
in Boscobel garden, which grew upon a mount, and wherein was a stone
table and seats about it, and commended the place for its retiredness." 1

Charles did not rest very tranquilly at Boscobel. He was
anxious to get to London, and soon after he had reached his place
of refuge, determined to set out on foot in a country fellow's habit with
a pair of ordinary gray cloth breeches, a leathern doublet, and green
jerkin, taking no one with him but trusty Dick Penderel, as one of the
brothers was called. Scarcely had they reached the edge of the wood,
however, than they were nearly being discovered by a troop of Round-
heads, who were passing in the neighbourhood, and from whom they
were obliged to hide in the thicket all day during a drenching rain.
This experience caused the king to alter his plan and to attempt to
reach the Severn, and so to embark for France from one of the Welsh
seaports. They started again at midnight on this new journey; but
the country was difficult, and Oliver's troops were so alert that the
danger was too great to be encountered, and they returned to Boscobel
to find Colonel William Careless, who had arrived after escaping from
Worcester fight, where he had been one of the last on the field. It
being Sunday the king kept in the house or amused himself by reading
in the close arbour in the little garden, and the next day he took. the
colonel's advice to get up into a great oak which was situated in the
wood, to which access was gained by a gate at the back of the arbour.
The oak (says Charles) was " in a pretty plain place where we might see
round about us. ... A great oak that had been lopped some
3 or 4 years before, and being grown out again very bushy and thick
could not be seen through." It was about a bowshot from the house,
and there the king and the colonel stayed the whole day, having
taken up with them some bread and cheese and small beer, the colonel
having a pillow placed on his knees that the king might rest his head
on it as he sat among the branches.

The retreat at Boscobel was growing unsafe, for while they sat
there in the tree they saw the troopers beating the woods on the look-
out for escaped prisoners; and at midnight the king again set out and
reached the house of Mr. Whitgrave at Mosely. On the following
day he went to Colonel Lane's house at Bently and thence commenced
the journey which ha.s formed the subject of our historical picture.

1 Chambers' Book of Days.

184 PICTURES AND ROYAL PORTRAITS.

Disguised as a serving-man, he set out to ride towards Bristol, with
Colonel Lane's sister behind him on a pillion, in the character of a comely
country lass. It was an expedition which required no little nerve and
coolness, for the Roundheads were all about the country, and more than
once there was imminent peril of the homely servitor and his fair
charge being arrested. On one occasion, in order to avoid direct
collision with the troops, the king was obliged to put the horse
through a brook, and after all attempts he could not get far on the
journey. The courage and address of his fair companion saved him
from detection; but he was compelled to abandon the route he had
chosen, and again to seek a refuge whence he might make another
attempt. At last, after lying hidden as long as his patience would
permit, he again essayed to escape, and after many misadventures and
much uncertainty contrived to reach Shoreham in Sussex, where he
obtained a vessel which carried him across to Fecamp in Normandy.

END OF VOLUME I.

GLASGOW: W. G. BLACKIE AND CO., PRINTERS. VILLAFIELD.

DA 30 .A7 1878
v.l SMC
Archer, Thomas,

1830-1893.
Pictures and royal

portraits illustrative
BAB-0324 (mcab)